The state of the "art"

My friend and fellow band coach, Todd Richmond is retiring after this school year. Todd, besides being a great guy (and a die-hard Cubs fan!) is one hell of a great teacher. He has taught music, both instrumental and vocal in Darlington WI for the past 28 years and has had one of the most consistently fine programs in this part of the state.

The thing is, he didn't really want to retire yet. He probably would have liked to teach for a few more years, but his job was cut to 81% ! So we can can put another "face" on the carnage of the Budget Repair Bill. This program which is thriving and has served the young people and community of Darlington so well for so long is deemed to not be important enough to be "full time". It's just another example of an attitude that relegates teachers, and especially teachers of "non-core" or "extra curricular" to second-class status in the general scheme of things. But after all these years, the ignorance that defines music education as "non-core" or "extra curricular" is still prevalent!

In his email to his colleagues and parents of his students, Todd, in expressing concern about finding a replacement willing to take an 81% job, said "I know there are better teachers out there.." to which I can only reply "I don't think so!!"

Good luck TR!! Darlington is losing a great teacher!

"Ding, dong............................"

We like to put a face on evil. When Hitler ran rampant through Eastern Europe, then into France and bombed England it was easy. In post WW II it was harder to find this “face”. Khruschev seemed more like a slightly cranky Grandpa. It was the idea of communism and the threat of nuclear annihilation by some anonymous Soviet general pushing the wrong button that had us scared out of our wits. I’m old enough to remember “duck and cover” and fallout shelters. Heaven knows Joe McCarthy and Nixon tried to put “faces” on this evil, and became a national embarrassment. By the time Ronald Reagan stared down Mikhail Gorbachev in Iceland the threat seemed downright innocuous

Enter the new “faces” of evil…….. Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Khadafi (then and now), and the ultimate villain Osama Bin Laden, our ally in driving the Soviets from Afghanistan. WE GOT HIM !! Cue the Munchkin chorus!

The talking heads, each eager to have been the “first” to report the great news, speculate as to what effect this may have on the terrorist agenda. It may slow them down temporarily, but ultimately Osama will become a martyr, like the hijackers of 9/11. There are those, I imagine, who will refuse to believe he’s dead, just as there were those who believed that Hitler didn’t die in the bunker and that Elvis is still alive.

We are naïve if we fail to see that our foreign policy is complicit in this hatred toward our country that we struggle to understand. Where will we go next in our “war on terror”? We can no longer afford to be the “policemen” of the world nor to engage in “nation building”.

Anyway he’s “gone where the goblins go, below, below, below……………”