Top Gun turns 30 this year

Was it really thirty years ago that Maverick and Goose flew "into the danger zone"?



That's right. I may be jumping the gun a bit because the official release date for the Tony Scott/Jerry Bruckheimer military classic Top Gun is actually in May. But I've been thinking about the movies of my youth, and I've been slowly introducing my teenage son to the movies that mattered when I was his age. Nothing made a splash like this one in 1986.



So, as Generation X looks back at 25 five years, I've been thinking a lot about the media that entertained us and formed our views. A lot of engaging movies with strong political or sociological undertones came out in the years 1986 and 1991, which would be roughly twenty-five and thirty-years for those of us in the heart of Gen X. I plan to write a lot more about these in the coming months. But here are a few from the list:

1986:  Alien, Platoon, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Stand by Me, The Mission, The Fly, Highlander, Crocodile Dundee, About Last Night, Big Trouble in Little China, Hoosiers. and The Name of the Rose.

1991:  Terminator 2, JFK, Point Break, Boyz in the Hood, Bugsy, The Fisher King, The Doors, My Own Private Idaho, Jungle Fever, and, New Jack City.

Complicating the School Lunch Issue - We aren't France

School lunches are definitely a problem in terms of their overall impact on student health. And, the federal guidelines that made them less appealing to many - but in some ways healthier - haven't done much turn them into the brilliant culinary masterpieces that other countries' students seem to enjoy. However, the problem with school lunches in American cafeterias is much more an issue with our country's entire food industry, as opposed to simply the failure of schools to put appetizing meals on the ... tray.



And, that's the issue that Bettinas Elias Siegel seeks to expose and expand our understanding of in her insightful and informative piece in today's New York Times titled "The Real Problem with School Lunch."

Let’s start with money. The federal government provides a little over $3 per student per lunch, and school districts receive a smaller contribution from their state. But districts generally require their food departments to pay their own overhead, including electricity, accounting and trash collection. Most are left with a dollar and change for food — and no matter what Mr. Moore says, no one is buying scallops and lamb on that meager budget. Contrast this with France, where meal prices are tied to family income and wealthy parents can pay around $7 per meal. Give that sum to an American school food services director and you may want to have tissues handy as he’s likely to break down in incredulous tears.

And what about the students on the other side of the serving line? Nothing in our nation’s food environment primes them to embrace fresh, healthful school meals. The top four sources of calories in the average American child’s diet are grain-based desserts, pizza, soda and sports drinks, and bread. One-third eat fast food every single day. More than 90 percent don’t eat enough vegetables. And each year, our children are bombarded by around $2 billion in child-directed food and beverage advertising, much of which promotes the least healthy products.

Having spent a considerable amount of time in the past two years developing a plan to re-organize our cafeterias, I can attest to Siegel's claims. We have problems getting healthy food consumed by our young people. But that's a problem with our culture and food production system, and that's not readily going to change. As natural food icon Alice Waters says,

"I don't want to force kids to eat healthier foods. I want to win them over to making healthy choices."

Two Months from today Coupland's "Generation X" Turns 25

In just two months, Douglas Coupland's zeitgeist novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture will turn twenty-five. That's right, a quarter century ago on March 15, 1991, Generation X was named as the book was published. This year is the year for a generation, which had been deemed the Slackers, to look back on 25 years. In that time, slacking is really the last thing we've been doing. But what we have been doing is worthy of reflection - growing up, getting jobs, raising kids, creating the internet, hacking society, creating artisan crafts, seeking authenticity in a world severely lacking. These ideas are the focus of the retrospective book I've been working on and hope to put out soon. In the meantime, here's the foreward to the book version of my Master's thesis on Coupland's early works. It's title -  McJob: Consumer Culture in Douglas Coupland's Early Works.

In the middle of summer in 1991, as I was about to enter my final year of college, a good friend who had just graduated but was still on campus waiting tables casually mentioned to me “this new book about people our age …” The focus, he said, was on twenty-somethings who had graduated into a lethargic economy with a sense of career ennui and were working hourly service industry jobs rather than pursuing careers. The key, or intriguing element, was that they were “choosing lifestyle over career.” Sure, they were working “McJobs” that had nothing to do with their college majors, and they were earning far under their potential or promise … but they were choosing to do that while they focused on finding some meaning in their lives. They had unintentionally, and rather subconsciously, embraced the mantra laid out for them years before by the Everyman teen hero Lloyd Dobbler who in Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything calmly and rationally explained to Diane Court’s father how “I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.”  For my friend and other recent graduates in our spehere, Lloyd's idea resonated with validation of our unexpected post-graduate experience. The book was, of course, Douglas Coupland’s Generation X: Tales of an Accelerated Culture (1991), and it would be the work of fiction that captured a moment in time and incidentally named a generation.  

7-Day Punk Rock Challenge

Punk is ...

As I have noted before, punk and punk rock is the spirit of America and every bit as representative of the American identity as early icons of individuality and self-reliance like Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. In fact, for years I've told my students that Henry David Thoreau is America's original punk. And, as I intro Civil Disobedience and Walden, I also share with them the foundational tenets of punk, as wonderfully articulated by Bad Religion frontman Greg Graffin.

Henry David Thoreau & the Punk Rock American Ethos

PUNK*

PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.

PUNK IS: a movement that serves to refute social attitudes that have been perpetuated through willful ignorance of human nature.

PUNK IS: a process of questioning and commitment to understanding that results in self-progress, and by extrapolation, could lead to social progress.

PUNK IS: a belief that this world is what we make of it, truth comes from our understanding of the way things are, not from the blind adherence to prescriptions about the way things should be.

PUNK IS: the constant struggle against fear of social repercussions.

                                           

*Credit to Greg Graffin

If you're on Facebook, and you've been on in the past few days, and you are of Generation X, then you have probably seen, or maybe even been nominated to participate in the 7-Day Punk Rock Challenge in which, once a day, for seven days you post a video of an (allegedly) punk rock song, and then nominate a friend to do the same. I've been having great fun with this, both searching for songs to share and waiting for someone to surprise me with something cool I hadn't heard, or hadn't heard in a while. Here's a taste of a few songs I've been enjoying.

Ziggy Stardust is in Heaven Now - RIP David Bowie

"Ziggy played guitar, jammin' good with Weird and Gilly ..."

A man of impeccable style and presence. He was always the coolest man in the room ... in any room.

David Foster Wallace, voice of Generation X, or something else entirely

As we prepare to wade into the monstrous genius of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest as part of the Infinite Winter, I am wading around the fringes of the book, and nibbling at little pieces of criticism and commentary on Wallace and IJ.  Because this year - 2016 - is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the coining of "Generation X," via Coupland's seminal novel, I am also connecting my writing and work back to that concept. Wallace and Coupland are, interestingly, on the very fringe of the generation, being born in 1961, and that makes them some of the earliest icons. And, icon, as much as they might bristle, is the correct word because of the impact they had. And, in doing my nibbling, I've run across a few fun pieces of commentary regarding DFW and Generation X.

There is, of course, this:

And, then there was a really nice bit of criticism from Adam Kirsch in Rocket and Lightship: Essays on Literature and Ideas, excerpted on Salon.com, which explores the connections deeply. I love the perimeter exploration of irony and the examination of language. It reflects the spirit that Dave Eggers recalls in his most excellent introducation to my edition of IJ. And the idea of lineage and allusion and literary bloodlines is great fun to extrapolate. As far as Generation X and Wallace go, here's some fun to batter around:

When Wallace wrote about how difficult it was to be an American, he specifically meant an American of his own generation—the post-sixties cohort known as “Generation X.” “Like most North Americans of his generation,” Wallace writes about the teenage hero of “Infinite Jest,” “Hal tends to know way less about why he feels certain ways about the objects and pursuits he’s devoted to than he does about the objects and pursuits themselves.” Likewise, in “Westward,” he writes, “Like many Americans of his generation in this awkwardest of post-Imperial decades . . . Sternberg is deeply ambivalent about being embodied.” It is no wonder that readers born between 1965 and 1980 responded to this kind of solicitude, with its implication that they were unique, and uniquely burdened.

What is actually most American and most Generation X about these laments, of course, is their provincialism. For Wallace to find it plausible that “being embodied” or “objective insignificance” were new American problems is as sharp an indictment of American ignorance, in its way, as those polls which are always showing that half of us can’t find the U.S. on a map. Except that if any young novelist knew the ancient history of such problems, it should have been Wallace. He was very widely read, and he studied philosophy in college and graduate school; his first novel plays knowingly with Wittgenstein and Derrida. In the introduction to “Fate, Time, and Language,” the posthumous edition of Wallace’s senior thesis, his father James remembers reading the “Phaedo” with the fourteen-year-old David: “This was the first time I realized what a phenomenal mind David had.”

Build a Better Colorado can fix CO's TABOR problem

Colorado is a uniquely "purple state," with a blend of liberal/conservative/independent Democrats & Republicans. In a perfect world that would mean a degree of moderation that leads to very effective government. And, the Rocky Mountain state does pretty well managing services and expenses with limited revenue and legislation. But the libertarian spirit that runs through all groups - and which was behind voters approval of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) in 1992 - created one heck of a "Gordian knot" in terms of voters rights and responsible governance. Nowhere is that more true than with TABOR, which has required several voter-approved "time outs" because of the necessity of maintaining a strong infrastructure and productive society. And, in 2016 the state is in need of a serious, practical, and permanent fix to TABOR.

Having moved to Colorado in 2003 from fiscally-messy Illinois, I can appreciate and support the desires of Colorado voters to have the final authority for approving all tax increases. And, I can firmly assert that the tax-approval right was the primary - and really only - reason voters passed TABOR. Everything else in the amendment is a hinderance to effective government and needs to change. The "everything else" refers to the revenue cap based on an obscure, arbitrary, and ultimately indefensible formula that mandates Colorado's government budget can only grow by inflation + population growth. Any revenue collected beyond that must be refunded to voters. Applying formulas to societies is simply ... irresponsible. We live in complex emergent systems which are far too malleable and intricate to reduce to a formula. Thus, I firmly believe that a majority of Coloradans would and should support an amending of the TABOR amendment to simply maintain voter-approval of taxes ... and that's it.

While the ideologues in the Republican party and unaffiliated libertarians will cry foul and rant conspiratorially about reckless and uncontrolled government, the rational people may have a chance for productive change by supporting the work of a bi-partisan, or non-partisan, lobbying group known as Building a Better Colorado. As the group prepares to float as many as three or four ballot initiatives this election year, the fix of TABOR is the most important one. Here's hoping the group - backed by many prominent Coloradan leaders can actually overhaul TABOR and truly Build a Better Colorado.

The one idea the group did not entertain from the start is the complete repeal of TABOR, in particular the constitutional requirement that voters approve all tax hikes. However, the project's leader said he was surprised at the level of support for removing the revenue caps, which restrict state budget spending and provide taxpayer refunds in boom years. "There's an increasing percentage of the electorate (for which) TABOR is not as sacrosanct as it was to some," Brown said. Brown said the idea has more support among likely voters when coupled with "a prescription on how it would be spent." The state's current budget situation, in which it is issuing taxpayer refunds but facing spending cuts, is a motivating factor, he said. Chris Watney, the president at the nonprofit Colorado Children's Campaign, applauded the move. "Having more ability to invest and more flexibility in how we do so, I do think would have a positive impact on things like education and health care," she said.

The Infinite Winter is Coming

Yep, it's here. My copy of David Foster Wallace's magnum opus, Infinte Jest arrived today. I will be reading the 3 pound, 1079-page, extensively-footnoted novel as part of an online Book Club called The Infinite Winter, which is being organized in honor of the twentieth anniversary of Infinite Jest's publication in 1996. The online book club community reading of the IJ will begin on January 31, and it will run through May with a weekly reading schedule of roughly 75 pages.

For those of you who know little to nothing about Wallace or IJ, let's just say this is one of the more challenging works of post-modern fiction you're going to run across. And, though I have an MA in English - and twenty-three years of teaching experience - I am fairly certain I would not be able to fully understand and appreciate this literary masterpiece without the  help of a reading community.

Like many, I've had IJ on my to-do-list for a while now, and the Infinte Winter is the perfect opportunity to jump in.  Infinite Jest evokes the same excited, but daunting, feeling I had before reading Pynchon's V. in graduate school.  While I knew I would appreciate the novel regardless of how I read it, I greatly benefited from the community of readers sharing thoughts, ideas, questions, and, of course, explanations of allusions that I might have missed. So far, I think I've encouraged a few others to at least buy the book and consider the challenge.

Can't wait to get started.

Is Colorado Dept of Ed Subverting State Board & Parents to Serve David Coleman's Interests?

The Colorado Dept of Education's careless and unprofessional announcement of a switch for the state mandated test for juniors was ill-timed and rather shocking. When the state began to backpedal, it was obvious they'd been caught, admittedly not doing "what's best for kids." So whose interest is CDE - or the mysterious "selection committee - serving with this decision.

The shift is not simply a matter of choosing between equal tests. The SAT is implementing an entirely new format and style for which there has been no piloting, meaning the data from this assessment will be completely raw. There is no context for these scores and no legitimate comparability for cut scores. Asking high school juniors to take this test and allow it to become part of their permanent record is truly an egregious disregard for the best interests of kids. And, I am shocked at the wanton disregard with which CDE has acted in this case. Just as CDE did with PARCC, the state is asking our students to serve as guinea pigs for an "un-proven test."

Additionally, I am too well informed to not be suspicious of ulterior motives regarding the decision. It is no secret that there is strong sentiment in Colorado for withdrawal from PARCC. In fact, not two weeks before this decision, both Elliott Asp and Steve Durham were quoted in Chalkbeat as implying that this spring would be the last year for PARCC. Had the state chosen to remain with ACT for juniors, it would have been a very easy shift to ACT-Aspire for grades 3-9. And, it's no secret that many districts are strongly in favor of ACT-Aspire.

Now, with a shift to PSAT and SAT, the State Board faces a much more difficult decision in withdrawing from PARCC because it makes little sense to switch to Aspire for 3-8 or another test and then use PSAT/SAT at the high school. And, those of us who are paying attention have not forgotten that one of the strongest and most persistent proponents of PARCC is College Board President David Coleman. Obviously, College Board and some at CDE seek to establish a link between PARCC tests at grades 3-9 and PSAT/SAT at high school. Losing Colorado would have been a serious blow to PARCC, but with the recent decisions in Colorado and Illinois to leave ACT and sign with SAT, PARCC's status is strengthened. This seems to be an intentional move by CDE to force the State Board's hand regarding PARCC. Clearly, CDE appears to be acquiescing to the will of DavidColeman and College Board, as opposed to the desires of the people of Colorado.

The entire issue is suspicious and deserves great scrutiny by the parents and educators in Colorado. The news of the "selection committee" was a surprise to many who have followed this discussion for years, and the ambiguity of the identity of committee members is questionable as well. Like all the previous work done with HB1323, any committee tasked with making this monumental decision should have been conducted with great transparency. CDE has failed the people of Colorado on all accounts regarding this decision.

Colorado Dept of Education Shocks State with Un-Wise Shift from ACT to SAT

The battle of the testing companies rages on, and testing/Common Core behemoth David Coleman of the College Board has landed a serious blow in the state of Colorado. If you missed the news - which was easy to do because of the subversive way it was delivered - the Colorado Department of Education announced at 1:00 on December 23 (just as everyone ran out the back door for vacation) that the state was severing a 14-year relationship with the ACT test and switching to the College Board's newly designed (and completely unfamiliar) SAT test for its junior college entrance exam. This decision shocked many in the education world, primarily because of ACT's long-standing history with Colorado and its status as the national benchmark for college readiness.

As an eduator and a parent I am extemely disappointed in this decision, and I have registered my complaints with the state and local legislators. I have also recorded my concerns and criticisms in a blog post that Diane Ravitch was kind enough feature on her blog. Of particular interest to parents and educators is this paragraph:

This decision is a problematic game-changer, and the most troubling part is the “newly designed” nature of the SAT. The SAT given this spring will be a new style and format with no piloting for test score comparison and data. Just like CDE did with PARCC, they are using Colorado’s students as guinea pigs for a new test. I know juniors who took the SAT this fall – which is early – because the test was familiar, and they wanted a score for a test style they knew and for which the scores were already established. They are wary of this new test because there is no data or experience with it, and we don’t really know what the scores will mean or what the cut points would be. Taking this new test for the state is risky. Obviously, many students will take this new SAT, but why would they take it as a school/state test, for which it will become their public record? As an educator, I must administer this test. But if my child were a junior, I would have serious reservations about taking this new test for the state. While I would encourage my child to take the ACT and SAT on a Saturday for which he can choose if he sends the scores, I would be wary of allowing the state to put scores for a brand new and unfamiliar test on his transcript. Colorado parents should be made aware of this concern.

Clearly, CDE's decision to shift testing programs in the middle of the year with little notice was an egregious display of irresponsibility and short-sighted politics. And, this can be infered from the immediate backpedalling that came from CDE after students and educators returned to school this week. In a befuddling manner the state released a statement indicating that - after further consideration - the state may stick with ACT for one more year. Interim head of CDE Eliot Asp said:

“I know that this is a high-stakes assessment for students, with college entrance, placement and scholarships on the line,” Asp wrote. “To require this year’s 11th graders to take the SAT exam this spring – after they have already invested time, money and energy in preparing to take a different assessment – would not be in their best interest.”

Obviously, this shift is "not in the best interest" of kids. The only question is how CDE could have been so clueless to that reality. In fact, it seems in this case that the people at CDE are "not in the best interest" of kids, and it should cause all educators and parents to ask just whose interests CDE is looking out for at this point.

The "something-free" Diet

Last summer I was training for an important 5K and hoping to post my best time ever. But my weight and my running times were stagnant. I was up probably 5-7 pounds from optimum, and no matter what I did, I couldn't budge. Cutting back on snacking and calories, watching the sugar and junk foods, ramping up my workouts - nothing worked. That's when my wife - a former professional pastry chef and certified natural foods chef told me, "You have to make significant change to your diet. Start eliminating things." So I went gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, alcohol-free, and caffeine-free for 30 days.

Bam!  I dropped almost 12 pounds and shaved more than a minute and a half off my 5K. I slept better, worked better, felt calmer, stronger, and more focused. 

Now, it's time to do something again. The holidays have been fun, but I know I've put on weight, and I'm not as productive and healthy as I can be. So, I'm going gluten-free, dairy-free, and alcohol-free for at least a few weeks. In terms of gluten, I know I am not a celiac sufferer and probably not even "intolerant." But I know that grains put weight on me. It's that simple. So, I am changing my diet to get back where I want to be, which is "cut, with no gut."

It's all about diet, people. So, if you're looking to improve, you have to change your diet.

Boulder, Bourbon, and the Infinite Winter

The hike was fantastic.

Yesterday, I celebrated year 46 with a hike in the Boulder foothills, and a truly memorable bourbon experience. After a nice, but somewhat slick and snowy hike up Boulder's Mesa Trail, my wife and daughter and I piddled around Boulder while my middle-school math wizard son attended a session of the Colorado Math Circle. It turned out to be a rather fortuitous day.

The original plan was to have lunch at the reknowned Dushanbe Tea House followed by a stroll along the Boulder Creek Trail and the Pearl Street Mall. But, alas, we arrived at Dushanbe too late for a table because on Saturdays they are generally pretty booked for afternoon tea. On Pearl Street we debated lunch or happy hour at a few favorites: Brasserie Ten Ten, L'Atelier, The Med. But a random chance browsing the window at Japango on Pearl Street caught our whimsy ... and I am ever so thankful for the fortuitous diversion.

Japango is a sleek, modern, inviting sushi restaurant on Pearl Street with an engaging happy hour. We enjoyed calamari and rolls, a bento box for my daughter, and some truly delicious grilled brussel sprouts. For drinks we enjoyed their house-made sangria - which was fun for a Japanese-themed placed. But everything changed when I browsed the extensive drink menu and ran across three words - Pappy Van Winkle. For the bourbon lovers out there, you'll understand. If not, let me just say this is one of the more coveted bourbons, and I've never been able to lay my hands on a bottle. A single pour ranged from $20 - $65, and I had to take a chance.

It was all that.

This morning I woke to all sorts of interesting tidbits in the Sunday Denver Post - but this is the one that caught my eye, and I will write more about soon:  "Infinite Jest book club tackles the big tome on its 20th anniversary."

But for anyone who made a resolution to read ambitiously in 2016, this might be the Year of Glad — glad you will finally read this brick of a book that tackles themes from entertainment to tennis to drug addiction and the Quebec separatist movement. At the end of January, a local bibliophile will launch an online book club dedicated to tackling the tome over 13 weeks, together, called Infinite Winter. It's a reboot of an online book club for "Infinite Jest" that drew people into the 1,000-plus page book during the summer of 2009, Infinite Summer. Mark Flanagan of Lafayette joined that book club. "It was a huge phenomenon, and I don't think I would have gotten through 'Infinite Jest' without Infinite Summer."  For Infinite Winter, Flanagan also looked to artists when he sought out guides for the book club. (One of the six guides will write a post a day every week at InfiniteWinter.org. "We really have an all-star cast, plus me," Flanagan said. He'll also have guest bloggers.) Nathan Seppelt sketches scenes from the book and posts one a day at his Instagram, Drawing Infinite Jest. Ryan Blanck crafts scenes from Legos. Corrie Baldauf's project explores color in "Infinite Jest." Jenni Baker's Erasing Infinite project pulls poems out of each page of the book by erasing most, but not all, of the page's words. And Dave Laird runs a podcast about the David Foster Wallace, The Great Concavity.

And, I am all in on this one. I've wanted to dig into David Foster Wallace's magnum opus for years. But, like I learned with the works of Thomas Pynchon, we can all use some help with these brilliant pieces. So, I bought my copy of Infinite Jest today, and I am ready to dive into a wonderful intricate challenge, and a really cool idea, brought to us by writer Mark Flanagan.

Thanks, Mark. Looking foward to the read.