Obama's Compromise Underscores Republican Hypocrisy

I count myself among those disgusted by the demand of Senate Republicans to reward millionaires with an extension of their current historically low tax rates before taking up anything else (START Treaty, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, DREAM Act), yet I refuse to throw Obama and other Democrats who support the compromise tax proposal overboard as some progressive Democrats suggest.

I was angry early in Obama’s administration when Democrats agreed to extend those tax cuts, because that was the time to have the showdown over the false Republican claim that returning tax rates on the wealthy to Clinton era rates would slow the recovery. Of course, had they not extended them then, what do you think the slow recovery would have been blamed on?

To the extent that some of the concessions Obama got from Republicans will put more money in people’s pockets and stimulate growth, such as the cut in Social Security tax and the unemployment compensation extension, the package can be viewed as a back door stimulus that will produce or save jobs. For the past year did it look like there was any chance to get Republicans to support anything stimulative?

And does anyone out there think the next Congress is going to jump right in and start spending up a storm to improve our infrastructure or help struggling states and municipalities, to keep police on the streets and teachers in the classroom, to aid college students or hire more safety inspectors for coal mines and food safety?

It’s hard to celebrate a deficit increase, but it is worth putting it in perspective: the tax cuts for those families earning over $250,000 adds about $140 billion to the deficit over two years. For that, Obama got about $700 billion more for middle income families. Republicans agreed to this despite the deficit increase of nearly a trillion dollars.

To me, the story is not that a Democrat caved to Republican demands to reward the rich before doing any of the nation’s other important business. The story is that Republicans have shown once again that all their talk of concern for deficits is pure posturing. 

Jerusalem Thanksgiving and Wedding, part 2

When the Epstein (Extended) Family Singers took the stage to sing our special tribute to Raya and Michael (during the wedding reception--see part 1 for more description of the wedding), we performed flawlessly, singing strongly and confidently in Hebrew of the love of place that brought Raya and Michael together and that Israelis feel for their homeland. And in English we sang as strongly to the version my brother David translated for me and I revised to fit the melody and express the romance of the occasion: “Open my heart; to love the only one; the only one my heart will take me to.”

There is apparently an old Jewish tradition of which I had never heard that after a wedding the couple should be entertained by various groups every night for a week, each time ending with a fifteen minute recitation of 7 wedding blessings. And so, for the rest of the week, various family and friends gathered for dinner at a restaurant, for Thanksgiving dinner, for a Friday evening Sabbath dinner, for a Saturday brunch after attending a Synagogue service in which representatives of each family read from Torah. Each time the couple was toasted, the party broke into song, speeches and appreciations were made, and hugs passed all around as family members who had not known each other well and families who hadn’t know each other at all got closer.

For someone who is not religious and does not believe in a supreme being (or ghosts or the tooth fairy), I could have been extremely bored or even uncomfortable with all the religiosity. At times, I admit I found it hard to acquiesce to the self-imposed and often quirky limitations their religious practice requires: for instance, you can use an electrical device on the Sabbath, but only if it is already turned on or if someone non-Jewish turns it on or off for you). But you would have to be Scrooge not to appreciate the joy their version of Judaism expresses. All the prayers are sung, and not in a monotone chant. It seems that almost every prayer has a unique melody (or more than one from which they choose), and Rina had even written a new melody to one of the common prayers that their synagogue had adopted. Music has always been an important part of my life—since my early twenties I’ve been playing in bands and writing tunes and songs, so I know the power of music to sooth the soul (I use the term soul secularly J).

During my week in Israel, my wife Rita, daughter Hannah, and I found a little time to be tourists, together or on our own. We took a wonderful guided tour of the City of David, the archaeological site a little outside the “Old City” that constituted the walled city of Jerusalem during the time King David. We also walked and shopped inside the Old City, enjoying the narrow alleyways crammed with small shops selling spices, souvenirs, art, glassware, falafels, and packed with tourists and pilgrims of many religions, monks and bearded Jews in black hats.

 I took a self-guided walk along the parapets of the old city and inside the Tower of David Museum, and one morning we took a quick tour through one of many wings of the Israel Museum, all of which reinforced our knowledge of the archaeological historical record and how it squares with Biblical history (remarkably well, though not completely). Hannah also toured an organic farm, Tent of Nations, owned by a Palestinian working for peace. We also were treated to a wonderful meal in the home of Muslim Palestinian neighbors of my brother, who were extremely hospitable, welcoming, and friendly. The food was simple and very tasty.

The weather was unusually good for November in Jerusalem when it usually rains, so though the locals were concerned about drought, we celebrated clear skies, no humidity, and temperatures reaching almost 80F. The city was wonderful to walk in, so we mostly got our exercise that way, though one morning I went for an 30K bike ride with my brother and two friends into a forest in the Judean Hills. Though the trees, planted over the years mostly through contributions from Jewish children in America, were much sparser than the forests of West Virginia, my home, the views were stunningly beautiful.

I felt safe at all times and found everyone, whether Jewish or Arab, to be friendly and helpful, though sometimes aggressive in their sales pitches. There were soldiers and police in evidence and they carried automatic weapons. They appeared vigilant, yet relaxed. We crossed through a few checkpoints, both permanent and informal, but were waved through quickly. Airport security was thorough, though there were no body scans or pat-downs. Instead, an Israeli security officer asked us a few questions about the purpose of our visit. Our interview lasted only a minute, though I overheard another family whose questioner went deeper, “Do you go to synagogue regularly at home?” she asked. The father seemed confused by the question. “Where do you go to pray?”

“Well, we go to church,” and he named it. She switched gears and asked if he had any explosives. After he assured her he didn’t, she put the all-clear sticker on his luggage.

To my Israeli family I say a huge toda (thank you) for your hospitality and love, and Mazel Tov (congratulations) for your joyful, celebratory, and loving approach to life!

Jerusalem Thanksgiving and Wedding, part 1

On November 21st I arrived in Jerusalem for a week-long stay for the wedding of my brother David's daughter, Raya. He has been in Jerusalem since the early 80’s, has raised 4 children, Yonatan (Yoni) 29, Raya 25, Rina 21, and Avital 12 in two marriages. He created and nurtures a small non-profit business employing four who help non-profit organizations with resource development, including grantwriting, staff recruitment, professional and lay training, strategic fundraising planning, and whatever else he can do to help them. 

I had stayed in Jerusalem once before for a week and seen some of the sights (Israel Museum, Old City, Masada, Dead Sea, Tel Aviv). This week, most of my time was spent engaged in the wedding related events scheduled throughout the week. It was a wonderful time with relatives, including nieces and nephews I don’t often see: David’s wife Alisa and her family, Raya’s mother’s family whom I hadn’t seen for years, and the parents and one grandparent of the groom, who came to the wedding from their home in Chile. One theme of the week was how well divorcees and their new families can get along, at least after several years of practice.

The wedding was planned Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, a good time for those of us traveling from America to be able to take time off and a great place to do it. My wife, daughter (early thirties), and I were graciously invited to stay at my brother and sister-in-law’s home. The only child of theirs living there was Avital, recently Bat Mitzvah. The marrying couple, though they share an apartment, was observing the Biblical injunction not to see each other for one week before the wedding. One stayed at the apartment, and the other elsewhere. Yoni works for a tech firm and lives in Tel Aviv, so would spend time staying with various relatives and friends during the week. Rina, finished with her mandatory service in the Israel Defense Force, is managing a Jewish youth program in South Africa.

The wedding was made more complicated and International by the grooms’ family from Chile. Michael (pronounced mee chi el’), the groom, has “made aliyah” and moved to Israel. The week following the wedding he was ordained as a rabbi of the Masorati (Conservative) movement in Israel. His father, Hugo, a soccer trainer and massage therapist, has also decided to move to Israel and so will be staying with his son and new daughter-in-law until he finds his own place. Hugo’s wife, from whom he is separated and her mother have come from Santiago as well. Michael has several Spanish speaking friends living in Israel who attend the wedding. The mix of languages becomes something of a joke after awhile. Most of the Spanish speakers can speak either Hebrew or English, so those two languages are most in evidence.

The mood of the week was one of joy and celebration. The young couple, she 25 and he 30 years of age are energetic, happy, and deeply in love. After David picked me up at the airport Sunday evening in Tel Aviv, he brought me to the home of his ex-wife where we were to have a rehearsal for a song that we would perform during the wedding reception. A few other relatives arrived and everyone seemed to break into song and dance spontaneously. “Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai laaaii….” David and his children love to sing together, even performing occasionally as the Epstein Family Singers. Both he and Rina play guitar. She writes songs as well, and everyone harmonizes. 

(r-l) David (playing guitar), Avital, Raya's G-pa, Raya and Michael (on floor), Yoni, other relatives... my daughter at far left foreground

Included in the singing group for the reception would be David, Rina, Avital, David’s ex-wife, Judy, and her husband, Mencher, who plays guitar and ukulele, and me. David nominated “Teach Your Children” or "Over the Rainbow" as songs that would best express the moment, but Menscher thought Dylan’s “Forever Young” would fit the bill better. Rina didn’t seem terribly happy with either, and after half-heartedly singing the first two for the benefit of any who didn’t know them we devolved into an impasse, trying to come up with a perfect song to express complicated ideas like Raya and Michael’s love, Jewishness (Dylan is Jewish), and support of family. Raya started strumming a song and singing in Hebrew. It was a song she’d written, very simple, beautiful and powerful, with words that spoke of love of place, and the Hebrew words used allowed the metaphor to extend to love of God. Rough summary translation: Allow my legs to walk to the place that my heart loves and open my heart to the place that to which my legs have taken me. After one run-through we knew it was the perfect song for us. We decided on arrangement, harmonies, and within an hour had it ready. My brother wrote down the words phonetically for me, since it’s been years since I tried to read Hebrew. Then I asked Rina if she’d mind if for this occasion I tried to come up with an English version that would more directly express the romantic love between Raya and Michael. She said to give it a shot.

The wedding itself was magnificent. I don’t know for sure in what ways it was typical and in what ways it was innovative, but suffice it to say that before the official ceremony even began we’d been eating, drinking, dancing, and singing for almost two hours. The ceremony itself beautifully wove a variety of music and traditions together. Though several rabbis participated in the ceremony in various ways (Raya’s grandfather on her mother’s side is a Rabbi from the U.S.), it was M.C.’d by Yoni, who wore a headset microphone and translated some of the proceedings. Translations and descriptions of the proceedings had been provided in a program for English and Spanish speakers. And the party and dancing afterwards was so exuberant that I am sure Jerusalem is currently experiencing a shortage of Advil.

(this is part 1 of what will be a 2 part post; part 2 coming next week)

Whiskey Before Breakfast

Last weekend for the first time I can remember I had whiskey before breakfast. I’ve played the fiddle tune a thousand or more times, “Whiskey Before Breakfast.” I always assumed it was traditional Appalachian, a variation of Silver Spire, the Irish Reel, but a little Internet searching brought a link that attributes it to a Canadian fiddler, Andy de Jarlis. I think I first heard it from the Red Clay Ramblers, who were from Chapel Hill, NC. Mike Cross, a great solo entertainer from there wrote lyrics to it and recorded it. It’s a great song. The point is, aside from a couple very late nights jamming in the mid ‘70’s when I may have had a nip or two as the sun was rising, I don’t remember ever waking up and having a sip of whiskey before breakfast. I mean, it’s only been the last ten years or so that I developed a taste for bourbon, and the last three that I discovered single malt scotch. For me, one drink in the evening is enough.

But staying with Stephen Stiebel outside Chapel Hill, NC last weekend, I decided it was the right time and place to end this oversight. Stephen is one of the most interesting people I’ve met in the ten years or so I’ve been meeting interesting people in the contra dance world playing with the Contrarians. I realize that some of the other very interesting people, like Warren Doyle, who has hiked the length of the Appalachian Trail more than any other living human; Penelope Weinberger, who has a life sized sculpture of a skeletal “burning man” attached to a propane tank for night time entertainment in her backyard and goes to the Burning Man festival every year; David Wiley, who I think of as “the unofficial mayor of Jonesborough, TN”, a tireless producer and promoter of contradance events in and around Jonesborough; or Harriet Bugel, who has combined her talents as a caterer and love of contra dance to develop a business providing meals and snacks at contra dance weekends might feel slighted, but hey, for all the wonderful things they do, they don’t make really good bourbon like Stephen does. He also built a house a few years ago with a kitchen/living room area big enough for 40 people to contra dance in, and has house concerts and dances there regularly. He runs a successful business building custom windows and doors.

But, did I say he makes really good homemade bourbon? As in, he has a still? It’s all legal. He doesn’t sell it. Mostly he shares it with friends. Contra dancers aren’t known for their heavy drinking, but I saw a few bottles get pretty badly dented the night of the Contrarians house concert and dance. So, here’s to Stephen: may he long enjoy good health, great friends, wonderful music, excellent contra dancing, and an occasional glass of whiskey before breakfast!

Progressives must sometimes vote for the less worse choice

Progressive Democrats like me are disappointed in many of Joe Manchin’s (running for US Senate, WV) positions, but I will be voting for Joe and working to convince him to vote the right way once he’s in the Senate. The nation can’t afford to lose a Democratic seat to another extremist Tea Party supported corporate lackey who will work to turn back the clock on every program Democrats have supported since FDR. We had our chance to have our voices heard in the primary by voting for Ken Hechler, who got 17%, a respectable minority in a right leaning state. But in the general election, every vote is needed on the Democratic side. Don’t do to the nation what voters in Florida did by voting for Nader in 2000. It could have been Gore instead of Bush but for a few thousand votes. A vote for the Mountain Party is not a vote in this election. Support Joe, but send him a letter stating your positions.  Joe may not vote our way on some issues, but Raese will not vote our way on anything. Democrats across the country have to stand together to hold back a tidal wave of backward thinking. Vote.

Republicans Pledge to the Wealthy

Republicans Make Pledge to the Wealthy

The “Pledge to America” signed by Republican House members is a pledge of allegiance to wealthy people and big corporations. The Republican strategy for the last several elections has not changed. No matter what problem America faces their answer lies in lower taxes, less government, deregulation, military spending, a so-called restoration of traditional values. Running a surplus as we did in the Clinton years? Don’t pay down the debt, lower taxes instead. Running a deficit? Cut taxes. Out of a job? No health insurance? You’re on your own.

Cutting taxes is very popular among voters, and when lower and middle income earners get tax relief they spend the money, putting more money into the economy, helping everyone. But Republicans want to reward the wealthy, saying they are job creators. There’s evidence that tax cuts for upper income people get invested, go into second or third homes in far off places, or as has been revealed lately, support political campaigns and lobbyists. Obama wants to continue the Bush era tax cuts for everyone’s earnings up to $200,000 ($250,000 for families). The Republicans pledge to preserve tax cuts for the wealthy, adding trillions of dollars to the deficit over the next ten years.

Republicans pledge smaller government. Here’s what they mean: less help for schools, less regulation of industry, cutting spending on bridges and roads, medical research, and ending seeding innovation in alternative energy. However, they pledge more military spending, more missiles and weapons systems. And they don’t say how they’ll pay for them.

Republicans pledge deregulation. This means letting businesses operate without regard to safety, workers rights, environmental damage, and fraud. Think oil spills, toxic waste dumps, pollution, Enron, toxic assets, coal mine disasters, Bernie Madoff, AIG. We need effective government to protect us from unscrupulous corporations and financial hijinks, and why shouldn’t the wealthy help pay for that?

Republicans want to turn back the clock on cultural shifts of the modern world. Some of their more extreme members and Tea Party favorites claim our founding documents are based on Biblical teachings and did not intend to separate church and state. Amazingly, they haven’t suggested reinstituting slavery or taking back the vote from women or non-property owners despite their pledge to make sure every law has a “constitutional basis”. They want to “defend marriage,” from all the gay people who are so immoral that they no longer seek multiple partners but want to settle down and get married. They want to force women who face difficult choices about ending pregnancy for a variety of reasons from health to rape and incest to economic hardship to fulfill their Biblical role as child bearers.

And they want to repeal health care reform which has just begun to take effect by stopping insurance companies from dropping the insured, from denying coverage for preexisting conditions, and from having annual and lifetime coverage limits. Republican lawmakers want to stop people from being required to carry health insurance, which is required to spread the risk and cost. Instead Republicans want to give tax breaks for health savings accounts. That might work for their wealthy friends who have money to save. What happens when the savings account is emptied? Republican lawmakers fought hard to keep Americans from having access to affordable health care. They fought hard to try to stop reforms of Wall Street that will prevent future bailouts and crises such as caused this Great Recession, threw millions out of work, and caused them to lose their homes. They even fought against tax cuts and loans to small business! They are more interested in gaining seats in Congress than in solving America’s problems.

For many election cycles voters have been urged to ask themselves, “Are you better off today than you were in the last election?” In 2006 and 2008 Americans answered with a resounding, “NO!” giving Democrats the presidency and a comfortable majority in both houses of Congress. But eight years of fiscal irresponsibility, growing deficits due to irresponsible tax cuts and unfunded wars, and deregulation that brought the entire banking, investment, and insurance industries to the verge of total collapse left us in too deep a hole to climb out of in two years.

This year, as you go into the voting booth, ask yourself, “Can we afford to return to the same policies that got us into this mess?” It may not show in employment numbers, but the economy is on the road to recovery and has been slowly growing for over a year. Give Obama two more years with majorities in Congress to keep us on the right track. Elect Democrats to the U.S. House and Senate. If in 2012 you are not better off than you are today, then seek an alternative.

First Book for a First Grader

Writing an Alphabet Book: fast acting medicine for a first grader

Paul Epstein, co-director, Central West Virginia Writing Project

pepstein@access.k12.wv.us

In September of 2001 some terrible events took place that we will never forget.  But in the midst of those tragedies, I experienced something miraculous I will never forget.  For only the second time in my 15-year teaching career, I helped a child take the first steps toward reading (Epstein, 1992) I had taught many children to multiply and divide, to write with more detail, enthusiasm or organization, to read more critically or carefully, to appreciate history or science (or at least to appreciate what they had to do to pass), but in my years teaching 3^rd-6^th grade I never had the experience so many primary teachers have had: watching a child take the steps that would move them from a ‘make believe reader’ to a reader. 

Having moved from the intermediate classroom to a position as Title I Reading teacher, I was working one on one with a first grade student who was having difficulty.  If you have not been in an elementary school for many years, you may wonder how a first grader can be having difficulty in the first months of first grade; after all, don’t kids learn to read during the first grade year?  Yes, and no.  These days, kindergarten is not only supposed to prepare students for reading, but send them to first grade already reading their alphabet, knowing the sounds most letters make individually and in combination (phonics), and recognizing several sight words, common words that are recognized instantaneously and may not follow phonics rules.  In first grade, they begin reading, writing, and spelling new words in predictable books from day one.

Jennifer entered first grade not able to identify all of her alphabet (could not identify 6 letters: b, d, g, j, k, u ), had very few letter/sound associations, and recognized only three sight words from the basic sight word list (I, it, in).  Her “reading” of leveled passages indicated that she could often guess at the meaning of words and phrases using picture clues and attending to patterns in language. In assessing her skill level, I found her to be verbal and active, and confirmed what her kindergarten teacher told me, “She likes to have things her own way” (Jennifer was not always compliant, and it frequently required all my skill and some negotiation to keep her engaged in activities).  As a newly certified reading specialist, I was interested in applying some of the techniques in which I’d been trained, but also to apply some “writing to read” strategies I’d been exposed to by kindergarten and first grade teachers working with the Central West Virginia Writing Project.

     Starting out, I knew I would have to work at the letter and word level, making sure that Jennifer could identify all the letters before she could begin to tackle some of the books written for emergent readers.  I decided to start by letting her choose from groups of pictures representing initial consonant sounds I copied from the appendices of Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction, 2^nd ed. (Bear,Templeton,). 

Though the pictures were designed to be sorted by students by initial consonant sound, I asked Jennifer to choose a picture from the eight or so representing the letter “B”. She looked carefully at the pictures, taking the sheet from me, and chose one showing a child’s bed.  I let her cut it out and we pasted it into a personalized Alphabet Book (a 3 hole pocket folder with a page for each letter).  I had already labeled the page with a capital and lower case “B”, and now asked her to write the word bed, making the sounds and supplying her with the letters, sometimes writing them to the side for her to copy.  For additional practice in letter and phonemic identification we went through a process I called “say it, spell it, sound it, blend it”, which sounded like this, “bed, bee-ee-dee, buh-eh-duh, beeeeed” all the while pointing at each letter. I had to hold her finger under each letter and insist she track with her eyes—she knew that her memory was more reliable when her eyes were shut or looking off into space, yet I wanted her to “read” the letters and the word rather than memorize.  Jennifer had to mimic me several times before she could accomplish this task.

Next, I asked her to “make up a short story about the bed.”  She needed little prompting to come up with a sentence she found very humorous, “I saw a ghost sleeping in my bed,” which with my assistance she wrote in the lines beneath.  Finally, we “read” the story together a couple times.  At the end of our first session, she picked up her folder (I told her it was a ‘book’ and she was the ‘author’), looked at me excitedly and asked, “Can I take my book back to my room and read it to my teacher?”  Though I knew reading these sentences would be a big jump for a student who as yet could not identify all her letters, I was also aware that in her classroom they would be plowing ahead with reading at a rate that would leave her far behind if she didn’t make extraordinary progress.  Her teacher reported that Jennifer was very proud of her book, and loved the opportunity to display it and read it to the other students (who often had to help her remember what she had written). This became the first book that Jennifer could read, and she proudly took it to class after each session to read to her classmates.

 In each 20-minute daily session for the first two weeks  Jennifer chose pictures for two or three letters, pasted them in the book, and wrote sentences to go with them. She was gaining control of her alphabet and making more and more letter/sound associations.  Since the stories she provided often contained words that she could not have begun to spell correctly, like ghost and elephant, Jennifer was exposed to a wide variety of phonetic structures, rather than only the very regular structures contained in the early stages of most phonics programs.  While I always asked her to attempt to supply a letter to match the sound she heard in the word she was trying to spell, I did not have her write the words using approximate or invented spelling, instead praising her for her effort and providing her with the standard spelling.  This led us into many discussions of how “silly and tricky” the English language is.

After only three weeks, Jennifer could identify all of her letters, had control of most of her consonant sounds, and began to understand the role of vowels in words.  As I moved Jennifer into the reading of leveled books and work with word sorts (Clay,1993, Gillet & Temple, 2000, Bear, et al., 1999), activities around which most of the training I received in remediation of reading difficulties revolved, I continued to work with her on writing in and reading from her journal in response to each book we read or to practice a spelling pattern.  Jennifer always looked forward to the part of the lesson when she had control of what was read and written—when she got to write the story.   The connection between writing and reading has never been clearer in my mind.  I can now say from experience that composition is a powerful tool in reading development for emergent readers.

note: Though Jennifer made great progress during her first grade year, she lagged far behind the others in both reading and math and teachers decided to give her another year in first grade.  At the end of her second year in first grade she is a confident reader and an expressive writer.  While not by any means at the top of her class, she has had a successful year and did not require intervention from a reading specialist.

caption: Jennifer didn’t want to use the picture from the book; she wanted to draw her own Easter egg, and she insisted it was “a” Easter egg, not “an” Easter egg.  With Jennifer, you had to pick your arguments carefully!  This was her story, after all.

Bibliography

Bear, D.R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F.  Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction, 2^nd ed. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1999.

Clay, M. An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement.  Portsmouth NH: Heinemann Education, 1993.

Epstein, Paul. Jerry: A Special Education Student Discovers Writing and Reading. Quarterly of the National Writing Project and the Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy; v14 n4 p8-12 Fall 1992.

Gillet, J.W. and Temple, C. Understanding Reading Problems: Assessment and Instruction, 5^th ed. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2000