I just read an article in the New York Times about how obese people are fighting back against health care. I like that phrase since, it seems to me, being fat is kind of a fight against being healthy. The point of the thing was that groups who advocate for the large people in our society are fighting the idea that the obese should lose weight. Okay, I'm oversimplifying and twisting it a bit, but such is life.
Here's the thing: I used to be almost thirty pounds heavier than I am now and I'm about fifteen pounds heavier than I should ideally be. I eat out of depression and confusion rather than out of true hunger. It's a struggle for me. But I know that and I know that in order to be healthy, I have to eat differently, I have to change my mindset. And that's what I'm doing, what I've done.
I don't like this idea that we need to band together to preserve who we are if we aren't in good shape. If the point of a group of large people is to start running, to investigate new ideas for getting healthy, or to support each other in moving forward, then I'm all for it. If not, well then it's like having a bunch of smokers band together to support their right to suck on the damn things and keel over someday with whatever choice of disease they bring down on their heads.
There are groups online for young women who are trying to starve themselves to death. I'm not supporting those very much either and I don't mind if the health care bills want to curb anorexia and bulimia. I would love to see a two-prong approach taken on healthcare. One, we incentivize people to get into healthy shape. Two, we de-incentivize stuff that kills us. I'm all for sin-taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, but I would take it further and sin-tax the crap out of fast-food, soda, juices, and most everything that isn't fruit or vegetables.
We know what makes people fat. It's the American way of eating. So the healthcare debate should include some changes to that system of eating. I don't think that we need to band all the unhealthy people together to advocate for bigger chairs at the tables. What we need is to band together to rethink the reasons why we're all so damn sick in the first place. Then, maybe we can start getting better and we won't have to spend so much at the hospitals anymore.
Not that I think any of that is going to happen real soon.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
On the Front Steps
I'm sitting beneath a blue sky feeling the evening breeze setting aside the sweaty heat of the afternoon and listening to the computer play some random songs that aren't bad enough to turn off, aren't good enough to stop me from typing to pay attention. Across this street the perfect, round tree of summer is still a scraggly skeleton of pre-spring while next to it another tree has burst green overnight and decided that this is close enough to summer. The world is coming into bloom, each part of it in its own time.
There's the obvious metaphor that I too may find myself bursting into bloom, coming out of a deep slumber that has been on me now for almost exactly four months. A malaise, a depression if it must be called that (and I think it must). Today was a thick day, molasses through which I kept wading. i couldn't see the world right today, couldn't hear the bird on the wire, didn't feel the warmth of the sun. Looking up into the blue sky I see two jagged remnants of jet plane trails. I didn't hear those planes pass, didn't see them flying high. My eyes were looking down or just plain closed. Those planes are long gone. It's too late to see them. They've gone to the places they were scheduled to go while I sit still here in the fading sun typing into the unknown.
I keep having trouble sleeping, more trouble waking, and varying amounts of trouble getting through the day. I would go see someone about all of this, but I know what it is, I know, I know, I Know. It's all of a piece. It's not knowing what I want and who I want to be. It's not knowing how to get through the rest of my days. And I'm already seeing someone about all of those things though, I suspect, she is witholding all the good answers from me until our hundredth session or so.
Maybe this is the answer: writing word after word and trying to be truthful with each one. Maybe it's just a matter of saying things to myself, to anyone else who might be listening, and trying to move forward to the destination I am scheduled for. Maybe this is my vapor trail, thin and straight now as I leave it, disippating and disappearing as I move farther and farther away.
Or maybe it's just words. Either way, it's something to get me through this evening and by tomorrow, both of those trees over there will have grown just a bit taller and bloomed greener than they are tonight. It's Spring after all and there is no telling what might come into bloom.
There's the obvious metaphor that I too may find myself bursting into bloom, coming out of a deep slumber that has been on me now for almost exactly four months. A malaise, a depression if it must be called that (and I think it must). Today was a thick day, molasses through which I kept wading. i couldn't see the world right today, couldn't hear the bird on the wire, didn't feel the warmth of the sun. Looking up into the blue sky I see two jagged remnants of jet plane trails. I didn't hear those planes pass, didn't see them flying high. My eyes were looking down or just plain closed. Those planes are long gone. It's too late to see them. They've gone to the places they were scheduled to go while I sit still here in the fading sun typing into the unknown.
I keep having trouble sleeping, more trouble waking, and varying amounts of trouble getting through the day. I would go see someone about all of this, but I know what it is, I know, I know, I Know. It's all of a piece. It's not knowing what I want and who I want to be. It's not knowing how to get through the rest of my days. And I'm already seeing someone about all of those things though, I suspect, she is witholding all the good answers from me until our hundredth session or so.
Maybe this is the answer: writing word after word and trying to be truthful with each one. Maybe it's just a matter of saying things to myself, to anyone else who might be listening, and trying to move forward to the destination I am scheduled for. Maybe this is my vapor trail, thin and straight now as I leave it, disippating and disappearing as I move farther and farther away.
Or maybe it's just words. Either way, it's something to get me through this evening and by tomorrow, both of those trees over there will have grown just a bit taller and bloomed greener than they are tonight. It's Spring after all and there is no telling what might come into bloom.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The Face from Auschwitz
The New Yorker this week has an article about a newly discovered album of photographs from Auschwitz a place I should rather not think of but can not seem to stop considering once it has been brought back to my attention. One photograph in particular from the article has my attention. It is not from the new collection but from another that is kept in Jerusalem. It shows the sorting ramp. At the top of the frame stretches a line of men while lower, closer to the viewer, a more rag-tag line of women is formed. At the head of the lines, between them stands an SS officer with a cane held horizontally behind him in both hands. All of this is troubling, but it is one woman at the very head of the line who has turned, or been turned, and is walking toward the front of the frame who holds me more than the woman who is on the ground, the men looking on, and that horrifying man with his back to the frame.
I've seen this woman before, or at least, I have seen another woman her equal in nearly every respect. She is the face, the dress, the glasses of women who stand fixed in albums here in my home and at my wife's family home in the Catskills. She is just as any of my wife's aunts, great-aunts, and family friends are. She has the face of her grandmother from years long before mine, when she was still young and vibrant, the way my wife is today.
She is moving in the picture with something that looks too much like dignity and purpose to be anything else. I almost picture her going toward a guard, to slap him, to wag her finger in his face, to walk out of there as though she were in charge. But I know this, without any documentation, without any facts, I know that she is dead, that she died shortly after this picture. I know that she was murdered and that she was shown no degree of sympathy or dignity. I know that her body was burned with no regard to who she was, who she had been, who she might have turned out to be.
The rest of the album shows the face of an SS officer enjoying life around the camp. He has a dog. He takes target practice. He flirts with young women. He does everything a human being does and he looks as normal in his photographs as I look in mine. Throughout the series of photos, I kept thinking that this was a monster, that everyone in these pictures was monstrous. But I also know that they look awfully like me and that I can't imagine what I would have done in their places. God help me, would I too have been reveling in the purity of my blood and the acceptance that all Jews must die?
Tonight, I have had to go and check on my oldest daughter twice. Her eye hurts. Her stomach hurts. She simply doesn't want to go to sleep. She never has liked surrendering to the night. Tomorrow she, her younger sister, and my wife will go to the temple for Sunday school and an activity about Israel. I will go to the gym to run on the treadmill and wonder what I will do this day and forward to deliver us from evil. Any small act will do, I'll remind myself. Even words on the page. Maybe especially words on the page and a photograph or two that will remind us all that the darkness around us is deep.
I've seen this woman before, or at least, I have seen another woman her equal in nearly every respect. She is the face, the dress, the glasses of women who stand fixed in albums here in my home and at my wife's family home in the Catskills. She is just as any of my wife's aunts, great-aunts, and family friends are. She has the face of her grandmother from years long before mine, when she was still young and vibrant, the way my wife is today.
She is moving in the picture with something that looks too much like dignity and purpose to be anything else. I almost picture her going toward a guard, to slap him, to wag her finger in his face, to walk out of there as though she were in charge. But I know this, without any documentation, without any facts, I know that she is dead, that she died shortly after this picture. I know that she was murdered and that she was shown no degree of sympathy or dignity. I know that her body was burned with no regard to who she was, who she had been, who she might have turned out to be.
The rest of the album shows the face of an SS officer enjoying life around the camp. He has a dog. He takes target practice. He flirts with young women. He does everything a human being does and he looks as normal in his photographs as I look in mine. Throughout the series of photos, I kept thinking that this was a monster, that everyone in these pictures was monstrous. But I also know that they look awfully like me and that I can't imagine what I would have done in their places. God help me, would I too have been reveling in the purity of my blood and the acceptance that all Jews must die?
Tonight, I have had to go and check on my oldest daughter twice. Her eye hurts. Her stomach hurts. She simply doesn't want to go to sleep. She never has liked surrendering to the night. Tomorrow she, her younger sister, and my wife will go to the temple for Sunday school and an activity about Israel. I will go to the gym to run on the treadmill and wonder what I will do this day and forward to deliver us from evil. Any small act will do, I'll remind myself. Even words on the page. Maybe especially words on the page and a photograph or two that will remind us all that the darkness around us is deep.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
The Buzz
I've been using Google Docs for over a year and love the idea of having all my documents available anywhere I happen to be on the planet so long as I have a computer that is connected to the Internet. I've also been using the collaborative aspects of Google's application in order to work on a document with a team that included me in Syracuse, a professor in Cortland, and another professor out in Seattle. The system worked flawlessly with all of us sharing revisions in real time and being able to meet as though we were all hunched over keyboards on the same kitchen table.
Google has done all of this stuff right, but the area in which their product falls way short is in the ability to see what is going on as I type. In Google Docs, I type in what I would call Edit Mode and then have to Print Preview to see how my browser will render the document. While typing I have no idea where the lines will wrap or where the pages will break. If I need to fit a document onto one page, I must Print Preview, switch back to Edit Mode, edit, hope for the best, Print Preview again, and go through that process until things are the way I want them.
All of this is reminiscent of the old word processors such as WordPerfect 5.1 which was a terrific tool, but also fell short in this same way. I used 5.1 for many years and was well accustomed to the dual modes (Edit and Preview), but when I finally made the leap to a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWIG) program, I knew that I would never go back.
It's the same way with Buzzword and Google Docs. I love the collaborative power of Google Docs, the way it integrates with my Gmail account (along with my calendar, pictures, and the rest), but I hate having so little control over my documents. After all, my primary activity on a computer remains, just as it was on my first 286, word processing. Buzzword has all the buzz going for it right now and Google needs to catch up. I'm not dumping Google Docs just yet, but I'm doing more and more writing inside Buzzword and expect to keep going.
Give it a try yourself at http://preview.getbuzzword.com. But be careful; you might not ever go back to typing in much of anything else.
The Bush Administration Tortures My Wife
Like the Dixie Chicks' quote that got them in so much trouble, I too am ashamed of my country. I have, in the past, kept my complaints isolated to this administration, saying that I am ashamed of the Bush Administration, ashamed of this president, and ashamed of the image of our country that this administration has projected around the world. But now I've gone over to feeling embarrassed and ashamed by the whole of our country because we--every one of us--allowed this administration to happen twice. It's the old rule: vote for him once, shame on him; vote for him twice, shame on us.
What has pushed me over this edge is the ugliness of continued torture, the futility of and continuing lies about the war in Iraq, and the constant use of fear to intimidate the American people and further this administration's selfish goals. I can no longer excuse this as the acts of the few mad men and women who run the show. I have to blame all of us and I am ashamed.
We tried to make a difference in 2006 with the election of slim Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, but it didn't pan out. Sure, the Congress has slowed the Bush Administration to some extent, but it hasn't turned things around. The war not only continued but was escalated. Torture is still the rule rather than the horrible exception. The national debt is insanely high. The economic situation for most Americans is falling apart. And the list goes on.
But the worst of it is that we have continued to be a nation that lies, that does wrong, and that refuses to reconsider the path we are on. This is what I am ashamed of and why I agree with my wife that the Bush Administration is torturing me.
What they have tortured out of me is my love of our country and the rule of law. They have beaten me down so that I no longer believe that we are the shining light on the world stage. They have mounted a sustained campaign against the fundamental ideas of our nation and I have succumbed.
Still, there is hope. I look to the next election to change the conversation, to bring us back to where we are supposed to be going, to remind me of the things in which I should believe. And there is one good lesson from this administration. Don't leave them unchecked in Washington. Question Authority is more than an old bumper sticker. It is the sensible way to watch the government and insure that it is doing what it must, staying out of the things it should never touch, and fulfilling the rich promise of the American Dream in which, despite all this torture, I still have some belief.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
One Card in the Deck
Dear Julia and Evelyn,
You are 5-1/2 and 3-1/2 years old as I write this. Me, I'm pushing 39. While you were flying to Florida I was in a summer school classroom reading an Algebra final to a young man who was struggling to make it through high school. He's a nice kid who is both afraid of and befuddled by the most basic ideas of Algebra. His predicament was less about him being feeble-minded than about his poor habits of learning and his teachers poor teaching. Now, keep in mind that I'm a teacher and hesitant to shoulder any of the blame for this kid's problems. That will help you understand why I'm going to begin with his failings.
He was working through the exam when he came across this question:
He picked his head up and looked again at the question. I watched him count to thirteen on his fingers, ace through ten, jack, queen, and king. Not only does this kid not know Algebra, he's not much at cards. He wrote down 52 and then 13. But that was the end of it for the moment. I watched and imagined him trying to figure out the probability of drawing a spade. But what he wasn't doing was thinking it through. That's not how math is done by kids taking tests on schools. Instead of thinking, he tried to remember a formula or idea written on the board by his teacher only a week or two before and copied by him into a notebook. He knows that there must have been something on the board and then in his notebook that would cover the situation, but none of it is coming together.
I mention that the teacher wrote something and that this kid copied it, but nowhere in there am I mentioning the word learning and that's because it's not in the process anywhere. I'm being a little snide here. More than a little snide really. But there's some truth here. I would say more about this but I'm trying to keep myself free of blame for just a bit longer.
Back to the question of our chance of pulling a spade from that deck. The kid multiplied 13 times 52 on a calculator but that was too big. He divided 52 into 13 and then tried it the other way. Eventually, sensing that the problem was far beyond him, he guessed answer C, wrote it down, and moved on to the next question. The correct answer, by the way, was B. He got some others right, though. I think he may have even passed.
Julia and Evelyn, passing or failing this test means very, very little to me. Don't get the idea either that I am somehow against math in general or Algebra in particular or that I think the teacher was a particularly bad one. I love math, I love Algebra, and I was actually fond of the test he was taking. I'm an especially big fan of the question of picking a spade from a deck of cards. What I'm not a fan of is the ways in which this kid has not learned math and the many ways in which we teachers fail students every single day. This kid, even if he had remembered the notes given by his teacher, wouldn't have understood the first thing about the problem. It's about ideas, girls, not numbers.
Consider this: there are four suits of cards in a deck--diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades--and there are equal numbers of each. So, for every diamond there's a club, and for every heart there is a spade. It's a one-to-one relationship. Now, we could keep thinking about 52 cards, but it's tough to hold them in our hands let alone in our minds. Since there's one club for every diamond, one spade for every heart, let's just hold four cards in our hand, one of each suit. Julia, you hold them so that Evelyn can't see what cards you have and Evelyn, you pick one card. Don't worry, it doesn't matter what you choose, the point is the same.
Evelyn just picked one card out of four. If she chose a heart, the chance of picking it was one card out of four. If she chose a diamond or a club, it's still one out of four. And if she chose a spade, she had a one in four chance of doing so. Get it? The chance of picking any one of the suits was, is, and ever shall be one in four. You can figure it as thirteen spades out of fifty two boils down to 1/4. I can tell you that 25% of the cards in the deck are spades. Whatever way we figure it, the answer is one out of four so long as we figure it out.
So far so good. But now it's time for me to admit some complicity in all of this. Math isn't taught in the way I've described because there will be twenty-six other kids in your class and most of them won't be nearly as smart as you are. The teacher will have to attend to all of you there and that teacher's job will depend on how many of you pass the exam at the end of the year. Instead of the explanation I've given, instead of getting out cards and showing you, your teacher will write something on the board and expect you to copy it. This is the sad part of the story. It's what teachers do because all too often we get stuck thinking that that's all we can do.
But girls, don't get down on this, you've got an ace in the hole. (I couldn't resist the pun. It was right there waiting for me.) See, you've got me and I love this math stuff. I'm not here just to teach you math--that's too easy. No, I'm going to do something much better than that because I really do love this stuff and, more importantly, I love the both of you. What I'm going to do is to teach you how to love it. That way, you're going to want to know how things work. When you want to know how things work, the formulas and ideas on the board make sense or you keep at them until they do. When the formulas and ideas make sense, you can apply them whenever and wherever you need to. This is what I'm going to help you learn because I'm your dad and because few of your teachers will have time to teach you this stuff.
You're only 3-1/2 and 5-1/2 and by the time you're learning Algebra I'll be just about fifty. Algebra is fine and good, but me being fifty and probably close to death from old age, I won't need Algebra so much as I'll need people who will play cards with me. So come close. I'll deal. We've got things to teach and learn.
You are 5-1/2 and 3-1/2 years old as I write this. Me, I'm pushing 39. While you were flying to Florida I was in a summer school classroom reading an Algebra final to a young man who was struggling to make it through high school. He's a nice kid who is both afraid of and befuddled by the most basic ideas of Algebra. His predicament was less about him being feeble-minded than about his poor habits of learning and his teachers poor teaching. Now, keep in mind that I'm a teacher and hesitant to shoulder any of the blame for this kid's problems. That will help you understand why I'm going to begin with his failings.
He was working through the exam when he came across this question:
If a single card is picked from a deck, what are the chances that it will be a spade?At this he put his head down on the table and sighed. "I'm really no good at this stuff," he said. I wondered what it was he wasn't good at. Now, I know that he meant Algebra, but I wanted to say, "kid, this isn't Algebra, it's just cards." But I'm paid to read the test to him not offer advice on how to pass it.
He picked his head up and looked again at the question. I watched him count to thirteen on his fingers, ace through ten, jack, queen, and king. Not only does this kid not know Algebra, he's not much at cards. He wrote down 52 and then 13. But that was the end of it for the moment. I watched and imagined him trying to figure out the probability of drawing a spade. But what he wasn't doing was thinking it through. That's not how math is done by kids taking tests on schools. Instead of thinking, he tried to remember a formula or idea written on the board by his teacher only a week or two before and copied by him into a notebook. He knows that there must have been something on the board and then in his notebook that would cover the situation, but none of it is coming together.
I mention that the teacher wrote something and that this kid copied it, but nowhere in there am I mentioning the word learning and that's because it's not in the process anywhere. I'm being a little snide here. More than a little snide really. But there's some truth here. I would say more about this but I'm trying to keep myself free of blame for just a bit longer.
Back to the question of our chance of pulling a spade from that deck. The kid multiplied 13 times 52 on a calculator but that was too big. He divided 52 into 13 and then tried it the other way. Eventually, sensing that the problem was far beyond him, he guessed answer C, wrote it down, and moved on to the next question. The correct answer, by the way, was B. He got some others right, though. I think he may have even passed.
Julia and Evelyn, passing or failing this test means very, very little to me. Don't get the idea either that I am somehow against math in general or Algebra in particular or that I think the teacher was a particularly bad one. I love math, I love Algebra, and I was actually fond of the test he was taking. I'm an especially big fan of the question of picking a spade from a deck of cards. What I'm not a fan of is the ways in which this kid has not learned math and the many ways in which we teachers fail students every single day. This kid, even if he had remembered the notes given by his teacher, wouldn't have understood the first thing about the problem. It's about ideas, girls, not numbers.
Consider this: there are four suits of cards in a deck--diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades--and there are equal numbers of each. So, for every diamond there's a club, and for every heart there is a spade. It's a one-to-one relationship. Now, we could keep thinking about 52 cards, but it's tough to hold them in our hands let alone in our minds. Since there's one club for every diamond, one spade for every heart, let's just hold four cards in our hand, one of each suit. Julia, you hold them so that Evelyn can't see what cards you have and Evelyn, you pick one card. Don't worry, it doesn't matter what you choose, the point is the same.
Evelyn just picked one card out of four. If she chose a heart, the chance of picking it was one card out of four. If she chose a diamond or a club, it's still one out of four. And if she chose a spade, she had a one in four chance of doing so. Get it? The chance of picking any one of the suits was, is, and ever shall be one in four. You can figure it as thirteen spades out of fifty two boils down to 1/4. I can tell you that 25% of the cards in the deck are spades. Whatever way we figure it, the answer is one out of four so long as we figure it out.
So far so good. But now it's time for me to admit some complicity in all of this. Math isn't taught in the way I've described because there will be twenty-six other kids in your class and most of them won't be nearly as smart as you are. The teacher will have to attend to all of you there and that teacher's job will depend on how many of you pass the exam at the end of the year. Instead of the explanation I've given, instead of getting out cards and showing you, your teacher will write something on the board and expect you to copy it. This is the sad part of the story. It's what teachers do because all too often we get stuck thinking that that's all we can do.
But girls, don't get down on this, you've got an ace in the hole. (I couldn't resist the pun. It was right there waiting for me.) See, you've got me and I love this math stuff. I'm not here just to teach you math--that's too easy. No, I'm going to do something much better than that because I really do love this stuff and, more importantly, I love the both of you. What I'm going to do is to teach you how to love it. That way, you're going to want to know how things work. When you want to know how things work, the formulas and ideas on the board make sense or you keep at them until they do. When the formulas and ideas make sense, you can apply them whenever and wherever you need to. This is what I'm going to help you learn because I'm your dad and because few of your teachers will have time to teach you this stuff.
You're only 3-1/2 and 5-1/2 and by the time you're learning Algebra I'll be just about fifty. Algebra is fine and good, but me being fifty and probably close to death from old age, I won't need Algebra so much as I'll need people who will play cards with me. So come close. I'll deal. We've got things to teach and learn.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Perhaps Nothing At All
I'm reading a book called The Book Thief set in Germany during World War II. My Jewish wife and two Jewish children are upstairs while I, a once-upon-a-time Catholic consider what is going on and wonder why it is that I can no longer cry.
Out in our world, in our America, we have men in charge who tell us that we are either with them or against them. I hear my fellow Americans calling out, heil.
This, of course, is a stretch, an exaggeration. These are not Nazi's.
Of course not.
And yet, I feel very strongly the hatred that rises up in them, the lack of understanding, the lack of any sense of compassion.
They've stopped calling themselves compassionate conservatives, haven't they?
There was a time when my wife and daughters would have been taken away and lost to time. I would have been hated for having loved any of them. My neighbors would have gladly handed me over to the authorities in order to ensure their own safety.
I can't imagine that time even as I stand here typing trying to imagine it.
Where does this thinking go? What am I trying to say?
Perhaps nothing at all. Maybe just a short collection of words to say that we are wrong, that we don't know what we do, that the world is more than we can ever understand, and that I love my wife and children more than I think anyone has ever had the power to hate. Oh, so much more.
Out in our world, in our America, we have men in charge who tell us that we are either with them or against them. I hear my fellow Americans calling out, heil.
This, of course, is a stretch, an exaggeration. These are not Nazi's.
Of course not.
And yet, I feel very strongly the hatred that rises up in them, the lack of understanding, the lack of any sense of compassion.
They've stopped calling themselves compassionate conservatives, haven't they?
There was a time when my wife and daughters would have been taken away and lost to time. I would have been hated for having loved any of them. My neighbors would have gladly handed me over to the authorities in order to ensure their own safety.
I can't imagine that time even as I stand here typing trying to imagine it.
Where does this thinking go? What am I trying to say?
Perhaps nothing at all. Maybe just a short collection of words to say that we are wrong, that we don't know what we do, that the world is more than we can ever understand, and that I love my wife and children more than I think anyone has ever had the power to hate. Oh, so much more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
