Powdered Paint

This week, I worked two days as a substitute teaching assistant at the Montessori school, both times in-class, and not my usual gig in Club M, the afterschool program to care for some of the kids until their parents pick them up after work. My job as an in-class teaching assistant is mostly to check off work that the students have been assigned.

I'm beginning to feel like a big fish in the sea, moving through a school of little fishies.  An accepted part of the ecosystem.

On Tuesday, I worked in a classroom with grade 1-3 schoolkids.  The work was mostly uneventful, but I was struck how hampered the kids were.  Somehow I don't think my cohort in the 60s suffered to the same extent.  Out of a class of about twenty, one girl had her foot in a boot and got around on crutches.  Four of the kids had casts on their broken arms, and a girl went around collecting signatures on a get-well-card for a fifth kid who had just broken her arm.  Probably some stories there.  A sweet bunch.  One boy in particular was mugging for attention.  I noticed the kids were having some trouble with equivalent fractions (I don't recall working on fractions so young).

On Thursday, I worked with TK Kindergartners, the youngest and most-fun kids in the school. I sat on a tiny chair in the back of the class as the teacher introduced me.  The kids weren't fooled by the teacher's formalities.  One kid looked back at me and said, "We've seen you before.  At Club M." The other kids looked at each other, nodded in recognition, and said, "Yes, Club M!"  Another kid wistfully said, "I wish I could go to Club M." So, the little fishies gave their stamp of approval to the big, awkward fish in the back.

Among the first activities of the day was a vision screening test.  So, we all walked over to a portable-style classroom towards the back of the school.  The kids gave me an informal history lesson.  They recalled how they used to play on the grass at this location, but then the school put the classroom there.  One kid said he had heard that Club M was going to be moved soon to this place.  All the kids marveled at how so many changes were coming to their school.

As the kids waited their turn, the teacher led the class in singing rhymes, sometimes to that familiar tune of "Frère Jacques." The rhyme that stuck with me, because it was unfamiliar, was:

Ten little candles on a birthday cake. 

   Wh! Wh! Now there are eight. 

Eight little candles in candle sticks. 

   Wh! Wh! Now there are six. 

Six little candles, not one more.

   Wh! Wh! Now there are four. 

Four little candles, red and blue.

  Wh! Wh! Now there are two. 

Two little candles, one by one. 

  Wh! Wh! Now there are none. 

Returning to the classroom, I noticed how two girls who I noticed were rivals on the playground two weeks ago were rivals in the classroom too. I guess that kind of friction is to be expected.  

I've been unusually careful with one girl, who've I've seen on the playground before, and who reminds me of my sister when she was young.  From her body language I can see that older males scare her - a chaotic threat - and as the oldest male around, I'm the scariest of all.  I try to put her at ease.  She accidentally knocked over a stack of blocks, but I didn't chastise her or try to make her anxious.  Isn't it amazing? Blocks sometimes fall over of their own accord!

I walked some of the kids over to the playground for snack and recess.  One girl got stuck and almost fell off the play structure.  One of the other TAs and I helped rescue her.    

Later, while checking off work, I noticed some of the kindergartners were having trouble noticing when they used backwards or upside down letters.  Another kid had spelled the word "moment," but didn't see the need for placing the second letter "m" in the word.  He had already used the letter once.  Why use it again?  Can't people understand it in context?  Still, I could see these kids were more advanced than I had been at their age.

For the afternoon art project, the teacher presented a video on the Indian holiday of Holi, which involves, among other things related to Krishna and Vishnu, smearing bright powdered paint on one's face and the faces of friends. The kids were going to celebrate Holi too. The TK kids weren't supposed to paint their faces, but they were supposed to paint silhouettes of people on paper.  

I had instant reservations.  These were kindergartners.  There's no way that bright powdered paint on the fingers won't show up on their faces and clothes too!  Still, the kids mostly-succeeded in their task.

One girl was crying - an earache.  Her classmates were trying to comfort her, but the day was winding to a close, and there was nothing we could do.

Class dismissed.  I was asked to stay on for the beginning of Club M.  First, afternoon TK recess.

There was some friction.  For several weeks now, the girls have been building a big eagle's nest using pine needles falling from nearby trees.  The girls tried to exclude one of the girls -Miss Eagle herself - because the nest wasn't large enough, but we TAs weren't going to let that happen.  Just make the nest bigger, we said.  One of the boys called it a "poopynest" and made one of the girls cry in frustration.  

Then, time to take the kids over to the big Club M room.  As we headed over, I was thunderstruck.  The entire school was celebrating Holi, not just our class.  The big paved play area was covered in powdered paint, which had also been rained upon.  There was paint everywhere.  Large number of students and teachers and administrators alike were on the playground smearing paint on each other's faces.  The only ones fairly-unaffected by the paint fiesta were the kindergartners and their TAs. Somehow the crazy scene seemed very Californian to me.  We don't know anything about Holi here in California, but we were going to celebrate it to its utmost!

Club M had barely started when I was faced with my next challenge.  A very young boy had peed his pants - a very-common problem at his age.  I escorted the boy to the bathroom.  He took off his pants, but then had no backup clothes.  It was unclear what to do next.

By coincidence, the boy's older brother came to the bathroom.  The brother said there night be clothes in the boy's backpack, which should be in the big Club M room.  I asked the brother if he would go to the room to get the backpack, but he refused to go, because he had not yet been granted permission by his teacher to go to the room.  I don't know if he feared his teacher, or felt I didn't have enough clout with his teacher to persuade him, or just figured rules are rules.  The older brother left.  We were out of options.

So, I dressed the young boy in my coat and we made our way back to the big Club M room to look for the backpack.  By this time, the older brother was present in the big Club M room and he was able to locate the backpack.  But then, we couldn't find any clothes.  So, out of options again, we went back to the bathroom.

We eventually left the bathroom again, and on reexamination of the backpack finally found the stash of replacement clothes.  So we returned to the bathroom for the third time to get the boy changed and back to Club M.

Poor young kid.  So dependent on everyone else - people like me - to get through the day.

No Sympathy For Nebraska

Idiots:

One of the biggest shocks (or, for the rest of us, the least surprising development of 2025) is that Nebraska’s farming economy is being crushed under the weight of Trump’s second-term immigration policies.

Shocking, right? Who could have guessed that mass deportations would leave entire industries—industries that rely heavily on undocumented workers—crippled and understaffed?

Well, literally everyone.

According to the Center for Migration Studies and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), an estimated 45% of the U.S. agricultural workforce is undocumented. And that’s likely an undercount.

Nebraska, where agriculture constitutes a major share of the state’s GDP and employment base, is particularly vulnerable.

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers perform essential duties in planting, harvesting, and processing, especially in the state’s robust corn, soybean, and livestock industries (Martin, 2017).

Policies aimed at mass deportation and the reduction of H-2A visas have disrupted labor availability, leading to delayed harvests, increased spoilage, and rising operational costs (Martin, 2022).

The American Farm Bureau Federation has long warned that deportation-driven enforcement without a corresponding legal labor framework would severely compromise food security and domestic production capacity (AFBF, 2019).

These workers are the backbone of agriculture, handling everything from planting and harvesting to processing and distribution.

And yet, when Trump spent years on the campaign trail promising to “deport them all,” his farmer base either cheered or stayed silent, assuming, I suppose, that crops would magically pick themselves.

But now? Now that the fields are empty, the harvests are delayed, and labor costs are soaring? Suddenly, there’s a crisis. Suddenly, Nebraskans are begging for someone—anyone—to step in and help them keep their farms running.

Here’s the thing: when your entire industry is built on the labor of undocumented immigrants, maybe don’t vote for the guy who swore to rip that labor force away.

It’s like hiring an arsonist to remodel your house and then being surprised when all that’s left is ashes.

Of course, it’s not just the labor crisis choking Nebraska’s economy. The state itself is staring down a $289 million budget deficit, thanks to yet another Trump-era policy change: massive cuts to federal Medicaid funding.

Now, if you’re wondering what Medicaid has to do with farmers, let’s break it down.

Nebraska is a heavily rural state, and rural hospitals and clinics rely heavily on Medicaid reimbursements to keep their doors open.

According to the Nebraska Hospital Association, over 60% of rural health facilities in the state rely on Medicaid for more than a third of their operational revenue (NHA, 2022).

With those funds slashed, rural healthcare providers are at risk of shutting down. 

And when hospitals disappear, so do the people. Rural economies, already fragile, spiral into decline. 

It’s a domino effect: fewer people means fewer workers, fewer consumers, fewer tax dollars.

Thank You For The Add!

Degrading Our Ability To Forecast The Weather

It's hard to overemphasize how destructive these balloon-launch cancellations are for our ability to model the weather and make weather forecasts. Without good data, models work on the principle of garbage in-garbage out. What's worse, of course is that these canceled launches are concentrated in the upper Midwest, which will wreck forecasts for the Mississippi Valley and the East Coast. Where a lot of tornadoes happen. 

Apparently the idea is to wreck the forecasts of the National Weather Service, so Americans will turn to private weathercasters. Those private businesses rely on the same balloon launches, however, so everyone will be in the same dark pit of ignorance, at least until the balloon launches are restored, by whatever means. 

Maybe anecdotes can help. In the late summer, I do some hurricane-path forecasts for friends who live in Tampa, FL. One thing that struck me about forecasting for the Caribbean Sea and the western Atlantic is how flat the tropical pressure gradient can be. With very little guidance from the immediate environment, hurricanes can respond instead to very distant events. Hurricane paths can be affected by the presence of thunderstorms in Venezuela, or by how rapidly storms pass from the Canadian Rockies onto the Great Plains. With enforced ignorance in the upper Midwest - here there be dragons! - it becomes harder to forecast hurricane paths in places like Florida.

Stupid, stupid DOGE!

The U.S. just experienced a deadly storm outbreak with over 100 tornadoes and 1000 hail reports. Weather balloons were a big tool for the NWS in these storms but...

The following National Weather Service locations will launch only 1 weather balloon per day — rather than 2. ❌❌ 

This limits how much data is being fed into weather models, and may slightly decrease accuracy over the northern U.S.

Note that I disgree that there will be a slight decrease in accuracy. It's going to be bigger than that.

Halloween in March

Late last night, Jasper and I traveled down a quiet street in Curtis Park, a very familiar stretch that we've traveled at least 2,000 times before. Then, Jasper stopped walking, and peered forward. Nothing was moving: no dogs, cats, people, cars, skunks, or raccoons. Still, Jasper panicked. He reversed direction, and forcefully dragged me away. It was Halloween in March! 

Some spirit, some ghostly presence completely spooked him, and we quickly headed home, for safety.

I Think AOC Has The Inside Track For 2028.

How to Mangle a Performing-Arts Venue

At best, they’ll have the best-appointed community theater in the D.C. area. At worst, they’ll have to close:

In a recording of the meeting shared with The Washington Post, Trump and members said they’d like to see “Camelot,” “Cats,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Hello, Dolly!” and “The Phantom of the Opera” featured at the Kennedy Center. Speaking with reporters, Trump said, “We’re going to get some very good shows.” 

There are a number of practical problems with this wish list, the first of which is that none of those musicals are touring in North America (although a tour of “Phantom” does launch in November). And if the Kennedy Center were to try to mount its own nonunion productions, it would run into a brick wall of standing labor contracts.

"On Becoming a Guinea Fowl"

I went to the Tower and saw this film, directed by Rungano Nyoni, and set in modern Zambia. Loved it! There's a notable Surrealist influence in the movie, which features among other things Southern African pop music and kiddie TV, and mysteries related to the death of Uncle Fred. I detect echoes of "Breaking Bad" in the film. I still don't fully understand the plot, which is among the reasons I loved it.

 

I liked how modern this film is, mixing Smartphones, Zoom calls, and modern architecture into centuries-old traditions with respect to death. Makes for vivid filmmaking. 

Also, the film wasn’t quite non-Western. Zambia was colonized by the English, and the people in the film spoke a mix of English and Bemba. So it was familiar and not familiar at the same time.

In addition, the soundtrack was curious. It featured a song called "Godly" by Omah Lay, who is a Nigerian singer, well-known on the international Afrobeats circuit, and whose songs I've heard before in Jamaican Dancehall class. So, despite being a bit exotic, the song and its style was nevertheless familiar, and not limited to southern Africa. In addition, there was a country-western song called "Come On Dance" by John McNicholl, someone I've never heard of before. So, a mix of familiar and unfamiliar.

Nah, I'm Good

Culmination of the Lunar Standstill Cycle

The 18.6-year precession cycle of the Moon, as it orbits the Earth, will culminate soon, perhaps today (as of March 21st). Right now, the Moon is at -28 degrees 40 minutes, and will soon break -29 degrees. 

The Moon must be beautiful right now as it rides high in the Southern Hemisphere nighttime sky. It’s so far south it barely makes any appearance at all in the Northern Hemisphere sky. Here in Sacramento it won’t rise until after 2 a.m., then it’ll skitter across the southern horizon before setting midmorning. It’s WAY south- as far south as it ever gets - and looks ultra freaky (clouds permitting). 

The Moon will keep swinging north and south for the rest of this year, slowly settling back into its familiar grove. In nine years, the Moon will be dull once again, but by 2043 it’ll be nuts once again! Hoping to catch it then too.

Cybertruck

Walking Jasper at 1 a.m. last night, I felt icicles. A black Tesla Cybertruck raced passed us, bright halogen headlights cutting through the darkness of the silent neighborhood. Who knows where it was coming from, or where it was going? The sinister Swasticar looked like a beast of burden for Sauron's Nazgul, but more likely it bore a panicked dweeb trying to get home before the woke neighborhood awoke.

The Moment Passed Before It Started

Well, that was brutal. Less than a day after I became aware of a cat wanting to move onto my premises, he’s gone: hit by a car out on the street. My neighbors buried him on our joint property line. Apparently he had claimed all of our houses as his own, and had already become quite popular. 

I suspect a conspiracy. The birds who rule the back yard weren’t going to have anything to do with a cat, and put out a hit.

Drying Out

One month left in the Sacramento rainy season. How are we doing? (as of March 18th)

The Sacramento area is succumbing to the gravitational pull of the Southwestern drought. Currently, Sacramento rainfall is about 90% of average, and slowly dropping. 

 There are indications of a big storm coming around March 30th, so we'll see then if the trend can be reversed.