Coach Bill / Dad, Entrepreneur Special Educator, American Political Scientist, Writer, Musician.

"Tensions over race and policing in Chicago and Cleveland come amid intense scrutiny of police killings in the United States over the past 18 months, especially of black men. Protests have taken place around the country and the issue has fueled a civil rights movement under the name Black Lives Matter. Cleveland police will review the fatal shooting of Rice from start to finish to determine if the two officers involved or others should face disciplinary action, officials said on Tuesday. Protests over the shooting of Laquan McDonald led to the resignation of Chicago's police chief and a Justice Department probe into whether the city's police use lethal force too often, especially against minorities. Meanwhile, protesters demonstrated outside the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office in Cleveland, a day after a grand jury decided not to charge two white police officers in the 2014 shooting death of Tamir Rice, a black 12-year-old boy who was playing in ...

(updated 12/28/15) The sloping land directly behind the skatepark is looking cleaner and cleaner. It is a small parcel of land between Scalzi Skatepark and the street hockey rink the community uses seen in the back left of this sketch.   As a teacher I recognize the value in making small changes consistently towards an end goal, especially when an easy answer or solution is not in view. By moving levers, making slight alterations, fine-tuning a little here and there in a consistent manner we actually end up moving very quickly towards attaining a desired goal. This is a strategy learned through repetitive chess play and which the mind unconsciously extrapolates onto other contexts naturally. With this in mind, how would a garden or some basic landscaping in that back sloping parcel change the atmosphere? If people saw that that land was valued by others who came to take care of it, would they be so apt to keep throwing garbage there? Would they still throw their us...

Part 1:  A democracy is as strong as we exercise it or weak as we let it slide. It is not static, but waxes and wanes according to our practice of it. Just like a muscle. I violated a mutual restraining order by bringing flowers to my ex-wives job. I was sending her a marshall to order her to court to deal with sharing the children. I never see them. They are young. I broke the law by bringing the flowers. She reported me and I was arrested in the courthouse. God bless her and God bless the great state of Connecticut. I harbor no ill will. This post is not aimed at bringing a critical eye to what is wrong with our criminal justice system, but about how we can make it better. Genuine hope and enthusiasm are central to an understanding and application of the best instructional methods and strategies to use when teaching or coaching. It is an energy that is expressed by one and picked up on by another and serves as a bridge allowing for teaching and learning to remai...

I live in Norwalk. This is my community now. I use to live in Greenwich on a farm... with a river running through the property. It was nice. But I moved. Now I live in Norwalk. I would like to be part of the solution to revitalizing the South Norwalk Community Center.  It seems like it needs help. My plan begins by politely requesting access to a Board of Advisors meeting and presenting at least seventeen new program ideas that can serve the immediate community of families it serves. The families are the oysters, the pearls are the youth of South Norwalk.

My maternal family left Cuba within months of Fidel taking over. They left by airplane thinking they’d be back by Christmas. They took only their bodies. One of my aunts came naked on the plane. Everything had to be left behind. The house in Miramar, the beach house in Varadero, the furniture, the clothes… everything. My youngest uncle had to stay behind as an infant because he did not have ‘the right papers.’ Papi (my late-maternal grandfather) went back for him and reunited his boy (my Godfather) with the family. America opened its arms to my maternal family back in the early 1960s. They briefly settled in Amityville, New York before relocating in Puerto Rico. While on the mainland they were given clothes, schooling and were able to move into a home at the onset of winter. Papi, a lawyer back in Cuba, worked long hours on Madison Avenue. It was rough and tough, yet better than the life that would be with Fidel in power.  On one side my family are refugees. On the...

(updated 12/22/15) How do we go about creating and sustaining awareness? How does a person… a community…foster a ripple effect of social responsibility? How shall I be an agent of positive disruption in my community? Why not? Life is short and the days fly by. The Boss (Springsteen) said that we can’t start something if we are always worried about our own world falling apart. He is right! No time to sit idly by or ‘wallow in the mire.’ No longer content to hang back, it is always the time to put the shoulder to the plow for others, especially those who are needy, disadvantaged or forgotten.  It is a new day. There are diamonds where people see them not and there is apathy where all seems well.  The land is ripe for positive disruption. It is time to band together. I story dance a new song You must also Releasing thought and feeling Channelling hope and pain Making amends where it is needed Doing the right thing first Banding together c...

(updated 12/22/15) Behaving as if all that matters is profit, as if we are on our own, an island, let me get mine and you get yours, that this is a race of some kind were money is king and lord over our hearts and minds.  That is a sorry life. A sad life straight out of William Randolph Hearst’s life as portrayed in Orson Welles’s classic masterpiece film, ‘Citizen Kane.’  In a world beholden to growth through monetary profit, as it is for all companies on the stock markets of the world, what messages do we send each other and the community when we make money lord over common sense? How much money is enough? How much financial security shall we shore up for ourselves? This post is not about taking from the rich and giving to the poor. It is about how we conduct ourselves in relation to others. It is about what we allow to drive us as we seek to live life. Do these ‘drivers’ benefit our hearts and minds, do they benefit the community? Are we not free to live our ...

(photo by Banksy) I take God at his Word and I am a King James Bible-reading and doing Christian.  I coach a child on the autism spectrum who is a part of a Muslim family. #theGentleman and his brothers have been with me and I with them for five years. I love this family. It is an honor for me to be retained for so long by them. It is humbling and I work hard to keep myself indispensable. To say that I am emotionally-invested in the success of #theGentleman and his brothers is an understatement. My success is tied to his success. It pains me to read of Muslim kids across the country feeling scrutiny or judging eyes on them. Enacting actions of hate leading to murder has nothing to do with the core principles of the major faiths of the world though these faiths are hijacked over and over again by people wanting to make a statement. Real strong people don't pick up guns to spray people away with bullets of rage and then say it was in the name of God. God is love. God is lovi...

Duke Kahanamoku, a Hawaiian and an Olympic swimming champion was also the number one ambassador for surfing in the world and his home base was Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. This was between the 1920's and 40's. Duke knit a collective of surfer that would take tourists out to catch waves on the giant long boards. It was the first time many ever get presented with such a foreign experience as 'surfing' a wave of water. In surfing, the experience one gets when a natural element like water is pushing them along brings a state of unique rest and contentment. You have to do it to know what it's truly like. Skateboarding parallels in many ways the feeling of surfing. Like surfing and dancing, skateboarding is an effective, practical tool and strategy as an early education/ intervention methods for typical children and those on the autism spectrum, with executive function skill deficits or any other special need or disability. Skateboarding requires focus and sustai...

They sprayed bullets indiscriminately. There were people in pain on the floor with blood  gushing out. There needs to be a more well-rounded approach to how we maintain the threads that keep this country together.     They left the baby with the grandma and decided to take care of business by killing people who belonged to families also.  They had a mind and heart set.  They had an infant. What will happen to that infant of theirs? If  parents were killed in the massacre, how will the surviving families deal  with  the raising of the children. How can the community help? How can community be ready to help each other when families are ripped apart? This affects everyone and apparently the attacks can happen anywhere. How do we change elements on the ground to change the landscape?  Can we meet negative disruption with the wheel of positive disruption? Social entrepreneurship can be love in action when done righ...

At the skatepark yesterday, I picked up plastic bottles, beer bottles, beer caps, cigarette butts, abandoned clothes, pieces of broken skateboards, candy wrappers galore and lots of empty cheap cigar packets. I pick up broken glass, napkins, and even more plastic bottles. There seems to be no end in sight to the garbage in that area. Fresh garbage lands like breaking waves each day.  As I was doing this a skateboarder with a Martha’s Vineyard ‘Black Dog’  shirt came into the park and started practicing. He was stiffly working the smaller skate bowl. I could tell his board was brand new. In talking, Josh, a young black man, was very emphatic  several times on his strong desire to get really good at his jumps and tricks on the board. I said all the customary stuff we all know about what it takes to progress. “It just takes practice. Commitment.. and one day at a time you get better at it.” I’m no Tony Hawk by any stretch of the imagination, but I AM in the m...