Monday, December 31, 2018

20181231.0430

On 26 December 2018, the editors of the San Antonio Express-News released "Never, Ever a Good Reason for Shutdown" in the online version of the newspaper. The article lays blame for the shutdown at the end of 2018 squarely at the feet of the occupant of the White House at the time, explicating why it does so. Congress seems able to reach an agreement on funding, and support for many administrative policies is waning against the increasing number of administration scandals and rapidity of personnel turnover at the highest levels, but a single sticking-point from the person who holds the veto pen keeps anything from moving forward. As it does, hundreds of thousands of federal employees are left scrambling for funds just as demands for them increase sharply. The piece closes with pointed remarks calling for the federal government to resume its operations and for the head of the administration to relent.
Unfortunately, said head is not likely to relent for reasons that are amply attested elsewhere, and in far clearer and more vociferous terms than I am ready to deploy. No, said head might be said to have its head embedded somewhere else, even up to the shoulders, and all such people are oblivious to reason and the sweet smell of anything other than their own colons. And the editors of the Express-News are in position to know that the rhythmic chants of "Build that wall" still ring out, drowning word of other perfidies in their cacophonous refrains, even in their own city, even among people whose families straddle a border that jumped them in days gone by, even among people who depend on the services provided by federal employees and who are those employees. Perhaps they seem less loud in the Alamo City proper than they do not far outside it because there are other voices braying out their own discordant tunes, but the rumblings that sound in the Texas Hill Country are in a different key altogether.
I am fortunate that my family has not been much affected by the 2018-end shutdown. Though my father is a federal employee, his agency had already been funded for some time. Though my mother works with the IRS, she does not work for them. And though I deal with Medicaid in the work that I do, and though the agency for which I work receives funds from federal departments, directly and vicariously, the flow of money into it has not abated. (I could wish for more, of course, but that's true in the best of times.) But I know that others are far less fortunate; they are far more reliant on income and access to resources that are now imperiled. Many of them will also continue to laud the administration's head, despite that person acting in ways that harm them. For the editors are correct; it is but one person who has held things up, so it is upon one person alone that blame rests--and should rest. Because that person is supposed to be in charge, and that person eagerly seeks credit for what goes well; blame for what goes badly accrues there, as well, or it damned well should.

Sunday, December 30, 2018

20181230.0430

On 26 December 2018, Albert Baca's "Remove Marijuana from Schedule I Drug List" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article responds to an earlier opinion piece on the subject of marijuana's legal status. After noting a bit of the history of marijuana's criminalization, Baca focuses on the promise of medical marijuana and notes that some relaxation of overly strict criminal codes must occur if useful research into that promise is to be conducted. Given the recent passage of the First Step Act, Baca notes, now would be a good time to take such a measure.
I have written about such things before (here, for example), and the comments I have made in other places remain relevant. In general, I favor legalization of both medical and recreational marijuana, though I am not likely to use either. (Being among the many who bought health insurance that could not be used and so since opted out of having it, I am not in a position to visit a physician to get a prescription, and my experiences in graduate school tell me that cannabis is not my substance of choice. Caffeine takes that role.) Baca's position is therefore somewhat short of what I would see, though I think his is likely to come about before mine--even if mine is almost inevitable. (I say almost because, well, humanity might manage to get itself dead by then, which would render the issue moot.) And it is not as if I think Baca is wrong; I am generally in favor of more study, deeper investigation, though I am also aware that calls for more study are often used as catspaws for delaying actions that need to be taken.
I know, too, that there will be many who oppose relaxing restrictions on marijuana--or any substance. Many of them will view such measures as reflecting a decline in prevailing standards of decency. And they will be wrong; a loosening of restrictions does not mean a loosening of decency when standards that have been in place are themselves, in many cases, indecent. And standards that have been used to curtail human understanding and to enact systemic racism across decades are decidedly indecent. Disproportionate and unbalanced enforcement is indecent. The wholesale warehousing of populations already traumatized by the experience and legacy of trafficking is indecent. Rarely do such things get decried by the people who otherwise bemoan a lack of decency among the general public, such that I have to wonder if they even know what the word means, unless they think it is "what I want to see everybody else do."
There are enough people who seem to think it does, certainly, and more than enough. (Even one is too many.) Many of the problems of the world can be ascribed to their words and deeds, yet they still say and do much and are heard and followed all too gladly. As the year comes to a close and another promises to open, it does not look like that will change--though perhaps the change for which Baca calls may happen.

Saturday, December 29, 2018

20181229.0430

On 21 December 2018, John Eubanks's "That Time of the Year for 'Word of the Year'" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article relates its author's musings on competing word of the year contenders from various dictionaries of more and less repute. Dictionary.com, the OED, Collins, and Merriam-Webster are reported upon, with Eubanks's own contention following. An exhortation to align to prescriptive grammar standards ends the piece, deviating from the thrust of the rest of the piece and annoying in its reiteration of resistance to changes in language that are as being bad. (It should be no secret at this point that I chafe at seeing such things.)
Eubanks is correct that it is the time of year for such reflection. The ends of things prompt backward looks, and I am not immune to the impulse to do so. Indeed, in my private journals, I do so, though rarely in the kind of formal fashion to which I am trained. ("Rarely," though, means it has happened, and there are scrawled citations even in my personal journals, referring a putative reader back to earlier volumes in them. Because I am a nerd, and of one of the higher orders of nerdiness.) But whether I will be doing so in this webspace is still an open question. I do not know that it would be welcome here, or that I have enough on which to look back with analysis that would matter in any way. Not that a non-monetized blog with a dedicated but small readership matters in any major way.
Then again, given what else is in Eubanks's article, not mattering doesn't much matter. (I'm not necessarily pleased with the piece, if it's not obvious.) Eubanks's own contribution to the discussion reads to me as pallid, a brief note that ought to have received more attention than it does; the OED speaks for itself, but Eubanks's comments could only be had from him. And I am somewhat struck by the choices of dictionaries used and the relative eminence accorded to each; the OED is a better piece of work than Merriam-Webster or Collins, and Dictionary.com is a feeble competitor against them, despite it being given pride of place. (It is not an issue of online access so much as thinness and lack of interest in its materials; I'd love to have seen Urban Dictionary represented.)
What do I know, though? I've not done what I've needed to do to be able to weigh in on a word of the year, though I imagine I could go back over the work I've done in this webspace and look for the significant word I've used most in it. (I make the comment knowing that "a" or "the" will be the overall winner.) I've not done it yet, though I think that stupid might be a contender, given some of my other work. Others, less fortunate, likely are, as well. But I'll not plumb that particular depth; I worry about what I would dredge up. Others can sift through that silt, if they wish, and find what there is of value in it.

Friday, December 28, 2018

20181228.0430

On 25 December 2018, Fareed Zakaria's "Everywhere, A Growing Backlash to Populism" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article opens with a focus on French president Emmanuel Macron's political trajectory, initially a symbol of hope but currently (as of this writing) facing falling poll numbers and the Yellow Vest protests decrying some of the reforms he has sought to push through. Macron is used as a case study for a first-blush pessimism Zakaria proceeds to explicate and undermine. Despite the ongoing populist, nationalist fervor that has hold on much of the West, broadly defined, there is quite a bit of pushback against reactionary ideas and measures; political developments across Europe and in the United States are referenced as examples. Zakaria ends with a call against despair, noting that work is yet to be done but that it can be done to effect.
As I read the article, I have to consider where Zakaria writes from. He is not here, so far as I know; I somehow doubt that the Texas Hill Country is much on his itinerary, unless perhaps it is Austin--but Austin is barely geographically in the Hill Country and even less so, culturally. From here, at least, things do not look like Zakaria describes; if anything, the reactionary rhetoric is more emphatic here now than earlier in the year, the attitudes it reflects more deeply entrenched despite the provision of data. It matters less that a thing is true than that the right person says it, and the right person looks more like me than I am comfortable with. But my discomfort is nothing against the danger others face, here and elsewhere, because those who spout such stupidity as they do are increasingly emboldened.
And why would they not be? This place is something of a stronghold for them, though the foundations for such things are not so solid as they might be pretended to be; there is only so much limestone will support, after all, and it is not for nothing that so many come to the Hill Country to find healing. But if they do, it is because they need it, and an injury once incurred can be renewed far more easily than might be hoped. Perhaps it is the fear of that that spurs so much retrenchment here, so much clinging to thoughts of guns and glory, even or especially by those who ought to know better than they give evidence of doing.
Such an implication, if voiced more plainly to particular people, would prompt more pushback than is currently in place, and if those hands are so few as Zakaria would have us hope, still do they feel heavy for those upon whom they are laid. I may not be among them, and I hope not to be, but I know that too many others are who ought not to be--and that there will likely be more as phantom fears intensify. There always are, and then things come that are rightly feared, to the loss of us all.

Thursday, December 27, 2018

20181227.0430

On 22 December 2018, the editors of the San Antonio Express-News placed "Fight against Substance Abuse Can't Wait" in the online version of the newspaper. The piece identifies one of the difficulties facing the Texas Legislature in its upcoming session: funding substance abuse treatment. It also makes the case that the challenge must be met and defeated, laying out what is reported as necessary to address mounting substance abuse issues in Texas. Figures regarding the impacts of drug abuse on the state follow, and the article closes with a call to action that it is hoped will be heard and answered by those able to do so.
The issue is one in which I am interested, to be sure. As I've noted before, my day-job is at a substance abuse treatment facility; soon enough, I will be moving into administering it. The facility receives no small amount of its funding from the state; it contracts with the Department of State Health Services and the Department of Family Protective Services to provide outpatient substance abuse treatment for people who are identified as having such problems. Changes to funding levels therefore directly affect what my facility can do and whether or not I can make a living in a line of work for which I did not train but in which I find myself. Of course I am interested in them.
And it is not only for such selfish reasons that I attend to such matters. In the job I have now, I work the front desk at the substance abuse treatment facility. When people call in looking for answers and help, I am the one who talks to them first; I am the one who hears their stories. When they come in to register for treatment, I am the one who works with them to get them through the forms. When they sit for appointments, I am the one who sees them on their ways, the one who listens to them while they wait for their counselors to help those in front of them. I am not a counselor, to be sure, but I still see and hear much of what they do; I see and hear what the illness of addiction does to people. I see them when they need help and have not yet gotten it. It is no easy thing to see, and additional support for getting people the help they need--and that others need them to get, because there are always others affected than the ones who are addicted--is therefore welcome.
I know that many will rail against such things, claiming that the people who are in such trouble got themselves into it and should get themselves out of it--or suffer and die. But they are wrong to do so. While it is true that some get themselves into trouble, they pay for it in ways I cannot describe here. And there are many who had no idea they had a problem until the moment that they began to have the problem. We see a fair number of people who didn't drink until they could by law, and when they tried, they found suddenly that they could not stop; we see many others who are offered things that they accept because their doctors tell them to, or because they are told that it will let them work just that much harder, that much longer, and then they are caught. Society as a whole suffers when people leave it in such ways, when they are barred from returning to it; it benefits from reclaiming such people as have erred and seek to atone. And it is for such reasons that the editors are once again correct; more needs to be done to ease the burden of substance abuse, and what the Legislature can do to that end, it damned well should.

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

20181226.0430

On 20 December 2018, SM Chavey's "70-Year-Old Kerrville Business to Close Its Doors Next Week" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article reports on the impending closure of Melody Corner, a music store in Kerrville. The store's history is glossed, including its strangely eminent current and former customer list, which has ranged to Bob Dylan and David Robinson. Owner-operator Stan Morris's lament over the slow death of small-town music stores receives attention, as well, and while the article closes on a laudatory note, quoting approving patrons of the store, the impression cannot be escaped that such praise is too little, too late.
I make such comments from a sense of guilt about the matter. For I have known Stan since I was some four years old, when my late great uncle was playing with him (Stan is a guitarist and sound-man in addition to having run Melody Corner these decades). When I was an adolescent band-nerd, Stan was my go-to source for saxophone and clarinet reeds, and when I returned to the Texas Hill Country and to playing my grandfather's bari this summer, I returned to his shop to buy the reeds I needed to make it start to sing again. But I do not play my horn as much as I should, so I do not go through reeds as quickly as might be expected, and so I did not often find my way back to Melody Corner to trade funds for goods and help Stan stay in business just a little longer.
It is a shame, too, for good things happened at the store that I've rarely seen in other places. For but one example, the last time I went in to get reeds--the Saturday following Thanksgiving--I had my wife and daughter with me. They elected to pop into the store with me, since they'd never done so, and my Mrs. had heard me talk about Stan and his shop any number of times, almost always glowingly. When we went in, we found something of a jam session in progress; Stan and a couple of other people whom I probably ought to have recognized and didn't were sitting on stools in a circle, strumming and singing along. As Ms. 8 looked on, a smile on her face and wonder in her eyes, they sang to her--no clarion call, perhaps, but not the less sweet for being as it was.
Such things were not uncommon at Melody Corner, perhaps not a daily occurrence, but not so infrequent as to be rare. The store and the man who runs--ran--it were very much parts of the musical community of Kerrville and its surrounding area, a musical community that perhaps does not attract much attention to itself as itself, but still boasts some surprising talent. (The keyboard player for the Juantanamos hails from Kerrville, for example, and Robert Earl Keen lives there, among others.) While it may seem a small thing for a small music store in a small town to close after seventy years, to those of us who have been there, who have gone back time and again (though not so much as we ought to have done), it is not of small moment--and its like will likely not come again.

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

20181225.0430

On 20 December 2018, Madison Iszler's "Dodging Dogs, San Antonio Mail Carriers Deliver the Holiday Goods" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article portrays the labors of postal workers during the winter holidays, focusing on the experience of a long-time worker in San Antonio's North Side. The joys and challenges of the work receive attention, with engagement in communities being the key example of the former and dogs the latter; San Antonio is evidently among the worst cities in the United States for dogs attacking postal carriers. In all, however, the work of the US Postal Service is presented favorably, both as a rewarding endeavor and as done by good people.
Iszler's article is another I hope to remember when I teach profile-writing again, because it is a useful example of such work. There is a clear central idea carried forward in the piece, as well as testimonial and other information to support that idea. Too, while that information is clearly made to connect to the central idea, motions to do so are not heavy-handed; they are clear without being obtrusive. It is something a great many writers would do well to emulate, including a great many who are praised for their ostensible subtlety. (I am not unaware of the irony of my criticism of others' work. I'd be in a better position had I more of my own work, and done well, in publication where it might have been rejected.)
The article is also good in that it looks at working folks with no small esteem. The emphasis on the workers' integration with the communities they serve, their constancy and connectedness, serves as a useful reminder that it is through the labors of such people that society functions. If there is to be a good civil society, it is because of such people and the institutions they collectively constitute. This is not to say that there are not bad postal workers--there are, just as there are bad people of all professions (and some might say more in some than others)--or that the US Postal Service does not have its problems--it does, as do all institutions (and some might say more than others). It is, however, to say that it seems to be more to the good than the ill, at least as it is now (I am not enough up on its history to speak to more of that), and an article that highlights its good qualities is a welcome thing.
And I suppose I would be remiss if I did not make any mention of the holiday being celebrated today across much of the world. Though this little piece is written into a buffer, drafted in advance of its publication, I know that the today of its release is one that finds a great many people occupied with other things, some of which I will share. I do not share all of them, to be sure; it has not been as a narrative persona wholly distinct from my actual self that I have written my hymns against the stupid god. But for those who find joy in this day, I hope they find it in abundance.

Monday, December 24, 2018

20181224.0430

On 19 December 2018, Terrance L. Green's "Districts Should Rethink Closing Schools" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article reports, in summary, Green's findings about the effects of closing schools. Highlighted are the negative effects school closures have on students' academic outcomes (when the opposite is intended), the community-destabilizing effects of school closures (particularly for majority-minority neighborhoods), and the long-term cost overruns that occur as schools close (despite short-term gains). In the end, Green calls on administrators to keep the welfare of students, particularly those coming from traditionally underserved communities, in mind as they make school closure decisions--and not just the immediate monetary goals.
Some of the same comments I made about Christopher Brown's kindergarten piece apply to Green's piece, as well. While the topic Green treats, or the approach taken to that topic, seems to work better than Brown's in terms of functioning as a survey, I still find myself wanting more detail. (Where Green makes comments about research showing things, I want to see at least a link to that research, for example.) And I understand that decisions are ultimately made by others than have to endure their consequences, especially over longer periods of time; it is not administrators in school district central offices who suffer from others' children being further away from their homes, after all, nor yet is it legislators whose systems of funding and "oversight" contribute to the circumstances in which schools might find themselves facing closure and the communities connected to those schools displacement.
As with the Brown piece, however, Green's piece is spot on. There are times when schools need to be closed, certainly; most of them have to do with the physical facilities being unusable. And, particularly at the elementary level, schools should be where the students are, so relocating campuses based on shifting enrollment makes some sense--but there's a difference between relocation and closure. Shuttering them, consolidating operations and taking away community focal points, does serve to de-identify people and to re-divide communities that have developed more or less organically and are more authentic, potentially more supportive than otherwise would be the case. Doing so for money says to the families that the schools had served that they are less important than lucre--which is not a message most enjoy hearing. In effect, it says to people that the schools do not care about them; is it any wonder that the people will retort that they do not care for the schools? How could they not do so? Yet even that reaction--sensible and natural as it has every indication of being--is one that is decried.
I begin to understand why so many of the students I have had, and at every school where I have taught, have subscribed to conspiracy theories. There are no few instances when it seems that certain groups are, in fact, out to get others, that shadowy cabals orchestrate events to their advantage--and it seems more so for those who more often serve as the sacrificial pawns in the obscure chess game being played...

Sunday, December 23, 2018

20181223.0430

On 18 December 2018, Liz Teitz's "Closed College's Stranded Students Have Plenty of San Antonio Company" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. Opening with one affected student's story, the article reports on the recent deaccreditation and closure of Education Corporation of America schools, as well as other for-profit school closures and the difficulties students affected by those closures face as they try to balance discharging debts incurred and transfer of credits to other, hopefully more stable institutions. Other affected students' stories and comments illuminate the situation that many others face, and the article closes on a comment about the relative value of a potentially thwarted education.
The piece follows up on earlier comments Teitz made and which I discuss here. As I look back at the earlier piece and the current, I notice that the students quoted are all identified as female, and while it is likely as a function of the curricula taught at the now-lapsed Brightwood College, which seemed to focus on the feminized field of nursing, it is at odds with my experience teaching at for-profit schools. Those I've taught at have been more populated by male students than female, at least so far as I can tell, and I've taught in the putative service courses of the English composition sequence for the most part; those courses, per Timothy Carens's "Serpents in the Garden," serve as a microcosm for the schools as a whole, since they are among the few universally required courses (and the students at for-profit colleges are not typically those who have AP, CLEP, or dual-credit work to exempt them from sitting for them), so if I have perhaps one or two female students in a class of ten, then I have to expect that the enrollment in the school at large is similar.
But whether or not the reporting matches my experience, there is an implication in it, namely that it is largely women who are affected by the closures of for-profit colleges. And that has implications in turn. For for-profit colleges are typically attended by those who are obliged to defer their education--people like my mother, who is a graduate of such a school (long) after having attempted a degree while in the US Navy. She was, for several reasons that I'll not go into, obliged to set aside her education on her initial attempt and to defer a second attempt for what ended up being decades until she finally did find her way to a for-profit school, where she thrived. Conversations with my students suggest that the same is true for them; they had had to set aside their educations for some time, their reasons varying but their own. They have been and are members of less privileged populations, obliged to make choices that conduce to their further and ongoing de-privileging, and the malfeasance of the schools of last resort to which they turn serves only to keep them where they have been and where they are trying to leave.
When "the way you're supposed to do it" doesn't work, and through no fault of your own, you ought not to be blamed for looking for other ways. We are fortunate that more do not think to take more drastic measures than they have.

Saturday, December 22, 2018

20181222.0430

On 11 December 2018, Maria Anglin's "Time for 'Tomboy' to Go Away" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article offers a rumination on the term "tomboy," situating it in the context of the events that gave rise to the rumination. A working meaning for the term is advanced, and history and context of the term are discussed. So are the problems with the term "tomboy," including the discriminatory underpinnings of the term itself. Anglin adds a note about the relevance of labels and their ability to influence--strongly--self- and others' conceptions before ending on a call to move away from the term "tomboy" entirely.
I know there will be some who will lock onto Anglin's comment that "It's not meant as an insult, of course. Tomboy is a well-meaning holdover word from generations ago" and decry the rest of her article--which evokes a wonderful sense of family, a seeming South Texas aunt talking in the living room or out on the front porch--as being "social justice whining." "Even she admits it's not meant as an insult," they'll say, "so why is she complaining?" But these are often the same people who, while bemoaning the "overly sensitive" behavior increasingly prevalent 1) neglect to remember that people fought duels over perceived insults not too long ago, sometimes fatally, 2) neglect to remember the many times that they complain about being shut out through something "not meant as an insult", and 3) get themselves into a tizzy based on people who act differently from them being in the same area of the world. Because even they, when wounded by a thing not meant as an insult, realize that intent and effect are not at all the same thing.
If we set up a thing as being different--and according it a distinct label does so by its very nature; the "normal" is unmarked, and the unmarked gets the privilege of being "normal"--then we set it up for censure. Any difference attracts attention, and attracted attention is never all to the good; there are always detractors, there are always jealousies, and there are always those who, because they are asshats, will look for targets. Such labels as that Anglin discusses help illumine potential targets. And if people deviate from the "norm" in ways that do not harm others--because a little girl liking to run and climb and jump and play outside does not harm others, any more than does a boy who likes to play with dolls or have painted nails--why should they be made targets?
And there is another issue. "Tomboy" is not the norm, but it is not especially censured. Boys who tend towards what are commonly called feminine activities are called other words that are censuring--and worse. Among the many resonances of that different regard is the oft-repeated bit that masculinized activities are perceived as better; a girl suffers less to be boy-like than does a boy to be girl-like. So it is not only those called "tomboy" who find themselves under an onus; those who are not, those who are more girl-like, are shown that their normalcy is a weakness. And it may be true that such machinations are subtle, requiring attention from a particular vantage to emerge. But we do not decry a number of other problems that can only be seen and addressed from one angle; it makes little sense to decry yet others for such cause, when instead people ought to do more to adopt the perspectives that fixing such problems need.

Friday, December 21, 2018

20181221.0430

On 15 December 2018, Maria Anglin's "A Remark that Went Viral and Wouldn't Have Been Asked of Male Stars" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article reports on an impertinent question posed to footballer Ada Hegerberg and her terse response to it before laying out what makes Hegerberg stand out in her field. The broader context of women pushing for parity in soccer, generally, receives attention, with the difficulties faced by professional female--but not male--footballers articulated before a closing comment connecting back to the school-age leagues and their players who recognize Heberberg's achievement for the marker that it is.
The headline is somewhat deceptive; the remark mentioned in it receives relatively little attention in the article. But that lack of attention seems fitting; it is a thing that happened, it was addressed, and more important things are receiving treatment. Giving it more attention (and I am not unaware of the irony) only serves to do more to normalize what is unfortunately all too common as it is, while passing over it in favor of other, more interesting things diminishes it--and such things should be diminished, both in terms of frequency and in terms of the regard given them. Perhaps, at some point, they will be diminished enough that they no longer rise to attention, no longer rise into the levels of the mind whence they can proceed to mouth.
I say so knowing that I have said such things at inopportune moments--not so inopportune as the remark reported upon, admittedly, but still far from politic. There are moments to say them, certainly, but not at an award ceremony. Even were the award being given for twerking, the receipt of it should be enough of an indication that the person so distinguished could do so; it would not support the question. Even less so does a situation like that in the report.
The thing is, while I and many others know that the fact of such a question in such a place and time is but one more iteration of systemic issues that have been too long indulged, others will look at the iteration and decry it as but a single utterance of a single person. They look at men--and it is somehow always only men, and almost always white men--as being Donne's islands to the continents of women and people of color. They will not hear that the bell tolls for them--nor that it does not toll for such behavior and such thought nearly as soon as it ought to do. But I will look forward to hearing its tintinnabulation sound long and echo longer, even if I have too often been deaf to its tones in the past and still do not hear as well as I should what notes it plays.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

20181220.0430

On 16 December 2018, Christopher Brown's "Make Kindergarten More Engaging Again" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. In the piece, Brown, an early childhood education professor at the University of Texas, glosses a typical Texas kindergarten experience before putting across the thesis that the typical pattern is not a good one. He then explicates why matters are as they are and why they are problems for students and teachers now and in times to come. Ideas for how to correct the matter are noted, centering on a reconsideration of what parents and teachers want kindergarten to be, before the article concludes on a reminder that the goal of teaching as a profession is to help people become lifelong learners.
I have several reasons to react to the article. I am an educator, certified to teach high school English in addition to my credentials and experience teaching college-level coursework. I am myself the product of a particular kind of schooling that may not have regimented kindergarten but started such things soon enough. And I am a parent of a child who will be heading to kindergarten perhaps sooner than it is comfortable to recognize. So, while I might find myself vexed somewhat by the relative lack of detail in the article, I recognize 1) that the context of presentation is not one that admits of the level of detail I would like to see (a newspaper cannot address academic issues in ways academics do by its nature; it is not addressing an academic primary audience), and 2) Brown is right. If the way kindergarten is taught is as he depicts it, it is not what I want for my daughter, not what hardly any of us ought to want for hardly any of our children. (I know some need more structure than others. And that's fine; give it them. But only them.)
I know why such things will have grown up. The testing culture that pervades K-12 education and infiltrates colleges and universities is to blame, and, as I and many, many others have argued and raged even unto apoplexy about, it is not the teachers who have chosen it. It is not even necessarily administrators, though they now cleave to it as if their own. No, it is an outgrowth of legislators at various levels, many of whom I am certain have received contributions of one kind or another from the companies that develop tests (and I know they pay well; I've done such work before), so that they have had reason to set up compulsory markets that oblige the purchase of those tests--and, once they're bought, they have to be used and passed, because we can't have our children being failures, after all. And that means teachers have to teach to the test, beginning as early as can be done--which is as early as the students are in the classroom.
My dear Ms. 8 will be entering into such an environment soon enough, I know. The school where she is likely to go is the best available to us here, and "best" inevitably means "in terms of test scores," so I know she will soon face the dreadful grind of drill-and-kill exercises familiar to me from having done it before NCLB was a thing. (Indeed, I am convinced I was part of the test run for the test culture.) What my wife and I will do to keep alive her love of learning--which now burns brightly and consumes all with which it comes into contact--is not clear to me. Mine was not ground out of me, though I (even I) have had problems, so I know there is hope even in the absence of Brown's recommendations. But I think she would have a better chance of things were they heeded.

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

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On 14 December 2018, Alia Malik's "More San Antonio ISD Grads Getting to Elite Colleges — But That’s the Easy Part" was updated in the online version of the San Antonio Express-News. The article offers brief profiles of four students from SAISD who took advantage of the district's efforts to place more students in Tier 1 universities, using their stories to highlight the successes and deficiencies of those efforts. Issue that emerge repeatedly include cultural mismatch between the SAISD students and the elite socioeconomic realities of those who "normally" go to such schools as Columbia and Brown--or even UT and Texas A&M--where the assumption is that students can afford all that is required by class and expected for "normal" socialization outside the classroom. SAISD is continuing to improve its efforts to place students and support them adequately, but the students themselves continue to struggle to adjust to the expectations of high-level university life from the often less-than-hoped preparation offered by the inner-city schools they attended.
My reaction to the piece proceeds from two parts of my own life: my own status as what might be called a Gen 1.5 college students and my work as a college educator. From the first, being a son of two people who attended but did not complete college (until recently; my mother at long last earned her baccalaureate, but it was a long time coming), neither of whom went on to graduate study, I had some adjustments to make when I went off to college each time. As an undergraduate, I did not involve myself in extracurricular activities nearly as much as, in retrospect, I ought to have done, believing that working hard on my academic coursework would be enough to see me through. In the end, it did; I could have had a job (with SAISD, interestingly) as soon as I graduated, and I did have a graduate assistantship. But I also did not make nearly the kinds of connections with others that I ought to have done and which would have allowed me to have an easier time of things afterwards. And I made much the same mistake in graduate school--hence my current life as an academic expatriate. So I am sympathetic to the students who go off to school and find themselves substantially shocked by the cultures they find there; I started out closer to them than the students profiled, and I had the trouble I did, so I cannot help but think they're facing much stiffer odds.
As an educator, as well, I have sympathy for them--though I would note that the phenomenon is far from restricted to top-tier schools. I've not done much if any teaching at such places; it is possible that the Big 12 school where I taught qualifies, but I'm not at all certain about that. The students I taught at the public and non-profit schools where I've worked have seemed in many cases to be out of their depth, partly because their prior schooling did not equip them for what they faced with me (while at the same time convincing entirely too many of them that it did), and partly because their backgrounds were not such that they had the cultural grounding that I, passing along standards les critically than I ought to have done, expected them to have. I hope I did and have done better at the for-profit schools where I have worked and still work; I have at least known that the students I've taught at them have not come from the kinds of backgrounds more traditional students have, and I've tried to adjust for that. I'm not sure I've always been successful, though, and I imagine that my counterparts at higher-prestige institutions have had similar difficulties--or more because many of them come from farther away than such students' circumstances than I do.
Knowing such things, extrapolating from them as best I can, I find myself hoping that better structures are put into place to support such students. There are a great many great minds among those who are, through no fault of their own, in poverty and far away from the ivory palaces that typically boast the tall towers of lore and legend, and they can benefit from time among those towers no less than those who enter into them more easily. But it is not only the students who must adapt or who should.

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

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On 15 December 2018, Sig Christenson's "Seventy Miles of Razor Wire Later, Some GI’s Pulling back from Border" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article reports on the current state of the troops deployed to the southern border of the United States to assist in deterring migration into the country, as well as the work done by those troops during their deployment to the Mexican borders of Texas, California, and Arizona. (The lack of troops on the New Mexico border is noted.) Political concerns surrounding the deployment also receive attention. Drawdown of troops has begun, although some troops are expected to remain on site until 31 January 2019, depending on conditions along the border.
The article reads as a quiet condemnation of the troops' deployment; I get the sense as I read that Christenson views the deployment as a waste of time and resources, though that might be my own opinion influencing my reading. (I do view it as a waste and a political stunt meant to distract from other problems by causing problems for men and women who are not in a position to respond, as well as their families.) But reinforcing seventy miles of a much longer border does seem a small effort, in all; I know those in uniform are capable of doing much more than that. And the comments Christenson reports and makes seem to indicate a similar awareness, as well, perhaps, as a rebuke to others who might for some reason--likely not a good one--favor more intensive measures.
Again, I find myself of the opinion that the response to migration coming towards the United States is an overwrought theatrical response to an issue that is, in part, the creation of the United States. And I think that there is a certain amount of anxiety among the mainstream population of the United States about immigration, generally. (I cannot take credit for the idea, though I do not recall anymore where I came across it, for which I apologize. I am happy to cite the source if it is presented to me.) It has been remarked repeatedly and abundantly that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and I have heard no few people comment again and again that "if they'd just come over legally and learn our language" and on and on and on. But I note that the "our" being referred to did not do so. The "our" that emerges from a putative "us" that is almost always meant by such phrasing is a group of colonizers who did not assimilate to local customs and ways of life--and, yes, I am the descendant of such people, benefiting even now from atrocities committed upon those who were here by others who came from far away and refused to adapt themselves to the ways of life already in place. So there is likely somewhere some kind of anxiety that what the mainstream population of the United States collectively did and benefits from will be enacted upon it, in turn.
Given what has been done, and over how long, that it should be feared is not a surprise. And it may perhaps be justice for it to happen again, though the scale and scope of it exceeds me. But it might also be justice for the United States to work to correct the errors it has made, though it does not seem apt to do so anytime soon.

Monday, December 17, 2018

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On 14 December 2018, an updated version of Scott Huddleston's "Buried Mission Wall in San Antonio Exposed at Job Site" appeared in the online version of the San Antonio Express-News. In it, Huddleston reports on the construction of apartments near historic mission sites owned by the Archdiocese of San Antonio and the construction project's recent uncovering of buried mission-wall footings. Conflicting commentary about the extent of damage, as well as opposition to the work and background on it are offered. Also noted is the specter of unearthing human remains during the excavation needed for the construction. The article ends with a reported warning not to let the same thing happen to the other San Antonio missions that happened with the Alamo, the area around which the city is trying to clear in favor of preservation and appropriate veneration.
It is interesting to think on the idea of buried walls in San Antonio. I know the city is 300 years old--the tricentennial attracted no small amount of attention--but it is not a thing that usually occurs to me. Nor yet does the association of centuries-long history, that some of it is simply underfoot, the world of now resting upon it, a boat buoyed up by the sea of old. I am far more used to thinking about such things as they apply to other places than the Alamo City, some of which I have visited and into the depths of which I have at least partly seen. I am far more used to thinking about such things in the contexts of cities with millennial histories, cities far removed from where I now am rather than an hour down the road.
But as I think on it, it makes sense that there would be such things in San Antonio; the city has a rich history, having done much in three centuries. People have lived and died, families have risen and fallen, the shape of the city has shifted as it has grown and grown and grown, and, like all else, it rests upon what has been, emerging from it and being supported by it, borrowing strength from it whether it knows it is or does not. It is the kind of thing that I've argued about in other contexts, and there is little if any reason it should not be true for the Alamo City as for any of the grander, older cities commonly associated with the trope, or with the legended ones whose origins are obscured by both the passage of time and the workings of artists' mouths and pens and minds upon them.
And I wonder, too, what will be built upon the ruins we leave behind. Such texts as this one are ephemeral in the short term, but all are ephemera if enough time is permitted. The same is true of stone edifices, whether they are razed to make way for the newer that is not necessarily better or they are allowed to crumble against the slow and certain forces that the universe brings to bear through time. But while such things endure, they may allow for other things to follow, and, seeing what I and my contemporaries follow, I am not sure I can see what will follow us. I can hope it will be better as I understand better to be, but I also know that what is understood to be better will, itself, differ from what now is--and things will move that way. Still, it is a thing worth thinking about...

Sunday, December 16, 2018

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On 11 December 2018, Richard A. Marini's "Missing Ring from American WWII POW in Germany to Be Returned to Kerrville, Texas, Man" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article offers information on Wayne Gotke, the son of a World War II POW imprisoned in Germany; he is a collector of World War II POW memorabilia, and his father's lost wedding ring was found during excavation efforts by a museum that specializes in such sites. How the ring was found is detailed, and the ring itself is described. The prison in question, Stalag Luft III, is also described, as are escape attempts made from it--including that featured in The Great Escape. Gotke's own father made several such, which Marini reports Gotke describing, along with his father's circumstances of capture. The likely progress of the ring and the circumstances of the Gotke family receive depiction, as well, calling attention to the ongoing efforts to claim and maintain still-recent history.
It is not entirely a surprise that such a story would be told, or that it would be told about a person in Kerrville, Texas; in addition to being noted for such figures as Johnny Manziel, Robert Earl Keen, and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz (who graduated from school in the town, as is too little remarked), and for the Kerrville Folk Festival, my hometown is widely regarded as a desirable retirement destination. Throughout my life here, I've known and known about a great many veterans of the Second World War, and their children, the Baby Boomers, are reaching or into retirement age at this point. (I've also met a few Great War veterans who are now gone, as well as Holocaust survivors. I didn't appreciate either as much as I ought to have, and time has dulled even my memory.) There has been and remains a fascination with the most massive conflict of the twentieth century in Kerrville, so if there would be a place that would host a ceremony for a man to regain his divorced, late father's wedding ring, it would be the town where I live and have lived.
That it is not surprising, though, does not mean it is unwelcome. I'm lucky enough to have a pretty good relationship with my father, for which I am grateful, but I know that not everybody is thus fortunate. But even with that close connection, when the day comes that he is gone, I know that I will look for things to help me keep the memory of that connection alive. It is a thing of which I can readily conceive. What the article describes, though, reads to me as a man trying to create a connection with his late father when there was little enough of one in life, trying to fill a hole of which he is surely aware in the time he has left to him--and that is not something I can easily understand, having not faced such a challenge. It reminds me of how fortunate I am to have the connections I do with those I do, and it reminds me that I probably ought to be doing more to nurture them along.

Saturday, December 15, 2018

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On 12 December 2018, Gilbert Garcia's "City Council Tries to Make Sense of the Decade of Downtown" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. In the article, Garcia reports on recent San Antonio City Council efforts to amend former mayor Julián Castro's plan to revitalize downtown San Antonio. Of note is that the plan succeeded at its stated goals, but it has done so at the seemingly unforeseen cost of gentrification and over-increase of housing costs. In the amended form, the plan for downtown will work to address issues of housing segregation by restricting the area covered by the plan and differentiating its intended impacts by the areas addressed thereby. While there is not unanimity on the council regarding the emendations, they do look to be moving ahead, however uncertain the results may be.
The initial idea of the plan, as reported, seems a common-sense thing--with the caveat that common sense is a misnomer because of the first word. Businesses will come in where people are, so making an area vital should focus initially on bringing people in; the rest will follow, as seems obvious when pointed out and as appears to be the case. But setting up a situation that brings people in necessarily creates more demand for what is an ultimately limited quantity, so prices rise, and those who had been already present find their presence less tenable. Such gentrification tends to promote a homogenization of local cultures, which is a particular problem for a place like San Antonio that has a historically thriving culture of its own, albeit one that is not necessarily associated with the kind of material wealth that gentrification obliges.
For a revitalization, then, gentrification is a matter of concern. Bringing something back cannot happen if those who had it are not included in the return, after all, and bringing in those from elsewhere to do the work of vitalization leads to an unfortunate change to what was, either because it is undone entirely or because the version of what was that emerges is not one that has continuance with what was, but is instead only a shallow, superficial version of what was. Areas that were vital and have become less so run the risk of becoming but pallid imitations of themselves, veneers of easily exploitable difference laid thinly over structures of similarity that pander to a bloc of people who would rather not be challenged or shown what is not familiar, but who will consider themselves enlightened and aware because they, too, have seen the carefully curated versions of things others--and still not those others who would know--have decided to show them.
That such things are to be avoided should be clear. That the council appears to be taking steps to avoid them--at least, if I have read things aright--is a good thing, then. That does not mean there are not more steps to take, of course; things being right is a goal that ever recedes, however rapidly or diligently approached. But that does not mean progress towards it is not to be desired.

Friday, December 14, 2018

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On 10 December 2018, the editors of the San Antonio Express-News placed "Handling of Serious Allegations at UTSA Laudable" in the online version of the paper. The piece commends the University of Texas at San Antonio and its current president, Taylor Eighmy, for how recent allegations of student sexual assault have been handled: quickly, thoroughly, and transparently. While the editors report understanding the desire to keep problems quiet, they also note that such quieting inevitably works ill. They further remark that similar handling of similar events at other schools would likely have resulted in better outcomes for all involved.
As a graduate of UTSA, albeit one who graduated more years ago than it's entirely comfortable to admit (BA, English, 2005), I'm glad to see praise heaped upon the institution. There've been enough black eyes for the school in the past years, some quite bad bruises for it, and while I am not immune to selfish concerns (bad press for my undergrad makes my undergrad look less good, and that negatively impact possible perceptions of me), I am more concerned that the many good people who have been at the school and still are at the school will be harmed. Conversely, having public praise for the institution come out helps the school's perception, which helps those who are and have been associated with it. So that much is to the good.
Another flip-side--because things can rotate along more than one axis, as long ago amazed me--is that UTSA is handling things well now serves as a sign that there have been too many such things, that the school and others have had too much practice with addressing such issues. The occurrence of such events is sufficiently prevalent that schools are beginning to learn from their own and others' mistakes--something that generally takes a damned lot of teaching to make happen. (Isn't it part of the reason history is taught and studied?) That there is some progress on investigating them does not mean things are going the way they ought to; at best, it suggests a beginning of a turn away from what ought not to be, along at least one axis.
However assiduously enforced the proscription against such things may be, they will not deter as much as needs to be deterred--just as laws against murder do not stop killing, laws against theft do not stop burglary, and repeated injunctions against stupidity have not stopped...much. And some might argue that that makes the attempt to enforce folly; indeed, such is a major underpinning of efforts against gun control legislation. It is true that punishment for perpetrators and a hoped-for restoration for victims are not as good as never having been violated, but it has to be better that perpetrators be punished than that they are not. UTSA's would then seem to be a step in the right direction along a path it were better never to have to walk--yet one that has many, many feet upon it.

Thursday, December 13, 2018

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On 8 December 2018, Maria Anglin's "Baby, It's #MeToo Outside" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article reports the origins and arrival at prominence of the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" prior to noting the current cultural disapproval surrounding the piece--manifesting in the song being pulled from a number of radio stations, including local channels. The lack of context for the song is cited as a reason it rings badly in contemporary ears, and remarks about comparative obscenity and lewdness are made. So is the note that context and subtext affect text before the piece closes seemingly unsatisfyingly.
I write "unsatisfyingly" because the concluding comment, "You know what else brings change? Those buttons on the car radio," seems overly flip and at odds with the sound points in the preceding few paragraphs. For instance, Anglin is correct to note that censorship is problematic at best. She is also correct to note that more people are more likely to be held to account for their words and the resultant actions. For radio stations--private enterprises in the main--to decide that they will not play songs they find problematic seems to be an acceptance of the accountability and responsibility Anglin notes--and then decries in the "You don't like it? Change the channel" comment with which she ends her piece. Why it is a problem for people and the corporations we are told count as being people to watch their mouths and mind their language--things we teach our children to do as a matter of course--eludes me; why speakers should not adjust their messages based upon the needs and desires of their audiences is unclear. Yet it seems to be--at the same time that people lament both "overly sensitive" people and a decline in civility.
The issue comes up entirely too often for my taste. I've written on it before, so I'll not rehash my comments; I do not think I need to do so. But I will tweak the comments to suit the current situation, to wit: a radio station deciding it is not in its best interests to play a particular song because it recognizes that song does not sit well with its listeners is prudence, not censorship. It is not being forced to pull the song; it is choosing to do so, and if it is choosing to do so because it recognizes that its listeners will not approve, so that its customers--advertisers--will not want to do business with it, then that's fine. Motive matters to some extent, as the whole argument about the song itself remarks, but it matters less than effect, as we see every time someone is slain accidentally. Whether the death is intended or not, the person is dead; while a lack of intent may make it not murder, as such, the person is still dead. And the same is true with words that, in themselves, do little harm but in the context that has become conduce to more than can be accounted--and more than merits something so blithe as "change the channel if you don't like it."

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

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On 9 December 2018, Glenda Wolin's "More Thoughts on that 'Simple' Hug" appeared in the online version of the San Antonio Express-News. The piece is a response to another bit of commentary that had been contributed to the newspaper, and it lays out some of the fraught context in which women in the US have experienced hugging, context that underlies some of the reactions to being hugged even by those who mean to express honest affection. She notes the repeated incidence of assault on women and girls, even and especially by persons whom they should instead have been able to trust; the tragedies of familial abuse and Larry Nasser's perfidy are discussed, as are the purportedly natural inclinations of pubescent boys to fondle those towards whom they find themselves attracted. The lack of ready instruction against such tendencies is also discussed before the piece closes on a note that some women have, indeed, experienced hugs as preludes to horror--and that even those who have not have to think about it.
The piece reads as a gentle explanation of something that should not be so but, being, and being all too obviously so, should damned well not be something that should be attacked. And in central Texas, steeped as it is in the mythos of the Old West, it should not be a difficult concept that touching someone who doesn't want to be touched is a bad idea. Time was, it was a good way to end up dead; today, in purportedly too-sensitive times, it merely earns rebuke, while no few of those who offer that rebuke fail to do so at their own demonstrable and perhaps endured peril. I admit that I've not read the piece to which Wolin responds, and perhaps I should, but I hear as I read Wolin the resigned tone of a woman who is explaining to yet another man that, no, women have reason to feel as they do. And I know that there will be some who will decry such things as feeling and therefore inferior, who will make claims about logic and the notion that past performance is no guarantee of present action--but I somehow doubt that those same people would put their hands into Fenrir's mouth after Tyr did so or their heads into the lion's mouth after it had eaten the faces of the five who went before.
Reading the article, I am once again in mind of ways I know that I have offended and the likelihood if not certainty that I have offended in ways of which I am not aware. I was raised as I was raised, and such concerns were not necessarily noted in great detail as I was brought up. And I have done things that I knew even as I did them were other than they ought to have been. As I have learned more, I have been better about my actions, but I know that I have erred--and if I have, it is likely if not certain that others have erred similarly. I and others like me have made such explanations necessary--not because we have made others stupid, but because we were stupid, as well as evil in the banal way that works some of the longest ruin in the world because it persists for so long without attracting attention to itself. As such, I and others like me should be ashamed of ourselves--as should they who, at this point, can only be ignorant of matters by choice and who would place their own desire to express affection over others' deserving to feel safe.

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

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On 7 December 2018, the editors of the San Antonio Express-News presented "Senate Should Pass First Step Act" in the online version of the newspaper. The editorial makes the case promised in the title, asserting that the Senate should take action on the legislation described--a long-overdue piece of criminal justice reform. The editors note the bipartisan backing of the bill and the stated willingness of some Congressional leaders and the current administration to see it become law; they also note the reticence of Senate leadership to move on the bill at the moment and the likely undercutting of the bill in the upcoming legislative session if not passed in the current. Incoming Representatives are likely to push for a bigger bill--which the editors note would, in itself, be good, though the current political climate makes passage of such an expanded bill unlikely. They argue, in effect, that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, that those looking for reform of the current criminal justice system should take such victories as they can get when they are available--and keep fighting for more later.
As seems to be the case with reasonable frequency, the editors are not wrong. It is likely that the incoming Representatives, given their stated goals and the understandable frustrations of the voters who swept them into office, will seek for more reform than is currently on offer, and it is the case that more reform is needed than is currently on offer. Too, it is likely that the incoming Senators, responding to similar forces, will entrench their resistance to purportedly progressive pieces of legislation all the more deeply, making such a compromise as is represented by the First Step Act less likely to be extended to include more sweeping reform. The current offer feels like a rare chance to get something started--and, once a thing is started, it's easier to keep going. The body politic experiences inertia no less than more physical, tangible bodies.
That the editors seem to have the right idea does not mean that those who are in a position to act have the right idea, however. Instead, and as is unfortunately common, the opposite seems to be the case. A legislative leader that has demonstrated pride in holding up the duties of that legislative chamber, who has visibly ignored calls for procedural correctness, who has set aside decency and consideration in the public eye time and again, is hardly the sort to do something that might, for once, be useful and good. Such a person cannot be trusted and should not be trusted, and there is a certain naïveté in thinking that such a person would act in the way a good and honorable person would--or even someone ostensibly devoted to representing the will of the people, as an elected legislator ought to be.
It says something, and not something good, that such a person as is in leadership now is and is not likely to leave, willingly or no, any time soon. I am not sure I have the words to appropriately articulate what it says. I am less sure that they would be words others would do well to read, just as I am even less sure that something that seems like an obvious good idea will actually get put into practice, despite the recognition by many that it is something that ought to be done, both in itself and as an aptly-named first step towards more and better to come.

Monday, December 10, 2018

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To go back a bit, on 31 August 2017, Silvia Foster-Frau's "'Literary Bridge' Still Beating Heart of San Antonio" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News as part of its series of articles commemorating San Antonio's tricentennial. The piece describes and narrates the history of a particular bridge across the San Antonio River, one currently in place on Johnson Street in San Antonio's King William neighborhood. Hailed as the "literary bridge" due to being noted in the works of O. Henry, Sidney Lanier, and Margaret Cousins, the bridge continues to attract attention from artists, tourists, and locals who value it for its ongoing ability to let people simply be.
What attracted me to the piece was its title, I admit; I am and remain a nerd about such things, and an article talking about a literary bridge called to me. Given the area I study, I'd not been aware of the literary associations of the bridge in question, though I've been on it any number of times; I used to spend a fair bit of time in and around downtown San Antonio, usually to my benefit if not to my wallet's, so I've crossed that bridge, having come to it more than once. And I was pleased to see the described associations with poets both noted and less so; there don't seem to me to be enough such, and I know I've not got the writerly heft to be able to make many more that people would actually see.
As I read, I also found myself in mind of how I might use the piece in the classroom. (Still do I think of such things, and often, despite my classroom work being a shrinking part of my daily life and income.) Foster-Frau offers an excellent example of a profile, a genre which I do not seldom teach; I find myself wishing I had had it in hand earlier in the session I'm currently teaching, as it would have done me some good. I also find myself hoping I'll be able to keep it in mind as I continue teaching--not for the current session, which is already well past the point at which offering a sample profile would be helpful, but for future sessions when I might actually teach the genre again. It's not likely, though; I've often had such hopes, or I seem to recall having them, but I don't remember that I enacted them regularly or often. It's not to my credit.
Thinking on such hopes, though, even if they have been unrealized far too much, does serve to remind me of one of the reasons I thought to be a teacher (at some level of teaching) for quite some time. I do much of what I do because I love it; I play my horn for the love of it, and I study literature for the joy of it. I had thought that by going into teaching I would be able to help others find their own loves of such things by my example, that I would be able to share my love of the thing with them and awaken a love of it in them in response. It's not always been the case that I've been able to do so, sometimes because of my failures; it's never often enough the case that it is so. Sometimes, though, it has been and is, and to be reminded of it by Foster-Frau's piece, however obliquely, is no small comfort.

Sunday, December 9, 2018

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On 5 December 2018, Liz Teitz's "Brightwood College Closure Leaves Students Scrambling" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article opens with a focus on a single student affected, detailing her initial response to the closure, before expanding to treat the national and San Antonio closures of the Education Corporation of America properties. Information about the corporation, including its loss of accreditation, follows before a return to the focal student, whose comments laud her direct classroom experience but bemoan the administrative and financial situation in which she has been left.
I've noted before, elsewhere if not in this webspace, that one of my few remaining links to academe is through a for-profit college where I continue to teach. It is not the first for-profit college at which I've taught, so it's not the first situation I've been in that I worry I'll end up out of work for something like happened to Brightwood. (Indeed, one of the for-profit schools at which I've taught has folded since I left it. The one where I work now seems to be on more stable footing for the moment; at the least, its accreditation is in order and appears to be secure, though a regular reaccreditation review is in progress at present.) I am concerned that some concern for short-term shareholder value will take precedence over what students need to succeed, that some reviewer with an axe to grind or a prejudice in place will seek out things that would be overlooked at other schools and, in so doing screw over students making the most of what may be their last chance and faculty who do what they can to help them do so.
For while it is the case that there are students who act as though they've paid for an A and there are faculty who phone in their work and hand-wave students through who ought not to pass (as if there are not such at traditional colleges!), it is also the case, and more often, that the people in the classrooms at for-profit colleges are there to do the work of teaching and learning. The students want to know more (if not always about every subject being taught), and the faculty want to teach them (if perhaps not always comfortably within prescribed assignment sequences). And I have long asserted that the students at for-profit schools are not less intelligent, less deserving of rigor and challenge, or less capable than those at more traditional institutions. My experience has been that they are not, but rather that the reverse is true.
So when a system of schools like Brightwood shuts down, even if for cause, my thought is not that some greedy fucker is getting his or her just deserts, but that there are students whose lives have been upended yet again and that there are faculty who whose ability to feed themselves and their families has been imperiled or undone. My thought is that I might well be next. And it is not a comforting thought.

Saturday, December 8, 2018

20181208.0430

On 4 December 2018, the editors of the San Antonio Express-News published "Confederate Plaque Should Come Down" in the online version of the newspaper. After articulating the thesis contained in the title, the piece offers history of the Children of the Confederacy Creed plaque installed in the Texas Capitol and lays out the case of its fundamental inaccuracy before noting legal authority for its removal. The piece goes on to note the context of the plaque's installation and calls for appropriate reinforcement of that context. It is not to erase history, per the editors, but to present it as accurately as possible--without venerating something that is, in essence, execrable.
The piece is not wrong. The plaque is factually inaccurate, reflecting warping ideas in response to civil rights movements that were long overdue; it should not be presented in a position that affords it ethos and what the editors rightly note is endorsement (not necessarily tacit) by the weight of the Lone Star State. It is also a monument to treason--because the Confederacy was treasonous, a fact which seems lost on the so-called patriots who decry kneeling at the "Star-Spangled Banner" while waving a flag that (supposedly) flew over the enemies of that banner and the republic for which it stands--and so should not be enshrined in a place of honor by a component part of that republic. And it and what it stands for, both the fact of the Confederacy inaccurately reported and the still-racist views that surrounded its installation, should be kept in mind--in a museum, where fuller context and accurate information can be provided for it; what has been done wrongly should be remembered that it not be repeated.
There will, of course, be some who will clamor against it, who fetishize the idea that the Civil War was not about slavery (it was, as the written words of the secessionist traitors themselves make clear) and that their own family histories of participation in it and in the organizations that spring from it are not tainted by that basis of action. And there will be others who recognize that the history of the United States itself is built upon the oppression and enslavement of peoples and treason--for what else was the Revolutionary War but treason against a duly constituted (by the standards of the time) government?--so that it makes sense for rebellious acts to be lauded. There will be still others who, recognizing the ongoing memorialization of the failures of Valley Forge, among others, point to the insistence upon loss for validation and will understand the continued emphasis on treasonous secessionist history (while pointing out the many ironies associated with those emphasizing it). And there will be some, meaning well but less informed than they ought to be, who will insist that "you can't change history" and that "history has to be remembered."
History is mutable; it is not what was, only what is written about it. It can be changed--and should be, as more and better information comes to light.
Nobody is proposing forgetting. There is no forgetting what is still being enforced, too often upon the lives and bodies of people of color. What is being proposed is that what is incorrect be corrected and that what is shameful be remembered as shame.
Maybe, if enough such things happen, we can pull our collective heads just a bit further out of our collective asses. But that's a slim hope, indeed.

Friday, December 7, 2018

20181207.0430

On 1 December 2018, Allie Morris's "Fewer Than 600 Patients Get Medical Cannabis under Restrictive Texas Law" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article reports on the passage and present enforcement of the 2015 Texas Compassionate Use Act, which permits physicians to prescribe low-concentration cannabidiol to persons diagnosed with particular forms of epilepsy. At present, however, that permission is expressed minimally and unevenly, with the minimum legally allowable number of growers registered (of which one is not in operation) and few physicians registered to make such prescriptions. Additionally, the range of conditions allowing for the prescription is sharply circumscribed. Notably, the difficulty seems to stem from the state Senate and governor, whose opposition to the measure is on record; while there does seem to be popular support for expanding medical use, that is not translating into governmental leadership support.
Working at a substance abuse treatment facility as I do, I have what might be called a professional interest in the laws controlling various substances. No few of the clients my facility sees are referred to us because of issues with marijuana, for example, and there is some sense in which I am concerned about the expansion of legal use; many are referred to us due to criminal proceedings against them for their use of the drug, so opening up that use is like to reduce the number of people who will be sent to my facility for treatment. It is a non-profit organization, to be sure, but the lights still need to be kept on. (Even if it is legalized, though, as alcohol was, we would still get referrals, I think, but not as many.)
At the same time, those who are sent to us for marijuana only or primarily--because clients are not always penalized for all the things they do--seem generally better adjusted than those who are sent to us for other substances only or primarily. If the facility's purpose is to help people address diseases they have, and addiction is a disease, then a disease that is easier to treat and demonstrates fewer adverse symptoms is much less bad a thing to see come into the facility. This is not to say there are not problems--there are; marijuana is not wholly benign, despite its advocates' assertions--but they seem in my experience to be of much lesser scope than those associated with a number of other substances. Further, the research seems clear that medical marijuana has benefits for people in a number of situations; it can be misused, certainly, but most prescribed (and many over the counter) medicines can, as well. Nor am I ignorant of the racist underpinnings of the laws that criminalized marijuana in the first place, even if many are or claim to be.
There is more to think on in the piece, to be sure. Issues of enforcement ethics come to mind, as well as the slippery slope that threatens to open in any such discussion. That there are such things makes Morris's a good piece of reporting.

Thursday, December 6, 2018

20181206.0430

On 2 December 208, Craig Riley's "Put 'None of the Above' on the Ballot" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. In the article, Riley responds to Express-News reporting about the proportion of party-affiliated and -unaffiliated and suggests that a "None of the above" option should be added to general electoral ballots. Riley then expands upon the idea, noting problems with it intermixed with benefits; he also remarks upon his increasing dissatisfaction with the higher-level races. Ultimately, the author notes the unlikelihood of his idea coming to fruition--it is not directly achievable, and elected officials are not apt to make changes that imperil their reelection--but it is an entertaining idea, at least.
It's not the first time I've seen such an idea; I recall reading it before, though I cannot recall where at this point. It would, as the author asserts, allow ballots to reflect the opinions of those who cast them; many of those who do not vote likely don't because they find none of the options on the ballot desirable or palatable. (I know many are prevented from voting by other circumstances; I do not cast aspersion on those people. But I also believe in 1) voting against people and 2) damage mitigation when that is the available option. So there are those towards whom I am not sanguine.) But that's part of the rub, as well; there are already mechanisms for parties to select preferable candidates and for those who dislike all of them on the ballot to make their dislike known. The notion that a "None of the above" option would prompt better candidate selection thus rings as relatively naïve; losing election after election has not prompted selecting better candidates as it is, so losing another way is not like to, either.
It will remain thus as long as people are voting based on party rather than person or platform--and even after, like as not. As long as people align in such ways, chiefly based on party but not seldom based upon a cult of opprobrium, they will find any candidate acceptable as long as that candidate is not that other asshole; they will find any candidate acceptable as long as the party approves him or her--because s/he's not the other party's candidate. The 2016 election showed it abundantly; the 2018 elections were much the same, if perhaps slightly less vitriolic. (Perhaps. Slightly.)
But Riley's concluding statement is spot-on. There is a lot of room for things to change for the better. That laws--even the highest--can be amended is an acknowledgement that change may be needed, that things are not yet as they ought to be. And while the ability to change necessarily means there is an ability for things to get worse--and they can always get worse; never challenge the universe for how, as it will oblige--there is always the chance that things will go otherwise and improve. It may not be a big chance, given human nature; if offered stupidity, most people will engage in it. But it is still a chance.

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

20181205.0430

On 1 December 2018, Larry Hufford's "Democracy's Dark Side Triggers Fear among Young Adults" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. In the article, Hufford, Chair of the Department of International Relations at St. Mary's University, argues that the current political situation in the United States has even the most eminent youth afraid for themselves and for their society. He notes a need to develop a society in which people can feel safe with one another, noting that the honors students he teaches fear any number of things that they see in their daily lives and presented in major media and pointing out through them that there are deep undercurrents of anxiety and uncertainty about the future, even in those to whom people look for hopeful future. Hufford comments that developing healthy relationships is necessary to enacting the kinds of social change that will help to allay the kinds of fears gnawing in the breast, and he lays out a loose method for doing so. He concludes with a call to action on behalf of those who are now young and who are yet to be.
Prof. Hufford is not wrong to note that there is much fear underlying the daily actions of the kinds of student he teaches; I was that kind of student, though not in his classes or at his institution, but I recall some of what I felt then. (I was in class when 9-11 happened, and I walked out of the classroom into a world of many fears; I should have been more aware of them before, but I was forced into that awareness then.) I remember being afraid for myself and my place in the world, and as I learned more, I grew more worried and more afraid, for I learned more and more of the shaky, sordid foundations of much that I saw others around me holding dear. And, in many cases, I reacted with anger to that fear, lashing out at those near me and shaking my fist at the heavens that the world is as it is and not as it ought to be.
In some ways, that anger has not left me, though I am far better now than I was then at directing it towards what deserves to have anger aimed at it. There is much that merits anger, to be sure, and it inheres in many of the students' fears that Prof. Hufford relates. But I think he is perhaps overly naïve to think that building healthy relationships with those who enact such things as the students fear is possible. I think he is perhaps too hopeful for the spirit of humanity, at least within the scope of any lifetime. Perhaps across generations, such a change might arise as he calls for, and such changes are worth working toward, but I do not think him wise to think that such must be the first response to the way the world is now.
There is much that deserves anger. There is much that must be corrected, some that must be excised, before the work of building up can be done. No sound structure can be made on shaky foundations, after all, lest it topple and, in its fall, work to more ruin than had been eased by its building. Prof. Hufford does less well than he might not to speak more to that than he does; it is a necessary thing if the better world he envisions his students making can ever come to be.

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

20181204.0430

For as much as I have expressed appreciation for the San Antonio Express-News over the past few days' posts, and as much as I am like to in the days to come, it is not always the case that the news boasts something that lends itself to the kind of writing I do here. I am interested in what happens in the city where my brother lives and where I do some of the work I do, but not always in a way that allows me to put my pen to paper or fingers to keys about it. I have to wonder if it is some failing in me that I am not able to do so, that I am not always apt to summon up the kind of engagement and involvement that lets me plow through a piece of writing (and my speed at doing so is returning, for which I am thankful; it had been a concern), form an opinion of it, and express that opinion in a few hundred words of what I hope is coherent prose. (I'm getting my speed back at doing that, too, which also pleases.) Indeed, I fear that it is so.
It is a minor thing, I know, that I cannot find something in the paper about which to write for this entry. Most folks do not do so for anything they find in the newspaper, so it is some success that I have done so at all, and I've done so repeatedly. And I've done a fair bit of other writing, besides, so not necessarily having the kind of project I want to have at this moment is not necessarily a failure; the real problem would be if I were not writing at all, or if I were not writing enough. Except that I am still sufficiently mired in the mindset of academe that I think of the writing I do in terms of ongoing projects to be completed--and the common refrain of "you should be writing" that besets scholars in all fields continues to ring in my ears, the discordant strain repeating in a braying cacophony that I cannot shut out, even now. I have work to do, specific work, and I am not doing it. I can't get myself in a headspace to do it, like trying to paint without brushes or build without hammer and saw. It's bad enough that I'm mixing metaphors and similes, throwing them together raggedly and without concern for how they work.
I take some hope from one of the known features of the newspaper: there'll be another one tomorrow. Another sheaf of paper printed with words and pictures that describe the state of affairs in the Alamo City will arrive on my driveway; its pixelated counterpart will enter my email inbox. I'll have a chance to scour it again and, with luck, find something upon which I can build my own thoughts before putting them where at least a few others can see it and, perhaps, build up their own.