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

Santurce, Puerto Rico, USA Latest News: After speaking at length with various municipal government offices, one of them suggested that a signature petition effort to organize the local community around the formalization of the skatepark, garden, and fishing area would serve as a bulwark against government expropriation and possible purchase of the property by a private owner. The ‘Parque Punta Las Marias,’ situated in San Juan, Puerto Rico’s Atlantic coast in the Santurce neighborhood of Punta Las Marias, is heavily protected land by the local residents looking to keep it as a place of urban respite. It has been ground zero for a non-violent, community-driven turfwar symbolizing a microcosm of what has been happening to the island itself. Deep in bond debt, Puerto Rico’s government has looked to develop local industry, garner outside investment, and sell-off land in order to stay as close to solvency as possible. At the same time, many Puerto Ricans have become increasingly invo...

Frederick Douglass At His Desk They ranged between seventy five and ninety years of age, hailing from Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico and Peru… all of them American citizens. I sat with them to have a conversation in Spanish, wake up the neurons, and get some profound intellectual brainwork happening. As it is, being a political scientist, I was chairing the conversation to gather understanding of different view points once presenting the case formally before them. Below are the conclusions of the conversation: Economic and Cultural Oppression How do you realize, how do you see the characteristics of economic and cultural oppression if you are not trained for it? Societally ingrained perspectives compress into standardized ways of thinking; these perceptual constructs surround us since infancy that we can not see the intricate interplay of what could simply be politically-charged machinery, meant to condition, desensitize and push us into desired view points, like cogs in a tradi...

Photo by Puerto Rican photographer Fernando Ortiz updated 9/26/17 One hundred years ago they began to be citizens of the United States of America. They have fought in all our wars, even on the front lines defending the very same freedom and liberties, the ideologies and sureties of a way of life prized and coveted by people the world over. Nineteen years prior to gaining citizenship, in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain lost control over the island, formally known by its indigenous population of Tainó native americans as, Borinquén. Jutting out of the Caribbean Sea, the smallest of the bigger islands, Puerto Rico has held a primarily geo-military value to the United States, yet it has also served as a cultural crossroads between Latin American culture and the English-speaking America. Much like Istanbul (old Constantinople) in the country of Turkey, Puerto Rico is a modern-day representation of the rich, cultural heritages that flow from the Spanish-conquest legacy, p...

"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power-" Ephesians KJV 1:18-19 updated 5/25/17 9:08 am When I story dance, I do so purposefully. I do so meditatively. I enter not into thoughts of self-observation, but with a readiness to connect movement, heart, spirit and mind all in one motion. At times, I close and open my eyes with a focus on my spatial surroundings.  With eyes open I see the dance with eyes closed I become the dance With eyes open I see you seeing me With eyes closed I just am The dancing started at an early age. Growing up in Puerto Rico, it was almost a prerequisite to move to music. Music and dance is a cornerstone of culture on the island. I would listen to the salsa and merengue on the ra...

Tio Guillo would steer the ship and Tia Rosi and I would follow his directives. Back then the boat was smaller, way smaller. It was called, Memo, which is a nickname for Guillermo (William). The cockpit was small, not like the newer, custom sailboat he roams the seas on now. This guy is a sailor’s sailor if there ever was one. Tio Guillo knows how to be both gentle and strong as the moments call for them and he has the respect and love of all who know him. Just like Boaz in the bible, Guillo is known by the ‘elders at the entering of the ‘city gates,’’ his good works walk before him, his eyes look straight ahead and his wife adores him. I think of my uncle and I realize how much I love the guy and why I love him. It is not so much the mass of our conversations, but the time we spent with each other. The time he afforded me with him. He took me under his wing and his impression on my life has emphasized the value of honesty, grit and goal-directed persistence in being t...

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah to all across America. Today’s essay is simple and affords a glimpse into my operations as a private Special Educator to a student of mine whom I call #theCowboy and #DearLeader. I have worked with him for a bit over seven years. He likes to ride horses and communicate with statements and declarations. ………………….. December 24th, 2016, about 1400 hours (Zulu time) New Canaan, Connecticut I was on the job with #theCowboy as we walked into a saloon called Tony’s Deli. #TheCowboy opened the door and established his presence, letting it be known to all present that he was interested in a buffalo chicken wrap. Being headstrong, he would not be deterred and made it clear throughout the New Canaan saloon that he was there. I hovered over him as his coach, though he makes me feel like I am the Secret Service to Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean leader. #theCowboy is a lad who knows what he wants and when he wants it.  We sat down b...

I want to honor my Dad who I last saw last on December 6, 2014. He passed at midnight in the Veterans Hospital of San Juan, Puerto Rico on December 31/ January 1, of 2014/5 at the age of eighty-four. One of the best things I learned from my late-father was the over-arching value of cultivating a champion mindset. It is what we call the ‘growth mindset’ today. Every day was important and he approached it with all the readiness and enthusiasm of every day before. He also valued preparedness. Being prepared. The grandfather to my three children was a veteran of the ‘Screaming Eagles’ Airborne Rangers of the 101st Airborne Division in the U.S. Army. Dad also served in the U.S. Marines and was part of an elite expeditionary force in Korea ahead of the official start of the war. My Dad was an  ‘All-Army’ football player and also padded up for the Rose Bowl. He was there for virtually all my own football games, straight on through high school. He was unstoppable in his ...

Jose Gustavo Ramirez, a father with one daughter, a thirty-six year old waterman, entrepreneur and consummate sailor operates as a pirate full-time off the coast of eastern Puerto Rico. His pirate ship Mirili, can be often seen and reported with prisoners on-board between the waters of the U.S & British Virgin Islands.  Mr. Ramirez, speaks three languages fluently, was born and raised in Puerto Rico by a Cuban mother and a Puerto Rican father and is a master chef.  A surfer’s surfer, Jose has traveled the world extensively and repetitively living in faraway lands, surfing seemingly impossible mammoth waves, and parachute jumping as a master of the air with his wing suit, allowing him to move horizontally at over 170 miles per hour. Be it living in Indonesia, or surfing in New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, Costa Rica, or across the United States, Jose has been there, skied it or worked it as a sushi chef, surf contest camera man, or expert wing suit glider. ...

My grandmother, Kathleen was born and raised in Missouri, the daughter of a devout preacher. She was my grandfather's second wife, joining the family when my father was a scrappy, 13 year old, back in 1945-6. A History and Social Studies teacher at his school in Pasadena, Grandma watched over Dad, who was a quintessential outdoorsy, 'sandlot' kind of kid in the California of the 1940's. In his preadolescent years, Dad would walk around with a sling-shot, and cuffed, blue jeans with his hair slicked back. Dad's real mom was a beautiful woman who had tuberculosis and was an alcoholic. She spent her time living in the arid desert or the breezier mountains of 'Cali.' to address her pulmonary condition. I never met her. She passed away in the 1970's before my birth. I wish I could have met her to know my father from a mother's perspective. Grandma Kathleen was 'my grandmother' and a loving, caring, nurturing one at that. She dealt with ...

It is so important to have strong, male role-models in our families and community. Women alone cannot save the world. We need both parents, and the community to raise our children. It is an all-in effort. That said, the deterioration of fatherhood in many parts of our land is directly hacking away at the foundation of what keeps America moving forward. The importance of having upright fathers who are a positive and nurturing presence in the lives of their children cannot be underrated but must be trumped out in front and protected, if our communities are to have any hope of raising strong, healthy children to lead us forward into each new age.  I think of my own father and his manhood…. My late-Dad could have been Clint Eastwood’s brother. Their is an uncanny physical and personality resemblance. Dad was a rolling stone who was working on fishing schooners traveling from the Southern California coast to Hawai’i by the age of eighteen. He was a sea-cowboy in that face...