I have had the privilege of 24,062 days in this world. Is it time I grew up and settled down? Probably not…
Top Forty Third Revision
(Third revision of) Top Forty Albums:
- Queen - Night at the Opera
- Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
- Led Zeppelin - IV
- Leonard Cohen - The Essential Leonard Cohen
- Jimmy Buffett - You Had To Be There
- Jethro Tull - Aqualung
- Little Feat - Waiting For Columbus
- The Band - The Last Waltz
- Three Dog Night - Seven Separate Fools
- Elton John - Madman Across the Water
- Cat Stevens - Teaser and the Firecat
- The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Soul Asylum - Let Your Dim Light Shine
- The Who - Who's Greatest Hits 1983
- Johnny Cash - American IV
- Collective Soul - Collective Soul
- Neville Brothers - Live on Planet Earth
- Rusted Root - Live Disc 2
- Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle
- Steve Earle - I Ain't Ever Satisfied
- Tom Waits - The Early Years Vol. 1
- Sonia Dada - Sonia Dada
- The Eagles - Greatest Hits
- Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced
- James McMurtry - Complicated Game
- Old Crow Medicine Show - Old Crow Medicine Show
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - So Far
- Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night
- The Clumsy Lovers - Smart Kid
- Frente! - Marvin the Album
- Rusted Root -Remember
- Finn Brothers - Finn
- Michael Franti - All Rebel Rockers
- The Badlees - River Songs
- Doobie Brothers - Best of the Doobies
- Lyle Lovett - The Road to Ensenada
- Zac Brown Band - Pass the Jar
- Eric Clapton - Time Pieces
- Moby - Play
- James McMurtry - Saint Mary of the Woods
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Cubicles as Classroom
- Progress: Learning and Growth beneficial to the well-being of both the individual and all of Humanity.
- True Leader: One who works (with at least some success) to direct one or more individuals' energies toward progress.
- Majority: Characterized by comfort-seeking apathy, the majority of us are (in many cases, willingly) held hostage by one or more disruptors.
- Hostage: In addition to the majority, a true leader whose energies are redirected from progress to crowd control.
- Noisy Disruption: Clamorous, strident fear masquerading as order, convention, and certainty.
- Irrelevant Distraction: Noisy Disruption and/or misdirection and/or the more insidious, more silent efforts to sway, make afraid, and/or confuse with arguments for tradition and whispers of conspiracy.
- Disruptor: One who loudly disrupts and/or quietly distracts. One who is at the upper end of comfortable well-being and/or fear. One who is ADAMANTLY and ACTIVELY against change.
We learn at a very young age how a small number of people (often less than 10%) can redirect energy and stymie progress with noisy disruption and irrelevant distraction. And when there is no accountability and there are no consequences for misbehavior, a true leader is no longer a leader, he or she becomes a hostage along with the majority. On occasion a disruptor acquires a position of leadership; a disruptor is never a true leader. Progress requires change. A disruptor acquires leadership when change is scary, cumbersome or merely inconvenient. It seems a majority of us would prefer convenient ignorance over scary (necessary) progress. And we learn this at a very young age.
As early as kindergarten a disruptor can be identified and should be separated for more individualized attention. Perhaps a separate classroom with a significantly lower student-to-teacher ratio and instead of an open classroom, one with partitioned cubicles. A second open classroom can be nearby and socialization used as a reward for learning and progress.
Regarding any stigma that may be associated with cubicles as classroom, current practice dictates safe seats, learning interventions, administrative discipline, walking laps, shortened or no recess, and a consistent barrage of (often loud) staff and teacher invective and diatribe, so the potential for stigma is already present. I believe possible stigma associated with partitions as crowd control would not only be less but is more than justified by more individualized learning and greater, more efficient progress. Efficiencies can be gained with little or no additional resources by simply moving current staff, (aides, paraprofessionals, and specialists) to fewer classrooms working alongside one or more certified teachers for each grade represented. In addition the classrooms could be fluid moving students back and forth as dictated by behavior and assessed by behavior specialists.
I believe education to be Humanity's best shot at survival and I believe it is too late for this premise to be applied to the apathetic, conveniently ignorant majority of adults in this country. That said, if the wealthy would pay their fair share we could apply the partition plan to adult disruptors by rounding up the most vocal and paying them handsomely to stay out of the way with meaningful busy work; and it could be meaningful as an aid for understanding their fear and anger and disillusionment. Perhaps then we could not only educate the very young but we could do so in a way that encourages active contribution instead of our current state of apathy and discontent.
Perhaps it is not too late.
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Top Forty Second Revision
I am writing a Cookbook, and in recent weeks that is where my creative / learning energies have been directed, thus another list below.
(Second revision of) Top Forty Albums:
- Queen - Night at the Opera
- Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
- Led Zeppelin - IV
- Leonard Cohen - The Essential Leonard Cohen
- Jimmy Buffett - You Had To Be There
- Jethro Tull - Aqualung
- Little Feat - Waiting For Columbus
- The Band - The Last Waltz
- Three Dog Night - Seven Separate Fools
- Elton John - Madman Across the Water
- Cat Stevens - Teaser and the Firecat
- The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Johnny Cash - American IV
- Collective Soul - Collective Soul
- Neville Brothers - Live on Planet Earth
- Rusted Root - Live
- Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle
- Steve Earle - I Ain't Ever Satisfied
- Tom Waits - The Early Years Vol. 1
- Sonia Dada - Sonia Dada
- The Eagles - Greatest Hits
- Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced
- James McMurtry - Complicated Game
- Old Crow Medicine Show - Old Crow Medicine Show
- Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night
- Rusted Root -Remember
- Finn Brothers - Finn
- The Badlees - River Songs
- The Who - Greatest Hits
- Doobie Brothers - Best of the Doobies
- Soul Asylum - Let Your Dim Light Shine
- Lyle Lovett - The Road to Ensenada
- Zac Brown Band - Pass the Jar
- Eric Clapton - Time Pieces
- The Clumsy Lovers - Smart Kid
- Frente! - Marvin the Album
- The Rolling Stones - Some Girls
- Billy Joel - Piano Man
- James McMurtry - Saint Mary of the Woods
- Michael Franti - All Rebel Rockers
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Cookbook Posts
- 8/2/25 Cookbook
- 3/15/25 Structured Chaos
- 7/5/25 Head Heart Hips
- 5/31/25 Food and Music
- 3/22/25 How to Ignore the World
- 5/24/25 White Flag
- 7/19/25 Soggy
- 8/9/25 Touchstones
- 10/12/24 Touching Reality
- 2/22/25 Upside the Head
- 9/21/24 Conversations
- 2/15/25 Move 37
- 7/1/23 Artificial Happiness
- 10/19/24 entitled justice
- 11/16/24 Humanitarian… Citizen… Pretender…
- 10/4/25 Cubicles as Classroom
- 10/1/11 Recipe for Happiness
- 5/7/22 Indulging Happiness
- 5/14/22 Happiness. My God.
- 4/23/22 Happiness: Considerations
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