Beacon Broadside

Nancy Gift: Weed Fight Lands Me in the Principal’s Office

Nancy Gift is the author of A Weed by Any Other Name: The Virtues of a Messy Lawn, or Learning to Love the Plants We Don't Plant. Gift is an assistant professor of environmental studies and acting director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and a lawn full of weeds.

October 14, 2009

Next Friday, I'm meeting with my daughters' principal. The meeting isn't directly about my kids, though if not for them I wouldn't be going. This time, my daughters didn't do anything wrong, nor anything particularly wonderful, nor even cause trouble on the playground, but I'm nervous about the meeting, anyway. I've rallied the troops and called in reinforcements, making waves at school, in advocacy for the schoolyard weeds.

For the last several years, I have received notices from school, supposedly telling me when and where a pesticide would be applied to the school grounds. I've looked at them for all this time, and so far, have read and ignored them, because the pesticides have been aimed at mulched areas in front. Some ofthe herbicides bother me more than others, but since all have involved spaces that my children didn't directly contact, and which I didn't really want to hand-weed as a volunteer, I ignored the notices.

Last week's notice, which I got on a Wednesday afternoon, was different. On the space where it told "where," the answer in bold was "lawns," and that single answer made me look twice. Lawns are where my kids play. School yard lawns are supposed to have flowers and weeds, because those provide entertainment for children. Plantain, dandelion, clover: these are schoolyard weeds which every kid should know, even if no one at school knows the Latin for them.
 
I then looked up the EPA registration on the herbicide, MEC something or other -- herbicide trade names are always changing, with new combinations and ratios so variable that no one could expect to follow the market, any more than we expect to recognize companies on a 2-bit stock exchange. I looked at the active ingredient, just as anyone in a drug store knows to look for acetaminophen on the generic Tylenol. And I looked again, in shock: the ingredient was 2,4-D.

Link Roundup: Rural Youths, A Picnic in North Korea, Sexual Assault in the Military

Review of Hollowing Out the Middle on the Daily Yonder blog:

Most impressively, the authors keyed into what concerns rural youths about their adult lives and how these quandaries fuel the exodus of young people from rural places. Their dilemma, in short, is between remaining as adults in rural communities where they sacrifice educational or economic opportunities or leaving beloved rural places for expanded options in urban areas. Rural kids find that they must negotiate between their commitment to place and their commitment to the American ideal of individualist achievement, an ideal increasingly difficult to reach as the economic foundations of many rural communities continue to crumble. “When moving up implies moving out,” what should young people do?

In this weekend's New York Times, Marie Myung-Ok Lee (author of the novel Somebody's Daughter) discussed a recent trip to North Korea with her mother.

We sweltered through customs at the hands of men in gray Mao suits and women in neutral “Mad-Men”-era outfits, every heart topped by a pin of Kim Il-sung. Then over the next few days we were shown carefully presented slices of Pyongyang: the subway, for example, which we rode for a single stop, where elaborate murals of a workers’ paradise were lighted by chandeliers. We went to endless museums and parks but were sternly instructed not to speak to any locals. We took meals at restaurants where we were the only customers, and the food seemed to come from the same Western-facsimile kitchen: bread with swirls, bland fried flounder, mayonnaise-based salad served in a martini glass. Finally my mother, weary of the utter weirdness of the place, told our tour guide in Korean that we needed to try some real North Korean food.

Penny Coleman poses a difficult question: does military service condition men to commit sexual assault?

Yet for decades, in spite of the terrible numbers, the military has managed with astonishing success to get away with responding to grievances like Krause's with silence, or denial, or by blaming "a few bad apples." But when individual soldiers take the blame, the system gets off the hook.

And it can be shown that the patterns of military sex crimes are old and widespread -- for generations, military service has transformed large numbers of American boys into sexual predators.

Interfaith Youth Core founder and Obama faith advisor Eboo Patel was named one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News and World Report; documentary photographer and journalist David Bacon was named an Utne Reader Visionary. Beacon Press sends out its congratulations to both of them for these much-deserved accolades. 

Theodore R. Sizer: Beacon Press Mourns the Loss of an Educational Reformer, Author, and Friend

All of us at Beacon Press are saddened by the passing of Theodore R. Sizer this Wednesday. Sizer was a powerful and thoughtful voice for educational reform in America. Beacon Press had the honor of publishing two of his books: The Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract (co-authored with his wife, Nancy Faust Sizer) and Keeping School: Letters to Families From Principals of Two Small Schools (also co-authored with his wife along with Deborah Meier).

The New York Times, in its obituary for Sizer, explains the Essential Schools Movement, which was inspired by Sizer's book, Horace’s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School.

The movement’s umbrella organization, the Coalition of Essential Schools, spans an array of public and private schools united by their adherence to common principles.

Among the principles are that a school is an egalitarian community and that the student is a valued worker in that community, with the teacher in the role of mentor or coach. Depth of knowledge is emphasized over breadth, with the mastery of a few core subjects preferred to a scattershot spate of electives.

Begun with 12 schools, the coalition now encompasses several hundred across the country, and a handful overseas. Essential Schools active today include the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, Fenway High School in Boston, the Urban Academy Laboratory High School in Manhattan, and University Heights High School in the Bronx.

Sizer's obituary on the NPR website includes the transcript of an interview with Robert Siegel from 2004. (Listen to the interview here.) Here's an excerpt:

ROBERT: Let me begin by asking you what is wrong with the American high school.

SIZER: It tries to do too much, and it puts too much of the work on the teachers rather than the youngsters. Most high schools are a blizzard of opportunities, most of them really exciting, but they're all jammed together and the youngsters change what they think about, change where they're working every hour on the hour. And so much of the teaching--rushed necessarily--is teacher talk. It's efficient in theory, but in practice it doesn't make much sense. Schools that I admire look more, in many ways, like studios where there is very serious and focused questioning, answering, considering, where the kids are necessarily drawn in to finding the answers to what they believe are important questions.

Danielle Ofri: Translating the Foreign Culture of Medicine

Today's post is from Danielle Ofri, writer and practicing internist at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. She is the editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. Her newest book is Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my Patients. This post originally appeared at her Medicine in Translation blog at Psychology Today.

If asked what a doctor does, most people would probably come up with the standard description of diagnosing and treating disease, usually while wearing an ill-fitting white coat. Before I entered practice, even during my medical training that probably would have been my answer too.

But my years in the trenches of real medicine have altered that definition greatly. I do spend time doing the things I learned in medical school like diagnosing disease and writing prescriptions, but that turns out to be only a part of the job, often a very small part.

Much of the time I find myself acting as sounding board. Recently I saw one my regular patients, a woman whose main medical issue is hypertension. But for most of our visit she spoke, often tearfully, of the strain of raising grandchildren since her daughter died of HIV. We never really got to her hypertension, and I certainly didn't have any easy answers for her difficult life situation, but this seemed to be the only time and place that she could devote to her own issues.

A good portion of my time is spent being a teacher. So much of medicine involves education-- talking about what a disease means, which medication side effects are important to watch for, how to plan a healthy diet, which screening tests are important, what a particular diagnostic test entails, what the various lab results mean, and so on.

Link Roundup: World Food Day, Small Towns in Canada, How to Apologize

Today is World Food Day, and Mark Winne looks at the growing problem of food insecurity, and the failures of community-based food programs to fix the problem:

Not only do they not end hunger, they operate in illogical defiance of the principles of American individualism and self-reliance.

As if asking the victims of our failed national and global food systems to accept their fate -- to be poor, to be hungry -- isn't enough, we also ask them to forgo their innate human desire to challenge that fate. "Don't worry," say the agencies and the charities, "Do as we say; fill out the forms, stand in line, and you shall be fed." (Zesterdaily)

Kevin Underhill at Lowering the Bar pokes fun at new FTC blogging regulations, then goes on to talk about how much he liked reading Holy Hullabaloos, which, as he points out, he got for free from the author.

Canadians worry about small towns, too: the Ottawa Citizen interviews Patrick Carr about Hollowing Out the Middle and the declining populations of rural areas in the U.S. and its neighbor to the north.

Have you screwed up? One of these might come in handy.

Stone Prairie Farm: Fall Beginnings

Today's post is from Steven I. Apfelbaum, author of Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm. Apfelbaum is founder, president, and senior ecologist of the firm Applied Ecological Services, known for its international science-based ecological design and restoration work. He lives in Juda, Wisconsin, on Stone Prairie Farm. You can read all of Apfelbaum's dispatches from the farm here.

I only caught a fleeting glimpse of the immense animal, where its head and horns came into view as the grasses parted, and then the mystery pulled back and was gone. I was looking out across the distant, gently swaying mass of prairie grasses, tan and beige and increasingly rosy or chartreuse toward the towering upper seed heads, some plants well over ten feet in height. My eyes were drawn to the movements, and there were many, all occurring simultaneously. And there were sounds… a cacophony of sounds.

On such mornings, as the sun is coming up, igniting the grass with a flaming golden hue, the land appears to be on fire, and the activity of wildlife suggests they are escaping some intense conflagration. But some moved into the intensity, others away. Something, suggesting change, was occurring.

I watched the "v" shape convert to "u", then to a "w" as the flock of Canada geese attempted to move low over the land, to cross the windy landscape. They entered the sun's rays and also ignited, and my first reaction was that I was observing a flock of meteorites plummeting to earth. This changed as they moved in and out of the intense rays, and as the winds forced them through a swirling motion, each goose following closely behind the next over the rolling landforms of Stone Prairie Farm.

Jeremy Adam Smith: 25 Ways for Dads to Change the World

Today's post is from Jeremy Adam Smith, editor of Shareable.net and author of The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting are Transforming the American Family. He blogs about the politics of parenting at Daddy Dialectic and at Mothering.com, where this post originally appeared.

Once upon a time, I rode a bike instead of driving to work, because that seemed better for the sky and the earth—not to mention my health. I read the newspaper every day and I voted in every election. I joined our friends in marching for peace in the Middle East and for gay and lesbian equality, even though I’m as straight as a ruler.

And it goes without saying that my wife and I enjoyed a habitually egalitarian relationship. Of course she worked and I worked. Of course we shared housework. Of course we talked through all decisions that affected both of us.

In short, I led a reasonably socially conscious, environmentally responsible life, just like lots of guys.

Then in July 2004, we became parents. The marching stopped. Instead I pushed a stroller. I struggled to change diapers, not society. And the issues I once cared about so much—peace, the environment, economic and racial justice—seemed suddenly irrelevant to my daily life. My values hadn’t changed, but everything else had: the demands on my time, my priorities, my view of the world.

Patricia Harman: My Calling to Midwifery (Celebrating National Midwifery Week)

Today's post, in honor of National Midwifery Week, is from Patricia Harman, author of The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife's Memoir. Harman got her start as a lay-midwife on the rural communes where she lived in the '60s and '70s, going on to become a nurse-midwife on the faculty of Ohio State University, Case Western Reserve University, and West Virginia University. She lives and works near Morgantown, West Virginia, and has three sons.

As I travel around the country speaking and signing copies of The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife's Memoir, I spend more time talking about midwifery than I do about the book. This makes me smile; I didn’t set out to be an ambassador for the profession, but I couldn't be more pleased.

I am surprised that most people don’t know that, worldwide, roughly 70% of babies are born into the hands of midwives; they don’t know that in the US the numbers are growing, almost 10%, up from 3% ten years ago. I’m surprised when they don’t know that midwives are legal in all 50 states and that most practice in the hospital in collaboration with physicians. I'm surprised that they don't realize that there are two kinds of midwives: the nurse-midwife is an advanced practice provider, usually with a Masters degree, who can do deliveries in the hospital, a birthing center or at home, prescribe medication, and is also trained to do gynecology. The direct entry midwife trains by apprenticeship and delivers, usually at home. I was both kinds.

Nancy Polikoff: Who is "Family" When We Talk About Family Caregiving Leave?

Today's post is from Nancy Polikoff, author of Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law. Polikoff is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches Sexuality and the Law and has taught Family Law for more than 20 years. This post originally appeared at her Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage blog.

Thanks to Nan Hunter for alerting me to the proposed regulations implementing my favorite family leave policy: the one that allows federal government employees to use their sick leave to care for "any individual related by blood or affinity whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship." I've had numerous posts on this topic on my Beyond Straight and Gay Marriage blog . I love the current policy because it allows employees to define their own family members. Whenever advocates for marriage equality cite the unfairness of preventing one partner from caring for another who is ill, I always respond by arguing that the solution to that problem isn't marriage -- it's an employee leave policy like the federal government's! Such a policy encompasses same-sex couples but also ensures that unpartnered LGBT individuals, who may be estranged from or live far from their families of origin, can receive care from the people they consider members of their families of choice.

The proposed new regulations make clear that "domestic partners" are included. Appropriately, the definition of domestic partners requires commitment and some shared responsibility for each other's "common welfare and financial obligations," but it does not require living together. It also encompasses different sex couples. No couple must marry, or register with the state as domestic partners, or enter a civil union, to qualify for the leave. The proposed regs also make explicit that the child of a domestic partner is in the category of children one may use sick leave to care for, but, again, such children were always covered because the standard has always included (and continues to) all children to whom the employee stands "in loco parentis" (in other words, functions as a parent).

Carole Joffe: What Health Care Reform Could Be for Women’s Health

Today's post is from Carole Joffe, author of Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us (forthcoming in early 2010). Joffe is professor of sociology at the University of California-Davis and a researcher at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California-San Francisco, and she contributes to the blog at RHrealitycheck.org.

"I have seen the future and it works" goes the old saying. Well, this writer has seen how the future of health care in America should work. I recently attended a press briefing on women and health care reform held by four Democratic Congresswomen—Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, Carolyn Maloney of New York and Lois Capps of California. All four have taken leading roles in the current health care debates on Capitol Hill and all support H.R. 3200, the main health care bill passed by the House.

The proposals supported by these legislators struck me as bizarrely reasonable. "Bizarrely reasonable" only because what exists currently in many health insurance plans is so breathtakingly unreasonable when it comes to women's health care needs. The current landscape of health insurance for women is one in which a past C-section, even a current pregnancy, can constitute a "pre-existing condition" that can disqualify one from obtaining coverage; a history of past domestic violence can similarly be grounds for exclusion; some policies do not cover maternity care or contraception. (Ironically, at the same time this briefing was held, over in the Senate, during the Finance Committee's deliberations on health reform, the now famous exchange between Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan was taking place. When Kyl, attempting to strike down a provision that would stipulate any benefits a health plan must provide, pontificated that he "did not need maternity care," Stabenow retorted, "I think your mom probably did!")

Monday Media Roundup

If you love indie presses, follow a bunch of them on Twitter. This TweepML list will let you subscribe to a number of feeds at once. 

Chuck Collins looks at the estate tax (which will disappear for one year in 2010) and why Congress should ensure its return after Bush's estate tax phase out expires.

Ten years and 250,000 copies later, All Souls still resonates.

Jay Wexler talks about the difference between prayer in the schools and prayer in the Senate.

Does having a baby affect the political views of men and women differently?

Wendy Kaminer: ACORN: A Cautionary Tale

Today's post is from Wendy Kaminer, author of many books, including Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity, and the ACLU and Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today. Her articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Nation, and she is a correspondent for the Atlantic, where this post originally appeared on Sept. 24th. 

When is thievery not a crime but a personal tragedy? When is lying for personal gain or political expedience a mere error in judgment? The answer is obvious to any partisan. Your political enemies engage in criminal or morally repugnant acts; your allies, friends, and relations make mistakes or bend the rules for the greater good. As Rudolph Giuliani remarked during his presidential campaign, the definition of torture "depends on who does it."  Waterboarding was "aggressive questioning," when Americans inflicted it. "It was a judgment call," (not a criminal conspiracy,) ACORN president Maud Hurd said in 2008, describing the decision to cover-up the embezzlement of nearly a million dollars by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.

No, I don't mean to suggest that torture and embezzlement are moral equivalents. I do mean to state that activists, advocacy groups, politicians, and pundits, left and right, display equivalent moral hypocrisy when rationalizing illegal or unethical conduct by some of their own. It's the hypocrisy bred by the self-righteousness of people convinced that they're on the side of the angels, that their commitment to the right cause makes them incapable of doing wrong. It's the hypocrisy that led the ACLU national board to trivialize, misrepresent, or conceal serious misconduct by its staff and lay leaders (the subject of my book, Worst Instincts.) It's the hypocrisy that has consistently characterized the "progressive" response to recent and still unfolding ACORN scandals. By ignoring, minimizing, or rationalizing grossly unethical and even criminal conduct, ACORN's left-wing friends have harmed it more than its right wing enemies ever could.

Robert Kunzman: The Struggles, Triumphs, and Growing Popularity of Homeschooling

Today's post is from Robert Kunzman, author of Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling. Kunzman spent ten years as a high school teacher, coach, and administrator and is currently an associate professor in the Indiana University School of Education. He is also the author of Grappling with the Good: Talking about Religion and Morality in Public Schools.

Lydia Rivera homeschools her two daughters in a tiny Los Angeles rental house. Ten-year-old Anna is progressing well in her studies, but seven-year-old Veronica struggles with reading, due in large part to hearing problems she had when she was younger. Lydia wants to provide a learning environment where her younger daughter can catch up on her literacy skills without fear of embarrassment, but it turns out that Lydia herself has difficulty maintaining a positive attitude when Veronica struggles. One morning while Veronica is reading aloud to her mom, Lydia's frustration boils over.

J. Malcolm Garcia: Afghanistan Today, Where the Taliban is “The Opposition”

With the war in Afghanistan occupying the news, Congress, and President Obama, we offer this dispatch from J. Malcolm Garcia, author of The Khaarijee: A Chronicle of Friendship and War in Kabul. Garcia has worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star and a regular contributor to the Virginia Quarterly Review. His travel essays have appeared in Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Non-Required Reading.

In August, I returned to Afghanistan for the seventh time since Sept. 11, 2001, to cover the presidential election in which 41 candidates were vying for the top post. When I arrived it was a lovely 100 plus degrees in Kabul, and the traffic was worse than ever. This is what happens when a city built to house 1.5 million people takes on 3 million. Unless it was absolutely necessary to take an automobile, I walked with my translator everywhere I went. It could take up to three hours to drive what was at most a 30 minute trip just two years ago.

I could not go alone anywhere outside Kabul. Wardak, Logar and Ghazni provinces, minutes to a few hours outside the city, are now under Taliban control. So all the traffic and reconstruction activity in Kabul was weird; sort of an illusion of security and progress that in reality doesn't exist at all.