Author: tonihall805@outlook.com

Before going to bed Friday night I heard the news that the 41st President, George H.W. Bush, passed away at age 94.  It was just this past April that his wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush, died at 92 years old.  Saturday morning, I listened to Bush’s former White House staff talk about the man and the manner in which he served and led the nation.  Talk about a contrast to what we have now!  While I offer the Bush family my condolences as it is painful to lose a family member at any age, I hope the nation is mourning the loss of presidential dignity and integrity.    Continue reading “Mourning the Loss of Presidential Dignity and Intergrity”

It takes me a full six days to get the most out of Thanksgiving and to transition to Christmas.  So, I use two vacation days each year to prepare, enjoy, transition and rest. Continue reading “Transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas”

When I was in the seventh grade, I had a classmate named Joyce who went around talking about everybody.  She wasn’t just a gossip, but she was also a person who used the information she obtained by cozying up to people for her own purposes.  Sometimes she used the information to boost her own favorability in the eyes of a teacher by tattle telling on someone.  Other times she used the information to undermine the credibility of someone she saw as competition.  And at times she used information as revenge.  Many times she wasn’t completely honest in her representation of what she knew.  She stretched or contorted the information to make herself look good or someone else look bad.  She created conflict where there was little or none.  Her behavior was disruptive.  On the surface Joyce was caring and likable,  but beneath her charming façade she was devious and manipulative and we all knew it and hated that destructive behavior.  One day, I had had enough and I was determined to do something about it. Continue reading “Backstabbers”

Coincidentally, the day before the Borderline mass shooting, I did a workshop on the March for Our Lives movement for colleagues on campus. The movement promoted “Turnout Tuesdays”, a key element showing that the students recognized the need to get lawmakers in place to enact reasonable gun control laws. On election day, the day of my workshop, the democrats took over the House of Representatives and we rejoiced. Just one day later, the unthinkable happened yet again, but this time the gun violence struck the community where I work and shop: Thousand Oaks.

Continue reading “Gun Violence Strikes Home”

This was a violent week in our country.  And I join most Americans who are heartsick by it.  I truly lament that violence is part of our human nature.  It is all too evident that human beings are capable of violence and that some are much more prone to it than others in the same way that other human attributes are distributed among our species.  How easily a person turns to violence depends greatly on their emotional and intellectual makeup (nature) as well as their upbringing, exposure, and cultivated social morality (nurture).  It also depends on the right provocation.  And hatred and fear are huge provocations.
Continue reading “Stoking Violence”

I love college students. I love their energy and zest for life.  I love watching them learn, mature, fall in and out of love, and seek solutions to problems.  I love watching them stretch and begin to discover themselves.  And I especially love helping them to see their role as leaders and change agents in an imperfect world.  However, a new generation of students have arrived on campus who do not see themselves as change agents, but as entitled  recipients of a safe space where they are shielded from bigotry.  I discovered that this new generation of students was never prepared to survive and thrive in the unexpected age of Trump.  Perhaps their parents let their guard down since we had a black president and gay marriage. They never expected that their children would need the resiliency they were armed with to deal with the pushback we are experiencing from white nationalist.  We now have to enable and empower students to become activists on their own behalf.  And I discovered that this notion is new to them.
Continue reading “Facing Bigotry”

If a person wants to drive me crazy, all she has to do is espouse some version of fatalism.  The notion that individuals are powerless and have little influence over the course of their lives or that of their community or country.  The belief that circumstances are entirely up to fate and pre-determined by invisible forces drives me crazy.  I come from an opposite perspective, believing in self-determination and that individuals and groups working together have the power to improve their lives, communities, the country and even the world.
Continue reading “Self-determination”

After the 2016 election when Hillary won the popular vote by some 3 million votes but still lost the election, I suggested to one of my students that it would be helpful if we moved busloads of progressives to the Midwest because the problem that afflicts our nation is segregation.
Continue reading “Relocation to the Midwest”

This was a rough week.  It was a tough politically charged and emotionally draining week surrounding the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.  I spent almost every minute on the treadmill this week writing to senators from my cell phone, mostly venting about the ridiculously rushed process, the lack of documents shared, and the role alcohol often plays in sexual assault.  I shared that I believe Ford was assaulted by Kavanaugh and I believe he has no memory of the assault.  I also believe Kavanaugh lied, mislead, and misrepresented his past on several occasions.  But none of that matters to these fearful and determined white men. Continue reading “Determined White Men”

In this moment, being locked inside a female body holds an incredible level of salience for half the population of this nation.  In the days ahead,  a group of aging white males will decide again how we who happen to occupy female  bodies are used, valued, and viewed.  Thankfully, two strong white women are being lobbied to stand in their way.  For me, it’s taken a lifetime of challenges to navigate this world in the body of a female. Continue reading “This Female Body”