A Teacher's Answer to Marine's Letter in Response to Obama's Farewell Speech

NOTE: There is a letter floating around the Internet allegedly written by a Marine identified only as “J” who offers a scathing response to President Obama’s farewell address. In that letter, the Marine makes some disparaging comments about teachers and teachers’ unions. This is my answer.

Dear J,

Let me start by expressing my heartfelt thanks for your service to our country. I’m writing this letter as an answer to your own letter in response to President Obama’s farewell address. In it, you detailed your many criticisms of the president’s time in office. While my view on some of the points you made may differ from yours, my main issue concerns comments you made about teachers and teachers’ unions.

As a public school teacher and teachers’ union member, I’d like to clarify some things for you as well as share some thoughts about what my profession is like. First, you refer to teachers’ unions as “bloated.” I wonder what exactly makes you describe them that way because you don’t elaborate in your letter. If teachers’ unions advocate for teachers, who in turn advocate for their students, then at what point is that excessive?

You go on to assert that unions hire teachers. I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. In fact, I live in a “right-to-work” state, where freeloading workers can enjoy union benefits without having to contribute union dues. These unfair laws have significantly weakened unions without providing any measurable improvement to children’s education. On the contrary, studies have shown that students in states with strong teachers’ unions do better.

After accusing teachers’ unions of doing something they cannot legally do, you accuse them of doing something that makes absolutely no sense. After all, why in the world would anyone want to “hire teachers who can’t teach?” If that’s the case, then why do unions offer a myriad of professional development opportunities that help make good teachers great and great teachers even better? Not to mention all the stringent prerequisites to becoming a teacher in the first place!

As if your baseless claims weren’t bad enough, you then suggest that teachers “can’t be fired.” I assure you, teachers can most definitely be fired. Unions simply fight to make sure their members’ due process rights are respected. I’m sure you can appreciate this, since military personnel cannot be dishonorably discharged without a court martial. Everybody deserves a right to due process under the Constitution, J. Yes, even teachers.

But, you see, the problem isn’t even the question of whether teachers can be fired or not. Rather, the problem is people like you feeling like they can pass judgment on our profession, support policies that hurt us and by extension our students, and spread a false narrative that exacerbates the problem, just so they can turn around and use us as scapegoats. This, combined with unrealistic expectations, lack of support, and yes, poor pay, often creates a work environment with low morale and high turnover, so that very good teachers leave the profession out of frustration, and potentially great teachers refuse to enter it out of fear.

I don’t pretend to know anything about your profession, J. Please don’t presume to know about mine. Sure, you were in a classroom once upon a time as a student, but that’s like me saying I know your job because I watched “Full Metal Jacket.” Honestly, J, I don’t even know if you actually exist, considering that I only found your letter in click-bait, fake news, propaganda web sites. But I do know there are many misguided and misinformed people out there who think like you do. Hopefully, this letter will help them understand the teaching profession a little bit better.

All the Best,

Mr. Ramon Veunes

My Review of Obama's Presidency

When Barack Obama first ran for president, I did not support him. I wasn't very confident in the relatively young, well-spoken Illinois senator’s ability to lead due to his lack of experience, and I felt he needed to just “wait his turn” and defer to more seasoned candidates like Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Well, he didn’t wait, and he won the primary, and then the general election, in historic fashion. As the next four, and then eight years rolled along, there were many highs and lows. How many of each, of course, depends largely on who you ask. This is my own review of Obama’s presidency.

I’ll start with the issue that hits closest to home for me: the opening to Cuba. I definitely felt disappointed that President Obama engaged with the Cuban government without demanding much in return, most notably as it pertained to the promotion of human rights and democracy on the island. However, I recognize that the embargo has not achieved its intended purpose over the past 50+ years. And if this opening to Cuba results in more freedom and democracy for the Cuban people in the long run, I’ll estimate Obama’s actions to have been well worth it.

When it comes to the volatility in places like Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria, I honestly see President Obama’s predicament as having been stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. The problems in that region are part of a continuum that stretches very far back before Obama and may unfortunately continue well past his presidency. It’s hard to argue that as president, Obama didn’t make mistakes when dealing with the Middle East, but it’s also important to understand the context of just how difficult the situation there has been, especially after the U.S. invaded Iraq under George W. Bush. The truth is that, in spite of how events unfolded over there during Obama’s presidency, and even with all the rhetoric from many of his critics saying that he was “too weak,” few Americans would have likely supported any kind of serious military escalation after our experience with the long, drawn-out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finally, we come to the Affordable Care Act, or ACA (a.k.a. Obamacare), which was, by most accounts, President Obama’s signature domestic achievement. The battle over the ACA also marked a pivotal moment in the evolution of my political views in a decidedly more progressive direction. This turning point centered around seeing Obama putting his political neck on the line for the sake of passing a law designed to help more people have access to life-saving health care. But my political metamorphosis didn’t just result in me turning toward something; it also resulted in me turning against something else. As I saw the Republicans so vehemently opposing the ACA while offering absolutely no alternative whatsoever, I realized how starkly different my worldview was from theirs when it came to the role of government in our lives. Sure, they threw around platitudes about “freedom” and “choice.” But that led me to some significant questions: How much “freedom” can a person really enjoy when that person can’t afford health care? How much “choice” does a person really have when that person can’t get health care due to a “pre-existing condition?” I realized that the government’s responsibility to defend and protect our right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” involves the citizens being able to, first and foremost, be healthy. I also realized that, even though capitalism may be the best wealth-creating economic system in history, it is fundamentally immoral for a society to put profit over the well-being of its people. And finally, I realized that a healthy society involves its most fortunate citizens contributing so that the least fortunate can, at the very least, live a life of dignity.

On the whole, I believe President Obama did the best he could, specifically if you take into account both the very difficult challenges he faced when he took office, and the overwhelming circumstances he endured while in it. After all, not many presidents have stared down an economic crisis right from Inauguration Day on the scale that Obama did. The fact that double-digit unemployment, a collapsed real estate market, failing banks, a stock market losing more than half its value, and a bankrupt auto industry now seem almost distant memories for so many is a testament to how far we came under Obama’s leadership. Many deserve credit for helping us climb our way out of the Great Recession, but it would be unfair to deny the president his due for enacting policies that contributed to that recovery.

A review of the president would be incomplete without mentioning the decency, grace, and unpretentiousness that he and his family consistently demonstrated throughout their entire time in the White House. Aside from anyone’s politics, there is little denying that President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters Malia and Sasha, represented our country in a way that should make all Americans very proud.    

Although he ran a remarkably ethical and scandal-free administration, there were, undoubtedly, shortcomings for President Obama. Being the chief executive, Obama’s inability to work more closely with a very hostile Republican Congress is, in the end, one failure he must own. But with such a concerted and concentrated effort to undermine everything he attempted to do, it becomes harder to put it all on him, particularly when Obama had opponents who were determined not to work with him even when he proposed policies they favored. Regardless of how anyone may feel about Obama’s presidency, the bottom line is, any perceived failure or success by our leaders and representatives is our shared responsibility as citizens, and it is ultimately up to us, the American people, to hold our government accountable.

The Worst Voting Mistake I Ever Made

It was the year 2000, and the U.S. presidential election campaign was in full swing. As a young voter, I felt that the two major parties represented everything that was wrong with our political system: gridlock, corruption, erosion of individual liberty, and on and on and on… Of course, now, many years later, I still believe all those things! In fact, I feel the years since that fateful election have only exacerbated what’s bad about the way our government goes about its business. This feeling about political parties, as on point as it may be (after all, it's shared by none other than the top dog of the Founding Fathers himself, George Washington), nevertheless led me to the worst voting mistake I ever made: I voted for a third party candidate in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

Maybe I voted for Ralph Nader. It might have been Harry Browne. Perhaps it was someone else entirely. Maybe I wrote my own name in! I’m really not quite sure. At the time, I was simply so turned off by the two major parties that I couldn't bring myself to vote for either one of their candidates.

If there had been no choice other than the two major party candidates, I knew for sure I would have voted for Al Gore, the Democratic nominee. He was Bill Clinton’s vice president, and the country was just coming off what could be considered a successful two terms by Clinton. The economy had bounced back rather nicely from a recession that had started under the previous president's watch, which happened to be the father of George W. Bush, the Republican nominee. There seemed to be little reason not to support Clinton’s hand-picked successor. But damn those major parties, I thought! Oh, by the way… did I mention I was voting in Florida? Not exactly an insignificant bit of trivia, as I would soon come to learn!

Election Day 2000. Al Gore won the popular vote nationally. But the Electoral College vote, which is what actually determines who wins, came down to Florida. George W. Bush had a small lead in the state, small enough to trigger an automatic recount. Did I mention...? Oh yes. Yes I did. So there we were. Florida was at the center of an unresolved presidential election! It all dragged on with no end in sight. Recounts and more recounts. And then more recounts still! Overvotes. Undervotes. Hanging chads! Each recount seemed to chip away more and more at George W. Bush’s lead. But then the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, the recounts were suspended, and Bush was officially declared the winner.

I couldn’t help but feel guilty about all this. After all, I would have voted for Al Gore. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 might still have happened, but we would have almost surely avoided a largely pointless war in Iraq. We would have had a president addressing the climate change problem much earlier on. We might have even avoided the sequence of events that led us into the Great Recession.

But thanks in part to my stupid protest vote, Al Gore didn’t get elected. So what did I learn? Well, I didn’t learn that our political party system sucks, because I already knew that! But I did learn that when the system is as badly damaged as ours is, the only effective way to change it is in dramatic fashion, not through protest votes for candidates who have no chance of winning! Perhaps instead we need something like a Constitutional amendment that severely restricts the influence of political parties in our government. Until something like that happens, though, I vowed that I would never again vote for a third party candidate for president; I would always vote for one of the two major political party candidates. After all, I don't want to be indirectly responsible for helping to elect a president that is totally unfit to lead!

I Never Liked LeBron

As a Miami HEAT fan, reading the title of this post may strike many as just a classic case of sour grapes after LeBron’s decision to go back to Cleveland. I can understand that. However, a look at the big picture should put it all in perspective.

Back in 2010, when Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh announced that they were signing with the Miami HEAT, I was very happy. At that point, LeBron could go play in China for all I cared. You see, he always struck me as self-absorbed, self-centered, egotistical, entitled, and narcissistic.

But of course, we all know what happened next. Shortly after Wade and Bosh made their announcement, LeBron made his. Now don’t get me wrong. I never liked LeBron, but I was excited about the possibilities. After all, here were three of the best players in the NBA coming to play for my hometown team!

And when I read Dan Gilbert’s letter, ill-advised as it may have been, I actually understood what he meant. I saw LeBron’s behavior in the 2010 NBA Eastern Conference finals. I also felt that he quit on his team, even before I read the letter.  Because when you want all the glory when things go right but none of the blame when things go wrong, that’s what you do when adversity strikes: you quit! Still, he brought his “talents to South Beach” and that was good enough to not think about all that other stuff too much, especially when watching the Big 3 at their best. I was always aware that the Miami HEAT had put together something quite special, and I never took it for granted.

Fast-forward to 2014. The HEAT just got their asses handed to them by the Spurs in the NBA Finals. And as early as LeBron’s post-game interview, I can see that same detachment I saw in 2010. The dude’s already got one foot out the door, I thought.

And so on the morning of July 11, 2014, LeBron made his big announcement that he’s going back to Cleveland. And like so many others, I tuned into ESPN to watch the coverage. I went on SI.com to read his statement. I went on Twitter to gauge people’s reactions. And I started feeling quite bothered by it all. Not because LeBron left Miami. Sure, I would’ve preferred for him to stay with the HEAT than go anywhere else. What really bothered me was the narrative, which in turn fed into the national conversation. I saw LeBron’s Instagram post “I’m Coming Home” and kept hearing and reading things like “redemption” and “doing the right thing” and “the best possible story” and “making everything right” when people discussed LeBron’s return to Cleveland.

How could people be so naive, I thought? Is American society so empty and vapid that people will grab on to this overt display of cynical opportunism and call it a good thing? Does anybody really believe LeBron is “going home” because his “relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball”? Is this relationship so big that he would’ve left Miami to “inspire” Cleveland if the HEAT had just won their 3rd or 4th championship in a row? Does anybody really believe he would’ve gone to “give them hope” if the Cavaliers hadn’t spent the last four years stocking up on talented young players? If you believe any of those things, then you probably also believe that Dan Gilbert giving LeBron’s gang of cronies a lot more leeway than Micky Arison and Pat Riley ever did didn’t have anything to do with LeBron’s decision, either. And yet, of all the reasons for LeBron to go back, the opportunity for LeBron’s crew to basically run the show in Northeast Ohio is probably the biggest of them all. This has absolutely nothing to do with sentiment and emotion and everything to do with Machiavellian machinations.

The bottom line is, yes, LeBron is going back to Northeast Ohio, and that’s home to him. But to focus on that as some sort of feel-good story and simultaneously ignore what are probably the real motivating factors is the worst kind of ignorance: the willful kind! To see things the way they really are does not make one a cynic. The one who acts selfishly and opportunistically but pretends otherwise is the real cynic… and the ultimate hypocrite!

And that’s why I never liked LeBron!

Is Your Mobile Phone Company Ripping You Off?

How do telecommunications companies maximize their profit when it comes to customers’ data usage? Well, before I attempt to answer this question, let me preface everything by declaring up front that I’m not a tech wizard by any means. Like most people, I know my way around a computer and a smartphone for most basic uses and applications, but I’m at a loss when it comes to describing or explaining the intricacies of how this technology works. Having said that, I don’t think it takes expert knowledge to draw the conclusions I do in this post. As a matter of fact, some basic common sense along with an understanding of how our capitalist system works is more than enough. Let me start with the facts…

I am a Sprint customer. I currently own a Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone with a Sprint unlimited data plan. On a recent Saturday, I opened the YouTube app on my smartphone to watch a music video. At the time, I was connected to Sprint’s 4G LTE mobile network, rather than a Wi-Fi signal. When I clicked on the video, I got a message saying that the connection to the server was lost. I tried a number of troubleshooting steps (power cycle, soft reset, uninstall app updates, etc.), but nothing resolved the issue. I attempted to contact Sprint, but of course nobody was available outside of normal business hours (no 24-hour live customer service from Sprint). I then disconnected from the mobile network and connected to an available Wi-Fi signal. The YouTube video played without a problem on Wi-Fi. I went back to the mobile network, and the same error message appeared again. Hmmm…

Something else that has happened related to data usage is when I’ve moved from an area with 4G LTE coverage to one without it. At that point, my phone automatically connects to the much slower (and therefore less data-intensive) 3G network, if available. However, when I return to an area where I know there is 4G LTE coverage, the phone often remains on the 3G network instead of switching back to 4G LTE, which obviously keeps data usage lower.

It’s no secret that telecommunications companies want to charge their customers for data plans (unlimited and otherwise) while limiting traffic on the network as much as possible. Comcast, for example, admits to throttling Internet speeds when customers go above a certain amount of data per month (there’s much more to write about Comcast, but they will probably get a whole separate future blog post). Sprint encourages customers to connect to Wi-Fi whenever available rather than the company’s mobile network under the guise of prolonging the phone’s battery life. It may indeed be true that connecting to Wi-Fi prolongs a phone’s battery life, but that’s beside the greater point that Wi-Fi doesn’t cost Sprint anything while connecting to their mobile network does. Even the phones are designed to make it real easy to connect to Wi-Fi (swipe down>>>click “Wi-Fi” button… two steps) while making it significantly more difficult to connect to the mobile network (Apps>>>Settings>>>Network Connections>>>More networks>>>Mobile networks>>>Mobile data>>>click check box… seven steps). I’m probably the farthest thing from a conspiracy theorist, but these companies spend A LOT of money paying people to figure out ways to increase profit. So I don’t think I have to be sized for a tin foil hat for suggesting that these companies do the things described above ON PURPOSE!

What follows from all this? It appears that Sprint (and surely all other telecommunications companies as well) sometimes disables the network for data-intensive apps like YouTube in order to keep their customers from using too much data, even when these customers are paying for “unlimited” plans. These companies can do things like this on the weekends, not only because this is ostensibly the time when customers use their phones the most, especially for entertainment purposes (thereby using the most data), but also because tech support is not available to “solve” the connectivity issue. By the way, when I got back on YouTube later during the week, SURPRISE... the problem was gone! Of course, these companies can explain these problems away as isolated incidents that they had no control over.

It’s a shame that we live in a society where on the one hand, corporations could be getting away with such underhanded tactics just to increase profit, and on the other hand, most people are too ignorant or dependent on these companies’ products and services to do anything about it. For related news and information on this issue, visit stopthecap.com.

A Musician in the Middle of a Mess

There was a flyer circulated by an agent at Main Event Talent Agency (Main Event) related to a dispute with a World of Beer franchisee (WOB) over money owed to a number of bands that Main Event represents. I’m helping to disseminate it for at least two very important reasons. First, I play in two of the bands that are owed money, so in a way I’m suffering twice as much as anybody else! Second, I believe in fairness, and when a business does not honor its obligations, it should be known far and wide so that people can make an informed decision and take their business elsewhere if necessary.

It is for the second reason and fairness that I must also call a spade a spade. A large part of the blame for what has happened here lies directly with Main Event. As intermediary agent between the bands and the venue, it is Main Event’s responsibility to do their due diligence. This means that Main Event must ensure that the venues it deals with hold up their end. Main Event should also have a legally binding written business agreement (contract) with all parties involved, so that if anything like what’s currently happening goes on, it has the necessary evidence to seek damages in a court of law. My understanding is Main Event does not have such a contract with WOB, which would be a plain old bad business move.

Despite a number of invitations extended to Main Event’s agents over a period of many months, none of them has ever gone to see either of my two bands perform, not even once, even though they’re making money off our performances! So, if Main Event is hiring out bands that none of its agents has even seen live, how can anyone reasonably expect Main Event to have done its due diligence when establishing business with WOB? If they had done so, might not this whole situation have been avoided?

I don’t know where all this will end up. Hopefully, WOB will do the right thing and pay what it owes to all the bands. After all, they received valuable entertainment services which contributed to their sales. The honorable thing to do is to pay up promptly. As for Main Event, despite its normally successful track record, hopefully this experience will teach its agents to be more diligent. Oh, and while they’re at it, getting to know the product they’re selling a little bit better can’t hurt, either!

So, what can we the musicians, caught in the middle of this mess, do? After all, for us, dealing with sleazy and shady characters has been an occupational hazard for as long as music’s been around… and that’s just within a band itself! When it comes to venues, managers, agents, and all the other people who want a piece of the pie for bringing musicians and audiences together, well… we need to stand united and not provide our talents for the benefit of those who do not value it!

Memories of Grapeland Heights Park

Anytime someone celebrates The Way Things Were or declares that the past was somehow better than the present, they're usually dismissed as old-fashioned, out of touch, or some other term with a negative connotation. But, what about when The Way Things Were is actually preferable to The Way Things Are? I believe Grapeland Heights Park is a perfect example of this. Grapeland Heights Park had a significant part of it converted to a water park several years ago.

In many ways, Grapeland Heights Park was far superior to Grapeland Water Park.

• Grapeland Water Park is open only for a few months each year during the summer. Even then, it closes frequently when thunderstorms threaten. Grapeland Heights Park was open 7 days a week, 365 days a year, in any kind of weather.
• If a kid poops in any of the pools at Grapeland Water Park, the lifeguards are forced to evacuate everyone from the pool until it is properly sterilized (Who wants to go back in now?). Grapeland Heights Park did not have any pools, so you weren’t in danger of having a close encounter with Johnny’s log!
• Grapeland Water Park charges admission (2013 prices are $7 for kids ages 2-13; $12 for Miami-Dade County residents age 14+; and $15 for non-Miami-Dade County residents age 14+). Grapeland Heights Park was always free to everyone.
• Grapeland Water Park features artwork by Romero Britto. Grapeland Heights Park did not. Nuff said!
• Grapeland Water Park features a pool called Shipwreck Island, another pool called Pirate’s Plunge, and yet another pool called Captain’s Lagoon, along with a lazy river called Buccaneer River Ride. Oh, the variety... NOT! Grapeland Heights Park had baseball and softball fields, a football field (including goal posts!) that could also be used for soccer, a playground, tennis courts, a racquetball wall, basketball courts, and a recreation area with ping-pong tables. There was even a public library!
• Grapeland Water Park appeals to a very narrow age group, mostly children 12 and under. Grapeland Heights Park had something for all ages, whether you were a kid wanting to swing in the playground, a teen wanting to shoot hoops with friends, a middle age guy wanting to get his heart pumping playing tennis, or a senior citizen wanting to just go for a nice long walk.

Is my comparison between Grapeland Water Park and Grapeland Heights Park tinged with nostalgia? Maybe. I do have a lot of fun memories growing up and going to what was not just my neighborhood park, but one of the best parks around. When I saw construction under way to convert a large part of it to a water park, I knew that this was the end of yet another one of my childhood institutions, gone forever like so many other special places around the rapidly growing and changing City of Miami. And that did make me sad. Not so much because of nostalgia, but because I truly feel that Grapeland Heights Park was much better than Grapeland Water Park, and I think just about everybody who visited Grapeland Heights Park back in the day agrees!