Advancement Day

Warning: Political statements abound throughout, indicated by the presence of asterisks.

It is the very merry month of June, and we just celebrated advancements in the form of High School Graduation (times two). The twins, now 18 and having already voted in their first election, have completed High School, and their futures lie yawning ahead on the vast lawns and landscapes of time, as still do ours.

While I won’t, on this occasion, prognosticate on what lies ahead, I can reflect on what has happened to bring us to this springboard moment, perhaps offer a prophetic statement on where we are today.

Our babies, in addition to entering the political landscape of the world in the year before 9/11, were born at the digital crux, right before cell phones evolved into smart phones, just before the departure of analog ubiquity. Technology has been ever-present and ever demanding of their time, and ours, since the day our children were born.

Society cares less about children now than at any time in recorded history*. Let that sink in, for a moment.

I have always believed in public education. During the 1960s and 1970s, due to an explosion in population due to the post-war economic boom, there was such a demand for educated people, as well as a growing social ethos that dictated “bring everyone up,” that it was difficult to fill all the available teaching positions. Educating a generation of educators became extremely important. But the struggle to pay educators has not changed all that much from the one-room schoolhouse days, has it? Despite the fact that the public and industries of all types demand an educated populace, government (no matter what party is in power) shies away from providing for education, paying teachers a living wage, and maintaining school campuses. It is easier and more lucrative to sell guns and put people in jail.* Poorly educated people can be cajoled by charismatic demagogues into voting for anyone.*

But, still I believe in public education. I was educated in public schools. I turned out okay.

Private schools are well and good, but do they train our young people to question?

This is a genuine question, one that must also be asked of public education.* I am not actually bringing this up to suggest that public is better than private school. Do the students that come out of any school realize that there is a political or religious worldview and agenda predominating the information that has been taught?* Are students really given the opportunity and freedom to think for themselves, even if it goes against the grain of the institution?* 

Administrators at the public high school from which I graduated in the late 1970s turned off the microphone on this year’s valedictorian speech. They did that because the young woman dared to mention that one of the challenges students had to overcome was sexual assault on campus. As a graduate of that school, I am personally enraged that this occurred, and proud of the young woman’s courage to say what needed to be said, and that the incident made the news throughout the state, and was even reported in the Washington Post.**

Our institutions, public and private, do not own our knowledge, nor do they own our experience.* What they must own is their culpability in all the things that can and do go wrong, and how these wrongs are redressed.* We, and the young people we raise, are only as strong as our institutions. Right now, all our institutions are weak and hamstrung, too often self-serving, and as a result they fail too many families.* Institutions, public and private, that cannot redress wrongs or see where improvement is necessary, will bring us all down. Let that sink in, for a moment.

We are proud of what our children were able to accomplish from within a flawed and partisan system.* It was not easy for them or for their peers; they managed to do well despite a system that is rigged to highlight frequently questionable outcomes.* Ever-newer curricula provides a money machine that enriches someone who is not a student, rather than providing better tools for teaching, I have observed.* Technology, donated or purchased or otherwise forced into the schools, looms in every classroom, but often without proper IT backup, and as a challenge to families who cannot afford computers, creating a division.* Bullying is but one factor in the lives of our young students. Favoritism is but one other factor. Incompetent and/or biased teaching, yet another factor.* Entitled, bullying, helicopter-hovercraft parenting is another factor, oft paired with the demanding and argumentative, entitled student-child who “does not work well with others” to complete group projects.*

Health and wellbeing issues are said to be catered to at most schools, but if you look closely, all sorts of students fall between the cracks. How can I say this with assurance? It was reported to me by my own children. Some of their peers were sent to school without having had breakfast, with no lunch or lunch money. Some students had other issues at home. When we parents were made aware of a few situations with regard to our children’s friends and acquaintances, we went to the school on their behalf. Although we were told that the administration would solve the individual problem, we discovered later that they did not do so, and that nothing had changed for the student. Meanwhile, nothing could be done by the administration for the dozens of students who slept through their classes exhausted from all night videogame bingeing or from sheer boredom. 

Possibly, it is the same in every generation that many students just don’t give a damn about school or the importance of education. Student engagement must be inspired; this has always been true.* Not every teacher is inspiring, engaging or nice; that’s also always been the case. Perhaps also not every parent is inspiring, engaging or loving. We are all challenged, as we are all challenging*; we parents need be strong enough to advise our rising youth in how to ford the streams of characters, charlatans and crackpots, rather than interject with a lifeboat or leave them to their own devices, uninformed. But we, as a society, must demand more from our institutions, and give more toward their upkeep and evolution.* We must be better equipped and enabled to offer help beyond our own family units*, if we are able to do so. We need to bridge gaps so that no one is lost in the cracks.

I can honestly say that my children sat and stood with the bullied, fed the hungry. I can say this with pride, but the flipside of pride is shame, and I feel both in equal measure. I have found that society lavishes on, even worships techno-materialism, while not lavishing our children with proper care and proper education, and in no way “brings everyone up” in terms of housing-, healthcare- and food-security.* A great deal of practical knowledge has been removed from education*; this puts many young people at a disadvantage right away. Intimate engagement with issues of environmental degradation is lacking, but I applaud those parents and students who do engage and who advocate and demand that their elders do better, and who mentor and are role models.* (The future depends upon you!) When the institution looks away from the problems, this teaches everyone to look away, to avert eyes, to avoid asking questions or engage civically. This is a way to describe corruption.*

We had a party for a few friends and neighbors, over this weekend. We told them, “It takes a village to raise a child; you’ve been our village.” This is by no means cliché.

There are so many people who have touched our lives and the lives of our children in positive, if not in memorable, ways. We wish we could thank you all! The twins baked cakes for their favorite high school teachers during finals week. Some of the wonderful teachers they’ve had over the years have retired from their elementary and middle schools, but we remember you. Technology will never replace humanness; it cannot teach what it is to be human and humane or empathetic.* Education is not at all about machines and is less about books (although books can be excellent tools) than it is about humans caring enough to pass on human knowledge and humanity by example and by speech and by writing.

Our children have been gone from being Pisces Fish to Otis Owls to Lincoln Lions to Alameda Hornets, and now they Advance to the Next Thing (which is hopefully not Twitter Twits*).

Our institutions are flawed, weak and hamstrung, but we and others have persevered, and we hope all others will persevere, better yet thrive. We need to uphold and improve our institutions for the coming generations; there is so much work to be done, in this regard. The world of appearances, where it is more important to preserve the outward face of the institution than it is to own the realities, redress wrongs and make corrections, needs to be shed.* Schools are political tools; they should not be.* We cannot afford to be swayed by lip service, jerry-rigged statistics and cherry-picked “facts.”* Our children are not gadgets, and we cannot treat them like statistics or like things.* We need to care about and ensure that all people are recognized as unique and valued individuals, and accordingly need to be treated individually in the ways that best address, best resonate, best communicate to their individual needs.* 

“It takes a village to raise a child.” If we cannot care about other people’s children as much as our own, how can it truly be said that we care for our own?* If we truly believe the world is a better place because our children exist, we must be willing to model, teach and uphold goodness, fairness, peace and wellbeing for them and for others, and indeed the whole world, and we must improve and empower all of our institutions to support this at the highest level.*

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** https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/06/09/this-valedictorian-began-to-talk-about-sexual-misconduct-at-her-graduation-then-her-mic-was-cut/?utm_term=.523f34200f8d

The Failures of Technology and Communication in our Schools

My children have taken part in “tolerance” classes at school; every youth must participate. It is about tolerating differences and looking out for others, standing up against bullying. A website was created at the school, where students can upload art, video and blog entries that bring greater awareness to the issues surrounding bullying, in order to build lines of communication and strengthen the community, so that there will be less bullying. Several schools are supposed to be participating in this website project, and it is hoped that students and the greater community will interact with the postings.

This is supposed to be a win-win. It all sounds so good. Technology in the schools! Kids get to use all sorts of electronic devices and be 21^st Century Journalists of school culture! Students can use unlimited creativity to promote a positive cultural atmosphere at school!

When my son was taking the class last year, it was a simple matter of uploading his information via the computer in the classroom, the host computer for the site. He was also able to upload blog entries from home. There was no login page, but if he typed a forward slash, followed by “login” after the site URL, a login page would appear.

This year, even though he was no longer in the class, my son wanted to continue his participation in the project. I was pleased that he wanted to engage in something beyond a classroom requirement. He loves to write and has a lot of good ideas. He wants to be a good mentor to younger students.

For some reason, however, he was no longer able to access the login page. Every attempt resulted in a “Forbidden” message. My son approached the teacher of the class on numerous occasions to report his inability to login and upload blog entries, he was seeking help.

The teacher, on a few of these occasions said that the website was working just fine; students in his current class were having no problem putting work up on the site.

My son would return home and attempt to access the login page again, only to receive the “Forbidden” message again.

One time, the teacher’s aide suggested that there was a problem having to do with cookies and history. Maybe if we cleared those, my son would be able to login. Clearing cookies and history did nothing to help the situation. My son emailed the teacher through the school access system, detailing the error message and a continuing inability to access a login page. He met with the teacher the next day; told my son that we must be having problems with our computer.

Discouraged, my son came home and spoke to us about it. He had tried to deal with this himself, to no avail. He had been trying to upload blog entries all year, only to be told that it was a problem with our computer.

I told my son,  all of our equipment is working just fine. If there were anything wrong, you would not have been able to email the teacher.

I opened my laptop, opened my web browser, accessed the website and could see the problem right away: there is no login field on the home page. I typed “login” in the search field, and hit the enter/return key. Search results: Sorry, nothing found.

I sent my son to the library and to a neighbor’s house. Would their display of the home page for this site display a login field? No. Surprise, surprise, NOT!

I then looked more closely at the website. A more thorough investigation revealed that there were very few entries for this year, all entered on the same date in April, and again last February.

What is going on? My guess is that the kids in the class must post at least once, to fulfill a class requirement. They make that posting from inside the classroom. Once the requirement had been fulfilled, that was it; the kids didn’t bother with the website again.

Here was my son, who wanted to be involved in an ongoing project, being stonewalled by the teacher and his aide. This must mean: (1) neither the teacher nor the aide built the website, and don’t know enough to “fix” the problem or offer a solution; (2) the teacher doesn’t care if the website is relevant to the school or wider community; (3) the teacher and the school are unaware that the website is inaccessible from outside the confines of the school; (4) if aware, they don’t want to put any effort into doing anything about it.

For whatever reason, the final result is a sham.

And this, my friends, is the problem I see with the forced entry of technology in the classroom. We tax-paying parents are told that if our children are going to be ready for the latest jobs, they cannot learn in the traditional way—those ways are outmoded. We need fancy new equipment and the kids need to interact with technology to do their schoolwork. The results will be better, test scores will go up, graduation rates will be higher, and our kids will be better prepared for the workplace of tomorrow! The politicians and tech titans have their photo ops, and the vendors make a pile of cash. 

This is, to a great degree, both a sham and a shame. It is all about forcing school districts to make monstrous expenditures on equipment that will be outmoded from one year to the next, forcing some teachers into the role of webmasters who are really incapable of handling such a role, forcing most teachers to spend hours above their paper grading to duplicate grading information in awkwardly developed computer systems. There are no time savers, here; expensive systems push overworked teachers into electronic servitude at a great cost to the local communities. And guess what? The results of all this outpouring of money for tech is showing little in the way of measurable upward trends, at least, according to the many articles appearing in the newspapers on this subject.

2 x 2 = 4, whether the sum is written with pencil on a piece of paper or typed up in a computer document. Solving the problem is faster using a pencil and paper, using far less energy, making a smaller carbon footprint, than turning on a computer. Word processing is a fabulous innovation, but writing by hand also stretches the brain in ways that are now being reported.

The teacher of this class, an otherwise affable person, spent the entire year stonewalling my son, telling him he must be doing something wrong, rather than admit he doesn’t know how to solve the problem.  Or, worse yet, he doesn’t care to help my son be involved in building something on-going and relevant. Whatever the situation or intention, the teacher has actively misled my son.

I sat my boy down and told him what I suspected, and asked him to stop trying to make entries on the site. It is almost the end of the school year, now; don’t waste any more of your time on this. I am sorry the teacher couldn’t have been more forthright with you.

He said, I know. I’m disappointed; I really did want to continue to be involved in the project. I think I’ll start my own blog over the summer.

Good for you, I said (thinking to myself, whew! We didn't lose his interest in making a difference for someone else!)

I sent the following message to the teacher, by way of the awkward, expensive, over-burdensome system the school district purchased:

Dear Mr. H-----,



My son enjoyed making blog entries on the W------- Project site last year, while attending your class. He has tried at various times to post things from home this year (which he had done last year), but has been unable to do so because THERE IS NO LOGIN FEATURE on the web page. Adding "/login" to the URL does not bring up a login page, but instead displays a "Forbidden" message. I know he has asked for assistance, and I know he has been told that the problem is with our equipment or our connection. 


I can tell you this is NOT a problem having to do with any of our 5 different computing devices or our internet connection or cookies or history or anything of the kind. We went to the public library and had no luck on the library computers. We went across the street to a neighbor's house and found that they could not access a login page from their computer. There is NO LOGIN FEATURE or PAGE. Perhaps my son did not explain that clearly enough. I hope it is clear to you, now that I have explained it, what the problem is.

If people are required to login to the website to post, then there must be a LOGIN PAGE or LOGIN FIELD. I put "LOGIN" into the site's search field, and nothing came up.

From the home page, I was going to "contact us" using the provided email address, but when I clicked on the link, I received a message that this address could be a phisher, so I decided to contact you through the school access system instead. 



I would be really surprised if postings of any kind can be made to this website anywhere other than the host machine at L----- Middle School. However, if this is possible, my son would really like to know, so that he can add some blog entries. For example, is there a way to post from WordPress? If so, how would my child do that? 

Meanwhile, I think the webmaster for this site needs to work on it, unless it is only meant to be FORBIDDEN. It is certainly forbidding, at the moment.

I am sure the intent is for the site to be accessible and relevant to a wider audience.

Thank you very much for your attention to this matter.

School ends next week, and my kids are moving on to High School next August.

Meanwhile, we hear about Mr. Facebook’s fabulous gift to local schools. I am sure that means the money will be shuffled momentarily into school district office, only to be spent immediately on the latest computers for the classroom. Great for the vendors' bottom lines. Headlines read: Tech Giant Invests In Kids. Smiling faces peer from photographs.

Is it really all about consumerism? It makes me wonder…

Caveat Donator; How Technology Doesn’t Work For Us

This is a tale of what perils can befall the doer of good deeds.

This may be a typical story, although I would hope it is extremely unusual.

I bring it forward only so that you will think about your presence within
the intractable web of technology.

I am a musician and a poet. I work hard to cobble together a life with my family, one that is deeply invested in my community. Everyone in my ever-widening circle of artistic colleagues is similarly struggling to serve and be blessed by art, while being responsibly invested in community.

Times have been tough, not just recently, but for a long time. We all just keep tilling our fields and hoeing our rows, painting our canvases, arching our bodies in dance, plying the singing staves, playing our instruments, because—ultimately—our art is what keeps us alive. But, keeping it all going seems to get harder and harder.

Times have been toughest for our small non-profit art organizations. The National Endowment of the Arts does not serve the small arts organization. It cannot possibly. If you thought of the human body as a mass analogous to the national budget, the amount of money the Federal Government funds the NEA might be represented by a single hair follicle, if that.

Aside from the annual fundraising efforts that have gone on for years, there have been emergency appeals, as well. Please… if you can give anything, it will help us offer our next show.

Investment. It is all about where we live, what we believe and who we are.

I have little, but I try to give, nevertheless. So, when in January a dire straights appeal came out from several groups at once, I responded in the only way I could at the time. I selected one really, really small group that I have worked with and responded, first with the word: YES. How could I help? Well, we had a car to donate; and donate it, we did.

The umbrella organization that handles car donations for non-profit groups is very well organized and efficient. You sign on the dotted lines the pick-up driver points to on his clipboard, you are given a receipt in exchange for your signed off pink slip, and the vehicle is towed away. Our donated vehicle left our driveway in the first week of February.

This week, in the mid-October of the year, we received a lien notice from a tow yard in Stockton. I had no idea what it was about, but examining it closely, I saw that it had to do with the car we had donated. Hmmm. I fished out my donation receipt, made a copy, and sent it, in the enclosed pre-printed envelope, to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and went on with my life.

Two days later, my out-of-town-on-business husband received a cell call from our auto insurance company, requesting information about the accident. What accident?! My husband called me to ask about the accident that occurred, apparently, the day after he left on his business trip. I told him that on the day in question, I didn’t drive the car until that evening, when I had to drive out of town to a rehearsal. That drive was uneventful. I told him I would examine our car to see if there was damage, but I already knew there was not.

Meanwhile, a bell went off in my head. Could this be related to the lien notice we had just received in the mail, the day prior?

I called my husband back and told him about the notice, and that I suspected the accident was with the car no longer in our possession. He called the agent back and talked to him, then both the agent and my husband called to speak with me afterward.

In all these communications, there were missing bits of information. The agent had neglected to mention that the auto that had been in the accident was the one we had taken off our policy, earlier in the year. While we had all been playing phone tag, he had been able to look up in the databases he has access to and find that a release of liability form had been submitted for the vehicle. I told the agent about the lien notice and he was puzzled by it and the situation. What apparently happened is the car we donated was auctioned off to a person who did not subsequently register the vehicle. Unspoken, but probably true, the new car owner didn’t insure the car. The car owner got into an accident, and the car was towed to the tow yard, from which the lien notice had been issued. Once we wrangled with the spotty details we had before us, the insurance company took my statement and that was the end of it. We had done everything that was required, and it was obvious that we were not involved or in any way at fault. I asked the agent what I should do about the lien notice. He told me to call the tow yard and tell them that I had no interest in the car, having donated it in February, and they could sell it if they wish.

Getting off the phone with the agent, I called the tow yard. I explained to the woman who answered that the car that had been involved in the accident last week was not my car, and if they wanted to sell it they could. I told the woman I could fax her the donation receipt, so they would have it on record that we are not responsible—

I was cut off.

“That’s not what we need,” the voice was full of venom.

“Excuse me?”

“We need a DMV notice.”

“I’m not sure you understand, you see, the donation receipt clearly states—“

“Are you gonna go on, or are you gonna let ME TELL YOU?!”

Well, that did silence me. I was amazed that the entire tone of the exchange was so horrid. I thought I was calling to do the tow yard people a favor, and it turned out I was being mistaken as a bad guy.

“We need a DMV notice. If you don’t give us one, you will have to pay us for storing your wreck.”

“All the forms were turned in, all I have is a donation receipt—“

“Look, if you didn’t do what you were supposed to, it’s not my fault.”

“— that clearly states I am no longer responsible for the car. Can I have your fax number, so I can send it to you?”

“Here’s the fax number, but we’ll just throw it away. And then we’ll bill you.” She hung up.

When I launched into the tackling this misunderstanding, I thought it would take no more than an hour to clear it up, but so far I was into hour number four. My client’s work sat, waiting for my attention. But, here I was, in the middle of a nearly comical case of “no good deed goes unpunished.”

I thought about it for a minute, then decided to call the Department of Motor Vehicles and ask what I needed to do to obtain whatever form was needed to provide that would officially certify the fact that I no longer was responsible for the car.

I had no idea what DMV form they would need. The woman had been so intent on being malignantly self-righteous with me, she failed to be specific with a form name or number. Sighing, I looked up the Department of Motor Vehicles. I looked for a phone number to call for information. There is a phone number. There is no information. The phone number plays an outgoing message detailing which branch offices are closed. Searching on the website offered no clues as to what I needed to do. Finally, I resigned myself to making an appointment. Fortunately, there was an available appointment within the hour.

Nearly getting killed in an intersection by a driver who ran a red light (not only to my shock and amazement, but also the other drivers who were observing the red light), I shook off the adrenaline rush and drove for twenty minutes to the DMV office, located in the next city, where I parked my duly and legally registered, smogged and insured vehicle in the lot. I queued in the line designated for those with appointments. I waited in this line for twenty minutes. When I was finally called, the clerk asked me what I needed. I said I wasn’t quite sure, but some sort of form that was proof I had released liability on my donated car.

“Oh, we can’t do that here,” he said.

I looked around the vast office, filled with clerks and computers and forms and pencils. I saw posted signs telling the public that it was a crime to attack DMV workers. I heard people behind me muttering with thinly veiled anger.

“Huh?”

He thrust a form with multiple pages in my hands. “We don’t handle that at branch offices. You have to fill out this form and send it into the main office with a fee.”

“Uh, okay. How long does that take?”

“Four to six weeks. Oh, and don’t separate any of those pages, or they can’t help you. NEXT!”

As I drove home, I considered the state of modern technology and compared it to my experience. There was a vast disconnect. It would have been helpful to speak in advance with a person who could have told me what form I needed and how I could obtain one. It might even have been possible to find the form online, although if I printed it out, it would have had multiple parts, as opposed to the one I was given.

Surely, in an office full of computers, all one would need to do is pay a fee and have a clerk print out a verification notice of some sort. WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO DO THIS.

On my return, the pile of work from my client glared at me, but I turned my weary gaze at the form. There were multiple options on the form, but none of them seemed to match clearly with what I thought I must need, and the instructions were a bit on the inscrutable side, once you got past name, address and license or VIN number. I began to wonder if I had been given the wrong form. I finally chose the option that, naturally, had the largest fee; I would get a complete record of the car’s history for this year, a car I owned and operated for one month.

Sighing heavily, I signed the form, wrote the check, placed them in an envelope and proceeded to the nearest post office. When I got there, a hand written note taped to the glass door stated: CLOSED. BACK AT 2:25.

Pondering at the oddness of the stated re-opening time, I drove to the farther away post office and waited for twenty minutes there. Only two clerks were on duty in an office that can be worked by six clerks, and every customer had a package to mail. When I was finally called, I asked to send the item with delivery confirmation, but was told I could only send this piece as a Registered Letter, because it was not the right size to receive delivery confirmation as First Class. Not wanting to spend even more time filling out the form and getting back into line, I threw caution to the wind and let it go with just First Class postage and returned home.

When I got home, I realized it was now nearly three o’clock, and I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch.

I had spent all day on something I should not have needed to do. I had spent all day trying to be a good and responsible citizen. I had spent all day being thwarted, abused and turned away, punished for doing the right thing.

I took up the Donation Receipt. This is the printed statement, on which I had pinned my entire day’s activity:

Notice of Donor’s Liability: Your liability for your vehicle/vessel extended until the vehicle was picked up. All agents involved in the donation are not responsible for any theft, damage, vandalism, parking violations, moving violations, registration fees, late charges, impounds, storage charges, liens, etc., prior to the time the donated time was picked up. If your State Vehicle Registration Department has a form to notify them of the transfer of ownership, such as a Release of Liability, Release of Interest, or Seller’s Report of Sale, we recommend that you mail that form.

You are not responsible for your donated vehicle/vessel after the date it was picked up! It is possible you may receive a notice for ticket’s, impound, lien sale, vehicle registration or other charges relating to your donated vehicle/vessel. Send the issuing agency a copy of this receipt. If you have any questions or need assistance in resolving a problem, call 1 (800) nnn-nnnn or email help@*****.info.

I had done as directed, to know avail. However, I had not read the notice carefully enough to see that I could get help from the donation center.

I called the number on the form. A person answered the phone! I was so elated by that, I nearly burst into tears! The receptionist who answered listened to the mini-version of my tale and, said, “Oh, Sherry handles that. Here, let me connect you.”

Sherry, was on the line already, and I had to leave a message. But Sherry returned my call almost instantly, not a minute after I hung up from leaving the message. I told Sherry the longer version of my tale of my woe, and she looked up the information on the donation. In a friendly tone, she told me she would send a couple of copies of the release of liability I had signed when the car was picked up, no problem.

“Have a good one,” Sherry said, as she ended the call, “Call again, if we can do anything else.”

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Obviously, this day was wasted needlessly.

This story points to many social themes that need to be addressed. People are desperate for money. Bureaucracy is entrenched, inefficient and maintained like an armed fortress, with little accountability and stingy access. People are angry. Some of the people that are angry are irresponsible, but many more are frustrated because they are trying to do the right thing. Those people who try to be responsible suffer due to the actions of both those who are irresponsible and those who are corrupt and play the system.

The theme that this experience highlighted for me was that technology, touted as the savior of the world, does not work for us when we need it to; technology can, however, be used by others to work against us, at will.

Access to Information. There is no reason why I should not be able to obtain a copy of a form I signed from the DMV the day I go in for an appointment. These forms are not stored in hardcopy, but are digitized, and should be maintained in an electronic database that can be accessed, as needed, by various agencies, and members of the public entitled to the information. I should be able to pay a fee to get copy of a form, if one is required. Four or more weeks of turn around on a minor clerical requests is simply inadequate, particularly since I know for a fact that people working at certain agencies can see proof of my claim, proof that I cannot obtain without paying a fee. My insurance company could see the trail of everything that proved I was no longer responsible for the car, but they could not provide me with a document that I could use or talk to another agency on my behalf with any authority.

Public versus Private Information. If you have not searched for your own name on Google, do it now. You will be shocked at the array of information about you that is available to anyone. You can pay a fee to the online CARFAX service get a complete history of a vehicle, including the name of former owners. Google the owner’s name, and voila, you can find out where they live, maybe even a phone number. You can call up the former owner of the car and harass that person. I’ve heard it happens! In my case, the tow company ran a CARFAX on my former car and thought to make some money off of me, since the deadbeat new owner was clearly not going to pay for towing and storing the wreck. If you can intimidate people with a lien writ and a receptionist who acts like a bulldog, maybe you can squeeze someone for some money.

Non-Enforcement of the Law. What is the point of making laws, if they will not be enforced? This might seem to be a rhetorical question, but I assure you that it is a practical one that requires real answers. It is against the law to purchase a car without registering it and purchasing accident insurance. I reiterate my refrain: WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. If you purchase a car, you should register it and purchase insurance at the same time. All of these agencies are hand-in-glove in that they all share the same interests and information. A person should not be able to purchase a car if they do not register it and insure it, but the only way to make sure all of those things happen is to have it happen at the time of purchase, in the case of vehicles sold off the lot. A transfer system needs to be set up for person-to-person sales. Well, guess what, there is an agency currently existing that could and should handle this: it is called The Department of Motor Vehicles.

The irony of this story is that the man who bought and wrecked the car will not be answerable for the things he did and did not do. He won’t have to pay any money, he won’t be yelled at on the phone or turned away from the DMV. The worst for him is that he no longer has a car. The other party involved in the auto accident will have to foot the bill for what happened there, that party’s insurance company will have to cover the damages.

I will end by saying that no one mentioned in this story was physically injured, for which I am grateful. That doesn’t mean this story had a happy ending. After going through this, I can still say that I am glad I was able to make the donation, and I would do so again. I am hopeful that my experience was an exception to the rule, in these cases. It is my belief that we should strive to do good deeds, even if it is difficult.

It should be a goal of society to enable people to do good.

Revolution

You think you are safely rooted in
corporate greed,
the thin veneer of class-conscious complacency,
in technological innovation;
sadly, all technology is primitive
when compared with what mind,
in cooperation with heart,
can envision and accomplish

—you have not been set free
by your mastery of machines,
but are instead enslaved
to a system that
neither honors the dignity of life,
nor is concerned with its preservation,
and that believes culture to be a waste of time.

But, verily I say,
you will be taken unawares,
you will be overpowered;
you have no choice:
this is war.

Surrender is the only option;
your thoughts will no longer be your own

—your blood and your being shall belong to another;

pinch your mean pennies, I dare you!
—this beast cannot be starved.

You will slowly be deprived
of indifference and hate,
of the necessity for isolated thought;
you will be grafted to the tree of integrity
whether you like it or not

—this is a matter of life and death,
and love.

When money is short,
it gets even worse, this conflict;
you blithely think,
I don’t need that,
and you hold back.

The operatives in this war defy gravity and the law;
they are guerrillas and thugs,
and they run the oldest black market in the world;
they are embedded everywhere,
these merciless mercenaries,
these freelancing villains,
and you cannot out-think them

—this is a syndicate with no bosses.

They assault you with color,
or cunning, dance-like motions;
they draw you when you are vulnerable,
or they tattoo your flesh;
they yammer sublime verse at you
or they capture you in clay;
they snap images of you and, worse, nature
or make a harmonic racket to compete
with your own noises
—at any rate (and all),
they substitute your emotions
for theirs,
wearing you down,
day after day,
until you turn to their side
—the side of beauty and light—
and then it is all over,
and they have won.

Damn these fiends called Artists!

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

More and more, we are seeing that economic slowdown called “The Great Recession” have a negative impact on the arts. When churches decide to layoff their musicians and opera companies and symphony associations lock out their unionized musicians, it can only mean that tomorrow the lights will be dimming on Broadway. And from there, it trickles down to all the small arts organizations who are on the bubble of making it for one more year or folding. I know of a number of such organizations.

People think, oh, I don’t need to support art—someone else will. This is the big lie. It is the biggest lie ever perpetrated. Culture is the work of the people, and if the people won’t support it the way it should be supported, art and artists will inveigle their way to, if not a livelihood, at least the satisfaction of invading your life with their art.

History shows us the palpable work of artists. We can see and sometimes even touch or hear what the artist left behind. Culture and history have passed through artists’ hands, not the hands of the patrons whose image and ego demanded excess—their involvement is frequently distanced from the passion of the actual work. We can read about the patrons and appreciate that they invested, but it is the art that we can know and have a relationship with. Which is more important, of more value? I think you know the answer to that. It is a marvel that vast amounts of money have been spent, in all times and places on the earth, to produce art, but the art produced is more marvelous still.

Ultimately, this has been true forever. 

Is Texting Mightier Than The Sword?

“What is so cool is that we are all connected!” I heard this effusive comment in the grocery store, spoken by a man to the display of melons. Of couse, when he turned, I realized he had a phone dangling from his ear.

I confess to have been annoyed by this; I wanted to ask, “connected to what?” Sometimes, it seems to me that what we are truly connected with is our technological toys. I also sometimes think that our technology takes us for a walk, and not the other way around.

When my family was driving home from some event, recently, we were stopped at an intersection. My husband, who was driving, was about to make a right-hand turn when, from out of nowhere, a man on a bicycle shot off the sidewalk in front of the car, texting, while riding his bicycle. Texting! It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life. Both of the man's hands were on the handlebars, somehow balancing his phone, open to it’s qwerty pad, and his thumbs were furiously flying.

My husband slammed on the brakes, and the guy on the bicycle responded by falling off of his bike in the crosswalk in front of us, dropping the phone.

Without looking to the right or the left, the fellow got up, scooped up the phone and picked up the bike, remounted it, and rode on, continuing to text. We had saved him from being road kill, and he didn’t even look our way.

This sounds like a classic entry for the annual Darwin Awards. And I ask, what was that all for? I would hazard the guess that it was not for some pithy discourse.

Because our technology allows us to, we blather. On and on we blather, whether it is by voice or by thumb, on and on we digitally promote the sound of our voice. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t call this conversation. Most of the single-side of conversations I hear are not noteworthy. Many are people yelling at each other, pretending that there is no audience to their drama. A woman actually snapped at me, on day in the grocery checkout line, “mind your own business” when I turned, startled at being barked at from behind. Groups of people walk in packs together, but are they talking to each other? No. Texting or tweeting others with cutesy one-liners about what they are doing right now. Couples in internet cafés, both parties with laptops open, not speaking to one another.

What I observe is that people, in their desire to be connected, are dividing themselves from a consciousness of what is going on around them. 

The loudness of all the blather is deafening.

The silence, in the absence of substantial real time discourse, is equally disquieting.