182/365

the germans must have a word
for the feeling of joy and excitement
when a villain dies, but this word must also
encompass the shame one feels
for feeling the thrill of another human’s death.

saw the news first thing this morning:
the architect of several of those imperial oil wars,
a torturer and war criminal,
a real who’s who of boards chaired for greed and profit,
a back stabber and nefarious scoundrel.

a true terrorist in every sense.

whatever the word, the german one, is
it defines the smile that crept on my face
and provoked a sigh of relief
and a reminder that the world is lighter
for the extinguishing this pool of odious corruption.

goodbye rummy,
hope we do better next time
with your pile of matter,
now that you have dissipated
back into the universe.

Never Needed A Gun

"paradise is a world where everything
is a sanctuary & nothing is a gun."


—Danez Smith, from "summer, somewhere"


An American “Muslim terrorist” who was a US citizen with Afghani roots, and had “pledged allegiance” to ISIS, commits the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States, killing 50 black and Latino homosexuals and injuring 50 more, during Ramadan, on the eve of Pride weekend. There are countless complex and broken systems at play here that need unraveling, but I know at least three words that are a good place to start- Acceptance. Education. Love.


All day long, I have been absorbed with twitter feeds and news stories. Watching every group, from every side politicize this tragedy, only to criticize opposing groups of politicizing things in a different direction. The Christian Right, The Muslims, The NRA, The Congressmen and women sending their “thoughts and prayers, as if they didn’t have a more powerful tool at their disposable. As if they were not elected by the people of these United States to legislate safety, justice, or freedom. As if their sole purpose was not to ensure that the citizens of our fine nation didn't have to live in fear of being murdered for simply being a human being.


“Thoughts and Prayers” spoken by people who are powerless is a sad enough statement, but when “Thoughts and Prayers” are the modus operandi of the very people chosen to create and enact laws, well…then it becomes criminal.


But this post was not meant to lay down words that assign blame. I was hoping to avoid the anger and the rage, for at least a few minutes of the day. The finger pointing and self-appreciating of being “right” in the face of such death and destruction feels hopeless.


The web that has been spun from which this monster has been hatched is too tangled for simple answers, but it is clear that we are dealing with a broken culture. And while their are many contributing factors to what has broken American culture to the point where we not only export wholesale violence to every corner of the land both with our military, but also with our cancerous capitalistic system, but now the violence that has made our dreams possible has turned inward. And it is destroying the very fabric of our land. From shootings in churches to Gay clubs. From Ferguson to Trump’s wall to rapes on college campuses, we are a nation suffering from fear and hatred and ignorance. We sit shell-shocked, immobile, numb and powerless.


But it doesn’t have to be this painful or difficult. We live in an age of unprecedented diversity in our nation. We live in the digital information age, where exposure to ideas and people is a swipe or click away. Why are so many of us ruled by fear and hatred? Why do so many people dwell in their insecurities and follow their hate? What the hell are we so afraid of?


This culture of xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and racism do not happen by accident. These fear-based views of humanity are taught in our churches and our mosques. They are the platforms of our political parties. They are garbled and twisted and spewed from our televisions and “news” networks. We have allowed ourselves to look away from ourselves. We've wrapped ourselves so tightly in a blanket of ignorance and hate for far so long, that we are terrified that we might freeze to death without it.


But what do I know? I have no answers. This is hard and difficult and it hurts. So may groups marginalized, raped, murdered and for what? Really for what? There are so many places in the word where people just get along. They live and let live. Places where people are not doomed by their own fear. Places where the diversity of our species is celebrated and rewarded. It doesn’t have to be so hard America. All you have to do is act from a place of love, understanding, and acceptance. Do you remember how to do that?


Here is a clue, in this place…this place of love and understanding you don’t need your gun. So -please check it at the door, or leave it at your hunting lodge, or better yet melt it down and recycle it into something more useful.


Love has never needed a gun and it never will.

More Of A Chant

“If there is a god then he must really hate people.” Kurt Vonnegut


The world is full of thoughts and prayers again tonight. It seems to be the one thing everyone can do after a tragedy- ineffective as thoughts and prayers are in times like these, everyone in the world is quick to send out thoughts and prayers.

Thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers.

As a casual observer and as a person who has never uttered even a single prayer, they seem to me to be quite ineffective in creating peace, establishing justice, closing the widening gap between the haves and the have not or addressing any one of the million issues that are tearing our societies apart. One may even argue that it is the very nature of prayer that is forcing us into these disgusting cases of violence in the first place.

I refuse to send a prayer anywhere in the world tonight. I refuse to pray in any capacity. Ever. I will do my utmost to mediate, to hope for, to look within myself and seek solace, or work with my students or engage my family or talk to as many people as I can, or share my writing or find peace through song…I will do just about anything but pray and contribute to the madness that prayer has wrought on the world. I have no use for a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or another deity, because clearly he isn’t listening, or he isn’t there or if he is there and he can hear then WTF?

Enough thoughts and prayers. Some lunatic who thought his prayers would be answered blew himself up killing 70 children so that they couldn’t pray any more. Is this where we are? Thousands of years of evolution? All of our art? Science? All we have become is another suicide religious attack and the rest of us bleating like sheep- thinking and praying.

I am tired of worrying if I will offend religious folk. Here is the deal- I find your religions, all of them, offensive. I find the idea of bombings and death and redemption and sin and sects and intolerance and thinking you have all the answers and that you are right and priests and mosques and thoughts and prayers offensive. You can argue that this is not what religion is all about, but the proof is in the bombings, in the wars, in the persecution, in the racism, in the death and destruction. For those of us standing on the outside, death and destruction is all religion has ever been about. I've seen little else.

Woah. That rant came out of nowhere, but it has been bubbling inside me all day long and I needed it in words and out of me. Ignore if it you must, but I needed to name my anger and frustration.

All I know is that I am thankful that I am able to live in a safe secular society that allows me to raise my kids without the overt violent influence of any religion. I know there are so many people who have been forcefully bound to god for generations…..ahhh….here I go again. Maybe it is time for a new topic.

…

I went for a run today. It has been so long since I ran, that I felt out of practice, tried and sluggish. It was really more of a walk, but it still felt good to be alone for an hour even if I walked for most of the time. My ankles are sore and I realised that things like running must be maintained and there is little room for slacking off.

…

In other news, I will be taking my blessed, gracious, privileged self for a six day beach vacation in Thailand tomorrow, during which time I will enjoy good food and affordable drink. Bonding time with my family, a reconnection to the ocean, and the ever so sweet sensation of toasted salty skin and post shower aloe vera lotion. I will stuff my face with Pad Thai, grilled corn and mango sticky rice as I watch the waves lap up on the beach. It is in those moments of quiet sandy reflection that I have come close to uttering anything resembling a prayer. And usually it is more of a chant that sounds like this…thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Crying Is The Way

I’m guessing this is going to be a short one. My brain is mush after teaching all day, then participating in a parent writing workshop at school. The day was capped by a few glasses of wine and now it’s 9:00pm and I have a full Friday up next.

The parent workshop and the preparation for it, made me realise how powerful writing in a community can be, and also how vulnerable it makes people feel. I think there is something very necessary about making ourselves vulnerable around others. I can’t champion group writing enough. We really need to start a writing group. Who is in? Can we make this happen? We can talk details in the comments or in person.

Earlier in the day, Kosal Khiev- a poet, tattoo artist, and survivor of the US prison system reminded us that crying is the way our bodies heal from emotional injuries. Kosal, by the way, is a visiting author at our school for the week. You gotta love UWCSEA. This seemed relevant and connected to what i was saying about vulnerability, but I forget exactly what.

...

In other news, I’m trying to process Jakarta and what that means.

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I'm also a bit freaked out by the fact that my size 32 waisted pants are now too small for me, which is weird because I have worn that size since I was twenty years old.

...

I am still making a bigger deal than I should about which music streaming service to choose. All I know is that I am finally giving in, and will soon abandon my need to own my own music, and I will stream it instead- at this moment it will most likely be Apple Music, although every one tells me to go with Spotify.

...

I didn’t have time to think too much today. I was too busy doing stuff, so I didn’t have much time for contemplate, which actually feels pretty good. Makes me think that maybe the pondering, the overthinking, the angst and the ennui come from being too idle. Maybe bloggers and philosophers would do better spending time doing stuff instead of thinking about it and deflating in it later.

Lessons Learned:

• Everyone can write if given the chance to try it.
• Middle age is the next big body change, for men, after puberty.  
• Keeping yourself busy, for better or worse, makes reflecting difficult. 

1. What is the last time you wrote a story or some fiction? 
2. Discuss a major body change and what caused it. 
3. What’s keeping you busy these days? 

Just One Thing

Middle school kids are complex. I actually don’t like to call them kids or children, because really they aren’t. They are not really teenagers yet either. Not quite yet. They are their own breed and I love them. I love talking with them, listening to them, observing them, teaching them and most importantly I love learning from them. They are so awkward and insecure and talented and bizarre and thoughtful and careless and passionate, hardworking and filled with potential.

I guess I love this age, because this was the time in my life I remember wanting respect. I was so filled with angst and rage and hope and passion and ideas, but everyone treated me like an idiot. My teachers, my parents, even my peers. I was an explosion of energy trapped in the confines of some mystery of who I was meant to be. Some model of “cool” that was crafted by people I hated, but wanted to be like. It was in grade 8 that I decided to mark my territory so to speak. Piss on the wall and say this little chunk of the world is mine.

So when I work with middle school kids, I love to try and coach them how to do that too. And everyday it is a pleasure. Today, we chatted about idealism and cynicism and how I have battled with the two my whole life. I want the world to be great and see the best in things, but the cynical judgmental asshole in me always gets in the way. I mentioned that this cynicism is healthy and good, but only if I learn how to monitor it. I really hope that the kids I teach see me as a person who will always be honest with them. I am not a fan of bullshit for its own sake and this is the core of my pedagogy. I want to teach kids how to figure out who they can be.

...

Paula and I have started a Lit Magazine, made up of 6-8th graders and today they were on fire- learning how to weed through submissions, coming up with organisational plans on how to keep track of the 52 submissions we got, while another group was discussing how they would overcome a finical obstacle we are up against.

“We are the creative department,” I said. “We don’t know how you are going to do it, and honestly I don’t know how either because I don’t like dealing with this kind of stuff, but you need to find us money so we can publish this magazine in a few weeks.” I actually said those words to a group of 4 middle school kids. They looked at me like I was crazy. Nodded their heads and realised that they needed to find away to get this money. If that is not real world teaching I don’t know what is. We will wait and see how this works out.

...

Trump. Oregon. Saudi Arabia & Iran. Head-shake sigh…….So Guns and Roses are getting back together.

I love Slash, Duff and whatever drummer they put back there. Izzy S. would be rad too, but I have been burned too many times by Mr. Rose to think he will not shit the bed on this one. And while the others, even in there old age, can pull off a small modicum of cool, old fat Axel will have a hard time pulling off Mr. Brownstone. I will wait and see, but I can’t see this ending well.

...

Kaia asked me about ISiS tonight at dinner, “What is it? I know they are terrorists, but what do they want?”
“What’s a terrorist?” I asked
“A group of people who kill and scare the people who don’t do what they want. My question is what do they want?”
“Well, they want the world to be the way it was a thousand years ago and for everyone to believe in god the way do.”
“But that will affect the whole world. You can’t make the world believe in just one thing.” And she walked way.

Lessons Learned:

• Give everyone, regardless of their age, respect by being your truest self around them. 
• Find a way to spend time with 11-14 year olds. 
• If you want kids to do things independently, set them up by giving them responsibility and see how they handle it. 
• Reunion tours look good on paper, but perhaps a night alone with an old favorite album is better than watching a group of fat old men in leather pants try and reignite your youth. 

1. What are somethings you remember from middle school? Describe the person you were when you were 14. 
2. When is the last time you trusted and child and how did it turn out? 
3. Which band do you think would still rock a show years after they started? 

The World Burns Around Us

Warning: Half baked thoughts raw with emotion and definitely not soaked in any kind of rationality. They were rattling around inside me somewhere and I needed them out.

Either you believe in evil or you don't. Either you think that human beings do terrible things because of sin and demons or you don't. Either you call people evil-doers or infidels or you don't. It is easy to accuse people of evil when they don masks and massacre journalists in broad day light. It is easy to say that people are wicked when they bomb and kill and scream and sin.

But what if we assume that human beings, all of us, are not evil or the experiments of some omniscient being, but just fucked up individuals tied to our expereinces, cultures, and histories. That every tragedy is not based on a soul's value, but on sociology. What if our default assumptions were that we can fix these things. That we can eradicate ignorance.

What if we believed that even the worst of us can be healed and cured and fixed. Taliban or Tea-Party, Extremist or Progressive, makes no difference. What if we understood that we are who we are due to a plethora of variables and it is the exploration of these variables that will lead to understanding.

After every tragedy, and man does there seem to be lots of them these days, we point fingers and assign blame. We volley hate and pain and accusations. They did this so we will do that. But what if, we stop to ask why? How does a person become so angry and disillusioned, so ignorant and terrified, so insecure and so violent to think that because someone thinks differently then they do that they should kill the other person. This behavior is a sickness. It is not evil. It is the failure of the systems we have created. Failures of nation states, churches and mosques, families and schools. Every massacre is proof that we have failed to understand each other.

Every tragedy is a reminder that we have barely advanced from the birth of our civilization. But that is no reason to throw up our hands and yell, evil. We owe it to the beauty of humanity to keep working toward a better understanding of each other. Both Darren Wilson and Kim Jong-Un are reminders of how far we still have to go to educate and illuminate.

These men are not evil, but the results of circumstances. The result of colonialism and war. Misguided immigration policy and failing school systems. Broken families and false promises. These men are the result of failure. 

I know it can be difficult to remain calm in the face of reckless murder and injustice. It is difficult to ignore our natural need for revenge in the face of barbarity and petty ignorance, but if have any hope for the future we have to see the perpetrators of violent acts as human beings. Not evil monsters. Because there is no hope for a monster. There is no cure for evil, but there is work to be done for flawed human beings. This work starts with love and education, empathy and trust.

Sometimes I imagine adults who commit terrible crimes as children in my classroom. What would I say to the three men who shot up the Charlie Hebdo magazine when they were twelve? How would I counsel or teach the cop who killed Eric Garner when he was ten?

It's not easy to stay loving and calm as the world burns around us, but it seems to me that we have no choice.