Mi Maduro Burro

I've named my new truck! And it's just come in with it's first gas milage stats: 28.97 miles per gallon. 29 mpg is good enough for me! Someone should tell the government, and it would have cost me $4,500 less than it did.

Exponential Times

I posted an older version of this video over a year ago. It's very thought provoking and so here's an updated version, again.

Shocking - Information Age

What I'm Reading #18

The memoir of recently passed-into-ancestry writer E. Lynn Harris is making for some very compelling summer reading. He starts his tale with his 1990 suicide attempt, and then takes you back to the events in his life that led him to that point, and then the journey to wholeness and fulfillment. It makes his untimely death two weeks ago all the more poignant. At times his story is tremendously painful to read, but you're never that far away from grace, from goodness.

He says of memoir himself, "The lessons I have learned are not limited to race, gender, or sexual orientation. Anyone can learn from my journey. Anyone can overcome a broken heart."

I would love if every teacher at my school would read this story to increase their empathy quota.

Apple as Art, as Lore

Love this clever little image. Reminds me of Michael Pollan's book, "The Botony of Desire" and all of the history and facts about apples included therein. Tidbits like the origin of apples being the central steppes of Asia. The nation of Kazakhstan to be specific, who's capital Alma Ata literally translates as "The Father of the Apple". Long way from there is its transformation into America's most patriotic fruit!

The apple is very much like us in that the seeds of every apple contain a unique genetic code. The offspring can be as much like or as imaginably different from the parent as our children. This is called, "heterozygotism," and apples exhibit this characteristic in the extreme. In an apple core this means that the ONLY way to get a replica of an existing variety is to graft it. Err, that would be the old-fashioned version of cloning.

So this particular apple carved into the world came from a progenator that appeared in the field of an Iowa farmer in the 1870's. It wasn't something he anticipated and so in plowing his fields, he wacked it back. But as anyone who owns an apple tree can testify, they are as tenacious as any weed. So for a couple of years, Jesse Hiatt, wacked back this obnoxious plant, but eventually he let the tree grow and thereby discovered the amazing fruit it produced. In 1880, he entered it in a competition which it won, and then sold the rights to a commercial interest who named it Red Delicious and began it's journey into the pantheon of all American apple history. Every single Red delicious apple ever eaten, admired, turned into cider, whatever, since then is a clone of a clone of a clone of that scrappy little volunteer apple tree on that rural Iowa farm. And now someone carves one into a map of the world--how fitting.

Merce Cunningham RIP

Another artist has died. Merce Cunning- ham was one of the most influent- ial and innova- tive choreographers of the twentieth century. He created more than 200 choreographic works in his lifetime. He was to dance, what a host of abstract expressionist artists were to painting and/or sculpture, but he did it on his own. A lover of the human body, he demanded his dancers to embrace movement and physicality for it's own value--unhindered by music, lighting or other theatrical trappings. His passing into ancestry on Sunday, July 25th, has forever marked an end to era in dance. In accordance with his will, his dance company will disband by July of 2011, but his influence will forever extend into the future.

Merce was a member of the cast of many who's ideas and influence pushed the rest of us into modernity. Too many people live life as serfs tending the soil of their meager lives never imagining for a moment the power of the present, let alone the possibility of the future. Merce's life expressed a profound desire to live as if the possible were the present, and the present was always reaching out for more...what a compelling witness to our potential.

Cash For Clunkers Fever

I visited a local Nissan dealer today after exploring possibili- ties online last evening. It was a hot day, sun and humidity past my comfort zone. I stood a good while on the lot until a grey haired, copper skinned gentlemen approached me and began the transaction process as my salesperson--how random life is for those who work on commission.

I quickly discovered, he was this wonderfully congenial Jamacian-American. We bonded around the teaching thing: in a former life, he taught at an elite high school in Kingston. At 62, he still remembered with genuine nostolgic affection his role as track coach there, and his students whom he'd guided to inter-American first place trophies back in the mid-70's. After emigrating to the United States, he coached at Arch-Bishop Carroll high school in Washington, D.C. for a time and took a few of the kids there to international meets, too, where they prevailed. I love stories. Older men and women possess amazing ones. I went there to explore the possibility of buying a truck, and I walked away owning the gift of another man's world.

On the particulars, I can get $7,500 off the sticker price. The truck I'm looking at is a Nissan Frontier; appears to be available and the monthly payment is cake for me. I'm planning to return tomorrow to close the deal. Having not purchased a new vehicle since 1992!--my current truck, a.k.a. "clunker," doesn't even show up on the Nissan website for trade in quotes (which only goes back to 1995)! And it's engine is still purring like a kitty!

What I'm Listening To #57

Pulled out this amazing album and have been listening to it over the better part of the last couple of evenings. There's a reason why it was the all time best selling album prior to Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Produced in 1971, I didn't discover it until 1985. As a result, all of the ground breaking songs embraced by the feminist movement on "Tapestry" largely remained obscure from that vantage point, and the album was free to take on an intensely personally role in the soundtrack of my mid-20's. It’s the backdrop to unrequited love, existential angst, incredible friendships, and some of the most profound moments of personal revelation in my life.

Listening again is like opening up a locked box of intimate memories, blunted feelings, and nearly forgotten moments. The risk of melancholy is still ameliorated by Carole King's forceful message of empowerment that is the foundation of this amazing album.

What I'm Listening To #56

Black-Eyed Peas are the Zeitgist of Now.

Every beat, every lyric, every song speaks to us today. If you don't get this, then welcome to yesterday. It's another day...another place to be. Nothing on this album judges the day in which you find yourself.

What I'm Listening To #55

Loving this early collection of the singing of the children of Pops Staples! The music is wonder- ful. The voices are beautiful. The genre so fuses gospel with Delta and Chicago Blues, and African American Folk as to be a slice of American Culture pristine and precious. Can I get a witness? May this circle be unbroken!

Garden Curiosity

Anyone who knows me, knows I appreciate what the earth chooses to do when it comes to gardens. Each volunteer, each interloper in my well devised plans is only a plant that is seeking advantage in the only way plants can: seeds, roots that follow the sun, seek water, nitrogen, acidic soil or base... And as I watch, I am their pupil. Plants can teach us a lot of things.

Here's a weird example. Ever since moving into my home, I've worked to create gardens and remove lawns. Most are completely gone, and the feeble attempts by various grasses to maintain a foothold have been farely easy to weed away. Yet a little grass plant sprouted in a fallow clay pot, and over time I just ignored it. Then I actually admired it. And now I marvel at it. A single grass plant in a loan flower pot that has grown to the height of just over 4 feet. It's beautiful. It plays in form and grace so well against it's background of various foliage.

I wonder if a plant -- this plant -- were to bear anything as tender as a conscious-mind... I wonder if it could, if it does understand it's place in evolutionary history. How grass being the most recent invention of plantlife on earth, gave mammals the edge over other animals, gave man the foot up to establish culture. And if, just if, it does -- what wisdom would it have to share with me....

E. Lynn Harris RIP

E. Lynn Harris has died! At the tender age of 54, too.... My first love of his was his 1998 novel, "If This World Were Mine." I bought it in an airport bookstore on a whim, and had devoured it between Houston and Managua in one sitting. Ever since, I was complete fan of his work.

Was he in the same league as a Hemingway, Baldwin, or Sinclair? No. But he was an amazing story-teller, who wasn't afraid to include the presence of the DL Black men in his tales; and was that amazing? -- Hell yes!

News of his death has hit me like a gut punch. I wanted more of his stories and expected them for many more years to come...yet, I am grateful for the ones he wrote until now. May his spirit inform us all and inspire the next generation most expecially.

What I'm Watching #209

Watched this film from Japan today. We have been taught that Japanese culture is very reserved and polite -- if so, Japanese cinema channels its alter-ego. "Schoolboy Crush" is about a mythical island nation on the rim of Asia where androgynous boys rule the known world and vie for each other's attention and sexual favors....er, I mean it's about a group of teenaged boys going to an exclusive, jesuit run private school somewhere in the Japanese countryside. Well, actually, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. There's sex for hire, sex for comfort, sex for punishment, sex denied, sex for blackmail, and a suicide to spice things up. And a creepy aside, one of the leads, Atsumi Kanno, looks a whole lot like Michael Jackson... which makes one wonder if MJJ's real goal wasn't to become white, but a Japanese "anime" character. It's really hard to know exactly what to say about this film that's just serious...it makes me think that of all the cultures I have been exposed to in the world, the Japanese is perhaps the most enigmatic.

What I'm Watching #208

Yesterday was Sweden; today I took a cinematic journey to the Philippines and watched "Moreno." It's a unique film idiosyncratic to the vision and life of its filmmaker, Chris Pablo. Chris tries to tell two stories here: 1) the growing dissolution of his relationship with his irrepressibly promiscuous boy friend of seven years, and 2) the plight of abused women trapped in a T'Bolio indigenous community and their intertwined struggle with poverty and polygamy. These are ambitious themes in the hands of a filmmaker with lots of heart by little cash, rudimentary technology, and a crew of "actors" who often doubled as gaffers, best boys, self-catering meals and working off the dime. Enjoy the ideas, appreciate the vision, and forgive everything else in the middle.

Sotomayor Score Card Up-date

Our Latest American Hero #135

Army Cpl. Benjamin S. Kopp, 21, of Rosemount, Minn.; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Ga.; died July 18 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington of wounds sustained July 10 in Helmand province, Afghanistan, when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire.

“Rosemount Man Dies After Attack In Afghanistan”

21-year-old Ben Kopp of Rosemount died Saturday, July 18 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., of wounds suffered July 10 in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Kopp was shot in the leg when insurgents attacked his unit, according to reports from his mother, Jill Stephenson on the Caringbridge Web site.

Kopp was treated in the field and later had surgery to repair his leg, but he lost an excessive amount of blood and went into cardiac arrest. He was in a coma and under care at Walter Reed Medical Center where he died July 18.

Kopp’s mother decided to take her only child off life support and donate his organs, according the local Fox news channel.

“Please continue to say prayers for all of the men and women who so proudly serve our country,” Stevenson wrote.

e graduated from Rosemount High School in 2006 and immediately enlisted in the Army.

“His continued service for America in the theaters of war is a testament to his sense of honor, and that of his family,” said Rosemount Mayor Bill Droste in a statement. “We want his family and friends to rest assured that we all are grateful for his and their heroic sacrifice. They are and will remain in our thoughts and hearts.”

What I'm Watching #207

Just saw this Swedish film called "Sebastian". It's the story of a teenage boy's journey toward self acceptance and coming out to his friends and family. He manages to survive accepting parents, and friends, and a crush on his sexually conflicted best friend who is likewise very supportive -- But then again, this is Sweden not Alabama! Clearly different standards for defining drama. A pleasant little film.

What I'm Reading #17

A fascinating book for periodic, episodic reading is Norman Davies' colossal "Europe: A History". I've been nibbling at it for years and no time is better than summer time when one wants a distraction from time to time. Davies' knowledge is unlike anything that I've encountered on this topic, and he generously shares it in this 1,365 + page tome.

Tonight I was reading about the 1500's when I stumbled upon this gem: "At the Midsummer's Fair in mid-sixteenth century Paris, cat burning was a regular attraction. A special stage was built so that a large net containing several dozen cats could be lowered onto the bonfire beneath. The spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized. Cruelty was evidently thought to be funny." OMG!

Or this: "Andalusian Gypsy music in the style now known as flamenco has been played and admired since the sixteenth century...Flamenco simply means 'Flemish.' In the vocabulary of art, it also gained the connotation of 'exotic' or 'ornate.' One theory poses that Jewish songs banned by the Inquisition found their way back to Spain from Flanders, where many Spanish Jews had taken refuge. Another suggests that flamenco derives from the Arabic "fellah-mangu" or 'singing pheasant.'"

Or this: "Jachimov is a small Bohemian town in the Joachimsthal, some 80 km north of Pilsen. In 1518 Count von Schlick was granted an imperial patent to mine silver there and to establish a mint. His silver coins were produced by Walsenwerke or "rolling machines," and were formally classed as "large groats." Their popular name was jaochimsthaler, soon shortened to "thaler." Hence the origin of the modern word Dollar.

Is it any wonder that this book is so enthralling? And don't get me started on Nostradamus, Vlad the Impaler, Hexes, or the 100 year's war!

Africa

This is a group called Perpetuum Jazile an a cappella jazz choir that hails out of Ljubiana, Slovenia. That fact alone seems somehow amazing when remembering it was not that long ago when the former republics of Yugoslavia were warring and ripping apart at the seams of civilized society. Of all, Slovena is the most successful and prosperous. This way cool group testifies to that.

Healthcare Check Up

Where in the world is it better to get sick than the Imperical nation of the United States of America with its healthcare envied by all those living on the known planet? Hmmm... There are 36 nations with better healthcare? We're 37! in the world? The wealthiest, most powerful, biggest DICK filled nation in the history of the world, and a people cowering on the little Caribbean Island nation of Dominic stand a better chance of seeing a doctor, receiving quality health care?

What's wrong with this picture? I can attest, that as an employee of one of the most successful and wealthy school districts in America, my healthcare is stellar. If I were to loose my job tomorrow--I'd suddenly have bubkis for my plan; emergency rooms, the kindness of strangers, a complete burden on the rest of you working plebes.

I needed healthcare in Italy (#2 ranking) in 1990 for a strepe infection that boiled up on my left calf and got it for all of $4.00 bucks. It cost me even less in Costa Rica (#35 ranking) in 1984 for a remedy sold over the counter to counter-act a fungal skin infection on my face. I've been lucky.

Why should healthcare in the most prosperious and powerful nation on the planet depend on luck or employment? Why should change require politicians beholden to the contributions from contra-indicated interests like pharmasutical conglomerates and Insurance companies to oppose their fiscal masters in favor of their mere constituents? God help us, please....

What I'm Watching #206

Yeah, I'm in a manic movie mood these days! And a psychological pathology actually enhances one's experience when it come to the film "Running with Scissors!"

I can't remember a more fascinating movie. This film is a tour de force of story-telling. It's so many talented people playing so many kinds of crazy....it's hypnotic. I loved the performances of Annette Bening, Joseph Cross, Jill Clayburgh, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Alex Baldwin and Gwyneth Paltrow -- in that order. They're ALL amazing. And when the short of end of the stick holds Gwyneth Paltrow and Alex Baldwin, you've got a damn good time in your DVD player!

Put the scissors down, and then run -- don't walk -- to get this film. two thumbs way up!