3/27/13 Edie Takes Her Case to the Top Court in the Land

This Saturday morning in August, 2011, we in Texas are expecting the highest temperatures of the year, 106 degrees. There’s a heat wave and drought that brings stress to wildlife, as well as anxiety to people about falling water levels in the aquifer and wildfire. Meanwhile, on the East Coast of our country, Mother Nature brings in waves of storms and winds in the form of Hurricane Irene, whose swath threatens the coastline from North Carolina, through New York’s densely populated boroughs, to New England. Those extremes -- drought and deadly storms-- are happening at once on the fearful body of our country.

It’s days like this that make it clear to me just how big the United States really are in scope and scale. Stumbling upon the stunning beauty of historic piazzas in Florence a few years ago, I was astounded by the scope and scale of those beautiful structures, built hundreds of years ago by our human ancestors. I thought of scope and scale again when I recently read about a successful entrepreneur who lost all business fear by hitch-hiking across the country with less than ten dollars in his pocket. His adventures taught him to shift his ideas of what was possible, to live his life with less care about the “what if” fears that keep many of us from being who we would like to be, our real selves.

When I was a girl, TV’s vision of our times was large and supposedly all encompassing -- but my life was missing. Where were the Mexicans who weren’t maids, gardeners or bandidos? Was I invisible to our culture? I held tight to the representations I accepted and adopted about what it meant to be American. My scope and scale was such in those early years that I couldn’t figure out where we borderlanders fit in.

TV seemed like it was telling the truth. I was sure that the people in the 1910‘s and 1920‘s I saw on newsreel footage walked faster and in a quirky odd gait. Why did people walk so differently back then, I wondered, not understanding filming technologies that were in their early stages. When my Arizona cousins would travel to Texas and Mexico to visit our grandmother, I asked my Tio for their stationwagon keys so I could listen to the Arizona radio stations that I was sure they had brought with them in their car radio.

It was with this same scope and scale of truth that I learned that every media depiction of being gay was terribly tragic, especially for lesbians. On the screen at least, I learned it would be deadly to be gay. I remember seeing movies like “Therese and Isabel” or “The Fox” (D.H. Lawrence), “The Killing of Sister George” (adapted from Frank Marcus’ play) or other plays stories like “The Little Foxes” (Lillian Hellman). There were others, I’m sure. In most media depictions for the better part of the last century being gay meant you were a loser: you either committed suicide because you were gay, or someone killed you because you were gay.

For some viewers of media, it is somehow a function of media to set in our mind’s eye the scope and scale of our perception of the world. Then an event like a massive hurricane comes to reset the view. We are still a large country, but we seem smaller in our vulnerabilities to drought and storm, regardless of our scale and scope.

Likewise, my perception of what it means to be gay in the media has been adjusted to a wider, more full screen recently. I saw the television documentaries, “For My Wife” and “Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement,” two ground-breaking projects that shifted my focus and view to a new level.

In “For My Wife” a Northwest’s woman’s struggle for equality in the eyes of the law finds support that breaks barriers for all of us, no matter where we live in this big, wide country. “Edie and Thea” tells the story of a couple of ‘classy dames’ who shared their love and lives for 42 years.

My vision was advanced to a new “setting” by these two honest and moving documentaries. I think of the many girls happening upon these Netflix offerings and seeing hope and possibility for themselves or their gay friends instead of the gray and sad films that were made in the last century.

That makes me happy,and relieved: The scope and scale of my perception are flexible and can still be affected by what I encounter on our media. That give me hope for this country and the world. I’m reminded that despite our differences, our American measure in miles doesn’t compare to our measure of creativity and persistence in defining ourselves by the compass of truth, compassion and diversity.

Just In Case: a case in point

Just in Case vs. Just in Time

I hate those TV programs that exploit the mentally ill, like Jerry Springer’s show or more recent examples like “Intervention” and worst of all, “Hoarders.” Poor people working out their family squabbles, addictions and bad habits in front of the camera for the audience’s entertainment.

See, I’m not at ALL like those crazy cheaters, meth addicts and shopaholics who lose sight of their lives and hallways with stuff they do and buy without thinking.

Those shows are tempting to watch, though, because deny as much as I want, some part of me is right in there with the crazy woman who can’t make her way out of her apartment anymore.

I can’t watch for long, though. I get a pain in my gut just from watching. I figure that’s my spiritual payback for watching mind-numbing pop-porn.

So imagine my surprise when I learned yesterday that I could have my own “there’s never enough” TV series right in my own shoulder bag. In fact, I have huge pop-porn potential. I needed a thumb drive from the bottom of my purse. For what? To have an extra copy of a project, of course.

It struck me that I had a severe case of “Just in Case” when I had to plunge elbow deep in my bag to locate the thumb drive. I fished up two wallets, two hair brushes, a cell-phone equipped with a photo and video camera, another photo and video camera, four pencils, five pens and a jumbo-size tube of hand cream.

Two of everything, including data. Does this mean I really am a hoarder?

I was now knee deep in despair. Fortunately, I came across an email from my good friend, Oprah Winfrey. Yes, she sends me e-mails every morning, that busy bee. In this morning’s e-mail she sent a 2007 article by life coach Martha Beck about “Just in Case” thinking that bulges at my purse and body parts closer to my backside. She pointed out in the article (link below) that it's much easier on your life to have “Just in Time” thinking.

“Just in Case” I do well on my own. For an example, check out my two great donuts in the photo I've posted. Or around lunch time it will be "I’ll have this taco now, in case I get hungry later this afternoon." Or, " I’ll buy this outfit that’s on sale now in case I fit into it after my planned summer of Zumba exercise classes." Yup. I do "Just in Case" fine already.

For learning about “Just in Time” thinking, I need Martha Beck to coach me. She writes in her article that hoarders and other pop-porn over-achievers that shop, eat, drink, work, exercise or do just about anything to excess are doing so out of fear and thoughts of scarcity.

Martha, are there really ever enough cameras around when you need them? She thinks one is enough. Silly girl.

OK so I am a bit reluctant to sit down at my intervention. Take a deep breath.

Martha Beck proposes a three step process for moving from “Just in Case” to “Just in Time” thinking:

First, list 10 times that you thought there wouldn’t be enough of something and you survived.

Second, list ten areas where you have too much, not too little.

Third, list 20 or 50 or a 1000 wonderful things that entered your life just at the right time, with no effort on your part. She coaches that it’s OK to start with the little things (oxygen, sunlight, a song on the radio).

Martha Beck says once we start “deliberately focusing on abundance” we will be overwhelmed by all the good things that just show up in our lives without much effort on our part. Really?

I intend to try this and work hard at it, but I’m afraid this is dangerous territory, Martha. After all, I’ve come this far carrying around a heavy purse and no real harm’s come from it.

Besides, what if I need a camera and can’t find one when I need it? What if I’m in the middle of a project of some kind and feel --God forbid --hungry?

Not only that, but have you ever waited for a job to just show up in your life? Or the right pair of sandals? I hate to be a doubting Thomas, but as they say, if the scarcity sandal fits.

I may still be stuck in scarcity, but I don't like it here. I’ll give it my best shot to work on my “Just in Time” thinking and try to toss out my “Just in Case” thinking. If you like, you can read the Martha Beck article at the following link:

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Martha-Becks-Strategy-to-Lower-Stress-and-Improve-Your-Life/1

Mexicans do camp, they just have trouble sleeping

To Chill A Mockingbird, Use a Flashlight

“Mexicans don’t camp.” I explained to my new partner when she first proposed the idea of a camping trip to Big Bend when we had about two weeks off together in the early spring. The only way she got me to warm up to the idea was having a dog accompany us. A real dog, as in large and protective. We found our Catahoula, Josh, at the animal defense league in San Antonio and he was such a grateful adoptee that he willingly stayed inside our yard even when the gate was open, for the next ten years, save for the two weeks he was dognapped and the animal communicator-dog psychic in California and a lost dog ad in the newspaper helped us find him.

It’s 18 years later and we are camping en route to New Mexico. No dog, this time. We own two large rescues, one a Border Collie and the other a Coon Hound. There’s not enough room in a moving van for those two dogs, and especially not in our little 1999 Toyota Pre-Runner with our hastily-acquired-on-Craig’s list camper top that cost us half of a hundred dollars. It just sounds a tiny bit better to say it that way.

As everyone knows Mexicans do camp. At least this one does, now. Whether they sleep while they camp is another story--This one:

Sonora Caverns campsite had plenty of space for us, and the fall of dusk came with the sounds of bleating lambs from the ranch next door, guinea hens, peacocks and turkeys that roamed around the campgrounds. A sprinkler spritzing the trees and grass that a worker set near us was the last sound I heard until around two a.m. when the happy, varied and amplified Star Wars sound effects repertoire of a mockingbird shook us awake.

I remembered a spell of sleepless nights in the early 80's when I lived with a roommate from Laredo on Magnolia Street in San Antonio. The sleepless spell was also caused by a similar songfest outside our open window. I remembered I had used a flashlight to scare away the happy little bird back then. For several nights I had to clomp down the stairs, cross the street and stand like the Liberty statue in my nightgown holding up my flashlight shining up into a tree until the singer was either confused by the immediate arrival of dawn or his ego was bruised and the singing stopped.

Camping has improved in the past 18 years. Last night all I had to do was swivel around upon our plywood and foam mattress, aim our high tech spotlight and with the precision of a hunter on safari, silence, sweet silence. For about twenty minutes after dawn and nightfall came and went again and our impassioned serenade started all over.

The Sinking of The Romantics

You understand why you are uncomfortable throughout this entire film during one of its early scenes. Old college friends and lovers gather at a rehearsal dinner and offer awkward toasts to the bride and groom. The scene is made even more tortuous by not knowing if the couple will be getting married the next day.

The main character, the maid of honor, played by Katie Holmes, is the strangest of the bunch of friends reunited by the wedding. Not only does she seem a generation older than her pals, she seems as confused as we are about her inexplicable role as maid of honor to a woman whose fiance she has been seeing on and off for ten years.

Poetry--the English variety from Blake and Keats and others from the romantic era--is the glue that binds the benighted couple who are not yet finished sorting out the end of their affair, even as the night of the rehearsal dinner turns to morning. How strong a glue poetry and its first cousin, romanticism can be against the storm that’s coming in with the wedding is the tension that ebbs and flows with the wedding party's stores of alcohol and other treats to make more comfortable the rite of passage.

In the movie’s best scene, in few words and rare logic, the reluctant groom explains why he’s marrying who he’s come to marry and not the maid of honor. The passion and intensity of their relationship was too much for him, he confesses. It gave him morning-after panic attacks. These he saw as signs of needing to run clear of Katie Holmes’ character and into the arms of the willing and wealthy woman who is free of romantic danger, but devoid of passion or poetry.

We all know the bridegroom’s frail, fearful logic and also its allure. But it’s not enough to carry an entire movie. The question of whether the wedding will happen or not kept me in my seat when I sometimes wanted to bolt from the movie as badly as the groom from his wedding to the wealthy, emotionally antiseptic woman to whom he is engaged. She spends most of the movie sequestered from her friends wearing, no, I’m not kidding, a blue facial mask to prepare her complexion for the big day ahead.

Questions that linger after The Romantics ended: If you’re going to have just-one-last-time sex with a soon-to-be married guy, why would you select for the setting a spot beneath a well-lighted tree that is already the anchor to too many night scenes at a huge, beach-side estate? Where did the short actor from Lord of the Rings disappear to during half the film? Was he shooting another movie elsewhere during the filming of The Romantics? Did Katie Holmes push for this vehicle for herself without noticing that only parts of it were well written? Why didn’t Candice Bergen have at least one good ass chewing scene, especially when it’s clear everyone in the wedding party needed one. It seems a crime to not let the character who plays her daughter who is about to get dumped have a dose of Murphy Brown’s anything-but-romantic straightening out. I’m betting one or two scenes with Bergen going berserk would have added comic relief that might have saved The Romantics from the seriousness that sank it.

Off-the-Grid

Each semester I assign to my Introduction to Mass Communications students a two-day experience. I ask them to get off of the mass media grid. Except for school or work-related activities, students are to turn off their music, their I Pods, phones, television, computer games, Internet, movies and even their car radio. They prepare to do so by alerting friends and family and creating a list of ten questions about the experience of living in the natural world of their senses for a temporary time without their digital extensions. They are not even allowed to read for pleasure, but they are asked to keep a hand-written journal in which they note their reflections on the questions they posed at the start, as well as other observations.

Invariably when the assignment is introduced there is much groaning and some disbelief. I explain I am aiming for the students to study themselves like bugs in a petri dish, to see their connections to media in an objective manner, from a distance. I am also interested in reviving their sense of the natural world, face-to-face conversations and being untethered to electronics.

The assignment is titled A Natural Senses Experience, and is intended to increase students awareness of their use of media and the roles it plays, some known and some unexamined. I would like to spark an interest in my students about what is on the other side of the screens that occupy most of their days and nights.

Over the semester, in preparation for the project which is near the end of the term, I try to cajole them into being interested in trying the 48 Hours by telling them stories students' experiences in past classes. There were many who were resistant to the project who made interesting discoveries after completing their time off-the-grid.

There was one young man who told the class about being surprised to learn that the brother, at whose home he was living, disclosed to him that he was lonely. He told us he realized he had not been available to his brother for most of the time they had been living under the same roof due to his use of media and electronic devices. Another student reported that the loud buzzing in his ears stopped during the project. There was a young woman this past summer who seemed especially resistant. She reported in her journal that she corralled her entire family for a drive to the coast, and that they sang and told stories since the car radio was off. She also reported reconnecting to her mother and younger siblings.

It doesn't always go so smoothly. I tell the story of doing the assignment along with my students about three years ago and realizing that I had been feeling smug about how well things were going then realizing I had been using my cell phone the entire length of the project. Something about media addiction is similar to other addictions, it's in large part under the radar.

The young woman standing in front of me after class today was about 25, a sweet, young mom who I considered to be fairly engaged in class and discussions, but I would see her from time to time with her head bent while texting into her cell. Although I state at the start of the semester my policy prohibiting use of cells during class, I've had to peddle back on the policy because students often text or do searches using their cell phones for class-related business. Fellow group members alert them they are stuck in traffic and will be in class soon, or during a class discussion there may be the need for a fast search on Google to chase a tid-bit of information.

Today, my student explained the 48 Hours Natural Senses Experience taught her something that surprised and pleased her. She said on the 2nd day of the project her grandfather showed up agitated at her front door because he could not get her to answer his phone calls. She had not followed the assignment instructions about alerting people she would be temporarily out of touch.

My student and her 3 year old daughter had been outside and while putting up Christmas lights she had noticed for the first time in living there for five months that two doors away another three year old was playing with her mother in their front yard. The moms and girls met and now the children are regular playmates.

My student explained to her grandfather that she was fine and that the reason she had not been answering her phone was the off-the-grid experience assigned for her Mass Communications class. She said when he heard about the assignment his eyes seemed to light up. He saw his chance and seized it.

They began a visit of the sort they had never had before. He told her a family story about his last name not really being his because he had been adopted when his father was deported to Mexico. She had never known this and listened as he continued with other stories.

My student told me that she noticed that during the conversation with her grandfather that she was able to listen more deeply --not just following along, but falling into his story-- in a way that had never happened before. She said the difference was that she was not distracted by the TV in the background or by glancing down to check her cell phone.

More importantly, she also said that her grandfather was speaking in a more engaged way than ever before. "In the past he didn't act like it, but he actually had noticed that I was distracted, that I constantly glanced at my phone or the TV and really had not been giving him my full attention." Now it was different. This time he really knew she was listening and his own response was different too, deeper, richer, fuller. More intense.

These two awarenesses that my student told me about were born from the experience off the grid, and are the reason for the assignment. When we learn what good, rich conversations require, we are more likely to have more of them and enjoy the gifts that flow from them. This improves our human connections to each other. Which is the point of communication.

There are myriad examples of how technology helps to connect us to one another. I follow on Facebook the 5K races, birthday parties and other events that family and friends share. This helps me to keep in touch in ways not possible ten years ago.

There are far fewer examples of what our over-dependence on media and technology can sometimes cost us in human interactions and connections, yet the cost of these are too expensive to ignore. My student's afternoon of speaking with and learning about her grandfather brought them closer together than he ever expected, and closer than she ever knew was possible.

She got off the grid for long enough to give him the signal she was really listening. She gave herself the gift of undisturbed time to send that signal and enjoy hearing the stories that her grandfather either had never tried to tell or felt she didn't have the time or interest to hear.

Borderlander Honored as CNN Hero

Thanks, Guadalupe!

I sat in the family den flipping channels after I awoke from the post-Thanksgiving dinner nap. I was like a kid with a new toy. Our cable back home in Pipe Creek was unplugged back in August of 2008. In the two years since, I had only watched movies and documentaries on DVD or via the Internet. I keep up with the news listening to NPR, on the Internet and reading news magazinese
Today I was mesmerized by the new shows, new commercials, new channels on the tube. It was like a reunion with that quirky old friend you’ve been in a love-hate relationship since kindergarten. Fun to catch up with them --until they pull out their smokes and light up in your pristine living room or ask to borrow money from you again.

In the time before the bad old habits resurfaced (repetitive commercials bearing little creativity) I tuned in to CNN’s Hero awards. I remembered why I loved the old pal in the first place.

The Hero awards honor regular people who act in ways that are not regular, but extraordinary. Like many of us, the nominees have ideas to improve and change the world, but unlike many of us, they have the stamina and moxie to follow through with their ideas and really do change the world for the better.

The nominees came from around the world—Scotland to India, and included one nominee from the Borderlands at El Paso-Juarez. The Borderlands nominee was introduced by the Hollywood actress, Jessica Alba. The young actress is beautiful beyond measure. Even so, her light seemed dim next to the nominee, 74 year old Guadalupe Arizpe de la Vega, who was being recognized for her more than 30 year efforts at improving access to health to families in Juarez.

The short video of Dona Guadalupe’s project showed the stylish woman walking through the hospital she built in Juarez. The first words from the honoree on the video focused on her belief that women could be empowered by having control over their reproductive lives, education and health care. I was so thankful her words were beaming across every continent to which CNN sent its signal.

The svelte woman wore a beautiful rebozo as she stood at the podium and delivered her acceptance speech in English, and ended it in Spanish with a short, inspirational and encouraging message about Mexico’s future.

Questions I would like to ask Dona Guadalupe:
1. How did you fund your project, through donations or your own money?
2. Is there a way to reproduce your project in other border communities?
3. How do you keep so positive and productive while living in the crisis that Juarez and its people have suffered with the cartel’s turf wars for the lucrative American drug market?
4. How can I look as stylish as you?
Here is a link to a video showing Dona Lupita at work:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/10/cnn-hero-guadalupe-arizpe_n_712180.html

Who Likes School? (no hands) Who Likes Learning? (hands waving)

Students love to learn. Yet, ask them if they love school--and the answer is usually 'not so much.'

The expectations some students bring to college from high school are to get only A's and to never, ever make mistakes. Learning in college and at the university level expands those earlier boundaries to build the intellect and to identify the the shades and gradations between "the right answer" and "the wrong answer."

In an exercise that I modified this semester I stumbled on learning how students can come to see mistakes as a natural part of the process of discovery and invention (not to mention the Scientific Process).

"Test Pilots" is the title of a an exercise for building critical thinking skills I created about a year ago for the six teams of four students each in my Introduction to Mass Communications sections. They are assigned 25 Days to Better Thinking and Better Living by Linda Elder and Richard Paul.

The first two semesters I used the activity, I simply asked the students to teach the concepts to the class and the results were usually wooden. Mind-numbingly wooden.

This semester I tried something new. Students were assigned to select four days in the text and the corresponding topics and activities. Their job would be to "test pilot" the recommendations from the text in the weeks prior to the presentation. Their presentations would not teach the concepts, but report on their experiences trying out for one full day the concepts in their lives. The reports were to include both their successes and failures. I told them to expect there would be errors, mistakes, other surprises and discovery as part of the process.

The results were surprising. The wood turned to a bonfire.

A near-fatal car accident a student's grandmother suffered with a four-time DWI offender, and the surprising correspondence that developed between the perpetrator and the victim. A domestic violence offender's profound gratitude for her husband's forgiveness that created a home and family that is now strong and healthy. A teen's learning about the importance of patience in teaching values to very young nieces and nephews whose parents have lost their children's custody. The joys of volunteering each summer now at a camp--learned after a judge once ordered the student to perform community service-- "I do it now every summer because it makes me feel good."

The group that presented were four young women, aged from late teens to early 30's. They prepared a powerpoint following the 6x6 rule (no more than six words per line, no more than six lines to a page). It served as a clean and informative outline of the concepts contained across their four chapters. Their stories were then woven around the ideas they tested ("Don't Be A Top Dog", "Control Your Emotions", etc.)

One of the keys was their telling their stories about their trials and successes in applying the concepts without having the burden of explaining the text. Their own experiences did the job and made the text's ideas clearer to all.

Another was the safety the group developed. The ideas they were learning had meaning to their lives. The critical thinking skills they learned and applied were cemented in the telling and in the listening among the class who were their audience. You could have heard a pin drop.

I learned that stressing that mistakes were OK was the doorway to the success of the activity. Mistakes in the activity was what I meant, but students included mistakes in daily life.

Timing was also important. The assignment requires at least 2-3 weeks to complete, because students need time to try out the ideas, but also to become comfortable with each other and to feel safe in the class to share their experiences.

The testimonies the students freely gave about their lives and the impact and power of critical thinking were powerful.

The presentation proved the importance of relating student's lives to what they learn. With equal parts new information and application in everyday life students in the class transformed "school" into "learning."

I would love to share with anyone more about this exercise and to hear about your experiences with student engagement and learning.