The Silenced Majority

It is so easy to see the world and the happenings of the world in a purely negative light without any redemptive factors.  The crazy despotic country that is North Korea has nuclear weapons, war looms (as always) in the Middle East, mistreatment of women and children around the globe and talking heads always blaming “the other party” for everything that is wrong in their respective country.  However the media doesn’t cover the silent majority and too few people realize that the powerful minority doesn’t represent the hopes and dreams of the majority.  The majority of Koreans want a peaceful reunification someday, the majority of Palestinians and Israelis want a peace of compromise, grass roots women’s groups and orphanages are popping up all over the desperate parts of the world that need them and there are (believe it or not) many government officials who are silently trying to actually get good work done for their people.  But the voice is given to the loud and terribly arrogant extremes.  It takes work, but if we look deep enough into the issues of the day we may just find that same hope that the silent majority has.

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I’m not sure if I’m just getting old and crumudgeny or if there is real rapid change happening in the world, but I sense that the beginning of real substantial earth-shaking change.  A sort of change that has been experienced before in history like in the years 1919, 1945 and 1989.  I think that one of the years of the recent past will go down in history as these previous years have.  I sense a real move toward more inclusion around the globe of more peoples in the market and political decision-making process.  But as we’ve seen time and time again in history, those with power are unwilling to relinquish it without a fight.  We see that fight today in Syria, but we have seen multiple other Arab dictators toppled.  We see Chinese and Indian citizens gaining a middle class that has included billions of more people in the globalized market and in the last decade some of the “darkest” and most hopeless places in the world have had a light shined upon them.

People now know of the horrible cruelty in the diamond mines of Sierra Leone and forced change.  People now know of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and their use of child soldiers and how 3 teenage boys with hope and determination can change the future.  People now are able to see the courage of protestors all across the Middle East to determine their own futures.  And on and on…  This can be the real power of an interconnected and global world, the fact that truth can be revealed so much easier.  A film like “Blood Diamond” can change the entire market place for good.  Three young boys who have a desire to better the world can shine light on the previous darkness that too many children had to endure and start a global organization for good known as, “Invisible Children.”  And brutal dictators can no longer get away with harsh treatment and shutting down their media by courageous young people posting the brutal treatment to YouTube or joining international media via satellite. 

  There is more work by every human to be done for sure, but the amazing thing about change is that it happens so slow, but so sure, that many people don’t even know that it has happened until it has.  There are innumerable instances of courageous people taking a stand for hope and succeeding.  If you make an effort to look, you will find that there is a great hope under the surface of cynicism, complaining and negativity that pervades our public discussion today. 

   

July 4th Thoughts

The 4^th of July is a great time in the middle of the summer for families to get together, bbq’s to be enjoyed, parades of celebrations and fireworks at night.  However like most holidays in modern America the meaning and history has tragically been forgotten.  America is not something to mindlessly celebrate, it is a set of ideals to be continually chased after and collectively pursued.  There is still so much work to be done today in America to live up to the grand idea of a place where everyone could respectfully come together and have choices so long as they don’t interfere with other people’s choices.  The thing that sets America apart is the blank slate of ideas that this country was founded upon.  Despite the greatness of those ideas there has always been a cost.  On July 4^th it is my contention that we ought to remember what this day really is and remember it as such and remember it is not a celebration for all.  On this day we should all reread the Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson so eloquently wrote and remember why it was written and how serious it was when the Continental Congress adopted it.  We too must remember that July 4, 1776 signaled the beginning of the end for the vast majority of the Native American tribes that inhabited the western ¾ of the country for thousands of years.  It is a bittersweet day to be sure.  On one had we have the great ideas of a shared liberty and yet we have the loss of a people as well.  

What is Majuro like?

Ever since we got back to the States, people keep asking us one question, "What was it (Majuro) like?"  There are so many different ways to answer that question and I think I've tried to answer it culturally, politically, economically and educationally; however, what I find is that it is incredibly challenging to answer this question.  I have been to 25 different countries and The Marshall Islands are by far the most difficult place I've ever been to explain.  I feel no matter how I answer that question, it is never a very good answer and it is always incomplete and the people that I describe it to inevitably get an incomplete description.

Any proper description of Majuro and the Marshall Islands has to start with the fact that it is incredibly tiny, especially to someone who is from Chicago.  Majuro only has about 20,000 people in the entire Atoll, which actually makes it quite crowded since it is only about 12 square miles in total area.  There is one major road, which doesn't really have a name, because when there is only one road there lacks a purpose to name it.  There are parts of the road when you are driving where the Atoll is only about as wide as the road.  On one side you have the crashing ocean waves and on the other is the placid beautiful lagoon.  When I first saw a picture of the international airport in Majuro, I thought it was a photoshop joke, but it isn't.  It really is a runway just put essentially in the middle of the ocean.  

Majuro is small for sure, but it's people are what make this country so unique.  Again it is difficult to describe the Marshallese people.  The language is fascinating to listen to and there has only been a written language for less than 100 years.  To me it seems there are two groups of Marshallese, the "well born" and those who struggle on a daily basis.  There is a small minority of wealthy and powerful people who seem to have all the luxuries of a modern lifestyle, but then there is the majority.  The unemployment rate hovers around 50% and there is neighborhood after neighborhood of shanty towns.  There are an uncountable number of children who do not go to school and who roam Majuro on a daily basis, just hanging around.  There seems to be a beautiful fatalism to Marshallese culture.  Beautiful in that so many folks just go about living their daily lives with seeming little worry enjoying all the beautiful weather has to offer.  The fatalism on the other hand is quite worrisome to a foreign westerner.  There seems to be no sense of urgency in the culture to make the situation of the majority better, mostly it seems because it is and would be an impossible task. 

The Marshall Islands is an incredibly poor country.  The reason for this and their shockingly high unemployment rate is that there is no viable local industry now or in the near future.  The only real economic activity seems to be the many local stores that sell exclusively imported goods, clothes and food.  Virtually nothing is produced locally and therefore there is no way to employ the masses.  People seem to think that this is the way it is and there is very little to be done to change the country in the future, hence what I see as a sense of fatalism.  

My favorite part of Marshallese culture is the love of basketball.  I love playing basketball and all of the hoops takes place outdoors in Majuro.  Occasionally you'll have a rain delay, but there's nothing like playing hoops on a beautiful Marshallese evening.  I love playing in the various leagues in Majuro and can't wait until my ankle heals so I can finally play again.  

The food in the Marshall Islands is ok.  It's not great and it's not bad, it's ok.  You can buy almost anything there that you can buy in the States, but if you go to a grocery store and buy "American brands" then you better plan on paying at least 50% more in price.  A bottle of beer is $2, yes one bottle, not a 6 pack.  A box of Cheerios is about $8 and milk... well milk as it exists in America is seemingly not to be trusted in Majuro.  Powder milk is the way to go as both times we got proper milk, it was spoiled.  Restaurants really aren't that much more expensive than cooking yourself and there are a few good options there that we'll take advantage of several times a week.  When you go out, salads are rare, but not bad.  Burgers and pizza are common, but you can always find a good piece of fish!

Scientists have said that because of global warming these islands will be under water in less than 100 years, thus forcing all Marshallese people to abandon their homeland and become exiles somewhere, most likely in America.  This will undoubtedly force upon the Marshallese people and their culture a massive evolution as they've already gone through in the past 150 years.  They have journeyed from a primitive hunter-gatherer society focused around warfare and local traditions to a real melting pot culture that has mixed traditional Marshallese culture with that of modern capitalism and come out with something somewhat indescribable.  They are a country dependent upon generous foreign aid and reparations from generations of disrespect, but the Marshallese are a unique people who are trying to adapt their lives to craziness of a fast paced modern society.  

I am sure from this description you're more confused and even have less of an idea what Majuro and the Marshall Islands are like, but I tried.  Maybe you just have to go there.  I can also recommend a few fantastic books and films.  

Books: Surviving Paradise by Peter Rudiak-Gould, and For the Good of Mankind by Jack Niedenthal

Films: Radio Bikini, and The Sounds of Crickets at Night

I think those would be more helpful than asking me, but here was my futile attempt and describing Majuro, The Marshall Islands and Marshallese culture.  I'm quite certain there are those who have different opinions and I'd love to hear them...

Loving Chicago, Missing Majuro

We have been home in Chicago now for about 2 weeks.  It has been a fantastic time seeing friends and family and doing a lot of relaxing.  I have been playing a bunch of golf with friends and in tournaments and it's been really nice to play again.  Janae and Neyla have spent a lot of time playing with cousins and enjoying the cool Chicago weather.  After being in Majuro for 6 months Chicago is like a culinary explosion for us.  We have enjoyed Tapas, Chicago style Pizza and delicious Italian food.  None of those are accessible in the beautiful Marshall Islands.  Of all of these great things, there are some things that we miss about Majuro. 

We miss the simpleness of not having a TV and a cell phone.  It seems that since we have been home we've watched way too much TV and been on our iPhone way too much.  When you have these conveniences of modern life it is difficult to not use them.  I have read for 0 minutes since we have returned and spent too much time watching TV.  In my defense, the US Open was on last week and I hadn't been able to watch golf in several months, so that's my rationalization.  I am surprised how just by having technology as an option it sucks you into using it more than you ever would.  If living in Majuro has shown us anything it is that you really can create better more fulfilling relationships and spend more time exercising if you just do not have technology.  Janae and I have discussed and agreed that when we do return to the States, we will not get cable as it just eats up so much time that we could spend together and/or exercising and/or reading.  

Technology is obviously not a bad thing in and of itself.  In fact, there are so many great things that our modern technological society allows us today, but when we become too dependent upon it or rely on it too much, we clearly lose something.  

In Majuro I read more books than I could have ever imagined.  I was more fit than I had been in the last 10 years and I was able to spend more time with people building relationships.  Majuro has helped to reveal to us what truly is the most important things in life and we are excited to return for one more year in August.  

Summer Fun in the USA

            Another school year is quickly coming to an end and with it a trip back to the United States for Janae, Neyla and I.  We have greatly enjoyed our first 6 months in Majuro and look forward to returning next school year with a much clearer picture of what to expect and how to make the most of our time here in the Marshall Islands.  Our trip back home will be a welcome breather to see our friends and family and to recharge our batteries for next year.  Janae has finally finished teaching her Algebra course and has wisely decided to take next year and just stay home with Neyla and enjoy island life.  This year was a challenge for me since I’d never come in midway through a year and taken over for another teacher.  I loved my students and wish I could have had an entire year with them and I will miss them next year, but am excited for my new crop of 8^th graders. 

            We are looking forward to many things in the States this summer.  Aside from the obvious of spending quality time with our friends and family both in Chicago and Colorado, the top of our list includes Mexican food and some great deep-dish pizza!  I, of course, will be looking forward to playing some golf and competing in a few tournaments and hopefully it won’t take me too long to find my game.  Janae is strangely looking forward to eating at Applebee’s and Cheesecake Factory, but also as a desire for some Tapas and I’m on board with that one. 

            We will be back on June 6 in Chicago and hope that we can see everyone possible.  My phone is gone forever and I have no number, so you have to contact us through Janae’s phone!  Please email or message us on Facebook if you need that number or would like to see us during our short vacation in America.  

Mr. Keating: A True Educator

            I have just revisited the great film from 1989 entitled, “Dead Poets Society.”  It is one of those films that you must make a point of revisiting every so often, especially if you’re a teacher!  There are so many inspirational and moving poems and quotes in the film, but I think there are 3 parts of the film too often overlooked.  First, I love the dedication the young kids have to their studies.  No question it is often misguided and for all the wrong reasons, but a great teacher can give that motivation a proper compass and steer those kids the right directions.  Second, is Mr. Keating’s passion for his students to develop “outside of the classroom.”  Clearly he is great inside the classroom, but it is his concern and compassion for his students to develop as complete well-rounded people.  Finally, the ending.  Mr. Keating, despite being the best role-model and inspiration any of these students have ever had, loses his job.  Sometimes doing the right thing takes some sacrifice, and Mr. Keating knew that. 

            The various characters are clearly similar in so many ways.  They are all young, rich, white boys who attend the best Prep School in America.  However, they each have a unique character about them.  The one similarity they all share, due to their similar backgrounds, is a seriousness about their education.  Even when they have a bad teacher, and there are many examples of the old fogy teachers teaching quite badly, they still stay focused, respect their teacher and give it their best.  There’s a sense that they are studying for a higher purpose and they aren’t going to let some ridiculous teacher ruin their success.  Great teachers inspire students to do their best and work hard, but there are great many lessons that can be learned by students when they don’t have a great teacher.  It can show their true character to not sit back, complain and blame someone else, but instead to show that person that they can’t hold you down.  Don’t get me wrong, I think that many of these boys are trying hard for all the wrong reasons and they do things more out of fear than any real desire to better themselves as people, but a great teacher, as Mr. Keating, will surely take these boys’ amazing work ethic and point it in a proper direction.  He will help them to find authentic reasons to study and work hard and then the students’ lives will truly be all that they can be, and not some shallow reflection of their parents’ lives. 

            Someday our students will no longer be our students.  Someday students will become the generation that leads their nation and world.  It is a teacher’s job to prepare students for the future, not just to earn certain grades or for standardized tests or for admission into a particular college, but it is our duty to make them better people and in turn prepare them for their life outside of school.  In the film, it is very clear which teachers are preparing their students for just the next exam and which teacher is preparing the students for life.  Mr. Keating is a role model for all teachers.  He cares very much for his students as people.  He teaches a poetry class, and readily admits that this may not be a “practical” class for most of his students who want to be doctors and lawyers, but he appeals to their humanity, saying that poetry is about love and emotion, the things that we can’t calculate and measure, but that everyone has!  He wants to educate the “whole person” and for them to be in touch with all sides of their brains and develop their entire person, not just a part.  Mr. Keating surely teaches the curriculum, but he goes beyond that narrow mandate to truly give his students an education and help to make them better people. 

            Maybe the most overlooked part of the story is the fact at the end that Mr. Keating loses his job with integrity.  Too often people will do anything to keep their job, often times not speaking “truth to power” and not standing up for what is right.  Mr. Keating knows what is right and knows that he is fighting an uphill battle against “traditional” teaching methods.  He realizes that there is a gigantic difference between teaching and educating.  If you educate the whole person and help them to become better people with a clear base of priorities, then good grades, entrance into college and job prospects will follow.  If a teacher doesn’t educate the whole person then we have people floating through life who may have good grades and a job, but who are self consumed and narrow-minded.  That doesn’t make the world a better place for them or our children.  Too often school and teachers are short term oriented around goals that in themselves do not produce better people.  The catch is that if we try to produce better people all of those short-term goals will be achieved through the journey of becoming the best person that they can be.

            Mr. Keating is clearly an amazing teacher.  The only thing that is greater than his passion for poetry is his passion and love for his students.  That is evidenced by how he attempts to offer his students work ethic a proper compass, how he works diligently to educate the whole person and how he was willing to risk his own personal security to do what was right for his students.  Because of this, the future for Mr. Keating’s students and all students of great teachers has opened wide and students begin to see the world and the possibilities of their lives from a whole new perspective. 

             

This is 40... or just ridiculous people?

         There are no movie theaters in Majuro, so here you are able to download movies for free from the internet legally, so that’s what we do.  Janae and I have watched some great movies lately, and some that were thoroughly frustrating.  She loved The Hobbit and I absolutely hated it.  We both loved Silver Linings Playbook, that film comes highly recommended from the Rusins; however, we both were intensely frustrated by Judd Apatows new movie (I won’t call it a film), This is 40.  We both usually enjoy Apatow’s and Paul Rudd’s films and take them for what they are, hilarious films that deal with pretty small issues.  However, in This is 40 Apatow seems to attempt to get the movie goer to sympathize for a family going through economic hardships, who have clearly done themselves in by their extravagant, prideful and silly economic choices and were in no way innocent victims (as so many were) of the financial crisis.  Rather this couple were the ones who were the problem.  They over extended themselves buying a $90,000 car, 7 figure home and extravagant weekend vacations all while both of their small businesses were doing quite poorly.  They were living the typical generation X lifestyle of “keeping up with the Jones’s,” in which little money is saved and all of their money is spent on self-indulgence. 

           

            There were many people who lost so much during this recent economic collapse.  Many lost much or all of their retirement savings, jobs were lost, homes devalued and people’s futures got murky.  Many people lost so much through no fault of their own.  But the characters in Apatow’s film were not these people.  They weren’t innocent victims, but instead they are representative of how so many individual American’s choices greatly assisted in the downfall of financial collapse of 2008.  Too many Americans had such little money in savings and had invested huge amounts in extravagant homes and took too big of loans out on houses that they had no businesses even thinking of buying in the first place.  Couple these cultural problems of over extension and lack of savings together and the middle class themselves become unsustainable.  Don’t get me wrong, I think there is plenty of blame to go to Wall Street, in fact, they get the majority of the blame in my opinion, but too many Americans were unwilling to take a look in the mirror when the financial crisis came and too eager to blame other people or institutions. 

            To me this shows a lack of practical wisdom that so lacks in a mass consumer society.  Gandhi once said, “Live simply, so that others may simply live.”  The Mahatma understood that economics was not a zero sum game, but he also understood that if you can meet your needs and your wants so easily, then it is your human duty to help others gain some opportunity to be able to do what you have done.  All too often Americans are known for their self-indulgence, rather than for their kindness and compassion.  I hope that we can change this.  I hope that Americans would not just continue to buy and build bigger houses, but assist their fellow man to gain a step up on the ladder of opportunity by supporting efforts for clean water, schools, infrastructure, micro-loans, and more that don’t just help ourselves, but help the world become a more compassionate and understanding place.

            In Apatow’s This is 40, there are unquestionably some amusing moments, but I thought the story was the worst he’s ever written.  He was trying to draw sympathy for people who should have been more sympathetic themselves instead of self indulgent with their material possessions.  I full-heartedly believe that they best way to help yourself is to help others.  Then and only then will you truly find fulfillment in life.  The characters in this film are petty and self-indulged.  At one point the wife has a problem with her husband helping out his own family to the tune of $80,000, but she clearly has no problem driving a BMW that is worth more than that or living in a home that is easily in the million dollar price range.  The characters Apatow creates are not deserving of sympathy, but they are, sadly, all too American.