Piet sez—Pietin sözleri: 2021

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Why is that?

I have just learned that Georgina, a teacher whom I respect a great deal was made to retire mid-year by the strong intervention of her personal friend because she was suffering physical symptoms of stress that could seriously have damaged her health.
When I taught at the same school as Georgina, I also was suffering a great deal of stress. I was in the habit of visiting her kindergarten classroom just to drink in the vibe, as well as to pick up cues for my classroom in an entirely different grade.
She had been teaching for more than 3 decades when she had to retire.
What exactly is happening when our school system fails to support such people to the degree that it does not allow them to accomplish their task-- their mission-- and threatens to damage them in this manner? What on earth are we thinking??

A Timeline

2001-2002An SST about 2 particular children makes then-ELL director Emma Lerewdecide, top-down and unilaterally, to create a K/1 bilingual class atBidwell in the next year.

2002-2003 1st-year teacher Celina Kanat is hired to teach the class.1

graders come from English kindergarten. She leaves atend of year to teach a non-combo class elsewhere in Hayward. Shelater left teaching.

2003-2004A new teacher, Mr. Bess, hired 2 weeks before the start of school. Atend of year, he suggests in a power-point presentation that parentstransfer their children to other Hayward schools with bilingual 2

grade. Only one family does this.

2004-2005Mr. Bess' 2

year in the assignment. End-of-yeardiscussions with Emma Lerew for a solution to the problem give noresults. At any rate, Dr. Lerew retires in May 2005, expressing noresponsibility for the class in her written communication.

2005-2006Mr. Bess' 3

year. Mr. Bess holds end-of-year discussionswith Letty Salinas, new ELL director, and Mr. Grasty, principal. Mr.Bess presents significant data on children's reading progress inEnglish. Ms. Salinas decides to expand the program to a full K classand a 1

grade/ 2

grade combination class.Unfortunately, Mr. Grasty gets word at the end of the year that thestatus quo will continue.

2006-2007Mr. Bess' 4

year in the K/1

combinationbilingual classroom. Again, at the end of the year, it is decided tohave a full K class and a 1

split. Thistime it works. Over the summer, Mr. Bess attends the interview of theincoming teacher, Melynda Esquivel.

2007-2008Mr. Bess' 1

year of teaching only one grade,Kindergarten. Ms. Esquivel, an excellent beginning teacher, teaches anearly full class of 1

graders and a very small numberof 2

graders, 2 or 3 children, too few to be a reallyviable educational situation. At the end of the year, Ms. Esquivel,like Mr. Bess before her, suggests to her exiting 1

graders that they transfer to a Hayward school with a viablebilingual program, or to an English-only 2

grade classat Treeview Elementary. All take her advice and transfer to SEIclasses, but 2 students are told by Mr. Grasty that they cannottransfer to another school when they try to just before the newschool year. Thus, Ms. Esquivel's class stays a combo class, despitehaving a full class of Kindergartners to fill it.

2008-2009Mr. Bess continues teaching Kindergarten bilingual. Ms. Esquivel isagain forced to teach a split-grade class, again with only 2, orsometimes 3, 2

grade students, too few to make the 2

grade part of the class really viable. Ms. Esquivel quits in Octoberdue to medical issues. The class has daily substitutes who do notspeak Spanish for several weeks, then a long-term substitute whospeaks some Spanish for about a month. Eventually, a Spanish-speakingteacher is hired. At the end of the year, Mr. Bess distributesinformation to parents at Open House about the history and future ofthe bilingual program. A meeting is scheduled with Ms. Salinas andthe parents of the students in the bilingual class, but she fails toshow up. Mr. Bess and the parents take the issue to the school's ELACcouncil. Ms. Salinas comes to ELAC, but presents only information ofthe types of programs in Hayward schools. The decision is made toregress to a K/1 split and no 2

grade at all, causingMr. Bess to resign from the position: 2nd June, 2009

DearMr. Grasty,

DearMs. Salinas,

Ifirmly decline to accept the bilingual kindergarten/ first gradeposition at Bidwell Elementary for next school year.

For7 years, we have had a bilingual program here. For 5 years, itconsisted only of a Kindergarten/1

grade split-gradeclass. Anyone with the slightest insight into the bases of bilingualeducation should know that only 2 years of bilingual education isgenerally not as effective as no bilingual education at all.

For4 of those 5 years, it was I who was saddled with K/1 bilingualassignment. I was able to carry out my task effectively because ofstaggered reading and the dedicated support of my fellow teachers. Inmy 5

year, I was happy that the program expanded to afull kindergarten class and a first grade/second grade split. Theteacher who taught that class extremely effectively, again with majorsupport from our colleagues, left, presumably frustrated, early inthe second year of its existence.

Ihave volunteered to teach a bilingual split grade class again, if itis that 1

grade split. Unfortunately,our school will be reverting to having only one bilingual class, aK/1 split.

As an educator and as a learner, I live to progress, not to regress.This regression to a K/1 bilingual class is unacceptable to me. Iwill no longer allow this class to continue with my involvement. Ifit were in my power to help stop this class from happening at all, Iwould stop it.

Itis in my power to ask: does this school district really have thehuman, financial, and political resources to create and support aneffective bilingual program at Bidwell Elementary?

Piet Bess

2009-2010Mr. Bess teaches 2

grade at Treeview Elementary inEnglish. David Beaston takes the bilingual K/1 position. At the endof the year, Mr. Bess takes the issue to the school's SBDM,

arguingthat the program should be canceled.

2010-2011We have a change of educational leadership: Dr. Jessica Bonduris isour principal. Change begins, and the bilingual program begins togrow through the grades. Mr. Beaston has a full K class. MairtinMacAnGhoill teaches a 1/ 2 split.

2011-2012Growth continues: Beaston, K. MacAnGhoill, 1, and Audrey Nicholsteaches a 2/ 3 split at Treeview

2012-2013Beaston K. MacAnGhoill, 1. Mr. Bess agrees to rejoin the bilingualprogram at Dr. Bonduris' request, seeing that the program is valuedand supported, and is growing upwards through the grades. He teachesthe 2

grade, albeit at Bidwell, the sole 2

grade class at that site. Yanira Canizales, an excellent teacher,teaches the small 3/ 4 split bilingual class at Bidwell. Mr.MacAnGhoill leaves mid-year due to medical issues, and his classsuffers a string of substitutes until Ms. Jameson, an excellent subwith Spanish skills comes in from May to the end of school. Mr.Beaston opts to leave bilingual because of heavy, and, in the case ofbilingual, doubled assessments for K. With half a class of 4

graders, 12-13 was our high water mark.

2013-2014Sadly, Dr. Bonduris leaves us. The program recedes: Ms.Canizales' class are put in SEI, and the program supports up to 3

grade. All bilingual classes are split-grade classes at the beginningof the year. This is a hard decision taken by Dr. Bonduris anddiscussed in our SBDM [Site-Based Decision-Making group]. Bilingualteachers assent to the split-grade classes in order to ease combos inEnglish-only classes, especially in the case of a particular SEIcohort with big behavior problems. Even so, bilingualcombo classes typically have fewer children than the English-onlyclasses. Ben Hinchman, K/1. Mr. Bess, 1/ 2, and Laura Mingst with the2/ 3 combo at Treeview.

2014-15After the interim principal fails to hire teachers in a timely mannerin May, the year starts with a Mr. Hinchman in K, a Mr. Bess in 1

grade, and Noemi Hernandez, a very competent 30-day sub with nativeSpanish in 2

grade. A planned ¾ split is canceledbefore the 10

day.

Wewould have had a chance to grow the program out to its historic high,up to serving children through 4

grade, albeit in thediminished form of a split-grade grade classroom. One one hand, wehave been unable to serve 4

graders this year. On theother hand, we may be able to serve 3 grades in single-gradeclassrooms in our bilingual program if we do not downgrade our 2

grade bilingual class to a split.

A Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Moment

From Nader Khalili's book _Racing Alone_, out of print, acquired at Berkeley Public Library. It is a favourite reading moment of mine, and something I have seen in several forms, beginning with the TV ad or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, where one complains that there is chocolate in his peanut butter, and the other that there is peanut butter on his chocolate.

"The villagers understand my firing and changing their houses into bricks very easily, and they relate to every part of it. But their hesitation as to what the house may become has be be brought to the light. And for that I am ready to freshen their memory with a walk to the old kiln just several hundred steps away.
I ask the villagers if thee have been any kilns around here, the kilns to fire qanat kavals.
“Yes, right down the road,” says one.
“There, you can see it from here,” says the other.
The kids start running that direction to show it to me. I don;t mention what I intend to do, but ask my friends and the villagers to come along. Everybody comes to see what I want to how. Ezzat, the eager architectural student also jumps down from the roof and joins us with his camera. The feeling is that there may be a puzzle I want to talk about, or possibly refire the kiln or brick or something.
The several-hundred-step march is like an exodus from the village. To me it is an exodus from the present to the past.
We reach the kiln. Children climb all over the roof and the walls.
“What was this building used or before?” I ask the old man of the village aloud, while everyone I trying to guess.
It was a kaval kiln. In my childhood time I saw it fired.
“How long ago was that?” I ask.
“Oh, maybe 40 or 50 years ago, maybe even more. I don'told I am now. “ He laugs as he says hat.
I let them play aroudn with the walls and touch the rocklikce pieces.
“They used to fire it right from underneath on this big hole. They used to burn wood, animal dung, or anything they could burn. Yes, see, right around the firepit the soil is melted to rock,” the old man says while while he tries to break a piece but can't. A younger man kicks a piece with his boot; he can't break it either. Everyone laughs.
Then I stop them and ask them in a low voice, acing the old man and trying to have them observe silence.
“Amoo, why have all your houses collapsed but this roo hasn't collapsed? Yet you all plaster your roos every year and you say that this roof is just left under the rain and snow for thirty years?”
“Not thirty but fifty years,” he says.
“Okay, fifty years, Why is it still standing?” I ask.
A middle-aged peasant answers in a loud voice from behind: “Don't you understand? This is fired and baked to a rocklike brick. Even a cannonball can't break it.”
Then there is a few seconds' silence. Several have already made the connection. My architectural students and engineer friends make the connection first, but before they start to explain what I am trying to say, someone in the crowd says, “So this is the puzzle?”
And in a few seconds everything falls in place.
The history connects with the present. Moments link, and the chain is completed. There is more silence, and everyone is digging a piece or climbing to the roof. More conversation, more comments, and more photographs, even several group portraits for the memory's sake are taken on the roof. By the time we walk back, there seems to be no question as to the validity of what we will be doing. And everyone offers his house for the first firing."

About Teaching and Appreciation

Thank you to the people who occasionally say thank you for the job I do, for how difficult it is and how necessary. It is nice to be appreciated.

I should like for people not to feel obligated to thank me for being a teacher.

When the alarm goes off in the dark before the morning, I get out of bed pretty quick. I psyche for the day and what kind of day it will be. There is no snooze button.

I don't get sick, really. This may have to do with the fact that the people I talk to all day keep me up to date with all the ambient germs, but I think it has to do with the fact that I am happy with where I am.

Summer is kind of long. I make up for it by going to school anyway to get stuff done. Well, that and pick raspberries at the school garden. This helps bide the time until finally I can get to work again in mid-August.

There is a sign in my classroom that says "There's no place I'd rather be."

I am mildly pleased that they pay me rather more than what I need to buy rice, beans and a tin roof for my shack.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's not for everyone, but for me, a frontal lobotomy turned out to be a Very Good Thing.

Transcendental Garage Sale

There;s this warehouse on 8th, 2 blocks north of Berkeley Bowl West with a dummy in a lawnchair with a pumpkin for a head.

Today it looks like it is open with stuff laid out for a gge sale. I stop by on my bike.

First box is all 1/72 scale model airplanes. Oh, dear. Next box is books on similar subjects in English and French. Next box has 1/72 scale models of patrol boats I had considered building to go with my airplanes in that scale. One one hand, oh, dear, I so want that. On the other, I am safe because I recognise that hobby as sterile and leading nowhere. But still. There is a model of an Avia B534 and I ain;t got one of them... unnhh...

I follow the trail of notional breadcrumbs inside.

There are yards of shelves of books on similar subjects. More models. I decypher the Cyrillic on some of them. One title is about Potez fighters. I know what that _is_. Another is about Hawker 75;s dans le Armee d;l;Aire. I dig that. There is a whole stack of magenta Profile Publication pamphlets on arcane aircraft. Unnh...

There is a seafoam wall-mount dial phone with a 415 area code on the wall. "Nobody wants that," they tell me. Au contraire, I say. My friend wants that. There is a Sunbeam vertical twin motorcycle complete that needs air in the tyres and a licence plate. I "get" it all! But I don;t get anything but a couple cammie jackets and Brassey's Camouflage book by Borsarello.

The man was named Ron Penndorf. He died about a week ago. He was a collector with space enough for his collections. His interests ran parallel to mine, and as deep.

LP's, classical, I think. More VHS tapes than I care to consider. DVD's of war movies. Books on ships, cars, trains, airplanes, airplanes, and airplanes. Motorcycles. A couple cars. Licence plates. Ron I wish I had known you. I feel like there are 10 guys in a 100 mile radius who "get" the things that all this is about. I am one of them.

Open 'til noon tomorrow. They have to go to the memorial. Also, Monday.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Ron-Penndorf-popular-West-Berkeley-blogger-dies-5744714.php

http://ronpenndorf.com/

8th St. near Grayson.

A Tiny Memorial

On the way to school from BART, along the apartment lined street where the bulk of my classes for the past 12 years live, there is a small pile of stuffed animals, toys and candles. Last week, the balloons tied there were replaced, tugging at their strings.

In the cool morning before the dawn, the balloons sag, deflated by the chill, lying slack and lethargic on the concrete.

I think of the boy who was run over there in July. He also lies on the ground, seemingly weary.

I modeled writing about this for my class. One kid supplied the name-- Luis. Their dead carries a familiar name. The class also supplied a verb: "machucar". The sound-symbolism of this word tells you all you need to know about it. "Crush" carries the same kinds of harsh phonemes and semantic content. Neither is the word I would have supplied. Supplying details to what I was writing, the kids supplied "in a box"-- also not really where I was going with writing vocabulary. The kids helped me with the next sentence: what I think about the dead kid and the balloons.

In the afternoon as I ride home, the balloons fly plump in the sun, inflated and rising, orange and taut.

Quote on corporatism from fascist tract

From "Serpent's Walk", a novel propagating the racist/fascist point of view, set in the 2040's. A Nazi explains to a mercenary the party's methods and point of view:

"Let me bring the story up to date.

The SS—what was left of it—had business objectives before and

during World War II. When the war was lost they just kept on, but

fromother places: Bogota, Asuncion, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro,

Mexico City, Colombo, Damascus, Dacca—you name it. They

realized that the world is headingtowards a 'corporocracy'; five or

ten international super-companiesthat will run everything worth

running by the year 2100. Thosesuper-corporations exist now, and

they're already dividing up theproduction and marketing of food,

transport, steel and heavyindustry, oil, the media, and other com-

modities. They're mostlyconglomerates, with fingers in more than

one pie. Some of them are owned nowby the old-money interests;

the Japanese and various foreigncartels run others; the Born-Agains

have a couple; the Jews and theirbuddies control some big ones;

and we, the SS, have the say infour or five. We've been competing

for the past sixty years or so, andwe're slowly gaining."

Poem composed at a memorial

... as I let the sermon go right over my head. The former PTA president at our school died. She was my age. Our staff, current and former, composed a larger part of those present at the memorial.

I am a particle.

A mote in a plume.

The plume is a pall,

That rises, a column

to join with thehaze.

The haze is aboveus,

But we cannot seeit,

Unless we rise,

And look to theside,

And watch for itgathered.

Stacked up on thehills,

The haze is aboveus.

I float in theplume.

I fall to the earth.

I am a particle.

The Firearms Inventory or: Grandma’s Guns

My Grandmother Diddie suffered a rapid decline in the Fall of 2000 at the age of 92. It was clear that it was serious, and, about month into the decline, an e-mail from my mother told me that the end was near. I immediately undertook to depart the next evening for Los Angeles down the I-5. I got a copy of Treasure Island on tape, stopped once for gas and a Western Bacon Cheeseburger at Carl’s Junior, and made it in 7 hours. I spent a four-day weekend with her. On the next weekend, she was dead.

She died in her sleep on the next Saturday of some sort of mass on her liver and abdomen. I got a chance to spend some time with her, as did all of her grandchildren except for Emily, the youngest among us, who somehow managed not to hear the urgency of the situation. Not everybody gets the chance to say goodbye like Diddie did. Not everybody gets such an orderly, if painful, death as she.

I tried to make myself useful around the house. I did a little bit of cleaning. Probably the time to have done this would have been over the visits of the last five years. I cleaned finger grease from light switches. I poured boiling water and bleach into the toilet to get it white again. I spent most of my time when she wasn’t asleep poring through her family history materials which she had fantastically well organised, and which make my mouth water.

In the course of going through old letters photos and notes, I found a hinged shelf below underneath the notebooks. I cleared it and opened the hidden door. No great shakes, just a combination lock-box with my great-grandfather Creely’s name. It was filled with ammunition. This is the beginning of the story of the guns I found.

The bullets in the box were of about ten or fifteen different calibres. There were a few rounds of .30-06. Three different types of thirty-eights. A box of .410 shot s hells. Some fat little .45’s or .44’s. Little tied-up bags of .22 shorts. It was all quite old, and I decided that it should be taken to be destroyed as soon as I got permission to do so. A local gun shop was gracious enough to accept the lot, no questions asked. Now, I knew that about all of my grandpa’s guns had been sold off back in the Eighties. Of the guns that I knew of associated with this household, there was only some type of .38 and a .22 short rifle that took any of these calibres. Let’s start with those.

We are gonna have to take a few steps backward. About a year ago, I started getting into genealogical research. Diddie was my main source. I kept asking her questions until the end. Good thing, too. One time I was looking for Diddie’s mother’s grave. I was trying to find her under the surname of Diddie’s father, John Jacob Wellendorf. No luck. I called Diddie about the trouble I was having. She laughed. Well, of course, she was buried under the name of her second husband, Paul Edwards!

This was certainly the first I had heard of Ma, my Great grandmother, having remarried. This took me back to some bedrock knowledge about Diddie’s youth. The .22 rifle I mentioned above was the gun her father taught her to shoot with. So, I asked her, was it John or Paul who taught her to shoot with the .22? She laughed. Good heavens no! Paul Edwards, that was the .38!

Apparently she used to go plinking, at least that is the general impression I get talking to her children, with her stepfather, too—with the pistol. The anecdote neatly ties her experience in her youth of two father figures to two different guns.

The .22 was standing in the closet where I thought it was, I sneaked a peak at it as i did the cleaning. Later in the weekend, I would remove it, oil it, and put it back. I had been wondering where the .38 was, but didn’t really feel very comfortable nosing around for it. Finding the ammo made me more curious.

I think I had legitimate business in the linen closet when I found the first gun. If you are groping around for a towel, finding a shootin’ iron wrapped in plastic shopping bags feels very different from what you expect. I picked it up and put it away unexamined. I assumed that this was the .38. It felt like a large revolver of some sort. At this point, I decided to mention to Diddie the ammo box I had found. She took it upon herself to mention another gun in her underwear drawer. This turned out to be a chromed .32, a cheap ugly gun that she termed a “Saturday Night Special.” With one gun out, I asked what the wrapped revolver in the linen closet was. She asked me to show it to her. What fell out of the bag was a Civil War Navy Colt .44 cap-and-ball black powder revolver. Impressive. Diddie told me that this was another heirloom, from Frank Cerini. She said that it was to pass to Cerini Bess, her daughter, or, if Cerini wanted, to a Cerini-surnamed relative. OK. Where was the .38, I asked tactfully? Safely locked away at the bank.

I thought that was all. I wrote up an inventory of the four weapons, where they were, that I had stored them in the box which had held ammo, that I had stored them unloaded, where they should go when Diddie passed away, as I understood it. I was then rather taken aback when I found another pistol in the linen closet. Lying there among the picture frames Diddie asked me to get down was a blued-steel revolver with the shiny primers of 6 live rounds winking at me from the loaded cylinder. I was rather taken aback.

It’s always a bit of an item to find a loaded, unfamiliar gun. It’s sort of a race between entropy and curiosity. Can I find out how to get the action open before I accidentally let the hammer fall on a round? Can I remember to point the barrel where people aren’t? Is there really any such place in a city?

I got it unloaded. It is a .32, but a different length of cartridge than the Saturday Night Special. It has no front sight. I guess it’s for pointing at close range.

It is now 7 years since I wrote this and left it without a concluding paragraph. I want to end this, but I also want to add a few things. For one, the loaded .32 came with a form-fitting holster. This is not the kind to clip to a belt or hang off a hip. In keeping with the intimate nature of the sighting system, the holster is made to fit in the pocket of, I imagine, a suitcoat. I think somehow I garnered that my grandfather wore it when making deposits from his small bookstore. One one hand, it seems very noir. On the other hand it seems slightly desperate. How bid could the deposits from their shop be? Big enough, I suppose, for them to be vitally dependant on them.

The silver .32 had a brief denounment. We all felt that it was an inaesthetic instrument. It passed to my uncle Kit, who has since himself died [Even here I will not use the euphemism that is the first verb in this sentence!]. Whereas I offloaded the unstable antique ammo on a local gunshop which I hope had it blown up in some quarry, my uncle offered up the cheap gun to the local constabulary to be melted down. He was nonplussed that they seemed to take the offer in stride. I know he wasn't expecting a certificate of appreciation, and I know that the cops certainly have a schema for accepting weaponised detritus, but the lacadaisical manner in which his gift was accepted was somewhat off-putting.

Now the guns have other homes in the family. Most serve as commemorations of our family's history. Mine, the .22, was fired for the first time since Diddie's death this last week-- 11 years later. It may not have been fired for 40 years before her death. Diddie's other pistols may not be fired for a long time. We'll see.

More on class, language status, education, and the families of the kids I teach

A note from a parent, rec'd in May. A contrast with the plaintive, semi-literate note I posted on my wall in May on the same subject. May is the time of year when parents whose kids are in bilingual classes say to themselves, "Well, I guess it's time we take little Juanito or Yessenia out of bilingual. It's been long enough. They should learn English now." It is not time. It has not been long enough. They have already been learning English.

Le escribo esta nota para hacerle saber que quisiera que para el proximo año escolar quiero que mi hija Xxxx Yyyyy sea colocado en un salón en el cual la educacion es mayormente en inglés o casi toda en ingles. La razon es gue yo siento que mi hija no a avanzado en lectura y escritura.

ATT: Zzzz Yyyyy

The body of the letter is in a very neat, slanted, cursive like printing. There is only one spelling mistake ("a" instead of "ha" with a silent h) aside from some words lacking the orthographic accent. The phrasing is pretty unrealistically stilted, almost flowery. The signature ("ATT:...) is in a larger, bolder hand, neat but not a refined style of printing.

Yes, little Xxxx is not progressing in reading and writing. She was also out for several weeks of school on a visit to Mexico.

¿Debe mi hijo debe continuar en la clase bilingüe? Por Sr. Bess

Ahora es el tiempo del año cuando muchas familias se preguntan,“Pues, ya aprendió bien el inglés mi hijito, debe de ir a la clase de puroinglés?” La decisión siempre es suya, pero la clase bilingüe es un apoyo muyefectivo para muchos niños. Lassiguientes razones son porque debe de dejar que su hijo continúe en la clasebilingüe:

1. La clase bilingüeapoya que los estudiantes tengan una fundación fuerte en su idioma nativa. Unestudiante bien alfabetizado en el idioma de su propia cultura fácilmenteaprendería el inglés.

2. El aprendizaje delinglés es un proceso de aproximadamente 7 años. Una persona solo aprende a leeruna vez, y la clase bilingüe enseñaa los niños a leer en el idioma que entienden (su primer idioma).

Los niños en lasclases bilingües sí aprenden a leeren inglés también. En kinder, el aprendizaje es 20% en inglés. En el 1

grado, es 30% en inglés. 2

ndo

grado, 40%, hasta llegar al 80% de laenseñanza de lectura en inglés en el 6

grado.

4. Más es mejor. Los niñosque se salen temprano del programa bilingüe usualmente aprenden a leer peor en inglésque los niños que ya sabían inglés. Los niños que tienen el apoyo de las clasesbilingües usualmente logran el mismo nivel de lectura que los niños que ya sabíaninglés.

La clase bilingüe—elapoyo para los niños de las familias que hablan español—existe solamente cuandohay suficientes alumnos en el programa. Nuestras clases bilingües ahora van de kinder al 3

grado. No podría ser así sin la continuación de los alumnos que empezaron en elprograma bilingüe desde el kinder.

4554551N @ BHS in 2012

An update on the 455451N game at an unnamed local educational institution. I am breaking OpSec by discussing this, hee-hee! After a week’s play, my lad had a big day on, I believe, Wednesday, where he K’ed 4.He says some teams are “dumb”, which I take to be his considered opinion. The team after him now are merely “bros”. one threat is a football player. I told him I thot it was a geek thing, “not at all” he replied. It is a Tradition!

He goes armed at all times. There has been at least one case of breaking and entering at someone else’s house where a kid lay in wait in his T’s bathroom. C and I both would react poorly to that if it happened at our house, though I have been wanting to practice some pins and holds off the mat. B & E is cricket for the game: home is not “safe”. My guy says that anyone taking this tack would be cognizant of their exposure to the justice system’s consequences.

The current short-term goal is to avoid getting K’ed over the weekend. the team whose T he is needs to K him before Monday to avoid being DQ’ed. His plan is to hunker down over the wknd at an undisclosed location not our house surrounded by fellow gunsels.

my lad’s T has no school records—does this imply some sort of hacking?—but was my lad’s schoolmate [nemesis!] in elementary, so we stillhave paper phone lists [!] with his info. Research: not unlike actual labor.

Our hero was supposed to get up at 5 [that was the plan,anyway] to get to school early and safe. School grounds are in some respects safe, though some types of “bmmbing” seem to be allowed there. An intricate booby trapped book has been devised, and my li’l predator expended a fair amount of what could be considered work in its construction.

I think he did the whole kitchen after dinner. The tradeoff was that I exposed myself to enemy fire taking out the trash. This is—d34this—a nice motivator, and not bad practice for the reel werld.

Oh, BTW-- there is a significant $$ prize: a couple grand?

Count Dracula speaks in Bram Stoker's Dracula, verbatim:

“We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, aye, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the werewolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?" He held up his arms. "Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race, that we were proud, that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier, that the Honfoglalas was completed there?And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkeyland. Aye, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for as the Turks say, “water sleeps, and the enemy is sleepless.” Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the `bloody sword,' or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent?Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland, who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! What good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohacs, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys, and the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains, and their swords, can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace, and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told."

Count Dracula speaks in Bram Stoker's Dracula, edited, annotated with commentary:

“We Szekelys have a right [the nobles' claim to their right] to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood [nascent eugenic thinking] of many brave races [racialist ideation which fed the fascist gorefest of the mid 20th century] who fought as the lion [bestiary of medieval heraldry as well as of militarism] fights, for lordship [claim of nobility]. Here, in the whirlpool of European races [interestingly, as in first sentence, a reference to multi-ethnic heritage, at odds with 20th century fascist ideation], the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland [a. nobody came from Iceland, b. the Ugric tribes would not have come from Scandinavian cultures] the fighting spirit [term resonates well with modern US military thinking] which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, aye, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the werewolves [links “berserker” to “werewolf”: the latter term is not only a supernatural reference, but also the name the Nazis gave to stay-behind guerrillas in Soviet territory after WWII] themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?" He held up his arms. "Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race, that we were proud, that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier, that the Honfoglalas was completed there?And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkeyland. Aye, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for as the Turks say, “water sleeps, and the enemy is sleepless.” Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the `bloody sword,' or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent?Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland, who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! What good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohacs, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys, and the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains, and their swords, can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace, and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told."

Edited for brevity:

“We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, ... the fighting spirit ... which [the] Berserkers displayed ... the peoples thought that the werewolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?...Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race, that we were proud, that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier, that the Honfoglalas was completed there?And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkeyland. ... Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the `bloody sword,' or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent?Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland, who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! What good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it?

A Child's Own Death

The child comes bearing its death,

its own death,

padding along in the footie-jammies of its spirit,

quietly and earnestly,

a small, familiar, slightly grubby death,

borne along as it would have borne,

a drawing to show its mother,

looking to us imprecise, scribbled, approximate,

but springing to the child's own perception

crystal clear, in sharp relief,

defined and descriptive,

and uniquely its own.

on the recent school shooting in connecticut: December 2012

the golden souls of those killed kinder kids--

do they pool together like quicksilver on a glass table,

or suffuse like the rosy tint of sunset on a cloudy evening?

when they go back to the great recycle bin of spirit,

do they retain the springiness of their young becomings,

or do they bear the terror of that last violent moment?

what it sounds like inside my head:

This is the kind of analysis I engage in on the subject of camo. It used to be internal until the advent of the Interwebs. This is a discussion [which i did not start!] about one reversible camo pattern among myself and 8 other students of camouflage in about 6 different countries on 3 continents, whose names have been withheld to prevent their significant others finding out how much time they waste on this. :) You are not expected to read the whole thing. Pick a chunk in the middle-- you'll get the general idea.

collector 1 Did the #59 differed from the #57 in pattern as well? As in not just the design of the uniform, but the actual camouflage pattern? collector 2 You made me go look at my small collection. :) I am actually a bit surprised by what I saw, as I had always assumed that this pattern had stayed the same from 1957/58 through 1975, because I don't remember reading anywhere that it had undergone significant changes during its service life. The first interesting feature I noticed was that part of the original #57 pattern consists of a juxtaposition of inverted clusters, with only very minor modification to some of the shapes inside the cluster. I had always suspected that this was the case through casual observation, but I didn't realize how extensive the cluster was until I studied it more carefully (thanks to your question): Secondly, and more relevant to what you were asking, I found that there were indeed two distinct sub-patterns! However, the change to the second pattern does not seem to coincide with the adoption of #59, as my 1960-dated parka is still printed in the original pattern (although the tiny sample size precludes me from making this claim categorically). I don't have any garment dated between '60 and '66, so I have no way of knowing the precise time frame in which the later pattern began to appear. All I can say is that everything I have after '66 is printed in the second pattern, which not only contains numerous minor modifications to the existing shapes, but also a major feature insertion, consisting of a band of shapes that actually disrupted the inversion feature seen above: Of course, I only focused on one corner of the full pattern (it's the part that isn't interrupted by seams and pockets on the two examples shown), but the same observation applies to the rest of the pattern as well. #59 smocks are still fairly common in surplus stores; it shouldn't be too hard to pin down the precise date of the switch if someone had access to a pile of these and wouldn't mind the headache of going through them . collector 3 Nice pattern forensics...very interesting. Too bad nobody has an uncut sheet of fabric. Surely the # military kept the original art. Might be worth enquiring. collector 4 Great work! I think it's fair to say that you've advanced our knowledge of the history of # camouflage quite significantly So how many different clusters of shapes do you think there are in a full repeat of the '57 pattern? And how many remain unchanged in the post '66 modification? Also, how many new shape clusters would you say got added in to the later design? pietbess ER... i've got a Zeltbahn. Lemme look at it. collector 2 Glad to know that I am able to contribute, Gentlemen. This may be the only place on the planet where this kind of exercise is encouraged. After some more turning and flipping, the cluster I outlined last night is still the only obvious inversion to my eyes. Here it is in its entirety (#57/58 coats have a one-piece back, which is just large enough to show a whole repeat module): All the later coats and jackets have two-piece backs - too narrow to show the full repeat module in the horizontal orientation. I made an attempt to stitch the pattern together using the back pieces of several different coats and jackets, but came away empty handed due to missing portions. I don't have the urge to expand the exercise by recruiting other parts of the garment, yet. I also dug out my four Zelts this morning to have a look. The three with legible issue stamps are all '67 dated, and all four are printed in the first pattern. So I am very curious to see what Piet can come up with. Admin Excellent bit of research there, . Thanks for sharing it with us. This is definitely a detail of the pattern I had heretofore not paid attention to. Looks like I need to update the Camo description! collector 1 Amazing responses, thank you very much! I am currently writing a list of patterns for my PhD, basically what I should be looking out there and thanks to your research I'll be aiming for two #patterns! collector 2 These comments and a full stomach are all the 'urging' I needed to finish piecing together a complete view of the second pattern. As expected, this later version is basically a lightly reworked earlier pattern bisected by a band of additional shapes, resulting in an increased repeat distance - from just under 18" to 20.5". It is pretty interesting that this variation has evidently managed to stay hidden in plain sight for so long, either as a reflection of the pattern's lack of appeal to collectors, or further proof of its effectiveness in confounding the human eye . Given that the pattern has been reproduced commercially, one would have thought that, at the very least, those who were involved in the reproduction process should have noticed the differences; that is, if they had sampled more than just a single parka or Zelt... collector 5 what's with the repetitions in the horizontal line? Admin I will make an effort to dig out my # stuff in the next few days and make a side-by-side comparison shot. I think the average viewer will have a hard time differentiating between the two, other than the fact that later production fabric seems to have slightly darker dyes. It is not that surprising to me that the details have been missed for this long, though. I think by the nature of the design, it is not as easy to pick out the pattern repeat as it is with so many other contemporary and later camouflage designs. - rather than creating a completely new set of comparison drawings, may I have permission to use the diagrams you created here for my site? I think they illustrate the difference perfectly, and would be more than happy to give you credit for the work. collector 5: Do you mean "width"? Or are you asking about those artifacts from the crappy digital stitching job I did? If it's the former, please see the illustration below, which summarizes everything I've posted. If it's the latter - I had a hard time overcoming parallax discrepancies using the simple photo-editing tools I have. Admin: Yes, that built-in inversion can certainly be disorienting to the casual observer; when combined with the common practice of reversing pattern orientation on adjacent panels during garment construction, it does indeed take some effort to see the differences on the later uniforms. Please feel free to use any of the images I posted for my site. If you need larger versions of one or the other, just let me know. collector 6 Nice work, guys. Very well researched. Admin Here is a photograph from the back of my unissued 1961-dated smock. I left it "large" despite the fact that there is a seam down the center disrupting the repeat, just in case there is something I have missed. From my observation this appears to still be the original #57 pattern and not the later version. Would you gents agree? I stared at this and the pattern from a 1971-dated smock for quite a while and they do appear to be different, although it is still difficult for me to pick out the clusters. Instead I have been focusing on particular shapes (sort of a Rorschach imagery thing). Now, take a look at this photograph of the pattern from a 1971-dated smock and you will notice that there some of the "new" small shapes that appear in this pattern which do not appear in the earlier pattern. collector 2 Now, take a look at this photograph of the pattern from a 1971-dated smock and you will notice that there some of the "new" small shapes that appear in this pattern which do not appear in the earlier pattern. Indeed, there are a few shapes in the added cluster band that are quite distinctive. Once I knew what to look for, it was not at all difficult to see them among the gaggle of blotches and squiggles. Two of the dark brown shapes are especially easy to spot. As I am not particularly imaginative, I thought that one looked like a "sock puppet", while the other resembled a "tadpole". They are 10.5" apart center-to-center in one direction, and 5" apart in the other, so at least one of them should be visible on any back panel, and two or even three of them can be seen on a front panel, where there is no obstruction. Does this qualify as the most amount of time anyone has spent on a common pattern or what? Yet it turned out to be a very enjoyable exercise for some reason collector 7 very interesting thread! I would like some IR photos of the pattern. The first is a #59 jacket marked 1960. Secondly, an IR photo of my 1965 marked Zeltbahn: I do have a second #59 jacket in my collection, but I can't read the markings (it seems to end in 5), but it has a zipper - when was this introduced? collector 2 I thought I was done with this, but you made me dig out my clothes again. Your '65 dated Zelt is printed in the first pattern, just like my '67 dated examples. Since the Zelt is made using a fabric that underwent a very different printing process than that of the uniform cloth, perhaps it was never affected by the pattern update? However, not too surprisingly, the second pattern does in fact look quite different in NIR imaging compared to the original pattern. Among the five colors in the original pattern (inclusive of the base color), both green and gray shapes are printed in IR absorbent dyes, with the gray being the more absorbent of the two (very obvious in the Zelt photo). In the updated pattern, the gray has taken on a darker and more bluish hue, but is no longer IR absorbent. As a result, the updated pattern looks significantly "paler" in NIR compared to the original (with roughly 50% fewer IR absorbent shapes). Whether or not this is by design, it is certainly one very quick way to tell the two patterns apart. Thanks for bringing it up. pietbess the other side of the zeltbahn, the swamp-pattern side, has the same differences. one older used example of this I have lacks parts of the pattern apparently inserted on another example I have which is in unwashed, unused condition. more on this later. i have this weird thing i have to go to called "work". :( collector 2 Interesting. So perhaps the Zelt, too, went through an update at some point. Does your newer Zelt show the later type pattern on the splotchy side? Can you see a date? Looking forward to reading your report! P.S., collector 7: I noticed that you had a question at the end of your Nov 30 post about you zippered coat that was left unaddressed. This type of coat is usually identified as "Panzeranzug". It co-existed and co-evolved alongside the Kampfanzug from '57 through '69, and came with matching overpants with zippered thigh pockets. Therefore, the faded numeral in front of your '5' can only be a '6'. The introduction of KAZ69, a shorter coat that resembled the earlier Panzeranzug in many respects but without a zipper, obviated the need to issue a separate 'Panzer' uniform. pietbess quote:Originally posted by collector 2 Does your newer Zelt show the later type pattern on the splotchy side? Can you see a date? Yes, the spotted side is also different. I haven't compared it with the photos here. The Zelt is stamped "## 83" quote: Originally posted by collector 2 Among the five colors in the original pattern (inclusive of the base color), both green and gray shapes are printed in IR absorbent dyes, with the gray being the more absorbent of the two (very obvious in the Zelt photo). In the updated pattern, the gray has taken on a darker and more bluish hue, but is no longer IR absorbent. As a result, the updated pattern looks significantly "paler" in NIR compared to the original (with roughly 50% fewer IR absorbent shapes). Cool animation! Remember, the thing to look for in IR is not absorbency [darkness], but reflection [lightness]. Foliage is pretty dark in the visual, but very, very bright in IR. I don't think this looks like an IR treated pattern, but I do think IR is a useful tool for looking for details in the pattern. Sometimes stamps may show up better in IR, as well. collector 2 Thanks for the follow up, Piet! So the patterns on the later Zeltbahnen were in fact updated on both sides. The question now is when. We know it's between '67 and '83. I just had a look at the Zelt Admin used for illustration on my site (I don't know why I didn't do that before): its splotchy side is definitely printed in the second pattern; so one can now assume that its 'marsh' side must be in the later pattern as well? I will have to go visit my local surplus store and look for a new Zeltbahn! Admin What are the differences between the 1st and 2nd Marsh patterns? I am not sure I have an older zelt, so this is news to me as well. collector 2 quote: Cool animation! Remember, the thing to look for in IR is not absorbency [darkness], but reflection [lightness]. Foliage is pretty dark in the visual, but very, very bright in IR. I don't think this looks like an IR treated pattern, but I do think IR is a useful tool for looking for details in the pattern. Sometimes stamps may show up better in IR, as well. Given your expertise on this subject [I would say “study” -ed.], you are undoubtedly right that this pattern was not specifically designed to be effective against NIR-imaging. The differences in the IR-absorbance/reflectance of the dyes are likely incidental rather than intentional. By replacing the highly IR-absorbent gray dye (which is the only dye in this pattern that shows up dark at the 950 nm cutoff) with one that is completely IR-reflective, I personally feel that they made the updated pattern less effective against NIR-imaging than the original pattern, as there is virtually no contrast at all in the newer pattern at the longer wavelengths. Surely this couldn't have been an 'improvement' by design? collector 2 I hope Piet wasn't planning on doing something like this. As I seem to have a lot more time on my hand than he does, I thought I'd go ahead and give the Marsh pattern the same treatment that I had given to the splotchy side, after I found a later model Zeltbahn at my local surplus store this afternoon (unfortunately, it does not have a legible date stamp): Just as Piet had reported, there is indeed an insertion of new features in the updated pattern. However, in contrast to what I had observed on the splotchy side, the newer Marsh pattern is not lengthened by the insertion. If anything, the later drawing is slightly shorter and 'flatter' than the original version, perhaps as a result of some minor compression in the overall pattern (with n=1, this is little more than speculation at this point). Since I had my IR camera out, I also took some photos using both the 720 and 950 filters (only the 720 photos are shown; the 950 ones look virtually identical). About all one can say is that the relative IR absorbance/reflectance of the brown and gray dyes appears reversed in the later pattern, and that on the whole, this side of the Zeltbahn is a lot less IR-reflective than the splotchy side, whether or not by design. Incidentally, I took a quick look at some commercially made BDUs (Sturm-Miltec?) that the store has had on their rack since forever (which I never felt the need to do before). They all appear to be printed in the later pattern. Now that I have beaten this one to death, I think I am finally ready to put everything away. Admin Great work, ! That is a marvelous schematic of the changes to the swamp pattern. Thanks again for the great work!

Inside a Gun

There ain't nothin'

inside

a gun,

Just black, solid.

Like graphite from a wooden pencil, but no trace of shiny silver, anthracite:

Dark night,

Like a charcoal stick from the art supplier, but it don't draw,

Like the inside of one of them industrial fuses that you thought was a blasting cap

so you hammered on it and tried to blow it up,

Only to find it full of carbon, inscrutable, sterile, too hard to crumble,

Useful for what?

Not a Real German

A message from Claudia's former boss: 2012

(Both are Germans. The boss is working in the US. Claudia is living in the US long-term.)

"I know it is not easy for you to plan my sales trips, but when I drive from [unnamed state] to [other unnamed state], that is, over X,000 miles, and from there more than X,000 miles back to Charlotte then I would like to visit the customers we scheduled and not just X customers. X,000 miles to visit X customers. Do you know anyone who would do that? Not me.

In more than 30 years of European Cup and World Cup soccer, I have never missed a game of Germany. As I said, it was always possible to watch the games in [Asian third world countries] or wherever I traveled in the last 20 years. On ****day, I am supposed to go to [unnamed city] just as German plays in the xxxx-finals. Apparently, we can't change this appointment to ******day. So, on ******day, I am wasting my time, and on ****day, I have to drive all ****day instead of arriving ****day evening.

I don't know to what degree you [still] understand what it means to be a German. On ****day, about X million Germans will be watching that soccer game. It is not at all like that weird Superbowl in the United States, where they only cheer when they are told to. That is synthetic like so much in the USA.

I have had it with all this driving. It's not a problem to visit all these customers, but if you add soccer to the mix, it can be the straw that breaks the camel's back, not to put too fine a point on it. Please remember, it's not just about our American customers, but about us, the Germans who work here at [unnamed small company from Germany].

You Are Beautiful by Molly G.

rekeyed from the Longfellow Middle School PTA newsletter

[I know what the G. stands for, but it only says "G." in the newsletter, so there you go.

Share with Delphina, my daughter, and the piece will get back to Molly.]

Black, white, purple, blue, brown, green or orange.

Gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, or transgendered.

Whether you're smart

or quiet

or impossibly in love with your best friend,

someone out there cherishes your smile and gets

butterflies when you walk into a room. Whether you're rich

or poor, short or tall, whether you're high on life or intent

on a way to end it, someone out there can't stop thinking

about you. You are BEAUTIFUL. Don't let anyone make

you feel otherwise.

"Looks Like"

In the early oughties, I wore to school, tucked into my black slacks, a nice Stewart Formal tartan Pendleton, a regular shirt with one open pocket. It kept me warm. Commentary occurred on the "looks like" level of analysis: I looked like a lumberjack. Back in the 90's I wore a black boonie hat/ floppy hat with some sort of fatigue jacket to the video store, where, to be fair, they knew that my tastes ran a bit raw. I looked like a mercenary. Not that mercenary is a particular full semantic category-- it only signifies getting paid on a commercial basis. My teaching colleague remarked, seeing my downward spiral into plaid pants and flat caps, that I look ever more like a golfer. Others, seeing me walk into the teachers' lounge in a long wool scarf with my reading glasses, remark that I look like a professor.

OK, so the clothes make the man. I find this oppressively facile. Plaid happens. Floppy hats don't get paid, they just shade. Flat hats are the only toothsome headgear not also worn by, say, SWAT teams, a "look like" I certainly don't need. And that scarf-- it's warm as all get out! Can we wear clothing to, like, clothe ourselves???

A letter from my mom about her teacher in HS

rekeyed by Piet: unedited.

October 5, 2011

Cerini Creely Bess

Shell Beach CA

Editor

School Newspaper

Newport Harbor Union High School

1600 16th St.

Newport Beach CA

96263

Greetings from a 1955 graduate of NHHS (now in my 70's).

I look back with great fondness on my high school days at your (our) school. I loved my class-mates and loved growing up in a small town and a beach town. So did many of my class-mates, who settled on the Central Coast because it was close to what NB used to be for us. (OC grew so BIG.) We also loved NHHS because of great teachers, whom we loved and remember so fondly. Our high regard for our teachers was recently brought up for 2 of us (Diana Crane Mann and I). We both collect artists' paintings we find here and there, and Diana called me this week to tell me about her most recent find.

It was a lovely oil painting by Shirley Laurie Rice. Ms. Laurie (in 1952) was our art teacher so we were both thrilled to have her “back in our lives” again. A great part of our thrill was remembering her kindness to certain students. She was a great encourager to Diana's husband Darrell (1952) and to the shyest ever boy in my art class. She discovered he had a cartooning talent. Under her encouragement he absolutely bloomed. He followed his interest (in cartooning) at OCC and-- I believe, on from there.

So-- this letter is a tribute to her, and to the teachers who can impact lives so greatly, and to the teachers you now have. I am so happy that Diana and I have had this moment to re-connect with Ms. Laurie (soon after 1952 she married Ed Rice). Diana and I wonder if she too was here in San Luis Obispo County. (Mr. William McLaughlin was in Cambria). If anyone in the school can find out, please let us know. If you print this it can be a tribute to her.

GO SAILORS,

Cerini C. Bess

My son's arguments to CA senators, May, 2011

Wrote it himself, he says. I am pretty proud.

Hi my name is Nigel Bess and I'd like to voice my opposition to senate bill SB798. It was intended to prevent replica firearms, especially airsoft guns, from being mistaken as real firearms in public. However, there are already laws in place against brandishing replica firearms in public. Furthermore, if airsoft guns were brightly colored, they would be thought of more as toys than as responsibilities, thus parents would be more likely to buy them for irresponsible children. Also, you would only be preventing law abiding citizens from having realistic looking guns, as anyone would still easily be able to paint his or her airsoft gun black.

> Another downside of SB798 is that it would destroy the safe and fun sport of airsoft (not to mention the fact that it is very profitable for california, with the 2 largest retailers based here). Airsoft is played in controlled environments in which players are required to wear proper eye and face protection. One of the main features and attractions to airsoft is milsim, or military simulation, which would be entirely lost if everyone were using brightly colored or clear guns. people would stop playing, and the sport would die.

> Why take away from the good of many because of a tiny number of irresponsible individuals?

> thank you for your time.

today was a good day

stoked. was already stoked. did not feel anything more than temporarily raised stress levels when 6 y.o. punched me. taught rest of day, hit all my numbers. stayed 'til 6 and excavated down to level of surface of desk. rode all 26+ mi. home amid gusty winds on shore of this violent beast which lives in our midst, the SF Bay. rode under dark clouds with rays of sunlight radiating out from them. ate whole small pizza with friends at artwalk. froze. bought can of PBR and drank in under 3 min. started to feel some pain at about Univ. Ave. in Berkeley. asked for opiated beer at Lanesplitter. no dice. met 2 olde friends, one older than the next. drank several halfpints. retired.

A Perfect Child

Inside a one-mile radius of Osama Bin-Laden,

There is a perfectly normal child.

She has a favourite toy.

It is grubby, ragged, well-loved.

She has a bed, whatever she calls it,

A place safe, a blanket, thin, but known; familiar.

It smells of child. It smells of home.

It smells safe.

She has small feet.

She runs fast in the dust, but not fast enough.

She dances, but not to any tune.

She is a perfectly normal child.

She sees the very tall man. He smiles at her.

She is a little scared of him.

She does not know how many perfectly normal children he has incinerated or crushed.

He sometimes gives her sweets.

She smiles, runs away, utterly pleased, uncatchable.

She has a mother, still.

As a mother, she is clear as crystal.

Mother is mother.

As an adult, her role is obscure, hazy.

Where does Mother go?

What is Mother when she goes away?

Whom does she please?

Above, a machine flies with the tone of a hot-rod lawn-mower.

Tireless, men in Las Vegas steer it,

High above

a perfectly normal child.

-Piet Bess, 2007

An interlude

Cast: Nigel, 15, Zarina, 6, Lendell, adult, Delphina [off stage], 11

Time: 1:30 a.m. Outside Nigel and Delphina's window
Lendell, Zarina: exiting car, arriving home from party
Zarina: Look, daddy! Delphina's playing video games! Can I go over and play with her?
Lendell: No, Zari: that's not Delphina. That must be Nigel, 'cause it's a first person shooter.

[Note: this is how we found out he's been sneaking downstairs to play vids while we slept.]

2nd graders speak

Don’t point at me because I’m black.
Don’t push me because I’m so small.
Don't laugh at me because I have kooky shoes.
Don't point at me because I have a bruise.
Don’t push me because I’m slow.
Don’t point at me because I’m fat.
Don’t laugh at me because my hair is funny.
Don’t push me because you think I'm fat.
Don’t laugh at me because I’m black and I’m not fast.
Don't slap me because I am thin.
Don’t laugh at me because I have braces on my teeth.
Don’t slap me because I have glasses and I am slow.
Don’t make fun of me because I have long hair.
Don’t unlove me and hate me because I'm poor.
Don’t laugh at me because I’m thin.
Don’t lie to me because I am different.
Don't laugh at my hair.
Don’t break my heart because my feelings will be hurt because I will cry.

Yes, I understood you...

... when you tried to express that you no longer feel comfortable in the town that used to be my hometown. Yes, I heard when you said "negros" the first time. You didn't have to repeat it. Anyway, WTF was that? It sho' wasn't knee-grows. Methinks it wasn't niggrahs, either, but it was close enough to the midpoint btwn. those 2 to be worrisome. No, I don't think it's worth discussing with you, being as you are past 90. I hope your attitudes are not long of this world, either.