Occupied Wall Street (Part One)

The last 21 days have seen the birth and growth of a movement which has come to be known as Occupy Wall Street. Thousands of protestors from around the country have gathered in the nerve center of America's financial institutions to protest . . . well, that's the question, isn't it?

I have heard a lot in recent weeks about what the protestors stand for, or don't stand for. I've heard them called a mob, heard them called divisive and un-American, heard that they're instigating class warfare. I've even heard from potential Presidential candidate Herman Cain that they're just jealous. The country's largest news organization, on the front page of its website today, lent two stories to the protests; one about how they're dirtying up the park, and another criticizing their criticism of banking based on frozen donation funds. On the other side of things, people have extolled to me the virtue of what's happening, that this kind of revolution taking place is exactly what the country needs. People are angry at Wall Street and the way business has been done in this country, the disproportionate wealth, the unfair and unscrupulous business practices, the influence of corporate money in our politics, and more.

What I've been told more than anything though, from people who both support and detract from the movement, is that the movement has no direction, no cohesion, that it's disorganized and rudderless, and without a specific message, they're not going to get anywhere. It's great (or terrible) that they're there, but they won't accomplish anything until they propose some solutions or list some demands. Without that, they're just a bunch of angry college kids.

So I decided I'd heard quite enough from people outside of the occupation about what was happening within it. Today, I went into Occupied Wall Street to bring the message from the people there out to rest of the world. These are some of those messages.

It is October 7th of 2011 and I am on my way to Wall Street to find out exactly what the protestors there want from the financial institutions of America. At 3:50 PM, I enter the occupation and look around for people to talk to. After some time spent just getting my bearings in the camp staked out at Zuccoti Park, I came across a pair holding up two particularly well-made signs. As you might imagine, the protest area is awash in cardboard and posterboard, rampant with slogans ranging from scathing to humorous, along with a solid mixture of both. This pair, however, were holding up two professionally-made banners which caught my eye. That's what prompted me to approach Troy, a twenty-something Occupier and, I found out, the maker of the signs.

Me: Hi, would you mind saying your name?

Troy: My name is Troy Kreiner.

Me: Troy, how are you doing today?

Troy: Doing well, how are you?

Me: Good. So what brings you to Wall Street? To Occupied Wall Street, specifically.

Troy: To ask questions. And to help hand out statements from the General Assembly's declaration, which is like the one I'm holding above me and the one my friend is holding next to me. I came here last week, I noticed a lot of people voicing their concern of not understanding why people are here, and saying "well, it's all unorganized," and, uh, I wanted to, you know, make some signs for people that they could define themselves with, something that they could gravitate towards, so they could have something that they'd want to associate with. So, I've been handing out some of these signs, and this one associates with myself, and the one next to me probably associates with other people as well.

Me: Now, I don't have a camera, so do you mind if I just read what your sign says? (He answers no). The sign Troy is holding says They Have Held Students Hostage With Tens of Thousands of Dollars of Debt on Education Which is Itself A Human Right and the sign next to him says They Have Poisoned the Food Supply Through Negligence and Undermined the Farming System Through Monopolization. So, if you had the chance to send this message, or a message, directly to Wall Street, to someone who had some actual influence over these things, what would you tell them? What would you - if you had just an argument to make or a solution to propose, what would you say?

Troy: This is the thing - I don't have a solution yet. I'm just scratching the surface and asking questions and - trying to start a dialogue. I don't have an answer yet, and . . . it's okay.

Me: It is. That's actually the best answer I could've asked for.

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

Something Occurred To Me

...today while I was on the Interwebz. I had to put in my date of birth to prove that I was old enough to visit a site with graphically violent images. As I did so, I realized I'm 25. Short of running for a few elected offices, there's pretty much nothing that I'm not allowed to do anymore. I'm never going to put my birth date down and hear someone say, "Sorry, you're not old enough yet."


That's a weird feeling.

I Was Told There Would Be Snow

A portrait of my Monday evening in three haikus:


I wanted a half-smoke.
Where are you hot dog cart guy?
Now I am hungry.


It's President's Day
And it's raining in D.C.
No one out to eat.


Saw gum in the road.
Thought that it was a quarter.
Such disappointment.

RoundTable of Loooove

Valentine's Day has come and gone, but love (and its antithesis) are always in the air.  These Gentlemen gathered 'round the RoundTable to discuss our favorite love and anti-love songs, and they go as thus...


David Pratt
I've got plenty of good love songs I could list here, but in my travels I've come across three exceptional anti-love songs.  I would be remiss not to mention them here, along with my two picks for top two in the pro-love field.

3) "Again I Go Unnoticed" by Dashboard Confessional

Key lyrics:
Please tell me you're just feeling tired
cause if it's more than that I feel that I might break
out of touch, out of time.
Please send me anything but signals that are mixed
cause I can't read your rolling eyes
out of touch, are we out of time?

This is a wrenching song for anyone in a relationship where they can tell the days are numbered.  The singer is obviously trying desperately to hold on to a love that is slowly slipping away from him, and not in a dramatic fashion either.  The relationship is over for one of them, and she's going to slowly slip away from a person who doesn't want it to end.

2) "Said the Spider to the Fly" by The Paper Chase

Key lyrics:
Good things die all the time,
God bless your heart, vengeance is mine.
"Kiss me like you mean goodbye," said the spider to the fly.
When all those times you thought that you were wrong, you were right.

This song takes place clearly after the love has already ended, and at least one of the participants is looking back on this with a little bit of bitterness ("when your lover loves to cheat there's another you can meet, it's a short pier it's a long walk - home").  If you want to look back on a failed relationship and be filled with righteous indignation about it, this is the song to listen to.

1)  "Don't Say a Word" by Sonata Arctica

Key lyrics:
Closing your eyes, don't ever say you love me, whore
You never meant a word, I know you lied
When there is life, there is despair, indulge me now
And stay alive this night
I promise you the end before the first light arrives

So, unlike the last two, this song is about an angry, angry relationship and is about as firmly anti-love as you can get.  Whatever happened between the two people in this song was terrible, self-destructive, and mutually devastating, probably from the start.  It takes a special kind of bad break-up to spawn a metal song, and we have a front row seat to it.

I'd also list "Almost Lover" by A Fine Frenzy, but since I'm limited to 5 I'll press on to more uplifting fare.


For Love Songs, I'm trying to stay away from songs that specifically remind me of my girlfriend and stick with those that make great statements about the emotion itself.  So with that in mind, the first two songs I think of are . . .

"Can't Stop Loving You" by Phil Collins

Key lyrics:
I could say that's the way it goes
And I could pretend and you won't know
That I was lying
Cause I can't stop loving you
No I can't stop loving you
No I won't stop loving you
Why should I?

Someone might say "Hey, this song is about a relationship ending, isn't that an anti-love song?" to which I'd say "No, you ignorant pleb, listen CLOSER."  The girl in this song might be walking away from the guy, but he's not going anywhere.  He loves this girl completely, entirely, and so what if she's leaving?  She is all the love he ever wanted or needed - his life is better just for having known her.  The song is strong and up tempo, and swells as it tells the story of her departure.  He doesn't regret a thing.  He found true love.  Why would he ever try to let that go?

"Thank You" by Dido

Key lyrics:
I missed the bus and there'll be hell today,
I'm late for work again
And even if I'm there, they'll all imply
that I might not last the day
And then you call me and it's not so bad,
it's not so bad

So, if you've never seen the video for this song, Dido's having a much worse day then even these lyrics let on.  She's essentially living the plot of the movie "Up," only she's fresh out of balloons.  But the point of her song isn't all the awful stuff she's going through - it's that there's someone in her life who, when all of this happens, still makes everything wonderful simply with their presence.  I don't know kids, that sounds like what love means to me.


Brett Abelman
"When You Smile," Flaming Lips - love song

Maybe it's just because I enjoy a love song that seems to compare love to nuclear fusion, or maybe it's because who but the Flaming Lips could make a love song sound as simultaneously innocent & sweet as it is trippy & dazed?

"Astral Weeks," Van Morrison - love song

I could potentially pick like a hundred Van Morrison songs, but this is my favorite for the transcendent, transported feeling.  At least, its my interpretation that it's a love song; your guess is as good as mine as to what the lyrics really mean:

"If I ventured into the slipstream/Between the viaducts of your dreams/Where immobile steel rims crack/And the ditch in the back roads stop/Would you find me?/Would you kiss my eyes?/To lay me down/In silence easy/To be born again/To be born again."

"Soon It's Gonna Rain," from The Fantasticks - love song

'Cuz I'm a sap, and it was the first stage producion I worked on out of high school.

"Hyperballad," Bjork - love or anti-love song

I know, what?  I pick it because it's either about 1) how love and the comfort of a loved one is the antidote to fear of death in a cosmic, existential way, or 2a) how the narrator is in an unhappy, reclusive relationship so bad the only way she can make it bearable is by contrasting it with a horrible death or 2b) the only way she can bear it is by (metaphorically) imagining that leaving her lover and being single would be like tumbling down a cliff to a horrible death.  It's a multi-purpose lyric!  And personally for all the stereotyping she gets as a ridiculous screecher, her singing here always gives me chills.

"Losing My Religion," REM - love song

It's actually my favorite song of all time, in a most extreme case of "songs mean a lot to you when you hear them at a certain time and associate them with the feeling of the time, regardless of whether they're extremely overexposed and well-known or not."  It was approximately 1997 when I first really heard it, in middle school, and I associate it with my first crushes and all those crazy middle school-y feelings (but, strangely/luckily enough, only the positive ones - hooray for the filter of nostalgia?).  And the lyrics just happen to fit perfectly.  I'll let Michael Stipe explain:

"When you have a crush on somebody, and you think that they understand that but you're not sure, and you're dropping all kinds of hints, and you think that they're responding to these hints but you're not sure -- that's what this song is about: thinking that you've gone too far, you've dropped a hint that is just the size of Idaho, and they responded in a way that maybe confused you, or they haven't responded at all or they responded in a way that seemed like 'well, maybe I'm gonna- maybe I'm- maybe something's gonna happen here!' and I think I've probably said this seven thousand times, but the phrase 'losing my religion' is a southern phrase which means that something has pushed you so far that you would lose your faith over it. Something has pushed you to the nth degree, and that's what this is about. Now, some people still think that it's a song about religion; it's not. It's just a song about having a crush."


Max Nova

1. For reasons trivial and not of relevance now, Coldplay's "clocks" became the soundtrack to one of my early relationships.  Soon after the relationship ended acrimoniously I was in a movie theater and the song was playing quite loudly.  Thus it went from the soundtrack of a relationship to this soundtrack to me peeing.

2. When I was in college, I had a Joy Division shirt and said to friends that the first girl that commented positively was the girl I was gonna marry.  Luckily I did not follow through on that.

3. I wonder if it's possible to have sex to Barry White without giggling hysterically.

4.

A Love Song:

Allo Darlin -My Heart Is a Drummer

5.

Not a Love Song

PIL - This is Not a Love Song

Brittany Graham
I have an annual tradition with a dear friend from high school, in which we send each other Anti-Love mixes for Valentines Day, and I’ll be posting on that later. So, in the interest of balance, all five of my choices are love songs. The very best love songs, in fact.

Weezer – Miss Sweeney: This song wins the award for most adorable EVER. About a man who has a tremendous crush on his coworker and can’t seem to keep his mouth shut about it, I get chills every time I hear that guitar riff in the chorus. This is the bonus track on their recentish Red Album, so don’t tell me Weezer can’t still do it if they put their minds to it.

The Beach Boys – Wouldn’t It Be Nice: I actually don’t like the Beach Boys at all, except for this solitary song, which I LOVE. The idea that a young couple can’t wait to grow up and grow old together really strikes a chord with me, a person who never really wanted young love anyway.

Johnny and June Carter Cash – ‘Cause I Love You: I love this song because I love Johnny and June, and think their story is one of the more romantic of our time. This is why I place them in a tie with a fictional couple with a very similar song, which inextricably binds them in my mind…

Jesse L. Martin and Wilson Jermaine Heredia as Collins and Angel – I’ll Cover You: This song, and its reprise, make me melt into a million little droplets of gooey sad/happiness/feelings. I am of the firm belief that Collins and Angel are the most perfect couple that ever lived. And don’t you even try to tell me they’re not real.

T.V. Carpio – I Want to Hold Your Hand: If given the choice, I don’t often choose the non-Beatles version of a song, but this is one glaring exception. I keep writing sentences about this song, deciding they’re not good/accurate enough, and deleting. Because the feelings I have when I listen to this song (loud, on repeat, and often in my car) are just too strong and uncomplicated, and wordless.

Daniel Bedingfield – If You’re Not the One: I don’t care what you say about the cheesy early 2000s music. This song destroys me. Every. Single. Time. I also chose it as my character inspiration song for a show I was in, in which I played a young woman in the 1940s who realizes that she is a lesbian, which biases me a bit. But seriously, if you have a soul this song is for you.

Ray Charles – Georgia On My Mind: Songs about the South, and Southern girls in particular, pretty much have full reign of my heartstrings at all times, no matter what. But this song, a love song to his home, gets me every time. For very different reasons, I too left Georgia a long time ago (the ancient 90s), but I feel the exact same way about my original home state. Ray Charles just says it sooo much better.

So there you have it, folks. We feel it. The love, that is. And also, you know, not.  We hope you enjoy our playlist, for the new songs and to commiserate with your favorites. What are your favorite love and anti-love songs? We hope you'll share.

Gay Marriage, and Feminism, and Bears*, Oh My!

Here is why gay marriage is important for the feminist cause:

Marriage is, historically, a business transaction between a man and a woman’s father.  The woman’s father trades his daughter and a dowry, in exchange for protection for said daughter and, hopefully, a higher class status.  Multiple wives have historically been important for bolstering population within the community.  Marrying for love was essentially unheard of until the mid-20^th century in places like the United States and Europe, and more recently elsewhere in the world.  Judeo-Christian tradition called for a woman to be married off as soon as possible, with or without her consent, in order to prevent extra-marital sin (her fault) and extra-marital children (also her fault) from occurring.   And so the institution of marriage everywhere continues to essentially be an antiquated property exchange: for a caretaker for the man, for a provider for the woman, for children borne within the rules of society, and for a transaction of goods provided by both families.

That is, if the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman only.  Because if the definition of marriage relates strictly to a heterosexual pairing, there is also the weighty societal assumption that women cannot provide, men cannot caretake, and that the couple will do their duty to God and procreate.  Love has nothing to do with it; it is strictly business.  But.  If the definition changes as our society has changed and brings love into the mix, all bets are off.  A woman can marry the man she loves, rather than the man her family loves or the man who loves/wants her.  A woman can marry the woman she loves, rather than her best male friend who may or may not also be closeted.  A woman can marry the man or woman she loves, regardless of class, social distinctions, career, or want for children.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Freedom for one minority group of people spells freedom for the majority (52%) of humankind to love, to cherish, to spend her life in sickness and in health with the person she chose.  The tradition of marriage is important; the ceremony binds a couple, their families, and their friends together in a way that simply moving in together can’t do.  The legality of marriage is antiquated but very, very present in a couple’s everyday life.  If a couple has that legal document in their possession, they hold rights and benefits reserved only for family, particularly in the health sector:  for health benefits received from a job, for hospital visitation rights, for the right to decide whether a plug should be pulled, and for property and possession distribution after one of them has died. 

So yes, feminists, marriage is extremely important, and it should absolutely not be done away with.  But our society has changed; there is no population crisis and women are generally taught to marry for love, so the law should reflect this.  Who a woman chooses to marry should reflect on love and shared values, not ability to procreate or heteronormative tradition.

*Sorry j/k there are no bears. Please still like me even though I sometimes lie to you about bears.

I Love the Smell of Revolution in the Morning

We're kicking off a Gentlemonth of love here at These Gentlemen, and in doing so we'll be posting a lot about things we love, or hate, or maybe just crush on a little.  So there's something going on in the world right now that I am just absolutely enamored with, and I thought I'd sing a little song about it . . .

I love democracy
and when protesters sing
I love a free press
and when freedom rings
I love the whole world
and all its awesome things
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada

I love revolution
and people in the streets
I love a spirit
That won't accept defeat
I love what's happening
Out in the Cairo heat
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada

I love Tunisians
and all the change they bring
I love the new hope
that we'll see by Spring
I love the whole world
and all it's awesome things
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada