PBS REFUSES TO AIR RICK STEVES' TRAVELOGUE ON ISRAEL & PALESTINE

When I think about Rick Steves, I think of a politically benign guy who loves to travel and has a penchant for picnics. He strikes me as a very fair-minded individual, and I don't just say that because he briefly attended the University of Puget Sound. With this in mind, I was surprise to find out during a talk he gave a few months ago that the PBS station that serves New York City (the most viewed PBS affiliate in the country) refused to air a travelogue he made about his travels to Israel and Palestine. According to him, the mostly Jewish board of that PBS station asked the network not to run it. During the talk, Steves showed this documentary, which was about as fair and even-handed as a documentary on such a sensitive subject can be. In it he travels to both countries, led by soft spoken hosts that take pains to be fair and sympathetic to the other side. What is most surprising is that nothing comes up in a google search using keywords like Rick Steves, PBS, censorship, refuse to air, New York City, Israel, Palestine, etc. It is a big story that simply hasn't been reported by any US media outlets. Steves has written that he became sympathetic to the Palestinian's story after watching the documentary Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land.  To watch Steves' travelogue, The Holy Land: Israelis and Palestinians Today, click here.

REFRIGERATOR DOOR CONCLUDES FORMAL EDUCATION

This refrigerator door was my final project for my Master's program at the University of Puget Sound. I wrote my thesis on neurodiversity in the classroom. Neurodiversity is a movement that attempts to reframe neurological differences in humans like attention deficit disorder and autism as normal variations in the human genome and not as pathologies to be cured. In order to honor the different ways people's brains are wired, I highlighted using assignments and projects that allow for creative thinking in the classroom. The refrigerator includes some examples of my students' creative work this year. On a related note, I was hired to teach high school English at School of the Arts here in Tacoma. School starts in two weeks!  

A RITUAL TO READ TO EACH OTHER by WILLIAM STAFFORD

If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider--

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

IN A DARK TIME by THEODORE ROETHKE

In a dark time, the eye begins to see, 

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;   

I hear my echo in the echoing wood— 

A lord of nature weeping to a tree. 

I live between the heron and the wren,   

Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. 

What’s madness but nobility of soul 

At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!   

I know the purity of pure despair, 

My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.   

That place among the rocks—is it a cave,   

Or winding path? The edge is what I have. 

A steady storm of correspondences! 

A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,   

And in broad day the midnight come again!   

A man goes far to find out what he is— 

Death of the self in a long, tearless night,   

All natural shapes blazing unnatural light. 

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.   

My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,   

Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?

A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.   

The mind enters itself, and God the mind,   

And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

LESS IS MORE, AND OTHER THINGS PEOPLE HAVE FORGOTTEN

Here are a few pictures from my favorite house in Paradise Cove on Vashon Island. What I loved about this place was its simplicity. It was originally built as a boat storage building, and the current owner's grandfather converted it into a vacation house by building in simple bunk beds, a basic kitchen, and a small toilet. That was over 60 years ago and not much has changed. Just the smell of the old wood inside made me feel relaxed. It smelled like history and tradition. The owners, to their testament, have left everything alone inside over the years while some of their neighbors have built bigger, more modern homes. They kindly let me snap a few photos of their lovely home. They noted that people get out of control when it comes to the size of their vacation homes and I tend to agree. Most houses on Vashon are seasonal and palatial, which works well for this sentence, but is really a huge waste of resources.

A FITTING NAME: PARADISE COVE, VASHON ISLAND

Some of the best discoveries are accidents. Julie and I took the ferry over to explore Vashon Island today. It's weird having an island the size of Manhattan a stones throw away from Tacoma that we've never visited. Due to its isolation (there are no bridges to the island) Vashon has maintained its rural character even as neighboring Seattle and Tacoma bust at the seams. For part of our adventure, Julie and I explored Camp Sealth, an amazing 400 acre property owned by Campfire USA. While we were there we spotted a small beachfront community to the north. It took some doing to discern which rural roads would take us down to the beach. What we eventually discovered was Paradise Cove, a community of about 30 mostly modest homes with only foot access to each from a communal parking lot. It feels like it's in the middle of nowhere, but it's only 10 miles from our house in Tacoma. I'm told that most of the houses here never go on the market. Instead they are handed down from generation to generation. 

A SAD SIGN OF THE TIMES

I had a few thoughts when I came across this advertisement in the local Tacoma paper the other day. Due to the bold printing on the opposite side of this ad, the first thing I noticed was that it appeared that the white corrections officer had a black eye. When I first saw his eye I thought, "Wow, that's honest advertising." The next thing I noticed was that the Asian guy in the foreground kind of reminded me of the villain Chong Li in the movie Bloodsport. Then I read the ad and was surprised to learn that a corrections deputy with a GED makes more annually than a teacher with a master's degree. I'm not demeaning this career; I'm sure it's tough, regimented and at times dangerous. But what does it say about our society when we pay people more to watch our prisoners than to educate our youth. At the same time, these prison jobs wouldn't exist if teachers and parents did their jobs. The thought I'm left with is, is it a good idea to put a person in a position where they have so much power over others when they couldn't even finish high school (and I say that as a person who hated high school)? Does earning a GED or even a high school diploma provide you with the advanced critical thinking skills that are essential in jobs like corrections or policing?