American Inequality

President Obama and the Republicans who control the House of Representatives need to cut a deal to avoid running America off the so-called "fiscal cliff." Virtually all mainstream economists predict that if such a deal is not agreed upon, Americans can expect another recession, resulting in many lost jobs and rising unemployment. Clearly, another recession would be devastating, since we have yet to fully recover from the last one in 2008-2009.

The President has argued that any deal must include higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans, along with cuts to government spending. Republicans agree that the government needs to spend less in order to produce a more balanced budget, but they are reluctant to raise tax rates--even on America's millionaires and super-corporations.

Many people accuse the President of being a "socialist" for trying to "redistribute the wealth." They claim that "punishing" the rich for their success is "un-American." I strongly disagree with this view. The tax rates for the wealthy that Obama wants are the same tax rates that were in place in the 1990s, during the Clinton administration. These tax rates are pretty modest, compared to many European nations and even compared to the U.S. in the pre-Reagan years.

There is also convincing evidence that the vast inequality between the richest 1% and everyone else in America is bad for the economy as a whole. My students will be debating the arguments supporting this claim this week, as we discuss Joseph Stiglitz's article, "The 1 Percent's Problem", published earlier this year in Vanity Fair. Here is a video of an interview Stiglitz gave on this topic. And here is a video of Stiglitz on The Daily Show:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Michelle Alexander and Ronald Reagan

During the election, I kept thinking about how long we will still be feeling the effects of George W. Bush's presidency -- long after Obama's second term. The economic crisis that marked the end of Bush's administration is still clearly being felt, as the recovery slowly inches along. Some people blame the current Congress and/or Obama for the slow recovery--and I'm sure part of that blame is warranted--but the collapse of the housing market and everything that went down with it was catastrophic. Economies don't bounce back from a crisis like that over night. Aside from the economy (but related to it), we are still feeling the effects of two long-lasting wars and a decade of abysmal education policy (No Child Left Behind). Many military families have struggled and continue to struggle with lost loved ones. Many veterans, meanwhile, must cope with physical and psychological disabilities acquired from the trauma of combat, and the challenges of re-adjusting to civilian life after long and multiple deployments. Many students have struggled and continue to struggle with college and/or low-wage jobs, as they realize their under-funded schools under-prepared them for the 21st century. Many go into massive amounts of debt, not sure if they have the skills necessary to pass the college classes they need to be competitive in an unfavorable job market.

As I sink into dark thoughts like this, wondering how America will ever recover from the Bush legacy, I am reminded of the ways in which we are still trying to recover from the Reagan legacy. Although Reagan is often nostalgically romanticized as a lovable figure who brought Americans together and ended the Cold War, he is responsible for initiating two horrible policies that have drastically re-shaped American society. The first was the de-regulation of the financial industry. De-regulation enabled Wall Street to operate according to its own rules, consolidate massive amounts of power and wealth, and act in increasingly risky ways that threatened our whole economy (and even the global economy). The other initiative was the War on Drugs, which resulted in an exponential increase in the incarceration rate. The United States now imprisons a higher percentage of its population than any other nation on the planet. The social effects of creating such a prison-state will be with us for generations to come.

To get students thinking about the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to America's mass incarceration problem, I assigned the introduction to Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindess. Alexander argues that the mass-incarceration system is eerily analogous to the legalized discrimination of the Jim Crow era, noting that roughly 80% of America's 2 million plus inmates are minorities. In particular, she claims, vast numbers of African American men have been formed into a permanently subordinated caste, shut out legally from participating in mainstream society by the criminal justice system and associated social stigma. Below is a clip of her from the Colbert Report. (I find it a little weird, since her book is about such a devastatingly serious topic, yet here it is being discussed on a comedy show.)

The Colbert Report
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2 Weddings, 1 Super-Storm, 5 Days without Power, Plus Some Thoughts on Climate Change and the Election

A week ago today, Yuriko and I were in Fredericksburg, Virginia for a wedding. An old friend of hers, Mark, married his long-time partner, Brian. This was the first same-sex wedding I had been to, and it began just as the rains of Sandy began to fall. The ceremony was beautiful, but unfortunately, because it was a Sunday night with a hurricane on the way, many people seemed to make their exit from the reception a little early. For those, like Yuriko and I, who were staying the night on-site, the party carried on with all the best (and worst) songs to get you moving on the dance floor, like "Livin' on a Prayer" (and "The Electric Slide"...ugh).

Speaking of same-sex weddings, I just saw this video (below) on Facebook this morning, which a college-friend shared. It features a gay Vietnam veteran questioning Mitt Romney about his stance on same-sex marriage. I found it pretty compelling. As beautiful as Mark and Brian's wedding was, there was still a dark shadow cast by the fact that the state in which they live (Virginian)--not to mention their country--refuses to recognize their love and commitment as it does for heterosexual couples.

The day after Mark and Brian's wedding, we drove back home to Reading (with a brief stop in Bowie, Maryland) as the rains of Sandy poured down upon us, and as the winds pushed my little Nissan around in its lane. We took it slow and made it without any trouble, other than the expected fatigue of staring at low-visibility roads for five hours.

After we got home, the storm really picked up as it headed across Delaware and then up toward Harrisburg. A couple trees went down in our backyard, but luckily nothing hit the house. One electrical pole on our neighbor's yard went down, and it took out power for about 11 houses, including ours. 

Tuesday morning, I took a flashlight down to the basement to get out the diesel generator, which Yuriko's dad generously gave us earlier this year. After consulting with him over the phone about how to hook it up and get it going, we were able to get enough power for the heat, refrigerator, water, and some lights. 

By the time Saturday rolled around, we were still running on generator power, and it was time to go to another wedding. This one was in Morris Arboretum, near Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. The weather was ultra-brisk and the ceremony was outside, so we bundled up (or at least I did--Yuriko had exposed feet and legs in her fashionable dress and shoes). The reception followed in a semi-heated tent. We kept warm with wine and dancing. At one point, I ate some delicious pie (apple AND pumpkin). There were also FOUR great toasts, and you know how I love a good speech. All in all, it was another beautiful affair. 

When we returned home, excited for an extra hour of sleep (so long, Daylight Savings Time), the power was back on! Hooray! We disconnected the generator, switched all the right switches on the circuit breaker, and went to bed, where we dreamed electric dreams.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to chat about climate change with my morning and afternoon ENG 100 sections. There's been some discussion in the news lately about if and in what way Sandy was a product of global warming. That will hopefully give our discussion a sense of urgency--or at least a note of relevance. I've found students reluctant to engage this issue in the past for a variety of reasons (skepticism that global warming is real, cynicism that anything can be done about it). We'll see how it goes. The reading I used to set up the discussion was an excerpt from Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway.

I also want to say a couple words about the election, which is in 2 DAYS! First, I'm so glad it will be over. The way presidential campaigns drag on, consume the airwaves, and waste money is enough to make anyone sick. Second, I'm voting for Obama. He's not my ideal candidate--he is not even my favorite Obama (Michelle is #1 for me)--but I do think, despite his flaws, that he's the best president I've seen in my lifetime. I don't like that he escalated the war in Afghanistan; I don't like that he abandoned true universal healthcare in his pursuit of healthcare reform; I don't like that he extended the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. But he did what he could to save an economy in free fall and get it to start growing again (albeit slowly); he did what he could to regulate Wall Street; he repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"; he's the only president to ever come out in support of same-sex marriage; he supports the Dream Act; he increased Pell Grants and reformed Direct Student Loans; and he got most of our troops out of harm's way in Iraq. His major weakness, I believe, has been trying to work with extremists in the House of Representatives who refused to compromise on any issue because they wanted Obama to fail more than they wanted to do what was right for the country. Is he perfect? No. But he's an intelligent, pragmatic, man with a conscience--and I'm not so sure I can say the same for the other guy.

I'm also voting for Manan Trivedi, who is running for Congress in my district. He's an Iraq War veteran and a physician from a town just a couple miles away from where I live. I got to meet him a couple months ago, and I think he shares President Obama's concern for the well-being of ordinary Americans.

Whether you see things the way I do or not, be sure to VOTE! An apathetic citizenry makes it that much easier for those in power to avoid accountability.

Venison and Spaghetti Squash

Tomorrow I will be discussing an excerpt from Michael Pollan's book Food Rules with two sections of ENG 100 students. I'm considering teaching this book in its entirety in a future semester, since it is persuasive, relevant, well-researched, readable, and concise.

While the main thrust of the book is aimed at establishing guidelines for a healthier, simpler diet, I also hope to discuss the implications of our choices as food-consumers on the economy and the environment. I believe that what we choose to eat is not just a personal decision, but a social and ethical one.

Recently, I have been trying to eat less meat of uncertain origins. This means not ordering meat dishes at restaurants and only purchasing meat from local farmers. I am lucky, though, that sometimes I get to eat meat that was not purchased at all, but personally hunted by my future father-in-law (with a crossbow, though I like to imagine him sneaking up behind a deer with only a Bowie-knife), who regularly appears at our house as if some kind of superhero. He will drive his 25-year-old Mercedes diesel-powered station-wagon up from Maryland with a cooler full of deer steaks, and change leaky pipes in our basement while he's here. All we have to do is treat him to eggplant parmigiana and some Sam Adams Octoberfest.

Yuriko is particularly skilled at seasoning and marinating all sorts of things, and so last night we had a delicious pre-Presidential-debate feast of venison rib-steaks and cheesy-spaghetti squash (with a dash of hot sauce). Yum.

As for Pollan's rule about eating “mostly plants,” I am working on this. Most days I try to have some raw vegetables for lunch, and we always have some cooked vegetables with dinner. We've also been getting the majority of our produce from a local farm this year: CrawfordOrganics. Even more important to me than the potential health benefits of eating organic produce regularly, is knowing that we are supporting local family farmers who are practicing environmentally-conscious farming techniques.

102 Tons

Tomorrow my ENG 100 students will be discussing the introduction to Edward Humes's book Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash. The numbers that Humes throws at the reader in this book are staggering. 102 tons is the figure he comes back to again and again; that is the average amount of trash that an American will produce over his / her lifetime.

The introduction artfully begins with an anecdote about a pair of hoarders who were discovered trapped in piles of their own garbage in a Chicago home in 2010. The book is not about hoarding, so at first this seems like an odd choice. Then Humes makes the connection--hoarders are not really the "freaks" we tend to think of them as. We all produce such gross piles of waste; hoarders do us the favor of making our own national vice visible.

My fiancé occasionally worries that her father is something of a hoarder. He's not--at least not in the pathological sense--but he does, like hoarders, have a hard time accepting the wastefulness of our culture. As a result, he hates to get rid of things that he think can be re-purposed in some way. His garage has a frightening amount of gadgets, loose objects, machines, machine parts, and containers--all waiting for some new mission. Maybe that mission will never come, but it does seem like such a waste to ditch things that could be useful. The accumulation of such objects should serve as a reminder to us all of how senseless it is for us to acquire what we do not need--all wrapped in packaging we also do not need.

I try to do little things to reduce my own waste, like bringing reusable bags to the grocery store and recycling what I can--we even started getting our milk in refillable glass bottles and our produce in refillable cardboard boxes. But we know that, like all Americans, our wasteful tonnage is still excessive. What can we do to change? I hope my students are up for some critical thinking on this topic tomorrow. Maybe they'll have some ideas for all of us.

Undocumented or Illegal?

I have become a big fan of Jose Antonio Vargas over the last couple years. I first encountered him when I was looking for an article on Facebook to teach in my ENG 100 class. Vargas wrote a compelling New Yorker article that profiled Mark Zuckerberg in 2010, which came out around the same time the movie The Social Network. After that, I heard him the following summer on NPR, talking about his decision to publicly "come out" as an undocumented immigrant in an article for the New York Times Magazine. This essay really blew me away, and I taught it in several classes from Summer 2011 to Spring 2012 as a model of a personal essay that eloquently blends compelling narrative and subtle argument. This semester I am teaching his latest piece, which was a cover story for Time this summer, called "Not Legal Not Leaving." Here is a video from Time in which he discusses the article:



I admire Vargas both for his courage and his extraordinary talent as a writer. His articles effectively break down stereotypes about undocumented immigrants and show the fundamental unreasonableness of current U.S. immigration policy. At the same time, I recognize that immigration is a touchy, controversial issue, and I'm sure many of my students will not be as receptive to Vargas's rhetoric as I am. I hope we can have spirited and civil discussions about this issue this week.

My own ideas on immigration are admittedly a little extreme. My brother-in-law looked at me in horror last Christmas when I suggested that perhaps some undocumented immigrants should be allowed to vote. I definitely think they should be allowed to get drivers licenses, apply for financial aid, and qualify for in-state tuition at state universities. Sometimes I question the basic right of a national government to arbitrarily decide how many and which people may cross its border. I believe an individual should be welcomed in any community where she is willing to contribute and abide by existing laws. Maybe that's idealistic, but I think a world with open borders would be a better world.

Generation Debt

While my ENG 112 students begin reading Jean Kwok's novel Girl in Translation this week, my Monday/Wednesday sections of ENG 100 will be discussing an excerpt from Anya Kamenetz's book Generation Debt. (My Tuesday night section discussed this last week.) Here is a video of Kamenetz discussing student debt on PBS:

My students are typically divided on the issue of whether or not taking out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans is a good bet. Some are "lucky" in the sense that the government pays their tuition because of their military service. ("Lucky" is not the right word -- they have certainly earned this benefit.) Others have family members helping them along. Others are paying their own way, and would rather take a decade to get their degree--taking only the classes they can afford to pay for up front--than borrow money from the federal government or private banks. Still others do take loans, and are anticipating taking more loans when they move on to more expensive schools.

I have mixed feelings on this issue. I was very lucky when I originally applied for college: I received a scholarship from Bard (a very expensive, private liberal arts school) that allowed me to attend for the same tuition charged at state schools. This comparatively small bill was covered by federal loans and some help from my parents. When I first enrolled in graduate school, I could no longer lean on my parents for help, so I took out more loans until I was able to get a teaching assistantship. My combined graduate and undergraduate loans are pretty staggering--despite the scholarships and funding I received along the way. I will be paying these loans back for decades.

Do I regret taking on this amount of debt? No--I don't. I can't imagine being who I am without my years at Bard, and I can't imagine landing the job I have without my graduate degree. Student loans made that possible. Yet, at the same time, I can't say for sure that I would make the same decisions if I had it to do all over again. I certainly would NOT advise someone in a similar position to do what I did. I acted with a kind of financial recklessness, and just happened to get lucky. Many people who come out of the same PhD program I came out of (and others similar to it) struggle for years to find full-time employment.

It's scary to think how so many young people make financial decisions that may impact their whole lives at a time when they have little to no financial experience and may be receiving misinformed or misguided advice from parents or institutions. My hope is that public colleges and universities will be able to win more support from government and renew their commitment to making higher education accessible, by keeping tuition fees reasonable and offering more grants and scholarships to more students. This should be a much higher priority than competing with private colleges for prestige.

It Gets Better

Things my students and I are reading this week:

• an excerpt from Dan Savage's It Gets Better collection (MW sections of ENG 100)
• President Obama's DNC speech (TU section of ENG 100)
• Act II of Next to Normal (ENG 112 sections)

This is the third consecutive semester that I've included a reading assignment that deals with the issue of gay rights in ENG 100. Last fall we discussed the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell; this past spring we discussed an article in Rolling Stone which investigated a series of teen suicides in Minnesota linked to a controversial "neutrality" policy in schools (teachers and staff were told, ambiguously, neither to defend nor condemn homosexuality). This semester we are reading the introduction to Dan Savage's anthology of "It Gets Better" stories: narratives directed at LGBT youth, meant to give them hope that-- no matter how much crap they may have to deal with in high school--they can persevere and live very happy lives as LGBT adults. I also plan on showing some videos from the "It Gets Better Project" -- the videos that inspired the book. Before the narratives were compiled and published, they were recorded as videos and posted on YouTube.

I believe that the range of gay rights issues (combatting hate crimes and anti-gay bullying, same-sex marriage, adoption rights, etc.) are important civil rights issues of our day, and I hope my students feel comfortable engaging each other in conversation about these topics. Sexuality--like race and religion--can be a difficult topic to open up about, especially in a room full of relative strangers. A well-placed Chik-Fil-A joke may be needed to ease the tension at times.

While I do not personally know what it is like to be threatened and alienated because of my sexuality, I do know what it is like to be threatened and alienated because of how my sexuality was perceived. During my first two years of high school, a rumor spread around school that a good (male) friend of mine and I were a couple. Some severe teasing and intimidation followed, and we both felt pretty miserable, perhaps even depressed. Although the experience was socially and psychologically unpleasant (to put it mildly), the two of us stood together as friends. We didn't avoid each other to try to quell the rumors. Nor did we turn into homophobes ourselves. I think, ultimately, it made us more sensitive to what actual gay and lesbian teens go through in such hostile environments. I wouldn't want to live through those days again, but I'm glad to have the broadened perspective that came out of it.

Keeping Up With Lost Time

The first reading that I assigned for my Monday / Wednesday sections of ENG 100 is an excerpt from a book titled, Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now. My hope is that it will offer some practical advice about how to avoid avoiding things. I know that just getting started can be the hardest part of writing. This is especially true for writers who are not particularly confident in their skills, but it happens to all of us.

When I need to get some writing done, I have a few little tricks, though I wouldn't recommend all of them. My worst trick is to reward myself with a snack after each paragraph I finish. That leads to a lot of unwanted calories. I'm trying to get away from that. This summer, I bought a 90-year old baby grand piano. My new plan is to reward myself with brief intervals of piano time after completing a paragraph or 2. The new plan could be dangerous, though--it's easy to lose track of time when playing an instrument. I'd play for 12 hours a day if I had nothing else to do (or if I wasn't afraid of annoying my fiancé with my amateurism.)

(antique piano, new bench, geriatric dog)

My other trick is to change locations. I'll write a little bit at home, then maybe go to a cafe and do a little more writing. Then maybe a library before heading back home. Changing the scenery somehow helps me renew my mental energy. Getting out of the house also helps keep me away from certain distractions (food, piano, TV).

The most challenging thing to deal with is the Internet, because we all almost always write on computers, and it's so easy to click away from Word and over to Facebook or YouTube or Zappos or whatever. (I spent nearly $200 on new running shoes and Doc Martens yesterday. Yikes.) I used to write in notebooks, and I know some folks disable their WiFi to stay on task. Do what you got to do, I guess.

This summer I did a good deal of procrastinating (never updated my blog, for example), but I also was fairly productive. I managed to put together a decent draft of a manuscript for first-semester college writers, which I hope my students will find useful. They seemed happy to be getting a free "textbook," but I hope its freeness is not its only good quality.

At some point in my life, I developed a really strong aversion to the phrase "killing time." It sounds so morbid and sad to me. We only have a finite amount of time as living beings--why would we want to kill any of our time? Thinking of procrastination as a kind of partial suicide -- as a wasting of our limited chances to do meaningful things with our life -- can be a strong deterrent. Getting it done today opens up possibilities for life tomorrow.

Debt or Alive

This week my ENG 100 classes have their final reading assignment--a government report on the state of student loan debt nationally. The report cites some staggering figures. About 2/3 of students who earn a Bachelor's degree take out student loans in order to pay for it, and the average amount of debt per student is roughly $25,000. I went to a rather expensive private liberal arts college for my B.A., but I did not graduate with quite that much debt. This was in large part due to a very generous scholarship the college offered me, which covered about 2/3 of my expenses. In other words, I was lucky--I mean, I worked hard to earn that scholarship, but still, I was lucky.

When I moved onto graduate school, I was not as lucky. For my first three semesters, the only financial aid I received was through federal loans. I needed these loans to cover tuition and living expenses. (I was teaching part-time, but that only brought in about $2,500 per semester.) For the remainder of my program, I was able to obtain funding (a tuition waiver and a modest stipend), but the damage was already done. I'm not going to broadcast the exact figure of how much I owe, but I will say that my monthly student loan payment is higher than my monthly car payment--and odds are, when my car dies some 100,000 miles from now, I'll still be paying back those student loans.

Was the debt worth it? For me, it was. I am currently a tenure-track, college English professor, which is exactly what I want to do with my life. If I hadn't taken out the loan, I probably couldn't have found another way to get here. But for others, I know, who have taken out similar loans, the results have been different. Jobs like mine are not plentiful these days, and many people with PhDs in English can only find part-time (poorly paid) employment, without benefits. It's such a big gamble to take on big-time debt when you're not sure what the job market will look like post-graduation.

I don't have any easy answers to offer my students on this topic, but I hope our discussion will get them thinking--if they're not already--about the challenges and risks that lie ahead as they contemplate where to go after DCCC and how to pay for it. I just hope none of them take out a variable interest rate loan from Citibank to pay for tuition at the University of Phoenix. From what I hear, I think that might be the worst possible decision.

I Fixed the Lawnmower

For all my students who think writing is "just not their thing," here's a little tale of hope.

Tinkering with mechanical doohickeys is not my thing. When faced with the challenge I'm about to relate, I tried to think back and remember the last time I fixed anything that involved several moving parts. I couldn't come up with anything. I did put together a bicycle that I ordered in the mail around 2006 or 2007, but I did a horrible job of it. When I later brought it to a bike shop for a tune-up, I got laughed at.

Three weeks ago, Yuriko's father (Bob) was visiting from Maryland, and we were talking about how the grass needed mowing already because of the early spring. He asked if I had changed the oil in our little Troy-Bilt self-propelled mower. "You have to change the oil in a lawnmower?" I thought. I doubted that I was anywhere near 3,000 miles with the thing. But apparently changing the oil in a mower at least once a year is a good idea.

Bob, who is a semi-retired electrical engineer for NASA, is, as you might imagine, a vastly superior tinkerer. He showed me, step-by-step, how to take off the blade, drain the old oil, put in the fresh stuff, and put everything back together. He always does these things in a spirit of nonjudgmental helpfulness. Never do I get a hint of "If your not man enough to change the oil in this mower, how are you man enough to live with my daughter?" from him. I am grateful for this.

After Bob left, I started the mower up, and quickly there were 2 bad signs: smoke billowed out of the engine and the self-propulsion feature was not functioning. The smoke was not a big deal--apparently we put a little too much new oil in, but this quickly burned off. Why the mower wouldn't "go" when I asked it to, however, was a more perplexing and troubling question (especially for someone like myself with little to no mechanical intuition or experience).

After consulting Bob via email, I learned that the belt had likely come loose from the pulley while we changed the oil. After taking off the blade again, I could see this was the case. I could not, however, see how to access the front pulley to put the belt back on.

Bob sent me several emails of encouragement and advice over the next couple weeks, and finally--this past Sunday--I found the time to undo every bolt I could find until I could get at that front pulley. Eventually I got there, put the belt back on, and reassembled all parts. I was relieved there were no leftover bolts lying around. I was pretty convinced I would forget where something went.

The mower started up and moved right along--success! I felt quite a surge of pride, even though this was a pretty simple accomplishment. This is all to say that succeeding at something that you're not "naturally" good at can be a very empowering, rewarding experience.

An Unhealthy Debate

This week the Supreme Court heard arguments about the constitutionality of so-called "Obamacare," officially known as The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in 2010. The issue at the core of the debate is whether or not the U.S. Congress can mandate that all Americans purchase health insurance or pay a penalty (which may or may not be considered a "tax"). The idea behind the mandate was that if all Americans have to buy health insurance, insurance companies can charge lower premiums for everyone--even those who are chronically ill or have "pre-existing conditions."

Most critics of "Obamacare" think the government is overstepping its bounds, and that the market for health insurance should remain unregulated. I, too, think the individual mandate is a bad idea, but for different reasons. I think it is a sign of the government doing too little, not too much. By forcing all Americans to buy health insurance, the government is putting even more money into the pockets of insurance companies who profit off people's illness. What I wish the government would do, instead, is to do what nations like Britain and Canada have done--create a single-payer system in which we all pay a health-care tax and are thus all covered. I'd much rather have the money I pay now for health insurance, which goes to a private company, go to a government agency, as long as that agency could really deliver decent health care for all Americans, regardless of employment status, age, sex, or past health. Since that agency would be operating for the public good--not for profit--one would expect that it would be less expensive and more accountable to those it serves (i.e. voters). Also, one wouldn't have to worry about losing one's health coverage if one lost one's job.

If "Obamacare" does get struck down by the Supreme Court, I hope Obama can--in his second term--find the political will and capital to pass something more ambitious, not less. Rather than coercing citizens into filling the pockets of insurance companies, he should show us that truly socialized health care can be more economical and effective in promoting the nation's health than the troubled status-quo.

A Tale of Two Floridas

For the first time ever, I traveled someplace warm during Spring Break. (Little did I know that it would actually be quite warm at home while I was away.) Yuriko and I went to the Florida Keys, and we had a fabulous time. Here is a list of some of the highlights:

• Sandspur Beach -- Located in Bahia Honda State Park, this beach is simply gorgeous. Aside from a few sand fleas, it was perfect. I was a little worried that my super-pale-senstitive skin would be burned beyond repair, but covered in SPF 50, I was able to soak up some sun and live to tell the tale.
• Great Seafood -- Yuriko and I both love to eat sea creatures, and we sure indulged last week. Nearly every place we dined had fresh mahi mahi (which they call "dolphin" -- not to be confused with regular dolphins, which are super-intelligent mammals, not tasty fish) and grouper. We also had some great shrimp, oysters, and even sushi.
• Bicycling -- We rented two bikes and rode out on this really long bridge (about a 2 mile section of "Ye Olde 7 Mile Bridge"). This was easily the most scenic bike ride I've ever taken, surrounded by endless, clear blue water on both sides. Here's a picture of us on "Pigeon Key," where the bike trail ended:

• Great Weather: 80 degrees and sunny each day; 70 degrees and breezy each night. Only significant rain we saw was on the day we left.
• Wildlife: Our last two nights we stayed at a bed and breakfast on Big Pine Key, which has a nature preserve to protect an endangered species of small deer. We saw one particular deer hanging out on the beach all the time, and I was able to take several pictures of it. Also saw this cool little lizard.

All in all, a great trip -- we can't wait to go back next year. My one issue was that I didn't like spending so much time in the rental car. The car was perfectly fine, but I wish there was a train or monorail or something that you could take to the keys from the Miami airport, and from key to key.

While my personal little trip to Florida was blissful, I--like many others--have been profoundly disturbed to hear the news coming out of Florida this week. Nearly a month ago, on February 26th, an unarmed, seventeen-year-old black teenager, Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed by a self-appointed "neighborhood watchman" by the name of George Zimmerman. While Zimmerman claims he shot this kid in self-defense, there seems to be little reason to believe that Martin could have posed any kind of a threat to him or the community. The local police, however, failed to investigate or file charges against Zimmerman. As far as I know, Zimmerman is yet to face any charges or even have his gun license revoked. Many community members locally and protesters nationally have been calling for Zimmerman's arrest. It looks like the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI are now looking into the case, since the local police obviously did not do much. I'm hoping to get my English 100 students talking about this case this week, and following it in the weeks to come.

A Distracted Mind

Last Thursday, as the temperature approached 60 degrees (in February!!), I was excited to go on my first bike ride of this alarmingly early spring. I put my bike, which is still super-dirty from riding around in post-flood mud last fall, in the back of my Nissan and drove to the parking area at the end of the Union Canal trail outside of Reading. I took out the bike, pumped up the tires, locked up the car, and started off down the trail.

After a couple hundred feet, I suddenly became conscious of a disturbing contradiction between two things I had just done: I had hidden my keys under a floor mat in my car and I had locked all the doors. Not only was that exceptionally dumb, but I had even thought to myself, while locking the doors, something along the lines of, "I better lock the doors so no one steals my keys." Clearly, the beautiful weather had utterly dismantled all logical cognition in my brain.

I stopped my bike in the middle of the trail, turned around, and pedaled back to the car, just to make sure I had really done what I had done. Yup -- all four doors locked, keys inside. Also locked inside the car were my cell phone and wallet. What could I do? I decided to ride my bike to Penn State Berks (only about 2.5 miles away), where Yuriko Beaman--the love of my life--works. Luckily, as over-worked as she is, I caught her at a moment which wasn't too terribly disruptive for her. She generously agreed to lend me her phone and her car and to permit me to store my bike in her office. I was then able to get back to my own car and call roadside assistance. An hour and twenty minutes later (!!!), a "rescue ranger" showed up and finagled his way into my car.

One more thing to pile onto this heap of foolishness -- I realized I had never had a spare car key made. Before calling roadside assistance, I scrambled through my things at home looking for one. Then I realized the key I was hunting for was actually the spare key to my old Nissan. (Two days after this incident I had a new spare key made. I'm also planning on buying a little pouch to stick on my bike seat so I can take my wallet, keys, and phone with me on future rides).

Why blog about this? Well, I'm hoping it's amusing, but additionally--and more importantly--I'm hoping that publicly writing about this moment of personal idiocy will exorcise whatever unthinking spirits invaded my brain last week.

Alaska Highway

I owe this to my ENG 100 students who, a couple weeks ago, all wrote personal essays and shared them in class. The prompt I gave them was this: Imagine yourself at an interview for your dream job. You are asked, "Tell us about a personal or professional obstacle that you have had to overcome in the past." 

Every semester, the day my ENG 100 students read these narratives aloud to me and each other is an awesome day. This year, my Thursday evening section called me out on the fact that I was the only one not sharing such a story. I told them I'd write one and put it on my blog, so here goes.

One of the hardest personal and professional things I've had to overcome was my decision to drop out of a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program when I was 22 years old. The program was run by the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS), and my particular cohort was located in the incredibly small and isolated village of Sitka (population 9,000). I had expected to be in Juneau, which is a little bit bigger of a town (31,000) and the state's capital, but somehow I got shifted to this branch campus. Sitka, like most towns in southeast Alaska, is not on the "road system," and so you can only leave town by ferry or airplane. When you're in Sitka, you're in Sitka--there's no driving anywhere else for the day or the weekend. 

How did I end up there? After graduating from Bard College in 2002, I decided I wanted to do something practical yet adventurous. I knew I wanted to be a teacher, so I thought, "Why not get credentialed to teach, but do it someplace crazy?" I had heard that Alaska was stunningly beautiful, and I thought it would make a great backdrop for my one-year Master's program--teach and study during the week, explore the wilderness on the weekends.

The disappointments were many. First of all, there was the climate. It rained at least 75% of the days I was there. When the sun came out, Sitka was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. But I think I saw about 10 sunny days in 3 months (five of which were the first five days of August--that week I remember fondly). 

Secondly, there was the program itself. Most of my classes were taught by local school teachers, not professors, and they were, on average, dreadfully under-stimulating. In addition to the classes, we were expected to teach 4 out of 5 days per week in the local schools to satisfy our "student teaching" requirement. Although I had been looking forward to this hands-on aspect of the program, I quickly learned that this was more about exploiting us as unpaid labor than about gaining useful experience. The "mentor teacher" I was placed with was a bitter, insecure, burned-out woman, who only wanted to talk about how much she yearned for retirement. When I was teaching, she would interrupt me. When she was teaching (if you can call it that), I was making copies of "busy-work" assignment sheets for her.

It wasn't all bad, however. Many of the other graduate students in the program were awesome people, and we quickly bonded (as people often do when thrown together in absurd situations). One woman, Larissa, was engaged to a salmon fisherman, Clay, who generously took us out in his boat. We camped on a neighboring island and hiked a dormant volcano one memorable weekend. Another friend, Sabrina, who was from a nearby town--even smaller than Sitka--and a native Alaskan (member of the Tlingit people), shared some of my own literary interests, and we've even kept in touch to this day. 

There was also the salmon. I had never been really into seafood, but I realized that the fish in Alaska is profoundly superior to anything you will eat back on the east coast. There is nothing quite like eating grilled wild salmon from a fish that was swimming in the ocean earlier in the day.

These positives were not, however, enough. Every day that I marched into Sitka High School, I felt a little more depressed. Class sizes were enormous. Resources were limited. There were some great students, but many--if not most--felt like compulsory education was a waste of their time, because they had no expectation of going to college. My classroom was not my classroom, and my "mentor" was unsupportive. It was a bad situation all around, and I longed for a way out.

One day, when I was out in Sitka Sound on a borrowed kayak with my friend Bob, the clouds parted and the sun poured its rays down upon us. I felt the cells in my body come alive, and I realized I hadn't felt such an exhilarating sensation in weeks. Sitka had been depriving me not only of light, but of life. As hard as it was for me to admit a mistake, to admit that I had wasted time and money, I knew I had to quit, otherwise I would just be wasting more time and money.

That night, I began packing my things. I checked the ferry schedule and looked at a road atlas of Canada. I was plotting my way home.

My biggest fear was that this experience would ruin teaching for me. Luckily, that didn't happen. I decided I didn't want to teach in an under-funded public high school. I decided I didn't want a Master's degree in teaching. But I knew I still wanted to teach. I just needed to find the right place.

After applying for, but failing to get, a job teaching in private boarding schools, I decided that it made the most sense for me to pursue teaching at the college level. After all, I was happy when I was in college. I loved the culture of intellectual and artistic freedom at my college, and I knew I could carry that spirit to whatever college would hire me. The only down side was that I would need to spend about 6 years earning my PhD. Looking back, it seems odd to say, but I think my 3 months in Sitka felt almost as long--maybe even longer--than my 6 years at the public university in upstate New York where I earned my doctorate. Most importantly, that 6-year investment was worth it, because here I am. It's certainly better, after all, to spend 6 years climbing a ladder that takes you where you want to be, than to spend 1 year climbing a ladder that takes you to a place that makes you want to call in sick every day.

Jose Antonio Vargas and Camilo Mejia

For the third consecutive semester (Summer 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012), I'll be discussing Jose Antonio Vargas's article, "My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant," originally published last June in the New York Times Magazine. I find the essay to be a moving, thoughtful, and provocative "coming-out" story, as artful as it is courageous. Typically, my students tend to be impressed both with Vargas's writing and with Vargas himself, as he disrupts common stereotypes about who undocumented immigrants are and convincingly relates the psychological effects of living a life that is, by necessity, always partly a lie. He argues in the piece for the passage of the DREAM Act, which would make it easier for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children--and educated here--to earn their citizenship without temporary deportation. More profoundly, though, the essay re-conceptualizes citizenship as something that ought to be "earnable" -- as something that one does, rather than something one is.

In ENG 112, starting next week, my students and I will be discussing Camilo Mejia's memoir, Road from ar Ramadi, which documents the author's experiences in the early days of the Iraq War, through his decision to resist his redeployment and join the antiwar movement. This book, I am fairly certain, will provoke some complex reactions. While many of my younger students may have little memory of why exactly the U.S. got involved in Iraq, or how things got so messed up there, some of my other students may have actually served in the conflict themselves. Whatever one's opinion on Mejia and his resistance (I think he, like Vargas, is a man of great moral courage), his book raises several important questions: Should soldiers have the right to walk away from a war they believe is unjustifiable? Is it possible to be antiwar and still support the troops? Does patriotism necessarily mean supporting America's wars?

I don't expect to convert my students to my own left-leaning, pacifist politics, but I do hope these readings provoke a good deal of critical debate.

Obama Saves the World (for now...)

Yesterday, under the direction of President Obama, the U.S. State Department "denied a permit for the 1,600 mile Keystone XL pipeline." This decision was politically problematic for Obama, because his own supporters are divided over it. Many union members (typically Democrats) favor the pipeline because of the promise of new construction jobs, whereas many environmentalists (also typically Democrats) are opposed to the pipeline because of a number of serious environmental concerns, including the impact on regional water supplies and global warming. Beyond his own Democratic base, Obama, by rejecting the pipeline, opens himself to more criticism about failing to do all he can to spur job growth. To do so in an election year, with the unemployment rate still above 8%, was certainly not his first choice.

The political difficulty of this decision makes it all the more impressive, to me, that Obama made the right decision. I have been fairly critical of many of Obama's moves in his first term (abandoning the public option for health care reform, escalating the war in Afghanistan, extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy), but I am relieved that he was able to do what was right for the planet (and thus for all who live on it) in this instance. Not that I think he did so merely because it was the right thing to do. (Pardon my sentence fragment.) I'm sure the decision was still a calculated political one, influenced by the voices of prominent environmental activists. While I am no environmental scientist myself, I still took the time to read up on the matter, sign a petition, and send an email to the White House to have my little say. Because so many people did the same thing, we were heard.

So why do I think this was the right call, despite the fact that the pipeline would create jobs for an economy that desperately needs them? First of all, I think the pipeline's potential for job creation has been wildly inflated. The Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, claimed that "hundreds of thousands of jobs" would be created. That number is preposterous. Even the oil industry itself, clearly biased, only estimated 20,000 new jobs. A more realistic number, generated by the state department and independent sources, estimates 6,000 jobs. These jobs--which would be regional and temporary in nature--would not turn the economy around, nor would they put a significant dent in the national unemployment rate. Granted, 6,000 new jobs, even temporary jobs, could potentially mean a great deal to 6,000 families that are currently struggling to make ends meet. But at what cost would these jobs be created?

Environmentalists have pointed out that the current plan for the pipeline would threaten a major aquifer in Nebraska, potentially contaminating the water supply for a large midwestern region. But even if the plan was re-routed, it wouldn't solve the most profound environmental threat posed by the pipeline, which is its accelerated contribution to global warming and climate change. While many Americans still live in denial or ignorance regarding climate change, the increase and intensity of extreme weather events are becoming more visible (think of the crazy floods, droughts, and hurricanes in the past few years), and an overwhelming majority of climate scientists continue to speak to the dangers of inaction. At a time when we need to invest whatever public and private money we can toward shifting to renewable sources of energy, we cannot take a huge step backwards by opening our refineries to the extraordinarily dirty oil from the Canadian tar sands. The oil from this region, because of its impurities, requires a more intensive process of refining compared to ordinary crude oil, and thus from production to consumption, it will generate that much more carbon dioxide. James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (where my partner's father used to work), when asked what effect the pipeline would have on climate change, replied, "Essentially, it's game over for the planet."

(Click here to read Bill McKibben's essay in Rolling Stone on the pipeline, from last Fall. My ENG 100 students will be reading a different McKibben essay later this semester.)

So, for now, the planet is saved. Yay, Obama. But certainly TransCanada is going to come up with a new proposal to pitch to the U.S. (or some other nation) to get their dirty oil refined and into the global market. If we don't keep the pressure on our politicians to do the right thing, who knows what will happen.