Safe Haven

 I’m the biggest fan in a certain sense, because my brain and heart is a startlingly impressive catalog of (mostly) American popular music. I could have been a DJ. I haven’t heard everything by any means, but I’ve heard a lot. Even some of you who proverbially live under a pop culture rock [Bryan Cross.—ed.] may have heard of our actual leader, Empress of The Free World, Taylor Swift. What many do not know is that she is named after a notable musician of much older vintage, James Taylor. I’ll just say that probably his fans and fans of Bob Dylan could duke it out for the question of who is America’s greatest living songwriter. Mr. Taylor in fact is so influential that a young boy growing up in Oklahoma put on his records (and others) and dreamed of being a singer. When the boy made good, he changed music forever, selling over 200 million LPs in about 10 years, and taking the “Country” radio format from a niche to outright competing with the biggest stars in rock history. We know th...

 I’ve got a buddy, Jeremy Tate, trying to displace the ACT and maybe the whole College Board, with the Classical Learning Test. Let’s be blunt: it’s marketed toward college bound classically educated and homeschooled students whose families believe that the public school curriculum is deficient and ideological. Let me say that a perceived ideological bias is one argument, and perceived deficiencies in curriculum are another argument. But in the unfortunate ideological sorting that happens today, that gets conflated by almost everyone. If I’m honest, some sharp kid could have figured out that I’ve been a partisan, but also all over the place. They might have figured out that I probably would agree more with Zora Neale Hurston than Toni Morrison. Maybe. I never told them what they should think, but I was a really open book, myself. They might have thought it odd that I talked about sacrifice and communal meals as important rituals in world religions, as seen in The Odyssey. I don’t c...

 I saw a clip once recently of Jordan Peterson, talking about teaching. He said something like, “Teaching is not primarily about the transmission of knowledge; it’s about setting the intellectual frame, and dramatizing the act of learning.” And he’s right. If I could communicate on some level that what we’re learning is meaningful and important to me, that’s when I was most effective. I might be wrong in some respects about teaching primary students, but the goal for even them is eventually self-directed learning, with the ultimate meaning of the information determined by the students. I taught emerging young adults, and Peterson teaches young adults in university. A computer can correct a factual mistake, programmed correctly. A teacher tells the story of why the facts and data matter. It need not mean the same thing to the students as it does to the teacher, but if you tell them, “What you make of it is up to you,” and they believe you, you’re going to have enormously motivated s...

 I’ll try to be nice. Shouldn’t be that hard. I don’t think I’ve had any persistently negative thoughts about her. She’s beautiful. She is. I hadn’t fully decided to abstain from voting for president until very late that year she became the Democratic nominee, and I’ll just admit that I never minded seeing her on the TV. I’m just girl crazy, and that’s never going to change. I have been completely in love with three women in my life (possibly four) whilst having those feelings returned in some respect. Two out of the three were Black, or from the Indian subcontinent. Harris is both at once. I imagine that twenty years ago, she had most men tripping all over themselves. Mr. Emhoff has learned some grace for these guys (and probably some women) because unless Michelle Obama walks in, he’s the envy of the room. She seemed nervous on a national stage to me. I do think that potentially becoming the second Black president and the first woman president adds a special pressure that we coul...

 A friend from high school just celebrated 26 years. The husband has a great name: Jason. [You are the most self-involved person on Earth.—ed.] I know, right? My friends are close to being grandparents, at least some of them, and I feel a certain sadness about not being in the game, as it were. But this is your frequent reminder that great and cool people don’t find their person sometimes. So-called “inter-abled” relationships are really hard. I know. I honestly think That One Time didn’t work because of the intersection of disability, employment discrimination, and ableism. Do I think ableism and discrimination had something to do with losing my job as a teacher? Yes. Yes, I do. I won’t tell you who I worked for, but it rhymes with “Chesterfield County School District.” I’ve got your social media policy right here, you clowns. Anyway, Jesus said of marriage, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Luke 16:18) Of course, some Christians use the l...