Safety Fail

The NFL and indeed every level of football has worked over the years to increase the safety of the players in the hard-hitting game. Helmets, padding, shoes, and even uniforms are designed with safety of the players in mind.

So why, with all this safety focus are we discovering the level of permanent brain injury among players - even players early in their professional career? Simply, progress in science and new technology allow us to gain more understanding of the nature of brain injury. This along with the awareness of brain injuries being suffered by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped us see that brain damage can occur without the symptoms of a concussion.

The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe reverting to the uniforms of the 1950’s mad indeed be preferable. The perception of invincibility given by modern uniforms has proven to be a false comfort for many players. As we know more about head injuries, we realize that they are silent stalkers that show their full effects ten and even twenty years after they occur. Despite the new rules and enforcement on helmet contact, many blows to the head still occur. Even though it may not be helmet-to-helmet contact, injurious contacts still occur on almost every play. Going back to a facemaskless helmet would quickly bring to an end these kinds of hits.

While professional players argue that they are aware of the risks and are paid well to take them, that argument falls flat when one considers that the vast majority of players play the game at the amateur level. New research shows that even some players at these lower levels are  experiencing potentially lifetime affecting brain injuries. With high school and college players far outnumbering the pros, we must keep them in mind when making rules and equipment decisions. 

The safety promised by the current equipment has proven to be a failure of technology. We must make changes soon to protect all participants in the sport whether they recognize the necessity of it or not.

Deadline Mahem

I do not know what kind of secret conspiracy multiple agencies have going, but lately the deadlines from every agency happens at the same time for me. There is a grant deadline, follow-up to last year progress report due, and current year evaluation report all due next week.

All this during one of the rare weeks when I actually teach most of the days.

Fortunately I have my calendars filled out well in advance with most of the deadlines; however, the grant only appeared recently, so I have barely had time to prepare for it. Everything else, though is mostly pulled together, I just need to find the writing time to synthesize all the work.

Still, the idea that every deadline should arrive at the same time creates stress. If something does not go as planned, then the entire plan falls apart, and so the stress grows. And on cue, I caught a cold that is making my eyes water and making it difficult to see the computer screen.

Fortunately, right down the street is a pharmacy and I have stocked up on all the cold remedies, am drinking hot tea and doing all the right things.

So next week will be a piece of cake.

The Cure

Aegrescit medendo.

Sometimes the cure does seem worse than the disease. At least that is how it is for me each fall when I start taking preventative medication to stave off the allergy season - most notably cedar fever. I have tried every medication, homeopathic cures, and every folk remedy I could find. So far, only one medication works for me.

I fuss, cuss, and delay taking it at all costs because it makes me even more hyper than I normally am. I really do not sleep for three or four nights because it makes me so jittery. Still, when I think how sick I am with a sinus infection, I decide the few days of extreme hyperactivity are worth the price.

If I ever let the cedar get a hold of my sinuses, it does not relinquish its hold until the last pollen grain is out of the air. That hold results in nearly constant congestion, sinus infections, fever, and general ickyness. Basically, it causes three months of misery that sucks the life out of all that i could be doing.

So four days of jittery sleeplessness against three months of full misery is not that great a sacrifice. Still the dread of the few days of discomfort comes around and gives me pause. This cure, while bad, is not worse than the disease, so I will take my medicine and be done with it.

Stragedy

Breaking a bad habit takes more time and energy than most people realize or are willing to dedicate. It is even more the case when one first learns something incorrectly: the way of doing something came wired into the brain a certain way. It remains the way of doing even when one learns better.

I have one friend who has mispronounced one particular word his entire life and nothing can change it. People who know him know what he means. I actually have come up with my own definition for the word because I think the definition deserves a word and this one sounds right.  My friend says “stragedy” instead of “strategy”. Given what he means and what it actually sounds like, I think we should all start using it when our best laid plans go horribly, horribly wrong.

We have all had those times. Despite our best efforts and most sincere planning, we have those events that go awry unexpectedly and never come back under control. We thought we had all the right strategies, but it turned into a tragedy. I think stragedy is the perfect word for such a situation. If Stephen Colbert can coin truthiness and have it become the word of the year, certainly a truly functional word like stragedy has room in the modern lexicon. 

And it saves valuable characters on Twitter.

Stumped

As an amateur photographer, I find myself most often drawn to still-life images in nature. And while the idea of death and decay may seem morbid to some, I find stumps and fallen limbs on  the ground to be beautiful sites with contrast, shadow, and sometimes a story to tell. Often while out on a jog or hike, I notice the stark grays and blacks and various shades of rusty brown.

The trunk above has several fungi growing out of it. My favorite part of it is that the top fungi looks like a guinea pig peaking out from a crack in the trunk.

Each of the photos above shows the variety to be found of stumps and dead limbs in nature. Each one is quite different in size, color, and setting.

The bright sunlight and shadows around this stump disguise the brilliant white fungus growing in various places on the wood. I wish I had GPS located this one so I could come back a year from now and see just how rapidly it had decayed.

All of the photos in this set came from a hike in Lost Maples State Recreation Area near Vanderpool. While I went looking for fall color, the warm temperatures had kept most of the leaves from changing; however, the lovely fall day and other sites more than made up for the lack of fall foliage. Of course, I'm used to that in Texas.

Skyline

In the ten years since I moved to Austin, the skyline of the city has changed drastically - seemingly with a new tallest building dominating the view every few months. Despite all the change, I still prefer the first of the new tall buildings to rise along Congress Avenue and dramatically change the view of the city.

The Frost Bank building with its abstract geometrical design stands out among the attractive, but otherwise smooth buildings in landscape.


As special feature, with the Frost Bank symbol (the circular design) and the pointed peaks gives the building an owl-like appearance when viewed from certain directions.  Although many locals have derided the distinctness of the building because of the way it stands out against the Austin skyline, it is just that distinct nature that makes it so attractive to me.

Wild Times in the Old Middle East

Most protestant churches ignore the “Catholic Bible” or more particularly, the  books of the Apocrypha. The Bible study group I lead has been reading through the Apocrypha for just over the last year and it has been a fascinating look at what some consider scripture. Not many Baptist Bible studies that i can find have taken the time to read and investigate the stories in these documents.

I think it may prove beneficial if some of our leaders study the history of the time covered in the apocryphal writings. In the recent weeks of reading through I Maccabees, one disturbing theme continues to surface.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

While most scholars consider I Maccabees to be “temple propaganda” to support the power of the Hasmonean dynasty in Israel, it does portray the strategies used by the leaders throughout the time.

They were namely:

• build walls
• throw out everyone who does not believe as they do
• capture territory
• colonize the captured territory with faithful Jews
• build walls higher

Something sounds oddly familiar about that strategy.

Possibly because it reflects much of Israel’s foreign policy today.

Certainly, it is a simplification, but when reading through the history and looking at the headlines of the day, the similarities are uncanny. The warring factions change, but the strategies remain the same. History demonstrates they have a short term effectiveness and appeal to a certain faction. History also shows that the strategy largely led to Israel ceasing to exist for over two-thousand years.

I would encourage the regional leaders and outside powers seeking to influence outcomes in the region to seriously read the history as it has been passed down. When we learn from history, we do not have to repeat the errors made in antiquity. The Apocrypha has been a surprisingly clear window to the thinking of the Israel in the past with a reflection of Israel today.

The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.

Unlike many gay men, I truly do enjoy sports in person and on television. Lately, though, I have had trouble really getting into sports of any kind because of lack of sportsmanship I have seen on so many levels ranging from coaches, to athletes, to fans. The situation only grows because many of the teams I normally support are struggling this season with only a few bright spots in the schedule.

Baseball, for me, is simply impossible to watch on television despite the great pleasure of the game in person. Somehow, television manages to turn the joy and excitement of the game and turn it into a tedious and uninteresting cycle of plays. However, because the Texas Rangers made the playoffs and survived into the World Series, I have been making a diligent attempt to watch playoff games into the Series. Despite the level of the game, watching saps what little energy remains in me from the day. And that is the good part of sports for me right now.

Those who follow college football closely knew it was going to be a rebuilding year for the University of Texas Longhorns, and we entered the year with diminished expectations following the heights we expected demanded last season. Nonetheless, even with lowered hopes, this season has been stunningly bad for a top-tier college program. Hopefully, the performance this year will bring about needed changes on the team that will allow for higher levels of growth and success in the near future. College football has been my favorite sport for years and I will continue to follow each Longhorn game with hopes that they will pull out another victory (though I did successfully predict the loss to Baylor).

By now, most of you can probably guess the ugliness that faces me each week in the sports world. The Dallas Cowboys, who have not been one of my favorite teams since Jerry Jones purchased the franchise in the late ’90’s, have always kept my attention as they are the historically powerhouse team from Texas - no matter what other team is playing in Texas at the time. As much as I enjoy trashing them as an organization, I have been stunned this season at how well they are doing it themselves. Is it really possible for any professional organization to so completely self-destruct? Despite the perverse glee I experience with each Cowboys’ loss, I mourn a little for their place in football lore.

Work Ethic

I come from a different generation. I work hard more hours each week than I care to count. While I have my “desk” hours at work, the hours I spend in district boundaries do not begin to touch the hours of work I do. As and administrator in an education system, most people do not understand exactly what it is that I do.

I administer.

I answer questions.

I make decisions.

I talk much.

I listen more.

When I first heard the term from one of my idols in administration, lead-learner seemed to me to be a homage to the profession and to diminish the distance between classroom educators and administrators. Now that I work in administration, I cannot find any good way to explain to others just how much time I spend studying and learning more about my job, my programs, the politics of the work that I do.

I often read until late in the night though my defined bedtime is 10:00 p.m. for my alarm sounds at 5:00 a.m.

Education is about learning. Administrators who cease to learn have a very short tenure with the burgeoning research into “best practices” potentially changing from day-to-day the work we do. However, effective administrators need to know the difference between “best practices” and what will truly work in the circumstances of the particular school. Such discrimination takes constant study and learning.

When I was a student through my first Masters degree, because I had never taken a break from the education system, I never realized how much work learning is. After taking a near ten year break between earning a first and second Masters degree, I forgot the effort required to truly master new information and be a successful student.

Lead learner no longer seems to me a dismissive term. It solidly represents the work ethic it takes to be an effective leader.

Because I still have so much to learn in one of the programs I administer, I do not yet consider myself effective. I am now sufficient, but through another year of learning, I may approach the point of being effective.

Working in education takes a different kind of work than many people can understand. The work I do on one day may not show effects for months. And  it may take days of work before there is a visible product to show for the hours of mental toil.

To many may consider it to be “less-than” work, but I know I sleep well each night. I gave up long ago trying to compare my 90-hour work week to the 40-hour work week of someone in a business setting. Thirty-plus of my hours of work my occur in the recliner in my living room, but with the ultimate outcomes being what they are, they are just as strenuous and effective as the hours spent behind a desk. I take pride in the work ethic I bring to the job each and every day and look forward to many more years of active learning, of being the lead learner in my job as an example for everyone who works with me.

Card Me

This morning I woke up to an unusual alarm going off on my phone. It was not the clock radio or the normal phone chimes. It was the alarm reminding me an important event on my calendar.

But why at 4:00 a.m. on a Thursday?

What could be so important?

Christmas cards!

As long as I have iCal and am using Apple products - or until I change the settings - I will be reminded three weeks before Thanksgiving to start working on my address list for Christmas cards. Since I mail 60 to 90 cards each year (I am single handedly trying to keep the postal service in operation), three weeks has turned out to be the magical time it takes to email people and update current mailing addresses.

Yes, I use email to get mailing addresses.

It is faster than sending a teaser card to see if I can collect a return address stamp from the USPS.

Holiday cards are one special way of making contact that still has a personal touch. While I do have a spreadsheet and use mail-merge to print the labels for the envelopes, I still sign each card and I send out a variety of cards each year and hand select the one that goes to each address. I do not simply pick one design, one-size-fits-all, and push them in the mail. I take the time to write a personal note as well as include my standard “Christmas Letter” though anyone would be sorely pressed to take my holiday letter seriously. It is early November and I already have the opening paragraph composed.

Prepare to be offended.

Maybe I should take some of the personal sensibilities of my recipients into consideration. 

Then again, my letter is about my life. They can tell me the dull details of their child’s finger painting. I shall turn the year into an adventure that bites.

Prepare to be offended.