Well that's just wildly interesting. I had no idea I'd get a suffregette speech this morning. Nor that I'd learn how to make a woman a "nearly human thing".

I was amazed by how many of the platforms remain the same: Economic independence, reproductive choice, equal pay. And was amazed also about how far back the stereotype of men helpless in the house goes back. But I wonder how true it really was back then - I grew up all my life hearing stories of my Dad's Dad cooking, and he being the one to braid his daughter's hair. One of my Aunt's married a man who did all the cooking. Maybe they were above average, or maybe that stereotype wasn't true.

Reading this speech made me think of the Thin Man movie where Nick and Nora have a kid - there's a scene at the beginning where Nora (mind you one half of the detecting duo, and an equal partner) calls Nick and son into dinner, and there's a knowledge that while Nick can walk his son, bet on the races, drink like a fish and solve mysteries, Nora must do the same and order the house.

The raising feminist sons bit was really interesting, because I think that there's been a big movement to that. Now people worry about gender neutral toys and colors and clothes, a step or so past what this lady was talking about.

The movement I guess has at least been consistent, and I think also valuable at times. There's so much more choice for women today than even in my Mom's youth - when women mostly studied nursing or education at college. Today, all fields are open to us. Though I know many women who went to college for their Mrs. degrees, I know equally as many who went to get a great education and pursue their interests and passion.

I'm thinking right now of how shelter's for abused women came into being through grassroots efforts circa the 70s. Thinking of hearing how in the towns and cities, the women knew who among them was being hurt, and informal safe houses sprang up, regular homes of other women who would take the victims in - how the telephone chain would start up, and the women would reach into their resources to help their sister.

Which leads me to think that the women's liberation movement succeeds best when women act as women (a loaded concept, I know) rather than "militant", or "manly". Language provides this debate at it's reduced form in the b-word, which some women have tried to "reclaim" as a mark of equal acceptance with men. Shelter's happened not because women met in a boardroom, or formed a committee (though we're talented at both), but because they used their given sensitivity and nurturing nature to care for someone else. Men and women are different, and if we view the goals of the women's lib movement as being achieved when society can no longer tell the difference between men and women, then we are cheating ourselves and our daughters, not to mention our sons and brothers - terms for which there will be no use, if we are all the same.

Despite all of our choice, I think many women in my generation are confused about what to do with it. Some women want to be married and have babies and be a homemaker, but worry about being judged harshly by those women who chose their careers. Career women often feel judged by the homemakers for being somehow less of a woman. There's a lot of judgement on both sides. Unfortunately society's great answer to this was "you can have it all - career and family, and have to the exact extent you want it." In fact this was the theme of the commencement address at my college graduation. But no one can have it all. There are always choices, always sacrifices, something will be lost in the exchange - and that's okay, because the freedom to make the choice belongs to each of us. One woman's choice to be a homemaker doesn't take away from her identity as an intelligent woman, another's choice to work doesn't make her less of a woman.

The greater question here, and I think at the heart of much confusion for women my age is What does it mean to be a woman? I encountered the other day, a woman in a group of her mostly male colleagues who all worked in the field of researching military contracts. She swore profusely - equal to or exceeding her male co-workers, she was abrasive, and even the way she stood aped her male co-workers. The other women from that office had also adopted some of their counterparts traits, and from the coarse language to the coarse joking, they seemed not so much women, unique, interesting, beautiful and gifted, as people trying to fit in. It made me sad to feel they had given part of their identity up because of the idea that "we're just as good as the boys, in fact, we're one of the boys."

As for me, well I make a different choice. I like my pearls and my skirts, and I like my University Education, and I like my job. I don't get angry when the door is held open for me, but I'll make the choice about whether I walk through it or not. Perhaps too many women think that fighting for equality means being less of a woman, means sacrificing beauty and gentleness and other qualities, or that success in the fight means no longer being thought as a woman.

What does it mean to be a woman? It involves remembering that we weren't the afterthought of the creation story - the "Oh and by the way, here's Eve," we were the completion of it. There are women who are truly oppressed by patriarchal societies around the world, who are in fact dying because of them (consider the plight of a Muslim woman who lives at risk for breast cancer, but can't even talk about her breasts with a doctor). I am not oppressed, but I am bound as a human being, and a woman, to advocate for those who are.

Southern Gothic

I declare it. I declare this to be my favorite speech. Not because I like Huey P. Long though he embodies one of the last courthouse step politicians, nor because I agree with his economic policy which could be described as three sheets to the wind among other things, but because this speech is so deliciously Southern.

It's Faulkner and Flannery and Penn Warren all at once, it is their strangeness and lyricism. It's a speech that belongs to Boo Radley and to Atticus, though in a different way. And it is the utter madness of a people in a mouldering decay.

It's not hiding our demons, not hiding our crazy relatives in the attic, (no Dickinson, no Nathaniel Hawthorne). It's bringing them out on the front porch and saying "Take a look. Here they are - nutty, but bounden to us - and we to them."

Take note of the way Long forces those sacred economics, no more should the poor man say he shall get his reward in heaven, no it is his for the taking now, because (cue favorite Southern argument) God has ordained it, he has called us to the Barbecue.

Every man a king in two months! Hallelujah - the people must have thought it was the second coming. Why not to share wealth - t'aint fitting, just t'aint fitting.

Now each author has a slightly different take on the South. Seems there's hardly any grace in a Faulkner story, and it's difficult to find it in O'Connor despite her protestation that each of her grotesque characters come to a moment of it. But maybe part of that grace (in the liteary, everyday sense) is that we in the South are bound to recognize our triumphs and our successes, our heroes and our madmen. We deny neither for we know that in denying them, we deny ourselves.

Bad old Rockfeller. Bad old Morgan. Terrible FDR and Mr. Astor, didn't they know that the poor were only a part of them all, that denying them was denying their own selves. Why Gov. Long says it - under his plan everyone will be a millionaire, there'll be more than ever. In under two months.

How that must have sounded to a people close to the earth and poor. We'll remember it in ever widening ripples of our collective memory, though we're forgetting most of it. There's little South any more. The New South keeps Boo and Long locked away, but they're a part of us too - there's a little madness and maybe much greatness in each of us.

It’s been a blogging dry spell, travel plus visitors plus new roommates with a CAT! And work, have made blogging a little tough, but I’m back with thoughts re: Gerald Ford’s remarks on taking the oath of office.

We’ve heard Mr. Ford before, and here again I was surprised by his calmness and humble certitude.

It’s typically a joyous occasion – there are parades and glad waving, there a ball gowns and evening suits, and more parties than one can reasonable attend. There’s a sigh of relief, there’s pride in the race one.

But not this time, in language echoing Truman, Ford reminds us that this was not an office he sought, and moreover reminded that he was keenly aware that he was not elected by the people’s secret ballot. So he asks instead that the people “confirm him with their prayers.”

That entire paragraph is simply beautiful – a refreshing reminder that though he was not chosen by secret ballot, he’d neither gained the office through secret promises. That he owed nothing to any man, but much to his wife. Faithfulness, loyalty, sense of duty – all characteristics we desire in leaders.

Like Truman he pledges not to “shirk” the job.

In a speech that easily could have been made about the failings of his predecessors or his own belief in himself he chose to talk about the country, and that distinguishes him. “Our constitution works,” he says. Suddenly you realize that the scandal happed before we’d reached 200 years. Suddenly you realize what an extraordinary document and system we have. The republic is strong. It works.

And rather than ignore or denigrate Mr. Nixon, Ford asks prayers on his and his family’s behalf. It takes character of heart to call for prayers on someone who so violently breaks a trust.

Always pointing back to the document that works, and not to himself or his talents or how he can improve it, he pledges to serve the country the best he can and as he has pledged. That is perhaps what we should look for in our next president – not a man who is given to talking about his own talent and ability, nor one who is seeking change for the sake of change, just change (well what sort, and to what?), I’m not endorsing and not-endorsing here, just saying things must be weighed, but one who can say, “It works – this fragile system works, and I will uphold it.”

Not going lie, I was not prepared for this speech, rather I wasn't prepared to be a little humbled by this speech.
There I was yesterday, knowing it was by Cesar Chavez, and thinking "Not another organizing speech."
And so knowing I needed to listen yesterday, I got through my day, and then as though careening through the closing auditorium door, sat down to read the speech, ready to hurry through and onto the next thing.
Then I started to read. Sometimes you get to church just barely on time and thinking about 100 other things, and all the sudden it's like someone pours water over you and you have to be still, and you realize that you're hearing big Truths and that you've got to put your business aside.
So it was when I read this speech.
Especially when he started to speak of the church as a powerful institution - I don't think he meant powerful in our earthly terms of wealth and influence, I think he meant powerful in that it is the province of a king not of this earth.
He spoke of the protestants, and the corners of my heart turned up a little - I knew ones such as these he was talking about.
I love that he indicates that beyond the every-day-close-to-the-dirt needs of people, there's a spirtual need to be fed as well.
Daily bread, and daily word, both are neccessary.
And how gentle he is in admonishing the church to help the poor - he could be much harsher. Indeed, I have been much harsher. But he simply and eloquently says "We ask for Christ among us," which is precisely what the church should be.
I'm heartened that there is an increasing number of churches that I hear about who are embracing this exhortation, and are actively working in social justice areas. I attend a church whose love for the city, and committment to serving her are part of what drew me to make a home there.
Furthermore, I think that for me and others who grew up in an "evangelical" environ were exposed to the concept that the only "real" ministry was explicitly sharing the gospel complete with invitation, salvation and ushering into heaven.
Now there's nothing wrong with sharing that message, in fact it should be shared. But to confine the work of the gospel to that act alone, would create an awfully narrow field in which to work.
It's my belief from my time in Baltimore, from my work here, from reading about the work of Mother Theresa, from observing ministries like Church on the Lot in Dallas, and the Hinde Street Mission in London, that the gospel is much broader than words. That it begins with bread, and shelter, and continues in love to the rest of it.
It is absolutely about serving as "Christ with us," even unto the ones that society forgets about each day.

Good gracious, we've got a lot of ground to cover.

My goodness The Rebel Girl's speech was long, I found myself in the middle of it ready to acquit simply from fatigue of detail.

But here's the kicker - don't we all imagine, or maybe just the nerdy ones who think about things like "What was the Red Scare like?" that communists are people with sharp teeth and Nosferatu like features who are sliking rodent like along our baseboards spreading their subversive message.

Wait though, here's a bonafide American born Rebel Girl - she's traveled the country, she's seen and talked with people the workers, she's read, one assumes, both the constitution and the Bill of Rights (she wanted to be a constitutional lawyer). She's committed to the equality of all, and no stranger to oppression (recall No Irish need apply). And what's more she thinks she's a good American, undoubtedly she would feel that not working with the Communist Party would make her a bad American.

I quite frankly don't know enough about the American Communist Party to argue the merits of her opening statement. But she does kind of sound like a woman you could sit down with, on maybe a cold blustery day in a greasy spoon diner over a cup of coffee and talk with. Anyone who got read Marx as bedtime fare would be worth listening to for awhile just for the sake of interest and variety.

She's only been advocating for a peaceful, happy world. It lifts one really to read the following: Our country is a rich and beautiful country, fully capable of producing plenty for all, educating its youth and caring for its aged.

I've heard presidents and politicians say the same.

Malaise
This speech gives it to me. No wonder Reagan won in a landslide - his optimisim must have knocked all this doom and gloom to pieces.
I found this speech irrelavent, given the fact that we're now in another "energy crisis" and canidates are still talking about dependence on foreign oils.
Now, I can imagine this speech being given on a Sunday night service by a guest preacher in late, dusty summer at a Southern Baptist church - attendance is down, families on vacation, you just need someone to stand in the pulpit. And then perhaps the more redeeming ideas in this speech - that maybe freedom wasn't scrapping for some small advantage over others, would stand out more.
The speech reaches a good moment when he says that any act of energy conservation is an act of patriotism. Well, I don't know about that, but it is saving Bobby McGee and I money, and it is more earth friendly.
I'm trying to find a bright spot here.
But as it is, it's a speech given LIVE from the OVAL OFFICE, and I expect something more enobling then finger wagging there. When it comes time for a leader to seek change in those led, it is perhaps most helpful to call on their better natures, which of course must shame and over shadow their crueler selfs. To lead with, "You all a mess" just doesn't make me want to listen more, or follow a rather worrying school-marmish figure.
There are other examples of times when the leader has called upon the people to sacrifice, and I'm eager to hear the speeches of FDR who led in a crisis much greater than Carter's.
Had Henry the V made a speech (albeit to Shakespeare's imagining) that said, "I will do my best, but I will not do it alone," would anyone have bled on the fields of Agincourt? Not a chance. He would have been met with a chorus of "have at its." No, King Henry called upon those better angels,
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"
He says those not in the fight shall hold themselves accursed.
Those better angels charm the rough nature and fear of what lies before.
The best leaders don't have to pull the people with them, saying sulkily, "I will not do it alone."
Momma - I'm interested for your thoughts, mine have been pretty scattershot here. I do apologize that you've had to sit through this speech twice, as I am sure you probably watched it the first time around. Maybe you can tell me why it's a good speech?

"The evil men do lives after them. The good that men do is oft interred with their bones."
I don't know very much about Malcolm X, though I just read the wikipedia entry on him.
I looked for some analysis of this speech, to see why on earth it might have been included, but came up empty.
It is a speech filled with beliefs contrary to my own. It is a speech that promotes divisiveness and hate. It is a speech that attacks rather than builds up. It is a speech that stands in marked contrast to the one that heads this list, and a speech that explains a man's ideas, complains about a situation, but refrains from offering any real solution.
How interesting that it follows President Clinton's speech where he implores us to speak against hate, to speak against violence.
I appreciate the right to free speech, and would not trade it for a society in which speeches like this were prohibited. But an overlooked gift of free speech is that we can choose what speech to celebrate and remember, and what to close the book on.
An eye for an eye is perhaps the easiest thing to understand - even stephen, equal recompense. It is easiest to reach for violence - it is quick. But it takes true strength of character and real nobility to see a way beyond that - a way of forgiveness, or reaching out with an open hand, and yes, a turning of the other cheek.
There are many rabbit trails to chase in this speech, but chasing them would lend a validity to hateful words.
Suffice to say this, I am more than thankful that the speech that heads this list is one that encourages everyone to put aside what divides.
And also this...tonight as a repair man installed a new battery in my car at the side of the road (don't worry Mom and Dad, everything's fine). A car slowed alongside and the driver, who was a black man, said very gently, "It happens."
"I know," I said. "The battery died." I shrugged helplessly with my upturned hands.
And we paused, and he looked on me with compassion, and then the light changed and he nodded very slowly and said, "I wish you the very best."
And I know he meant it. That is what I will remember of this day - the kind speech of that man, rather than the divisive language of another.

BTW - Above is Bobby McGee.

I cheated. Just a little bit. After I listened to this speech, I listened to Reagan's speech after the Challenger - I wanted to know what differed, why the speeches were ranked in such different places.
A couple of things stood out, and I tried to remember the national tragedies that have fallen during my life time and what the response has been.
I remember the Challenger.
I remember much more clearly Oklahoma City.
Sept. 11.
The bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.
The tone of Clinton's speech is like it's not a shared tragedy - that we grieve with you, but we recognize it as an Oklahoma tragedy, not a national one. I tried to remember if that was the sentiment at the time, but how much can a fifth grader know?
There were moving moments in the speech, and you can tell that it means much to the people there by the looks on their faces behind him and the response of the crowd. What particularly stands out is when he quotes Gov. Keating in "Come to Oklahoma."
On the whole, the speech seemed given to the platitude, and platitudes because they lack specificity are generally not moving.
Where the speech is strongest is where we are implored to "talk against it." And where he speaks of planting the tree in the memory of the children, but even here there's a drawn line between Olkahoman and American.
A eulogy might be the most difficult type of speech to write or give, and though the speech has weaknesses it does serveit's purpose.

Rousing could not apply to today's speech.
I was nonplussed by it. I'll allow the benefit of the doubt to say I would have been more moved by hearing it.
Though I haven't researched it, I think that many of the things in the ammendment have come to pass. I noted with interest that she calls for equality in no longer permitting schools to segregate by sex, when now there is a movement in the public schools to do just that.
I was surprised that after the horror of the draft in Vietnam, she would call to sign women up with the selective service.
Yes, I think equal pay for equal work is right - and I think that women still earn less then their male counterparts.
But listening to this speech I couldn't help, but think that we've just come through a primary campaign where a woman was one of leading figures, and one of the most powerful senators, or that we currently have a woman serving as speaker of the house. A woman Secretary of State, a woman Secretary of Education, women governors who are being considered for vice-president. All of which happened without the Equal Rights Ammendment.
Out of 100 speeches, you can't expect to like 'em all.

1987 - I was four, and I knew Ronald Reagan was President.
It's a shame that people my age weren't made to study great speeches in school, or made to study more the important events that happened in our own lives.
I do remember the Berlin Wall coming down, and young as I was, it was impossible not to see the fervor and passion of that moment.
And then suddenly there was no more U.S.S.R. No more communism, no more great enemy to oppose.
It would be different, I imagine, for someone who had grown up doing duck and cover drills. Today's speech must have been the long culmination of that yearning from freedom, of that desire to thwart communism, of the end of the fear of the bomb.
Think, think of the people in the crowd that day - who were they? There were children, yes. And I hope there were older people that would have been like my parent's friends Rosa and Jope - who had experienced the war in terrible ways. I hope there were others, vetrans of the Weimarcht, but of course they would have only fought on the Eastern front. Who were the people that day who waved American and German flags and roared loudly enough for Mr. Gorbachev to hear President Reagan's invitation. Is there today someone in Berlin who is looking at someone my age and saying, "You know, I was there that day - that day when he said, 'Open this gate, tear down this wall.' "
It's enobling - the great battles always are - no there's no glory in war, nor should it be romanticized - but there are things worth battling, and things for which it is right to battle. It lifts the spirit to fight for a cause that is greater and broader than oneself.
But what is my generations cause, to what are we called to? It is murky to me - there seems no unifying force, and no call to reach beyond ourselves. We were not a generation taught that sacrifice for others is good, we were the generation that was told we could be anything, do anything, have anything, have it all. There's little nobility in that - only grabbing for what you think you ought to have, and a blubbery sense of entitlement.
You can't create moments like today's speech out of whole cloth - it was right that Germany said no to Mr. Obama's idea to speak there. A request that came not out of a long, hard fight, but out of perhaps, a blubbery sense of entitlement.
What will be the great fight of my generation?
There are those in my circle of friends who don't get my passion for the Olympics - listen to this speech and then you will. The games are and should be about so much more than who breaks the tape. For President Reagan, it was about the ability of one moment to transcend that impenatrable iron curtain and unite briefly the whole world in common purpose. Higher, faster, stronger indeed.
And then we come to the end of his speech - where he speaks about the television tower, which I read got nicknamed the Pope's revenge, because of the shadow of the cross it made. Reagan invokes the image as a symbol of love that cannot be surpressed by the strongest of the strong arms.
It's love, Reagan says, that makes them stay in a city that's difficult to live in.
Isn't that what makes any of us stay, isn't love always what gives us the courage to go farther than we think we can. Isn't it love that refines our character, that polishes and shines to a gleam our roughest edges.
Of course it is.

Today's speech was different - the voice not of a leader, but of a witness to the unimaginable suffering of the concentration camp.

What his speech called to mind to me were the words of a minister I met in London who worked with the homeless at the Hinde Street Mission. He said that the homeless were stripped of their humanity - passersby did not look at them, or speak to them, or acknowledge in any way the commonality of humaness between them. And after years of that indifference, the homeless no longer knew human company.

I was struck by the very meanness of the act of averting one's eyes from a fellow, thereby ignoring him and as Wiesel puts it, making his life worthless.

I remember in particular, that day at the Hinde Street Mission, the way one lady's bright, blue eyes lit up when the the Minister came towards her with a kind word. She reached out her hands to him, he recognized her as a sister.

There are a thousand ways that we all practice indifference to our neighbor each day. It is complicated and messy to be in community with people, it is tiresome to share burdens and to give of ourselves. And yet, where would we be without the kindness someone has shown us along the way? And where will we be, when experiencing our own troubles, we look outside ourselves for help? So we lift up our eyes from where we averted them, we look up, and we choose to say, "Good Morning." We must choose not to ignore.

The lawyer makes his case
Although I was not there and can't imagine the time, I do recall that when I read "All the Presidents' Men" I was shocked and apalled. I kept asking my parents what it was like, if it really happened that way, was everyone outraged.

My most lasting impression of Ford is the image of him falling down the steps of Air Force One. I know he was a lawyer, from Michigan, and played football for the University. Maybe the balance of one's time in office can be measured in one brave act, and so perhaps Ford can rightly be remembered as a brave man, who sought to do right in a situation the country had never faced before.

He makes his case doesn't he? He doesn't just explain why he is pardoning Nixon, but he convinces you that you should go along too. There are many compelling lines, that procrastination would be weak and dangerous, that one should be troubled and feel compassion toward Nixon, that not as president, but as a man Ford would be judged without mercy should he fail to give it.

And of course the most compelling argument, that to proceed down a path of litigation would reignite ugly passions and weaken American credibility around the world. Keep in mind that after Vietnam this credibility may have already been tenuous.

Maybe there are times when God grants those in leadership a special clarity of vision and foresight, and extra measure to guide their decisions. Ford says that an American president who had resigned was in danger of being cruelly persecuted out of a sense of meted out justice. I think this a common urge in man - to desire excessive punishment for those who should have known better, and who betray our trust mightily. In punishing Nixon, could the nation have avoided it's own part in the tragedy, always knowing that he had been elected of the people? Surely that recriminating thought would not have been healthy for the country.

The legacy of Ford's pardon is that the Nixon I remember from the news and commentary, indeed the Nixon who is still invoked, is the one who removed us from Vietnam, the one who made diplomatic envoys to China -a action widely hailed as good diplomacy. Had the pardon not occured, we would never have been allowed by our own conscience to remember what might have been good in Nixon's administration.

Today there is a bent to extremism, one is good or bad, and if one is bad one must always be bad. What would Nancy Grace have made of Nixon? Or of Ford's pardon? How would Geraldo have covered it? There is no grace in our society, no mercy know for the fallen. How heartening to know that there was a time not long ago when a man reminded us that the two existed, and that the extension of it from one to another helped both the giver and the recipient. I remember well that my Dad told me once that he supposed there was good and bad in all of us, and I have remembered that those qualities co-exist and complicate matters. I have found that it is grace and mercy which allows one to move forward whichever end of the situation one is found.

And then there is the matter of God. Just as Ford speaks of his role as president, and his conscience as a man. I think he also speaks of two Gods - the Creator of inalienable rights found in the Declaration of Independence, the Deity popularly invoked during the philosophy of that time, but also the God that Ford meets at church, the God of mercy and of justice and of judgement.

I draw the distinction because in our time we are intensely concerned with the separation of church and state, and with the ferreting out of what the mention of God might mean about a person's belief. There is a mistaken tendency to believe that a mention of God is the equivalent of propagating a Christian theocracy, and proselytizing the masses. This tendency proves one to be ignorant of American history and rhetorical tradition. I do not think that every President who has uttered the word "God" has meant by that a faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of one's sins and the salvation of one's soul.

The Creator Deity invoked in our founding documents should neither embolden those zealots who would marry government and religion, nor frighten those citizens who choose a different faith and creed. Surely if the founders had meant the God to which Christianity is ascribed, they would have perceived that it would have endangered the religious freedom of the citizens, and the right to free speech, not to mention the fact that they probably would not have been as vague as Creator in His official description.

I do not know the thinking behind including the Creator in the documents. I suspect that it was to remind Americans that there is a purpose greater than our own self interest, I suspect it was to give a particular significance and weight to the documents of a mewling babe of a nation, to acknowledge the unique and spectacular embarcation of a nation such as the world had never known. And perhaps even at some level, even in the hearts of our most doubtful and uncertain founding Fathers, a desire to get off on the right foot with the Creator whoever he might be.

The documents do not, however, mention God's mercy, or His ability to be met in church, or the accountability which all men have to Him. When Ford says "we are a nation under God" - can you imagine the maelstorm that would be today, what would Christopher Hitchens write? - no thinking person would imagine by that he meant we were all to go to church and confess Christ. When Ford says that he is invoking rhetorical tradition, and imploring America to remember something greater than its immediate desires to yell for the tar and feathers.

But when he talks about himself as a man before God diligently searching out his conscience, when he mentions that he will be judged without mercy should he fail to grant it, any moderately literate person is able to recognize the Christian tradition and theology. How wise of Ford to so delicately separate the God of a President and the God of a man.

Before someone leaves an angry comment calling me a heretic, let me affirm that I do believe that some of the founding Fathers were Christ-professing men, Christian. I believe that this nation has had presidents who in their great hour of need called upon the God of mercy and justice, rather than the shadowy, absent and vague Creator of American rhetoric. But we are a society ignorant of sublties, for us it must always be one way or the other.

How good to be reminded by the speech today that things are more complicated than one way or the other. To be reminded that in our country citizens are free to practice their creed without fear of persecution. To be reminded by our rhetorical tradition that there is an end beyond ourselves, a greater call than our individual pursuit of happiness - the sustaining of our democracy and our freedoms therein.

No audio of the speech today, so the merits must be weighed on the sense of the words and sentiments.
In my earliest knowledge of Wilson, I remember feeling badly that the man had worked so diligently on the League only to be thwarted by his homeland in its failure to ratify the document, later this feeling of sympathy gave way to a sense that Wilson must have been out of touch with the country - and thus not a very good president. Still, might not a president be called upon to set aside the immediate desires of his country in order to choose a course that will better benefit them in the long run.

The world had just come through the horror of trench warfare - an entire generation lost. It is tempting to muse what might have happened had the world really thrown it's weight behind the League of Nations, particularly when in the penultimate paragraph he speaks of a power using land for it's European purposes. He is obviously talking about colonialism, but one's mind quickly jumps to Hitler's lebensraum. Would that progression have been stopped had the world truly formed a league of peace, willing to get involved in the matters because the concord of the world was at stake? When Wilson called the document a guranty against things which nearly brought civilization to ruin, could he even have imagined the destruction of the atom bomb or the fear of MAD?

Who knows? It's a fruitless question, and the answer is probably not. I don't think any country was willing to sacrifice its interests for the sake of the league of peace - how much use could it be if you'd already fought the war to end all wars. The situation reminds that some sacrifice is required in order to reach larger purposes. This lesson however, seems perpetually hard to learn. Even as the developed nations are calling for alternatives fuels and reduced emissions, India is seeking to develop a national car affordable for its citizens. The argument is put in print that those nations think they should have the same opportunity as their developed cousins - still all humans know that it's best to learn from the mistakes of others if you can, sometimes that means giving up what we want to gain what is better.

What else could Wilson have imagined? Coule he have thought that there would come a day when things would be instantly publishable?

We may not always get it right, but surely it's something if we keep trying to improve. The league of nations is not an obsolete idea, nor the United Nations an antiquated body if we choose for them not to be. Who can really argue with a league dedicated to the peace of the world?

Wilson's optimism shines through in his speech, and as in previous speeches there has been a call to become something better and more noble than what we are currently - and I think this is what endures in these speeches, the challenge to become what we believe we could be.

Lady Bird wore black:
His mouth is drawn tight, the chamber subdued and in dark clothing, it is 5 days past Kennedy's assination, and what on earth can anyone say?

This speech is both a mourning and call. It is perhaps impossible to listen to in the same trust of government that accompanied that time before Vietnam, and Watergate and all the rest of it. It is difficult to hear Johnson speak of peace while knowing that a war that would rend the American fabric was brewing in Asia.

But on that day, it was still in the future, and the nation had suffered a "profound shock."

While hearing Johnson speak of what would later become his sweeping social reforms, it begs of the question of how much of that is Kennedy's own dream, and how much Johnson. I've read in an article from a Johnson aide, that those were more his issues than his predeccesor's.

It is clear that he is more comfortable a member of the senate fraternity, than burdened with the presidency. And he is most compelling when he acknowledges that in the office he did not seek, and which was thrust upon him by cruel fate, he is in need of the help of all Americans.

Some of what he said is much like what President Bush has said - that we will be loyal to our friends, but foes to those who would impose the tyranny of terror.

Once he reaches the phrase "Let us continue," the speech shifts in tone to a call to action.

From accent to sentiment he is unmistakeably Texan - there is no doubt in my mind that when he utters the phrase "I promise..." he means it to his very core. His name is his word, he is loyal to allies and friends, earnest in knowing and acting right - these are creeds that I also know to my very core and it is my own knowledge that recognizes it in him. In the Texas where I was young, we wore our boots and waved our flags, learning early that the word Texas meant friend, learning early that to betray a friend was an unimaginable act, that to promise something was to put your name and honor on the line. Though in our post-Vietnam country, it is hard to hear or hold these things without seeming or being judged naive, and I don't know how many people still do.

His call for all Americans to respect and understand one another, his call to end the teaching and preaching of hate and violence, his call to turn from fanatics and bigots and other poisoners remains inspiring and lifting today.

And though he may have felt more comfortable on the other side of the speakers podium, when he invokes Lincoln, calling the body to "highly resolve," that Kennedy "shall not have lived or died in vain," it is clear that he is mantling the Presidency - having given his word, what else could he do?

"Have you no sense of deceny"
Who, I asked, was Joseph N. Welch? No doubt, my mother knew, as now do I.
As chief counsel for the Army during the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, Welch went toe to toe with Joe McCarthy in a manner that censured the Senator for his reckless cruelty, yet sacrificed none of Welch's own dignity.

The hearings were televised over about 188 hours, and it was seeing McCarthy in his slouching infamy that in part caused him a fall from popularity.

It is the word "infamous" that comes to mind while watching McCarthy spitefully impugn the professional character of a young lawyer not even present at the hearings out of obvious dislike and disrespect for Welch, an older partner in the young man's firm. McCarthy is avenging the perceieved baiting of his assistant counsel Cohn by Welch. And it is clear he expects to embarrass Welch by revealing that the young man belonged to an association linked with Communism.

Ah, but Welch, calm in his fury, recognizes McCarthy for what he is - a spiteful, cruel man. He already knows of the association of the young man. Rather than back pedal and defend himself or his firm in the face of the powerful senator, Welch sticks vocieferously to the young man, saying he will continue to be at the firm.

Although McCarthy has more airtime, it is Welch that we remember for so clearly showing up McCarthy's lack of decency in attacking someone who cannot defend themselves. With no histrionics, with no table pounding, with no shouting, but in contained tone and well chosen words, in speaking simple truth Welch shows himself a cooler head, and wiser and better man than the junior senator bullying and badgering those around him.

Of note is that, one assumes, this remarks are from the cuff - and yet from the cuff, we have words that are long remembered - that is an impressive accomplishment.

Of other note is perhaps the larger lesson that when you are in the right, when you speak from a place of integrity and truth, the weight of those things alone are enough to win the day. So the table pounding, arm waving and shouting those who feel themselves right often engage in is nothing but a red herring meant to distract from what is lacking in their arguments.

Truth, as they say, will out

Best Laid Plans:
My mother sent me this link to the "100 Great Speeches" - there are some absences, notably Bryan's "Cross of Gold," as well as one of Teddy Roosevelt's whose title escapes me.

At a time when much is being said of inspiration in speeches, and in a time where it would seem great futures are being decided, I have chosen to add to my morning routine a speech a day from 100 to 1.

Today began the forward march with Eleanor Roosevelt's address to the 1948 assembly of the United Nations calling for the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

She is in this speech the voice of her country, as well as a clarion call to other member states. She firmly, but without rancor, denounces the Soviet Union's ammendments which would "change the fundamental character of the document."

I found of note her quotation of Canadian Gladstone Murray saying:
The central fact is that man is fundamentally a moral being, that the light we have is imperfect does not matter so long as we are always trying to improve it … we are equal in sharing the moral freedom that distinguishes us as men. Man’s status makes each individual an end in himself. No man is by nature simply the servant of the state or of another man … the ideal and fact of freedom -- and not technology -- are the true distinguishing marks of our civilization.

Also noteworthy was her willingness to give the last word to someone else, saying that she knew no better call to action than the words of Secretary Marshall, and therein reiterated his words calling for the adoption of the document. No commentary of her own followed, which marks the speech as selfless and the speaker as not seeking her own aggrandizement.

That the document has hardly become a standard for nations, or a modern magna carta, as she hopes in the speech, diminishes neither the quality nor the reason of her remarks. We must judge the speech in the context of it's time and place, and so we judge that she spoke well of herself, her country and the body of the United Nations.

Dear Mama and Daddy,

It’s high summer and I’ve been reminded by a good man that it’s been ages since I blogged.

I bought a bicycle. And have been biking to work. She’s a blue beauty with more than one speed. And this shows up one of the fundamental differences between the old roommate, who also has been biking to work, and me.

Everyday the roommate bikes the 2 miles to her work thinking “I’m saving the earth, I’m green and urban chic.” Everyday I bike the 3 miles to work thinking “Ha,ha gas at over $4 a gallon, stuff it.” And the ka-ching of my poor bank account roughly finds the rhythm of my pedals changing gears.

Of course the blue beauty needed a name and on a bike ride this week, I came upon the perfect one somewhere between Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Avenues. What’s a girl from Texas who cut her teeth on Carole King, Joan Baez and Janis Joplin supposed to name her bike?

What else, but Bobby McGee. Me and Bobby McGee.

I figured you’d approve.

Lots of Love,
Elizabeth

Gentle readers,
I don’t usually shoot blogs from the hip, which is probably why I’ve amassed the small number of 191 posts since 2003. I like to think, write and not ramble, want to offer tidy sentences that always wrap up like bright ribbons at the end

But on this the 29th day of the fourth month of 2008, I offer you a ramble. I’m a quarter of a century, folks, I’ve earned a good ramble haven’t I? And if you’ll ramble with me, I’ll promise at least one prettily turned phrase, I am after all a lover of language, of life, and as Blythe knows a Strongbow cider and the earthy atmospheres of pubs, or honky-tonks, or the pleasant café I sit in at this very moment in my new neighborhood.

Readers, the Big Bear Café offers you a large and furry hug, a gift of warmth. Take it kindly.

In faith, folks, I have a merry heart that keeps ever on the windy side of care. I’ve always tried to keep my face to the wind. And the wind that’s blowing lately is awfully good.

It is so good that I wish to use exclamation points! Several!!! As decoration! And for emphas!s in expressing excitement! And emotion!

Typically, I hate those baseball bats of expression, and wish to bludgeon those who use them excessively. But a 25th birthday seems appropriate to their winsome interjections of Wow! And Neat-o!

Here are some just for fun:

!!! !! !!!!!!!! !

Consider them party favors!

For today, I am remembering those near and dear to me, as I try do on my birthdays, and I’m raising currently my cup of coffee, and later my glass of wine, to you.

It’s so easy in this age of technology to isolate oneself behind the warm blue glow of a cell phone, or the disturbing appendages of ear-bud headphones, to be tethered at the hip to the umbilical cord of e-mail, and constant communication.

But the song sounds better if you share it. Take the ear bud out of your ear, wipe it gently on your shirt: offer it to a stranger, say, “I’d like to share this.” Don’t be alarmed if they run away, as any sane person would if offered something with a whisper of ear wax on it, just offer it to the next person, and to the one after that. Don’t you feel better already?

I know someone who got a picnic basket as a Christmas gift. And isn’t that a brilliant gift, a gift that says, “Go share a meal with someone, go out and enjoy the day, and share it. Don’t hideaway behind a book, or screen…Life’s waiting to be lived, and perhaps also loved.”

Life’s a together type of thing. This goes against the terrific individuality and rugged, aloneness of the American character.

I walked across the street the other day and met some of my new neighbors. They shared their jump rope with me. I tried to learn how to jump double-dutch. They turned and sang “Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around.” The rope flew over our heads, and under our feet, faster till the only sound was its click on the pavement, the slap of our shoes and finally a roaring laughter.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I drove out of Baltimore for good last Saturday at about 3 pm. I didn’t look back. I haven’t looked back. It was a time of searing trial, but I was not overcome, and now my feet are standing in a cooler place. Near more quiet waters.

King David, they say danced. And some people were embarrassed by it. But I’m of a kindred spirit. I’m taking off my shoes, walking barefoot in the grass, throwing my arms up, and kicking up my heels. Of course David danced, sometimes that’s the best way to say “thank you,” for what you’ve got.

I’m 25 today.

I am saying “Thank you.”

I’ve always loved old people, because I’m jealous of all that life they’ve lived.

(My computer battery’s on its last leg, can I beat the clock here? Fly fingers and thoughts!)

!!

Someday, I hope I’ll have a royal crown of gleaming white hair, like my grandmother’s carried, for they had rich lives, and that is what I want.

I’ll grab life by my teeth, and romp around with it, give a good shake. And when my head, if the Lord grants me that many years, is crowned with those fly-away whisps of white, I hope I will still be dancing barefoot and saying “thank you.”

I hope you will too.

I made a friend of mine laugh once on my birthday.

“Happy birthday,” he said.
“Happy birthday to you,” I replied.
“It’s not my birthday,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “But happy birthday anway.”

Things are better when they’re shared. That’s why Oreos are made to take apart and hand to a friend, why twinkies come in packs of two, why it takes two to tango, and two-step and a whole handful for a conga line.

So happy birthday, on this the 29th day of the fourth month of the year 2008. The world’s still turning under our dancing feet.

Happy birthday to you.

I have never been camping.

I have only been skiing once.

What am I doing this week? Thanks for asking. I’m skiing! And camping!

Going to REI to pick up warm socks and a violently purple pair of long underwear, was like embarking on an anthropological experiment. Who were these people in quick-dry shorts, hiking shoes and vests? Who were these children trying on hiking shoes? Why is that man running around the store?

But the gizmos, the gadgets, they enticed. The sleek headlamps, the enormous kayak with bag, the coils of climbing rope, the ready-to-eat lasagna in a bag – someone could spend a lifetime creating excuses to obtain these particularly useful things.

Fortunately, the outdoor-active lifestyle seems cost prohibitive to poor folk like me who work for non-profits. And the idea that I will not have to think of a reason to buy a camp stove is, frankly, a relief. I left the store with my socks, and underwear, and a coffee mug, which was admittedly an impulse buy.

There are many things I’m sure about in life. For example: I love the symphony, I believe in buying nice toilet paper, and I am not meant for the wilderness.

But in the name of trying new things, in the spirit of adventure, I pack my bag and pray that I will not in fact have my own Into the Wild, or Grizzly Man experience.

Of course, actually getting to the wilderness implies that I will survive my day of schussing down the slopes. Skiing, for those of you who may not know, involves putting on impossibly tight boots that render your ankles immobile, and then strapping large planks to your feet. Once this accomplished, two skinny poles are picked up for an indeterminate purpose. Balance? Stability? Increase of arm-flailing capability? After waddling to a moving bench, there is the long ride up a mountain, which is high and from which the only way down is on skis.

Unlike Tom Cruise, I have never felt “the need-the need for speed.” Unfortunately, that seems to be what skiing is about. My inner-speed is roughly set to tubing down the Guadalupe, anything that goes slowly enough to drink a beer has to be a good activity.

I know a woman for whom going skiing means taking a fat book to the lodge and sitting in front of the fire. This seems perfect. But at 24, I think I’m still obligated to give it the old, college try. Have I mentioned that when I fall at skiing, I find it nearly impossible to get up? I’m like a turtle on its back. Left there without aid it’s likely I would starve to death because of the inability to change my position.

So let's hope I stay upright on those unwieldy skiis, maybe my poles will help.

Here's March, roaring in like a lion..
Spring's on the way, and everything's right with the world.

I can see the Baltimore Harbor out my window. And I never thought about the word harbor much before I spent several Saturday mornings with a cup of coffee contemplating the view outside. Harbor, a place of safety from the sea's vicissitudes.

My Dad frequently asks me if my ship has coming in yet. To which a year ago I said, "It's not coming for another year," or "The only ship I'm interested in is the one that's going back to Texas."

I didn't know, truth be told, what the ship would look like. A little while ago I wrote that I was in need of a rebirth of wonder, and related also that I'd finally seen Baltimore as a beauty. Maybe those two things are unrelated, and maybe a dog didn't really wink at me in the elevator last Friday, and maybe my noticing a sign that said "Good Luck" was a funny coincidence. But this is what the Baltimore Harbor looked like from my window the day my ship came in, flying every sail and ringing every bell.

I've taken a job that will lead my feet out of this city. I'll no longer be neighbors with Poe's remains, I'll not go to sleep by the blue light of the Bromo Seltzer Clock Tower, nor watch the fireworks at Camden Yards. In just a short while, I'll never have to throw myself on Highway 40 West to drive to Edmonson Village where the children are waiting for teachers and food and love, and their own rebirth of wonder.

I know there will be more to say, eventually. And that as always it will be complex. But for now, I'll say this: When I first got to Baltimore, I dreamed of sleep. I wrote to friends and told them I wanted to visit them and just sleep. I dreamed of deep, dreamless, delicious sleep, that was so absent amid the work, and the overwhelming nature of it.

Yesterday, after telling my principal that I was leaving soon, I came home and slept the sleep of angels, so good that it nearly tasted crisp and cool. I'll sleep it again tonight, and I'm sure the night after that. And when I wake, I'll be, in some form or fashion, headed home.

I've heard it said that I haven't blogged in a while.
There are a thousand and 1 excuses - I will now list all of them:
1. It is winter and my fingers are too numb to type.
2. Spending vast amounts of time with 10 year olds has rendered me incapable of adult thought.
3. The hamster that runs on the wheel that generates power for my computer died.
4. My double life of teacher/super hero leaves no time to write - where's my cape?
5. I've been spending free time analyzing Joni Mitchell lyrics - "Oh Canada," indeed.

...

Enough? Didn't think I'd really write 1001 things...that would be a James Joyce move, and that ain't how I roll.

I read a poem once by Ferlinghetti, and it's refrain was "I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder."
That line lodged itself in my brain today like some well marked arrow shot from the bow of a better angel. I am in desprate need of a rebirth of wonder.

And still in all, I've got great peace in my heart and gratitude as well - I start my day with thanks in my heart, and close my eyes the same. There's peace in the day's labor, though the labor be not peaceful, but more like one of Turner's scrambled-egg seascapes.

I complained once about a lack of inspiration, that perennial malady of every would-be artist. A friend said that when there is a lack, you must make your own.

And lately, I've come to think that the core of your heart is truly what determines your reactions - there's not a new idea under the sun I know. But I've been carrying my peace with me, and that makes up for that lacking wonder in the dirty, dangerous, deviled hallways of my school.

...

There's no love lost between me and Baltimore. But last week I came over a hill to see the city bathed in the rainwashed sunlight that rides in on the storm's coattails. It made me catch my breath, as beauty should, and I looked for the longest time at the light that looked so fine and clean. It made Baltimore, ancient Southern belle with drooping skirts she may be, look new and young.

It was the light she stood in that made her beautiful.

Ain't it true for all of us. It's the light we stand under that gives definition to our features, that softens our edges, or deepens the shadows within us. It's the light we stand in that gives us our shape.

There's wonder enough in that thought to carry me through winter yet.

Well, Happy New Year to all. The year slipped in on nascent wings, as it always does, and to the clatter of pie pans from the front stoop and the barking of an old gray dog. And here we are in winter, but lo, my heart is happy for spring is on the way.

Here is typically the paragraph where I relate my concluding thoughts on 2007, and impart to you my hopes and dreams for 2008. But I'm passing on that delicious opportunity in favor of simply moving on. Who has time to dredge up the past when the future is so brightly inviting? Not I.

The old noggin's a jumble of thoughts tonight, so it's hard to know what will keep and endure and what will blow away like chaff, gentle reader. For example, it seems important to mention that according to anonymous sources the water in New York is what makes the bagels taste so damn good. It reminded me of hearing of English beers brewed with water from the Thames, and now the two facts are inexorably linked in my head. Chalk up one for useless knowledge.

Harder to relate, and yet probably more worthwhile is to tell of visiting the footprints of the World Trade Center in New York. And yet there's been so much said about it already, seems right to let it rest.

I've been reading the World War II columns of Ernie Pyle of late. I had an interesting conversation the other day in which the idea of "too young" came up. I am not a fan of the those words, feeling that my generation's managed to extend our adolescent dependence as far as we can go - myself included. After all, were we living in the early 19th century, at 25 years old we'd be past middle aged - "too young" looks different from that perspective. So I tried to think of all the things one could be too young to be or do.
I've known one person who was too young to get married, but that was by virtue of maturity and choice, not years.
Known folks too young to drive. Or be on their own. Or do any of the reckless things adults do. Still seems more to do with mentality then with age.
But I kept thinking about Ernie Pyle tramping through North Africa, and thought of old classmates of mine who have been to Iraq and home again. And that was the one "too young" I couldn't argue with. I think soldiers of all ages, will probably always be too young to go off to war, their husbands and wives and children always too young to lose them. A soldier is always too young to die.

It's 2008, this new born year is mewling at our doorsteps. We are still at war. There's a empty patch of skyline in New York. The kids in Baltimore and the kids in the Rio Grande Valley are still hungry and in need of more than what teachers can give. Gas is high and so is milk. There seems to be a coming return of the Cold War complete with nukes, and we've no Harry Truman with us now.

But I've got this crazy kindle of hope in my chest - that things are going to change and change for the better. We really haven't got a choice about the matter, if we let the status quo remain than we're in for an apocolypse of our own making. It's no false hope either, this crazy little flame in my chest, I think that just as we humans can destroy ourselves, that we can also figure a way to rebuild.

The fact of the matter is that the responsibility for change lies not in the marble halls of congress, nor in the house on Pennsylvania Avenue. Change lies not in the halls of Justice, or the cubicles of the State Department, or the angled corners of the Pentagon. Change, and the capacity for it lies in our own hearts: We the people must call for it, must demand it. We the people must be the change we wish to see in this country and this world.

So Happy 2008. Heads up, friends, to the rising sun. Stand unafraid and tall. Fear not. Go well. Stay well. And hope always.

Dear Mama and Daddy,
I talked with the birthday girl earlier this evening - what a pretty picture of her and Daddy and Jimmy and Nancy out to dinner with candles in their desert bowls. She reported that she thinks she'll only feel older when she sees a change in the mirror, and that she feels a lot wiser than she did on her ninth birthday, citing the fact that she knew the names and capitols of 36 states, as well as their nicknames, year of induction and abbreviation. Maybe before her 11th birthday she'll learn the other 14.
Today was the Christmas program at school - my second grade chess player performed "Jingle Bell Rock" with his class. In one section all the kids had to dance. He was very enthusiastic, jiving well until he tripped off the step. His lip trembled for a second, his enthusiasm dimmed, but he finished the song with a big grin. I told him he was the best one up there, and he was.
The fourth grade was positively angelic, I credit it this to the fact that some of them brought down books to read. Subversive, yet highly effective.
Folks, I'm ready to be home, ready to see something besides endless concrete and boarded up houses. And yet, there's something to be said for knowing that I'm making a difference here.
I particulaly looking forward to New Year's Eve. I've told people several times over the years that I would hate to spend that night a way from you. There's something powerful about our long tradtion of banging tin pie pans to beat in the year, and I wouldn't feel right if I didn't start the year by saying a prayer with my family. It sets the tone. I knew 2007 was going to be tough, and it has been, but there's been a lot of goodness too.
I feel good about 2008 though, Baltimore is more behind me than in front and I'm on to the next adventure.
I'll see you tomorrow, folks. Not the best writing I've ever done here, but it fit my 15 minute deadline. As of now I am G.T.T.
Love,
Elizabeth

A Developing story:

It's the morning here, clear and crisp and full of hope.

"A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." ~ Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

All territories require dreams of some sort, and today starts the finding out of what does happen to a dream deferred. I've got my own suspicions friends, but we'll not delineate them now.

For now it is enough to know that I go with hope, it's all any one can do.

From the mouths of real, live fourth graders:
"Can we through Juan out the window?"

While working on a capitalization worksheet:
Student: I don't know if it should be capitalized or not...
Ms. Alsup: Well, what do you think?
Student: I'm just so torn, it could be.

Student, very excited: Ms. Alsup, I'm having an abolitionist day.
Ms. Alsup: Do you mean abyssmal?
Student: Oh yeah, abyssmal.

"Ms. Alsup, why do you have such high expectations?"

"Ms. Alsup, what is an expectation?"

Student, while reading: "What's goat droppings?"
Ms. Alsup: Show me the context - ah, droppings in the goat shed. Do goats live in the shed?
Student: Yes.
Ms. Alsup: What would goats drop in a shed?
Student: Oh

Student: Can we go to the bathroom?
Ms. Alsup: No
Student: Oh, that cruddy.
Ms. Alsup: Cruddy? What's cruddy is not getting smart.

And my favorite, an explanation of synonyms and antonyms:

" 'synonym' and 'opposite' are antonyms, but 'antonyms' and 'opposites' are synonyms."

What can I say, I work with some smart cookies.

Dear Mama and Daddy,
Supposed to snow tomorrow. Much as I hate the cold, there's still enough Texas kid in me to get excited for it.
The first time I saw snow was in Houston, it was the lightest dusting but still enough to cover the old Weber charcoal grill. I think we had an old black charcoal grill. Did I just make this memory up? It doesn't seem like it.
Then I wanted to play in it, and in a moment that is perhaps more indicative of my life's attitude than previously realized, we booked a plane ticket to Grandma's hill. Sledding, angels and snow cream. Sheer delight. If you want something bad enough, you find a way to make it happen. What an audacious thing for a Texas girl to say- "I want to play in the snow," but I don't think it occured to me that it wasn't a possibility.
One of my last days in Columbia, there was a terrific snow. I had to be on campus early and it was snow quiet. I met up with a friend and we had a tremendous snow fight, darting between the columns, leaving tracks through the snow pelting each other and yelling like banshees.
It's been some time since I've had a moment like that. I read a book one time where the character said he had "heavy boots," to mean he was weary.
Baltimore gives me heavy boots, makes it hard to remember playing in the snow. I've started untying these boots, and I'm getting ready to leave them behind for some sneakers.
I don't know where I'll land. I hope in D.C., I'm growing to love that city like I loved London, and that's saying something. Like to see the chess players in DuPont circle, like the folks riding the subway - teenagers, and college kids and people from the work-a-day world. Like the folks dressed to the nines going to a gala, like the guy in the Chinatown window making noodles. Like the Presbyterian church my friends attend - they even have a book club that reads Flannery O'Connor, clearly a place I could enjoy.
I guess that's what I'd like in the next place I land. I remember Dad, you wrote me a letter in London and said that I got my wanderlust from you, but someday I'd learn that you don't have to go far from home to have an adventure. I'll be honest and say that Baltimore was more of an adventure than I bargained for, and much more than I wanted. It'll take more than a minute to take these Baltimore boots off.
But snow's on the way, and the outlook surely can't be as grim as it seems. I'd better get on and fix dinner.
Love,
Elizabeth

Well friends, it's another week in Baltimore with the Light Brigade (see Crimean War, see Tennyson.) However, the balance of time has tipped and I'm looking toward the light at the end of the tunnel. And that feels awfully damn good.

A couple educational thoughts:
If we want to change schools for the better we've got to ensure that school principals are qualified and effective administrators and managers. Too often the emphasis is on them being superior teachers, but that doesn't transalate to being able to, in effect, run a small business. One of the downfalls of the industry is that there is little room for promotion, seeking an administrative role is one of the few ways to achieve a higher status and pay rate in education. Why on earth, though, would you want master teachers removed from the classroom in order to go to a job they may not have the skills for? It doesn't make sense - a recurring theme in education.

Furthermore, parents have got to realize that as consumers of the public school system they have power at the ballot box, among other places. Parents can be easily cowed by educational blowhards spouting off about all sorts of pedagological mumbo-jumbo. Parents are afraid to trust their common sense. At the end of the day, the parents need to ask "Is my child receiving an adequate education? Can they read intelligently? Can they perform basic math skills? Are they learning to think critically? Does their classroom sound well run?" Parents have the greatest power to hold teachers and school systems accountable, and yet they don't, fearing that their lack of an education degree makes them unqualified to question. Too often, schoolto parent relationships are disastrous and antagonistic, this is of no use to anyone.

And in another blow to teaching children not to fight, a parent walloped and bloodied a staff member at my school last week. The staff member by all accounts taunted the parent, and got in the parent's personal space and the parent wasn't having it. So now two adults whom children regularly see, a staff member and a parent, have shown these children that physical violence is an appropriate way to deal with problems. See above entry about effective principals and empowered parents: as a manager seeking to deliver a service to customers why would you cotton to an employee whose actions were in direct opposition to your mission, as a group of parents seeking a service why would you allow a principal to think that employing such a staff member would be appropriate? As we say at the Radiant, "It don't make no sense, no sense 't'all"

Today, I watched a kid walk away from a fight. He might fight tomorrow, or the day after, but today he walked away. That counts.

There's street and school, I say. What works out there won't work in here. So show me the people you want to be. You can leave the fourth grade ignorant or you can leave smart. Your choice. It works, the kids sit up straight. Even my little boys who fancy themselves gangbangers.

They don't think I know - about street, or gangs. And what they don't realize is that they know much more than I. When I asked C why he was talking 'bout bloods, he asked how I knew. "What, one of your family in a gang?" he said.

Every once in a while, much more often this year - things click in the classroom. And I catch a glimpse of why dedicated teachers choose this career. When I see my kids choose school over street, I know why teachers stay.

Poking my eyes out with the 2nd Ammendment:
I'm just watching a little bit of the Republican Youtube debate - it would be great if they debated, but it's like a competition where the winner is the man who can stay on message and mention multiple platforms - i.e. I believe in guns and having a mom and dad, while maintaing a fiscally responsibility government. Moms, dads and guns keep our borders secure - okay that might be a hyperbole, but it's not far from truth.

An Open Letter Home:

Dear Mama and Daddy,

“The North wind doth blow, and we shall have snow,” soon enough. The winter is bearing down, and as the city hunches its shoulders against the chill the recesses of my soul turn to a house opened to summer, ice tea on the table and that Alsup laughter which buoys up so much. How I wish to be telling stories with you all.

I went to church this week, and had the same thought I have nearly every week – “Train up a child in the way [they] should go…” and I haven’t departed from it. There was a family in front of me, and both the kids had a dollar to put in the basket, and I remembered when I would get a dollar to put in the basket. A whole month of Sundays have I sat between you, and it leaves a lasting impression upon me.

I was very cynical last week about my time here and my place here. I left college very much believing that the good you put into the world makes it just a bit better, any small act of kindness tips the balance towards a better place, so I thought. It’s easy to be disabused of that thought here in Baltimore. Some days it doesn’t seem like there’s enough good in anyone to change this city. Most days it doesn’t seem like there’s enough kindness to even start. There’s just too much brokenness and hurt; it’s hard to even begin to know where to fix that.

But the world doesn’t need another cynic. As a friend told me last year, cynicism is unbecoming. I return to what I know to be true – that I don’t know what difference I’m making, but if at the end of the day I can say that one kid in Baltimore left my classroom smarter, kinder, and more ready to use their brain then their fists, then I believe I can call that a good day. Maybe they’ll remember what I’ve tried to teach them longer than I expect.

I was thinking about all the towns in Texas that we’ve been through: Abilene, Amarillo, Parker, Austin, West, Lubbock, Houston, Corpus. Especially about driving out to Abilene for music auditions – whatever I expected for my life then is certainly not what the reality became. I couldn’t have imagined Baltimore, or this great compassion that my better angels encourage. If you had told me then all that would happen, I would have called you crazy.

But here I am down the road. Your wandering child with perpetually itchy feet – there only seem to be roads that lead me far away from those I love. I hope the road will circle back someday and soon.

A lot of my kids don’t have much of a recognizable concept of family, nor that they are representatives of their name. I don’t think there was ever a time that I didn’t know my name, or what you and Mamma stood for, what I was expected to uphold. Even now, I carry it with me. Hard work, concern for others, care for you family, sticking always to the right thing, deep integrity. Train up a child, and they’ll walk that good path.

It was a long day, as are all a teacher’s days. Up on your feet, no break, and it isn’t as though the children ever let up. They’re kids, they need a lot. We had chess, and then I tried to teach music at the rec. Three kids left me today knowing where middle C was on a piano, and who doesn’t know but that the knowledge might spur them to greatness. I sure hope it does – Baltimore’s got enough people to stand uneducated on corners, we could use some musicians. It was a full day of work.

I wonder at times what it would be like to commit myself to this city, to building a life here, working to beautify this ancient, fading belle. I admire the people who do, but I’ll be shaking the dust off my feet in 211 days. Whatever of Eliot’s mermaids are singing in Baltimore, they are certainly not singing for me.

I’ll move on what is sure to seem like greener pastures, and I will relish it. I’m hungry to beat the pavement again with a memo pad in hand, telling the stories of a community. I might not be able to change much inside a city school system, but I’m sure I can make people care about it, and maybe that’s the beginning of change.

Time’s drawing nigh here, a sliver of moon in the sky and all too soon I’ll be in my classroom waiting for the kids. And it’ll be another day where I start from scratch trying to make sure that each student leaves me a little different than when they came – Truly a work that’s never done.

Miss you as always, but know that I carry you close in my heart. Glad you’re my folks. Christmas is coming soon, and I’ll be beating a path home.

Love,

Elizabeth

I'm going to go on the record and say that today was a less than radiant day in the fourth grade.

I lost my voice in the middle of the day, a hoarse whisper was all I could do. Not surprisingly, it was difficult to control the 10 year-olds with the power of my mind.

But as a comrade of mine would say, "Ain't nobody die."

There's also a very annoying child in one of my classes. He's often absent, for example the last two weeks, and these leads to us forming a comfortable routine without him. He enjoys attention and drama. All this to say he was there today in all his, "come say it to my face, I didn't do nothing, at least I got a good body not like a hippo," and of course he cries at the drop of a hat, at everything

No less than three other children asked if they could hit him. One little boy tried to bargain it down to a pinch. Another little girl said she would just feel so much better. What was my brilliant, compassionate response?

"I totally understand, but all your life you'll have people you don't like, and you can't go around hitting them. The bottom line: We've got to make through the next hour and 20 minutes without violence."

Some kids are just annoying. And yes, I have tried to encourage this boy to be less so.

C'est la vie.

In other news Baltimore City Schools have abandoned their efforts at getting lead out of the water pipes, and is simply providing bottled water for staff and students. This after high lead levels were found at at least four schools.

Just another week in Charm City.

Board of Dreams:

Nine students today, and my co-worker. We are a team. We are commanders of armies on a field of 64 squares, from the oldest to our second grader, who moved the toughest, roughest middle school boy to laughter today.

We groan when it is time to go. We are learning to play strong chess, to castle early, to think before we move, to keep the hands back from the board, to control the center.

I set the boards up, and the students come, and our team starts asking to meet two days a week. And roughest, toughest asks about going to tournaments, and I am already planning who I will take to the first one.

I walk my team to the door, knowing from their talk that they are thinking about chess outside of club. Double T makes me promise that no matter what I will play him next week. And our second grader promises to take down my co-worker. We are chess players all.

Still here

There were eight students at Chess club this week, and more are on the way.

Five middle school boys.

Two fourth grade girls.

One co-worker, one grandmother of a middle schooler.

And one round and eager gentleman from the second grade.

They groaned when it was time to go home. And for a second we felt like a team, united in a purpose - to play a game of war on a board of 64 checkered squares, manipulating armies across of the field of play.

There's a lot of noise in a school, particularly in an urban school. A lot of frustration and grief. It's hard to hold on to a center of quiet, but you dig down and you find something to get you through.

It's raining here in Baltimore. I was on my way to bed and I got caught up in the lightning. Watching it crack against the sky over Baltimore, where the air has been full for days of storms waiting to burst.
Some jazz crackling through the stereo, and storms rolling in. And maybe things will:
cool off.
slow down.
mellow out.

Maybe I'll
worry less.
rest more.

My days at school are mostly good. Hectic, yes. But mostly good. It can be a wearing place to be, but that's not the kids fault. I understand why teachers go back every year. There's such great need.

Chess club met for the first time today. Three kids came. That is a start. It went well - two had never played before, and one had just learned how. we introduced the pieces - it is a game of kings and nobility I told them and we will conduct ourselves as such. We talked about the lowly pawn, brave footsoldier he, the bishop sneaky and mean, the knight, gallant and quick, the rook, solid and protective, the queen all powerful and the stately, treasured king.

The school needs security cameras for two blind spots on our grounds - I'm in the process of looking for grants and funding for this- if any of you have any suggestions, I welcome them.

The community rec center attached to our school is finally getting up and running. I hope our chess club will be meeting there soon. There is a non-profit organization running it, and I think good, good things will come of it. I've already shown my face round there, and said I'm available to teach music lessons to kids - apparently there's a lot of interest in that.

And so hope starts to grow. The kids have a place to hang out after school, a place that will only get better, things seem to be going well at school. This is how communities turn around - hope begins to grow.

Go well, stay well.

No matter how hard I try to remind myself that I will not have to teach forever, or how much I try to remember all I have to be thankful for, somedays just feel like Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade."

Half a league, half a league
Half a league onward
All in the Valley of Death
Rode the six hundred...

'Forward the Light Brigade!
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do and die.

Then there are other days when I take a line from Bob Dylan and say to Baltimore:
If I'd known had bad you'd treat me
Honey, I never would have come.

Some days are all King Henry V and once more into the breach, and we few, we happy few, we band of brothers we and these things shall the good man teach his son.

Other days still, are just standing on Boo Radley's front porch and walking around in his shoes for a while and trying to understand.

And so it's another Monday here in the East - the same East that James Gatsby and Quentin Compson did so well in. Monday here in Baltimore where the fog hangs low with heat and heaviness in the second week of October, in the second year of my being here.

Half a league, half a league, half a league onward.

Washington Morning

Saturday morning, October sun falling on the rough pavement twinkling, blinking up at passersby.
Old songs on the stereo, nearly empty coffee cup, the remains of an apple pie on the kitchen table and a comfortable trio of friends reading the paper making lazy plans in lazy ways.
Existing where one's feet are, sheltering in Sabbath rest, laughing and jiving and singing and playing.
Coming round a table, walking on the street, shoes off on the National Mall tossing a white frisbee in the shadow of Smithsonian structures.
Metro rumbling, sidewalk shuffling, Saturday morning in an old pair of shoes, with an old pair of friends in an October sun.

It may surprise you, gentle reader, but I was a precocious child of eccentric tastes. Raffi’s Baby Beluga was fine, but for my money I dug the Broadway Cast Recording of Evita starring Patti LuPone in the title role. I am not making this up. By the time I was 5, I had the entire piece memorized.

When my niece was about 3 she had a real thing for the Beatles and Eleanor Rigby was her favorite song. I always found it disconcerting to hear those lyrics coming out of her 3 year old mouth (all the lonely people, where do they all come from?). I can only imagine that the lyrics of Don’t Cry for me Argentina (So I chose freedom, running around trying everything new, but nothing impressed me at all) emanating from me were equally disturbing to my family.

We owned this recording because my Dad saw the play, with Ms. LuPone, in New York. In a theatre so small he could smell the smoke from Mandy Patinkin’s cigar. He has always said that the show “was great.”

She won a Tony for that show, she originated the role of Fantine in the London production of Les Miserables. Most recently she was in the outstanding 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd, in New York. When she is on a stage she commands it, her voice able to navigate deep gravity of emotion as well as delicate comic turns.

I heard the orchestra director at Mizzou say that as musicians, we must absolutely walk the very edge of disaster, must be willing to walk to the very edge and then that tiny bit more – if we don’t walk that line then we are serving neither our art or our audience. It stirs no great response to give a perfectly safe performance. And this is the kind of performer LuPone is – you can hear it in every recording she has ever made.

In her turn as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, LuPone at once inspires revulsion and sympathy for a character who by all rights is disgusting. The audience, despite Mrs. Lovett’s obvious flaws, does want her on some level to get a house by the sea with Mr. T.

Tomorrow night I will hear LuPone in person. She will sing and I will bask in the presence of one of the all time great performers. And it will be a wonderful evening.

Woolgathering:
When the little girl, who often struggles with classwork, saw her paper on the board with a sticker and a one hundred on the board - that was a good moment.

When my student stood in the line to go to lunch with a book in his hand I asked him what he was doing with the book. "I want to read at lunch," he said. That was a really good moment, and read he did - I saw him.

Other thoughts:
Good weekend - books and card games and songs and lots of food and sweet company. I heard Ken Burns speak at the National Book Festival and it was really eloquent and inspiring.

Further thoughts:
Patti LuPone on Friday - get excited!

Misguided, but funny
This week the children and I read part of Sarah, Plain and Tall. This is what one of my students put in answer to the question:
How do the chilren first recognize Sarah? (the correct answer is that she is wearing a yellow bonnet)
The children first recognize Sarah because the see her on page 51 and that's when she was introduced.

A bit more literal than was needed.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates.
I wasn’t going to go to prayer on the lawn this morning at my school. Every Monday morning there is a small prayer group that comes for Morning Glory and I have the same internal dialogue each Monday.

“You best get yourself to prayer.”
“I’ve prayed already this morning and I could really use this time in my classroom.”
“You best get yourself to prayer and start this week off right, don’t matter if you already prayed, pray again.”
“But I need to prepare.”

And then sometimes, the voice of one my co-workers comes through the ceiling intercom, not unlike one might imagine, the voice of the Lord from the heavens, and says “Ms. Alsup, you coming round to Morning Glory, it’s starting.” Translation: “You best get yourself to prayer.”

“Be right there,” I answer.

This morning was Prayer on the Lawn, inviting the members of the community, parents and children to pray with us.

It was a small gathering, and the Eastern sun rose over our backs and lit the faces of the ministers and the pray-ers and the Amens rose up to the sky. Hallelujah, yes Lord Jesus.

We prayed over the students. We prayed over the parents. We even lifted up a prayer for the facilities and for the cafeteria. Hallelujah, yes Lord Jesus.

A minister in a snappy brown suit and fedora led the service, introducing community members. Another minister, so frail he looked as though he might blow away and with a voice like a wispy breeze, prayed in fervent tones. The Amens rose to the sky. Hallelujah, yes Lord.

The congregation swayed to each prayer, hallelujah yes.
And then the bishop of a local church came to give the benediction. “I have a two minute thought for you from Psalm 24 this morning.” And those familiar with a Baptist church know that it is never just a two minute thought, and the congregation dug in its heels for the haul and began to warm up to the subject.

“Lift up your heads O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.”
“Yes Lord.”
“Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.”
“Hallelujah, yes.”
“Lift up your heads, O ye gates,” the minister implored us. “Even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory.”
“Amen”

The sun lit his face and his smile, and he leaned forward to give his message to us.

“We’re going to do something different now, brothers and sisters, we been bowing our heads all morning, but this time we are going to lift them up, lift up our eyes to the heavens.”

He went on to say that life can bow your head, that life will bow your head. Troubles come and we bow our heads and we get so low we forget to lift our eyes up to the hills. And his voice started a long crescendo and the congregation began to sway a little.

Lift up your eyes he said. Life will bow our heads, and our students’ heads. And it ain’t always the devil, friends, it’s just life and its trials and troubles. So teachers: we must help our students lift their heads, and parents: we must help our students lift their heads. And teachers you got to keep your heads so up so that you can lead your students.

The crescendo rose, and the congregation swayed one foot to the other; the Amens rose to the heavens. Hallelujah, Lord Jesus. A woman in a gray hat clapped her hands together, and said “Come on, Holy Ghost,” as though exhorting an athlete to get warmed up and really let us have it.

And community, he shouted through the speaker over our small number to the sleeping houses beyond, We gotta Lift. Up. Our. Heads. Amen. Amen and amen. Praise Jesus. If you get up every morning, and you take time to talk to Lord, He will lift up your head If you get up, even while the dew is still on the roses, He will lift up your head. Mmm, yes Lord.

And the swaying slowed, Amens fell to murmurs and in we went to welcome the students, heads up and eyes on the hills. Morning and afternoon, a whole school day; I believe the Lord saw it, and I believe He declared it was good.

And all God’s people said: Amen.

14 Days till Ms. LuPone:
Ever since I was a wee musician, I have known that there are just some performers one should go see. Musicians who are such consumate talents that they define genres - my list is relatively short, though I add to it occasionally.
Wynton Marsalis - saw him at Jesse Hall.
The Count Basie Big Band - done in Dallas.
Sonny Rollins - still trying to get myself to New York.
Patti LuPone - 14 days and counting.

I am way pumped.

And now for something completely different:
In a departure from its usually meaningful content, Bears and Penguins brings you things that make Sara laugh out loud. (Admittedly it helps to be familiar with Wuthering Heights)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0vgZ2UNS54

Rather Endearing:

I turned on the local news this morning to see the results of the mayoral primary here in Charm City. While I was waiting for that story, the weather came on, and something I've never seen before happened:
As the weather woman was describing yesterday and today's cooler temperature, the word "PLEASANT" showed up on the weather map right over Maryland in large red letters. On the competing channel, the words "PLEASANT" and "QUITE COOL" showed up over the state.
Maybe in winter, they'll put up "Really effing cold." That would make me laugh.

Democracy Disappointment:
I was definitely disappointed by the results of the mayoral primary - my guy got knocked completely out of the race. I'm not sure quite how Baltimore's electoral system works, but the winner of the primary is definitely going to be the mayor. I guess it says a lot about the Union vote.

Third Week of School:
Teaching is an exhausting job. It just is, no matter how wonderful the students. But so far the students are doing well in spelling, though less well in reading comprehension.

One more election thought:
It's no secret that I'm not having a huge love affair with Baltimore, but...There is a certain way that Baltimore people sound that is unlike any place else I've been, and you could definitely hear it in the acceptance speeches of the mayor and the city council president. And somehow it's endearing to me - it just sounds like Baltimore.

Best get on with my day then. But there are things to look forward too, and that is not a bad thing.

I remember very clearly in one of the English Royal Palaces I toured that there were two little girls, probably 7 or 8, who were staring at the queen’s throne. They had long hair and were dressed in t-shirts and shorts, and were the closest of friends.

“Ooo, that’s where She sits.”
“Ooo.”

And it was the epitome of all little girls who know that truly it is good to be the princess, but also a unique view into my American country. An American child learns that the White House is a house of the people.

One of my students wrote in his journal that he knew he could be anything, even the President, if he worked hard at reading. This is our American right: that any of us may seek to lead our nation, that we all in fact bear the responsibility to do so. When I watched those two little girls I realized that no American child was ever meant to think that they could not sit in the seat of government. That an American child may look at the tallest chair in the cabinet room and say, “Someday, it will be me.”

So much of the White House and the presidency seems inaccessible: a person not of us, a house unknown by its meanest citizens. It stands austerely cool cloaked in white, set well back from the masses teeming, its surrounding grounds sylvan in aspect as though to say, “I am well above, as needs must be, to protect the fragile system cherished.”

Still the White House seemed just a bit smaller, a bit more approachable, a bit more warmly American and welcoming when I left it this afternoon. When I left having seen Teddy Roosevelt’s Medal of Honor, having seen lithograph prints of Lincoln and his cabinet, having seen Norman Rockwell’s take on the West Wing tour, having touched the chair in which the Wall Street Journal sits in the press room and breathed deep the smell of richly turned earth in the rose garden. The White House seemed a bit more mine after all that, and certainly a bit more the house of the children which I teach. It is a place embodying both the greatest triumphs and most heartbreaking failures of the American people and it is humbling in both respects.

I couldn’t help but think that if we could just get everyone in America on a bus with a brown bag lunch and let them see these things too, that finally we would start to get it together as a people. We’ve grown too far removed from the people’s house these days.

In Jefferson’s administration, great Western Native American chiefs camped on the White House lawn, having come at the president’s invitation.

In the Lincoln years, when enemy campfires could be seen from the grand old see, the people of the city would come to celebrate and mourn and serenade the President and his lady. Remember he was the man who famously declared our nation a “government of the people, for the people and by the people.”

And at no time is that feeling more clearly crystallized than in stepping from the halls of history and power and decision into crisp sunlight, knowing that any of us may lead, in fact all of us must.

I imagine the British girls, as young Americans, heads bent together in conference at the richness of furnishings before them, and saying not “that is his seat,” but rather “that is our seat.”

A charge and house to keep have we the people, a gift of wise, if fallible, men. May we keep our house, as well as they intended us too.

I think this is maybe the fourth incarnation of Bears and Penguins, the title I chose as a nod to my favorite writer, favorite book and favorite animals - efficiency is key.

Clean slate. Back in Baltimore - a city who's NPR station declared it difficult to love to day on air. This is not untrue, nor is it untrue that some people love it. I feel neither love nor hate. The feeling that comes most strongly is gratitude for what I see. Though it is hard, it has changed me, and I think time will bear this out, for the better.

It is a strange experience here, like the haze that cloaks the harbor bridge keeping hidden all perspective. And it is gratitude I feel when I hear Miss Y. playing gospel music in her room and singing, oh she sings, and how she loves those children she teaches. The children who are often very damaged and needing her careful, gracious patience. Gratitude I feel when Miss C advises me to get my room annointed. Gratitude and admiration for the teachers who have been at the Radiant for 22 and more years. That's something, that's a real thing, a deep committment.

I am a short timer here. But when I leave, those teachers will still be working, striving to be everything for children who have nothing. I do think there is too great a tendency to canonize teachers as though they were holy, sanctified and infallible beings. And yet, I know some very fine teachers at the Radiant and they are greater because of their love.

Love bears up, and is not always softly gentle. Love bears all things. The gangs, and the drugs, the dangers and disappointments. Love bears up, and the teachers come back to the Radiant, to hang paper over gray walls, to set up aquariums for hermit crabs and snakes, to calculate how many books may be purchased - secondhand - for the children. Love bears up.

So I feel gratitude to have been taken in, to have observed and taken part. Gratitude for the year ahead, however fraught it may be with all the inner-city trauma that is par for the course. Gratitude because in Baltimore, these things remain: faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.