Call for Change

Hello fellow Americans...I am having a hard time concentrating on school right now and on 506...and I figured instead of allowing my contribution level to suffer in silence, I would just write about what's on my mind, I'm pretty sure that's the point of this whole blog business anyway. Last night I spent 2 or 3 hours at the local office of MoveOn.org in Ithaca. It is on the first floor of the Dewitt Mall, directly upstairs from the cafe if any locals would like to check it out. For those of you who don't know, MoveOn is something of a progressive and aggressive answer to Karl Rove. They are not supported by any particular candidate, but rather work independently to expose Republican corruption, ineptitude and failure and in the process help elect Democrats. My apologies to any Republican readers of my blog. I want you to know that the philosophical differences between Conservative and Liberal visions of what government should look like are legitimate points of debate. I am a liberal, but I can understand the mentality of the Conservative mind in some cases. That being said, what is going on in this country and to this country under the Bu@*sh%$ regime is nothing short of an absolute outrage. It no longer has anything to do with traditional party politics. It has to do with electing people, who are willing to stand up to this moron.

Failure to Prevent 911 despite serious and detailed intelligence reports, failure to Catch Osama Bin Laden over a 5 year period with the most awesome and technologically sophisticated military the world has ever known and the support and assistance (in the beginning at least) of the entire world, dragging us into the midst of a protracted War in Iraq that was clearly based on faulty/fabricated intelligence and which has brought about the worst civil and political strife that country has seen in decades, and which has utterly exhausted, divided and distracted a U.S. military from the true pursuit of terrorists and killed untold 100's of thousands of innocent civilians, and a humiliating and pathetic Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster this country has seen, at least in a hundred years if not ever...these things are simply the highlights of a long list of perhaps the biggest failures in Presidential/American history. Whew...sorry for that.

The point is I believe that we need oversight and the reemergence of a system of checks and balances that can only be provided by a Democratic majority in Congress. So, this upcoming election in 14 days!! is the reason I cannot concentrate on school and the reason I went to MoveOn last night. They have a plan that you can check out online called Call for Change. They have identified 30 Congressional districts that are likely to be closely contested in a couple of weeks, and where Republicans were winning and are now tied or behind, or where Republicans have traditionally won, and generated an extensive list of progressive voter phone numbers in these areas. By going to Callforchange.org and signing up you can become a volunteer and an active member of our fading Democracy. They provide you with a scripted message which is tailored to the district you are calling as well as information sheets about both candidates in that district and you basically just follow the prompts reminding them to vote and to vote Democrat, it is a super simple system of clicking buttons on your monitor screen that correlate to their responses to your prompts and guide you step-by-step through the call. You can spend as little or as much time calling voters as you want (they recommenend an hour a week for the next couple, and then like an hour a day or as much as possible during the final days).

For someone like me who has alot to say about this stuff and lives in a community of mostly like minded people, and has about as busy a schedule as you can imagine, I was beginning to feel helpless about the fates of Democrats in far flung districts and the organizational power of Rove and his henchmen. MoveOn has empowered me, and I am excited to be able to reach so many voters in crucial districts. Last night I was calling current MoveOn members and giving them a similar speech to the one you guys just read and trying to enlist them to go to the website and volunteer to make calls. Then I realized that I can just start telling people that I know already, who would be interested, and then I realized I could just post it to my blog, and reach that many more people in the span of half and hour of typing. The internet really is pretty cool, just what I am doing right now is cool, and what MoveOn has accomplished with the power of connectivity is freakin amazing. Ideally, I would elaborate on how this internet networking relates directly to what we are talking about in 506, and what Friedman is talking about in his book, but I have to go hurry and try to throw some crap together for 541 before our class starts. Maybe you folks can elaborate for me in your comments, or maybe I'll just write a follow up post later.

So get out there and do something, it's either that or move to Europe. And some of us are in school still, ya know. Here is the link...check it out..callforchange.org

More Stuff

Here is another cool video about the fate of the planet...a tad bit more bleak...and a good bit less PG...but also quite funny...check out "The End of the World"

Sustainability 101

I am planning to do a mini teach-in on sustainable development and communities for my course project. I hope to approach the concept from the basic levels of definitions and examples, and gradually work up to practical advice, a discussion of the Eco-village at Ithaca and its role as something of a pioneer in developing sustainable communities. I would like to provide useful links and references for people who are interested in getting involved in sustainable work in their own community. The final analysis will be involved with various ways that we as teachers can promote sustainability and suatainable living in our own classrooms. I feel that we, as teachers. are in a great position to be the torch bearers of the global initiaitive to promote and support, and even develop a sustainable (or should I say more sustainable) global community. Like so many wonderful causes it is a big job with even bigger consequences, and I think that teachers can be major players in the fight for this planet. I found this cool, funny flash animation that helps make the point, check it out, it's superfresh!! Enjoy the Wombat of Oneness!!!

Savage Inequalities

So I went to see Jonathan Kozol speak at Cornell last week, and it was pretty fantastic. I have read one of his books, The Shame of the Nation, and figured his talk was going to be a super-depressing, statistic-packed diatribe against racism and the resegregation of American public schools. The talk turned out to be very anecdotal and almost as funny as depressing. I learned a lot about the man himself, his roots in the civil rights movement, his roots as a High School English teacher, and his family. The recording that I got seems to be pretty good, I got really good seats and sat almost directly under the PA system in the high,vaulted ceiling. At 4:15 maybe an hour or so before he went on, the place was nearly empty. Courtney and I waltzed down to our ideal seats like we were 20 minutes early for Flubber , but by 5 the place was packed and by the time Kozol actually went on at 5:10 or so there were people standing all over the aisles. My girlfriend and I estimated that there were far more women than men there, like maybe 3:1 or at least 2:1, and not too many African-Americans. His talk went a little over an hour and there was no time for question and answer afterwards.

The biggest thing that I got out of the lecture was a renewed interest in Teach-for-America or a related program. My primary objective as a teacher is to make a difference and I think starting in poor underprivileged communities is a great way to do that. It is certainly not for everyone, it might not even be for me. But the greatest injustices that we as Americans serve to our fellow Americans comes in the form of school segregation, inequitable funding strategies, and depriving millions of young children of the opportunity to a sound education simply because of their income level or skin color. Kozol believes that universal education should be guaranteed to each and every American as a fundamental right, to be included even in the Bill of Rights. And I for one, agree with him. If these inner-city schools are never funded appropriately they are far less likely to attract the kinds of teachers necessary to help affect change. Just think about how the NCLB sanctions for low test scores are rooted in funding, and try to figure out how schools that are doing poorly because of a lack of funding can possible benefit from losing more funding, they can't. The whole idea is ridiculous, cruel and to me unacceptable. So here's a link to Teach for America, for those of you who don't know what it is or would like to find out more. By the way Kozol didn't really plug Teach-For-America, but a local Chapter at Cornell helped sponsor the event and a spokeswoman for them talked for a minute after he was done.