Tag: education

(cross-posted on Kos)

In the 1950’s, my Dad was the head counselor at a summer camp in in Pennsylvania. About 10 years ago, I ran into a friend who had gone to the camp.  After reminiscing for a few minutes, I asked him if he would like me to give his regards to my father.  His answer:

“Don’t give him my regards.”  He paused.  “Give him my respect.”

The comment captured his larger-than-life presence for generations of kids at summer camps and at the schools where he was a teacher and principal.

My Dad died on October 24 at the age of 91.  He was a quintessential member of the “Greatest Generation.” Born in 1916 to immigrant parents, he made it through the Depression, went to City College, served in W.W. II, took advantage of the G.I. Bill, raised a war baby (my big brother) and a boomer (me), moved to an “urban suburb” (Rockaway Beach, NY), worked two jobs — teacher and principal; and camp counselor and director.

Also, between 1973 and last month, he tenaciously and courageously fought his way through several heart attacks, a couple of “mini-strokes,” two multiple bypass surgeries, carotid artery surgery, gall bladder surgery (with complications), knee surgery and loss of most of his sight and hearing.  But another heart attack on January 1, 2007 began a series of events that even he could not withstand.  

In the Emergency Room that night, the doctor asked a series of questions to test his cognitive functions:  He aced “What’s your name?” and  “What’s your wife’s name?”  Then the doctor asked “Who’s the President?”  

His reply: “We have a President?”

We knew then that his mental functioning was fine.  

Canada is vilified in the US as a country with high taxes. Sure they have universal health insurance, but look how much they pay in taxes!! Not like here in the good ol’ US of A.!

Right?

Actually, maybe not. According to a recent study from the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, Paying Taxes 2008: A global picture, Canada ranks 99th out of 178 for total tax rate. (Top-ranked are low-tax havens like Vanatu, the Maldives and the United Arab Emirates; bottom-ranked are a number of sub-Saharan countries where taxes actually exceed 100% of commercial profits – ouch.)

Canada at 99th beats out the US at 102nd.

Whew, that was one hell of a ride, but it seems to be over now.  Time for some Datamining.  This time Education.

There seem to be  several people who, like me, are self-educated.  I wanted to put in a category for that, but couldn’t figure out how to do it.  Even a PhD has some education derived from personal reading and analysis, so I’ll just go for Formal Education here.

People have also shown interest in the earning power of DDists.  This is harder because earning power can, and frequently does, change drastically.  I wanted to place two polls here, but don’t see a way to do it.  Next time.

In response to this, an essayist wrote this:

Then the student called me a racist. He claimed I was picking on him because he was Latino, and that I wouldn’t be pulling him out of the class if he were White. . . . Was the student race baiting? You bet he was. He was making specious and unsupported claims of racial victimization in order to distract from his own obnoxious behavior.

. . . Just to be clear about the program.  These kids all come in for a one off session and there is rarely if ever any repeats.  I had never met the student in question before that day, nor had I had ever spoken to or about him before the incident.  This is a voluntary program for the students and I do not take attendence, so there was no reason to even say his name.   To my knowledge and belief, there was absolutely no reason for the student to make the claim he did other than for the reasons I’ve already stated.  End of story.

End of story indeed. For Night Owl, this Latino student’s experience PRIOR to attending his class DID NOT EXIST. The racism and bigotry that permeates our culture and our country DID NOT EXIST. The feelings this Latino student had about his own experience outside of that classroom prior to meeting NIght Owl DID NOT EXIST.

GET OVER IT is Night Owl’s advice. ‘Why do we need to consider the racism and bigotry of our culture and nation? I am not a racist. I am not a bigot. Sure I am white. But I am not a racist. I am not a bigot.’

This sounds like nothing more than someone sayng “I did not own slaves.” Why should I pay for it? Most of us are familiar with this line of thinking. It is what is used to oppose affiramtive action, civil rights laws, indeed most every program designed to address the race issue.

A lot of people believe that the problems of race are attended one by one, individually. On one level, this is true. But the notion that the institutional, cultural and national racism and bigotry of our country can be washed away without addressing what racism and bigtory have done to our current situation, that we can walk into a situation with a clean slate, is ludicrous to me. It is equivalent to saying you do not want to do anything about it.

It is not possible imo to remedy and address racism, sexism and bigotry even we do not face up to the hard truths about oursleves, our cultures, our society, our Nation. We can not pretend what has happened did not happen. We can not pretend we do not live in a racist, sexist, bigoted country.

Just as Night Owl should not have pretended that the Latino studet’s life started when he walked into that class, no one can pretend that we as a People in this country can pretend that slavery did not occur, that peoples were NOT subjugated, that Jim Crow, redlining, segregation, etc did NOT happen. That people are not out there argung TODAY that non-whites are less intelligent than whites.

It is true that Republicans, racialists and some idealists want to pretend the past did not happen. But it did. And it causes a lot of things to happen today.

It is my opinion that attitudes like the one expressed by Night Owl are extremely harmful to fighting against racism and bigotry. And while I am sure Night Owl is no racist, his attitudes lead to aid and comfort to racists and RACISM.

It is why I will continue to fight against those attitudes. I think it is important to have that fight.

This is a revision of an earlier essay I published on DailyKos.com, in preparation for its republication in the Environmental Analysis journal (and perhaps elsewhere).  Its major premise is as follows:

Sustainability is nowhere to be found, and so we appear to be groping in the dark when looking for it.  One of the ways in which we can proceed to build knowledge about sustainability, however, is in the community garden.  A conceptual guide to the idea of sustainability is located in the concept of prefiguration (as described by Joel Kovel in his book The Enemy of Nature), which describes the sense in which social institutions point to the possibility of a global, ecologically sustainable, society.  Community gardens have important prefigurative qualities, too.  The bulk of this diary, then, will be about one such community garden, one located on the campus of a college: the Pomona College Natural Farm.  The Pomona College Natural Farm will be presented as a place where sustainability, both in social and ecological terms, can be studied.  Its conclusion will attempt to speculate about the significance of the Farm and of community gardens as “prefigurations.”