Ken

ON THE AFTERNOON FOLLOWING the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, I wrote a poem, which I posted some years later at the daily mull.

If you want a country to refuse to give up a resident, you refuse to show them the evidence.

It was titled Letter to a Terrorist.

In that poem, I voiced my anger, distress, and outrage at the terrorists and their actions.

I argued that the terrorists were wrong in thinking that the human beings they hurt in that attack—the secretaries and custodians and firemen—were either evil or responsible for whatever harms they were lashing out against.

And I argued that even if the terrorists had been right, even if those working people who were only earning a living to support their families had been as evil as the terrorists imagined, the terrorists would only have become equally evil by unleashing such devastation.

They would have become the thing they hated.

EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT value-added analysis and the recent move by the Los Angeles Times to publish value-added standings for teachers in the LAUSD.

One teacher who was singled out as ranking low is John Smith, a fifth grade teacher at Hillery T. Broadous Elementary.

My knowledge of Mr. Smith is limited to what the Times has published about him, and yet I feel in one way that I know him quite well.

When he was told of The Time's findings, he responded quite simply:

"Obviously what I need to do is to look at what I'm doing and take some steps to make sure something changes."

That quote reminded me of another teacher whom I once knew extremely well.

I spent my first six years after graduating from college teaching middle school and high school.

For the first two of those years I was quite possibly the worst teacher in the school.

THIS IS JUST A NOTE to reassure you that I haven't disappeared from the face of the internet.

I am well, and only facing a minor technical problem.

My DSL has been down for a week, and will probably be down for at least another.

It's a hardware problem with the phone company, and requires them to send out a technician, which they are in no big hurry to do.

This doesn't keep me from posting—I can always make a trip between clients to the Starbucks near my office for that.

I am amazed, however, at how much I have come to rely on the internet to do the research for my posts.

I have discovered, over a very frustrating week, that most of my research and writing takes place in odd moments between client visits, on my computer, which is normally connected to the world out there.

Since I pride myself on accuracy—even making sure that the daily quote was actually written by the person it's attributed to, then citing, and linking to, the correct book—it turns out that my posts are research intensive.

The internet makes all this an amazingly productive use of those moments between clients, when it works.

So I only managed one post last week, and won't make any promises about how many I'll manage before this is fixed.

As always, I can offer you the option of signing up for the free newsletter, in the sidebar at the right, which will alert you to any posts I do make in the next couple of weeks.

Or you can continue your normal visits to the site to browse the four years of posts that are already here.

Pick one you know you like, scroll to the bottom, and check out the list of related posts and quotes. One thing will lead to another.

Anyway, that's the story, just so you know.

I hope to have this fixed and be back up and running at my normal pace soon.

Thanks,

Ken

THE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT Billy is that he's fictional—a sort of composite of a group of our kids who are in prison at this very minute.

Billy is much like most adolescent boys.

Like half the kids he represents, he was never in trouble with the law prior to the incident that sent him to prison.

Like more than half of the adult males you know, he was capable of doing stupid things as a teenager.

If you don't remember one thing you did as a kid which could have got you into big trouble if you had been caught, just ask your friends what they did.

Kids don't have the judgment or experience that adults have, and consequently they make mistakes.

They're also easily influenced.

In Billy's case, as in way over half of the cases of this kind, the influence was an adult.

The adult was Thomas—his favorite uncle, whom he had worshiped his whole life.

THIS IS THE FINAL INSTALLMENT IN MY REPLY TO Chris, which begins here.

I would have the same reaction, if the real world were like the fantasy land invented by right-wing media.

I want to end with a defense, of sorts—not of the conservative pundits like Glenn Beck, who are financed by the super-wealthy to mislead voters—but of the normal, everyday, conservative, who is being misled.

Last time, Chris, I pointed out that although conservatives are just as caring, and just as bright, as liberals, they live in a world of misinformation.

This is because people who provide that information (the Fox pundits, talk radio hosts, runners of websites, campaign managers, and writers of propaganda emails) only care about winning an argument or an election, and care nothing for the facts.

So, if someone believes that: