Sometimes, things seem to be coming unglued.
Some months ago, somebody killed three police officers responding to a disturbance. Last weekend, somebody else walked into a wi-fi coffee shop and shot four more police officers to death.
These are unrelated as such. No conspiracy; one happened in Pittsburgh, the other in Tacoma. But does there have to be?
What in blue blazes is going on out there?
And does this not constitute domestic terrorism just as much as 9-11 does, and did? Why does something have to take a foreigner for it to be known as domestic terrorism?
If you were a police officer right now, wouldn't you be getting a little more nervous? And find it a little more difficult to handle what constituted normal situations normally?
Every time something like this happens--they're trying to track this guy down now--how many more people will go and buy guns in the fallacy that they will protect them?
The nuts drive us nuts. But they also make us nuts. That's bad enough. But there are plenty of guns to go for everybody.
Merry Christmas, everybody. Merry Christmas. Maybe if we say it enough, things will calm down. Maybe.
Mister Mark
Monday, November 30, 2009
Dave Obey Is Right
Dave Obey, Congressman from the 7th District in Wisconsin--and chair of the House Appropriations Committee--wants the country to pay, in taxes, for any increases for the war in Afghanistan. He's right.
But nobody wants to admit it or indulge him. The word on the Hill is that idea's DOA.
Instead, what will we do: Borrow the money, like we have all these years?
What difference is it, then, between what the Republicans did when they ran Congress while two wars in Iran and Afghanistan swelled up in size and intensity, and what the Democrats, by refusing to enlist this strategy, are going to be doing now?
Can a Democrat be a Democrat while still hanging on to the principles of the party--that if you want something of government, it's best to pay for it cash on the barrel, instead of deferring it to later, and higher, payments?
They can't possibly say, I guess, to those who would be crying out that taxes would go up: Yes, but this is something you said you wanted. Now, are we going to pay for it, or will be simply stop it?
Oops. I said something. The very idea that we'd actually GO HOME, instead of driving the incredible deficit even deeper, is another don't-want-to-discuss-it item.
But Obey is right. Again. But nobody's listening. Again.
Mister Mark
But nobody wants to admit it or indulge him. The word on the Hill is that idea's DOA.
Instead, what will we do: Borrow the money, like we have all these years?
What difference is it, then, between what the Republicans did when they ran Congress while two wars in Iran and Afghanistan swelled up in size and intensity, and what the Democrats, by refusing to enlist this strategy, are going to be doing now?
Can a Democrat be a Democrat while still hanging on to the principles of the party--that if you want something of government, it's best to pay for it cash on the barrel, instead of deferring it to later, and higher, payments?
They can't possibly say, I guess, to those who would be crying out that taxes would go up: Yes, but this is something you said you wanted. Now, are we going to pay for it, or will be simply stop it?
Oops. I said something. The very idea that we'd actually GO HOME, instead of driving the incredible deficit even deeper, is another don't-want-to-discuss-it item.
But Obey is right. Again. But nobody's listening. Again.
Mister Mark
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Of "Precious"
I saw the movie "Precious (which has a longer title, but it's generally known as this)" the other night. Powerful, but certainly not in an uplifting way.
There isn't a thing Precious Jones has going in her life that can be called hopeful. She's terribly overweight. She has an abusive mother who stays home, lives on welfare, and screams at her for little or no reason; Precious cooks for her and it had better be done right and on time.
She has an unwanted child by her mother's boyfriend and is pregnant with his second. She is HIV-positive. She is 16.
What's just as devastating: She can't read. There may just be a way out of this cauldron for her, but not if she can't put her mind to work.
Precious' struggles, and their eventual outcome, are not the stuff of easy viewing. It's Harlem in 1987, and sadly, it has the feel of a timelessness in that all someone's efforts have been futile. It could be the early 21st Century, for all we know. It could be elsewhere. It could be thousands.
And with the economy in its precarious state, how can we possibly look to raise this situation, and so many others like it, if we can't, or won't, put the funding into public education?
The mentality has gone in reverse: We need, not to prove why this is necessary, but to prove that the public at large has some responsibility for it. This is a perversion of the American Dream (actually, the human dream; go back to Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence to verify) that, disappointingly, has us cutting our own throats.
Who shows Precious the way through, that she has something going for her? A teacher. It is in her school that Precious makes a few friends, develops a support system, and knows that someone cares.
That will never surprise me. But, having been thrown out of the basic school system, she lands in a special school in which attention can be paid to her and others with challenging backgrounds.
In another twenty years, as we continue, will that funding be there for such situations? Or will someone, some Milton Friedman, simply conclude that the free market will find its own way to provide?
We do not know how it will end for Precious, or did. Look around you, New York; Los Angeles; Milwaukee; Chicago (where more than two dozen school-related murders have already happened this school year); Miami; Philadelphia; and the like. They are there.
What a waste of talent. What a waste of humanity. What a bottom-dragging anchor for our way of life.
And for every Precious who finds a way through--precarious as it still is at the conclusion of the film--how many are there who can't and will never have the one, last opportunity she had?
Mister Mark
There isn't a thing Precious Jones has going in her life that can be called hopeful. She's terribly overweight. She has an abusive mother who stays home, lives on welfare, and screams at her for little or no reason; Precious cooks for her and it had better be done right and on time.
She has an unwanted child by her mother's boyfriend and is pregnant with his second. She is HIV-positive. She is 16.
What's just as devastating: She can't read. There may just be a way out of this cauldron for her, but not if she can't put her mind to work.
Precious' struggles, and their eventual outcome, are not the stuff of easy viewing. It's Harlem in 1987, and sadly, it has the feel of a timelessness in that all someone's efforts have been futile. It could be the early 21st Century, for all we know. It could be elsewhere. It could be thousands.
And with the economy in its precarious state, how can we possibly look to raise this situation, and so many others like it, if we can't, or won't, put the funding into public education?
The mentality has gone in reverse: We need, not to prove why this is necessary, but to prove that the public at large has some responsibility for it. This is a perversion of the American Dream (actually, the human dream; go back to Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence to verify) that, disappointingly, has us cutting our own throats.
Who shows Precious the way through, that she has something going for her? A teacher. It is in her school that Precious makes a few friends, develops a support system, and knows that someone cares.
That will never surprise me. But, having been thrown out of the basic school system, she lands in a special school in which attention can be paid to her and others with challenging backgrounds.
In another twenty years, as we continue, will that funding be there for such situations? Or will someone, some Milton Friedman, simply conclude that the free market will find its own way to provide?
We do not know how it will end for Precious, or did. Look around you, New York; Los Angeles; Milwaukee; Chicago (where more than two dozen school-related murders have already happened this school year); Miami; Philadelphia; and the like. They are there.
What a waste of talent. What a waste of humanity. What a bottom-dragging anchor for our way of life.
And for every Precious who finds a way through--precarious as it still is at the conclusion of the film--how many are there who can't and will never have the one, last opportunity she had?
Mister Mark
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Memories of Another Receiving Line
The big deal about the party crashers at the White House is a very big deal.
They thought they played a big joke on the Obama Administration and the Secret Service. What they did, in all likelihood, boils down to two things.
First, they probably served to restrict a very accessible President's accessibility. If someone got that close with peaceful, even humorous intentions, well.....?
Second, they served notice of a reminder of another event that took place at the beginning of the last century. William McKinley was in a receiving line in Buffalo, when Leon Czolgosz took a derringer he was hiding beneath a handkerchief--pretending to cough into it--and shot McKinley twice in the stomach. It took him eight days to die.
That's how it happens; with an everyday event, with a President who loves his country, loves the people in it, and loves to keep meeting them (his wife, too, don't forget).
And there are dozens (literally; check the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report) of groups out there that are neo-Nazi, pseudo-religious, skinheaded people who love guns and don't like it that a black man is currently President--not to mention the kind of individual, acting alone, who tried to shoot up the Holocaust Museum, and the people in it, last spring in Washington, D.C.
So I'd like to say thanks to the couple who daringly played their little practical joke for access to a receiving line. They may have saved the President's life.
Mister Mark
They thought they played a big joke on the Obama Administration and the Secret Service. What they did, in all likelihood, boils down to two things.
First, they probably served to restrict a very accessible President's accessibility. If someone got that close with peaceful, even humorous intentions, well.....?
Second, they served notice of a reminder of another event that took place at the beginning of the last century. William McKinley was in a receiving line in Buffalo, when Leon Czolgosz took a derringer he was hiding beneath a handkerchief--pretending to cough into it--and shot McKinley twice in the stomach. It took him eight days to die.
That's how it happens; with an everyday event, with a President who loves his country, loves the people in it, and loves to keep meeting them (his wife, too, don't forget).
And there are dozens (literally; check the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report) of groups out there that are neo-Nazi, pseudo-religious, skinheaded people who love guns and don't like it that a black man is currently President--not to mention the kind of individual, acting alone, who tried to shoot up the Holocaust Museum, and the people in it, last spring in Washington, D.C.
So I'd like to say thanks to the couple who daringly played their little practical joke for access to a receiving line. They may have saved the President's life.
Mister Mark
A Shout Out for NPR
I'm listening, once again, as I have for years and years, to Scott Simon on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition," by far the best radio there is (along with Lian (I think that's the spelling) Hanson's version on Sunday).
First of all, it doesn't shout at you. It doesn't try to convince. It just tries to inform.
It is calm. It appeals to the intellect. It pauses for reflection. It is what we need.
When two people of differing views appear, it's a duo like David Brooks (conservative) of the New York Times, and E.J. Dionne (liberal) of the Washington Post. And they have a real conversation and thoughtful exchange. And I sometimes agree with both of them. And I find it difficult to consider that some people think there's something wrong with that.
I found it interesting that--listening once again--I learned of an admitted right-wing ideologue who listens to NPR very often. Why? He said it gives him the information without trying to influence. He finds that a breath of fresh air (speaking of another great NPR show).
Why do right-wing blowhards find it difficult to swallow? For just the reasons stated above. Plus, the simple fact that it brings up topics they'd rather not deal with--most specifically, those dealing with gay-lesbian issues.
But they're just the people who should be listening--those who will give lip-service to such individuals, acknowledge their issues and their rights, but would rather not think about them. It just makes them uncomfortable--much like they, themselves, make many other people uncomfortable (except they can't possibly believe or accept that).
Nevertheless, they confuse reportage with advocacy: first, because (sadly) there is so much advocacy journalism out there now; and second, not all of it tries to advance their own point of view.
It's a matter of trying to stifle anything and everything that they don't like. That means having their own way about everything and believing they really can, as long as they shout and whine and bully long enough about what they so self-righteously think everybody else ought to think, because it's the only way to think. Or so they think.
Hasn't worked yet. Think it ever will?
In the meantime: Hooray for NPR. Sail on.
Mister Mark
First of all, it doesn't shout at you. It doesn't try to convince. It just tries to inform.
It is calm. It appeals to the intellect. It pauses for reflection. It is what we need.
When two people of differing views appear, it's a duo like David Brooks (conservative) of the New York Times, and E.J. Dionne (liberal) of the Washington Post. And they have a real conversation and thoughtful exchange. And I sometimes agree with both of them. And I find it difficult to consider that some people think there's something wrong with that.
I found it interesting that--listening once again--I learned of an admitted right-wing ideologue who listens to NPR very often. Why? He said it gives him the information without trying to influence. He finds that a breath of fresh air (speaking of another great NPR show).
Why do right-wing blowhards find it difficult to swallow? For just the reasons stated above. Plus, the simple fact that it brings up topics they'd rather not deal with--most specifically, those dealing with gay-lesbian issues.
But they're just the people who should be listening--those who will give lip-service to such individuals, acknowledge their issues and their rights, but would rather not think about them. It just makes them uncomfortable--much like they, themselves, make many other people uncomfortable (except they can't possibly believe or accept that).
Nevertheless, they confuse reportage with advocacy: first, because (sadly) there is so much advocacy journalism out there now; and second, not all of it tries to advance their own point of view.
It's a matter of trying to stifle anything and everything that they don't like. That means having their own way about everything and believing they really can, as long as they shout and whine and bully long enough about what they so self-righteously think everybody else ought to think, because it's the only way to think. Or so they think.
Hasn't worked yet. Think it ever will?
In the meantime: Hooray for NPR. Sail on.
Mister Mark
Friday, November 27, 2009
My Mom and Dad, 61 Years Out
My parents were married on this day, 61 years ago.
Sixty-one. Jeepers. A lot of people have lived, and died, in that time. So I'd like to celebrate that right now: They're still here. Lots of my friends can't say that anymore.
Actually, they're pretty amazing in more than one way. And some of my inspiration for rising in the National Education Association belongs to my attachment to them.
My mother lost her father in a car accident in the early 1930s. She was the oldest of three. The rest of the family struggled through the depression years in Shawano, Wisconsin, about half an hour's drive (at this point) west of Green Bay. It wasn't easy for anybody, and it had to have been incredibly challenging there.
Mom was a very good student, editor of the school annual, and one of those really highly respected young ladies that our high schools have always produced. She had a chance to go to college, but couldn't because the family needed the money. It broke her heart.
But then, it was in search of the new direction that her life was taking that she met this sailor who'd been out of the service for a while, and had become a toolmaker's apprentice (when they still had such things), in Milwaukee. Apparently (says the legend), they were bowling with different people and started wising off to each other, so things haven't changed all that much.
Dad had quit high school to go into the service in 1944, just before his 18th birthday. He served on a destroyer escort, the U.S.S. Booth, through the end of the war, doing convoy and support duty.
It's what happened at the end that still strikes me with admiration. The Booth went through its post-war decommissioning by docking in Jacksonville, FL, in 1946. The officers and crew were going to have a dinner party to celebrate.
But the ship had four black stewards who, of course, had gone to their battle stations like everybody else when that awful siren had gone off again and again during the war. And since the party took place in the Deep South, and since Jim Crow was alive and well and would remain so for quite some time, the commander of the ship was told that the four black stewards couldn't participate in that dinner party in that hall.
The commander acquiesed. Dad didn't like it, and told him off. "They put it on the line like everybody else," he later said.
I thought that was pretty neat; not yet quite 20 years old, my old man stood up to his commander in the name of fairness and justice. Without knowing it--and Mom had to tell the story, otherwise we wouldn't have known it ourselves--he was sending something forward to his second son.
(I didn't say anything about this, either, until the last two years of my term; then, knowing that I wasn't going to run for an officer's position, I felt I could say such a thing and work it into speeches without it being too greatly dissected politically--although all things are for someone in my position, at least a little.)
Mom and Dad sent four sons through college, and it was going to happen, like it or not. I recall a conversation I'd had with Dad on the porch of the lodge at which we used to stay in Sayner, Wisconsin, on one August afternoon with the balmy temperature of about 58 or so, and drizzling. Dad was carving (which he still likes to do, and is great at it, having that toolmaker's pride of precision) a totem pole that he would dedicate to his four sons. I, wondering if this was relevant at the time, sat next to him on the bench of the screened-in porch, and asked him whether he thought I should go to college.
He demurred, saying that that was pretty much up to me. Mom was at the stove, not ten feet away. "He's going to college!" she said, with voice raised. And that was that.
It was that way because that was the way so many of us saw this country: as always moving forward, as having the next generation better than the last--smarter, richer, more worldly. I said it at a celebration at a Minnesota college in the spring of 2008, and I'll say it here again: They're supposed to be smarter than we are. Nobody was afraid of that back then, or at least, I knew of no one who was. (It's different now.)
The one way we knew that the next generation was better, was, simply, the educational level accomplished because we also knew that it signalled the decreasing need for kids to stay out in the field, and get into the classroom. Mom's grandmother got to the 5th grade; my grandmother, her mom, got to the 8th; Mom got through high school. Next?
And to get that money together four separate times, Mom went to work--in the Grafton public school system, as a principal's assistant. Which is to say: She ran three schools. The best ones do, you know. We need good support staff. Always have, always will.
She stayed for a few more years after my youngest brother got through college, but of course retired. She waited for Dad to retire when he got to be 65, and then, from the back of her mind, she renewed the dream she'd had back in 1942, when economics and tough luck held her back: she would go to college.
And so she did. She went for two years of classes to Concordia University in Mequon (we had settled in Grafton, a short distance to drive), being given credit for "life experiences," and taking advantage of being something of a writer herself.
Some of the best conversations we had between us were about her professors and the substances of the courses she took. She discussed those professors she liked and those she didn't like--which, at times, forced to me to take their positions--"He's the teacher, Mom"--in their defense. Afterwards, I had to smile.
At the age of 67, in 1991, she received her Associate Degree in Liberal Arts. We were supposed to observe decorum in the pomp-and-circumstance fashion when she approached for her diploma, mortar board and all, but we didn't; we hooted like the Brewers really had won the World Series.
We cheered for the distance travelled, for the hope that never faded, for a life that had come full circle. We cheered, and I cheer today, 61 years on.
Mom and Dad represent what's happened, and supposed to continue to happen, in this country. That, besides a grateful and proud family, and one member of which who took those examples and rose to the top of the largest education union in this country.
They left that behind, too, along with four children, ten grandchildren, and now even three great-grandchildren. The day after the nation gave thanks, I give thanks again.
Mister Mark
Sixty-one. Jeepers. A lot of people have lived, and died, in that time. So I'd like to celebrate that right now: They're still here. Lots of my friends can't say that anymore.
Actually, they're pretty amazing in more than one way. And some of my inspiration for rising in the National Education Association belongs to my attachment to them.
My mother lost her father in a car accident in the early 1930s. She was the oldest of three. The rest of the family struggled through the depression years in Shawano, Wisconsin, about half an hour's drive (at this point) west of Green Bay. It wasn't easy for anybody, and it had to have been incredibly challenging there.
Mom was a very good student, editor of the school annual, and one of those really highly respected young ladies that our high schools have always produced. She had a chance to go to college, but couldn't because the family needed the money. It broke her heart.
But then, it was in search of the new direction that her life was taking that she met this sailor who'd been out of the service for a while, and had become a toolmaker's apprentice (when they still had such things), in Milwaukee. Apparently (says the legend), they were bowling with different people and started wising off to each other, so things haven't changed all that much.
Dad had quit high school to go into the service in 1944, just before his 18th birthday. He served on a destroyer escort, the U.S.S. Booth, through the end of the war, doing convoy and support duty.
It's what happened at the end that still strikes me with admiration. The Booth went through its post-war decommissioning by docking in Jacksonville, FL, in 1946. The officers and crew were going to have a dinner party to celebrate.
But the ship had four black stewards who, of course, had gone to their battle stations like everybody else when that awful siren had gone off again and again during the war. And since the party took place in the Deep South, and since Jim Crow was alive and well and would remain so for quite some time, the commander of the ship was told that the four black stewards couldn't participate in that dinner party in that hall.
The commander acquiesed. Dad didn't like it, and told him off. "They put it on the line like everybody else," he later said.
I thought that was pretty neat; not yet quite 20 years old, my old man stood up to his commander in the name of fairness and justice. Without knowing it--and Mom had to tell the story, otherwise we wouldn't have known it ourselves--he was sending something forward to his second son.
(I didn't say anything about this, either, until the last two years of my term; then, knowing that I wasn't going to run for an officer's position, I felt I could say such a thing and work it into speeches without it being too greatly dissected politically--although all things are for someone in my position, at least a little.)
Mom and Dad sent four sons through college, and it was going to happen, like it or not. I recall a conversation I'd had with Dad on the porch of the lodge at which we used to stay in Sayner, Wisconsin, on one August afternoon with the balmy temperature of about 58 or so, and drizzling. Dad was carving (which he still likes to do, and is great at it, having that toolmaker's pride of precision) a totem pole that he would dedicate to his four sons. I, wondering if this was relevant at the time, sat next to him on the bench of the screened-in porch, and asked him whether he thought I should go to college.
He demurred, saying that that was pretty much up to me. Mom was at the stove, not ten feet away. "He's going to college!" she said, with voice raised. And that was that.
It was that way because that was the way so many of us saw this country: as always moving forward, as having the next generation better than the last--smarter, richer, more worldly. I said it at a celebration at a Minnesota college in the spring of 2008, and I'll say it here again: They're supposed to be smarter than we are. Nobody was afraid of that back then, or at least, I knew of no one who was. (It's different now.)
The one way we knew that the next generation was better, was, simply, the educational level accomplished because we also knew that it signalled the decreasing need for kids to stay out in the field, and get into the classroom. Mom's grandmother got to the 5th grade; my grandmother, her mom, got to the 8th; Mom got through high school. Next?
And to get that money together four separate times, Mom went to work--in the Grafton public school system, as a principal's assistant. Which is to say: She ran three schools. The best ones do, you know. We need good support staff. Always have, always will.
She stayed for a few more years after my youngest brother got through college, but of course retired. She waited for Dad to retire when he got to be 65, and then, from the back of her mind, she renewed the dream she'd had back in 1942, when economics and tough luck held her back: she would go to college.
And so she did. She went for two years of classes to Concordia University in Mequon (we had settled in Grafton, a short distance to drive), being given credit for "life experiences," and taking advantage of being something of a writer herself.
Some of the best conversations we had between us were about her professors and the substances of the courses she took. She discussed those professors she liked and those she didn't like--which, at times, forced to me to take their positions--"He's the teacher, Mom"--in their defense. Afterwards, I had to smile.
At the age of 67, in 1991, she received her Associate Degree in Liberal Arts. We were supposed to observe decorum in the pomp-and-circumstance fashion when she approached for her diploma, mortar board and all, but we didn't; we hooted like the Brewers really had won the World Series.
We cheered for the distance travelled, for the hope that never faded, for a life that had come full circle. We cheered, and I cheer today, 61 years on.
Mom and Dad represent what's happened, and supposed to continue to happen, in this country. That, besides a grateful and proud family, and one member of which who took those examples and rose to the top of the largest education union in this country.
They left that behind, too, along with four children, ten grandchildren, and now even three great-grandchildren. The day after the nation gave thanks, I give thanks again.
Mister Mark
Now, Where Was I? And, Where Am I?
Hi, to whomever wishes to partake--
I'm going to be writing on a large range of topics here. I wrote a sports column in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, for 19 years, then stopped it because of my increasing union activity with, ultimately, the National Education Association. I missed writing. It became a large part of who I was.
Actually, I did some of it while on the NEA Executive Committee; it's just that a lot of it never saw the light of day. Relative to how much I said, I didn't get a lot of chances to say it. (Some of the reasons for that make perfect sense; some might not. They all add up to the word politics.) A few people said it for me, either because that's exactly what I was thinking, or that, in a more advantageous position, they simply stole my comments and used them for themselves. No copyright there; in the end, we're all thieves about things like that.
I have saved many papers and documents from my time on the Executive Committee; here, I will comment on some of them--as well as try to dredge up some of those statements that I made that seemed like good ideas at the time, but the times passed and we went on to other things. I'm going to go back and get them and see whether they stand up to the test of time. Those commentaries will be on education or some aspect of it. The specific title of the commentary should tell you that I've written it, somewhere (airplane, middle of some boring meeting) before.
But others will be on politics and sports and just, well, stuff. People may just be interested in the kinds of things that took place these last six years--especially what's been happening in Cedarburg, which has turned into quite a different place than the one I left.
There, I taught social studies--mostly history and government--for 30 years. I was not allowed to return after my time on the Executive Committee. Read that again: not allowed to return. Actually, I volunteered to retire, but I would have been stopped anyhow.
I was dangerous to someone, you see. Controversial. I had an opinion, and some did not agree with it. By that time, there was nothing new about that; my column had aroused conversations, as columns are supposed to do.
But my connections with the NEA and WEAC were considered too edgy for someone to continue to take me on, despite my experience in teaching and in the district. For all the help I might have lent to someone, the price for that was considered too high. They used their muscle, and a deal was struck.
The details on that will appear here later. In the meantime, I'm officially retired, though not intentionally--which is to say, I'm looking for work. And in this, the "jobless recovery," in which someone is apparently recovering from something (just not me right now), things are not exactly humming along.
But I will survive and endure. It became that, you know, at some point while I was in Washington, D.C.; but again, I'll spell that out a little later.
This blog is named what it is because that's one of my many nicknames that's been used during my life; it goes back nearly as far as anything else, and it's the one I like best. (In fact, people doing business with me at counters, and don't want to try pronouncing my last name--which, in comparison with others of my ethnic origin, is really pretty easy to say--simply say, "Well, Mr. Mark....") After all, this is my blog. I should like everything I put into it.
Welcome. And I welcome your comments, too. Have a good day.
Mister Mark
I'm going to be writing on a large range of topics here. I wrote a sports column in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, for 19 years, then stopped it because of my increasing union activity with, ultimately, the National Education Association. I missed writing. It became a large part of who I was.
Actually, I did some of it while on the NEA Executive Committee; it's just that a lot of it never saw the light of day. Relative to how much I said, I didn't get a lot of chances to say it. (Some of the reasons for that make perfect sense; some might not. They all add up to the word politics.) A few people said it for me, either because that's exactly what I was thinking, or that, in a more advantageous position, they simply stole my comments and used them for themselves. No copyright there; in the end, we're all thieves about things like that.
I have saved many papers and documents from my time on the Executive Committee; here, I will comment on some of them--as well as try to dredge up some of those statements that I made that seemed like good ideas at the time, but the times passed and we went on to other things. I'm going to go back and get them and see whether they stand up to the test of time. Those commentaries will be on education or some aspect of it. The specific title of the commentary should tell you that I've written it, somewhere (airplane, middle of some boring meeting) before.
But others will be on politics and sports and just, well, stuff. People may just be interested in the kinds of things that took place these last six years--especially what's been happening in Cedarburg, which has turned into quite a different place than the one I left.
There, I taught social studies--mostly history and government--for 30 years. I was not allowed to return after my time on the Executive Committee. Read that again: not allowed to return. Actually, I volunteered to retire, but I would have been stopped anyhow.
I was dangerous to someone, you see. Controversial. I had an opinion, and some did not agree with it. By that time, there was nothing new about that; my column had aroused conversations, as columns are supposed to do.
But my connections with the NEA and WEAC were considered too edgy for someone to continue to take me on, despite my experience in teaching and in the district. For all the help I might have lent to someone, the price for that was considered too high. They used their muscle, and a deal was struck.
The details on that will appear here later. In the meantime, I'm officially retired, though not intentionally--which is to say, I'm looking for work. And in this, the "jobless recovery," in which someone is apparently recovering from something (just not me right now), things are not exactly humming along.
But I will survive and endure. It became that, you know, at some point while I was in Washington, D.C.; but again, I'll spell that out a little later.
This blog is named what it is because that's one of my many nicknames that's been used during my life; it goes back nearly as far as anything else, and it's the one I like best. (In fact, people doing business with me at counters, and don't want to try pronouncing my last name--which, in comparison with others of my ethnic origin, is really pretty easy to say--simply say, "Well, Mr. Mark....") After all, this is my blog. I should like everything I put into it.
Welcome. And I welcome your comments, too. Have a good day.
Mister Mark
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