Music Corner World

If ever there was a positive force for change in Greensboro it's Dr. Johnnetta Cole.


Thank you Sister Cole for not letting the forces of negativity drive you from our city. All of us who have met you, heard you speak or have been the beneficiaries of your great wisdom bless the day that you came to Bennett College.

Patrick Eakes is this week's BIG LINK. His will be a hard act to follow because he is one heck of a great guy and a leader among bloggers and one who has always been willing to help an outsider like me! Go Patrick!

What kind of society do we live in that we can build schools, write curricula, develop policies for delivering those curricula and educating students and then forget that the students we are teaching are our own precious children?

If you look at the videos that accompany this article about the poor 5-year-old who was handcuffed in St. Petersburg because of her behavior, you see teachers using "behavior management strategies" with this distressed child. Presumably they are following district policy when they call the police to further control the child.

The police abruptly alter the mood by barging in and grabbing the girl by the arms and slapping the 'cuffs on her. Two of the police are rookies on their first day. Hooray! It's their first collar! I'm sure the sarge will excuse them if they are a little over zealous about bringing the bad guy - uh - girl in chains . . .

As if it isn't already a tragedy, the deepest tragedy of all is that no one in the video seems to really care about this little girl. A child this angry has a 'hurt' inside trying to get out - - she is crying out not for harsh words and management techniques but for love. Never once did we hear from the adults in the room in their words or their tone of voice any indication of sympathy for the struggle that that little girl was going through. They were so tied up in getting their techniques right that they forgot that this little girl was a human being needing love and nurturing, someone far more fragile than that porcelain apple she broke.

The handcuffs the police put on this girl were only physical symbols of the emotional handcuffs this poor child was living with in this sterile environment.

Pray that it changes for her.

Talk about biased media - - check this statement out from the Arab TV. Do they think all of those Israelis are just going to pack up and peacefully move out?

"Dad?"

I can tell from the tone of voice that this isn't going to be good news, so I don't answer.

"Dad, I have something to ask you and you are not going to like it."

At this point, on a day that has not started out well and frankly has continued to be fairly, let's say, worthy of the outhouse, I turn to him with sick anticipation.

"Yes?"

"I have to have two people write a two page biography of me by tomorrow morning."

Two page? "Two page?"

"Yes." He was right. I didn't like it.

Recovering a little, I uttered rather loudly those words parents love to say: "Why didn't you think of this earlier?!"

"I knew you wouldn't like it."

"Two page?" Repeating it seemed to make it a little more real.

"Well it can be double spaced - so one page really."

Oh, I'm thinking. That makes it sooooo much better.

***

It's 11:08 pm, and I'm just getting to this lovely little task. And he's lucky I guess, because most kids get biographies that don't really end unless you count "and I guess he'll grow up to be big and strong...." to be an ending.

His will have definite closure.

I assumed the headache I woke up with this morning was a migraine, but after reading Brian Anderson's and Charles Davenport's (not posted) columns in the N&R this morning, I am sure it was simply a warning not to read the paper.

Why do our conservative friends have this terminal case of feeling like the media and academia are out to get them?

Was there ever a time that the media was truly liberal? In any case, I really don't see the liberal bias these days. If anything, the media has swung toward making certain that the ownership of the various media outlets make a buck, which means publishing or broadcasting anything that will attract attention (the Schaivo debacle being a case in point).

Many news outlets are still trying to be responsible in their editorial policies (I believe that the N&R is making an effort at that), but let's face it, the market drives everything these days, if not overtly then subtlely. On the other hand, the cable 'news' channels have let it all hang out with biased anchors like Hannity and O'Reilly.

And then it's the "the colleges are hotbeds of liberalism" whine. Now, I gotta ask, where, did all of those Republicans come from that voted for GWB? What I mean is, are the colleges and universities only graduating liberals? Do our precious, unblemished children enter our college campuses unstained and unexposed to the dangers of this terrible world, only to be ambushed by those nasty liberals who will keep them from seeing the Truth and then spit them out as Democrats?

Oh please! When will the paranoia stop! They won the election already! Charles and Brian, must we fall lockstep into line? Are you that insecure?

Man, what a day!

Students and adults from all over the state came to Greensboro Day School to celebrate the diversity of our schools through the unifying theme of Building Bridges and Breaking Barriers.

Presenters addressed a surprisingly wide array of important topics which covered everything from religious understanding, (the Sikh Next Door), the Arab-Israeli crisis, Montagnards in Greensboro, respect for sexual differences, and cultural differences through music.

Mostly, we learned we are all leaders, every one of us and that we all can make a difference.

Today we have a message of hope: that the world can be made better by the freshness and strength of the great young people who surround us.



Look at these faces. How could we possibly doubt the brightness of the future?

Thanks to Billy for organizing the Meetup tonight. It was great fun and a privilege to meet such interesting and talented people. I look forward to the next one and to May 29.

500 years ago Anglican Catholics stepped away from Rome because they could not tolerate political control coming from a single individual (the Pope) whose world view was limited by both geography and culture.

Now, 1/2 a millennium later, little has changed. The 'red hats' have elected Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), an avowed conservative and 'enforcer'' of church doctrine whose world view is limited by his blatant rejection of Vatican II and his inflexibility on marriage, women, abortion rights and other church reforms.

I am not a Roman Catholic, but I am a member of the Catholic tradition, being raised an Episcopalian. If you know your church history, you know that we Anglicans figured out that saying the mass in the vernacular was a pretty good thing clear back in the 16th century. No Vatican Council was needed for us, just a King who needed a son and a Queen to follow who was determined to maintain English independence.

Anyway, I do feel a sense of kinship to the Roman Church. The liturgy is familiar, many of the sacramental practices are similar and our roots are more common than most of the other mainline Christian denominations.

We also share the same hierarchy of ordained ministers with the belief in their sacred call by God: Bishops, the 'lords' of the church who represent the 'governors' of the church's bureaucracy; priests, who are the 'shepherds' of the flock and the conveyors of the sacraments to the people; and deacons who serve the needs of the other ordained and those of the people as well and are able to carry out a limited number of sacramental functions.

The Catholic Church takes the organizational principle further with the appointed offices of cardinals (red hats) and the elected office of the Pope. Over the centuries this religious hierarchy has helped to control the huge political body of the church and has also served to unify the beliefs of the Church throughout the world.

It is through this political oligarchy that the Church has been able to stifle debate and limit reform, even in the face of growing dissent in the Church. Is it any wonder that the number of priests in this country is dwindling? Is it any wonder that resentment over the wealth of the Church in the face of poverty still embitters the faithful in Central and South America? Is it any wonder that charges of pedophilia become reasons for questioning the Church's whole credibility? Finally, is it any wonder that the Church of John F. Kennedy is now being seen to walk hand in hand with the radical right while looking to limit our freedoms in our schools, our courts, our hospitals, our pharmacies and our bedrooms.

For the sake of my brother and sister Catholics, and for the rest of us as well, I pray that Benedict the XVIth will surprise us all.

Some of the friends I made at the CCL last week have an entirely different view of the world than I do.

Take for example Health Care. My values start with a simple premise: if someone is sick, and treatment is possible, then that someone should be able to receive that treatment. In my mind the function of government should be to make that ideal possible.

Of course, life isn't that simple. Debate swirls around health care in a more turgid form than tornados in Oklahoma. Many believe (see the intriguing logic in this link from the Family Research Council) that the economics or the moral structure of the health care system naturally limit the poor's access to health care and that universal access is not a value. They argue that market forces should determine who does and who doesn't benefit from the latest in medical technology.

Others believe, and I agree, that health care is a basic value and right of all Americans, especially our children. If we are to claim that right we have to examine our current system and try to find out why we and I agree can't deliver that basic health care right now. We know how complex that issue is, starting with cost; just reading Hogg's Blog should be enough to tell us that. But just demonizing a portion of the Health Care system, like the pharmaceutical industry, as the bad guy is too simplistic. As I found out last week, there are very real debates on both sides of that one.

So how do we come to a solution? Here are my simplistic suggestions:

1. We agree that Basic Health Care is a right and an important communal Value
   
2. We agree that 'Basic' means any and all non-experimental procedures available for preventive, curative and palliative care
3. We agree that the current system isn't cutting it but that we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water
4. We agree that nothing about our system is sacred
   
5. We agree that the government has a role to play in making the whole thing work.

Of course, the last four points can't work until we agree to the first, which is the whole point of this post in the first place.

I think this is one of those issues that the Democrats can use this year to dump it all over the "compassionate conservatives" who expect market forces to take care of the 40,000,000 Americans who have no health care coverage. But then, the Democrats would have to be thinking, and they haven't been known for that recently.

There. Now that I've solved that, bring on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis!

Well, I've decided not to enlist. It's a good thing, because according to the Center's testing, I think my personality profile would probably do our country's security more harm than good.

Not that people like me wouldn't be needed in time of national crisis. I found out today, for example, that I have a high tolerance for change. Crises mean change, right? I could handle that. I also have high marks for creativity and empathy - so I'll think of imaginative ways that we as a country can manage a crisis instead of collectively sitting around and staring at CNN - like making up songs together, our repainting our houses to release tension, or everybody on the left side of the country switching with everybody on the right - that would be thinking outside the box, wouldn't it?

OK, brainstorming aside, it was a great day to learn how we all contribute our unique gifts to making the whole better. Sounds like a wonderful model for our daily lives, doesn't it?

Today I had the privilege of watching several current and retired individuals in our military and national security forces demonstrate their leadership skills. Believe me, if they represent the leadership norm, then we can indeed sleep soundly at night.

Is 55 too old to enlist?

Geese Aplenty has a solution for the Conclave which begins April 18.

This week's BIG LINK is the Gunkle Guru. For those of you who like to chase that little ball around, this site's da bomb!

I've returned from the Outer Banks (Ocracoke) this evening rested, read, Internet free for five days, blown by the wind (apologies to BD), but knowin' what road to walk(er, drive) down (Ferry was closed because of the high winds).

Gave my new Nikon a real test drive; some of the results follow.








I've never eaten so many scallops and shrimp in my life. I'm happy!