Hopesgiving 2016

This year I'm giving hope.

I know it's blasphemous on this, America's fairy tale day,
where we celebrate a highly fictionalized meal
inspired by cliches of Native Americans and transplanted Europeans.

But this year I'm giving hope.

There is a time and a place to hearken back to the past,
to so easily learn the lessons that our ancestors had to learn the hard way,
through mistakes and pain,  suffering and death.

And yet,
we insist on doubting past lessons,
fancying ourselves so evolved, so modern, so much MORE
than we were before.

Another fairy tale I'm afraid,
especially on this day.

So this year I'm giving hope.

I'm giving hope for the hopeless,
the fighters of unbalanced battles waged for all the right reasons.

I'm giving hope for the frightened,
who can't help but see a future of violence and fear
creeping ever so near.

I'm giving hope for the suffering millions
who somehow manage to live day by day
through hardships and horrors, deep and vast
and on so many levels preventable.

I'm giving hope for those with whom I disagree,
those I cannot  understand.  Those who were
willingly or unwillingly coerced or convinced
to misplace their trust and distrust their better selves.

I'm giving hope for our fragile, shivering planet
that daily we abuse and use and consume,
even now doubting the evidence that is roaring before us.

I'm giving hope.

Thankfulness is not the task of a single day,
nor is generosity and charity, love and respect.

Thankfulness is the core of  a daily existence built on actions and words.

But hope,
hope is much more fragile,
much harder to sustain and so easily destroyed.

So this year,
especially this year,
I'm giving  hope.

My Self-Evident Truths

I've spent the past week writing increasingly bitter drafts of blogposts that I will never post.  It's not that I'm ashamed of expressing my sorrow,  my anger, my fear, my sense of free-floating betrayal that has nowhere to land.

I will never share these blogposts because sending more bitterness, anger and pain out into the world solves nothing.   I may earn a handful of thumbs up, a few comments of either support or condemnation, and then I'll still be left with the lingering, bitter  tastes of sorrow and fear long after the anger has burned away.

This is called self-control, and it is something that a wide swath of the American people have dropped like a hot rock.

I urge you to take a moment to consider the role of self-control in our lives, in our society.

Self-control is what urges us to get out of bed when the alarm clock blares at 5am, instead of just turning it off and continuing to snooze our lives away.

Self-control is what advises our brains to follow the rules of the road when we drive, to stop for pedestrians, to not cuss out co-workers, bosses, partners, spouses when their words or actions infuriate us.  Self-control is what enables us to follow the laws of our country even when, or especially when, we disagree with them.

Self-control is what each teacher and parent tries to model, encourage, teach  as they guide children towards being participating members of our communities and countries.

And here is where it starts.  In childhood.

Whatever else I may or may not have in common with  minister and author Robert Fulghum, I think he and I can agree that "everything [we] really need to know [we] learned in Kindergarten".

I believe this now more than ever.  I have always believed it.

Within the bright walls and tiny tables of preschools and Kindergartens across this nation, across the world, new and tiny humans take their first steps towards  the dubious goal of becoming adult humans.

And what are the first lessons taught in those first days and weeks of preschool and Kindergarten?

Watching eyes.
Listening ears.
Walking feet.
Kind words.
Hands of friendship.

Every  student I've ever had  started their year  learning a variation of these five first lessons. The younger the student, the simpler the lessons and the older the student the more in-depth the lessons--but the lessons remain the same.

Throughout the year I build on these first lessons, encouraging my students to wrestle with the rights and wrongs, to join in conversations about the fine lines between themselves and others.

Everyone has feelings.
Everyone has opinions.
Respect yourself and respect others.
No means no.
Be the helper.
Ask for help.
All questions are real; there are no dumb questions.
You deserve to be you.
Our diversity is exciting and beautiful, but in our hearts we are more alike than different.

This is the foundation I have always built for my students and, I hope, for my children.   This is the foundation that allows learning to happen because a community cannot work together if its members lack the self-control to simply BE together.

So what does this have to do with what is happening now in the United States, now in the wake of one of the ugliest, most divisive and horrifying presidential elections in American history?

Everything.

I will concede that the media feeds us the stories that will sell--and those stories are seldom  tales of compassion and kindness.  However it's not just the fickle media telling the stories.  Now our neighbors, friends and acquaintances are telling the stories...

...stories about hate speech and slurs, racist, sexist, homophobic graffiti, blatant confrontations.   Our cities are full of protests both peaceful and not.

Our citizens who look, speak or act anything but white and/or straight are being attacked online, verbally and physically.  Our students who look, speak or act anything but white and/or straight are being bullied in their schools.

And yes, in some cases terrified, angry and frustrated members of our diverse communities are fighting back.

Blame is being flung--

-it is Donald Trump's fault
-it is Hillary Clinton's fault
-it is the fault of immigrants
-it is the fault of the media.

These are all wrong.

I would argue that, yes,  Donald Trump has been a catalyst for the ugly, horrifying behavior we are seeing.  His election was rife with a lack of self-control.  He prides himself on saying what he thinks no matter how offensive or even ridiculous,  and the confused, angry and/or frustrated swath of largely white Americans seem to  admire what they see and hear as forthrightness and honesty.

But the real  blame doesn't rest with Donald Trump.

America was born in the shadow of the same impulses, the same kinds of rationalization for cruelty and distrust that we are seeing now.

We have always had this shadow behind and beneath us.  It has been there, diminished and waiting, when we've been at our best and it has grown when we've been at our worst.

This shadow trailed across this country as each state was claimed from the homes, lives and blood of Native American tribes that were pushed so far from their foundations that they barely recognized themselves.

This shadow followed each slave ship that docked and  it rested beneath the feet of slaves yearning to be free.

It lurked behind the barbed wire of Japanese-American internment camps.

It has always, and continues to stubbornly drag at every person fighting to have equal rights--black citizens fighting segregation and racism, Native Americans trying to cling to their land, culture and way of life, women battling for control over their own bodies, women reaching out for equal pay and power.

The list seems endless.

This shadow trailed behind our LGBTQ citizens who fought and fight to be able to live their lives in peace, to have the right to love who they love and marry who they love.

This shadow has continued to grow,  huge, dark and frightening, behind immigrants seeking a home-- or seeking to keep their home.

It is the shadow of intolerance and many times ignorance.  It feeds on fear and frustration and breeds the confusion and conflict from which our wars and battles have been consistently born.

Perhaps as long as we are human this shadow is inescapable, for this shadow exists everywhere, in every human society.

But just because it is inescapable does not mean we should accept it.

The challenge of our species is to rise above this shadow.  To accept that we are all eternally children, always growing, never finished learning, never perfect but also never without hope.

I have accepted this challenge.  Now more than ever I must continue to learn, to grow and, if I can, to help others along the way.

And to live by the same rules I give my students:

Watching eyes.
Listening ears.
Walking feet.
Kind words.
Hands of friendship.

Maybe right now especially hands of friendship.

You Were Oh So Right Mr. Golding

It has become a cliche, understood by nearly everyone as a metaphor for the unique brand of cruel chaos that only humans can inspire.

It has been assigned high school English class reading for decades and is widely recognized as a classic piece of literature.

And, as it turns out,  the United States of America is acting it out at this very minute.


Lord of the Flies

 





Surely you remember Lord of the Flies.

An airplane during an unspecified time of war crashes on a nameless Pacific island and the only survivors are a bunch of British middle school boys.

Their attempts at civilized behavior and building an organized hierarchy of leaders gradually crumbles as jealousy, greed, fear, paranoia and brutal abuse and cruelty rise.

Spoiler alert: there is no happy ending.

Well guess what?

We are living out the storyline of Lord of the Flies in real time, right now.

It is called the presidential election for the United States of America.


Think about it.

Prior to the start of this insane circus of a presidential election the United States was functioning. There were no shortage of challenges facing our country and more than enough haters lurking in our shadowy corners.   There was tension.  There were eruptions of violence.  There were paranoid worries and legitimate worries.

It was not all rainbows and unicorns. Yet it wasn't where we were now either.

But then the presidential election began ramping up, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump became the leading nominees and CRASH.

We all found ourselves trapped on our  own massive island struggling even more than we usually do to stay civilized.

Just as in Lord of the Flies, we followed the examples that our leaders-to-be gave us.

Some of  us retreated from the fray.

Some of us followed our chosen candidates into the battle, trying to keep our civility, our reason, our logic intact.

Some of us followed our chosen candidate--in truth one particular candidate--into a terrible place of intolerance, hate, violence and viscousness.

As in Lord of the Flies none of us are perfect.   Inasmuch as there is no such thing as a perfect person, there is no such thing as a perfect leader, and I'm pretty sure most of us would agree that we aren't looking for perfection.  We are looking for determination.  Vision.  Humility.  Intelligence.  Empathy. Strength.  Balance.

But in any society, large or small, there is a line of self-control and shared decency that should never be crossed, and it has been crossed in this election.

In Lord of the Flies that line was crossed and boys lost their lives--murdered by classmates caught up in the  intoxicating cocktail of power, fear and paranoia.

And we find ourselves now fractured and shattered into pieces that may never fully come together again.

The Donald Trumps of this world will come and go, roaring through our lives in a bitter storm and leaving destruction behind.

I find myself wondering how many times we can keep destroying and rebuilding ourselves before we cannot be fixed again?

Mr. Golding asked the same question 62 years ago and he was no closer to an answer than I am...than any of us are.

It may be time for me to re-read Lord of the Flies.

Please

This please is for the young eyes
that see more than you think.

This please is for the  young ears
that hear more than you suspect.

This please is for the young hearts that are just starting
to take root
with the

empathy
intelligence
respect
self-confidence
morals
character
strength
determination

that will be needed in full and vital growth
when today's children  are shoved ready or not into adulthood.

Please.

Please be the adults they need.

You've had your turns to be

a mindlessly self-centered 2 year old
a spontaneous 10 year old
an impulsive teen.

You are now the adults who must be more than you ever were.

The reins are in your hands,
the decisions are at your doorstep
and the pieces of our connected fates are  at your feet.

Please.

Greatness

Instead of my usual plan to go to work this morning, where I get to  swim in a vast and lovely ocean of children's and YA books, I found myself sitting front row center in the massive auditorium of Evanston Township High School, my friends and book colleagues on either side of me.

And in front of me...
a mere four or five feet in front of me,
standing on the stage
was U.S. Congressman John Lewis.


John Lewis is a formidable Civil Rights leader, a tireless peaceful warrior whose belief in the power of peace and love among all people has remained unchanged since he first joined the  Civil Rights movement as a very young man almost 60 years ago.

This morning he was speaking to an auditorium filled to bursting with high school freshmen.  Each of them had been given--and had been studying in class-- signed copies of "March", a graphic novel trilogy about the Civil Rights movement written by  John Lewis and Congressional Aide Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell.

As I sat in the front row, well over 1000 students filled the seats behind me, each of them fully aware of the history and the power in the man on stage before them.

And it wasn't just due to the book.

Sometimes, if we are very lucky, we encounter greatness.  Not the transient greatness of money, power, fame or even necessarily skill.  I'm talking about the greatness of spirit.  Of inner strength. The greatness that is earned by keeping to a course and a path when pain, cruelty and misfortune tempt one to quit.

As John Lewis spoke today, I knew everyone in that room sensed that they were sitting before real greatness.  Congressman Lewis told that massive room of newly minted high school freshmen funny stories from his childhood that held hidden morals and foreshadowing of his own future.  He described being beaten bloody and arrested during peaceful protests and marches.   He  reminisced about his own encounters with greatness:  Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcom X, John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela...so many others.

But above all he kept asking, demanding, imploring the same thing (and I paraphrase from my hastily scribbled notes):

"When you see something that isn't right, that's not fair and not just, you have a moral obligation, a mandate, a mission to speak up and to act."  

He repeated this throughout his talk.  He repeated it as he answered the students who nervously took the microphone to ask him carefully considered questions.  

And he always followed it up with the same directives:  never give up. keep pushing, but do so with love and always in a non-violent, peaceful manner.  

In his talk Congressman Lewis alluded to the fact that right now we are seeing a repeat--or a variation--of the same kind of hate, the same slide into violence, the same intolerance and short-sightedness as there was during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's.   

His message, as simple and elegant as it is, is a message that has been repeated by people of vision, action and peace all my life.  And it is a message we desperately need to heed once again.

At the end of the event John Lewis waved  to the audience and thanked everyone, and then simply stood on stage as waves of students rushed down the aisles towards him .

I think this is the best picture of all--John Lewis surrounded --nearly swallowed up--by young students wanting--perhaps needing--to touch greatness. 

As do we all sometimes.

And I leave you with some homework, assigned by John Lewis and graded by whatever our shared future brings:



"When you see something that isn't right, that's not fair and not just, you have a moral obligation, a mandate, a mission to speak up and to speak out."  

The Battle of the Burkini

This is a burkini. 

It is a lightweight swimwear alternative for Muslim women who want to go swimming, but who don't want to swim in yards and yards of heavy, waterlogged fabric.

This seems straightforward to me.  The burkini is a modest swimwear alternative for Muslim women whose beliefs and religion include  clothing mandates for women that they choose to follow.  I am not a Muslim woman, so therefore I strongly feel that I have no business passing judgement upon them.  I similarly don't pass judgment on women who choose to wear microscopic swimwear, or who sunbathe topless, or who wear shorts and an old t-shirt for beach swimming.  

However it would seem that the burkini is now a hot-button issue, with the anti-burkini-ists shouting down the burkini as an insult to feminism and/or  a clear link to terrorism.  

A Lifestyle article from March 2016  in The Telegraph has recently resurfaced in which  Daily Telegraph journalist and columnist Allison Pearson (2) blasted the burkini  for sending women, women's rights and feminism back to the dark ages. (1).

After reading the article my first feeling was extreme  frustration because Allison equates a woman's choice in clothing with freedom.  She points out that "the burkini is woven from shame" (1).  So if a burkini is "woven from shame", then what is a string bikini woven from?   Exploitation?  One cannot call out one extreme without also looking at the other. The writer goes on to  cite her experiences in teacher training placements where little Muslim girls were rendered markedly different for their modest Muslim clothing and customs, and in some cases unable to take part in school activities such as swimming. (1).  

As if the teachers and  fellow students didn't also have the power--and responsibility-- to reach out, learn about their Muslim classmates and in doing so discover those things they had in common as well.   The author is a clear and firm supporter of full assimilation for all immigrants, stating that we (in the UK) "should have insisted  that the price of admission to Britain was learning to conform with its customs and social attitudes" (1).  She goes on to admire Germany for one of its  court rulings that mandated that a Muslim girl must participate in school swimming lessons because "the social reality of life in Germany came above her religious beliefs." (1).   

Um.  What???? Perhaps if the girl had been allowed to wear...oh, I don't know...a burkini...she could've participated in swimming lessons easily.

And thus we come full circle to a place where no matter what, Muslim women and girls cannot win. 

But beyond the issue of feminism denied or supported in the guise of the burkini, there was another deeper and perhaps more insidious issue.   Allison might be ranting on behalf of the UK but her argument is echoed here in the United States as well, both with roots in the same divisive, poisonous mind-set:

MY way is right because this is MY country.  I was born here.  

YOUR way is wrong because this is MY country and NOT YOURS.  Even if you WERE born here It will NEVER BE YOUR COUNTRY, because you are DIFFERENT. 

In a world that is increasingly integrated, where one never knows just which branch on their family tree could also be labeled "immigrant",  where one could travel to a different country and find THEMSELVES as the odd-person out, with blaringly different language, culture and beliefs, this is a particularly ignorant and nasty stance to take.

What's even more dangerous, and of which the United States is increasingly guilty, is conflating spiritual or religious beliefs with extremism.   Our media is slathered in variations of "Muslim = Terrorism",  and in spite of plenty of intelligent, open-minded everyday people yelling out into the void "Being Muslim DOES NOT immediately make a person a TERRORIST", the media circus easily drowns them out. 

Isn't it fortunate that the same isn't being done with Christianity?  Catholicism? Buddhism?  Judaism?  

But I digress.  Back to the burkini.

1

Look at the burkini. Swim pants.  Long sleeved swim shirt.  Head covering.   It seems pretty mild to me. I'm not sensing a particularly anti-feminist vibe coming from this, nor do I fear it.  But don't take my word for it.  I'm a freaky California liberal after all.  Let's put the burkini in context.

3

Well how about this?  This is swimwear designed to provide total UV protection.  Does this scream feminist scandal to you?  Does this holler "terrorism"?   Or is it acceptable because (a) it is form fitting so we can see the curves of the model's body, and somehow visible  curves=girl power  (?!?) and (b) her head is not covered up.

4

Or how about this?  China's "facekini". (4)  Remember this?  A nearly complete head covering designed to protect the skin from the sun--often also worn with long-sleeved swim shirts.   

Perhaps the controversial  issue with the burkini is the head covering, in which case, shouldn't we have totally freaked out about the "facekini"?   But no.  The world saw the facekini, chuckled a bit, and went on its merry way. 

5

Perhaps the complaint is that the burkini is connected with the Muslim faith and its assumed views towards women and women's bodies.  Perhaps religion and cultural and spiritual beliefs are the issues here.

In which case,  why aren't we all  coming unglued about  the periodic sighting of nuns at the beach?  A nun's habit is exactly as concealing as a burka--and far more so than a burkini.   And I would argue that if, as is occurring currently in France right now, the fear is of inherent terrorism (6), the burkini would make it much more difficult to hide dangerous items than the standard nun's habit.  (disclaimer:  I am NOT saying that nuns are concealing dangerous items beneath their habits.  This is an example, nothing more.)

My point in all this is simple:  it is extremely easy to make quick judgements about things of which we know very little, or even absolutely nothing.   We look through our British-tinted glasses, or our United States-tinted glasses and we slam and shame anything that screams "NOT ME".  

Is the burkini an insult to modern feminism?  Is it designed to hide and shame women's bodies, as Allison repeatedly and vehemently insisted in her article?  

I don't know.

And it is okay for me not to know because this is not about me.  

There are Muslim women who feel their clothing is a vital expression of their faith.   And there are Muslim women who may agree with Allison and want to cast off the Burka, the Hijab, the Niqab and/or the headscarf.  

In the argument of whether or not  burkas and similar garments reinforce or undermine the freedom of the women who wear them, it is for the women themselves to determine...and our job, as fellow human beings, to respect and support their choices and, if needed, fight  alongside them for their freedom to be and believe as they choose.  

Nothing more.  Nothing less.

Sources

1.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/the-ms-burkini-for-muslim-women-shows-britain-is-letting-sexism/

2.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/allison-pearson/

3.  http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/2015-Beach-UV-Protection-Pringting-women-full-body-swimear-wetsuit-anti-sun-rashguard-Snorkeling-swimming-Surf/1852700_32495481307.html

4. http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/facekini-china-terrifying-swimwear-trend-hit-beach-gallery-1.1910561?pmSlide=1.1910552

5. https://www.flickr.com/photos/radziecki/172916749

6. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/24/french-police-make-woman-remove-burkini-on-nice-beach

Where'd Ya Go Curly Jo?

1

A friend of ours enjoys festooning Facebook with  kitschy retro bits of ephemera from the distant/not so distant past.

Recently he posted this--what looks to be a newspaper ad from the 1970's (judging by the collar on the  shirt and hairstyle).

It's not a remarkable newspaper ad.  Simply a plug for a local or perhaps traveling entertainer at one of hundreds of Holiday Inn hotels that once upon a time dotted the U.S. highways at regular intervals.

The ad gives us the basics:  Curly Jo Russell.  Two week Holiday Inn hotel bar stint.  Cocktail Hour prices.  Hotel address (although  no city or state).

After our friend posted this, quite a few other people jumped in to share humorous imaginings about the identity of Curly Jo Russell.

Because imaginings are all we are left with.



The longer I looked at this ad, the more questions percolated uselessly into my idle mind.


Who was Curly Jo Russell?
What was his real name?  Surely his mother didn't name him "Curly Jo"...right?
Where was he from?  Did he have a job besides touring the Holiday Inn bar performance circuit?
Did he have a family?  A partner?  Children?   A cat?

I did a few quick google searches and came up with nothing.

I googled "Curly Jo Russell" and "1970's performer".  Nothing.
I googled "Joe Russell", "Joseph Russell"  and "1970" along with "performer", "musician", "magician", "comedian".

Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.


Meanwhile, someone else added a bit more information to the mystery.

2

The address listed on Curly Jo's original newspaper ad matched the address for  a former Holiday Inn in Grand Island, Nebraska.

I thusly renewed my search.

Nothing.

I searched the obituary archives for the long-time local newspaper, the "Grand Island Independent" (on the assumption he might have been a local) .  I read 15 to 20 obituaries that included the name "Russell" in any way.

I did some math and figured Curly Jo may have been born between 1940 and 1950, and then narrowed my obituary search.

Nothing.


Along the way I read the summarized newspaper life stories of cowboys and farmers, ministers and world travelers, soldiers and woodworkers and teachers.  Some of the stories were long and detailed. Others simply noted place of birth and place of death.

But no Curly Jo Russell.

Now, I am well aware that I'm not a professional researcher.   And I am also aware that the name "Curly Jo Russell" might be entirely a stage name.  Or perhaps in his later years Curly Jo decided to distance himself from his youthful Holiday Inn performer past, so it wouldn't even show up in his obituary.

However I know this much.  At one point in the 1970s,  only 40 years ago or so, there was a person who called himself (or herself.  One cannot assume) "Curly Jo Russell".  

At one point only 40 years ago Curly Jo Russell wanted to share his talents with the world.  Curly Jo might have been a comedian.  A musician.  A magician.   Who knows?  The what doesn't matter as much as the fact that Curly Jo Russell followed a dream to the microscopic stage of a nondescript Holiday Inn bar in Grand Island Nebraska.

What matters is that across everything that Curly Jo Russell might have been and done, who he might have loved and lost, the entirety of his life is immortalized in a random, now-amusing newspaper ad for a Holiday Inn bar performance where his audience could enjoy mixed drinks for 50 cents each.

Depending on your perspective,  the story-non-story of Curly Jo Russell could be wildly depressing...or it could be reassuring.

Most people want to make a lasting mark on the world--a touch of immortality (because for some reason the desire for immortality seems to be somehow genetically wired into our psyches, starting with the biological drive to have children and then just spiraling out from there in all the weird ways).

What we get from this touch of immortality is anyone's guess.  But we want it anyway.

The real story of Curly Jo Russell may be lost forever.

But Curly Jo got his touch of immortality.  He surfaced improbably, 40 years after his Grand Island Nebraska performances, on a social media site where he managed to unintentionally amuse us and spark our silly imaginations.

Personally, I think there are far worse ways to touch the future.

Good for you Curly Jo.  We are entertained.






Sources

1. https://www.facebook.com/thekitschbitsch/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf

2.  https://www.google.com/search?q=holiday+inn+2503+s.+locust+grand+island
+ne&espv=2&biw=1248&bih=594&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4y
JL7ttDOAhXLpR4KHYb_DAIQ_AUIBSgA&dpr=2