Support Our Troops

And now for something completely different:

Recently, a friend of mine was showing me some photos she took of an Iraq War vet with his artificial leg. While I can't show you the photos for privacy reasons, it did get me to thinking about the cost of war, and what it means to "Support Our Troops."

As a science teacher, the main tenet of my teaching is the TANSTAAFL concept, which stands for:

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch."

In science this relates to The First Law of Thermodynamics, the conservation of energy. I think it's a pretty good rule to live by in many regards. Honest accountants know that the true cost of many actions is not always what is advertised, but adds up based on all the consequences. In war, money is not only spent on guns and bombs, but is spent on repairing the damage to our soldiers and society as well.

Currently, we don't seem to be able to break out of the linguistic gridlock about the definition of what "supporting our troops" actually means. The president seems to feel that any attempt to reign in the blank check he feels he's been given is somehow not "supporting the troops." Congress conversely seems to feel that sending the troops off to die in the crossfires of a civil war we've unleashed isn't very supportive either.

So, what we have here is the analog to this classic National Lampoon cover. If we don't buy Bush's War, we are against the troops. This is such a false choice. I'm an old anti-war peacenik from the Vietnam era, but I have come to respect the sacrifice soldiers make for our country. We don't live in a stateless world, and until that day comes where we have no borders, we will need people to defend us. So many soldiers have lost their lives, and so many more have practically sacrificed their souls, all betrayed by a Commander-In-Chief with the big lies. On one hand we have budget deficits, tax cuts for the rich, huge contracts in Iraq for Halliburton and the like, and we juxtapose that with a rat-infested Veterans Hospital. Military families are living near or below the poverty level, and benefits to the veterans seem perpetually at risk. If we are to ask these young men and women to do whatever it takes to protect us, we owe it to them to make sure what they are dying for makes any sense at all, if there is such a thing.

Supporting our troops means we don't put them in harm's way as an instrument of policy, but only as the last resort.

click on the comic below to enlarge:

Ain't Nothin' Wrong With a Big Cathedral

On the occasion of the 15th (possibly the last) anniversary of the 'Early Service,' I shared a poem I wrote many years ago. It was inspired by a more intimate, small group style of spirituality. I got the idea when I was on the N Judah, cruising past a big cathedral, Saint Anne of the Sunset, on my way downtown.

Nothing wrong with a big cathedral
Nothing wrong with a place so grand
But all I need is to be with my people
To hug a friend, to shake a hand
So I'll tell you something
Tell ya what I found
When we stand together
We stand on sacred ground
On sacred ground

Wherever two or more are gathered
Wherever two or more are gathered
Wherever two or more are gathered
There is love love love
Love love love
We got love

It's All a Dream We Dreamed

one afternoon, long ago

sol·ip·sism
n. Philosophy.

1. The theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.
2. The theory or view that the self is the only reality.

Some say solipsism was the disease of the 20th century, or at least that's what they said back in the 20th century. This radio station I'm writing about is so narrowly focused, it almost seems like some kind of personal dream, made just for me. I have no idea how many others relate to it like I do!

There has been a very strange thing on the AM dial recently in the Bay Area. KTRB has moved its 50,000 watt transmitter from Modesto to the Bay Area, and has been 'testing the transmitter' by playing exclusively (with some exceptions) music of the classic San Francisco Sound bands. There have been no commercials, only these odd, often tacky promos about how they don't know what format the station will be playing. One friend described it as KFRC (oldies station) for aging hippies. Perhaps he's right.

It's an odd experience to drive around the City, and hear Quicksilver's "What About Me?" followed by "The Fool," their big closing track from the first Quicksilver album. I don't think I'd heard the song in decades, and there it was, wafting into my car on tinny AM frequencies. I have heard it a few more times since then, and it still amazes me how powerful this band was at one point. "Pride of Man," "Dino's Song," and even "Edward the Mad Shirt Grinder!"

The other morning on my way to work, I heard the Airplane's "Comin' Back to Me," and was immediately transported back into my bedroom at my parents' house in Cupertino, in 1967, listening to my GE portable stereo, with maybe a bayberry candle burning for mood. This haunting song hasn't been on the radio in what seems like forever. Could this really be happening? Could I be driving through Golden Gate Park on a dark misty morning listening to this song?

I realize I've been here before.
The shadow in the mist
Could have been anyone--
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.

And in typical fashion, I have heard this song several times since, but it still sounds beautiful. I love "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" but why don't I ever hear this song anymore?

They even played "Masked Marauder" from Country Joe and the Fish's first album, a short cinematic instrumental. I wrote a poem in high school based around my impressions of this song. About all I can remember now is some line I wrote about the "Stranger that everyone knows" coming down from the hills. Great tune. Barry Melton was definitely as hot as anyone back then on guitar. He became a lawyer over 20 years ago.

When Moby Grape's "Omaha" explodes out of my car radio, their potency and intensity puts them in a special class. There's something almost punkish about the music, but simultaneously virtuosic (is that a word?) And to think this album also contains the extremely short "Naked if I Want to."

Can I buy an amplifier, on time
Well I ain't got no money
But I will pay you before I die

One of the things I have enjoyed is the lost art of playing 'sets' of artists. In a galaxy far away, in KMPX/KSAN land, if the DJ felt like it, you could hear 2, 3, or more songs in a row by the same artist. No media consultant told them they couldn't do it. I have heard "Children of the Future" going into "Quicksilver Girl" and then maybe into some live Steve Miller track I didn't even know ("Evil?")

I have heard "White Bird" now and then over the years, but once again, how could I get tired of this? It's a great "car song" and I always flash back to returning home from the Santa Cruz Boardwalk in my parent's Mustang, driving through a 'tunnel of violins' (the multitracked end of the solo section) with my sister Rickie and Bill, a college roommate. Summer of '69 indeed!

KTRB has been playing lots of big Janis hits, but also some great tracks you don't hear anymore, like "Bye Bye Baby" from the first Mainstream LP. Looking at the crude album art takes me back to seeing it for sale in the store window of a record shop on Haight St. when it was released.


I know it may be hard for some of you who know me to hear this, but they might play a little too much Dead. I like the song, but hearing "Hell in a Bucket" just doesn't seem right in this milieu. Otherwise, it's been good, driving around, cruisin' to tunes, and hearing "Morning Dew" off the first LP whilst traversing Golden Gate Park.

There's been more, and I will be sad on the day I turn my radio on, and find something else coming out of 860 AM, but for now I will take the time warp, and be glad for the good times.

And yes, I have been blessed to hear "Box of Rain" too:

It's just a box of rain
I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
or leave it if you dare
But it's just a box of rain
or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long long time to be gone
and a short time to be there

The End of Boondocks

The Hot Spot

I have really enjoyed Boondocks over whatever period of time it's been, and am sad to learn the author has decided not to continue with it. For about 6 months or so, the papers have been running old strips, and finally when it became clear it was not coming back, the Chronicle has stopped with the reruns. I have still been looking at the reruns online, and found this as the last one for two days running. Coincidence?

It seems like the strips I always like best over the years, Odd Bodkins, Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, Boondocks, and more, seem to pull the plug on a voluntary basis. (Remember, Doonesbury went on hiatus for a while too) I'd like to hear from others about favorite strips that stopped. The symbolism of this old strip with the Seinfeld reference might be interesting to discuss also!

Modern Murrow

In one of those happenstance moments, I decided to follow a link posted in one of my favorite online communities, and found Keith Olbermann, railing against the Military Commissions Act just signed by George W. Bush. I strongly urge you to put aside 8 or 9 minutes of your busy life, and watch/listen to the video clip at this address:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15321167/

I don't know how long MSNBC leaves their links up, but I also snagged a link to the text of his remarks:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15321167/display/1/displaymode/1098/

I was floored after watching this. Yes, perhaps Keith has watched Edward R. Murrow clips a bit much, but it turned positively gripping as he kept nailing W for his sins, with a very real sense that Olberman himself could be punished for merely speaking this truth to the twisted, corrupted power that passes for our current government. Sometimes it's hard to believe we are living in such times. I keep thinkig about that old Gerald Ford quote "Our long national nightmare is over," hoping the Democrats will put aside their self-destructive ways, take Congress back, and impeach the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks out of Georgie Boy.

So please, I'll stop writing now, so you can bank up a minute or two towards viewing this clip.

Review: The Best of Youth

Mysterious Serendipity

At the end of June, two DVD's arrived in the mail from Netflix, that I have no memory of ordering. This may sound like a story of someone getting drunk and ordering something on the Home Shopping Network, and not remembering, but honest, it wasn't like that! Sometimes I do just quickly add something to my queue if the laptop is near, and someone (personal friend, tv, or radio talk show host) passionately recommends something. I have seen some nice films in just such a way, but I always at least remember ordering it, even if I don't remember why.

So, here I am, looking to see I have two 3-hour DVD's on the way to my house, and I have never heard of this before.

So, first thing I do is check out Roger Ebert's review. This is what really caught my attention:

Every review of "The Best of Youth" begins with the information that it is six hours long. No good movie is too long, just as no bad movie is short enough.

This seems so obvious now, but I had never heard it put this way before, and my interest was further piqued. One of the things I have found in the last year or two is how important patience is. Patience is more like being in synchronicity with the flow and rhythm of life. As a musician, it's important to not be in too much of a hurry in the middle of song. Don't rush into the next verse before you're done with the last one!

This movie was originally shown on Italian TV in four 90 minute segments. I don't know if I could have sat in a theater for 3 hours, twice, for one movie. Having the DVD's here allowed us to watch as much as we could, when we could. The movie is essentially a family saga, with a long story arc, from 1966 to 2003. The cinematography was beautiful, and the stories never dwelled too long in any one place. We came to care about the characters, and finally tonight, when it was over, I was sad there was nothing left to unfold.

You may have noticed I have said very little about the plot of this movie/saga. If you really want to know, there are many reviews, and many spoilers about this movie. It is not a secret, this movie has won awards, and the little man in the Chronicle is jumping out of his chair! So, take a chance, check it out. If you have a Netflix account, rent it now!

[note: as usual, it's nice to get some discussion in the comments area, and you may not have seen this movie yet. Down the line, if you do see it, try to remember to come back here and share your opinion. If it sucks, say so!]

The Other Side

Poof! It's finally over!
But it was really just the beginning

After all the brouhaha of the last year and a half, things are strangely silent. I have my teaching credential, I'm done with a year of teaching, and I'm unemployed. Thus the picture of the astronaut drifting in space!

After a few years at part-time substitute teaching, I entered the Secondary Education Credential program at San Francisco State University in the Spring of 2005. In the first semester, only one of my professors was older than I was.

For a while, I split my time between trying to stay on top of my school work, observing classes at a local high school, and putting in time at my office, trying to keep it going by fits and starts.

Not that I had a lot of choices of what to do, but it was definitely the pattern for the next year and a half: mediocrity in all things. I was burning my candle at at least three ends!

All the while, it's been hard on my family too, which should be kind of obvious. I'm making a career change, which in the long run should be a better move, but in the short run has added enormously to my stress levels.

After the first semester, someone at San Francisco Unified asked one of my professors to recommend science and math student teachers who might be interested in getting paid to teach, instead of the normal unpaid student teacher semester, and I, along with many of my classmates gave her our names.

I ended up taking a part-time job at a 'dream school,' against the better judgment of SFSU, and my normally one-year program was turned into a 3 semester program. I taught one class of chemistry, which I was technically qualified to teach, and one class of 9th grade Earth Science, which I was initially unqualified to teach. I eventually passed the required subject matter competency test, but basically tried to stay one step ahead of the students all year. Mediocre indeed!

In my Dream School, it was very racially segregated. 70-80% Latino, maybe 15% African-American, and almost no whites or Asians. Over forty years ago, I read Up the Down Staircase, and was hooked on the romantic idea of 'saving' kids, and turning them on to education. I'm not saying I don't still believe it's possible, but the forces that keep kids away from academics are far bigger than just what the teacher dishes out. Like I've been saying, I feel I've been mediocre this last year, and look forward to next year, when I know I will be a much better teacher, but I doubt I will be able to 'save them all.' But you never know where you might have some influence, so you have to keep planting seeds, and hope they will find fruitful soil.

I stumbled through my first semester, then on into my second semester, where I had to finish this gawdawful thing called a 'Candidate Assessment Portfolio' (CAP) where I showed how I reached all 13 of these 'Teaching Performance Expectations' (TPE's) which seemed to be written by committee. I had a formal supervisor from SFSU, and an in-house observer appointed at the school. I tried to please them all, but probably none, and probably less than pleased at that! The politics of school is something I am quite naive about, and put my foot in it several times. I took sick days just to finish this CAP thing (I've never drunk so much coffee in all my life!) and straggled to the finish line. I was very emotional at the end, and doing things like make my normally rude 9th graders pose for an end of year picture with me:


After our last SFSU class, we just hung out for awhile, chatting with each other. We were almost in a state of shock, knowing that there were no more classes to attend. We would all be off to our separate schools and such.

Here's a pic of me and Brandon, my best buddy through it all, that afternoon. He's less than half my age, but we were a good team when we worked on projects together.

It kind of reminds me of childbirth. Not that I have the same memories as Martha of course, but it was very intense for me too. Those memories tend to fade, and get replaced by all that life offers and takes from you. This has been one of the most intense, and painful periods of my life, but hopefully, this too shall be covered up by future sedimentary memories to come.

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

-T. S. Eliot

Angry Blogger

Suicide Secrets

Earlier today I was wrapping up what I figured would be my last blog post before the end of Spring Break, and I noticed there were a couple of fire engines and a bunch of police cars just a few doors down the street. It was a slow day, and I wasn't properly dressed, so I just poked my head out the front door to see what was going on. I didn't really know what was happening until later, when a neighbor rang my doorbell.

What I was told was the stepfather of a girl my daughters had grown up with had died by suicide. I was pretty floored, and remembered when this girl's father had died of a heart attack over a decade ago. The heartache was huge.

I don't have anything clever to say here, but would like to call on the small community of people that read these musings to share what they know about suicide. Is is something that takes over a person suddenly? Should anyone have seen this coming? The family is completely at a loss to explain why this happened. So, please consider sharing your experiences or knowledge about this tragic subject.

Thanks,
Geoff

Join the Uranium Hexaflouride Revolution!

This must be a dream.
[I just couldn't resist working this photo of the dancers into a blog!]

Here we see Iranian dancers at a ceremony, supposedly holding capsules of UF₆ in their unprotected hands. I have nothing against Iranians, my mother was born in Tehran, and I have found most Iranians I've met in my life wonderful people. But I can't believe this image of heroic dancers lifting a vial of poison in the air, with a backdrop of white doves, doesn't land just a little oddly with most Iranians. It's like a cross between some old Soviet-era propaganda poster and a Coke or Pepsi commercial. What was the Pepsi revolution all about anyway?

So, without further irony, or tounge-in-cheek:

at an April 11th ceremony:
"At this historic moment, with the blessings of God almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory-scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday," Ahmadinejad said.

"I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries," he told an audience that included top military commanders and clerics in the northwestern holy city of Mashhad. The crowd broke into cheers of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" Some stood and thrust their fists in the air.

Can George W. Bush's scripted speeches in front of soldiers, extolling how he is bringing freedom to the Middle East, seem any less bizarre to Iranians than this scene may look to some of us?