Shattered.

During a rainstorm, the pot holding a blooming Huernia zebrine fell off the plant stand and shattered. So did the plant, which is quite fragile. No worries this time, though. The plant shards will root easily and resurrect as about 10 “lifesaver plants”.
As I looked at the pot and plant, though, I thought of the fragility of things around us, including our and others lives. One misstep and everything shatters. A friend last year was doing everything right and got hit head on by a log truck in the wrong lane. Shattered. He recovered, but struggled for many months. The pot and plant make a perfect metaphor for much that is around us every day. I have written before about drinking the best wine first, and not waiting for the last possible moment in retirement to do “that traveling we have planned for decades”. Things are too fragile to trust to the future. The economy, the wierding of global climate, the scarcity of water in many places, the scarcity of food in many places, the decline of fish stocks in the ocean, the oil spill in the Gulf all illustrate the transitory nature of things around us.
So, don’t wait for the “shattering”. Go for it now if you can. The good news is that with a little planning you probably can begin to get caught up on the list of things to do/see/accomplish. The bad news is that if something happens, you won’t recover as easily as the plant. If you have a good bottle of wine, open it and enjoy. If you don’t, go out and get one. If you don’t drink, do something else, but for heaven’s sake do something before you can’t.

Education Defined

July 27, 2009 I wrote an essay that included some thoughts on education. I am revisiting some of that, and expanding ------
Sally and I have a morning and evening ritual. We “prebrief” with coffee in the AM and “debrief” with a glass of wine in the PM. I recommend this method to everyone. Keeps communications open and fills us both in on the day.
So anyway, this morning I was telling her about a new adjunct at my old Uni. This guy is somewhere in the Midwest, and teaches a bio course online. I think online science courses are OK if your goal is factual content, but nearly worthless if you are trying to build lab skills. And there is the issue of “community” to consider. You sit in class with someone you find interesting and after class go for a coffee of coke or something and get to know them. Maybe even a couple of people. An on line community is at best a shadow of that model. And if the class isn’t synchronous students may never relate to each other in real time at all. I think this is a problem, and requires a redefinition of “college education”.
To me, a college education should include lots of chances to meet people who are the same as you and who are different from you. A chance for free ranging conversations that help to sharpen your own thought process (much as writing does for me) and a chance to meet new people and be exposed to new ideas. If a college education is sitting at a computer somewhere doing papers and looking up stuff on the internet and listening to Elluminate and or Softchalk lessons, or just doing seat work we should admit up front that the kind of “college education” represented by that kind of experience is different. Maybe not undesirable for everyone, but certainly different.
Ask any of my former students who have been on one or more of the numerous field trips I lead if they would rather have a virtual tour of a steep head, and for most of them the answer will not be just "no" but HELL NO".
Humans spent a million years or more learning the skills that would carry them through life in small groups, or one-on-one and face to face. That method was used essentially until the 1980s when computer labs for all began to be built. Enter the internet, and BANG! - distance e-education. I don’t think that kind of education is all crap. I just think it is crap for some things and crap for some people.
Put another way one might hear: “Hell boy, you ain’t educated. You can’t skin a deer, track a fox or make your own ‘shine. What the hell good can you do anyway? You can’t find your way around the mountains, survive the winter on your own, find water, shoot or any other damn thing that is important. Book learning ain’t gonna cut it here.” I made up that conversation, but do you see the point? Different kinds of education for different situations. The rush to on-line college is leaving behind some very valuable lessons. Fight back. Demand face-to-face classes.

The F-bomb

Thank you George Carlin for the 7 dirty words you can’t say on television (or radio) (1). His comedy bit defined for all of us the bleeped words now so familiar. Yesterday the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) lost a court case that challenged the rules as vague and unequally applied, and claimed that because the rules related to the magnificent 7 are arbitrarily applied, a chilling effect (legal term for inhibiting free speech) on broadcast media is apparent (2).
About time, too. I grew up with the F word. F this and F that and where is the F-ing thing. It is all over the media, rules or not, and all over literature. No, not in Harper Lee’s book, but keep looking and you will find it well represented. This morning, Morning Edition (NPR radio) had a sound bite from someone who stated unequivocally that the F word is obscene and offensive. I don’t agree.
But if you do agree, then why do you say “fricken” this or “fricken” that? Or maybe “F” this or “F” that? We all know you mean the f-bomb, so why not say it out loud? If the word “fuck” is obscene or offensive, then “fricken”, which stands in for it is equally obscene and offensive. If you would not agree that fricken is offensive, then you acknowledge that fuck isn’t either. The use of “fricken” or some other f-substitute is just a sidestep, but the intent is to conjure up the real F word.
Years ago, I mean many years ago, when I was about 10 or 12, I got in trouble for saying “Jesus Christ! “ about something. Not long after, I heard an older boy shout “Judas Priest!”, meaning “Jesus Christ!” I tried that at home and got only a mild response, and quickly leaned a lesson: If you say what you mean and mean what you say you can get into trouble, but if you allude to what you mean and obfuscate slightly, you skate by. Now THAT I think is obscene and offensive. When I hear you say “frick it” and we both know you mean “fuck it” I find that offensive.
On closing let me recommend a little ditty by Kevin Bloody Wilson that illustrates the point in song. It is about the “C” word, but equally relevant. Warning: He uses both the “C” word AND the “F” word, so if you offend easily, you better not click on the link. Have a fricken flippin friggin wonderful day.
Kevin Bloody Wilson singing “You can’t say C*** in Canada”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBWAjn2a3rA

1.WARNING: The 7 words are used often in this video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Nrp7cj_tM
2. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/07/13/128490248/fcc-indecency-rules-unconstitutional-appeals-court
Image: mybiggestcomplaint.com/.../2007/08/f-bomb.jpg

Dead Possum

NPR again. A small essay I cannot find that included the idea that communication between spouses is sometimes less than direct. The example was a wife telling her husband that "There is a dead gopher in the yard". This really asks or tells the husband to go outside and get rid of the dead animal.

How often have we all made those kind of observations that said one thing but carried much more implied content? Things like " Its really hot in here, isn't it?" or "The car is making a funny noise again" or " Wow, the grass sure grows fast this time of year, doesn't it?". All have deeper content and probably are said to prompt some action.

Now the question is why bother to hide a request or order in a seemingly innocent observation? I would like to think the reason is a natural tendency in good relationships to be less bossy and confrontational and more cooperative. Rather than saying "Get your fat ass up off the couch and bury the dead gopher that is in the yard", saying "There is a dead gopher in the yard" gives some room for the couch potato to be sort of self motivated. Good strategy for getting along.

So now in our family we have the "dead possum" (lots of them around and few gophers) question. Someone says "The grass is getting long, isn't it?" and the partner asks "Dead possum?" meaning do you want me to cut it, or is that just an observation? This opens the dialogue to further discussion which results in the grass getting cut eventually. Much more civilized than the alternative, don't you think?

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/turtlemom_nancy/4321862269/