Guest Gentleman: Libertarianism

Today's post comes to us courtesy of K. Cerqueira, an educated gentleman who will today teach us a little more about the philosophy behind Libertarianism.


"There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal." - Hayek

Quick philosophy lesson kids, you've probably heard this one. Say you're standing next to a train track shortly before a fork junction. On one side, 5 people lay tied up, and on the other side there's this fat guy. There's a switch in front of you that you can pull to flip the fork, sending the train to kill the fat guy while saving the other 5. What do you do?

Well there was this guy called Kant who didn't precisely have an opinion on this question (it was devised later by dumber philosophers who write useless papers for a living, in between giving puerile lectures at diploma mills) but he did have this to say about it: every action you take should be in accordance with some universal law which is applicable in all situations. A set of such universal moral laws is called a deontology because it proscribes a set of duties. So if your deontology says something like, thou shalt not murder, then the particulars of the situation, i.e. the very contrived way in which the consequences are set up, don't really matter. You'd be killing a guy by pulling the lever, so you can't contradict yourself by doing so. There are further complications in this example but we aren't philosophers playing fucked up language games, so let's keep it simple.

Guest Gentleman: Dear DCPS...

Today's Guest Gentleman is a dear friend and very, very good teacher with more patience and love in her heart than I can ever imagine possessing.

Thank you for your honest and informative feedback provided by your most recently hired “Master Educator” of the current WL teacher at $%HS in Washington DC. According to your rubric, she has been qualified as a Minimally Effective teacher, scoring not so much as one 3 or 4 out of 4 points in any of the Teach 1-9 categories on your IMPACT rubric. According to your score, this is what a “minimally effective” teacher looks like:

- She has been at the same position for 3 years and has developed positive rapports with 80-90% of the students she’s taught (P.S. She almost just wrote “teached”. Thank you also for the stellar grammatical influence your environment has on college graduates).
- She has gotten to school hours before and after the required time to A) plan lessons, B) grade quizzes, projects and in-class assignments that clearly show production of a language other than English and C) organize extracurricular activities that you put on her shoulders the DAY BEFORE THEY TAKE PLACE because you failed to take the responsibility on yourself and she didn’t want to let the students down.
- She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Foreign Language Education and Teaching English as a Second Language Certification to become a better teacher for your students.
- She was nominated as her Department Chair in her second year of teaching (granted by default) and took an enormous workload including statistical analysis of the (non)growth of student achievement without so much as training her in any of the documentation that is so “official”.
- She remains a solid presence in her students’ anything-but-stable lives, serving as a mother, best friend, sister, guidance counselor, mentor and teacher while also trying to maintain her own life separate from work.

I could go on about the “detrimental” behaviors and actions that this teacher has engaged in to make you consider her “Minimally Effective” when, miraculously, she has never received an overall score of less than a 3.2 out of 4 in her two years teaching under this imperfect IMPACT evaluation system.

Why then did she receive in her most recent “Master Educator” evaluation a 1.66 out of 4 overall?? Tell me, was she drunk in front of the classroom? Did she by chance hit or insult any of the students in your presence? In fact, did any of the students act out AT ALL at any point throughout the tiny, 30-minute window you saw into her class when she teaches 3 classes for 80 minutes a day? (Because really, that’s what her job has become: babysitting.)

The District of Columbia is special. You tell the teachers and students so every day. We are in a unique situation and are pioneers of the future of education, specifically ensuring that every single classroom is stocked with a “Highly Effective” teacher, who apparently engages in none of the behaviors exhibited so erroneously by the WL teacher at $%HS. She understands what it takes to be an effective teacher, and in fact, scored 4. Points. Away from being considered “Highly Effective” last year and receiving a considerable amount of money, the possibility of being observed and filmed as a model classroom for potential new hires to the District. Why then did she receive a score of 1.66 out of 4?

Yes, the “Monster Educator”, Mr. @, championed for the rights of World Languages. He claimed that he was an advocate for them, and that only when we worked together to demand professional development (because it is our right) that we would receive scores that ACCURATELY reflect our teaching abilities. So Mr. @ told this poor WL teacher that her scores were essentially not accurate.

…

Let’s think for a moment: How can you claim to represent a system that insists upon having Effective and Highly Effective teachers in the classroom when the very rubric you work upon is NOT ACCURATE?? Her job, salary and integrity are at stake because of this imperfect evaluation system. How demeaning to hear from a man who saw 30 minutes of one lesson, on one day, in one week, of one month, in one year of a course that she is “Minimally Effective” in not one, but NINE categories. Who. Do you think. You are?

DCPS, you claim to support teachers and initiatives that retain teachers for longer than a Teach for America or DC Teaching Fellows stint of two years. This teacher CHOSE to come to the District after graduation, maybe not fully understanding what she was getting herself into, but she put her heart, soul, mind, body and LIFE into this job. You didn’t put a single person into her classroom her first year of teaching. NOT ONE. She was put out to sea with swimmies and somehow managed to make it through the Bermuda triangle, shark-infested waters and the annoyance of jellyfish stings, to stay on to a third year at an institution that you claim is “on the mend”.

I’m sorry, DCPS, but you just lost the most Highly “Minimally Effective” WL teacher that you will NEVER find again. I guarantee that not many people have the heart that she has to do what she did for so long for your district. When you continually tell her that is it HER fault that students are not succeeding, she beings to believe it.

However, she has come to realize that she doesn’t have to tread this murky water any longer. There are countless other districts around the world that would throw out life vests, buoys, canoes and jet skis just to get this “Minimally Effective” WL teacher into their programs.

So, if your goal is the retention of Effective to Highly Effective teachers, you’re doing an extremely poor job of giving them the support they need. You can’t come in three years later and assess this teacher who’s been doing a pretty good job on a rubric that you never prepared her or trained her for. You are setting teachers up for failure and you are burning them out by placing ALL of the blame on them.

It’s time for this WL teacher who is so much more than “Minimally Effective” according to your rubric to go test the waters elsewhere, reflect on her time in DCPS with fondness and to selectively remember all of the other positive comments, feedback and scores she has received in her three years of service to your District.

Thank you for your time. I wish you the best of luck. You will need it.

Sincerely,
Mademoiselle

Guest Gentleman: 9 Months is Not 8 Years

Today's Submission comes to us from Guest Gentleman Mike Onufrak.

It’s a shame that in this day and age, we have to worry whether voting for a candidate will lead to an armed military coup and a rebellion uprising. But unfortunately, that’s exactly what some conservative groups are advocating. That’s right, an armed, militant uprising to overthrow the government and to unseat the president from his position of power. But who is calling for this?

Sure there are the tea-bagger events, where such outbursts are not only tolerated, but are chanted. The frightening thing about these outbursts, however, is that they’re coming from some particularly unsettling places. Such as from US Senators like Michelle Bachman (R – MN), who said,“I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing, and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”(http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/23/bachmann-armed-and-dangerous/)Or Republican Patrick McHenry (NC) who called for, “…removing from office the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States and all U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives effective immediately.” (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2295624/posts)

The question begs to be asked. Why? Why after a mere 9 months in office are our own policy makers this fed up over not just the President’s actions in office, but his entire presidential organization? Has Obama really done such injustices to us that he must be forcibly removed from office by an armed uprising? Our former president had a solid run of 8 years without any Senator calling for a military uprising against him. Perhaps we should give our current President some of the same consideration.

A Guest Gentleman in Thailand

This is a guest post from my friend Matt:

The Pied Piper of Siem Reap: The Conundrum of Charity in South East Asia

There was a time, not so long ago, that I was chased through the streets of a city in Cambodia by children. I’ll explain how exactly that happened at the end of this, because such a story does not come without a few narrative foundations needed to set up a reader’s expectations, and then showcase the protagonist’s raw failures in light of them. First, I should like to start from the beginning.

In May of the year before, I left America to become an English teacher in Thailand. After eleven months of perspiring the brouhaha that defined the feral classrooms of the all boys school that employed me, I discovered that one does not “become” a teacher as I had been telling my friends and family -- “A teacher! That’s what I’m going to be. Golly gosh the fun we’re going to have!” No, no-no-no-nopers. Not a chance, Bucko. You will be forged into a teacher. Forged by the audacious and glorious tension achieved when you must break down the battlements erected by fourteen-year-old boys who are supremely confident that they -- they alone! -- have mastered the conundrum of free will: we have it, and you can’t tell us shit.

So you develop guile. Grace under pressure. Callouses of the mental sort where your intellect meets theirs and the friction makes smoke billow from the tips of your hair. For teenagers are to teachers what velociraptors are to electric fences: they will constantly check for weaknesses, probing every spot, testing for bullshit. And you must push back when they push you, convince them of your worth-whileness, and even trick them into learning at times. In the end I don’t think I would have called myself a great teacher or even a good one. But a person often earns a steadiness by going back day by day. Or they go buck-nutty. Both instances remain plausible in my case.

A similar kind of steadiness can be earned over a period of time living abroad. When you travel in countries like Thailand, Vietnam, China, Cambodia -- countries where laws are more like guidelines, (similar to accounting rules in the US) -- the initial experience for travelers can include a mild sense of frenzy -- that everything, everywhere is out of your control. As with anything, as you aggregate more experience in your foreign land turned hospitable home, the frenzy moves more towards domesticity, no less exotic or beautiful necessarily, but you find yourself on more even ground. Decisions come easier. Cryptic facial expressions are decoded. Street signs cease to burn your eyes from the inside. Traffic no longer tries to murder you dead. The cardinal directions on the compass of your life seem to realign. In other words, you are confident again, if not at least a bit more comfortable.

So that’s where I was in mid-March -- ten months after my arrival -- when I crossed the border into Cambodia by bus: confident, walking steadily on the avenue of my fate, happy that I was going to hang out with some kids who didn’t get to hang out with native English-speakers very much. But as anybody who has driven long distances before can tell you, it’s on the flat roads where misadventure tends to find you the most vulnerable.

Three friends and I -- all teachers at the same school in Bangkok where I worked -- arrived in the city of Siem Reap in the late afternoon. We’d be there for two weeks, teaching and living in a house that tripled as an orphanage for twelve children of varying ages, a guest house for the visiting volunteers, and a free school for the small village nearby. Families who could not afford to send their children to government school, indeed, some even too poor to free their children of collecting plastic at the dump during the day to attend a free school. As a result, the man who runs the orphanage, Vanna, collects money to buy rice for the families so that the children can come to learn.

Appropriate Digression: In Cambodia, it is the rich and the poor. They say if you see a car in the streets of the capital, it’s going to be owned by a government official or a family member of one. When I last visited as a student, the son of a government official saw my friends and I in a bar and decided he wanted to impress us. He came over and slurred over a glass of beer, “I have two cars.” His gaze fell on our guide who was drinking with us, and a kind of scowl came over it. “He has none,” he said. And the toughest part of it, any traveler who has been to Cambodia will tell you, is the army of children who beg in the streets, selling trinkets for a dollar or less. It’s while visiting a place like Cambodia that hopefully the steadiness we spoke about earlier comes into play. To see such poverty as a citizen of the first world causes us to feel a healthy measure of both guilt and helplessness. Guilt at what we have, and helplessness that we cannot use any of it to help in a real and lasting way -- not without great sacrifice on our part, sacrifices that we do not make for the some of the same reasons why the rich stay rich and the poor, poor. But the steadiness helps you through it. Give what you can, when you can and hope you’re making their day easier or better. For even if you gave a dollar to every child that asked you for something in Cambodia, you’d have nearly nothing left; and even that wouldn’t be enough. They would need more.

So in the city of Siem Reap, Cambodia, outside of the world renowned Ankgor Wat, we taught English to Cambodian children. The house and school are set across the road from a small river, which is actually more of a stream. Classes are held in two outdoor classrooms constructed from bamboo in the backyard, one classroom for the older children and the other for the youngest. The back yard itself is mostly dirt with a tufts of wild grass sprout intermittently like acne, and palm trees provide small stars of shade when the afternoon heat climbs. Lines are drawn between poles to dry clothes, and when the rain comes the older children rush to retrieve the clothes and bring them inside. A small hut on stilts serves as a chicken coop, and the chickens wander freely about the yard.

The experience of teaching these children versus teaching the sixty or so hooligans in Bangkok was dramatic. Where many of my students in Bangkok were unengaged if not contradictory, the students here were eager to answer questions -- eager to the degree that they would interrupt each other to be the one who had the right answer. That is not to say that these children were better people. They were merely better motivated. In Bangkok, coming to school meant leaving behind your computer and gaming system (the school was an elite private academy with a price tag to match). Coming to learn English at the orphanage meant you did not have to go out and work.

I won’t bore you with our daily schedules. But teaching in Cambodia, while not as structured as in Thailand and certainly not nearly the pace at which we move in the US, was still teaching. By the time we quit at five in the afternoon, we were ready for a break. Children, no matter how wonderful, will always have more energy than I am capable of reciprocating for twelve hours at a time. So a few nights a week, we would get away from the orphanage to grab dinner in town.

In nearly every major Asian city you will find a tourist district where western restaurants abound along with travel agencies, bars, and people trying to sell you their wares -- including children. Many come up with bracelets or postcards. Ten for a dollar. If you say no then it is fifteen for a dollar or maybe twenty. “Please, please buy from me,” they say, and you either buy or you steel yourself and repeat no, “I don’t want it,” or if you’re feeling particularly ironic, “I don’t have any money with me.” It’s easier to say no to the adults, but the children are a different matter altogether. Saying no to them feels evil, which is probably why there are so many of them out selling. To answer this my friends and I carried individually wrapped packets of cookies or crackers in our bags. The children are happy to take them, and one can give out many more packets of snacks than dollars.

On one of these outings to town I was by myself. It was Sunday, and having spent all of my time with my three female colleagues I needed a day to things on my own. (Burp, fart, break dance. Male stuff.) I spent a day in a local museum, and at dinner time I came back into town for food. I picked a restaurant that served traditional Khmer dishes and ordered beef and rice. As I waited for my food I read. In the alley a group of boys and girls played a game where one group ran to the wall and then ran back, after which the second group would go and the entire affair would end in screams and side splitting giggles. They reminded me of the kids at the orphanage, how happy they seemed, how effortlessly they broke into dance, what genuineness they lent the wicked world around them, how they loved to sing. The steadiness welled up inside of me, and then my food came.

As I ate, a few of the children came over and asked me to buy bracelets. Ten for a dollar.

“Where are you from?” a girl asked me.

“America,” I answered.

“United States of America. Capital, Washington D.C. Population 300 million. Say another country!” she said automatically, as if she drilled the answer time and time again, but she would not make eye contact.

“Spain.”

“Capital, Madrid.”

“Australia.”

“Canberra! Can you buy from me? Ten for one dollar. Do you have a girlfriend? You can buy for her,” and she held up the bracelets, small rings made of dyed bamboo.

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I don’t want them.”

May as well be honest, I thought. And I knew if I did buy from her, more children would come over and ask me to buy from them. More eyes, more hands, more helplessness than I would be able to handle.

“You’re girlfriend will like them.”

“But I don’t have a girl friend.”

“Why not?”

“Because I smell bad.”

To my delight, she laughed at this, but quickly regained herself and persevered nonetheless.

“Please! You buy!”

“No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head dramatically with each no. “I will not buy them.” And I raised my chin and looked down my nose at her, daring her to continue what had become our silly stand off at this table in the Khmer restaurant.

This continued for a while. More children came over after others left and I did my best to talk to them and make them laugh, while still saying no. There was a part of me that wanted them to leave so I could eat in peace, but the other part reminded me that this was how they managed to eat at the end of the day. When I finished my dinner there was nothing to do but pay and leave. But there was one stubborn boy who had kept at me for most of my meal. He sensed he had a hook in me, and his boldness made the others bold too, so they stuck around and would come back trying new tacks to get me to buy. When I rose, the stubborn boy was visibly stressed. He saw all his work on me sliding away as I went to pay my bill. And when I finally grabbed my bag to leave, he dramatically change tactics, and he went for something completely fresh: “Well you can buy food for me, can’t you?”

Of course! Food! I could give him and the others the snacks I kept in my bag. I could have kicked myself for not remembering. But when I reached into my bag, I had nothing left. All the snacks I had were given away the day before, and I had not bought any more.

“Well, is there a market nearby?” I asked.

At this his eyes lit up in victory. “Yes!” he said. “It’s this way!” and he grabbed my hand and we left for the street. By this time, word had gotten out that a foreigner was going to buy food. So when we first entered the street, there were three following me. OK, that’s fine, I thought. Three is completely doable. But then there were six more, and then ten. By the time we turned right at the end of the street a line of twelve to fifteen children were following me to the market. This was bad, but I wasn’t panicking. They sold large packs of crackers and cookies at the market. I could buy a big box and they could share. This would be okay. I could buy something for everyone without breaking the bank

The sun was setting quickly. Orange sunlight curved around the tops of the buildings like urban halos, and shadows began crowding around corners like rowdy gangs, creating shallow pools of nighttime. When we reached the market my heart, already hovering precariously at the edge of a horny cliff, plunged. CLOSED -- it said in great red letters of “Ha. Ha. Screw you, ass hat!” And so I stood, feeling utterly exposed to these children. Children that reminded me of my kids at the orphanage. Reminded me of my brother! And not merely exposed, but angry! I was angry that the market was closed, angry that I had gotten myself into this, angry at these fourteen other kids who hopped on the snack train, angry that I had been needled and poked as I was eating and afterwards for an hour straight, angry that darkness was now here and not even light would help me out of this. Angry that I had no control over anything.

So I bailed.

“I’m sorry. I can’t buy any food,” I told the stubborn one, and I made a beeline for motorcycle taxis that were waiting across the street. The fifteen followed. You would think that having fifteen kids follow you after you bailed on a promise to buy them crackers with every intention of speeding away on a motorbike would pull on your heart strings a bit. Not so, my friends. The human heart is capable of going as cold as you need it. Besides, these were not my kids. My kids were back at the orphanage. These kids were taking advantage of my kindness. So fuck ‘em.

I reached the first motorcycle taxi and told the driver the street I needed to go to. He didn’t understand me, and my frustration bloomed anew. What kind of taxi driver in the tourist district doesn’t understand English? I thought.

“I’m sorry but you need to understand me!” I said and I went off towards the next driver But apparently he didn’t understand, because he joined the parade.

And so the fifteen became sixteen. One taxi driver following behind me calling, “Taxi, sir! Taxi!” and fifteen children behind him crying, “You promised!” and on I walked head high and ears numbed to their pleas. It all must have looked like some vaudeville reenactment of the Pied Piper, the immediate status of wealth that came with my westerness serving as the mesmerizing tune that kept them in my wake.

I reached the next motorcycle driver and told him my street. He eyed the rabble behind me momentarily but apparently paid it no mind, because I hopped on the back of his bike and we sped off, leaving all that behind.

I tried my best to stay angry, and thus justified. But I didn’t even get back to the orphanage before the anger melted away or was carried away by the night wind, and the familiar guilt and helplessness took its place. But this time crushing. The type that just makes you sigh out of exasperation and declare, “Fuck my life.”

What else can you do?

You can always do more, can’t you? I’d like to tell you that I went back the next day, found those kids and bought all of them crackers and cookies like I had promised. But I didn’t. I taught the next day. I didn’t even have the courage to tell the girls what had happened. It embarrassed me, and I wanted to ignore it as if it didn’t happen. And for the most part that worked. The rest of the week we taught and played with the kids. Each afternoon I brought out my guitar and sang American songs. The last day that we were in Cambodia, we canceled the last hour of class and played group games until it began to get dark. The next morning we left.

I’m back in the United States now. And I do think about the kids at the orphanage a good deal, and I miss them. I think about the kids that chased me in the streets too as I ran away, but I don’t feel any of that guilt I felt or the helplessness. They just feel more like a story to me now. Like a story that I tell.

(Matt in Thailand)

Guest Gentleman - Happy Birthday George

This is our second Guest Gentleman post, and I'm happy to welcome Ali Daniels to the stage with a story about a very unique birthday party...

"First of all, it is an honor to be among such gentlemen. I thoroughly enjoy reading your thoughts each day. Now, when I originally talked to Jason, I asked if I could submit a post about my recent behavioral observations in Pittsburgh at the AFC Championship Game. It would have questioned our need to resort to unintelligent personal attacks in such situations, (I very well may be Joe Flacco’s lesbian sister, but I don’t think that’s going to have much of an impact on the game we’re currently watching, and isn’t that supposed to be the focus of our trash talk?) and I’m sure it would have been just dandy and I hope you would have chuckled at some of the doozies I heard.

Then, something happened at work tonight that changed everything.

I am a hostess two nights a week at a great little restaurant called FEAST at 4 East. (**Shameless Plug: If you’re ever in Baltimore on a Thurs, Fri, or Sat evening, you really have to check us out. Huge portions of fabulous food at very reasonable prices. Just ask JohnOzkirbas!) Normally, Thursdays are a little bit slower than the weekend nights, but we just knew that tonight would be special, and it was all because of Suzanne Evans.

Suzanne, it had been explained to me, used to come in for lunch over the summer. She is very difficult, very demanding, very particular, and to top it all off, very hard of hearing. She had called to make a reservation for 10 people at 6 p.m. Then she called back, insisting that they be seated in our garden dining room. (We already had another party of 10 scheduled for that room. We told her we couldn’t promise anything. Luckily for her, the other party scaled down to five people at the last minute.) Then she called back again. They’d actually be coming in at 5:30. (Ok, that’s fine.) Then she called back again.

And again.

And again.

She talked to Sandy (our owner and head chef). She talked to Maia (our sous chef). And then, according to Sam, (assistant sous chef? no, assistant TO the sous chef) she left a 10-minute message on our machine.

She asked questions. “Is it ok if I say a prayer?” (Um, it’s a free country lady. You can say whatever you want before you eat.) “Can I play my own music if I bring a tape deck?” (A resounding and well-deserved NO.)

And she told us everything we never wanted to know about her reason for dining with us that evening. It was her husband, George’s, birthday. (Great, we’ll sing!) He was turning 61. (Ok.) It’s his first birthday ever. (I doubt that.) Apparently George’s parents didn’t believe in birthday parties. (That’s kind of weird. Why’d you wait so long to throw him one then?) She’s 62. (So what you’re saying is you’re bad at throwing parties and you’re a cradle robber?) They were coming with a group of Christian visual performing artists. (Ok.) One of them was going to sing something. (We’ll see about that.) She’s bipolar. (Oh, no wait. That’s just what Sandy thinks; she didn’t actually say that.)

As it turns out, Jason (server), knows George. He used to come in for lunch with Suzanne. And they’d fight. Loudly. Great. I’m excited.

So 5:30 rolls around, and no one’s here yet, but that’s ok, because we’re running a little late getting set-up anyway. I throw some makeup on, fill glasses with ice, and sit down to wait. Finally, at 5:50, a lone woman comes in holding some gifts. She waits in the parlor for a while, until she sees someone on the porch through the window. She calls out, “George, you shouldn’t be out there. Come inside!” and then disappears outside. Moments later, Suzanne herself walks in. She doesn’t want to wait for the other guests; she wants to sit at the table. She’s alone. As I seat her, she asks if I want to see what she made for her “poor husband who’s sick with diabetes.” (Sure, why not? Where is he, by the way?) It’s a candlestick holder with some flowers and birds, so I help her light the candle, and she sits at the head of the table.

That’s when things got weird.

After another few minutes, more of the guests trickle in, including a gentleman accompanying the first woman who arrived. They’ve brought gifts, balloons, and a cake, so I take the cake to the kitchen, and then return to start pouring water. That’s when I think I hear Suzanne mention that George is sick and won’t be able to make it tonight. (So wait, he’s too sick to make it, but you’re having his party anyway? Without him? But there are balloons and presents and a cake that says “Happy Birthday, George.”) I figure I must have misheard her. There are still two people missing. I’m sure George is coming with them.

But the other two people don’t show up, and neither does George. I hear Suzanne giving a speech about how much it would have meant to George to see all of them there, and how sorry he is that he had to miss the occasion. (I’m relatively certain his birthday is still happening to him, Suzanne. You just ABANDONED him for it because he was too sick to make his party.) I tell Jason that I don’t think George is coming. He’s just as stunned as I am. He thinks George stood Suzanne up. I’m not so sure. This is just too weird.

Finally, at 6:45 (an hour and 15 minutes after their reservation, mind you), they decide to start ordering. At 7:15 the remaining two members of their party show up. I’m glad that Sam didn’t take my bet, because I was sure they weren’t going to show at all and I would have lost $10. They’re loud and a little strange, but you see that pretty frequently in the restaurant business. We just shake our heads and do our jobs.

Toward the end of the meal, I remind Jason that they brought a cake, and suggest that he ask Suzanne what she wants to do with it. Hopefully she can take it home to poor sick George with diabetes. The next time I’m in the kitchen, though, George’s cake is out on the counter with two candles reading “61” stuck in it. Jason can barely contain himself as he informs me that no, they want the cake, candles and birthday song and all. (Wait a second. You’re going to eat his cake? Without him?!) Yes. Apparently they are. Not only that, but they’re opening George’s cards as well. And reading them out loud. I’m surprised they’re not tearing into the gifts.

So we prepare to sing happy birthday to a room full of people, none of whom are celebrating a birthday. Moments before we’re about to go on, the aforementioned gentleman gets up, puts on his jacket, and walks toward the door with the gifts. (I hear him say that he can’t carry the presents while he’s helping Suzanne to the car. Makes sense.)

But wait!

Chet (other server) asks where he’s going – certainly he doesn’t want to miss the cake? (Chet and I, I should mention, love singing the birthday song. We sing it in Italian, and there are harmonies. Trust me, this guy did not want to miss it.) Oh no, he says. He’s just taking these gifts out to the birthday boy.

(Wait wait wait wait wait just one second here. WHAT?!)

That’s right, folks. George is in the car. Let me repeat that for you. GEORGE. IS IN. THE CAR. He has been this whole time. Well, except for those few moments that he was on our front stoop. (Yeah, remember the first woman who called to someone outside? Well apparently George didn’t want to come in.) We all run to the kitchen. This story has just gotten better than we ever imagined it could… (I think I’ll blog about it.)

And so we lit the candles and sang happy birthday to a man who had been sitting in the cold outside our restaurant, and spent the rest of the night speculating about what kept him out there. Why refuse to come in to your own birthday party? Had he and Suzanne gotten into another fight? Was he legitimately not feeling well? Or perhaps after 60 years, he didn’t want a birthday party in the first place.

What kind of a sad life does poor George who has diabetes lead? I almost wish I had gone out and checked up on him. I definitely wish I had brought him a piece of his cake. And maybe I could have found out how he ended up there, because now I know that the last place I want to be on my 61st birthday is out in the car."

Guest Gentleman - A Moment in Time

This is the first Guest Gentleman post - where if I receive a particularly good or important piece from someone who's not one of our regular writers I'll be posting it as a Guest Gentleman column. If you feel like you ever have something to contribute, let me know at jschlaf@gmail.com

Today's guest is Joe Musumeci with 'A Moment in Time'

'It is the day after Turkey-day, and my two closest "guy" friends (da boys…) and I head to Gettysburg, PA. This was planned for the Monday before, but I screwed it up. It is a tradition, and one that I have just been invited to join, to play "hooky" from work one day each Fall and take a cycling tour of a Civil War battlefield... but I bobble my calendar and they are kind enough to reschedule for Black Friday. I am happy enough to be far away from any store, and the day turns out to be beautiful, crisp and bright, whereas Monday had been foul as pheasant. So - score one for us.

Part of the reason we choose Gettysburg this year is because the new Visitor's Center is just completed, and the cyclorama (google "gettysburg cyclorama" for the fascinating and utterly American story) has been restored - so that is the largest part of our morning, after meeting for coffee and driving to the town. We watched the excellent film, see the cyclorama, which has a slightly cheese-y, but still stirring, narration and light show now, and then wander through the museum. There are genuinely moving moments: the wall of photos of young men who died that confront you as you leave, a surprisingly understated film voiced by, among others, Morgan Freeman (get it?) and Sam Waterston. A beautiful window with the text of Lincoln's address etched on its surface looks out over an undisturbed field, once covered with the bodies of children. Eric Vogel's song "The Green Fields of France," haunts me all the day long - for the stanza that asks the question "did they know why they died?" seems especially appropriate here.

I should interject two things here: 1) I am a staunch pacifist, and while I have loved (and now love) so deeply that I can imagine killing in the defense of another, I cannot imagine killing in my own, and certainly in no country's. Odd, for one who as a lad was slated to attend the USNA and be a fighter jock, until I learned my vision would limit my ability to realize that dream. People grow. I have friends in Iraq, one on his third eff-ing tour, and I pray daily for their safe return, but while I love and respect them, I cannot support what they do, even in my defense. I have wondered, often, what would get me to pick up a gun and stand a post, and take comfort that I can rarely answer the question. 2) I have been sadly underwhelmed by the recent sweeping election results that seem to signal a mandate for change – and, if the President-elect is to be believed, largely change that I believe in and voted for. But the memory of the Clinton denouement is still sharp for me, and so I have really not paid heed to Mr. Obama as I ought to have, but, rather, snidely adopted the "both your houses" attitude of the professional cynic and held my nose while I voted, afraid to seem naive again.

We ride our bikes, seemingly without end, and Chris and Mike, who are far better and well-read historians and aficianados than I regale me with tales that flesh in my scant knowledge of the three days that arguably turned the tide of this nation. It is an eerie feeling, to stand with a guide book, Matthew Brady's photos of the carnage and the dying before you, and gaze out over the SAME SCENE - for geology only winks at our passing - cleansed of the corpses, and the smell, but perhaps not of the spirit of the fallen on both sides. A quote by Chamberlain, commanding the 20th Maine, I think, stands out:

"In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger..."

So we stand, and climb, we enjoy our camaraderie - the closeness of men that is really the closeness of boys,- and we take endless photos, and talk about our lives and hopes and fears. The path we trod lengthens through the days and the skirmishes of the battle, until we stand upon Little Round Top... I have seen the movie, read the books... but the cannon and the shot, the rough stones of Devil's Den and the Copse of Trees have skinned our knuckles today, and we smell the smells of the field and see the view from the same defilade as those thousands of scared boys, and we are tired, and weary and somehow elated, and I don't know why, I just don't, I don't know why until Michael says:

Well I guess this war is finally over

…and I realize that I am standing on the rock where all these boys died among other things so my friend and professor Scot can be a man and not chattel and we just elected A BLACK PRESIDENT AND I AM CRYING WEEPING AND I KNOW I HOPE THAT IF I WAS HERE BACK THEN I WOULD HAVE PICKED UP A RIFLE AND DIED IF I HAD TO.

And the 145 years between the smoke and the sulphur and today's quiet breeze all coalesce into an idea, for me, of what history is... the slow, glacial persistence of people trying to find a way to be... better. Perhaps, today, we are just a little tiny bit better as people, because those other people all died here all those years ago. I don't want it to be true, I don't want that to be the inevitable cost, the weregild of progress, but perhaps it is. And the sun sets behind the statue, and we are off for Mike's truck in a mad dash for the warmth of the heater and the bike rack and the ride home and we are changed. I hope I am better today than I was the day before that day, and that, on average at least, perhaps, the trend continues.

Lincoln's address is etched on a very plain window, but this time of year the sun slants a golden shaft like a note from Jericho through the words:

"It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom,..."

On the ride home, Michael comments that it was ironic to drive down the Mall, and see workmen erecting the scaffolds that will hold the throngs on Inauguration Day, when MLK Jr. had to face the other way all those years ago - and as a DC native, a part of me would love to be on Pennsylavania Avenue for such an historic event… But, now, I know where I want to be on January 20th.'