About the Public Pool and E.Pee

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     Lately, with the high temperature topping 100 daily, many people know the place to be is the Eagle Pass public swimming pool. An outstanding facility to begin with, recent improvements have helped keep this place hopping through the summer – well, for at least two months of the summer.
     With ideal swimming weather here from at least May through September, it seems like they could find a way to have the public pool open for more than just half of June, all of July and half of August. I know the lifeguards go back to college and so on, and more excuses, and so on. It’s just too nice of a place to waste for almost 10 months of the year.
     The public pool hours also have always puzzled me. Why do they have to wait until 4 p.m. to open? I guess partly because so many Eagle Passans won’t get out during the hottest part of the day. I even hear this phrase sometimes: “It’s too hot to go swimming.”
     How can that be? To me it’s like being out in freezing weather and saying, “It’s too cold to stand by the fire.” If you’re cold, you find a way to get warm, and if you’re hot, you find a way to cool off. I don’t think it can ever be too hot to splash into a nice cool pool.
     I’ve never heard any discussion about extending the pool hours, or ever known why those hours were set that way to begin with. I assume everyone except me pretty much agrees with the way it’s being done. I might agree, too, if I knew the explanation.
     Attendance at the pool would probably double (and maybe it could stay open more) if so many parents weren’t unreasonably afraid of pee in the water. Some parents have told me that’s the reason they would never let their kids go there.
     To me these parents are germaphobes denying their kids fun because of their exaggerated fears. As far as a pool goes, it would take a lot of pee to make a difference in billions of gallons of chlorinated water. Even at that, a little pee on your skin never hurt anyone.
     Even ingested internally, pee has no ill effect. POW’s have told stories about drinking their urine in order to survive in the concentration camps, and the space shuttle astronauts recently drank water filtered from their pee collected while in orbit. They said it was great.
     We once spent a day at Garner State Park and this woman near us had a chair in the river with the water up to her chest. In about 5 hours she drank a case of Budweiser, and never once got out of that chair. This woman either had a bladder like a beach ball, or she pissed enough in the Rio Frio to make it lukewarm. I don’t think she could drink that much and hold it that long, so the second possibility makes more sense. Luckily, we were upstream, but the people downstream didn’t seem to care.
     A kid once told me that his uncle put a chemical in his home pool so that if anybody peed, it would make a bright red cloud around them. On the surface, that’s a good lie to tell because you think, “Who’s going to have the nerve to try it out. Think of the shame if everyone knew you peed in the pool.”
     Such a chemical doesn’t exist. I never believed it did, but I did an Internet search today to make sure. I was surprised to find this story shows up under the urban legends at snopes.com where it goes on to explain that even if kids believe the lie, it still probably won’t stop them. For one thing, Snopes says, if anyone else is in the pool, some kids would pee and just blame the poor guy next to them. Other kids would just be like, “Wow! I pee and it turns the water bright red? I gotta try that!”
     The possibility of a urine detecting chemical has gained credibility through its fictional existence in TV shows and movies. A Wikipedia entry describes a Nickelodeon Adventures of Pete and Pete episode in which “Wee-Wee See” is used to “catch a pool-peeing perpetrator.”
     Kids who have seen that show would believe you have such a product, but I really don’t support using such lies. Eventually, kids learn the truth, and your credibility is damaged. Then, you tell them something important like not to dive headfirst into the shallow end of the pool because they could break their necks and never walk again, and they’ll respond, “Whatever. You’re just saying that because you’re lying there and don’t want to be splashed.” Then, they’ll immediately dive into two feet of water.
     So, back to the subject I digressed from 600 words ago. Maybe the public pool could be even more successful and be open more by convincing the people of Eagle Pass that it uses Wee-Wee See and nobody’s peeing in the water anymore. In the past, I’ve seen the people here believe bigger lies than that.

To P.E. or not to P.E.?

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     Can schools be all things for all people – fitness centers, medical clinics, nurseries, counseling institutes, food service providers, and not to mention -- places of learning?
     Yes, they have proven they CAN be all of these things, the question to ask, really, is SHOULD they be all of these things?
     I remember this discussion from long ago in my education classes. The arguments are good on both sides, and I still haven’t reached my own conclusion. On one hand, if schools concentrated solely on education they would not be such bloated bureaucracies, they would operate more efficiently, and they would have fewer distractions from their primary function of academics. On the other hand, many students need extra services in order to come to school mentally and physically healthy and fully prepared to learn.
     This issue came to mind this week when I read an article that asserted that children need more time in P.E. in school in order to help fight the nationwide obesity epidemic.
     According to the Associated Press story written this week, only Illinois and Massachusetts require P.E. classes for all kids in kindergarten through 12th grade. This at a time when youngsters definitely need more activity, as illustrated by the unsettling stats from the Centers for Disease Control that “an estimated 32 percent of American kids ages 2 to 19 are overweight, including 17 percent who are obese.”
     This article went on to imply that a mandatory 30-45 minutes of P.E. daily for all students in all grades would reverse the trend of increasing childhood obesity. Is this another societal ill that our schools should be expected to help solve?
     In this case I think so. I’m a strong believer in fitness and I know that strenuous activity revitalizes the mind and improves one’s mood. Some educators feel that P.E. takes away from test preparation time and hurts in other ways academically, but I think it’s time well spent and that it even helps students academically.
     Something to remember, though, is that students only spend 180 days a year in school. So, even if we have daily P.E. for everyone, what are they doing the other 185 days of the year? Playing video games, texting, watching TV, using the internet, of course.
     Reducing obesity, like many other problems, requires a coordinated approach from many angles. YMCA’s, churches, community groups, youth sports leagues and others have to get involved in addition to the schools. Too often, people expect the schools alone to fix everything that’s wrong with our young people today. It’s understandable for us educators to wonder, “Hey, we didn’t break them. Why do we have to fix them?”
     Then we must remember, if we don’t, who will?

Where am I going with this?

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     People who write books should read a lot of books. If you write poetry, you should read a lot of poetry. If you write for a newspaper, you should read a lot of newspapers. A person who writes a blog should read a lot of other blogs.
     I don’t always follow my own advice.
     When I read, I read to be entertained and I don’t know where to find many entertaining blogs. Most blogs that get updated daily simply read something like this: “Today I emptied the litter box, then sent two e-mails and paid my bills on-line.”
     Please, just shoot me now.
     For instance, some teacher blogs that I found go on endlessly on topics such as a day spent rearranging the classroom.
     “One bookcase move led to many things just falling into place similar to a domino effect. A tall bookcase was moved next to my teaching chair. I thought that surely this wouldn't work. It had to be much too tall. But it had been blocking the air flow and summers can be warm. So I decided that it was worth a try. By switching the two bookcases I then had to move the math manipulatives to another bookcase which gave me more book bin space adjacent to the meeting area. So, suprise--I could actually sort the bins into a much more logical order! By exchanging the math manipulatives to a deeper bookcase, I could actually fit them and organize them. Now, this led to me filling two trash cans full of things that I HADN''T USED in a long while.”
     That person went on like that for 300 words. WHO CARES?
     Unless you’re Britney Spears or Alex Rodriguez nobody wants to know about the endless minutiae of your pathetic daily existence. Some modestly successful blog writers compose reams of drivel, but it’s somewhat valuable drivel because it concerns famous actors, musicians or athletes.
     So, the thing is, I can’t make this blog the daily diary about me type because it would just be too damn boring. Though I’m a teacher and I’ll mainly write about education, I also don’t want my audience to be only teachers. I want to voice my thoughts sometimes, too, about other issues in Eagle Pass, but lately things have been kind of dull here.
     I remember the old days when the police department constantly “lost” items from the evidence room, JP’s stuffed traffic tickets into shoe boxes and forgot about them, and the school board acted so poorly that the TEA assigned a monitor to oversee their activities. Those scandals were entertaining, but they came at a high cost.
     The scandals are fewer now, but shi . . I mean stuff still happens. I hope someone exposes how the county gave Hector Chavez such a sweetheart deal on the dump consulting contract. More power to him for pulling a fast one like that, but someone with the county acted extremely negligently or maybe even criminally.
     Surely the antics of local politicos will inspire me to rant and rave further in future blog entries. I’m aiming for 3 updates a week, or 12 each month. Right now, I’m a little behind for June, so I may rush out some mindless crap a couple of times just to meet my self-set quota.
     Now, I should stop and look for blogs to read for inspiration. I did find one a few months ago that I find really funny. It’s called stuffwhitepeoplelike.com
     It’s a little puzzling that you can make fun of white people like they do, but if you did stuffmexicanpeoplelike.com and filled it with similar putdowns, you’d be chased out of the country for being a flaming racist. At any rate, it’s funny to see white people made fun of. Check it out. Then, check my stuff out again soon.

My premature (I hope) bucket list

Eagle Pass Daily -- www.eaglepassdaily.com -- City and regional news, opinions, and photos.
     Time for something on the lighter side.
     I saw a complaint recently about the weird arrangement of some Eagle Pass stop signs. I so absolutely agree. What’s the thing with having three-way or four-way stops at virtually every intersection? Really, they’re mostly just stop signs used as speed control.
     The most idiotic example is the sign on Flowers Street just north of Liberty Elementary. They have a stop sign there for an intersection with an ALLEY! If I pass this sign late at night, I drive right past it without even slowing down, just out of principle because it doesn’t belong there.
     This sign might help with traffic during the rush before and after school. If that’s why they have it, then they should stick something temporary out there only on school days during those hours. Seriously, if I had an F350 monster sized truck, I would knock this sign down and dump it in the river.
     Thinking about it recently, I decided that this belongs on my “bucket list.” If I discover I only have a few months to live, I’m going to go out in the middle of the night and take out this stop sign. Another thing I’ll attempt to do undetected is return to a decent color scheme the house at the intersection of Bibb and Hillcrest.
     If you’ve been down Bibb lately, you know the house I’m talking about. It’s a classy two-story design with off-white brick exterior, and now half of it is painted mustard yellow. It’s so unnatural with the design and other materials on the house that it’s an affront to God himself. Somebody has to fix this soon or God will strike Eagle Pass with some awful natural disaster. That yellow paint looks worse than the purple columns they had in EPHS, a building that shouldn’t have purple anywhere near it.
     I have a few other items on my short little bucket list.

• I would let an undocumented immigrant have my identity so that even from beyond the grave I could continue to vote against J.M. Farias in whatever political race he decides to enter. Sparing the details, I’ll just say I think that Farias doesn’t have the intelligence or the people skills to hold a position requiring much responsibility. While he’s at it, my hired impersonator could also vote against any member of the Bush family that runs for office in the future.
• Just for kicks I would like to wade across the Rio Grande from our side to Mexico with a trash bag of spare clothes and see how the Mexican authorities react. Would they believe it if I said I was just looking for work? I don’t think they would do anything, but I’m curious to know. The bigger problem would be trying to return to my own country without a passport.
• I would go to the casino with a willingness to lose more than $20. I don’t find the casino entertaining, but that’s because I know I’m not going to win big because I don’t risk big. If I’m willing to lose several thousand dollars, maybe I’ll win a few hundred along the way. Then, like a lot of other people, I can brag that I won $800 without giving the rest of the story about losing three times that amount in the process.
• I would spend the night at the “haunted” house where 2nd Street meets Ceylon. I’ve never seen or heard or felt the presence of a ghost, and I’d like to know before I die if they really exist. This old, empty place would be the perfect place to find out. If a night went by in there without any paranormal events, I would have to say there’s no such thing as ghosts.

     Not all that crazy, but I don’t possess unlimited funds like those guys did in the movie. I need to lengthen my bucket list, but I’ll take my time in doing so since as far as I know I’m not anywhere near kicking the bucket. When my name IS called, Eagle Pass had better be on the watch, because there will be some surprises.

Will Mavericks rise from the depths?

Eagle Pass Daily -- www.eaglepassdaily.com -- City and regional news, opinions, and photos.
     The district records for C.C. Winn sports teams for the 2008-2009 school year were abysmal. The one glimmering light remains the softball girls (7-7) who reached the playoffs for the second time in three seasons, but who had to defeat Del Rio in a tie-breaker to slip into the fourth-place spot.
     Of the other teams, the volleyball girls – with a less-than-impressive 4-10 record – came in with the second best finish. Nobody else won more than two district games, with everyone except the football team given 14 tries.
     Maverick athletes had shown improvement last year over the school’s first year of competition. Then, the district got a little tougher this year as Del Rio and Southwest replaced Laredo Nixon and Laredo Cigarroa. Some of our Mav teams folded, some choked and some just didn’t have the athletes to compete.
     Is this what the future holds? Virtually every team finishing last or next-to-last in district every season? If nothing changes, I’m afraid so.
     Some have asked why would ANYONE want the Winn head football coaching position that was recently filled when the road to winning at the campus holds so many obstacles. I tend to agree with that sentiment because to turn the Mav football program around would require a total workaholic coaching genius. Who wants to work that hard, when even with inhuman effort, the results might not be all that impressive?
     I think it’s the very rare and gifted coach or teacher who can inspire a group of young people to succeed far above everyone’s expectations. Think of Jaime Escalante (Stand and Deliver) or Erin Gruwell (Freedom Writers). They make movies about these people because they’re such a rare breed. We can’t count on a whole army of coaches of such caliber coming to Eagle Pass C.C. Winn to turn the Mavs into champions in every sport.
     We can possibly count on something else.
     Who has the power more than anyone else to reverse C.C. Winn’s disheartening sports results? Coaches? No. The principal/school staff? No. The school board or superintendent? Way off. The athletic director? Wrong again.
     The answer lies with the parents and the kids. Do parents want their kids to play on teams that regularly finish as cellar dwellers? Do the youngsters beginning to play sports at the elementary schools see themselves as future Mavericks on teams that lose 90 percent of the time?
     Every future Maverick athlete and each of their parents need to act on their concerns about these sports programs. What the parents and athletes need to do is make sure C.C. Winn has more than just a handful of good athletes in future years. Additionally, the handful of good athletes, with prodding and support from their parents, must work to develop into great athletes.
     A couple of great athletes in each sport would make Winn competitive because great athletes make the players around them better. Some kids on the south side need to become determined that good isn’t good enough. They need to work toward greatness and develop their leadership skills and their teams would become better through their inspiration.
     Nobody should make excuses like we “can’t afford club ball,” or “we can’t afford private coaches,” or “I’m always working and can’t take Juan to practice.” Much of becoming a great athlete is simply fitness. Being in shape doesn’t require money nor does it require a coach on your back 24/7/365. It’s something you can do on your own.
     As far as rides and time commitments from parents, I know it’s often hard, but I think where there’s a will there’s a way. A little one-on-one practice on a parent’s day off means a lot and helps a lot even if the parent doesn’t know the sport well. Rides might be just a matter of parents helping each other out, taking turns with carpooling, etc.
     I really don’t want this just to be a big lecture. I just want the kids and the parents on the Maverick side to know that the success of their sports programs is up to them. It’s not under the control of the coaches, the school system, the school board or anyone else. If and when the Maverick teams succeed, the south side community can take all the credit and have pride in everyone’s efforts.
     I know it can happen. I hope it does happen. As they say Maverick kids, Maverick parents, future Mavericks and future Maverick parents, “The ball is in your court.”

Baca to the drawing board

Eagle Pass Daily -- www.eaglepassdaily.com -- City and regional news, opinions, and photos.
     After three years of sports mediocrity, C.C. Winn has set a record. It’s a record, however, that they would rather not have – the record for the shortest-tenured coach in Eagle Pass history.
     With about three weeks under his belt, Maverick head football coach Eddie Baca resigned, giving a very questionable explanation, and furthering the damage previously inflicted on Winn by meddlesome school board members who saw no problem in needlessly delaying for months the choice of a new coach.
     Baca’s departure shocks any reasonable person because he should have known well what he was getting into and if he didn’t like it, he should have just turned down the job. What he cited publicly for his reason for resigning was that he couldn’t find suitable housing. PPPPhhhhhhtttttttttttt!!!!!!!
     Housing should be the first thing you research before moving 500 miles to a new job. A rumor cited on an EP message board makes more sense, but the real truth will probably never be known. The message board contributor had heard that Baca wanted to live in the EPHS district but have his son play for him at C.C . Winn and that this prospect wasn’t going to be allowed.
     This theory fits the pattern of behavior of our administrators. I still, though, believe that that issue is another one that Baca should have resolved before accepting the job.
     My own theory lies in some unrevealed personality conflict. I mean, Baca should not have had any surprises – other than the individual personalities whom he would have to work closely with. Maybe he had cross words with one of those persons and just decided this town wasn’t big enough for the both of them.
     A real man would still say, “My word is good. I signed a contract, so I’ll suck it up and stick it out for a year, then I’m out of here.” From what I see, Baca gave the Mavericks and EPISD the shaft and deserves to spend at least the next complete year unemployed.
     I wonder if Baca was offered his old job back as athletic director near Fort Worth. If that’s the case, there’s little we can do. If he’s job hunting again, we need to make the whole state aware that he’s an unreliable hire and cannot be trusted.
     Now, the A.D. and school board have more pressure to go local for the Winn head coaching job. Even if the local person’s not the most qualified, at least you can believe them if they say they’re going to hang around a while. And let’s hope this nightmare ends soon for the Maverick football program.

Grade welfare may end

Eagle Pass Daily -- www.eaglepassdaily.com -- City and regional news, opinions, and photos.
     Texas legislators will probably soon shoot down the free 50 -- one of school administrators’ overly simplistic solutions to low student achievement. An assignment’s not even attempted, it’s a 50. Student does not work for an entire grading period, average is a 50. According to administrators, this helps students to keep having hope, to help them believe they will do better next time and eventually pass the course.
     Do nothing, get a 50. It doesn’t make sense, and everyone knows it. I wish I could go to work sometimes, do absolutely nothing and still get half my paycheck. As they claim about giving students a 0, I would say that not paying me would be “punitive, and not reflective of my true ability.”
     As my previous blogs reflect, school has been made too easy for most students, due to administrators’ fear of student failure and due to administrators’ inability to find better solutions than just handing out grades or giving students, second, third and fourth chances. Finally, this year, teachers brought this to the attention of State Senator Jane Nelson, who is a former 6th grade teacher.
     The Texas House and Senate have approved a bill introduced by Sen. Nelson that prohibits policies that require teachers to give a minimum grade. Yes! The zero is back!
     “Students should be graded on the merits of their work. Minimum grade policies encourage minimum effort from students,” Sen. Nelson said. Stated as someone who knows the classroom would say it! As I’ve also said, the easier you make it for students, the lazier they will want to be.
     State lawmakers overwhelmingly agree. Nelson’s proposal breezed through the state senate 29-1, and through the house something like 139-1 (I found the exact number one day, but later returned to that web page and it wasn’t there anymore).
     Currently, lawmakers seem to be considering amendments to this bill but it looks certain to be approved and passed on to the governor for adoption.
     I appreciate the way the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ended a recent editorial on this issue: “Students with grades far below artificial minimums are underachieving for a variety of reasons. And schools are obligated to try to address the problems those low grades reflect. It will take collaboration among teacher, student, parents and even the school principal. No one said it would be easy.”
     Exactly. Let’s quit with the easy answers and go for the complicated and difficult solutions more often.