Victor Hugo once said that “music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” I am not sure about the “impossible to be silent” part, but music can convey emotions and messages which words, for all their versatile flexibility, cannot. The sound goes straight into our ears where it is translated by our brains into meaning. We interpret music into metaphors which we find to be important in our lives: love, death, sadness, happiness, etc. Obviously, there is opera which uses many words to tell a story, for which music is an equal partner in the telling. The famous “Sull’aria” duet from Mozart’s…
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“Who the f**ck do you think you are?!?”, Part I
It was November 22, 2020 at approximately 1215 pm. I was waiting at the corner of Saticoy Avenue and Telephone Road in Ventura, CA with my daughters in the car. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was taking them out of the house to get some air; we were going to go browse for Christmas presents. As I approached the stoplight at the intersection, a Harley Davidson motorcyclist cruised to a stop directly in front of me and in the middle of the crosswalk, blocking myself and other traffic. The motorcyclist held his hand down low, as if to tell me to stand back. A caravan of Trump supporters…
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Pandemic Diary IV: The COVID Winter — “Control what you can control, and let the rest go.”
We are now in the deepest darkest winter of this Coronavirus pandemic, with the infection numbers rising sharply and the government restricting even further our activities. I read yesterday there were some 3,100 new coronavirus deaths nationally and 216,548 new cases reported on December 3, 2020; and that over the past week, there has been an average of 180,327 cases per day — an increase of 8 percent from the average two weeks earlier. That is significant growth in reported SARS-CoV infections. The United States has endured some 277,000 COVID-19 reported deaths since March. That number will only go up, alas. So here we are — death and disease abound.…
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Dear Elizabeth
As of late you have shown a particular interest in reading blog posts I have written. “Can I read one of your essays?” you intone before bedtime. It seems to have become a ritual. This surprises me. I am running out of essays for you to read. But they seem important to you. So I will write one you can read tonight. I will write you this letter. Your online learning grades have not been the best, as we scramble to figure out what your teachers want. It seems the online learning paradigm your fifth grade teachers have rolled out requires 1.) a full-time teacher to lay out all the…
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To Write in Public
I have spoken at length about my antipathy towards social media — or what I would prefer to call it, anti-social media. Jack Dorsey and Twitter — with persons like Donald Trump and others — are trying to poison our country with splenetic 280-character bursts of poisonous partisan politics. The loudest, most outrageous attention getting posts are the ones that gain the most traction on that platform. A lot of storm and noise signifying nothing, or close to nothing. I want nothing to do with Twitter. Or anything like it. But I have seen others, like Mike Bowen, write on Substack. I posted a response to one of his articles…
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Gratitude
Gratitude I studied along with my oldest daughter Julia last spring in a class on happiness — supposedly the most attended class in the history of Yale University. Professor Laurie Santos claimed that happiness comes from human connection with others, quality sleep and daily exercise, and acts of kindness and experiencing gratitude. I like that word — GRATITUDE. This happiness message of Professor Santos makes sense. Gratitude for what we have in our lives can take us a long way down the road of happiness. Gratitude in America is underrated and underused, in my opinion. So I would take some time this morning to remind myself of what I am…
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Pandemic Diary III: Mile 18 of the Coronavirus Pandemic Marathon
We are in the eighth month of this SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic, and the end is not in sight. It calls for the endurance of the marathon runner — the mental toughness, the steel in the spine — which one encounters when one hits “the wall” around mile 18 of the 26 required to complete the race. The journey would have been easier to endure if we knew we back in March at the beginning that we would be in semi-quarantine for what will probably be a full year or more. When this started, we had no idea. Back then many spent a month or two frozen in panic glued to…
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Where Civil Blood Makes Civil Hands Unclean
So I had just completed my 45-minute evening swim, covering almost a mile, and changed back into my street clothes. Then I stopped on my way home at the Von’s grocery store at the corner of Harbor Boulevard and Seaward Avenue to pick up some parmesan cheese for my older daughter Julia, as well as a few other items. An evening swim and the grocery store is not an uncommon routine for me. I made my purchases and left the store. It was approximately 7:25 pm and I was back in my car getting ready to drive home. The parking lot was dark. I had started my audiobook on my…
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Election 2020 Losers: Trump, Anti-Trumpkins, and Journalists
So the election returns are in. And my hopes, at the time of this writing the morning after the general election, seem to have been answered: Biden will narrowly win the Presidency, and the Republicans will retain control of the Senate. Neither side won, neither side lost. A very close election providing for split governance. Wonderful! How many people are there this morning whose wishes have been so answered? Voters like me who seemed to have had their way in yesterday’s election? Not many, I suspect. But here are the losers, as I see it, in this election: Loser #1: Trump Without power and the presidency, we shall see how…
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One Week Until the Election: Time to Make Up My Mind and Vote
It has been months since I had anything to say about politics or the presidential election, but it is now one week away. I claimed I was happy to see Joe Biden drub Bernie Sanders so thoroughly in the primary. I wanted Biden, the Democratic candidate, to win the presidency in November, I claimed; but I wanted the Republicans to retain control of the Senate. That would force compromise and a centrist policy on Washington D.C. I still believe that. But the Democratic Party has lurched noticeably to the left this summer on issues of “racial justice” and so-called “white supremacy.” The cultural left has indulged in national self-flagellation about…
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In Memoriam: Trudy Rideout, My Stepmother, Died Today
Trudy Rideout went home to her maker today. She died at 1:30 pm on Tuesday October 6, 2020. This ends a life that started on March 11, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois. Trudy was my stepmother, a much maligned family role in our popular culture. The negative trope in society is the sullen teenaged girl resentful at her father’s new wife — the stepmother. The daughter does not want a new “mom,” and she makes her feelings known. In contrast, I enjoyed my stepmom and was grateful to have her in my life. I never thought she would replace my mom who died twenty-three years ago when I was 29-years old,…
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“Kill your TV”? I Count Myself “Killed” by YouTube
Among my friends and family It is a well known story: how I took my TV out to the desert and blew it up with a shotgun. That was back in 1986. It was a small black and white TV, befitting a college student with no money. But it was a highly symbolic action, and I owed no other TV set for decades. I had thought it out. TV was a giant conspiracy to make my country dumb, so I thought, and I would not have it in my house. I still believe that now. My webpage logs show that my posting on “Kill Your TV” twenty years on has…
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The “Hard Yards” — Any Serious Endeavor Worth Doing Should Be Difficult
Today I took my last bike ride of the summer. I will be back in the classroom tomorrow, but this afternoon I was next to the ocean with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. The view to my side looked something like this: It was a wonderful ride from the Pierpont area in Ventura to the Santa Barbara County line and back along the coast. I was thinking of goals and the new school year, and my thoughts revolved around this general principle: Anything worth doing seriously should be difficult to do, and you should expect nothing less. (The actual thought that came to my…
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Pandemic Diary, II: My Intellectual Diet During Quarantine
Forty seven days ago I penned a visceral (for me, at least) account of the pandemic and my reaction to it. I focused on the physical aspect, explaining how I would burn off the crazy with intense and prolonged exercise. That has gone well. The simple but strenuous task of identifying and analyzing how I felt about the unprecedented events of this Coronavirus event was valuable. How would I react to the stay-at-home orders; what I was doing and why. That helped me. I am hesitant to post any of this. My personal choices during the pandemic are of interest to almost nobody. But I start back to my next…
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Concupiscence, Judged
I read last week a passage in actor-comedian Kevin Hart’s book “I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons” where he talked about losing his virginity as a teenager. Hart lost it to a girl who was acquiring a reputation for too liberally bestowing her favors upon the neighborhood boys. Hart claimed he remained friends with the girl, because he remained discreet about their amours and never joined the chorus of whisperers decrying her as a “slut.” Hart goes on to sermonize: “People do a lot of things to make life hard for themselves, but one of the stupidest is guys who desperately want sex talking shit about the women most…
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Daddies and Their Daughters: The Middle Years
There comes a time when your child wants a bit more independence. It happened with my older daughter, Julia, around the beginning of sixth grade. She would come home from school, go up into her room, close the door, and come out hardly at all for the rest of the evening. If she were hungry enough, she would make an appearance in the kitchen. We would insist on family dinner together, but more often than not she would retreat up into her room and close the door. What does Julia do up in her room? Well, there is much for your average “tween” to accomplish. First of all, Julia had…
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Pandemic Diary, I: The Crucible — Hard Times and Stress; Mental and Physical Strength
The runners and bicyclists shall inherit the earth, is a truism of this Coronavirus pandemic crisis, as I see it. The hot-yoga and spin-cycle studios — the mixed martial artists and cross-fitters — the swimmers and weight-lifters — they are all shut down. The state has closed their places of business. Such exercise is almost at a standstill. The State of California would probably stop people from running and biking, if they could. But they can’t close down the open road. So I have ridden hundreds of miles in the past few months. Sometimes twice in one day. I have become an ardent cyclist these past three months out of…
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The Blessings of Adversity — Control What You Can Control
As the Covid-19 “shelter in place” policies stretch into weeks and months of quarantine, the schools have tried their best in the city where I live but have not produced much quality instruction. The reasons for this are many and complicated. The public schools have tried, but despite much effort the results have been poor. As John Wooden used to say, “Do not mistake effort for achievement.” As I see it, the schools have done much energetic scrambling but little real teaching. In watching the public school bureaucrats change course almost by the week, I find myself shaking my head and thinking, “These people don’t know what they are doing.…
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“Why We Send You to School” — An Open Letter to My Eldest Daughter
Dearest Julia, I was saddened to hear you say today you felt you were unable to detach from the execrable online learning software the schools have offered up during this Coronavirus school closure crisis. You claimed, “I have deadlines; my teachers send me emails. Daddy, I need to get a good grade because that is what school is about!” You went on to explain to me how school, in your experience, is all about jockeying for the grade. You are on the academic treadmill to turn in required work to get the all-important “A.” All your friends in the seventh-grade feel the same, you explained. Your voice shook with emotion.…
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Home-Schooling in Time of Plague
“Parents are the first and foremost educators of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it.” Vatican II We are fourteen days into this home-school experiment. On March 13, 2020 the local authorities cancelled school, and we have been at home since. The government has ordered us to “shelter in place” so as to help prevent the spread of the novel Coronavirus and “flatten the curve” and relieve pressure on the health care system. So Maria and I have taken over as teachers for our own children. Nobody else was going to do it, after all. I imagine millions…
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Coronavirus-Crisis: Home School, Day One
“Improvise, adapt, and overcome.” U.S. Marine Corps Dearest Julia, So here we are in the midst of this global Coronavirus outbreak. School is cancelled — for you and I both — and we are thrown upon each other. We are to “shelter in place,” and it is just you, your sister, Mommy, and me. At home. Indefinitely. We might have intense, positive interactions which we will remember for the rest of our lives. Or we might come close to wanting to kill each other. Maybe a little bit of both? We live in strange days, and events have conspired so that here we are. Public school is cancelled; home school…
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Time to Tend to the Inner World
I remember reading decades ago a passage in some book where the author claimed that in response to the traumatic news of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., he went to his piano and started playing Bach. He explained there was something spiritual in Bach’s solo keyboard music which offered him profound solace in moments of sadness and loss. That anecdote stayed with me for some reason. A few moments of reading many years ago struck a chord. It resonates to this day. I get it. I remember finding a used copy of the full Well Tempered Clavier, Book I while rummaging through the bargain bin of compact disks…
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A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste
So some ten weeks ago there was nothing. Then news of an outbreak in Wuhan, China. It spread to South Korea and Japan. Then to Iran and Italy. A ripple traveling across the globe and arriving everywhere sooner or later. Including the United States. Yesterday the nearby Cal State Channel Islands campus closed down to try to halt the spread of the “Coronavirus” (COVID-19), following the lead of other universities elsewhere in California. Then today Ventura College closed. I could see plainly the writing on the wall: my school district would be closing imminently. Ten minutes ago I got the email. I am done until April 16, 2020. Four weeks…
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“Get back under your bridge, troll.”
“Reince Priebus.”* That is the person to blame, in my opinion. Say his name. Say it out loud. It was Reince Priebus who was the Republican Party Chairman during the 2016 presidential election when Donald Trump — real estate developer, reality TV show host, and conservative Rush Limbaugh-talk show protégé — enacted a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. Trump shooed aside more traditional “establishment” presidential aspirants, and he emerged as the party’s candidate. His pep rallies and use of social media directly energized a segment of the party, and he rode that populist wave into power. The rest is history. Reince Priebus, and the other Republicans of that time,…
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Small Distinctions Matter in Affairs of the Heart: The Difference Between Being “Dumped” and “Broken Up With”
I recently read an article written by Niki Marinis who claimed that if a man was to break up with her, he should do it by email or by phone call; it would be too painful to do it face-to-face, and she would prefer he spare her the trauma of the painful conversation in person and just do it by phone. Then he would not see her cry, see her fall apart in heartbreak. It was easier this way, Niki claimed. Here is her article: “If You’re Going to Dump Me, Do It Over the Phone” By Niki Marinis It might be easier to break up over the telephone, as…
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On Doctor’s Orders: America Ordered to the Therapy Couch
I attended a meeting of parents for my daughter’s club soccer team last night. Much to my astonishment and chagrin, the meeting was “emotional and intense,” in the later words of the coach. Parents grew red in the face and raised their voices to each other and the coach, and for sixty long minutes it went back and forth as I largely stared at the ceiling in embarrassment. The meeting was angry and chaotic. Although I said next to nothing, being present at the meeting was emotionally lacerating. Certain of the parents heatedly complained that because of conflicts between different parents and with the coach they had suffered serious distress…
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“Embattled” Journalists Without Jobs — A Crisis: Ambivalence and Conflicted Feelings
Cognitive Dissonance: In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, or values. This afternoon I find myself suffering from cognitive dissonance. I read yesterday in the New York Times an alarming article “How the Collapse of Local News is Causing a ‘National Crisis.’” I had two distinct and different reactions. WHY I APPRECIATE JOURNALISTS On the one hand, I am worried. Do I really want to live in a country where city councils, local police, and school boards operate…
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Memes as a Cultural Metaphor For Our Troubled Times
I read the other day an outstanding article about abortion by the always wonderful Caitlin Flanagan — “The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate”by Caitlin Flanagan The essay is nuanced and complicated and full of insight and intelligence. It cuts across party lines and cannot be described as pro- or anti- abortion. I live for these kinds of articles. It is the opposite of propaganda. Her argument is unconventional. It does not fit neatly into the convention ruts most tread in looking at abortion. It is the way I try to think through difficult and complex issues. These sorts of issues are the ones worth engaging. As a high school teacher…
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Ecce Homo, The Boss
“Change — how do you change yourself? It’s easy to lose yourself or never find yourself. The older you get, the heavier that package becomes that you haven’t sorted through, so you run. I’ve done a lot of that kind of running. I’ve spent 35 years trying to let go of the destructive parts of my character and I still have days where I struggle with it.” Bruce Springsteen I spoke at some length in my last posting about finding peace, and being comfortable in my own skin at 52-years of age. Now I would speak about Bruce Springsteen and his observations about aging and seeking emotional equilibrium. Watch the…
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Letter to My Mom on the 23rd Anniversary of Her Death
Dear Mom, Hello. It is the 23rd anniversary of your death, and your husband and I visited your grave to pay our respects and leave flowers for you. It was a beautiful day, this October 31, 2019. Although you died at 56-years of age — decades before you should have — your peers are beginning to catch up with you. Left and right persons of your generation are struggling with health problems or succumbing to them. Walking near your grave I ran across Sylvia M.’s grave, and Trudy’s is freshly installed and waiting for her. Family friend Sharon M. is buying a grave for her husband Frank who is dying…