Things will be great when you're downtown

I felt old.

Ok, it was merely yet another instance.  This time, it was not in a store, not at an office, and not at the barber's.  This was personal.  

My high school friend's son came to meet with me for a couple of hours when I was in Chicago.  And he called me "uncle" throughout the conversation.  Uncle Sriram!  Or, "Sriram Uncle" as they say in India.

As we were walking around on the lively downtown streets, I felt old.  I wondered if this is how my father would have felt when he was my age and pointing out interesting aspects of the urban landscape to a twenty-two year old.  

I now became self-conscious of everything around me.  

I then started thinking about my father. Now a grand old man at 85.  I suppose kids and adults like this 22-year old would no longer refer to my father as "uncle." He is now past that rank and is everybody's grandfather.

Meanwhile, there I was walking with the 22-year old. I pointed out the landmarks that I have come to recognize in Chicago, having been there before.

I recalled how more often than not I was inattentive when I was a young man and "old men" talked with me.  I wondered how many stories I missed out on.  I re-assured myself that I did pay attention.  Which is why I know all those old stories.  And I know them well enough to even remind my father about some of them.

When we reached an intersection, I remarked that the original deep dish pizza place was somewhere nearby.  I remembered from my previous trips.  While this old man tried to search through his memory, the young man searched in his iPhone.  We walked those two blocks.

Later, after reaching home, I updated my father about meeting the high school friend's son.  And that I took him around in downtown.

"Yes, I remember Chicago" he said.

Of course he would.  A civil engineer would love such downtowns.  The high rises. The concrete and the glass.  The old and the new. The broad avenues and the narrow alleys.  The cars and the trains.  The bridges. 

Some day, perhaps before I even know it, I won't be an "uncle" anymore to a kid in India.  I will recall walking about in cities. Walking about in villages. Hiking up the trails. Hiking by the rivers.  I would have become an old man. "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

Free speech means only thing: free speech!

There are nutcases everywhere.  Even at academic conferences.

The other day I was checking out the exhibitor booths.  And I was shocked to find a booth with a banner that read "Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization."  With a whole bunch of information brochures and documents.  Of course, I didn't want to grab any of the papers.  But, I scanned a few without touching them.  It felt creepy like hell.  It caught me off-guard; I just didn't expect such a nutcase to have a booth at the academic conference.

Naturally, I was tempted to click a couple of photos.  But then as a brown-skinned person with an accent, I chose to avoid that action.  I didn't want to confront the maniac working that booth, when one of the papers there made it clear that immigration to the US is a problem!  I stood there for a couple of minutes.  Two people stopped to chat with the maniac.  And then one other person went into the booth.  Guess what?  All were white men.

Later, as I always do, I checked my Twitter feed, and wanted to find out what people were commenting about the conference.  (Hashtag #AAG2015.)  One of the tweets was this:

Woah. RT @Sarah_SK: Eugenics at the AAG is a reminder that we're not all critical geographers. #AAG2015 pic.twitter.com/TPTo9bQmEt
— Hannah Jones (@uncomfy) April 24, 2015

More than anything else, I now had the photo that I wanted to take but did not.

source

If it were a tad clearer then you would be able to read what was in that paper on the top-right.  So, let me tell you what it was: a boastful statement that they were banned at two meetings of the AAAS, which is the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

When I was there at the booth, I thought it was interesting that the AAAS had kicked them out but the AAG had not.  Which is what I made sure to note in my reply tweet:

Yes, that was too damn creepy to see that booth At the same time, kudos to the AAG for not censoring them @uncomfy @Sarah_SK #AAG2015
— sriram khe (@congoboy) April 24, 2015

I am feeling mighty good about my professional association for granting the space to this nutcase organization, even when a much larger--and more influential--scientific community had apparently banned them.  It is easy to ban such nutcases.  But, it is way more awesome to permit them to make fools of themselves.

Free speech means making room for nutcases too.  I love free speech, even if the speech from nutcases makes me want to puke!

Ah look at all the lovely people ...

I wondered who my seatmates would be for the long flight.   The older I get, the lower the tolerance anymore.  Being a hermit in an ashram is not helping!

Two young people.  Perhaps in their mid-twenties.  Good looking.  I hit the jackpot!

The guy looked like he was an Indian-American.  Very fashionable at that--a jacket worn over a white shirt with the top two buttons not clasped.  A hip stubbly beard.  My people are eye candy, dammit! ;)

A few minutes into the flight, we exchanged the customary introductions.  I made sure I stayed prim and proper--I didn't want him to think I was getting into small-talk because of the Indian connection; after all, he doesn't know how much I love small talk.

The fashionable young man decided to explore the Indian roots.  "Are you originally from Gujarat?"

There's always a first for everything, I suppose.

"Nope.  I grew up in the southern part.  My parents live in Madras ... Chennai."

"Interesting.  Because you have such a facial resemblance to Modi."

I laughed.  "Every time I go to India, people tell me that.  I think they are insulting me because I don't like Modi's policies."

Small talk requires lobbing the ball back.  "What's your interest in Gujarat?"

"My parents are from there.  I am an American, they immigrated here.  I still have grandparents in Gujarat and I visit there once in a while."

He now tossed back the ball.  "Do you live in California?"

"I used to.  Now, Oregon is home."

"All my life has been in Chicago" he said.  "If you spend that kind of time in the place, then you develop the attributes of the place."

I smiled.  "In that case, I guess I should represent the stereotypical Oregon attribute of mellow and friendly."

He vigorously nodded a yes.  This fellow had quite some pep in him.  I wish all young folks were as energetic as he was, and so much at ease with himself.

"Mellow. Friendly. Progressive. ... All the way to Seattle."

We left it at that.  Small talk ended.  I dozed. Ate. Read. Dozed.

The plane started descending.

"Tell your people you met Modi" I joked to the young man by way of wrapping up our interactions.

"Maybe I should have taken a photo with you" he quipped.

I looked out.  Not a mountain in sight.  Not even a small little hillock.  Not Oregon, indeed.

I hoped I would run into some mellow, friendly, and progressive people before I returned to my ashram.

How do you get rid of an incompetent teacher? Like so :(

No, this is is not about me! (editor: do you have a death-wish or something? Awshutup! It is not about them)

Remember the special room that New York has for its incompetent teachers who have tenure?  No? The "Rubber Room" remember?

The Rubber Rooms house only a fraction of the 1.8 per cent who have been rated unsatisfactory. The rest still teach. There are fifty Rubber Roomers—a twentieth of one per cent of all New York City teachers*—awaiting removal proceedings because of alleged incompetence, as opposed to those who have been accused of misconduct.

What goes on this Rubber Room? Ahem ...

[There] are fifteen people in the room, four of them fast asleep, their heads lying on a card table. Three are playing a board game. Most of the others stand around chatting. Two are arguing over one of the folding chairs. But there are no children here. The inhabitants are all New York City schoolteachers who have been sent to what is officially called a Temporary Reassignment Center but which everyone calls the Rubber Room.
These fifteen teachers, along with about six hundred others, in six larger Rubber Rooms in the city’s five boroughs, have been accused of misconduct, such as hitting or molesting a student, or, in some cases, of incompetence, in a system that rarely calls anyone incompetent.
The teachers have been in the Rubber Room for an average of about three years, doing the same thing every day—which is pretty much nothing at all. Watched over by two private security guards and two city Department of Education supervisors, they punch a time clock for the same hours that they would have kept at school—typically, eight-fifteen to three-fifteen. Like all teachers, they have the summer off. The city’s contract with their union, the United Federation of Teachers, requires that charges against them be heard by an arbitrator, and until the charges are resolved—the process is often endless—they will continue to draw their salaries and accrue pensions and other benefits.

Well, looks like the Windy City can put up a good competition (ht)--click on the image for larger and clearer text/graphic