A List of Books I Love

I just passed the 18 year mark in my sobriety last week, and while I was in Lubbock visiting Nick for his 13th (!?) birthday, I visited with Tammy (hi Tammy!) who is like the only person outside my family who has known me since the beginning. Needless to say, it was great seeing her, and to make a long story short, she's a kindred spirit. We had a lot in common back then, and still do, so I told her I would compose a list of my favorite books for her. This is that list. I will try not to go overboard, because if I put every book on here that has been important to me, the list would be way too long.

I guess I should start by dividing the books into categories.

Group One: Fiction for the Fun of It

These are the only series I'll list. I love fantasy fiction, and these are my favorites.
1. Game of Thrones (and the rest of the series) by George RR Marrtin. This is by far the best fiction I have ever read. It stands in a class by itself.
2. Preacher is a graphic novel series, and it pushed me into the graphic novel genre, which I now can't get enough of. Probably my 2nd fav story of all time.
3. The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, especially the 1st four books
4. Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman



Group 2: Books I've read as a Teacher


These books are ones I've read since becoming a teacher. They are typically award winners, and their target audiences are children and adolescents. Don't let that fool you though... These are the books that can change lives, even in adults. I'm a believer in the idea that characters in books are real role models, and that they can influence a person as well as real people, sometimes even more so. I have dozens of favorites in this group as well. However, if you like the genre, you cannot go wrong w/ anything that has won the Prinz Award or any of the Newbery winners from about 1988 on up. The older ones are good too, but not all of them are great. You decide.



Fat Kid Rules the World by KL Going
The essence of true punk rock? Could be...




Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli ( I love her!)




House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer won the National Book Award, a Newbery honor and a Printz honor. Wow.




OK, I'll continue my post in a later entry, as I am a total Blog-tard, and am tired of typing.

Yesterday's Posts

I put up some things I've written over the last few years so I wouldn't have to email them to various people who I want to share them with. Look if you are interested, don't if you're not. I didn't realize until now how much I had written, and how political it was.

Anyway, I am going to give another shot at writing a blog, and this time I'm telling myself that I will update more than once a year. We'll see.

Concerning Scott Fyfe, a right-wing Texas nut-job

The following is from an email I wrote in early 2006 in response to this sad fellow my sister got me involved in emailing with...


Scott, it's obvious, is the more ignorant and hateful of He and Ken, but ignorance and hatefulness are typical character traits of people who believe what Scott believes (or what he appears to believe as he has done nothing but forward fringe right-wing media for weeks now.) It's hard to tell why either of them believe what they do, as we get nothing but reactionary, second-hand criticism of people who have concerns about whichever Bush policy happens to be news-worthy that day.
It's not as though Ken and Scott acually have any thoughts of their own lately either; they simply forward extreme-right-wing "news" blogs and such, and then put semi-witty subject headings, along w/ maybe an insulting note or two to begin. I simply scan over their forwardings, but mostly ingnore them, as most are reactionary interpretations of similar actions by Dems of the past, or are Rush Limbaugh-esque hate-speeches dressed up as critical thinking, instead of being thoughtful and current analyses of real issues from a conservative perspective. These guys seem to miss the fact that most traditional conservatives are displeased w/ Bush policies as well. Ken and Scott and their like are so reactionary that they are incapable of even grasping the concept of examining Bush policies as they are today without seeing conspiracies from the "America hating liberal media."
I could as easily forward around a bunch of extreme left-wing conspiracy rhetoric picked up from fringe news sources, but to what end? they don't really represent the facts as I've analyzed them, and any info. that might be legitimate would be missed by Scott and Ken because all they want to see is the bogeymen they are convinced are out there.
People believe what they want to believe (on both sides), and then find a news source to back up their opinion. Unfortunately, due to deregulation of major media conglomerates (on Clinton's terms as president) the media is now much less tightly regulated, and the phenomenon of media flooding is having the same effect as media black-outs have had during various times in history (in England and Germany, for example, during WW II) The result is the same; people are kept in the dark because conflicting news opinions are taken as news facts, and news media (esp. TV) is much more about entertainment and ratings than it is about providing a vital social interest. On top of this, few people are equipped to think critically about the evidence presented, as it is often minimal and colored w/ personal politics (on both sides of the liberal/conservative scale.)
So for me it comes down to this: Neo-cons like Scott and Ken think and operate from a frame of mind where America is right in its actions at home and around the world, and those who disagree either hate America and its social make-up, or are ignorant and manipulated by the "liberal media." They think and speak in the language of great generalities, and refuse to even acknowledge the fact that most issues are quite complex, and as a result they view things as being quite simple; either you're with them (as True Americans, which they view themselves as) or you're against them.
On the other side, there are people like me; We see most actions of our government, and of our larger society, in a matter of degrees, and we give weighted importance to issues dependent upon how strongly they violate principles of democracy. We operate from the frame of mind in which we see imposing our will as a nation on others as to varying degrees wrong. We are on constant alert, wary at all times of our government, looking to keep them in check when they overstep the bounds of their power. Why? Because we love the democracy we have, and we want to keep it and expand it. We don't believe this can be done by compromising things like civil rights; by ignoring treaties like the Geneva conventions; by using the UN when it suits our business interests and ignoring it when it doesn't. We don't believe that ignoring anti-democratic behavior in our allies but not our enemies is acceptable. We want our democracy to thrive by making the right choices, which are not usually the choices that flaunt our power, or secure our wealth, or give us the temporary feeling of security while jeopardizing it in the long run.
That's the difference between Us and Them, and in debating, or conversing, or whatever, we play by different rules and with different tools, because we value different things.

Tyson

Punched in the Face

Ok, so I don't post that much, but I figured that this story may entertain you that know me.
Erin and I went to Laughlin NV for a weekend of massages and relaxation. I have been absolutely kicking ass playing cards lately (up about 5300 playing 1-2 over the last 6 weeks) and we needed a break from work, home projects, etc. So in Laughlin, it's about midnight, and I am playing in a shorthanded 1-2 n/l game w/ a 150 max buy in. For some reason this is the highest they do there at 1-2. I had pretty good control of the table when this drunk guy who thought himself god's gift to poker comes up to the table and immediately starts bragging about how he's gonna bust us all, etc. I can see he's one of those ultra-agressive types who doesn't know when to slow down, so I begin setting an elaborate trap; I weak-raise to 7 w/ JJ in mid position and get headsup w/ the bigblind who I know is a weakish player. He reraised me w/ a min raise (to 12 total), so I figure him for AQ, or maybe A10. the flop comes K high, and I know I am good, but also know the BB will do a minimum continuation bet of around 15, which is exactly what he does. So what I am doing is I am going to call here, weak call the turn and check behind or weak-call the river, provided the BB doesn't hit, which I will know b/c he won't bet big unless he does. I am doing this to make drunk-guy (DG from her on) think I am a weak passive player. So the turn is a blank, BB checks, and I check. The river is a queen, BB bets 20 and I call; I KNOW he hit a queen, but I want to showcase my weak play the DG, which I do, acting all frustrated. DG immediately starts going on about how I can't play n/l, and I am too passive, etc. So far so good.
OK, next key hand comes w/ me getting AJ on the button; I called DG's 25 preflop raise, and so did the same weak BB. flop comes A7Q, DG bets 30, I raise to 60. BB thinks a minute and raises allin, about 130. DG folds, I think a minute, and figure BB for a weak A. I call, and DG starts saying "that is a horrible call!" to which I reply, "the BB has a weak A; I've got AJ, and I guarantee it is the best hand." Next, BB turns his hand up, and DG still goes on about my "bad call" and I couldn't really have a read on the BB. The turn brings an 8, and the BB winds up sucking out. Not a big deal, actually to my benefit as far as setting DG up; he is convinced my call was bad somehow.
Next key hand, and we're down to 3 handed. DG has tun off all but me and the BB with his cursing, insults, etc. He is berating me for folding too many hands, and he has about 420, about 170 more than me. He wants to up the limit to 3-5, and I agree, if he'll let me buy in to get even w/ him in chips. He says no, but then agrees to let me get 100 more. I now have 260. He raises to 30 preflop from the big blind after I called 5 and the smallblind folded. I call w/ 89 spades. The flop comeas all spades, he checks, and I bet 45, and he checkraises me allin, and I instantly call; he's got 10-5, no spades, no nothing. I double to 510. Then a new player joins us. 1st hand the new player is in, DG raises from sb to 25, I call, and new guy does too. (the other player folded.) Flop comes Q high, DG checks, I check, and new guy bets 60. DG goes allin, I fold, newguy calls, showing Q8suited. DG turns over JJ, and starts insulting the newguy about calling a raise preflop w/ Q8 (not a bad play in position 3 handed, but DG is too drunk and/or stupid to see this) DG hits a J (2 outter) on the turn and just goes off on the newguy, relentlessly, about how "fucking stupid" he was to call preflop, etc. DG is standing over the table now, yelling everything he's saying, and needling the newguy to play him headsup. I agree to sit out and watch, since DG wanted to play newguy for 500 headsup, and newguy agreed. DG insists he will take all the money, etc. He's cussing and yelling at the newguy for about 10 minutes as they play (a total of about 7 hands) and in between he's insulting me too. Since I wasn't playing DG anymore, I stopped being so polite. I pointed out as he was knocking the newguy (who was f'ing HUGE, btw) that all 3 big pots DG won, he won after putting his money in bad. And not just bad, but REAL bad, as in 4-outs-or-less bad. He then challenged me to play headsup the following night at a casino across the street, the Riverside, for 1000, w/ 5-10 blinds. I told him I would be glad to, and then he went back to playing and insulting the newguy.
So OK, a little time passes and DG looks over at me and says 'you can't play fucking poker... I don't give a fuck..." to which I reply, "That you don't give a fuck is plainly obvious." He looks at me funny, like I was speaking Greek or something. He's standing there (he'd been playing the last several rounds standing) and he leans over me and says real quiet "... fuck you." I say, also quietly, "get away from me." He is standing and I am sitting, and he feints a swing at me and I then stand up and say "You'd better get the fuck away from me." then he hits me square in the mouth.
I was a little shocked; I hadn't been punched in the mouth since highschool. Then he hits me again, this time in the side of the head. He was drunk, so they weren't great punches, but they hurt enough that after the second one he swings again, I duck, and I give him an elbow to the jaw which drops him to the floor. Then the newguy, the big dude, is past me and on top of DG, and he just starts wailing the shit out of him.
Meanwhile there is no security yet, and I am shouting at the pokerroom manager "Get some fucking security here, now!" I look down, and I see DG beneath this dude, and I have to admit, my first instinct really was to grab the chair I was sitting on and just smash DG's face to a pulp. But then, instead, I get down next to newguy, and I start pulling him off DG. DG's face was all bloody, and his finger was all cut because he tried a lip-rip on the newguy and the newguy bit the fuck out of him, in addition to otherwise beating him down. The big dude punches DG one more time, and I tell him "if you don't stop, both you guys are going to jail; get up now and you're clean." He listened I guess, because he got up and left. Meanwhile, security finall shows up, but they aren't doing anything. DG gets up and starts talking about how I attacked him, until the dealer says, no, look at the tape. They ask if I want to press charges, and I said no. For one, it would be a hassle for me, and 2, I really wanted to play this guy for 1000 the next night. DG is now up, gathering his chips, cussing the dealer and the security guards, talking about how he was attacked because he was such a great player it sent me into a jealous rage. I'm just standing there, waiting for DG to clear his money off the table so I can get mine, and then he starts in on the dealer again, and that was when I changed my mind. I told security I did want to press charges, and fuck this asshole who had the chance to walk away clean if he'd only kept his mouth shut. Then DG's all like "no, dude... come on.... don't do this... " But I just say "you were given every chance not to go to jail, but you blew it. Winning your 1000 tomorrow isn't worth as much as seeing your pathetic ass taken to jail tonight." Then they hauled him away.
In the end, I didn't press charges. When the real police finally showed up, they took a statement from me, and I said I just wanted the guy locked up. They said 2 things could happen; I could file assault charges, which meant court, etc. Or I could let the casino file disorderly conduct charges, which would be less severe but would still land him in jail that evening. I opted not to press, secretly hoping he'd show up the next evening for our match; but he never did.

Sinking deeper into the mire, 2004

The latest new of prisoner abuses in Iraq , while horrifying, will unlikely be the last “un-American” act which will surface and we will fail to want to own up to. While our current administration, and those who, failing to speak out against it and so silently condone its actions, consistently shout out to the world that our message is one of peace and freedom and democracy, the world, like us, tends to judge nations not by their rhetoric, but by what it sees that nation do and what results may come of its actions. For despite the lack of weapons of mass destruction, have we not continually justified our presence in Iraq by citing the worst behavior of its former government? Do many of us not also rage silently against the Islamic world, judging it by the worst behavior of its worst fanatics?
It shames me deeply that some of our men and women, sworn to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States of America and the “inalienable rights” that we fought our revolutionary war to gain for all men, would commit so callous and hateful acts on other human beings, especially those who are so completely powerless as prisoners of war. Let us not forget, too, those detainees that our government is holding outside of the borders of our beloved nation, so that they do not have to grant those same rights to them. There can be no doubt that the offenders involved in the specific cases, and not the administration, are personally responsible for those despicable acts, but Americans who truly love the ideals that this great country was founded on should remember that the vision of the greates of our leaders was one which sought to improve the quality of life of all people. In Vietnam we got involved to help win a Civil war, in hopes of achieving democracy, and the quality of life that comes with it. The current situation in Iraq is not the same; we weren’t invited, we aren’t opposing an organized army of a relatively equal super-power as we saw in the USSR during Vietnam, and we have no clear objective, militarily speaking, that our troops can rely upon. If we try to imagine applying our own self-righteous judgment of actions and not intent to ourselves, how could we not see that the actions of our government are contrary to what it is saying. From the Whitehouse we constantly hear about damage control and how bad these images are going to affect the view towards us of the rest of the world, and we continually see the current administration using marketing techniques in its dissemination of information about its actions to us, its own citizens.

Tax Cuts and consistency, circa 2003

Tax Cuts

I saw on CNN today that the average family of 4 with an income in the 40,000 dollar range will receive a tax cut of approximately nine hundred dollars next year. This amounts to 75 dollars a month, or about $2.50 per day. Any extra income is nice, but when compared to the billions and billions of dollars corporations and tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars the individuals and families who are in the top two percent income bracket stand to make from this tax cut, it seems a little inequitable. As one who stands to receive that 900 dollars a year, I am much less inspired than those in the top two percent. What I ask is that the reader consider this:
Regardless of how much you stand to make on the tax cut, if you are a supporter of Bush and his "War on Terror" it is morally inconsistent to support both the tax cut and the war at the same time. For wars cost money, and that money has to come from the government; it can't come about through charity, or private donations, or any of the other ways that are proposed to take the place of the reduced available funds created by a Tax cut. The only other way to fund this war is to continue to take away from other government functions their allocated money, as we have already begun to see by slashes in benefits to the Veterans, reductions in education expenditures, etc. For a man and an administration who claim to be supporting the troops and who claim to be fiscally conservative, this type of spending more while taking in less makes no sense at all, though people familiar with the personal history of our president will recognize a pattern familiar in all of his business ventures prior to entering politics.
It is interesting to me that not only is this the first administration in the history of the US to cut taxes in a time of war, it is the first government in the history of the civilized world to do so. If you truly support the war in Iraq and the war on terror, then you should be willing to put your money where your mouth is and insist that these tax breaks be reversed, and that the tax dollars you would have saved be used to continue paying down the cost of the war, which was grossly underestimated by this administration. This will demonstrate your personal commitment to the wars, and will help, at least minimally, to reduce the now record Federal deficit that has been created out of the Budget surplus this administration inherited.

American Ideal, circa 2002

The Democratic Ideal; Larger Than America

In the wake of 9/11, everyone everywhere has been advertising his or her American pride. You see bumper stickers, billboards, T-shirts, commercials… every type of media imaginable shouting out gratitude for our American heritage. But what does it mean to say you are a proud American? What is the essence of American pride? Is it the quality of living? Is it the high level of comfort most of our citizenry enjoys? Is it our technological prowess or our enormous economic prosperity? If this is what lies at the heart of American pride, there can be no doubt that we are the greatest nation on earth. No one anywhere could argue with our superior position of material success. But is this what it truly means to be American? I believe not.
I am proud in a way that cannot be described in words of our heritage as Americans. The great experiment of self-rule and the struggle that made it a reality have since paved the way for we Americans to enjoy the fruits of Democracy in a personal and fundamental way. Democracy is not without its problems, but in spite of these, I fully believe that Democracy as a way of life is the best way of life. Many of our founding fathers believed that Democracy would only succeed if the citizens were educated in the rules of participatory government, and also that it was essential for the success of a representative government that its citizens be on constant alert from corruption from within. Being a citizen in a representative Democracy is by nature a time consuming endeavor, and it requires a constant watchfulness and awareness of issues facing the public at large. A well informed public will naturally do more for furthering Democracy in the rest of the world than a misinformed or indifferent public, and a public which ignores its responsibility in checking the motives and actions of its governing body is harmful to the cause of Democracy.
It is for this reason that I became a teacher. I am committed to the work of teaching our American children the skills necessary to their futures as members of our Democratic Republic. So what, exactly, are those skills? Chief among them are the ability to think critically and to judge the merits of thoughts and ideas (and the actions that result from them) based on how those thoughts and ideas contribute to furthering the Democratic ideal. I am at once both fearful and hopeful.
I am fearful that the easy life of material success so enjoyed in our society by so many will continue to produce in greater numbers American citizens who are totally indifferent to the protection of the ideals that made that very success a possibility. It seems overwhelmingly evident at times that the inclination of our society is chiefly toward a concern with protecting our means of consumer gluttony, and that the system of Democracy which paved the way for our unparalleled success is not even considered, much less understood by the average citizen.
History has played out this and similar stories before.
A great nation, built on great ideals and who began to experience unparalleled success, found itself in a position in which it saw itself far superior to all others. Gradually, its citizenry worked less hard at preserving what it had built, and focused instead on enjoying the products of its success. The people became less interested in the goings on of their government, which was easy to do with so much in life to be enjoyed. Then, as time rolled by, the government gradually started to do things, which were in violation of the principles, which the citizenry had come to equate with their sense of nationalism. The citizenry, not wanting to believe that their government could possibly do anything that contradictory to its touted idealism, and not willing to devote the time and effort necessary to check for themselves whether or not their government was still the one which they believed they had, became so unconcerned that they didn’t notice until it was too late that fanatics and fundamentalists and self-serving interests had taken control of the governing body; serving the greater social good was no longer the government’s function. At that point the citizenry was faced with two unpleasant choices; try to live within the system and ignore the corruption, or risk the consequences of speaking out against the powers that were.
The fanatical nationalism that gripped the German people at the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power must have seemed to the citizens at the time a good thing. Who didn’t want to feel national pride? Who didn’t want to believe that fierce loyalty was a virtue? Those in doubt were told to quit rabble-rousing; to support their government and trust in its inherent desire to serve the public good. But the fact remains that what fascism is is extreme nationalism, and a society which belittles the rights of its minority to speak against the status quo, which demands that the minority opinions silence themselves for the sake of national unity, is no longer a society which embraces the basic tenet of Democracy, which is the value of individual rights and freedoms to all members of the society, not only the dominant voice. It is then a society which, unwittingly, had already given up the very thing it professes to embrace. For when the citizens of a government no longer concern themselves with active monitoring and participation, and instead choose to overlook certain isolated transgressions of the governing body against the principles of Democracy, then it is already almost too late.
These thoughts lay heavy on me, as we, in the months since 9/11, have seen our government do many things that are contrary to Democracy. The threat of “terror” has been exploited to the fullest, and is being used to anesthetize us against the terrible violations of the Democratic Ideal being perpetrated by our government. We ignore or minimize the torture and consequent beating to death of Afghan detainees under supervision of our military; the arrogant dismissal of UN procedure and authority in the world theatre by our current administration; the total lack of material evidence before the recent declaration of war; the hypocrisy of our moral certitude in singling out Iraq; the atrocities being perpetrated on impoverished Palestinians by our ally, Israel; our invasion and aggressive declaration of war on what is now a third-world country, whose infrastructure was destroyed by us ten years ago; and worst of all, the ostracizing and ridiculing of the minority voice in this country. When the government of a nation which professes itself a Democracy tries to silence the voice of dissent, and when many of that nation’s citizens participate in the effort, either actively by social persecution, or inactively through indifference, then that nation is in a precarious position with an uncertain future. We have seen this before, but are we, the citizens of the Democratic Republic we claim to love, wise enough to learn from the lessons of history? Are we committed enough to the ideals if Liberty and Democracy that we will recognize when our government has turned its back on them, and act to correct that wrong? My great hope is that yes, we are. Democracy as a philosophy of life, as a way of living, demands of those who embrace it that they speak out and socially mobilize in its defense, regardless of the transgressor. The ideals that made America the great nation that we are, are bigger than America and true Americans will not flinch away from confronting those who abandon them, even for a moment. We cannot allow our government to set aside our ideals in its quest to get a “regime change” in Iraq; we cannot condone the torture of anyone, no matter their crimes, and still hold true to the principles our nation was built on. If we want to be an agent of Democracy in the world, we cannot ignore the will of the majority of the world’s governments by imposing our will, through military might, on anyone, no matter how corrupt they may be. If we do so, we will lose all credibility as a force for Democracy in the world, and we will do irreparable harm to the cause of liberty, peace, and equality. In Democracy, the proper means are the ends, and unjust means, under any circumstance, destroy our cause.