Vote. Schmote!

Vote. Schmote.

Or so the Jewish comedians say when dismissing something quite feckless. At least in the mayor’s race—Marty Gadient or Greg Staner—there’s a choice. The latter is variations of Donald Trump who has made the city work well for developers and business, but like the U.S. government, does nothing for ordinary folks.

We have the same two non-choices for Cascade Council. Knowing a fair bit about street infrastructure, Steve Knepper comes up with good ideas there. For most of the rest of the issues he simply rides along with the majority.

Last meeting council voted to give the Manternachs $5,200 to replace their washer, drier and furnace because the city flooded their basement. Cascade is no stranger to drainage problems because we’re hilly. Yet council and P & Z ignore the facts. If either had any fiber, they would undertake a program to force anyone who has installed too much cement to remove it.

They don’t; this is why I ran. Of course, council and P & Z blocked me for the third time, but this could have serious implications if this gets to court—flooding homeowners and keeping people who want to do something about it off boards could put the city in deep, dark.

Your choice for school board is Jessica Pape or Michael Clasen. There needs to be more women in government, but Ms Pape sat on her hands when I was removed from the sub list for passing student papers back with gratuitous errors on them last year. So, ask yourself what kind of standards does she support in WD?

How Essential Is the Female Perspective to Rape Discussion?

            In case you harbor any doubt that humiliation, domination, and perpetrator self-aggrandizement, not sex, is the motive behind rape, check out Unbelievable, a Netflix series that began Fri., the 13th. It’s the dramatization of real case reporting done for ProPublica by T. Christian Miller & Ken Armstrong.  More importantly, it was directed by Susannah Grant, who did not succumb—as Hollywood men can’t seem to resist—to the temptation of casting pretty women as rape victims.

            While Unbelievable is a more-satisfying-than-average police procedural with Toni Collette and Merritt Wever playing the intriguingly contrasted lead detectives, the authencity of the rape victims is key to its plausibility. Here, Unbelievable goes above and beyond brave and true: one is a 50-going-on-60 gray matron, working in a food service; another is a plumpish, retiring 20 or 30-something, living in a strange city away from any support network, if she even had one where she came from. I surmised she left because she didn’t.

Make no mistake, that is a victim hallmark, or so the literature I read on the topic, when I got drafted onto the Rape Task Force in the 70s as a National Organization of Women (NOW) member in my Denver days.

            The quintessential victim is Marie Adler, attractive enough, but so cowed by the foster care system, which has never stood by her or helped her stand up for herself, that the minute police detectives doubt her, she begins to doubt herself.  So thoroughly undermined by the system, Marie is incapable of outrage till the thing turns around, but before that, she can’t mobilize even her natural allies. No less go looking for any! (In feminist organization or…)

Of course, to get good drama, you need “bad guys,” and  in this film they are a couple “desk sergeant” types who refuse to believe Marie, (hence the title) and extend her foster-care-victimization right through the rape investigation up to filing a complaint against her for a false reporting of a crime. The viewer can get outraged if she isn’t—part of what makes this so satisfying, I suspect.

Most of the time, though, the police dealing with rape victims if it is a special unit, are savvy and sympathetic—at least in the early 70s Denver NOW Task Force believed they were in the victim’s corner. The attitude of the courts/public was the problem.

Which, of course, brings us all to the scary place of knowing a guy like Brett Kavanaugh is sitting on a court, any court.

Who Pays for Street Repair? Who Benefits?

Last night’s city council meeting featured an agonizing discussion of the weight limits on trucks in town, the truck route, and how to keep trucks on it.

Ironically enough, after the meeting was over, I got on my bike, rode up town hill, and just as I arrived to the grade school corner a Jim Like cattle transport with a lime green cab, was in the process of turning.

To do so, the driver had to make the widest arc possible—if there had been any cars parked on the west side of Tyler St., it would not have been doable. He was obliged to use the whole street to make the turn, and still dragged the back wheels of the 18-wheeler over the curb & gutter repaired in early May.

At the time, I was wondered publicly who pays for this? Clearly, taxpayers of Cascade, and we don’t even have the use of the parking in some places because it must be left open for these turns. It seems Council needs to take the rights of the people who pay taxes 

A Labor Day Look at Immigration

On or about 22 July, I cut out the last paragraph of an edit in the Progressive Populist edited by Pulitzer Prize winner Iowan Art Cullen. That graph begins, “Immigrants contribute everyday to this society…”  Under the guise of benefit op-ed writer Kenia Alcocer listed several jobs Hispanic immigrants typically do, but staunchly—as most of the rest of the U.S. press—ignored other effects of immigration on the U.S.:

1.      the demise of unions,

2.      the tenacious persistence of a minimum wage neither native nor immigrant can live decently on,

3.      the fabulous enrichment of the 1% (primary beneficiaries of low wages) and resultant income inequality,

4.      the burgeoning suicide rate in parts of this society,

5.      the rising death rate of blue collar workers,

6.      the demise of the middle and lower classes in the U.S.,

7.      the election of a demagogue who made affected voters think he would remedy the situation, but hasn’t.

While immigrants to this country are the same decent, desperate people my own great grandparents were, historically, we now know they (yes, our own forefathers) wreaked havoc on the indigenous population. We are told history doesn’t repeat itself; it rhymes—and usually with the bottom line. Follow the money. Ask yourself: Who benefits from immigration? Who loses? You can’t (logically) promise people “life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness” and give them a situation where they lose their houses and can’t afford apt. rent. A demagogue like Trump knows this, but the liberal press and their supporters can’t seem to sort it out.

With Labor Day around the corner, we need to stop ignoring the real effects of immigration—the entitled classes using indigents to undermine the native population for their own benefit—and find real solutions.   

RIP Lion Kitty

The sweetest, best kitty ever, Lion Kitty has gone to meet her maker and I miss her.  I don't know where she came from--perhaps someone tossed her out in the park. I was convinced she had been somebody's cat before.
For most of the time here she lived outside and with such a fur coat was well able for it, but most of last winter she stayed in the house, as she was clearly getting older. Often, I thought of how wretched I would be when she passed on, and I am. She was an extraordinary animal who did her very best to keep out of people's way. She was afraid of most people, so I always figured

somebody had treated her badly, which was something I could never understand. She never walked on the tables or the counters, she only sat on the chairs I told her she could sit on.
I never saw her play, though this spring, after Jeff M. plowed the garden, I looked out the kitchen window and she was running back and forth the length of the garden, rolling in the new-plowed loam, having the time of her life.  It looked like so much fun, I didn't yell at her for doing it. Her other favorite thing was sitting with me in the chair at night watching TV.  I  always
thought then how much I'd miss her.

Which is just how much I do miss her.
It was such a good, good summer and one of my fondest dreams has been realized, but I am heart- broken missing the sweetest kitty, who graced my life for eight or ten years, because when she showed up, starving, wretched, hair coming out in clumps, who would have ever thought Lion would be the best kitty ever.
Forever, my Lion.

Re-recommendation

May I again recommend the magazine Free Inquiry. Last year, I subscribed to Skeptical Inquirer, a guarded magazine with too many footnotes and too many university-based writers.

            Small wonder that the public doesn’t trust the media because shrieking about the environment—rising CO2 levels, melting glaciers and disappearing polar bears—without decrying the main cause, human overpopulation, is illogical. But you can hear/read  that hourly/daily in the media. 

            The editor of Free Inquiry, however, respects his audience enough to confront the issue head on, for which I wrote and thanked him last issue as honesty is rare.  (My letter is in the current issue.) Equally culpable are environmental organizations: World Wildlife, Sierra Club, none of which will decry human population increases or draw the correlation between disappearing animal habitat and burgeoning human population.

            Arguably, the top prize for ludicrousness goes to IPTV, which aired an hour-long program in which a handsome Indian scientist (you must look good on TV!) talked about salvaging chimp populations by letting chimps move back and forth between forest spaces by creating woodland areas. How long before human populations encroach on those? Not long, thinks the critical eye!

Reneging+Disparity In America=Gun Violence?

Over the weekend another fringe-edge wacko went out and shot a slew of people at a Walmart. I cease to be surprised both 1) because of the frequency of gun violence in the US, and 2) disparity of America’s reneging on its promises to people.

Yeah, those Life-Liberty-&-pursuit-of-Happiness ones. Virtually every young person I know with a job is working more than 40 hours a week in order to earn a 40-hr a week salary, and some are doctors, lawyers, engineers, health technicians and mid-level managers.

While the French expect the month of August off, most Americans, according to the statistics, don’t even take the two weeks’ vacation they are entitled to. Other experts question whether Americans ever leave work given the realities of cell phones and email.

So much for the pursuit of civil life, not to mention happiness.

Financial types are still equivocating: there appears to be some evidence that wages are going up, but it is muted and for the most part, immigration and other influences keep minimum wage right where business want it—well below a level that would even allow people in big cities to live where they work, forcing them into expensive, time-consuming commutes.

Meanwhile, stopping to smell the flowers is hardly an option, now is it?

Is Sustainability Even Economically Feasible?

One evening last week someone named Eric Rosengren, introduced as the president of the Boston Fed spoke on Marketplace, an NPR finance program saying, “The population isn’t growing; therefore, the economy won’t have a higher growth.” (Or words to that effect.)

What?

            Does that mean that unless we have more people the economy stagnates? What are the implications for the environment? Does this fact articulated by Boston Fed Chairman  Rosengren mean that sustainability—at least in economic terms—is not even theoretically possible? That you must always be increasing population to have an economy that is doing well?

More consumers? More car buyers? More drivers? Growing more food, more pollution? More people buying stuff and throwing it in the landfill? More people heating/cooling houses, etc.

            Is this what we have been doing all along—taking wide open, unoccupied spaces and filling them up with new people—either by virtue of an excessive birthrate or immigration? Is this why we are supporting immigration? Is this the history of the whole human race—displacing indigenous people for their resources—to use up their stuff?

            Nothing but questions about this!

Cascade Council at it Regressive Best?

The regressive, anti-environment heart and soul of Cascade was on full display at city council last night. Watch the video if you don’t believe me. And keep in mind these actions are being taken in your name.

            For starters there was the perennial city/utility employee salary problem: utility workers have always earned more, and the reason Mayor Greg Staner gives for this they are worth more: their jobs valued higher, paid more. Inherently illogical, I argued, because city workers have a wider range of duties. More like pure snobbery: city workers have to dig the sewer lines and that is somehow different than digging electrical ones?

            Unfair, illogical and we know why—the utility has more $ than the city.

            No more decent is the 2% raise city workers got. In spite of the administrator informing council that inflation is running 2.8%.  This is how the middle class is disappearing before our very eyes.

            Like a propaganda machine or talking head the Mayor defends the seriously regressive garbage rates which the city voted to raise a dollar (12%). This means that single or couple households that garden, can, and put out less garbage are paying a far higher rate. That’s not the worst part, however: this regressive tax rewards waste, creating garbage and filling up the landfill, when the city should use rates to penalize that.

            The Mayor’s defense for this? Like some teenager doing what everybody is doing wrong, he says our rates are less than other cities. No less regressive!

            At the opposite end of Tyler Street new apartments are being constructed that have exacerbated the drainage problem down there (and the flooding residents along the river experience in peak events). The new driveways, roofs and patios cause more run-off and now the street needs curb and gutter, which it did not previously. The city ordinance only requires the developer to bring the street back to its original condition. Only now it needs curb and gutter because of the increased water flow. Guess who’s going to pay to solve a problem a developer created? (1^st two guesses don’t count!)

Unfair (Regressive) Garbage Charges?

You might want to call your Cascade City Council member and complain about them raising the garbage rates $1, which council will do the next meeting if it passes the 3rd reading.  The city administrator characterized the raise as "negligible," but in fact it is over 12% and very regressive.
Regressive is:  2, 3 or 4  residents pay less for generating more garbage per person than those citizens who grow a portion of their food, can, compose and/or employ other strategies to avoid creating garbage.
When my garbage/recycling containers were frozen to the ground from mid-January to the 1st of March I couldn't even move them to do so and they weren't totally full then.
Of course, it is more difficult to come up with a less regressive formula to penalize creating garbage and reward composting, canning etc. but if council wants to give the impression of being fair, that's what it needs to do.

Trade War--Right for Wrong Reason?

This photo illustrates something never mentioned in the discussions of Trump's Trade War: 1)The coffee carafe bought a couple years back has a broken spring in the small handle that allows the liquid out. 2)The bath poof, barely 6 months old, is pulling out of its center sewing. 3) The egg slicer barely a year old, has two broken wires. (I had one in my Denver kitchen for 15 years). The cute little carrot-marker I bought for the garden got a chip in it before it even got to the garden!

The people discussing the trade war are fond of citing cheap products as an advantage. Are they? Many are made of plastic and tons we are importing from China are filling up our landfills, fouling the ground water--which is now the drinking water in most Iowa cities because the surface water is tainted with nitrates.

It was stupid to buy these shabby products, but a trade war that slows them down inadvertently benefits us all!

Who Pays for Industrial Ag Damage?

    No surprise: YOU! One way or another. 

    Here’s how: the corner of Tyler Street by Cascade Elementary was seriously damaged last month. In the first picture you see Cascade Utility flags, and a metal pipe protruding (the blue spot in the 2nd photo.)

     There has suddenly been an increase of very large 18-wheeler-semi type vehicles on this street. Last week, an immense tractor with 4 huge wheels on back and four on front. Very likely one of them hit the curb. The volume of this traffic is going to mean that the city is going to have to replace the street far sooner. When I was on council we had to pay to install a more expensive concrete street with rebar in it by Wayne Feeds to deal with this traffic.

  Since City Administrator Deanna McCusker didn’t know anything about the repair, it is has to be the Utility.  That means in any case—citizens of the city, through their utility bills, or city taxes paid.  

    Cities may have to restrict these vehicles in order to control the damage they do.

                      

Backyard Sinkhole

     This is a pic of a sinkhole in the back yard of one of my neighbors. The water runs from the street down two homes joint driveway and has created a huge sinkhole in one home's back yard. The owner has filled it 2 or 3 times, but until the street/sidewalk is fixed and the water flows down, it will continue to open up.
    The real issue is they have a small boy who is irresistibly drawn there. Eventually, it will be so deep that if he falls in, nobody will be able to see him. The sidewalk situation has always been undemocratic, now it's dangerous.
  

Has Council Learned Its Lesson?

The Cascade City Council found itself in a predictable imbroglio Monday night. After having given Jesse Loewen over $250,000 to redo the old bank building, a parade of other people are looking for similar help: Nicole & Nate Meyer want money to tuck point their downtown building. And why shouldn’t they get it?  

 Handing money to businesses for profitable activities seems to be the norm. Also on the agenda was $11,004.48 paid twice yearly to Brothers Market and $6,985.74 to McDermott Oil.

After the meeting was over, we were reminded that the city paid $92,000 to match a RISE grant to build a road for Premium Plant Products in the industrial park. But perhaps Council has learned its lesson. Mike Beck was told to follow the ordinance on the books with his current project. 

Also on the agenda was the runoff problem on Main Street north of the grade school. The water pools there and it froze in February. A couple kids coming from the elementary school fell down there. I went home and got my Yaktrax!

 Monday I complained to council, the city should be maintaining the sidewalks since half Cascade doesn’t have them, and the ordinance arbitrarily obligates some citizens for expenses it doesn’t obligate others for. You have to wonder what a court of law would make of an ordinance like that.

            The owners of the sidewalk didn’t appear, but the situation isn’t going away, and is likely to get more dangerous--check this space tomorrow for a description and PIX! 

Easter Advice to a Grand Nephew

My niece’s son is doing a paper for which he has to interview a relative. He asked me what

advice I would have for him. First I said, "Know who/what your friends are," but that is so very difficult to do, so very easy to say, as to be absolutely facile, fatuous non-advice. It would be far more honest to say I don't have any.

Then he asked about the Las Vegas shooting, which was so very senseless...”Well, I suppose not any more than the Parkland, Columbine or any other...” I can't make sense of it in any context except historical--you yourself live in a part of the country that is closer to its frontier-water-wars-and-guns past than here (Iowa). Not that it was substantially different, if you look at the role of guns in displacing the Indians, from the East coast to the west. Violence is where we, as a culture, have always gone for solutions, so how can we act surprised? This society has huge problems right now: no surprise guns are coming out of the woodwork.  I have read that this is characteristic of the Christian and Islamic religious traditions, therefore, the Crusades, etc. The Buddhist tradition to a lesser degree.  I was not in Korea long enough to say.

I have spent longer, have closer friends in France, Germany and Israel, and speak European languages better allowing deeper assessment. I see evidence that the wars and revolutions in Europe have affected the people in profoundly positive ways. I remember going to lunch with a German friend one time, disagreeing with her and saying, "We couldn't even have this conversation in the States!" She thought I was being silly.

Notre Dame burned early this week. I also recall going to midnight mass there with my friend Sylvie and her Jewish boyfriend Christmas 1979. We left and went across the street to The Hunchback Café and because we felt embarrassed at the priest’s comments about Jews. 

How long before we recover from our history? I wonder.

Spring Break--Pix of Pix!

Spring Break was glorious--left the 4 ft. high snow drift in my back yard and drove south to Charlotte, NC, where I stayed overnight at my nephew's house. Next morning he put me on the early train to NYC. I arrived at there 8:30 p.m. in time for a big city supper of mussels in garlic sauce cooked  my friend Abigail. One of life's most refined blessings is friends who are adventurous cooks.
         The next day we went to the Frick Museum, which has a lot of pretty art. If you like pretty pix, they have lots. If you like your art edgier, go to the Whitney or the Modern Art.

         Probably Andrew Wyeth's most famous
painting, Christina's World  his depiction of his neighbor marooned in a field. "Christina" had handicapped and the painting brilliantly puts the viewer in that place. For most of us, climbing the hill would be effortless. It is impossible, mile high mountain for Christina, who won't find--in her condition much solace in the house if she does get there. For her, it will be the same "ole."
        I particularly enjoyed seeing the painting because there is far more contrast between the pink of Christina's dress in the original than in any of the printed versions I have seen.
   Art provides a prospective on the world that a viewer can almost nowhere else.

Yeah, a Brave First Robin

  Now there is brave for you: a small flock of robins hustling around on the snow in my front yard picking desiccated mock crab apples off the snow. Along with a couple female cardinals who have been eating them all winter.

A Little Truth in the H2O Maybe?

     If you watched the Cascade City Council meeting last night, you saw me get up at an agenda item entitled "Resolution on Acquisition of Development for Outdoor Recreation" and say, "Whoa!"
     "You guys have allocated $20,000 to economic development, let bids for the tennis courts, and authorized how much bonding for the swimming pool?"
     "Two million dollars."
      "All while there are people in this town who are not getting potable water--sometimes it's so foul, you can't wash clothes in it either. What plans have you made to replace these 100-year-old lines?"
      Mayor Staner maintained there was only one line in town that was like that, but other city workers tell a different tale--there are plenty of old lines on the west side that need replacing too.
      When I subsequently asked how much water was wasted in flushing these lines nobody knew exactly, but spring and fall when the whole system is flushed, that's 150,000 gallons. Right down the river. Tainted water because, it is full of ammonia to begin with and they put chlorine and fluoride in it and a poly-something or other to make (or keep) impurities from adhering to the walls of the lines.

The mayor insists the water is perfectly safe and certainly meets DNR standards, but at a previous meeting council allocated $13,500 to study whether we should spend two million bucks for a new reverse osmosis system.

Hawaii Memories: Turtles, Angry Rain Gods & Rich Ole Farts

Once, winter 1980-1, I went to Hawaii with a couple other women--a friend and our joint accountant. It rained--pelted and poured--for the first five days.

I wrote a storm of post cards saying: “Help! I am being held hostage by an angry rain god on Kauai. Send umbrellas and sun.”

After five or six days, it stopped and we went golfing. I messed up a whole lot of turf on the first hole, and never succeeded in hitting a golf ball. Finally, I stomped off verbally abusing the sport.

Next, we went to a volcano, which seemed like a non-event: nothing but a big ole hole in the ground. I was pig-ignorant about seismic geology. I saw a Public TV doc on the Kilouah volcano last weekend. Now, if I had seen that before I went. . .

My comrades made tennis and golf dates with old rich farts we met evenings in bars. The rich, old farts came onto them and the busboys and waiters came onto me. Nothing like a Democratic Socialist mouth to turn off a rich old fart.

The flowers were like nothing I’d ever seen, likewise ficus right in the ground, not a pot. I discovered something else on the beach. While they tennis-ed and golfed, I ran down the beach. Two or three miles (once upon a time I could run that far) one day seeing nothing but turtles and seaweed. Now, I know why we are trying to overpopulate the earth. I was freaked by the time I got back to civilization.

Speaking of National Emergencies

This week a Cascade citizen posted this on Facebook: “The real national emergency is the water in Flint, MI.” She doesn’t have to go so far. Go out to the water line on your street.

 At its 11 February meeting council allocated $13,500 for a “preliminary” water treatment report.  Pursuant to considering whether the city will install a “reverse osmosis” system to deal with water we are pumping out of the Jordan Aquifer increasingly tainted with ammonia, and requiring increasing doses of chlorine to make potable.

Tuesday morning I stopped and asked the City Administrator what funds were earmarked for the east side line that must be flushed once a week in hot weather. Presuming that naturally, it would be replaced this year.

No funds were allocated or earmarked! I was then told it wasn’t just that line, but the  main and several lines on the west side of town also need replacing.  Now, there is a solution: do nothing because so much needs to be done.

 So I asked her, “How can council let bids for a swimming pool, tennis court resurfacing, donating $20,000 for Economic Development (done at Monday night’s meeting) while not delivering drinkable water to all citizens?"

She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t make those decisions.

            Next council meeting is Mon. 25 February. If you think a city shouldn’t be building recreation facilities before providing all citizens with basic necessities like water, you should be at the next council meeting. Once the budget is finalized and passed, you can’t object.

Celtic Enchantment from Brittany

      Just thought I would share this enchanting New Year's photo from my friend Francoise in France. She lives in Paris but hails from Bretagne, the northern section of the country that English speakers refer to as Brittany. It has a distinct musical and linguistic culture, fairly easy to recognize as Celtic. In fact, the area is regarded as one of the seven Celtic groups including Ireland, Scotland, Gallicia, Wales, Cornwall and the Isle of Man.  Here's hoping she will visit Eastern Iowa because I know she'd love Effigy Mounds, the Mississippi, and some of the wineries hereabouts!

Winter Ambivalence

Our off-and-on ambivalence about winter is certainly composed of such scenes as these: (Left) the snowy view out my front door with the early and late day deep blue shadows falling across the porch.


Below, Monday night's full moon before the eclipse, seen through the limbs of the mock crab apple in my front yard. Unfortunately, my eclipse pix are marginal, but it was very red and likewise, too cold to look at it very long!

Lessons from Berlin & Tel Aviv for the W.D. Board

If you watch IPTV, you have undoubtedly seen adverts for river cruises on the Rhine, Seine, etc.  In one, the owner of the cruise line waxes eloquent about the benefits of “travel” and schmoozes the listener, “And...best of all, you share yourself.” Barf. Barf. I’m afraid real contact with core of a culture on cushy cruises is, at best, superficial.

            Of course, not everybody, especially those with kids can afford to live in a foreign culture, but it does make you question your own culture and value it differently.

            For example, sitting with German teachers discussing, “Whole Language,” a well-intentioned effort to get kids writing without undermining their self-confidence. The Germans asked me, as if I agreed with the concept just because I was carrying an American passport, “Was macht euch? Was kreigt euch davon? Unausgebiltet UND arrogant Schuler?”

            Loosely: What are you (Americans) doing? What will you get from this (policy)? Uneducated and arrogant kids?

            I answered out of what I learned traveling and living in Israel. Truly, I believe I came to understand how/why the Jews are such a successful race. The women, especially, rave/ooh and ah about every young person’s every undertaking. It results in immensely confident individuals.

That put a stop to the discussion then, but I am afraid, it did not to the validity of the German assertion.

A Spooky Day in School

On Halloween, 31 October 2018, I went (on my bicycle, as usual) to Cascade High School to substitute for the Family & Consumer Science (Home Ec, rebranded). The mid-morning health class was 15 or so students, to whom I read the sub notes-- answer 4 questions and then begin watching & taking notes on a film they would finish the following day. 

The first students finished clearly hadn't proofed their work. I handed them back, wrote corrections for the main errors on the board:

1.      “your” is possessive, “you’re” means you are

2.      Check spelling of ex(c)ercise

3.      Caps, periods and commas

A student protested, “Ms. McDermott, this is Health class, not English.”

I protested back, “Every class here is English. English is your native language. . .here I noticed a student who might be a Spanish speaker and said, “or maybe it’s not. . .”

            She cut me off screaming, “You’re such a RACIST!”

            Meanwhile, a student began videotaping me. I continued passing back papers, insisting everybody check their sentences for errors, meanwhile, the Screamer hollered, “Fuck you!” and said she was going to report me to the principal. Which she did. Mr. Vander Lugt and I had an amicable discussion about it later in the day.

            On the 19^th of the month I received an oblique letter from him informing me he had “visited” with the students and informing me he was taking me off the sub list. No rhyme. No reason. I phoned and requested a meeting to discuss it.

            In that meeting he told me I a parent had come to him with a videotape that students were sending around as a way of ridiculing me and he “didn’t want me expose me to it.”

            I agreed I was not interested in going into a classroom where students have cell phones. He also revealed that I was removed from the Epworth sub list but no reason was given either when it happened or then.

Clearly, what I am guilty of is 1) teaching English, 2) being a standards’ bearer and 3) coming from the 60s. There is much palaver about tolerance and diversity, but what is not tolerated is a 60s-style teacher who does not befriend kids, but sees her role as upholding standards. American students score behind many developed nations. Business is crying for H1B visas, 1 in 6 doctors in this country was educated abroad and no one seems to question any of it. I will be asking the W.D. Board about (see the following post for questions) all of it.

Questions for the WD Board

Dear WD Directors:

 As a taxpayer, and until recently a substitute teacher in the Western Dubuque District, I have a number of questions I hope the Board can answer satisfactorily. Some are based on research on the effects of cell phones on concentration and focus. Please find attached synopses and references of a portion of that research—many more studies are underway than I have cited.

 Others have to do the fact that I was recently removed from the Cascade High School sub list when a student violated my privacy, videotaped me in a classroom handing class papers back and insisting that students correct “your” “you’re”, the spelling of ex(c)ercise and correct punctuation (caps/periods) leading to the first question many of us taxpayers have:

1)      Are taxpayers getting fair value for money when 1^st and 2^nd year high school students have difficulty replicating grammar concepts introduced in late second grade?

 2)      What sort of contingency plans does the district have in place in case one student violates another’s privacy, videotapes him/her in a compromising position and posts it online? Can the district run the financial risk of a potential lawsuit?

 3)      While we do not rely on public schools to teach morals or religious principles, does the district itself have a responsibility to model/mentor civic virtues—responsibility, honesty, fairness and even-handed treatment of employees, which we do expect?

 4)      How many teachers have been fired, released, surreptitiously removed from sub lists, not had their contracts renewed in the past five years? What are their average ages?

 5)      How many of these teachers have been involved in a complaint with a student in which the student prevailed and the teacher dismissed? Are older/retired teachers able to bringing a different, stricter set of expectations into the classroom?

 6)      Is the WD Board of Directors monitoring conclusions and consensus of researchers on the effects of cell phones on adult focus and concentration and assessing whether they may or may not be appropriate for young people, more sensitive to the negative effects of “screen” time?

7)       Is the district’s cell phone policy protecting the learning environment and the vulnerable students in it? France has banned cell phones for children under 16 in all schools. Do you have plans to do so?

8)      Has the district met with the police, fire, and first responders about how to handle an emergency in a school, especially in case communication networks are overwhelmed by a large number of students using their cell phones simultaneously?

 9)      Is the district in a position to pay a large settlement that might result from a lawsuit resulting from such a scenario?

 10)  If there are cameras in the classroom, should they not be placed there by the authorities, the board itself, covering the widest area, gathering the most information to insure fairness in resolving any situation that may evolve?

I am bringing these questions up because inattention to them is resulting in a tragedy for all concerned.  Businesses complain they cannot find workers they need and must have for H1B and H2 B visas for workers from abroad. Statistically, one in six medical doctors was trained outside the U.S.  American students routinely score behind most developed nations and some undeveloped ones. Senior citizens who want/need to work bring a rigorous first-hand understanding of the past are systematically being excluded.

Thank you for considering these questions. I am certain the tax-paying community believes you will do the right things to resolve these dilemmas.

Sincerely,

Shirley A. (Keyron) McDermott

P.S. Mr. Vander Lugt is not alleging that I singled out any student criticism before his peers or any other pedagogical “offense.”  Only that he “doesn’t want to expose me to it.”

P.P.S. And I do not want to sub in a classroom feel free to videotape what/whomever they want and tell a teacher, “This is Health class not English…”

Encl:

Studies

Portfolio samples:

https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-Home-Forum/2016/1228/How-Mom-confounded-the-phone-man

https://celticlife.com/a-song-for-father-francis-part-1/

Dublin, Ireland Evening Press, Des Moines Register, Cedar Rapids Gazette

“Country” Kitchens from The Wapsipinicon Almanac

Silver City, NM edit