*
*
*
*
A Walk to Occupy
October 15, Tacoma, part of the Occupy movement
We were constrained. By our bodies, the weather,
weariness, sidewalks, and lingering cynicism. By
our common sense, an elusive guide. By the absence
of a need to do too much--to flair or pose or (for
heaven's sake) lead. We'd had quite enough
of that bad comedian, leadership. We showed up
in People's Park on Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Way, next door to the Johnson Candy Company
on The Hilltop. We were old, young, lithe, slow;
bound to wheelchairs, crutches, braces;
under-dressed (shorts in this weather?); bundled up;
staring; smoking; worrying; cell-phoning, texting.
We put a few signs together. A man of 65--
everybody's capable grandfather with a
staple gun--helped. A police cruiser stopped.
The police got out--woman, man. A woman
whose affect has probably gotten her called,
complacently, hippie for several decades
chatted them up. They left.
If I were in power (that impossibly subjunctive
mood), I might worry, if I worried about people,
about the matter-of-factness of it all.
We knew how to do this. Anarchists, long-
shoremen, teamsters, retired teachers and
shop-keepers, an entrepreneur in a three-
piece suit, folk guitarists, well appointed
women with substantial wealth. Someone said,
of all the photographers, "One of these has to
be from the FBI. You know--that face-recognition
software." We were nothing to infiltrate or
subvert. The nature of our beast was as slick
as a seal's back: nothing to get a handle on,
but nonetheless there the seal is: barking,
hungry. As if we already don't have enough to do,
we of the 99% now have to try to fix all the shit
bankerokerages, oligarchs, crazed traders, Ponzi-punks,
and our stupid "representatives" broke. Lethal
greed and misbegotten miscalculation spring from
excess power like hollyhocks from cow manure.
It's not quite a law of physics. It might as well be.
'Occupy Group' thinks Wall Street has too much
power--is short on specifics, said a headline
in a newspaper. That's not specific? Anyway,
we got together. We moved, as people who work
move. Steadily. Efficiently. On time. With purpose.
Go ahead. Have it your way. Ignore us.We'll see you.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Friday, October 21, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Jesuit Joke
A close friend is reading a book by a Jesuit priest. I don't have the title/author with me, but I'll get it for a subsequent post. Anyway, the book includes this joke, which Jesuits have been familiar with for a while, I gather:
A woman comes to a Jesuit priest and asks whether there's any way she can determine how her very young son will turn out. The priest says, "Yes. Put a glass of milk, a glass of whiskey, and a book in front of him. See which one he grabs for first."
"What will that tell me?" the woman asks.
The priest answers, "If he grabs for the milk, he'll be interested in community service. If he grabs for the whiskey, he'll have a drinking problem. And if he grabs for the book, he'll be an intellectual--and probably argumentative, too."
"What if he grabs for all three at once?" the woman asks.
The priest answers, "Then he'll become a Jesuit."
A woman comes to a Jesuit priest and asks whether there's any way she can determine how her very young son will turn out. The priest says, "Yes. Put a glass of milk, a glass of whiskey, and a book in front of him. See which one he grabs for first."
"What will that tell me?" the woman asks.
The priest answers, "If he grabs for the milk, he'll be interested in community service. If he grabs for the whiskey, he'll have a drinking problem. And if he grabs for the book, he'll be an intellectual--and probably argumentative, too."
"What if he grabs for all three at once?" the woman asks.
The priest answers, "Then he'll become a Jesuit."
Friday, October 14, 2011
About American Colleges
I'm no expert on American colleges and universities (I'll call them both colleges), even though I've either been attending one of them or teaching at one of them (or both) since the Fall of 1971--except for a total of 3 semesters teaching in Germany and Sweden. Anyway I'd call my observations informed, to a degree, but still casual.
What American college have had and still have going for them: There are a lot of them. Also, in most cases, they allow for late-bloomers in a way European higher education (for example) doesn't. Some students get the hang of things intellectual and academic later in high school or even in their second year of college. The American system accommodates them.
The system also allows for people who, for one good reason or another, simply have to go to college later in their lives. The GI Bill alone stands as a shining example of this.
How American colleges are currently in trouble:
Well, a lot of them are broke, or at least facing tough economic times. And America itself is deeply conflicted about how much (and how) it wants to support higher education. The California community-college and university system used to be the product of a society that was unconflicted about higher education. One could go to a community college and transfer to the UC system, or go directly to the UC system, and get a first class education for very little money. And society, not just the students, was better for it, in my opinion.
Now, across the board, from public universities to private colleges, students are graduating with way too much debt. Because consumers drive the economy, and because such students are spending money on paying off loans (spending it "the past," as it were), they're not spending it on goods and services.
I think the system still does not do as well as it could with ethnic minorities.
I think state universities, especially the "research" ones, have to depend too much on outside grants. At some universities, professors have to raise 50% or 60% per cent of their salaries through grants. This situation has to have an effect on what they research and perhaps even on how they construct their results. I also think that teaching at the undergraduate level at a lot of state colleges is pretty bad--because of class-sizes but also because some t.a.'s and graduate assistants aren't well trained.
Liberal arts colleges are in trouble because their endowments are in trouble. Also, they've gotten by hoping no one will notice a blatant contradiction: All of the claim to offer a (more or less) "traditional liberal arts curriculum," and all of them claim simultaneously to be "distinctive" (from one another). Well, one wants to ask, which is it?
Such colleges also remain very white and very upper middle-class, although some are doing better on the class side of things. Also, these colleges fall into some fallacious either/or thinking: Either you can offer a liberal arts education or you an offer an education that has some sharp focus on employment after college. At a lot of such colleges, any particular focus on employment--except at the "career center"--is consider vocational, which in turn is considered a pejorative term.
Community colleges continue to be the hero in our story, except of course they're now asked to do way too much with way too few resources.
I think almost all American colleges find themselves in an identity-crisis, and most of them are in denial about it. Liberal arts colleges need cash flow because they're so expensive to attend, so, under the guise of connecting the classroom to the living-situation, they may require students to live on campus beyond the freshman year, sometimes all the way through the four years. As an astute student said to me, "It's a control issue." It's also a money issue. Students on campus pay rent directly to the college and buy a lot of food on campus. Under the guise of one identity, then, the college is actually and merely focusing on cash-flow. I wonder how many students and parent see through the disguise immediately.
Meanwhile, big state colleges have to rely on semi-pro athletic programs to generate money, and on sports-crazed alumni to give money--with the attendant problems of "boosters" violating rules and students & coaches unconcerned about education. I think big state (research) colleges have to depend too much on large corporations, too--to drive the research, which brings in the grants.
Just think if only a fraction of the money spent on recent wars had been spent on higher education. Then think more broadly of how America perceives its higher education--and its public schools. A society deeply divided about the worth of education and the value of spending money on education is a society in trouble. In my opinion.
What American college have had and still have going for them: There are a lot of them. Also, in most cases, they allow for late-bloomers in a way European higher education (for example) doesn't. Some students get the hang of things intellectual and academic later in high school or even in their second year of college. The American system accommodates them.
The system also allows for people who, for one good reason or another, simply have to go to college later in their lives. The GI Bill alone stands as a shining example of this.
How American colleges are currently in trouble:
Well, a lot of them are broke, or at least facing tough economic times. And America itself is deeply conflicted about how much (and how) it wants to support higher education. The California community-college and university system used to be the product of a society that was unconflicted about higher education. One could go to a community college and transfer to the UC system, or go directly to the UC system, and get a first class education for very little money. And society, not just the students, was better for it, in my opinion.
Now, across the board, from public universities to private colleges, students are graduating with way too much debt. Because consumers drive the economy, and because such students are spending money on paying off loans (spending it "the past," as it were), they're not spending it on goods and services.
I think the system still does not do as well as it could with ethnic minorities.
I think state universities, especially the "research" ones, have to depend too much on outside grants. At some universities, professors have to raise 50% or 60% per cent of their salaries through grants. This situation has to have an effect on what they research and perhaps even on how they construct their results. I also think that teaching at the undergraduate level at a lot of state colleges is pretty bad--because of class-sizes but also because some t.a.'s and graduate assistants aren't well trained.
Liberal arts colleges are in trouble because their endowments are in trouble. Also, they've gotten by hoping no one will notice a blatant contradiction: All of the claim to offer a (more or less) "traditional liberal arts curriculum," and all of them claim simultaneously to be "distinctive" (from one another). Well, one wants to ask, which is it?
Such colleges also remain very white and very upper middle-class, although some are doing better on the class side of things. Also, these colleges fall into some fallacious either/or thinking: Either you can offer a liberal arts education or you an offer an education that has some sharp focus on employment after college. At a lot of such colleges, any particular focus on employment--except at the "career center"--is consider vocational, which in turn is considered a pejorative term.
Community colleges continue to be the hero in our story, except of course they're now asked to do way too much with way too few resources.
I think almost all American colleges find themselves in an identity-crisis, and most of them are in denial about it. Liberal arts colleges need cash flow because they're so expensive to attend, so, under the guise of connecting the classroom to the living-situation, they may require students to live on campus beyond the freshman year, sometimes all the way through the four years. As an astute student said to me, "It's a control issue." It's also a money issue. Students on campus pay rent directly to the college and buy a lot of food on campus. Under the guise of one identity, then, the college is actually and merely focusing on cash-flow. I wonder how many students and parent see through the disguise immediately.
Meanwhile, big state colleges have to rely on semi-pro athletic programs to generate money, and on sports-crazed alumni to give money--with the attendant problems of "boosters" violating rules and students & coaches unconcerned about education. I think big state (research) colleges have to depend too much on large corporations, too--to drive the research, which brings in the grants.
Just think if only a fraction of the money spent on recent wars had been spent on higher education. Then think more broadly of how America perceives its higher education--and its public schools. A society deeply divided about the worth of education and the value of spending money on education is a society in trouble. In my opinion.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Of Atheism
*
*
*
*
Of Atheism
Its virtue is its flaw: it makes sense.
Makes sense within the tiny room
of human experience. It is a kind of
Puritanism (atheists are often righteous),
without the fabulous fractures, the gothic
repressions: melodrama. Some atheists,
to be fair, are entertaining as hell--
when they talk about God. Some
of the jokes are excellent. When
atheists hold forth only on atheism,
however, they become preachers,
and one can hear the creaking of
the hobby-horse and the snoring
from the back of the room. Atheism
is like a three-act play with one act,
a dull, factually accurate brochure
sent to millions, or a worn windshield
wiper. I mean, really? That's it? That's
the best you can do? Spoil everybody's
mystery, smother everyone with
an empirical pillow? I love atheists
in the way I love boulders and chores.
Atheism is a glass of tepid milk.
It is a beige uniform with the letters
this is it stitched on it in brown thread.
Atheists, bless your hearts.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
Of Atheism
Its virtue is its flaw: it makes sense.
Makes sense within the tiny room
of human experience. It is a kind of
Puritanism (atheists are often righteous),
without the fabulous fractures, the gothic
repressions: melodrama. Some atheists,
to be fair, are entertaining as hell--
when they talk about God. Some
of the jokes are excellent. When
atheists hold forth only on atheism,
however, they become preachers,
and one can hear the creaking of
the hobby-horse and the snoring
from the back of the room. Atheism
is like a three-act play with one act,
a dull, factually accurate brochure
sent to millions, or a worn windshield
wiper. I mean, really? That's it? That's
the best you can do? Spoil everybody's
mystery, smother everyone with
an empirical pillow? I love atheists
in the way I love boulders and chores.
Atheism is a glass of tepid milk.
It is a beige uniform with the letters
this is it stitched on it in brown thread.
Atheists, bless your hearts.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
Shadow Storage
*
*
*
*
Shadow Storage
Home now out of sun,
you may take off your shadow,
hang it in the closet holding
other shades, or roll it up
and tuck it in a drawer.
It weighs nothing, your shadow.
Yet you feel it dragging. It's
an unsavory presence, attracting
worry, shame, regret, and doubt,
so that by the time you end a day,
you feel as heavy as two people.
It is a uniform fashion, a required
implication of light and depth.
So say the regulators, anyway--
those unamused members
of the psyche's council.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
Shadow Storage
Home now out of sun,
you may take off your shadow,
hang it in the closet holding
other shades, or roll it up
and tuck it in a drawer.
It weighs nothing, your shadow.
Yet you feel it dragging. It's
an unsavory presence, attracting
worry, shame, regret, and doubt,
so that by the time you end a day,
you feel as heavy as two people.
It is a uniform fashion, a required
implication of light and depth.
So say the regulators, anyway--
those unamused members
of the psyche's council.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Spiders and Company Want Inside
In the Pacific Northwest--and most of the Northern Hemisphere, I assume--this is the season when lots of small creatures want to get inside humans' abode. Spiders construct webs near doorways, and they may be found trying to get inside through cracks. The same goes for earwigs. Field-mice, too. And wee beetles.
So I'm re-posting a poem from Fall 2007:
they stay just still. Paused. Poised.
It’s time for us to enter equal days and
equal nights, to pluck the filament between
fear of and fascination with spiders, moving in.
Hans Ostrom. Copyright 2007.
So I'm re-posting a poem from Fall 2007:
Spiders’ Migration
Northern Hemisphere, September: spiders
come inside. They slip through seams
to here, where summer seems to them
to spend the winter. Their digits tap out
code on hardwood floors. They rappel
from ceilings on out-spooled filaments
of mucous, measuring the place. Sometimes
come inside. They slip through seams
to here, where summer seems to them
to spend the winter. Their digits tap out
code on hardwood floors. They rappel
from ceilings on out-spooled filaments
of mucous, measuring the place. Sometimes
they stay just still. Paused. Poised.
It’s not as if spiders wait for us
to watch them, or even as if they
wait. Rather, octavian motion
is so easy, syncopated, and several
that stillness surely exhilarates spiders
just arriving from the Northern Hemisphere.
to watch them, or even as if they
wait. Rather, octavian motion
is so easy, syncopated, and several
that stillness surely exhilarates spiders
just arriving from the Northern Hemisphere.
It’s time for us to enter equal days and
equal nights, to pluck the filament between
fear of and fascination with spiders, moving in.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Hidden Driveway
*
*
*
Hidden Driveway
In Tacoma to-Friday-night, after
laughing as hard as we needed to
with friends, we walked down
a dark alley to our car,
and I saw a sign on a
greased wooden telephone pole
that read, "Hidden Driveway,"
and above it was a round
convex mirror, in which
pointless murky images lived.
I found the concept of
a hidden driveway to be
not quite beautiful but
nonetheless necessary.
How crucial, I thought,
to have hidden driveways
out of which unseen people
drive their hidden vehicles
into obscure traffic to
secret jobs to earn invisible
money for unacknowledged
families, and then come home
to park the ghost-car and go
inside a domestic cloud.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
*
*
Hidden Driveway
In Tacoma to-Friday-night, after
laughing as hard as we needed to
with friends, we walked down
a dark alley to our car,
and I saw a sign on a
greased wooden telephone pole
that read, "Hidden Driveway,"
and above it was a round
convex mirror, in which
pointless murky images lived.
I found the concept of
a hidden driveway to be
not quite beautiful but
nonetheless necessary.
How crucial, I thought,
to have hidden driveways
out of which unseen people
drive their hidden vehicles
into obscure traffic to
secret jobs to earn invisible
money for unacknowledged
families, and then come home
to park the ghost-car and go
inside a domestic cloud.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Epidemiology of Hate
*
*
*
*
Epidemiology of Hate
If only we could vaccinate
against hate.
It's the constant plague. It leaves
each era a wreck,
and from each new wreck
more hate mutates.
Consider the hate you hear
every day in common discourse,
in how our "leaders" talk to each
other about people they imagine
to be us. Language
becomes black bile. Vile
strategems go viral.
No mass-cure for hate exists.
Individuals must treat themselves,
must get to know how to learn.
Must go inside themselves, scrub
the mind, and think. Must
choose to get better; or
at least not worse.
To witness the pleasure of hate
play on faces and turn person-herds
rabid is to glimpse evil's vectors
and hosts. People, witness what
hate does to you, to them. Change.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
Epidemiology of Hate
If only we could vaccinate
against hate.
It's the constant plague. It leaves
each era a wreck,
and from each new wreck
more hate mutates.
Consider the hate you hear
every day in common discourse,
in how our "leaders" talk to each
other about people they imagine
to be us. Language
becomes black bile. Vile
strategems go viral.
No mass-cure for hate exists.
Individuals must treat themselves,
must get to know how to learn.
Must go inside themselves, scrub
the mind, and think. Must
choose to get better; or
at least not worse.
To witness the pleasure of hate
play on faces and turn person-herds
rabid is to glimpse evil's vectors
and hosts. People, witness what
hate does to you, to them. Change.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Creature in a Copse
*
*
*
*
Creature in a Copse
Scuffed rough gray trunks of fir trees
in a copse stand ruler-straight, may
suggest modest ambition or nothing
but the image they help compose.
"Yes, trees are everywhere," wrote
Pound, dismissively, the rest of the
argument left unstated. True, almost
no one can really take a nature-break
from civilization because in retreat
even a recluse thinks of civilization.
A lot. Still, the still copse is. How
these particular (not just any) boughs
play riffs on breeze matters if you
notice. No performance is identical.
Of course there's machinery, there are
people, more or less nearby. And there's
you, as envoi from the not-wild. To come
here, to look at a stand of conifers, always
intricate, proves a worth, re-establishes
a modest, appropriate dignity not
discoverable by drilling through rocks
from civilizations' virtual rubble of myths
and texts. A precocious smart-ass in a copse
is just another creature amid trees that
keep on with the being thing and breathe.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
Creature in a Copse
Scuffed rough gray trunks of fir trees
in a copse stand ruler-straight, may
suggest modest ambition or nothing
but the image they help compose.
"Yes, trees are everywhere," wrote
Pound, dismissively, the rest of the
argument left unstated. True, almost
no one can really take a nature-break
from civilization because in retreat
even a recluse thinks of civilization.
A lot. Still, the still copse is. How
these particular (not just any) boughs
play riffs on breeze matters if you
notice. No performance is identical.
Of course there's machinery, there are
people, more or less nearby. And there's
you, as envoi from the not-wild. To come
here, to look at a stand of conifers, always
intricate, proves a worth, re-establishes
a modest, appropriate dignity not
discoverable by drilling through rocks
from civilizations' virtual rubble of myths
and texts. A precocious smart-ass in a copse
is just another creature amid trees that
keep on with the being thing and breathe.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Something My Wife Said To Me Today
"I know you would be comfortable living between a cemetery and a creek-ravine, but most people wouldn't, okay?"
Friday, September 23, 2011
Where He Works
*
*
*
*
Where He Works
At the institution where he works,
people pass each other in corridors
or outside. They say hello for 10,
15, 20, 30 years. They recall each other's
names. Or not. They "work together"--
not really. Each is after only her or his
cup of compensation, acknowledgement.
Sometimes one person gets excised by the
institution. Efficiently cut away. It
upsets a few people. For a while. Then,
more soon than late, there's no memory
of who left, who got removed. The
institution is like a moored ship full
of ghosts. It's not going anywhere.
Hello, goodbye, request, deny.
The institution sometimes consults
the ghosts before it changes
things. This is an especially empty
ritual. A polite and airless drama.
After one ghost leaves, another
takes its place. Or not. Hi. Nice
to see you. See you later. Thanks! No.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
Where He Works
At the institution where he works,
people pass each other in corridors
or outside. They say hello for 10,
15, 20, 30 years. They recall each other's
names. Or not. They "work together"--
not really. Each is after only her or his
cup of compensation, acknowledgement.
Sometimes one person gets excised by the
institution. Efficiently cut away. It
upsets a few people. For a while. Then,
more soon than late, there's no memory
of who left, who got removed. The
institution is like a moored ship full
of ghosts. It's not going anywhere.
Hello, goodbye, request, deny.
The institution sometimes consults
the ghosts before it changes
things. This is an especially empty
ritual. A polite and airless drama.
After one ghost leaves, another
takes its place. Or not. Hi. Nice
to see you. See you later. Thanks! No.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)