Vincent news

Earlier this week Meemaw Nancy (Stephanie’s mother) and Grandma Mary stopped the Graceland Bob Evans where Vincent now works (inside of a Bob Evans restaurant pictured above) for lunch. They often stop at Bob Evans, but this time went to a different one so they could see their grandson/great-grandson. Vincent came out and gave them hugs and they got to chat for a little while. Stephanie also talked with him later: The job is hard but he likes the people. He says he’s been taking the laptop his father got from another family member and – since the restaurant has WiFi – been working on his on-line classes on break or after work when he waits to be picked up. Thursday Vincent said he also went from working at Bob Evans before, during, and after lunch to working on a moving job with his father. Perhaps Stephanie’s father will stop by some time.

-- Perry

Pre-Derby week news

Mom got the OK to start back to work late last week – getting medical permission for working at home – and worked through the weekend. While she worked she started getting dinner take-out and eating in her apartment instead of in the dining room. Mom has been exercising at the retirement center gym every day since her therapy wrapped up more than a week ago.

Mom has been limiting her driving, but did get out to a Tallahassee American Association of University Women annual social event – to which she invited some other friends – last week (over the weekend – besides the funeral and wedding in Ohio – she missed the state AAUW – an event she twice ran for an organization for which she served as Historian during the past year).

Friday Mom’s realtor met with the contractors. Another damaged wood spot outside was found, this one on the bank of the house. Mom has spent about $5,000 on fixing up the house. The realtor sounds close to taking pictures of the house and putting it on the market. I hope it hasn’t closed by late May, when I’m planning to visit – I’d like to see the house one more time and like to check out what the contractors did.

Although we visited Ohio this weekend, we didn’t get to see Vincent. He started his new job as a dishwasher at a Bob Evans near Graceland shopping center in north Columbus. He worked a few hours Saturday and then more hours Sunday. He had to be there at 8 a.m. Sunday and seemed tired Sunday afternoon. The only bus that goes near his apartment goes across Morse Road to near his restaurant, but it sounds like he’s gotten rides from his father or grandfather (who’s been staying at their one-bedroom with Vincent’s grandmother and their dog) so far. We offered him a ride home Saturday but he didn’t go for that. Apparently he may have opportunities for advance, but we’ll see if he sticks with it. It’s ironic because until very recently he associated Bob Evans with breakfast food and complained when we tried to go there.

If Vincent sticks with a job he may not have a week every month or two to visit us – as he’s been doing since he no longer had a job as of early January. And given what happened late Monday night to the people he hung out with while he was here last – including hanging out with them all night exactly a week before this – http://www.fox41.com/Global/story.asp?S=12362720 – we may not want him here either. Not the comments also.

Vincent has apparently tried out some of his on-line classes he signed up for and says some of them are easy. We’ll see if he can work on school and work simultaneously.

It remains to be seen what if any classroom space Stephanie will have available to her once her school takes in 100 or so new students over the summer.

I’m excited to have Oaks Day (the day after the Pegasus Parade before Derby – the Oaks is the all-fillies race that Rachel Alexandra won last year) sort of off. We’ll see if I can get the problems with my work laptop power cord/adaptor fixed before then (which would allow me to work home some that day) and whether I’ll still have a job exactly two weeks (14 days from Oaks Day) later.

Penny is busy preparing for a series of dance performances this weekend in Virginia, where she will receive an award.

-- Perry

Mid-week musings

Good news and bad news: Our church had been wavering on whether to go ahead with a Guatemala mission trip in July, with dwindling numbers on our end, and Tuesday we determined that we have 5-6 people going and we would go ahead and go. A surprise late addition was the Guatemalan American daughter of the man who was a guest pastor for us for six weeks several years ago (her first chance to go home in 3 ½ years). The bad news is that now I have to finish organizing the mission trip (which helps me avoid paying much).

Tuesday I also got my first speeding ticket in 10 years, and in a school zone (I don’t know how I missed that blinking light), which means I can’t just mail in a check and must also go to three-hour traffic school and be even more careful in the future. A fellow church member who is a lawyer contacted me via Facebook and phone and is going to try to help me get the court fee waived (and maybe get out of making an appearance).

On his birthday, Vincent commented on my Facebook page for the first time ever. He was slated to go to see the movie Kick Ass with his father for his birthday. (We celebrated his birthday this past Friday and then went to Thunder Over Louisville Saturday with him.) Vincent said he was slated to start his Bob Evans job later this week. I didn’t ask him about starting his classes (clearly he’d been on the computer) and he continued his hermit line which may mask that he’s bored and depressed and has got no non-family friends in Ohio (and for that matter doesn’t see his relatives on Stephanie or my sides of the family – he seems dead set on boycotting Corey’s wedding this Saturday). Stephanie wasn’t really able to reach him on his birthday.

One of my first assignments at the Presbyterian Center was to write a report for a Presbyterian Panel survey that I had not authored – about attitudes towards reparations. Later on I had gotten assigned a second Panel report – for which I had drafted a small part of the survey – which I’d never finished. More than a year ago I got the transfer/promotion that made me administrator of the Presbyterian Panel (random samples of Presbyterian church elders, other members, and ministers whom we send questionnaires about various topics four times a year), and yet I had not finished that report or any for the three or four surveys that I have worked on since becoming an administrator – something my managers were not happy about and was not good given the impending layoff date (May 14). This week final hard-copy versions of two Panel reports (the long delayed one and one for the first Panel survey I wrote entirely – the May 2009 survey on the Environment) came out and I distributed them. If I can just finish two more Panel reports before May 14 . . .

--Perry

Happy birthday, Vincent!

Today is Vincent’s 19th birthday, which we celebrated with him this past Friday night, when he was still in town. I wrote Thursday about Vincent’s school “progress.” Apparently Vincent’s father has lined up a job at a Bob Evans near Graceland shopping center in north Columbus. Vincent may start this week (even on his birthday?). By days of the week, a year ago today Vincent went to court and essentially escaped with a de facto year of probation, with nothing on his record, and his house arrest ended (and this week he completed the online high school he’s completed most recently). I have called the lawyer about getting his record expunged – after one year – and haven’t heard back.

Mother heard from her manager late last week that apparently there was some paperwork that needed to be completed for her to work at home, and he asked her to stop working because they needed to start with her doctor for that paperwork. Mom was just getting going on some work projects at home, and was sorry to have that cut short. She would also like to finish those by June (her putative retirement month) and is a little worried that she currently is eating up the rest of her vacation days (it’s not clear what to do with these stop-work days). Mom has kept busy, entertaining, going to programs at the retirement center, taking care of personal business, maintaining her medication regimen, getting used to her walker/rolator, meting more people at the center, and exercising at the gym (in the new, post-therapy era). She has also been in contact with the contractors working on her house, and the real estate agent we’re working with will do a walk-through of the house with them this Friday. She will take photos at that time that will appear on her company’s website. Apparently the house will go on the market soon. The real estate agent will stop by Mom later Friday to let her know how things are proceeding. I’m hoping Stephanie and I will be in Tallahassee later in May, and hopefully we can see the house – somewhat transformed – at that time, before it might be sold. Who knows?

This past Monday Stephanie wrapped up a three-week unit in her after-school Culture Club about Korea. I had stopped by the first week to talk about and show pictures and mementos of my 1995 visit with Penny and Serge there. Last week Stephanie had hoped Vincent would stop by to show the kids some Tae Kwon do moves (a Korean martial art), but that didn’t work out. Monday she brought radish kimchee and rice and bulkogi steak she had made, and they had a feast. She had done Korea a year ago in Culture Club, but they did not repeat any content this time, since she still has some kids from back then in Culture Club. Negotiation continues about where Stephanie’s school will put all of the teachers/students they will have next year. Eventually, they may need portable classrooms.

-- Perry

Vincent news

Vincent’s two classes had timed out. He can’t get his old work back. Vincent and I toyed with the idea of signing him up for the high school General Equivalency Diploma pre-tests. Vincent had been signed up for dual enrollment English and math classes, which cost us $100. The English class, which is required to graduate, he had almost finished. (Both of these classes he had taken before, at Brown.) Jefferson County High School did not kick him out of school. In fact, he signed up for FIVE classes: the dual-enrollment English class (again), a whole year of dual-enrollment computer class (for which he may need to buy Office for his father’s laptop computer), and two easier lifeskills and career development classes. Since he needs to take the second semester of the math class, I’m not sure he really needs all of these classes, but I decided not to argue with the school official. She still has to find his second-semester World Civilization, which she couldn’t find a record for. We’ll see if he does better at taking five classes than he did at taking two. It’s still not clear whether these time out in five months or one year. This cost us $150. It remains to be seen whether Vincent can make any more progress over the next five months than he did during the past five months (not any progress).

I told Vincent Stephanie would probably want us to take him out to dinner for his birthday on Friday evening or Sunday after church, which he seemed OK with him (probably Friday). He mentioned also the possibility of seeing a movie Friday, which I had wanted to do also. We’ll have to see how it will all fit in, since I must get ready for a worship service Saturday morning. He was threatening to go off with his friends today (on to Brown School vicinity after our JCHS visit) and during Thunder (I imagine he’ll start with us). He said he had a headache which he partly attributed to not smoking. He said he blew off a young woman with whom he had exchanged text messages during the past month.

-- Perry

Mid-April news

It’s been a newsy week. My Mom got the walker she wanted and got trained in its use. If she drives to church Sunday, she will try putting the walker – or rollator (10 pounds) – in her car for the first time ever. Mom will finish up occupational therapy and physical therapy early this week and transition to exercising at the retirement center’s gym and in her apartment. Mom also entertained two guests today in her apartment, something that she feels more comfortable as she has straightened up and arranged her apartment even more. Mom also decided against visiting Ohio in a couple of weeks, because of the difficulties she expects traveling. Mom has taxed many of the remaining vacation days she had left. She is trying to work as close to 40 hours a week as she can and make it till June, when she may retire. She also has projects she wants to finish or tie up.

Stephanie found out from her principal and colleagues that she knows three of the four new teachers who will be working at her school next year, along with the influx of 100 students coming in from other schools. The list was made public earlier this week. No teacher will be leaving Fairmont (not even one teacher who wanted to leave). Stephanie’s school district closed four elementary schools and moved all 5th graders to middle school, you’ll recall, but basically laid off no teachers. The day after this decision was formalized, Indiana’s governor, whose budget was blamed for some of the need to close schools, criticized the school district for not laying off teachers instead. If the economy and budgets continue in the same vein next year, layoffs may be in order then.

Vincent originally talked about coming to visit this time for more than the usual week, but later this week we learned he’s back to a week. We’ll pick him up Sunday evening, partly so we can go to a concert with the Australian hard rock group AC/DC which we were supposed to see this fall and go to the annual Thunder Over Louisville air show and fireworks display at the Louisville waterfront. We’ll find out Monday whether we’ll get to go with our dog and meet a colleague and her son and use the Presbyterian Center as a home base. We’ve got other things we’d like to do with Vincent – he’s said yes to going to counseling and no to showing Stephanie’s Culture Club Korean martial arts – and we’ll hope to celebrate his birthday – which he’ll leave just two days before – but we’ll see what happens. This week Vincent’s father told us that the two online high school/college dual enrollment classes Vincent was taking – that cost just $100 total – including one he hadn’t just about finished – have timed out after a year, and so he’ll have to start all over again (if they don’t kick him out of the school). I’ll mention the GED route while he’s here. Vincent’s father also said the illness he’s been suffering from has been getting worse.

News from our dog and our house. We’ve been thinking we’d get Frisco a haircut some time this winter as part of a scheme to get him doggie day care. But he foiled our last attempt in Ohio when he bit the would-be stylist. But it was hot here this week and he was wilting in the heat and so we went out of a way to get his hair cut Thursday – and he got some other medication too (Frisco as I arrived to pick him up pictured above). A visiting repairperson last month alerted us that our furnace was in dangerous shape. After a month or so the landlord and the repair people he works with persuaded themselves to go ahead and replace the furnace, and they did the majority of the work today. We went for a couple of chilly nights with no furnace but it never got cold enough (down to 65 degrees) to use the space heater.

-- Perry

Patrick in the Northeast this week

My friend Patrick Bond is over from South Africa giving several talks in the Northeast this week. Check them out if you're in Boston, NYC, or D.C. this week:


6 APRIL: CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, GRADUATE CENTER

CLIMATE POLITICS OR CARBON TRADING?
The Story of Cap and Trade

Film screening and discussion with Patrick Bond

The Story of Cap and Trade (http://www.storyofcapandtrade.org, featuring Annie Leonard), launched on December 1, 2009 and was seen 400,000 times before the end of the (failed) Copenhagen Climate Summit. The nine-minute film helped open a global and US debate about the core modus operandi for top-down climate governance: commodification of the air. Patrick Bond, an advisor to the film, will address social, spatial and temporal features of climate politics in an era of fading financialization but durable neoliberalism.

PATRICK BOND is senior professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies in Durban, South Africa, where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs. He has written or edited numerous books including Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society(2009); and Looting Africa (2006). He was a founding member of the Durban Group for Climate Justice and is active in Climate Justice Now!’s South Africa branch.

Moderated by ASHLEY DAWSON, Faculty Fellow, the Center for Place, Culture and Politics

April 6, 2010
Room C198 at 6:30 pm

THE CENTER FOR PLACE, CULTURE AND POLITICS * CUNY GRADUATE CENTER * 365 Fifth Avenue @ 34th Street

***

8 APRIL, CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

Patrick Bond speaks on Development, Environment and Social Struggle at Clark University, 8 April

10.25-11.30am: Development Policy class, Geog104: “RDP, GEAR and South African Development Policy”

12.00 noon “Carbon Trading: A Critique” and “Dennis Brutus: A Tribute”

3pm Worcester State College Dennis Brutus Memorial

***

9 APRIL, ENCUENTRO 5, BOSTON

http://www.justicewithpeace.org/node/1243

Patrick Bond on South Africa, the World Bank, and Climate Justice

When: Friday, April 9, 2010, 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Where: Encuentro 5 • 33 Harrison Ave, 5th Floor • Chinatown T Stop • Boston

Start: 2010 Apr 9 - 12:00pm

End: 2010 Apr 9 - 2:00pm

South Africa now has its 4th post-Apartheid president... But the country is more unequal than ever! It is also under consideration for a World Bank loan to “modernize” it ailing electrical power generation and distribution infrastructure. Revamping its grid would normally be a decisive opportunity to set a new course, redress inequalities and deveop a green strategy. But activist-intellectual Patrick Bond warns that the opposite seems likely with the Bank loan. It will strengthen the private sector and sharpen the gap between rich and poor: urban residents prepay their electricity at 4 times the rate of large transnational corporations. Further, the proposed loan will finance the world's 4th largest coal-fired plant and raise rates on working people.

On April 8, 2010, the World Bank will make its decision. Patrick Bond will reflect on the outcome.

Also invited to the conversation is Tufts University professor, William Moomaw who consulted with the World Bank and who is in support of the loan.

This Bank critic meets Bank supporter discussion allows for a reasoned engagement of ideas.

For Patrick Bond's biography, see: http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?10,24,8,55

For William Moomaw's biography, see: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/faculty/Moomaw/

See http://www.encuentro5.org for more directions. Also check website

***

10 APRIL, BUSBOYS&POETS, 5TH & K Sts, WASHINGTON

Social Movements; the World Bank and Energy Financing

Africa Action

With: Friends of the Earth- US, GroundWork, Institute for Policy Studies: Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies: Foreign Policy In Focus, Jubilee USA and Haymarket Books

This week, Thursday, April 8th, the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors will decided whether or not to lend a US$3.75 billion loan, the vast majority of which would be for the 4800 MW Medupi coal fired plant in South Africa.

Africa Action and coalition partners will be hosting a public education event Saturday, April 10th at Bus Boys and Poets (5th/K Streets, DC) at 6:00pm to learn more about the loan to Eskom and its affect on communities and the environment.

Who: Patrick Bond

Patrick Bond has longstanding research interests and applied work in global governance and national policy debates, in urban communities and with global justice movements in several countries. He is professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society. His research focuses on political economy, environment (energy, water and climate change), social policy and geopolitics, with publications covering South Africa, Zimbabwe, the African continent and global-scale processes.

Dave Zirin

Named of the UTNE Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World", Dave Zirin writes about the politics of sports for the Nation Magazine. He is their first sports writer in 150 years of existence. Zirin is also the host of Sirius XM Radio's popular weekly show, Edge of Sports Radio. He has been called "the best sportswriter in the United States," by Robert Lipsyte. Dave Zirin is, in addition, a columnist for SLAM Magazine, the Progressive, and a regular op-ed writer for the Los Angeles Times. He was Press Action's 2005 and 2006 Sportswriter of the year. He recently traveled to South Africa and he will share his experiences interacting with social movements and civil society.

And….

This discussion will include other coalition partners involved in the No Coal Loan Campaign

Where: Bus Boys and Poets, 5th and K Streets (1025 5th Street NW, DC)

When: Saturday, April 10th at 6:00pm

For more information on the loan, please visit

http://www.africaaction.org/no-coal-loan.html

Be sure to read our new resources, including a response to World Bank-Eskom Panel Report and Fact Sheet, the coalition statement, and Letter to World Bank Executive Director

RSVP to outreach@africaaction.org for updates before coming to the event.


Also check out this video clip from the Colbert show with Patrick's friend Annie Leonard (scroll down): http://www.storyofstuff.org/

- Perry