This is Teacher Appreciation Week, so I’m doing exactly that — remembering educators who enlightened and inspired me.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the late Melva Jean Watson, second-grade teacher at Washington Elementary, who read aloud from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. Studies prove the benefits of reading to children, and I benefited both from the content of those books and the time spent listening to a capable reader weave words into a literary web.

Reading aloud was a big part of Judy Vien’s classroom circa 1980 at Marlington Middle School. One book in particular cast a potent spell: Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” read by Mrs. Vien in her soft Southern accent, so similar to how I imagined Scout, Atticus, Jem and Dill would sound.

I respected her for sharing a book that some find controversial, especially for sixth-grade students, and for not sugarcoating the expletives. Instead, she explained the racial overtones of the times; that mistreating people because of skin color, education or economic attainment is wrong; and that we were mature enough to know that saying certain words was not the same as endorsing them.

A few years later, Andrea Ogline and Nancy Schwan — my freshman and sophomore English teachers, respectively, at Marlington High School — encouraged my love of writing, each in her own way.

Mrs. Ogline, poor thing, waded through page after page of my journal entries, filled with dreary imitations of stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard and gallons of imaginary blood. Yet she was always enthusiastic in her comments, even when she would have preferred a nice Bronte pastiche to another psychopathic killer inspired by my fetish for horror films.

Mrs. Schwan submitted one of my stories to a regional contest. It didn’t win, but for the first time I thought about making a living with words and saw how revision improved my writing. She took the work so seriously that she once called me at home to address a plot flaw, just like a real editor. I am thankful for that, and how she never assumed that because my character committed suicide, the story was a cry for help. (It wasn’t.)

At Mount Union College, David Ragosin and John Bienz left their marks. The former introduced me to William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well,” one of a handful of books I regularly return to for inspiration, and he once told me I had the makings of a good college professor. My career didn’t go in that direction, but the words did — and do — mean a lot.

Dr. Bienz had such a quiet and unprepossessing manner that he put students, many of whom were secretly terrified of literature at the collegiate level, at ease. While he delivered effective lectures, he was a master of eliciting responses, both in class and on the printed page. I especially remember his Shakespeare class, where instead of a final paper, we performed “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for elementary students. I was the fairy Puck, likely because of my long hair and effeminate build. (Both are victims of my forties.)

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I flattered the heck out of Dr. Bienz my first few years as a teacher, modeling my delivery on his. These days, I’ve found my own voice, but am still largely influenced by his technique.

Like most people, I am the sum total of the efforts of dozens of professionals, from Ms. Meese, the kindergarten teacher who introduced me to the Letter People, through Penny Arnold, an Ashland University professor who made me re-examine my grading methods as a practicing educator.

Even teachers whose subjects aren’t of great interest or whose styles are not inspirational make an impression. When they are passionate about their subjects, it leaves a mark. When they are not, that too speaks volumes.

If our lives are books, teachers occupy a large chunk of the acknowledgments, along with the standard tagline that while they provide a wealth of insight and information, we ourselves are responsible for any errors in fact.

“I am a part of all that I have met,” says Ulysses in Tennyson’s poem of the same name. This is especially true of teachers, whose impact lasts far beyond the final school bell and, indeed, tolls throughout our lives.

chris.schillig@yahoo.com

@cschillig on Twitter

Originally published May 9, 2013, in The Alliance Review.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for gun-rights advocates who keep shooting themselves in the foot — and other parts of the anatomy — in their attempts to persuade us that more guns equal a safer society.

Last Saturday was Gun Appreciation Day, selected by apparently tone-deaf organizers on the weekend before a federal holiday to honor civil-rights giant Martin Luther King Jr., whose own life was cut short by gun violence.

On this day, five people attending gun shows were accidentally shot — in Raleigh, N.C., where a man’s gun discharged, striking a trio of bystanders at the entrance to the Dixie Gun and Knife Show; in Indianapolis, where a man shot himself in the hand as he exited the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife show; and closer to home, where a man shot a fellow exhibitor while opening a box containing a gun at the Medina Gun Show. All were accidental.

“Accidental” and gun mishaps, unfortunately, go hand in hand. In 2011, 851 people died in this country because of accidents with the 310 million estimated firearms in civilian circulation.

It’s only common sense to recognize that the introduction of a gun into a situation increases the chances that a gun will be fired, intentionally or unintentionally, in that situation — sometimes to the detriment of the user and sometimes to the detriment of innocent bystanders. Also, to be fair, sometimes to the detriment of an aggressor, but not as often as we might hope.

For instance, one of several Time magazine articles published in the Jan. 28 edition (where most of the statistics in this column originate) notes that New York City police officers’ “hit rate” in a gunfight is 30 percent when the target does not shoot back and an abysmal 18 percent when the target returns fire.

Yet one of the most insistent reactions to the recent mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary is a call to increase the number of armed personnel in our schools — either with armed police officers or teachers. If a New York City cop has only an 18-percent chance of hitting a shooter, do we really expect better results from a seventh-grade science teacher?

Proponents argue that the presence of guns on school campuses is a deterrent, so that guards and teachers may never have to use those guns, that their presence is enough to keep potential shooters away.

But consider: If five people can be shot accidentally in one day at gun shows, how many accidents might we have to accept as a consequence of keeping our kids “safe” in class?

More knee-jerk legislation is not the answer to gun violence. The country doesn’t need additional restrictions on gun ownership because the vast majority of gun owners — last weekend’s accidents notwithstanding — are responsible people with the sense to store weapons and ammunition safely.

Yet we also don’t need to encourage the further proliferation of guns. With more guns than people in this country, we have enough firearms already.

It is unconscionable that the NRA is using the recent Sandy Hook tragedy as an opportunity to extend its political reach, and it is just as unconscionable that politicians, including the president, are using it as an opportunity to advance a political agenda. Both sides are preying on — and perhaps are victims of — fear. Cooler heads on both sides, or maybe somewhere in the middle, must prevail.

The sad truth is that, in 2011, the most common reason for gun deaths by far was suicide, with 19,766 people ending their own lives with firearms. Clearly, more needs to be done to bolster mental-health services in this country, which is why the $15 million that Obama has proposed to train teachers to recognize mental illness and the $40 million that would help school districts refer students to mental-health help are the most sensible components of last week’s executive and Congressional to-do list. The same sorts of services need to be made more readily available to adults, as well.

Unfortunately, the parts of the president’s proposals that will get all the attention are the attempts to ban assault rifles and high-capacity clips, which will serve only to offend gun owners who use those items lawfully and safely for recreational shooting. It will do little to curb crime.

If you own guns, lock them up. Store ammunition separately. While this greatly reduces the effectiveness of firearms for home protection (which is a false sense of security, anyway), the life you save and the injuries you prevent may be your own or somebody who has done you no harm.

Especially if you go to gun shows.

chris.schillig@yahoo.com

Originally published Jan. 24, 2013, in The Alliance Review.

It didn’t take long — hours, really — before horror over last Friday’s school killings in Connecticut turned into a rush to judgment and reform.

Americans took to Facebook, Twitter and blogs first to express shock, sorrow and condolences, and, soon after, opinions about why the 20-year-old shooter decided to turn an elementary school into an abattoir.

Some blamed the news media for a supposed focus on violence and sensationalism, noting that networks are quick to swoop in and fixate on numbers — 20 dead children, seven dead adults, plus the shooter himself — and compare them to other school tragedies in Columbine, Virginia Tech and, closer to home, Chardon. By sharing body counts, goes this school of thought, the media has created a twisted Top 10 to which other sick individuals will aspire.

Others looked to the removal of prayer in the schools. Conservative radio host Bryan Fischer said that God turned his back on the children at Sandy Hook Elementary because America has kicked Him and His commandments out of public schools. The only way to regain God’s protection, he said, is for school boards to authorize the return of prayer, even in defiance of the Supreme Court.

Still other bloggers and posters blamed gun laws, with the left calling them too lax and the right calling them too strict. Legislators have been too focused on the economy and the looming fiscal cliff to worry overmuch about gun control, an issue that polarizes Americans. Some opined that if teachers were allowed to carry guns, they could better protect their students in such situations.

A few thoughts:

• The media does fixate on certain stories, sometimes to the point of distorting their significance. While the situation at Sandy Hook undoubtedly deserved coverage, the nonstop barrage may have obscured the fact that, statistically, schools are still one of the safest places for kids. By contrast, one of the most dangerous places, motor vehicles, receives scant coverage.
• Individual prayer has not been removed from public schools. Students are free to bow their heads for moments of silence or to organize prayer groups to meet before and after classes. Schools may not compel students to pray. And the thought of a God who would purposely turn his back on children because of any policy instituted by adults, as Fischer suggests, should be repulsive to people of all faiths.
• I may have my membership as a card-carrying liberal revoked for saying this, but stricter gun-control laws would not have stopped the Sandy Hook shooter, who murdered using guns owned legally by his mother. What will help in the future is a greater focus on gun safety and on the importance of keeping firearms locked away, with ammunition stored separately, and with keys hidden from all but the person who legally owns the weapons.
• Of course, this greatly detracts from the usefulness (if that’s the right word) of firearms in an emergency situation, since most home intruders will not wait for a gun owner to unlock a gun cabinet, load a weapon, take aim and fire, which is why firearms in the home create a false sense of security and likely aren’t practical or helpful.
• In the wake of 9/11, law-abiding Americans lost many freedoms because of well-intentioned but overzealous attempts to protect us from terrorism. The Patriot Act, parts of which were reauthorized, was too broad and too intrusive. We would be foolish to trample the Second Amendment to enact feel-good gun-control legislation that may not do anything to make Americans truly safer.
• I am a teacher and would never carry a gun in my classroom even if I were legally permitted. I’ve read too many studies that indicate fatalities are more likely when both parties have weapons. Just as important, the presence of a gun on my person would fly in the face of the message I try to instill in my students — that reason and thought trump violence.
• Mental-health services are always among the first to see a decrease in funding in tough economic times, yet the National Alliance on Mental Illnesses notes that one in 17 people in this country has schizophrenia, depression or bipolar disorder.
• Statistically, the mentally ill are no more likely to be violent than the rest of the population, but a small number who are denied medications and services could turn to violence — against themselves or others — as a coping mechanism. Better to shore up compassionate services to this underserved segment of society than waste time in a fruitless battle to change gun-control laws that would affect only law-abiding citizens.

The killings in Connecticut may be a wake-up call, but if they rouse us only to the same tired rhetoric, then the tragedy is even greater. After all, in 100 percent of violent scenarios, the weapon of choice is the human mind.

chris.schillig@yahoo.com

@cschillig on Twitter

Originally published on Dec. 20, 2012, in The Alliance Review.

This week, I return to my full-time position in sales.

In this line of work, approximately 20 to 25 customers at a time enter my warm, inviting office, where pictures relating to the product hang tastefully on the walls. They take a seat and, whether they know it or not, begin to evaluate my pitch.

After about 45 minutes, a bell rings and the customers get up and go to another presentation. Or to lunch. Or to study hall. Four minutes after this first group exits, another group arrives, and so it goes throughout the day.

These sales seminars last for about nine months, with time off for weekends and holidays. Periodically, I evaluate how well the customers (and I) are doing — are they buying? what is their potential to buy even more? how can I help?

At the end of the seminar season, clients receive a three-month sabbatical before being assigned to other sales reps. These new reps will hopefully build on my selling techniques, just as I built on the techniques of those who had the clients before me.

To avoid confusion at parties, when people ask me what I do, I identify myself as a high-school teacher. But my real job is selling.

My specific products are reading and writing skills, but those are really just end products along a spectrum that includes self-reliance, productivity, critical thinking, the supremacy of education over ignorance and good citizenship.

I have many tools at my disposal — technology, textbooks, film, audio recordings, and skilled members of the community — but as any good salesperson knows, the number one asset is the seller’s skill in matching clients’ wants and needs to the product.

After all, I don’t want merely to make a sale. I want to make them want to buy. That difference is key. With the former, buyer’s remorse sets in almost immediately, and the next day you’re right back where you started. With the latter, the student finds the subject and skills so inviting, so interesting, so cool that they intrinsically want them, that living without them isn’t an option.

If all this sounds cold and calculating, it isn’t meant to. I recognize that my students are individuals, that they come to me with a variety of past experiences, good and bad, that have molded them into the people they are today. Like all of us, they are more receptive on some days than others. My job is to meet them where they are and advance them. Or more to the point, make them want to advance themselves.

Some days, I’m the sage on the stage, delivering direct instruction. Other days (the best days) I’m the guide on the side, watching and cheering as they practice and hone their abilities to analyze, strategize, and effectively communicate their positions. To paraphrase the title of a book by Donald L. Finkel, I must remember the importance of teaching with my mouth shut.

Everything I do — or don’t do — is an opportunity to close a sale. Appearance is important, so I lose a few points for mustard-stained ties and scuffed shoes, but I make them back with traits that really matter — the bemused grin, self-deprecating humor, corny joke, and incisive question. Like Charles Dickens’ Old Fezziwig, who “has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil,” I strive to make class fun, both for my own selfish entertainment and because it makes happier customers. And happier customers return more often, buying instruction in essay writing, rhetorical analysis, or the simple joy of a well-turned sentence.

It’s a sad consequence of the state of contemporary education that I have to clarify my little sales metaphor here and say that, while I see a definite and beneficial correlation between sales and teaching, this doesn’t carry over into the more business-oriented models of classroom instruction. The endless testing, the drill-and-kill “instruction” considered good teaching by legislators and too many administrators, the rating and sorting and grading of schools — all these drain the life out of the classroom and create a self-fulfilling prophecy to allow for-profit businesses to swoop in and “save” our kids while good teachers lose jobs and reputations, and large corporations feather their nests with more millions.

But those are unhappy thoughts for another time. The beginning of a new school year should have room only for optimism, unlimited horizons and the honing of the perfect sales pitch.

chris.schillig@yahoo.com

cschillig on Twitter

Originally published Aug. 23, 2012, in The Alliance Review

Here is my Aug. 18 column, first published — as always! — in The Alliance Review:

At the close of each school year, I ask my Advanced Placement English seniors to write an essay modeled on National Public Radio’s “This I Believe” series. We share the essays on our final exam day, an experience I — and hopefully they — find more rewarding than yet another pencil-and-paper test. Because I never ask students to do something I’m unwilling to do, I write and share, too.

This summer, one of my former students (Hi, Sam!) sent me a message saying that he thought of my essay during a trying time. He didn’t know it, but his words reached me on a bad day and made it better. Our exchange became the impetus for my sharing the essay today. (Well, that and the fact that I’m just back from vacation and this is an easy way to meet a deadline.)

This may be schmaltzy, and people who know me well may wonder if I really feel this way. I do.

I believe in the power of right now, today.

Somewhere out there is a sunrise to watch, a mountain to scale, a pretty girl to kiss — even on a wet Monday morning or a meeting-filled Wednesday afternoon.

Our 24/7 society has become so focused on “what’s next” that we forget about what’s now. In my generation, a really bad band called Loverboy sang “Everybody’s Working for the Weekend,” and damned if we didn’t believe them. We’ve become so concerned about hanging on until Friday that we neglect the importance of Tuesday, so intoxicated by the thought of sleeping in on Sunday that we overlook the joy of waking up before dawn on Thursday.

For 50 weeks out of the year, we strategize for the other two. We breathlessly anticipate maturation and graduation, only to reminisce with nostalgia a few years later about the carefree days of high school. We fantasize over meeting Mister or Miss Right, getting married, having 2.5 perfect kids, a suitably fat bank account, and a nice house in the suburbs, only to look back wistfully on the freedom of our college days when we had barely two dimes to rub together. We drag ourselves to work, dreaming of the day we can retire, only to bemoan the fact that we are retired, wishing we had something worthwhile to do.

A colleague hammered this point home a few years ago when he told me that he liked to live “in the moment” with each class he taught, to be fully there for students, responding to their questions and enjoying their interactions. It made me realize what I wasn’t doing, that in the back of my mind a little voice counted down the minutes until I could announce tomorrow’s homework assignment and reminded me of papers I had to grade. Since then, I’ve tried to change and become more attuned to life in the moment — not always successfully, but I’m working on it.

I’m not sure, but it’s possible that our future-oriented obsession is a byproduct of marketing techniques. We are, after all, the most advertising-saturated society in the history of the world, having been exposed to an average of 40,000 sales pitches a year since childhood. And each of those messages is essentially the same: Your life will be better when you own that tricycle, bicycle, first car, or sports car; when you see that new film, read that new book, or download that new album; when you lose 20 pounds or gain 20 pounds or hide 20 pounds. People who are content and oriented in the present don’t buy; people who are discontented and oriented in the past or the future, do.

I believe that we need to reclaim the primacy of today. I believe that Mondays are inherently as good as Fridays, that three days before graduation is just as exciting as graduation day itself, that we can find something about each day and each moment — from the smile of a friend to the feeling of satisfaction we get when helping others — to make each day special.

Take time each day to enjoy where you are and to do something small but memorable. Blow the seeds off a dandelion. Take a friend to lunch. Play fetch with a dog. Re-read a favorite poem, or better yet, read a new one. We have only a limited number of “todays.” I believe it’s best to make each one count.

I had my junior Advanced Placement students write analyses of books, movies or songs for their final exam. They did a great job. Because I believe in recycling everything, below is my sample analysis of Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out,” which seemed appropriate given the time of year.

What do you get when you mix four guys who can barely play their instruments, a raspy-voiced singer with a penchant for subversive lyrics, and a producer who knows how to wring the best performance possible from a young band?

In the case of “School’s Out,” the title track on the Alice Cooper album of the same name, you get a classic.

The song opens with a simple three-chord riff that has, since the time of its original release in 1972, become instantly recognizable to generations of listeners, an anthemic announcement of the end of another school year. When front man Cooper begins to sing, his is the voice of youthful anarchy, speaking out against drudgery imposed by parents, teachers, principals, and school boards:

Well we got no choice
All the girls and boys

Makin all that noise

‘Cause they found new toys.

The lyrics are childlike, the rhymes and near-rhymes simple and predictable. In the next verse, which also starts with a repetitive “well,” he sings,
Well we can’t salute ya

Can’t find a flag

If that don’t suit ya

That’s a drag

By combining “salute,” “flag” and “drag” with the idea of rude kids who don’t respect their elders’ authority, Cooper taps into the gooey center of the generation gap, both in his time and ours. Adults almost always see kids as lazy and disrespectful, but framed in the anti-Vietnam sentiment of the early ‘70s, this verse implies that kids are unpatriotic, as well. “Drag” creates a negative connotation with cigarettes and illegal substances, further winning over kids while alienating all the right adults, the ones who think that school should be year ’round and that kids should be nothing more than tiny adults.
For the band, it’s not enough that school is out for summer. It has to be out “forever” and “blow to pieces,” a vicious little sentiment that has taken on a more sinister meaning in this post-Columbine era. In contrast, the group next offers a kiddie choir intoning the classic schoolyard ditty: “No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks,” a nostalgic reminder of a simpler time.
Punning always plays a part in Cooper’s lyrics, and in “School’s Out,” he offers great examples, trading on dual meanings in the lines, “Well, we got no class/And we got no principles” before delivering the perfect follow-up, “and we got no innocence/We can’t even think of a word that rhymes.”
Producer Bob Ezrin, who would go on to work with Pink Floyd on Another Brick in the Wall, keeps Glen Buxton’s guitar solo short and fuzz-ugly and adds a distinctive distortion effect to the climactic ringing bell before allowing it to wind down like a record on the wrong speed. At three-and-a-half minutes, the song is a polished little rock-and-roll gem that grows more lustrous with each passing school year.

Ultimately, Cooper and his original fans have grown older than the adults who were originally outraged by the group and its onstage antics. Instead of a source of outrage, “School’s Out” is now a piece of Americana, a throwback to the “good old days” of the ’70s.

There is irony in watching Cooper, now 60-plus years old, perform a song about reckless, youthful abandon, but he can still sell it. Maybe that’s because no matter how old and jaded we become, inside each of us is still that little kid sitting on the edge of his seat some fine, final school day in late May or early June, waiting on a bell that signals the start of grand summer adventures.

As the new television season gets underway, networks have missed the perfect opportunity to piggyback on the country’s newly minted education obsession with a remake of “Welcome Back Kotter” for the high-stakes testing era.

Surely you remember beleaguered Mr. Kotter and his Sweathogs. Comedian Gabe Kaplan played Kotter, who returns to his alma mater to teach a baker’s dozen of incorrigible students, including Vinnie Barbarino (“Up your nose with a rubber hose!”), Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington (“Hey, Mr. Caaar-TEAR”), and the uber-annoying Arnold Horshack (“Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!” with hand thrust into the air). Kotter is regularly hassled by clueless Vice Principal Mr. Woodman, who dislikes both Kotter’s unusual teaching methods and the subhuman Sweathogs.

In the updated version – informed by No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the federal government’s love affair with charter schools at the expense of public education, and one-sided documentaries that paint teachers themselves as little better than adult Sweathogs – we find that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

In this new version, Kotter is still perpetually in danger of losing his job, only this time it’s because he has failed to improve his Sweathogs’ test scores in various target demographics, which include students from impoverished homes, students from specific racial and ethnic backgrounds, and students with special needs. Now when Mr. Woodman bursts into Kotter’s room in the middle of class, he’s waving spreadsheets, raving about “value-added” and “adequate yearly progress” and crunching numbers based on formulas that nobody outside of John Maynard Keynes understands. Audience laughter ensues.

In one episode, some of the Sweathogs apply at a swank new charter academy funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. However, they are denied admittance because the academy fears their scores will adversely affect their reputation in the community. The Sweathogs return to their original high school, which the charter school has cherry-picked for its best and brightest, thus perpetuating the self-fulfilling prophecy that public schools are stuck in an irreversible downward spiral. In a cameo appearance, Melinda Gates is hit upon by John Travolta’s Barbarino character and flees the school in disgust, blaming Kotter for his lack of classroom discipline.

In another installment, Kotter is temporarily replaced by an Ivy League graduate of Teach for America, whose résumé consists of a six-week crash course in educational theory. Applying a strict business model to the classroom (because it worked so well on Wall Street a few years ago), the new teacher realizes a modest increase in test scores. However, like most Teach for America candidates, she leaves after her two-year commitment, just at the point where, according to most studies, her teaching would become as effective as an experienced educator’s.

Kotter is rehired, in time to be asked to serve on a special panel to explore solutions to the nation’s educational woes. Fellow panel members include politicians, millionaires, and politicians who are millionaires. Kotter is removed from the panel when the other members realize he has actual classroom experience. He is replaced with Oprah Winfrey. Her appointment makes no sense, but it does give her a chance to say, “Up your nose with a rubber hose!” for the audience’s raucous applause.

The next week, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan invites Kotter and his fellow faculty members to a special showing of “Waiting for Superman,” the new documentary about American public education that demonizes teachers’ unions. Afterward, Duncan has Mr. Woodman threaten to fire the bottom ten percent of teachers, based solely on test scores (because idle threats are the optimal way to motivate people to do their best).

When Kotter points out that firing the bottom ten percent creates a (ital.) new (end ital.) bottom ten percent, and that it unfairly targets teachers (usually new and inexperienced) who work with the most challenging students in large urban districts, the audience boos. The very prospect that learning could be contingent on factors such as quality parenting and socioeconomic background is absurd; everybody knows public schools are solely to blame for all our nation’s ills. Besides, politicians have learned that blaming the same people you rely on for votes is ballot-box suicide; the teacher witch hunt is a much more convenient scenario, which is why they concocted it.

In a special episode, Kotter loses out on a merit-pay bonus by half a percentage point and must take an evening job working alongside some of his students at a local pizza parlor. He is so tired that he can barely stay awake, let alone be the dynamic entertainer-educator-innovator-surrogate parent-magician needed in the classroom. Meanwhile, the local newspaper considers running his students’ test scores on the front page, thereby exposing him to additional ridicule, all punctuated with a raucous laugh track.

I have more story ideas, but I doubt that more than half a dozen episodes of my proposed new “Welcome Back Kotter” would air before everybody finds something more interesting than education to worry about, like who the new judges on “American Idol” will be and will the nation survive this economic recovery. In that order.

E-mail chris.schillig@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter (cschillig).