Critical Race Theory: Paranoid Nonsense Peddling

Here are some facts about World Wars I and II:

• Had we not entered either war, the Allies would probably not have won. Yet there was significant isolationist resistance to both wars that nearly kept us out of them. 
• Our war productions were overwhelming, but partly because we had a clear advantage in raw materials. Besides, our location relative to the rest of the world, and its relative inaccessibility at the time, kept our production centers from being destroyed.
• We entered partly for economic reasons and economic benefits resulted. But the Congress investigated war profiteering not only after World War I, but also while World War II went on.
• We also had high ideals in mind and tried to guarantee a safer and freer world in conclusion of both. The first effort not only failed, though, but in a sense brought on the second, wider war in which racism played a major role.
• The Allied counterattack begun with D-Day had as its partial goal the freeing of the horrible concentration camps that the Nazis utilized to murder millions. Hitler justified the Holocaust, though, by comparing the very thoroughly pursued genocide of our Native Americans, reducing their numbers, too, to an insignificant level.
• German-Americans were horribly treated during World War I, and Japanese-Americans were actually put into internment camps during World War II. Both groups were just as patriotic as you and me.
• Blacks in our own armed forces were segregated on purpose throughout our participation in World War I, and through nearly all of World War II. As policy, it was changed only afterwards. When released and allowed to do so, Japanese-Americans fought with distinction.

None of these are deniable. They are all documented. Some show that we were enormously generous and in a sense idealistic; some show that our own society needed improvement, indicated glaringly. Some show that we were flat-out lucky, which also factors in. But the good always comes with the not-so-good.

What they don't show is that we were morally superior people, something which bothers some of us. People have their biases no matter where they're from. Ours were well-established quite some time before we were called upon to save that part of civilization that we considered preferable, the one in which democracy looked possible if imperfect. It's a more realistic view, one that isn't absorbed so easily.

If sifted together, they make us look more than a little hypocritical. And the blacks caught that when they returned to a Jim Crow society that didn't seem to care that they, too, had put their lives on the line and some had lost them. But the civil rights movement, which began less than ten years after World War II, resulted in no small way from this unfairness and prejudice (another undeniable fact).

Okay, now: Should any of these be excluded from being taught to our children because they make America look bad? Or should they be explained in terms of what had happened in our country leading up to it? Shouldn't the good news, and the bad, be put into proper context?

Is this what the paranoid nonsense peddlers mean, that we should dispense with the clear and damaging prejudice and selfish profiteering? Is this the "critical race theory" that is being carted out as a threat to our acceptance of our country as great and all-encompassing? Or should we face our history squarely and clearly, reviewing the good and bad with equal attention?

The frenzy machine that is now the Republican way of life has ginned up a mentality of new fears, this one deeper and perhaps longer lasting than anything it can assume about Dr. Seuss. They've been trying to get at K-12 curricula for a long time, and they may have found it, although contrived from higher education, which is where "critical race theory" resides, as it should.

People are now asking for e-mails from school district files to see if it has been discussed. They are campaigning to recall liberal school board members who do not object strongly enough or who, rightfully, consider this a mindless temper tantrum. Those same members are asking for police escorts to reach their cars after meetings. This is crazy.

Nobody's going to stand up in front of a bunch of, say, 7th graders and announce that they're about to begin a study of "critical race theory." Neither are they going to suddenly downshift their curricula and change its direction sideways. There's too much to cover, and standardized tests lurk. "Critical race theory" isn't going to crowd out all that.

George Floyd's murder and its volatile aftermath deserve comment, as does Black Lives Matter. Those things are happening and there isn't a child who hasn't heard of them. Kids are going to wonder how their teachers feel about all that. But comments do not and should not indicate a massive change in offerings. And today's news arrives in tomorrow's history books. 

Some teachers anticipate that and have for decades. If they're at all competent, they should. It keeps the kids on their toes and piques their interests. But that doesn't mean they've caved in to teaching and extolling about minorities. Neither does it mean that there's nothing else to like about the United States of America. That would be absurd. Administrators should be there to remind them of that.

There isn't a wide, subterranean conspiracy about advancing liberalism in our K-12 public teaching. If there would have been, I'd have known about it eighteen years ago, when I last taught a class. But that wouldn't have been fair, either. The kids have to be exposed to a realm of ideas and make their own choices. 

In our class discussions, I got so good at taking both sides of an issue that I got the kids genuinely confused. I was proud of that. "What do you think, Mr. Cebulski?" they'd ask. "It isn't what I think," I'd say. It's what you think that matters."

Besides, all this is assuming that ex-'s election, presidency and defeat haven't been discussed, that they've been somehow excluded, that they no longer matter. As uncomfortable as any of that was and still is, it's still our government. It still has to take precedent. It still has to be put into context and perspective. But with that description will come what ex- has done to our politics and culture, and that can't be candy-coated. It will be lasting and won't be pretty.

I wrote something not long ago that said that in the end, this trend toward paranoia and senseless attacks will fade. And it still probably will. But it might also leave a mark on schools that make them more susceptible to mobocracy. As in other aspects of our public life, the truth is becoming a far more ephemeral matter.

That can't be allowed to happen. Teaching, especially in history, must be grounded in verifiable fact, or it cannot be taken seriously. And if there's ever a time we need to take the past seriously, it's right now. But it doesn't fit into any particular package. It shouldn't. It won't. Not if you take its teaching seriously, too. Because the good always comes with the not-so-good.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

The Catholic Bishops and Biden: Ambush and Extortion

Two words come to my mind when I consider what the Catholic bishops are trying to do to Joe Biden: Ambush and extortion.

Ambush, because they didn't bother to let him know that his status of receiving Catholic communion would be in jeopardy if he was elected president, seeing as how he is a supporter of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling which established the conditions under which women could terminate a pregnancy. Oh, no: They waited until he actually was president so they could give him the opportunity to be as embarrassed and trapped as he possibly could be.

And extortion: When you make someone change his mind about something under duress, under threat of losing something of real value, there's no other word to call it.

One thing I can't call it is courageous. This pack of weasels are using religion to interfere in politics, despite their non-taxed status arranged for by Congress. They want their cake and eat it, too.

They are not acting purely unto God, that's for sure. Like the rest of us, they cannot know how Jesus of Nazareth would have dealt with this maddening dilemma of ours, since there's no reporting of it in the Christian bible. They can say so, but they know they can't establish that. Saying so doesn't make it so.

Speaking of Congress: Ten Republican U.S. Senators, fourteen Democrats, 56 Republican House members and 76 Democrats are listed as Catholic in The Original U.S. Congress Handbook, delivered to my door just the other day (This is by my count. A handful of members of both the House and Senate chose not to have their religions listed, so this list may not be complete. It's close, though.). Will the Catholic bishops grill them as to their attitudes toward Roe as well?

"We've never had this situation before," said a Catholic spokesperson, because the only other Catholic to become president, Kennedy, rose to that position before Roe v. Wade (And, hypocritically, it also ignores Kennedy's, and ex-s' for that matter, inclination to regard marriage as optional.). Okay, granted. The solution? Stay the hell out of it. 

That wouldn't leave the bishops in a tough spot at all: respecting the separation of church and state. What a concept!

I've brought this up several times before, and it's worth repeating: The original Constitution says that no religious test for public office is required, and it has not been amended otherwise. It may be highly advisable by tradition and wise political practice, but the Founding Fathers must have concluded that since politics are always strange bedfellows with whatever aspect of culture you like, it's nobody's damn business what religion some member of Congress belongs to. 

In fact, a significant number of present MOCs listed their religions as "Christian, non-specified." To me, that means exactly that they're pretty much like most others in the country, but beyond that, who really cares?

So for a bunch of Catholic bishops to hold up their Holy Grail and demand adherence to a political position or else they'll withhold it, is incredibly inappropriate and a rabbit hole out of which they may not crawl so easily. Because now that they've established anti-abortion as the gateway to satisfying one's essence of religious worship, will they now make other demands? 

In which case, where will it end? Marrying a Catholic, too? Seeing that one's kids are Catholic? Requiring weekly church attendance, regardless of what other duties are required of one's Congressional membership, getting special dispensations to avoid, uh, punishment? You can take this and run with it a long way.

By all accounts, Joe Biden is a Catholic of unusual devotion. He relied on it heavily upon the deaths of his first wife and a daughter in a traffic accident. He attends weekly Mass. He carries a rosary with him, which harkens back to the '50s. Taking Holy Communion away from him is cruel and obnoxious. And it won't change his position on abortion, you can bet on that.

Catholics tend to get condescending when considering their religion next to others of Christian origin, since they claim to be the one from which all are derived. What they keep forgetting is the basis upon which the Reformation took place--its utter corruption which twisted the very meaning of it to others seeing it plainly. The bishops had better walk their untenable position back, lest they end up in a similar spot.

I'm guessing that Joe Biden won't put his rosary away because of all this hypocrisy. It may change who he prays for.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

The Best 200 Books? Yikes! I'm Running Out of Time!

I very recently saw someone's list of the best 200 books that I needed to read. These were classics. I'm betting you could name some of them off the top of your head. 

Maybe you've read them, too. If you have read all 200 of them, you might be one of the smartest people in the world. We're talking eight billion of them, so being in the top, say, thousand would be pretty neat.

I counted ten that I actually, even partially, read. And I don't consider myself unintelligent. I just read lots of other things.

During the pandemic, I probably did what you did to pass much of the time: Read books at a greater rate than ever. I used to have a collection of more than two thousand books, most of which I actually read at least partially. I assure you, I read none of the books listed in the top 200. Was that a waste of time?

Very few of the above list have been published in the last thirty years. What does that tell you?

It tells me that someone has decided that the latest knowledge is too much upon us, that time factors into wisdom. The Chinese know this. Their civilization has been around a heck of a lot longer than ours has. I'm not fond of their present authoritarianism, either, but you have to admit they have different perspective on things.

When Nixon visited China in 1972, Henry Kissinger accompanied him. Kissinger got into a conversation with Chou En-lai, who garnered the respect of all who met him, political positioning notwithstanding. Kissinger asked him the effects of the French Revolution, which of course began in 1789. Chou's response? Too soon to tell.

I mean, what do you do with that, argue? What do you do with a list of the top 200 books ever--argue?

Well, yes. There are just 200. Think of the number of books that have been written, ever. Why were they written? There have to be really good ones. How do the top 200 books make it into such a list?

I get a daily listing of books to be absorbed electronically, which I don't do (I believe books are meant to be held in one's hand and the pages sniffed) but it allows me to see other lists of what people think are good choices. Many are the subject of rave reviews. How come they aren't "classics?"

 

Besides, if "classics" are "classics," how did I miss them amongst the hundreds I have already read? And since I'm 69, how long would I have to live for me to read all of them now?

The list also misses some that I think might be included, just off the top of my head:

• Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
• How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
• Public Opinion, by Walter Lippmann
• Political Man, by Seymour Martin Lipset
• The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn
• Silas Marner, by George Eliot

Now, you may think of me as either (a) horribly underinformed; (b) somewhere out in left field; or (c) really arrogant to suggest that these books are drop dead, gotta read stuff. And you might be right. But I'm not approaching my own annexation of such a list with that attitude. 

Hey, I know there's a lot to learn in the world and I won't learn it all. All I'm saying, all I mean, is that I think people would learn as much from these as they would from reading Middlemarch or 1984. And that while someone's top 200 might make it universally, there's no way anyone could make a definitive list of the best literature created, ever. And if they could, it would take several lifetimes to read them if they were doing other valuable things like raising kids or making a living.

Besides that, there's not one in here that hasn't been written in either the U.S. or the United Kingdom. That leaves out the best of the rest of the world, which says that nobody has ever written anything superior anywhere else, which is absurd and incredibly narrow.

Someone is going to keep doing this, which is plenty of food for conversation. In colleges, they've already done it. My own college, Lawrence University, is one. They make freshmen read important works they've chosen, and they've been doing it for more than half a century (and probably got the idea from Columbia University, which made students do the same thing starting back in the 1930s). The Republic of Plato is one of them that hasn't budged from the list. Even someone like me, who's hard-wired for politics, found it tough to dive into. Truth be told, I never finished it. 

Neither did I manage to acquire the Cliff's Notes for it, since I listened much too well to the professors who told us not to use it, that we'd rob ourselves of the true flavor of it if we fell back on its usage. Yeah, but it would have saved great time and sometimes, you need things like that to kickstart or continue interest if you get bogged down or lost. Like anything else, it depends on how you utilize it. I find nothing wrong with shortcuts, since the tests you usually take make you read the whole things anyhow. One way or another, you pay the price.

Now there is Wikipedia and Google to help you understand the main point of some books like that. Does that mean that kids are smarter than we were? With additional crutches like that, does that open doors that most of the rest of us kept closed because we got tired of the incessant challenges and fell back on Mad and Cracked magazines instead? The lawyers kept reading, I suppose; the rest of us found other things to do.

Maybe I should read it now. I might get a sore neck nodding my head, having learned many of its lessons in a practical, experiential sense: Not just sitting in an ivory tower college thinking great thoughts that, in the end, never work quite the way they're presented. There's a place for that, true, at the start of life. There's also a place where you can look back at the role of the "classics" and ask: Did things really turn out like that?

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

This One Was Different. I Felt This Shooting. Felt the Fear.

This one broke my heart deeper than before. This one was different.

There have been lots and lots of mass shootings, of course. All of them are ridiculous, unthinkable, catastrophic, stemming from twisted minds on the trigger and obsessed minds in legislatures. The bodies pile up.

So far, one of them happened on the west side of Milwaukee, within a couple of miles from where I've been living. Some guy gets fired and figures to kill himself so he takes others with him. People at my church on the East Side got pretty scared. 

But he had someone in mind. Nothing random about that, like in Austin, Texas three weekends ago. More and more, that's starting to be a mere stroke of luck. You wonder, if you go out into the street now, whether your dice will come up snake-eyes and you'll be staring at someone's lethal barrel.

In the meantime, though, the distance provides something of a buffer, though watching the reports continues to shock and devastate. But you can at least turn off the TV and move forward, perhaps more mindful and cautious than before, if that will make any discernible difference.

The other day, though, another one of these outrageous shootings took place in a spot I used to know fairly well. I used to live in Austin, and once you establish yourself there, you just have to try out Sixth Street.

It has a collection of honky-tonk bars, playing (mostly) honky-tonk music. It's where fledgling musicians, those with something bigger on their minds, gather to try out their wares and hope to get someone's attention.

The effects are largely terrific. The music fairly pours out the doors into the street. Just take your pick, stay an hour, and try another one. There's something fun to enjoy literally all night.

On weekends, especially Friday night, the police close down about a eight-block stretch of Sixth and let people cross into bars on both sides, figuring that's what they're going to do anyhow, and if you don't know how to drive around that stretch, you probably shouldn't be there (there's always Seventh, not nearly as much fun west of I-35, except if you go east of it, there are great restaurants. Just sayin'.).

If you're a tourist, there's little doubt that whatever guides you've read has directed you here. Beale Street in Memphis, Music Row in Nashville, and Bourbon Street in New Orleans have the same kind of vibe. You take your time, you have a few drinks, you can go most of the night if you want, you take in the culture. You duck your head in there someplace and you can't go wrong.

Until three weekends ago, when someone in Austin decided to shoot as many people as he could get away with. And, in fact, whoever it was did get away; he (I assume it was a 'he') hasn't been caught yet.

In a perverted way, that makes sense. If the area is blocked off from traffic, that also means that police cars will find barriers as well. That wastes time to catch perpetrators. Oh, there are police there, but as usual, nowhere near enough of them to prevent some jackass from taking something out on someone.

He shot 13 people, who were injured to varying degrees. Two were hurt seriously. He was either really drunk, really a bad shot, or really in a hurry, so I guess they were unluckily lucky. I've read no follow-ups, so I don't know if he knew someone in a bar or just decided to go crazy because, like the supermarket assassin in Boulder, he already was.

I know where he walked. It's where I did, like millions of others over the years. It could have easily happened to me. It gave me more chills than normal.

Not that anyone should be surprised any longer. This is Texas, remember, where the governor has signed a bill allowing genuine open carry of weapons there. Never mind the danger, never mind the dismissal of reality; I guess he and the ridiculous Republicans there figure that the best way to stop guns is to bring some of your own.

Except people who have common sense don't like to bring guns, regardless of what state they reside in. They're dangerous. They don't forgive. If you make a mistake, you can't have it back. 

A Mexican drug cartel came very nervously close to a bridge leading into McAllen, Texas the other day. The cartel killed 15 people on the Mexican side. The Texas state police and National Guard were called out. But that puts the lie into the signing of that bill. Do you really think that ordinary citizens would be able to protect themselves against such an onslaught? Would they actually have a chance against such an assault?

The same mentality concerning the virus would have to bring about herd immunity to mass shootings: There would have to be weapons demonstrably noticeable by about half of whatever clientele who would be hanging around anywhere for someone that obsessed to notice that shooting a bunch of people would be futile and fatal. 

That is NOT going to happen. A decided minority of people own a decided majority of weapons. You can make owning a gun as legal as crossing the street, but like the vaccines, you can't make people partake, regardless of how much good you think it will do them.

And here's the thing: More are getting away with it. Remember that mass shooting recently in Miami? Haven't caught those guys yet, either.

That will embolden others. If people are crazy enough to do this in the first place, they'll grab a gun all that much faster. They might just rush in and open fire like in Boulder (ironically, he survived to stand trial), or planning may take place first.

I wish it looked better. But it doesn't. Expect more of this soon. The pandemic, and ex-, have unleashed something in too many of us, an angry vindictiveness, and it isn't healthy. Besides threatening us and our families, it also threatens democracy because it encourages crackdowns that overreact. 

So no, defunding the police isn't a good idea; we need to track these guys down. But neither is turning our cities into armed camps. More arming of more people won't solve this. 

I felt the fear this time because I saw myself where others were hit. I predict more will feel it, too.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Ellsberg Made History and Changed It: The Pentagon Papers at 50

I remembered that I wrote a college paper on The Pentagon Papers case. Sunday was its 50th anniversary.

It was, of course, about Daniel Ellsberg stealing a secret Pentagon report saying, in effect, that we had been lied to about the Vietnam War repeatedly over more than a 20-year period, by more than one presidential administration. Ellsberg got the report to the New York Times, and it and other newspapers printed excerpts from it.

The government sued to have it stopped, which was the first time it had ever done that. The case came to the Supreme Court in record time.

The newspapers won, 6-3, but it was not a complete victory. Few cases are won with utter completeness by the time they get to the Supreme Court. In essence, I remember writing, here's how the Court broke down its opinion:

• Two judges said that the newspapers had an unfettered right to print what they wanted as long as it was true.
• Four judges said that as long as the military information didn't endanger troops who were in the field, the newspapers could go ahead and print the report (the report was printed in 1971, but the scope of it was between 1945-68).
• Three judges said that the report was secret, it had been stolen and printed without the government's permission, and thus shouldn't continue to be printed.

Ellsberg has been called a hero by many and a crook by others. The Times ran a whole separate section on the Papers in this past Sunday's edition, of course celebrating its victory. But it included an op-ed piece by someone not impressed with Ellsberg's theft, well-meaning though it was.

Author Gabriel Schoenfeld wrote that first of all, Ellsberg's attempt to change the American public's view about how the war had been waged, in order to get us to withdraw much faster than we were, failed. The Nixon Administration had already convinced the public that "peace with honor" was the best way to proceed. That meant, in short, that we would withdraw our soldiers on the ground and ramp up our bombing to cover for it. In no small way, too, that paved the way for his re-election.

Ellsberg's efforts were not only futile, but illegal, like it or not. "[Ellsberg] was still a rogue actor," Schoenfeld wrote, "who, if the fundamental ground rules of our constitutional democracy are to be respected, deserves a measure of condemnation along with the celebration that he has already earned."

In terms of law-and-order, Schoenfeld has a point. But questions linger. Didn't we deserve to know that we were being lied to? Wouldn't that immorality override that of theft? Otherwise, who was going to be the purveyor of that truth and the truths that followed? And if all those lies were being hidden, without Ellsberg's entrepreneurship or someone else's, wouldn't that archive still be behind locked doors and the rest of us be no more the wiser?

Exactly how does journalism operate, though, if it has to ask permission from government to print whatever the government wants it to print? Doesn't that encourage, indeed fulfill, the authoritarianism that ex- wanted to promote? Isn't his endless bromide that the press is the "enemy of the people" become a self-fulfilling prophecy? If the government wants to call someone a foe, should we simply accept that?

The answers to those questions are contained, by implication, in another very eye-opening article in the same issue--by a Vietnamese author who knows something about the way the (then North) Vietnamese government reacted to the publishing of the Pentagon Papers.

Lien-Hang Nguyen writes that the then North Vietnamese government utilized the report to buttress its claim that its cause of defeating the South, then establishing a communist-based regime, had been the best idea. So you could say that The Pentagon Papers aided and abetted the enemy, which would support Schoenfeld. 

Perhaps, unwittingly, they did. Yet, there is the larger issue: We were lied to. Had that not been so, we probably wouldn't have gotten as involved as we did. Most likely, we wouldn't have lost nearly the 58,000 killed that we did.

But the part that caught my eye was that the (now) Vietnamese government has never released any reports on how it conducted the war. "The doors are firmly shut to Vietnamese academics, scholars and students, or, more plainly put, they are closed to the Vietnamese people," he writes. The Vietnamese people are still in the dark. They still don't know.

Is that the kind of country we want? Secrets are secrets, no matter what? Vietnam does not enjoy the press freedom we have. That government is, truly, an "enemy of the people" when it chooses not to let them know something that might make it unpopular just to avoid an uncomfortable discussion.

If Daniel Ellsberg had not acted surreptitiously, would we have ever known about the study? Wouldn't it still be archived deep in someone's files as we mindlessly accepted that the report was secret as declared by someone we've never met and will never know?

I don't want a country like that. I doubt that you do, either. The battle between a government that wants to control the release of information and a press that wants people to know it as soon as it can goes on. We now know that members of the press were spied upon by ex-'s people to investigate "leaks." That's the very essence of this fight: government should not be doing that, but rogue governments always will.

That's why media must be allowed to operate as robustly as possible. They trust the public to do with new facts what it wishes. Government has a vested interest to perpetuate itself and its image; it cannot be trusted to do the people's complete business. It is messy, it is sometimes confusing, but the alternative is stifling and crushes freedom--which is of the mind, first and foremost.

Daniel Ellsberg was a crook and a hero. He made history and changed it, too. A single person, not in an elected position, can still do that. His actions created a new foundation for press freedom. It's up to all of us, day by day, to reinforce it.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Secret Service: A Hot, Dangerous Mess

You are the member of an elite government operation. People know about you, but nobody knows who you are.

You're supposed to stay out of the limelight, even when you're within an arm's length of very famous and prestigious people, and you gain prestige by being around them. You try not to get into photo ops. You don't mind this, actually; it comes with the territory.

People look for you at entrances and near the famous people. You're usually well put together, with close-cropped hair and sunglasses, as much for anonymity as for the glare protection and never to give off which way you're looking. You never smile. You never allow yourself to be distracted. A split second's mistake could literally be fatal.

Your service to your country is the point, and always will be the point. You're doing as tough of a job as there is. Often, it's horribly boring. But you train, you prepare, for the moments when you have to be very alert and ready to sacrifice all--all--for your country, without more than a second's notice.

The tension, the stress, is enormous and grinds on endlessly, even though 99% of what you do is routine. You are overworked. The positions are understaffed, largely because they're government jobs and you must rely on an uninformed, unappreciative legislature to provide the funding. They do, but it's bare bones. You often have to cover for each other.

Your days are long. If you have a family, you're sometimes on the road for weeks at a time, which produces strains you never anticipated. Sometimes you choose to forget you have a family. But secretiveness is part of your identity. If no one knows, if it's across the ocean, if the press isn't along, who's the wiser?

So when you stand down, you often relax with alcohol. Lots and lots of it. And, if you're male, temporary affections of, well, guests. You deserve it, you rationalize. You try not to leave tracks, but if something happens, you smooth it over so the higher-ups don't have to look too closely. They've been there before, so they know.  If you build up enough juice and then get caught, you're transferred somewhere else. But your career continues.

I had a college football coach who didn't want us drinking during the week. Games were played on Saturdays. He understood that celebrating, or commiserating, needed an outlet on Saturday night. So he just told us: Stay out of jail. Don't call me.

But the people above? They pushed the ends of the envelope much farther.

They're members of the Secret Service. Their image reflects that of the country they serve: Sometimes justified, sometimes not; a reputation getting tired and outdated; an image pretty tarnished if you take a good look; full of phony American exceptionalism; in need of a serious reboot and rebuilding.

Carol Leonning's new book, Zero Fail:The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, is brutal in its facts. It represents gumshoe reporting at its finest. At times, it delves into the gossipy and tawdry, but only because it has to. It has to show you that people should have known things sooner than they did, and sometimes failed to report them. It isn't written with 'creative nonfiction' in mind; it doesn't have to be. This one made it to the top of the New York Times best-seller list.

Leonning, reporter for The Washington Post, has built up some serious street cred with her earlier book  about ex- and his exploits, A Very Stable Genius, with Phillip Rucker (also a best-seller). She continues it here in one of her main beats for the paper. In some places, all she has to do is re-open her paper's archives and consult her notes. But she does far, far more. She exposes a hot, dangerous mess caught in a deeply damaging loop. Not only are they compromised, but so are we, if people can't be protected the way they should.

To be sure, most agents uphold the pride and prestige of Secret Service work an overwhelming majority of the time. But in this line of work, screw-ups are often unforgivable--and you can't have them back. The Service learns best from those mistakes, but the price is devastating.

It describes a good-old-boy network that reminds you of police officers who close down around each other when threatened, whether deserved or not. Too often, they advance by the moniker "it's not what you know, it's who you know," when a better person should have been appointed (Obama did some of that appointing, btw). They sabotaged the first woman to be appointed the director by violating her trust. Her presence violated what's become the tickets to be punched: The director has to be an insider with previous Secret Service experience, and has to be male.

But above all, it has compromised itself thoroughly, letting transgressions go when they should have resulted in punishment and worse because someone else let something else go before, they're still on the force, and they know names can be named. Someone did squeal once, and a suicide indirectly resulted.

This stuff goes back a long way. Lincoln's bodyguard took a break, went to a bar, and paved the way for John Wilkes Booth. It affected the assassinations of McKinley and Kennedy, too, because agents, already trying to be unobtrusive, were asked to stay farther away. 

It pits politicians who need to touch people against those who try to stop them from doing so. George Wallace, presidential candidate, was shot because he changed his mind and went to the rope line one last time. Mike Deaver, personal assistant to Reagan, argued that (code named) Rawhide didn't need protection that close to him. After the nearly fatal assassination attempt, Deaver changed his tune. 

Reagan came to Port Washington, Wisconsin, about half an hour north of Milwaukee and in strong Republican territory, late in his second term. I wandered there to see the show and ran into a former Cedarburg High student who was a sheriff's deputy trainee. He said: "See those trees? There are snipers in there." You couldn't see a thing. He also told me that there was a gunboat on Lake Michigan nearby.

Some presidents also sneak away to liaison with unknown paramours: Kennedy and Clinton were notorious for that. We know what happened to Clinton. But in doing so, he compromised agents who otherwise understood that though it might offend them, they were sworn not to reveal activities.

Would-be assassins are normally a-political. Some of the most amiable people ever to be president, like Bush-41 and Ford, were nearly murdered by crazed maniacs. Someone who needed to tell Obama about environmental issues actually got inside the White House and the East Room one awful night. In the end, no real damage, but the breach of security, explained well by Leonning, should make us shudder. (A "jumper," as they're called, referring to jumping the White House fence, happened on ex-'s watch, too, but the guy found the doors were locked.)

When someone saw that changes were needed, they were warned not to say much and to choose carefully to whom to say it. A low-level agent wrote down and distributed a long list of recommended changes, and others cheered him on. He looked like he was getting through, but an equally low-level violation of policy (nothing like wild partying on the road) was conjured against him, and out he went.

A lot of the biggest documented screw-ups, in fact, came on Obama's watch, but mostly disconnected from something he could help (like the above breach, which happened three minutes after he'd left for Camp David. He was in California when another fool fired a few shots at the White House and hit a residence window. But his kids were around--one of them out with friends--and Michelle unleashed her rage when she found out.). He thought he'd be innovative by appointing the first female director in the Secret Service's history, but the 'network' undermined her and made her look negligent. All of that made him look so, too.

Then, of course, we have ex-, who politicized the Service even more than his evil predecessor, Richard Nixon, who was just as conniving, cold-blooded and manipulative. Some agents with a sense of duty became appalled at his antics, then disgusted by his shamelessness. Kind of like us, huh?

Under ex-, though, the Service was first politicized (by overcharging it for his overgolfing, which drains its resources, but he typically didn't care since much of the money went to his institutions, which allowed him to move it where he wanted, such as to his campaign coffers), then politicized itself in the 2020 campaign, since an enormous percentage of agents are Republican and backed him with much the same unsophisticated fervor as his most loyal minions; some agents, too, ignored the unenforceable Hatch Act. This even after he demanded huge rallies of superspreader events, which of course put agents in the way of the virus (and got some of them sick, too, along with himself. Remember when he made agents drive him around to wave at crowds?). Right along with the rest of the madness, they never budged in their support of him. Some agents blanched, though, at the inappropriate manner in which they were utilized to control protestors when George Floyd was killed.

Neither did they go right to the winner of the election, if you recall; they normally begin a high level of protection right after victory is announced. But that falls into line with ex-'s demand that the results get challenged beyond any reasonable person's conclusion. That, too, divided the Service, and it remains so today.

In the end, Leonning exposes the Secret Service in a way that makes you want to take a shower. The responsibilities with which they're assigned, and the way they're stretched thin as well as outdated technology, should scare the hell out of you. Regardless, it lurches on.

Now we again have a president that is at least trying to unite the country despite a noticeably large cadre' of domestic insurrectionists who demonstrated their wares on January 6. So you have to ask yourself: How long will the string holding back the boulder of successful attack hang on before it's once again broken? And can the Secret Service depoliticize itself this time?

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Pro Athletes: What Do They Owe Their Public?

I only, sort of, rubbed up against the public in my athletic exploits once, and it was fleeting indeed.

While playing college quarterback one Saturday, the team moved quickly down the field and we scored a touchdown, always nice to do. I returned to the bench and got a drink of gatorade. 

Unbeknownst to me, a frat brother had invited some kids from town to the game and got them a front-row seat. He called out to me, wanting me to sign autographs.

I was really surprised, and flattered, at the gesture. No one had ever done that before. But it would look untoward to sign autographs in the first quarter. Besides, we had most of the game left.

Quickly, I had to make a decision. I couldn't betray the kids; that's part of who we were there for. But I didn't want my attention unnecessarily diverted, either. After all, the defense could quickly cause a turnover, and I'd be called back into the game instantaneously. How would it look to be signing autographs?

So I told the frat brother to be sure to bring the kids around when the game ended. I'd be happy to sign then.

I went back to the game, and things didn't go as well. I was replaced later on, but brought back in. We rallied to win in the last minute.

I looked around to fulfill my promise. No kids were there. The frat brother and kids either had to leave early, or they might have seen that I wasn't quite the star they thought I was, and didn't think my autograph meant as much. Oh, well. We won anyhow.

Being an athletic hero brings with it some added perks and obligations. After all, an adoring public wants something of a return on the investment it's making: Tickets, sportswear, following, loyalty. You can't turn a cold shoulder. Or, you can, but poor performance and bad luck wear away at that loyalty in a hurry.

As the stakes grow higher, obligations increase, too. Pro athletes are pretty much expected to do some things, like (yes) sign autographs and do interviews. Some of these interviews are one-on-one, often fawning. Some are with a press pool the members of which aren't always completely supportive.

I used to be part of the press pool for what was the Greater Milwaukee Open golf tournament. I once pressed a pro on what was then a growing experiment: Wearing the kinds of shoes that didn't have spikes. He thought that was almost un-American. I suggested an advantage. He got real ornery. He actually looked like he might try to start a fight with me.

I backed away because, while I wanted a story, I didn't want to be the story. If you've watched New England Patriots' coach Bill Belichick in a post-game press pool questioning, you know he's there in the most token way, trying to be sufficiently brief and annoying so he gets to leave in the quickest possible time.

So there are people who get this and literally go through the motions. But tennis star Naomi Osaka, one of the big names in the game, doesn't even think she can do that. She'd rather go without the press at all, and dropped out of the French Open, one of the sport's Big Four, in a form of protest.

Osaka described her issues in terms of anxiety and depression at being in the middle of people who weren't necessarily wanting her to succeed. Well, yes. That's a perfectly normal and even expected role of some of the reporters at any sports gathering. They're mingled in with the well-wishers.

Aren't they, then, exactly like the crowd that just watched them? Seems that way to me. To think that you can control the press is being--and I'll bet Osaka never thought of this--like ex-, who thought he could control everything. Uh-uh. Never happens no matter how hard you try.

So is the press making her depressed or the thought that someone else is expecting something else of her? I'm not sure. I don't, and didn't, connect with that sport like I did with sports like football and golf. But she's still a professional athlete, still has an adoring public (and deservedly so), and owes them something.

Maybe she doesn't think appearing in front of a press pool amounts to that owing. I would call that misguided.

It's also insular. She may be one of the very best in the world, but she's not the only tennis player in the world. Others, too, are striving, and have in some cases accomplished much of what she has. What if they, too, decided to follow in her footsteps and ignore the very press that gives them successful publicity, the very thing that gets people to admire and follow them? Could they be so confident that the numbers of fans would remain the same? Will they applaud Osaka, or give her strange and hostile looks next time?

Maybe that's what's driving Aaron Rodgers in his strange holdout against the Green Bay Packers. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe he realizes that the fans would show up anyhow. That, ironically (or cynically, take your pick), might leave him justifiably alone to deal with the team as he wishes.

I have no feel for that one, either. But all big-time athletes have some obligation to their public. If Osaka is having depression and anxiety issues--which I don't wish to diminish; it happens--perhaps an accommodation can be reached; a post-tournament or post-match private comment then distributed to the press. Or maybe a lid placed on the number of questions allowed. While still not fair to the others, at least it would be a recognition that coverage and attention matters and a public accounting is made for all, by all.

Osaka left the French Open before competing (French Open officials insisting, by the way, that they reached out to her and her issues), suggesting that she was looking forward to working with the press to come up with a solution. I hope so. Women's tennis needs stars. She cannot stay one by just getting the ball over the net.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Federal Response? For Me, It Was Great

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that our interaction with the federal government isn't frequent. Most of the time, we think of that, too, as a good thing.

Okay, we pay our taxes. Everybody files a return. Note that I don't, and won't, say that everybody pays their taxes. The richer you get, apparently, the better you can dodge payments. But I digress.

Outside of that, the less we have a person-to-person connection, the less complicated our lives tend to be. That's why I hesitated the other day.

When I began my Social Security payments, I took no deductions. I found that later to be a foolish idea, because in Wisconsin, at least, you have to pay federal taxes on your benefits. I figured out that I paid roughly $300 per month.

I can't say that I 'got burned' by that, since I owed the money. But at first, it drained my savings. I'd forgotten that little tidbit.

The last couple of years, then, I'd taken at least $300 out of each payment and made an separate account in which to deposit it right after the raw payment had been made. That way, I couldn't fool myself into thinking that I had the money when, in fact, I'd be getting rid of it.

All that bother for a net loss? How silly. So I looked up a remedy.

I remembered that I could remove differing percentages of my payment each month--something that I'd ignored when I first arranged for payments--and the federal government could use the money upfront: 10%, 12%, or 22%. Turns out that 12% came out to $297/month, which would just about cover what I needed to pay full freight at tax time. Why not let the government do it? I brought up the form and printed it out.

But, of course, the pandemic. The Social Security offices are closed. Roadblock? It felt intimidating.

But no: There was the number. My shoulders sank. Would I wait half an hour for someone to pick up the phone?

Nope. Two rings. Someone answered. "Just fill out the form and send it in," she said. We hung up.

It was that simple? Really? There had to be a glitch. I figured that the government would send me another form. Or something.

I sent it in. I figured to hear back in, maybe, three or four months. Nope; it was one month. Thin envelope, too.

It told me what I'd done. No exceptions, no extra issues, no extra forms. Simple deal.

I stared into space with wonder. The damn government works. Even from way-far-away. What happened was exactly what I wanted to happen.

I'd had an office in Washington, DC for six years, and I chose to live in the District for another single year, so I knew about some of the people who work, mostly anonymously, to deliver services for this enormous country of ours. They're just working stiffs like you and me. Their jobs touch far more of us than we give them credit for. They work well. They want to help.

I heard someone complain about 'corruption' a while back, and vaguely, as it usually is, referenced Washington. I got all over him. "They're like the rest of us, but they care far more," I said. "They want all of us to succeed as Americans."

The efficient response I got in the mail shouldn't have stunned me. But my confidence in government has been diminished in recent years with the temporary insertion of someone who didn't think government mattered much, and worked to keep it from working, giving that conclusion a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The people who undermined government were the people who catered to those who automatically reject government as an internal enemy, which wants to steal your money for things you never see. I already know that's like many of the other myths they choose to believe. Amidst 330 million people (or so), it's often difficult to identify with a place so seemingly remote but with so much power.

But those people care. They do what they do, too, because they're civil servants, not because they were elected to do so. That's the idea.

An article ran in the New York Times not long ago noting that the Social Security Administration was doing some recalibrating to improve its image. Whatever it's doing, the best thing it can do is what it just did with me: Deliver services. Now they have a champion they never knew. Mission accomplished.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Continue with the Commission? You Bet. Don't Let Republicans Get Away with It

You can't really blame them for trying to dodge this huge bullet. But it's the blue whale (not merely the elephant) in the room.

The Senate has reported on security lapses on January 6, but that report is limited in scope. It doesn't get to the essence of the origins of the insurrection. That would take much more time and care.

But Republicans want the veneer of caring about this when in fact ugly political realities scream to hold them back. That's why they've filibustered paying for a far more sweeping investigation led by the House.

They've left it to the Democratic-controlled lower chamber to use its limited funding to do it. That's so they can attack it from the start, screaming bias and doing what they're best at--being victims.

But the real victim here, as it's been for some time now, is democracy. It is seeping away from us slowly but noticeably.

It will be partly restored. Person by person, perpetrators are being arrested and will stand trial. They might plead out or might challenge the charges. Make no doubt that some will be jailed for a while, as they should be.

Some claim to be sorry. Sorry for being caught, or sorry for having tried to wreck our nation's capitol? It reminds me of the bratty students who, when being caught talking inattentively in class, quickly replied "sorry," usually without looking at me, to do nothing more than deflect attention--and then start in again two or three minutes later. So I devised some responses: "Sorry means you won't do it in the future, right?" or "I won't believe you're sorry until you show me you're sorry by remaining quiet." It had better, if imperfect, effects.

The trick is to apply accurate charges: Criminal trespass. Assaulting a Capitol Police officer. Destroying federal property. All those are evident in the films. Some foolishly but lavishly sent pics and text messages to friends 'back home,' proving that they were at the scene and committing mayhem. Those were easily traced. It is to our advantage that Christopher Wray, who's held the position during two administrations, is still the head of the FBI. It lends credible non-partisanship to the proceedings.

But some will get away with it. Not all who trespassed or caused damage will be caught. That will encourage another breach in the future. That will encourage future perpetrators to bring weapons.

The only thing that might prevent that is for Republicans in Congress to admit their own mistakes, say that they just lost their tempers, and warn everyone away from another try. Without that, the future issue will remain unresolved. And with new Republican-supported vote-counting restrictions and overrriding options, the election of 2024 may also be unresolved enough to be challenged by both parties.

But Republicans can't admit siding with crazies because that would expose them as complicit. On the other hand, they would have something else to complain about.

Either way, we may be lurching toward an even larger mess here. There can be no compromise: The presidential election is signed and delivered, state by state, with no "serious irregularities," that catch-all, disingenuous smear implying that something must be wrong with the results, even though it was probably the most secure and best-counted election in our history.

But with the continuation of a commission of some sort, the most important thing to provide is closure. Without it, there will be questions dangling about the lack of coverage by the National Guard, the chain of command that day, the hesitation of the Pentagon to provide support, the reprehensible conduct of ex-, and the coordination of efforts by right-wing extremist groups leading up to and including that day. 

From what Senate Republicans allowed to be reported, we do know that what constituted the communications system to let the Capitol Police know what was coming on January 6 either broke down or was simply inadequate. That, of course, is important to know. But that's more about systems in place and not about what got organized to cause the insurrection. 

Though ex-'s speech electrified the crowd and certainly provided the sedition necessary, that alone didn't cause the assault. Those people got there with that already on their minds. We must learn why and how.

To be sure, journalism and independent investigations will go on. But they won't be nearly as timely as we need it to be. The day's reporting was, understandably, as disjointed as the event itself, so we know something about it all. But there's always more to know, and it can always be better presented and understood.

So, yes: Despite Republican efforts to dodge responsibility and accountability; despite the fear of the truth; and despite the interposing of complaints of politicizing the results, House Democrats owe it to the country to make their best effort to review and add to our understanding of January 6. We all saw what happened. We must better find the source. 

We must put this behind us with the best account. You can't hide a blue whale.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

This Seems Too Obvious: Let's Trash the Justice Dept. Memo, Okay?

It's a memo. That's all it is. It's not a law that's been passed by Congress. It wasn't put there by executive order. It isn't even a court decision. It's an internal memo within the Justice Department. 

It's had an outsized effect on our politics and legal proceedings lately, and it accelerated as applied to a rogue, lawless, amoral presidency. It served as a firewall against the rule of law, the one thing that a president's supposed to respect no matter what. Instead, it was flaunted, no matter what.

To wit: the supposition that a sitting president can't be indicted for crimes or be subjected to other legal proceedings. We all have to wait until he's out of office.

Ex- ran with that one to absurd extents. "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and not lose voters" he famously said during his first campaign, and he did what he could to extend that very idea as far as he could. Being invulnerable politically isn't the same as invulnerable legally, but that's pretty much how he applied it. Indeed, his lawyers tried that little gambit in court--to no avail, but they had the chutzpah to try.

In any event, the impeachment trial showed the extent to which he stonewalled any reasonable effort of House Democrats to subpoena his records and staff. If elected again, you can bet that that's where he'll go, too.

Seems to me that all the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, would have to now do is tear that memo up. There: Done. Now a sitting president can be indicted and/or sued and if necessary, stand trial for crimes committed.

Why hasn't anyone brought this up, having learned what we've learned about how someone might extend the limits of ethics beyond anything previously tried? I don't get it.

To be sure, this Justice Department will operate on principle. Just yesterday, it announced that it would, indeed, defend ex-'s nasty comments to E. Jean Carroll, answering her accusations of rape, which she otherwise wants to confront him about in a libel trial, since he accused her of being a liar. Turns out those comments, however awful, fall within the scope of the president being able to defend himself and having that reflect how people view the performance of his job--wide latitude indeed, and style points irrelevant. 

If it lets this slide, then future presidents have to more closely measure what they get to say if accused, especially falsely, of wrongdoing or even criminal behavior. And we have to give the benefit of the doubt to the American people--regardless of how difficult that is becoming--who might just put someone better than ex- in the White House. Except they would have to wait four years. Taking the wide view doesn't always feel good.

Which brings us back to the original point. If the Justice Department should scrap the previous memo and allow presidents to be indicted for crimes while in office, wouldn't that unnecessarily waste the public's time while the concomitant ballyhoo ensues? After all, the president can't change behavior committed before he came to office.

As in most things of that nature: Well, yes. And no. If a president is being pulled off to the side of the road and indicted endlessly--especially in today's atmosphere, political enemies would spend an incredible amount of resources finding ways to do that--the public's interests don't look best served. But then, a first-term president, especially, would normally stand for re-election, and reports of untoward behavior are certainly fair game. But that's for the First Amendment, not the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth. It wouldn't stop us from making a note of it.

There is the grand jury process, too, in which 23 people get to vote by majority whether to proceed with criminal indictments. Unquestionably, presidents would and should be subject to that preliminary review. But getting indictments are, reportedly, pretty easy to do, since the prosecution has the process very much rigged for it: There's no cross-examination, for instance, no chance for a president to respond. It's more or less an interview process with one side handling the questions.

Maybe, just maybe, for presidents only, that process could be amended. If so, though, who should be responsible for putting that into motion--Congress (good luck there)? Or the Justice Department, which issued the original memo in the first place?

Let's not forget, too: Joe Biden was accused of sexual assault during the campaign. The accuser was discredited by several accompanying news reports, and oddly disappeared. No solid evidence emerged. What if she should show up again and want a more public and thorough airing? Should Biden stand trial for it while in office? Wouldn't that put him in the same position as ex-?

I think the memo can be dismissed and a narrow ruling made on it. To wit: Any indictment made toward sitting presidents would have to be made concerning something they did while they were presidents. But to let them simply run about without the accountability that the rest of us poor slobs have would be to crown them as untouchable and more imperial, actually, than the position already is.

Executive privilege being what it is, the president already has plenty of protection against people who, legally or otherwise, wish to diminish the effects of their work, and the last one stretched that privilege beyond its normal boundaries, which shouldn't surprise us by now. But to say that a sitting president is immure from the legal process for four whole years makes a mockery of the meaning of law. It protects them unscathed. That's unacceptable.

What we've seen from an ex-president with no ethical boundaries will be duplicated way too soon in the future. Presidents must be held accountable--maybe not exactly like the rest of us, but they must realize that their actions will not only be scrutinized thoroughly but litigated if they enter the realm of probable cause. That's a slippery slope before which self-respecting people should draw a red line.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Back to Church: A Vanguard of Worship--Normal, and Odd

My relationship with my church is complicated, kind of like the one with the eternal. Logic keeps invading. Nobody alive right now, even those who claim that they've seen the effects of death because they expired momentarily on a hospital table, knows what lies beyond.

Maybe there's nothing beyond that bright light that keeps popping up in their descriptions. Maybe they weren't actually dead yet, but at the very last vestige of being alive. Maybe. But maybe not. 

Yes, the person known as the Christian savior is said to have died, risen from the dead, and gone into heaven. Pretty special deal. But was that reserved just for him? Are we poor slobs relegated to the waste pile, "food for worms," as Mercutio called it, adding to the world's pollution? You could make that argument. It's left to our imaginations.

My spiritual side has faith, yes. But my rational side raises an eyebrow.

Is that why I go, in wonder and keeping connections in reserve just in case? Yes, and no. It is, above all, a place of repose, where you're supposed to have time to think about things, where those things are (potentially) important yet more simplified because there's no noise to disrupt it.

After all, it's quite the mystery. Too much has been made of it to look past it. Not that I'll ever 'be ready to go.' Few people know quite when that's going to happen, anyhow, and fewer have the chance to prepare much, besides having that proverbial power-of-attorney arranged, and papers in a knowable, accessible spot.

And readings from whatever holy book you happen to be following are often challenging and philosophical, written as they were long ago, and both undeniably applicable and inapplicable in the present day. So there's that. But you can read those things in a copy of a holy book that you can get in any reputable bookstore, so on paper, there's no need to cultivate a crowd to think by oneself, which would seem contradictory.

And I do not pretend to be holy or wish that that's at all possible. That's been abandoned long ago. As I said more than once during my more sinful days: I'm not running for Pope.

But there is comfort in knowing that you're part of a community of faith seekers. At some point, too, their thinking dovetails with yours, and disagreements and arguments are muted if not extinguished for at least a few minutes a week. There is comfort, too, in knowing that week in and week out, you'll be running into the same people. They may not know me well, and vice versa--many among my group are fierce about protecting their privacy, and I'm one of them--but the familiarity is well enough, and it serves us all. Ironically, it used to be a place of retreat from the noise and clamor to which I'd attached myself. Now, it's a chance to be with people, to balance the silence of retired weeks with human contact.

We practice a religion that is compassionate and, for the most part, not punitive, that wishes to expand the understanding of the Bible instead of a following that is unquestioning, literal, and rigid. Knowing that works for me.

So when my congregation's session--the folks elected to make the vital decisions--chose to make a limited re-opening of live, in-person Sunday services, I was among the first to sign up. We had lurched through the pandemic with virtual services and Zoomed coffee hours, tolerable but ultimately futile, like everybody else's loneliness.

I, like so many others, craved a handshake, a face that could be reached with an outstretched arm, even a hug. The knowledge that it would be no longer anonymous, not just someone on the street, brought a certain amount of anticipation.

There was a nice revelation, too, in discovering that my usual worship spot--we common goers have our spots; back in the day, they could be reserved with a certain level of tithing--had been left open after social distancing, both horizontally and vertically, had been guaranteed. Maybe someone would notice me--hey, he's back, too. For whatever effect, it might add to the feeling of community.

For me, it was like returning home, or to one of my homes. I'd felt that sense of belonging more than once. I had been on two long journeys during the last eighteen years--one intentional, one of necessity, both lasting years, both filled with victories and defeats. I don't have enough ego to pretend that that seat was intentionally left vacant, awaiting my return. Yet, it's a big church, and only 125 were allowed in Sunday, so there would be a lot of room. And if in the future someone wishes to claim it, well, it's got no one's name on it. 

But there it was, and I don't mind telling you that there was some joy attached to that. When things go wrong, when it feels as if all has become undone, a little thing like that can have a value you never considered. Others have their spots, too. I could never imagine dislodging them.

I'm not a small person, so I've made sure that my 'spot' wasn't right in front of the preacher's glance. Looking outward, I'm to the right of the podium, four rows (or five, some weeks) from the front, just inside the aisle. I'm not sure if it's been squatter's rights, but the number of times in more than twenty years now that someone made me scoot over to the middle of the pew can be counted on one hand.  I seek to learn, though, not to intimidate by my mere presence. And, though pretty close, it also feels appropriately humble. 

This isn't politics. This isn't a place to make a big deal out of oneself. But it's also saying that I'm not hesitant to get close to the proceedings, unlike many students who typically made sure to stay back from my lectures at Cedarburg High. Yet I don't want to seem too eager to suggest desperation or pretentiousness. Appearances aren't supposed to matter in church, though it is often the place where they matter a little too much.

What did happen strangely was that, because cordoned-off pews had reduced seating capacity, a family I'd never seen before--not necessarily new members--slipped in beside me, down pew a bit. My relative proximity to the front normally keeps relatively few from easing in next to me, save Christmas or Easter with their typically large crowds. I would say that a good eighty percent of the time, I've had the whole pew to myself. Most people are not that comfortable being that close.

When that happened before, though, I'd acknowledge them cheerfully, and I'd sure to sign the small folder provided supposedly for that purpose in case one would want to extend greetings after the service. There's a small space provided for a comment, and I make it a note to say something typically friendly, like "Nice to see you!" or "Have a great day!". Sometimes it led to a brief conversation.

None of that, though, could happen that day or can happen for a while. The session removed such items to make it very impossible to spread germs from common handling of otherwise common items. The said family did not acknowledge me, though I was masked. The four of them stayed the required six feet away. I felt safe, largely because I've had the gateway two vaccine shots.

We were even advised that, if we handled copies of the Bible and hymn books, we should leave them on the pews instead of putting them back in the holders. Someone would have a long cleaning task ahead, but haven't we all done that here and there?

All those preliminaries out of the way, the service proceeded pretty much as it always has. There was no choir--good as it is, it was post-Memorial Day so it's usually on break anyhow--only a brilliant soloist, and of course those in the congregation who stood to sing, this time doing so through masks (there's that incident, early on, in Seattle where a choir sang sans masks, staying the dictated six feet apart, and a whole bunch of them still got sick and a couple of them died, seeing as how they hadn't accounted for their breath spray sailing around them. So I'm guessing someone thought of that.). 

The effect was as muffled as one would guess, but the enthusiasm was still there. Singing brings emotions out of me; I felt myself choking up in the second stanza of the first song. I'd missed it all more than I knew. At the conclusion, we were invited to turn to the back and sing toward the camera so that those at home, beyond the 125 who'd been allowed to attend but still viewing virtually, could feel something of renewal and welcome, too.

The Bible is sometimes strange and unapproachable, but at other times it's so prescient it stuns. Sunday's reading was such a day. The New Testament's excerpt was from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, in which he says:

• We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
• Perplexed, but not driven to despair; 
• Persecuted, but not forsaken;
• Struck down, but not destroyed.

If that isn't the pandemic's effects on the survivors, I don't know what is. It leaves you thinking: Whoa. In the popular vernacular of the day, we're all that.

As such, an actual coffee hour to visit and catch up, as you might expect, wasn't allowed, either. But seeing as how the day was marvelous if a bit warm, a bunch of us gathered outside the rear door and had a coffee hour, sans coffee, on the back patio. Many of us took off our masks; after all, we've all been told that once outside, the risk of transmission nearly disappears. There was a marked uplift and cadence in the voices. Smiles abounded.

So it was normal if a bit odd. The pastor brought up D-Day allegorically in her sermon. My mind shot back to when Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., who commanded the American effort on Utah Beach, found that his landing force, one of the vanguards of the retaking of Western Europe, had been thrown about a mile off course by the prevailing current. He was asked for next steps. No sense marching down the beach to the proposed landing spot, he decided; they had made one of their own, like it or not. Inland they would go. "We'll start the war from right here," he said.

Much of what has happened is unprecedented, like that invasion, and so shall be the adjustments. I was glad to be part of my congregation's vanguard, the first group back after a wait of much consternation. Our destinies, of course, are still waiting. We'll continue that preparation from right here.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

USA Today: Right Down There, Now, with the National Enquirer

I saw it on a newsstand leaving the drug store. I had to look and think twice to assure myself that yes, this was the publication; yes, this is what it was saying; and yes, it chose to do so.

Media sources change. Time has gone from being a center-right publication to decidedly liberal. National Geographic has doubled down on conservation and climate change issues, and never mind about broad sweeps of countries or cities that leave you feeling that every place on the globe is marvelous, when it isn't. Sports Illustrated has morphed into something of a 'happy news' publication, avoiding tough topics when it can. Golf magazine has increased its actual size, bigger than any other magazine I get, and moved from far less of a gateway to effective instruction to a review of courses surrounded by resorts that are meant for the very affluent, and equipment that can only be afforded by them.

All this is about more than a change in management. It's also about finding, or maybe re-finding, a reliable following and tailoring approaches to ensure consistent readership. So I get that. But when I saw that USA Today, usually reliably accurate, solidly conservative but never too much so and occasionally wandering left, had run this headline, I just shook my head.

To wit: Hybrid Babies. Hybrid, as in half-something and half-something else. In this case, half-human and half-animal.

Yes. Half-animal. Little infants with horns sticking out of their heads, or at least photographs purporting to demonstrate that. Top of the front page, no subtlety. This weekend's edition. Sitting right there, right on the newsstand.

Full reveal: I did not buy a copy. I let my imagination do the rest. Of course, it ran wild.

There are three ways such a thing could happen, if it can happen at all:

• A human mother to be impregnated by an animal; 
• An animal mother impregnated by a human father; or
• In vitro, as a result, one figures, of an experiment or something. Or maybe a mistake posing as an experiment.

I once read about the former in a decidedly porno novel while in college, half a century ago; the owner of it and I had quite the chuckle. I recall the paramour was a German shepherd, who apparently seemed to be enjoying it, as was the young lady. There was no follow-up as to gestation.

And I have heard about the second. In fact it's featured in Toni Morrison's book Beloved, which I also read many years later (No, I don't think I have a fixation on this. Neither should you.). Those recipients were sheep as a replacement for loneliness, paralleling the farm fable--or, maybe, not a fable after all. Not all novelists imagine everything in their novel's contents.

But USA Today? When it first hit the stands, it was criticized as being too homogeneous, too encompassing, too national and too general. Remember its full-page summary of events taking place in every individual state? They were less-than-one-paragraph snippets of items of interest, as measured by whomever perused that state's other newspapers and wanted us to absorb them. The snippets printed weren't that weird.

But at least it tried. It touched every base. It was decidedly mainstream, the kind of thing that hotels often put out on their front counters so that people would have something to tuck under their arms at airports, mildly informative but certainly not offensive. After all, if you're in Des Moines, flying to Seattle, native of neither, the news of Des Moines isn't likely to catch your eye.

In my flyover, traveling days, I used to read it. At least I knew a little about a little, and one never knew when some tidbit of information could be utilized in a speech that demonstrated to people in a particular state that while there's no way you could know all the issues going on within it, at least you were trying, too.

Maybe that page is still there. But I'm not sure what USA Today has turned into now. It sure isn't mainstream. It looks like it has replaced, or wants to replace, The National Enquirer as the tabloid you either really don't want to miss, or really do.

Or, maybe, it sees enough of a public willing to believe damn near anything (the curtain of which has been torn off by ex-'s ramblings) to understand that there is an enormous supply of crazies, so why not dive right in? I looked it up: as of 2019, the Enquirer had 2.1 million devotees each week.

Which means: Either USA Today is trying to cut into the Enquirer's support base, or it believes that there are millions more starving to absorb such bizarre information, or nonsense posing as information, about which of course we have just had four years of being forced into, causing head-shaking angst.

It returned in that moment, and I'm trying to get it out of my head. It'll take a while. Horns? Must be a cow, or maybe a goat. Or maybe just baloney; photos can be doctored. Can't think of anything else. Don't want to.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark