Yosemite Photographs

Adventurous Tourist at Yosemite Falls

Dogwood Blossom

Afternoon Blossoms

At the Base of Royal Arch Cascades

Photos of the Day (Moonlight)

I need sound reduction software. I had forgotten this, and usually not had a problem. Fortunately, there is a plugin for aperture called Noise Ninja, which I’ve downloaded, but I need to dig up my license key to get it to work. Grr… in the meantime I will share two adventurous images from this weekend in Yosemite. There was a full moon over the weekend, and I stayed out in the cold past midnight trying to capture the serene light reflecting off of El Capitan and Yosemite Falls, stars above. With a little help, I think they’ll turn out fine. So here you get to see a “rough” image before any processing. Both images need some sharpening, as well as the very obvious noise reduction in the night sky.

El Capitan, Moonlight

Yosemite Falls, Moonlight

With a full moon as your guide, you have all the light you need to explore the world.

So close…

I’ve got three tasks to do this week:

1. Teach a lesson today at San Rafael.

2. Teach a lesson Wednesday at Saint Mark’s.

3. Finally send in my DI TPA.

And, as life would have it, I’m sick again. On one hand, the coughing started up and I’m hoping I don’t loose my voice again just in time for lessons. That would be fantastic. On the other hand, I have discovered the wonder that is the Breathe Right nasal strips. The things work surprisingly well. I can not convey how well they actually work, suffice it to say if you are sick, or planning exercise and are congested, as so many of us are from allergies this time of year, the little beauties are worth a try.

Anyways, today’s lesson is for Geography class. I had the wonderfully free-form instructions of “do something on global warming.” First I must say that I feel very lucky that we found a time where I can actually get a lesson in, though my supervisor is teaching today and cannot come. Despite that happiness I’m rather nervous and feel like my lesson is a little boring and lack luster because I couldn’t put as energy into crafting it because of illness. But that’s life, that happens. I’ve created a mini-lesson in keynote to go over the big picture, and have a jigsaw set up using short, recently published articles on climate change around the world: Russia, the Maldives, Australia, and an article from the Chron on our most recent political e vents. I was looking for an article on Sierra snowpack, but couldn’t find one that sat right with me. The Chron article was in the paper last week, so I felt it a fair substitute.

Since the students have to work on a project, the block was cut in half, giving me 45 minutes instead of 90. I found that out last week. I made sure the articles all fit onto two pages (a little shortened) and took out some of the bigger questions, reserving stuff that would be done in group for a short class discussion and chopped down (sadly) most of my mini-lecture. I hope the changes work.

Meanwhile, the lesson for Saint Mark’s is taken out of this wonderful global studies unit thing. It’s got great activities  in it, but the way the lessons are presented, they never feel like enough. Last lesson, for a lesson on life expectancy, I actually combined two of their lessons and added in the following: a group smart board activity, a 3 minute video, and an internet activity using the school’s laptops. It’s a deficiency of the lessons, but it’s also a bonus: don’t treat them as lessons, treat them as activities and discussion question sets and use them to your benefit.

Anyways, Wednesday’s lesson will involve a simulation to show how the choices we make to meet our needs have both environmental and social effects. Students “purchase” items like fuel, drinking water, and education out of a “global mall” using very different dollar amounts to represent the poor distribution of wealth across the world. There are various choices for each category, each with different monetary costs. After an initial run, I’ll ask them if they considered the environmental or social impacts and have them brainstorm what those might be and let them run the simulation again to “fix” choices. After any changes are shared, as a class we will brainstorm what happened and any ways to relieve the problems. Students come up with a way to run the simulation again, and then do it to test their hypothesis. I felt that last step was important because so often they will offer suggestions for how things could be better, or what could be sacrificed, or just good theories but have no way to see if it works. By running it again, they get the final impact as to what good their theory had, and what questions it might raise.

Fortunately, I get the full block for that one!

And somewhere in this, I will both try to recover from illness and finish my gosh darn TPA. I’ve got a goal though. I’m going to Yosemite on Friday and I want to be done by then. Hell, I will get on the Wi-Fi in the lodge to turn it in if it means I can be done- officially done- to better enjoy a weekend in the Valley. After our snowstorms, the waterfalls should be epic. Hmm… maybe I should take my bicycle…

Either way, the camera and equipment will come and I hereby promise photographs of the day of epic proportions!

Arizona

I actually started writing this a few days ago when it hit the news. Sorry for delays.

Ah, Arizona. If New Mexico is the Land of Enchantment, the way you’re acting, you are the land of defensive paranoia.

Adding on to the need to ID immigrants (to which Flagstaff is refusing to carry out, bless them) is a ban on ethnic studies courses that “advocate solidarity” or are “designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.” There are other things it bans, but those are the ones that struck me because they’re the mild ones that don’t make good headlines.

The other ones are more agreeable because they are so negative: no one wants their students or children in a class that “promotes resentment” towards a certain race or group of people, nor would we want classes that “promote the overthrow of the United States government.”

But Arizona currently believes it is more than important to say as such. Paranoia much?

Please read the bill for yourself. It’s very short, and the second half is entirely devoted to truancy. Found an easy to read through copy at the newsroom of the silver fox of news reporting. The language is stunning. But in case you don’t…

The bill is rather interesting in two regards: first, the explicit need to condemn poor class environment in vehement terms; second, the resulting gentler terms to condemn class design and identity. It makes for a great fallacy: if you agree with x (say, not overthrowing the US) then you must also agree with y too! The tail end of the section on ethnic studies throws in a bunch of caveats:

1. Wait… we don’t mean Native Americans, cause there’s a law about that.

2. Wait… we don’t mean performance grouping or ESL classes, cause there’s law about that too.

3. Wait… we don’t mean history classes where you have to teach the history of an ethnic group as content (so long as everyone can take it) (also cause that’s required by law).

4. And we also don’t mean controversial topics in history either.

Oh yeah, and we take away 10% of your funding if you fail to comply.

My question: comply with what, exactly? Technically, you’re allowing history courses (or lit too) which are ethnic studies, you have to discuss identity in EL classes from time to time, and you have shown a necessary exception to the law in local American Indian tribes. The real crux appears to be in the lines about having the classes open to everyone and the design of the class being for everyone. It’s like the (popular) misconception about women’s studies only being for women, or a “girl’s class.” It can turn away otherwise interested male students if they feel attacked, which can happen, or they may not realize that good courses are open to them. It’s perception.

Same thing in ethnic studies. My fiance once took a very interesting- but rather awkward- course on minorities in the U.S. in college. The class was well taught and attracted a wide variety of students. But in his section, he was a minority in being white, being a male, being an upperclassman, and being the only science major (biology!) in the lot of 20 undergrads. Just try discussing an article on the biology of race when the only classmate with that background happens to be from from the majority culture… it can happen to any well meaning person though the class was never intended to put the white man on the spot.

My point is that the authors of the bill are probably coming from a place like that. No matter what ethnic background they are. They’re afraid of being lost and loosing their validity, whether or not that fear is justified, whether or not they are already empowered over others. The authors probably are, however, white, empowered, afraid of loosing it, and not justified. Arizona’s other recent legislation documents this well. The language in the bill makes it quite plain that the authors have quite an amount of fear and paranoia about the issue, so I would never go as far as saying that they are at well meaning: this is really a bill that should not have needed to be written. It’s an expression of the fear of alienation, not an action that would ensure the openness of classroom climate to all Arizonan students.

Changing Demographics

I actually got linked to this report from my Yahoo Instant Messenger Account, so it’s a report written up in an AP article published elsewhere hosted on Yahoo. Go figure. Anyways, its about how over the last decade, demographics between cities and suburbs are vastly changing and I recommend you take a look. The Brookings Institute analyzed census data and came up with the recommendation to rethink every label and connotation we have about demographics because many are wrong and most will be soon- and we will need to move our support structures (anything from public transportation systems to where social work offices are) to reflect it. They took data from the 100 largest metro areas in the country-a significant slice that covers 2/3 of the country’s population. Here are some example findings to pique your interest:

1. The majority of ANY racial group no longer lives in the city. Majorities of EVERY racial group live in the suburbs. Ideas like “more blacks live in the inner city than the lilly white suburbs” are outdated and invalid.

2. Suburbs are increasingly populated with elders, while the young (and young white especially) are moving closer to cities for jobs, transportation, and cheaper housing.

3. There is a “cultural generation gap” showing in many states (including ours) in which the senior population is disproportionately white and the youth dispraportionally minority.

4. The suburbs now have the largest poor population. While many in the cities are in something they term “deep” poverty, suburbs have higher numbers of poor in general.

5. For the first time in decades, the population is growing faster than households- due to delays in marriage, births, and longer life spans. Consider the advances of eldercare with young pros (like myself) who are living with a partner but are unmarried, combined with higher birthrates for some of our friends.

Baby boomer Mom and Pop are retiring to just another house in the suburbs, but their young professional children can’t keep up with the Joneses, but many minorities can. The researchers could almost be describing the town I live in exactly. As a white person, I am a minority racially speaking in our little bedroom community for people who work in San Francisco, Oakland, or Marin. If it weren’t for the parents, we wouldn’t be living out here in a new-ish development in a long time suburb. We couldn’t afford it, but those a little older than us with well established jobs can, and despite the downturn and the un-sellability of the houses around here, our development is mostly full, and we’ve put in one park and working on a second for all of the children that are turning up these days. About half of the families here are families. The rest are quasi-retirees, planning for something 5 or so years away.

It’s like the census slogan says: Hercules is “a snapshot of America.”

The Brookings Institute Report

Cinco de Mayo

I got a few posts today, ya?

Anyways, I read an interesting opinion linked to by an article in the L.A. times that said, for the one line summary, that although you can’t deny the worth of celebrating Cinco de Mayo, it’s a “ridiculous” holiday because it marks an event that shouldn’t mean anything.

Let that sink in for a minute.

First, a clarification: Cinco de Mayo is often mistaken as Mexican Independence Day, which it is not. It marks Mexican defeat of the French at the Battle of Puebla back in 1862. It was the first time the French had been defeated in 50 years, and the last time a power from Europe invaded the Americas. That’s noteworthy.

The argument that celebrating this is rather silly is because a year later, the French would still take the capital in Mexico and set up their puppet Emperor Maximillian, an Austrian, who is a bit of a tragic figure, and his wife even more so. But I digress. He’d rule for a few years, sink close to full abdication, and would be executed by Benito Juarez. Old Max had even supported many of Juarez’s reforms. His last words, btw, were:

“Mexicans! I die in a just cause… the independence and liberty of Mexico. May my blood be the last to flow for the good of this land. Long live Mexico!”

Then, the light of European rule finally leaves the Americas to their own devices. We dealt with the British in the War of 1812, the Mexicans did it to the French 50 some odd years later, but there are still lasting influences from Europe in Mexican culture. The argument implies that Cinco de Mayo is therefore a false holiday, and that resisting imperialism is about as loose a reason to party as Saint Patrick is to Saint Patrick’s Day. (A good point, really.)

Both articles fail to recognize that though it was never really celebrated outside of Puebla, the day immediately took on in California (and later in Texas). It’s know that California started celebrating it as a holiday the very next year and continued doing so as a protest to French rule from a state that became swept up in a patriotic fervor to support the Civil War. California had long before banned slavery in the state but had a large southern population, and California was looking for ways to show solidarity and pride. Cinco de Mayo became a celebration of our abilities to resist, to stand up for ourselves, and work for liberation from oppression. It was not nationalism. It was more global thinking and supportive than Mexico was ready for. Or even the rest of the world, as Europe was twiddling its collective thumbs waiting to see what we’d do to ourselves in the Civil War, and not understanding until WWI what horrors a modern war can bring.

Other than reenactment, there is little we celebrate from the Civil War; we honor the fallen on the most part. And states like California and Texas are American mutts with diverse blending of people and strong Hispanic heritage. Cinco de Mayo was an opportunity for California to show it’s support and protest of real and metaphorical comrades in arms in ways other than sending 49er gold to those who run the fighting.

Photo of the Day

Humboldt, 55 mph

This was taken up in Humboldt County, driving through the redwoods. If you look out the window while you drive in a car, your eye tends to linger on an object and follow it as it goes by. I suppose it helps us from getting all dizzy. But, if you just look and see the scenery fly by, it gives a much different perspective on the landscape. In photography, the same thing happens. Usually you focus one one thing, and the photo is, literally, a snapshot of a single moment. If something moves in a longer exposure, it gets all blurry, and usually people taking pictures don’t want that. We have high speed shutters for a reason!

But, sometimes we like to take it slow, like the softness running water gets over a long exposure: fuzzy water looks calming, and majestic- the opposite than if you sped up the shot to capture the wild flying drops of a torrent. Long exposures give new depth, show longer movements over time that are magical- like images of the lights from cars forming streaks in a city street at night. Its cool, it’s magical. Subtle movement too can be captured in figures and gestures, and then we like it. It ceases from being an oops, needing a retake, and art.

Driving through the redwoods I was caught by the movement of the trees, the speed of the car, the light subtly filtering down the canopy. We stopped to take photographs, but it just wasn’t hacking it that day. There was a nice breeze, it was sunny, we played in the Smith river earlier that day, and headed south. I just could not set up where I wanted to, show what I wanted to, or capture any of that summertime feeling. My shots sucked. So I decided to change directions and do something fun.

I decided that I wanted something more impressionistic. I wanted to capture the light and color and breeze and travel, so we hopped back in the car, I leaned out the window, and started shooting till I found the right settings for the movement I wanted and the right clump of trees with the light I wanted. I actually made my fiancé drive through this one section a second time so I could take the picture I wanted because I had missed it.

So this is Humboldt, 55mph. It’s an impressionism piece. Who said photography has to be photorealistic?

From curriculum class tonight

Quia survey quiz:

You unfortunately have to subscribe to quia, which you can use for a variety of assessments. You could use something like survey monkey instead. Feel free to take my quiz to see what the program is like:

http://www.quia.com/quiz/1986694.html

You can also access it (and my daily life power point that goes with it) at my Rome Unit Google site:

https://sites.google.com/a/saintmarksschool.org/grade7rome/home

The “Roman Scrapbook” was an idea found online and not what was used in the final unit.

As for the coins, a great resource for identifying coins is a site called Dirty Old Coins. If you click on the name of an Emperor, you can see pictures and read the brief coin descriptions about nearly every known minting during their reign. Another option besides buying real coins is to do the same research but without the cleaning using replica coin sets that you keep and reuse. However, purchasing coins is a cool investment, even if to have as a single example of archaeological techniques and getting to hold a piece of history.

We bought our coins from Cerberus Ancient Coins, a company based Down Under, namely these coins found in Syria. Many coins are found in troves or lots, large ones, gold, and silver, are removed for cleaning by experts. What’s remaining are your “small change” coins- Roman pennies and nickles, really. A magnifying glass helps! Uncleaned coins are grouped by how well they show detail, denoting how hard or easy they may be to clean, or their real value today. Uncleaned ones can just as well be “diamonds in the rough.” Desert patina coins, like from Syria, are fairly easy to clean in comparison to gunk from other climates.

I started that lesson actually by showing one of our own coins- they are all modeled off of Roman styles and contain similar imagery and meaning.

State of the Air

Having allergies and a fiancé with asthma is one thing, but sometimes where you live can make it a heck of a lot worse. The American Lung Association recently released their State of the Air 2010 report, which grades counties and cities based on particulates and ozone pollution on a year round average and on a particular day of the year. California may have some great counties, as my future father in law notes up in the County of Lake, but we also have the infamous smog of Los Angeles too. We have such a great state that we have six counties in the top ten worst in the country, by all three measurements. Not to make SoCal fans angry, Sacramento shows up repeatedly, and Oak-SJ-SF pops up on the short term particulates.

In defense of NorCal, however San Francisco is still the second best city for asthma sufferers in the country and the region features nicely on a list of perfect score A grades: Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Siskiyou, and Sonoma. If it weren’t for four “B” grades, however, one might think that in California, the State of the Air Report was a pass/fail test.

As for why some counties, that you might think should score high, like Tuolumne, home of Yosemite, don’t score high: locations of monitoring facilities are often closer to people and cross country roads, and not in the sierra backcountry that a lot of sierra counties possess. Smoke also can play a big role, as the 2010 report is based off of 2006-08 data, where we had some big honkin’ fires in northern California, explaining why Shasta county fell from an A down to a bombing F.

Line of Reasoning

I just learned, though I am a few days off of the announcements, that the sequel of the recent Downey, Jr./ Jude Law Sherlock Holmes movie will be filming abroad in Paris, and Switzerland among other places.

In the movie, we got the teaser of Moriarty. Now we have more clues.

Sherlock.

Switzerland.

In my mind this spells one thing:

Reichenbach Falls.

Reichenbach Falls, the Falls in which Holmes and Moriarty plunge to mutual demise, are in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. I hereby predict the climax of the film: The Final Problem.

But then, Holmes may surprise me yet again…