Happy Holidays, 2015

Sharing the annual Holiday Newsletter (Volume 17!). However you celebrate the season, may it be joyous and fulfill the promise of a bright 2016. (You can open the picture to make it bigger and more legible, if you want.)

How We Lost Out to the Cubs -- A Theory

Controversy Alert (non political variety)

What follows is pure speculation, based more on a nagging feeling (and perhaps bias) than actual evidence. But hey, this is America. As is abundantly clear on both the campaign trail and talk media, there is no requirement to actually know what you’re talking about to voice an opinion.

Oh, and this has no real social significance because it deals with my theory trying to explain how the Cardinals lost out to the Cubs on both John Lackey and Jason Heyward. If Saint Louis is really baseball heaven, why depart for Chicago? I am suggesting here that perhaps it wasn’t JUST money and/or length of contract.

I’m not a huge fan of Mike Matheny, especially in terms of Xs & Os, strategy stuff. Hey, it’s baseball, and all fans second guess and feel like we could make better strategic and personnel decisions. That may or may not be true. In any case, he has clearly demonstrated that he IS a good manager of men, a strong motivator. He is an embodiment of the “Cardinal Way,” a true believer who has successfully conveyed those principles to his team. He is also authentic, true to himself, a dedicated Christian, strong in his faith. Admirable. Nothing to criticize there.

But therein may lie the problem. If you think of Matheny’s favorites, they seem to be almost universally “super Christians.” I wonder, however, if that kind of atmosphere, the relentless Christianity and moral superiority at least implied by both Matheny and the Cardinal Way, is a comfortable fit for every player. I don’t pretend to know either John Lackey or Jason Heyward (or any other player) but might the more secular (if, in fact, he is) Joe Maddon be a more attractive leader, at least for some players, than the (seemingly) self-righteous, holier than thou Mike Matheny? If true, it’s not a criticism that a player would be likely to share publicly, or even in the clubhouse, but one that might skew a player's decision in a direction other than what we fans might have preferred. It would for me.

Just a thought or two….  & see Rule #31 in the header above.

The Musial Awards

I was fortunate enough to spend last Saturday night at the Musial Awards, sponsored by the St. Louis Sports Commission to honor sportsmanship in the name of my first hero, Stan Musial. Sad to say, it apparently took more than copying his batting stance (right-handed, no less) to achieve success on the baseball field. I was the guest of my new friend and co-coach at Webster this year, Tim Cerutti. The former Parkway Central coach and I had a great time together this season.

One of his former students is a wheel in the Sports Commission and gives him free tickets every year. The evening would have been worth paying for, however; I’ve certainly paid more for less. It also caused me to think (again) about the different levels of privilege; that’s a topic I plan to revisit soon, but not tonight.

The night was a welcome tonic to counterbalance the events of the past few weeks, well, months, well, let’s just say “a whiles.” It used to be that I could achieve some cathartic release by going to watch a cheesy movie, let the tears flow in the dark, and leave feeling better. I confess my eyes suffered from near constant leakage as I listened to the inspirational stories of athletes, young and old.

You can watch the program on KSDK. There are a couple showings over the next few weeks, including one on Christmas Day at noon and Wednesday, December 16 at 7 p.m. However, if you’re more modern, here’s a link to the show that you can watch on your own schedule. http://stlsports.org/awards/features/watch-the-show/

If you’re feeling down about the state of the country or the world, this is absolutely worth your time, and cheaper than any therapy.

In the Spotlight

This is sort of a review of the (relatively) new film, Spotlight. Go see it (or wait for it in some other format, it doesn’t need to be seen on the big screen to be appreciated). I expect it to have more than a few nominations when it comes to awards season. That, however, is NOT why I’m writing this review.

The movie is the story of the Boston Globe’s coverage of the sex abuse scandal in the archdiocese of Boston. Although the abuse went back decades, the story itself plays out during 2001-02. The best journalism-based movie since All the President’s Men, with lots of good character actors, many recognizable from popular television shows, Spotlight is a compelling story that does a fine job of showing the nuts and bolts of investigative journalism, as well as clearly demonstrating the importance of those nuts and bolts. Finally, and most important in my view, the movie should sound an alarm.

That is my main point in writing this. The precipitous decline of print journalism, of the daily newspaper (and news magazine, RIP Newsweek) , almost ensures that we may never see this kind of reporting again. With print journalism being either a small “profit center” of a larger media conglomerate or a fragile independent entity that has almost no chance of remaining economically viable, stories like this will be more likely to stay in the shadows.

That worries me. I’m a dinosaur who continues to subscribe to my daily paper, at least in part because I think it’s important. There aren’t enough of us to sustain what Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan calls the “buggy whip factory.” I fear the print journalism industry has long-since reached critical mass, with declining readership requiring more cuts, resulting in skimpier product, resulting in even fewer readers and more cuts.

Add to that the seemingly increasing need of people to live in echo chambers, to only see and hear what they already believe. Disagree with an editorial position? Cancel the subscription. See an article critical of a pet politician or cause? Cancel the subscription. Think the paper has it in for people like you? Use that confirmation bias to cancel your subscription. Why entertain contrary points of view when you can limit yourself to Fox News or MSNBC?

But we all lose. As creepy as the Catholic Church abuse scandal was, it needed to be covered. That story needed resources (think reporters, time, and money) dedicated to unveiling the layers of secrecy. But that story, in and of itself, is not the point. The point is, there are more stories, at least equally important, out there, stories that remain shrouded because there is no more newspaper willing or able to help us see what’s behind the curtain. Instead we’re left with agenda-driven bloggers with questionable ethics and objectivity. As a former journalism teacher, this frightens me in terms of the future of information in this country.

Whenever and however you see it, take the time to view Spotlight so that you at least remember what you’re missing.

You're Fired!

Before Donald Trump ultimately delivers his own coup de grace (surely some statement so outrageously stupid will finally sink his ship, although current polls and events offer depressing evidence to the contrary, despite his best efforts to live down to my expectations) and fades into (at least) political oblivion, I thought I’d share my story that ties into his (typically despicable) catch phrase. I am going to post it on both my Hancock and personal blog because, well, I can.

The setting: Year 5, which some of you might know as Tenure Year. Although tenure’s protections are vastly overrated, it does mean that administrators must at least follow procedural rules to fire you. (They do NOT need to actually prove their allegations.) Prior to that, it’s a simple, “Buh-Bye.”

I don’t claim that I had achieved anything close to Master Teacher status by this time in my career. In fact, I make no claim to have ever achieved that. But this was an especially tough year.

• A new principal, the late John Gibson, arrived. 

• I was the president of the teachers union and was a constant (and some would argue, perpetually obnoxious) PIA to administration. I was also effective.

• I had the worst class in my entire career (of course, I didn’t know it at the time; I probably DID intuitively know that if many more like that had followed I would have self-terminated, at least as a teacher): Freshman English, a class roster of 28 students, 24 boys and 4 girls, with family names that read like a Who’s Who of Lemay infamy (including a couple of the girls). Average reading level of 12^th percentile, with the highest at the 25^th percentile. 20% were off the chart at the bottom. (I know of only 3 from that group who graduated, although I may have missed 1 or 2.)

• I was naive, believing that I could change the world and them. I kept trying to actually teach instead of just retaining (some semblance of) control. I had yet to learn that you couldn’t actually teach unless you had control; I hadn’t needed to know that the previous four years. So at least I learned something that year.

• I was not a good teacher for those kids. Could someone else have done better? I don’t know, but they could hardly have been worse. (They DID provide me with some of my best stories, though.)

• Relatively new father, with new responsibilities in that area and resultant marital stresses did not help.

Did John Gibson actually have orders to fire me? Can’t prove it one way or another, but he was an ambitious man and knew, at least instinctively, that getting credit for my leaving the Place would be a feather in his cap.

I was struggling. It was no secret. Gibson told an English department colleague concerned about evaluation that it would be unfair (his words), for example, to evaluate me based on that one class. (I remember no particular problems with any of my others; neither do I remember even one bona fide evaluation prior that point in my career. One year’s consisted of the principal stepping into my room and throwing me a mini-basketball from Lemay Bank; I successfully reached down and to the left to make the grab and earned praise: “You’re all right!”) Guess which was the ONLY class he sat in on and on which I was evaluated.

That spring, the late Jim (father of Cardinal broadcaster Dan) McLaughlin and I were in the lounge next to my room when the late Don Steckhan, math teacher emeritus, came huffing and puffing up the stairs. (Steckhan was a 5x5 smoker, so that description is pretty literal.) PCs were at least a decade away from common usage; everything was handwritten on paper, and Steckhan had a habit of perusing said papers on the principal’s desk while he was away.

“You need to get down there,” he wheezed. “You're being fired!” Mac (and I? – maybe) immediately headed down, confirmed what Steckhan had seen on the evaluation, and the wheels started turning.

I met with state union reps, lawyers were contacted, strategies discussed (including initial preparation for a lawsuit claiming a violation of my 1^st Amendment rights – did I say I tended to be outspoken and critical?). Most importantly, Mac (the law school graduate) set up a sidebar meeting with Superintendent Brodbeck. As near as I can tell, whether this was a plot or just a rogue operation, Brodbeck was either not in the loop or up for a fight. In any case, he assured Mac, “We don't want to fire the union president.”

They didn’t. When the evaluation conference was finally held (the shortest in my career, except for the year the [different] principal wasn’t speaking to me and just shoved it in my mailbox) the cover sheet, and ONLY the cover sheet, had been changed to read, “Recommended.” This despite, if you believe what was actually written on the evaluation itself, my being the worst teacher in the history of the universe. If I had believed it, I would have fired me. Instead, not even attempting a rebuttal, I took the win, signed the document, and left the office.

And life went on. By the time I finally retired, 29 years later, I think my personnel file had its own file drawer. 

Anger Management

A Thanksgiving Wish

I continue to be distressed by the tenor of what I see and hear, both on the news and on social media. No matter what asinine inanities emanate from his mouth, the perpetually pissed Donald Trump maintains his support among a disturbingly significant percentage of the population by playing on that anger. I would suggest, however, that he has plenty of company in almost all the candidates of both parties, even if they generally appear less bombastic and more soft-spoken (not much of a challenge IMO). 

Anger is also reflected in the many memes culled from Facebook, Twitter, and the myriad of other internet sources encouraging simple, dare I suggest simplistic, expressions of opinions. Even the purported humorous posts are too often predicated on a foundation of anger, political, racial, religious and more.

The thing is, I don’t see anger as being a solution to any problem. In fact, it interferes with the actual problem-solving process because it interferes with communication. Even if it may get your point across, at the same time it essentially attacks, and often insults, those who fail to agree with you.

I admit that in my early (allegedly) adult years I was not just a congregant at Our Lady of Righteous Indignation (OLRI), but also an evangelist, with some modicum of success even. Such an approach managed to work fairly well for the accumulation of power, but it was only after I backed away from that attitude and started working at accommodation and compromise that I actually became part of the solution team instead of a polarizing divider who exacerbated the problem(s).

Finding something to be angry about is not any particular challenge. We need look no further than the current Starbucks kerfuffle. The so-called “War on Christmas” is a fiction created and maintained by those who want to perpetuate anger at a direction of society that frightens them. That “war” is merely one front in the larger, and equally fictitious, “War on Christianity.” Or maybe even “War on Islam.” 

I admit to being naïve, but not so naïve that I deny that there are (too many of) those on the “other” side equally angry about the perceived intolerance of their beliefs, or even non-beliefs. And, of course, there is no shortage of (power hungry) potential leaders, also frequent flyers at OLRI, who can find a slight in almost anything, no matter how innocent an action or remark and then manipulate that slight to their advantage. Beware of such “leaders,” not just for your own sake but out of concern for the future of your country – and the world in which we all must live.

Our ongoing issues with race in this country feature people on both poles. Here's my question for them: “Is this a problem you want to, if not solve, at least ameliorate?” While I freely admit that racial animus has almost never been directed at me, I still maintain that anger is not your friend, or the friend of your cause, whatever cause that may be.

I understand frustration and discontent. I certainly experienced my share of both, back in the day (again, not racial, of course). Nor am I suggesting that those feelings be discounted or ignored by either allies or foes. But it is only human to react defensively when attacked, and anger directed at you or your friends is difficult to interpret as anything but an attack, even a personal one. Almost none of us are Mahatma Gandhi or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but I have no doubt that both of them had to work hard to suppress their (righteous and justifiable) anger, perhaps frequently. Nevertheless, they succeeded (slowly and incompletely, because problems of long-standing do not have simple, overnight solutions). How? They kept their anger under control and diverted the energy required to feed that non-productive emotion into building solutions instead of walls (both figurative and literal).

If more of us could find the strength to follow their model, that would truly be something for which to be thankful.