Editorial impresario Adam Serwer makes some interesting points in his article regarding the 9/11 terror case. Check his story out at: http://prospect.org
/cs/articles?article=who_is_really_on_trial_in_the_khalid_sheik_mohammed_case
Thursday, November 26, 2009
What I'm Thankful For
Relatives packed the house for Thanksgiving this year.
For starters, Sandra and her husband came in from Puerto Rico, Cathy, her daughter Aolani, and their huge dog drove down from Newburgh, and Titi Carmen flew in from Denver.
With all this family I should be happy and thankful, but I'm 26 years old and more depressed than a Vegas showgirl harlot stuck playing the Virgin Mary in a Puritan Christmas pageant. Now, those of you that actually know me are saying, "but Dan you've got a steady girlfriend, your own place, and a good job." Other optimists say, "but Dan there are people who are so much worse off than you." Then there are the pessimists that say, "I've got it worse than you. Why just the other day I got teabagged in my sleep by a rabid squirrel." To all you, even the teabagged, I say while the individual circumstances of our lives are not determined by ourselves, the way we meet the challenges that arise are what determine who we are as people. My particular challenge is dealing with the demons in my mind.
Honestly, for the past three months I've been looking in the mirror and trying to figure out "why the long face." The conclusion is I don't think I've accomplished enough with my time on this Earth. Twenty-six years is a long time to do something! Granted, for the first fourteen years I didn't know how to control my own life or wipe my own ass. Since then I've learned how to control my own life and I'm not happy with the squishy results. I've graduated from a prestigious four-year institution. I've worked for a major publishing house. As an educator I've self-published several books and inspired a few young minds here and there. However, aside from the words and leadership skills I was born with and the ability to beat video games on hard I don't feel like I've done much. Every time I see someone pick up a guitar and strum out a tune, every time someone shows me their beautiful art, or every time someone takes a stage and sets it aflame I cringe a bit. I won't lie, envy stirs within me like parisitic larvae. I just feel every minute I've wasted trying to get a classes' attention, or every hour I've wasted trying to get ALL my characters to level 99 could have been spent in a more productive fashion.
Which brings me to the squeaky door hinge that's been slowly jarring open since you began reading this blog. For two paragraphs I've concentrated on some negative things, but this is Thanksgiving and I need to be thankful for something. So here I go. I purposely left out one relative at the beginning of this post. My cousin Jason drove in from Denver. It is the first time I've seen my cousin in over a year. I love my cousin like a brother because he was there for me when my brother never was. He was the first in my immediate family to graduate college. He was the first to pack up all his worldly belongings and leave this dirty lightshow of New York for something solar-powered and brighter. He's the only person in my family to have made a career out of art! Jason showed me that life is about dreaming. The Aboriginals of Australia believe the same thing, that this reality is a dream that can be manipulated by a strong enough mind.
I am thankful for my cousin that showed my the power of a positive mind. A prime example of this power is demonstrated by the very foundations of this potentially egregious holiday. For the most part when people think of Thanksgiving people don't think of Puritan settlers destroying Native Americans and their culture. People think of food, family, football, and great holiday sales. Americans are notorious in other countries for their short-term memories. However, the families that gather together, the people who donate food and clothing for the less fortunate, and the obscure individuals who disappear for long periods of time, but come back into our lives for the holidays, are thankful for an opportunity to do so. Our nation's energy and devotion to creating a positive mythos for this colonists holiday demonstrates the power of a mind. Three hundred years have passed and positive ideas have come from negative circumstances.
Jason showed up and I didn't have to awkwardly ask, "So how's everything been?" He showed up with the announcement that he is moving back to New York and starting a family. He came and introduced the new additions to our family. In spite of all he's been through, he's still striving and still growing. This shows me that there's always time to do something positive. I am thankful that there is still time to learn new things and write more pages. I am thankful for having my family here after not seeing them for the past year. I am thankful to have a beautiful girlfriend and a newly renovated apartment. Perhaps my challenge is not finding a way to deal with my demons, perhaps it is finding a way to convert the hellfire in my thoughts to passionate energy.
Happy Thanksgiving to anyone and everyone I've ever had the pleasure of meeting in my life.
For starters, Sandra and her husband came in from Puerto Rico, Cathy, her daughter Aolani, and their huge dog drove down from Newburgh, and Titi Carmen flew in from Denver.
With all this family I should be happy and thankful, but I'm 26 years old and more depressed than a Vegas showgirl harlot stuck playing the Virgin Mary in a Puritan Christmas pageant. Now, those of you that actually know me are saying, "but Dan you've got a steady girlfriend, your own place, and a good job." Other optimists say, "but Dan there are people who are so much worse off than you." Then there are the pessimists that say, "I've got it worse than you. Why just the other day I got teabagged in my sleep by a rabid squirrel." To all you, even the teabagged, I say while the individual circumstances of our lives are not determined by ourselves, the way we meet the challenges that arise are what determine who we are as people. My particular challenge is dealing with the demons in my mind.
Honestly, for the past three months I've been looking in the mirror and trying to figure out "why the long face." The conclusion is I don't think I've accomplished enough with my time on this Earth. Twenty-six years is a long time to do something! Granted, for the first fourteen years I didn't know how to control my own life or wipe my own ass. Since then I've learned how to control my own life and I'm not happy with the squishy results. I've graduated from a prestigious four-year institution. I've worked for a major publishing house. As an educator I've self-published several books and inspired a few young minds here and there. However, aside from the words and leadership skills I was born with and the ability to beat video games on hard I don't feel like I've done much. Every time I see someone pick up a guitar and strum out a tune, every time someone shows me their beautiful art, or every time someone takes a stage and sets it aflame I cringe a bit. I won't lie, envy stirs within me like parisitic larvae. I just feel every minute I've wasted trying to get a classes' attention, or every hour I've wasted trying to get ALL my characters to level 99 could have been spent in a more productive fashion.
Which brings me to the squeaky door hinge that's been slowly jarring open since you began reading this blog. For two paragraphs I've concentrated on some negative things, but this is Thanksgiving and I need to be thankful for something. So here I go. I purposely left out one relative at the beginning of this post. My cousin Jason drove in from Denver. It is the first time I've seen my cousin in over a year. I love my cousin like a brother because he was there for me when my brother never was. He was the first in my immediate family to graduate college. He was the first to pack up all his worldly belongings and leave this dirty lightshow of New York for something solar-powered and brighter. He's the only person in my family to have made a career out of art! Jason showed me that life is about dreaming. The Aboriginals of Australia believe the same thing, that this reality is a dream that can be manipulated by a strong enough mind.
I am thankful for my cousin that showed my the power of a positive mind. A prime example of this power is demonstrated by the very foundations of this potentially egregious holiday. For the most part when people think of Thanksgiving people don't think of Puritan settlers destroying Native Americans and their culture. People think of food, family, football, and great holiday sales. Americans are notorious in other countries for their short-term memories. However, the families that gather together, the people who donate food and clothing for the less fortunate, and the obscure individuals who disappear for long periods of time, but come back into our lives for the holidays, are thankful for an opportunity to do so. Our nation's energy and devotion to creating a positive mythos for this colonists holiday demonstrates the power of a mind. Three hundred years have passed and positive ideas have come from negative circumstances.
Jason showed up and I didn't have to awkwardly ask, "So how's everything been?" He showed up with the announcement that he is moving back to New York and starting a family. He came and introduced the new additions to our family. In spite of all he's been through, he's still striving and still growing. This shows me that there's always time to do something positive. I am thankful that there is still time to learn new things and write more pages. I am thankful for having my family here after not seeing them for the past year. I am thankful to have a beautiful girlfriend and a newly renovated apartment. Perhaps my challenge is not finding a way to deal with my demons, perhaps it is finding a way to convert the hellfire in my thoughts to passionate energy.
Happy Thanksgiving to anyone and everyone I've ever had the pleasure of meeting in my life.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
First Blog, Though Technically the Second
Technically my first post was not a first post. It felt more like a second or third post. So I've decided to do a first post, even if it is second, because if I don't do a first post, that is technically second, then you won't know how the blog should go because the first post never even came second.
Thus, this is the true introduction to the random mind that houses Romero's brief and wondrous thoughts. Now if you've made the connection to Junot Diaz's "Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" then you are ahead of the curve. Randomness is a quality that requires the art of allusion. It also requires stealth with a healthy heap of clumsiness, almost like the drunken rambling of a mime imitating a ninja. To be random is not to be all over the place. Randomness surprises people, reinvents ideas, and reshapes the world surrealistically. Simply put, randomness is an owl doorknocker that my girlfriend ordered from Urban Outfitters. It is a shower cap with mouse ears. It is a reference to Smurfs when you really meant to curse out someone.
The wait has been excruciating. I haven't expressed myself since I became a public servant. Teaching does not allow you to express yourself outside of your classroom. There's just no time. Whether you're grading papers or out drinking with your friends, and then drunkenly grading papers, there is really no time to care about self-expression in your first three years. Self-expression in teaching amounts to being the teacher with the Christmas lights in the back of your classroom or having a fern on your desk. The cold, sterile environs of the classroom force you to crumble inside of yourself.
Here I am, a crumbled piece of paper, unwrapping myself so you can read the notes that were almost carelessly thrown away. Wait, that was emo. Let's try this again.
...The cold, sterile environs of the classroom force you to implode. Here I am, trying to reverse this gravitational matrix and explode outward into your minds. I want to make my brain the female to my soul, mating, peopling this little world with thoughts. I want to create life and beauty within the confines of a simple page.
Thoughts currently procreating: education, video games, literature, poetry, and stories.
I hope you will follow me and enjoy!
Thus, this is the true introduction to the random mind that houses Romero's brief and wondrous thoughts. Now if you've made the connection to Junot Diaz's "Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" then you are ahead of the curve. Randomness is a quality that requires the art of allusion. It also requires stealth with a healthy heap of clumsiness, almost like the drunken rambling of a mime imitating a ninja. To be random is not to be all over the place. Randomness surprises people, reinvents ideas, and reshapes the world surrealistically. Simply put, randomness is an owl doorknocker that my girlfriend ordered from Urban Outfitters. It is a shower cap with mouse ears. It is a reference to Smurfs when you really meant to curse out someone.
The wait has been excruciating. I haven't expressed myself since I became a public servant. Teaching does not allow you to express yourself outside of your classroom. There's just no time. Whether you're grading papers or out drinking with your friends, and then drunkenly grading papers, there is really no time to care about self-expression in your first three years. Self-expression in teaching amounts to being the teacher with the Christmas lights in the back of your classroom or having a fern on your desk. The cold, sterile environs of the classroom force you to crumble inside of yourself.
Here I am, a crumbled piece of paper, unwrapping myself so you can read the notes that were almost carelessly thrown away. Wait, that was emo. Let's try this again.
...The cold, sterile environs of the classroom force you to implode. Here I am, trying to reverse this gravitational matrix and explode outward into your minds. I want to make my brain the female to my soul, mating, peopling this little world with thoughts. I want to create life and beauty within the confines of a simple page.
Thoughts currently procreating: education, video games, literature, poetry, and stories.
I hope you will follow me and enjoy!
Lesson Planning Should be More like Pictionary
My name is Daniel Romero. I am an English teacher at Millennium Art Academy in the Bronx. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Sometimes I have no idea what I am going to teach until the kids are about fifteen minutes away from my classroom. For example, it's 8:05 AM and I'm still unsure what to teach today, November 24, 2009.
Here are my options:
I'm in the middle of the Ramayana with my kids. I could continue with chapter 3 and pretend that I had it planned all along. I already made a study packet for my kids. All I have to say is open up to page five of the study packet.
I also just graded their unit 1 exams. I could just review the entire exam, but that is boring and the truth is they probably won't care anyway.
Thanksgiving is two days away. I could show the Ramayana cartoon with cheesy British voice over work. Unfortunately my principal wants bell-to-bell, day-to-day instruction. In other words, NO MOVIES! Hell, I can’t even turn off the lights in my room anymore. The administration doesn’t like it when the lights are off, not a suitable learning environment.
Since we’re on the issue of suitable learning environments, let’s be honest, the Bronx itself isn’t a suitable learning environment. I don't think that the issue here lies with my lesson planning ability. This is an issue of student apathy. They don't care. It makes me not want to care. I wish I could say it was just my class and that I needed to improve my teaching, but that is not the case. The students don't care about the majority of their classes, with the exception of art.
If only drawing was part of the ELA regents. If only they didn’t have to write essays about literature. Then that would be wondrous. Imagine it, an entire generation that communicates with crude drawings and occasional words. It would like Pictionary EVERY DAY!
Aim: What makes
beautiful?
Do Now: In your
about a 
you someone.
Lesson planning should be more like
.
Let me
, you get the 
...
Here are my options:
I'm in the middle of the Ramayana with my kids. I could continue with chapter 3 and pretend that I had it planned all along. I already made a study packet for my kids. All I have to say is open up to page five of the study packet.
I also just graded their unit 1 exams. I could just review the entire exam, but that is boring and the truth is they probably won't care anyway.
Thanksgiving is two days away. I could show the Ramayana cartoon with cheesy British voice over work. Unfortunately my principal wants bell-to-bell, day-to-day instruction. In other words, NO MOVIES! Hell, I can’t even turn off the lights in my room anymore. The administration doesn’t like it when the lights are off, not a suitable learning environment.
Since we’re on the issue of suitable learning environments, let’s be honest, the Bronx itself isn’t a suitable learning environment. I don't think that the issue here lies with my lesson planning ability. This is an issue of student apathy. They don't care. It makes me not want to care. I wish I could say it was just my class and that I needed to improve my teaching, but that is not the case. The students don't care about the majority of their classes, with the exception of art.
If only drawing was part of the ELA regents. If only they didn’t have to write essays about literature. Then that would be wondrous. Imagine it, an entire generation that communicates with crude drawings and occasional words. It would like Pictionary EVERY DAY!
Aim: What makes
beautiful?Do Now: In your
about a 
you someone.Lesson planning should be more like
.Let me
, you get the 
...
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