An incovenient truth

A couple of nights ago, I finally rented An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary about global warming. Ironically, in the January issue of Texas Monthly we see that there is a huge article about Texas building a slew of new coal-powered power plants. I am sure glad I live inland. My property values are sure to rise when so much of the densely populated coasts go under water. Of course, that depends on whether or not my part of Texas will be breathable for allergy suffers like myself or if brains will be slowly poisoned by the high levels of mercury emissions that will be spewed forth by some of these plants.

Of course, the article was pretty balanced and talked about the new technology that would make these plants cleaner than previous generations, but the fact remains that they won't be clean enough. Just last week an ice shelf the size of Manhattan broke off Greenland and has begun its melt into the oceans of our planet. Yikes.

You don't have to be a fan of Al Gore to follow the science that he presents to us. You can fast-forward through his sad, navel-gazing political defeat sequence. But watch the science and turn off your lights. Use less electricity. Do something.

Even the fossil-fuel loving Bush administration has recently listed the polar bear as the first species endangered by global warming. Some even drown trying to get to ice thick enough to stand on. This was highlighted in Gore's film. Now, it has been acknowledged by a Republican administration. This is not a liberal or a conservative issue. This is a human issue. We all need to be informed and we need to do our part.

Nonetheless, as soon as the prices of gasoline dipped back below $3.00 a gallon, Americans went back to buying their SUVs to tool around suburbia. The average size of new homes continues to increase as family sizes among non-immigrant households, remain small. God save us from ourselves. But remember. God helps them who help themselves.

Immigration Detention Centers--What gives?

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a report on KUT, the local NPR affiliate about an immigration detention center in Taylor, Texas, just outside of Austin that was housing whole families--including children. I can remember being upset at what I heard; the facility it seemed was basically a jail with another name, but I was driving and I didn't have a way to jot down information. It stayed at the back of my mind, however, and then last night my husband and I went out to dinner at the local tacaria (a taco restaurant for those of you not from the region). On my way in, I picked up the last copy of ahora si, a local Spanish language newspaper published in association with the Austin American Statesman, the main Austin daily. Ahora si is a weekly, and this issue was dated 21 al 27 de deciembre de 2006.

In the paper was an article entitled "Grupos subrayan dificultades de familias inmigrantes encarceladas en Taylor", which translates to "Groups underline difficulties of immigrant families incarcerated in Taylor". Immediately, I thought back to the KUT report and began reading the article. The plus side, if there is one, is that the children are being kept with their families to avoid breaking the families apart and placing children in the care of the state. Laudable. Now having done some research, I am aware that in other parts of the country, there are children in foster care and group homes, while their parents face deportation proceedings, which we know, lamentably, can be lengthy to say the least.

But, this situation in Taylor does not seem a whole lot more favorable. The article states that the children are given an hour a day of English lessons and an hour a day of recreation. I thought it was the norm for hardened criminals convicted of violent felonies to receive an hour a day of recreation. And what about the rest of the schooling that these children are supposed to receive? The article states that many children are losing weight and that many of the "detainees" suffer from head aches and emotional distress, but are not provided with psychological services.

We can go 'round and 'round on whether or not illegal immigrants should be detained, but as I have written before, children are not responsible for their families decisions to immigrate to the United States, either legally or illegally. And let's say that after all the legal issues have been ironed out, that these children are eventually deported with their parents to countries they may no longer remember. What image of the United States will they be taking with them? I thought we were trying to limit the number of enemies and potential terrorists, not to increase them. Even if forced return to the detention centers to sleep, couldn't the kids go to school? Couldn't they interact with children who live more normal lives?

I also noted that the facility in Taylor is run by a for-profit company called the Corrections Corporation of America, which further research on the web led me to know runs others of these centers across the country. This corporation was, as its name suggests, originally formed to run prisons, which it still does. One can understand a for-profit company, especially one designed and organized to deal with violent criminals, not being concerned first and foremost with the education and emotional well-being of children.

According to an article published by The Progressive on April 18, 2006, KBR, a subsidiary of the infamous Halliburton, has recently won an contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to build more of these immigrant detention centers. As most readers remember, Halliburton is the former company of Vice President Dick Cheney and it and its subsidiary, KBR, are under investigation for bilking our country out of millions in Iraq. I would be quite surprised to find that Halliburton is concerned foremost with the education and emotional well-being of children, either.

The number of detained immigrants in this country has risen from 6, 785 in 1994 to more than 22,000 in 2006 according to data from the American Civil Liberties Union published in the Ahora si article, which also reported that Michael Chertoff, head of the Department for Homeland Security says that plans are indeed in place for more of the family detention centers to be opened in this country.

From across the web, I found more and more frightening reports of people be held, some for years, in government sponsored detention centers awaiting action on their cases or impending deportations. Many have filed asylum claims. Many are legal residents with green cards who have been picked up for or who have served time for very routine offenses--including traffic stops for broken taillights. Some have been legal residents for decades and have few if any ties to the countries they will likely be deported to. I can only assume that some illegals immigrants are in these detention centers for actual dangerous crimes and should be deported post haste, but I pity the guy with the broken taillight locked up with those guys.

I also read a disturbing account in the People's Weekly World, written by Paul Hill, of a Nigerian man being held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Center in Oklahoma City. In his article, "Lifting the Curtain: Immigrant Detention Centers in U.S.", Mr. Hill tells how Mr. Daso Abibo, 51, while shackled, was assaulted and tortured by six federal Homeland Security Deportation Officers. A woman, Deanna Burdine, 65, happened upon the attack and feared he had been killed. She reported the incident. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Burdine was fired and Mr. Abibo was deported. The situation in the Oklahoma City facility is now under investigation by the FBI.

The Oklahoma City center is under the direction of a department of the United States government. I fear what abuses may come to pass under the direction of "rent a cops" and their for profit bosses. From all I can glean thus far Mr. Abibo was not in a "family facility", but that should not give us much comfort, because as these are not U.S. citizens, the whole issue has not gotten the attention it deserves. Until light is shown on problem, little will change.

What gives?

They are our neighbors, too

Normally, I tend to gravitate towards Latin American affairs when I am following international politics and events. Even when I am looking at domestic topics, I tend to focus on immigration, much of it from our neighbors to the south. As a speaker of Spanish and Portuguese, and having lived in Latin America, it makes sense. In fact, tomorrow I will probably be back to the immigration debate, but today, I want to focus on another region of the world--Africa

The continent has been in the news again as Ethiopia has bombed its neighbor Somalia, that tragic war-torn country that seems ever more to be under the grip of the next batch of Islamic radicals. The United States, with its ever-dwindling strength and world influence, is backing Ethiopia, a country with a largely christian population, which has faced attacks and growing hostility from Somalia in recent months. Add to this Eritrea, who seems destined to get in on the fight, because, why the hell not? It is more complicated than that, of course, but to sum it up, "The Horn of Africa" is one tough neighborhood. Now, it is the next front on the War on Terror, as Al-Queda is suspected to be backing the Somali Islamic faction, which aims at setting up a Taliban-styled regime in this poor, blood-stained African country.

What we will be able to do with our troops already stretched thin in Iraq remains to be seen. Only a time machine seems to be able to save that fiasco. But we can't go back in time and our resources are there.

And God help the people who live in this region. While their governments and armies fight, what will happen to the people? The children, the few elderly who have managed to grow elderly? We in the West are aware of the horrific famines that periodically sweep this region and cruelly starve huge numbers to miserably long deaths, but what of those that don't die? An article in the New York Times today, "Malnutrition Is Cheating Its Survivors, and Africa's Future" by Michael Wines, highlights the lingering after-effects of malnutrition. Many of the regions children have stunted growth, are sickly, tired and have IQs so diminished that they cannot even focus on a lesson let alone learn it. In some parts of Ethiopia many of the mothers are so malnourished themselves that they suffer night blindness during their pregnancies and then are unable to produce enough milk to feed their children.

The government of Ethiopia has recently been focused on this problem and is adding nutritional supplements to the food supply. Poor as the country is, it has made great strides considering all that is against it, and its reaction to the problem and the program it has put in place is seen by many as an example for other countries in the region to follow. But now, at war yet again, I fear that the focus on this problem, which threatens the long-term bettering of the country's lot, will be neglected or abandoned all together.

Elsewhere in Africa, the HIV-AIDS scourge continues to wreak havoc on an already vulnerable population, with children, some infected themselves, being orphaned daily. Child slavery and sexual abuse is almost epidemic in some regions of the continent, with desperately poor families unable to protect or support their children. Overstretched and corrupt governments are unable to unwilling to care for their most imperiled citizens.

Where do we begin? We can't even seem to take care of our own citizens--Katrina finally shoved that reality into our faces. But the people of Africa are our neighbors, too. If even the tunnel-visioned Bush administration is willing to pick a dog in one of the continent's fights, then Americans have to sit up and realize that in this global age, we all live in the same neighborhood. You can only hide in your walled communities so long. One way or another, the horrors of the children of Africa will end up on your doorstep.

Like war-torn, impoverished Afghanistan before it, Somalia is ripe for order. Who will deliver it to that country? Al-Queda? Who will stop them? Malnourished children in Ethiopia? AIDS orphans who dropped out of school to care for younger siblings?

We cannot look inward. We must love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Tis the Season

Tis the season for joy and peace and good food and lights and song. Tis the season to evaluate the old year and anticipate the new. Tis the season of the generous heart.

On Christmas Day, I went for a walk in the woods. It had been a few days since I had hiked, because we had had some well-needed rain here in Austin. Some were down on the weather. I normally would have been, too, because when the sun is hiding I normally feel very drowsy, unable to fully wake up. But I had only to think of the thousands of people trapped at the Denver airport for days after far worse weather than what we had experienced, to realize that I, comfortable in my warm home and with my shining tree, had nothing to complain about.

As always, the walk was good for me. My mind seems to expand and see things more clearly in the fresh air. But something else affected me. I was driving home from the woods, listening to All Things Considered on NPR, when an essay by Jimmie Dale Gilmore came on as part of the This I Believe series. Towards the end of the essay, Gilmore quoted an Indian philosopher-poet called Shantideva:

All the joy the world contains/Has come through wishing happiness

for others./All the misery the world contains/Has come through

wanting pleasures for oneself."

I heard this quote and thought, this is what so much in my life has been leading up to.This is what I see day after day in the world. It is something that I have sensed in all my life, but have resisted and in doing so-- tortured myself. I have always had a desire deep within me to change the world for the better. I have also wanted to create and to write and sing and so on--but not so much for myself but for what I can give to others. I liked it very much when people liked what I did, but not so much because I wanted to be so great, but because I wanted to know that I was spreading some joy or some knowledge or adding some value to some one's life.

Every time though, that I spoke to people close to me about pursuing these dreams--I was treated like the crazy dreamer or with worry that I would not be able to support myself or be "successful". Sometimes I would sing for strangers at a party or for my students and they would say, you should do that professionally. Sometimes I would write a newsletter or a funny invitation and someone would tell me I should be a writer. But these were never the people closest to me. These were not those who would have to live with my "success" or "failure".

So I would convince myself that I would be better off working in a bank and wearing nice clothes and aspiring to do all my shopping at SAKS and Bloomingdale's. That is what everyone wanted, no? To succeed would bring me happiness. At first I tried to write. I did often on the subway, but it was poetry and it was in Portuguese and who wanted to read that anyway? I started taking classes in finance and economics at night and then I started an MBA and I had no energy left to write that stuff anymore. I let it go.

But I was not happy. Not completely. Nothing could move quickly enough for me. This success needed to come NOW! Because without the success and the money, the happiness would not come and then what? I had to get out of there. I had to get out of there!

I moved to Texas, I became a teacher, because even though I wasn't going to get rich, there would be job security and there would be health insurance and enough money to take care of myself and plan retirement. Plus, I would be helping people. And I did. And I loved it, but the system is such a mess and there are so many people in it that are worried about job security and health insurance, that you feel like you are spinning your wheels half the time. And you find yourself doing so much paperwork and such that you are exhausted when you get to really helping someone. And then when you do extra things to help students, others tell you to cut back and do less. They never want to help fight the system that relegates meaningful work to the "extra" pile. You know some of them truly care and you know that others of them just don't want you to make them look bad. You have to sort the two out by yourself.

So what do I have to do? I have to stop being afraid. I need to stop listening to everyone who tells me to worry about health insurance more than others' happiness and I need to take a leap of faith. I have to believe that if I write and put out ideas that people will read and that will help them, that I will put goodness into the world. I need to stop worrying so much about providing comforts for myself, because I am not comfortable with them anyway. I need to tap into the talents and the desires that God gave me and go for it.

I have an aunt I love very much, who is still teaching, but who could have retired by now. On the one hand, she does like her job, but she has many other interests, as well, and she was complaining about her new principal and some of the kids in her class. I asked her why she didn't retire. Well, I might if I could really do what I want to do, but it isn't as though I have enough money to really travel or anything, she said.

This particular aunt is married to a man who makes very good money, as well, and has for years. They are not the Gates or the Buffets, but they live in a house worth well over a million dollars and have a second home, a condo, in Vermont. They have retirement savings--more than most. If they don't have the money to "do what they want"? What do they want to do? Who can retire? Is that what I have to look forward to if I manage to deal with my kids and my co-workers for thirty years? More fear? Half the world's population makes it by with one dollar a day. Not that I expect my aunt to, but come on! Get some perspective.

Tis the season for new beginnings. Tis the season for a fresh, joyful outlook. Tis the season to give my gifts to the world and to find happiness rather misery. I don't think we will ever accumulate enough stuff to feel truly safe. So we need to find a way to feel truly happy.

Thanksgiving

This past week we celebrated a very American of holiday, a very human, a very simple and a very beautiful holiday--Thanksgiving. It is perhaps my favorite of all holidays, because the sentiment and history behind it is so very lovely. Two very different groups of people, with different beliefs and habits, cultures and customs came together to enjoy and share the fruits of their harvest and to offer thanks to God for their fortune.

Of course, we know the history that followed that first Thanksgiving. It didn't involve a whole lot of brotherhood, and the goodwill was short-lived. In its place came greed, intolerance and strife. On Thanksgiving 2006 in Baghdad, where our American troops continue to die in a mission gone terrible wrong, some of the worst sectarian violence yet was perpetrated in the escalating civil war between Sunni and Shiite militias. The President of Iraq can't even get out of his own country to meet with the Iranians and Syrians in hopes of gaining help from his neighbors to reign in the chaos, because the airport has been closed in a curfew. Militia heads are also threatening to abandon his already weak government if he goes through with his scheduled meeting with our beleaguered President Bush. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get everyone around a table for some turkey and pumpkin pie? But they are so rooted in their traditions.

My sister can't even get my uncles to try cranberry sauce that doesn't come out of a can. When my authoritative grandfather was around, we were always around the same table and we ate what was put there in front of us. But he is gone. A bit like Saddam. Now, my sister has new-fangled ideas and she wants to foist them on my older relatives. They say canned cranberries are tradition. That is how it is supposed to be. They dig in their heals. They would revolt, maybe even storm out of the house if my sister didn't put that wiggly can-shaped gel on the table. It is bad enough that she puts homemade on the table by the canned kind.
Of course there was Iraq before its dictator--not too long before mind you because it was a creation of lines drawn by the British in the 20th century, but whatever. Do you think the pilgrims or the Indians put canned cranberry gel on the menu?

But we went over there and we brought "democracy" to their table after we got rid of the guy at the head of that table, because since we liked it and we thought we do a good job of it, we assumed wrongly that they would just eat it up. We didn't even leave the "canned" Baath party army on the plate. We disbanded it completely. We totally blew it.

Of course, I watch all this from a distance. Both the war and the family Thanksgiving, which takes place on the East Coast, far from Austin. I get to cook whatever I want and I invite only friends to my table. Friends who can choose to accept my invitation and my food or not. We are a diverse lot. I am thankful for each of them. I am thankful for the food on my plate, for the wine in my glass, for my husband by my side, for the safe, warm house we share far from strife, far from canned cranberries. I am thankful for the chance to write this and for the will to get up each morning and face and think about the news. I am thankful for my mind and my voice. I am thankful that the Democrats have taken the Congress and pray they will use their opportunities to change the course of this nation and help us realize the promise of that first Thanksgiving. May we all recognize how blessed we are to live in this country and on this planet that we must share with our fellow Man. God bless us all.

You have to be still to see the fish.

You have to be still to see the fish. The water is clear, clear to the point that from my perch I cannot judge the change in depth. The algae covered rocks and fallen leaves that become a play place for the sun, making light dance, are a perfect and lovely camouflage. But they are these--small and perfect in the stream, gracefully navigating their quiet world, while I, basking in the sun's warmth on my rock, am still.

I wrote this yesterday, on a rock, overlooking a stream, after what has become my weekly hike. I definitely feel saner and more able to take on the world of teenagers competing for my attention and the petty insecurities of fellow teachers and the anticipation of a Democratic Congress (though there are still a couple of weeks for us to mess that up) and the unceasing bloodshed in Iraq, and now today, on the front page of the New York Times, the almost unimaginable--Darfur getting worse.

But all I need to do is summon into my mind the picture of the fish, the calm stillness of myself. The sudden realization that hundreds of little beings were there, perhaps staring back at me, only moments before unnoticed--part of a landscape. As unimportant to the passerby as each of us may be to those "in charge" speeding by in their re-election bids. Perhaps that is why so many of them will lose this time around. They have not been still. Caught up in their politics and maneuvering, they have not seen us here, camouflaged by the "normalcy" of our lives, but important, if unnoticed, pieces of their landscape. Be still.

History is not dead.

Well, two stories in today's New York Times, both with a Latin American connection, remind us that history is not dead. It merges into the present and forces us to deal with it again and again.

Here in this country we are holding Luis Posada Carriles, a man widely believed to be the master mind of the explosion of a Cubana flight that killed more than 100 people decades ago, in El Paso on immigration charges. He'll soon probably be released. Why? We won't label him a terrorist. This shady character, who is linked to multiple intrigues and violent actions, including assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, used to work with the CIA. Had he killed a hundred Americans on a U.S. airline, there would be no hesitation in labeling this violent, manipulative man as a terrorist, but most of the victims were Cubans and Posada was often working to further U.S. policy. Scary.

How can we ask others to condemn violent acts that may be committed ostensibly on their behalf (Muslims, the Islamic World, Arab governments), if we do not condemn those same acts committed against our "enemies"--innocent Cubans on the wrong plane at the wrong time?

Meanwhile, in Argentina, Jorge Julio Lopez, a man who was tortured 30 years ago during Argentina's "Dirty War", a period of right-wing, military dictatorship that lasted from 1976 to 1983, has disappeared shortly after testifying against Miguel Etchecolatz, former police commissioner in Buenos Aires Province, who received life in prison for his involvement in disappearances and torture. Lopez' disappearance is just the worst in a series of acts aimed to intimidate and silence witnesses slated to testify in a series of trials in the country, which only now is beginning to bring the perpetrators of the Dirty War to justice.

Even today, there are many who believe that the government was justified in its actions, even in the tortures and disappearances, as it was only trying to protect the country from leftist revolutionaries, who, according to them, would surely have been worse. Scary.

Acts of terror, torture, murder are just wrong. We, the World in fact, must somehow get it through our heads that we cannot justify behaviors because it is convenient for us. Call a spade a spade. Eventually, if we don't, it will come home to bite us in our collective butts. Unjust acts do not stayed buried. History does not die.

A walk in the woods

This month's National Geographic features the state of the nation's and the world's parks and highlights the importance of conservation and stewdarship of public lands. Coincidently, Texas Monthly's cover this month features a picture of Big Bend highlighting an article outlining 30 of the most enjoyable hikes in Texas. In the last two weeks, my husband and I have enjoyed two hikes at Bull Creek and we will be making it three hikes this afternoon. 'Tis the season. The worst of summer heat is behind us and the air is a bit drier and the sky less hazy.During the heat of the summer, my husband is not much of a hiker, but finally the temperatures are back down to double digits around here and he is ready to join me again.

There is something so soothing about a walk in the woods. It cleanses the soul. It is a natural anti-depressant and anti-anxiety pill wraped in a breeze and it makes life easier. I think about the programs that take city kids out into the country for a camp or homestay experience, and I think, no wonder those experiences do so much good. The sounds of birds, of leaves rustling ever so softly, of a small waterfall in a gently flowing stream are the sounds that God made. They are pure. They are faint and so we must leave our busy minds to hear them. They whisper us away from the crush of our lives and the dread of the Middle East and the deadlines and the economy and the cable bill--and cable itself.

And as we listen, we notice the fish in the brook, darting about in its less complicated existence and we watch it and we smell the damp sweetness of some fragrant shrub we haven't noticed before leaning over the bank beckoning us closer. And we see the beauty in the pattern of lines on its clean, green leaves. And the more quiet we are, the deeper into the woods we go and the further away from all that ails us.

And when we do emerge, we see clearer what we went there to escape, and it too seems washed of its complexity and not so hard to face. We pride ourselves on our civilized world, on the buildings we build on the cars that we drive on the computers on which we write our blogs, but we must not lose our balance. We must never pull too far from what was real before we came on the scene and started fighting over anything someone deemed valuable--over our job assignments and our paychecks and our borders and our votes.

My cousin, Mary Lorraine, is currently in Thailand with the Peace Corps. She is from a very wealthy New York suburb--from what most anyone would describe as a privileged home. Success around her was based on such things as what car you drove and your SAT score and college you graduated from and company your parents worked for and so on. But all that caused anxiety-- you can be sure, and there was not always a lot of room for spirituality or the like. Somehow she survived it though, and now she is in Asia doing good and finding a whole new perspective on herself, her world, her Universe.

She has a blog, too. And in her latest post, she writes about spirituality--something she says she still cannot really talk about yet without giggling. But that is what I am talking about, too. That's what a walk in the woods boils down to for me. Often after I hike, I come home and read in a prayer book I have called God at Every Gate: Prayers and Blessings for Pilgrims by Brendan O'Malley. It is very beautiful and includes passages on many subjects that affect our every day lives from sources as diverse as medieval hymns to the Wind and the Willows to Robert Frost and then directs you to Bible verses, most usually Psalms, themselves poems. Other times I will read on Buddhism or Taoism. And then I can make better decisions in my life. Based on true needs and not on what the World tells me I want.

National Geographic tells of parks in peril. Of an assault on them by the Bush administration and its business interests and man-first recreational needs (snow mobiling and motor boating) that speed their destruction. I hope that the tide turns. I hope that the woods will always be there. The marshes, the mountains, the bays, the openness of nature. I hope some will survive, and enough of it that we can all always be able to walk in the woods--quietly. Because there is enough noise of every description in the rest of our lives.

Help me find my place in the Universe--PLEASE!!

Okay, another school year is well underway. Pluto is no longer a planet and I am no longer a human being. Astronomers debate the little orb's identity--is he a comet? Where is his tail? How will he be defined for the ages? Me. I am defined as a teacher. Just like Pluto it is easier said than explained. Am I more counselor? Leader? Babysitter? Jail warden? Surrogate parent? Test-trainer? Paper-pusher? Judge? Intellectual beacon? Number-cruncher? Life coach? Cheerleader? Academic? Editor? Researcher? Lesson planner? Test grader? Parent liaison? Well, I am all of those things. At anyone time I may be wearing one or all of those hats--usually at least four or five.

On the weekend, I try to find time to read, knit, ride my bike, remember my husband's name in between the trip to the vet, the laundry, the grocery shopping, the ironing (yes, I still iron--I am a well-groomed, neatly dressed teacher) and of course, the grading. I have dreams. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of them--so fleeting. I belong to more than a hundred other dreams now--those of my students.

Don't get me wrong. I love my kids. Most of them are cool. Some of them even like my Spanish class. I want to do so much for them. I want to be a great teacher--most of the time I really am. I care about them as people not just as Spanish or ballet folklorico students. I care about their intellectual curiosity and try to reignite it if its grown dim. I care about their role as citizens of the World. I care about their futures-- whether they will be academic in nature or not. I find in each and every one of them something that is redeeming and valuable. I also deal with a hell of a lot of crap--from administrators, state mandates, federal mandates, and even fellow teachers with their one-size fits none, conflicting priorities and I do all this with a smile.

I really do. I get up everyday and say "Today is going to be a good day". I have a plan. I know what I am going to teach. I know my goals for my kids. I know how I am going to get there. I anticipate the roadblocks so we can jump over them before we hit. I try to make every kid smile as he learns so that they will smile back at me and that makes the struggle worth meeting the next day. But as I do this, as I help each student in my little realm reach towards their goals, which on one level I know makes me very successful, but my personal life goals end up in the backgound. They start to slip further and further into the distance...slipping, slipping...until I turn around and around in all directions and I can't see them on any horizon. I am lost.

And I feel like anyone else who is lost. I feel anxious. And anxiety makes teaching really, really hard. What you need to know is that on a good day, teaching is really hard, but really, really hard-- well, that isn't sustainable.

What's even harder is that people know you're good so they put more and more on your plate and when you try to do things you want to do, they ask you--why do you take on so much? Why do you do something you don't have to do? Uh, because I like this other thing. Because everything else I am doing is what I am being told to do by you or my department head, or principal or superintendent. "Take care of yourself", they say and then tell you to turn in a bi-weekly report. I have figured out that "take care of yourself" translates to get enough rest by eliminating what you enjoy about your job or your life so you can concentrate on these things we think are important or don't enjoy doing either.

I don't want to end up like Pluto--old and still not sure what I am. I don't want to end up like Pluto--waiting for someone else to define me. I am a damn good teacher, but I am more than that, too. And I am going to find my place in the Universe.

Who do we think we are?

Okay, I hope you all have seen Miami Vice and enjoyed it for the pure escapism it is. Now its back to some serious blogging.

This morning I caught a re-broadcast of PBS' Now, a news magazine show hosted by David Bracaccio. The title of the episode was 'Reporter vs. The White House' and featured an interview with journalist Orville Schell. In a unique way, it reminded me of an interview published in the June 2006 edition of National Geographic with China expert Peter Hessler. The former was dealing with press coverage in this country and the the later with a variety of topics including division of wealth, job opportunities and the environment in China, but both brought an interesting question to mind: What kind of example are we, the last great super power, setting for the rest of the World?

In his interview, Orville Schell recounts how before the War in Iraq the press of this country pretty much gave the current administration the benefit of the doubt on weapons of mass destruction and on the decision to go to war. Think back to the lack of hard questioning regarding the supposed evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Administration officials even quoted articles about the weapons in the later spurned and maligned New York Times on Sunday morning talk shows to support the cry for an invasion of Iraq.

As things have dragged on, the press has finally begun to ask questions about the war, but at each turn it has been labeled by the White House as "unpatriotic" as "destroying morale" as "dangerous to the war effort". Think back to initial remarks about impending civil war, of the initial coverage of the policies towards so-called 'enemy combatants', of questions over no-bid contracts, of calls for body armor, of reports related to investigations of the phone records and bank records, of questions related to the curtailing of civil liberties in our own country. Allies of the administration now refer to the New York Times in words formerly reserved for the likes of Benedict Arnold.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, we are fighting a war at great expense, both in monetary terms and in lives, to bring freedom to the Middle East. Freedom--nice in theory it would seem. Lots of things are nice in theory, but we, as those who would seek to foist the ideal on the rest of the world, better demonstrate that we are willing to live with its reality, not just its theory, before we decide to go out and shove it down the throats of our global neighbors.

And what of the China interview? Well, if you haven't noticed, China is destroying much of its environment to bring its country and its economy into the modern world. Luckily, as Peter Hessler points out, the Chinese are starting to realize that in its zeal to modernize, their government has made some pretty damaging decisions in regards to the country's environment and may need to start tempering its strategies to conserve its resources and keep the air safe to breath. It the United States quite some time to figure this out. How many rivers did we have to poison in the name of progress before the environmental movement in our country began to be seen as midstream and truly effect major policy decisions? We still grapple with it today.

But the interview pointed at something more subtle than that, as well. Something that went beyond the governmental comparisons and to the core of things. Hessler used the example of a newly middle-class family in China, proud of their new found success and also worried about their government's environmental policies. They discussed their concerns in their home under a proud symbol of their new-found monetary accomplishments--"a chandelier that had 32 lights in it". Hessler notes there were a total of "...65 lights in this room. And every single one of them was on." But who are we to tell these people to "slow down"?, he points out. How many of us drive enormous SUVs?

I would add to the point. How many of us live in enormous homes with rooms we don't need on more ground than we need, that consume more energy to heat and cool than we need? How many of us drive when we could walk? How many of us can't walk anywhere, because we don't demand that governments and developers plan residential areas in ways that are conducive to pedestrian traffic or to the use of public transportation?

We are the last big super power. We are the ones setting the example for billions of people in underdeveloped and developing countries to emulate. But we don't want them to have too much, because then what will be left for us. Who do we think we are?

Note: The interview with Peter Hessler in National Geographic is worth reading all the way through. It addresses economic opportunity, education, workers safety and the communist history as it effects the present in addition to touching on the environmental concerns of China. It is a great overview of a number of issues facing this growing nation. It appears to be part of a new feature in the magazine called Voices and it is not listed on the cover, so be on the look-out for more of these interesting and enlightening interviews.

Sex, Drugs, Guns, and Fast boats

I was in middle school when Miami Vice first appeared in living rooms across America. I was too young to know that it was a watered-down version of what could be in an R-rated feature film. But what even a young girl could recognize was that it was something visually, musically, sexually and dangerously more than anything else in prime time. I might have been a good girl, but at 13 I would have given my virginity to Phillip Michael Thomas in a heartbeat. Everything about the excess was attractive and repulsive at the same time, but it sucked you in. It was cutting edge, it was seductive.

But if you've ever caught a rerun, it's dated. It's pink. It's the 80s. It's a cliche now. Its time-capsuled. So when I saw they were making a remake--I was like, whatever. You know remakes--they're not good. They try to recapture something and usually end up feeling like a spoof. It's sad. And that guy from the Phone Booth is no Sonny Cockett.

But yesterday, I was reading the New York Times, a paper that is pretty hard to please. The review was actually pretty favorable. I mean, the guy had to slip in that it was a "gratuitous" film. Well, duh, it's Miami Vice not Schindler's List. Not every film is going to add significant meaning to the world. But the reviewer also said, "Miami Vice is an action film for people who dig experimental art films, and vice versa." Plus, it mentioned the on location filming: Paraguay, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti and on and on--oh, and of course Miami. So, I had to go see it. I had to see if they could really translate that feeling I got at 13 to something a adult could feel at 34. I had to see if Michael Mann could bring Crockett and Tubbs out of the 80s and let me believe in them again. I wanted to be washed over by the music and the images and the sex and the revulsion and the seduction all over again, but in something now. I didn't want them to recapture the 80s. I'll never be 13 again. I wanted to feel like a grown-up and I wanted Miami Vice to feel like it had grown up, too.

Damn. They did it. It was a wild, sexy ride. You were undercover and you wanted to stay there, but you had to get out. It was too big, too vibrant, too hot, too rich, too dangerous. You knew you couldn't stay, but it sucked you in. It was what Miami Vice had always wanted to be--on the big screen, for an adult audience. The film became the drug, so sometimes, it even hurt a little. Yeah, it was gratuitous. It's an escape. It's a drug. It's intoxicating and dangerous.

Once you've seen it, you can check out the adult-only portion of the website and learn not only about the actors, film-makers and cinematography, which was by the way, intoxicating in itself, but about the drug trade, and many of the other vices controlled by cartels around the world. You get facts and figures on the demand-side, as well. About the young mothers doing crystal, about the eighth graders trying cocaine--about why this all goes on and on. Because part of the what makes Miami Vice so seductive and repulsive is that knowledge that as over-the-top as this big-budget, fictional thrill ride might be, underlying it is a violent, dangerous, incredibly addictive, unbelievable lucrative and ultimately destructive truth.

Summer means the New York Times

What do I think of when I think of summer? Exploration. Time to travel a bit, reflect, refuel-- and read what I only fantasize about during the school year--The New York Times. Okay, you caught me. If you have been reading my blog for a while you will realize that I often reference articles from the Times even during the school year. That's true. I often peruse the paper and a few other sites looking for pertinent information and interesting takes on subjects of political interest.

But lately, I have been following the blackout in Queens, where I once lived, but haven't for quite some time--during the school year--old neighborhood--no time. Today I read a fascinating article about niche farming of exotic livestock in the New York area. During school year--not on radar screen. Last week I read about the lost art of drawing by the common man as a metaphor for the speed of modern life--during school year--frivolous. I have had time to read about all sorts of fascinating tidbits of life that fill-out this rich newspaper.

The Times is just the most obvious, well-known example of what summer means to a teacher with a wide range of intellectual curiosities and interests. To be a really good, dedicated teacher, you have to, well, dedicate an enormous amount of time and energy to the students, the grading and the course material at hand. But to be an intellectual, broadminded citizen of the world, you have to have time to take-in and absorb a wide array of information. It keeps your mind fresh, awake and, in the end, makes you a better teacher.

Where do I begin? Where does anyone begin in the Middle East?

I've been away from my blog for awhile and in that time the world has turned itself upside down again. We still don't know who the next president of Mexico will be, though I predict that Calderon will come through leaving Obrador and his supporters with a close enough loss to demand respect. Count on them to jump on any weakness shown in the new government.

Meanwhile, the fighting in Lebanon has blown a new hole in the Middle East. It is so hard to really even see to the corner, let alone around it or down the road on this one. It has the Muslim World split. It is for sure winning Israel new or at least more fierce enemies. Will it reduce the threat they face from Hezbollah? We'll see. If they manage to do that, will something more terrible come in and take its place? What is Syria or Iran's role really? Has this terrorist organization gotten away from everyone? Will the pockets of anger directed by some Arabs angainst Hezbollah hold up if Isreal continues to inflict major punishment on the Lebanon? Personally, I think the Israelis have gone a bit overboard and are causing too much destruction of government and civilian property, lives and infrastructure. I believe it will result in yet another generation of Lebanese who hate and fear, and in the end, threaten the Zionist state, but I do not pretend to know enough about the psyche of the region to say with certainty if that is a risk that needs to be taken or not. And what of our support of Isreal? Do we need to stir up any more Islamic rancor?

Maybe that is why I have stayed away from the blog for a while. I read and listen to unending analysis of the situation, but too many intelligent people have too many differing views and what seems a subtilty in the Middle East, seems so often to be someone's essential point or emotional trigger that sorting it out is too much. I don't know how much we should wade into this one. I know we should not have waded into Iraq.

So often it seems we want to paint conflicts in this region with broad strokes, but there are so many divisions, so many alliances, so many competing needs and histories in the region, that it is sometimes what appears to be the smallest detail that can tip a scale one way or another. Clerics do not all agree. Sects don't see conflicts in the same light. Farsi speakers resent Arabic speakers and Arabic speakers distrust Farsi speakers. Governments are often too much absorbed in their own preservation to look objectively at problems. Oil alliances are on the line. Religious truths are worth dying for, but no two groups seem to hold the same set truths. In many corners poverty and ignorance are manipulated rather than alleviated. How do you wade into that mysterious morass?

One thing is sure about the Middle East, there is too much we do not know. Sadly, there is too much that our leaders seem not to know. Not to truly understand. I don't know if members of our government are able to choose which "experts" to listen to any more than I am. We must tread more carefully than we have recently if we are to tread at all.

What's wrong with this picture?: French World Cup Team

Perhaps you are aware of the on-going racial tension in France, in fact in much of Europe, in recent years. France is particularly notorious for its intolerance of immigrants and their influences on the local culture. No Muslim head scarves are allowed in their public schools, for example. You may remember the riots that broke out in Paris this spring fueled by the high rates of unemployment and the feeling of exclusion of Muslim youth.

But have you seen the French National Soccer Team? Of the 23 players, only nine are white. Nine. While the team was critized early for all manner of issues--playing style, age of players, and yes, racial make-up, the country is rallying around 'Les bleus', the pet name for the team. Before the winning began, the New York Times reports, right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the National Front, an anti-immigrant party, publicly bemoaned the number of blacks on the team and the lack of enthusiasm the players demonstrated in the singing of the national anthem.

But now they are winning. They are in the semi-finals! The country is elated and united behind their team. Before we get all crazy about the hypocrisy, think of how many minorities we have sent off to war over the centuries only to snub them upon their return to the homefront. No vote for a while, no lunch counter service, back of the bus...Finally we came around. And most would argue that we're not quite there yet.

What will happen after the World Cup is over? We'll see. Is this the start of some national self-examination and growth or just good soccer? Only time will tell, but if the French can play together, maybe they can live together, too.

During a break from the World Cup, our neighbors are having an election!

Well, Brazil is out of the World Cup. The deserved to lose to the French. France just played better. Brazil looked tired and the coach took too long to make substitutions. Oh, well. At least Portugal is still in it. I own one of their jerserys, too, and their coach is Brazilian.

In the meantime, we don't have any games until the 4th, but tomorrow, Sunday, the 2nd, we have another real contest going on south of the border--the Mexican Presidential Election. So what? Well, with all the immigration talk here in el Norte, we really should be paying attention. Not because I think the new president-elect is going to be a big player in forming our immigration legislation, but because the major reason why
so many Mexicans come north is because their own economy is not performing well enough to provide for population. If you follow the logic so far, then it should matter to us what goes on within in the borders of our neighbor, Mexico.

Here's a quick primer. There are three main candidates, but one, Roberto Madrazo of the PRI (the Party that ruled Mexico in a near dictatorship for most of the 20th century) has been
running a pretty distant third for quite some time. He is playing himself up as the "moderate choice". The two principal contenders are Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador, of a center-left party, the PRD, and Felipe Calderon, of the PAN, a center-right party, of which the current Mexican President, Vicente Fox, also
belongs.

As you can imagine, Calderon's message is one of consistency. Don't change horses mid-stream. He is the choice of most of the upper-middle class and wealthier Mexicans. Meanwhile, Obrador is running on a message of more assistance to the
poor and increased job opportunities. Many of the same Mexicans who support Calderon, are afraid that Obrador will borrow a page from Chavez's (Venezuela) or Morales' (Bolivia) playbooks and assume a dictator-like approach to redistributing wealth in the country. Most political scientists I have read
don't seem to think that Obrador is that radical, but some worry his economic plans don't add up--nothing new in the realm of political promises and economic plans. Obrador himself has listed Franklin Roosevelt as one of his influences--remember the New Deal?

Whatever happens tomorrow, at least ALL the major candidates share one thing in common. They think it is a shame that they are losing so many of their hard-working, entrepreneurial citizens to the United States. So, hopefully, whoever wins, the
new President of Mexico will try to implement an economic policy that will better provide for its growing population.

Of course, there are lots of underlying secondary story lines. This has been a particularly "dirty" campaign with ugly political ads running back and forth. Plus, political analysts are
watching to see if Mexico ends up in the growing column of the new Latin American Left--and if that happens will it go the way of Venezuela or of Chile.

Stay tuned and stay tuned in--we're neighbors afterall.

Have you been watching the World Cup? Bob Schieffer hasn't.

Well, today on Face The Nation one of my Washington heroes, Bob Schieffer, blurted out a confession that rocked my soul. He said, "I have never seen a soccer game." He was responding to an allusion to the World Cup used by one of the reporters on his round table to illustrate a political point. I was really crushed, because I consider Bob Schieffer as one of the good guys--who year after year keeps an open mind, presents a balanced discussion and then at the end of his show gives us a little food for thought and lets us know just where he comes down on an issue or event of our time.

But, Bob, you are now part of the problem. The U.S. will never really be accepted as any more than a bully in the international stage if our leaders, our press, our citizens cannot understand the most basic points of the 'beautiful game'. American football, which I refer to as 'gringoball' to distinguish it from what the rest of the world calls football, does have its following in other countries and even a fledgling European league, but the world doesn't stop for it every four years. Baseball, okay, that's a little more international, since we introduced it to certain Asian countries while we occupied them after major wars and to certain Caribbean nations as entertainment for sugarcane plantation workers, but it hardly occupies the entire globe's collective imagination the way soccer does. And our 'World Series'? What is that? We toss in a token Canadian team and call it a day.

Once when I was teaching English in Brazil, I was helping a student read an economics article in Time. It wasn't even a whole page long, but there were eleven uses of baseball terminology to illustrate points throughout its text. A marketing homerun here. An economic plan in the bottom of the ninth there. A curveball of a policy move. I don't remember them all. While we might think the whole world is learning English, they don't all speak baseball. They do speak soccer. But not us. Not even enlightened, open-minded people like Bob Schieffer speak soccer. Is there any hope for us? The rest of the world does not strike out; they get a red card. They are not in the ninth inning, but the 90th minute.

I actually enjoy baseball. I even like a good game of gringoball, but I have room for soccer in my heart, as well. And during the World Cup, I want to not only feel like an American, but a citizen of this planet we share. Come on, Bob. Come on, America, check out the 'beautiful game'. Join the rest of the world in its joy and celebration for a change. It might make us all a little more welcome when things aren't so bright.

al-Zuquari's dead. So what? Let's watch the World Cup.

Hey everyone. I'm back from my trip to Spain with some students, parents and a friend. It was fantastic, as always. Lots of sights, history, food, wine and shopping, but in between, I kept an eye on the news.

I know, for example that we killed al-Zuquari. Upon finding out, I looked at one of the moms on the trip, one who shares my politics, thank God, and said, "Well, I wonder who will pop up next. You know it is like playing that gopher game with the mallets over there." "Yeah, I know what you mean", she said.

I read that there is already some guy who is supposed to have taken his place at the helm. Meanwhile, we have the developing Haditha massacre, in which seemingly normal, level-headed, moral, god-fearing marines, under the pressure of unrelenting battle and the loss of a beloved comrade seem to have slaughtered innocent civilians, including children. Over here in our hemisphere we had the suicide of three "enemy combatants" who have been held for years with no charges brought against them down in Guantanamo. More good news. I hear the administration feels that it was somehow politically motivated to draw sympathy to the prisoners. I'm sure that being held for years on end with no due process or contact with their families had anything to do with it. Oh well, the "War on Terror" goes on. But never fear, Bush just popped up in Iraq. The new Prime Minister had five minutes warning. Yeah, we trust 'em. Good message.

So, I can't take anymore. Let's just watch the World Cup, people. It is more fun, more therapeutic, more uniting, more festive, more global and more equalizing than anything our whacked out government could ever come up with. It even puts the UN to shame. It rocks! If you are one of those clueless Americans who don't really get it. That's okay. It is a forgiving, inclusive event, so just jump on in. It has been going on for a very long time. We are now in the"finals", but they'll go on until July 9th. You see, each region of the globe only gets so many spots in the "finals", so the qualifying goes on for the year leading up to the "finals", which is a tournament with 32 countries represented. And wow! Look at the countries...the U.S., perennial favorite, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, but also Iran, and little bitty countries like Trinadad and super poor countries like Togo and Paraguay. It is so cool, because unlike the Olympics where we walk in with an army of athletes and some other country has two, all the teams are the same size. They are all playing the same game. They all play with the same equipment--a ball. No super sonic bobsleds for the U.S. and a hand-me-down for the Jamaicans here. No this is as fair as it gets.

The fans are crazy, joyful, partying fools, who have been saving up for the trip since they first found out their team had qualified. They cheer every goal and bemoan every foul in unison--rich or poor, who cares while their team, their country, is on the field.

In Spain, I watched the opening game between power-house, home team, Germany, and tiny far away Costa Rica in a little bar in Toledo, where my Mexican-born friend and I stopped in for some bottled water. The only other people there were the Spanish owner and his Ecuadorian-born bartender. We were united behind the little Spanish-speaking underdogs, knowing that only a miracle could help them, but cheering them nonetheless--bonded in this life by a soccer game and the joy it brought us, even in the loss. At least they scored two goals. Not enough, as Germany scored four, but they were glorious goals.

But talk about an upset, tiny Trinidad tied one of Europe's toughest squads, Sweden, and earned itself a point towards advancing. Wow.

Spain, long divided by the separatists terrorists of its Basque region and the regionalists in Catalonia, is united for its time on the World Cup turf. Some young Spanish only recognize the national flag as a symbol for its country's soccer team. But at least, they are united in that.

Portugal faced its former colony of Angola head-to-head in its opening game. But no shots were fired as Portugal captured the victory this time. Australia won its first game over Pacific neighbor, Japan. The Aussies went wild over their first-ever World Cup win.

Now, back in the States, and an ardent Brazil fan, I dragged my husband to a Brazilian restaurant to watch the game with all the Brazilians in the Austin area. There was a samba band, of course. And we won, but just 1-0 over Croatia, so we need to step it up.

Tune in, folks. I promise it will make the news more bearable.

Our cups runneth over

You know here in the United States our cups runneth over. It is really hard to forget how well we are doing when we are constantly inundated with the "reality" T.V. of Paris Hilton and MTV Cribs, but we are really doing pretty well for ourselves. Of course there is poverty in the United States, but not the same poverty that you see in other parts of the world.

In Brazil, people speak of the difference between pobreza and miseria. Pobreza is poverty. Miseria is complete and utter deprivation. We have pobreza. Too much of the world has miseria. In today's online New York Times there is a multi-media presentation by journalist Nicholas D. Kristof. He traveled to Swaziland in Africa to cover the devastation of the A.I.D.S. epidemic there. Swaziland was never what you'd call a rich country, but now fully 40% of the adult population is infected with the virus that causes A.I.D.S. He profiles several families now headed or soon to be headed by children, because all the adult members of the families have one by one died off, victims of this horrible disease.

These kids, eleven or twelve years old, living in mud huts, students in the 5th grade, have nursed dying parents, grandparents and aunts and now are the heads of households, caring for their younger brothers and sisters as best they can. They eat one meal a day at school. They have one tattered set of clothes. They have no shoes. They have faced cruel death after cruel death. They are "parents". They are 12. They are many.

In contrast, I read an article yesterday in the June 2006 issue of Texas Monthly called "The Gangtas of Godwin Park" about a wealthy teenager in Houston who in "a tragic tale of drugs, money, race, and MySpace" was gunned down in a prescription drug deal gone wrong. It is a cautionary tale for the rich kids I teach here in Austin, who escape the pressures of their expectations with drug use and risky behaviors and for the poor kids I teach here in Austin who must walk the halls next to kids whose lifestyles look to them too much like those depicted on MTV's My Super Sweet Sixteen and who want a piece of it. One of the kids now doing time for the death of the wealthy dealer is a poor kid who used to work at McDonald's but fell into a crowd who talked him out of getting it the "slow way" and into getting it the "fast way". Like the child-parents in the New York Times piece, this young man, Dontae Terrell Moore, had helped care for younger relatives at his aunt's crowded rented home not far from where the wealthy victim, Jonathan Finkelman, lived.

By all accounts, Dontae lived in pobreza, not in miseria, but living so close to the very wealthy and being exposed to a steady media diet of the obscenely rich, took its toll on basically a good kid. Jonathan was equally swept up in the weird psychological mix of high academic and social expectations, entitlement, youthful invulnerability and thrill seeking that is pressed on kids these days. They are emotionally immature and sheltered by their parents, but have access to a very fast lifestyle while being pressured to perform. I see it everyday. It leads to acting out at school, cheating on tests, drug and alcohol abuse and risky sexual behaviors. And too many parents are blind to what their "good kids" are doing. Most survive somehow. Some end up like Jonathan.

People should pay more attention to this cautionary tale and should look very closely at what their kids are up to. Problems are not always with "other people's children". People should also look very closely at the stories of the parentless families in Africa, the bleak lives of those in the northern Brazil, those displaced refugees living in torn tents all over the world, the isolated Pakistanis who froze in the mountain winter after last year's earthquake--all the people who live not in pobreza but in miseria. If we could only stop comparing ourselves to the miniscule number of Paris Hiltons and Kayne Wests in the world and take more frequent notice of the hundreds of millions of human beings struggling to maintain some dignity for themselves and their families with no food and no change of clothes and death at their door, we would see that our cup runneth over.

Of course, we should continue to push forward, to strive for a better life. It is part of the human spirit, but we should do it with a level of gratitude that fills us up rather than a jealousy that empties our souls.

English the National Language?

It passed in the Senate. But why? Was English in danger? No. I'll bet most people didn't even know that we didn't have a national language. Well, back when we were forming this country and drafting a Constitution it was decided by our wise founding fathers not to have one. First of all, we had just broken away from those taxing imperalists, the English, remember? German was bounced around as an alternative, but cooler heads prevailed. After all, whether or not our founding fathers had studied linguistics, they intrinsically understood that we would speak whatever worked for us--without even symbolically excluding anyone who spoke another native tongue.

What works for us is English. Immigrants learn English--even Spanish-speaking immigrants. In three generations the home-country language dies in any family here unless the latest generation studies the language in school. We have a great, big Spanish-speaking neighbor. Our neighborhood, our hemisphere, is crowded with Spanish-speaking countries, where, by the way, it seems anyone with a little extra cash pays for an English course. Why? Because English is not in danger.

Not only does the rich neighbor, the United States, speak English, but English has become the lingua-franca of the world. Business is conducted all over the world in English. English is the official language of air traffic controlers the world over. It is widely recognized that immigrants must learn English to integrate into the United States, and learning English will benefit them even if they return to their homeland. As a teacher in a public school, I see kids learning English. No, they don't learn it over night. Yes, in their initial years in the U.S. they feel more comfortable with those who speak their home language. Of course they do. They are in a strange place. But they learn English.

So here we are in 2006, trying to make English the official national language of the United States. For more than 200 years we have just let people figure out that English was the language to speak to get things done, to do business in this country. For more than 200 years we made no official, national moves, to intimidate anyone into learning English. We didn't officially rank English above anyone's native tongue on a national scale. So why now? My husband says racism. I can't come up with another answer that makes much sense.

The President Weighs In

Bold. Middle of the road. Too soft. The commentators were all rushing to label Bush's views on the immigration issue and his speech that he delivered on Monday night. I don't think it was any of those things, but I do think it was important and about time. National Guard on the border. Well, it makes me a little queasy on too many levels to name--let's just say I am not a big fan of that idea, but beyond that--not bad, Mr. President. And can I just say that I generally refer to him as a limp-brained, monosyllabic moron.

This issue is really important and it is not going away and it is not one-dimensional. And the president has acknowledged all of these things. And he did it from the Oval Office. This was the first time in his presidency that he has addressed the American public on a domestic issue from the Oval Office. It underscores the complexity and the urgency of this matter, and even with his dimishing poll numbers, with the moderate Republican Senators already on board with immigration reform, this may provide enough momentum for some remotely comprehensive bill to make it through both houses of Congress. I can only hope it does. And, though, I never thought I would actually be saying this, Thank you, Mr. Bush.

Checking back in

Wow. It has been two weeks since I last posted. I think I have been too overwelmed to focus in on one particular subject and compose a piece. Luckily, I am almost at the end of the school year, and that means that means freedom and time to think. On May 31st, I will leave for Spain with some of my students, and that is always good for my spirit and my inspiration. It recharges me. It reminds me who I am, why I teach, why I love language and culture, how cool it can be to just talk to and listen to kids, how you can meet new friends in the strangest places, how slowing down to enjoy a meal is civilized, how old and new together is beautiful, and how lucky I am.

Somehow, being at school day in and day out, beats so much out of me. There are so many competing demands and so many self-absorbed, self-important people to contend with, both students and faculty. One day, I will be free of that, too, and find a way to contribute to kids lives and expand their worlds outside of the confines of the school. I dream of it and slowly I am planning my escape...

Immigration: Where do I really come down?

For a while I have been talking about immigration and in support of many illegal immigrants, but do I believe that anything goes? What are my non-negotiables? What do I concede to the right? Do I have anything in common with Lou Dobbs? Well, I do receive his updates!

Let's start at the beginning. I have been working directly with immigrant students in one way or another off and on since I was in high school and I have counted some of them as my best friends. I have been to their homes, met their families, know their struggles. Many have been here legally. Many have not. Some have come legally as students and then searched for ways to stay. Of course, even before I worked with and befriended immigrants, I was and still am a patriotic American who stands when the flag passes during the 4th of July parades, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am one of those goodie two shoes who does what's right and tries to follow the rules. I tell the cashier when she has given me too much change. I believe in rules. I also believe in hard work, efficiency, justice and goodwill.

I have known many law-abiding, hard-working honest people who have been treated rudely and capriciously in U.S. embassies and consulates in Brazil when applying for visas. I know of people who would just like to come back and forth to the U.S., but are afraid they'll be denied a visa the next time on the whim of some consular clerk, so they decide they are better off staying. I know of hard-working honest people who have been jumping through hoops, taking off days from work and wading through mazes of paper work for years only to have something lost by our government and then told they were out of compliance. I have known wealthy, lazy, well-connected foreigners whose parents can pay for expensive undergraduate degrees in our nation's top universities who partied through college sniffing coke in the VIP rooms of the best dance clubs whose dads got them set up with some internship or job after graduation and can come and go at will from our country.

This country's whole immigration policy is a disgrace. The bureaucracy approaches and often surpasses the inefficiency of the third world government institutions with which I have had contact. Many people talk about coming here legally--in this day and age, for most perspective immigrants that is far more easily said than done.

Our borders? Porous at best. Our messages--mixed. Don't sneak in, but once you do, there is plenty of work and realistically, the government is going to turn a blind eye on those who employ you. Don't ask. Don't tell. What we don't know won't hurt us. We don't really want to make new homes more expensive or price lettuce out of the grocery budgets of the middle class, so we'll use the illegals as a tool against inflation.

In the last few weeks we have seen some crack-downs on major employers of illegals, in what we are assured is coincidental timing. How many years did it take for these companies to accumulate so many illegal workers?

In the meantime, who the hell is here with the honest, hard-working families, a few terrorists? Who knows? What a mess.

• We need to enforce the borders--really.
• We need to know who is here.
• We need to stream-line the legal path to immigration.
• We need the legal process for both short and long-term visas to be transparent and fair.
• We need to wake-up to the fact that there are too many people here already to round up and deport en masse.
• We need to acknowledge the contribution that many of the illegals have made.
• We need to accept those who have been peaceably working or studying for a long period of time in this country and give them a chance to truly assimilate and be a full part of the nation.
• Once we have take these steps, we need to clamp down hard on those who employ illegals and who act as a magnet for their continuing arrivals.

The Hagel-Martinez compromise bill that was presented in the U.S. Senate is a good starting point. They would allow those illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for at least five years to pay a fine and back-taxes, show they have been working and agree to learn English to earn a spot at the back of the line towards becoming citizens. This gives them the incentive to really start to assimilate that leaving in limbo does not promote. Those who have been here for two to five years, must return to their countries and register to return. Those here fewer than two years will be sent back. We need some of these people and we need to know who they are. Otherwise we are in danger of having truly bad seeds among us. But no one has the time to weed through 12 million people to find them.

Of course, if you have been reading my blog for awhile you know I am most worried about those kids or young adults who were brought here as kids who have most of their ties and have had most of their education here in the United States. What would we be sending them back to when they didn't come here on their own to begin with? If we turned a blind-eye and created the environment in which their parents stayed here for years to labor cheaply for us, don't we have some sort of responsibility to them? They're kids. If they have been here fewer than two years, though it is difficult to be shuffled back and forth, it is not as traumatic or insurmountable a process of reacclimation.

I hope this is clear for you. I would like to thank one of my fellow teachers at Austin High School John Mast, for asking me some good questions. It led me to solidify my viewpoint here.

Latin American Left--Making a comeback?

Just out of college, I graduated in 1994, I ended up working in New York City at Banco de Galicia y Buenos Aires, an Argentine bank, on their trading floor. At the time, Emerging Markets, especially Latin American markets were hot, hot, hot. Communism was dead--except for Cuba. Privatization, after decades of protectionism and nationalized companies, was all the rage. Mario Vargas Llosa, the famed Peruvian author and failed presidential candidate had spoken on the superiority of capitalism and free markets at my graduation from Georgetown's School of Languages and Linguistics. I was reading Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War, by Jorge Castenada, one of Mexico's most important political scientists, discussing a decline in the left of the region and their search for a place in the new world order.

Well, it looks like the left is emerging again, but what form it will take is still up for grabs. The 90s did not save Latin America. The poor are still desperately poor. The privatizations were not always the most egalitarian of processes and in many cases rich insiders became the oligarchs of industries. Despite the arguments of brilliant authors, like Vargas Llosa, capitalism, like communism, was not a magic bullet. Now we have Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva in Brazil, a president who began his political career as a labor leader. Michelle Bachalet Jeria, recently made history with her win in Chile, becoming the nation's first woman president. She is described as a pro-business leftist. In Argentina, Nestor Carlos Kirchner, was elected following string of short-lived presidencies after the economic collapse of the country. As a young man, Kirchner was a radical leftist who fought against the military dictatorship and as president has shown disdain for the International Monetary Fund using it to his advantage to restructure the country's debt and improve the national economy. Also on the left, Tabare Vazquez of Uruguay, but the two most radical and well-known of the new left area Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Juan "Evo" Morales Aima of Bolivia.

Chavez, whose government and personality garnered a feature story in the April 2006 issue of National Geographic, has partnered with Fidel Castro to bring doctors and free health services to the poor, seized private lands for redistribution to the peasants and used the country's oil reserves and exports as a bargaining chip with countries like the United States. "Evo" Morales cut his teeth in politics as the head of the cocalero movement, a coalition of coca farmers opposed to the eradication of the coca crop by U.S. supported Bolivian governments. What may have put him over the top in elections was an on-going, public feud with U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Manuel Rocha. Anytime the U.S. representative had something negative to say about Morales or Morales against Rocha, he seemed to do even better in the polls. His election was as much a victory over American influence in the region as it was a victory over Morales' political opponents. His MAS party (Movimiento al socialismo) is anti-U.S. and anti-capitalism. Morales even dresses in a manner that demonstrates his disdain for the business driven capitalization that he rails against. Rather than a suit and tie, Evo sports a sweater made of alpaca wool, even when meeting with world leaders.

Morales and Chavez represent the most extreme left forms of government in Latin America. Other, like Brazil's Lula, though once quite radical himself, have adopted a pragmatic leftist leaning, but more centrist approach having reached office. Few expect Bachalet of Chile to be turning her country into a continental Cuba. Even Morales, who shunned the United States on his first international tour, visited with European leaders and the Chinese, as well has his comrades in Havana and Caracas on the trip. Obviously he is not unaware that business interests and investments have to be addressed if his government and his country are to succeed.

As former president of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardozo, himself a former left-leaning sociologist, said on Foreign Exchange this morning, globalization is here to stay. There are balances that need to be reached, but in the best cases, foreign investment opens up opportunities for both sides. And so the pendulum swings. Where it will eventually come to rest, is probably somewhere in the middle.

Here is a great quote I found on Wikipedia credited to now Bolivian president Evo Morales from his campaign for that office. His opponents from more traditional parties did not want to debate him, so he said referencing U.S. ambassador Rocha: "I prefer to argue with the owner of the circus, not with the clowns."

So what's the big deal with Rumsfeld?

Much has been made of the retired generals who have been calling for Rumsfeld's resignation. In the end, as Bush said yesterday, [Bush] is the "decider" when it boils down to the nitty-gritty. It is not Rumsfeld's War. He serves at the pleasure of the President. But, let's face it, Bush needs someone with new ideas, new perspective. Like Bush himself, the people with whom he surrounds himself are either loyal and persistent or stubborn and unable to admit mistakes, depending on your perspective. Even if you go with the former, is it a good idea to be loyal to something that doesn't work?

Rumsfeld needs to go. Bush needs fresh blood and in a bad way. Today I was listening to American Morning on CNN as I got ready for work, and I heard an interview with Major General Tom Wilkerson, retired. He was defending Rumsfeld. His main argument seemed to be that we need to stop harping on past mistakes and start dealing with the present situation. Besides, it is now up to the Iraqis to form their government and make things work, and the lack of progress on that front is not Rumsfeld's fault.

Okay, stop a minute. Let's think about this. First of all, I am sad to say that I have been right with about 90 percent of what has happened in Iraq since Bush started saber-rattling after 9-11. I kept wishing I would be wrong, but I wasn't. I kept hoping that these well-informed Bush administration officials knew better than me, a high school Spanish teacher, but alas, they didn't. Why, if the Secretary of Defense and this whole administration have made so many mistakes from day one, do we think they are the ones who will suddenly make all the right decisions from here on out? Hello?! We need fresh blood. Now.

And this notion that we are going to blame the Iraqis for the current problems, because they have not set up a workable government seems a bit like passing the buck. Of course, it is their country and they do need to have some responsibility in this situation, but let us not forget that they wrote their constitution and held elections on our timetable after we overthrew their government. Then we told them to set up a new one. Part of the reason that our democracy has endured (not without issues--remember that period from 1860 to 1864), is because it was formed from a home-grown revolution. It was our time. We decided. Forced democracy--talk about an oximoron.

So what's the big deal with Rumsfeld? He is the biggest, loudest, and I would argue, most arrogant symbol of what is wrong with this administration and its Iraq War policy. Please, show him the door.