Baby I'm glad you're back

Last March I gave a beautiful, emotionally charged, and surprisingly insightful epitaph on my deceased relationship with basketball.  If you've frequented my blog, you know that any declarative statement of any type that I make is basically just a placeholder for the next time I change my mind.  I go back and forth more than Pong.  So you shouldn't be surprised when I say to you that I have fallen in love with basketball all over again.

I think a couple of things have fueled the rebirth of my basketball jones.  Reading Bill Simmons certainly played a big role.  He is undoubtedly my favorite sports writer, and the passion, wit, and intelligence with which he writes about basketball is super contagious.  In fact, I could probably point to the day I started reading his Book of Basketball as the day I began to come home to hoops (this is a hindsight call- at the time, I didn't realize it fully).  It was like 700 pages reminding me what I love about the game.

Actually, now that I think about it, Simmons is probably the whole reason that I came back to hoops.  It certainly wasn't the NBA itself.  Sure, last season was extremely compelling (with a sweet feeling at the end) but then they went into lockout mode and it looked like the season would be canceled (note: in sports labor disputes, I always root for seasons to be canceled- I just think it's good for perspective)...then the game came back and Simmons wrote a bajillion articles in a short period of time, and I was pretty much hooked.  So thanks, Bill.

Really though, I don't think it was too much of a stretch to get back into it- the love was not buried in an unmarked grave, and so rekindling it from its hibernation was surprisingly simple.  Indeed, as I wrote in my basketball eulogy-
Basketball has this beautiful cadence about it. The bouncing of the ball against the hard wood floor. The squeak of the tennis shoes. The swish of the net. And the eloquence of the motion- a crossover dribble, a behind the back pass, three pointers from the corner, a sweet pick-and-roll.

I think more than any other sport, basketball is woven into my DNA, and as much as I may try to, I'll never be completely rid of my need for it.  It's like my own Ring of Power.  Purchasing NBA 2k11 (probably the most realistic sports simulation EVER) pretty much sealed the deal- between Grantland.com and my PS3, I'll be able to maintain my basketball crush indefinitely.


Last nights Boston-Miami showdown also reinforced basketball as my sport du jour.  And as unlikely as this may seem, LeBron James was the main protagonist.  Not in a 'hahaha FAIL' way either- but by putting on a masterpiece of a performance in last nights Game 6 win against the Boston Celtics.  I've never been a LeBron fan- in fact, I previously wrote this about the social enigma:
He's not the first (or only) athlete to think and act like he's bigger than the game...but gosh darn it does he annoy me. The whole macho-angry-scowl thing, the talcum powder toss, the Decision, the complaining during his rookie year when he wasn't named to the all-star team- it's ridiculous.


I suppose I'll always be a "hater", but I can also see that James is far and away the best player of this generation.  Still, even with all of his accomplishments and accolades and statistical feats, I had never ever EVER seen anything from him (or any other player for that matter) like I witnessed last night.  Mind=blown.

The stat line is certainly impressive- 45 points on 19-26 shooting (2-4 from beyond the arc), 15 rebounds, 5 assists, played the first 45 minutes straight- and the historical context makes it even more so- elimination game, on the road, against his previous personal dementor, the Celtics...but did you see it?  LeBron was locked in like I've never seen him locked in before.  The macho-act was gone, replaced by a stone-cold stoicism more often seen in the greatest killer the world has ever known.

Although with those wrist blades, I'll bet it's really hard to catch a bounce pass

And without having to actively repress the gag impulses from James' tough guy act, I was able to appreciate his full arsenal of offensive prowess.  Dunks, lay-ups, catch-and-shoot jumpers, leaners, fade-aways, circus shots.  Every trick in the bag was money last night.  Every basketball player has those days when they're feeling it- where everything you throw up just seems to go in- it's just that most of us have those days in front of the white brick walls of our local community center gymnasium and not thousands of fans at TD Garden with the fate of our season in the balance.  James just kept hitting shot after off-balanced shot, while the Celtics were helplessly throwing up their hands and arms in order to squelch the fire.  On a pair of possessions in the second quarter, James drew shooting fouls on jump shots because the Celtics were literally throwing themselves at him in order to slow him down.  Again, it was breathtaking to behold.

And there were some big shots, too.  When I started watching the game, Boston was down 22-12, and that's pretty much where they stayed until the end- always hanging around that 8-12 point deficit, always threatening to make a move but never quite getting there- because of LeBron James.  Whenever Boston started to put a couple buckets and stops together, James would come down and make some dagger shot Miami would go on another mini-run.  It was unreal. 

I will never be a Heat fan because of this (I'm confident that unless you're a Miami homer, you won't be either after you watch the video) but I am a fan of beauty, and the way LeBron James played last night was so logically beautiful, so unemotionally brilliant, that I not only have to tip my hat to him, but I have to say I really enjoyed watching him play.  Rather, I got to see LeBron the basketball player play last night, and that is so much more awesome than watching LeBron the showman or LeBron the global icon.

I still don't think I'll ever "root" for LeBron, but I have gained a new appreciation for him as a competitor and someone who takes his craft (and not just himself) seriously.  Congratulations LeBron- you've earned all the praise that comes your way for that performance.

But enough about my anti-crush.  Let's talk Rajon Rondo.  Last night was my first time seeing him play and I have to say I was quite impressed by him as well.  Since I've only missed the bandwagon by about five years, I won't be covering anything that hasn't been covered before- but still, the dude is one heck of a floor general.  He plays hard and seems to have total command of what's going on in the game at both ends of the floor.  If James hadn't been in Seek-and-destroy mode, Rondo would have been the most phenomenal dude on the court.

He's an amazing passer- both in his understanding of angles and his execution of simple plays.  Yes, he had 7 turnovers last night, but he made at least that many plays that made me say "wow"- either for their degree of difficulty or the ease of their simplicity.  I loved how, after the Heat made a free throw (or any stoppage of play, really), he'd let the ball slowly roll up the court before touching it, giving the Celtics a fuller 24 second clock for their halfcourt offense as well as extending the game.  I've always wondered why most teams wait until the end of close games before implementing such a strategy.  After witnessing Rondo pull it off a handful of times, I'm convinced it's one of the smartest things you could ever do.

I think what impressed most about Rondo was his ability to convert a dribble immediately into a pass.  Many basketball players can do this, but Rondo did this so seamlessly that it seemed like he must have the ball on a string. 

And besides, he possibly has the coolest athlete name ever.  Rajon has a very majestic-yet-silky texture that just sort of massages your tongue as it rolls over it, and his last name is even cooler:

Welcome back, basketball- I sure have missed you.

PICS- Ezio- http://www.cosplayisland.co.uk/files/costumes/1671/54204/Ezio-Auditore-de-Firenze--Assassins-Creed-2-psd27127.png
Rambo- http://moviecarpet.com/iwave/images/14/o-rambo-5-will-be-his-last-stand-all-unforgiven-style.jpg

Fuzzy Wuzzy- a qualitative analysis

Dedicated to "The Bear"

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?

If you came here looking for an actual qualitative analysis on the great nursery rhyme, then stop reading now.  This is not that.  In fact, I'm not sure what would have lead to such a conclusion (looks at title).  Well, besides that.  I'm going to be diving deep into the recess of my mind and looking at this as though it is its own self contained universe and ask- Just what the heck is Fuzzy Wuzzy?

To start with, we cannot assume he was a bear.  Even though it says that Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, this does not mean that he was, in fact, a bear.  History is literally littered with the stories of bears who were not bears.  Koala bears- prime example.  Teddy bears are another one.  They are actually stuffed animals that just look like bears.  And there is the famous Alabama football coach.  Again, looked like a bear, but was really a person.

So in this instance, we can therefore make the logical leap that while society chose to label Fuzzy Wuzzy as a bear, he was, in fact, not a bear.  Because the next line tells us that he was not even a mammal.

Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.

The fact that he had sweat glands and functional mammary glands is irrelevant.  Fuzzy Wuzzy, lacking hair, cannot be said to be a mammal.  At best, he has some sort of mammal ancestry.  Perhaps his great great grandfather was a bear- or a hippo.  Maybe his Uncle Mike was a monster of the midway.  But Fuzzy Wuzzy was not a mammal- at least not a pure blood mammal.

So what was Fuzzy Wuzzy?

We have determined that he was neither a bear or a mammal.  Actually, I have determined that.  You have sat back and been amazed.  It is in the third stanza that we find our most importantest clue- the one that unlocks the mystery of Fuzzy Wuzzy.

Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?

The writer is asking a question pertaining to the amount of fuzz that Fuzzy Wuzzy contained.  Was it a significant amount, the writer asks.  The fact that the writer even had to ask the question obviously means that he saw something that looked like some sort of full body covering.  And since it wasn't hair- well, it had to be fuzz.  How do I know this?  Easy.  I read lots of magazines about science.

Obviously the writer is merely a spectator, a distant observer of Fuzzicus Wuzzines.  He did not have access to all of the technology that we have today.  So he could not possibly have known what I am, in fact, about to tell you.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was merely a giant mutated pubescent peach.

I'm going to sit back for a moment and allow you to piece together in your mind the very obvious clues to this age old puzzle, and wait to see the light bulb go on in your head at the "Ah HA" moment.  It's so obvious really.

What has fuzz?  Peaches- and adolescent boys.  So what would have more fuzz than a peach who is in the throes of puberty?  NOTHING!!!

However, a peach on its own cannot often be mistaken for a bear- even if it is a really big peach.  So I hypothesize that at some point, the peaches molecular structure was probably mutated, either through some sort of weird cross pollination or worse- exposure to some sort of radioactive nuclear fallout that artificially enhanced the peaches latent characteristics.  These include:

• presence of an alisphenoid canal
• paroccipital processes that are large and not fused to the auditory bullae
• auditory bullae are not enlarged
• lacrimal bone is vestigial
• cheek teeth are bunodont and hence indicative of a broad, hypocarnivorous (non-strictly meat-eating) diet (although hypercarnivorous (strictly meat-eating) taxa are known from the fossil record)
• carnassials are flattened

Which are clearly shared traits with bears!  It's all so obvious now!

So armed with our new-found and irrefutable knowledge, a revised drafting of the Fuzzy Wuzzy poem might look more like this:

Fuzzy Wuzzy was not actually a bear, although he retained several physiological characteristics that are typically associated with bears
Fuzzy Wuzzy did not have hair per se, although his body was covered with a sort of velvty textured filamentous biomaterial
Fuzzy Wuzzy was, in fact, very fuzzy.

I now leave you in a state of flummoxment to resume your regularly scheduled programming.

Brush your teeth and lyrical content- an objective commentary

Currently I have a job where I listen to children's music.  Lots of children's music.  Nay, TONS of children's music.  Anyone else would go insane from listening to all the major chords, 4/4 time signatures, and repetitive lyrics that I have get to.  That's a shame though, because actually the experience has turned me into one of the coolest kids on the playground and allowed my mind to visit a beautiful world that it hasn't been to since...well, okay, it's pretty much there all the time.

That said, having spent over five months as a virtual man-child, it has become increasingly apparent to me that adults who write children's songs think children are either 1) stupid or 2) not paying attention.

I understand that kids don't have a wealth of world experiences and aren't cognitively up to snuff when it comes to processing life as we know it.   Naturally then, adults compensate for these shortcomings by creating songs and shows that are so far outside of the realm of human experience that it's a wonder our kids don't grow up flinging poop and swinging from trees.  Seriously, the disconnect between reality and children's entertainment is so severe that it's a miracle more McDonalds transactions don't end up like this one:

To demonstrate this I'm going to analyze one song in particular- a little diddy called "Brush your teeth".  This song was (probably) made famous by Raffi, and I really hate to rag on the dude who is basically the Beatles of children's music- but these lyrics are so recklessly irresponsible that I feel it is my civic duty to draw the line between innocent teeth brushing- and unsupervised late night shenanigans.

Pictured: What happens when unsupervised late night shenanigans meet second-rate cosmetologists

For your convenience, the lyrics are in italics.  You're welcome.

When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to one
And you want to have a little fun,
You brush your teeth ch ch ch ch, ch ch ch ch...

First off, I have to be honest- I have an extremely soft spot for that little "ch ch ch" bit- but in no way does that make it okay for a little kid to be waking up at 12:45 for any reason- even if it's to brush their teeth.  Besides, you had all day to have fun, and when I tried to get you to brush your teeth after breakfast, you got all defiant and yelled at me and then when I told you that you had earned a time-out you hit me- so if you try to tell me you want to brush your teeth now, then basically I am going to ground you until your baby teeth fall out.

When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to two
And you want to find something to do,
You brush your teeth ch ch ch ch, ch ch ch ch...

I have a great idea of something you can do- GET YOUR BUTT BACK TO BED.  Seriously, 1:45 a.m. is not the time to try and cure boredom.  Hit the hay, get a good night's rest, and we'll brush those teeth tomorrow when daddy is not stumbling around in the dark and OWWWWW!!!  WHO LEFT THE FREAKING LEGOS OUT??????

When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to three
And your mind starts humming a tweedle dee dee,
You brush your teeth ch ch ch ch, ch ch ch ch...

Take it from my old pal Ted Mosby- nothing good happens after 2:30.  At this point, you should be well in the throes of a good nights sleep.  Certainly if you happen to wake up around this time, the last thing you should be doing is making ANY noise WHATSOEVER, let alone humming 'a tweedle dee dee'...because I'm a light sleeper who has a penchant for getting songs stuck in his head and a cranky disposition when sleep deprived.

YOU WON'T LIKE ME WHEN I'M...YAAAWWWWNNN...

When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to four
And you think you hear a knock at the door,
You brush your teeth ch ch ch ch, ch ch ch ch...

Okay kids, here's a little lesson in self-preservation.  If it's 3:45 a.m. and you hear a knock on the door, DO NOT saunter to the bathroom to preform oral hygiene.  Instead, it'd be much, much better to sit up quietly...listen for the knock again, and quickly (and quietly) make way for your parents room.  If you have a phone handy, you should prepare to dial 911.  There are certain types of people that tend to knock on doors at this ungodly hour, and they aren't dentists.

All of the above advice can be ignored if you happen to have a firearm handy...in which case you should just answer the door because it's probably child protective services coming to get you the heck out of there.

When you wake up in the morning at a quarter to five
And you just can't wait to come alive,
You brush your teeth ch ch ch ch, ch ch ch ch...

Fine.  You win.  Just go brush your teeth.

Pics: House party- http://www.thegmanifesto.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/house-party.jpg
Hulk- http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2008/05/13/hulk.jpg

Zombie quest- how one race looks to the future to try and make sense of the present

As my descent into my 30s slowly treads onward, like a parade of lemmings following the Pied Piper, I realize that I'm starting to lose touch with what is 'cool' and 'hip'.  I'm not quite to the stage where I sit on my porch with my shotgun loaded with GET OFF MY LAWN YOU LITTLE BASTARDS!!!!  I am, however, most certainly at a place where I don't know if people take this whole zombie apocalypse thing seriously or not.

It's certainly not a trivial issue- a real-life zombie apocalypse would be even scarier than that scene in Howard the Duck when Jeffery Jones stuck his Dark-Overlord-tongue out in the truck.

Or this scene where Marty McFly's mom tried to do it...with a duck.  You know, it's amazing that that this movie didn't wipe Hollywood out of existence

Excuse me while I take a break to practice some head shots.

Whether or not a zombie outbreak will ever happen, there is one thing that is certain- the recent  outbreak of crazy people doing crazy things (and the connect-the-dots reporting that basically linked any weird act involving blood and/or human dismemberment to zombie-ism), simply reaffirms the universal truth that people who are encountered with life events (from boring mundaneness to the Canadian gay-porn-star-dissecting-necrophiliac) will use their worldview to help those events to make sense- or at least to fit into some sort of manageable category.  Also, it shows some interesting things about the power of media to influence perceptions- or at least how they attempt to influence perceptions by laying the bread crumb trail down, down the rabbit hole.  And for those of you scoring at home, I have now referenced the Pied Piper, Hansel and Gretel, Alice in Wonderland, and Howard the Duck, all in the same blog post.  Boom.

Pictured: A boom.

PIC- Howard the Duck- http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1343/3168251251_c34ac83d4f.jpg

When is moving not moving?

I have a lot to cover and a short amount of time to do it, so I'm just going to get straight to the point.

Oh, who am I kidding?  Really I have nothing but time to cover my non-anything, so I could (if I so chose) simply meander around aimlessly for like three or four paragraphs before teasing some promising premise that I ultimately kill with more composition apraxia.  But since I took the liberty and just put the entire post to death immediately, I guess there's no choice but to get right down to brass tacks.

Can you tell I haven't written in awhile?

So this week has been quite eventful.  Not eventful in the 'Oil that is, black gold, Texas Tea' sort of way, but there was definitely some 'loading up the truck' and moving to...well, not Beverly Hills.  Or even Shiras Hills.  Nope, we bypassed the entire spectrum of independence, swallowed our pride, and moved in with the in-laws.

So far, the move has been largely positive.  No, seriously, it has.  Okay, please stop the giggling- it is perfectly possible for a family of four to move in with the parents of the wife and have the situation not devolve into a train wreck worthy of Jerry Springer.  Besides, even if the situation was tenuous, it is much better than the NMU townhouse we just left.  I'm seriously not sure we could have listened to any more arguments between our children and poorly supervised not-even-neighbor kids or audible assaults of inquiry from boundary-disregarding youngsters.  Indeed, I think most of the issues with the townhouses (other than the boring white walls and shrinking space) revolved around the fact that we felt like ants living in an ant farm.  You all remember ant farms, right? 

If a move to your in-laws is a step-up in the privacy arena, then maybe you should think about moving.

Besides, living here wasn't our first choice.  We certainly searched for other places that would have enabled us to maintain our independence...but realistically you have to be independent in the first place, and without delving too deeply into our financial situation, suffice to say that the emphasis is less on the in and more on the depend.  In fact, one of the factors that led us to decide on tucking tail back home is a desire to work ourselves free from dependence on others.

Before I continue, allow me to explain- I'm not under any sort of impression that there is this magical place we'll arrive at where we completely and totally are self-sufficient.  I'm much too learned for that- humans are social beings, and we don't just need other people to thrive- we need them to survive, period.  What I mean, then, is that we want to cut ties with dependence on faceless bureaucratic systems and start to depend on the people that we were meant to depend on- family.

In America, there is huge cultural value placed on independence, and part of this value that we are taught explicitly and subconsciously is that when we "grow up", we move away and carve out our own lives doing our own thing, away from the nest.  Not everybody does this- but a large number do.  If I had the time/energy/smarts, I would delve deeper into the mechanization of how young American boys and girls learn they have to move away in order to make it, and the consequences of failing to prepare them to do so.  The point is that there are many cultures where family units stay in close physical proximity as the rule (not the exception), so even though it feels weird, it's actually probably pretty normal.  Which for us is pretty weird.

The hardest part so far (other than the physical act of moving and organizing and sorting and driving a 24-foot U-Haul) has been trying to explain the move to our kids.  I think they were both excited about living with grandpa and grandma and, although Delaney seemed to be more cognizant of the whole thing than Shane did, the truth is that neither one of them really understood that we were not going to still be living in what the kids came to refer to as "Mommy and Daddy's house".  It's been a process (that I think is starting to take hold) of explaining to them the difference between a 'house' and a 'home' and that anywhere we are living as a family is our 'home'.

All in all, I'm excited about this next chapter of our lives.  In addition to the financial benefits, it will be great to get more connected with Sara's family and to be closer to her sister and husband.  It'll be nice to watch Detroit sports on the 50 inch crazy-high-def TV that sits upstairs.  I'm really looking forward to the kids each having their own room and to them having the space to run and play in the woods and fields and just let their imaginations carry them away.  I'm stoked to be able to go from my car to my couch without having to answer a hundred questions from nosy kids.

But mostly, I'm grateful for the opportunity to clean the slate and give this life thing another shot.

Comic sans and the art of trying to manipulate heart strings (but with all sorts of backfiring)

The other day I was checking my e-mail, when I found THIS in my inbox.  And when I say THIS, I want you to get swept up in the moment, like I was about to unveil some get-rich quick scheme or great deal on Amazon.com, or something much, much more awesome than what I am actually going to share with you.

Because what I am going to share with you is a forward that tells a possibly pretend simple story and tries to light a fire inside of you to make you want to solve all of the world's problems without actually giving you the tools to solve anything.  Here it is:  

My brother is 18 years old. He has an IQ of 30-40 and has been in school for 12 years. My brother has always attended an elementary school. He has had a number of years of individualized instruction and has learned to do a lot of things!

My brother can now do lots of things he couldn't do before!

He can put 100 pegs in a board in less than 10 minutes while in his seat with 95% accuracy.
BUT, he can't put quarters in vending machines.

Upon command, he can touch his nose, shoulder, leg, foot, hair and ear. He's still working on wrist, ankle and hips.
BUT, he can't blow his nose when needed.

He can now do a 12 piece Big Bird puzzle with 100% accuracy and color the Easter Bunny while staying in the lines.
BUT, he prefers music. However, he was never taught how to use a radio or record player.

He can now fold primary paper in halves and even quarters.
BUT, he can't fold his clothes.

He can sort blocks by color; up to 10 different colors!
BUT, he can't sort clothes; whites from colors for washing.

He can roll Play-Doh and make wonderful clay snakes.
BUT, he can't roll bread dough and cut out biscuits.

He can string beads in alternating colors and match it to a pattern on a DLM card.
BUT, he can't lace his shoes.

He can sing his ABCs and tell me names of all the letters of the alphabet when presented on a card in upper case with 80% accuracy.
BUT, he can't tell the men's room from the ladies room when we go to McDonald's.

He can be told it's cloudy/rainy and take a black felt cloud and put it on the day of the week on an enlarged calendar(with assistance).
BUT, he still goes out in the rain without a raincoat.

He can point to 100 different Peabody Picture Cards with 100% accuracy.
BUT, he can't order a hamburger by pointing to a picture or gesturing.

He can walk a balance beam, side ways and backwards.
BUT, he can't walk up the steps or bleachers unassisted in the gym to go to a basketball game.

He can count to 100 by rote memory.
BUT, he doesn't know how many dollars to pay the cashier for a $2.59 McDonald's coupon special.

He can put the cube in the box, under the box, beside the box and behind the box.
BUT, he can't find the trash bin in McDonald's and empty his trash in it.

He can sit in a circle with appropriate behavior and sing songs and play "Duck, Duck, Goose"
But, nobody else his age in his neighborhood seems to want to do that.

I GUESS HE'S JUST NOT READY YET!

Awww, that's so cute and cuddly and it just makes me want to GET OUT MY FREAKING TORCH AND PITCHFORK AND FREAKING THE FREAKING....oh, sorry.  Sometimes I get carried away with myself when I read stories like that.  Stories that are, you know, BS.

Any time I get an e-forward dealing with some vague story in the cheesy forward font (that I have so painstakingly preserved for you...but seriously, what is up with that font?), with the CAPS and the colors- I tend to just delete it or ignore it.  But something about this one rubbed me the wrong way.  And so I'm devoting a whole flipping blog to it. 

First of all, I should acknowledge that there is some good stuff here.  The premise is solid, and not just for special education.  I do believe that education should be more pragmatic in many regards.  There's all these 'academic pursuits' that on the surface don't really have any real-life application at all.  Why should kids have to learn their times tables, and memorize state capitals, and how to do all that other crap we had to do in school that I honestly don't remember?  So they can all grow up and get the good factory jobs that we're now outsourcing?

As a parent, I have to say that I'm...well, I'm in 'wait-and-see' mode when it comes to public education.  I'm not super cynical, but I am also afraid that my kids will end up missing out on something awesome.  Both my kids are smart.  And they love to learn, so I'm not worried about them failing in the system.  My fear is that they won't develop the ability to think critically until they're in college (which is what happened to yours truly) because the system is set up to produce a bunch of times-table knowing, state-capital spouting drones.  And yes, that's pretty much truth I just spit.

Word

Back to our story.  The problem I have with this forward (and others of similar ilk) is the whole 'Bumper Sticker Philosophy' behind it.  These forwards, as I alluded to earlier, try to use some vague and mysterious and shameful anecdote to spur people on to action without really taking a meaningful look at the issue that they're trying to solve.  So you end up with a bunch of frothing mad villagers with fire and sharp objects that are just standing around looking confused while whatever pet cause you were trying to promote is still in the same place of non-solvedness that it was before.

That's where I come in.  I'm like the Michael Clayton of e-mail forwards.  Let's look at a few things that bother me about this particular forward.

1) We don't know anything about the socio-economics of this situation. Are we talking a rural or urban area?  Is there lots of money- or is it dirt poor?  What about the family?  Are they scraping by, trying to do the best they can with the hand they were dealt, or do they have a lot of resources at their disposal?  These are not trivial questions, either- they determine the gap between where the child is and where they want him to be.  Lots of money=travesty, No money=lower your expectations.

But our author wants us to completely look the other way and just blame the Evil Education System for this kid walking into the ladies room at McDonalds and dumping his trash on the floor at McDonalds and holding up the other customers in line at McDonalds and...wait a minute...I just figured out what the problem is.

STOP GOING TO MCDONALDS.


Won't somebody please think of the chickens?

Seriously though, it's easy to blame the education system without knowing what exactly the education system is able to provide.  Do they have enough aide support?  Do they have access to auxiliary services, such as speech and OT/PT?  Do they even have the appropriate placement?  I bet that not every district has a 'middle-school'-type program, and in some areas they might not even have a high school program.   

Unfortunately there are districts that can't afford to provide the services that would help this kid to be successful.  They can't afford to pay another teacher or two more aides or a speech pathologist and they don't have extra space for such a program, let alone the space they would need for the population they would be providing services for.  Thus, you end up with an elementary schooler who is 18 years old.  So while it's easy to blame the school for being incompetent (without the pertinent information) maybe, mystery person, your brother is an 18 year old in an elementary school BECAUSE THERE IS LITERALLY NO PLACE ELSE FOR HIM TO GO.

2) It sounds like the problem isn't so much that this kid wasn't taught anything- he just wasn't taught specific skills that you're looking for, or at least he wasn't taught how to generalize the skills he did learn.  On that point, I will concede that part of that blame could fall on the school.  Many of the areas he seems to be experience deficits in are ones that could be worked on in a classroom setting.  It shouldn't be too hard to find time to fold clothes or put coins in a vending machine or even operate a CD player.  Those skills could be taught in class, so checkmate.  You win.

NOT.

A couple things could get overlooked here.  First off, we know a little bit of his academic level, but we don't know how long it took to reach the point where he is at.  We don't know how many hundreds of hours were spent trying to get this kid to be able to just put the cube inside the box.  The forward makes it sound like these people were just twiddling their thumbs every day for twelve years while little 'Bro was stringing beads and doing Big Bird puzzles like some poor lost ship without a rudder.  Even though I have only worked in special education for four months, I can assure you that is not (usually) the case.  To get to those levels from the initial baseline is a long, slow, painstaking and arduous process.  Sure, it's easy to look at that list and think 'Why the heck would they work on that?  That's pointless', without realizing that it can take years of determined effort to achieve those specific skills.  Skills which, when generalized, have very broad applicability in the lives of our young protagonist.

It's too bad that the school failed to help him broaden the scope of his efforts.  If only there was someone who was with this child even more than the school- someone who could work with them during the summer...and on weekends!  Someone who knew how this child functioned outside of the walls of the school and knew which things they needed to work on and could communicate that to the school and maybe...just maybe...work on those things after school hours! 

Too bad nothing like that exists.  Oh wait, it does.  It's called FAMILY.

3) Before I get run away with here, I should say that I can't even imagine how difficult it must be to raise a child with severe special needs.  I have been fortunate enough to have been blessed with two healthy children who are certainly a chip off the old block in the smarts department (desmartment?), so I really have no idea how difficult it can be.  At most, I get about a seven hour glimpse five days a week, and sometimes that is more than I can take.  So I don't mean to be too smarmy and condescending.  You..do know what condescending means, right?

That said, what probably pisses me off the most about this forward is the latent idea behind all of those red lines- that the shortcomings, the 'failures' are the fault of the poorly run, insufficiently planned, educational process that this poor child was subjected to his entire life while the poor family stood helplessly by, unable to stop the juggernaut that was too busy carrying their child towards another payday to get wrapped up in actually helping him. 

Wait a minute...just what was the family doing for those twelve years?

I'm not going to entertain the possibility that this family (unlike some) is uncaring and non-involved in the education process.  After all, a mere sibling is able to spout off achievements with nearly 100% recollection- that's impressive.  And they're taking him out into the community-  to McDonalds, to basketball games, out in the rain- so kudos to them.  It seems that they're putting forth some effort to make this work.

And we won't talk about how a number of parents (and this goes for the general populous, too) are willing to sit back and let the education system foot the education-of-our-children bill while they stand by pointing fingers.  We won't lump these parents in with those that just send their kid to school, hope that they learn something, and then plop them in front of the computer/TV/X-box all night so the house can finally have some peace and quiet.  Freaking kids.

No, instead we're going to take this route- did they ever voice these concerns in a staffing or IEP meeting?  Did they ever go, 'You know, George is simply lights out on that DLM card...but, he can't exactly tie his shoes.  We should talk to his teacher and treatment team and see if we can have George start working on that'?  Maybe they did, but that doesn't seem to be the case- otherwise our finger-pointer surely would have brought it up. 

We constantly brought up these issues.  Every IEP meeting, every staffing, we even started to document the phone calls we made to the teacher and school administrators, as well as comments made in passing to the aides.  All we wanted was for them to actually start working with my brother on skills that would help him in real life.
BUT, nope-they just kept working on that stupid s***.

Not that an IEP is a miracle cure. It's not like sitting down and having some dialogue is going to automatically make things all better.  It is, however, a communicative process where the family can ask about progress, and express things that they'd like to see accomplished, after which the team of educators come up with some sort of curriculum/plan to help the student to achieve those objectives. 


If the family isn't happy with the level of services, they bring that to the attention of the team at the next meeting, the IEP gets tweaked, and they try, try again.  Maybe tangible progress is made, maybe not- but at least everybody moves forward having had an open exchange and knowing that everyone was trying to get to the same point.

Instead, some sibling who is probably jealous due to lack of attention decided to type up a cutesy little forward and sent it around to special education departments everywhere, in the hopes that the soft-hearted special education department people would be galvanized into action.  Nothing like putting some grease on the squeeky wheel while the car is about to drive off a cliff, right?

I leave with this- the intentions behind this forward, honorable as they might have been, are dangerously misleading.  There are many hands in the cookie jar of education, and to think that all of those hands are not equally guilty of stealing the cookies is naive at best, damning at worst.  Sure, the educational system is not nearly what it could be, but as long as the anonymous are willing to sit behind their computer screens and fire off passive-aggressive anecdotes and call for teachers' jobs instead of being willing to accept responsibility and look at the whole system (families included), then we're going to keep churning out generations of children that are JUST NOT READY YET!
.

Pictures:

Gangsta- http://www.byroncrawford.com/images/nygun.jpg

PETA- http://www.peta.org/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Components-SiteFiles/Peta-Images-Main-Sections-Blog-PETA+Files/scaldingtank.JPG

Wonka- http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/233260-condescending-wonka

Spring Broken

Screw the fancy intro- I'm gonna just come out and say it.  This past week was Spring Break- the Worst. Spring Break. EVER.

It wasn't a bad Spring Break though, which is probably confusing.  So allow me to explain.

In life, everything is about context.  I swear I've written about this before, but I'm too disheartened to go looking for it now.  But as I said, yes, in life, everything is about context.  So then, with context, it can make sense for me to say that a good spring break was the Worst. Spring Break. EVER.  Clearly then, this is the part of the show where I give you the context.

First, what this Spring Break was in terms of "happenings": it was a jaunt down to my family's house in da L.P. for a few days of R&R.  We ate at the Pixie and Blackjacks Pizza, celebrated a couple of birthdays (of which yours truly was one), got the Easter party started a couple days early, spent some time with my long-lost sister (wait- you mean she's been in Grand Rapids this whole time?  Yeah I don't think so), and got ice cream from Doozies.  Oh, and I took more naps this week than I have in all of 2012.  Good start, right?

And these are just some of the specifics- there were many more familial interactions throughout the week that contributed to the goodness of the trip.  Because any time me and the fam get together, magic happens.

The Face of magic, on the back of some dude's head

So where does the Worst. Spring Break. EVER. come in?  Simply here- as some/hopefully most of you know, since December of 2011 I've been working two jobs since I haven't been able to get one job that will, pardon the pun, do the job.  Unfortunately, one of those jobs is Monday-Friday and the other one is a weekend job.  Do the math- Seven days a week, I be working. 

Truthfully it hasn't been as bad as it could have been.  I had Christmas break in December, and then some other days off in January and February (in-services, snow-days, etc.), so I haven't had an over-abundance of 7-day work weeks.  Then March hit the calendar, and like an endless stretch of wasteland it loomed over my soul.  I couldn't look at a calendar with a sigh, gulp, or some combination of the two.  Because I know that barring a miraculous snow day, there would be no days off in March for me.  None.  Zip. Zilch.  Nada.

The one gentle thought, my shining light and beacon of hope was Spring Break, which came right away in April, and I allowed myself to hope and believe that if I could just get through March, then I would have that week off in April to reboot and be back in business.  So even as March dragged on...and on...and on, and I dealt with repetitively inane situations at the school, I was always able to hold onto that little flicker of Spring Break that was always coming closer at the close of every day.   

Wednesday, March 28th was when I pretty much reached my limit, both physically and mentally.  Fortunately, the next three days I only had to work half-days, and then an 8 hour shift on April 1st...and then home.  HOME!!!  I made it.  March had not destroyed me.  Sure, it had sliced open my chest, ripped out my heart, gnawed on my ankles, and left me for dead.  But dead I was not- instead, I was longing and aching to set foot in my old stomping grounds where I would be renewed and rejuvenated as had happened many times prior.

Except fate, it seems, is not without a cruel sense of humor, and Delaney started to develop a cold during those last days of March.  And the day we went down her eyes started to turn pink.  And goopy.  Because one of her classmates must have had pink and goopy eyes sometime the week before Spring Break.  Pink Eye.  Ugh.  The most annoying, least destructive blight on mankind had showed up to drop its little eye boogers of contagion all over my parade.

If that was the only thing that happened though, I think it would have been alright.  It would have been a blemish on the week, for sure, but not anything too insurmountable.  Of course, as you have already surmised from reading this far, it is not all that happened- it was merely the harbinger of things to come.

Because that very Monday night, after making the 6+ hour trip downstate and then having to go into the out-of-town doctors office to get some Pink Eye medicine...as I was sitting in the living room watching RAW with my mom, brother, and sister, I started to get The Throat Feeling.  You know that feeling you get in your throat when you're not sick yet- but you are going to be sick very soon?  Uh huh.  That's the feeling I got on Monday night.  That's when we started to veer straight into Worst Spring Break Ever territory.

We didn't actually reach that territory until Wednesday, when Shane started coughing.  And nasally draining.  And pink eye gooping.  Oh, and just for kicks, let's throw in an ear infection.  Awesome!

Yes friends, the week I had been looking to for over a month as this sacred oasis in the desert of my working life, the trip that was going to restore me to physical and mental health- instead saw me become a one-man zombie triage unit, alternating antibiotic eye drops into unwilling eyes between cough-riddled fits of sleep (both my own and the kids).  If you've ever had young children with some sort of infectious disease, then you know that the more contagious the disease, the more often that children will touch the contagious area and then immediately look to touch something else.  Times that by two, and then divide by 8 (since my ability to be hypervigilant was severely impaired by my own physical ailments) and you pretty much get....well, I don't know what you get, because there aren't any real numbers to work with.  Just know that it's vile and horrible and not even a close approximation of what I thought my Spring Break would be. 

Again, I want to reiterate that in and of itself, this was not a terrible trip.  It was, by many accounts, a very fun and memorable trip.  It's just that I hoped for some solid mental decompression and relaxation.  Not that I could every wholly take off my parenting super-cape, but I certainly wasn't planning to don the parenting haz-mat suit either.  Next week, I start back to work.  Back to seven days a week.  Every week (mostly).  I don't know what April and May look like- but I can't imagine there's too many April days off, since we just had Spring Break, and May is probably solidly booked until Memorial day.  Sure, June is only a week of work until summer break- it's just that I may break long before then.

Pic- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Voldemort_in_Movie_1.jpg

We're not friends anymore (if we ever were)

Well, it's officially that time of year again- Spring.  The time of year traditionally associated with cleaning.  And, since I really don't clean, I sate my biologically driven nesting urges with something a bit more 21st century- weeding out my Facebook friends list.

Sadly yes, folks, it's true- being my friend on Facebook is not 'til death do us part' enterprise.  Once we enter into a Facebook relationship, there is no guarantee that I will abstain from going through my friends list and just dropping fools like dope rhymes.

Yo

Lest you think I am a cold-hearted killer, I want you to know that this was not an easy venture for me.  Anyone who could be eliminated easily is already gone.  Presently, however, I can pretty much look at every name on the list and rationalize them sticking around.  It's probably a good thing I'm not leading a group of survivors during the zombie apocalypse. 

Then again...

Before the chop shop, I was sitting cozy at about 350 friends, which is a decent amount (although nowhere near as high as the lists of some people.  Seriously, how do you even know 1,000+ people?), especially since I pretty much will only be Facebook friends with people who I have at least been friendly with in the past (other than that time when I was playing Madden on Facebook and took in a whole bunch of strangers).  Maybe it was that we hung out a few times, or possibly I worked with you. Perhaps we played together in a band, or on the court. Whatever the case, there was some point when our lives intersected and I thought 'what a nice person- I sure would like to stalk their photos get to know them better'.

But just as a smile from a girl does not mean that she wants to sleep with you (Oh, sorry- spoiler alert to all my teenage boy readers), some fun times are not a compelling reason to keep the fires of friendship burning.  So in the end, 50 people had to go. 50 dreams had to die so that my Facebook friends list could maintain its vibrancy.  Let's take a moment to remember the lives of those Facebook relationshipsOkay, moment's over.

THE PART WHERE I TELL YOU HOW I DID IT

The last time I thinned out the herd, my main deciding factor was my willingness to wish them a happy birthday when prompted by Facebook.  If I took the time, you were in.  If I didn't really care- boom.  You were gone.

Boom

Since then, I have realized that I often ignore Facebook birthday prompts even for people I would genuinely like to wish a happy birthday to, so I had to come up with something else. 

I'd love to sit here and tell you I designed this amazingly awesome formula relying on algorhythms and ratio of likes to comments divided by mutual friends- but that would be something of substance and would set up expectations...and I'm not really ready to go there.  I want you to think I'm stupid so that when I do something not-stupid, you're amazed and give me positive feedback.  Sort of like getting M&M's for going on the potty.

Basically what I did was I went through and figured out why I was friends with somebody, and if it wasn't because we had interacted recently/often or related (or some mystery category that I won't tell you because I'm trying to build suspense for the sequel), then you were probably going to get the axe.  Especially if you fell into one of these categories (Note: Everybody that got cut fell into one of these categories). 

1) We went to high school together.  In a few years, this category will probably be 'We Went To College Together'.  When I first got on Facebook, I wanted to find as many people from high school as I could- not because I missed them or because we were great friends in the first place.  It was pretty much just a relentless sense of curiosity.  'Oh, I wonder how so-and-so is doing'.  'Hmmm, I wonder if blank is married'.  Or, 'Hey, X still owes me money'. 

What I found once I became friends with those people is that after a few initial pleasantries and having all of my questions answered, we almost immediately went back to our previous level of relationshipping- zero. 

See, the reason why I had to wonder what those people were up to is we never communicated after high school.  No phone calls.  No letters.  No e-mails.  Nary even a seance.  Our paths parted, and that was it.  So while I appreciate Facebook helping me to satisfy my thirst for knowledge, I disdain it for making me feel like there was some sort of magical connection between me and some people who I happened to share a geographical boundary with during the formative years of my life than there already wasn't.

2) Savior complex.  This is probably a terrible thing to say, but honestly some of my Facebook friends...well, they were my friends because I felt bad for them.  And maybe that's an altruistic approach- but maybe it's the sign of a real jerk-face.  I don't know.  I've definitely thought about deleting them in the past, but every time I went to delete them, I thought 'awww but they probably don't have any other friends'.  I think this is the same part of the brain that makes people want to keep cats as pets.

Unfortunately, this isn't really a healthy approach to a relationship (Oh, sorry- spoiler alert to everybody).  If you enter into a friendship with such unequal footing, it will probably never develop into an authentic human relationship.  And I'm all about authentic human relationships.  Starting now.

3) People on the extremes of belief.  Many people I know are reasonable people who can look at situations and see the merit in multiple points of view and then make educated decisions for themselves.  I enjoy conversing with these kinds of people.  Not all people can do that though- at least not on Facebook.  However, I didn't eliminate all extremists because extremism in moderation can help you better understand the world around you.  Indeed, the words of the extreme are like a blanket to a baby, if the blanket was also an electrified barbed wire fence.


4) Blog exposure.  This probably seems quite narcissistic, but if you've been here before than surely you know that is sort of my 'thing'.  Besides, can you blame me?  In this day and age, it's all about self-promotion and self-aggrandizement.  What, are people just supposed to judge me based on what I do?  That seems awful petty, don't you think?

But as I press on and on, I realize that I'm not soon to be on the cusp of fame.  I'm not just about to break through.  There are no roles coming up that will launch me into stardom.  I don't have time to devote to being a famous blogger.  I am too busy being a husband/father/provider/Dragonborn. 



WHAT ELSE DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM ME??????

So really there's no reason to keep stringing people along, pretending to be their Facebook friend (which is kind of like pretending to be a pretend friend) just so that they might see me post a link to my blog.  They'll have to find my blog the same way the rest of the world does- divine intervention.

And that, kids, is the story of how I whittled my Facebook friends list from 350 to 300.  The end.

(For now)

PICS:

Gangsta- http://www.byroncrawford.com/images/nygun.jpg 

Rick- http://blogs.amctv.com/the-walking-dead/Andrew-Lincoln-V2-325.jpg
Volcano- http://www.layoutsparks.com/1/43552/Boom-fire-volcano-layout.html
Dragonborn-https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvpS9qnR_KZq1p4I6ybq7AxBHjW6QuysaMKWIwTDs3dQd8SLVIUywSFQ6MHLV4aTGC83tLlZdK2jAIsI-XNzhBDpvT2N2NzM7fbns2TZj684JgsjB6cmDfyvSqYj6B-qMnfEfA1F0rIeo/s1600/Skyrim+Dragonborn+Dragon+Shout.png

I've had it with these mother-effin snakes on this mother-effin island

Today is St. Patrick's Day.  That's pretty much apparent to everyone, what with all of the green attire, faux Irish people, and expensiver colored beer going on.  What is perhaps less certain is my motivation for writing on this day as opposed to other, different days that I did not write on.

Simply put, I was struck by inspiration this morning.  Actually, I was struck by hot water in the shower, but some of that water obviously morphed into liquid inspiration, infiltrated my ear canals, wove its way into my brain and somehow penetrated the Great Matrix and became one with my soul.  I became like the Avatar Of Whatever I Am Going To Now Start Writing.  Even now, I can feel the pulsing of your anticipation and hear the heavy breathing of curiosity in lieu of my awesome intro- so I shall ease your suffering and immediately "get in the zone".

So I had a random thought the other day about God, and I'll be the first to admit that it isn't the most well-thought out and researched thought, but I had it and I'm running on liquid inspiration, so anyways the thought was, why does faith have such a huge focus on proselytization?  Why is getting the word out such a big deal?  I know, I know, it's a commandment- but why?  Shouldn't it just be that God is, like, so big and huge that everybody already knows and rebellion is then a blatantly stupid choice that some people make?

(Just so you know, I'm not going to be answering this question, or any other questions, about God in this post.  So if you came here searching for wisdom, you might just want to hit the 'next blog' button there at the top, although I think it's algorithmically engineered to give you a random blog, so you should probably just stay here anyways in case you go do an even dumber blog)

Please don't misunderstand- it's not that I'm opposed to the idea of evangelism.  The essence of evangelism is telling someone something they don't know that you think they should know.  Nothing wrong with that- in moderation. 

Think of everything you've ever learned, ever.  You were, at one time, ignorant of your non-learningness and needed to be shown the light by someone with greater wisdom and knowledge than you.  It's how we learn to speak, and write, and use the bathroom.  All throughout our lives, we're learning and growing and much of that information has to come from outside sources who had some sort of passion or urge to help us improve the quality of our lives (although with toilet training, the motives are much less altruistic and more rooted in the mindset of JUST USE THE FREAKING TOILET ALREADY!!!!!). 

While faith evangelism is different in that it's higher up on the hierarchy of needs, the principle is still sound.  Faith works for many people- it gives them hope, helps them through stressful times, and can provide a built-in sense of community.  In that sense, it's not preposterous to believe that others would want their friends and family to be a part of that.  It's not that simple though. 

The problem is that often evangelism comes from a pre-supposed position of superiority that makes it difficult to relate to other people on a "human" level.  When you meet someone on the uneven playing field of "I already know that what I have to say is true, and it is true because I believe it is true, and therefore nothing you can say will shake my knowledge of the truth of what I say", your victory is assured because either they will see it your way or else they will fall further into their "delusion".  Either way, you've done your "job".

A few years ago, I was studying for an upcoming test in one of the lounge areas on campus when a girl I'd never met came up to me and struck up a conversation.  I instantly pegged her as trying to convert me and sure enough- after a rousing round of small talk, she asked me if I went to church anywhere (a Jesus and Bible believing church, to be sure).  I assured her I did, and after a few minutes of this (and also making sure that my sister's mission trip to Thailand was under the auspices of the Bible-believing Jesus banner), she left, and I resumed my studying.  She probably felt further emboldened in her faith by approaching such an intimidating stranger ('sup)- and I felt a sort of sadness at the death of what could have been a real human moment.

See what bothers me about that whole interaction is that I pegged it from the beginning.  Sure, I could go off on a separate post about the human distance in our society, and how we are becoming increasingly absorbed into our own little worlds and more detached from the lives of others- but the liquid inspiration is almost gone.  Some of you might even say it never quite 'took'.  Po-TAY-toes, po-TAH-toes.  But after the whole ordeal was done I felt like I was a statistic.  I felt like, to this girl, I was not a fellow person to interact with; rather, that I was some sort of spiritual trophy to be taken and adorned on a belt full of other "lost" souls that she had won. 

So as we celebrate the life of a man who brought Christianity to a nation of people who may or may not have been receptive to it, let's remember to respect the life story that each of us has embarked on.  I'm not saying that experience=truth, I'm saying that they have just as much right to believe what they believe as you, that they probably have as many sufficient reasons for those beliefs as you do yours, and if you engage people in relationships that are built upon converting them onto the trophy case...then you might have missed the main message of whatever faith you converted them to in the first place.

Another non-update update

I was going to write today.  Really, I was.  I had the best intentions...but really I didn't even get that far.  I'm so tired.  I have fleeting moments of inspiration, brief flashes of noteworthy thought...and then it's gone.  Only 3 more weeks until Spring Break- Lord knows I need it!  In the meantime I press on, waking up every day when my alarm clock tells me to, because that's what I have to do for my family right now.