Review retrospective: Bands 501 - 600, 2018

This was my last full 100 reviews. I was definitely getting more tired, and I had technical issues, but I nonetheless managed to mostly get two reviews a week and to listen to lots of new bands. 

Looking over the names, one of the first memories that popped up was how much I hated Stever. That hatred means more to me now.

As I was trying to incorporate more diverse artists, using key months as a guideline, I did focus on some women artists for the last two weeks of March, Women's History Month. Two of them were great, and had come from recommendations through a feminist web community that I really liked. The daily songs will start and end with them. Another was not terrible, and then there was Stever.

It was not merely that I didn't like her music; I didn't, but that wasn't really the problem. 

It was not even completely that she was trying to do great things without apparently having much of a clue or realizing that a clue was lacking. That would merely be annoying.

No, it was really the way she took her inspiration from autism -- without studying autism -- so it could just be her metaphor of how she thought things should be.

There are real people who have autism. There is lots of bad information out there, that often corresponds with abusive treatment of real people.

I bet Stever loves Sia.

It is perhaps important to note that I was starting to become better versed in ableism at this time. I started caring deeply about racism and sexism fairly early. It took me longer to get there on homophobia and transphobia, and longer still on ableism. 

That doesn't mean it was previously okay with me, or that I would not have responded to blatant discrimination. For me, it was just a matter of learning more and listening to more voices. It was learning more about the kind of harm that happens, and how and why.

If I had reviewed Stever in 2014, I still wouldn't have liked her, but her name wouldn't still make me mad. I would just shrug.

Therefore, perhaps it makes sense that for those other two artists that were great, well, the songs have very progressive themes, let's say. Also, something I have learned, and I think I got there around 2018, is that you can't fight bigotry while still holding on to some. It just doesn't work.

I should mention it was not convenient that I was becoming so much more radically aware while my life was falling apart, but really, there is no way for either of those things to be convenient. In some ways, my life falling apart did highlight a lot of inequities, but that was more 2019.

I will say that when I was physically assaulted at a concert that I really needed for respite, I was completely aware of the socio-political roots of that specific interaction, but it didn't help. 

Daily songs:

“Fight Like A Girl” by Emilie Autumn -- Electrifying. That was my first reaction. There is also a version where the song is combined with Rowan Farrow's reporting that also works well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvOXuZwOEvM

“Song That Needs to be Sung” by Songs That Need to Be Sung -- It was never clear if this was supposed to be one band or many bands working together. They clearly wanted to have a channel of protest music, and they got two songs. I get why they wanted it though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I8HkL5GpmQ

“These Train Tracks” by The Alpacas -- I appreciated the emphasis on coming together and reconciliation via nature and for the purpose of growth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYv5kws2wd0

“Bang the Lid” by Delta Deep -- I love the guitars and rhythm on this. It's not always deep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoet081rbsY

“Believe” by Palaceburn -- I felt like I should have known about the band sooner. Very powerful. Glad I found them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ORFuNGANaE

“Superficial” by Sharp/Shock -- I started listening to them in advance of the concert, and really liked them. Somehow it is just a relief that it didn't ruin my liking them, because I still like Alkaline Trio, but what happened is always at the back of my mind with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVgk2XAScxg

“Antipatriarca” by Ana Tijoux -- Theoretically, I could choose this for the title alone, but there is more to it than that. Rhythmically great, but great message.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoKoj8bFg2E

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/03/band-review-stever.html

https://www.newsweek.com/music-sia-movie-autism-controversy-maddie-ziegler-1569289 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/10/concert-review-alkaline-trio.html

Different potential directions

I really need to start writing about things other than school board elections, despite their continued importance.

These past two weeks have reminded me of many political and social issues, their connections to each other, and how the pandemic changed many things but not everything. It would make sense to write more on those topics.

The Sunday blog got hijacked by the school board elections too, but it had been working on individual paths for fighting white supremacy. (White supremacy trying to take over school boards was very legitimately related.) I know I will be picking up on that again.

Prior to switching to election coverage, I was writing about my own personal healing and growth. There is more to write there. It would make sense to get back to that.

I am also getting closer to the conclusion of the retrospective of my music reviews. That might be a reason to get back to doing new reviews. That is especially tantalizing in that two artists that I have intended to review will be performing soon. 

Jake Shimabukuro will be doing a live stream next week, though watching it would require registering for AARP; I am not sure that I want to see him enough for that. In addition, Redlight Romeos have a show in a month, in person but with restrictions. I haven't seen live music since early March 2020. It's tempting.

That reminds me that I have not kept up with my various reading months, though I have tracked the books I have read. Perhaps it is a good idea to close out May with some focus on Asian American heritage.

Of course, I am still in transition. I don't know what my new job will be, or how much time it will allow for listening to music, or how much it will take out of me mentally. I needed this recovery phase, but I want out of it now.

Getting back to writing about personal growth may be the fastest path to that.

Without writing more, it seems that self-care will be my final frontier, and that a lot of that will be focusing on rest, and planning for adequate sleep. 

Accidentally sleeping in is too stressful to be self-care, and not helpful when you have a job to get to.

I know tomorrow will be the retrospective for bands 501 through 600. Beyond that, I am not sure.

School Board Elections: Results

I have spent most of my day on hold (not related to this), so just a short update.

I did find an article about how weird this year has been, election-wise. I think it is missing a lot, but it is something:

https://www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-city-life/2021/04/the-strangest-election-in-america-right-now-is-this-portland-school-board-race

Nonetheless, the Portland School District candidate who was known for promoting QAnon stories, Margo Logan, lost by a large margin. That seems worth celebrating. 

One of the pro-bigotry candidates did win in Roseburg for sure, and it looks like one for the Portland Community College Board too.

It is impossible to track it all. However, the better candidates swept Beaverton School District. I do feel good about that.

Hillsboro currently shows as 2 and 2, with margins so close that I imagine there will have to be a recount. 

One thing the PDXMonthly article pointed out was that this past time period, between the pandemic and Trump presidency and attempts to continue that presidency despite the will of the majority of the votes has really tired people out. It has also made people of color more wary to come forward.

I understand that completely, but the bigots appear to be indefatigable. They will keep putting more candidates forward, and continue spreading lies.

That means everyone else needs to step up.

We need to understand our own issues with racism, sexism, and homophobia, but also ableism and every other way that some try to exert power over others.

We need to step in when abuse is being directed against people of color.

We need to support good candidates. Sometimes that may mean being candidates.

I cannot adequately express how tired I am all the time. I would really rather not have to think about this. 

Because I care about people, I have to think about it anyway, but if we all do it together, maybe it won't be so bad.

School Board Elections: At the deadline

The deadline for ballots is today at 5:00 PM. Realistically, most people have already voted and turned in their ballots. I will still say it one more time:

For Beaverton School District, please vote for Susan Greenberg, Karen Pérez-Da Silva, Sunita Garg, and either LeeAnn Larsen or Ugonna Enyinnaya.

For Hillsboro School District, please vote for Erika Lopez, Mark Watson, Nancy Thomas, and Jaci Spross.

 

Here are some personal thoughts on this election day.

 

Obviously, I have taken this election to heart. 

 

I would like to think that tomorrow will show that the not aggressively racist candidates won, bringing a sense of relief. That is not really a possibility. 

 

That is not a sense of doom about these specific candidates, because it is so much bigger than two school districts.

 

I know that other nearby school districts also have candidates running on the same platform, but I have not been able to keep track. Another person had posted information for fifteen districts, but it is not clear if they had complete candidates in every district. I also know that there are more districts, and other states, and a level of organization that we do not have.

There are two specific problems there, beyond people who are not actively malicious forgetting to expect it of others.

One is the weakening of the press, where there are fewer resources for local issues, and possibly less interest in covering them. When a Trump booster is traveling to multiple states teaching followers how to win local elections, it goes beyond a local story. Someone still has to notice and track it down and have the support of editors. There are several weak points there, and more than one issue influencing that, though there are some important economic issues. 

I am proud of the writing I did, but my resources are limited, as is my reader base. I would have loved to have been able to link to well-written news articles about what was going on, and that gave a better idea of how far it was spreading. 

The lack of press coverage was not nearly as disappointing as seeing the bigotry be welcomed with open arms by members of my church. Trying to reach out -- even to people I know -- was so ineffective as to be heartbreaking in its scope. What is wrong with my people? Primarily whiteness, insulated by privilege, and fragile to cracks in their insulation.

I mean, I do know the answer, but I hate it. 

 

Hopes for this election needed to reside not in appealing to the kindness and goodness of those who claim to follow Christ, but in hoping that other people can be mobilized to protect queer kids. I will be horrified if that did not work out, but even if the election goes better than expected, the disappointment in church members has cut deep.

There is some satisfaction in feeling like I did what I could. I have acted with integrity and been true to my values. 

 

I clearly need to be better connected if I want to really do good. At this transitional point in my life, that requires some thought. 

 

Moving forward, for well-meaning white liberals, we need to do better. We need to be more organized. We need to deal with our own racism, and make looking at systemic and structural racism a normal part of conversation. (Critical Race Theory can help with that, which is why they hate it so much. Don't forget.)

 

We may all need to spend the next few years fighting school boards, and bringing in state and federal government and the ACLU if necessary. 

 

Those are things that can be done. You can fight elected officials if you need to, but it is so much better to at least have elected those who intend to do good. There are enough obstacles with budgets and habits getting in the way. 

We don't need recidivists.

School Board Elections: Still lying

There has been one other common talking point among the anti-Critical Race Theory, anti-sex education, "Get those kids back in school no matter what!" candidates:

I keep seeing references to Oregon having the worst schools; we don't.

Granted, a ranking a 37 is nothing to brag about, but most of the schools below us (except for Nevada) are in the South. Moving to a more racist, sexist, ignorant curriculum seems unlikely to move us up in the rankings.

Also, in the most recent reports, Oregon was among the most improved states. If we are heading in a good direction, how do we know that these candidates won't disrupt that?

Beyond that, it can become a very complex subject. Even if we agree on what counts as a "good" education, there can be a lot of room for disagreement on how to deliver it and how to measure that delivery. Bush himself might not defend "No Child Left Behind" now.

I was very interested in a Twitter thread a while back, expressing that where we are in our knowledge of public education is equivalent to where astronomy was in the time of Ptolemy. It is a relatively recent thing to have public schools where any child can get an education and is expected to have an education.

We don't necessarily know the best way of doing it. That's worth taking some time to think about.

A fairly recent trend was to gear everything toward what will make children grow into good workers, but that ignores how quickly technology changes. Teaching them how to learn, and how to be healthy and how to spot disingenuous rhetoric might be more valuable.

What did you learn in schools? What has retained its value? What do you wish you had learned, but didn't?

Remember, for a long time the lesson of public schools was that Black people weren't worth as much, based on school funding. Then the attempt to correct that sent a lot of white people to private schools and charter schools, or at least neighborhoods at a significant distance from any communities of color. That resulted in a need to fight hard against busing.

There is a reasonable discussion to be had on what "good" schools should be, and how we will know when we have them.

But here should be no surprises that some people will still go hard for racism, or that they get offended when you point that out.

Besides, while some candidates are trying to use coded language and vague answers to avoid admitting it, we know what they want:

• Children should not know anything about sex that their parents don't tell them (technically not possible, regardless of school policy), including knowing how to get help in case of sexual abuse.
• There should be no affirmation or validity for anything but straight, cis, students.
• The students we affirm should also be white.
• But we need these wonderful white kids out of our houses during weekdays, even if it spreads disease.
• We must not have any discussion that leads to understanding the root causes of these ideas.
  

This is not the future that our students deserve.

 

For Beaverton School District, please vote for Susan Greenberg, Karen Pérez-Da Silva, and Sunita Garg, and either LeeAnn Larsen or Ugonna Enyinnaya. (Some voters really resent not having a suitably racist candidate for Zone 5.)

For Hillsboro School District, please vote for Erika Lopez, Mark Watson, Nancy Thomas, and Jaci Spross.

Ballots are due May 18th. There's not much time.

Review Retrospective: Stevie Wonder

I first reviewed Stevie Wonder in February 2017. He was among the artists reviewed for Black History Month that year:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/02/band-review-stevie-wonder.html

Wonder was definitely releasing songs during my youth, though he'd had a long career before that. Even now a lot of the songs that I respond to most are from about 1985 to 1995, but an important part of listening to everything was finding out how much more there was.

In that first review, I mentioned about twenty songs. I knew I would have to do more.

The next step was spotlighting him with the daily songs. Starting with "Happy Birthday" on Martin Luther King Day 2019, I gave him all of the slots through Valentine's Day, for a total of of 25 songs.

I knew that eventually I would need to listen more, and started to realize that what I really needed was a playlist. That way I could easily periodically refresh my memory on how many songs I liked, and which.

So, even though he has had many song of the day, it was clear that he needed his own post on the retrospective.

Getting here was a lengthy process. I had listened to the whole catalog -- or at least thought I had -- back in 2017. When I went back to do it again, I started with The Complete Stevie Wonder, over 39 hours, and containing 579 songs.

I was sure that I had not heard some of it before, especially some of the live tracks. What I remember most was that I had no memories of "Tomorrow Robins Will Sing", even though I had definitely listened to that album. Maybe I just needed it more later. I played it on election day 2020, with hope.

Then I went through the studio albums again, taking notes. This week I have been going through the notes.

One thing I find is that there are songs that I want to highlight that are not necessarily my favorite, but I still feel their importance. Maybe I don't even want them in the playlist, but I want to remember they exist, because there will be situations that they fit. Perhaps listening to all of Stevie Wonder every few years is just a necessity for me.

Listening this round built on to the earlier review, expanding my understanding from before. 

It struck me in 2017 that "Sir Duke" was a tribute that came after death prevented them from collaborating. That should feel mournful, but it is such a joyful song. Putting that with "Happy Birthday" for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., maybe a part of Stevie Wonder's genius is to face a loss and be able to celebrate what was gained from that presence. Sometimes I have a hard time not focusing on the loss, so I can learn from that.

Another thought was that once again listening to "Don't Drive Drunk", that is a weird song and feels like completely the wrong tone. I wondered if it were a misfire, but it is on the soundtrack to The Woman in Red, which I suspect would be a very annoying movie. Is the song a misfire if the things that are weird about it work with the movie it was supposed to?

I probably should watch at least one of the movies he composed for, to better appreciate that aspect. 

The daily songs for this week will not include a lot of my favorite songs, but they have already been songs of the day, in 2017 and 2019, and it felt right to focus on some of his message songs.

Daily songs:

”Happy Birthday” by Stevie Wonder -- It would make so much sense to pair this with "Sir Duke", but it also makes sense to pair it with these historical songs, even though the next one was not yet about history when it came out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcVZfJO01NI

“It's Wrong (Apartheid)” by Stevie Wonder -- Released in 1985, nine years before it would end, Wonder was also arrested that year for protesting at the South African embassy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbG3zIs4Q4E

“Black Man” by Stevie Wonder -- There are still so many people who will try and erase history, and then complain about history being erased.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCX2o7zOzg8

Then, there is kind of a shift from the past to the future, with songs focusing on hope and love. But not "Positivity"; I thought that might be over the top.

“Take Up A Course In Happiness” by Stevie Wonder -- I didn't think this one was going to stick, but it kept coming back to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doUSykutK1w

“Tomorrow Robins Will Sing” by Stevie Wonder, featuring Edley Shine -- Using it for an election again, this time for local school boards. Speaking of people who want to erase history!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzgP0xlycz0

“Conversation Peace” by Stevie Wonder -- Preparation for war does not bring peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNzCj5ZiU14

“A Time To Love” by Stevie Wonder featuring India.Arie -- Is it time yet? Are we ready for this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WtI2kcywM4

School Board Elections: Choosing directions

It has been tricky writing about something where I know I am just seeing the tip of the ice berg; I know there is so much more. 

It feels more comfortable when I can be specific, but if someone in a different district -- or even a different state -- is reading, I want it to be helpful for them too.

One struggle has been even knowing what to call them. There are points in favor of using the term "conservative". I could say "Republican-leaning", though I bet a lot of the candidates identify as Libertarian or Independent. 

The most recent thought was "recidivists".

For the purposes of clear communication, that isn't great, because there is no familiarity with the term being applied to them. Therefore, the real problem is that there hasn't been enough discussion on this for there to be familiarity with any term. 

I do want to take a moment to get into why "recidivists" came to mind.

In general, that word is for anyone going back to an old behavior. There is also some connotation of them being criminals, as "recidivism" gets used more in conversations about crime and corrections.

Since Trump announced his candidacy, racists have been getting louder and prouder. A lot of conservatives didn't like the vulgarity, but the ones who have embraced it have been more prominent. Ask Liz Cheney, who is not a particularly progressive person.

For conservatives who didn't embrace Trumpism -- some of whom have been having a hard time, I know -- there still needs to be an acknowledgment that the racism has been there for quite some time. That goes back before Trump.

Even people who look at the glory days of the party as back when it was Ronald Reagan... Ronald Reagan got a big push for his campaign by speaking on state's rights near Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three Civil Rights workers were murdered. 

That was what we call a dog whistle, and Lee Atwater, Republican consultant and strategist, was the king of dog whistles. That made turning the "War on Drugs" into a means of racist control really easy. That it was a war against Black and brown people was hidden by the word "urban".

That goes back to 1980, 41 years ago. (Though you could make arguments likening Trump to Barry Goldwater, going back further.) Was moving from dog whistles to bullhorns the right progress to make?

Beaverton School Board candidate Jeanette Schade was just on Glenn Beck and has all sorts of new fans from it. Is that what we want?

Schade also denounced the false story that she received a donation from the Proud Boys, because it was just someone who spoke with a Proud Boy at a Trump rally. Is that the influence we want?

If you want conservatism that isn't sociopathic, that may be a possibility, but it is going to require some serious honesty and soul searching. The party is not currently there.

So what do you choose?

Do we want to move forward, with greater equality, greater valuing of individuals, and at least minimal consideration for each other?

Or do we want to stand with the January 6th insurrectionists?

So many times I have written that something was an oversimplification, but this really isn't. Candidates may seem to be going in a direction that you like, but they are not moderates. They have an agenda of bigotry.

This choice should be easy. 

Ballots are due May 18th.

For Beaverton School District, please vote for Susan Greenberg, Karen Pérez-Da Silva, and Sunita Garg, and either LeeAnn Larsen or Ugonna Enyinnaya. We are just lucky that whoever was recruiting for Beaverton missed Zone 5.

For Hillsboro School District, please vote for Erika Lopez, Mark Watson, Nancy Thomas, and Jaci Spross.

Other districts: Look for candidates against sex education and critical race theory, and in favor of opening schools full time immediately. Actively vote against them.

And if you were just going to ignore school board elections, or know other people who were going to do so, please reconsider. This matters.

School Board Elections: Budget Allocation

This post requires more extrapolation. It is still important enough that I at least want to put it out there.

In this case, there is more detail from the Hillsboro School Board candidates, but you see some of the same key words with the Beaverton candidates.

https://communitiesforsensibleschools.org/our-values/

I'd like to draw attention to the "Prepare" section, with the focus on honors and accelerated programs, as well as sports and extra-curriculars. Also, it talks about increasing the rigor to "better prepare high schoolers for life after graduation".

I started in the Talented and Gifted program in the Beaverton School District in 4th grade, when it was still pretty new. I took many accelerated classes, ending in earning a total of 51 AP credits by the time I graduated. I also participated in many extracurricular activities. I enjoyed those experiences for the most part. I am not automatically opposed to those opportunities being available. 

However, a lot of students can't benefit from those. They don't have the economic means, or the parental support. Perhaps they need to work, which I also did. It did affect my participation, though I was still able to do a lot.

Gifted programs have been turning more and more into a marker of elite status. Please remember that a lot of testing that we used was based on cultural competency, so biased in terms of class and race. Even though that is better understood now, I don't know that the tests have changed that much.

I cannot help but feel that the emphasis on gifted programs and such are for the better off parents, hoarding resources for their children. 

The expanded information I have seen on at least one candidate page is a mention of shop and trade programs. Our smart kids will earn college credit early, and other people's inferior kids can learn how to fix things. 

There's nothing wrong with knowing how to fix things. There is also no reason why brick layers can't appreciate dance, or plumbers shouldn't enjoy reading and writing poetry, and that mechanics shouldn't have exposure to different kinds of art.

It also seems worth noting that the newer schools with their confusing schedules and IB focus can really stress students out. Maybe some do better, but those students tend to have parents with means. Perhaps combining regular high school with community college course work can be their solution; that is how Rebecca Skloot first heard of Henrietta Lacks, leading to her award-winning book.

The Hillsboro candidates also talk about smaller class sizes, which I am not sure they can deliver; that's a budgeting thing. Except, they also mention "streamlining the business of education", which sounds ominous. Maybe for them that means lots of staff for the honors curriculum, and then sweat shops where everyone else learns blue collar skills. 

The don't really specify, but being pressed on race does not produce satisfactory answers, and being pressed on homophobia and transphobia doesn't produce satisfactory answers, so my expectations are low. 

I do not want these people having any influence over our students.

And this new Beaverton school board will choose the next superintendent.

For Beaverton School District, please vote for Susan Greenberg, Karen Pérez-Da Silva, and Sunita Garg. While I do not think it is fair to hold the endorsement of the others against LeeAnn Larsen, I voted for Ugonna Enyinnaya, but either of them should be fine. We are just lucky that whoever was recruiting for Beaverton missed Zone 5.

For Hillsboro School District, please vote for Erika Lopez, Mark Watson, Nancy Thomas, and Jaci Spross.

If you are in other districts, it can be pretty easy to know which candidates are which. Look for candidates against sex education and critical race theory, and for opening schools full time immediately, and actively vote against them.

And if you were just going to ignore school board elections, or know other people who were going to do so, please reconsider. This matters.

Ballots are due by May 18th.

School Board Elections: Sex Education

This has been one of the more confusing areas for figuring out the concerns expressed by certain candidates. After a lot of reading, I have figured out that it is because they are lying.

This should not have been a surprise. On a regular basis, someone from church (possibly but not definitely a current candidate) would raise a fuss about the new curriculum teaching kindergarten children how to masturbate or something like that. 

It was always so clearly false that I didn't worry about it, assuming that the real issue was that the curriculum was not abstinence only, and that you were never told that masturbation would make you go blind.

For this topic, I am going to focus on Beaverton Schol District. I will mention that the Hillsboro School District candidates use a lot of the same phrasing, which I don't think is a coincidence. 

It would be very easy to be flippant, and I don't want to do that. In fact, this is a very important topic.

It is also pretty easy to be educated on, because all of the information is on-line, and in the offices, and available at Back-to-School night.

https://www.beaverton.k12.or.us/departments/curriculum-instruction-assessment/health-curriculum-project-team

I am grateful to the voters who used this material to try and pin down one of the candidates on her claim that schools were teaching sixth graders about oral sex. First she equivocated that it was actually fifth grade, but even the phrase that she included -- which is not in the material -- was pretty innocuous, in that in referring to penetration it mentions orally and anally, as well as vaginally.

The objection was that once a child knows that oral is a thing, they may start thinking about it and wanting to know more.

I think it is naive to think that fifth and sixth graders won't have previously heard that oral sex is a thing. It is a wide world out there with lots of different people and music and video clips and so many ways that it can come up. 

This is what I want to be very clear: you want your children hearing about it from you or from teachers before they hear about it from friends.

I am going to divert a bit to one of the reasons behind how the curriculum is chosen:

http://www.erinslaw.org/erins-law/

“Erin’s Law” requires that all public schools in each state implement a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program. That includes training the school personnel, who are mandatory reporters, but it also means giving students the tools to know if someone is doing something wrong to them, making sure they have the words to ask for help, and that there are people they can ask for help.

Yes, that means little children, who may need protection from their parents or grandparents. We don't like to think about it, but it happens. 

It may also mean teenagers who might be assured that some things are just playing around, and normal making out, because after all you can't get pregnant from it, so is it even really sex? Because being told that oral and anal don't count is a thing.

I am all for chastity, but that is not for the schools to teach. That is for parents and church leaders, and you will have to do it by being able to explain the benefits, not by relying on ignorance and fear.

The ignorance and fear leaves children at risk for abuse. 

I don't support anyone who supports that.

There are two other things that seem worth noting. 

The anti-Comprehensive Sexuality Education candidates keep mentioning a "robust" opt-out. There are pretty clear and accommodating options for opting out, including some materials developed with BYU. I am pretty sure any way of making it more "robust" would become an obstacle for most students. I think it's disingenuous, and I am still not surprised.

The other thing that seems pretty clear, especially with the support of Oregon Family Council and Free Oregon, is that part of the objection to CSE is that it will not specifically stigmatize LGBT students. Beaverton and Hillsboro candidates have shown great skill at avoiding direct questions, but I do not trust them with queer students, just as their opposition to Critical Race Theory means I don't trust them with students of color, and some of their statements about programs means that I don't trust them with poor students.

Fortunately, they are not the only ones running. 

For Beaverton School District, please vote for Susan Greenberg, Karen Pérez-Da Silva, and Sunita Garg. While I do not think it is fair to hold the endorsement of the others against LeeAnn Larsen, I voted for Ugonna Enyinnaya, but either of them should be fine. We are just lucky that whoever was recruiting for Beaverton missed Zone 5.

For Hillsboro School District, please vote for Erika Lopez, Mark Watson, Nancy Thomas, and Jaci Spross.

If you are in other districts, it can be pretty easy to know which candidates are which. Look for candidates against sex education and critical race theory, and for opening schools full time immediately, and actively vote against them.

And if you were just going to ignore school board elections, or know other people who were going to do so, please reconsider. This matters.

Ballots are due by May 18th.

School board elections: Opening schools

For the elections I have been focusing on Critical Race Theory, but that is not the only thing binding candidates across multiple districts. I want to spend this week focusing on the various parts of their platforms, giving each their due.

One consistent issue in Beaverton and Hillsboro, but also huge in Sherwood and West Linn-Wilsonville, is opening up schools, right away, five full days per week.

I can't track every school district, obviously, but I am doing some research and some trends stand out. 

That includes some candidates being actively recruited but dropping out later. This includes one in West Linn-Wilsonville and three in Hillsboro.

I only know about the three in Hillsboro because a friend was canvassed in February (a month after Scott Presler was here, could still be a coincidence) and there was a slate of four candidates for Hillsboro School District at that time.

The only person remaining from that slate is Monique Ward. The others apparently dropped out and were replaced by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

Regardless, one of the key points the canvassers were making in February -- before vaccine roll-out had increased, and when weather would have posed additional obstacles to ventilation -- was that if they could, they would have the schools open for five full days right then.

It seems more reasonable when they say it now, but I have some concerns.

First of all, I appreciate that they say they want to follow the science. I am concerned that they have a different concept of what that means than I do.

Beaverton School District candidate Saralynn Dougall has cited information from The Epoch Times, Spiked-Online, and Charlie Kirk. These are all far right, and known for not being particularly accurate. Of course, she has also referred to the anti-LGBT Oregon Family Council as a source for truth; it's not surprising. 

Also, because she has deleted everything I have posted on her page, rather than engaging with it, I have doubts about the likelihood of her listening to science that does not say what she wants to hear. I have these same doubts about the other candidates.

Let's look at some of the potential concerns about opening. 

They have mentioned activities like sports a lot. I get it; our society is built in such a way that after you graduate from high school your opportunities for playing sports, performing in plays, and going to formal dances goes way down. However...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/health/youth-sports-covid-spread-wellness/index.html

It turns out that sports are a hard thing to do safely. If you think about it, it makes sense. You run into some of the exact same issues with theater and dances. Honestly, having students eat lunches together is probably really dangerous. 

Over the past two weeks, Washington County has reported 1237 total cases. More people are getting vaccinated, but there are still enough people out there who are capable of spreading -- and enough people not taking precautions seriously -- that there is still a lot of danger, especially as the virus mutates.

I understand concerns about the students' mental health, but that is assuming that the only possible negative impact on students is not being able to see their friends and do activities. Do you think students will have any feelings if they see their teachers getting sick and dying? Do you think they might feel some guilt if they find family members or friends getting sick after returning to school?

(For myself, the clear lack of concern for teacher safety has been very disturbing.)

There had previously been the belief that young people are less likely to catch the disease, but let's not forget that one of the early casualties last April was the 5 year old daughter of two first responders:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/us/detroit-girl-dies-coronavirus/index.html

Pediatric COVID cases in the US passed the 1 million mark in November. It is wonderful that the vast majority of them have lived, but they would have been better off not getting sick.

https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/11/16/covid19children111620 

Yes, Beaverton School District students are more likely to be facing other kinds of loss, but those losses are not necessarily helped by schools being open:

https://time.com/5953001/covid-orphans/

I want schools open safely too; I just question how much those words mean the same thing for us. 

I think there are too more links that are important.

Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.07993.pdf

Media Has Ignored The Anti-Vax Movement's White Supremacist Roots

https://readpassage.com/media-has-ignored-the-anti-vax-movements-white-supremacist-roots/

I don't know that any of the candidates are specifically against regular vaccinations, but they certainly seem to run parallel to Coronavirus skeptics in some important ways, and there are definitely some parallels with white supremacy.

Do you want these people in any position of power over schools?

Review Retrospective: Asian and Asian-American Musicians

It is fitting that the last group of songs ended with Keala Settle. Born in Hawai'i, of Maori and British descent and now living in Seattle. Maori are Polynesian, so could fit into Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage, celebrated in May, and which I have been trying to honor. 

However, there are Pacific Islanders who question whether it makes sense to combine them. I get that. 

In many ways, there United States experience has been more similar to Native Americans under colonization and genocide rather than the experience of immigrants from China building the railroads, or Japanese Americans interned in camps during World War II, or refugees from South East Asia after the Vietnam War. 

There is still more that fits under that umbrella.

This post is titled "Asian and Asian-American" rather than "Asian-American and Pacific Islanders" because even though I had started looking for more Pacific Islander musicians to review, that was happening at a time where I was finding it harder to do reviews or blog in general, and took a break.

It turns out life is messy, too.

Also, in the reviews I did do before then, there are a lot of musicians that are not Asian-American, just Asian.  

Plus there was one who was of Asian descent but based in Sweden. Then, Woodie Alan (there' a name that didn't age well, but it was a combination of their names) was an white ex-pat joining a blues band in China and playing around there, as documented in Big In China by Alan Paul. 

There are a lot of ways things can turn out. I am not sure that I always met my goals, but I found a lot of music. I found things that I wouldn't have found otherwise, including songs that were love at first listen, and songs that resonated, and songs that still stick with me after years.

My point is that even messy attempts have value.

And also, I know it is important. 

That was strengthened when I watched an interview with Simon Tam. He talked about responding emotionally to footage of some Asian people walking in a cool gang in a film (it was O-Ren Ishii's crew from Kill Bill, but I can't find the interview now), and realizing he had never seen that. That's why he started a band.

One of the people I follow on Twitter, writer William Yu, has worked in practical ways to increase representation.

http://www.itswillyu.com/

He also tweets it daily. "Representation matters today."

It does matter. In this day, we are not past needing it, but it is also something to remember daily.

Today and every day, representation matters. I believe it and I will honor that, regardless of the size of my sphere.

Songs for this week:

“Kiss Me” by Kyosuke Himuro -- I fell in love with this song instantly. Himuro has an excellent catalog, but this is the song I absolutely need.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMyAZh_BT4s

“Ganyan Lang” by Lampano Alley -- Their other numbers tend to be faster and more upbeat, but this one has a poignancy that sticks with me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJndiL2uBwg

“Yellow” by Katherine Ho -- The only version of this song that I like. She has a beautiful voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6NQZHyJYO8

"Oh My My (What A Life)" by MILCK -- Weirdly, this is one of my favorites of hers, but I haven't used it for a song of the day by her yet, and she has had three. Maybe the others felt more important, but there is a lot of love and joy in this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PMbl7wzhY0

“Wankyoku” by Shing02 featuring Emi Meyer and Motoki Yamaguchi --Shing02 has a great body of work on his own, but I like how he brings in other musicians and finds new levels with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvArYx_wHPI

“Would I Break My Heart Enough For You” by Ogikubo Station -- This song is actually newer than my original review. It seems to show that they are getting more punk; I have no objections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqcWhe8M5yY

“From The Heart” by The Slants -- Finishing strong with this one. Again, I reacted to it musically and emotionally immediately, but there is meaning too. I am very grateful I got to see them live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwfEgcRXJjM

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/03/why-have-special-history-months.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/07/reading-diverse-characters-and-authors.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/07/representation.html

Some people behind the campaigns

I admit that delving into these school board elections and trying to raise the alarm has me feeling a bit Cassandra-like; it is so easy to assume there wouldn't be any weird plotting behind something as wholesome as school boards. Aren't they more likely to disrupt the meeting than to sneak into power?

https://www.abc4.com/news/local-news/granite-school-district-shuts-down-board-meeting-due-to-anti-mask-protest/

https://tucson.com/news/local/photos-anti-mask-protesters-disrupt-vail-school-board-meeting/collection_5e0fbf28-a7e3-11eb-91d6-cb12fb3a1c08.html 

(Many fact-checking sites have assured us that in Arizona, the election of a new school board and overturning of the mask mandate wasn't real, so no harm done, right?)

Anyway, it still seems a little unusual for groups of candidates to run together, including funding. In the request for support that candidate Saralynn Dougall sent to the parents of her release-time Seminary students (an LDS scripture study class), she mentioned the other candidates and requested that financial contributions be directed to Jeanette Schade. I mention that, because it is Schade who has drawn scrutiny for a $1000 campaign from Free Oregon, founded by Ben Edtl, who just last month spoke at a pro-Trump rally with Proud Boy Tusitala Toese.

Edtl denies having any affiliation with the group of self-described "Western chauvinists", describing them as a biker club, but of course he still spoke at a pro-Trump rally in March, after a new president was successfully inaugurated and despite a failed insurrection. 

(The following article should really be more concise, but it covers the key points.)

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/beaverton-school-district-board-elections-jeanette-schade/283-f520280e-d22d-4563-ab71-1f3ae7c15dcb

Regardless, Edtl gave a good-sized chunk of change to a slate of candidates who are most concerned about Critical Race Theory, which -- despite their constant misrepresentation -- is geared at getting to the root of systemic racism and ensuring equality for all people, including students.

That doesn't seem like a coincidence. 

It is also important to note that the way these candidates are positioning themselves seems designed to appeal to those who are not whole-heartedly progressive but perhaps appalled and dismayed by Trump. 

These candidates seem to be more on the side of loving Trump, so if that is a problem for you, you should figure that out before you vote.

That was a point I made Monday when talking about Scott Presler, a man currently touring the country training conservatives on how to win local elections. 

I have not been able to confirm that he has himself done any training in Oregon this time around. His Facebook indicates that he was here in January, but I can only find news stories about his attempts to organize an anti-Muslim march last June.

https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2017/05/organizers_cite_mayors_opposit.html

(There is going to need to be a post about how the media has failed us, and why.) 

However, I wanted to leave you with an idea of the mindset of these very pro-Trump people who are taking such an interest in school board elections:

https://twitter.com/ScottPresler/status/1387418840783593475

The tweet says...

If you want to oppose the democrats’ culture war:

-Make babies
-Homeschool
-Buy property
-Grow a garden
-Start a business
-Run for local office
-Take over school boards
-Boycott “Made in China”
-Support alternative news/print/social media

My first thought at the time was that hippie Democrats love our gardens; why do you think we want to stop you from that? We'll help you! Let's trade plant samples!

Also, both homeschooling and taking over school boards seems like a mixed message. It's greedy, if nothing else.

But I think maybe the more important point is this idea that Democrats are waging a culture war. To think that, I would have to guess that you are existing in kind of an echo chamber, where you don't know the first true thing about Democrats. That apparently turns the world into a very scary place, and is unfortunate. 

However, if your whole identity depends on maintaining white supremacy and sexism, then yes, a lot of things Democrats say and our very existence could feel very threatening.

And if you don't really want that, and you know wanting that would be wrong, but you don't really like having to think about it either, Democrats could be pretty frustrating then too, but you have to know that the attempts to ignore uphold white supremacy and all other bigotries just as surely as do the other options.

This is a moral choice.

Think about the company you keep. 

ETA: The request to direct funds to Jeanette Schade was on Saralynn Dougall's Facebook page, not in the letter sent to parents. I apologize for the error.

A more direct approach

I will continue blogging, and I am glad to start seeing more conversation about the conservative push to take over school boards.

However, I don't feel that I am being very effective. 

I mean, I can hope that people will see it, but part of what is coming up for me is that I keep being advised which of my friends like these candidates' pages and comments.

Certainly, the comments and questions I submit just keep being deleted.

So today I am going to focus on writing directly to my personal associates about their votes.

My friend count may go down, but I need to follow my conscience.

But yes, do expect more on the problems with the individual planks on the platform and the organization behind it.

Today is for the individual touch.

Critical Race Theory: What is it, and why do they hate it?

First of all, let me tell you that Critical Race Theory is a weird obsession for school board candidates.

The anti-Critical Race Theory candidates have been abbreviating it to CRT. I saw another candidate asked about CRT; she asked if they meant "culturally relevant teaching". That would be a much more normal conversation for schools. I am glad that it was the first thing that came to mind for her.

Just to get it out of the way, "culturally relevant teaching" -- which may also be called "culturally congruent", culturally responsive", "culturally compatible", or "culturally acceptable" teaching -- is about understanding the cultural background of all of the students so that they can be included in the lesson and taught effectively. Most of what I have seen on it was specifically relevant to teaching indigenous youth in Canada (that was in a book on linguistics).

Since Culturally Relevant Teaching is still about understanding differences and trying to help all students, those who are against Critical Race Theory would probably not be big fans of Culturally Relevant Teaching. Regardless, someone studying education would be far more likely to come across the latter. 

Critical Race Theory is more likely to come up in law school. It is a study of how the law intersects with issues of race. 

One area for criticism is mainstream liberal approaches to racial justice. Of course, in this case "liberal" refers to the traditional meaning of based on Enlightenment values of inalienable individual rights. Many traditional Enlightenment thinkers were quite racist -- not all all surprising for the time period -- but it leaves merely going by their values to be inadequate as a way of achieving equal representation before the law.

(If it were merely about criticizing liberals, this slate of candidates would be all about Critical Race Theory.)

Critical Race Theory has origins in the 70s, coming shortly after the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s.

With the legislation that was passed, including the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act, you could look at the law not being enough, or you could look at how many people immediately started fighting against the new laws and trying to reverse them (which may explain why they weren't enough). Regardless, it led to a new field of study, and part of that is examining the roots of our country's racism.

Some of the most prominent names at the start of Critical Race Theory are Derrick Bell, former dean of the University of Oregon Law School; Richard Delgado, expert on hate speech who coauthored many things with his wife, Jean Stefancic; Mari Matsuda, the first tenured Asian-American professor in the United States; and Patricia Williams and Charles Lawrence.

Another name that frequently comes up is Kimberlé Crenshaw, known for her work on intersectionality. One of her inspirations was the case DeGraffenreid v. General Motors, where there were jobs that white women could get, and jobs that Black men could get, and yet the discrimination against Black women was not recognized.

So, Critical Race Theory is very much a legal discipline, and not something that will be taught in your local school district. However, because it is also a way of looking deeper at the influence of racism, and how it works systemically, having people who care about it makes it harder to approve text books that consider chattel slavery just another form of immigration, and really not that bad.

Do we still have to pretend that slavery was not that bad? Do we have to accept that genocide against Native Americans was fine because of Manifest Destiny?

Because the one candidate keeps saying that Critical Race Theory gives white kids bad self-esteem, and in another district, one candidate is against Critical Race Theory because it goes against Dr. King's dream of judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin.

Dr. King would know you were a clown, sir. He would probably say it more nicely. Maybe.

In this time of increased violence against Asian-Americans and continuing police brutality, especially against African Americans and increasingly caught on tape, I do not want anyone who is against understanding the dark currents in our society and working to fix them making any decisions about what goes on in schools. I don't even want them choosing the lunch menu.

When white people began to learn about their privilege, there frequently is discomfort. It only becomes a part of your self-image when you decide that you are fine with it.

None of us should be fine with that.

But there are people who love the racism, and there are people who are comfortable enough with it as long as they don't have to think about it. Those are the only people who have any reason to be against Critical Race Theory. 

They may misrepresent that, and they may get very offended when you say that, but whether they are not willing to do the work to understand their platform, or whether they are blithely choosing racism, keep them off of the school boards.

This is for everyone.

2021 School Board Elections: Quick Rundown

Not that long ago, we discovered that someone we knew through church was running for the local school board. Based on what we knew of her, that seemed odd, but it was much worse than odd.

There were other things that we learned in quick succession.

• She was running in association with two other people. All of them shared a platform with a specific, harmful focus. I will get into that later.
• There was a similar group running together with the same platform in the neighboring school district. That was kind of a weird coincidence.
• There is a Trump booster traveling the country trying to help people get elected to local office.

So, not a coincidence. 

In the interest of complete accuracy, I do not know that this particular person has had contact with these particular candidates, but it turns out that there is at least one similar candidate in a North Portland district, and apparently some in Salem. There is organization going on.

There is a lot to unravel here, and some of it can be confusing. One of my big concerns is that I will put out all of this information, a reader will agree with me, but then get confused about which candidates. 

I am going to try and use as much clarity as possible, with specifics, and there are going to be multiple posts about this topic.

For today, I am going to work backward on the three bullet points, filling in blanks.

The Trump booster working on taking over school boards is named Scott Presler. He often uses the hash tag #ThePersistence, which I am sure was chosen for how it sounds compared to "resistance".

It seems to me that this movement is trying to fill a role under Biden's presidency that the Tea Party filled under Obama's presidency; not the party, but not opposite.

They will gladly attack other Republicans for not being "good" enough; Presler tweeted about plans to visit Wyoming to unseat Liz Cheney. This is based on her not conceding that the election was still stolen, making Biden lawfully the president. 

This is interesting, because that puts Presler himself firmly in Trump's camp, but there is a lot about his materials that seems to be an attempt to distance from Trumpism. 

Presler is gay, with long hair (I saw a reference to it being "Fabio-like", but it's not). The pictures he highlights have him with people of color, especially Black people. There are multiple pictures of the same girl.

That would seem like an attempt to be conciliatory with lifelong conservatives who felt like the rampant bigotry of the last few years was too much, but if they won't distance from Trump, they can't be that far from the bigotry.

Therefore, it is not too shocking that one of the key campaign points is a complete intolerance of Critical Race Theory, which they believe is unpatriotic and gives white kids bad self-esteem.

Now, CRT is a poorly understood concept -- especially among those who have leaned conservative -- so tomorrow's post is going to be about that. However, being against it was a key Trump issue, as was not making any real efforts to fight the Coronavirus. Another key plank in the platforms is that schools must be open all the time.

There is a lot to go over with the platform, and that will be other posts. Those are the two things to look for though. If you are wondering about a candidate, and if they are affiliated with this movement, ask how they feel about Critical Race Theory. Ask about if they support virtual school as we enter a 4th wave.

Many of the candidates are people of color. You might expect them to be against racism, especially in this time of increasing violence (largely Trump-inspired) against Asian-Americans and continuing violence by law enforcement against Black people. They are people you know, and probably think of as nice. 

They will make our schools worse, especially for students of color, and gay kids and trans kids.

It is good that there are some pretty easy guidelines, because I do not doubt that this is going on in hundreds of elections. I only know the candidates in two.

So for Hillsboro School District, these are the candidates that will be working hard to increase racism and decrease scientific response to disease. The have their own web site, and seem more organized than the Beaverton group. They apparently had more turnover coming up with their candidates, but they have one for each open position. 

They are not on my ballot, but I would not vote for a single one of them:

https://communitiesforsensibleschools.org/our-candidates/

On to Beaverton School District. 

The first candidate I become aware of was Saraly Dougall: https://www.facebook.com/SaralynDougallbsdz4 

Although they do not have one unified page, posts reiterate that she is running with Jeanette Schade, https://www.facebook.com/JeanetteSchade4BeavertonSchools/ , and Fuhua Xu, https://www.facebook.com/Fuhua-Xu-4-Beaverton-School-Board-Zone-2-101950785342857. 

I am sure they can all be perfectly pleasant in personal conversations, but their policies are destructive, and also super self-righteous.

A lot of people don't pay much attention to local elections. A lot of people will see a name from church and assume that is a good choice, they have a shot. And also, a lot of people are comfortable with racism as long as certain parts are said quietly. 

My great aggravation and fear is that fellow Mormons are going to lead these racist candidates to a sweeping victory. If you need to teach your children white supremacy; stick to home schooling. (And if that's not why you home school, great, but don't miss the point here.)

(And if you think calling them "racist" is an insult or attack on their character, rather than a reflection of systemic, structural issues and how people relate to them, that is why we need Critical Race Theory!)

So please, voters in the Beaverton School District, vote for Susan Greenberg, Karen Pėrez-Da Silva, and Sunita Garg.

https://www.susanforbeavertonschools.com/
https://karenperezdasilva.com/
https://www.sunitaforbeavertonschools.com

"Funny" story about the fourth seat: the racist group does not have a candidate for Zone 5, but Saralynn recently endorsed incumbent LeeAnn Larsen, because they think she will be more likely to work with them.

LeeAnn Larsen -- about whom I do not know a single bad thing, and I am sure is fine -- is a white woman with blonde hair. Her opponent, Ugonna Enyinnaya, is Black. I wonder what reasoning they used; probably just a coincidence.

Sigh.

The election deadline is May 18th. We received ballots Saturday and the voter's pamphlet a bit before that.

This is important, and I don't think it's getting a lot of publicity. Think about it, share, and please don't move our schools backward.

Related posts:
https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2021/05/fighting-white-supremacy-local-elections.html

Review retrospective: Bands 401 - 500, 2017

2017 was a year of finding musicians, yes, but also songs that I loved. 

It was not completely confined to that year. I had "Local Roses" by Dear Boy be the last song of the 2016's week, because I associate it strongly with four other songs, all of which were encountered in 2017.

(I reviewed Dear Boy the last week of October 2016, so it wasn't that far from them.)

Of course, "Local Roses" did not play right before one of its associated 2017 songs, because then I did a post and week focusing on punk rock. It made sense to put that week there.

I also am not putting three of the other four songs in this next week, because it turns out that I do have enough songs I want to share from Asian American artists, and two of them will go there, and one came from the Emo listening and will belong with that post.

Also, I forgot that the event that tied those five songs together happened in 2018, and two additional songs had been added to the conversation (which will definitely come up). When the conversation was only two weeks old I remembered; but until finding the old post I had forgotten about the other two songs. They still mean a lot to me; they just aren't part of the group.

One night Colleen mentioned not having fallen in love with a song for a while and asked for suggestions. I had to mention seven. Really had to. Desperately.

At the time, I thought of it as just loving these songs so much, but also it being a good question. It was more interesting, in a way, than asking for band recommendations. Being able to recommend bands for people was one of the nice realizations that came with doing reviews, right around the time I had reviewed 300. This was something different.

Looking back, I suppose it was also a sign of becoming more isolated as I was focusing on caring for Mom. There were fewer conversations where I was likely to get a chance to tell people how I had just found this great song, and they should listen!

At this point, I am just happy and amazed to have found so many songs that I can listen to over and over again, still feeling them, still loving them.

Sadly, I must admit that after having listened to all of Anti-Flag, I don't like "Brandenburg Gate" as much. I don't dislike it, but I was so sure I was going to love everything about them. Instead, I just think they are okay.

They will still be represented in the Emo listening post. (I know they are not Emo, but about half of those bands won't be.)

But in a way it is good separating out the songs, because that means more other bands from 2017 get play.

So while in my heart Dear Boy's "Local Roses" will always be associated with Kyosuke Himuro's "Kiss Me", the Slants' "From The Heart", Marshall Crenshaw's "Whenever You're On My Mind", and Anti-Flag's "Brandenburg Gate", they shall be scattered throughout the many weeks of this retrospective.

Only Marshall Crenshaw shall play this week, but he will go first.

Otherwise, concerts were Trombone Shorty and Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Rose Garden; Lily Pryor, Chris Margolin, Matt Pryor, and Dan Andriano in The Emergency Room at Doug Fir Lounge; Tesla, Poison, and Def Leppard at Rose Garden; Angélique Kidjo at the Schnitz; and I went with my brother to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra in Seattle. 

The heartbreak was that Marshall Crenshaw did come to Portland, but I couldn't go.

Songs for the week:

"Whenever You're On My Mind" by Marshall Crenshaw -- This song is from 1983, and I like "Some Day, Some Way", but it just makes no sense that I needed to wait 34 years to find it. There was an official video, but I have only seen poor quality copies, so I am going with the remastered audio version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsvWl0Q96vw

"You And Me" by A New Nowhere -- I don't think this is even my favorite song of theirs, which is probably "Scream", but this video is so fun and weird. Them making it is more impressive because they didn't have a lot of material, and their review combined them with two other bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3BSroncsqY

“At Sunset” by Seasonal -- Seasonal haunts me because I like them while reviewing, but I did not figure out until after posting and they confirmed with me that the other album by a band called Seasonal was not them. I have been keeping them on the review list to make it up to them. Fortunately, they finally say new music is on the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMnxz9oOONM

“Streetlight Street Life” by Moovalya -- Just kind of deliciously punk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbBJXcRZN8k

“Julia” by NewLondon Fire -- This is the only song I have ever recommended to a stranger on an airplane. I think part of that is that usually I travel with my sisters, so maybe if I sat next to strangers more often it would happen more, but the song still deserves recommendation. Weirdly, I was going to put it in with 2015, but Spotify says it came out in 2017. My review was in 2015. Still going to use it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxmUKU7C-Sg

“Stay” by NoDevotion -- I found this one pretty haunting, and I was glad to find that the reconstituted band was great. I hope that meant a lot to the previous band's fans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S1O3D8Q7_A

“This Is Me” sung by Keala Settle, from The Greatest Showman -- Not from a review, but I have done at least four songs of the day from this movie. I might do some more, but this is the best musically and emotionally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjxugyZCfuw

 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/05/beloved-songs.html

 

Play day

 

Caring for my family, and myself

One thing that changed during the 2008 to 2010 period of unemployment was that I started cooking. 

I had gradually taken over holiday meals after I got back from my mission (I had learned something about cooking turkey, and I wanted to try it). I also cooked about once a month for potlucks, but I had never taken on the daily grind of it. 

Since I was home and everyone else was working, it only seemed right to take over. Mom had lost her enjoyment of cooking a long time ago (picky kids didn't help, but the critical husband was worse). That became a thing, where even on the days where I was working, I would plan something that could fit into the time constraints. 

I kept that up when I started the new job, and when I started telecommuting it was even easier. I was working, but also able to help supervise Mom, who was still pretty functional at first.

Being laid off and deciding to focus on caring for Mom felt abrupt, but really this transition had been happening for several years. I was switching over to caring for her more, and her needing it more.

Previously so much of caring for my family had been about the money that I made and what it could buy; when the money stopped, the caring didn't.

Care giving is my nature. That is something that I have learned over this time period.

As much as money helps -- I cannot stress how much of a difference it makes -- it is not the only factor in the care you give.

Accepting my overinflated sense of responsibility was not easy. Recognizing it took taking in another relative and trying to accommodate him. It also took getting into shouting matches to affirm the value of what I was doing. 

It was good that it became a choice, and a calling, rather than a way of compensating for all that I perceived to be wrong for me, but that change was inward.

During my time caring for my mother, I could never doubt that doing so was the most needful thing. 

That we have survived it -- against all logic -- was a huge faith builder. 

There is one thing lacking yet; I have never been good at caring for myself.

Just taking that time and making that effort... it is much easier to do it for other people. 

I have a bad tendency to give myself a lot of assignments anyway. Adding things to do just makes me feel tired; them being for my benefit has never been a big enough motivator in the past. 

However, it is clearly something that I need to do.

So I am going to be working on that for a while.

I do have other things to write about, as well as what I learn from this next phase. Right now I need to go in hard on the School Board Elections, deadline May 18th. This is not a switch to fully political yet, but maybe it will be the case of another gradual transition.

However, there is one thing that I appear to have figured out last night. 

I think one reason I drive myself is this idea that I will be able to stop and rest after I finish these projects or reading lists or tasks, even when I have seen a fairly well defined set expand in process over and over again.

Even seeing the value in the journey -- which I have and do -- I still want that completion and destination and finality.

It appears that I have to accept that as a myth.

This means that pushing to get done doesn't even make sense.

Tomorrow I am taking the day off, even though I without a regular job or caring for Mom, it might be hard to define what I am taking the day off from.

I am taking a day off from being me, I guess.

I am still bringing a book.

Work and identity

There was probably another thing that helped with my 2008 job loss. Before it happened, I had been to visit my Italian family twice. 

Previously I had only met the aunt who had come to visit us, but there were other aunts and uncles and cousins. You can hear things about people, but it is not the same as knowing them.

I had studied some Italian, but not a lot, and not recently. I wanted to be able to talk, so I memorized two questions: asking about their work, and for couples, asking how they met.

Given how many of them worked together, it should be surprising that they were all so uninterested in their jobs. In another way, it does make sense.

The job market in Italy -- even before the crash -- was tough. Getting jobs tended to involve knowing someone. (This also has a lot to do with why so many of the spouses worked at the same company.)

It's not that there wasn't pride of work or a commitment to doing a good job, especially with my family; our legacy is being good workers. But a lot of where you end up is luck, and because it is done through government programs, retirement and health care tend to be okay regardless. (This is especially miraculous given how often the government changes, but some of the systems function very well.)

The point is, people don't define themselves by their jobs. Their job is something they do, but their life is their family and their friends and their hobbies.

I do have one cousin who has beaten a different path, carving out an interesting career for himself. His siblings are really worried about it ruining his retirement. I don't think they need to worry, but I get why they do.

That is not a perfect system, but there are things that are very healthy about it.

It may have made a greater impression on me, because after getting back I was talking about it with one of the cafeteria workers. We had a flirtation going on, kind of, and even though we were both merely contractors, there could be ways in which I would be considered to outrank him because of the kind of work that we each did. That could be true even though I had run a cash register in previous jobs, and even though he had been doing something else before and would change to something else shortly after that. 

Without getting specifically into that, we talked about how much better that was, whereas here when you meet someone it is the first question, and the one given the most weight.

The thing that I would have said was better about the States then was that it was easier to start over. If you wanted to go back to college and change careers at 45, you could do it. 

But that was before the crash. The cost of tuition was rising, and the cost of living was going up, but we had not come quite so far in devaluing everyone. 

So back on the job market again, when everything was so much tighter, I felt devalued. Again, by the time I was working again, it was at a significant pay cut. In terms of work, I was very literally valued less.

If there was a part of me that understood that my value was not exclusively how much I earned, there was also still a part that was used to having more and being able to do more for my family and friends and random charities, and I felt that.

I felt that need to do things that I couldn't do, and there were limits to how much it got me down then, but it had a lingering effect all of the years of having that job, and then into what happened next, where depression did happen again.

Joblessness

I considered myself unemployed from October 2008 to August 2010.

I worked a fair amount during that time with different temporary jobs, but they varied in reliability and pay so nothing felt very stable. Not a single one of the jobs was expected to last.

It was very hard emotionally, but I didn't go into an actual depression again. Looking back, I think that was because I was still working a lot, and because my church was being very supportive. It did strike at my identity in a way similar to the 2003 depression.

I had always been a pretty cheerful person, facing things that brought me down, but bouncing back pretty quickly. To have such a long unmitigated gloom made me feel that I was not even myself anymore; who was I without my cheerfulness?

Prior to 2008, I had always been able to get the job I wanted: I had something in mind, I applied, and I got it.

There were little blips. I remember some panic in 1990 when the job I was sure was going to hire me delayed calling but still did call. When a different job ended in 1996, I decided to take a few days to paint the bathroom, and I answered a phone call offering me work while I was painting. 

In general, I had always been able to do work I was interested in and make enough money to meet my needs.

Well, maybe it was more about meeting other people's wants than my needs. I also tended to be pretty generous, and especially to make sure that my family had nice things.

2008 really messed with that.

2010 did not fix it, because I had lost ground financially and I never made it back up. 

I had sort of noticed that the cost of living was going up before I was unemployed, but it happened gradually and it wasn't too big of a concern. 

Once I was unemployed, that was a lot more noticeable. Once I was employed again, but at only about 80% of what I was making, and with some debt exacerbated over the past two years, well, the increased cost of living was much more in my face.

I felt it for myself, but also, relatives who were used to me paying for more things and not charging rent had a really hard time adjusting to it. There were some stormy battles, and they only get worse six years later when I found myself unemployed again.

I remember that I had been working so hard to catch up. It wasn't just money but also time, where I let myself get behind on medical appointments and things that were taking care of me.

I had just successfully made it to the regular doctor, eye doctor, and dentist, and had an appointment with my hairdresser that I hadn't been to yet when I got the news.

That next round of unemployment was associated with some depression. It was more complicated than that, but isn't it always?

And it required some fundamental rethinking.