1. You never fed the bears and then complained when they indicated their desire to feed on you.
2. You paid too little attention to what I wrote, not recognizing the coded language of the apocrypha and mistook it for frivolity.
3. You made me feel like John the Revelator.
4. You never appreciated the choreography of the dancing bears.
5. I continue to be amazed at your lack of awareness.. well, of many things, but mainly of how you are manipulated by the media and politicos.
6. You didn’t laugh when you should have.
7. You didn’t laugh when you could have.
8. I sat in the theater, waiting for Mockingjay 2 to start, and by the end of the final trailer I realized that none of the coming movies featured anyone but white people.
9. None of the problems in golf and higher ed that people wrote about in the 1990s have been solved. This explains why we have a Bush, Clinton, and a billionaire running for president. We simply can’t make progress.
10. Maybe it is time to let someone else try to fix things.
11. After watching the original Star Wars trilogy, I was reminded of their overall suckiness and incomparability to the even-numbered Star Trek movies. Even ST:TMP was a better movie, but Star Wars did have a better story that could have been cut down.
12. Speaking of cutting down. Let’s not let Peter Jackson make any more movies of beloved classics.
13. College presidents should be careful about urging students to arm themselves as I’ve rarely met or read about a universally loved college president.
14. Mobility companies, like Harmar and Rideaway, are abysmal. They promise mobility products that support living in your home, aging-in-place, but they don’t stand behind the products. And they don’t keep parts readily available.
15. You failed in your understanding of the Old Testament.
16. As much as I like learning how things are made, at some point I want a show about you determined the process for how a thing is made.
17. I think you choose to be scared of others because it gives you identity and the illusion that someone cares enough about your existence to hate you. The fact is, a percentage of the population, no one really cares about you.
18. Even if a hundred people love or hate you, that is a very small number (100/7,000,000,000), so small it might as well be zero.
19. Speaking of numbers and “getting credit” for all your institution does, you continue fail to think about implications of such policy recommendations. Getting credit should never be a driver of policy development.
20. You are argued that we can’t take Syrian refugees until we take care of Americans first and then you continued vote or voice your support for senators and representatives that vote against policies to support Americans. You’re a selfish idiot.
21. You continue to show an inability to win gracefully.
22. You may be a special snowflake but that makes you one of about seven billion. Whoopee. Snowflakes melt and become part of the collective.
23. You report the news of parent outrage from rural communities without looking more broadly. Ask yourself if there might be a link between the event and the legislative representation.
24. Conspiracy theories abound. And they are mostly stupid.
25. You keep forgetting that you are little more than a self-aware moist robot. For many of you, this self-awareness is quite minimal.
26. You don’t read enough.
27. You don’t read enough to know the difference between good and information.
28. Once again, just because it is new to you, doesn’t mean it is a new thing. Cross-handed or left-handed putting and looking at the hole and not the putter are not new things. They weren’t new 20 years ago either when it was “a new thing.”
29. This. Translates into stupid is a stupid does.
30. You continue to be inconsistent in your statements of belief. And then you vote.

I have more experience doing this wrong than most people will ever have, fortunately. So, I have some thoughts to share, especially while my wife is beginning post-op week number two following her second knee-replacement. These thoughts are written from the perspective of being a spousal caregiver of someone that has multiple health issue. I think many of these things are universal, as they correspond with my experience recovering from brain surgery.

1. Accept that no matter you do, it is mostly going to be wrong at the time it is done because your patient is in pain and/or out of sorts.  Learn to let most criticisms go. Those that matter are those that cause or increase pain.
2. Your patient knows more about what hurts than you do. Let them guide you.
3. Sometimes you will cause pain and you don’t have any choice. Save your own tears for later and do what you have to.
4. Keep your cell phone close, at all times.
5. Bath time is scary. Have a plan. Bathrooms may well be the most dangerous rooms in the home, even those that are accessible like ours, with plenty of grab bars. Figure out what you are going to do and be prepared for any possible slip.
6. Don’t help until you have been asked. When my wife brought me home from the hospital after two weeks in neuroscience ICU, I had to find it within me to to get up the three steps to the porch. This was a major challenge and accomplishment at that point. Too much help delays healing and interferes further with your patient’s sense of independence and agency. If your goal is to return your patient to independence, the more you do only what is needed, the quicker this will happen.
7. Learn how to fall properly. If you have a patient with mobility and balance problems, your first responsibility will to keep them from falling. If they fall, you may well go with them. There are ways to fall and not to fall.
8. Have a plan if a fall occurs. I can’t lift my wife and I am pretty big guy and am reasonably strong. But I can help her into a sitting position and help her move up into a chair or wheelchair with a series of small platforms or step-stools. I can also call 911.
9. Know your own limits. Plenty of caregivers injure themselves, back injuries are not uncommon, from attempting to do much. This also applies to your medical knowledge, primary lack thereof.
10. Make routine those things that can be. A schedule is helpful.
11. There is a reason hospitals use little cups for pills. It makes it easier for the patient to take and for the caregiver to organize.
12. If there are multiple prescriptions make sure you speak with your pharmacist about interactions – including if there are timing issues about when to take what.
13. Be prepared for a whole new level of intimacy.
14. Take care of yourself. Self-maintenance is a necessity to be an effective caregiver.
15. Be safe. If you are sole caregiver, and sole support, you have a tremendous responsibility for your loved one. Don’t. Be. Stupid.
16. Communicate clearly and often. Make sure your patient knows if you need to work, do self-care, or shop.
17. Use respite care, friends, and family to help as they can, but realize that your 110 pound grandma or Aunt Grizelda can’t keep your 200 pound patient from falling…or help her up.
18. Recognize that caregiving for an adult is a lot like being a single-parent to an unhappy toddler. You will have to use sleep time for self-care, including bathing or just a cup of coffee without disturbance.
19. Sleep when you can.
20. It’s not easy, it is just love.

Sleep, baby, sleep, in peace may you slumber,
No danger lurks, your sleep to encumber,
We’ve got the missiles, peace to determine,
And one of the fingers on the button may be Donald’s.

Why shouldn’t they have nuclear warheads?
Jeb; says no, but he’s really a sorehead.
I say a bygone should be a bygone,
Let’s make peace the way we did in Stanleyville and Saigon.

Once all the Senators were warlike and mean,
But that couldn’t happen again.
They’ve all been elected over and over again,
Marco and Ted have hardly bothered us since then.

So, sleep well, my darling, the sandman can linger
We know our buddies won’t give us the finger
Heil – hail – the Grand ol’ Party
Hail to our loyal ally!
TRUMP
Will scare ISIS.
I hope they’re half as scared as I!

Apologies: Tom Lehrer – Mlf Lullaby Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Why golf, fishing, and a certain demographic group explain today’s political theater.

After returning to playing golf and paying attention to golf for the first time in decade, I notice things really haven’t changed. Manufacturers are still creating products and advertising to promise longer and straighter shots, or easier putts and chips, cutting a stroke off each hole.

A lot of this is snake oil. Some of it is improvement in technology. Some is a combination of both. In 1999, in his “Short Game Bible,” Dave Pelz writes about how golf irons have changed, had their lofts strengthened, over time  so that a modern seven iron should hit a ball further with the same swing speed than a seven iron of 30 or 50 years ago. Balls have also changed and go further than ever before. In other words, players hit a juiced ball with a club labeled one thing but actually built like something else and they feel like they have gotten better or been given a gift. In reality, their swings still suck but they don’t realize it.

In the end though, to play golf well, it still comes down to the hard work of learning, regular practice, and a certain amount of mental/emotional discipline. Of course, one can enjoy the game without playing well, that is a well-known truism. It is certainly more fun the further one walks between shots before you get to the green.

When I was young, an uncle (and others) taught me that fishing lures were designed to fool fishermen, not fish. This is especially true with bass fishing (largemouth bass).  From the early days of Bass Pro when I found their bags of product in liquor stores in Joplin and the surrounds, long before the building of the mother store in Springfield, and even long before that, fishing lures have existed to feed a need to catch a fish. A fish with a very large mouth that will eat anything from tiny red wrigglers (worms) to the occasional baby duck, begging the question – what won’t a bass strike?

Something strikes me as wrong that we have an industry where folks happily pay $5 to $10 for a piece of plastic to lob at a place where a fish might be. And said piece of plastic tied to a piece of plastic filament that will eventually break, fish or no. Yes, I love the thrill of a fish breaking the water and taking off with a crankbait or plastic worm, but I am kind of cheap. Cheap enough that I still stick to the things that worked for me 20, 30, 40 years ago.

The fun is in the challenge. I rarely care too much if I catch nothing more than an occasional show of interest.

Golf and bass fishing have this one thing in common. They are both supported by an industry allegedly dedicated to to making things easier for you. You will take fewer strokes, get closer to the hole, make more putts, catch more fish, catch bigger fish, get bigger erections (sorry, those are the ads mixed in with these others). They also have their own channels for dedicated advertising of these things.

Of course, it is all just paraphernalia for lost and desperate souls.

Success from hard work, dedication, learning, and practice. Rarely from just new and expensive toys.

This is what candidates for the 2016 presidential race are playing to. The overwhelming desire for easy answers. The desire to skip the hard work, the sustained effort, learning, and practice.

So these candidates are really nothing more than paraphernalia for lost and desperate souls.

As for the demographic group at the center of this…do I really have to tell you what it is? (listen to the end of the song if you are not sure)

Sometimes I can’t resist. When I heard of the leading GOP candidate’s plan for blocking all Muslims from entering the US, it reminded me of three things.

First, following 9/11 there were a lot of questions about citizenship status on college applications. These conversations have later returned following the requests of the dreamers. It always came to down to what was asked…and what the options for response are.

Second, this:

Crucifixion Supervisor: Next! Crucifixion?
Prisoner I: Yes.
Crucifixion Supervisor: Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each. Next! Crucifixion?
Prisoner II: Yes.
Crucifixion Supervisor: Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each. Next! Crucifixion?
Wiseguy: Uh, no, freedom.
Jailor I: Uhm?
Crucifixion Supervisor: What?
Wiseguy: Uh, freedom for me. They said I hadn’t done anything. so I could go free and live on an island somewhere.
Crucifixion Supervisor: Oh, oh, that’s jolly good: Well, off you go, then.
Wiseguy: No, I’m only pulling your leg. It’s crucifixion really.
Crucifixion Supervisor: Oh, oh, I see, very good, very good.
Well, out of the door…
Wiseguy: Yeah, I know the way, out of the door, one cross each, line on the left.

Third:

The church I was raised in believes in full immersion baptism. After all,  if you hold someone’s head under water long enough, they will come up believing your way.

“Blessed are they who thirst and hunger, and go homeless, for education’s sake, for they shall be educators to all.”

Lots of people recommend not reading the comments to articles and blog posts, but Momma, that’s where the fun is. First, there is occasionally useful information that is directly related to the original piece of work. Second, it can be (painfully) amusing to see the displays of arrogant ly uncaring ignorance.

When people responding to the work of Sara Goldrick-Rab, Katharine Broton, and Daniel Eisenberg suggest that students who are home- or food-insecure should address those issues first before considering college, I wonder if such commenters have ever faced truly difficult decisions. Ever.

Sometimes life presents us with competing priorities. We have to address the needs of today, and plan for those of tomorrow. This might involve balancing on the knife’s edge of safety and security. An 18 year-old with no family structure to support them, with no occupational training may be able to find a full-time job, but $14,000 /year doesn’t go very far for housing, food, transportation, clothing, and everything else involved, despite what some colleges may claim are the estimated costs for living off-campus.

Have you ever spent time in the type of apartment one can rent for $700/month or less? I have, and each of the cases I have visited in recent years have been decidedly unpleasant.

Are you aware that not every place has public transportation?

And that available jobs and available affordable housing are often not within walking distance of each other?

And gee whiz, whatever happened to “Give a man a fish and eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” (Assuming he can afford a  fishing license and the there are adequate conservation safeguards in place to maintain a fishery.)

Life is hard and the world has moved on from where it was a generation ago. It is simply not right to suggest that all college students are hungry and that is part of the tradition of college. Especially if state and federal policy makers, and national voices keep encouraging more people to go to college. We need to support people to be successful, especially if their success is tied to our goals and our economic success.

Seriously people, have a heart.

First: “Well, that is not so good.”

Later: “Oh, that is good.”

Years later: “As good as that is,  there is still more to explore.”

So, I wrote this thing over here.

The problem is that I feel like I have a lot more to say on the topic, but I am really tired making it difficult to control the ideas rushing through my head, or recall the thoughts that occurred over the last three days of driving.

Tonight as we made the final miles into San Antonio we were listiening the “Devil Went Down to Georgia” and I started thinking about how much a fiddle made of gold would weigh, and was prepared to write about that, but fortunately a simple query to the Google Gods revealed an existing answer of about 30lbs.

Back to business. There really is a joy to measurement. There is joy in the process itself, the discovery of new aspects of a thing along the way, and most especially in knowing something.  But, when this is done to people, measurement should serve a purpose and be organic to the activity of interest, not an add-on.

For example, in the blog post I referenced at the beginning, I mentioned that I am playing golf again, and letting my ADHD-guided OCD have free reign. I haven’t played for years, so starting up again minus a balance nerve is  a challenge. It is especially a challenge with all the cool apps available for tracking every shot, every aspect of the game. Exactly not what I need right now.

Right now I shouldn’t even be tracking my score. Regardless of my joy of measurement.

I need to focus on enjoying the game.

I need to stay in the moment while I am playing.  Each time I stop to record something, I am creating a distraction. Each time I am distracted, I run the risk of analysis – is this better, is this worse? How do I fix it? How do I fix it now? I’m not competing, I am playing a game for enjoyment. Generally I am spending time with my son – and there is NO good reason for distracting me from that.

So this is my concern with assessing and measuring everything that goes on in the classroom, at any level. Measurement of learning and learning progress is necessary, but it shouldn’t take the teacher or the student out of the moment. It should also not interfere with the joy of teaching or of learning. It should be organic and add value.

If only there were some standard, some quantifiable way to demonstrate some level of performance to a predetermined standard. It doesn’t have to be complex, perhaps five stars or ranked codes.