Month: July 2025

One of the best scenes in the movie version of the musical Chicago is when John C. Reilly sings Mr Cellophane. His portrayal of the unseen Amos hit a chord in my heart and made me think of all the people in the world who feel as though nobody notices them. That song has been playing in my head of late as I consider the many folks trying to get our attention so that we might understand the difficulties of their lives. 

I have written about the hard working parents of many of the students that I have taught. They were quiet unassuming folk who never made waves or asked for any favors. They quietly and politely sent their children to school while they worked at low paying and demanding jobs. I always wondered if they were being adequately thanked for the tasks that they were willing to do out of love for their families. 

In particular I often wonder about the family members of one of my students who worked at night cleaning buildings while the rest of us were sleeping. They often held down day jobs as well with little free time to rest and just enjoy the fruits of their labors. Did they got kudos for doing a good job? Did anyone leave them a thank you note or remember them at Christmas time?

Each time I go to the Methodist Hospital facilities I marvel at the cleanliness of the place. I always hear compliments of the doctors and nurses which is as it should be, but what about that lady mopping the hallways, cleaning up vomit, changing the bed linens and making everything sanitary and picture perfect. Does anyone ever stop in the hallway to thank such people for making the place so nice? 

A couple of years back a woman came into my husband’s hospital room. She was as quiet as a mouse as she cleaned the toilet, mopped the floors, tidied things up. I actually startled her when I thanked her profusely for her hard work. I told her how much it meant to me and my husband to be so well cared for by her. She smiled and became quite animated. She noticed the comfortable shoes that I was wearing and asked what kind they were and where I had found them. I showed her how to procure them online. She was excited when I told her that I have trouble with my feet but wear them all day with no problem. You would have thought we were old friends with all the smiles and laughter that ensued while she finished her tasks. She left the room almost radiant and all that it took to get her there was for me to take note of her work.

As a teacher I was obviously not working to get rich. My treasure came in knowing that I had sparked a moment of discovery in a student or helped someone to feel good about himself. The job itself was the reward but in those moments when a principal or colleague or parent or student acknowledged my impact that I felt the greatest joy. 

We humans get busy and take each other for granted when it does not take that much to let people know that we do indeed see them and what they are doing. It takes only a matter of seconds to smile at others, say thank you, hold open a door, compliment their actions or even their appearance. The person who thinks to do such things lets those around him/her know that they are important. 

Of course we want to tell that nurse how much we appreciate her. We should let the doctor who healed us know that he is now one of our heroes. We should exert the same effort in showing gratitude for the person who helps us find where the ketchup is stored in a crowed store. We should make it a point to really see the people around us and to let them know how much we appreciate them. 

This past school year I tutored a young student in math all year long. He was a shy young man who only reluctantly came out of his shell. I learned that he had been bullied at school the year before and the experience had traumatized him to the point of affecting his performance in his classes. When I first met him he was reluctant to answer questions lest he be wrong. His anxiety was palatable and I realized that more than anything he needed to believe in himself and his worth as a person. We did a lot of math but even more rebuilding of his confidence. By the end of the year he was laughing and smiling and had become whole again. The work of helping him to believe in himself was not mine alone but a whole team of wonderful people who understood the human need for acknowledgment. 

Find a way each day to make sure that the Amoses of the world do not feel like cellophane. Do your part in making someone’s day brighter. It will not only help them but you will feel better as well. 

I have had the good fortune of being loved and cherished by the people in my life. Only one of my teachers was cruel and somehow even in my shyness and tendency to forgive people for their ugliness, I was able to see that she was broken. Because I grew up without physical or mental abuse I evolved into a confident woman who understood both her strengths and weaknesses. Nobody tore me down as a child or as an adult.

I met a kind man who whose mother and grandmother taught him how to love and cherish people. He understands that real male strength lies not in dominating others but in striving to understand and support them. He is a good man who became a great father for our two girls. He taught them how to honor themselves and encouraged them to be independent and courageous. 

In my profession as an educator I all too often encountered children being tortured by parents determined to mold them with punishments and insults designed to make them comply. Cruelty is all too often used as a cudgel to keep children towing the line. While physical abuse is always tragic, sometimes the mental abuse is even more damaging. 

I vividly recall a family conference with a young man and his parents that ultimately broke my heart. He was shy and unsure of himself even though he was extremely bright and creative. His father made it very clear in the discussion that he viewed his son as a “weirdo.” He complained that his son spent too much time locked in his room. Furthermore he believed that his son’s behavior was a sign of grave weakness and a lack of strong masculinity. He almost sneered as he addressed his indictment to the son who was hiding behind a mop of hair hanging over his eyes. 

I attempted to intervene as politely as possible, noting that the man’s son had become a leader in student government because of his ability to quietly listen to the needs of his classmates. I suggested that what the father was viewing as weakness was in fact an incredible ability to understand himself and the people around him. As I spoke the young man’s mother began to nod her head in agreement and at long last she came to the defense of her son by noting some remarkable qualities that he exhibited on a daily basis. She even suggested that her son was very much like herself. 

The father had become very quiet and I hoped that perhaps he was beginning to reconsider his estimation of his son. Instead he suddenly announced that he did not have time to discuss silliness any longer. Then he looked directly at his son and with a snarl announced, “By the way, I got rid of that damned dog that you brought into our house. I put him down today. He will be gone when you get home!” Then he stood up and walked out with a jubilant look on his face. He obviously believed that he had won a battle in a war that no doubt took place with even more horror inside the confines of their house. 

I felt gut punched in that moment. I had witnessed mental abuse at its worst. I would relate what had happened to the social worker in our school and I encouraged the student to be himself but I worried about what the ultimate effect of constant cruelty would have on him. It was something i had never known so even in that moment I doubt that I fully understood what being subjected to constant cruelty is like.

I have felt much like my student in the days, weeks and months since Donald Trump took office again. On a daily basis our president has done everything in his power to make those of us who disagree with him feel uncertain about who we are and what our future will be. He uses fear tactics to dominate us. We watch him being morally corrupt and getting by with it while we are trying to be fair and kind to our fellow humans. We watch him degrading innocents and seemingly enjoying the power of doing so. it is maddening and confusing because he is constantly messing with our minds. 

Whenever another person is devoted to gaslighting and manipulating others it can become difficult to carry on emotionally. His purpose is to beat us down just as the father of my student was doing. It is only in finding allies that we are able to see the truth and realize that we really are okay in spite of the attempts to portray us as somehow broken and even unAmerican. While we are determined to stay strong sometimes we literally have to shut down for a time, turn off his noise, pretend that he is not right outside our door chiding us for not being the automatons he wants us to be. When it sometimes seems as though nobody is calling him out for his outrageous behavior we now and again see heroes who clarify the existence of the cruelty that he is using to assuage his own weaknesses. 

I am at times overwhelmed with the ugliness that seems to have seeped into so many corners of our nation. I suppose that many groups of people look at me and want to remind me that feeling sidelined and demeaned is all that they have ever known. They are grateful for my support but tell me that I have come belatedly to the club that has always defined the uncertainty of their lives.

I know that I have been the fortunate one who must now find the fortitude to stand up to the immorality of it all even when the going gets tough. Together we must be the bulwark against the evil that Trump has made so commonplace. I know that I have an inner strength that came from the love and understanding that I have always known from the people around me. Now just as with that student of long ago who eventually overcame the cruelty if his father, I also must find the strength to push forward in saving our nation from a despot who wants to make us afraid.  

I grew from a child to an adult during an exciting time. The NASA space program was moving rapidly toward taking humans to the moon. President Johnson pushed through Civil Rights legislation that would upend the era of Jim Crow segregation. The women’s liberation movement was promising young women like me that I might be anything that that I wanted to be. Scientific research and discoveries were changing the world at a pace never before seen. We looked forward, not backward as we built safeguards like Medicare and Medicaid. Somehow the old rules of white male dominance seemed to be a thing of the past but if I had been a bit wiser I might have realized that not everyone was as excited about the changes as I was.

There have always been humans who envisioned a spherical world and those who insisted that the earth was flat. Even when we did successfully reach the moon and have photographs of our planet from space there would be people who thought that the whole thing was a hoax created in a Hollywood studio. Somehow there always seem to be skeptics who insist that pioneers in medicine and science belong in jail rather than in charge of our medical facilities and universities. They cannot envision the hard work and scientific methods that have pulled humans forward from the Dark Ages over time. 

Right now our government is being run by individuals more well versed in propaganda than scientific method. They question many of the advances that have led to longer healthier lives for humankind. Cancers that would have indicated a death sentence only a few years ago are now being treated successfully. Since World War II the United States has been at the forefront of scientific advancement and most of the work takes place in our world renowned universities. Sadly, the present administration is threatening much of the research that has been the mark of progress by removing funding for often frivolous reasons. 

I am very much a booster of forward progress. I am willing to pay more taxes to keep our discoveries coming. I remember children afflicted by polio. I saw my grandmother die of colon cancer in the most painful way. There was even a time when medications came without tamper proof packaging that led to a nationwide scare as Tylenol capsules were tainted with cyanide. 

So much that we now take for granted only came about because our government was willing to invest laws, time, and funding for important programs that moved us into the future. Of late we have become more and more attuned to the idea of reducing the taxes of even the wealthiest among us rather than attempting to pay for stronger better programs that we already know are providing better lives for most Americans. Somehow the fable of the tough individual who does not need the help of anyone else is very much alive and well even as it should be obvious that such a way of thinking might work for a few but rarely works for all. 

It saddens me to know that NASA’s budget has been cut to the lowest point since it came to be. All too often we think of space travel as a luxury that we might do without. We forget how much we have learned about our planet and others because of NASA. We don’t think about the many inventions that we use daily in our homes that came from the necessity of creating things that would work well in outer space. We have learned more about our geography and weather. We now use satellites for worldwide communication. The list goes on and on, reminding me of the old adage that sometimes we are pennywise and pound foolish when we randomly shut down some of the very best programs that help us all.

I find myself thinking of my favorite science teachers like Mrs. Colby and Father Bernard who opened my eyes to the possibilities of the world that scientific research creates. I remember the excitement that they forged in me by teaching me about the incredible inventiveness of humans and the power of our human brilliance. I find myself wondering what ideas will be overlooked if we continue to dismantle the genius of the past seventy five years. 

I wonder what will happen when we lose our best researchers to other nations because we destroy the programs that pay them to do their magic here. I worry that in our quest to cut this and cut that we will create a society that seems not to care whether or not we can all receive an adequate measure of care. How many cures will not be discovered? How many people will die because they do not have the means to pay for even minimal health services? Will people go hungry while the richest people in the world count their ever increasing piles of gold? Why have we decided that this is how we wish our nation to be? Why have we abandoned the progress that has defined our nation as one of the greatest places on earth?  Why are we moving backward rather than into the future? I simply do not understand. 

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” — Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt was a German philosopher and historian who eventually moved to America. She is most famous for her writings on the banality of evil. After witnessing the Nuremberg trials she noted that Adolf Eichmann, who was considered by some to be the architect of the Holocaust, was in fact a surprisingly ordinary man. She saw him as someone with little imagination who was intent on following orders no matter how immoral they might have seemed to be to most people. She wrote extensively on the lack of critical thinking that leads people to support toxic ideologies, noting that the majority of individuals who supported Adolf Hitler were generally devoid of the ability to analyze or assess situations to determine their rightness or wrongness.

As an educator I like to believe that I have influenced students to process information rather than blindly believing everything they hear or read. I have often warned them to research statements before standing behind them. I was taught by both my mother and my teachers to always take the time to analyze and evaluate ideas before following them wholeheartedly.

Firstly I want to get to truth which is often masked in propaganda. Then I need to know who is spreading information and what they may gain from having me follow them. Next I want to determine how certain beliefs will affect me and people that I may never meet. Only with much research will I be able to ascertain what should be the most appropriate way for me to either accept or deny the worth of what is being proclaimed. 

I am the first to admit that sometimes I fail to do my homework and all too quickly accept comments as facts without due diligence. Most of the time, however, I want to learn the truth and as such I do a great deal of reading and soul searching before arriving at a willingness to accept a particular way of thinking. I try to look at issues from many points of view, from an historical perspective and in how they conform to my moral code. Sometimes I find myself standing alone in defense of what I ultimately believe to be right. Often I advocate for groups being harmed even as there is no harm to myself. 

As a teacher and school administrator I learned that human nature is quite interesting. Some students and teachers thrive on rules and guidance. They prefer having clear cut instructions on how to always do things. They do not want a wide berth in determining how to proceed from one moment to the next. 

Others are inclined to sort out each situation individually, disliking the very notion of one size fitting all. They are not likely to automatically follow a leader or fall for trite ways of thinking. They are the folks who are always asking questions and demanding answers. 

I once worked in a school system that was filled with pithy sayings about learning and behavior. We were sent to conferences that flooded us with the beliefs of the leaders. Some of my colleagues followed with enthusiasm, some tended to just ignore the pressure to conform and others were loudly outspoken in their critiques. I remember a breathtaking moment when a brave woman ruined a presentation by questioning the school leader in front of everyone. I would learn over time that she was never one to follow orders blindly. She wanted to know why certain procedures had to be set in stone. Mostly she was the most morally grounded individual I have ever met. She was not someone who wanted to make trouble. Instead she insisted on knowing whether or not what she was being asked to do was actually good for the students or if it harmed them in some way. 

I have to say that I learned more from this woman than I ever taught her as I attempted to mentor her. She was steadfastly critical of canned thinking. She was as unlike Adolph Eichmann as anyone might ever be. She was unwilling to go with the popular flow. She had a code of goodness that never faltered. 

We are constantly being called upon these days to think critically before supporting particular points of view. It’s important that we do not become so banal in our lack of thinking that we become evil without even realizing it. If we are to have a political system that avoids the pitfalls and horror that have been perpetrated on humans throughout history we must take more time to ferret out the truth. That means that we cannot simply watch one news source or read the words of one person. We will only find truth when we are willing to consider that thinking in unison may actually be hiding evil and making us believe that those crying “wolf” are only trouble makers. The banality of evil is something that threatens us when we hear no evil, see no evil and do not take the time to determine who is actually speaking evil. It takes effort to go beyond just following orders, but the health of our nation and the world depends on all of us thinking critically. We have to actively make up our minds to choose good over evil. That will not happen without great care and thought.

When my grandmother was in her late eighties her beautiful blue eyes became cloudy from cataracts that she never bothered to remove. There was no Medicare back then and she and my grandfather lived on a rather small income, so I suppose she just learned to put up with diminished eyesight. Sadly it affected her ability to see when she was doing everyday tasks. We soon learned to be very careful when eating her food because sometimes things turned up in her dishes that were not supposed to be there. A stray bit of this and that found their way into what had before been her five star recipes. My mother showed me and my brothers how to be polite if we encountered something, but it made me sad to see her losing her sight. She was a culinary artist who also created incredible quilts, embroidered dainties and beautiful handmade dresses. Somehow all of that was lost for her in the last years of her life. 

My mother and her siblings never had cataracts but I knew that my chances of getting them might be affected by the fact that I seem to be quite genetically matched to my grandmother. Recently my doctor noted that I had cataracts forming on both eyes and before long one was ready to be removed. 

The process was incredibly quick under the steady hand of my ophthalmologist. It was the aftermath that required a bit more effort. I had to have four different kinds of drops put into my eye four times a day for a week. Then it tapered off until I was down to one medication once a week in the fourth week after the surgery. Additionally, I was not allowed to drive, bend over or pick up any objects heavier than ten pounds for at least two weeks. The doctor suggested that my best bet of a good recovery would be to spend my time reading and watching television. 

I certainly love to read and having an excuse to do so sounded wonderful, but I am also an energetic soul who was soon chomping at the bit to get back to my normal routines. It took a great deal of effort and patience on my part to just slow down and enjoy that fact that I would not be partially blind like my grandmother had been. I also had to learn how to chill and like it. 

I am admittedly concerned about the state of my nation, namely the United States, so I spent a great deal of time reading about the daily happenings. To say that it was depressing would be an understatement. I found myself uploading a great deal of anger as I learned more and more about the chaos that Donald Trump has inflicted on our nation. I began to worry if we will ever be able to stop his destruction and if we will be able to repair the damage he has done if and when his rule ever ends. 

I suspect that we are in for a season of hurt but there are also brave and patriotic souls risking their own safety by pushing back, launching legal actions and revealing truths. Among them is Stephen Colbert who has used his penchant for witty repartee to expose the weaknesses of our president. In the spirit of humorous individuals who have remarked on societies for all of human history, he found ways to unabashedly point out the crudity and hypocrisy of Trump and his minions. I have enjoyed his nightly monologues and admired both his brilliance and bravery. Accordingly I was quite sad to learn that his show will end soon and he will no longer be delighting us with his late night editorials. 

The bedrock of our freedom of speech has always been found in the wit and wisdom of authors, journalists and entertainers. Stephen Colbert is part of a long tradition of using humor to comment on society. Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, and George Carlin came before him and even in times past were not always given a wide berth to say whatever came to their minds. Nonetheless I had truly hoped that we had progressed enough that someone like Stephen Colbert would not be silenced out of fear of a president like Trump. Sadly, Donald Trump has shown over and over again how thin his skin is. He can’t take a joke or accept any kind of criticism. He hates Barack Obama because of a joke at a roast that made fun of him. He threatens over and over again to shut down people when they speak what is on their minds. He tells Republicans that he will come after them if they do not bow to his demands. He is an authoritarian whose playbook is filled with vengeance. 

I am incredibly disappointed with journalism and media today. Trump’s hold over what is said or published is unhealthy for our freedoms and our democracy. Whether he likes it or not we have the right to disagree openly with him. I would expect newspapers, media giants and individuals to stand up to him like Stephen Colbert has done. The temerity of our press and Republicans is frightening because if we do not all stand up for our rights, our nation is doomed. We cannot let this continue without protest and we should all know that. CBS can make whatever excuse they wish for ridding themselves of Stephen Colbert but we are not stupid. We understand what has really happened.

We’d better voice our disapproval now or regret our loss of freedoms in the future. This is how nations lose their moral compass and fall into an abyss of evil. History has shown us this time and again. Will we do what we can to make sure that it does not happen here or will we cower in fear while the country that we pass on to our children becomes forever changed.? Stephen Colbert showed us what to do. We cannot look away now.