Learn to walk your dog, seriously.

Before I go off on this rant, I want to point out that I am very well aware that not all dogs are the same.  I've had a few in my lifetime now, and they've all been pretty different.  I've had a nervous dog, an eager-to please with flashes of defiance dog, and a super-submissive dog.  My current dog, Freyja, is pretty easy.  She knows all sorts of commands like, "Drop it!" and "Go to bed!" and honestly, I haven't really taken the time to train her in any kind of a formal sense.  My other dogs I had to work with, and I couldn't get them to do half the stuff that she does.  So yeah, I get it.  Some are easier than others - especially when it comes to walking.

I tell ya, I don't know what it is, but ever since I moved, I'm wanting to yell at dog owners more than I have ever have before.  I take Freyja to a park that's just a couple of blocks away from my place, and that park is plagued by people who don't know what the hell they're doing when it comes to walking their dogs.

For Freyja, I use a pinch-collar, mainly because that's what I had handy after Argos passed away.  He worked best with that type of collar, and Freyja works well with it, so I keep using it with her.  I tried the "gentle lead" collar with him, but that wasn't happening.  (However, my dog Willy did much better with the gentle lead, and he was a disaster with the pinch collar.  Whatever, it's like I said - there are all types of dogs.)  She's a pretty good walker, and for the most part, she stays right by my side.  She tends to tug a little when she has to relieve herself, or when we get near the dog park, but usually a quick correction takes care of that problem.

What drives me crazy are people who just slap a leash on their dog's collar only to have their dog drag them along, gasping and heaving the whole way.  Even worse, there are those extendable leashes, where they might as well not even have a leash on in the first place.  With those types, you usually see the people stopping every five seconds so their dog can sniff something and/or pee for the thousandth time.  Who's walking whom here?  That's especially frustrating when I'm on a narrow path and they're right in front of me. I don't know whether I should try and pass them or not, as I don't know if their dog will lunge at Freyja when I try it or not.  (Luckily, Freyja is eager to get along with pretty much every dog.  That was not the case with Argos, who would take it pretty personally if another dog got up in his face.)

Don't get me wrong.  If you can simply use your dog's regular collar - or no leash at all - and your dog is walking alongside you, then keep doing that.  What's frustrating is that I see the same people all the time.  Don't they notice that there are people like me whose dogs AREN'T half-choking to death while on a walk? And perhaps it might have something to do with the fact that I use a collar that doesn't allow her to get that tight around her neck in the first place?

Again, I understand some dogs are harder than others, but when I see some of these dogs, I just KNOW that I could get it to walk properly if I had the chance.  In some cases, it's not even a matter of the collar.  It's a matter of the person's attitude.  I remember when I walked Argos, my neighbor asked me how I got him to walk alongside me.  "Because I don't give him a choice!" was my response.  Also, there may be some dogs that just aren't good at walking in the first place.  One time while I was at the dog park, I was talking to a lady with a German Shorthair.  That dog was basically just running up and down the park the whole time.  The lady told me that's what she had to do with her dog, as he was an absolute wreck if she tried to walk him - he needed to get his exercise by running, and after their trips to the dog park, he'd be a nice, calm, cooperate dog.

But if your dog is tugging and choking, or you're stopping every five seconds - you're doing it wrong.  Time to change your strategy.

Watch as I quickly and easily fix public education

When it comes to fixing public education, you tend to hear a lot of simple solutions.  What we need is merit pay.  What we need is to get rid of unions.  What we need is to fire every teacher and then hire all of those qualified teachers who are practically banging on the door but can't get a job because they don't actually exist.

As excited as you might have been when you read the headline for this post, I hate to break it to you, but I don't have an easy solution either.  (And in case it's not obvious, I don't think those other quick-fixes are good answers either.)  However, I would like to address one thing that I rarely hear people talk about.  I don't necessarily have the answer to the problem either, but I think that if we start getting real about this particular issue, then we'll actually be on the road to a solution.  We need to start talking about social promotion.

Oftentimes you'll hear complaints about how students make it through high school and then wind up having to take remedial English classes at the college level, or they have to write things for their employer who is dumbfounded as to how they could even be considered literate.  I've heard that some of the teachers at the local junior college, and even some teachers in other departments at my very school, have accused us English teachers of not teaching our students how to write.

I've been teaching freshmen and seniors for the past several years now, and I can tell you that in both cases, you will find students who manage to move on even though their writing is hardly what you'd call grade-level appropriate.  What's worse, I can tell you that some freshmen move on who can barely string together two sentences.  So what's wrong with me then?  How come I'm not teaching them to write?

Here's the thing - most of my students come to me and their writing is exactly where I'd expect it to be.  Some freshmen even write better than most of the seniors.  Am I supposed to go over identifying the noun in "The dog sits on the floor." with my classes?  Sure, that would help a small percentage of them, but is that what we want to do?  Dumb things down for everybody?  Go back to third grade grammar when most of them are ready for an introduction to Shakespeare?

When it comes to seniors, I see many of them make mistakes that I know that the other teachers have taught them about.  In some cases, I have seniors that I've had as freshmen, and I've had to write on their papers "I told you freshman year not to do this!"

Well then why the heck am I moving these kids on then?  If they can't write, then I should fail them, shouldn't I?  And if a senior can't demonstrate the ability to construct a decent essay, then I have no business passing them and letting them get their diplomas, right?

I can tell you right now, that if I had my way, I would fail kids based solely on the fact that their writing stinks.  Do you want to know what would happen if I actually tried that?  I'd get grief from parents and even administration.  After all, if the kids are at least turning everything in, even though it's lousy work, then the attitude is that the kid should pass.  How do I know I'd get grief?  Because I get grief from parents when the kids fail because they hardly even show up and don't turn any of the work.  And we've been told in roundabout ways that we should lower our standards so kids can pass.  In other words, if I tried running my class this way, I could count on absolutely NO support, and I'd wind up tilting at windmills.

Crud, I had a student who missed at least 2/3 of class time and the majority of the work.  He misses some of class due to a legitimate illness, but his parents didn't want to hear of it when I suggested that actually being in class was a crucial ingredient to passing my class.  Once they brought in the lawyer, I basically just rolled over, as it was clear to them that what was important was that their son get at least a C and not whether he actually learned anything from my class.  Could I have fought it?  Sure.  But to what end?  I've seen other teachers try to do the right thing, only to have some high-up muckity muck change the student's grade themselves.

Why?  Because we want our graduation rates to be high!  What nobody wants to acknowledge is that keeping standards high and keeping the graduation rate high are two ideas that will fall into conflict with one another.  What we need to focus on is making sure that those who do graduate do so because they've demonstrated that they've actually earned it.  In other words, give the teachers some control.  If some kid can't solve for x, then he shouldn't pass Algebra no matter how nice he was or how much homework he turned in.  If a kid can't write an essay, then he doesn't get to pass English.  If he doesn't know the difference between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, then he doesn't pass history.  And who will determine this?  A standardized test?  No.  The people who get paid to educate should be the judges.

So obviously the problem is these middle school teachers!  They haven't taught those kids well enough to be ready for my class!  No, I'm not going to blame them.  Because after all, what about all those kids who CAN write really well?  Where the heck did they learn it?  Basically they face the same problem that we do - but even worse.  From what I've heard from a friend who's taught middle school for more than a decade now, a student has to perform horrifically before the school will even consider holding him back.

Again, I'm not too sure where we can go from here, but maybe we need to give these kids some real incentive to do well and actually learn something.  I imagine that the quality of my seniors' papers would rise quite drastically if they knew that passing meant not just turning something in, but turning in something GOOD.

Exbeerimenting

For a blog called Comics, Beer, and Shakespeare the focus seems to be comics and religion lately.  I don't want to change the name, because then people will start to think that I'm posting Chick Tracts or something like that.  Well, I'm going to be seeing a couple of live Shakespeare productions in the next few months - The Tempest next week, and Hamlet in the fall, so I'll definitely blog about those.  What about beer though?

I actually had to take a hiatus from homebrewing.  Why?  I had to move, and I just might blog about that bit of drama sometime soon.  For now though, let's just say that I didn't want to have several cases of beer to move in addition to all of the other stuff.  So, I basically stopped and drank up what I had stored.  There was  a time there when I was unsure as to whether I was going to get to brew in the new place, and for a time it looked like the best case scenario is that I'd have to do something drastic and scale back to 2 gallon batches (instead of 5).  You probably remember that, as it was on all of the news channels, the stars all disappeared (SHAKESPEARE/MACBETH REFERENCE!) and President Obama made a speech, declaring that if he had a son who was a homebrewer, his son would probably brew beers like the ones that I brewed.  (To which all of the right-wing pundits accused him of hating wine makers, and the left-wing pundits praised him for supporting a public school teacher.)

But I'm BACK, baby!  We've been here a few months now, and I've already brewed three batches, and I'm probably going to brew another before the end of the month.  For starters, I brewed a tasty Porter (pictured) and next up I made a flavorful Belgian Pale Ale.  For the third one though, I wanted to try something a little different.

'Cause that's the thing when you've been brewing a few years like I have.  You just might find yourself wanting to experiment a little.  After all, you might just create something really tasty, and you can take some pride in it being your own concoction.  That certainly has happened to me, and even though for the most part I use ready-made ingredient kits, I've done a bit of experimenting.  So far, all of them have been a success, with not just me liking them, but friends and family enjoying them as well.  Along those lines, I've made a chili ale, a pumpkin ale, a ginger-coriander Saison, and a maple brown ale.

Of course, none of those styles are completely unheard of, but I I had to use my own instincts and know-how to determine just how I would go about making them, and in all of those cases, I wound up with something that tasted just like I wanted it to taste (with the exception of half the batch of chili ale, which was a tad spicier than I would have liked).

I'm starting to get that itch again.  I want to try something new.  However, the problem is that perhaps I will get too ambitious and create something awful like tuna ale.  Well, you're never going to know the line until you at least put your foot on it.

I did do something a bit unconventional though with my last batch.  I made a clone of Russian River's Blind Pig IPA, which is a smooth, but very flavorful (notes of pine and oak in the smell) beer.  I've made it several times before, and it's always tends to go pretty fast when I have some handy.  The thing that I did differently though is that I didn't use the standard California Ale Yeast from White Labs (which I believe is basically the yeast that Sierra Nevada uses for its Pale Ale).  I went ahead and re-used the yeast that I used from the Belgian Pale Ale that I had made.  That was White Labs's Golden Ale, which I understand is a clone of what's used to make Duvel, one of my all-time favorite beers, and probably my favorite Belgian ale.

Ever have a Duvel before?  If you're over 21 and like beer, then stop what you're doing RIGHT NOW and go out and get one.  I see them all the time at my local grocery stores, so you just might have them at yours.  One of my pet peeves is when people say that they like "dark" or "lighter" beers as though those words describe flavor.  Duvel is a light-colored beer that has packs a wallop when it comes to flavor, so it just might change your mind as to what beer can be.

So basically I took a beer that has a strong hoppy flavor and used a yeast that imparts a strong, yeasty flavor.  It's hard to describe what Belgian yeasts are like, but I like to use the word "funky".  And I mean that in a good way, but it's just so different from what every other type of yeast does.

I wondered which of the two flavors would win out in the end, but they both blended together really well.  My mother-in-law said that she thought she tasted ginger in it, and I can see how she would get that impression.  The initial taste is vaguely like a gingerbread cookie.

Now, this idea was not entirely my own.  New Belgium makes something called a Belgo, which is described as a Belgian IPA, and while mine doesn't taste exactly like that, if you try one of those, you'll kind of get the idea behind what I made.

So, what's next?  A chili Belgian?  A ginger-chili ale?  A maple-pumpkin?  A variation on my previous pumpkin only creating a maltier beer and using an English style yeast?  Only time will tell.

Why I'm a skeptic

PZ Myers has been running a series of posts on his blog lately entitled "Why I'm an Atheist".  He's invited readers to submit their personal stories, and he posts at least one a day.  I'll be honest; I haven't read them all.  Many of them start to seem the same after a while, with a few exceptions where the writer gets into some deeply personal experiences.  I've been tempted to write my own entry as well, and one has been swimming around in my head for some time now.

I've also wanted to write this because every now and then, I'm asked why I am an atheist by somebody.  Now, when I get asked this, it's not so much that they want to know why I don't believe in ANY gods; it's that they want to know why I don't believe in their particular deity of choice.  Either way though, I have a hard time coming up with a simple answer.  I'm tempted to be snarky and say, "'Cause what you believe is hella bull and crap" or "Because your beliefs are frikken' nutty".

While not completely an inaccurate representation of how I feel, answers like that aren't very constructive or illustrative of exactly what happened.  They would only serve to amuse my fellow nonbelievers, and I'll be honest with you: I'd rather give an answer that makes the other person think a little about exactly why he believes what he believes than an answer that just turns him off completely to my point of view.

So, that's the problem.  I struggled coming up with a simple answer, and I think that I finally have it.

I'm an atheist because I'm a skeptic.  Now, I've had Christians tell me that they're "skeptics too" and maybe they are when it comes to 99% of the fantastic claims that are made, but you don't get to be a real skeptic if you dismiss unicorns, astrology, and alien abductions but still make room for a magical carpenter who was his own son.

I suppose I should explain what I mean by being a skeptic, and I reckon that it's a definition with which most skeptics would agree.  A skeptic is a person who requires evidence in order to believe something, and the more fantastic the claim, the more fantastic the evidence must be.  If you tell me that you have a penny in your pocket, I don't need to actually see the penny, since I have evidence of pennies and people owning pennies.  Sure, you could be lying, but it's not really important to my life if you are, so it's fine for me to just believe it.  Now, if you say you have a gremlin in your pocket, then you're going to have to show me that gremlin because as far as I know, there is neither evidence of gremlins nor is their evidence of people owning them and keeping them in their pockets.

Therefore, if things like psychics, astrology, alien abductions, etc. were indeed true, then the world I'm living in would be drastically different from what I understand it to be.  So if I'm going to believe in those things, then I'm going to need some compelling evidence to do so.  And of course, same goes with the notion of an all-powerful being who created the universe.  I'm going to need something solid, and no circular argument or special pleading is going to convince me.  After all, it doesn't convince me of the other stuff; why should it convince me of something that's potentially even MORE important?

But why be a skeptic?  Why hold this particular world view?  Because it's the only way that gets to the truth as far as I can see.  If I don't apply the same standards to what I accept and what I don't accept, then believing one thing over another is completely arbitrary.  I mean, I really dig the idea that aliens built the pyramids.  I think that would be really cool if that happened.  However, I'm not going to believe it just because I like it more than other beliefs with similar flimsy proofs.  (What about Jesus?  Wouldn't I want him to be real?  Actually, no.  But that answers why I'm also an antitheist, which would be another blog post.)

How did I get to be a skeptic?  Blame astrology.  I always had a sneaking suspicion that it was all a load of malarkey, even when I was a kid.  Even though I didn't have the vocabulary to express it, everything about it was so vague that even a twelve year old could suss it out that those descriptions could apply to anybody.  As I got older, I was cursed with working with people who, like the worst sort of religious proselytizers, would always talk about their signs and mine as though it actually meant something.  Again, I knew it was bunk, but I sought out those who could provide me with the language to explain WHY it was bunk.  That led me to Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World, which led me to Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things and ultimately to James Randi's Flim Flam!  (James Randi is the dude with the beard in the picture.)  I became a student of skepticism, and I started to understand its rules, and I took them on as my own lens with which to see the world - even though I had already been doing so when it came to astrology, at least.  In time, I started to realize that my heroes were nonbelievers as well when it came to a god, and it was because they applied their skepticism to that the same way they did everything else.

What was I to do if I was to be honest about how I look at the world?  How could I have any sense of pride if I held some things to one standard but my religious beliefs, which again are arguably even more important, to another?

I realize that a lot of people think of us skeptics as closed minded individuals.  We just won't believe in anything, will we?  You'll notice though that these accusations are only leveled at us when we don't believe what the other person would have us believe.  Somebody accused me of being like this with Christianity.  The fact that my attitude is exactly the same toward Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Scientology, etc. didn't seem to be a problem though.

I recently stumbled across a quote by Thomas Henry Huxley, a biologist from the 19th century.  His explanation of skepticism perfectly defined what it is for me:  "I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything..."  Because that's what it is.  Being a skeptic doesn't mean that I automatically dismiss all of those fantastic claims.  I think that any one of them could be true.  I could be TOTALLY off base when it comes to this whole Jesus thing.  (That's where the Christians think, "Wow, there's hope for him!")  I could also be wrong about this whole Scientology thing.  (That's where I lose the Christians.  I mean, Xenu?  Come on.  He ain't no Satan, which is perfectly more sensible, eh?)

In other words, I'm totally open-minded.  In fact, I reckon we skeptics are more open-minded than most religious people, who wholeheartedly embrace their belief system while easily dismissing other ones that have just as much evidence as theirs.  I suppose that this is where I should include Huxley's entire quote:  "I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything — especially as I am now so much occupied with theology — but I don't see my way to your conclusion."

One last thing - oftentimes I've been told that I sound more like an agnostic than an atheist.  I realize that many folks who read my blog already know this, but I want to point it out for those who don't.  An agnostic is one who doesn't know if there is a god or not.  I have never made the claim that I know whether a god exists or not.  So yes, I am an agnostic.  However, my opinion is that there isn't a god, and I'm not going to believe in one until I have a good reason to do so.  This is why I'm also an atheist.  (And yes, it's possible to be an agnostic and a theist - which is what I was for some time before I became an atheist.  Perhaps that's yet another blog post.)

Comics Roundup for 6/13/12

Batman #10 - Holy crap, but this was good stuff.  Scott Snyder is writing stuff that's just as epic as Grant Morrison's, but without the trippy, somewhat confusing aspect.  Anyway, there's a big reveal in this one, as we find out who's been behind all the Court of Owls shenanigans in Gotham City, and it's a pretty good surprise.  While much of this is due to Scott Snyder's writing, much of the appeal is from Greg Capullo's art - in particular, his layouts and storytelling skill.  I remember years and years ago Capullo did a column for Wizard where he explained how to draw comics, and he would often focus on that aspect of the art, which was ironic because you didn't get to see him utilize those skills all that much while he was drawing Spawn.  I guess he got a pretty hefty paycheck for those books though.  Anyway, I hope that this is a team that will stick around for some time.

Batman and Robin #10 - Between Batman and the recently relaunched Batman Incorporated, it's kinda easy to forget that this is also an awesome Batman book.  Peter Tomasi's stories haven't disappointed yet, and we get another good setup with this one, as Damien Wayne, the current Robin, challenges all the former Robins in a determined effort to prove that he's the best of the lot of them.  Tomasi is really doing something great with Damien in this book, and it was hard to believe that somebody other than Grant Morrison could pull that off.

Captain America #13 - Nothing too special here, but it's a solid entry in a pretty engaging storyline involving a new Scourge of the Underworld.  Patrick Zircher's doing some pretty good artwork here.

Batgirl #10 - I always rave about this Bat-book as well, even though it's not about the original Bat-character.  This was another solid issue - not quite as Earth-shattering as the first storyline, but Gail Simone manages to introduce a pretty nasty set of despicable villains.

Green Lantern #10 - As always, there isn't much interesting to say, as we basically just have another solid installment of a great series.  The Indigo Lanterns who represent empathy?  Yeah, turns out they're all a bunch of psychos, and the lantern basically acts as therapy/recovery for them, which explains why Black Mask joined their ranks.  However, he managed to get out, die again, and once again become a Black Lantern.  Oh boy, not those guys again!  Looking forward to what comes next.

The Amazing Spider-Man #687 - This is a pretty good wrap up to the "Ends of the Earth" storyline.  Supposedly, somebody's dead at the end, which is hard for Spidey, who recently swore that "nobody dies" under his watch.  Somehow though, I doubt that this death will be permanent.

The Avengers #27 - They're definitely doing a good job of weaving stories within the larger story of Avengers Versus X-Men, and this issue was another good example of that.  This story deals with The Protector (lame name) whose loyalties are split between protecting The Earth and what the Supreme Intelligence of the Kree wants.  About time they did something interesting with him.

Avengers Assemble #4 - Seems like the even numbered issues are more interesting than the odd ones.  I wonder what will happen to this series when Bendis leaves the Avengers books?  It feels a bit perfunctory, but it's always good to see Thanos up to his old tricks.

Spider-Men #1 (of 5) - I'm REALLY far behind when it comes to the Ultimate comics, and I haven't even read anything with the new Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales.  I was tempted to just wait for the trade on this one, but I was a bit too curious to just pass it up.  So far, we have a pretty good setup, and I'm eager to see where it goes from here.  (The two Spider-Men don't meet until the last page.)

What am I passing up?

I haven't picked up any of the Before Watchmen books, not because I'm protesting them, but it's just too big of a commitment to get seven new books a month right now.  I'll probably gradually pick them up once they're all in collected editions.

Comics Roundup for 6/6/12

Winter Soldier #6 - In this issue, Jason Bourne investigates another who underwent the same procedure...nah,  it's not that, but it is Bucky investigating another "Winter Soldier" type guy.  Pretty good stuff, and it's nice to see Michael Lark on the book.  I think that his style is a better fit with Ed Brubaker's writing.  And as much as I enjoyed the first story arc, this one seems to be even more compelling.

Avengers Versus X-Men #5 - Well, I stupidly read a spoiler for what happens in this issue, so the rest of it left me with no surprises.  That'll teach me.  Basically, what everybody was expecting to happen didn't happen, and now it looks like the X-Men are going to have the upper hand.

The Walking Dead - Volume 16 - I think that this would be a pretty frustrating series to read if I got it issue by issue.  It certainly works well in collected editions though.  Anyway, things are definitely being taken to the next level.  Inevitably, society is starting to take shape yet again, and all the pitfalls and troubles that come along with that are the problem here.  I wonder if Robert Kirkman watched that show that was on a couple years ago that went into what would happen if all the people on Earth disappeared.  This isn't exactly the same, but there are some similarities.  Who's running the nuclear reactors?  Are there gonna be some huge 'splosions soon?

Comics Roundup for 5/3012

Batman Annual #1 - Before Batman:  The Animated Series, Mr. Freeze was a "second rate Captain Cold".  When Paul Dini got his hands on him for the show, he turned into something more like a Shakespearean tragic hero.  Of course, there was that one little movie that we shall not mention where he became the Governor of California, but let's forget about that.  In the comics, the creators tried to reflect his new origin, although after a while it starts to get tough to keep making him the bad guy when deep down he's just a really scarred individual who could have been decent if only things had gone differently.

Well, Scott Snyder has a solution to this problem.  By adding a new twist to the story where Mr. Freeze just wanted to find a cure for his wife, who rests in a cryogenic deep freeze, we learn that Victor Fries was pretty disturbed from the get-go, and that woman whom he refers to as his wife?  Yeah, she never was his wife.  She was put on ice before he was even born.  The dude's a nut.

Oh, and it all ties into the "Court of Owls".  Awesome stuff.

The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #39 - Speaking of some good stuff, Marvel delivers its own top-notch annual, reminding me of the good old days of comics annuals when you got a story that stood on its own but was extra-special because of the subject matter and length.  I'm not familiar with writer Brian Reed's work, but he sure did a nice job with this twist on "It's a Wonderful Life".  Peter Parker learns what the world would be like without him, but to keep things interesting, it turns out that for some people, their lives really would have been better if he never existed.  It's a pretty emotionally ambiguous tale for a superhero story.

Super Crooks #3 - This just might be my favorite "Millarworld" series yet.  The plot is something I don't feel that I've seen before, and each issue unravels a few new interesting threads.  The first issue sets up that some supervillains head off to Europe because there are too many superheroes in America.  The second issue recruits the team, and they even get a superhero on board (much to his chagrin).  With this one, we find out a little something about the guy they plan on ripping off.  Should I be rooting for these guys?

Wolverine and the X-Men #11 - We get a bit more as to why Wolverine would suddenly agree to start working with this colleagues in the Avengers again after Captain America tossed him out of a plane, but I still feel like his change of heart is a little on the sudden side.  Do I think that Wolverine would hold a grudge like that forever?  No.  But I think it would piss him off for a little while, at least.