The fact that we're behind means that we have to work that much harder...

I had a great conversation with a dad, today...

This father has a daughter who is in my special education math class...

Who I think literally every teacher she has had that I had talked to had given up on her...

They were convinced that she was retarded...or just too stupid...or otherwise hopeless...

And this father was just greatful to talk to one teacher who hadn't given up...

And who had some expectations for his daughter...

And she was responding...

The reason for my call...was that this kid was beginning to do work that she, previously, would not do...she offered very little effort in class, at all...

And I made clear to her that if she didn't give me any effort...then she could take her F's and there wasn't a thing I was going to do for her...

But if she worked with me, then I would work with her...and she could learn a lot...

And as I told her father...maybe find herself in general education classes at some point in the future...

If she could get a fire underneath her...which she has gotten, in very small part...

But significant enough that I thought her father should know...

You know what pisses me off most about the world, right now...

How many people have given up on the most important priorities we have...like committing ourselves to every child's future...no matter what obstacles we face...

And then acting like somehow their giving up and cynicism should be treated equally or better than the kind of hope and clear commitment that someone like me brings...

It makes me kind of sick, really...

And message I have for every single person...who believes that their cynicism should be treated with the same kind of seriousness with my realistic and clear-headed idealism...

Is fuck you, you bullshitting mother-fucker...your cynicism is a dishonest attempt to get yourself off the hook for the most serious responsibilities...

And either get yourself back on the hook...and commit yourself to finding solutions rather than always rationalizing failure...

Or sit down, shut the fuck up, and get out of the way of committed people like me...

Because there is not one fuckin' whine or moan or complaint that I will listen to, anymore, on this, that doesn't have some constructive focus on changing or solving serious problems or improving serious priorities...

We are not cavemen...we cannot look at every problem and say, "Well how the fuck can I beat the shit out of this problem and make it go away?"...

We have to think our way through problems...include people in on decision-making...account for peoples' different ideas, persectives, disagreements, etc...expecting full and responsible participation...

And otherwise stop being such assholes trying to club our way through problems that need more thought...

We need more light and less heat to solve most problems, today...during a hopefully brief era when we have rationalized more heat than could possibly ever be useful for solving most problems...

But...like imperialism...or legally-sanctioned morality...or religious or racial bigotry...or sexism...or slavery...or autocracy...or a million other bad habits that humanity has gotten itself into...

This habit has been a hard one for us to break...

Largely because people with power very rarely like to either part with it very easily...or take responsibility for their failures, when they have it...

Largely because human beings, as a rule, rather than as an exception...can be such pricks...who just don't like to admit what pricks we can be...

How do we escape the cycle?...

We take responsibility...

And we live better lives...

It's painful...it's difficult...it's a far harder row to how than the one we follow now...

And it's the only way out...

And future generations will remember what fools and pricks we were...just as we do of past generations...

Until we get past it...

And begin to think a whole lot more...

And bully a whole lot less...

I've got some work to do...

Have a great weekend, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

Forgiving our collective foolishness...

I'm wiped out...

I have a national qualifying forensics tournament that I committed to judging this weekend...it will be a weekend of grading and IEP's and getting my brakes changed and finances and cleaning and other kinds of stuff after that (actually I have to get the brakes changed before I head down to Wichita)...

But...at some point...I also got a get a beer in there, somewhere:):)...

Because this week has been insane...

I don't just mean that it's been busy...but it's surely been that...

I mean insane...I mean people lost in stubborn irrationality about what they can get done by demanding, bullying, pressuring, and otherwise undermining their's and my ability to get the work done...

And I'm finding that the only way to tolerate this persistent stupidity...

Is to have that beer...and to just keep forgiving what stubborn dumbasses we are around this issue until we figure out what people are so resistant to admit on it...that they're wrong...that there really is a limit to what you can bully to get your way...so they have to learn how to choose battles better and differently...and if they're really thinking about it...to use the least possible necessary aggression...so that the pushing things too hard doesn't slow you down too much...which it does, as a rule (is there any other lesson to take from our dealings with Iran, right now?..."Hey Iran, stop developing nukes"..."Hey U.S., fuck off"..."Hey Iran, stop developing nukes or we'll really put the pressure on you"..."Hey U.S., watch us pursue nukes faster and more persistently in the face of your pressure, you morons"..."Hey Iran, now we're really going to put the pressure on"..."Hey U.S., now we're going to get far bolder in our open pursuit of a nuclear weapons programs and even declare ourselves a member of the nuclear club before we are")...

I mean how fuckin' obvious does it have to become?...are Americans going to pay $10/gallon a gas before they figure out what a fool-hardy path it is to bully our way through every issue?...

"We really could have gotten so much more done in North Korea if South Korea hadn't gotten in the way with all that diplomatic nonsense" dumbasses in the Administration who advocate this approach must be saying, these days...even as South Korean totally saves our ass on the nuclear issue, because we're just too stubborn to see our failure...

Bullying your way through an issue is something that must be done as little as possible...and even then, it only works temporarily...

And...eventually...your credibility is undermined...

You have to really live in a world of self-delusion, I think, to somehow think that I'm not a really pretty damn good teacher...

Or just really stubborn...

And the latter means that if the district were to let me go...then you just become one more footnote in my books and discussions of how irrational bureaucracy is in dealing with important decisions based on substance...rather than based on institutional inertia...

The latter suffocates itself, eventually, without fresh air from people like me...to help people see how they keep tripping over the same goddamn mistakes...

But...at some point...you got to finally see the mistake...you can't just keep fighting me, mindlessly, on it...

And not seeing a mistake doesn't mean that you're not making it...

It means that you'll keep making the same mistake...

And I'll be moseying my way along...waiting for you to finally catch up:):):)...

But probably helping someone else...on some other team...

I've got stuff to do before the end of the day:):):)...

Have a good weekend, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben