Let’s Write a Novel: Chapter 1, Paragraphs 5 & Chapter 2, Paragraphs 1- 3

101 North Washington Street

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Chapter 1 (conclusion)

This talk of pogroms isn’t some foreshadowing of terrible things to come in Starke Center. In fact the future was bright. The three Jewish families, merchant, junk dealer, and pickle packer, would all thrive. In this regard our story is commonplace; describing the thriving Jewish experience in small towns all across America.

Chapter 2

It was a short and pleasant walk home after closing the store. The fine spring weather coincided beautifully with a very nice take in the till. Easter was the second most important selling season at the Weiss Department Store. Good weather in the weeks leading up to Easter always inspired the shopper to dig a bit deeper in her purse. The millinery department was booming; hats were big this year, figuratively and literally. Open only 5 years and Abe was so optimistic about business that he felt financially comfortable building the finest home in town.

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Sara had made most of the decisions about the house. Although Abe had nixed the Chicago architect in favor of a South Bend firm, she got pretty much what she was after: sun rooms downstairs and upstairs, a fine library, and grand staircase in an impressive entry hall, 2 parlors, and a dining room with fireplace and leaded glass windows. It is what we would call “Prairie Style Influenced” if we wanted to project a certain priggish sophistication. We might even go on about the Art Nouveau or the Frank Lloyd Wright influence. But that is pretty much ridiculous. In fact the place was a big square house just like the few other grand big square houses in town. It had the bric-a-brac fine touches in the sconces and chandeliers and the tile around the hearth where today a realtor would discover the Prairie School influence for the benefit of a sale. A really cheesy real estate sales lady might even insinuate in a stage whisper, “Who knows, I don’t think anybody has really researched it, but this could be a genuine Frank Lloyd Wright house!”

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As Abe turned the corner onto Washington Street he could see his stucco upper story and his slate roof rising above the intervening modest clapboard dwellings of his neighbors. He thought, “It’s kind of a shame we don’t have a street or section of fine homes in Starke Center. There just isn’t enough wealth in town.” Of course that wasn’t the first time he had that thought. Those exact words were proclaimed upon several private and social occasions in the past and he was destined to repeat those exact words again, so often, as to become quite a bore on that point.

Let’s Write a Novel: Chapter 1, Paragraphs 1- 4

The novel continues….. Need I say it? Although this novel is meant to capture a certain spirit of Knox, Indiana, this is fiction.Knox and her history and her citizens are the inspiration. No person living or dead is being depicted here. Please feel free to be my editor; comment and suggest….
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101 North Washington Street

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Chapter 1, Paragraphs 1 through 4

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100 years ago there were Jews in Starke Center, Indiana. There certainly weren’t very many members of the tribe of Israel but there were more then than at present. Today in 2007, the only Jewish citizens of Starke Center are those few that intermarried with a son of the community. This invariably happened during their hot-bloodied and weak-headed college years. The offspring of these intermarriages certainly don’t worry much about any sort of religious or cultural Jewish tradition and don’t particularly stand out from the crowd of raucous or sullen children on the public school grounds. More likely than not they end up going to church on Sundays.

The 1907 census of Jews was brief. Just where the 2 rail lines crossed at the edge of town, the scrap metal and junk dealer (David) nurtured his business and family. A few miles out of town on one of those same rail lines, the potato, onion, asparagus, and pickle packer (Israel) nurtured his business and abused his family. To finish the list we must add the owner of the Weiss Department Store (Abraham) just starting a family in his quite splendid and very fashionable new home on 101 North Washington Street, a decent and sensible city block from the rails.

Always carefully considering the dangers of exciting envy, David the junkman and Israel the pickle broker each maintained a shabby lifestyle, living well below their means. Of course this care to be modest and unobtrusive about their wealth backfired, as it always has even since the enslavement in Egypt. Because they hid their wealth they were naturally branded penny-pinching, greedy Jews, the ugly killers of Christ. Somewhat ironically and entirely typically, David and Israel were always first to donate generously to the victims of fire and flood. Was this due to their natural compassion, the commandments of their religion, or the hope to throw off the Curse of Cain, the murder of Christ? The answer is no doubt a bit of all the forgoing.

Abraham Weiss was far less worried than his two brethren. The new home on Washington Street was the finest in Starke Center. Abraham’s wife Sara (Honest to God, he married a gal named Sara!) was artistic, educated and cultured. (Today we would call her artsy-fartsy.) Abraham’s family had been in America for 2 generations and Sara’s for 3. David and Israel and their wives were all immigrants. Of course there was the social gulf but the important distinction between the Weisses and the other Jewish families was their lack of fear. Abraham and Sara hadn’t had the experience of an old fashioned, ass-kicking, Russian pogrom.

Let’s Write a Novel: Prologue

By profession I am a novelist. However, enough time has passed since my last novel that I might easily be characterized as either retired or presumed dead. So I thought to myself, “Marian, you should write a novel: a Great American Kind’a Sort’a Like Knox Novel. And, Marian, you should make it part of the Knox Indiana Blog." You, dear readers, may be my editors. What follows is the prologue of a book entitled

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101 North Washington Street

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Prologue

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Landscape is too kind of a word. Most likely there is no word. It was an ocean of ice, a mile deep, uninterrupted over 100 miles to the south and a seeming infinity to the north. On 11 occasions the ice sheet, this ocean of ice, advanced and retreated over what was to become the town that is the focus of our attentions. The last retreat was a mere 10,000 years ago. That is equal to about an hour in this young planet’s history. (Oh my, that does beg the question of the appropriateness of planet “hours” being compared to advanced middle-age woman hours. However, this is a question that I mean to leave hanging for eternity.)

Regarding that first paragraph. My intentions were honorable, I meant to emulate, not copy that grandiose vision of nature that my sister Jane used to open her saga of the northern prairies of Iowa. Emulation is fair enough, certainly commonplace and often quite fruitful. After all, she won the Pulitzer and wasn’t a bit shy about ripping off the Bard himself. I clearly have failed. Ah, but the story still needs to be told. So going back a planet hour…

As one might expect, the retreating edge of the Wisconsin Glacier retreated to the north in the summer and advanced to the south in the winter. 2 steps back and 1 forward, thus was the ground that would become Starke Center revealed. The melting ice was filled with all manner of detritus carried all the way from Hudson Bay. We only need concern ourselves with the sand, windblown sand say the geologists. (Evidently there was considerable wind on the edge of a mile high sheet of ice.) This windblown sand is the foundation of Starke Center. And upon the sand Abraham Weiss built his magnificent house.

That was just a planetary 30 seconds ago, the year: 1907. And no more mention need be made of planet time.

Let’s Do a Merger!

........Robert Minor, St Louis Post-Dispatch (1908).........

Today's trivia question to prepare you for the “Clash of Civilizations”.
Guess how many libraries Carnegie built in Indiana: 26, 75, 96, or 165
Click here and Scoll down to "Interests" for the answer.


This is the heyday of World Capitalism: Mergers, Acquisitions, Leveraged Buyouts, Venture Capital Funds, Hedge Funds, Private Capital Buyouts. You name it; there’s a way to play the system for fun and profit.

Knox is the home of the main library of the Starke County Public Library System. There are 4 libraries all told with teeny-tiny branches in Koontz Lake, Hamlet, and San Pierre. The name, Starke County Public Library System, is not accurate, because, in fact it does not include all of Starke County. It excludes Wayne Township, with its own North Judson-Wayne Twp. Public Library.

So here is the Knox situation. It seems that Knox Library has 3 Professional Librarians, each one accredited in Library Science. This is truly an astoundingly fortuitous situation in light of the fact that there is a nationwide shortage of professional librarians. The Starke County system is in excellent financial condition. The staff is well paid and loyal. The main library building is in good condition with excellent technology. But they have 3 very wasteful branches. The Koontz Lake, Hamlet, and San Pierre branches have insignificant patronage and meager collections. Very large amounts of money have been wasted on computers and technology for these 3rd rate facilities. The situation is political. Appointees from the outlying townships will fight tooth and nail to keep their pathetic branch alive.

The North Judson-Wayne Twp. Public Library bit off a bit more than they could chew a few years ago. Their old Andrew Carnegie building was beautifully and extravagantly remodeled. They overbuilt, just as The Knox Schools overbuilt. Both systems have found it difficult to maintain the physical plant and quality of service on the Indiana frozen levy. North Judson Library has had to sacrifice an efficient operating budget. They have one very underpaid professional Librarian. Their collection is starving and the catalog remains off-line. When their librarian retires, they will be screwed as they have insufficient funds to recruit a new librarian.

Ah Ha! A Merger! North Judson merges with the Starke County System. San Pierre branch closes with no loss to anybody. The San Pierre budget is transferred to North Judson. North Judson acquires (basically for free) the advanced technology they can’t presently afford to bring their collection online. There are plenty of well-paid professionals. The oversize North Judson debt becomes manageable. More books, better service, less waste.

Wow what a good idea Marian! Too bad this has no chance, eh? If this was “real” money, that is not governmental “play” money, this would have happened years ago.

PS: The coming growth in Hamlet makes it quite sensible to plan to build a new library on US 30 near Grovertown and close Koontz Lake and Hamlet branches.

Announcing a Photography Exhibition

.............. Poppies, Beautiful Poppies ...............
.............. Photo by Marian Cross ...............
..... please click on image for larger view .....

My Dear Gentle Readers,

What a delightful time of year. Please consider submitting your photos to be published on this blog. You may submit anonymously, under a pen name, or even your real name. Attach your photo to an email and send to knox.indiana@hotmail.com.

Marian

How’s Our Library Doing? Part 5, Reading Lolita in Knox

Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM Weekly On-Line 1 - 7 June 2006Issue No. 797 Special.
2 young women reading about the Iranian parliamentary election of February 2000 in the leading reformist newspaper Mosharekat

My title above is a not-so-subtle reference to “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books” (2003) by Azar Nafisi available in the Starke County Public Library’s Knox branch, the Schricker Library.

First let’s talk about “Lolita”, (1955) a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. This book provoked a storm when finally published by Olympia Press (Paris) after being turned down by the major the American Publishers. It was banned in Great Britain and France. When Putman published the book in 1958 in America it sold 100,000 copies in 3 weeks (the best seller since "Gone with the Wind" in 1936). Because Lolita has become firmly entrenched in American Culture, I assume all my readers over 40 years old have at least a vague idea about the book. And that will suffice for our purpose today. Younger readers might go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita and read all about it. The book is widely considered one of the finest novels of the 20th century. Good news: our library has it plus the other major works of Nabokov.

Now let’s talk about “Reading Lolita in Tehran”. In 1995 a brave lady, Azar Nafisi , started a secret mostly English language Literature class, just for young women, teaching the banned works of authors like Jane Austen, Henry James, Vladimir Nabokov, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Teaching this class put both the students and teacher at great peril from very violent Iranian censors. This book is a delightful read because it combines a gripping memoir with very inspiring literary criticism. And I happen to be very fond of literary criticism.

Now let’s talk about literary criticism. One wouldn’t really expect the Knox library to have much in the way of literary criticism. Books like “Lolita” hardly ever get checked out so it would be difficult for a librarian to justify buying interpretations and criticism of the text. My argument for having literary criticism on the shelf is, most would say, elitist. However I think that “Reading Lolita in Tehran” supports my point of view on this matter and I would hope that my readers would read this book and consider this point.

Wonder-of-wonders! The Knox library has an excellent little literary criticism on Lolita, “Lolita : A Janus Text” (1995) by Lance Olsen, a Twayne's masterwork study. And herein lies the point of writing all the above which, after all, has little to do with my mission to write about Knox, Indiana. There is a bookplate inside the front cover of this fine little book of scholarly literary criticism. It reads, “This Young Adult Collection Is Funded By Lilly Endowment Inc And The Starke County Community Foundation Thru [sic] a Grant To Friends Of the Library 1999”. Ah ha! So there is a story as to how we have come to have this book in our library.

Evidently in 1999 the Friends of the Library applied for and got a $15,000 grant to improve our Young Adult book collection. This windfall must have presented a difficult but pleasant problem for the librarian. After all, it is a rather narrow area of interest. As I searched the shelves I noticed that there were multiple examples of literary criticism, usually the sole text on a particular subject, that were purchased with this grant. In my opinion these particular books make our library rather exceptional in a good way.


Now for the sad part of this literary tale: The Friends of the Library no longer exists. They ceased being earlier this year, the official reason: lack of interest in the leadership positions. However, there was a great deal of interest in membership as there was no problem whatsoever getting people to join and pay their dues. So what really happened? Most libraries would fight like crazy to keep a Friends of the Library group going. The $15,000 Young Adult book grant is a great example of why. The library is a governmental unit. Organizations like the Lilly Endowment and Starke County Community Foundation to not give money to governmental agencies. They want to see non-governmental entities grow and thrive. I strongly agree with Lilly. (This idea is brilliantly expressed by Francis Fukuyama’s idea that the unique strength of our society is in its voluntary associations like churches, fraternal orders, charities, and axilluary organizations of hospitals, colleges, and even libraries. refer to, “Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity”)

So what really happened? The Friends of Starke County Public Library System met with irrational and terrible hostility from the then President of the Board of Trustees, Marilyn Swanson. She pretty much soured anybody from wanting to be a leader of the group. Happily for us not so happy for Culver Schools Ms. Swanson was off the Library Board for a couple of years when she got an appointment to the Culver School Board to fill an open spot. When she failed to get elected to that position in the following election she went back on the Library Board. So the enemy of the Friends (sounds odd doesn’t it? Well it sure as Hell is odd!) is back on the Library’s Board of Trustees. Goodbye Friends of the Library.

P.S. Those geniuses on the Knox School Board appointed Marilyn Swanson. Thanks.

Question to the Librarian and the Library Board: Why don't you get the Friends going again? Publicize and truly support it. Swanson is only one vote. Your lack of support is shameful.

That explains it.

These were 4 comments posted recently in response to Let’s ask Leonardo. I have had style, word usage, and other subtle linguistic markers in the text analyzed by the noted Forensic Linguistic Scientists, Hugh Potter and Mee Wun Lee, University of New England. These eminent scholars agree that these 4 texts were most likely written by 1 individual so should be regarded as 1 text. I will respond accordingly. Here is the text. My response shall follow.

Anonymous said... 4/30/2007 8:24 PM
how the fuck would u know knoxindiana??! ur a fucking douche bag who is too afraid to actually devulge herself and let speak what you believe. I'm sure u wouldnt say half the things you say if u weren't "anonymous", so i figure i should be too huh? Even though we all know who u r...cunt!

Anonymous said... 4/30/2007 8:37 PM
bitch you're fucked up

Anonymous said... 4/30/2007 8:37 PM
omg...this lady is fucking nuts!

Anonymous said... 4/30/2007 8:39 PM
someone needs to shut knoxindiana the fuck up! she prolly just cant get laid so she bitches about starke county all day! get a life whore!

Further forensic investigation revealed that these comments were sent from Bloomington, Indiana from Indiana University’s IP Address. (Well we are growing some brilliant scholars here in Indiana, eh?) I am unable to determine exactly what the native language of the writer actually is although it clearly isn’t English. The phrase “and let speak what you believe” seems most likely to be a pidgin from the Indonesian Archipelago or perhaps Java. However, “she prolly just cant get laid so she bitches about starke county all day” oddly seems to derive from a popular 1950’s ersatz Jamaican pop hit. (The expected “dayo, dayaayo, day da li and i wanna go ‘ome” has been left off to throw me off the scent, I think.) In any case I think it is most probable that the writer is a member of the tribe Homo floresiensis from the remote Indonesian island of Flores that I discussed very briefly in an earlier blog Under the Arches. Hugh and Lee concur. Perhaps it is the very person I have pictured there!

I wish I could determine the complaint of this person(?) (Is being a member of Homo if not actually member of the more specific sapiens sufficient to call someone a person?) Since this comment was on a piece about evolution v creationism I would assume that this person is a Creationist as I did happen to take the Evolutionary side of the question. I guess that pretty much explains it.

Oxymoron: Amish Cook

Monday, April 30 South Bend Tribune.
From “The Amish Cook”, by Lovina Eicher

...Jacob’s family had a good supper of barbequed chicken, steamed potatoes, cheese, dandelion salad, and hard-boiled eggs…(gourmands of the prairies!) …After lunch they ended up taking one of their sons, Jacob Jr.,7, to the emergency room…(coincidence or simply ironic?)…He ended up being admitted… (sounds like everybody’s end is up)
…He just started getting sick on Saturday, so it overtook him very quickly…(elegant prose, eh?)…It seems we have to get a new mower… (oh! the humanity!)…If it’s not one thing it’s another, but that’s life…(more accurately that is 2 clichés separated by a comma)… If things would always go easy, we’d soon forget about our Heavenly Father’s great power…(God never could maintain the equipment)… I like doing the garden when I can go barefoot… (hookworm might explain the odd theology and sub 5th grade writing style) … Anyone have a recipe for coconut macaroon pie or carrot pie?…(983 hits on Google for the coconut macaroon pie. 9,710 hits for carrot pie. Who knew?)

Following is an added response to Amish Cook fans:

The agent of the Amish Cook perhaps took this blog a little too seriously! This was posted at the Oasis Newsfeatures website this weekend:
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Hmmm, Should I Be Offended or Amused?Published on May 20, 2007 by Kevin Williams in Blog
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“Okay, it's a slow blog day and while just randomly surfing through cyberspace, I stumbled upon this bizarre blog entry from a writer in the tiny town of Knox, Indiana. Apparently the writer had nothing better to do than dissect the Amish Cook's writing style, or, in her opinion, lack thereof. I always tell editors before they subscribe to the column, that Lovina's writing is never going to win a Pulitzer Prize for literary excellence, but that isn't the point of the column. The column's main mission is to connect people in today's fast-paced whirling world to a time when life was a little simpler and less materialistic. Some of the writer's points were humorous: she was correct in pointing out the double cliche. That wasn't one of Lovina's strongest journalistic moments. I wasn't quite as amused when she started making veiled references to the lack of education. With all candor, I've met many Amish who are as well-read or are as successful of a entrepreneur with their eighth grade education as I have people with college degrees. So, anyone else have any thoughts? Should I be amused at the entry? Or offended?”
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Knox Indiana only wishes to say that there is such a thing as quality. To some folks quality doesn't matter nearly so much as the intent. For example they might say, "It's the thought that counts." when they have to defend bad quality. I don't think that is a valid defense for poor quality in a public, professional, journalistic setting. I didn't know what degree of education the Amish tended to have, so Kevin's "veiled reference" is imaginary. It was, in fact, an unveiled reference to the actual level of quality of the writing of "The Amish Cook". Although I haven't actually witnessed a well-read Amish person, I really have no doubt that it might be possible that there be such a person. Certainly Lovina does NOT rise to that description. It would be quite nice "to connect people in today's fast-paced whirling world to a time when life was a little simpler and less materialistic." But I think that statement pretty much says, "It's the thought that counts".

BTW: Somebody needs to tell Lovina how to use the word "good". For example: The garden isn't growing good, it is growing well. That she should have gotten in 5th grade, or at least from Kevin.

How’s Our Library Doing? Part 4

............... Chevaux de la grotte Chauvet (31 000 BP) ...............

Man and Neanderthal lived in Europe at the same time.

However, it doesn't seem that Neanderthal painted.

Click on the picture to get a better view.

Comment #2 to my blog of Saturday, April 14, 2007, “Let’s ask Leonardo” was gratifying insofar as Anonymous seemed to agree with the evolutionary point of view. Several of Anonymous’ points call for clarification. Anonymous said, “Many fossils of Homo sapians [sic] have been found all over the earth and researchers can prove the evolution of a neandrothal [sic] through the widening of the skull and the shortening of the mandible.”

Although it is somewhat ambiguous, I take the above statement to say that Homo sapiens (us folks) evolved from Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis). Presently there is scientific consensus that Cro-Magnon man (as Homo sapiens are called during this time frame) lived side by side in Europe with Neanderthal man. The implication is that neither Neanderthal evolved from humankind nor did humankind evolve from Neanderthal. They evolved from a common ancestor at some point in their evolutionary history.

Sadly, even supporters of evolutionary theory in the Evolution fact v. Creationism nonsense often hold very outmoded or incorrect notions. This allows a bit of an unwarranted handhold for Creationists in this ruckus (it certainly can’t be characterized as a debate).

Which brings me to our library. (What a weak segue, eh?) I recently saw a book on the Discard Pile (cost: 2 bits) at the checkout desk, "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History" by Stephen Jay Gould.

First let us talk about the Discard Pile. Libraries need to constantly cull their collections. There are several reasons: they buy a lot of popular fiction that no one wants to read a few years hence, they have non-fiction material that becomes outmoded, books wear out, books are donated that the librarian doesn’t want in the collection, etc. I certainly agree with the principle, particularly in a small community library.

Now let’s talk about the author, Stephen Jay Gould (died 2002), a long time professor at Harvard, and leading paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. For many, many years Gould wrote a monthly essay for Natural History magazine. These essays have been gathered up and published on a regular basis. "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History" was one of these collections of essays. Gould was a great scientist, teacher, and writer. Amazon.com gives 268 results for Author: Stephen Jay Gould.

I bought the book from the discard heap and re-read it. (I first read it when it first appeared in our library in 1998.) I would have liked to refer Anonymous to an essay in this book called "Up Against a Wall". There Anonymous could have read a little bit about Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon co-existing in the time of the great cave-paintings at Lascaux and Chauvet. Sadly our library no longer owns this fine book. Happily, now I do. But, again happily, if you want to read this article you can! Thanks to Indiana’s libraries. Go to http://www.inspire.net/. Get your free Indiana account and Search For “Up against a wall”: Title AND “Gould, Stephen Jay”: Author in the Database: “Academic Search Elite”.

Generally I do not have any big disagreement with the Starke County Library’s discards. In this case, they made a definite mistake. If the library wants "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History" back, please e-mail me at knox.indiana@hotmail.com . I’ll drop it in the book return box.

Our very own Aerial Screw

An “Aerial Screw” Designed and Drawn by Leonardo da Vinci, Manuscript B Folio 83v

Ah, beautiful Cranberry Cove. Really the most beautiful spot on an otherwise pretty dreary Bass Lake. There is some rare deep water, shelter from the wind, a nice sunset view, and no public road access. You can’t see the cove from lake-encircling County Highway 210. This is the spot one would expect the wealthy to erect their cottages. It seems that there is a private helipad on a pier on Cranberry Cove. This fact was a surprise to me, but I suppose I should have guessed as much. It seems we live in a time of exceptional excess.

Of course the reason I mention this is that Bass Lake was the scene of a recent helicopter wreck. The story goes that the businessman/ owner of the aircraft was flying in with his secretary and they crashed into the lake a bit shy of the aforementioned helipad. (I’m sorry I inadvertently used the S word in my last sentence.) The unfortunate administrative assistant (Did this happen on Administrative Assistant's Day? That would be ironic, eh?) was found either dead or near dead by would be rescuers. The owner / pilot of the helicopter had not been found as of this writing. Various law enforcement types are cruising about presumably waiting for the inevitable bacteria to inflate the corpse.

I think this is kind of terrible. Terrible that nice, fun-loving people die violently in the prime of life. But also terrible that somebody uses an extremely intrusive helicopter to ruin the quiet beauty of this spot just to have a bit of that fun. Just a few miles away in the next County on Lake Maxinkuckee, either ordinance or committee prevented a similar situation. Evidently the mega-rich owner of the Indianapolis Colts football team wasn’t able to negotiate for a helipad on the end of his pier. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bass Lake neighbors of our missing helicopter pilot were quietly a bit pleased that the raucous beast of a machine had crashed. I certainly would be.

Starke County, the home of Bass Lake and the city Knox, has had a very stand off attitude towards land use regulations or restrictions on property. This is a reflection of many years of rather right wing, definitely conservative rule, by both Democrats and Republicans. I think that this attitude has done much allow the uglification of Bass Lake. Homes have been built that are absurdly excessive. Some are so large that they take up nearly their entire lot, casting a 2 story shadow on their neighbors and shocking the eyes of the passers by. Limits are needed. Sure as hell we don’t want helicopters landing on piers. There needs to be limits: limits on growth, limits on noise, and limits on density. I think that this is called civilization.

Sex In Our City

Pet Peeve Aside: Boring writers that go on about the completely trite, completely worthless details of their personal lives. Why would I care that they are annoyed with the weather or irritated by (for example) the dumb-ass drivers of the Knox 4-lane. Those jounalistic dolts especially cause hot blurry spots in my visual field when they go on about their family. For example, “It is such a great joy, a joyous gift from our Lord, to watch Baby Smellybottom finally learn to walk. And she’s only just turned 35 months! We are so looking forward to Smelly’s 3rd birthday! All her cross-eyed kinfolk will be there. I guess I’m going to have to clean up the crawl space.” This kind of crap is what passes for feature writing in the South Bend Tribune and the local rags (when they even bother).

Begging your pardon for the introductory rant, the Aside, so-called. What I would really like from these byline featured, 2-dimensional personalitied columnists is a good sex column. You know, like the fictional NYC column by the skinny, blond, curly-haired slut on HBO’s Sex in the City. Oh yah, “Sex in Our City”. I’d bet I would get more than 2 or 3 more hits on my strange little blog, that is, if I could produce such heat. Ah, sadly, I am graced with a face like a horse and consequently a sex life of no interest to anybody including yours truly.

So let us talk about the Knox Police Department. It has come repeatedly to my attention that a certain uninteresting Knox police officer has been diddling some equally uninteresting citizen of our fair city. I haven’t reported such going on because of the seriously uninteresting aspect of the whole affair. My God, certainly this qualifies as a Boring Rendezvous, a cop and a bored housewife. Well the interesting part of all this is not the sex. The interesting part is that the cop got fired for this behavior. The cop seems to agree with me that this really isn’t such an exciting deal. So consequently this police officer is suing the city for wrongful dismissal. The defense (rather interesting perhaps if this ever goes to trial) is that many police officers in the past have committed identical or at least similar acts of boring sex and none of them were fired. We hereby proclaim this the boring sex defense. I think it could work!

Oddly, it seems that there was actually good cause for firing this same diddling officer of the law some time ago when in a psychotic state the officer threatened with a drawn gun to kill either self or family or self and family or some such totally equally disturbing scenario. If this is at all true, this enactment of the suicidal / homicidal primal scene seems to be a damn good cause for firing a policeman. Actually it seems odd that the police officer wasn’t locked up at that time.

Your government in action. Brilliant!

Let’s ask Leonardo

Today's trivia question to prepare you for the “Clash of Civilizations”.
Where was Leonardo da Vinci born?
Click here and Scoll down to "Interests" for the answer.

Leonardo da Vinci had theory about geography. He thought that the earth was a sort of reflection of man (or maybe vice versa). He called the scheme microcosm and macrocosm (or maybe vice versa). The idea went way, way back to 500 BC and was rediscovered by Leonardo, among others, during the Renaissance. This is why I illustrate this little blog entry with Mona Lisa. Leonardo was subtly illustrating the microcosm / macrocosm (hint: look at the hair and the river but if you spend some time with her you will see a lot more). Please, click on Mona to see a big detailed version.

Leonardo was no armchair philosopher. Although he loved the idea of the idea, he needed to examine the evidence. This is not the appropriate place get too lost in the truly amazing mind of Leonardo, so suffice it to say that while studying the Earth to prove his theory he came upon fossils of shellfish in the mountains. At that time there were 2 theories of the origin of shellfish fossils way up above and way far away from the ocean.

One school believed that it was evidence of the great biblical deluge. You know, Noah, the Ark, 40 days and 40 nights. How else could one explain evidence of ocean life on a mountaintop hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean? This school of thought, of course, based this belief on the text of the bible. So we could say that they had a fundamental fish to fry.

The “modern” school thought that the rock spontaneously formed crystalline structures that were the stone version of these shellfish. This school had their own strange fish to fry in that they had their own odd philosophical ideas that this spontaneous generation theory supported.

Leonardo, being the kind of guy that he was, decided to test all three theories against the evidence. He was able to quickly refute the deluge theory on several grounds. One of several pieces of evidence was that the fossil sea life occurred in many layers with a variety of species and that some of the layers were of intact joined shells indicating that these fossils were buried alive over a very long period of time. The spontaneous generation theory was refuted by several pieces of evidence, one bit being that some of the layers were composed of well-worn disjoined shells that would be consistent with a beach with its shell deposits being buried.

Oh, and by the way, he didn’t find much to support his pet microcosm / macrocosm theory either.

Of course this little discussion brings us to the present day in Knox, Indiana. There are a lot of so-called Creationists in and about Knox. They have their theory about fossils also. Coincidentally their theory is the great biblical deluge theory pretty much intact over these many years. One of the pieces of evidence that they find is exactly the same evidence that Leonardo used to disprove the spontaneous generation theory. Some of these layers of fossilized sea life appear as a jumble of disjointed shells just like they had been washed up on the beach, presumably during the great flood. Of course, that explains how these seashells got gathered up hundreds of miles from and thousands of feet above the present ocean. Brilliant!

There are members of our school board that want the creationist theory taught “alongside” evolutionary theory.

I say, “Fine!” Let’s ask Leonardo.

Notice: Repairs on the Green Line. Expect Delays

Knox is solidly on the Bible Belt, not the gilded buckle exactly, but on the belt. There are several characteristics of local Christianity that have a strongly local flavor, such as a strong non-denominational urge. Several local churches even advertise themselves as such. I understand and sympathize with this urge to accept a wider range of religious belief. After all most Christians lay-people don’t get too worked up about the relative merits of the different baptism techniques like sprinkling, pouring (infusion), partial immersion, total submersion, immersion mixed with pouring, etc. These differences, which after all historically have caused and continue to cause schisms, do lend a bit of gravitas to Christian leaders. Without gravitas one wouldn’t be much of a leader, eh?

Anyway, back to the non-denominational urge. There have been many schisms of local churches. Curiously, sometimes even non-denominational churches have breakaway groups that form new churches. Historically, in the wider world, schisms are serious business involving torture and war. More recently major Christian schisms are more about television coverage and who gets the money. Locally these non-denominational schisms are much less serious affairs. What tends to happen is that a group of parishioners become unhappy with some aspect of their leader. It might be a perceived moral shortcoming, a doctrinal difference, or simply management disagreement. It is kind of odd that a doctrinal difference can arise in a non-denominational setting but it certainly does.

Sidetracked again! So let me get back to the non-denominational urge. Most local believers don’t really care about the fine print in their churches by-laws. They like and respect most Christians that believe and act more-or-less about the same as they do. The widespread use of marquee sign is a reflection of the kind of hazy and wispy doctrine with which local folks find comfort. Although the use of cute sayings on marquee signs is probably national in scope, Knox has embraced the practice. There are many interesting, sometimes inspirational, sometimes confusing, examples. If one were to just take photos of the stranger examples, it would be the basis for an amusing calendar.

A theologian or serious scholar of Christianity could have a field day exploring the doctrinaire implications of some of these signs. Several historical heresies have been unwittingly advocated (not, of course, the stranger stuff like Gnosticism). Not being either a theologian or serious scholar of Christianity, I can’t speak with much authority. I would like to ask you to ponder the example below.

You very well may somewhat indignantly ask, “Well, what’s wrong with that?” And my answer is, “I’m not certain, but it bothers me.” The saying, although, without a doubt, cute and quite suitable for innocent youngsters, seems more appropriate to the worship of nature goddesses like Demeter and Persephone, than the God of the Bible.

In any case it certainly isn’t any big deal. Just some of that local color.

An Outstanding Public Servant

......................Solon..........................

Sometimes our little city gets lucky. For 16 years Raymond C. Walton has guided the town of Knox. He was buried today. For these many years Mr. Walton has been the Clerk - Treasurer of Knox, Indiana. He executed the duties of his office with extraordinary skill. He demonstrated extraordinary competence. I know of no other public official that can rise to his standard of skill and competency. I wish all public officials would attempt to emulate the career of this great public official.

There is no reason that the average citizen of Knox has the foggiest notion as to what I am talking about. After all, Clerk - Treasurer of Knox, Indiana, isn’t very impressive sounding. Hell, being Mayor of Knox, Indiana certainly doesn’t cast a great shadow. So let me tell you a little about Ray Walton, Clerk – Treasurer. Ray knew where the money came from and where it went. That alone is a fairly big deal. I can assure you than many other cities have Clerk – Treasurers that don’t know that much. Beyond that Ray knew exactly what the rules were. He knew what needed to be spent. He knew what shouldn’t be spent. He knew what bonds were and how to use them correctly. He knew how a budget needed to be written. He knew how to wring every last cent out of the State that the City had coming.

But having the knowledge doesn’t mean that you have the skill to communicate that knowledge or the persuasive skill to convince the public officials in charge to behave wisely. Well Ray Walton had that skill. It was obvious that Ray had no ambition to be Mayor. It was also obvious that he had knowledge, not bullshit. This allowed Mayors to simply follow his advice without worrying about screw-ups or political competition. Ray made the Mayors look good. The department heads (police, streets, water) knew they could trust what he had to say. If he said cut back, they trusted that is what they had to do. They also knew that if they badly needed something, Ray would find a way.

Sadly the Starke County government has not had anyone of Ray’s stature. Stupid decisions have been made and there are short term and long-term bad consequences. We will see County government struggle for years to come.

There is a lot more that could be said about Raymond C. Walton as a fine example of a human being and a man. But I don’t do obituaries.

Under the Arches

Homo floresiensis, ancient hobbit-sized human species, lived 18,000 years ago on the remote Indonesian island of Flores.
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Today's trivia question to prepare you for the “Clash of Civilizations”.
How do you translate the latin "Homo sapiens".
Click here and Scoll down to "Interests" for the answer.
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In the little land of Shet (called Sheet in the South and Shitt by their neighbors) lived the delightfully mannish race called Halfsapiens (or in the common mouth-tongue, Bobbots) that devoted their days to drinking coffee through a large sugar cube held between their front teeth. As they sipped their favorite beverage (they called Koffee) (at 7:00, 10:00, Noon, 2:00, and 4:00) the Halfsapiens (or Bobbots)(That is what they called themselves!) would think very deep thoughts (of a philosophical sort) and after every sip of their Koffee would expound upon whatever philosophical topic happened to be up for discussion that particular Koffhour (7:00, 10:00, Noon, 2:00, and 4:00).

Koffhour at the home of Dildo Mortfin was a particular delight! At the end of Mortsfinis lane the household was famous for the quality of the philosophical discussions. Let’s listen! It’s 4:30 and the Koffee and the Koffhour is getting a little bitter! The famous philosopher SheetWhipe (from the River Whipe in the south of Shet) was visiting that afternoon, “As I have fabulously discovered, 2 negatives create a positive. However 2 positives do not create a negative!” “Yeah, Yeah.” muttered a tired and hungry Dildo. The Bobbots (knowing how to take a hint) began to make their departures (and not a moment too soon!).

The above delightful excerpt is from an unpublished anonymous manuscript that I inherited from my maiden Aunt Juniper. (It has been rumored that she was the first love of the British fantasy writer Tolkein. He typically cryptically called his adolescent infatuation Evergreen.) (In the family we called her Ginny) In any case, I have decided to publish this excerpt because it so reminds me of the coffee klutch at McDonalds. Those old and odd fellows drinking their senior coffees and philosophizing could easily be mistaken for Bobbots; don’t you think? Ah! What wondrous ponderous ratiocinations!
Next time you’re in Knox stop in on south Heaton Street for some cheap coffee and conversation! BTW: It's the best coffee in town.

Teacher Pay and Performance

There is an Anonymous comment on Problems with Merit from a North Judson reader that mentions that she (or he) was a finalist for last year’s Lily [sic] scholarship. She points out that the winners were hard working and deserving. That certainly needed to be said. So, thanks, Anonymous. Her school pride in North Judson’s performance is quite indicative of the attitude at North Judson that gives them such an advantage over Knox. Anonymous says, “I am from North Judson and we made up 5 of the 10 finalists from the county, not to mention our other winner from Judson in Pulaski County! Go Jays!” WOW. North Judson had 2 winners. I must say that they are getting nice results for their brightest students.

This begs the two questions, what is wrong with Knox and what is right with North Judson? I think that North Judson has made a concerted effort to nurture its brightest students. Their Academic Bowl program is high intensity with dedicated teacher and student efforts. I think North Judson makes an effort where Knox doesn’t. There are many opportunities at Knox to put together high impact programs in the sciences, arts and letters. However, these opportunities are not pursued.

I would like to tell “what if” story. What if a veteran teacher from North Judson applied for a job at Knox. This teacher is interested in pursuing a new classroom opportunity that is available in Knox. It so happens that this same teacher is a driving force on the North Judson Academic Bowl team. Even if this was the most qualified candidate, and even though it would be well understood that this would be a great opportunity to improve our top-end academic performance, this teacher would not be hired. Why not? Because this teacher would be a veteran instructor and would have to be paid at the top of the scale. We don’t hire veteran instructors if we can avoid it. So that is one problem with Knox. If Knox really cared about this sort of thing we would be recruiting and hiring teachers with proven skills.

This brings up another comment from Lemuel's Mother made in response to Treating Teachers like Crap. The comment was about teacher pay. It is a widely held, rather common conservative viewpoint that paying teachers more money is either pointless or wasteful. I think it is evident that our school board holds closely to this viewpoint and the community, in large, agrees. The argument goes something like this: “Teachers have been getting pay increases and the student results haven’t been getting any better. Ergo, increased pay for teachers is a waste.” Underlying this argument is another widely held view that teachers really don’t do anything especially difficult. Hence, the claim, teachers could be replaced by housewives and nobody would notice a difference. If there is any truth to the above argument it is only because the administration makes it true. If the administration and school board does their job correctly, we do not have weak teachers. They are either not hired or are fired.

Adequate pay means that we are paying enough to attract and retain good teachers. When the school board lies and cheats in pay negotiations Knox ends up paying teachers less. (Treating Teachers like Crap). I suppose some in our community will cheer. That sort of overly cute behavior means that the best teachers will find employment elsewhere. We will be left with those teachers that can’t find employment elsewhere. The result will be a continuing decline in our school’s quality. Sad.

Make it a true merit scholarship

High school juniors take the SAT (formerly called the Scholastic Assessment Test) in Clemson, South Carolina. The test is designed to assess math and verbal abilities and is required of applicants to most colleges in the United States. Mary Ann Chastain/AP/Wide World Photos
The Official SAT Question of the Day™
A florist buys roses at $0.50 apiece and sells them for $1.00 apiece. If there are no other expenses, how many roses must be sold in order to make a profit of $300?
a)100 b)150 c)200 d)300 e)600

I know my griping about the Community Foundation Scholarship sounds like sour grapes. I admit that I have bitten into some of those unripe fruit of the vine from time to time. So this is my sour grapes disclaimer. OK, that being said, it is a good thing to have these fabulous scholarships available.

There are interesting social implications and unforeseen consequences that make a critical examination of the scholarships worthwhile. My last blog, Problems with Merit talked about potential pressures within the High School academic community to cheat, perhaps in ways destructive to other students, to win this huge prize. I don’t believe that this is an exaggeration. It is human nature to consciously or subconsciously favor your children, relatives and members of your social class. In any case I am certain that my readers can relate stories of their own about favoritism in the classroom. In keeping with my earlier theme of class and caste, I think it is obvious that this prize favors the middle class and could even encourage further middle class favoritism in the school.

Mind you, I don’t know the name of even one person on this scholarship selection committee. But there isn’t really a broad choice available. Ideally you would want wealthy philanthropists, university administrators, an African American activist, and some up and coming entrepreneurs. In other words, if this money is aimed at the middle class, you don’t want middle class people making the decision. They are too close to the spoils. In this case the Lilly Foundation represents the very wealthy philanthropist tossing a nice bone to the middle class. I suppose the Lilly foundation envisions the local upper crust properly representing the Lilly's intent, in other words, rich people granting a nice prize to some smart middle class kids. Here in Starke County the upper crust is very thin. The factory owners live elsewhere. There is no university, African American activists, or wealthy philanthropists. There is the odd rich farmer, and wealthy merchant. But mostly the pool for the selection committee is the usual upper middle class professions: lawyers, doctors, and teachers. They are very close to the potential recipients in many ways. I think too close. Certainly this isn’t a case of the rich handing out a prize to the middle class.

Of course I have a suggestion. Make the Community Foundation Lilly Scholarship a pure merit prize based entirely on objective criteria. A simple solution would be SAT scores. Everybody is equal: boys, girls, Knox students, and home-schoolers, even dropouts. Do you know that some really bright students are happily accepted to university without a high school diploma? No student would have reason to believe that they would be at any disadvantage due to coming from a “bad” family or having a powerful enemy. The only down side would be if more than 2 or 3 students had perfect SAT scores. But wouldn’t that be a great problem to have!

Problems with Merit

Eaton College, Berkshire. Drawn by J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Engraved by W. Radclyffe. 1831

Allow me to go back. The year was 1933. My father and his younger brother were in a preparatory school in England. His family was middle class but striving to rise. (Class was quite a real issue in those days in England). Private preparatory school was a difficult luxury for his family. It was well understood that the Cross boys needed to excel so as to qualify for one of the great English public schools (it is confusing but in England the term “public school” refers to a private school not funded by the state). The great hope was that by rising to the top my father could qualify for a merit scholarship to a top public school like Eaton College.

Unfortunately my father witnessed his brother receiving an undeserved and brutal beating from the hand of one of the teachers. My father intervened and was later somewhat vindicated by subsequent investigation. Although he was not expelled, his chances to be the top student were ended because the teacher in question had the power to block him and, in fact, did so.

~

I observed an incident at Knox High School about 10 years ago. A very bright and promising young man had just moved to town. He was confident and talented, gifted intellectually, musically and physically. His family background was strictly working class. No one in his family had gone to college. He got into a fight with a fellow student that happened to have a close relative in the high school administration. (This fight involved the attentions of a young lady.) This promising working class young man was expelled from school for a period of time, there was a mandatory reduction in his grades, and he lost his top position in the class. His rival suffered no similar setback and ended up as top student. The working class young man went into the military after high school. His rival with the well-placed relative went to college

If the Lilly Scholarships were available at that time, there is no doubt in my mind that the well-placed young man would have been a finalist and most likely a winner. He was top of his class, was from an “excellent” old-Knox family, and had ok SATs. His working class rival was 10 or 15 spots behind in class rank, had an expulsion record, and was from out of town. Even with better SATs, he would not have had a chance. In my opinion there was no doubt which of these students had the greatest merit, however it was not the student that ended up at college or would have ended up with a good chance at the fat scholarship.

This dynamic is still working in our school system. Only the potential $175,000 prize makes the dynamic even more brutal. All that it takes is one teacher or administrator that favors one student over another. Children of teachers and administrators are competing for this big fat cash award. Students from dubious family backgrounds are pretty easily eliminated from the competition. These students neither have the needed social skills to stay out of trouble nor have the needed connections to later get them out of trouble.

~

The Starke County Community Foundation Lilly Endowment Community Scholars award is a merit award.

Start kicking your kid’s butt now to win $175,000

...........Joan Miró i Ferrà, man Kicking Stone with Bird........
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Today's trivia question to prepare you for the “Clash of Civilizations”.

What is schmaltz?

Click here and Scoll down to "Interests" for the answer.

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The Lilly family has been generous. The wealth of Lilly Foundation is nearly unlimited. The Lilly foundation has financed Community Foundations across Indiana. That includes our Starke County Community Foundation. The pride and joy of the foundation is the Starke County Community Foundation Lilly Endowment Community Scholars. This is an astoundingly generous, 4-year full tuition scholarship to any Indiana College. The future value of this scholarship at Notre Dame is about $175,000. WOW!!! This is far and away the biggest thing that the Starke Foundation does. Some years they give away 3 of these!

This is a gigantic amount of money. How are the recipients chosen? After reading the Community Foundation’s web site and the web site of the Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship Program it seems that any local graduating Senior may apply. Not much information about the actual selection criteria was available. In 2003 they were more informative than years since. Here is a quote from the 2003 information: “The selection of nominees was done in two phases. During the first phase, students were scored on their application essay, their SAT scores, their GPA, curriculum difficulty, their school and community activities, work experience and letters of recommendation. Twelve students were selected to advance to the second or final phase. During the final phase, the students wrote an impromptu essay and interviewed with the Starke County Community Foundation Scholarship Committee.” The 2006 selection seems to indicate that the Independent Colleges of Indiana makes the final choice from the finalist pool. However information from prior years indicated that only the nominees and an alternate were sent to ICI. Other information on the site stated a somewhat different process. In any case, presumably ICI generally accepts the nominees named by the committee.

This type of scholarship is called a merit scholarship as opposed to a need scholarship. In the criteria there was no mention of student need as a factor. Since 2002 there have been 8 boys and 5 girls with 7 from North Judson, 2 from Knox, 3 from Oregon Davis, and 1 from the Indiana Academy. North Judson has done quite well. I would say that North Judson students tend to be better qualified because the school has a strong tradition of nurturing their most talented students. Their continuing success at in the Academic Bowl competition is proof of that.

I suggest that all Knox parents understand and then explain this program to their child. I think you should start at about age 5 and keep mentioning it. Tell them, “I expect you to win this!” Consider that there are only about 230 graduates in the pool. Only about 120 of these students even expect to go to college. ONLY 20 STUDENTS EVEN BOTHER APPLYING! In a good year 3 scholarships are awarded. Your child’s chance is 3 out of 20, 15% to win $175,000. And you don’t even have to scratch that awful silver/gray dust off a lottery ticket.

After studying the past winners, I can give you the best strategy:
1. Move to North Judson
2. Be Middle-Class. Being a teacher is good.
3. Avoid divorce and other conspicuous bad behavior.
4. Go to a mainstream Protestant Church and make sure that your kid is very active.

5. Make your kid volunteer at the nursing home.
6. Make sure your kid is popular; Student Body President is best.
7. Your kid’s Music and Sports successes are biggies.
8. Teach your kid to write an essay. Some schmaltz is good.
9. Teach you kid to say ma’am and sir.
10. Teach your kid to look adults in the eye.
11. Teach your kid not to mumble.
12. Your kid will need good grades (bummer).
13. Your kid will need good SATs (bummer).
14. Best Bet: Get to know people on the selection committee!

I suppose that you are wondering when I was going to start grousing about the program? Next time.

Caste and Class in the Classroom Part 3

Maestro Harrell plays Randy, an intelligent and enterprising student at a Baltimore public school, on "The Wire".

Today's trivia question to prepare you for the “Clash of Civilizations”.
According to Marxist theory, what is the “haute bourgeoisie”?
Click here and Scoll down to "Interests" for the answer.
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I received this letter recently. (Irrelevant material indicated by […] has been deleted.)

"[…] I attended Knox high school a little over a decade ago. While I currently reside in Illinois, my family still lives in Starke Co., Indiana. I found your site quite interesting on many different levels. […] I also found interesting is the income of Mr. Condon for being principal of Knox Sr. High School. You see, I am currently enrolled in college in Illinois, but while attending Knox Sr. High, I was forced to drop out of school. Mr. Condon didn't make exceptions to rules with students that have a lack of parents in their lives. Although I attended school every day, I was also late because I worked a full time job at a factory 2nd shift, and my friends would pick me up 5 miles out of town in the country and bring me to school. Therefore, with me raising myself, working full time and attending high school full time, I was tardy often. Nearly everyday he would call me to his office and give me the lecture of being on time. I explained my situation to him, but he didn't care. I wasn't his problem, nor were the other record number of dropouts in his first two years in term. Now I will get to the point. Seeing his salary as high as it is, I find it unfortunate that the state wastes so much money on someone that doesn't take the time to care about his students, and maybe try to work with them on their situations rather than sit back, collect the salary as it rolls in, and discipline students to show an effort of work ethic, an expressing the lack of better judgment."

This letter is an interesting confirmation of the ideas set forth in my earlier blogs Caste and Class in the Classroom Part 1 and Fixing the High School. Our dropout rate is, at least in part, a symptom of the disconnect between students legitimate needs and the administration’s apparent indifference to those needs. The administrations attitude is that the students must conform to the schedule and rules of the school. My reader here may very well ask, “ Well what is wrong with that? Shouldn’t students learn to be on time, conform to the schedule, conform to the rules?” in this blog I want to examine this very question.

One of the sub plots in HBO’s Peabody Award winning series, The Wire, is the abysmal inner city Baltimore public schools. It is fascinating that the teachers and administrators are depicted as skillful, intelligent, caring, and hardworking. Likewise students are shown to have intelligence and drive. In spite of the great personal qualities of the staff and the students it is nevertheless a terrible mess. Knox is in a similar state albeit not so strikingly severe. I think that Mr. Condon is skillful, intelligent, caring, and hardworking. But I also believe that he did a disservice to our letter writer and a great many other similarly situated students. A great many of our students don’t have the luxury of conforming to middle class expectations.

What are some of these middle class expectations? We assume that a student is financially supported. We assume that a student will be able to conform to the school’s schedule. We assume that a student will be able to catch the bus. These assumptions are all correct when we are dealing with a middle class family. But what about the student that is self-supporting and works the second shift and consequently is tardy every day? Survival is more important than not being tardy.

I suggest that our school needs to rethink the middle class assumptions that underlie the present system. Our letter writer is in college today, not because of our school, but in spite of our school.

Doesn’t it seem terrible that it is possible to make such a statement?

Tootsie Duvall plays Edward J. Tilghman Middle School assistant principal Marcia Donnelly on "The Wire."

Treating Teachers like Crap

One would hope that the Knox School Board could aspire to a level of honor equal to their mascot "The Redskins". Ironically the School Board demonstration of honor is more akin to that of "The Whiteskins", General Howard and the Government treaty-breakers.

The Knox teachers belong to a union that negotiates a contract with the School Board. The last agreement reached was for 2 years, last year and this year. The teacher’s accepted a very low pay increase: 1% increase the first year and no increase the second year. Given that the cost of living keeps increasing about 3% or 4 % per year this was a reduction in pay in constant dollars. There was a reason that the teachers accepted this poor pay package. The School Board pleads poverty and at that time the revenues were reduced and the budget was stressed. Perhaps you remember the local headlines? There was a few hundred thousand dollar decrease in revenues. The situation seemed dire so the teachers sacrificed.

The teachers’ negotiating team had seen this situation in the past. What happened in the past was that the missing money later showed up. So there was a clause added to the contract that specified that if the administrators later got a raise, then the teachers would get a matching percentage raise. Seems fair enough doesn’t it?

It turned out that extra money did appear. Of course there were not any headlines to correct the earlier headlines. So you never heard about that, did you? But suddenly there was a nice surplus. So the School Board decided that they really wanted to give the administrators a raise, but they really didn’t want to honor their agreement with the teachers. The answer was that the administrators all got an extra contribution into their 401k-retirement plan equal to 4.5% of their annual pay.

Now, I ask you, I this honest or honorable behavior? I think this is cheating, dishonest, and dishonorable. I suppose the School Board thinks that they have pulled off a clever deal. If so, their joy is that of the crook, the con artist or the thief. Is this the way that we want our School Board to represent us?

Knox : Average Teacher Salary: $44,200
Kankakee Valley: Average Teacher Salary: $49,200
North Judson: 2006-07 Average Teacher Salary: $44,900
Oregon-Davis: Average Teacher Salary: $42,700
Winamac: Average Teacher Salary: $44,772
LaPorte: Average Teacher Salary: $47,200
Plymouth: Average Teacher Salary: $48,300
Valparaiso: Average Teacher Salary: $53,400

The only school in our area that has worse pay for teachers is the truly pathetic Oregon-Davis. Also O-D is the only school with a worse Real Graduation Rate than Knox. (See earlier blog, How’s the High School Doing? The 800 pound gorilla.) If a really sharp teacher wants a job, would they accept a job at Knox, or Plymouth, or Valparaiso?

It is interesting to break down the elementary, middle and high school pay differences.
Averages by school:
High School: Salary: $40,113 Age: 40
Middle School: Salary: $42,693 Age 42
Elementary School: Salary: $45,154 Age 45
As you can see the High School has a problem with teacher retention.

The salary information for school administration is not available on the web. I have emailed klane@doe.state.in.us for this public information. I will post this information ASAP.

Here is the information that I requested from the state:
Kimberly Knott $89,500
James Condon $82,232
August Gappa $67,036
Glenn Barnes $58,900
Joseph Carey $74,000
Stephen Cronk $74,420
David Miller $64,999

Caste and Class in the Classroom Part 2

...................... The SUPERBOWL in 1922 ....................
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Today's trivial trivia question.
1869 was a first for what 2 American sports?
Click here and Scoll down to "Interests" for the answer.
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How middle-class identity holds down the performance of our school, resulting in low SAT scores and poor college attendance.

From time to time exceptional individuals apply for teaching positions at Knox. Often the applicant is the spouse of a professional or manager recently transferred to this region. The applicant may have been “Teacher of the Year” in a prominent suburban school or have some other professional distinction. Personally, I lust for that sort of teacher for our students. However, it is sad but true, these teachers generally don’t get hired. If they make it past the initial hiring obstacles (difficult for any teacher with experience) they often get shot down in the final stages in staff-review. This is a committee composed of peer teachers that makes and reviews hiring recommendations for the Principals. The comment most often heard is, “They wouldn’t like it here.” or “They wouldn’t be comfortable here.”(See note below)* Of course what is really meant is “We wouldn’t be comfortable with somebody that outstanding working in the classroom next-door.”

Knox schools have an unofficial hire-local policy. That is another way of saying hire someone with the same class identity to which we now hold. A Knox High School graduate will generally be shown hiring preference. Well, OK, let’s be honest, they will have to get in line behind the families of the School Board. But in any case, newly hired teachers are generally well within the local comfort zone. The outstanding applicant from Barrington, Illinois isn’t going to compete strongly against this hire-locals attitude. Ironically, here we see middle-class bias morph into a sort of self-destructive “caste-like” behavior of a minority lower class. The Knox middle class isn’t very self-confidant, suspecting they might be “out-classed”.

By embracing insular and mediocre middle-class values, Knox High School has become very comfortable with mediocre performance: mediocre performance from the educational professionals due to lack of competition, lack of decent examples of professional excellence, weak administrative leadership, and a school board hostile to teachers: also, mediocre performance from the students given weak academic challenges, low expectations, and a lack of decent examples of academic excellence.

Parents are also discouraged from higher expectations for their children. If their child wanted to apply to a prestigious Ivy League college, neighbors and friends would accuse the family of elitism, of trying to be superior. They would be told: Indiana schools are certainly good enough, if not even better. Of course, Notre Dame’s the best. Those Eastern schools are dangerous, liberal places where your child will get all sorts of wrong ideas. It seems odd that in any dusty, destitute village in Africa, a parent would say that their ultimate dream for their child would be to go to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. Yet in Knox these places are somehow undesirable. That is the irony of Knox’s embrace of the “good enough”.

Watch for upcoming Blog on “Treating Teachers like Crap”.

*(Note) This so-called reasoning is nearly identical to the governmental board’s I described earlier in On the History of the Negro in Knox Part 5 when the board declined to interview a professional candidate because they “might” be African American.

Caste and Class in the Classroom Part 1

Today's trivia question to prepare you for the “Clash of Civilizations”.
What is creole language?
Click here and Scoll down to "Interests" for the answer.
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I have been discussing the low graduation / dropout rate and the low college attendance / low SAT score problems. The subject of this blog is the closely related concepts of caste and class and the negative impact of caste and class on Knox’s educational environment especially the dropout rate.

We ordinarily associate caste problems with India and don’t consider this to be an issue in America. John Uzo Ogbu described “caste-like” behavior in black students as a major factor in educational underachievement. Ogbu described a phenomenon he called "oppositional identity" to the mainstream culture. Oppositional identity is a fancy set of words for what might be called a “chip on the shoulder” or “pride” or “inferiority complex”. Caste-like behavior is common among certain lower socioeconomic groups in Knox and is a big factor in dropping out.

In 1950 we would have easily recognized caste-like behavior patterns among the recent Appalachian transplants, AKA hillbillies* (see comment 4 below). The Appalachian students brought cultural attitudes to school that got them in trouble and often caused them to drop out. Attitudes like low academic confidence, anti-intellectualism, and distain for mainline cultural values. Low academic confidence combined with “southern pride” and we ended up “with a chip on the shoulder” or "oppositional identity to the mainstream culture”. These students had difficulty getting along socially and academically. We have the same sort of problem today. However it is no longer an easily identified set of Appalachian transplants with a distinctive dialect. There is a more diverse and ethnically complex socioeconomic set that exhibits the same caste-like, self-destructive behavioral patterns that we had to deal with in the 1950s.

Caste-like behavior is a problem of self-identity. Of course there is not an actual caste structure in Knox or in our schools. Using the word caste is only useful insofar as it accurately describes how a sub-cultural group’s attitudes hinder their advancement in mainstream society.

While there is no caste system in Knox there most certainly is a class system. Class behavior goes the other direction. Class behavior by the cultural mainstream is directed against those same students that exhibit caste-like behaviors. This creates a non-virtuous cycle that exacerbates the caste problem. There is a tendency to identify students as being from “good families” or “bad families”. Judgment is based upon little clues like non-vaccination, non-payment of book rental, free lunch participation, and prior family history with the school. There is, at a minimum, a subconscious tendency to more readily accept poor performance from a difficult student from a “bad family”.

I have received two interesting comments to my earlier blog, “How’s the High School Doing? Bright Kids. Middle Class Kids.” One comment praised the school because their children have done quite nicely. The other comment bitterly condemned the school for not caring for their children on the basis of class. This illustrates the great fault line that runs down the middle of our school. I believe this is the most significant contributor to the dropout problem. Our school has been run as a middle class sanctuary. The values of the middle class may be worthwhile and even, at times, virtuous. The challenge is to recognize that the students in our school system don’t all hold these values, yet still give them a decent education.

Incidentally, John Uzo Ogbu is the fellow that pushed for Ebonics, the classroom use of African American Vernacular English. I know how hilarious our community finds the idea of Ebonics. We also wouldn’t think of taking off school on M. L. King day. Nor would we consider getting rid of the “Redskins” mascot. Thus, our middle-class demonstrates our own caste-like behavior. As I am a member of this class I will say that “We” hold ourselves back. Our own middle class "oppositional identity" with its attendant self-destruction is in full bloom. My next blog: "Caste and Class in the Classroom Part 2", how middle class identity holds down the performance of our school, resulting in low SAT scores and poor college attendance.