Every Progressive needs to read this book

Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives by George Lakoff


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Fascinating. Lakoff is a "cognitive linguist," some of his observations remind me of the symbols and archetypes of Carl Jung. Enlightening.

If there's 3 things I like it's psychology, good writing, and politics. This book has all 3, but don' t let my comment about Carl Jung put you off- this is a breeze to read. Fun and easy.

Lakoff explores the perceptual "frames" or world-views of the left and the right and explains why language is so powerful. He thinks that it is important to be able to articulate your values clearly and speak in terms of positive assertions rather than negative criticisms or reactions.

His basic preface is that there seems to be two basic world-views in America right now, the "Strict-Father Family" model and the "Nurturant-Parents Family" model. At first I thought it correlated with Thomas Hobbes and John Locke- but now I realize that it is much more like the differences between the Puritans and the Quakers. On the right you have the punishing rugged individualism of James Dobson's "Focus on the Family," and on the left you have the empathetic, community-orientation of Jim Faye's "Love and Logic."

I really think that this book would be good for both liberals AND conservatives, and even independents. I don't think that he maligns or libels conservatives, if anything, I believe he just clarifies what most Republicans already know about themselves and in many cases already admit about themselves.

What I wish would happen is that other, "casual" conservatives and independents would read this book and have their eyes opened- so that they'd become aware of the broader strategy and the powerful propaganda that the far-right has been using to take advantage of them. But as soon as they find out that it was written by a Berkley professor- I'm sure that their "frame" would kick in and not let them even give it a chance.

I hope you'll give it a chance because, bottom line, he explains why & how they've been winning for the last thirty years and what we progressives need to do to compete more effectively in the marketplace of ideas.

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Pappa Bear; This is the Doghouse

Performing at the town band shell at the culmination of the Homecoming parade.

This is the Doghouse
X X X
Big Blue and White
X X X
This is the Doghouse
And we know how to fight!
Clockwise, starting with the Mascot; Erin (inside the costume) the Irish red head I had a big crush on, Chris my Freshman roommate who stole a girl from me, Tasha our Captain, Pete who ended up being an elementary principal in Hawaii, Tonya who bought me at the annual "slave auction," Jamie my stunting partner, Jim a misogynistic pervert, Amy, and me with big 80's hair. (I've withheld their last names to protect their privacy.

Go Big Blue!

I attended the little college on the prairie. Concordia Teacher's College was a Missouri-Synod Lutheran school in Seward Nebraska, founded in the 1894. I say "was" because like you can
't go back to Constantinople, because now they call it Istanbul, you can't find CTC because Sophomore year it dropped the "Teacher's" from it's name and became simply "Concordia College, Seward," and upon their centennial was renamed "Concordia University, Nebraska." CU is one of ten Concordias nationwide, from New York, to Selma, and from Portland to Austin. They're Christian colleges that offer liberal arts and business programs, but specialize in preparing professional church workers.

I starded out planning to become a commercial artist (Seward's art department rivals the Chicago Art Institute) . I struggled with whether to go pre-seminary to become a Lutheran pastor, but eventually wound up with a Bachelor's in secondary education with a double major in History and Art.


Mission Statement
Preparing Servant Leaders for Church and World

Alma Mater
Dear old Tow’r that shines above us,
Dear hearts that catch the gleam,
Though miles and years remove us
Of you we’ll always dream.
From Plum to Blue and yonder,
We rise Concordia’s own
To praise as far as we wander
The good that on us shone


Fight Song
On, Concordia, On, Concordia,
Pep that team of yours.
Fight, Concordia, Fight, Concordia,
‘Til we win this game.
Rah! Rah! Rah!
On, Concordia, On Concordia,
Pep that team of yours.
Fight, fellows, fight
And we will win this game

corporate branding

Made this so I can use it for email signatures

A corollary to yesterday's post about political bedfellows

George W. Bush Bush dumped $848,000 worth of Harken Energy stock back in 1990, two months before the company announced a $23.2 million loss; he was 34 weeks late in filing a form the Securities and Exchange Commission required to record the sale... According to Time Magazine, "...Harken concealed losses by selling most of a subsidiary to an off-the-books entity controlled by company insiders. Bush was on the audit committee, which, at least in theory, approved the deal. It's the same tactic used by Enron—on a massive, more pernicious scale..."
Time reported in the same issue that "Halliburton, while Cheney was CEO, greased the books to boost the firm's flagging fortunes." Creative accounting.

Dennis Kozolowski, Ken Lay, Merrill Lynch, Enron, Andersen, Halliburton, Adelphia, R.J. Reynolds, Tyco, Bristol-Meyers, Global Crossing, the list goes on and on of individuals and corporations involved in abuse and corruption during early part of Bush's FIRST term. It's as if there was no S.E.C. no accountability or transparency or ethics of any kind in business, finance, and government.

The Bush years were a new gilded age or cancer-stage capitalism. A culture of corruption flourished.

Is it any wonder that we're now dealing with the likes of Bernard L. Madoff, Goldman Sacs, Lehman Brothers, the entire mortgage-based-securities, and auto executives flying in on private jets to ask Congress for bailouts?

Obscene greed. Yet Conservative Christians only get worked up about abortion and gay marriage. When I wrote columns scrutinizing John McCain's connection to the "Keating 5" and the S&L bailout scandal of the 1980's and how his role in deregulation of the financial sector may have helped lead to our current meltdown I was raked over the coals as some kind of unpatriotic, America-hating, abortion promoting liberal.

Transparency and accountability, and a whole lot of self-discipline is what America needs now.
Time for Relief, Recovery, and a whole lot of REFORM.

But what do I know? People have labeled me a "liberal" and now I have to wear that label like a scarlet letter.

Cactus Flowers

When in Santa Fe, be sure to visit the Georgia O'Keefe museum. Here's me and my girls

Big oil profits vampire

Editorial Cartoon for the May 31, 2007 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and Schleswig Leader.

So I'm a little anxious about how much my family vacation is going to cost me- there's still no excuse for the record profits that the oil companies are sucking from us, especially here in the heartland- farmers, truckers, people just driving to work. It is absolutely heinous and I could think of no iconic figure more evil that this one.

Thinking

Poking around my classroom today, I uncovered this old painting I did in tempera on matte board back in the 1990's. I don't remember if it was a self portrait (obviously no goatee) or based on someone else (maybe John Bulushi). Anyway, I really like it.

God Bless You, Kurt Vonnegut

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Wow. This obviously isn't Vonnegut's most famous novel. I'm not qualifies as a literary critic to say whether it's one of his best. And I've only just started reading it, so I'm not ready to say whether it's my favorite of his yet. But I will say this, it has to be the least subtle. What I mean by that is that is is a scathing satire of class and political and moral hypocrisy in America, and he doesn't hold any punches. Because of that, I am loving it!

Witness this exchange between Senator Lister Rosewater with his daughter-in-law Sylvia, discussing the mental health of his son, Eliot:

"I loved Eliot on sight."
"Isn't there some other word you could use?"
"Than what?"
"Than love."
"What better word is there?"
"It was a perfectly good word- until Eliot got hold of it. It's spoiled for me now. Eliot did to the word love what the Russians did to the word democracy. If Eliot is going to love everybody, no matter what they are, no matter what they do, then those of us who love particular people for particular reasons had better find ourselves a new word." He looked at an oil painting of his deceased wife. "For instance- I loved her more than I love our garbage collector, which makes me guilty of the most unspeakable of modern crimes: Dis-crim-i-nay-tion."

Yeah, if you read and believe anything Jesus said in the New Testament, we are all called to love our neighbor indiscriminately and unconditionally- and as Vonnegut shows through his vagabond billionaire protagonist, Eliot Rosewater, if you genuinely follow Christ's example, people with think you're certifiably insane.

This book is a better satire of Christians and Christianity and how un-Christ like they can be than Monty Python's Life of Brian.

I don't understand why it hasn't been made into a movie yet. Kevin Kline would've mad a great Eliot Rosewood. Tony Shalhoub could be Mushari the lawyer.



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Potential Life-Changer

A Game Plan for Life: The Power of Mentoring by John Wooden

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Many years ago, when I was teaching at Los Angeles Lutheran High, our friend and former Vice Principal had become a family therapist. The psychologists she worked with had developed what they called a "Life Model." One aspect of the life model was a mentoring continuum, having people older than yourself whom you learn from and friends younger than yourself whom you can try to spiritually parent.

I remember thinking that it was a noble ideal, but wasn't sure how I could put it into action. I didn't have a lot of friends above my age range and wasn't sure that I could fit it into my schedule. As a teacher I was sold on trying to disciple young people, but figured I was better off allowing relationships to develop rather than trying to deliberately fabricate them.

Later on this same concept was proposed by the Promise Keeper's movement. I attended a couple of PK conferences with my Principal, who I suspect was seeking to be my mentor- but for whatever reason, we never seemed to "click." PK recommended having older men mentor you and hold you accountable and younger men whom you could challenge and teach as well.

At this time I had a couple of pastors who were older than me and a prestigious painter who'd retired from LALHS before I started teaching there, but I never seemed to manage to become the close confidant with any of them that I imagined being mentored entailed. Meanwhile I felt like I was managing to shepherd and be available for some students, but it seemed like most of them were young women- it didn't seem like I had the same kind of connections with boys. No doubt being a cheerleading coach and Art teacher had some to do with that.

When we moved back to Iowa and left Lutheran High for a public school, I wanted a way to reach the girls I coached and be able to help develop their character since I'd now be in a secular setting. At first I leaned on Norman Vincent Peale's Power of Positive Thinking and eventually discovered Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success.

It didn't occur to me that I hadn't just found material to help me mentor students and athletes, I had myself, found a mentor.

In this book, Coach Wooden explains that mentors can be real people you have meaningful relationships with, like his father, leaders you look up to and who model a great example for you, like his high school coach and principal, people who care for you and try to guide you, like Wooden's college coach at Purdue. But leaders may even be people you don't actually know personally, whom you study and admire, and whom you either try to emulate or who's thinking and ideas shape your own. In Wooden's case, Abraham Lincoln and Mother Theresa. AND, mentors may be peers and loved ones, not just your elders- people who influence you and who you learn from, like a close friend or even a spouse.

The second half of this book was written by seven people for whom Wooden was a mentor. They each write about how he influenced their character, philosophy and lives. Sure there are famous athletes he coached, like Careem Abdul Jabaar, but there are also other coaches he worked with and a teacher who had never really met Wooden- but who had read everything by the Wizard of Westwood until he was asked to contribute to this book.

Last week I attended a conference for college and high school teachers where the key note speaker challenged us to do something positive that would help us build community. He asked us to contact at least 3 people who had contributed positively to our lives and let them know how much we appreciated it.

At first I was stumped. My old Psych Professor had passed away. My old newspaper publisher had passed away. I didn't have an address for my old Education Prof. who was starting a school in Vietnam of something like that. What could I do?

I looked behind me instead of looking ahead of me. I wrote some of my former students who had meant a lot to me. Then, coincidentally, I stumbled across another Ed. Prof. on a professional networking site. Then I found the email address of the first Ed. Prof. Then a google search turned up the new church where one of those old pastors was now serving.

They all replied to my emails by telling me that I'd made their day. One of the students wrote back to tell me how much I had meant to them.

What I realized by reading this book is that mentoring is both simpler/easier/less forced than I had assumed, and at the same time even more profound and important than I realized. It is definitely something we should all be doing, for ourselves, and for others.



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It's a good thing

My wife's concerned that this blog could come back to bite me. She's concerned that some of the people I've written about don't discover it and take offense. I thought I've gone to great lengths not to be TOO judgmental, not to use names, to be clear that what I write here are my opinions and reactions, and especially to not share it with anyone directly involved in my school or local area.

Be this all as it may, it does occur to me that if all you read are my consternation over adolescent melodrama or difficulties, you may come away thinking either than cheerleading is an ugly, difficult thing, or that I don't really like coaching it.

I have a friend who's a pastor. She used to be a high school teacher. She taught at my school along with her husband. Their children are just finishing college now. She coached the Dance/Drill Squad, so we were comrades-in-arms of sorts. We'd commiserate about our stresses and in many ways she was a mentor for me.

While we were both in the thick of it, it seemed like we were supporting and encouraging each other. Both of us tried not to complain about kids to outsiders. But once she'd left teaching for seminary and the ministry, when I'd share about the travails of coaching, she assumed that I must not want to coach anymore.

When I look back at this blog so far, I can imagine how readers might make the same mistake. I really do enjoy coaching and believe that its important work. Like any job, there are things that are stressful about it. I obviously needed a venue for releasing that steam. I will try to balance my complaining with more thanks-giving.

In that vein, I introduced Middle School cheerleaders to Coach John Wooden's Pyramid of Success last week and it went really well. That Power-Junior came and apologized to the junior high girls (although, more eye witness accounts have come in from people in the stands that corroborates her side of the story- not those of the eighth-grader). I was really proud of her.

The season is winding down. MS Football is over and HS FB has only 2 more games. Time to get in gear on recruiting and/or setting up a tryout date. But right now- GOTTA GET GRADES DONE! It's the last day of the quarter. October is an insanely busy time this year.

Responsibility and Compassion

"We are all called to give back. Since there is nothing we can take with us from this life, we should try to leave behind as much as possible- it's a basic and well known truth. Those of us who have been blessed with worldly success have an even greater responsibility to make an impact with our time, talents, and resources; as we are reminded in the Gospels, 'From him to whom much is given, much is expected (Luke 12:48).'"

~John Wooden, 'A Game Plan for Life,' 2009

Hardball

Hardball by Sara Paretsky

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Dang this Partesky's good.
Slow in the start. Hard for me to find time to read now that school's been so busy. But once I finally got into it it was absolutely worth it. History, civil rights, racial tensions, political intrigue, Chicago isn't just a back drop- it's practically a character. Best of all this is not just another crime thriller, it's a genuine mystery. It's layered, complicated (but not so complicated that you can't follow it) nuanced, and not just another procedural detective novel, but a book about family, character, values, loyalty, and right and wrong.

V.I. is funny and sarcastic like Robert Parker's Spenser or Evonavich's Plum, Tough as nails and smart like James Patterson's Alex Cross, and feminine and vulnerable as J.A. Jance's Joanna Brady.

I haven't read any of the other books in this series, but this book stands alone. It's a perfect storm of a novel, not just a detective novel. Loved it.



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Purpose Driven Cheerleading

A few years ago an upstart pastor from California, Rick Warren wrote a record breaking book called 'A purpose Driven Life.His preface is that everyone's life has meaning and he believes that both individuals and the Church can find mission and direction in Scriptural principles.In much the same way, Cheerleaders can be vitally important and have an enormous impact for the teams they cheer for, their schools, and their communities. Even at a public school, with the separation of church and state, squads and coaches can emphasize 5 simple purposes, even without tying them to any religion. Although, cheerleaders who's personal faith is important to them can certainly integrate these Cheer purposes with Warren's origional 5 Christian purposes.I think that if cheerleaders keep these 5 in mind, they'll be practicing "intentedness" which is one of the bricks in Coach John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success."Intentedness means being goal-oriented, having a target to strive for.

THE PURPOSES OF CHEERLEADING:
Purpose 1: Spirit
Lets face it, cheerleading was invented to support sports.It may now be a sport in it's own right, but even with all the all-star squads and competitions, we should never lose sight of our primary function-to cheer on the ball teams. "Fan" is short for "Fanatic." This doesn't mean you worship football or the team. It does mean that you support, cheer for, draw attention to, and encourage the team that's playing.
THAT is Cheerleadings #1 role.

Purpose 2: Community (aka: having unity in common)
If there's anything adolescent psychologists think that teenagers are looking for it's identity, in particular- group identity. A mascot and school colors go a long way to do this. Regardless of race, gender, creed, socio-economic status, grades, cliques...whatever usually separates students, they all belong to one group- your school, and cheerleaders need not only to be a symbol of that group, but should constantly be trying to help kids feel included and valued in that community.Inclusion, not exclusion- As the school secretary listed them in Ferris Bueller; "The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies..." they all should feel like they belong, and it's yourjob to help them feel that way.

If you are fullfilling the negative stereotype of the snobby, preppie, popular- basically either supperior or "clique-y," you're being exclusive instead of inclusive. In other words, you're not making people feel a part of something, you're making them feel even more alienated and unvalued. Cheerleaders are supposed to make people feel valued as part of the team, part of the school, part of the team.

The irony is that if you're being what so many people THINK cheerleaders are like, you're being the antithesis of what a cheerleader is SUPPOSED to be.

I think that building community fulfills America's motto; "E Pluribus Unum; from many, one." Baseball may call itself "America's Pastime," football, basketball and NASCAR may all vie for being the most popular sport, but only cheerleading has the deliberate duty to create a sense of oneness. All other sports may do that, but that's just being on the bandwagon. The cheerleaders are the people offering a hand to get you up onto that wagon.

Purpose 3: Discipline
You can't be an athlete without it. It never ceases to amaze me when cheerleaders are frustrated that football, volleyball and basketball "jocks" don't think of cheerleading as a sport or cheerleaders as athletes, but then the cheerleaders don't want to work very hard during practice.Coach Wooden's Pyramid calls this "Conditioning." Although, it certainly requires more of Wooden's bricks, on the first tier, it takes work-ethic or "industriusness.." On the second tier it takes discipline to develop self control, alertness, and initiative. On the third tier, it takes discipline to develop skill. But it takes personal and squad discipline to develop and maintain friendships, loyalty and cooperation- which help make up the foundation of the Pyramid of success. A discipline is either something you study, like Science, History, or Art. A disciplined scientist uses the scientific method, so does a disciplined historian, for that matter. A discipline may also be a regiment you follow, diet, exercise, physical or mental training. Obviously, faith traditions are disciplined. If one is a "disciple" or a follower of a religion, philosophy or a leader, you follow the teachings, principles or precepts of that tradition.Theoretically, Christians abide by Christ's teaching in the Beatitudes, Buddhist practice Zen, Muslums practice the 5 pillars, etc. etc.Athletes listen to their coach's guidance and the rules or guidelines of their sport and school.Like doctors "practice medicine", practice cheerleading so that you will be qualified to be a practicing cheerleader. It doesn't mean cheerleading is your religion, it means that you're working at being the best cheerleader you can be.

Purpose 4: Service- (I haven't completed writing on the last two purposes)

The legendary King Author had a beautiful motto: "By serving each other we become free."

Purpose 5: Be Contagious
Sounds like a disease, right? I teach my cheerleaders that there is a difference between being just another thermometer and actually being thermostat.

Solo Act

We thought we were going to have several MS cheerleaders for the away game against Charter Oak-Ute, but only one showed up.

One paranoid theory was that the power-8th grader I mentioned before found out that a certain 7th grader was coming and decided that she didn't want to come.

According to Power-8th grader (who's Mom was the ride for at least 2 other 7th graders too), she had to go to her brother's 12th birthday party. And so it goes. 

Be that as it may, New &th grader's Mom still drove her to the game. I thanked her for coming but let her know that I wouldn't MAKE her cheer alone. She decided to wrangle up a couple of 6th grade girls who happened to be at the game and the three of them did a terrific job! I was really proud of them. The got the crowd to cheer with them, they did push-ups when we scored, they even did a few cartwheels. Loud and PROUD!