There are moments in youth when you make choices that alter the trajectory of your life. You might not recognize it at the time, but years later you can appreciate where a turning point took place. In this essay I will explain how my life changed so much for the better when I decided to teach myself Spanish. With a first few steps I undertook a journey which would be long, difficult, rewarding, adventuresome, and wonderful. It would change my life. I studied French in high school and college. I enjoyed learning the language and culture, but I did not find much use for it. I spoke some French when…
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“The Mind As a Potent Weapon” — Sports as a Metaphorical Training Tool for Pursuits More Important Than Sport
I wrote recently about adversity in competitive sports. But I was really using sport as a metaphor to talk about dealing with adversity in life generally. In this essay I would like to add to last week’s post to flesh out a fuller picture of how I see it. For the vast majority of us winning or losing in competitive sports is not all that important. But learning to train and compete well is incredibly important, in my opinion — especially for the young. To learn how to win with grace and lose with dignity -— that is important. To not sit on your ass all day waiting for life…
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Spring is Here — 2022 Edition
So I wrote late last fall about the impending darkness of winter, and my ability to get my workouts completed in the dark and the cold. Now we are on the other side: it is April and spring, and the sun is out for longer. Driving by the tennis courts last night and they were packed at seven pm. It was not like this in late December, to put it mildly. Creatures large and small – human and otherwise – were in semi-hibernation. Not any more. I am excited. The hardest part of this academic school year (my 28th) is behind me. Spring Break is next week. The Ojai Tennis…
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EVERYONE LOSES
In a corner of my garage I do tennis-specific workouts, and I have done these for years. I have on the walls some photographs of myself after after having won tournaments, or other such important competitive moments. More importantly, I have some quotes posted there that I have particularly important and which I constantly want to be reminded of – quotes to live by. And there is one of them in particular that I think about all the time. Here is the quote in my own handwriting tacked onto the wall, by the great champion Arthur Ashe – Ashe was only about four times more literate and thoughtful than your…
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Our Miniature Stasi — “I Refuse”
I recently was informed in writing that some members of the local community are pouring over my personal webpage to find objectionable opinions. They are calling into question my fitness to serve in my current job. This is not the first time this has happened: Watch what you write, one sympathetic soul warned me. “Be careful.” But that was almost three years ago. Well, the crows are back to hang on and haunt my website. The language police have arrived. I and my words are being scrutinized. The numbers of such have never been large, but they are there. They are watching. I knew something was up. The stats on…
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The ‘Fog of War’ and History Happening Right in Front of You — the Ukrainian-Russian War, Four Weeks In
It is what I would have wanted to see: a large army built on dictatorial fiat with conscripted soldiers attacking a neighbor unnecessarily, getting their asses handed to them by a smaller but motivated army of volunteers in a democracy fighting for and on their home turf. At the beginning of the war the conventional wisdom was that Vladimir Putin’s modernized army would roll over the Ukrainians after a brief but inspired fight. This is what so many of the talking-heads on TV predicted. But the reality seems to be something different: the Ukrainians are fighting the Russians to a standstill, and maybe even winning. Any student of history should…
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Insomnia As I Age
I woke up last night around 2:30 am and I was AWAKE. I lay there for a few minutes and realized I would not be falling asleep again anytime soon. This happens now and again. I have no idea why. Occasional trouble sleeping is a problem which arrived to me in my fifties. I try to get a vigorous workout almost everyday, else I have little appetite and restless sleep. Usually the workout works. I sleep well. But not last night. Who knows why? I suspect it is a function of age. As William Shakespeare compared youth and age with respect to sleep: Care keeps his watch in every old…
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Richard G. versus Google, Inc.
Yesterday I read an excellent article by George Packer where he says, among other things, the following: “We’ll need to help kids restore at least part of their crushed attention spans. If remote learning taught parents anything, it was that staring at a screen for hours is a heavy depressant, especially for teenagers. One day, and I hope soon, the masters of social media will stand before Congress with their hands raised in the manner of the Big Tobacco bosses, and try to deny what they’ve long known about the damage their products can inflict on human minds, especially young minds. After these hearings lead to belated regulation of web…
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You Poor Bastards
I see new parents and I shake my head. I see them pushing a baby-stroller, or chasing down a scrambling toddler, and I think to myself the following thought: “There but for the grace of God go I…” Being a parent to babies, toddlers, and little kids is so exhausting. It sucks you dry. I am so relieved it is behind me. Yet it was a precious time in my own life. I am sure my friends were sick of hearing how beautiful and wonderful my babies were, and how cute these baby clothes looked or about how restful were the afternoon naps we shared. At the time I could…
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The WAH Babies of America
I talked to a childhood friend the other day by telephone. I was surprised when he explained to me that his 21-year old son was near disconsolate over the recent fighting in Ukraine. His son was tearful much of the time and had trouble sleeping, my friend told me. The kid spent hours glued to his iPhone on YouTube and TikTok looking at reports of the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine — My son is really sensitive! He would watch that video of a Russian armored personnel carrier running over that old guy in his car and could hardly speak. He would just fall apart. The emotions around this are…
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May Vladimir Putin Rot in Hell
Three days ago I watched Vladimir Putin’s incredible speech about Ukraine, Russia, and NATO. No matter what misinformation Putin might give out, I knew by then that he would order Russian forces to invade Ukraine. Two days ago I wrote an angry screed, “The Ukrainians Will Fight Alone,” about all this. Ninety minutes ago the invasion of Ukraine by Russia began. That dictator Vladimir Putin has chosen to take a giant shit in his own backyard and sit down amidst the steaming heap. He and his people will be living in it for years. I feel so sorry for the many Ukrainians who will get caught up in the middle…
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The Ukrainians Will Fight Alone
I read the following powerful story by Anne Applebaum with reference to the impending crisis of possible war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s “Weimar Russia” is on the move, and nobody seems ready to stand up to it. Applebaum claims while there are no craven Neville Chamberlains in this story, there are also no stalwart Winston Churchills — “and the Ukrainians will fight alone.” My first response is: I hope there will be no need for a Winston Churchill. Is that where we are in European security in February 2022? But while watching the fiery speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin last night, I wonder. I saw a paranoid Putin ramble…
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One Generation After Another – (“Memento Mori”) – Change and Continuity
My grandma, Margaret (“Peg”) Harriet Sullivan Geib, died when she was 77-years old. Her husband, Phillip James Geib, my grandfather, died at 90-years of age. Their deaths could not have been more different. My grandma was ready to go. I remember her telling me around 1977 or so that she had little interest in the flashy new supersonic Concord passenger jet making news at the time, or any of the popular Atari video games or whatever. My grandma was done. Metaphorically, she had her bags packed and was ready to exit this vale of tears. And not long after that she had a heart attack. It was not fatal, and…
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Reciting Psalm 23: My Grandfather and Me
Supposedly my paternal grandfather (born in 1898) could recite long stretches of poetry by heart — Shelley and Keats, the classics. I mostly saw him recite semi-salacious limericks or other pithy humorous sayings, although he could recite those well enough, too. My grandfather had it all memorized. It was poetry at his fingertips, ready for use whenever. I am somewhat the same. I used to try and pacify my baby daughters when they were upset or overtired and could not fall asleep by reciting “Annabel Lee” or “El Dorado” by Edgar Allen Poe, hoping the music of the poetry would transfix and becalm them. Exhausted at two in the morning…
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The Metaverse Future and Me, Part II
I wrote my last posting about the “metaverse,” which (in one form or another) experts assure us is the “3.0” future of the Internet. I was reading further more about it last night and I read the following: “The metaverse will take Big Data, biometrics, digital currencies (Bitcoin and its 10,000 brethren), blockchain technology, NFTs, VR, AR, haptic devices, the internet of things (IoT), machine learning, and quantum computing, and throw them all into a metaphysical blender.” John Mac Ghlionn “How Meta” I want nothing to do with any of that. Is this naïve? Am I refusing to accept developing trends? Am I willfully blind? Am I walking away from…
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Against ‘The Metaverse’ — (“Eschew the digital opium.”) — A Benediction to My Daughters
Dear Julia and Elizabeth, I am finally old. I think it is official. It has been coming on for a number of years, and maybe the preliminary step was my decision to get rid of social media and sever most of my online contacts. By 2019 I decided I would be a friend with you in real life, or not at all, with very few exceptions. This was my first step away from contemporary online discourse. Everyone else seemed to be moving forward in one direction, and I purposely turned back. When it comes to “social media,” I had become antisocial. I dissented. After 2018 or so the future of communications…
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COVID-19 Arrives At Last to My Household
Four weeks ago I wrote that one of my resolutions for 2022 was the following — “Don’t try to get COVID, but don’t exactly go out of your way NOT to get COVID.” I wrote that because it seemed like everyone was falling ill with the Omicron variant in late 2021, and sooner or later the virus would find me, unless I wanted to live like a monk, which was not an option, since I have two daughters and a job. Well, I came back from a men’s-only weekend in Palm Desert representing Ventura County at the United States Tennis Association 18-and-over regional sectionals to find my youngest daughter had…
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Find a Spine and Refuse to Shut Down
“It is not the time for fear and cowardice, like with the Chicago Teachers Union. It is the time for resilience and courage.” Preface: School board meetings are about the surest cure to insomnia one can encounter, in my experience. And the vagaries of school district politics have always seemed to me beneath noticing or caring about. So my teaching career has proceeded for decades. But the rise of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and staffing pressures on local schools, in addition to teacher labor union militancy and calls for “sick outs” by educators wanting to return to distance learning, prompted me to take the unusual step of writing the…
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January 1, 2022
Today on the first day of the new year I came across the above photo of a young lady in front of all the books she read in 2021. The new year 2022 has arrived, and the stage is set for her, me, and you to journey through the next twelve months of literary adventures. How wonderful is that moment when you open a book to page one and start a narrative journey with the author! What interesting characters and involving scenarios will a person encounter by the end? The only thing really new in the world are all the books you have not read yet. It is like a…
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The News of the Death of a Famous Person I Never Forgot
I saw this ad the other day, asking me what was the death which most affected me: That is easy for me to answer. I saw this ad the other day, asking me what was the death which most affected me. That is easy. It was the death of Viktor Frankl on September 2, 1997. I was floored. His book Man’s Search For Meaning was one of the most important books of the 20th century. But let’s first examine who Viktor Frankl was not. He was not Elie Wiesel. Wiesel had embraced despair and nihilism after suffering in a Nazi death camp, as can be evidenced in his book Night.…
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“Welcome to 5.0 Tennis Siberia!”
NOTE: On December 1, 2021 I received notice of my USTA reclassification as a 5.0 NTRP tennis player. The following is my letter of appeal in response: December 11, 2021 To Whom it May Concern, I am writing this letter to appeal my rating bump from 4.5 to 5.0 NTRB rating. I suspect my recent rating change happened because of a USTA computer algorithm, and that no living person was involved in this decision. So I am writing this appeal to an actual human being who is knowledgeable about tennis and who can better judge who I am as a competitive player. Or maybe it was that I had an…
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Where Have All the Grown-Ups Gone?
This week I read four articles which seem to sum up the zeitgeist at the moment. Walk with me through them and let’s see what we can see. “Where Have All the Grown-ups Gone?”by Paul Krugman I normally never read anything by columnist Paul Krugman: he is generally a one-dimensional thinker, and you know what his predictable columns will say by just reading the headline. After reading the title, why read the whole article? You know what it is going to say. Krugman’s latest column talks about how Bob Dole was an old-school conservative, and now the last 20 years of conservativism is a history of serious moral decline from…
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You Are Not Your Job, Updated
Some years ago I had a giant purge of my Facebook contacts. I got rid of almost all my former students and current co-workers here in beachside Ventura, California. I miss hearing some of the news about former students, but I don’t miss hearing about my co-workers. I decided to semi-strictly wall off my work life from my private life. It was a major moment. With a few notable exceptions, I don’t socialize with co-workers anymore. Work defines me so much less as a person than it did in the past. I do have a vocation and a career, but in the end it is also just a job. As…
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Omicron Can Kiss My Ass
The news of a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 first identified in South Africa – the one designated “Omicron” – took the world by storm last week. Without any details or much of any information – the world panicked. The stock market significantly dropped. Headlines were full of non-stop news on anything of note. Governments shut their borders to international travel from affected regions. After almost 20 months of pandemic the air is rife with anxiety, almost hysteria, about COVID and any new mutation of the virus. Might the situation get worse? Commentators talked for hours about what would happen next with Omicron and new virus restrictions in the near…
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Abortion and Roe v. Wade: A Flawed Legal Decision, a Necessary Health Policy
On the evening of December 1, 2021 I felt a bit vertiginous. First of all, I had suddenly been reclassified as a 5.0 tennis player. That unexpected event totally took me by surprise. I was on my heels at the news this morning. Then this afternoon I read the accounts of the oral arguments held in the Supreme Court in the case of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It would appear, from the comments, that the Supreme Court is prepared to overrule Roe v. Wade. This has been the settled law of the land with respect to abortion for almost five decades. Almost my entire life has had…
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Apocalypse Now, Tennis Version — Exiled to “5.0 Siberia”!
I was teaching my second period class this morning when I received the text. A friend informed me I had been booted up to the NTRP 5.0 tennis level for the next year by the United States Tennis Association. “Noooooo!” I had seen this happen to others. They are moved up to the higher 5.0 level of tennis competition where they have no friends, and they languish without any USTA leagues to join or matches to play, and then the next calendar year they get reclassified back down to a 4.5 player — whereupon they can rejoin humanity and get matches again. But until that point they are exiled to…
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My Library, My Daughters; My Legacy, My Life
Like a snail with its shell it feels as if I have carried them around on my back for decades. My books. I own many of them. Too many? From apartment to apartment, even while in college and early adulthood, I never threw away any book I enjoyed. They added up. A buddy laughingly likes to remind me of the time the Spanish-speaking day-laborer I hired to help me move sighed as he lifted another box full of books and muttered, “Más libros, más libros…” Those boxes were heavy. There were many of them. Books were like ¾ of all my earthly possessions. Truth be told, I knew I would…
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Being in Charge as a Parent: Pretending to Know All the Answers — ie. “Faking It”
It has been three full months since this school year began. I hear stories of my fellow teachers around the country pulling out their hair, claiming the students post-pandemic are “feral” in misbehavior and way behind in their studies. Some schools seem to be out of control. Teachers are fed up and quitting mid-year. Most schools can’t seem to find bus drivers or substitute teachers or cafeteria workers. The educational system struggles to recover from the COVID crisis which began in March 2020, the same as the economy overall and other industries individually. I am lucky to be in a school mostly insulated from all this. I have been THRILLED…
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My Youngest Daughter: What is Best About Her
Dear Elizabeth, So I sit here across the table from you at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf store at the corner of Telephone Rd. and Main St. here in Ventura, CA. You are enjoying a hot chocolate with whipping cream which you assure me is delicious. Your older sister Julia had soccer practice this evening, and you agreed to come with me. I had to drop her off and hang out somewhere until her training session was over and it was time to drive her home. So you agreed to pal around with me for ninety minutes. I am so happy! Normally I would be waiting here by myself…
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“Daylight Savings Time” Ends: The Rhythm of the Seasons Change, but Exercise and Books Are a Constant
Two days ago, on November 7th, 2021, we ended daylight savings time. Now it gets dark as soon as 5:00 pm. That is early. This is what is on my mind tonight. The change in time has got me a bit off my game. The clock says it is 7:30 pm but it feels like it is 10:30 pm. It is dark outside and cold. Is it better to change the clocks every autumn and get up in daylight, with the sun setting so early? Well, farmers like that schedule better. But few Americans nowadays are farmers who milk the cows before breakfast. But still we turn our clocks back…