Activism and Beyond

For most of my life I was as apathetic and apolitical as most U.S. citizens. I didn’t vote and didn’t care. I thought the government and various institutions just ran themselves.

My attitude changed after I had worked for the Seattle School District for a decade. For ten years I had witnessed the most extraordinary incompetence, corruption and tyranny. I finally decided enough was enough and began to investigate. That was the beginning of my career as an activist.

I have run for public office six times, thrice for a seat on the Seattle School Board (1999, 2003 and 2007) and thrice for Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction (2000, 2004 and 2008). My investigations, combined with my campaigns, revealed that liberal Seattle is just as corrupt as conservative Washington, D.C. or Houston, Texas.

Though I have never been elected, I’ve made my mark, ranking as one of the most prominent critics of Billysoft (Bill Gates + Microsoft) and George W. Bush. Of course, the overarching enemy is corporate corruption. I was the first person in Seattle, if not the nation, to warn that public education is being privatized, something most teachers and parents still don’t seem to grasp. I’m probably the most accomplished enemy of the “Seattle Mafia” in history.

I’m also noted for taking on the corrupt media, particularly the Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Seattle Weekly.

But am I anti-everything? Not at all. I work hard to educate the public and have come to believe that politics can even be fun. One of my heroes is Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who has made millions of people around the world look at politics in a new light.

Since politics can be so messy, I deal with it very carefully on my general audience websites. If you’re an adult who wants to know where to find my adult political sites, feel free to contact me.

La Musica

I’ve loved Latin music all my life. Herb Alpert was one of my favorite musicians when I was growing up. I later fell in love wih Jose Feliciano. I was introduced to Andean music while studying sea turtles in Maruata, Mexico and got another dose when I saw the group Sukay perform in Bellingham.

But I didn’t really discover Latin music and dance until the spring of 2010. I had already fallen in love with a local Andean music group, Quichua Mashis. One day I was watching them perform during a street fair, when I heard another exciting sound drifting out of a building right behind them. I went inside and discovered Sambatuque, another local band specializing in Brazilian music. (Their album Brazilian Songbird is one of my favorites.)

The next weekend, I saw my first salsa dance and was addicted. Soon I was downloading Tito Puente songs via iTunes. I then discovered other Latin music genres, like cha-cha-cha and bachata.

But something about Seattle’s salsa scene bothered me. It seemed somehow shallow and artificial, like everything else in Seattle. I then learned that many people have long complained about salsa becoming too commercialized.

About the same time, I learned that music didn’t die in the 70’s; politics remains a powerful theme in Latin music. Indeed, Latin music was born out of slavery and the Cuban revolution. One of my favorite salsa singers is Rubén Blades, whose very political album Siembra is the best-selling salsa album of all time.

Viva la musica!

Websites

If you’ve read this far, you now know what inspired my websites. My passion for animals inspired the websites GeoZoo and GeoSymbols - which started when I began studying state birds, flowers and other symbols. (I also began studying flags when I was a teacher.) My travels and interest in the world around us inspired GeoWorld. And you can guess what inspired Politix, along with my adult political sites. My still blossoming interest in Latin music and dance inspired yet another website, SeaLatin.

Though I’ll never be a genuine computer nerd, I now have the technical skills I need for web design. I launched my most ambious upgrade of all my websites ever near the end of March, 2011. The page you’re viewing right now is part of that upgrade.

I’ve also been working hard to launch several blogs and Facebook groups.

So now you know a few things about me. Continue on to the next page or follow the links at the top of the page to learn still more.