Why this case is important and why I care:

Buried in the A section in last week's paper.

This case was supposed to be the showcase in the government's pursuit of bad charter operators. There are so many loopholes in charter operating law in PA that it's basically a license to steal if you are the "opportunistic" sort. The intent of this show trial was to nail her ass and bring all the other bad operators to the table for plea bargains. Hers was the biggest, most egregious instance of fraud. $6.3M of taxpayer funds channeled by falsified documents and shell companies into her own pocket. She created a sort of charter mafia, complete with dummy and puppet boards to do her bidding.

A string of cases was supposed to follow. Well, it didn't work out the way the US prosecutors hoped. They presented a clear line of forensic audits and established enough probably cause to convince 9 jurors of her guilt. Sorry, but it takes 12. Jury nullification along racial lines. But the government was undeterred and is seeking to retry the case. This is when this smooth operator supposedly began to develop dementia. Now 77 is an age where one is surely at risk for dementia, but I have to say that it was damned good timing.

The question I have Martha​, is that if she is declared incompetent, does she get to keep all the money? How much, if any, can the taxpayers of PA expect to get back? I've said it before, "Crazy like a fox."

After a long grassroots battle by parents to acquire a voice and find leadership not connected to her, the school's board of trustees hired as CEO, an insider, a man who was tried, but found innocent of fraud. I believe that educational leaders should be held to a higher standard, but I guess I was in the minority. I consider this a failure and a net loss of all I and some other "unaligned" parents worked so hard for. But my boy has moved on and so have I.

The school itself is an island of education excellence. My son did well there. He's moved on to another school and that is where our focus lies. Increasingly, I've learned that even a quality education looks like sausage. You don't want to see how it's made.

Your Superbowl Ad Sucked—A Public Service Announcement

 Ads have been called the artform of the 21st Century. They can be artful if not art and The Superbowl used to be the SB of ads too. They used to be funny, daring or visually stunning. "Did you see the one with..." or "How did they talk the client into ..." were standard postgame water cooler fare. They used to be a celebration of unbounded creativity, of the big dog let off the leash for one glorious run around the stadium.

Every year the bar would get higher and those of us in advertising and marketing awaited the Big Game Spots with the eagerness of kids at Christmas. There was always one ad with an incredible concept backed by stunning production values that blew everybody away. It was a point of pride that we could share with our civilian friends and family. We could point to the screen and say, see, this is what I'm talking about. This year we all got coal.

Clients, it seem have become more conservative and so have their agencies. In their effort not to offend, they've failed to entertain or innovate. Microsoft runs the same chirpy ads, the same-ish interchangeable jiggly blonde works it for Carl's Junior, the boldest moves were reserved for Budweiser who poked millennial beer snobs (so risky) and Nationwide who cheerily reminded us that death is an important part of life (insurance).

A PSA from creatives, for creatives, a reminder that in Superbowl 2015, the most exciting part of the game, was the game. So be it. Like they're saying in Seattle, there's always next year. And for those of us who've forgotten what shocking, funny and creative look like all bundled together, there's this little gem for a product most Americans will never see or use. But I'm tempted to sign on, just because their ad is so good. Isn't that the point?

Watch it, but maybe not with your boss looking over your shoulder.

Unlucky roll

Graphic NYT 1/5/15

After watching one of my best friends chopped down by intestinal cancer 17 months after diagnosis, I can vouch that it is truly a crap shoot. He got a really frickin' unlucky roll. There are 7 different mutations of his type of cancer and he got one of the most therapy-resistant ones. It wasn't the very worst mutation, but it sure was bad enough.

Make no mistake, we have world class cancer therapy and research here, mostly at the University of PA. My man did everything he should have done, sought out the most advanced experimental interventional radiology, exercised, researched, took an active role in his care, yet didn't even live out the stingy 2 year prognosis the original oncologists gave him. Cancer care pros like my wife talk about cancer care evolving as chronic disease management, but there was nothing chronic about this. This was as acute, random and brutal as the grim reaper gets. I now wonder if he would have had any less time or better quality of life, if instead of going through chemo, he just opted for palliative care at the end. Flip of the coin.

The internet is full of wonderful, hopeful breast cancer survivor stories. I know a handful of survivors. And I also knew two women who were dead months after their diagnoses. I knew another new mother who was told 18 years ago to make her final arrangements. She got to see her daughter's 15th birthday before she passed. Flip of the coin.

So, I liked the article "Cancer's Random Assault," but I'm amazed by the vitriol of the responses. People seem to need a cause/solution construct for everything. We anthropomorphize entropy--put a black hooded cloak on it and give it a scythe. We treat it like something or someone we can blame, fight or bargain with.
 

However complex the causalities, however deep the science goes in search of them, there is still an unseen, quantum aspect of life that you can't put a face on.  The numbers tell a story, but it's not a story about individuals, but about aggregate populations and statistical probability. In our vanity we are deeply uncomfortable "just being a number" but the truth is that sometimes we are just dots on a curve.

To my friends who are survivors, I salute you. Whatever hell you went through, you're still with us. You are lucky and we are lucky to still have you. To those who've passed and to those who grieve them; you did nothing wrong. Life and death are mostly like that. Just pure dumb random luck.

Cosby karma is a bitch

Karma is a bitch, they say. As early as the mid '80's I'd heard through the Temple production network that the studiously folksy Dr. Pudding Pop, though the most famous supporter of my alma mater, was a bitch to work with, that he treated crewpeople like dirt. Later, I recall one or two whispered allegations of sexual misconduct, but at the time, it was common to dismiss them as conservative dirt—the bigoted stereotyping of African American men as sex-crazed. The video crews’ reports I didn’t dismiss. I know these folks and if they said, with a sad shake of the head, that America's favorite TV dad is a raging asshole off-camera, then I believed them.

Flash forward 20 years and he becomes the darling of the conservative set for his "calling out" of black social values. I must admit that I listened with interest to one of his screeds until I came to the part of him slamming people with Africanized names. I said, whoa, hold the fort, Heathcliff, I know lots of good people with names like the ones he was insulting. Who is he to judge my friends or their children for something as personal as their names? Does his race or his success give him carte blanche to rail against people whose lives he doesn’t know?

Though I happen to agree with him about hip hop below groin level pants, guns, the social cost of having multiple children of multiple parentage and absent fathers, the name thing stopped me cold. I couldn’t listen anymore. And my opinion of the opinionator changed.The name thing revealed a lot of loathing, not even below the surface anymore.

So maybe the names are “made up” and so what? Five generations ago there weren’t any Cosbys or Bills in the village where Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable’s ancestors were kidnapped, chained and sold into slavery halfway around the world. The irony of Cosby’s Anglicized names and character’s names is too much, so “white,” but that’s even beside the point. A name, inherited or new to a family, even a made up name, misspelled or creatively spelled, is a point of pride. This is sacrosanct. Names are people. Names are identity and you don’t disparage identity unless you yourself are a bigot of the worst sort.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a black journalist must have felt the sting of Cosby’s blanket disapproval. Coates is a talented Atlantic staffer whose conversational but layered writing style is always a good, sometimes a great read. So it must be terribly hard to look back on your work and question your own failure to address the painful disillusion that comes from seeing your heroes fall. Coates writes with true humility while Cosby's Huxtable humility is mugged and method act superficial. Reading this article, my estimation of Coates rises inversely as my estimation of Cosby falls.

So many heroes fall today. Practically, to a man, they all seem to fall/fail. Is it in the meanness of our social nature to tear down what we once put on a pedestal or does fault lie in the meanness and triviality of the elevation of celebrity? Cosby presented a (superficially) easy icon to raise up and a painful and difficult one to tear down. But tear down we must. While 12 allegations are not the same as a conviction, they are damningly consistent and sordid almost beyond belief.

Talk shows are dropping like flies, NBC and Netflix have cancelled comeback projects, but his disgrace is worse than that. Mr. Cosby now lives under a terrible, poisoned shadow that will follow him for the rest of his days. His loss of face is both cruel and just. There is no comeback from this. For the women he apparently victimized, this will have to serve. It is an incomplete justice that condemns our culture of celebrity as much as it condemns the predators who feel their elite status grants special dispensation for misanthropy and misogyny. Cosby is perhaps both types of devil. Though the social judgement brought down upon him is horrible, he deserves no pity. He is a self-made man.

Midlife Coursing and Cognitive Dissonance

A West coast friend of many decades, (same age as me) skyped me yesterday and among our mutual ruminations about what the future holds for us, she advised me to identify and follow my passion. That’s easy, I told her. Lately my passion has been education reform and tonight, it paid off for our school.

"The SRC also voted to renew three schools' charters. Two - Planet Abacus and Laboratory Charter - are strong academic performers whose renewals had been held up because their founder, Dorothy June Brown, was on trial on federal fraud charges.

Brown was acquitted on six counts and will be retried on 54, but officials were satisfied that both schools had met several conditions, including severing ties to Brown."

3D or not to D

I saw “Gravity” in 3D on Saturday night with one of my BFFs, having just seen it the night before with my son. How that came about was my perfectly boneheaded move after a long day’s work, click-buying too fast without reading the small print, aided by some less than stellar user navigation by Moviefone.com, but Spencer and I found ourselves headed to the 2D version of Alfonso Cuarón’s space opera, “Gravity” on Friday instead of the 3D version we really wanted to see.

Once I realized that the tickets were non-refundable, we each made our own flavor of lemonade if you catch the drift. Spencer, who is prone to vertigo, thought the 2D version might be safer and I told myself that this would be the perfect acid test of whether the film was worth seeing twice, simply to resolve whether Real 3D is integral to the storyline or just a gimmick.

To be sure, the film is stunning in standard format 2D. We thoroughly enjoyed it. But by the end of my viewing, I had no doubt I needed to see it again to test the question. When I asked my 13 year old if he felt the same way, he said he did, but I could tell from the lack of commitment in his voice that he didn’t really share the same zeal I did.

Where’s the race?

Being-“white-ever” in Philadelphia—another take

Philadelphia Magazine, recently tweaked as the "urban magazine with suburban sensibilities" has an article that attempts to tell the untold story about race relations in Philadelphia. It's disappointing to say the least. The gist of the article is that blacks have so co-opted discussions about race that white people are afraid to say anything. I have something to say.

I think it has everything to do with where you live, how you live and how you were raised. I actually live in Fairmount where the author said he's spent time, so I've heard many of the same types of stories he relates. I don't find them shocking, because I've been hearing these "scary stories" all my life from people who usually seem to have an agenda for telling them. Here's a story that the author might find shocking. One of my neighbors, not much older than me, once told his teen daughter that if she ever brought a n**** into his house, he'd kill them both. The daughter sometimes uses the n-word in her conversations, but less so, particularly as her own daughter's best friend is mixed-race African American. Major shift, in only two generations.

Camera Test

My father, the photographer, has been dead for nearly four years. Nonetheless, since Dad loved nothing more than taking a new camera out for spin, inviting him to “come with” to field-test my newest purchase seemed a natural thing to do.

An Open Letter to my fellow Parents United at 4th

I regret that business obligations will keep me away from the SRC Meeting tomorrow. I’ve just gotten off the phone with Pierre, one of our parents and he’s promised to keep me informed when (and if) a decision happens tomorrow. I had signed up to speak at the November meeting, in which we all know the decision was canceled at the last minute, (literally). I know I'm not the only one who really can't take the suspense anymore.

I also never thought my message of the primacy of academic excellence was unique to me. But it seemed earlier this year that what we as parents desired had become confused by people who spoke for us in the absence of our own voices. Well, we have spoken up, clearly and with purpose about the reasons to preserve Lab Charter. Our Board of Trustees has heard us. The School Reform Commission and the Philadelphia School District have heard us.

Parents stepped up at SRC and Lab Charter Board Meetings. So when we were offered an opportunity to engage on a decision-making level, I submitted my resume.

I won’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed that another parent was chosen for the Board of Trustees position. But our board’s single most urgent task ahead is the preservation of the school’s unique academic culture without direction from the “Main Line” office. The Board recognized this when it formed a crucial educational subcommittee this month.

It chose its newest member well and wisely. Twanna Mae, as an educator AND a parent, was and is the best most logical choice. I guess I shouldn’t be amazed that she wasn’t even the only candidate with compelling education credentials. This month’s Board of Trustees meeting underscored what I always suspected, that parents in the know, teacher-parents in the know, seek out Laboratory Charter for the best education in the city.

Lab Charter is unique, not just among public schools, but among charter schools. There is a growing academic industry that is competing for public school dollars. There’s a lot of money being made out there and lots of debate as to whether large scale for-profit corporations put our children first and give parents a real stake in their education. There have also been plenty of scandals surrounding charter programs that promised much but deliver little.

Lab Charter always delivered and is now (hopefully) ending a painful period in which it was nearly destroyed by the profit motive of a few individuals. I’d hate to see it go through this now, only to be absorbed by another larger, for-profit corporation in the future. By staying small, independent and focused on the education of our children, Lab Charter may not be the only solution to the school crisis in this city, but it is one of the best ones. It works.

If I am asked to submit my resume again in June for board consideration, I will do this gladly. A few months make no difference in my willingness to serve such an effective and worthwhile leader in the future of our children's education.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to the students, teachers and parents of Laboratory Charter School. I and my family are blessed to be part of this community.

When All Around You Go Short, It Pays to Go Long

http://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/

Democrats vilify Republicans as arithmetically-impaired, fundamentalist Randian social Darwinists. Republicans cast Democrats as godless, spendthrift, entitlement-sucking socialists. The extremes of both parties flame each other with such withering intensity that moderates are incinerated in the crossfire.

Independents went to the dance, kissed both boys, listened to their promises, but are playing coy as to which one (if either) they'll go home with. There's a very impolite word for that kind of date. I'm not going to use it, but do keep it in mind.

Independents are angry that the conventions offered them so little specificity and exact detail to make up their minds. What are they expecting? Paul Ryan found out just how draconian specifics can be when the fact-checker zombies come back to feast on his flesh. So has President Obama when he extemporaneously gotcha'ed himself in the "you didn't build this" line. Unpinch your nostrils my rabbity independent friends and inhale the partisan air. It may stink a bit, but it won't kill you. It is in fact, the best we have to breathe. A short guide to full bodied respiration follows ...

Is anybody surprised to learn that presidents don't dig ditches?

Presidents don’t perform “the mission” any more than Barack Obama pulled the trigger on Osama bin Laden.  But presidents DO make big things happen. They say go and Seal Team Six went. They are executive change agents. They paint with broad brushes, create mandates, which they hand over to the legislative, judicial and military branches to execute the details. That’s their jobs, even after they are on the job. That’s our system.

On the campaign trail or the Oval Office, the president is Preacher One. That’s our process. Expecting anything else is like asking for Christ to climb on the cross for a repeat performance. Human history, not just American history, offers poor job security for messiahs. We need to grow up, stop expecting them and definitely, we need to stop throwing them under the bus as soon as we grow the least bit impatient with their progress. We need to start thinking more longterm and allow history, economics and law to unfold in their own time. If we keep making midcourse corrections to molify the "election-deciding independents," if we keep jerking the rudder every two years, we’ll get nowhere anybody wants to be. 

Which is exactly where we are now. And it's all thanks to you.