Status: Single
City: ANN ARBOR
State: Michigan
Country: US
Signup Date: 2/4/2005
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Friday, May 30, 2008
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Current mood:  smart
Category: School, College, Greek
How public education cripples
our kids, and why
By John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the
Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American
Education. He was a participant in the Harper's Magazine forum "School on a Hill,"
which appeared in the September 2003 issue.
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.
Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?
We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainty not to be trusted. That episode cured me of boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to pass on the lesson to some remarkable student. For the most part, however, I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom and childishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom. Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help kids break out of this trap.
The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty. I once returned from a medical leave to discover t~at all evidence of my having been granted the leave had been purposely destroyed, that my job had been terminated, and that I no longer possessed even a teaching license. After nine months of tormented effort I was able to retrieve the license when a school secretary testified to witnessing the plot unfold. In the meantime my family suffered more than I care to remember. By the time I finally retired in 1991, 1 had more than enough reason to think of our schools-with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers-as virtual factories of childishness. Yet I honestly could not see why they had to be that way. My own experience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learn along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: if we wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old, stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely receive a schooling. We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness-curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insightsimply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then.
But we don't do that. And the more I asked why not, and persisted in thinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, the more I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with our schools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying in the face of common sense and long experience in how children learn things, not because they are doing something wrong but because they are doing something right? Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child behind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them ever really grows up?
Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.
We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of "success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, "schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a system? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools?
Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:
1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best. These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not
to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else.
Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article, however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern.
The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s. Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here. That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising, given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many German-speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws. But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens 11 in order to render the populace "manageable."
It was from James Bryant Conant-president of Harvard for twenty years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century-that I first got wind of the real purposes of American schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000 students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's 1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the modem schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."
Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole.
Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:
1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.
That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.
Tre you have it. Now you know. We don't need Karl Marx's conception of a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don't conform. Class may frame the proposition, as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purely from fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" is the paramount virtue, rather than love, lib, erty, laughter, or hope. Above all, they can stem from simple greed.
There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schooling was a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in any direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the modem era - marketing.
Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, and forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same Cubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, a textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend and correspondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922 edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools are ... factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned .... And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down."
It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it.
Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.
First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there's no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
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Current mood:  bullied
Category: News and Politics
What is a BILLION??
This is too true to be funny
The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual
manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR
tax money.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising
agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in
one of its releases.
A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth.
E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate
our government is spending it.
While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New
Orleans It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division
Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for
$250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number, what does it
mean?
A. Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every
man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.
B. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home
gets $1,329,787.
C. Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.
Washington , D.C .. HELLO!!! .. Are all your calculators broken??
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Perm it Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax),
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax),
Liquor Tax,
Luxury Tax,
Marriage License Tax,
Medicare Tax,
Property Tax,
Real Estate Tax,
Service charge taxes,
Social Security Tax,
Road Usage Tax (Truckers),
Sales Taxes,
Recreational Vehicle Tax,
School Tax,
State Income Tax,
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA),
Telephone Federal Excise Tax,
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax,
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax,
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax,
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax,
Telephone State and Local Tax,
Telephone Usage Charge Tax,
Utility Tax,
Vehicle License Registration Tax,
Vehicle Sales Tax,
Watercraft Registration Tax,
Well Permit Tax,
Workers Compensation Tax.
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago,
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the
world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened? Can you spell 'politicians!'
And I still have to 'press
1' for English.
I hope this goes around THE
USA at least 100 times
What the heck happened?????
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Saturday, March 15, 2008
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Current mood:  contemplative
Category: News and Politics
DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS ADOPTED BY PEACE CONVENTION. "Boston, 1838.
"We the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the cause which we love, to the country in which we live, to publish a declaration expressive of the purposes we aim to accomplish and the measures we shall adopt to carry forward the work of peaceful universal reformation.
"We do not acknowledge allegiance to any human government. We recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler of mankind. Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity only as we love all other lands. The interests and rights of American citizens are not dearer to us than those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any national insult or injury...
"We conceive that a nation has no right to defend itself against foreign enemies or to punish its invaders, and no individual possesses that right in his own case, and the unit cannot be of greater importance than the aggregate. If soldiers thronging from abroad with intent to commit rapine and destroy life may not be resisted by the people or the magistracy, then ought no resistance to be offered to domestic troublers of the public peace or of private security.
"The dogma that all the governments of the world are approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States, in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with his will, is no less absurd than impious. It makes the impartial Author of our existence unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the powers that be in any nation are actuated by the spirit or guided by the example of Christ in the treatment of enemies; therefore they cannot be agreeable to the will of God, and therefore their overthrow by a spiritual regeneration of their subjects is inevitable.
"We regard as unchristian and unlawful not only all wars, whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war; every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification, we regard as unchristian and unlawful; the existence of any kind of standing army, all military chieftains, all monuments commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, all trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honor of military exploits, all appropriations for defense by arms; we regard as unchristian and unlawful every edict of government requiring of its subjects military service.
"Hence we deem it unlawful to bear arms, and we cannot hold any office which imposes on its incumbent the obligation to compel men to do right on pain of imprisonment or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly honors, and stations of authority. If we cannot occupy a seat in the legislature or on the bench, neither can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any such capacity. It follows that we cannot sue any man at law to force him to return anything he may have wrongly taken from us; if he has seized our coat, we shall surrender him our cloak also rather than subject him to punishment.
"We believe that the penal code of the old covenant--an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth--has been abrogated by Jesus Christ, and that under the new covenant the forgiveness instead of the punishment of enemies has been enjoined on all his disciples in all cases whatsoever. To extort money from enemies, cast them into prison, exile or execute them, is obviously not to forgive but to take retribution.
"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving that physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration, and that the sinful dispositions of men can be subdued only by love; that evil can be exterminated only by good; that it is not safe to rely upon the strength of an arm to preserve us from harm; that there is great security in being gentle, long- suffering, and abundant in mercy; that it is only the meek who shall inherit the earth; for those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.
"Hence as a measure of sound policy--of safety to property, life, and liberty--of public quietude and private enjoyment--as well as on the ground of allegiance to Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, we cordially adopt the non-resistance principle, being confident that it provides for all possible consequences, is armed with omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over every assailing force.
"We advocate no Jacobinical doctrines. The spirit of Jacobinism is the spirit of retaliation, violence, and murder. It neither fears God nor regards man. We would be filled with the spirit of Christ. If we abide evil by our fundamental principle of not opposing evil by evil we cannot participate in sedition, treason, or violence. We shall submit to every ordinance and every requirement of government, except such as are contrary to the commands of the Gospel, and in no case resist the operation of law, except by meekly submitting to the penalty of disobedience.
"But while we shall adhere to the doctrine of non-resistance and passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a moral and spiritual sense, to assail iniquity in high places and in low places, to apply our principles to all existing evil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions, and to hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world will have become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It appears to us a self-evident truth that whatever the Gospel is designed to destroy at any period of the world, being contrary to it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time is predicted when swords shall be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and men shall not learn the art of war any more, it follows that all who manufacture, sell, or wield these deadly weapons do thus array themselves against the peaceful dominion of the Son of God on earth.
"Having thus stated our principles, we proceed to specify the measures we propose to adopt in carrying our object into effect.
"We expect to prevail through the Foolishness of Preaching. We shall endeavor to promulgate our views among all persons, to whatever nation, sect, or grade of society they may belong. Hence we shall organize public lectures, circulate tracts and publications, form societies, and petition every governing body. It will be our leading object to devise ways and means for effecting a radical change in the views, feelings, and practices of society respecting the sinfulness of war and the treatment of enemies.
"In entering upon the great work before us, we are not unmindful that in its prosecution we may be called to test our sincerity even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even death itself. We anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and calumny. Tumults may arise against us. The proud and pharisaical, the ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and powers, may combine to crush us. So they treated the Messiah whose example we are humbly striving to imitate. We shall not be afraid of their terror. Our confidence is in the Lord Almighty and not in man. Having withdrawn from human protection, what can sustain us but that faith which overcomes the world? We shall not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try us, but rejoice inasmuch as we are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.
"Wherefore we commit the keeping of our souls to God. For every one that forsakes houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for Christ’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
"Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of the sentiments contained in this declaration, however formidable may be the opposition arrayed against them, we hereby affix our signatures to it; commending it to the reason and conscience of mankind, and resolving, in the strength of the Lord God, to calmly and meekly abide the issue." William Llord Garrison
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008
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Current mood:  blessed
Category: Life
In the beginning of 2007 i was living in a drafty 1870's farm house with a recording studio, jam space and many bed rooms. I had been there for three years and it was taking its toll on me. It was a money pit and was too big to keep clean all the time. I wanted a change, BAD! I had heard about a kindly old man that lived on 20 acres on the outskirts of town who let people camp on his land. It was march and spring was coming so i went and paid him a visit. His home sits nestled in a thick deciduous forest down a dirt drive. I offered to do any work he may have in exchange for letting me stay out in my tent on the land. He asked me some questions, told me a little about his life. He'd live in Ann Arbor since he was born in 1928 and had been a fitness guru and owned a local mom and pop gym from the 50's through the 80's. He had purchased the land in the mid 70's and built his home a few hundred yards from the road. Five years ago he built 2 tree houses out in the forest and he has many other plans for the land even though he's pushing 81. He was 75 when he built the tree houses! After thinking for a few quiet moments he agreed to let me stay out on the land! A few days later Chip went over there and got the same deal. I got rid of 90% of my belongings and moved outside and into my tent. The forest has been one of the 1 blessing of my adult life. Its full of birds (including a great horned owl), deer, rabbit, fox, etc... The peace and tranquility that is bestowed on Chip and I is indescribable. Everyday I wake up and praise GOD for bringing this lifestyle into my life! Simplicity the sages say is the key to inner happiness and i see exactly what they were talking about. The spring turned to summer and the summer turned to fall. The idea that i would soon have to return to a heated house in Babylon really really made me sad. After 6 months of being in this majestic forest i didn't want to return to the way i previously lived. I talked to our kindly land owner about building an earth shelter with a 50 gallon drum stove in it for warmth through the winter. At first he agreed but later he called me and asked if i'd like to live in one of his tree houses. Without even thinking twice i agreed! In trade i would need to do some work on it. I hauled a potbelly stove into it and installed a chimney. I put in a new floor repaired some minor roof leaks and built bunks. I have been taking walks in the woods with my chain saw every couple weeks. I find a dead tree thats still standing (fallen ones are usually too rotten or wet), cut it down, segment it and drag it back to the tree house. I then cut it into pieces that will fit in the stove. I haul it up the steps in milk crates. The winter set in and the snow fell, man has it ever fell. I can't remember a snowier winter than this one. And the cold... Its been below zero many times this winter. BUT! I have been toasty, so toasty. The coziness of being in the tree house in a snowstorm is... Well its amazing! There has been a few wind storms i could do without. The tree house groans and rocks back and forth when the wind is high. I got used to the rocking but the groaning keeps me up. I have never bailed on the tree house because of the weather. It invigorates my soul and fills me with the vitality only nature and GOD brings. In the spring i will move back out into my tent. Chip? You wonder where Chip has been? Well i'll tell you. That man is one burly brother. He's still staying in his tent happily. He has spent a few cold nights in the tree house but for the most part he's been out in his tent. Warm in his blanket pile and happy as someone in love. Id's like to add that we have had the $$$ to live in a "normal" habitat, we both have work, but we wouldn't trade this way of life except for a spot deeper in the woods. Live high, love deep, know GOD, blend into nature...! 
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008
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Current mood: luminous
Category: News and Politics
A Response to Imperialism
by Jomo Kenyatta
Kenyatta's fable is cute but has a very serious message and reflects the European attitudes towards Africa and the process by which Europe took over.
Once upon a time an elephant made a friendship with a man. One day a heavy thunderstorm broke out, the elephant went to his friend, who had a little hut at the edge of the forest, and said to him: "My dear good man, will you please let me put my trunk inside your hut to keep it out of this torrential rain?" The man, seeing what situation his friend was in, replied: "My dear good elephant, my hut is very small, but there is room for your trunk and myself. Please put your trunk in gently." The elephant thanked his friend, saying: "You have done me a good deed and one day I shall return your kindness." But what followed? As soon as the elephant put his trunk inside the hut, slowly he pushed his head inside, and finally flung the man out in the rain, and then lay down comfortably inside his friend's hut, saying: "My dear good friend, your skin is harder than mine, and as there is not enough room for both of us, you can afford to remain in the rain while I am protecting my delicate skin from the hail storm.
The man, seeing what his friend had done to him, started to grumble, the animals in the nearby forest heard the noise and came to see what was the matter. All stood around listening to the heated argument between the man and his friend the elephant. In this turmoil the lion came along roaring, and said in a loud voice: "Don't you know that I am the King of the jungle! How dare anyone disturb the peace of my kingdom?" On hearing this the elephant, who was one of the high ministers in the jungle kingdom, replied in a soothing voice, and said: "My Lord, there is no disturbance of the peace in your kingdom. I have only been having a little discussion with my friend here as to the possession of this little hut which your lordship sees me occupying." The lion, who wanted to have "peace and tranquility" in his kingdom, replied in a noble voice, saying: "I command my ministers to appoint a Commission of Enquiry to go thoroughly into this matter and report accordingly." He then turned to the man and said: "You have done well by establishing friendship with my people, especially with the elephant who is one of my honorable ministers of state. Do not grumble any more, your hut is not lost to you. Wait until the sitting of my Imperial Commission, and there you will be given plenty of opportunity to state your case. I am sure that you will be pleased with the findings of the Commission." The man was very pleased by these sweet words from the King of the jungle, and innocently waited for his opportunity, in the belief, that naturally the hut would be returned to him.
The elephant, obeying the command of his master, got busy with other ministers to appoint the Commission of Enquiry. The following elders of the jungle were appointed to sit in the Commission: (1) Mr. Rhinoceros; (2) Mr. Buffalo; (3) Mr. Alligator; (4) The Rt. Hon. Mr. Fox to act as chairman; and (5) Mr. Leopard to act as Secretary to the Commission. On seeing the personnel, the man protested and asked if it was not necessary to include in this Commission a member from his side. But he was told that it was impossible, since no one from his side was well enough educated to understand the intricacy of jungle law. Further, that there was nothing to fear, for the members of the Commission were all men of repute for their impartiality in justice, and as they were gentlemen chosen by God to look after the interest of races less adequately endowed with teeth and claws, he might rest assured that they would investigate the matter with the greatest care and report impartially.
The Commission sat to take the evidence. The Rt. Hon. Mr. Elephant was first called. He came along with a superior air, brushing his tusks with a sapling which Mrs. Elephant had provided, and in an authoritative voice said: 'Gentlemen of the jungle, there is no need for me to waste your valuable time in relating a story which I am sure you all know. I have always regarded it as my duty to protect the interests of my friends, and this appears to have caused the misunderstanding between myself and my friend here. He invited me to save his hut from being blown away by a hurricane. As the hurricane had gained access owing to the unoccupied space in the hut, I considered it necessary, in my friend's own interests, to turn the undeveloped space to a more economic use by sitting in it myself; a duty which any of you would undoubtedly have performed with equal readiness in similar circumstances."
After hearing the Rt. Hon. Mr. Elephant's conclusive evidence, the Commission called Mr. Hyena and other elders of the jungle, who all supported what Mr. Elephant had said. They then called the man, who began to give his own account of the dispute. But the Commission cut him short, saying: "My good man, please confine yourself to relevant issues. We have already heard the circumstances from various unbiased sources; all we wish you to tell us is whether the undeveloped space in your hut was occupied by anyone else before Mr. Elephant assumed his position?" The man began to say: "No, but_" But at this point the Commission declared that they had heard sufficient evidence from both sides and retired to consider their decision. After enjoying a delicious meal at the expense of the Rt. Hon. Mr. Elephant, they reached their verdict, called the man, and declared as follows: "In our opinion this dispute has arisen through a regrettable misunderstanding due to the backwardness of your ideas. We consider that Mr. Elephant has fulfilled his sacred duty of protecting your interests. As it is clearly for your good that the space should be put to its most economic use, and as you yourself have not yet reached the stage of expansion which would enable you to fill it, we consider it necessary to arrange a compromise to suit both parties. Mr. Elephant shall continue his occupation of your hut, but we give you permission to look for a site where you can build another hut more suited to your needs, and we will see that you are well protected."
The man, having no alternative, and fearing that his refusal might expose him to the teeth and claws of members of the Commission, did as they suggested. But no sooner had he built another hut than Mr. Rhinoceros charged in with his horn lowered and ordered the man to quit. A Royal Commission was again appointed to look into the matter, and the same finding was given. This procedure was repeated until Mr. Buffalo, Mr. Leopard, Mr. Hyena and the rest were all accommodated with new huts. Then the man decided that he must adopt an effective method of protection, since Commissions of Enquiry did not seem to be of any use to him. He sat down and said: "Ng'enda thi ndeagaga motegi," which literally means, "there is nothing that treads on the earth that cannot be trapped," or in other words, you can fool people for a time, but not forever.
Early one morning, when the huts already occupied by the jungle lords were all beginning to decay and fall to pieces, he went out and built a bigger and better hut a little distance away. No sooner had Mr. Rhinoceros seen it than he came rushing in, only to find that Mr. Elephant was already inside, sound asleep. Mr. Leopard next came in at the window, Mr. Lion, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Buffalo entered the doors, while Mr. Hyena howled for a place in the shade and Mr. Alligator basked on the roof. Presently they all began disputing about their rights of penetration, and from disputing they came to fighting, and while they were embroiled together the man set the hut on fire and burnt it to the ground, jungle lords and all. Then he went home, saying "Peace is costly, but it's worth the expense," and lived happily ever after.
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Monday, January 21, 2008
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Current mood:  enlightened
Category: News and Politics
Read the book, "What is the What?" by Dave Eggars and Valentino Achak Deng.
I just finished this book a half hour ago. I highly recommend it. It is a detailed account of the Lost Boys of Sudan, the devastating civil war there, life at several refugee camps in Ethiopia and Sudan, and the rellocation program in the United States. Incredible hardships on gangs of displaced boys in the southern Denke regions at the start of the war. Bombings, marauding slave traders, SPLA rebel soldiers, lions, starvation, disease, etc... It was an amazing story of survival and faith. It goes back and forth between Valentino's confrontation with the hardships of western society and the trials of his past. At one point he calls the U.S.A. "gloriously miserable". For those that don't know about Sudanese culture and the civil war there, this is the book for you. I didn't understand it went so far beyond Darfur and how far it went back. The current conflict had its start in the mid 70's! Check it out.
Peace... Sunny
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Friday, December 28, 2007
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Current mood: fascinated
Category: Music
The word 'dub' today is used to describe a genre of music that consists predominantly of instrumental re-mixes of existing recordings. These re-mixes radically manipulated and reshape the recording(through the use of sound effects). The production and mixing process is not used just to replicate the live performance of the recording artist, but audio effects and studio 'trickery' are seen as an integral part of the music. The roots of 'dub' can be traced back to Jamaica in the late 1960s, where it is widely accepted that Osbourne Ruddock pioneered the style. Ruddock turned the mixing desk into an instrument, with the Deejay or mixer playing the role of the artist or performer. These early 'Dub' examples can be looked upon as the prelude to many dance and pop music genres.
Jamaican music has always borrowed heavily from U.S. popular music form adapting this music to give Jamaica its own unique variations. During the forties 'Big Band' music was very popular in Jamaica, with swing bands touring all over the country playing at local dance halls, but by the 1950's these 'Big Bands' were starting to be superceded by smaller, 'more dynamic, optimistic' bop and rhythm and blues groups. Jamaicans traveling to America in search of work were exposed to this new kind of music, which fitted in perfectly with America's postwar optimism. It was not only being played live but also through large sound systems, and this trend soon followed to Jamaica. Sound system operators started appearing in the ghetto areas of Jamaica's capital Kingston, holding dances in large open spaces called 'lawns'. These operators would also tour the country districts of Jamaica in direct competition with the big bands. These sound systems soon took over in the dance halls, because for many people who didn't own a radio, it was the only way to hear the new R&B music. 'Sound systems were also cheaper to employ than a dozen musicians and a 'sound' took no break' . By the middle of the 1950s, Duke Reid and Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd had become two of the premier sound system operators in Jamaica.
In 1954 Ken Khouri started Jamaica's first record company 'Federal Records' pressing licenced copies of American recordings, as well as a few local artists. Following his lead in this Duke Reid and Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd both held their own recording sessions, recording Jamaican artists for exclusive play on their own sound systems in the hope of gaining the upper hand in the highly competitive business. Duke Reid recorded Derrick Morgan and Eric Morris for sound system play. Reid, whose set played at 'S-Corner' on Spanish Town Road, even titled Derrick Morgan's first tune 'Lover Boy' as 'S-Corner Rock' when it was played on the sound system as an exclusive acetate recording. Clement Dodd also had his first recording session in this year, recording over a dozen tracks with artists like Alton Ellis and Eddie Perkins, Theophilius Beckford, Beresford Ricketts and Lascelles Perkins.
Young Jamaicans during the early sixties had been drawn to the major cities in search of work. They had not found it, and the mood of the ghetto areas had started to deteriorate. These youths or 'Rude boys' as they were called, started forming into political gangs from different ghetto's throughout Kingston. 'Rude boys connected with the so-called 'underworld', a layer of people who lived outside the law, and who had always patronized Jamaican dance music'. The 'Rude boys' connection with the dance halls, as well as their style of dancing (which was slower and more menacing) changed the style of music being played from the more up tempo Ska(9) to the slower Rock Steady beat . While many producers have claimed to have pioneered the 'Rock Steady' groove it was Duke Reid who capitalized on it, recording and releasing several tunes by a variety of performers in this new style.
The 'Rock Steady' phase lasted little more than a year, and although Duke Reid and 'Coxone' Dodds had dominated Jamaican music for well over a decade, three other producers, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Bunny Lee and Osbourne Ruddock (all of whom had worked for either Ried or Dodds at sometime) dictated the pace of Jamaican music in the seventies and beyond.
Lee 'Scratch' Perry ( or Rainford Hugh Perry) was born in 1936 in Kendal, a small town in the rural parish of Hanover, in the northwest of Jamaica. Perry arrived in Kingston in the late 1950s, and immediately tried to enter the music business. He started working for Coxsone Dodd as a 'gopher, bouncer, spy, talent scout, uncredited songwriter and eventually performer' Perry left Coxsone's employ after a disagreement over payment, moving to a new label (Amalgamated) set up by Joel Gibson, where he recorded an early reggae hit called 'People Funny Boy' (which was a verbal attack aimed at his previous employer 'Coxsone".) Perry became well known as a producer and was instrumental in Bob Mailey and the Wailers early success. He linked up with Mailey and the Wailers in 1969, beginning a collaboration that resulted in 'definitive versions of some of the Wailers strongest work'. Perry, through his work as an artist, producer and engineer, has been one of the main people responsible in shaping the sound of Jamaican music over the last forty years.
Osbourne Ruddock (better known as King Tubby) was born in 1941 in Kingston, and worked as an electronics engineer (repairing radios and televisions) though out the 1960s. He owned a sound system (called 'Home Town Hi-Fi') by 1968, and used unique echo and reverb effects which set him aside from the competition. During this time, he also worked for Duke Reid at Treasure Isle Studio as the master cutter, cutting acetates. These 'one off' disc were designed to gain a competitive edge over rival sound system operators via their exclusivity. Ruddock was mixing one of these 'dub' versions when he accidently left out portions of the vocal track from the recording. On listening back, he decided he liked the effect of just having the bed track by itself and played it on his sound system.
He took it to a dance and played the vocal, which everybody knew, then played the dub plate of this rhythm track and people couldn't believe it.(
These new 'versions' of popular songs (combined with the unique effects of his sound system) soon saw Tubby's 'Hometown Hi-fi' become extremely popular. In addition Tubby had started working along side deejay Edwart Beckford, known in the dance hall as U Roy, who had begun answering the vocal sentiments of the singers with his own brand of outrageous jive talk. This vocal style known as 'toasting' is widely accepted as a precursor to 'rapping' .
In 1972 Ruddock set up a tiny studio at 18 Bromilly Avenue in Waterhouse (a district in Kingston), he began to experiment with these instrumental recordings using various home built electronic effect devices such as reverb, delay and equalizers, and started to further manipulate the sound of these instrumental songs. He acquired a disc-cutter and a two-track tape machine, and using his home made mixer, started working closely with producers like Bunny Lee and Lee 'Scratch' Perry. Together with Perry he made the stereo dub album 'Blackboard Jungle' in 1973.
Joe Gibbs of 'Amalgamated' soon saw the potential of these instrumentals, and instructed Errol Thompson (Gibb's engineer at Randy's 'Studio 17') to start putting instrumental/rhythm versions on B-sides of singles, which he called 'dub'. Tubby bought a four-track mixing board from Dynamic Studio and, with his background in electronics, he was able to specially-customized this equipment to include faders. This enabled him to slide tracks in or out of the mix smoothly, giving Tubby the edge over his rival, Errol Thompson who had to punch tracks in more abruptly, using buttons. In 1974, Tubby started working closely with Bunny Lee, who supplied hundreds of rhythms, and recorded all his hit artists at Ruddock's studio (including Johnnie Clarke and Cornell Campbell). The studio now contained many effect devices, such as an echo delay which Tubby had made by passing a loop of tape over the heads of an old two-track machine.
There is general agreement that King Tubby's most prodigious period was during the mid seventies when working with Bunny Lee. With Lee relying on Tubby's experimentation and expertises of the 'dub' re-mix.
Improvisation was the order of the day; most of Tubby's dubs were mixed live, with the engineer playing his board like a great jazzman blowing solos on his horn, deconstructing and reinventing the music.
While Tubby was not an instrumentalist, when recording Lee's studio band the Aggrovators, he was able to use his mixing desk and primitive effect devices as though they were an instrument, on occasion even physically hitting the spring reverb unit to create a thunderclap sound or putting a brief frequency test tone on deep echo into the mix (later he would use sound effects like sirens and gunshots).
It wasn't simply the fact that Tubby and his cohorts used reverb and delay effects in their mixes; the difference with Tubby, was that these effects were used to enliven radically re-mixed versions of songs. Tubby, a skilled and resourceful electronics expert, improvised endlessly with his studio equipment.
Tubby started training other engineers (such as 'Prince' Philip Smart, Lloyd James, better known as 'Prince Jammy'and Overton 'Scientist' Brown.) in the intricacies of dub.
In the mid 1970s Jammy would become King Tubby's leading dub engineer at the Waterhouse studio. During his time at the studio he had mixed most of Bunny Lee's dub tracks. Then in 1978, Jammy started his own label called 'Imprint' and took his first step in record production. By 1985, Jammy had become the dominant Jamaican producer responsible himself for bringing a whole new generation of musicians and mixers into this genre of music.
As the 1970s came to a close, Overton 'Scientist' Brown took over as Tubby's leading engineer. Brown had first met Osbourne while working in his Televison and radio repair shop. He was given the opportunity to experiment in the recording studio during downtime. Brown would eagerly play what he had done to Tubby, to which Tubby would reply that he thought the work was weak and his apprentice still had much to learn. Years later Tubby admitted he was merely pushing Brown to stretch himself and these early 'dub's' had been excellent.
'Every man who mixed at Tubby's got his own sound, yet no matter which mixmaster was at the board, the resultant music always bore the authentic stamp of King Tubby's'.
During the early eighties, King Tubby devoted himself to building his new studio. Completed in 1985, it soon produced its first hit, Anthony Red Rose's 'Temper'. It looked as if Tubby was to become a leading producer in Jamaican music, until he was mysteriously gunned down outside his studio in 1986.
The Jamaican music scene has had very strong links to the United Kingdom since early 1960s. When Jamaican 'Ska' artists were signed by English record companies, their music was readily accepted by England's 'Mod' culture of the sixties. To some degree it has been these links and support that has made the export of Jamaican music much easier to the rest of the world. The combination of this with the growing popularity of modern dance styles such as 'Trip hop', 'Drum and Bass" and 'Jungle', (which are direct decedents of the originanl Jamaican 'Dub' music of King Tubby) have brought many new artists and producers from outside of Jamaica to continue in the experimentation and the use of dub in their music. Steve Barrow of Blood and Fire says,
Tubby was, by any standards, a genius.....he invented Dub - which, as we know, is the pulse that beats through much of today's dance music from trip-hop to techno. If Lee Perry was the first surrealist of dub, Tubby was definitely the first modernist.(31
England now has a large percentage of the total number of artists involved in this genre of music, with many of the leading producers being based there. Adrian Sherwood and The Mad Professor are two of these leading 'dub' exponents.
Adrian Sherwood (The producer behind the British On-U sound record label) has since the 1970s recorded many artist from within the 'dub' genre, such as Creation Rebel, African Headcharge, Singers & Players and Dub Syndicate. Often wildly experimental with studio techniques, sometimes running whole tracks in reverse, has also attracted artists from outside the realm of 'dub' such as Depeche Mode, Nine inch nails, Living Color, Garbage and The Cure, all of who have used Sherwood's radical approach to mixing to manipulate their material.
The 'Mad Professor' alias Neil Fraser started producing and recording dub music in 1980. Over the past sixteen years he has become one of the premier artists of this genre. One of the most prolific creators in this medium and operating out of a vast studio expanse in Britain, he has released in excess of a 100 Albums, performing re-mixes for such acts as Massive Attack, Sade and Pato Baton. He characteristically uses electronic sounds in his dub such as bleeps, whirs and other electronic machinations.
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Friday, December 28, 2007
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Current mood: enlightened
Category: Life
These are the best books I've read on the 226th decendant of King David, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia who reigned from 11-2-1930 to 1974.
1. Ethiopia and my Progress by Emperor Haile Selassie I http://www.amazon.com/Life-Ethiopias-Progress-Autobiography-Sellassie/dp/0948390409
2. Beyond the Throne by Inrias Getachew http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Throne-Enduring-Emperor-Selassie/dp/1931253005
3. The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Ryszard-Kapuscinski/dp/0141188030/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198855004&sr=1-1
4. The Lion of Judah Hath Prevailed by Christine Sandford http://www.amazon.com/Lion-Judah-Hath-Prevailed/dp/0948390417/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198855119&sr=1-1
Although I have read many many books on Emperor Haile Selassie I, the Rastafarian Movement, Bob Marley and the Reggae phenomenon, I would say that these 4 books are the best at giving you an unbiased account of the most interesting character of the 20th century (NO, REALLY!) and what i would call a modern day biblical avatar.
Maximum Love and Respect!Sunny Ann Arbor Dub Project
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Friday, December 28, 2007
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Current mood: blessed
Category: Religion and Philosophy
INTRODUCTION
Christmas is a major holiday in Ethiopia where more than half of the
population is Orthodox Christian. The celebrations occur January
7, the Feast of the Epiphany, instead of December 25.
STEPS
1. Make sure to set up a manger scene that includes the Three Magi. Legend has it that the king bearing frankincense was King Balthazar of Ethiopia, .
2. Infuse the celebrations with the essential oil frankincense, which was traditionally a gift suitable for a high priest. Today you can mix frankincense with spices or seeds to create different aromas, or you can burn frankincense incense.
3. Attend a local Christian Orthodox service if there are any nearby. Keep in mind that the services sometimes require that men and women sit in separate areas and that services can last up to three hours.
4. Step FourSing carols and carry candles either during the service or afterwards.
5. Prepare an Ethiopian feast for the Christmas meal that includes a main course, such as doro wat (a spicy chicken stew), injera bread (flat round bread) and homemade wine or beer. Keep in mind that injera bread is used to scoop and eat food, hence replacing utensils. The Christmas meal, which is served January 7, is preceded by major preparations that include the purchase and slaughter of an animal (typically a goat or cow).
6. Encourage the children to play ganna or leddat, which is a form of field hockey in which sticks with hooks on one end are used. The game is played by two opposing teams and the stick and ball are made from locally grown trees. In Ethiopia the teams often represent certain regions and the rivalry can be fierce. According to tradition, shepherds celebrated when they heard of Jesus' birth by playing such a game.
FACTS
There are no Christmas trees in a traditional Ethiopian Christmas. However, Christmas trees, sparkles and artificial snow have begun to spring up in the capital city of Addis Ababa.
The exchange of gifts is not customary for Christmas in Ethiopia. The one exception to this is that some families give children new clothing as a part of the celebrations.
The word Ganna is used interchangeably with the word Christmas to mean the birth of Christ (leddat). A common way to refer to the holiday is "ye ganna baal".
Ethiopia is a country with more than 80 languages and many cultural influences, so Christmas traditions are often diverse and cannot be generalized. The preceding steps represent a few local traditions that may or may not be appropriate for your personal celebration of Christmas.
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Monday, August 21, 2006
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Category: Pets and Animals
Zuzu is my Jack Russell, he was hit by an SUV on Arborview in Ann Arbor
August 18th. His little pelvis was crushed and I thought I was
going to have to put him down. Instead I took a chance. He is having
extensive surgery and reconstruction done at Michigan State. The cost of this
is very very high. Any donation towards his medical bill will save
me from his immense medical bill.
You can email me at solomon_tree@yahoo.com
Zuzu is expected to recover in a few weeks. God Bless!
LOVE LIFE BECAUSE LIFE IS PRECIOUS!
Sunny
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