Grrr….

Voice 1—Give it up, Marc. You’ve written about it before. Everybody’s tired of it. Find something new!

Voice 2—Why does it make me so crazy? He’s 32, he’s an adult, and if he wants to cross over from classical to pop—why is that such a sin? Why not let him?

Voice 1—Hmmm, jealousy maybe? Do you secretly wanna do rock?

Voice 2—Come on, I don’t even listen to it. But look, the guy, David Garrett, spent years at Juilliard and the Royal College of Music. He’s got an amazing technique on the violin. He was given a Stradivarius when he was eleven. The jerk is 33 and has gotten more awards and done more first than anybody around. Look what he can do!

 

Voice 1—That is pretty amazing.

Voice 2—Yeah, and look what he does with it!

Voice 1—Ummm, yeah… Pretty bad….

Voice 2—Pretty bad? Pretty bad? That’s an atrocity, that’s a slaughter. Look, I don’t mind playing Bach with exaggerated vibrato or a hokey style. But why add stupid drums? Why make it sound like Muzak? But there he is, with that huge screen behind. At least he appeared in a concert hall—other videos have him in football stadia…

Voice 1—See? We don’t believe in stadiums….

Voice 2—Nor auditoriums…

Voice 1—Look, what’s the problem?

Voice 2—Joyce DiDonato said it best: why are we so insecure about what we do,—and what we’ve spent years learning to do—that we have to dumb it down? Why not own it?— This is what we are, this is what we do. No, I’m not going to jazz up Bach to play down to your level. That’s an insult. To both of us. And you know what? It doesn’t fool anybody—nobody is going to hear this rhinestone gaudy arrangement of Bach and then decide, ‘hey, let me just sit down and listen to the Well-Tempered Clavier!’

Voice 1—OK, so what’s the big deal? If he wants to use his talent and his Stradivarius to making money—oh, and also making people happy—is that a crime? Elitism, Marc?

Voice 2—Guilty as charged. Look, maybe we should just come out and say it. There is nothing wrong with going into new areas of music, of forging new types of music. If Garrett had wanted to do something like Laurie Anderson—hey, no problem!

Voice 1—So?

Voice 2—Look, will we ever do rock better than rock stars? Who are we kidding? And you know what? Beyond the flash, how much of a musician is there here? Because I heard him doing Bach and I heard him doing Schubert, and guess what? It was the same rich, throaty tone. And it might have worked in the Schubert, but the Bach?

Voice 1—OK, so what is it?

Voice 2—you know, there are a lot of good violinists out there. Hey, I came to Garrett through Philippe Quint, who was playing the hell out of John Corigliano. There’s Hilary Hahn, and Sarah Chang and a LOT of good musicians out there. And guess what? They’re not out there doing crossovers. They’re out there presenting and furthering a long and distinguished tradition. Isn’t this selling out? Isn’t this a child prodigy who’s hit a wall? There’s a limit to fast technique, you know. I mean, an hour and a half of fast, flashy music is unsustainable. There’s also such a thing as musicianship….

Voice 1—Wow, harsh words, Marc. And by the way, isn’t Yo-Yo Ma also a crossover?

Voice 2—Dunno, maybe…. But there’s something different. Ma’s Silk Road Project takes music from many cultures and fuses, producing something new and traditional at the same time. Quite different from putting snare drums to Bach, or playing a rock song on a violin.

Voice 1—Not letting go, are we, Marc! Bite ‘em, boy! Bite ‘em!

Voice 2—OK, maybe it’s purely irrational. Maybe it just rankles to see a 32-year old kid, pretty enough to have modeled his way through Juilliard, getting all this fame and attention when other musicians are laboring away, one concert after another.

Voice 1—Ya,  Marc—give it up…

Voice 2—Grrr….

Men's Issues

OK, Iguana readers—time to get to work! Get out there and harvest those thistles!

“Marc,” I can hear you saying, “Mondays are hard enough! Please—just cut to the chase and tell us what today’s nonsense is….”

Right—I came upon it by Nicholas Kristof, of The New York Times, who writes frequently about human and sexual trafficking. So today, he was writing about Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest who over ten years ago started Magdalene, a program to help women get off the streets, get clean, get a job, and get on their feet. Here, taken from the program’s website, are highlights of the program:

▪                For two years, we offer housing, food, medical and dental needs, therapy, education and job training without charging the residents or receiving government funding.

▪                Our six homes function without 24-hour live-in staff, relying on residents to create a supportive community, maintain recovery, and share household tasks.

▪                Women come to Magdalene from prison, the streets and from across the Southeast and the country.

▪                The women of Magdalene/Thistle Farms range in age from 20-50, and many have been sexually abused between the ages of 7-11, began using alcohol or drugs by 13, have been arrested on average a hundred times, or have spent about 12 years on the street prostituting.

▪                72% percent of the women who join Magdalene are clean and sober 2 1/2 years after beginning the program.

 “OK,” you’re saying, “what’s this about thistles?”

Well, how many employers are going to give a job to a person with a hundred arrests? So Stevens hit on the idea of making a little business—it would give the women something to do, teach them skills, and give them a sense of purpose. And she chose the thistle because it grows everywhere—very often it was the only flower in the sites where the women plied their trade.

Which may be a misnomer, suggesting as it does that these women have any control in what they do, or that they do it willingly. The reality is that we have slaves on the streets of America. Consider, as Kristof wrote, the woman in the Magdalene program who came in with 14 tattoos with which her pimp had branded her.

And how did she get onto the streets? Very often, by being abused as a child. And then it’s the familiar story. Suffering, she leaves home, and meets a charming guy, who’s got money. Best of all, he loves her; he treats her like a queen. And then something happens, he becomes enraged, and then he puts her out on the street. Here’s what Kristof says about one woman:

When her pimp was shot dead, she was recruited by another, Kenny, who ran a “stable” of four women and assigned each of them a daily quota of $1,000. Anyone who didn’t earn that risked a beating.

This, of course, assumes that the pimp is operating in the traditional fashion. Increasingly, pimps are going electronic, and using websites to offer women for sale. I’m sitting in a café as I write this, but I have to just go online to view the most common of these sites—basically a “Craiglist” that has everything including humans for sale. I typed in “Madison, Wisconsin” and discovered that there are 25 entries for today alone. Oh, and it’s not even 1PM there.

Still wondering about those thistles? Well, you can support Becca Stevens and her work in a variety of ways. You can grow lavender in your garden (Becca doesn’t say it, but presumably she wants you to send it to her….). You can buy products like body oils, soaps, and candles. You can collect old white clothing for making paper; and yes, you can harvest thistles. Oh, and you can also, of course, just send money.

I can’t help thinking that if you’re a man—there are some other, very simple but very necessary things that you can do. You can stay off the streets, and refuse to hire these women. You can speak out and against those who do. You can stop making jokes about prostitutes, as well as stopping people who do.

I saw a YouTube clip of a trainer who does sensitivity awareness at institutions that have had situations of abuse. He made several—one of which is that as important as it is to empower women (or rather for them to empower themselves), we have to stop defining issues such as prostitution and domestic violence as “women’s issues.” Why? Because guys automatically tune out when they hear the term. And secondly, all of these women have brothers, fathers, uncles. In short, us—men.

So maybe it’s time for men to act. Look, everybody has a smart phone—there are cameras in everyone’s pocket or purse. Why not photograph those men who are out there soliciting sex, and put them on a website—perhaps called predators.com. That way, every mother, sister or wife could check it out every morning over coffee.

Oh, and for any pimp caught?

Time to bring back public stonings?

Ilia Conquers Mass Transportation

The good news—opera is alive and well in Puerto Rico. The bad news? One flu epidemic could kill it.

I tell you this because I saw one Met transmission last year—it was Giulio Cesare with David Daniels, and it was fantastic—and I got hooked. So Mr. Fernández and I hit on the idea taking his mother, the redoubtable Ilia, to the opera.

“We can take the bus,” said Ilia, when I told her a week ago about the plan.

“We’re taking a cab,” I told her—and firmly. It’s the only way to be with Ilia.

Well, we went last week to the opera, and the audience was there, and the theater was there, but the opera? Not there, since a storm had knocked out the power, and the generator wasn’t working. So we waited for a bit in the hot and humid dark movie lobby, until it occurred to us—grab a drink next door.

“A bus just passed,” Ilia informed us, “Aha, and the bus stop is right over there….”

Ilia either learned her technique from erosion or nature imitated Ilia. Anyway, it’s the same—drip, drip, drip!

“You’re 83 years, you have chronic and crippling arthritis, and one bump in the road could lead to a broken hip. No, Ilia.”

“They seem to come by very frequently….”

Right, so we hit on the idea of going to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which happens to be located in an old school that Ilia’s husband had attended as a boy. It was when Ilia was busy communicating this on her cell phone that disaster struck.

It was a sort of maze comprised of hanging paper panels, and we were drifting around looking out of the holes that had been punched into it. Ilia, head down, walked into one of the panels, dislodging one end.

“Well, there we see why you shouldn’t text and drive,” said Ilia. Having raised six children, she hasn’t lost the habit of finding the moral of the story.

No great damage done, we then went down to the gift shop, since Ilia is also a great one for little gifts—or regalitos. In fact, Ilia could send the whole family to London for a week with the money she spends on regalitos, but what fun would that be?

“Another bus,” Ilia was quick to note, as we left the museum.

“Ilia, what’s the problem with a cab?”

“Cabs are no fun. Buses are what kids do. I want to take the bus….”

There’s no use for it—you might as well give in early in the game because guess what? If you wait, you’ll give in and be exhausted.

“Now I want to take the trolley,” said Ilia, as she stepped off the bus.

“Ilia, the way you’re going, you’re going to want a martini and a cigarette….”

“Oh, no….”

“Wonderful,” she said, climbing down from the trolley.

Well, the opera was yesterday, instead—and guess how we got there?

Ilia parted the crowd with her walker—rather the way trains get cattle off the rails. But it has to be said, she was by no means the only person in the assisted-walking department. In fact, Mr. Fernández and I were almost the only people not with cane / walker / wheelchair.

Oh, except for Ivelisse, the woman sitting next to us, who happened to be an old student from Wal-Mart.

“Why don’t more people come to the opera,” said Ivelisse, as we sat chatting.

And why indeed? The opera was Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky’s best opera—the singing was glorious, the story is good, and the sets and costumes were terrific. And for three hours, the rest of the world can spin around without you.

Others—including The New York Times—disagreed. Anthony Tommasini, the critic for the Times, called the production drab and muddled, as well as an “also ran.” That’s an ouch….

But what did I care? I had heard some beautiful music, I had reconnected with an old friend, and I had taken an 83-year old lady out of her apartment, where she had been cooped up all week watching bad television with her ailing husband.

“Maravillosa,” said Ilia, as she stood up after the end of the opera.

And then we headed for the damn bus.

Just Music

He was a guy that we all sniffed at, because look, he wrote for the movies. And so he wasn’t serious—not like us, who were real musicians and composers and…

…snobs.

But the movies saved Erich Korngold’s life—literally. A Jew born into a musical family, he once stated, “we thought of ourselves as Viennese; Hitler made us Jewish.” It was a lucky break when Warner Brothers asked him, in 1938, to come to Hollywood to write the film score for “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” starring Errol Flynn.

Korngold hadn’t set out to write movie music—in fact, he was composing by age eleven, and both Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss praised him highly. Oh, and later Puccini. By 13, he had composed a ballet that became a hit at the Vienna Court Opera. By the time he was 17, he had an opera, a sinfonietta, two piano sonatas, and a piano trio behind him. He then turned to conducting opera until 1934, when he was asked to adapt Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

And so for roughly a decade, Korngold turned out film music, and did a fine job of it. Here’s what one scholar, Brendon G. Carroll, said about his work:

Treating each film as an 'opera without singing' (each character has his or her own leitmotif) [Korngold] created intensely romantic, richly melodic and contrapuntally intricate scores, the best of which are a cinematic paradigm for the tone poems of Richard Strauss and Franz Liszt. He intended that, when divorced from the moving image, these scores could stand alone in the concert hall. His style exerted a profound influence on modern film music.

And what is his style? Well, he’s not ashamed to be late Romantic, at a time when it was out of style. And of course, somebody had to crack the remark—Korngold’s is more corn than gold. And so for the last ten years of his life, he gave up film work and returned to “serious” composition. The two concerti below stem from this period.

The only question is why aren’t these works—especially the cello concerto—better known? And why did the label “film score composer” get stuck on Korngold, but not on Shostakovich and Prokofiev, both of whom also composed for film? Is it because the Russian film industry has cachet, but not Hollywood?

Whatever; it still lingers. Consider the following comment, from the YouTube clip of Hilary Hahn playing the violin concerto:

Hahn is a fine player and Nagano (as usual) leads a high-quality performance. But, gang, I gotta tell you: This is not one of the great 20th century violin concertos -- not even close, despite a number of lovely passages. In no way does it stand up to the Walton and Barber concertos, which it roughly parallels chronologically. Sorry.

And then the response:

"parallels chronologically"? Perhaps you mean "the Walton and Barber concertos, which are roughly contemporaneous." But that's only your view. Personally, I think this concerto is fully the equal of the Walton, which is nowhere near the quality of his more famous concerto for viola. Do I detect some snobishness on the grounds that Korngold "sold out" to Hollywood (gasp)?

Well, a later commentator makes the point that if “selling out” meant writing the scores that Korngold did, it was a good move. Maybe it’s time to say it—there’s no film music or serious music.

Just music….

On Music and Teaching

Well, it’s clearly a day not to read the newspaper, since is it really sensible to be taking antidepressants one minute and reading The New York Times ten minutes later? Nah…

So I bring the story of Thomas Sudhof, who shared the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology this year. And who was his greatest teacher? His bassoon teacher who, in Sudhof’s words, “taught me that the only way to do something right is to practice and listen and practice and listen, hours, and hours, and hours.”

You know, it may be true. Anyone playing a double reed instrument like the bassoon or the oboe is openly flirting with madness; at one moment you’re playing music, the next moment you’re squawking. Oh, and you neither have any control nor any warning….

And I’m thinking about teaching, lately, because I did it for a large part of my life. In fact, I still do it, and like it. My problem, however, is that I had and have absolutely no idea of what I’m doing—I am perpetually improvising.

Other teachers know what they’re doing, as I saw yesterday when I was reading a New York Times article on schools which are “flipping.” And that is? Well, here’s the Times:

Students watch teachers’ lectures at home and do what we’d otherwise call “homework” in class. Teachers record video lessons, which students watch on their smartphones, home computers or at lunch in the school’s tech lab. In class, they do projects, exercises or lab experiments in small groups while the teacher circulates.

Oh, and guess what? Everybody, for once, is completely on board with this idea! From the same article:

The flipped classroom is a strategy that nearly everyone agrees on. “It’s the only thing I write about as having broad positive agreement,” said Justin Reich, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard who studies technology and education.

Well, it’s familiar territory: there’s Marc and there’s the rest of the world. Because when I saw the video that a flipped teacher had prepared, I was less than impressed. In fact, I was half appalled. Check it out:

Full disclosure—I am perhaps one of the few people who really enjoys a vigorous discussion of subject / verb agreement. And in fact, the topic drops by for dinner occasionally, usually in the form of Mr. Fernández sputtering about the capricious way that English handles collective nouns. Spanish, of course, is completely logical—all collective nouns in Spanish are singular. But what fun is that?

All right—about the video. First, the teacher states that singular verbs have an added “s.”

Little Marc (seated in second desk, third row—and very cute): I works? You works?

Teacher (exasperated): No, Marc….

Marc: But aren’t “I” and “you” singular?

Teacher: Yes, Marc, but we’re talking about “he /she / it.”

Marc: Oh, the third person singular in the present simple indicative?

Teacher: Ummm? 

Next, the teacher discloses a trick—something he calls the “it / they” rule. Big question: “Tony works” or “Tony work?” Well, we can replace—so sez Teach—“Tony” with “it.”

Yeah?

Marc: But isn’t Tony a “he?”

Teacher: Well, yes, but to make it simpler we’re using just “it.”

Marc: How does that make it simpler?

Next, the teacher suggests that we simply count the nouns, using the example “Marc and Mary”—that’s two, see? Plural.

Marc: What about the sentence “Neither Marc nor Mary?

Teacher (nervous—he sees what’s coming): What about it?

Marc: Well, there are two subjects, but should the verb be singular? You wouldn’t say “Neither Marc nor Mary work in the mill,” would you?

Then there’s the problem—the teacher gives it away when he says “that doesn’t sound right,” in discussing the “it / they” rule.

Marc: But what if someone doesn’t know what “sounds right?” Maybe he’s never heard it right, and so he can’t tell what sounds right? Or what if he’s learning English as a new language?

Teacher: Well, I think we can assume….

I hate to say this—no wait, let’s be honest, this causes me no pain whatsoever to declare—but the teacher in this video doesn’t seem to be too bright. How would he handle the question that I, even as a child, would have asked?

Marc: What is a subject, anyway?

Teacher: Well, the subject performs the action of the verb.

Marc: What about the passive voice? What about, “the patient is examined by the medical team?” Is “medical team” the subject?

Teacher: No, the subject is “the patient.”

Marc: But is the patient examining?

That would have lead to the old and mostly true “the subject is the noun before the verb.” A possibly useful rule of thumb, yes—but it does beg the question.

Maybe it’s time to do two things. First, I seriously think that we need to reinstitute Greek and Latin into our schools, and yes, in grade school, when those young minds can soak up the rigor and the discipline of the languages. Because then kids will be able to decline nouns and conjugate verbs, which means that he or she will be able to give an example of the third person positive singular present perfect active indicative using the verb “to see.”

(“he has seen” is the answer, by the way….)

Second, why can’t all kids learn a musical instrument? You know, I’m back to playing the cello now, and looking at YouTube clips of musicians speaking and coaching. And guess what? We’re a bright, talented, funny and quick group. And it occurs to me—have I ever met a stupid musician? If I have, I’ve forgotten him or her.

The video of the subject / verb agreement has gotten 57,000 hits, and the comments are almost all positive. Some people say that he’s really helped them. But check out the video below, of the legendary Dorothy DeLay. Then tell me…

…who’s the better teacher?

Finding and Losing Freddy

I seem to be running a war on my life. It’s two PM, and what have I done?

Well, I spent the morning wondering about 10AM, which was when the alleged plumber was supposed to show up. Instead—no need to sit down for this news—he arrived telephonically at noon. I went downstairs to let him in….

Nobody….

Right, checked the shoe store, above which I live.

Nobody….

Call the number that had just called me—nice you can do that with cell phones—and got the company, not the plumber. The plumber, it turned out, was on the next street up, and so the guy at the company patched in the plumber, who said he would come down one street. What did he do? Of course, he walked up one street.

I have wanted this plumber more than I ever wanted my first sexual experience or my first—and only—husband. And now, like so many things including my childhood and my faith in the essential goodness of people…where is my plumber going?

The company guy is busy explaining to Freddy, the plumber, that he is going the wrong way. Freddy, instead, is describing absolutely everything he sees—some of which are phenomenological. “There’s a woman parking her car,” reports Freddy.

Freddy, dear?

“Two cats are mating,” he says.

This I ponder for a moment—have I ever seen two cats mating on the street? It occurs to me: no. So why Freddy and not me? I do live here after all….

“Do you see any businesses on your street?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

“Freddy,” I beg, “go back to where you were. Stand absolutely still—describe every store you see. I’ll come find you, Freddy, BUT DON’T LEAVE ME!”

Oh—and I forgot to mention that all this is occurring in a construction—more accurately destruction—site, and that’s important to know, because their reaction—those big burly guys—to a desperate middle-aged guy professing his love and need for Freddy?

“No me dejes, Freddy!”

“Te quiero, Freddy!”

Bésame mucho, sings one. Kiss me a lot….

Freddy, in the meantime, has retraced his steps and is in front of the Bombonera, a long and now defunct tradition. I race to get him—talking nonsense on the way. We return, only to be greeted with cheers, whistles and catcalls. Oh, and scattered applause.

I grab Freddy’s hand—he’s the ebony on the keyboard, I’m the ivory—and raise it above our heads. We both bow.

“Freddy is the plumber,” I tell the guys. They give me a special smile.

Freddy, amazingly, is completely unfazed by this ridiculous situation, and gets right down to work—in this case pulling the handle off the faucet with such force that it crashes and breaks. Oh, and he will later inform me that it would be silly to buy a replacement because they’re ridiculously expensive. Who would want such things?

Well, it turns out that Freddy, of course, doesn’t have the parts and will have to go Bayamón to get them. I instantly object.

“You’ll never come back, Freddy,” I tell him. “People disappear in Bayamón—lost in traffic jams, or aimlessly drifting around in Plaza del Sol, or who knows what. Don’t, DON’T go to Bayamón!”

Before Freddy, I was a baritone—now I’m a mezzo-soprano in a very bad opera. Is this the moment to sink to my knees, and gaze upon him beseechingly?

He leaves, as so many men do, paying absolutely no mind….

I sit down at my computer. What to write about, today? I could tell you the improbable story that the redoubtable—love that word, by the way—New York Times served up this morning. It seems that the FBI arrested two rabbis in the New York area. And what for? Blackjack in the synagogue? Cocaine in hollowed-out Torahs?

Nope, the rabbis were employing a hit man to work over husbands who were unwilling to give their wives a divorce. Here’s the Times on the subject:

In some Orthodox Jewish communities, a divorce is granted only once a husband provides his wife with a document known as a get. And stories of the frustrations and obstacles that women face in their quest to obtain a get are commonplace. While a woman can sue in rabbinical court to try to secure a get, some husbands do not comply with the court’s edict.   

Right—be warned, any Orthodox Jewish readers of the blog, the little lady wants out? Give it to her—otherwise you’ll get kidnapped and worked over, and by the way, these guys are professional. They don’t leave marks, so when you go to the cops, they’ll just think it’s some weird Jewish thing, and shrug it off.

I ponder this for some time. Can I write about this? Is there enough here for a post? Can I combine it with some other story?

It’s no use. Freddy has come into my life, Freddy has left me. I am desolate. How is it in French? Je suis désolé. Better, I think.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing to write about today, and guess what? There is also no going to the bathroom because Freddy has dismantled both faucets and turned off the water. Fortunately in reverse order. But if I turn the water back on? It’ll be like the fountains at Versailles, though horizontal.

It took me back a bit to the 70’s, in those pre-AIDS days that we all very much enjoyed. Guys came into your life, and then they left. So long, baby-cakes!

Well, it’s 2:41, and page three, and exactly 904 words.

And Freddy?

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

(From Sonnet XLIII, Edna St. Vincent Millay)

On Schools and Teaching

It all started yesterday, when I began to realize that the conservative right—the Tea Partiers who have us by the short hairs and are dragging us ever closer to the financial cliff—have now set their sights on education. And why not? The idea is attractive for many reasons. There’s money, there, for one thing. How much? Well, according to the head of the Chicago Teachers Union, 380 billion dollars.  Oh, and what better time to instill a little conservative ideology? Let’s not forget old St. Ignatius: give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man for life, or words to that effect.

And if you read Diane Ravitch, a professor of the history of education at New York University, you’ll find out: the prevailing theory is that our public schools are failing. But is it true?

Ravitch says no—nor is it an opinion that she’s held long. In fact, she served in the first George W. Bush administration, and supported the No Child Left Behind program. What was not to like? The idea of standardized testing, quantifiable results, strict accountability—wow, great stuff.

So what happened? Well, teachers got the message—better teach to the test, because your evaluation, or maybe even your job, depends on your results. So what happened? The teachers crammed the info into the kids—and what happened to the subjects like art and history and music and science? Sorry—the focus was reading and math.

In addition, there have been reports of…well, Let the Huffington Post tell the story:

The indictment last week of 35 teachers and administrators in Atlanta for manipulating test scores is just the latest chapter in that city's long festering "teacher cheating" scandal. In turn, Atlanta is just one of many cities where evidence has surfaced that educators fudged testing data.

Perhaps the best way to think of these cheating scandals is that they are the result of a natural experiment: What happens when you change incentives so that low test numbers translate into pain and high test numbers translate into rewards?

OK—so teachers will cheat if their jobs depend on it. And why shouldn’t they? Because, according to Ravitch, they’re a pretty demoralized bunch right now. There was a time when parents took their kids to school on the first day of class, and made the following speech to the teacher—though it really was to the kid: “my child gives you any problems, you smack a good one, and send a note home. I’ll beat the tar out of him…..”

And we don’t want to go back there, tantalizing as the phantasy might be. But the larger question is what we are asking our teachers to do, and with what resources? It used to be that kids were generally better behaved, a teacher had broader range of disciplinary tools, and could teach pretty much how she saw fit. Oh, and that was all she had to do. Now, she has to be a psychologist, social worker, nurse, and then—at the end of a long, long school year—get told that her kids didn’t score the additional five points that an educational psychologist had decided was appropriate.

So what’s happened to our schools since No Child? Well, we’ve certainly created a huge testing industry, which has made some people rich. But what has it taught the kids? How to take tests.

Nor is Obama’s program, Race to the Top, much of a change from No Child. It, too, puts lots of emphasis on testing, with the difference that if the school consistently fails, then bam! It turns into a charter school. And according to Ravitch, Race to the Top puts the blame for poor scores squarely on the teacher.

But is that fair? What does a teacher do when confronted with a hungry, sleepless kid who has spent the night in a homeless shelter? In fact, what correlates with poor performance in school? Poverty.

Right—so how does Ravitch feel about charter schools? Well, she’s not impressed. According to her, charter schools tend to “skim,” selecting the best students, and consigning the learning disabled, non-English speaking, to the public system. And why not? They have a product to turn out—wouldn’t you select the best raw material?

Ravitch suggests two things: first, that we get rid of the high-stakes testing, and second, that we regulate charter schools more, so that they admit everyone, not just the best students.

However well or badly the schools, either charter or public, are doing—I wonder if compared to seventy years ago they are much better. I took a 5^th grade test, recently, from 1930, in which I was asked through what bodies of water I would pass if I went by sea from Malaga, Spain, to the Philippines. Errr—don’t think I got full credit on that one….

It can be argued—is it producing anything of worth to know the answer to the question above? Do kids really need to know this, much less adults? Wouldn’t learning how to read a map be of more use?

Yes and no. I think that there has to be a certain amount of basic information that is drummed into a kid’s head. Anybody should be able to figure out a 15% tip in a restaurant, without having to resort to the calculator on his cell phone.

So it may be the work of childhood to learn where the Philippines are, what the capital city is, and the five main exports. But something happens when a child becomes an adolescent: he or she becomes capable of abstract thought.

Tracy Kidder wrote a book about teaching, in which the teacher struggled to get through her curriculum, and in fact never really made it. At one point, the teacher worries that her students are going to go through life never knowing who won the Civil War….

Here’s what I think: in elementary school, you learn the fact: the North won. In short, you learn answers. In High School, you ask the questions: didn’t the South have the right to secede? To what extent was this was based on a principle: the freeing of slaves? Wasn’t there also an economic basis for this war? And what would have happened if England….

In short, you learn questions.

I’m officially on the fence about charter schools. If they work, I’m for them. Having worked for the largest company in the world, I’m a little uncertain that the corporate model is appropriate for education. The only things I am sure of?

That education of our kids is a lot more important than making money. And that any system—public or private—that fosters inequality because of race or socio-economic status is heinous. 

Two Brothers, Both Out of Line

OK—of course it’s got a liberal slant; it comes from Robert Greenwald, the same guy who brought you “Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price,” which trust me, didn’t provoke cries of joy in some executive offices down there in Bentonville, Arkansas.

But it’s what we have on David and Charles Koch, the oil-baron billionaires who have contributed millions to various causes and groups that in turn have subverted our political process.

That was the nice way of saying it.

The real way?

The Koch brothers have bought the government, and are fucking the environment and us.

You could look at my state of Wisconsin, for example, and the enormous amount of money that the Koch brothers have spent. How much? Well, Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, which the Koch brothers founded and (presumably) still fund, said that the group had contributed 10 million dollars “in 2011 and 2012 on TV ads, direct mail, staff and other expenses to support reforms made by Walker and the Legislature.”

Or look at the recall election in Wisconsin: Scott Walker raised 30 million to retain his seat; his opponent raised a bit under 4 million. Or so said Debbie Wasserman, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman, three days after Walker, a Republican, beat Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett.

But was it true? A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article says no—the Koch brothers gave no money to Walker directly. So they’re in the clear, right?

Who knows? Because Americans for Prosperity “as a tax-exempt ‘social welfare’ organization, AFP does not have to disclose its donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics on the national level.”


The article goes on to say that Americans for Prosperity has received funds from other sources than the Koch brothers, but is that the point? Who cares what rich, libertarian, fat cat puts up the money? The effect has been the same everywhere.

And that is, you say?

Well, first you have to control the dialogue—so you create a playbook. And in Wisconsin, it was all about creating jobs. Excellent—and what was the obstacle to job creation? You guessed it—that stifling state government, with those pesky regulations on pollution, or worker safety, or collective bargaining, or health care or whatever. You just had to get enough people to say the words, “stifling government,” and those good Wisconsin dairy farmers got it into their heads—Scott Walker was going to go right down there to Madison and put that crazy legislature in shape.

Well, he certainly did. You know how that worked out—the first state in the union to allow unions for public workers became the first state in the union to ban them. But was that all? No, because what worked its way into Bill 11, in the year 2011? Well, we have this, on the bottom of page 23….

.                 1  16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state−owned heating, cooling,

.                 2  and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the

.                 3  department may sell any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may

.                 4  contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without

.                 5  solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best

.                 6  interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or

.                 7  certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to

.                 8  purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is

.                 9  considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification

.                 10  of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).

 “With or without solicitation of bids?”

“No approval or certification of the public service commission?”

OK—let’s be fair; apparently the bill failed. And I have spent thirty minutes looking for the same language in the bill that did pass, Senate Bill 10. And what can I tell you? That, according to Wikipedia, the bill, which was the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, and which caused the massive demonstrations in the state capitol, ‘authorizes the Department of Administration to sell state heating plants. The proceeds from any sale, net of remaining debt service, would be deposited in the budget stabilization fund.’[4][8][9]

I should, I really should wade through the Wisconsin Repair Bill to find out—was that language above incorporated into the Repair Bill? But then I wonder—I’ve checked both the Wisconsin State Journal and the Green Bay Press Gazette—and got a nearly identical quote: “The bill authorizes the Department of Administration to sell state heating plants. The proceeds from any sale, net of remaining debt service, would be deposited in the budget stabilization fund.”

What accounts for the curiously similar language? Well, the Press Gazette comes out and says it: information provided from the office of Governor Scott Walker. Who presumably provided the same information to Wikipedia.

Well, guess what? Apparently the provision of selling the state heating and cooling plants didn’t make it through the legislature. And how do I know? Because, according to the Journal Sentinel, the provision is back!

When Republican Gov. Scott Walker set off a political firestorm two years ago by unveiling a bill to impose restrictions on public sector unions, one piece of his proposal didn't become law.

That proposal - to sell off state-owned power and heating plants - could get resurrected this month when the governor announces his proposed 2013-'15 state budget.

Wisconsin Energy Corp. Chairman Gale Klappa has been signaling to company observers for months that the proposal would return. Last week, state Sen. Robert Cowles (R-Allouez) announced during a public hearing, "It's coming back."

Well, I set out to tell you the news—the power of the Koch brothers is sufficiently strong to get PBS to not air a documentary called Citizen Koch. So that means you have to organize a group to show the documentary; that’s a trifle harder than putting your finger on the remote.

It’s now 2:29—I have spent a good four hours digging around, investigating the Kochs. And guess what?

I’ve barely started….

I invite any reader.

http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/highlights-of-gov-walker-s-budget-repair-bill/article_3d93e6aa-363a-11e0-8493-001cc4c002e0.html

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110216/GPG0101/110216041/Read-summary-Gov-Scott-Walker-s-budget-repair-bill