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Portugal Day Two: Lisbon Street Art and Sunset Sail

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The main events for our first full day in Lisbon were a street art tour and a sunset sail. We got a fairly early start and ate breakfast at a place called the Paleio Café. Cole and I had peanut butter and banana on toast – a combination that would come up a couple of times on our trip and will probably make its way into the home breakfast rotation.  The café had an 80s vibe and, like a lot of the breakfast places we would visit, had a menu that was a little fancier than I think breakfast needs to be. I think a Waffle House could make a mint in Portugal.

From the cafe, it was a short walk to the meet up spot at Martim Moniz Square for the street art tour. While we were waiting for the others to arrive, there were a lot of flies at the square. Cole remarked, “this must be what it’s like to be dead!”

Vera giving us an education on Lisbon street art.

Our guide was Vera, a street artist from Belgium and her dog (whose name I forget). She had a particular interest in feminist themes in and about the art. The tour would take us through the Alfama and Mouraria neighborhoods of Lisbon.

The art raised interesting questions (as art does.) We saw some really captivating, unsanctioned art painted on walls that someone else owns. The good stuff is provocative and makes that part of Lisbon interesting. But it’s easily painted over by bad, lazy, and/or damaging graffiti. Who has the right to paint where? Who should decide? Vera said it was often times just municipal workers, hired to repaint walls that have been spray painted. They’ll simply fail to paint over the items they happen to like.

This is not what my neighborhood at home looks like.

Leaving the decision up to property owners is another solution. Certainly, that comports with my sense of property rights. But do we really want art left in the hands of those who can pass a certain financial threshold? (Or artists who won’t offend the sensibilities of those who can?)

The tour was great, but it ended up being about 3.5 hours and, like a book in need of an editor, probably would have been even better if it were more like 2 hours.

More cool art.

Immediately after the tour, we caught an Uber to the LX Factory in the Alcantara district.  It was an old textile complex that has been reworked into a commercial area with shops and restaurants. Mostly, we probably could have skipped this trip – given how much else we were doing that day – but the lunch was pretty good. We ate at a restaurant called “Beer’s.”  Given the name, what’s a guy to do but have a nice big mug of Sagres? On top of that, I had my first (but not last) bifana of the trip. It’s a staple in Portugal with a number of variations, but basically it’s a pork sandwich. Tasty and not complicated. I get tired of restaurants with overly complicated hamburgers and whatnot, so that was perfect for me.

In the LX Factory complex there was a good sized book store where we spent some time, but the titles were all in Portuguese, so those didn’t have a ton of appeal for us. It had a really great record section, focused on jazz. (So of course, I found myself mostly flipping through the Blues section!) That section had a strict “no pictures” rule for some reason.

I did not take pictures at the LX Factory, so here is more street art.

Beyond the record store and the restaurant, the other stores didn’t really have a lot that jumped out to us; so, we decided to catch another Uber back home. (Logistically, it would have made some sense to stay in the area because our next activity was not too far away, but we were pretty gassed.) The Ubers are readily available and cheap. Given the company’s history, I’d guess they are hoping to erode the city’s transportation infrastructure and then jack up prices. But, right now getting around town was a breeze.

After resting up a bit, we headed back out to the River Tagus for a sunset river cruise. The Uber driver was following directions that got him almost to the port, but not quite and found himself at a dead end. He dropped us off and we were able to walk the rest of the way. The meet up was next to the “paddle club” which – I thought was going to have something to do with boats. But it was a bunch of pickleball courts. While killing time, Cole and I had a beer. Carlsberg was the only thing on tap. It’s not Portuguese, but not the worst fate in the world.

Everybody knows.

Our sailboat was “the Leonard Cohen” which tickled me quite a bit, particularly given the “Everybody Knows” lyric that “everybody knows the boat is leaking; everybody knows the captain lied.” Our hosts were Pedro & Pedro. We sat in the bow of the ship and felt like we got the better Pedro. Another part of the group was astern and we didn’t have much interaction with them. There was a lady from Utah who sat up front with us. She was pleasant but mostly didn’t seem inclined to interact much, so we let her be.

We’re on a boat.

The weather was fantastic. In fact, the weather was terrific for almost the entire trip – generally somewhere between 65 – 80 and sunny. We sailed from port, downstream toward the ocean – seeing, among other things, the Monument of the Discoveries, the 25 de Abril Bridge (formerly the Salazar bridge, but nobody much cares for the dictator after they gave him the boot), the Cristo-Rei monument, and Belem tower. Then the boat turned around and went upstream back past where we started and as far as the Praca do Comercio (giant plaza built after the 1755 earthquake.) Then we turned again and found a nice spot in the middle of the river to wait for the sunset.

Monument of the Discoveries as seen from the Tagus.

During all of this, there was fun music (we joked about it being “music white people like” and I correctly predicted that “Sweet Caroline” would be coming on eventually.) Pedro kept us supplied with vinho verde and sketchy Portuguese nautical facts. (He told us that the word for “tea” came from a Portuguese stamp “T.E.A.” placed on crates during the age of discovery; and that “port” and “starboard” came from the fact that, when heading south along side Africa during the age of discovery, sailors would have port to their left and stars to their right.) Also, and this was unexpectedly the coup de gras, we were given Bugles to snack on. Left to my own devices, I never would have asked for them, but they were exactly the right thing paired with sailing and vinho verde.

Sunset behind the 25 de Abril Bridge.

We capped off the night with dinner at a sushi restaurant called Izanagi just up the boardwalk from the dock. I can’t say that the food was memorable, but it wasn’t bad, and the river view was excellent. All-in-all, a successful day in Lisbon.

Dinner on the river.

The full series:

Portugal Day One: Travel to Lisbon

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If my sources are correct, the 24th wedding anniversary is the “shelter in place in an airport anniversary.” No? Well, that’s how we did it on our way to Portugal for a summer vacation this past July. Harper, Amy, and I went up to Chicago O’Hare on that Monday evening. Cole had headed to Europe a week earlier, going to visit a friend in Estonia. He would meet us in Lisbon.

Airport anniversary!

This was not our first trip to Portugal. Back in Spring 2021, we made our first trip there. That trip had been an offshoot of pre-COVID plans to go to Spain. There was a work conference in Porto that Amy was going to attend and then we had intended to head off to Spain for the rest of our trip. COVID postponed things, and then we ended up spending a week in Portugal – in Lisbon and to the north in Porto. We liked it so well, we decided that we wanted to return for a summer trip, explore Lisbon some more and then head to Lagos in the southern part of the country.

The weather heading up to Chicago for our flight was sunny and clear. If our flight had left maybe a half hour earlier, we would have been fine. But we didn’t, and storms were rolling in. We got to the airport and ate at the Macaroni Grill there. Amy and I did at least gesture toward our anniversary by leaving Harper with the bags at the gate and going to a bar and grabbing a couple of drinks. The bartender had already given Amy a heavy pour, noticed that the bottle was almost empty and probably gave her what amounted to two glasses of wine. Which, given airport prices, we might have broken even.

Flying with Harper

Shortly after that, the announcement came over the airport P.A. system that there was a tornado warning. We were directed to “shelter in place,” which amounted to moving away from the windows. Everyone was pretty calm and nonchalant about the whole thing. (Being good Midwesterners, we wanted to go to the windows to watch the weather, but we followed the rules.) One lady from Philadelphia said she had never been around a tornado. Later we heard that there had been tornados that touched down nearby. Wind gusts got up to 80 mph. The windows rattled and doors were left open to help equalize the pressure. It was a little surreal, but did not last too awfully long.

Between the late start and the extended taxiing due to built up airport traffic, we took off about 2 hours late. Harper slept like a rock, I slept some, and Amy said that it was a very different experience as between the two of us. I was tossing and turning while Harper was a lump of concrete. When I wasn’t sleeping, I spent an inordinate time playing “Angry Birds” on the airplane entertainment system. The poor woman in front of me – it never occurred to me that she could feel my poking at the screen. I hope she didn’t wait too long before asking me if I could stop.

Because of the late start, we missed our initial connection from Heathrow to Lisbon. They put us on the next one. Because of (I believe) Brexit, we had to go through security – but not customs or passport control – in Heathrow. Heathrow is an organizational cluster (more on that on the way back), but our reasonable layover time turned into some stress over whether we would make the connection. Ultimately, even with the delays and new flight, we arrived in Lisbon about 2.5 hours later than expected. Ultimately, it was about a 21.5 hour trip, door to door.
Cole was waiting. He had come that morning from Tallin, Estonia, through Munich, and then to Lisbon. It was good to see Cole after he had been abroad for a week. He hasn’t lived at home full time for a couple of years, but having your kid far away from your help adds a level of anxiety to parenting. He was fine, of course.

Lined up single file on the streets of Lisbon.

We got an Uber from the airport to the Airbnb which was a block or so away from the Lisbon Cathedral, dropped off our bags, and our first order of business was picking up some supplies. By supplies, I mean Super Bock and Pringles. I remembered Lisbon being hilly, but my memory just didn’t do it justice. It’s a little like mountain climbing any time you want to go somewhere.

Super Bock and Pringles ftw!

The Airbnb ended up being comfortable enough, but it wasn’t perfect. In particular the kids’ bathroom was an adventure. The toilet was wedged into a position behind the sink where you had to kind of sit at an angle to use it. The shower was such that, if you angled the shower head the wrong way, you were going to flood the bathroom and maybe the adjacent bedroom. And, there were roaches. What I’m trying to say is that the kids mostly used our bathroom.

Waiting on the stairs to get into the Tu e Eu.

For dinner, we went to a nearby restaurant that Amy had found called Tu e Eu 2. The restaurant was squirreled away in an alley and up some stairs. In fact, on the way there, we missed the alley and got there from the street above via an elevator that took us to level below which opened up on the outdoor stairway. The line was down the stairs, so we waited there. (We discovered it was cash only, so Cole and I quickly walked back to the apartment to pick up extra cash.)

It’s a small place with walls covered in graffiti from visitors and a healthy sound system playing. I had grilled sardines which had a great flavor, but somehow I couldn’t avoid getting a lot of bones that I had to pick out of my mouth. The staff gave us ginjinha to cap off the night. And then it was time for bed. I slept the sleep of the just, long and deep. I guess mostly skipping a night of sleep will do that!

 

Amy humoring me with a picture.

The kids humoring me with a picture

Fish and beer!

 

The full series:

Vote Harris

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I am not under any illusion that this will change any minds, but it seems worth saying. If you have not voted, you should vote, and you should vote for Kamala Harris to be President.

She’s Good Actually

First of all, you should vote for her because she seems like she’ll be a good President. Her campaign, put together in short order, has been well run. She is not Joe Biden, but she looks to be inclined to govern in a similar fashion as Biden. And he has been, in my opinion, the most capable President in the last 60 years. He pushed and passed two enormous, generational pieces of legislation: the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act along with some other significant legislation like CHIPS & Science and Bipartisan Infrastructure. His administration engineered a soft landing to the economy instead of what financial experts like Bloomberg and others insisted would definitely be a recession. Post-COVID inflation hit other countries harder and looks like it has been tamed. He united the world in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration has been the most pro-labor since LBJ and it has given teeth to Consumer Protection and anti-trust for the first time in a long time.

I also happen to be a supporter of reproductive rights which are a major campaign issue. Harris supports leaving those rights in the hands of individuals where they have been recognized for 50 years. The pro-Trump narrative is that these rights have been “returned to the states.” But this is a bullshit framing. Trump’s Supreme Court Justices stripped those rights away from individuals and placed them in the hands of state legislators. He and his supporters will go a step further and put such rights even further away from individuals, into the hands of federal government with a Congressional ban.

Also, even if you don’t like Democratic policies, she will be a normal Democrat doing normal Democrat things and will leave when she loses an election or terms out. Leaving when it was time to go used to be something we took for granted in our major party candidates, but not anymore. It is perhaps the most important commitment we require of an office holder. That leads me to:

Trump is Really Bad

Trump tried to overthrow our government when he lost the 2020 election. That is disqualifying. Period. It’s so bad that the Constitution prohibits such a person from holding federal office. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment says that no person may hold federal office if, having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution, has engaged in insurrection against the same. He plotted and arranged a violent attempt to prevent the elected President from taking office so that he could retain power.

That’s the part that makes voting against him a simple matter of preserving our Republic. But also, there is all the other stuff. I’ll quote David Frum who, in the course of suggesting that whatever the next horrible thing Trump did would not change the election dynamic asked sardonically:

“Do you think somebody possibly has video of Trump mocking the handicapped, demeaning US prisoners of war, boasting about sexually assaulting women, praising Vladimir Putin, or urging a violent attack on the US Capitol? That would be huge.

Confessing that he spied on underage girls undressing? Promising to release his tax returns, but never doing it? Reminiscing fondly about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein? Publicly fantasizing about “dating” his own daughter? Imagine if there were video of any of that.

Belittling the mother of a soldier who died in combat for the United States? Congratulating himself that for years he paid no income taxes to the United States? Exulting over swapping “love letters” with the dictator of North Korea? What if any of that was available to view?

Can you imagine if he denied the US citizenship of the first black president? Denounced an Indiana-born judge as untrustworthy because he was “Mexican”? Told a Jewish audience that they were uniquely shrewd with money and loyal only to Israel? What if that were on record?

What if Trump were proven to have paid hush money to a porn star – or to cheating people who enrolled in his scam university – or to defrauding banks who lent money to his company – or were fined half a billion dollars for a rip-off multilevel marketing scheme? Bombshells?

What if Trump raped a woman and then lied about it until he was hit with almost $90 million in damages? What if he stole ultra-secret government documents and shared them with foreign nationals? What if he offered the judge in that 2nd case an appointment as attorney general?”

And that’s not nearly all of it. But it all makes voting against him easy and the right thing to do.

Immigration

The boogeyman that Trump and Trump supporters seem to be rallying around to justify voting for him is that illegal immigration is out of control. With the recent Puerto Rico and Haitians-(here legally)-eating-dogs discourse, we saw that the illegal part of “illegal immigration” is just a fig leaf. The real objection is to people who aren’t Real Americans ™. What constitutes a Real American varies from Trump-supporter to Trump-supporter. Brown people seem to dominate the not-a-real-American landscape. But, one gets the sense that Democrats are also not Real Americans. In any event, when it comes to immigration, Trump torched a bipartisan immigration bill that would have addressed many of the problems. But he and his supporters don’t really want to fix problems, they want a scapegoat.

Even taking the immigration issue at face value, it’s a close question whether immigrants take more than they receive in terms of tax dollars. Even if they get fake social security numbers, like as not, they’ll have taxes withheld and not claim a refund. Not to mention sales tax. But even if you contend that the scales are tipped in favor of government services received versus taxes paid by immigrants who are in the country illegally, you can’t credibly say it’s a fiscal issue for you if you then support Trump’s “mass deportation” rhetoric because that will be hideously expensive to implement. And that’s before you get to the inevitable human rights abuses and due process violations.

Third Party Voting

Like it or not, voting for President is a binary choice. A third party will not win. In a binary system, voting for a third party or not voting is acquiescing to the greater evil. If you think the two major party candidates are equally good or equally bad, it doesn’t really matter — it’s fine to leave it up to people who have an opinion on the two because it makes no difference to you which of them is elected. In the more likely event that you believe one of the two is worse than the other and, in a perfect world, you would like some third party candidate. But we don’t live in a perfect world. That does not absolve us of a moral responsibility to act in a way that helps protect our friends and neighbors from the lesser evil.

 

My Endorsements for the 2024 West Lafayette School Board Election

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First four on the ballot; top four in our hearts; K.L.A.P. for West Lafayette Schools. Vote Koliantz, Lyle, Austin, and Purpura.

You get four votes. Use them all!

The West Lafayette School Board is a seven member board and has four of those seven positions up for election this year. (Of the four seats up for election, two current board members have decided not to run and the two others are running as incumbents for re-election.) All of the positions are “at-large” which means that, if you are a registered voter in the West Lafayette school district, you get four votes. There are six candidates running.

These candidates are the first four listed on the ballot. So, if you forget the names, just remember “Top Four and Get More!”

I would encourage any registered voters in the West Lafayette school district to vote for Amy Austin, Maria Koliantz, George Lyle, and David Purpura. Speaking broadly, I think these four have complementary skill sets, will be able to work together, and will be force-amplifiers for our teachers and our administration.

West Side is the best school system in Indiana and one of the best in the country, meaning that our administrators and teachers are doing a good job. That being the case, the school district will be well served by a board that supports the efforts and trusts the judgment of these professionals.

Amy Austin is an incumbent and is up for re-election. She is currently the board president and is doing a good job navigating the road blocks thrown up by a couple of obstruction-minded members of the board; allowing those members to have their say without unduly delaying and disrupting the business of the board. Hopefully as we elect new and better members, the need for that will diminish. Amy is willing to talk with anyone and has a level of empathy that is truly remarkable.

On top of that, she runs the administrative end of a family owned aerospace company. Being conversant with the federal grant bureaucracy gives her a leg up in navigating the complexities of school finance. More importantly, it lets her recognize that the school’s current CFO is even more conversant with school finance. She recognizes that, when the school hires competent professionals, the best thing the board can do is trust them to do their jobs.

Amy has also served as the legislative liaison for the school board and is acutely aware of the challenges faced by traditional public schools because of the nonsense coming out of the General Assembly. She is a voice for our school district at the state level. The experience Amy has gained over the previous four years will serve the school well if she is elected to another four year term.

Maria Koliantz is on the board of the West Lafayette Schools Education Foundation where I had the pleasure of working with her for several years. (The Foundation is a non-profit with a mission of supporting the schools by raising money, funding teacher’s grants, facilitating student scholarships, running the backpack program to help families struggling with food insecurity, and so forth.) I know from personal experience that Maria works well in a board setting.

Maria is in the construction management business, and I have been fascinated by her accounts of constructing these absolutely enormous chicken and egg facilities. Capital projects are a very important part of what school districts have to manage and having a board member with insight into such projects will be invaluable. Managing large budgets and coordinating with diverse groups of people will not be foreign to her.

In addition, when her kids were younger and the family was in Detroit, Maria was deeply involved with a parent group and then the education foundation for those schools. Her experiences with those organizations obviously informed the quality observations she made and questions she asked during Foundation board meetings. All of this would be a real asset for the West Lafayette school board.

George Lyle is a lawyer and IT security professional working at Purdue who also worked as a journalist for several years. Again, those are skill sets that are not easily duplicated by others on the board which will serve the board well. More than once, I have seen the board get tied up in half-baked notions of what Indiana law requires. While a board member should not serve as a board attorney, having a basic sense of the legal issues faced by the school board will be helpful to making those board meetings more efficient.

George has expressed a desire to “turn the temperature down” on the board, and he has the demeanor to do it. He also noted, as part of his inspiration in this campaign, a meeting where our superintendent, Dr. Greiner, let his frustration show just a little bit. Anyone who knows Dr. Greiner recognizes that he is a calm individual, not given to showy outbursts. This was an indication of how the unwarranted insinuations by a couple of the members – in this case having to do with the process for hiring a new high school principal –  was wearing on him. George is committed to managing the superintendent in a way that doesn’t undermine him when he is doing a good job.

I was fortunate to get to know George and his family on a personal level in the course of and after the 2022 school board campaign. The Lyles have very young children in the school system so they have insights into the elementary grades. As I can say from experience, memories of these younger grades tend to fade from view if you’re a parent with kids in high school and older. Consequently, he also has a vested interest in keeping the schools excellent for the long term. George’s commitment to our schools was demonstrated through his work with the group that organized the campaign to renew West Lafayette’s school referendum rate.

Finally, as an aging white guy, I am absolutely not the best voice for this, and I doubt George would ever make it a campaign point, but I think it’s worth noting that the board could benefit from the life experience of a Black person who might see aspects of our education system to which others without similar experiences might be oblivious.

David Purpura is a professor at Purdue with expertise in early childhood education. This is an area where West Side schools, good as they are, could use attention. He was also co-chair of the “Vote Yes for West Lafayette Schools” committee to renew the referendum rate.

As current President of the West Lafayette Park Board, he understands how to serve on a board and work with its other members. With experience managing an education research lab, he’s also knowledgeable about the types of bureaucracy that surrounds government funding and is comfortable managing large budgets. His experience speaks for itself and you can see his resume on his website, so I won’t spend a lot time talking David up; but he’s certainly qualified for the job.

Amy, Maria, George, and David would all be quality choices, and we’re lucky to have them running.

The other two candidates are Yue Yin and Beau Scott. I mostly want to focus on the reasons I’m voting for the four candidates above and don’t want to tear anyone down, so I’ll keep this part brief.

Dr. Yin is an incumbent and I don’t think she’s worked particularly well with the board. The most disappointing moment had to do with the selection of our current superintendent after Dr. Killion retired. It was apparent she wanted a different candidate and, when the rest of the board settled on Dr. Greiner, her supporters showed up to protest the selection, holding signs and generally tried to stop the process as she continued to level criticism at the selection process. Remembering that debacle, when the time came to hire a high school principal, teachers and those involved showed up en masse praising the process and urging a unanimous vote approving the hire. She disregarded their plea and voted “no” to the hire. Finally, she has thrown her lot in with Mumford whose monthly email blasts airing various grievances has degraded the atmosphere around the school board.

Beau seems like a good guy. He has a lot of charisma and a background in education. But I only get four votes, and I’m enthusiastic about the four candidates I’m endorsing. If I’m looking for reasons not to vote for him – other than the fact that I don’t get a fifth vote; I suppose it would be concerns about where he would land on the question of board leadership positions. His yard signs show up in the same yards as Dr. Yin’s. This, in turn, makes me worry that he’d vote Yin or Mumford into leadership positions on the board which, in turn, I worry would end up being detrimental to our superintendent, given that both of them were critical of the vote to hire him in the first place. But that’s speculation on my part, and Beau hasn’t said as much.

The perception that a college education doesn’t pay off is damaging

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Scott Feller, professor and president at Wabash College, has a good op-ed in the Lafayette Journal & Courier entitled “Look beyond headlines: college does matter.” As an initial matter, we’re damaged by the “if it bleeds, it leads” aspect of a lot of media coverage. He doesn’t put it quite that way, but media outlets tend to be focused on the edge cases. In the context of higher education, that means the most expensive colleges and the highest debt loads. The cost of a bachelor’s degree at a state college is going to be different than the cost of a graduate degree going through private colleges.

The perception that college doesn’t pay off in the labor market is damaging in multiple ways. The number of Indiana high school graduates going on to college has declined from 65% to 53% in the last 10 years. High school graduates without a college degree are estimated to incur a million-dollar loss in lifetime earnings. As Ball State economist Michael Hicks has researched, it also puts the state’s economic future at risk given that the majority of new jobs being created are going to college graduates.

And that’s just looking at the vocational aspects of college. Education adds value to life and to society in other, non-vocational ways as well. That drop from 65% to 53% is going to make a dent on the State’s future prospects.

The Candidate and the Crawfish Boil

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The backstory to this is that in the West Lafayette school community, there are tensions among members of the school board. These tensions have risen at election time over the past few years. One of the school board members decided to turn up the temperature by going to a Facebook group with a history of low grade malevolence and posting the names of the people who signed the petitions for the current slate of candidates.

Going further, she posted copies of the petition documents that contain the names, addresses, dates of birth, and signatures of the people signing those documents. It’s not clear what purpose this additional information served that was not already served by listing the names alone (if that was even necessary.) I’m not running but some people I like are. I signed the documents as did my kids and several neighbors.

I offered more serious commentary at last night’s school board meeting because this was a doxing of my kids and my neighbors and I felt I had to make a statement of some sort, not that I hold much hope that it will ultimately do much good. Some of that statement is reflected in Dave Bangert’s account of the meeting. But, shortly after it happened, I wrote this lighter response — if she thought this information was important to the public, surely a fuller account was called for – in the name of transparency.

Crawfish and Miller High Life

If you’re going to get doxed for signing a candidate petition, make sure it’s worthwhile.

Reader, come with me on a journey. A journey into the signing of a school board candidacy petition. This may sound trivial and … well, it is. But a school board member, our Community Voice really, has taken to the public, bravely posting names, addresses and, for a brief while, birth dates of children and neighbors. So here we are. The seemingly trivial must, despite its appearances, be fraught with signs and portents for the discerning reader. I will, therefore, tell my tale.

My journey begins in a sleepy little neighborhood in the Middle West where, at first glance, it seems that neighbors are just neighbors. But, as long-time readers know, the Community Voice has revealed that being a neighbor is a sign. Or a portent. Look, if I’m completely honest, I don’t know the difference between the two.

It was a beautiful June day. You know the kind: sunny, low of 60 in the morning, high of 81 in the afternoon, light wind out of the southwest, 50% humidity. I went for a run. Or maybe a “run.” I am not the strength (or speed) which, in old days, moved heaven and earth. But that which I am, I am. One equal temper of heroic hearts; made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. What I’m saying is that I took a three mile run, and it was slow.

As I’m trundling along like a slug in a salt mine, I get a text. An amazing text. A text that says, “Doug! We’re having a crawfish boil.” Do you know how many texts like that I’ve received in my life? I’m not a young man, but the answer is zero. Zero crawfish boil invites. Remember that part earlier about the Middle West?

Why was I getting this text now? Well, a neighbor who has not always lived in the Middle West was bringing a little home here to Indiana. And, as is known, neighbors in University Farm have sworn a blood oath to one another. Or maybe it was one of the shadowy machinations of the unsleeping operatives of The PAC ™ and its allies in the Pentavirate. Or maybe the people who live near me are friendly and thought I might enjoy participating in the festivities. Who’s to say?

Crawfish boil? What has this to do with the very important issue of school board candidate paperwork? Patience, Reader. Patience.

Returning home, I announced the news of a nearby crawfish boil to the family. Some may be surprised – I certainly was — that the prospect of standing around a table outside, cracking open bug-like crustaceans and slurping them out of their shells did not meet with universal acclaim. I was prepared to go alone.

Even if I was alone for a time, when my daughter – whose name and personal information has been bravely revealed by our Community Voice – got home, she would join me. There is not a sea creature in ocean, river, stream, or lake that’s so weird looking or off-putting that she wouldn’t give it a go. Also, my neighbors are pretty cool. So hanging out with them, alone or in a group, is not a chore. I resolved to go.

“But, Doug? Did you go to the crab boil empty handed? Because that would be bad. Not Midwestern at all.” No, Reader, I did not. I brought beer. And not just any beer. Miller High Life. The Champagne of Beers! Reader, perhaps you have forgotten about High Life. Sure, you remember Miller Lite and possibly even Miller Genuine Draft. Not to mention Budweiser and, before Kid Rock shot it with a gun for having a rainbow, Bud Light.

In this day and age, you probably are even familiar with the craft beers –the Brokerage New Kids’ on the Hop, the Peoples’ IPA formerly known as Mound Builder. Maybe even Mexican offerings like Corona, Dos Equis, or Tecate. If you’ve traveled to Portugal, you’re certainly familiar with Sagres and Super Bock.

Carlsberg, demonstrating a Danish discomfort with hyperbole and boasting, bills itself as *Probably* the best lager in the world. Kona Brewing has a fine variety of beers, “liquid Aloha,” as they say. But for some reason, I can never find their Fire Rock Pale Ale anymore. And … oh, right, Miller High Life. It’s the beer that you have mostly forgotten, and when you have some, you think, “this is not *too* bad. It’s o.k.!”

That was exactly the reaction I got when I brought the beer to the party. People were weirdly excited about it. It’s not that they thought it was a top tier beer. It’s not. It’s just that it doesn’t cost too much, it doesn’t taste terrible, and it’s a decent thing to drink on a hot summer day.

So that’s how I happened to find myself sitting out on the driveway in a lawn chair, gorged on crawfish, drinking cheap beer with a group of people when friend, neighbor, and outstanding school board member, Amy Austin happened to walk by on her way down the street to get a signature for her candidate petition. I eagerly volunteered to sign the petition and announced to the group, “this is Amy! She’s running for school board so you don’t have to, and she’s great at the job! You should vote for her and sign her petition!” Or words to that effect. I had had more than one Champagne of Beers by that point.

And, Reader, as our Community Voice has already revealed, several of us *did* put our names on that petition. Will this information help the community? Almost certainly not. But, signs and portents. Signs and portents.

The End.

School Matters on Indiana Diploma Overhaul

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Steve Hinnefeld has a well-written post, explaining some of the twists and turns in the State’s plans to overhaul high school diploma requirements. I have not dug in on the subject and have been a little confused by some of the information I’ve seen. Steve does a good job of not losing me in the weeds. The plan would dump the existing CORE 40 and Academic Honors diploma, replacing them with “Graduate Prepared to Succeed” (GPS) and GPS Plus diplomas.

Read the School Matters post, but the even shorter version seems to be that the plan seems to discourage college readiness in favor of vocational training and job-based learning. But, as to the latter, the infrastructure is not in place to emulate “the Swiss model” of vocational training and internships. For example, Indiana doesn’t have a lot in the way of employer-funded internships or transportation enabling young people to get to and from jobs. Our current pool of counselors is likely inadequate to keep students on track and connect them with those opportunities that are available.

Educational attainment is a key factor in individual success and overhaul economic health of the state. This plan seems like it would exacerbate Indiana’s already comparatively low college enrollment rates. “The consensus seems to be that the GPS diploma will lower academic standards to where students may not be admitted to college while the GPS Plus option will be so demanding that very few students will pursue it.”

Indiana’s attempt to take short cuts on education is costing us.

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Ball State economist, Michael Hicks, has a column about Democratic run areas of the country getting richer while Republican run areas are getting poorer. He notes that the U.S. is seeing its best economic performance in the last half century but the benefits are not being distributed uniformly. He doesn’t lay the blame on one party or another because some of the underlying reasons were a long time in the making. But he does underscore the significance of educational attainment in the dynamic.

It is difficult to lay the blame for worsening economic conditions at the feet of one party or the other. For the past 50 years, there was considerable overlap in state policies, so conservative Democratic states behaved a lot like more progressive Republican states in tax, education and economic development policy.

However, today there is a growing understanding that differences in economic outcomes are mostly connected to differences in educational attainment between places. Other factors, like tax rates, tax structure, regulatory environment or economic development policy, are of declining importance.

I would go even farther in concluding that differences in tax policies explain almost none of the differences in affluence or growth. That is a major departure from the start of my career a quarter-century ago, when tax differences were important. Today, differences in economic conditions are almost exclusively caused by the level of education of residents.

…

The 15 states that have seen the biggest relative drop in educational attainment are all solidly Republican states—and poor. Indiana ranks 10th on this list. The top 15 states are all solidly Democratic—and affluent. This gap will worsen as states with a large share of well-educated adults are attracting more, while states with a shortage are losing them.

In light of the declining prosperity associated with declining educational attainment, it seems like an appropriate time to quote the father of Indiana’s system of public education, Caleb Mills: “There is but one way to secure good schools, and that is to pay for them.”
Indiana’s attempt to take a short cut through privatization has not worked. If you look at the most effective educational systems around the world, none of them do it with vouchers or charters. There’s no good reason – especially after experimenting here for 20+ years – to think it will work in Indiana.
The First Rule of Holes is that, when you find yourself in one, stop digging. And, as the man said, “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today.” It’s time for the State to stop trying to privatize schools and start investing in our public school system.

“The Trades,” Education, and Patriarchy

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Sorry about the title. This post isn’t going to live up to it. A friend of mine made an observation about education discourse that prompted a few thoughts I wanted to jot down. In recent years, there has been a fair amount of discourse talking up “the trades”* as a good alternative to college. The tone of the discourse often has at least the undercurrent of college being an inferior choice.

(*As I understand it, “the trades” refers to a job that requires some amount of skilled manual labor. But there’s probably an additional component because I’m not confident that all skilled manual labor is what people mean when they use the term. But, in any case, plumber, electrician, carpenter, and welder are examples.)

This isn’t an inherently bad take. College isn’t for everyone, it’s expensive, trade work can be lucrative, and it’s valuable work in its own right. On any number of occasions, I’ve mentioned the “No Time to Lose” report from the National Conference of State Legislatures on building a world class educational system. One of the features of such systems is a path for career and technical education. Singapore and Switzerland are cited as places with strong CTE programs.

But the Discourse isn’t really about that. With respect to one exchange where the opinion-haver said that we do a poor job of educating kids with “exceptional spatial abilities” and need programs for “those who think with their hands,” my friend observed that the solution for such kids was always focused on things like shop class and never art class or home economics.

Being a man and not especially well attuned to feminist thought, that blind spot had not stood out to me. But, now that she mentions it, of course this whole discussion has a strongly gendered component. It’s of a piece with what Real Men do and don’t do. “Real Men shower after work, not before.” Eggheads aren’t manly. Everything must be gendered and, it goes without saying, the masculine must be valued more than the feminine.

The people who say that all work has (or should have) dignity and the trades are valuable are, of course, correct. But, when the commentary goes beyond that and sneers at other kinds of work, something else is going on. Look at what kinds of work they are devaluing in the process to determine what the subtext is. And, as often as not, it seems as if there’s an effort to prioritize a certain kind of masculinity.

Carmel Clay wins “Dollar Law” case filed by Valor charter school

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The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of Carmel Clay Schools and against Valor charter schools (also known as “Indiana Classical Schools.”) As we’ve discussed before, the “dollar law” is a law that requires local public schools to give buildings away to state charter schools, even if local taxpayers (rather than taxpayers statewide) funded construction of the public school building.

This one is tough to read because the General Assembly has made such a rat’s nest out of the Dollar Law’s legislative history – amending it year after year. The Court dutifully went through all of the changes. But, basically, Carmel Clay never triggered the Dollar Law. In 2018, when it made the decision to close the elementary school in question, the school corporation nevertheless continued to use the facility for classroom purposes for the next couple of years. When the building stopped being used for classes, it continued to be used for other school purposes — storage and the like. However, by the time classes moved out, the statute had been amended such that using the building for classroom purposes was no longer required to avoid triggering the Dollar Law. At that time – 2019, I think – the statute had been amended such that the building had to be vacant or abandoned before it was subject to the Dollar Law. (Fair warning, I have no idea how it reads right now; and the Court advised that the opinion was not analyzing the statutes as amended in 2023 and 2024.)

The Court dropped a footnote questioning whether the charter school had a private right of action under the law. (In other words, it seemed to cast some doubt on whether Valor could even bring this kind of suit directly or if it would be up to the State of Indiana to bring any enforcement actions.) However, neither party seems to have briefed the issue and the trial court didn’t decide anything about that question; so the Court didn’t answer the question.

And, I continue to question whether the law is in violation of a violation of Art. 10, §1 of the Indiana Constitution which provides requires the General Assembly provide a “uniform and equal rate of property assessment and taxation.” The reason higher local tax rates are permitted under this section is because additional local taxes pay for local benefits. See City of Richmond v. Scott, 48 Ind. 568, 572-73 (Ind. 1874) (determining that unequal rates of municipal taxation do not violate Art. 10, §1 because taxes for corporate purposes cannot be equal. The wants and necessities of towns and cities cannot be equal. Some require a higher and some a lower rate of taxation.) If the state is taking a locally financed building and using it to benefit the state generally, that rationale for unequal taxation evaporates.