Teaching in a Post Virginia Tech / NIU World

I'm not a tenured or non tenured professor--I'm a lowly grad student getting paid just enough to teach courses the department can't cover with full time faculty. I'm thankful for this opportunity and genuinely enjoy it.

In a campus-wide email today I found out some student in a classroom noticed another student had a gun, maybe a toy gun, sitting on their desk in class. That student texted another outside of class who contacted campus police, who then came to the classroom. The student with the toy gun was playing Assassin, a game much like tag but with fake weapons.

If I were in college I'd probably play the game--it seems kind of fun, especially among the sometimes monotonous nature of classes. However, it seems idiotic beyond imagination to not know what implications this game can have in the light of the growing number of campus shootings.

What becomes more real as I teach in higher education--almost 7 years now--is that each class, each year, raises the possibility of something happening. To me or to my students. It IS a super slim chance.

But what if a student disagrees with a grade I give them? What if they misconstrue a joke in class, by me or another student--or any type of comment for that matter--as some personal insult or attack? What will trip someone? What if they just don't like me? (Quite an uncommon problem--students not liking teachers... novel idea.) It doesn't seem to take much, but it's the straw that breaks the camel's back--these things have years or a lifetime of building, and apparently teacher / friends / administration are supposed to notice. But that isn't likely for many reasons, especially with teachers who have four classes and / or large lectures where anonymity just is a fact. Teachers are not and will never be guards, or therapists, or mind readers (though we can easily tell when someone plagiarizes, though folks keep trying anyway, year after year after...).

I'm lucky, perhaps, that I teach small English classes of 6-32 students (that's been my range over 7 years); this makes it very hard for any student to be just a face in the crowd, even if they never talk. I get to know them to some degree whether they like it or not. But still, it doesn't drastically change the dynamic--students are still students, people I barely know with their own complex thoughts and emotions and logic. Just like me. It's the nature of being human.

I'm not afraid when I teach. I don't think about this subject often at all. In a world filled with senseless violence of all kinds how can one act among many make someone become so static as not to live life, more fully even as a result?

I've had students get terribly upset, but always in my office or on paper. I've had students accuse me of some awful things I just didn't nor would ever do. I've had students misconstrue verbal and written comments. These are all inevitable things. I won't be more "careful" than I am now in these interactions (consciously or not), because to do so would create an environment of trepidation in the classroom, and this isn't what college is about.

I only hope, and tell my students, that if something is bugging you, if something's up, you can and should come talk to me and I'll be all ears (and many take me up on this offer, and I appreciate getting to know my students more). I don't mean this in a therapy session type of way, I mean this in a collegial way. Students and teachers are interactive partners in living and learning, they give a lot to each other--with that comes, at times I think, a sense of being more than a didactic teacher; and that's where it maybe gets dicey. Either way it can be a no win situation (99.9% of the time it's a win win)--being impersonal could lead to violence, being personal could also lead to violence. Is this even the issue? One of them? The issue is so complex I need to stop writing. So back to what I said earlier--I'll just keep teaching because it's what I enjoy doing. Except for days I'd rather be writing. Or gardening.

I can't leave on such a serious note. Maybe I should. Below is a pic I found on the internet: spring in the (upper) midwest--just one month away!

Leave No Child (Adult) Inside

Richard Louv, author of Last Child in The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, was in town last night. Instead of enjoying the -20 wind chills, I watched him on cable access (lord bless cable access, and the holiday season fireside streaming video that warms me so).

I wouldn't have wasted an hour watching him had I known I could go to Orion Magazine's website and read his presentation--it followed his short essay Leave No Child Inside. You could tell he'd done this a billion times before, commenting on how after 2 years the book hasn't gone away; and after reading up on the internet, he seems eager to move on to other projects yet thankful for what he started.

What I like about Louv is he is HOPEFUL, positive, we can do things better and make more money at it, says that part of our problem is we are paralyzed with doomsday talk, that to create change there must be hope. I read this in another essay on Orion that was concerned with capitalism's ability to squash hope and our spiritual connection to each other and landscapes.

Louv also hates the word "sustainable," and now so do I (I had an inkling I did)--for him, it means "stasis and stagnation." Yup. Why try to hold on to what's left when you can actually create more of it instead? Fun things I learned:

--Only 6% of kids 9-13 play outside on their own during a typical week
--Ansel Adams was kicked out of school as a kid for hyperactivity, which was fixed by his desperate parents taking him on repeated nature trips. Didn't he do something with nature in his photagraphy? (sarcasm)
--Playing outside is statistically proven to increase self esteem, confidence, social skills, creativity, lowers teenage suicide risk and symptoms of ADD, et cetera. DUH.
--Eco phobia is taught at a young age. Basically, we fear nature like we fear strangers.
--Which is why kids don't play outside--parents don't let them. In truth, child abductions and such are holding steady or dropping nationally. Virtual house arrest he calls it. News media is largely to blame, consistently covering the same story over and over to improve ratings and play on fears that something IS up, when it isn't.
--Lincoln, NE is pretty progressive when it comes to getting families outside repeatedly with their Lincoln Safari program (5,000 families projected this year).
--National Park attendance is down 25%.
--There's a 40% reduction in fieldtrips and recess nationally. Some schools post "no running" signs on the playground. That'll help curb childhood obesity.
--Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD) is about reclaiming our humanity, too, not just environment. I.e. we suffer emotional and spiritual lack for not playing outside.

And by the way, this isn't all about or for kids. It applies to adults. So go outside and build a fort.

Where did you play as a child? My dad built us a "tree house" once in Oklahoma (we were always at war with the neighbor's kids). But I think my spiritual, romantic, deep space must have been from my first impressions of Minnesota when we moved from Oklahoma--a dark, musty stand of pines and spruce near where we first lived. The ground was soft and squishy, the sunlight hazy, that darkness and stillness the same quiet inward solitude of fear and hope I felt after moving north--the same solitude I carry with me today as a definition of who I am and how I recharge, or find my way again.

Help Me Grow Green!!!

--Calling all garden bloggers--

I've got a large new garden wintering. I started with about 30% organic fertilizers last summer, but I want to go 100% on BOTH the garden and lawn, yet the choices seem ENDLESS. What works for you? Suggestions?

Lawn
--I put down my first application of Ringer Lawn Restore in the fall. Does this work for you? Anything better?
--Does a person really need corn gluten meal to prevent weeds? It's pricey.
--Should I spread 1/2" of compost on the lawn?
(--Anyone want to aerate my clay for free?)

Garden (shrubs, trees, perennials)
--I've got very high ph clay....
--Green sand? Yes or no?
--Worm tea? Worm castings?
--Bat guano?
--An all purpose fertilizer? There are several.

How much is too much? I'd imagine if you use bat guano, there's no need to use an all purpose fertilizer, but maybe still worm tea?

--Any root stimulator suggestions for transplants?

Trees
--I anticipate iron chlorosis soon on my river birch, and maybe bald cypress (so I've read). Any suggestions here for treatment? Is sulfur an option, or something more specific for chlorosis?

Too many choices--and what REALLY WORKS?

Thank you thank you thank you. Free human guano for everyone (bag your own).

Suicide By Plastic Bottle and Spatula

Seriously. From this article here: http://health.msn.com/womens-health/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100176179

"A growing body of scientific research has linked the weak estrogenic compound bisphenol-A (BPA) to a variety of health problems, such as infertility, prostate cancer, and breast cancer.

BPA is the main building block of polycarbonate plastic, a hard plastic widely used to make kitchen utensils, food storage containers, travel mugs, and water bottles. BPA is also a main component of the epoxy linings found in metal food and beverage cans.

The problem: Polycarbonate plastics can leach BPA into our food and beverages.

Heat, acid, alcohol, harsh detergents, age, and microwaving can also exacerbate the release of BPA, says Frederick vom Saal, a biology professor and BPA researcher at the University of Missouri."

The article suggests the following to limit your intake of BPA:

--Limit canned foods & beverages.
--Don’t store foods in plastic.
--Filter your drinking and cooking water.
--Filter your shower and tub water.
--Don’t transport beverages in plastic mugs.
--Limit use of hard plastic water bottles.
--Minimize hard plastics in the kitchen.
--Skip the water cooler.
--Limit plastic toys for kids.
--Limit plastic baby bottles and sippy cups.
--If you're pregnant, take lots of folic acid, which may help negate some of the BPA.

#2 and #5 plastics have less BPA, by the way.

A big thanks to my dad for sending this to me. Jerk.

Echinacea 'Virgin' PPAF Has Lost Its Virginity

Echinacea 'Virgin'

Is it, now....

Seems to me like this frayed, overly-petaled freak lost its virginity years ago in the lab (I'm becoming a plant purist fyi). It ain't as much a monstrosity as others--see double decker--but if you're going to name genetically engineered plants maybe you should go with something else:

Echinacea 'Chastity Belt Unlocked'

Echinacea 'Been Around the Block'

Echinacea 'Nothing Gives You That Right'

Echinacea 'Don't Know What I Am Anymore'

Echinacea 'I Love You Long Time'

Buddhist Garden / Eco Meditation

This worked for me today, actually, if read slowly while breathing the way it suggests (though I might lean toward cutting the last couplet). It's by Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.


Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.

Breathing in, I see myself as a flower.
Breathing out, I feel fresh.

Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain.
Breathing out, I feel solid.

Breathing in, I see myself as still water.
Breathing out, I reflect things as they are.

Breathing in, I see myself as space.
Breathing out, I feel free.


He's a somewhat interesting fellow, if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanh. He was active in peace initiatives during the Vietnam War (and still is) , influenced some of Martin Luther King Jr.'s ideas, and lives exiled in France.

Red Knots, Horseshoe Crabs, Christianity

I stayed up late last night getting hooked by a Nature episode on PBS about this small migratory bird and sea creature. At the end I was nearly in tears, as the woman on the tv was (I admit I got pulled in to the rhetoric, but that's the point, yes? This stuff BETTER hit us in the gut).

--Red knots migrate almost 10,000 miles from South America (winter) to northeast Canada and the lower arctic circle (spring nesting).

--They fly in large groups, almost all at once, and stop at key staging areas to bulk up for flying and nesting. This makes them more vulnerable to environmental changes.

--Like many a migratory bird, they precisely time their flights up north. When the babies hatch, so too have the bugs, their main food supply. It's almost on the same day. Neat.

--But anyway, a key bulking up / staging area is in the Delaware Bay, where they feed on horshoe crab eggs in the sand. Problem is, fisherman use those crabs as bait, and specifically the female. Turns out fish LOVE those horseshoe crab eggs.

--Well, see, female crabs don't mature for ten years. So although we can protect habitat to some degree for red knots, it may be too late because a key food supply is gone for a decade.

--The population of birds has dropped from 100,000 to less than 15,000 in 20 years. My god, TWENTY years.

They interviewed a fisherman who was upset that the government told him he can't gather crabs for bait. Well, I first felt angry at him, then realized it's not his fault. Economics drive him. Capitalism drives him. Our general non chalance so engrained in our secular and religious ethical impulses drive him. What to do. Who cares.

The end of the episode pulled all the right strings at the right time. You see volunteers tagging birds, counting birds, counting crabs, then going up to the arctic to anticipate their arrival after seeing them in Delaware a few days before. Red knot pairs nest about 3/4 of a mile apart, so the people fanned out over the usual nesting areas.

NOTHING. Not one bird. Turns out, an estimated 90% never made it north.

How in god's name can 90% not make it? What are we doing? Who cares? If you're still reading you know why it matters. It's not about hugging trees--or birds--it's about redemption, about seeing ourselves as part of the world, physically and spiritually. So what if a crab and a bird die out? (That crab has been around for 350 million years, fyi.) One species becomes another, and another. Each species tears out a part of human compassion and understanding. As the animals go, humans go. Our neglect of the earth is synonymous with our neglect of ourselves.

I think about the necessity for crop diversity, of tree diversity in forests. Nature takes care of itself, but when we step in and "cultivate" it, the land dies. Look at the Amazon. Look at our suburban green space. Without diversity everything falls apart, and there's certainly no backup. If the ash all go in an ash forest, you've got no forest. If ash go among oaks, maples, and pine, it's easier to take. I can't help but think how deeply rooted, how symbiotic, our history of war and slavery and sexism is to that of environmental collapse. Well, it's actually pretty obvious.

And the scary thing is, religion--Christianity--is a large cause of so many things, and mainly because it's been misinterpreted through the millenia, misapplied as an ethical, moral, and spiritual directive to humans. And such a core belief system, if it's to be lived correctly in this new environmental light, must change overnight, be absorbed overnight. We don't have generations to save the earth, just as the red knot doesn't have a decade to come back. But, this larger topic of religion is a weekend post.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/crash/conservation.html

NOBODY Visits Me

Winter is Better Than Summer

SO MANY bloggers are wearing down, complaining about winter. Complaining is good and healthy, and if you live in anything lower than zone 6, you've got a legit beef.

Still, it ain't over yet, so how about we have some posts praising winter? My turn to complain, because other seasons can't hold a candle to winter (mainly cuz it's too windy here on the plains). Why I like winter in 3...2...1...

1) I don't have to see anyone I don't want to. In summer I don't mow my lawn (with my electric mower) when I know my neighbors are out. I usually peer out the windows to make sure the coast is clear and do the front yard first. That way no one I can at least see--there must be peeping toms interested in my green shoes and hairy legs--will have the impulse to smile, wave, groan, or stop by. I have the garden in BACK with a FENCE for a reason.

2) People look better in winter. No flab (or breasts--it's getting bad people) coming out from under shirts or shorts, no sweat, less stink, et cetera. Also, people tend to dress better in winter. Why is that? Anyone else notice this? Is more money spent on winter wardrobes since they tend to get more use?

3) Snow. Nothing better than snow. Amazingly beautiful, highlights the architecture of life elegantly. In art classes I was taught to first draw the shadows, let the shadows fill in the object. Snow does this.

4) Snow part deux. Go outside on an evening when it's snowing heavily. What do you hear? Exactly.

5) Snow part trois. Makes everything smell nice, taste nice. Minus the yellow snow. And it creates some pretty cool sculpture in blizzard conditions.

6) You get time, precious time, to plan the garden. No impulse buying, but good, healthy weighing of what you need and don't, and making some great discoveries via research. Dreaming. Fantasizing. The foreplay is much better than the actual act of planting.

7) Winter means Christmas. Christmas means ipod nano and cookies.

8) No kids outside 7am-10pm screaming and yelling. I guess this can link to #1.

9) Less people in restaurants. Stay home, please, let me enjoy my meal. This can link to #1 and #7.

10) You can walk on water. Can't do that in summer. Winter IS a season of miracles. Plus, it makes you appreciate the others, and nature--in general--much more.

As with anything else in life, you have to earn a majority of the good things, work for them. I genuinely feel sorry for you nuts in Texas and Arizona and California and Florida. You live incomplete lives.

Bluestone

ACHILLEA Anthea -- Yarrow

CENTAUREA montana Gold Bullion -- Bachelor's Button (see left)

DIANTHUS Greystone -- Dianthus (duh)

ECHINOPS Arctic Glow -- Globe Thistle

EUPHORBIA dulcis Chameleon -- Cushion Spurge

TRADESCANTIA Sweet Kate -- Virginia Spiderwort

CARYOPTERIS Longwood Blue -- Bluebeard

ITEA virginica Little Henry -- Sweetspire

MICROBIOTA Decussata -- Siberian / Russian Cypress

End of a Drought

Looking at the ole excel spreadsheet, it's been nearly two years since someone said "yes" to me. This fall I sent out over 60 SIXTY poetry / essay submissions in my largest, most insane, most consuming, most expensive, most exhaustive scattershot attempt to find some shadow of validity. Battle of the Bulge, perhaps.

Hayden's Ferry Review will be publishing my poem "Little Deep Creek--Oklahoma, 1984" sometime soon. A fine journal--pleased as punch to be in it.

The poem relates a time when I fell into a dry creek behind my house and puked up dirt for fifty feet or so. Hours later ants were eating it. Drats, I've given it all away.

Also today, New England Review told me "to keep sending!" Ok...?

AWP and NYC and Herpes

A friend of mine did a list, which seems apropos, as too much happened this last week. I will say that I, too, felt the most grown up I've ever been while in NYC at the writers conference, to the point where I felt equal at some points to the well-known folks around me. And I met many interesting persons working the Prairie Schooner table.

People like this one woman, finishing her masters, who couldn't believe you actually WRITE while doing a Ph.D. For 10 minutes we talked as people came by getting magnets and buying subscriptions. She thought for sure all you did was get all hoity-toity theoretical and never write. What craziness. Who would do a Ph.D. simply to become an ivory tower block in the wall? I've successfully almost made it through grad school without really getting (or reading much) Derrida, Freud, Foucault, Jung, Kant, or Nietzsche, among others. Lord be blessed.

1) I nervously approached the editor of a press who has, for three years, given me many a kind note--hand written--about my poetry manuscript. He knew who I was right off the bat, and I thanked him for his notes over the years. This was awkward, especially as it occured after having been awake for only about 45 minutes. I'm not good at talking to people. I'd prefer a book contract, of course.

2) Ran in to one of my BFA profs, who also left a note for me. As well, one of my old undergrad colleagues left me a note. Pretty neat.

3) Met several MFA folks from way back at Ohio State. People even hugged me when they saw me at the conference. Why? I'm not approachable. And certainly not squishy.

4) Talked with a masters student--whose name I forget--at the Fugue table (published out of Idaho). Turns out he began his bachelors at Evansville just as I left. He knew me. Guess I left an impression in college. I wonder what kind?

5) Saw, from a distance, several writers that are well known. It was like going to the Guggenheim and MoMA--seeing famous art work / authors is sort of a "eh, so what?" moment. Especially the art, which we've managed to cliche up the whazoo so much, that I appreciate things I make at home out of straws and toothpaste much more. Too much Picasso in NY.

6) Bought two books by MFA "kids" I went to school with: Katie Pierce (poetry) and Sonya Huber (memoir). Both are very fine writers, so I look forward to the reads IF I get to them. I even got Sonya to sign my copy.

7) While being a bouncer at the Schooner soiree one evening, an editor of Crab Orchard Review--who published my first essay a year ago--talked with me about my work and the burgeoning genre. You know what's taken 8 years of grad school to tell me? Editors are people too. They like fart jokes, enjoy a drink, have good and bad days, even bleed. I am this dense. But helps me understand that my rejected work isn't complete crap, it's just crap that day.

8) Since AWP would not sell additional passes to anyone because it "sold out" (STUPID), my wife and I went to kinkos where we scanned my badge and made one for her. There were actually Italian mafia guys--hands folded across their belts, in suits--at entrances to events. Surreal. Dumb. She got in fine.

9) It's rare when you find decent food when traveling, but Pazza Notte was great; we only wish Lincoln had something half this good. French Italian is what I call it. Reasonable prices, very good food, 2nd best if not best fries I've ever head (and didn't expect to have fries at lunch with what I ordered, but it worked). The creme brulee looked perfect, and the wife said it tasted so. We went twice.

10) We went to FAO Schwarz and I bought a book worm (below), my wife mad cow disease. After looking at the company's website, you can also purchase Chlamydia, Herpes, Staph, Typhoid, Ebola, Athlete's Foot, Bad Breath.... Boy, all kinds of ways to considerately tell people what you think of them. http://www.giantmicrobes.com/

My Rant Against #@%^$@!% Flying

Back from NYC, brutal head cold, 6" of snow coming down, paperwork backed up (no hope of writing any time soon).

Did you know that 2007 was the 2nd worst for on time flight arrivals?http://www.startribune.com/business/15310591.html

Let me prove it to you. I've flown three times (11 different planes) in the last 1.5 months.

In December my wife and I flew to MN for Christmas. Then in early January to Mexico for a vacation. Then this weekend to NYC for a conference. ALL flights by Northwest, except where they gave up and put us on United:

December: 12/23 flight delayed ONE WHOLE DAY. We sat at the airport for 6 hours waiting. They kept pushing back the departure time until finally they just cancelled it and rebooked us. We arrived only a few hours before the Christmas Eve party on 12/24.

January: Ah, Mexico. Ah the 2 flights there, the three back. Customs in Houston was straight from HELL I tell you, (see below). We had a 3 hour layover in Houston and just barely had time to snarf down McDonalds before our 2nd flight left to MPLS, so redundant and long and confusing was the immigration processing (see below). Once in MPLS, we had a three hour delay until almost midnight because they were changing the plane's tires. Don't you know ahead of time that this needs to be done? Don't you have other aircraft to use? We got home around 12 or 1am after having been traveling for almost 14 hours (you wouldn't even expect it to be that long if your were flying to Europe....)

February: Leaving for NYC, our first flight out to MPLS was cancelled. Then the replacement flight was delayed and delayed and delayed till Northwest put us on a United flight SEVEN HOURS LATER to Chicago. I hate Chicago, but it worked this time. Usually, MPLS is the way to go. We arrived in NYC at our hotel 8 hours late, at 1am, and I had to get up at 7:30.

Then, on the way back, our 2nd flight from Detroit to Lincoln was delayed 40 minutes waiting for a co pilot. Hmmm, a plane needs a co pilot? That just came out of the blue, hence the delay. It's like tires. Or wings.

Now I'm sick, probably picked something up from one of these nasty, unfiltered air plane cabins.

Don't get me started about the INSANE just friggin' INSANE cabbies in NYC. Thought I was going to vomit all the food I ever ate in my life. How THEY don't die before 30 is beyond me, so stressful and angry is their job. GIVE ME A HIGH SPEED TRAIN.

Ok: Houston immigration? Anyone?

1) If you arrive on a regional jet, as we did, you get off on the tarmac, and take a bus to the terminal. There you literally weave for miles through confusing passageways with other plane loads of exhausted passengers--very little signage directs you, so they had employees yelling at you (in fact, we were yelled at so often I thought soon we would be stunned and decapitated and our parts sold in grocery stores).

2) You stand in a VERY long line for an hour, the whole time listening to triumphant music (no kidding) as if you just made it to the shores of the most remarkable country ever, as if just past the agent God himself waits with grapes and figs and gold and cool water. Nope. Didn't even get a stamp in the passport. Did I mention they have videos playing, showing "diverse" Americans doing "American" things? Too cliche, too trite, too obvious.

3) You get to pick up your checked luggage and CARRY IT DOWN A HALLWAY and hand it over to some dude who puts it through a scanner and rechecks it. WHY THE HELL can't this be done automatically? So many people were confused where to picks up our bags, why we were, and where to go once we had them. One guy from Australia was ready to nuke our country had he been given the button to push.

4) Not done yet. Another 30-45 minutes in another line where you get SCREENED YET AGAIN. This already happened in Mexico (where they hand checked EVERY passenger's checked and carry on bags, carry on bags got checked again at the gate).

5) Then you walk a mile to a shuttle bus that comes whenever it feels like it, it's mercurial that way. You take this shuttle to the terminal for your next flight, which happens to be the last stop on the shuttle. Here, they drop you off on the tarmac, and you climb stairs to a jet bridge to get in to the terminal. Stairs and stairs everywhere.

I'm going to take a nap.

Happy 50th, LEGO

When I was a kid (read well into college), I had a 12 by 12' LEGO city. A good 1/4 of the town came one Christmas morning when, upon my mother closing her toy store, she had saved some two dozen sets for my sister and I--that is one of my fondest Christmas memories as we tore into package after package of LEGO sets.

Sometime in early college my dad got a pool table, and I came home to dismantle most of the town, but still tried to have one along a 1' strip around the basement walls (double decker roads and all). It got stepped on frequently, so it eventually came down. Every set is labeled, baggied with instructions, and in one of five large plastic tubs in my basement now. Some day, the city shall rise again.

And the Lord Sayeth (Surely He Sayeth)...

Get thee outside, blessed be the 52 degrees, and the full sun which shineth on thy pasty brow, and the light south wind to temper your warm work taking down Christmas lights and filling the bird feeder. And the Lord looketh down upon Benjamin and saw that it was good.

And the Lord sayeth ruminate upon thy garden from thy deck chair, rejoice in the $100 gift certificate to White Flower Farm, rejoice in the $150 gift certificate to Heronswood, prepare for the sowing so thy might spiritually reap the flowers and the birds and the foliage and the butterflies, and He saw that this, too, was good.

And prepareth thyself a bounty of blessed travel, go to a great fellowship at the largest AWP writers conference this century in New York City later this week. Partake of the multitude of skilled writers and editors (whom you shouldst stalk / hobnob with excessively, but not egregiously), the Statue of Liberty, MOMA, The Guggenheim, The Met, forgeteth thou that the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier museum is being refurbished and its sleek jet fighters too, for these are excessive pleasures and sootheth not the soul as thine sculpture, painting, and winterized botanical gardens, and taxis, and dangerous jaywalking, and ice skating at Rockefeller.

And this too, is good, that Benjamin receiveth no rejection letters lately, his cat pukith slightly less this week, and that he has again begun researching his memoir. Surely goodness and mercy follows wherever he goes.

More Green Funerals

I'm not morbid, that's my wife. I'm just interested in this for a few days. The UK seems to have many more websites on this topic than the U.S., like http://www.greenendings.co.uk/index.htm, where you can get newspaper and cardboard coffins (have we been trained to think these types of coffins imply people hated the person inside, or otherwise looked down on them?).

A few months ago I picked up a book by Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking: Life Studies From the Dismal Trade. Now, like many books I buy, I haven't made my way to it yet, but I hear it's very enlightening, good easy prose, and funny / charming. Anyone read it?

Die Green--Eco Funerals

There's this free pub in UNL's student union I pick up once in a while, Prairie Fire. In December's issue is an article on green funerals. I'd never heard of this. Isn't death inherently green? What IS a green funeral? In sum:

--It's very personal and private. Often, the body is displayed in the person's home for a very intimate and familiar send off.

--No embalming. A green funeral thus costs roughly $1,000-2,000 or less, while a typical full service funeral is around $10,000.

--The casket is often a basket (it rhymes!), or simply wood like bamboo, or any other cheap or renewable materials (seagrass, willow, pine--all certified by the Fair Trade Organization so you know pandas don't depend on the bamboo, the forests are managed right, and kids aren't working as slave labor). Basically, the coffin and the body will degrade naturally in the ground and help to push up more daisies.

--There are 6 operating green cemetaries in the country: wooded graveyards that ban chemicals and not-easily-decomposed coffins.

Let's say it's winter and you live in Duluth, MN. How do you keep mom from not stinking up the family room? One person who had a green funeral propped a door open to lower the room temperature, while another used ice. Burial can often be achieved by heating the ground with portable space heaters, which many cemetaries use, though many more keep bodies "on ice" until spring.

If you're Jewish, you've apparently been green for a long time; you use wooden caskets and don't embalm.

So, is cremation green? Not really. Burning the body can realease mercury into the air, which comes from amalgam in dental fillings. Besides, Maine alone releases 20lbs of mercury into the air each year.

The funeral industry believes this is a fad. People want their loved ones preserved, to last longer, a tradition of sorts the Egyptians started (I'm paraphrasing the article here). In addition, embalming can can help protect against the spread of disease and bacteria.

Obviously, a green funeral is cheaper, perhaps more intimate and controlled, and would help fertilize the soil. I'd like to know just how much fossil fuel and pollution not using a traditional coffin would save, as this seems kind of relevant if we preach and practice something "green."

Still, it's odd to think that death is now--suddenly perhaps, but not without being obvious--not so green as we thought, not so sacred and "dust to dust," and so we have to make it TRULY green.

Our legacy, what we choose to leave and how we lead our lives, echoes in how we die and what we become after death. I find this disturbing. I find this eco posturing invasive during a time of intense grief and introspection. I find the funeral industry, in general, appalling.

There is nothing sacred or natural about the body in our modern world--and so as I garden and the dirt clings to my skin, perhaps that transience is the closest I will ever get to being part of the earth, part of something much more honorable in its brutal and graceful nonchalance about living and death.

Folks, These Are NOT Coneflowers

Lime and Pink Double Delight (or, Mold and Vomit, PPAF)

Labdien, Latvia!

Everyone, welcome Latvia to my blog, courtesy of sitemeter.

The search phrase? Anyone? Even a tiny guess??

Atom lioness sucks.

Couldn't agree more, Latvia! Exactly how I feel about double decker coneflowers. (Could it be any more obvious how awful plant engineering has become? 90% of the newer coneflowers, for example, are monstrosities.)

It's January, Finally

-6 this morning. Two days ago, when we got 2-3" of snow, I went around and piled 6-10" on some of my plants I'm pushing the zone with, especially those I planted in September / October. Maybe a bit alarmist, but I need to do SOMETHING outside. The tree althea (rose of sharon on a steeeeek, uh, standard) got some snow, because at the last place I always piled it on thick and it seemed to do quite well, but here it's a bit more exposed. The bloodgood acer p. also got some snow, as it's mounded up above the clay (soil I partly ammended and will continue to treat). I'm baby-ing it too much this first year, I think. Next year all it gets is a windscreen.

Plus, being anti my father, I like to place small piles of snow in shady places so it'll last longer. I enjoy my seasons, and they might as well linger (as I do on summer evenings in the garden). I like being the last one on the street to have a speck of white come April.

The Ice Worm Cometh

There are worms that live in both glacial ice (one species) and that live in frozen methane under the ocean floor (another species). How cool is that?

The ice worms up in Alaska only appear on the surface at dawn and dusk, crawling their way to snow to feed on algae before the sun hits them: at temperatures above 32 degrees they begin to liquify.

The first species was discovered in 1887 in Alaska's Muir Glacier, where there are thought to be billions of them.

It's not known for sure how they move through the ice--some think they simply crawl through very small cracks, while others believe they secrete some sort of antifreeze. I guess they're sorta hard to study.

And why not make this into an EVENT. Every February since 1961, Cordova, Alaska has held the Iceworm Festival in an attempt to shake the winter blues. How does one DO this though? You guessed it--a survival suit race into the water. And...

--Miss Iceworm Coronation (put THAT on the college application and the ole dating resume)

--Shaving Permits "Buy your shaving permits at local businesses to avoid being jailed! Iceworm trivia: When famed bush pilot Mudhole Smith failed to buy his shaving permit, he was sentenced to shout at the top of his lungs “Fly Frontier Air” ten times on Main Street!" I guess Alaska Air is the only way to go, and if you true Alaskans don't use it, you get tarred, er, wormed and feathered.

--Blessing of the Fleet

--And the local hotel runs a special on rooms for all you out of towners: just stop in at The Reluctant Fisherman Inn (now, is he reluctant because he didn't get his boat blessed, so busy was he worming it up the night before?)

And don't forget to read Robert Service's poem "Ballad of the Ice-Worm Cocktail"

I wonder what glacial ice worm tea looks like... clear? Could you use it in your garden?

What I Found on ESPN's Tuesday Morning Quarterback

Alongside bits on the NFL playoffs, attractive cheerleaders, Godzilla, Miley Cyrus, China's imperialism, Cary Grant, and The Simpsons, we have a solution to the global energy crisis http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/080115&sportCat=nfl:

"Physicists at a recent Washington meeting estimated that solar collectors in orbit, using lasers to transmit power to converters in the North African desert, could supply all of Europe's energy at a price competitive with current power generation and without carbon emissions. A world of space-based energy would not need coal-fired or nuclear power plants, and there would be sufficient electricity available so that hydrogen could be made from seawater to power our cars and airplanes. Homo sapiens could kiss the greenhouse gas issue goodbye.

Needless to say, building orbital solar power collectors would be hugely expensive -- although once the collectors were completed, operating costs would be relatively low because no fuel is required and no waste is made. Nations would need to cooperate on positioning the orbital systems and the ground receptors. There's some chance that zapping powerful lasers or microwave beams through the atmosphere would affect the weather. And extremely expensive power towers floating in space would, sadly, provide tempting military targets.

Already, the Pentagon's National Security Space Office has quietly told lawmakers it would like to build a smallish orbiting proof-of-concept solar power station that would be used to beam energy down to deployed U.S. armed forces units. The Army and Marines have countless diesel-electric generators set up in Iraq and Afghanistan; if deployed forces could draw their electric power from a beam from space, this would be preferable. But if the first space solar generator is built to support the U.S. military, this could get the whole idea off on the wrong foot, making space solar power towers feel like valid military targets.

Anyway, TMQ finds it reassuring that there are potential energy solutions that involve vast amounts of power without any greenhouse gas emissions, fissile materials that might be stolen, or atomic byproducts that must be buried. Plus, return to those sun statistics. Our star generates 12 quadrillion terawatts of energy per year, radiating in all directions, so that an estimated 100,000 terawatts per year will fall on Earth -- warming our world, causing plant growth and making life possible. Some 100,000 terawatts end up here -- the rest streams off into the void. Thus 99.999999 percent of the energy generated by the sun is wasted, except perhaps for offering career opportunities for alien astronomers and their postdocs in other parts of the galaxy."

I Miss the 80s

Specifically, the music. I'm taking the day off after furious lesson planning this weekend and teaching early tomorrow (and writing a book by May), and am uploading songs to my new ipod nano (a beautiful piece of technology). Anywho, I miss music that mattered and whose lyrics meant something. Take this Genesis song, a band that had countless hits and some great videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MzShg7yXik&feature=related

Then I think about bands like The Smiths, The Police, Peter Gabriel, even Depeche Mode and lots and lots of others. Shoot, one could go back to the 60s and 70s and find some pretty sweet music there, too. I don't even listen to much pop radio anymore, preferring classical and NPR talk. Is that me getting older, disenfranchised, or both? If I were 18, would I think 80s music was the oldies but goodies station? Something my dad listened too?

All I got to say is I'd rather listen to music with meaningful lyrics AND good / original rhythm than songs that employ these lyrics I just made up:

I want to brush against you baby
feel the lumps the humps the bumps
ohhhh you know you like it skanky lady
when I give you permission to #$@%

Mexico Part 1 -- Pictures

We spent much of our time in our room, or on the beach just steps below us from the cliffs we were perched on. I got sick over the weekend, but we still had a few very good days just relaxing in the Pacific or our very own 12x6' pool. So, following are pics, with some description. Later, after I'm done lesson planning and making syllabi and handouts for my class (school starts Monday), I will RANT RANT RANT about the 15.5 hour trip back home, the Mexican molesting of our baggage, and the false sense of security the ridiculous U.S. customs in Houston provides. But, good first.

There will be many pictures of the bay in Zihuatanejo, MX (no, we did not see Andy or Red--stop asking). Our views were just KILLER. We stayed in one of two private villas next door to our main hotel, Casa Que Canta. No one from the hotel is allowed to visit our villa, but we can visit and use the hotel. Four rooms in our villa, all attended to by a private butler/waiter, chef, and concierge, plus lots of women sweeping day and night and men scrapping rust off of the chain link fence down by Playa la Ropa (the beach's name). Below is a look back toward the more architectural villa next to ours (our patio umbrella is to the left of the left sail's tip--get that?). Then there are some views of our room, in and out.

This is a view of the main hotel from down by the rocky shore. Here, I had arranged a special private dinner on a private patio just feet above the waves crashing into the rocks, and just at sunset. Did I mention I was able to cheaply upgrade us to first class for the 4.5 hour flight to Zihua from Minneapolis? Everything was tres bien until Saturday when I experienced, well, la la la....
Every night the turn down staff left a flower / greenery display on our bed. The night of our dinner (celebrating our one year engagement), we got the largest and most elaborate one.

An interesting tree / shrub off our patio.

Expand this view by clicking on it. You can see white flowers, pink ones, and the mini orange tree (not a small tree, I mean small oranges).

Two cruise ships anchored in the bay; this one was the bigger sucker, and stayed most of Saturday as people were ferried back and forth to shore to buy ceramic dolphins and crappy sunglasses that break after wearing them once (I bought two pair to find this out). The vendors in the "artisan's market" (read souvenirs) pushed you hard to buy anything. If you picked up something just to finger it, they'd sweep in, polish it with a cloth, and say you liked it. If you said no, they'd pick up one of a different color, polish it, and tell you that you liked that one. No, you'd insist. Then they picked up another one and shoved it in your hands and told you to buy it. After a while, you get used to this, though, and brush it off like the 5 rejection letters you recieved in the mail this week. Obviously, though, the vendors are relatively poor, and the town as a whole was run down and dirty, but I think that's expected in Mexico. The irony of the four star hotels and white American's with disposable income near the shore vs downtown is somewhat striking. That's all the social commentary you get from me, because that's not what the trip was about. (And as an American I have the inherent right to ignore other people and embrace them if and when I so choose, and in what manner best suits me at that moment--damn, did I just give more commentary? Stop it.)

This is our villa's main pool, and where we had lunch and dinner several times. Most often, though, we had an elegant room service for all three meals, preferring to dress down and be lazy (there was a dinner dress code, but nothing we don't wear fairly often anyway. I preferred wearing just shorts, so, room service.).

Another view of the villa next door, followed by us, and a pretty darn good sunset photo.

Hola