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The School of Life

Hi Folks,

I enjoyed reading the story on Attention Deficit Disorder. Having been one of those kids (although never officially diagnosed as such--A.D.D. wasn't such a fad when I was in school, having graduated from high school in 1972) and probably one of those adults, my wife Marilyn and I came with an alternative term for this "disorder": Attention Preference Disorder, or A.P.D.

Having spent a lot of time as a student and a teacher in public schools, as well as leading my own seminars, I am not very surprised that there are a lot of fidgety, bored, and inattentive kids in our classrooms. Who wouldn't be bored out of their skulls trying to "learn" in a non-participatory, let's-read-books and then listen-to-a-lecture teaching curriculum that prevails in the public schools? Unfortunately, I found college to be much the same, and higher education's lock on providing credentials to future workers prevents any real change in the way education is attempted at any grade level.

Since I don't qualify for a grant to study the problem, I can only relate my own experience and some of what I have witnessed in others--the dreaded and de-bunked "anecdotal experience."

Through the 7th grade I failed miserably in school; I was lucky to maintain a D- grade point average. I was a renegade without a cause; I refer to those times as my "pre-gangster days." But between the 6th and 8th grades I experienced a life-changing set of circumstances: my father suffered a massive, disabling stroke; my mother suffered a stroke in our kitchen and died while Dad was convalescing in a hospital bed in our living room; and I was institutionalized in a children's' home for five years.

After arriving at the children's' home, I had the opportunity to witness what happened to those other "freedom lovers" who lived with me in the children's' home, giving their lives over to various self-destructive pursuits. It began to dawn on me that I had to make some changes and make them quickly. I also began to realize that if I played the game in school I would "succeed" and be left pretty-much alone to develop my own, real interests--as long as I didn't rock the boat.

After standardized testing at the beginning of the 8th grade, I was placed in "Page Seven," the next-to-lowest classification in an archaic student-assessment system. Most of my classmates were Latinos and their primary "problems" were: living in an alien culture, and being less-than-fluent in the English language. By the end of the year I had advanced to Page Two, much to the surprise of my classmates and teachers. Lower-level students weren't expected to advance through the system...

To make a long story short, I graduated from high school 7th in my class of 225 students with an A- GPA and full financial support to attend a university.

The funny thing is that when I arrived at the university, my fantasy of a different type of learning experience evaporated and I was too immature to find my own way under the circumstances. I dropped out during my senior year, having spent the previous three years aimlessly adrift.

But I didn't stop learning at that point, and I never will. I discovered that if I was truly interested in learning about a subject or gaining a new skill, nothing could stand in my way. In fact, my learning flourished outside the classroom setting. It took me ten years to start reading books again after the drudgery of slogging through all that assigned reading in college (and I had loved reading previous to graduating from high school!).

Since leaving college I've taught health education in grades Kindergarten through College, learned how to play music on the guitar and dulcimer, taught myself organic gardening using the Biodynamic/French Intensive method and led gardening workshops, learned the technical aspects of photography and developed a career as a freelance location photographer (with all-kinds of interesting clients and assignments), and I've become computer-literate to boot.

My point is this: we are all individuals and the one-size-fits-all type of education usually found in this country doesn't work for everyone. In fact, I don't see it working well for all but a few people. And I suspect that there are many more than three million people out there that could be "diagnosed" with Attention Preference Disorder. But most of us find a way to fit-in and do what is expected of us, even as it crushes the spirit inside of us.

It surprises me not one bit that our culture will resort to a drug to "cure" this "problem" instead of encouraging the individuality of people who don't fit in with the cultural norms. But I am optimistic that more and more people will revel in their A.P.D. and dismiss the diagnosis of A.D.D. as another way for our culture to label those of us who cannot and will not become another cog in the machine of mindless conformity.

Best regards,

Gregory Leiber, via e-mail

Another Clinton Crime

I was surprised in your listing of Clinton's offenses that you missed some of Clinton's most despicable attacks on human rights: his cowardly late-night signing of the so-called "Defense of Marriage" Act, which put the Federal Government on record as classifying gay and lesbian citizens as second class, and their relationships legally worthless. After this non-Monica-related midnight escapade, Clinton then had the gall to brag about his "accomplishment" in campaign ads on Christian radio stations.

The DOMA debacle followed Clinton's rapid retreat from his campaign promise to lift the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military. Instead, he signed on to a "compromise" which made the closet military law, and replaced an easily-changeable policy directive with a hard-to-repeal Federal law.

Clinton's recent executive order banning anti-gay discrimination was welcome and needed, but "too little, too late" as far as the big picture is concerned.

Mike Silverman, Lawrence, Kansas

Shelling Nigeria

Dear Friends, Environmentalists and People of Conscience:

My name is Scott Pegg and I am one of the co-founders of a new activist group called Puget Sound Friends of the Ogoni. As some of you may already know, the Ogoni people are a small minority group living on oil-rich land in Nigeria, a country which has been ruled by a series of military dictatorships for most of its independent history. The most recent U.S. State Department report on the country described Nigeria's human rights record as "dismal." Nigeria's dictatorship depends on petroleum for more than 80% of its total revenues and more than 90% of its foreign exchange earnings. Shell Oil operates the largest joint venture in the country and provides nearly half of that revenue.

It is estimated that Shell Oil has extracted more than $30 billion worth of oil from Ogoni, yet the people there lack electricity and clean drinking water. According to the World Council of Churches, Shell's "environmental record in Ogoniland and other oil-producing areas is disgraceful." When the Ogoni people began peacefully demanding a greater share of oil revenues and the clean up of past oil spills, Shell turned to their friends in the Nigerian military for assistance. Since then, more than 2,000 innocent Ogoni civilians have been killed and tens of thousands have been made homeless. Human Rights Watch notes that "the Nigerian military's defense of Shell's installations has become so intertwined with its repression of minorities in the oil-producing areas that Shell cannot reasonably sever the two." On Nov. 10, 1995, the Shell-backed Nigerian dictatorship hanged Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders. Their only crime was successfully exposing Shell Oil's role in the environmental devastation of their homeland.

As early as 1991 and as recently as last week, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has requested the assistance of the international community to help publicize the Ogoni's nonviolent struggle for human rights, democracy, and a clean environment. Ken Saro-Wiwa's own last words were "Lord, take my soul, but the struggle continues." The struggle has indeed continued as protests against Shell Oil's role in Nigeria have taken place around the world including such cities as London, Hamburg, Helsinki, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, San Francisco, Oakland, and Seattle.

For more information, call Puget Sound Friends of the Ogoni at 206-515-9888 or visit www.mosopcanada.org or www.sierraclub.org/human-rights/nigeria.html.

Peace and solidarity,

--Scott Pegg, Seattle

X-Files: Fight The Past

ETS!,

I'd like to comment on two diverse topics of a current socio-political nature.

First, the new film, The X-Files: Fight the Future. I'm interested in science fiction like this which plays off peoples' suspicion and fear of the U.S. government. In its blatantly promotional recent cover story, Newsweek tried to explain the X-Files phenomenon this way: "Communism is dead, Capitalism is a given, so that leaves Conspiratorialism." (I guess Anarchism and Libertarian Socialism are still taboo topics.) Good science fiction will mix the possible along with the impossible until the viewer/reader is confused yet "wants to believe."

In the film, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is in charge of covering up an alien plot of world domination. Newsweek jokingly interviews real FEMA spokespeople about how obviously ludicrous this is. What they fail to remind readers of was the plans which came out during the Iran-Contra hearings, in which Oliver North and cronies wanted to use FEMA to institute martial law during a potential invasion of Nicaragua.

At any rate, for those interested the X-Files movie is largely a disappointment. It blatantly rips off three other groundbreaking films by copying their techniques, special effects, and screenplays: Alien (the original), Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (the black helicopter chase scene), and Raiders of the Lost Ark. One wonders where all the creativity has gone nowadays. They didn't even make up the FEMA stuff!

My second topic is the virulent homophobes of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS, and their insidious website: godhatesfags.com. These warped minds actually protest funerals of people with AIDS. The strange thing about them compared to other religious fanatics is that they have an internal consistency to their logic. Reading their Q&A section on their website, one discovers that they preach hate--because the Bible preached hate. If you have access to a Bible and look up the various verses cited, you will have to, in all honesty, agree. The Bible condemns homosexual behavior in several verses and must be labeled as homophobic literature. An Amusing fantasy about gay folks taking over the world by corrupting good Christian youth can be read by clicking on "The Gay revolutionary." Unsigned, this little gem is written, I suspect, to fuel the homophobic church population's wild imaginations, while spicing up an otherwise dull sermon.

That's all for now.

--DxLx Nevin, Chicago

Sing-Along!

ETS!,

Well, I was thinking about going to the movies, and the only thing I could think of was "I Went Down," which from the trailer looks like YET ANOTHER movie about small time criminals getting into fucked-up situations. I thought to myself, I'm so bored with the demimonde! And that sounded like a familiar ditty I'm rather fond of, so I wrote the following. (Looking up "demimonde" later, I found it defines, among other things, the world of small-time hacks, like writers--very appropriate.)

I'M SO BORED WITH THE DEMIMONDE (to the tune of the Clash's I'm so Bored with the USA)

Stupid criminals are always in the movies cause independent filmmakers have no creativity! Stupid criminals are as much fun as stale corn flakes Cause they never think of anything, and they all make the same mistakes!

I'm so bored with the demimonde (3X) But what can I do!

Make up your own verses!

--Davis Oldham, via e-mail

P.S. Geov: I thought ETS! might want to run this in the lifestyle section...