My Year That Was, was filled with losses.
I lost my home. Got kicked out, though not my fault. Acquired another one, though I knew I wouldn't have it for long. Left that one, too. Now in a third, for a while longer, anyhow.
I lost my position with the NEA. I miss it. Who wouldn't? High profile, everything's paid for. People say hello wherever you go. Involved in high-level conversations. Saw the new President up-close, in the Rose Garden. Got to give a Lincoln speech at the national RA. My farewell speech was well-received.
Learned how many friends I'd lost. There are "friends," and there are friends. Didn't, couldn't, keep up with them. Circumstances caused the rest.
Lost my connection with Cedarburg School District. This, perhaps, was a loss I could absorb and even celebrate. Why in the world would I work for those people again, besides the money, which is no reason to keep teaching?
What did I gain? Lots of peace and quiet. Maybe too much. Boring, actually. Waiting for things to happen. Waiting to see if they actually will. Waiting to see how much I actually have to make happen. Waiting. Don't like waiting.
Gained perspective about the lifestyle I've lived. After a while, not that difficult to readjust.
Weight. Gotta do something about that. The more active I get, the less that becomes an issue. Gotta stay focused on keeping busy.
What do I still have? Family. Everybody's still here. Amazing, really. Much to celebrate about that.
Some friends. Some of those relationships have changed. Some are still there. God bless 'em. Gotta keep them going.
Health, relatively speaking. Prostate's still there and acting up. Will be a life-long issue. Back hurts, too. Will have to tend to that.
But--no sinus infections since I got off the plane-culture circuit. Now I know that the two or three attacks I'd have per year--ugly and powerful--came directly from the air exchanges. Feels liberating. Number of sneezes since September 1 could have been made in a single day with the stuff I'd catch.
Prince. Greatest cat in the world. Still diabetic; still allergic to something and scratches all the time. Misses my lap right now because I can't sit in my easy chair, and says so. He was a bellweather when I'd return from those trips. Don't know how long he'll be around, either. He's getting up there.
Opportunities. They're out there. Gotta do a better job in finding them. Thought I'd have a decision to make by this time, but no-go. That moment will come. The search goes on.
Heck of a decade. Another one coming up. Hope to make it through; not absurd to say that anymore. Still here. Still alive. In a new world now. Life goes on.
It's 2010. Let's go make the best of it.
Mister Mark
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Speeches I Never Gave--#3--Applying Our Own Teflon
(This has no dateline attached to it, but must be, as you'll see, somewhere in the vicinity of 2005 or 2006--when there was a conversation, however brief, on how the NEA should deal with the Iraq War in terms of applying it to our work. I believe that I cannot divulge the gist of that conversation, having had it behind closed doors, but I can divulge how I thought about it then--and what I wrote about it--again, revealed here, for the first time.)
Where does the war fit--where is it supposed to fit--in terms of what we're supposed to be about?
The voice of reason, of perspective, but most of all--of calmness.
We aren't going to get anywhere by outscaring the rest of the world--or ourselves. It's way past time to begin a new conversation about national politics--not in an absolutist sense, but in the sense of degrees of engagement in the things that really matter to all of us--that give us security with confidence and without fear.
The best way to conbat fear is to demonstrate imperviousness to it--that we have heeded the angel's advice not to be afraid, that the news is good, that there is an opportunity to be had if we would just embrace it. We must heed Lee Iacocca's admonition to apply our own Teflon to what we say and do--to stop worrying, as it were, that as he put it, "some bobblehead at Fox News will call us a name."
If you're right about what you're advocating for, you'll have all the Teflon you'll need.
The connection of the immigration issue to the fear of the unseen, the foreign, the boogeyman who may easily have slipped into the country--when in fact the incidents that caused as least as much trauma, the ones from which others have committed acts at least as senseless if not as destructive, were domestically-based and took place before 9/11--Oklahoma City and Columbine.
We have exerted nearly as much control over a repetition of 9/11 as we can, absent a total compromise of our civil liberties (which has been attempted, to some avail, temporarily); not perfectly, for it is likely to take place again. But our greatest enemies, the greatest forces for discouraging the promise of America, continue to lurk from within--the insistence upon ultra-right wing groups to spread hate and intolerance; the stultifying substitution of religion for any substantive inquiry, stopping scholarship and research (on stem cells, for instance) at its door.
All of this continues to speak for the need to reinstitute a conversation on national priorities. And that is why the NEA can and must lead that conversation. We are uniquely positioned to do so because:
1. We are the largest union in the country.
2. We represent those thinkers who are greatly respected: Teachers.
3. We represent an undeniable priority ourselves: Public education.
4. We can, by initiating such a conversation, position ourselves as being other than self-serving--though, admittedly, the window will be open to being accused of being exactly that.
But that is the moment that we must be certain of the justifiability of our actions, to create our own Teflon by leveraging the support that we know exists out there. It is, in short, time that we stop wringing our hands with worry about criticism that we know clearly exists, and just do it. If we're in jail, it's only one of our own making.
The gatekeepers of a new legacy, of a new tradition, of a new America--are in this room. They're counting on us, and we are getting ready for the challenges.
That's what we're doing here and what we're going to be doing once we return home: to create, once again and as long as we're here, a great public school for every child.
Mister Mark
Where does the war fit--where is it supposed to fit--in terms of what we're supposed to be about?
The voice of reason, of perspective, but most of all--of calmness.
We aren't going to get anywhere by outscaring the rest of the world--or ourselves. It's way past time to begin a new conversation about national politics--not in an absolutist sense, but in the sense of degrees of engagement in the things that really matter to all of us--that give us security with confidence and without fear.
The best way to conbat fear is to demonstrate imperviousness to it--that we have heeded the angel's advice not to be afraid, that the news is good, that there is an opportunity to be had if we would just embrace it. We must heed Lee Iacocca's admonition to apply our own Teflon to what we say and do--to stop worrying, as it were, that as he put it, "some bobblehead at Fox News will call us a name."
If you're right about what you're advocating for, you'll have all the Teflon you'll need.
The connection of the immigration issue to the fear of the unseen, the foreign, the boogeyman who may easily have slipped into the country--when in fact the incidents that caused as least as much trauma, the ones from which others have committed acts at least as senseless if not as destructive, were domestically-based and took place before 9/11--Oklahoma City and Columbine.
We have exerted nearly as much control over a repetition of 9/11 as we can, absent a total compromise of our civil liberties (which has been attempted, to some avail, temporarily); not perfectly, for it is likely to take place again. But our greatest enemies, the greatest forces for discouraging the promise of America, continue to lurk from within--the insistence upon ultra-right wing groups to spread hate and intolerance; the stultifying substitution of religion for any substantive inquiry, stopping scholarship and research (on stem cells, for instance) at its door.
All of this continues to speak for the need to reinstitute a conversation on national priorities. And that is why the NEA can and must lead that conversation. We are uniquely positioned to do so because:
1. We are the largest union in the country.
2. We represent those thinkers who are greatly respected: Teachers.
3. We represent an undeniable priority ourselves: Public education.
4. We can, by initiating such a conversation, position ourselves as being other than self-serving--though, admittedly, the window will be open to being accused of being exactly that.
But that is the moment that we must be certain of the justifiability of our actions, to create our own Teflon by leveraging the support that we know exists out there. It is, in short, time that we stop wringing our hands with worry about criticism that we know clearly exists, and just do it. If we're in jail, it's only one of our own making.
The gatekeepers of a new legacy, of a new tradition, of a new America--are in this room. They're counting on us, and we are getting ready for the challenges.
That's what we're doing here and what we're going to be doing once we return home: to create, once again and as long as we're here, a great public school for every child.
Mister Mark
Speeches I Never Gave--#2--The Impact of the Courts
The courts are politicized.
The courts are legislation in another form.
Most courts are subject to direct election.
All courts are at least indirectly subject to the election of someone.
There is no such thing as a "non-partisan" court.
Understandably, we have been operating under the assumption--which as amounted to no more than wishful thinking--that courts are somehow above the partisan squabbling that normally constitutes our legislative, law-making processes, whether on the federal, state, or local levels. It is time we come to a more realistsic viewpoint of these matters.
This is crucial for the future of public education because:
The courts are legislation in another form.
Most courts are subject to direct election.
All courts are at least indirectly subject to the election of someone.
There is no such thing as a "non-partisan" court.
Understandably, we have been operating under the assumption--which as amounted to no more than wishful thinking--that courts are somehow above the partisan squabbling that normally constitutes our legislative, law-making processes, whether on the federal, state, or local levels. It is time we come to a more realistsic viewpoint of these matters.
This is crucial for the future of public education because:
- of the increased use of court by our state affiliates to solve the problems of equity and adequacy in public education policy and school funding
- of the increased expenditures that both the NEA and the state affiliates have incurred in the pursuit or defense of pro-public education positions in legal disputes
- of the growing realization that the legal decisions made that most greatly impact public education policy are made, not according to a pre-ordained consensus regarding the meaning of laws and their application, but a subjective standard that has far more to do with the re-established legal philosophies stated by either those who have been elected to judicial positions, selected to them, or by those doing the selecting.
This may be nothing new in the realm of American politics, but the degree of attention paid by the NEA and its affiliates to judicial races and appointments--and the impact they have had on the deetermination of where educational resources go, who gets them, and how internal and external educational policy is performed.
Regardless of the rhetoric that presidents and governors and candidates have used, court decision-making, being either the act of interpreting the law--explaining a law's meaning as applied to its enforceability or the lack of it, reflecting upon the necessitation of new law, the adjustment of a law's adjudication, both or neither, constitutes but one part of a flowing process of making and re-making laws:
People At Large
Legislative Branches
Courts
Law Enforcers
--in which courts choose, or do not choose, to sharpen, clarify, or further expand upon what a law actually means. Regardless, adding any words to the text of a law changes the text and thus changes the law itself--just another part of "amending" the law, which is another part of law-making.
This may be a new way to consider what, for some, has been a separation of powers. To the contrary, it is a separation only of the order in which a law is considered and, if necessary, continuously revised.
There has never been a question about the definitive role of the legislative branch; what has evolved over time is the role of the executive branch in legislative leadership--the preparation of governmental budgets, for example, as well as the attempt to execute policy initiatives that an executive has campaigned on. But there can no longer be much doubt about the role judicial electees or appointees play in the extension of policy initiatives--witness the increasing monies spent on judicial elections and the increased attention paid to federal judicial appointees. There can be only one reason for this: in their own way, regardless of philosophy, regardless of the decisions to act or not to act--the courts make law.
Important questions, therefore, loom:
1. Have the NEA and state affiliates been able to sufficiently influence judicial appointments, regardless of their governmental level? Why or why not? If not, can anything be done about it?
2. Has sufficient and equivalent attention been paid to judicial elections, regardless of governmental level?
3. Can we establish as consensus the view that the courts have had roughly an equivalent effect on education policy-making as legislative and executive branches, regardless of governmental level?
4. Would this aspect of politics be worth a new examination?
Mister Mark
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
What It All Means
What does the attempted bombing of a Northwest passenger plane on Christmas Day mean, in totality?
It means, first of all, that we had better get used to some cold, hard facts, as a sports channel likes to say.
It means that the war on terrorism really IS a war, involving people who really do want to do away with us.
It means that the war will never, really, end.
It means that the processes by which we try to figure out who will try to hurt us before they actually try, are incomplete and imperfect.
It means that as long as human beings operate part of those processes, there will probably be instances in which somebody who shouldn't get through all the inspections, does.
It means that we need full-body inspective devices--at every gate in very airport. There need be little concern about privacy; that seems to be taken care of.
It means that we will need to pay higher taxes for higher security, and we had better get used to that idea.
It means that wherever the enemy rears its head, whatever government is in charge of the area probably can't deal with it by itself--which is why he's there in the first place.
It means that U.S. invasions will increase in the near future.
It means that U.S. personnel will be stretched to the breaking point.
It means that we will need a draft.
It means, first of all, that we had better get used to some cold, hard facts, as a sports channel likes to say.
It means that the war on terrorism really IS a war, involving people who really do want to do away with us.
It means that the war will never, really, end.
It means that the processes by which we try to figure out who will try to hurt us before they actually try, are incomplete and imperfect.
It means that as long as human beings operate part of those processes, there will probably be instances in which somebody who shouldn't get through all the inspections, does.
It means that we need full-body inspective devices--at every gate in very airport. There need be little concern about privacy; that seems to be taken care of.
It means that we will need to pay higher taxes for higher security, and we had better get used to that idea.
It means that wherever the enemy rears its head, whatever government is in charge of the area probably can't deal with it by itself--which is why he's there in the first place.
It means that U.S. invasions will increase in the near future.
It means that U.S. personnel will be stretched to the breaking point.
It means that we will need a draft.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Not Just Up to Us
The recent apprehension of the young man who tried--and very nearly succeeded--in blowing up a Northwest Airlines plane near Detroit, shows the need for better international cooperation.
The man flew out of Nigeria, then out of the Netherlands. Let's not overlook those facts.
I heard an additional report on naval piracy on NPR yesterday. The incidents are nearly double what they were last year.
The problem? Lack of international coordination and cooperation. Governments widely vary in their capabilities and willingness to deal with the problem.
The new place that pirates seem to be moving to in order to find safe havens? Yemen.
Yikes. That off-handed remark I made yesterday about an invasion? That doesn't sound that off-the-wall now.
All that's taking place between Asia and Africa, but I wonder how far it will spread.
Doesn't inspire me to take a Mediterranean cruise for a while, though. And I guess that's the point, in a way; if pirates and terrorists can cut into those businesses and prevent people from addressing their leisure time and spending in certain ways, they've succeeded, haven't they?
They win the war not only economically, but culturally, too. They can tell their people that the decadence of Westerners is being cut into, that the jihad is on the way to triumph.
And all they need is juuuuuust a few more people like the young man who thought that taking his own life and 160 others was a good idea. And they will get them.
The man flew out of Nigeria, then out of the Netherlands. Let's not overlook those facts.
I heard an additional report on naval piracy on NPR yesterday. The incidents are nearly double what they were last year.
The problem? Lack of international coordination and cooperation. Governments widely vary in their capabilities and willingness to deal with the problem.
The new place that pirates seem to be moving to in order to find safe havens? Yemen.
Yikes. That off-handed remark I made yesterday about an invasion? That doesn't sound that off-the-wall now.
All that's taking place between Asia and Africa, but I wonder how far it will spread.
Doesn't inspire me to take a Mediterranean cruise for a while, though. And I guess that's the point, in a way; if pirates and terrorists can cut into those businesses and prevent people from addressing their leisure time and spending in certain ways, they've succeeded, haven't they?
They win the war not only economically, but culturally, too. They can tell their people that the decadence of Westerners is being cut into, that the jihad is on the way to triumph.
And all they need is juuuuuust a few more people like the young man who thought that taking his own life and 160 others was a good idea. And they will get them.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Air Marshals? Where'd They Go?
In the new anxiety about the attempt of some knucklehead to blow up a jetliner--I don't take that lightly; I've flown enough to know how frightened those people must have been--something's been lost.
To wit: There's been little, if any, discussion about air marshals for the past three or four years. Are they still there?
And--shouldn't people understand that possibility when they get on every plane in the United States?
Why not post such a sign at every gate of every airport? At every security check-in? At every ticketing check-in?
Even if it isn't true? So we made it up. Big deal. Better than having these very demented people walk around believing that there's nobody on the plane who can't take them out at the snap of a finger.
Okay, the guy was stopped. He might not have been. And it took someone with great courage to do so. He was injured as well.
I'm so glad the would-be bomber was spared, though. This way, he gets a fair trial and, I hope, imprisonment. I don't want him to be executed.
That's right. I don't.
After all: He didn't kill anybody--though he certainly tried.
And I don't believe that any crime in which someone didn't die can be punished by execution.
Besides, that leaves would-be hijackers with a chance to rethink their deeds. If I'm going to be killed anyhow, after all, why wouldn't I want to take everybody else with me?
Either way, that was a serious wake-up call for our Homeland Security/Dept. of Transportation people. Either way: How in the world did he get in with those explosives?? If they can't be detected, what else can't be??
To wit: There's been little, if any, discussion about air marshals for the past three or four years. Are they still there?
And--shouldn't people understand that possibility when they get on every plane in the United States?
Why not post such a sign at every gate of every airport? At every security check-in? At every ticketing check-in?
Even if it isn't true? So we made it up. Big deal. Better than having these very demented people walk around believing that there's nobody on the plane who can't take them out at the snap of a finger.
Okay, the guy was stopped. He might not have been. And it took someone with great courage to do so. He was injured as well.
I'm so glad the would-be bomber was spared, though. This way, he gets a fair trial and, I hope, imprisonment. I don't want him to be executed.
That's right. I don't.
After all: He didn't kill anybody--though he certainly tried.
And I don't believe that any crime in which someone didn't die can be punished by execution.
Besides, that leaves would-be hijackers with a chance to rethink their deeds. If I'm going to be killed anyhow, after all, why wouldn't I want to take everybody else with me?
Either way, that was a serious wake-up call for our Homeland Security/Dept. of Transportation people. Either way: How in the world did he get in with those explosives?? If they can't be detected, what else can't be??
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Okay, Uncle, Now I Get It
Sometimes, you find out a lot at funerals.
My godfather died the other day. Good man; police officer. Dad was his Best Man. Four kids, all nice people. Thought a lot of me, and I will take that with me for the rest of my days. Thanks, Dick. Back atcha.
Beyond that, though: had a chat with an aunt and uncle, and another uncle came up. In the service in WW II; Dad ran into him on one of those Pacific islands through sheer serendipity.
They drank, which is what servicepeople do when they want to forget the thousands of miles they are from home; from what might lie ahead of them; from what they've already heard.
But my uncle had another, really good reason to drink. He was on burial patrol.
That's right. You dig holes and stick dead guys in them. Dead guys with all kinds of things blown apart, all kinds of limbs and body parts missing, all kinds of animals having already begun to feed on them.
It gets hot out there, too. It doesn't smell very good.
Go and read All Quiet on the Western Front, about another war in which dead bodies are allowed to remain in the open for days, about what happens to them and about what happens to the minds of those who have to watch it. My uncle had to do that because somebody told him he had to.
He kept right on drinking after the war. He died of complications of cirrhosis of the liver in 1969, far before his time should have been up.
I always wondered why he kept on drinking. My aunt told me. I didn't know. Now I get it.
Post-traumatic stress disorder has been a malady of the homecoming servicepeople that has had, and rightfully so, a great deal of attention paid to it in the last three of our wars: Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the Iraq War. No doubt much will be paid to it in Afghanistan.
Think, though, of the hundreds of thousands of our people--just ours, not anybody else's--who saw and experienced the terror, the utter horror, of war. Does it really matter who won it, when all is swept away?
Did that take away my uncle's nightmares? Obviously not.
For the most part, we ignored those issues with World War II veterans. We thought everything was okay, since we'd fought the greatest war in the history of humankind and won it.
We walked right past soldiers and sailors and airmen and nurses and others who were, and are still (thousands still left) suffering from those ghastly images. How did they make it this far?
When I taught, I showed the kids a National Geographic special on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal. It had reminiscing from people who fought on both sides--Americans, Australians, Japanese, even islanders. Many cried when remembering those who had died. It was just as if it had happened the day before.
Another uncle fought hand-to-hand against the Germans in France. Still alive, he didn't talk about it until 1978.
The Greatest Generation believed it was a good idea not to discuss the war, that somehow, the killing would be inappropriately rendered. What incredible internal suffering they have endured.
How many more met my uncle's fate--alcoholism? How many others succumbed to drugs; broken lives; suicide? Did anybody keep track of them?
War: The gift that keeps on giving. I kept saying it in my classes. I say it again.
Mister Mark
My godfather died the other day. Good man; police officer. Dad was his Best Man. Four kids, all nice people. Thought a lot of me, and I will take that with me for the rest of my days. Thanks, Dick. Back atcha.
Beyond that, though: had a chat with an aunt and uncle, and another uncle came up. In the service in WW II; Dad ran into him on one of those Pacific islands through sheer serendipity.
They drank, which is what servicepeople do when they want to forget the thousands of miles they are from home; from what might lie ahead of them; from what they've already heard.
But my uncle had another, really good reason to drink. He was on burial patrol.
That's right. You dig holes and stick dead guys in them. Dead guys with all kinds of things blown apart, all kinds of limbs and body parts missing, all kinds of animals having already begun to feed on them.
It gets hot out there, too. It doesn't smell very good.
Go and read All Quiet on the Western Front, about another war in which dead bodies are allowed to remain in the open for days, about what happens to them and about what happens to the minds of those who have to watch it. My uncle had to do that because somebody told him he had to.
He kept right on drinking after the war. He died of complications of cirrhosis of the liver in 1969, far before his time should have been up.
I always wondered why he kept on drinking. My aunt told me. I didn't know. Now I get it.
Post-traumatic stress disorder has been a malady of the homecoming servicepeople that has had, and rightfully so, a great deal of attention paid to it in the last three of our wars: Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the Iraq War. No doubt much will be paid to it in Afghanistan.
Think, though, of the hundreds of thousands of our people--just ours, not anybody else's--who saw and experienced the terror, the utter horror, of war. Does it really matter who won it, when all is swept away?
Did that take away my uncle's nightmares? Obviously not.
For the most part, we ignored those issues with World War II veterans. We thought everything was okay, since we'd fought the greatest war in the history of humankind and won it.
We walked right past soldiers and sailors and airmen and nurses and others who were, and are still (thousands still left) suffering from those ghastly images. How did they make it this far?
When I taught, I showed the kids a National Geographic special on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal. It had reminiscing from people who fought on both sides--Americans, Australians, Japanese, even islanders. Many cried when remembering those who had died. It was just as if it had happened the day before.
Another uncle fought hand-to-hand against the Germans in France. Still alive, he didn't talk about it until 1978.
The Greatest Generation believed it was a good idea not to discuss the war, that somehow, the killing would be inappropriately rendered. What incredible internal suffering they have endured.
How many more met my uncle's fate--alcoholism? How many others succumbed to drugs; broken lives; suicide? Did anybody keep track of them?
War: The gift that keeps on giving. I kept saying it in my classes. I say it again.
Mister Mark
The Mayoral Takeover: A Bad Idea
If I'm not missing my guess, Milwaukee's mayor will soon have the power to appoint the Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent. He will also have the power to create the school budget.
If I'm not missing my guess, this is a bad idea.
It is also very myopic. Tom Barrett is proceeding through the state legislature--dominated by his own Democratic Party--with the blessing of the Governor, the termed-out Jim Doyle. It's a window of time that will close, and soon.
So as long as a majority of the legislature is so-called friendly, and of that majority, another majority isn't really affected very much, the votes might actually be there. Why not go for it?
Besides--and this has no small bearing--Barrett is running for governor next year to replace Doyle. His own party won't want to make him look bad by turning down what he believes to be a necessary request.
Finally--this hovering over all--President Barack Obama's people have openly encouraged Barrett to run. This, knowing his attitude toward MPS and the mayoral takeover, which Obama obviously approves of.
The political juggernaut is building. Its size and momentum are always temporary. It's time to strike while the iron's hot.
In ten years, though, what happens if someone else becomes mayor and has bad ideas? There will be no school board with any power to overturn them.
I had to chuckle. Pedro Colon, a state senator, was interviewed on Milwaukee Public Radio. He's a supporter of the mayoral takeover. He was asked about the school board's power in the wake of such a situation.
Basically, all he said is that the school board can act as a sounding board for the public in passing along their concerns. Well, so can I, for that matter, except I won't be at a scheduled meeting (or in fact, I very well might be, as long as I'm now a citizen of this city).
It comes down to jawboning--and, by implication, brown-nosing the mayor for leverage. So that's the new power of a school board member: talking a lot.
So would you like to run for Milwaukee School Board? Would that be a valuable use of your time?
I support Tom Barrett for governor. He would be far better than any of the Republican candidates. But this idea will, eventually, backfire in unintended consequences--not the least of which will be, eventually, getting quality people to run for the school board.
Once this is adopted, Milwaukee cannot turn back. It will be saddled with this situation, and all its results.
Mister Mark
If I'm not missing my guess, this is a bad idea.
It is also very myopic. Tom Barrett is proceeding through the state legislature--dominated by his own Democratic Party--with the blessing of the Governor, the termed-out Jim Doyle. It's a window of time that will close, and soon.
So as long as a majority of the legislature is so-called friendly, and of that majority, another majority isn't really affected very much, the votes might actually be there. Why not go for it?
Besides--and this has no small bearing--Barrett is running for governor next year to replace Doyle. His own party won't want to make him look bad by turning down what he believes to be a necessary request.
Finally--this hovering over all--President Barack Obama's people have openly encouraged Barrett to run. This, knowing his attitude toward MPS and the mayoral takeover, which Obama obviously approves of.
The political juggernaut is building. Its size and momentum are always temporary. It's time to strike while the iron's hot.
In ten years, though, what happens if someone else becomes mayor and has bad ideas? There will be no school board with any power to overturn them.
I had to chuckle. Pedro Colon, a state senator, was interviewed on Milwaukee Public Radio. He's a supporter of the mayoral takeover. He was asked about the school board's power in the wake of such a situation.
Basically, all he said is that the school board can act as a sounding board for the public in passing along their concerns. Well, so can I, for that matter, except I won't be at a scheduled meeting (or in fact, I very well might be, as long as I'm now a citizen of this city).
It comes down to jawboning--and, by implication, brown-nosing the mayor for leverage. So that's the new power of a school board member: talking a lot.
So would you like to run for Milwaukee School Board? Would that be a valuable use of your time?
I support Tom Barrett for governor. He would be far better than any of the Republican candidates. But this idea will, eventually, backfire in unintended consequences--not the least of which will be, eventually, getting quality people to run for the school board.
Once this is adopted, Milwaukee cannot turn back. It will be saddled with this situation, and all its results.
Mister Mark
I Am, So I Go to the Library
What happens when you're electronically challenged and can't find a way out?
This is happening to me. I have a laptop that can't decide what it wants to do half the time. I have a blackberry that's mixed up.
Who out there has had to talk to someone who's in charge of the blackberry itself, never mind the server? I did so for 45 minutes last night, and got, well--somewhere.
And that was after talking to someone else, connected to my server, for another 45 minutes.
But now I'm not receiving any e-mails in it. Yesterday, I was. And here, on the laptop, I'm not getting any e-mails, either.
And oh, yeah--I'm trying to get television in my place. I can't do that, either. Nobody was around to open up the basement yesterday. So I had to tell the guy to go away.
I have to go to the public library to exist. It opens at ten.
Mister Mark
This is happening to me. I have a laptop that can't decide what it wants to do half the time. I have a blackberry that's mixed up.
Who out there has had to talk to someone who's in charge of the blackberry itself, never mind the server? I did so for 45 minutes last night, and got, well--somewhere.
And that was after talking to someone else, connected to my server, for another 45 minutes.
But now I'm not receiving any e-mails in it. Yesterday, I was. And here, on the laptop, I'm not getting any e-mails, either.
And oh, yeah--I'm trying to get television in my place. I can't do that, either. Nobody was around to open up the basement yesterday. So I had to tell the guy to go away.
I have to go to the public library to exist. It opens at ten.
Mister Mark
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Two Ironic Readings of Lincoln
Barack Obama's title of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, "A Just and Lasting Peace," comes from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. I know this.
I was assigned to read from it at last summer's NEA Representative Assembly. We were celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth with a collective group of readings, linked through history. I accepted my assignment as a privilege.
And I'm not sure how many others have read it publicly, nor could practice it as I did--by taking a cab to the Lincoln Memorial, sitting against one of the enormous pillars there, and reading it to myself as it is carved into the north wall. My best and first memory of Washington, D.C. is of visiting the Memorial for the first time as a child; it will be, probably, one of my best and last memories of the city to have applied my last visit to the Memorial for a larger purpose.
President Obama's larger purpose, though, is something of an ironic one: accepting the greatest tribute to peacemaking, when just nine days ago, he committed the United States to, possibly, a much longer war in Afghanistan by sending an additional 30,000 troops there. He says no: if all goes for the best, we'll be out of there in another year and a half.
But he would do well to re-read Lincoln's ironic statement about the Civil War--about how neither side anticipated that that war would last anywhere nearly the length it had lasted to the point at which he could comment, in March 1865, nearly four years later. He could read, too, how neither side wished "a result less fundamental and astounding."
War does that. It always has. Wars have always created results far more astounding than was anticipated at their outset. Too much becomes disrupted; too much damage must be repaired; too much change takes place.
Clearly, this will happen again in Afghanistan. Clearly, its present government has too shaky a foundation to endure this still greater incursion of foreign troops. Its attempt at democracy and modernization may still find its route to the trash can, as it did in South Vietnam, and may still do so in Iraq, for all we know.
Or it may not. Obama has put an 18-month limit on this commitment, hoping that this will do the trick and turn back Taliban expansion. In doing so, he's hoping that what the Bush Administration did in its final attempt to improve the situation in Iraq--the "surge"--will cause the same stabilization and create the same relative sense of quiesance for us to begin withdrawal without humiliation.
But now to call this "Obama's War" dances right past recent history, and irresponsibly so. Eight years ago, the Bush Administration sent troops to Afghanistan, hoping to capture Osama bin Laden. It had an excellent chance to do so, but blew it; Barack Obama holds the residue.
The Bush Administration confused two cornerstones of its philosophy: Toughness abroad with spending paucity at home. You can't do both and win wars. You can brag--oh, were they good at that!--but in the end, you have to deliver what the troops really need. Bush didn't, and it's an embarrassment to the troops there that the best of what they got was lip service.
President Obama believes he will do what's truly needed now. I'm still not sure he should even have accepted the Peace Prize, knowing in his heart that expansion in Afghanistan was necessary, both in a military sense and in a fulfillment of a campaign pledge.
It feels, too, as if the Peace Prize committee, in a fit of relief, awarded Obama simply as a statement that finally, the United States has a leader who doesn't rely on terse, blunt, undiplomatic rhetoric in dealing with other nations; but someone who understands the meaning of words and the damage to a country's image they can cause. In the final analysis, in terms of the direction our nation's taking, though, I'm not sure what the difference will be.
When a nation fights wars, it is inevitably left with the way of Gandhi or the way of Patton. If it chooses Gandhi, it believes that the way to end war is to simply go home and be peaceful. If it chooses Patton, it believes that once committed, it must pursue war to its terrible finality, to stop the killing by engaging in immediate, devastating killing and destruction, getting the damn thing over with.
Barack Obama, after having accepted the greatest peacemaking award on this planet, has also accepted the Patton philosophy in Afghanistan. In its own finality, Lincoln had to accept what Ulysses S. Grant did to end the Civil War: attacking Robert E. Lee's forces with horrible persistence, losing 2000 troops per day at its height, killing at an unprecedented rate so the killing might finally, exhaustively stop.
That's one irony. The other will take place if, at the conclusion of his Presidency, Obama will be considered with the same label with which he is at this moment: Peacemaker.
Mister Mark
I was assigned to read from it at last summer's NEA Representative Assembly. We were celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth with a collective group of readings, linked through history. I accepted my assignment as a privilege.
And I'm not sure how many others have read it publicly, nor could practice it as I did--by taking a cab to the Lincoln Memorial, sitting against one of the enormous pillars there, and reading it to myself as it is carved into the north wall. My best and first memory of Washington, D.C. is of visiting the Memorial for the first time as a child; it will be, probably, one of my best and last memories of the city to have applied my last visit to the Memorial for a larger purpose.
President Obama's larger purpose, though, is something of an ironic one: accepting the greatest tribute to peacemaking, when just nine days ago, he committed the United States to, possibly, a much longer war in Afghanistan by sending an additional 30,000 troops there. He says no: if all goes for the best, we'll be out of there in another year and a half.
But he would do well to re-read Lincoln's ironic statement about the Civil War--about how neither side anticipated that that war would last anywhere nearly the length it had lasted to the point at which he could comment, in March 1865, nearly four years later. He could read, too, how neither side wished "a result less fundamental and astounding."
War does that. It always has. Wars have always created results far more astounding than was anticipated at their outset. Too much becomes disrupted; too much damage must be repaired; too much change takes place.
Clearly, this will happen again in Afghanistan. Clearly, its present government has too shaky a foundation to endure this still greater incursion of foreign troops. Its attempt at democracy and modernization may still find its route to the trash can, as it did in South Vietnam, and may still do so in Iraq, for all we know.
Or it may not. Obama has put an 18-month limit on this commitment, hoping that this will do the trick and turn back Taliban expansion. In doing so, he's hoping that what the Bush Administration did in its final attempt to improve the situation in Iraq--the "surge"--will cause the same stabilization and create the same relative sense of quiesance for us to begin withdrawal without humiliation.
But now to call this "Obama's War" dances right past recent history, and irresponsibly so. Eight years ago, the Bush Administration sent troops to Afghanistan, hoping to capture Osama bin Laden. It had an excellent chance to do so, but blew it; Barack Obama holds the residue.
The Bush Administration confused two cornerstones of its philosophy: Toughness abroad with spending paucity at home. You can't do both and win wars. You can brag--oh, were they good at that!--but in the end, you have to deliver what the troops really need. Bush didn't, and it's an embarrassment to the troops there that the best of what they got was lip service.
President Obama believes he will do what's truly needed now. I'm still not sure he should even have accepted the Peace Prize, knowing in his heart that expansion in Afghanistan was necessary, both in a military sense and in a fulfillment of a campaign pledge.
It feels, too, as if the Peace Prize committee, in a fit of relief, awarded Obama simply as a statement that finally, the United States has a leader who doesn't rely on terse, blunt, undiplomatic rhetoric in dealing with other nations; but someone who understands the meaning of words and the damage to a country's image they can cause. In the final analysis, in terms of the direction our nation's taking, though, I'm not sure what the difference will be.
When a nation fights wars, it is inevitably left with the way of Gandhi or the way of Patton. If it chooses Gandhi, it believes that the way to end war is to simply go home and be peaceful. If it chooses Patton, it believes that once committed, it must pursue war to its terrible finality, to stop the killing by engaging in immediate, devastating killing and destruction, getting the damn thing over with.
Barack Obama, after having accepted the greatest peacemaking award on this planet, has also accepted the Patton philosophy in Afghanistan. In its own finality, Lincoln had to accept what Ulysses S. Grant did to end the Civil War: attacking Robert E. Lee's forces with horrible persistence, losing 2000 troops per day at its height, killing at an unprecedented rate so the killing might finally, exhaustively stop.
That's one irony. The other will take place if, at the conclusion of his Presidency, Obama will be considered with the same label with which he is at this moment: Peacemaker.
Mister Mark
Spending as Necessity--or Habit
I wonder, honestly, how long someone can go without spending money. Days, that is.
Maybe it could only be measured in hours. Maybe it's a sad commentary to how we are tied to being consumers.
Maybe it's impossible to go more than a day or two. How does one buy enough things to survive on one's own? How does one stop paying to be supported by systems invented, and certainly necessary?
One must eat. If one doesn't live in the wilderness, one must purchase the food somehow.
One must wear clothing. If one can't make clothing oneself, one must purchase it in stores. Even if one can, it takes materials. Someone else had to make them.
Maybe this just means that we have an extremely interdependent society. If we're to be prosperous, that's the way it must be.
I tried hard not to spend money a little while ago. I'm not sure whether it was necessity or habit that kept me from extending the skein very far.
When one stops spending very much, the world shrinks in proportion. That's why the holiday season's so important to so many: the world expands, if only for a while, before they return to their more reserved lives.
Some of that isn't bad. And some of the return isn't bad, either.
The economy is wanting, so it's better that more people go shopping right now (I've certainly done plenty). It'll be very interesting to see how the retailers do this season.
Mister Mark
Maybe it could only be measured in hours. Maybe it's a sad commentary to how we are tied to being consumers.
Maybe it's impossible to go more than a day or two. How does one buy enough things to survive on one's own? How does one stop paying to be supported by systems invented, and certainly necessary?
One must eat. If one doesn't live in the wilderness, one must purchase the food somehow.
One must wear clothing. If one can't make clothing oneself, one must purchase it in stores. Even if one can, it takes materials. Someone else had to make them.
Maybe this just means that we have an extremely interdependent society. If we're to be prosperous, that's the way it must be.
I tried hard not to spend money a little while ago. I'm not sure whether it was necessity or habit that kept me from extending the skein very far.
When one stops spending very much, the world shrinks in proportion. That's why the holiday season's so important to so many: the world expands, if only for a while, before they return to their more reserved lives.
Some of that isn't bad. And some of the return isn't bad, either.
The economy is wanting, so it's better that more people go shopping right now (I've certainly done plenty). It'll be very interesting to see how the retailers do this season.
Mister Mark
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Speeches I Never Gave: #1
As a member of the National Education Association Executive Committee, I occasionally gave speeches to members and non-members alike. Sometimes these were done with pre-arranged scripts; sometimes, most of it was by my own authoring. There were times, though, when I wanted very much to say something about the way things were going; about policies that I saw as having more import than others did; or just about things that I seemed to notice but it seemed that no one else did. I recorded these in several places, in the hopes that someday, I would be able to add the comments. But the moments passed and we went on to other things. I kept some of these, though, and I want to record them for posterity. This is the first of several. They're lying around in boxes and garages and inside notebooks, so I may write them here as I find them, corrections for spelling and rearrangement of paragraphs notwithstanding.
These may not be dated, but perhaps you can tell when I wrote them out of the context. Regardless, they begin where they begin, and end where they end. If things don't exactly tidy-up at the conclusion, it's because we went on to other things and I didn't return to that earlier thinking, if for no other reason than I knew very well that I would never be able to say it anyhow.
Until now, that is.
#1
A Conversation on National Priorities:
How to Care for Generations to Come
We need a conversation about national priorities, and the NEA needs to lead it.
We need to ask why this country is increasingly ungovernable.
We need to ask why perfectly reasonable people insist on having their own way--through the politicization of our courts; the suspension of civil liberties; the intimidation of those who have an alternative view--things which have filtered down into our schools as new staples of public policy.
Whatever happened to moderation? To pragmatism? To compromise?
We need to ask the free market advocates to show us where their thinking has solved our largest problems--not the least of which is public education.
We need to ask why the magical process if immigration has been trivialized into a sideshow and criminalized.
We need to ask why growing thousands of our people, young and middle-aged, are dying in a war which we began for obscure and ultimately false and counter-productive reasons--and why our schools are being used to drag thousands more into it.
This is a larger battle than just educating kids. It is about whether or not we solve problems individually, with each person fending for him- or herself--and all the selfish divisiveness that that brings--or whether we transcend ourselves from, as Bill Moyers puts it, "live and let live" to "live and help live."
The hypercapitalist, free market ideologues say that no one should need anyone except in the narrowest sense of economic profitability--that, contrary to John Dunne, each person really is an island unto themselves, and can maximize their existence in this world, for their relatively brief time on it, by setting themselves against others in the classic Darwinian struggle, and that government needs to stay away from that struggle. That is one form of what some call libertarianism.
But there is another kind libertarianism that refutes that argument. It is a kind that demands freedom from those institutions that the previously mentioned form of libertarianism would intend to glorify--mainly, corporate interests and the maximization of profitability for the absolute minimum numbers of us.
Those who are left behind to fight each other for the crumbs on the table, who are not obsessed with riches but who need a basic level of sustainability and who desire a lower level of satisfaction, but who also feel that our contributions deserve that satisfaction, can do nothing less than turn to a larger force to guarantee that our pursuit of happiness and contentment is at least achievable--that it will not be absorbed by someone else's insatiable greed.
We've been around long enough to know that corporate profits will only trickle down, and that whatever empty promises that have been made will only amount to that trickle. This is how and why the middle class disappears, and how political polarization is preceded by economic.
The only way to stop this erosion is not to warn government away from this fray, but to elect competent, accountable government representatives to give us just enough control to prevent this persistent abuse. Just enough, mind you. In no place should it be overdone.
What does that mean for people like us? Our schools should be operated and taught by people with sufficient training in that realm--on this, most people agree.
Anybody can run a school in the same way anybody can run a restaurant, but it gives people comfort and staying power to know that the institution is in the hands of those who originally cared enough to have put in the time and study to learn how to do it competently and even better than that. But we have also liked and cultivated the relative freedom teaching has given us to explore the possibilities of the intellect; creativity, critical thinking, and experimentation.
We need a shared purpose, a shared vision, a guarantee of equal opportunity and fairness, and government institutions that secure them. The institutions most effective in doing so, on a day-by-day basis, as it has been for decades upon decades, are our public schools.
The rules of respect under the law and tolerance and flexibility of treating the just and the unjust begin and end inside school walls. The maintenance of basic civil and human rights against the erosion of them by forces as natural as those rights themselves, begins and ends inside those walls.
That maintenance is not a natural act. It takes work and devotion to a world unlike that of Burger King, where someone has pretended that we each can "have it your way."
History Returns, World War I-Style
Saw in the paper that a Polish historian has found the Red Baron's death certificate.
It was in the Polish city of Ostrow Wielkopolski, in the western part of the country. The city was once in German hands.
The historian, Maciej Kowalczyk, said that he was surprised that it was such an ordinary statement.
"It is a small document, just like for any other ordinary soldier," Kowalczyk said.
Perhaps, since the Allies gave Manfred von Richthofen, otherwise known as The Red Baron, a full-scale miliary funeral after he had been shot down in 1918--no one exactly knows who did it; perhaps either a French pilot or Australian artillery--with a 21-gun salute, Kowalczyk would have reason to ask that.
Von Richthofen shot down 80 Allied planes, far more than anyone else in the war. His daring and skills were legendary. But the accumulative odds of him surviving the war--since the average lifespan of a pilot was around 30 days--caught up with him
On the other hand: Once he was dead--like for the rest of us--what did it matter?
Someone will now be able to add that to a later biography of the famous pilot, perhaps, as an ironic postscript; not to mention that it was unearthed more than 90 years after the event, all the way into the next century.
History returns. Always has. Always will.
It was in the Polish city of Ostrow Wielkopolski, in the western part of the country. The city was once in German hands.
The historian, Maciej Kowalczyk, said that he was surprised that it was such an ordinary statement.
"It is a small document, just like for any other ordinary soldier," Kowalczyk said.
Perhaps, since the Allies gave Manfred von Richthofen, otherwise known as The Red Baron, a full-scale miliary funeral after he had been shot down in 1918--no one exactly knows who did it; perhaps either a French pilot or Australian artillery--with a 21-gun salute, Kowalczyk would have reason to ask that.
Von Richthofen shot down 80 Allied planes, far more than anyone else in the war. His daring and skills were legendary. But the accumulative odds of him surviving the war--since the average lifespan of a pilot was around 30 days--caught up with him
On the other hand: Once he was dead--like for the rest of us--what did it matter?
Someone will now be able to add that to a later biography of the famous pilot, perhaps, as an ironic postscript; not to mention that it was unearthed more than 90 years after the event, all the way into the next century.
History returns. Always has. Always will.
Wasn't Crosby's Fault
Listened to the local (Milw.) feed of ESPN radio this afternoon. They yak away. Sometimes, they even make sense.
But this time, they didn't. They were discussing the Packers, of course.
More specifically, Mason Crosby, the Packers' placekicker, who hasn't had the best of seasons. He hasn't been as bad as the poor soul from the Washington Redskins who missed a 23-yarder against New Orleans last Sunday, that, in all likelihood, would have yanked them from the ranks of the unbeaten.
Crosby missed a 38-yarder against Baltimore. Now, in his business, Crosby's supposed to make those. The wind wasn't very strong, the footing wasn't very bad. He couldn't have used those excuses.
But he did have an excuse, a very good excuse. Except nobody on the radio show gave him anything close to credit for it.
Matt Ryan, the Packers' holder, bobbled the snap momentarily, and the snap was, in fact, quite good. He got the ball down, but the timing of the kick was thrown off.
When that happens, the kicker has to hesitate or he'll either simply miss the ball or take the holder's hand with it. So Crosby waited, double-clutched, and pushed the kick to the right.
And somebody got after him for it. "He has to find a way to make that," said one of the commentators.
I called in and reamed them out. First of all: For a kicker, any kicker, to even get enough on the kick to get it somewhere in the vicinity of the goalposts after double-clutching is pretty amazing.
Because all kinds of things could happen at that point. He could raise his head, as many people do when their timing's off--name the sport: baseball, soccer, hockey, basketball. When that happens, success is nearly impossible.
Beyond that: Raising one's head, as in golf, usually means that the ball will not go up--it'll stay down. He could easily have kicked it low enough to have been blocked, or--more embarrassing, but with the same effect--right into the backsides of his blockers.
A blocked kick is always disastrous, but at that particular point in the proceedings, it could have been a game-changer. So, again, the fact that it got beyond the line of scrimmage was important; it took that factor out of the play.
Matt Ryan felt the kick could still be successful. He was hoping in a fool's paradise. And I'm quite sure he's coached in that situation to know what to do.
It's this: Every team has a code word that it uses for the holder to yell, once it becomes clear that a placekick isn't going to happen. Even though Ryan bobbled the ball just momentarily, he should have automatically yelled that code word.
That meant that he would be taking the ball and rolling out to either side of the line of scrimmage. At that moment, the two players at the end of the Packers' line, plus the two flanking them, would have flared out into the secondary.
Because the other team is usually totally committed to blocking the kick, it might even have been fooled enough to overcommit. That might have meant that, even though the original play had been doomed to failure, the Packers could have either gotten a first down or even a touchdown out of it.
Defenses also hold players back, just in case something like that happens, so maybe it wouldn't have worked out that way. But to take the chance of having the kick blocked due to poor timing is something that Matt Ryan, in all likelihood, would have had to answer for Tuesday morning.
It was a tough call because he bobbled it so briefly. But with the kind of exquisite timing that such kicks take, briefly is all it took.
None of this has anything to do with Mason Crosby, of course. He has to deal with what he's been given. And again, he had to have excellent concentration in order for him to double-clutch and get enough on the ball to even give it a decent chance.
I explained some of this to the live radio staff. They muttered something to the effect of Crosby missing field goals in earlier games. Yes, that's true. But this time, it wasn't his fault whatsoever.
But this time, they didn't. They were discussing the Packers, of course.
More specifically, Mason Crosby, the Packers' placekicker, who hasn't had the best of seasons. He hasn't been as bad as the poor soul from the Washington Redskins who missed a 23-yarder against New Orleans last Sunday, that, in all likelihood, would have yanked them from the ranks of the unbeaten.
Crosby missed a 38-yarder against Baltimore. Now, in his business, Crosby's supposed to make those. The wind wasn't very strong, the footing wasn't very bad. He couldn't have used those excuses.
But he did have an excuse, a very good excuse. Except nobody on the radio show gave him anything close to credit for it.
Matt Ryan, the Packers' holder, bobbled the snap momentarily, and the snap was, in fact, quite good. He got the ball down, but the timing of the kick was thrown off.
When that happens, the kicker has to hesitate or he'll either simply miss the ball or take the holder's hand with it. So Crosby waited, double-clutched, and pushed the kick to the right.
And somebody got after him for it. "He has to find a way to make that," said one of the commentators.
I called in and reamed them out. First of all: For a kicker, any kicker, to even get enough on the kick to get it somewhere in the vicinity of the goalposts after double-clutching is pretty amazing.
Because all kinds of things could happen at that point. He could raise his head, as many people do when their timing's off--name the sport: baseball, soccer, hockey, basketball. When that happens, success is nearly impossible.
Beyond that: Raising one's head, as in golf, usually means that the ball will not go up--it'll stay down. He could easily have kicked it low enough to have been blocked, or--more embarrassing, but with the same effect--right into the backsides of his blockers.
A blocked kick is always disastrous, but at that particular point in the proceedings, it could have been a game-changer. So, again, the fact that it got beyond the line of scrimmage was important; it took that factor out of the play.
Matt Ryan felt the kick could still be successful. He was hoping in a fool's paradise. And I'm quite sure he's coached in that situation to know what to do.
It's this: Every team has a code word that it uses for the holder to yell, once it becomes clear that a placekick isn't going to happen. Even though Ryan bobbled the ball just momentarily, he should have automatically yelled that code word.
That meant that he would be taking the ball and rolling out to either side of the line of scrimmage. At that moment, the two players at the end of the Packers' line, plus the two flanking them, would have flared out into the secondary.
Because the other team is usually totally committed to blocking the kick, it might even have been fooled enough to overcommit. That might have meant that, even though the original play had been doomed to failure, the Packers could have either gotten a first down or even a touchdown out of it.
Defenses also hold players back, just in case something like that happens, so maybe it wouldn't have worked out that way. But to take the chance of having the kick blocked due to poor timing is something that Matt Ryan, in all likelihood, would have had to answer for Tuesday morning.
It was a tough call because he bobbled it so briefly. But with the kind of exquisite timing that such kicks take, briefly is all it took.
None of this has anything to do with Mason Crosby, of course. He has to deal with what he's been given. And again, he had to have excellent concentration in order for him to double-clutch and get enough on the ball to even give it a decent chance.
I explained some of this to the live radio staff. They muttered something to the effect of Crosby missing field goals in earlier games. Yes, that's true. But this time, it wasn't his fault whatsoever.
Fun to Watch Again
I have been holding back from making comments about sports to this point, mainly because I spent 18 years doing so in a newspaper column I used to write in Cedarburg. Comes so naturally, it's like a knee-jerk reaction.
But darn it, I'm starting to get excited about the Packers again.
They're on a 4-game winning streak, and they beat a stubborn Baltimore Ravens team last night. They would have beaten them much more decisively had they not had a bevy of mistakes in the third quarter.
But the thing is: They recovered from them and won going away. And that hasn't happened in a while.
They have recovered from one of their main problems: Sacks. That happened on two fronts: The protection is unquestionably better for Aaron Rodgers; and Rodgers himself is throwing much more on rhythm.
And when that happens--as I told a friend--Rodgers can destroy anybody. He has accuracy that's been underestimated to this point, and an arm to match with that of any other quarterback in football.
To be sure, their special teams--especially their kickoff teams--still need work, or lacking that need, follow-through on the field; they were burned again last night and nearly let Baltimore back into the game. And they play the Bears Sunday, with a bushel basket full of fast, dangerous return people.
And their penalties and their frequency are still appalling. They were outdone only by the equally-plagued Ravens, who seemed to be getting in a race with them about being called for pass interference (the replays of which showed that, although the officials heard about it all night, all the calls were good ones).
But Green Bay's defense, now number one in total yardage (dis)allowed, was, for the most part, quite impressive. They rarely let Ray Rice out of the backfield, and--again in the third quarter--recovered from a slight case of broken tackles to reassert itself.
And Charles Woodson is having a hall-of-fame season, which doesn't hurt, either. And two of their better players, Aaron Kampman and Al Harris, are gone for the season.
Four weeks ago, this team was in disarray, having lost to a truly poor Tampa Bay squad (which hasn't won since, if you've noticed). Then the team had a self-analysis, in which everybody admitted their faults and letdowns. They promised better. They gave it.
Now, they're brimming with confidence and momentum. Unless I miss my guess, this is a team you don't want to play right now.
Again, I might be wrong; injuries come up at exactly the wrong time. But it seems as if they've already done that, and the Packers not only went right on winning, they've been doing so with even more intensity.
Their next two games, against Chicago and Pittsburgh, are both on the road against dangerous teams--again, two teams you don't want to play right now, and both are not playing to their abilities. A split in those two would keep Green Bay well into the playoff hunt.
They're competing mainly against Philadelphia and New York for one of the two wild card spots--assuming the Vikings, who stubbed their toe badly against Arizona Sunday night (and the Packers must play Arizona for the last regular season game--what will be riding on that one by that time?), don't completely collapse, and Brett Favre's playing too well to let that happen.
Neither of those teams, it says here, will run the table. It's too much to assume the Packers will, either. But it's fun to follow them again. They're playing to their talents, and their talents are proving equal to most others. They're fun to watch.
But darn it, I'm starting to get excited about the Packers again.
They're on a 4-game winning streak, and they beat a stubborn Baltimore Ravens team last night. They would have beaten them much more decisively had they not had a bevy of mistakes in the third quarter.
But the thing is: They recovered from them and won going away. And that hasn't happened in a while.
They have recovered from one of their main problems: Sacks. That happened on two fronts: The protection is unquestionably better for Aaron Rodgers; and Rodgers himself is throwing much more on rhythm.
And when that happens--as I told a friend--Rodgers can destroy anybody. He has accuracy that's been underestimated to this point, and an arm to match with that of any other quarterback in football.
To be sure, their special teams--especially their kickoff teams--still need work, or lacking that need, follow-through on the field; they were burned again last night and nearly let Baltimore back into the game. And they play the Bears Sunday, with a bushel basket full of fast, dangerous return people.
And their penalties and their frequency are still appalling. They were outdone only by the equally-plagued Ravens, who seemed to be getting in a race with them about being called for pass interference (the replays of which showed that, although the officials heard about it all night, all the calls were good ones).
But Green Bay's defense, now number one in total yardage (dis)allowed, was, for the most part, quite impressive. They rarely let Ray Rice out of the backfield, and--again in the third quarter--recovered from a slight case of broken tackles to reassert itself.
And Charles Woodson is having a hall-of-fame season, which doesn't hurt, either. And two of their better players, Aaron Kampman and Al Harris, are gone for the season.
Four weeks ago, this team was in disarray, having lost to a truly poor Tampa Bay squad (which hasn't won since, if you've noticed). Then the team had a self-analysis, in which everybody admitted their faults and letdowns. They promised better. They gave it.
Now, they're brimming with confidence and momentum. Unless I miss my guess, this is a team you don't want to play right now.
Again, I might be wrong; injuries come up at exactly the wrong time. But it seems as if they've already done that, and the Packers not only went right on winning, they've been doing so with even more intensity.
Their next two games, against Chicago and Pittsburgh, are both on the road against dangerous teams--again, two teams you don't want to play right now, and both are not playing to their abilities. A split in those two would keep Green Bay well into the playoff hunt.
They're competing mainly against Philadelphia and New York for one of the two wild card spots--assuming the Vikings, who stubbed their toe badly against Arizona Sunday night (and the Packers must play Arizona for the last regular season game--what will be riding on that one by that time?), don't completely collapse, and Brett Favre's playing too well to let that happen.
Neither of those teams, it says here, will run the table. It's too much to assume the Packers will, either. But it's fun to follow them again. They're playing to their talents, and their talents are proving equal to most others. They're fun to watch.
Monday, December 7, 2009
The First Snow: A Reminder
Outside this morning, I can see the first snow for this part of Wisconsin. It isn't much.
But it's there. Winter is coming upon this part of the state gradually, in almost friendly style.
The last three years, right on December 1, we've had huge storms; powerful winds, more than a foot of snow. And it remained all winter and into a late spring.
Compared to much of the last 30 or 35 years, that was unpleasant. We've had something of a reprieve from winters up until this point.
Now, winter hangs around longer. Climate change: It's a bother.
The word is that tomorrow, there will be up to 9 inches of snow. A week later than before, huh? In just a moment, we won't know the difference.
For now, until, maybe, Valentine's Day, snow is welcome around here. After that, it just becomes dirty snow--won't go away, not likely to be replenished.
It's then that people need to know how to do something in it. I have purchased snowshoes, and moved around in them a couple of times last winter.
Not a bad idea, all told. As long as I'm around here, I'm going to try to do it again. And again. And again.
At this particular moment, it's kind of bracing; a run-up to Christmas and holiday pleasure. People don't mind it because it reminds them of the season at-large.
After the holidays, though, it's either something to remain recreational, though at a slower pace, or just a pain.
Here it comes. Get ready.
But it's there. Winter is coming upon this part of the state gradually, in almost friendly style.
The last three years, right on December 1, we've had huge storms; powerful winds, more than a foot of snow. And it remained all winter and into a late spring.
Compared to much of the last 30 or 35 years, that was unpleasant. We've had something of a reprieve from winters up until this point.
Now, winter hangs around longer. Climate change: It's a bother.
The word is that tomorrow, there will be up to 9 inches of snow. A week later than before, huh? In just a moment, we won't know the difference.
For now, until, maybe, Valentine's Day, snow is welcome around here. After that, it just becomes dirty snow--won't go away, not likely to be replenished.
It's then that people need to know how to do something in it. I have purchased snowshoes, and moved around in them a couple of times last winter.
Not a bad idea, all told. As long as I'm around here, I'm going to try to do it again. And again. And again.
At this particular moment, it's kind of bracing; a run-up to Christmas and holiday pleasure. People don't mind it because it reminds them of the season at-large.
After the holidays, though, it's either something to remain recreational, though at a slower pace, or just a pain.
Here it comes. Get ready.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Hand Them Out!
It said in a recently Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article that the school district was considering allowing school nurses to distributed condoms to the kids.
This isn't the first time such things have been discussed in many school districts. The cries of conservatives have usually drowned out such considerations, though.
After all: If we let that happen, what percentage of the kids will start having sex? Half? More?
Good question. It is now assumed, based on district statistics, that sixty percent of the kids in Milwaukee public schools who can have sex, are.
Guess abstinence training didn't work, huh?
Why should it? As long as having sex, and having babies, are prestigious acts in a given culture, young people will mimic adults.
Those are values that are overtaking others. You can complain and point fingers all you want; what good is that doing now?
But the schools still want to help, and it's in their best interests to do so. I knew a Milwaukee school administrator who, before he moved into administration, told of the time a girl went into labor in the classroom. She was 15 at the time. It was her fourth child.
Perhaps that's an unusual case. But the above statistic suggests not.
Hand out the condoms, for heaven's sake. Stop the posturing. While continuing to discuss the benefits of healthy choices, let's slow down unwanted pregnancies in the meantime.
Mister Mark
This isn't the first time such things have been discussed in many school districts. The cries of conservatives have usually drowned out such considerations, though.
After all: If we let that happen, what percentage of the kids will start having sex? Half? More?
Good question. It is now assumed, based on district statistics, that sixty percent of the kids in Milwaukee public schools who can have sex, are.
Guess abstinence training didn't work, huh?
Why should it? As long as having sex, and having babies, are prestigious acts in a given culture, young people will mimic adults.
Those are values that are overtaking others. You can complain and point fingers all you want; what good is that doing now?
But the schools still want to help, and it's in their best interests to do so. I knew a Milwaukee school administrator who, before he moved into administration, told of the time a girl went into labor in the classroom. She was 15 at the time. It was her fourth child.
Perhaps that's an unusual case. But the above statistic suggests not.
Hand out the condoms, for heaven's sake. Stop the posturing. While continuing to discuss the benefits of healthy choices, let's slow down unwanted pregnancies in the meantime.
Mister Mark
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Help, Not Involvement
I read the blog of the Wisconsin Education Association Council this morning, and it got me to thinking about something.
WEAC's blog covers a wide range of topics, and should be congratulated for it. Today, among other things, it discusssed the need for parental involvement in students' education.
There's no end of this discussion. I look at it a different way, though. You see: I don't want parental involvement.
Hang on a minute. Let me explain.
Parental "involvement" is one of those safe, politically-correct terms that we must all observe. To me, though, it evokes superficiality.
Parental involvement, to me, is the kind of thing where you spot adults selling hot dogs at the homecoming game, or putting a basket of apples and a tub of caramel in the teachers' lounge during American Education Week. Which, because teachers (and this one, too) love food, never goes unnoticed and unappreciated.
That's great for as far as it goes. But I don't want that, and quite honestly, the schools don't need that.
They need something else. They need parental help.
That word strikes much more closely to what kids need. And they need it at the moment when they're most vulnerable, when the problem has been finally analyzed, despite their efforts to disguise or dodge it.
I wanted parents there at the moment when I needed to say, to a 9th grader (or older, even): "My friend, you have the most basic problem of all. You can't read.
"You have to make a decision about your future now. You can exist without being able to read. You can live someplace on your own, if you'd like. You can get a job.
"But you won't be able to get a really good job, that pays really good money, and brings you the kind of self-respect I know you want--because we all want it.
"That's not all. It's about the way you look at the world. If you can read, there will always be hope. You can read about other people, who have overcome tremendous odds to be successful. You can read about people who are loved by all. You can read about the great things people have done, and do, everywhere.
"But if you can't, you will only hear about it. You will need to go someplace where people will tell you about it. And if you can't read, you will mingle mostly with others who can't, either.
"They will tell you that it doesn't matter, because that's the way they want to think, even though everything tells them otherwise. And you will adapt that same attitude, because that attitude needs company to keep existing.
"It's at that point that you will begin to see the world as a threatening and negative place, and that will affect everything you think, say and do. And it's there that you will lose out, because all kinds of opportunities will pass you by because you will not be able to fulfill your talents and capabilities.
"And people who cannot do that, who pass on the chances they have, can do nothing but regret them. We do not want you to have that kind of life, my friend.
"We want you to have a good, hopeful, promising, happy life. The best possible way to do that is to be able to learn things every day of it. And the best possible way to do that is to learn to read, and read well.
"Because those who read learn how to think on levels that those who don't read, can't. And thinking is the most human part of us, the part that separates us from the other animals and organisms. It's what makes you, you.
"The decision is yours. It's much more than a good or bad grade. Really, that isn't nearly as important as the decision you need to make for your life.
"It's more than money, too, though everybody needs money to survive. It's about how you think about yourself. We believe you'll feel better about yourself once you master this skill. And when that happens, the whole world's at your fingertips. The rest of it will take care of itself.
"So what do you say? We have work to do, but you'll be amazed at how fast this will go once you make up your mind. Because you have a mind, my friend, and there's plenty of good things in it."
At that moment, that young person's parents need to be in the room, agreeing completely with me. And then, because that young person might then be scared or intimidated or daunted at the challenge, some reassurance that we'll be there no matter what.
That's the help I needed. In some places, it was implied. In others, it wasn't. Either way, it's the most important decision a student can make. And teachers can't do that by themselves.
Mister Mark
WEAC's blog covers a wide range of topics, and should be congratulated for it. Today, among other things, it discusssed the need for parental involvement in students' education.
There's no end of this discussion. I look at it a different way, though. You see: I don't want parental involvement.
Hang on a minute. Let me explain.
Parental "involvement" is one of those safe, politically-correct terms that we must all observe. To me, though, it evokes superficiality.
Parental involvement, to me, is the kind of thing where you spot adults selling hot dogs at the homecoming game, or putting a basket of apples and a tub of caramel in the teachers' lounge during American Education Week. Which, because teachers (and this one, too) love food, never goes unnoticed and unappreciated.
That's great for as far as it goes. But I don't want that, and quite honestly, the schools don't need that.
They need something else. They need parental help.
That word strikes much more closely to what kids need. And they need it at the moment when they're most vulnerable, when the problem has been finally analyzed, despite their efforts to disguise or dodge it.
I wanted parents there at the moment when I needed to say, to a 9th grader (or older, even): "My friend, you have the most basic problem of all. You can't read.
"You have to make a decision about your future now. You can exist without being able to read. You can live someplace on your own, if you'd like. You can get a job.
"But you won't be able to get a really good job, that pays really good money, and brings you the kind of self-respect I know you want--because we all want it.
"That's not all. It's about the way you look at the world. If you can read, there will always be hope. You can read about other people, who have overcome tremendous odds to be successful. You can read about people who are loved by all. You can read about the great things people have done, and do, everywhere.
"But if you can't, you will only hear about it. You will need to go someplace where people will tell you about it. And if you can't read, you will mingle mostly with others who can't, either.
"They will tell you that it doesn't matter, because that's the way they want to think, even though everything tells them otherwise. And you will adapt that same attitude, because that attitude needs company to keep existing.
"It's at that point that you will begin to see the world as a threatening and negative place, and that will affect everything you think, say and do. And it's there that you will lose out, because all kinds of opportunities will pass you by because you will not be able to fulfill your talents and capabilities.
"And people who cannot do that, who pass on the chances they have, can do nothing but regret them. We do not want you to have that kind of life, my friend.
"We want you to have a good, hopeful, promising, happy life. The best possible way to do that is to be able to learn things every day of it. And the best possible way to do that is to learn to read, and read well.
"Because those who read learn how to think on levels that those who don't read, can't. And thinking is the most human part of us, the part that separates us from the other animals and organisms. It's what makes you, you.
"The decision is yours. It's much more than a good or bad grade. Really, that isn't nearly as important as the decision you need to make for your life.
"It's more than money, too, though everybody needs money to survive. It's about how you think about yourself. We believe you'll feel better about yourself once you master this skill. And when that happens, the whole world's at your fingertips. The rest of it will take care of itself.
"So what do you say? We have work to do, but you'll be amazed at how fast this will go once you make up your mind. Because you have a mind, my friend, and there's plenty of good things in it."
At that moment, that young person's parents need to be in the room, agreeing completely with me. And then, because that young person might then be scared or intimidated or daunted at the challenge, some reassurance that we'll be there no matter what.
That's the help I needed. In some places, it was implied. In others, it wasn't. Either way, it's the most important decision a student can make. And teachers can't do that by themselves.
Mister Mark
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
That Quickly, That Casually
I stopped in the alcove of the Whitefish Bay Public Library and gawked.
Every so often, the library puts out books that it wants nothing to do with anymore, and simply says, "If you like it, take it with you. No charge."
So when I looked at The Warren Report on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, saw it sitting there, saw it for free, I thought: I'm taking it with, thank you very much.
But the fact that it was there for free, discarded, jolted me. This is an important historical document, criticized and vilified though it was. It's still the definitive document of an event that shook this nation, and I would say my generation, to its very core. I'm not sure that we've ever gotten over it.
Libraries do this to clear their stacks for books more, uh, relevant; read more often, as it were.
So the Whitefish Bay Public Library's saying, in effect: This is being discarded because nobody's reading it anymore. And, if it's not being read, we have no use for it.
I wonder if that was done for Uncle Tom's Cabin. For The Origin of the Species. Or are they considered too classic, too fundamental? Perhaps not controversial enough? Are people flocking to read them, and not the Warren Report?
And I wonder if other libraries have done the same--discarded this important document?
Does it mean that I need to get over that? That other, more important books, are being published as we speak? That the public has grown tired of it? That the next generation has said, in effect: Hey, that's so totally '60s. It's nearly 50 years later, dude. Let's move on.
Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. People are still writing about that. Was there a Congressional investigation about that? Probably not; John Wilkes Booth fairly (though with a broken leg) bragged about what he'd done immediately afterward, and paid for it with his life. There were conspirators, and they were executed--though at least one of them died for a very flimsy definition of "conspiring."
Charles Guiteau went to jail, without much question, for shooting James Garfield in the back. Leon Czolgosz did the same, to an asylum, for killing William McKinley.
But nearly from the moment that the Warren Commission came up with its findings, they were dissected and written about and analyzed and re-analyzed, because the direct connection never was finally established--except by the Commission itself. It was as if the answer was so obvious that we just couldn't believe it.
Computer technology later established that the much-trashed "miracle bullet" that hit Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connolly could, indeed, have passed through them both. That the final, fatal bullet caused the kind of jerking-back reaction of Kennedy's skull--as demonstrated by the Zapruder film--has also been reasonably established as a result of the incredible impact.
Maybe the casual discarding of this means that we've looked at this so much that there's nothing more that can be said (even though Vincent Bugliosi wrote yet another exhaustive study not long ago at all and concluded, again, that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin).
It might mean that, as hard as we've looked for deeper conspiracies (CIA, Mafia, Cuba, ad infinitum, ad nauseum), if for no other reason than that the event was so devastating that it had to be something deeper than just another nut with a gun and the right moment, it simply wasn't anything more than that. It's almost as if it's too disappointing for such a beloved President to be disposed of that quickly and almost casually.
But that's what guns do. They do them to Presidents, and police officers in Pittsburgh and Tacoma, and guards in the Holocaust Museum. And we still don't get that.
And the book that documents that casualness has been disposed of--that quickly, that casually.
Mister Mark
Every so often, the library puts out books that it wants nothing to do with anymore, and simply says, "If you like it, take it with you. No charge."
So when I looked at The Warren Report on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, saw it sitting there, saw it for free, I thought: I'm taking it with, thank you very much.
But the fact that it was there for free, discarded, jolted me. This is an important historical document, criticized and vilified though it was. It's still the definitive document of an event that shook this nation, and I would say my generation, to its very core. I'm not sure that we've ever gotten over it.
Libraries do this to clear their stacks for books more, uh, relevant; read more often, as it were.
So the Whitefish Bay Public Library's saying, in effect: This is being discarded because nobody's reading it anymore. And, if it's not being read, we have no use for it.
I wonder if that was done for Uncle Tom's Cabin. For The Origin of the Species. Or are they considered too classic, too fundamental? Perhaps not controversial enough? Are people flocking to read them, and not the Warren Report?
And I wonder if other libraries have done the same--discarded this important document?
Does it mean that I need to get over that? That other, more important books, are being published as we speak? That the public has grown tired of it? That the next generation has said, in effect: Hey, that's so totally '60s. It's nearly 50 years later, dude. Let's move on.
Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. People are still writing about that. Was there a Congressional investigation about that? Probably not; John Wilkes Booth fairly (though with a broken leg) bragged about what he'd done immediately afterward, and paid for it with his life. There were conspirators, and they were executed--though at least one of them died for a very flimsy definition of "conspiring."
Charles Guiteau went to jail, without much question, for shooting James Garfield in the back. Leon Czolgosz did the same, to an asylum, for killing William McKinley.
But nearly from the moment that the Warren Commission came up with its findings, they were dissected and written about and analyzed and re-analyzed, because the direct connection never was finally established--except by the Commission itself. It was as if the answer was so obvious that we just couldn't believe it.
Computer technology later established that the much-trashed "miracle bullet" that hit Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connolly could, indeed, have passed through them both. That the final, fatal bullet caused the kind of jerking-back reaction of Kennedy's skull--as demonstrated by the Zapruder film--has also been reasonably established as a result of the incredible impact.
Maybe the casual discarding of this means that we've looked at this so much that there's nothing more that can be said (even though Vincent Bugliosi wrote yet another exhaustive study not long ago at all and concluded, again, that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin).
It might mean that, as hard as we've looked for deeper conspiracies (CIA, Mafia, Cuba, ad infinitum, ad nauseum), if for no other reason than that the event was so devastating that it had to be something deeper than just another nut with a gun and the right moment, it simply wasn't anything more than that. It's almost as if it's too disappointing for such a beloved President to be disposed of that quickly and almost casually.
But that's what guns do. They do them to Presidents, and police officers in Pittsburgh and Tacoma, and guards in the Holocaust Museum. And we still don't get that.
And the book that documents that casualness has been disposed of--that quickly, that casually.
Mister Mark
Still Cleaning Up the Mess
The President's speech on Afghanistan was nothing short of what was exactly expected.
We're in trouble there. To wit: We aren't doing what we said we were going to do eight years ago.
But then: It's not the President's fault. It's George W. Bush's.
This is about cleaning up the mess and walking away with our heads, well; if not held high, then not between our knees, either.
This has no-win written all over it. At least, no-decisive-win.
The British can tell you that. The Russians can tell you that. Even George W. Bush can tell you that, especially having made the mistakes he made.
First: A clear lack of commitment to that war. They had Osama bin Laden trapped, and let him go, or so said a very recent analysis. Would that have ended everything, every threat? Of course not. But bin Laden is a symbol for terrorist resistance, and his elimination could have, and still can have, a strong effect on the rest of the efforts against us.
Would George Washington's capture (and, I'd bet, eventual execution) have stopped the American Revolution? Not by itself, but it would have put a serious dent in colonial resistance. And the British let him off the hook more than once.
Second: The Bush Administration--I believe--saw the stickiness of the effort in Afghanistan as being too long-range and long-run, and opted (while keeping a reasonably accountable level of troops there) for what they saw was a quicker, and more decisive, assault on Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
It's kind of like the spouse who now sees that the marriage was something of a mistake, but instead of divorce, gets involved in stamp collection: You kind of give up on the whole business, but you don't have to explain anything.
Either way, it backfires. People get tired of it all. And we are tired of Afghanistan, tired of American democracy-building where it's clear that it's off to another awful start.
How soon we forget that, in our own democracy, the shelf-life of foreign wars comes out to be about three years. After that, somebody's going to pay the piper.
Afghanistan's ineptitude in pulling off national elections (akin to our 2000 fiasco, so let's not get haughty here) reminds any historian oh-so-well of Ngo Dinh Diem's bullying in South Vietnam in 1956, where, out of 450,000 total votes, he got 607,000. And people warned Lyndon Johnson over and over again, in 1964 and 1965, of the futility of increasing our efforts there.
Of course, we aren't talking about anything near that kind of commitment in Afghanistan. We simply don't have the people to sustain the kind of effort that absorbed the kind of casualties that we had in Vietnam.
But the media attention will now be paid to Afghanistan at a level heretofore unpaid. The casualties will rise. Those kinds of stories will now be written and broadcasted and blogged.
It will seem out of proportion. But it won't be. American men and women will continue to die. Americans will need to see palpable results.
We will need to look closely. And we will, for a while.
That's why Obama needs to put that July 2011 date out there. Yes, it has political motivation written all over it--not only for Obama himself (See? We're all done with wars now. Told you.), but for Karzai: You better get your stuff together, dude. We're going home in a year and a half, and you'll be on your own.
One thing, and only one thing, will prevent that: A major terrorist attack in this country. Should that happen, Obama will start sounding just like Bush did when he rather illogically kept saying that we have to fight over there to stop terrorism over here--as if Afghanistan is the only other possible place in which terrorists are doing any training, any planning, any pushing off for operations.
We aren't saying that about Iraq any longer. We've installed democracy there, you know. That's why we're going home. Mission (gulp) accomplished.
We will leave when the money runs out. And it will run out sooner rather than later this time--not because of what Obama did, but because of what Bush did. And Obama is left holding the bag, cleaning up the mess.
Mister Mark
We're in trouble there. To wit: We aren't doing what we said we were going to do eight years ago.
But then: It's not the President's fault. It's George W. Bush's.
This is about cleaning up the mess and walking away with our heads, well; if not held high, then not between our knees, either.
This has no-win written all over it. At least, no-decisive-win.
The British can tell you that. The Russians can tell you that. Even George W. Bush can tell you that, especially having made the mistakes he made.
First: A clear lack of commitment to that war. They had Osama bin Laden trapped, and let him go, or so said a very recent analysis. Would that have ended everything, every threat? Of course not. But bin Laden is a symbol for terrorist resistance, and his elimination could have, and still can have, a strong effect on the rest of the efforts against us.
Would George Washington's capture (and, I'd bet, eventual execution) have stopped the American Revolution? Not by itself, but it would have put a serious dent in colonial resistance. And the British let him off the hook more than once.
Second: The Bush Administration--I believe--saw the stickiness of the effort in Afghanistan as being too long-range and long-run, and opted (while keeping a reasonably accountable level of troops there) for what they saw was a quicker, and more decisive, assault on Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
It's kind of like the spouse who now sees that the marriage was something of a mistake, but instead of divorce, gets involved in stamp collection: You kind of give up on the whole business, but you don't have to explain anything.
Either way, it backfires. People get tired of it all. And we are tired of Afghanistan, tired of American democracy-building where it's clear that it's off to another awful start.
How soon we forget that, in our own democracy, the shelf-life of foreign wars comes out to be about three years. After that, somebody's going to pay the piper.
Afghanistan's ineptitude in pulling off national elections (akin to our 2000 fiasco, so let's not get haughty here) reminds any historian oh-so-well of Ngo Dinh Diem's bullying in South Vietnam in 1956, where, out of 450,000 total votes, he got 607,000. And people warned Lyndon Johnson over and over again, in 1964 and 1965, of the futility of increasing our efforts there.
Of course, we aren't talking about anything near that kind of commitment in Afghanistan. We simply don't have the people to sustain the kind of effort that absorbed the kind of casualties that we had in Vietnam.
But the media attention will now be paid to Afghanistan at a level heretofore unpaid. The casualties will rise. Those kinds of stories will now be written and broadcasted and blogged.
It will seem out of proportion. But it won't be. American men and women will continue to die. Americans will need to see palpable results.
We will need to look closely. And we will, for a while.
That's why Obama needs to put that July 2011 date out there. Yes, it has political motivation written all over it--not only for Obama himself (See? We're all done with wars now. Told you.), but for Karzai: You better get your stuff together, dude. We're going home in a year and a half, and you'll be on your own.
One thing, and only one thing, will prevent that: A major terrorist attack in this country. Should that happen, Obama will start sounding just like Bush did when he rather illogically kept saying that we have to fight over there to stop terrorism over here--as if Afghanistan is the only other possible place in which terrorists are doing any training, any planning, any pushing off for operations.
We aren't saying that about Iraq any longer. We've installed democracy there, you know. That's why we're going home. Mission (gulp) accomplished.
We will leave when the money runs out. And it will run out sooner rather than later this time--not because of what Obama did, but because of what Bush did. And Obama is left holding the bag, cleaning up the mess.
Mister Mark
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