Note to Blinken: You Have to Improve Your Style

The Hon. Anthony Blinken

Secretary of State

Washington, DC 20001 

Dear Secretary Blinken:

This must be a really challenging time for you. The withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan and the handling of those who for some reason of another weren't able to leave just this very minute, has created logistical issues that are probably unprecedented in our or any other history. So you're under a great deal of stress, and that's understandable.

And of course, you're good at what you do. Joe Biden's no dummy, and he's observed you doing good things for a long time. But that underscores what I'm about to say.

We need to talk. I watched your speech last night concerning the withdrawal of our troops and next steps for our diplomacy, and I came away with two thoughts:

• Good policy
• Bad delivery

Yes, that matters. The land of politics has all kinds of landmines associated with it, the worst of which are self-inflicted. From what I came to experience on my own national level, it's balanced between the 'show' and the 'substance.' Sometimes it isn't easy to tell one from the other, but that's because some people are very, very good at both. Sadly, it doesn't appear that you are, sir. Your style needs some work.

Why? Because when it gets to the point where the delivery distracts from the message, people begin to switch the station. Then nobody's listening. Then you lose because the whole point is obscured.

Obviously, you never taught school, in which people quite clearly hang on your every word. You get that effect when it's close up, of course, and tend to lose it when talking to a nationwide audience. But I got better in my own speech delivery when I adjusted and told myself, It's all about teaching because the techniques and delivery are just about the same. Then I relaxed, and people liked me better.

Let me tell you what I saw. Remember, I've been guilty of these at various times, too:

• You spoke too quickly. For heaven's sake, man, slow down. You had a lot to say, yes, and it was all important. All the more reason why you must be more measured. I couldn't absorb one sentence until it was on to the next.
• Most of the time, a relative monotone. That translates to being a policy wonk. I suppose that that's what you are, but the public doesn't want to see that. It wants to see someone representing our foreign policy to the rest of the world. And I'm quite sure some of them asked themselves, Does this guy talk like this to everyone? The Chinese? The Germans? Everyone?
• If you're going to take a prop with you, then use it. You took the proverbial folder to the podium, opened it, then completely read from the teleprompter. Not that that's a bad idea, but you never looked down, not once. If you look down, you create the impression that you have useful notes. That makes you look thoughtful. If you don't, you look hypnotized by the teleprompter.
• A terrible exit. "Thanks for listening" isn't a bad idea as such, but you are the Secretary of State, not a guy spilling his guts to his counselor. You have to remember that you're addressing the whole nation, many of which want our governmental reps to mention something like "God bless our troops," which would have been a nice touch because (a) your boss, President Biden, says exactly that whenever he ends his speeches; and (b) we just lost 13 of them at once, most of them no more than kids, when some extremist idiot decided to set off his suicide vest. You also walked way too quickly, as if this was the very last thing you wanted to do. While you can't be blamed for thinking that, it's a very bad look.

President Biden is apparently going to address the nation about this debacle today. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries, however briefly, to say what a great job you're doing. I'm not sure that will put you in a better place in his mind, but he has to remind the country that you're in an incredibly difficult position right now, and that he appointed you to fill it and handle this extremely difficult situation. That's called "covering tracks," and if it happens, expect a meeting to be taken to the woodshed, so to speak.

I'm sorry to have to say this. But the very people who want to take you down are taking notes about this, and if they can't make particular fun of you and your faulty speechifying, they can be sure to get someone short on substance and long on delivery. 

Remember, they pretty much just got away with four years of that, and they think they can do it again. Think Mike Pompeo, the pompous windbag who said nearly nothing while representing, or trying to represent, a dangerous, destructive windbag who knew nothing about diplomacy and didn't think that mattered, either. You want him back?

I wish you well, sir. The following days will be filled with attempts at faulty retribution, including major hypocrisy by those who perpetuated this enormous mistake. You'll have to endure that, too, as well as challenges anew. You'll do it better, though, with a review of, and improvement in, your presentation style. Best of luck.

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

Mister Mark

Flash-Mobs: Where Did They Go?

I saw, again, something that's disappeared from our culture, and it's no real surprise: Flash-mobs.

Remember those? A bunch of people decide to get together and play something uplifting in a mall, in a courtyard, in some kind of passageway. They don't put out hats or boxes for people to fill. They don't stick around to discuss its deeper meaning, either. They just play and/or sing in a flash, and disappear in a flash. Have a nice day.

This one took place in Europe: Beethoven's Ode to Joy. Joy. An odd word nowadays.

Where did the flash-mobs go? They went the way of joy. For nobody else did anything else for any reason just to make a bunch of people they've never met feel better for a little while. It was like saying, Hey, you're a human being. That's reason enough to feel good. Here. Listen for a few minutes. You aren't so busy, now are you?

The anger has taken over, though. We can't do anything without complaint any longer. Find a cure for a terrible pandemic. End a war that's gone on far too long. Address what's probably the main problem in our society, that keeps it from really being a society, its racism.

Every time someone tries to stride toward some positive advance, it's struck down. The anger must be dealt with. 

That's what's wrong. It's being dealt with. It can't be ignored because it's been given oxygen and power. It's running wild through our souls, even if we want nothing to do with it.

Turn away from it, and it continues to confront. Get mad right back, and you've doubled the problem. Wait for it to run its course, and it takes over the whole course.

Flash-mobs need to return. We know the clinical reason why they aren't, of course: The threat of further spread of Covid. But vaccines are out there for everyone. Nobody needs to be that desperate anymore. That, alone, is worth celebrating, about breaking out into song. 

Someone can accompany the musicians now with a sign: We All Have Our Shots. Nothing flashy. Just reassuring. Okay, have them put on masks then. And play their asses off.

Because we need it. Everyone's tired of being beaten up. In actuality, though, the practice of flash-mobs and the reaction against them each began about ten years ago. You remember that, don't you? The world was a different place.

Because it had hope. The greatest nation in history had just elected a black man to be its president. A whole, enormous part of that nation could open the door the next morning and say to itself, maybe I can do that, too. Or just be something more than I am. Nobody said anything, but that began a streak of joy, a surge of possibility.

That is the essence of joy, to believe that new and better things are possible. To not be scared of it. To embrace it. To think that after a moment of that celebration, there would be more--not exactly knowing when or where, but to be assured that, like a flash-mob, another one's coming someday. Surprise! Let's be happy for a moment!

To be shown that joy in its best manifestation leaves one with the edges falling off, taking a deep sigh and leaving with a smile. When's the last time you did that? We did that?

I saw no flash-mobs when ex- was president. That wouldn't be de rigeur. No, there needed to be room, an elephant's sized room, for complaint, for reaction against, for those who needed to point out that life wasn't completely fair. Well, it wasn't. And it isn't. But complaining without positive action, on any level, gets you absolutely nowhere.

There was enough stress before they began and way too much now. The way to meet it is with something to like, to know we're all together about it, to know that for a few moments, humanity can share and enjoy. 

Enjoy. To experience joy. At no one's expense, which is joy, not schadenfreude.

What you see at the top of this essay is from California's coastline. Yes, it's beautiful. My gift to you today. Enjoy.

I have no idea who would get flash-mobs started again. I guess that's the point of them, huh? I wonder, though, if someone's had that idea, too. I hope so. I hope for hope.

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

Mister Mark

That's Enough Now. There's Little More That Could Be Expected.

Note to the New York Times: That's enough now.

Second-guessing is the art of the major media: We love it when it conforms and hate it when it doesn't. But it's still easy to do.

A firestorm of it has emerged, of course, while the tragedy of Afghanistan is finally played out. Lots of woulda-coulda-shoulda has echoed. Let's discuss some of them, and why they're conjured nonsense:

• The Taliban is raging: Of course they are. They've taken over. They'll full of themselves and should be. They've just defeated what was supposed to be the greatest military force of the greatest country in the world. Wouldn't you be a little cocky?
• They're starting to beat people up. Of course they are. Retribution is War Part Two. We were more polite with the Nazis and Japanese. We held war crimes trials before executing them. The Taliban aren't likely go to that trouble, and if they do, it'll be with their rules and their laws. They aren't like ours. But they won.
• They're not going to let Biden extend the deadline: Of course they won't. He gave them a date. They will now cling to it and make themselves believe that if we stay longer, it could be unfathomably long. It won't be, but remember: This is still war. We want to end it. It's still all on us.
• The international community is wringing its hands. But they won't lift a finger to help, at least not in Kabul. Tony Blair calls Biden "imbecilic" in his withdrawal, but remember, he backed Bush-43 in Iraq and sent folks to support that horrible mistake. So his views aren't exactly gold-plated.
• People are stuck. This could be a complete disaster. It will be for a few. But we've already cleared out 58,000 people. And there are Americans who, incredibly, want to stay. Considering the chaos, not bad with several days left and planes leaving by the hour.
• Suicide bombings have taken place. Of course they have. ISIS wants to get in on the carnage. This is literally the last chance the Muslim crazies have to be sent to Allah and their heavenly reward. I mean, a guy has to be pretty down on himself to think that he can't be saved any other way.

Again, take American exceptionalism and please put it in the nearest trashcan. Just because we say we want something doesn't mean everyone will stand aside and allow us to get it. We want the Taliban to play nice. That isn't how they got control, though. This could still get very, very messy.

The facade of American power is, basically, American air power. Of that, the Taliban has none. That will be our ultimate shield. If they shoot at us, they should be expected to be strafed and bombed.

But that's about it. We refused to sent enough troops to make a definitive difference. We said we had a goal in mind and we accomplished that goal. We took on human rights, especially for women, but found that insufficient to remain. Tells you something right there.

In the end, if most of the Afghans would rather have life itself than life without the Taliban, they have made that deal with themselves. Remember our Natives: Many of them made that same choice when confronted with vasty superior firepower. But remember, also, what lay in store for them: Deculturalization, the humiliation of living on poorly furnished and badly located reservations, and the concomitant alcoholism and poverty. Those issues linger still.

The Afghans, set upon already by religious fanatics, may be subjected to that same fate. And by the way: Vietnam is still communist and repressive. We recognized that government some twenty-plus years after we left, with the blood of 58,000 of our people in its soil.

This isn't a one-off anymore. It's time to recalibrate and figure out anew where we are in the world. But this time we have to call it straight. We have to make better judgments.

What we have said about that, though, is what we'll eventually say about this: Nice try.

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

Mister Mark

"I Alone Can Fix It": I Had to Read It. There Was More to Learn About Unusual Heroes.

I'll admit I hesitated. Reading about the disaster of the last year, I knew, wasn't going to be fun. But I figured I'd learn something, too.

I Alone Can Fix It is some top-shelf reporting from Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, who teamed up to also do A Very Stable Genius, about ex-'s presidency until the run-up to his first impeachment. They organize their information well; again, you're likely to say to yourself, Ohhhh, yeah: I remember that now, more than once.

You'll do it, too, with so much head-shaking that you might get a sore neck. The most informed among us, though, follow through the way Leonnig and Rucker did. They keep pursuing causes and results. I figured I had to as well.

I found out some interesting things, such as who the real patriots were in the middle of the imposed chaos that ex- specializes in:

• Mark Milley--the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He made a major gaffe at the outset, accompanying ex- to St. John's Church just outside of Lafayette Park during the demonstrations, but righted himself by admitting it (something ex- never does), and standing as a bulwark against ex-'s pipedream of imposing martial law over much of the nation to support his other pipedream--that the country will eventually knuckle under and support his bogus re-election (Ex- never says this, but you can see it on the horizon. He never tells anyone exactly what he has in mind; he waits until people have blundered themselves into position. Or, if they don't, he bullies them into compliance. That's his M.O.). He also told off Stephen Miller, ex-'s Rasputin to his Czar, more than once in ways you would have craved to have been in the room for. It was a delight to read about how Milley put that conniving little weasel in his place. More than anyone else, he made sure the ugly specter of fascism would not overwhelm our republic. We were on its very edge.
• Mark Esper--the Secretary of Defense, who also draws a clear red line when asked, kind of half-commanded, to bring out the troops to put down demonstrators in Washington, DC. Afterwards, if you recall, he made a public statement of reassurance, which subjects him to an f-word laden browbeating that very few could have endured--but he does, and walks away as a courageous defender of the Constitution.
• Ivanka Trump--Yeah, I know. Go figure. Attitudinally, across the board, she was considered just as heartless and cut-throat as her father. But behind the scenes, she also threw herself into trying to stop ex- from going overboard in his exhortations on January 6. She was there, but she said nothing at the rally. She knew it was wrong from the start.
• Chris Christie--Who sincerely tried to get ex- to give up the ghost and admit defeat. Clearly, the account of the phone call he had with ex- on November 7, 2020, was his alone, and probably done to give him a good look for the record, but it's obvious that some of the people who were closest to him really did try to get him to concede.
• Jared Kushner--Who seemed to be one of the more rational players in the entire sordid operation, partly because, in the very last few days of this awful administration, he was working in Israel for a Middle East deal with Qatar and got one.
• Pat Cipollone--The obnoxious defender of ex- at his first impeachment trial stayed on in the White House Counsel's office for the last two weeks, risking his reputation so that ex- couldn't become inclined to grant even more pardons than he did.

Besides those people who kept the small tugboat of rationality afloat in those last few days, this was, I thought, the most compelling resignation letter written by a former Cabinet member:

We should be highlighting and celebrating your Administration's many accomplishments on behalf of the American people. Instead, we are left to clean up the mess caused by violent protesters overrunning the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to undermine the people's business. That behavior was unconscionable for our country. There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me....Impressionable children are watching all of this, and they are learning from us. I believe we each have a moral obligation to exercise good judgement and model the behavior we hope they would emulate. They must know from us that America is greater than what transpired yesterday.

That letter was written by Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education. Few better refutations were written during that entire tension-filled period. Talk about undermining behavior--I had no time for the undermining she tried to do to our public school system. But even she had limits. Even she had a decent respect for the Constitution.

Those people, and a few others, constituted the thin line that separated our democracy from latent fascism, into which we would have slid quickly and horribly. You might have strong policy issues with them, but they deserve our thanks.

I doubt that nearly the same number of people who read Leonnig and Rucker's first book will be reading the second; there is an understandable inclination to walk away from the disgust and horror that ex- caused. But failure to remember is failure to follow up, and there is a clear chance that ex- will try again, what with state Republicans throughout the country doing their best to control the voting process. This nightmare can be repeated if we don't keep working to thwart it.

The book doesn't answer all questions, partly because some members of ex-'s administration would not allow their names to be used--which has to mean that there were some who were too scared to say anything at all. But the account rings solid and it is a superb job of reportage.

There are other tidbits that are remarkable. For instance:

• There is little doubt that ex- would have died of Covid-19 had he not gotten the absolute latest and even experimental treatment;
• There was more than one attorney who, obsessed with loyalty to ex-, urged him to remain on message with The Big Steal with minor examples from history that were largely irrelevant and legally inapplicable; and
• That in his more lucid moments, ex- understood that he had indeed lost and extraordinary efforts would be needed to get the public off that fact.

If nothing else, haul this considerable (over 500 pages) report from the bookstore shelves and read the last twenty pages, the Epilogue, consisting of the interview the authors managed to get with ex- two months after Joe Biden's inauguration. Ex- is as delusional as he can be, rambling and hyperbolizing anything and everything in order to convince the reporters that he still deserves to be president. And yes, he regretted not bringing in the military to stop the George Floyd protests. He also believed that the three Supreme Court justices he nominated owed him. The election "should have been reversed by the Supreme Court."

Read it and take it in. Then ask yourself: How much harder do we need to work to put this country back together? Where in the world do we begin?

But don't give up. This monster wants you to. He thinks we're weak. He must be shown, again, that we're not.

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

Mister Mark

Teaching and Knowing: What It Must Be Like To Be A Director

Good teaching amazes. People can't get enough of it. It's why Stephen Jay Gould's classes were loaded to standing room only at Harvard, and Robert Reich, too, at Brandeis. 

And Jesus of Nazareth, come to think of it. He didn't pull off that loaves and fishes deal just for laughs; all those people really needed all that food. He provided vittles along with great wisdom and learning.

When you see it, you latch onto it in whatever its form or format. That's why people in show business, be it in theater or film, wanted Mike Nichols: He taught them something they didn't know they didn't know. He was a teacher, yes, but also coach and philosopher and surrogate uncle to so many. He was hands-on, all-in.

It kept coming back through Mark Nichols' biography, Mike Nichols: A Life. If you look at him superficially, Nichols was just plain obsessed--with his craft, with the next thing to do, with himself. He rarely rested. He barely knew what that meant. As Harris points out, the week after he died, Nichols had a full schedule of meetings, and he was 83.

The creative spirit can do that: It can foster insatiability inside the soul. There's always something else to begin or do again, to do better. Perhaps the book should have been entitled, Mike Nichols: Never Rest.

The book has a certain rhythm, like Nichols' life. It can get monotonous, but only because from the outside, that's the way Nichols' life looked. After one show, good or bad, there would be another--casting, producing, and parties after the performances. But it's thorough and gives a sense of the roller-coaster that being in the Broadway-Hollywood mix can be.

In fact, it was turbulent, sometimes self-abusive, never easy, never in cruise control--not even with his fourth and final wife, journalist Diane Sawyer, with whom he had the best relationship. It was almost as if he couldn't stand to rest, didn't want to know what rest was like.

He was surrounded by beautiful women his entire life, some of whom he worked with, some with whom he became lovers, some of whom he married with obsessive attachment that later proved dulling. He loved the dramatic life, loved its dynamics, loved diving into the middle of problems and solving them, sometimes with a shoestring and a prayer.

Some of what he did was brilliant. In fact, most of it was, whether it attracted large crowds or not. Awareness of that drove him sometimes crazy. He won Tonys and Oscars galore. It never seemed enough.

Oddly, what he really needed to do was live down his previous reputation as part of a comedic act with Elaine May, who combined for perhaps the most sought after humor sketches in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They were sharp and wise and acerbic, always a step ahead of audiences who would cry out, "Oh, yeah, that's right."

It also made him an accomplished writer and actor, from which to draw his instruction and encouragement and pass them along to others. The rest was his acumen for the true meaning of teaching--not just instruction, but purposeful observation and getting the words just right to get inside people's heads to get them to do exactly what he was looking for. That, like it does for any teacher, takes trial-and-error and repetition, as well as doggedness and a willingness to tear things down and start all over again, listening to one's intuition and seeing what's evident: That things aren't working. That there's a way through the noise.

That's great teaching. It's reaching inside of people to get the most out of them--be in in a laboratory, on a soccer field, or on stage. It's making them uncomfortable on purpose. It's trouble-shooting and knowing when to take off the training wheels. It's driving the subjects through yet another take, another run-through. It's showing them that if they can do it while tired and on edge, they can do it when the lights go on. Practice is hard, but it's supposed to be hard. Within it, the reminder: This is bigger than you. This will work if you remember that.

Maybe it was his utter luck in even making it to America that drove him to prove himself beyond what was needed. He and his little brother were shoved onto a steamship in 1939 in Germany, just before the Nazis closed in. He was Jewish, and would probably have been just another of the amorphous, murdered six million, had his father not managed to bring him over just in time.

He had to find his sea legs in more than one way: His parents' marriage did not last. Due to a childhood malady, he lost his hair, never to return. His insistence on having a wig, his stubbornness in proving himself to be truly American, mirrors that of many immigrants.

Even before The Graduate, he had hit it big with Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple, embarking on a long and always fairly successful collaboration with Neil Simon. His resources were stretched by Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, largely by Richard Burton's odd schedule and his incessant drinking. But in the end, his brilliance eclipsed all.

He built enough of a reputation that when he excluded well-known stars for some of his productions, he got away with it and they came back to him. It had to be because of his underlying care for whatever he was involved in; his thoroughness and his ability to be both immersed and detached, one of them and independently chief creator.

This work can't help but be a bulwark of namedropping and some gossip if only because Nichols attracted the best performers of two generations. But Harris does so while connecting the way Nichols would probably have preferred it--to establish an attractive narrative. This he accomplishes while giving us a revue of some of the great Broadway and Hollywood productions and reminders of their, and Nichols', greatness: the greatness of superb teaching.

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

Mister Mark

We Knew What Cedarburg Would Do: Its Hypocrisy Is Pedestrian

Cedarburg's school board managed to dodge quite a bullet the other day when it voted to completely paint over a middle school mural that would stand as a reference to gay people. It found a bureaucratic barrier in the weeds, then underscored it with an uncompromising, decisive condemnation.

The sin, it will be officially declared, is not the message--to quote the sitcom "Seinfeld:" not that there's anything wrong with that--but the failure to ask if it could be created.

Fine and dandy. You can envision pairs of hands flicking each other. Took care of that.

Nothing preventing the artists from going through proper channels and asking to recreate the mural, right? Just try it, the school board is saying with fixed stare: We'll be happy to consider your request.

The temerity must have stunned them. Why, you can't admit openly that there are gay people here! What a blow to our prestige! (There aren't any, are there?)

And what a message: Love Is Universal. You mean everywhere? Okay, but we get to tell you where the love is and where and how it should be directed. We have nothing against love, you know. It's like ice cream: It's mostly good for you as long as you don't have too much of it. 

Don't overdo. It makes a mess. That's not the way this town is. Things are in their proper places. Look at Washington Avenue: Neat and clean with no garbage, well prepared for the retired folks who come up in busses from Chicago to buy trinkets and view what a really nice place this is.

Just think of how that image would be shattered if two gay people were spotted holding hands. Put them in the park, for heaven's sake. Nobody looks there.

It's the American answer to Singapore: Well-appointed, but don't alter the landscape. Free speech has never been free there and will never be. The Cedarburg creators stepped out of line. Mustn't do.

The mural's a good example of that, now isn't it? They had to go painting something that surprised people. Well, here's another surprise: It's now buried beneath whitewash. Put that in your hookah pipe, you hippie radicals.

We have happiness here, yes, but it has to be measured and moderate. We allow joy, but please keep it to yourself.

Anyone familiar with Cedarburg's pedestrian hypocrisy--I taught there for 30 years--knew very well what was going to happen. The immediate reaction was, and always has been, abject fear: Fear, this time, of being maybe a haven for homosexuals. That parents of gay kids would want to move in there and then what would happen?

How about--nothing? The same nothing that would have happened if the principal wouldn't have covered the mural when elementary kids came in during summer academy. 

Oh, maybe the kids would have asked questions. But then answers would have to be provided. More messes. Too complicated.

Who knew what could have happened? It could have created gay people. Right then and there, ten-year-olds would have changed their minds about their sexuality and everyone would have been really, really confused. Or, not.

We can't punish gay people the way they do in other countries; the Taliban is, once again, licking its chops in Afghanistan. But we can hide them and assume God will punish them. When she gets around to it.

The kids will be back in school soon. How will the teachers deal with this? Will they speak of it? Will they be cautioned not to? Or will they wait until someone does and then gets chastised to set an example to the rest?

Let's see what happens. Let's see if that gets put in the closet. Too.

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

Mister Mark

Raliegh's Triumph: Tears of Amazement in Tokyo

I must confess I really didn't get it at first. At the ultimate of her Olympic experience, Simone Biles went goofy in the head and couldn't get through with that for which she'd prepared five whole years.

Not just four, in a regular Olympiad. Five. Life has its rhythms, and this one was disrupted.

Had these Games been held on time last year, would she have performed flawlessly, as she had before? But there was extra time to focus on her, extra pressure, and that tells in ways we cannot always know. She got the 'twisties,' as they're called, and lost her way in the way athletes do when something happens and suddenly, they cannot cope; the putting 'yips' are comparable, missing a field goal, too. 

It all got to be a little much. The world closed in and did not relent. Yes, the pommel horse and the rings and all were the same, but there were no supporting cheers, no family, nobody else from home. 

They weren't just in another part of the world: They were in a completely different world with major stakes but without time to adjust. Some did fine with that. She did not.

Yes, I supported her when she dropped out of the competition, and yes, I cheered like hell when she came back and got a bronze medal on the beam. And not just because she was an American. Because she had won the greatest fight of all, the greatest challenge: When everything you have just shuts down and you find a way back, a way through the labyrinth of reconnecting mind to body. Gratefully, happily, incredibly, she got it done anyhow.

But it took until the closing ceremonies for me to completely get it. Because I saw--and if you were watching, you saw it, too--a fellow American also lose herself completely. It finally hit her. It started to sink in: This really happened.

Raliegh Washington, a member of the gold medal U.S. women's volleyball team, just plain lost it right then and there in the Olympic Stadium, while everybody else was strutting and jiving and grinning so wide you'd think their teeth would come right out of their mouths; in pride, in joy, in relief. Not her. She just couldn't handle it anymore.

Not because she'd lost. Because she won. The impostor of victory, as Kipling would put it, is just as incredibly powerful as the one of defeat. She sat right down on the ground and bawled her eyes out. She stared at that gold medal and, I'll bet, thought about all the sacrifices she had to make to get it--including for a whole extra year while the powers that be were trying to figure out how, or if, to pull these Games off. 

All of that washed over her. It all got to be a little much. Gratefully, happily, incredibly, the world closed in and did not relent, this time in celebration and amazement.

So she pulled off to the side of the road, so to speak, and took it all in. The moment was passing. The time would soon be gone. That, too, must have tugged at her. The whole Olympic experience feels like it won't ever end, but in fact it lasts just two and a half weeks. Then the stage closes and your claim to fame must either be renewed, or it disappears. 

The moment one prepares for so long often comes and goes in a flash. The greatness of life, too, is, like tragedy, often unfair like that. But having done it, you can relive it whenever you want. You often don't realize how much it's changed you until later. But it has. It does.

More sober forces were wanting to cancel these Olympics, to give in to the virus and cry uncle. Then you watch these kids--they are kids, you know--strain and gain and give the ultimate of themselves, come what may, and you reconnect a little something about yourself: Not just as you used to be, but as you still are, whatever you have left. And you conclude something that wants to come back now: Life is for living, living wide open, being all one can still be. (But people have to get the damn vaccine! Come on!)

Yes, it was about money already spent and the astronomical amounts that would be lost: The cynicism behind that can't be hidden. But it was also about fulfilling commitments and backing the commitment these kids had made. Enough nonsense has already happened to politically bar otherwise innocent competitors, as it had in 1980 and 1984, when boycotts held great athletes back. That all came and went and, looking back, what was it really for? What did it accomplish?

Accomplishment: That was their North Star in Tokyo and for some of them, it will also be Paris in 2024. Unquestionably, the results of these Olympics were skewed by the extra year of waiting, when some grew more into their bodies and some grew out, when hybrid training had to be done haphazardly but with all the more devotion and intensity. Records were still broken. They still amazed us, and themselves.

And they turned to each other with respect. American Katie Ledecky lost races in which she formerly was a shoo-in to the Australian Ariarne Titmus. They hugged when it was over. But Ledecky never hesitated when asked about retiring: No way. A new game is on. Let's get after it. See you in Paris.

The Qatari and Italian high jumpers who decided, right there on the spot, to share their victory and each claim a gold medal--in a year, who will really care?--embraced not only each other but the deeper meaning of the Games: To honor each other's humanity and greatness. It isn't like every little kid, with badly-fitting uniforms hanging off of them, getting a medal at a Little League tournament: They didn't just show up. The whole world was watching.

That's why I like the closing ceremonies, bizarre as they were this time without crowds, when people march in as countries but walk out as the friends they have made. Compared with the rest of the planet, of course, they're not a very large number of people. But they showed us again that if you dig deep enough, enough is there. On a level playing field, there is much to be gained, even if you don't see it at first.

Onward we go, to Beijing for the Winter Games in six months now, and just three years to go before more Summer Games. I hope none of them got sick; that would be too cruel. But they were happy to take the risk.

Part of the human adventure is about that, and I for one thank them for indulging. We need to watch more good things done in good ways with good intentions. We can't have it too quickly. We're still bouncing back.

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

Mister Mark

Bradley Foundation: Paying for the Big Lie and the Surprising People Behind It

You may have heard of the Bradley Foundation. It's one of America's tributes to the idea that if you have enough money, you can in the name of something that sounds ultimately American, advertise anything, make anything up, exaggerate anything you don't like, and lie about anything--and get your own way because if you repeat it often enough and pay for the advertising of it, people in power start to believe you. Besides, they can't afford to run for office without its support, so they mouth their backing whether they really follow it or not.

It's also best known for, up to this point anyhow, its biggest fabrication that it's foisted upon the American public, that the public school system is a conspiracy and monopoly of unions that needs to be dismantled and reduced to a manageably manipulated size. Only then can it be saved from things like godlessness (without school prayer) and utter lack of morality (ditto, as if that would do it), group learning, lack of basics (so it claimed) and (now) critical race theory--which, I assure you, more than half of all middle school and high school social studies teachers never heard of until some twisted radical conservative decided to bring it forward and attach it to what they're doing.

So it weaseled vouchers into the system, getting parents the 'right' to pay for their children's education wherever they wished. That has drained the public system gradually, consecutively, and devastatingly of its needed resources. It has established a fait accompli to show people that public education doesn't work, which it sure doesn't with a pre-arranged lack of proper funding. It paid, too, to get judges either elected or selected (the route doesn't really matter, what with all that money available to pay for how many elections that needed to be won) to rule that the Constitution allowed such 'freedom,' which is defined however it needs to be defined in order for the Bradley Foundation to get whatever it wants.

So while it would be slightly (just slightly) misleading to say that the Bradley Foundation, located in Milwaukee, my hometown, owns the United States of America, it has subverted democracy enough for people, especially conservatives, to defer to it to embark on whatever nonsense they wish to. It has done so again, and in a way even more dangerous to all of us. It's an even bigger fabrication than the need for vouchers. Way-way. It plays the music to which they dance.

It's now paying the bulk of the freight for the Big Lie. That's right. The recounts and the propaganda behind it--the oxygen it needs--are primarily being funded by the Bradley Foundation. It's running wild now, with little of substance in its way.

Or so Jane Mayer, reporter extraordinaire, discovered upon her digging for her latest article in The New Yorker, for which she's a staff writer, "The Big Money Behind the Big Lie." She's also the author of the blockbuster book, Dark Money, which pretty much summarized the extent to which barely traceable money has fulfilled the fears of those opposing the Citizens United Supreme Court case, now eleven years old.

In eleven years, you would think that big money would have had the chance to exert its grip upon our political processes. You would be right. It's also quite good at hiding its tracks. But Jane Mayer's a bulldog, and she's unearthed some complicated connections here. If you've heard of the following:

• Heritage Foundation;
• American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC);
• Honest Elections Project;
• Election Integrity Project California; and
• Freedom Works--

For starters--there are certainly more--you're dealing with Bradley Foundation money, in whole or in part. You just create new organizations that sound independent but actually aren't. As has been said endlessly--follow the money.

Mayer's article also revealed something that's troubling me. One of the Bradley Foundation's members of its board of directors is Paul Clement. Clement graduated from Cedarburg High School (He took a couple of my courses, and thought back then that I was pretty good; as a clerk for Justice Scalia, he arranged for me to attend a Supreme Court open session then got me a private docent for a tour of the building) a while back and has put himself into the position of being one of the most sought-after lawyers if one finds themselves needing to argue in front of the Supreme Court. He is a conservative, which I do not hold against him. It's a big country, and Cedarburg has its share of conservatives. He was a terrific student.

But to be connected with the major funding source of Stop the Steal is not indicative of who he has been. Regardless of the prestige with which he is respected in Washington--one of the most highly-ranked people who has never been elected to public office (though he has been Deputy Solicitor General and Solicitor General under Bush-43, appointed positions)--I think this is a back-door effort at still more ambition: the Supreme Court itself, whenever the next Republican president gets elected. Clement is just the right age to serve a long and influential term, too. His experiential record is unchallengeable.

I think he's selling his soul, though, because he's always been smarter than this. Nobody can be behind Stop the Steal who is not closely connected to ex-'s cult of personality; you can't have it both ways. Whether this is an attempt at strategic positioning with self-justifying craftiness, or if he has drifted into this position, it is not patriotic whatsoever. It subverts democracy, and I am astonished and sad about this. 

It would be nearing incredulity to think that Clement didn't know about the Bradley Foundation's surreptitious connection. Perhaps it's his local connection, plus his Washington-based prestige, that has influenced the Bradley Foundation to reach out to him and add him to its luster. Now, though, it has attached him to this attempt at underhanded nonsense.

Be certain: I did not fill him with the kinds of ideas that he now must support. Although he's now certainly more learned than I ever was, I do know that his learning career began with someone who taught him respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Stop the Steal represents quite the opposite. 

It is not easy to write this, but life is long, and sometimes one must depart from those who he once valued. Perhaps this is such a moment. I used to be proud of Paul Clement and what I taught him, but I cannot be proud of this. The bonds of sentimentality have been ruptured. My country comes first.

If I'm wrong about something here, I'm happy to admit it. If he were speaking with me now, I would ask him his motivation to put his name behind this subversion. Is there something I got wrong? I would ask. There we were in a little high school in Wisconsin, so maybe I unknowingly constructed an ivory tower that distorted reality. If so, please tell me. I've learned a few things myself. But then, I reached out to you while I had an office in D.C. and you did not respond. It's not like I didn't try to catch up.

It may be just another example of how adherence to a bullying, ranting fool, in the name of the appearances of loyalty, has gained such power that people who crave that power must turn themselves into something nobody who once knew them recognizes. Politics can do that, even or especially if one tries hard not to appear political. But there will be a price, even if one doesn't foresee it at a given moment. The Faustian dancing is done first, but the fiddler must be paid. I, too, have learned that.

It's just another example of the darkness to which so many have turned. This cannot go well. And the Bradley Foundation must be curtailed. In the name of raw power and a pure form of libertarianism that cannot be functional for any but the richest people, it is trying to control America. It cannot succeed.

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

Mister Mark

From the U.K., of All Places, Clarification on Covid; Fools Not Only Exposed, But Now Dangerous

I have a pen pal in the United Kingdom who provides me with interesting information based on solid research, or not so solid, as this virus and variants wreak havoc amongst us all over the world. 

But a video I was sent the other day provides some clarification about the new outbreak in the coronavirus saga: the Delta variant.

A British physician on You Tube had cut through the haze and focused on what people knew versus what could be proven. Again and again, he said that America, especially the CDC, is slow on the uptake. It's so careful not to go overboard that it overdelays confirmation of what, in practice, nearly everybody knows.

Yes, the Delta variant is awful. Yes, you can get sick from it much, much faster, and it's starting to go from a crawl to a gallop. But if you've gotten the vaccine, you're still in much, much better shape than someone who hasn't.

Which means: You may feel lousy for a while. But in all likelihood, you won't need to go to the hospital. And dying from it is very, very unlikely: Far more unlikely than it would be if you never got it. The numbers can't be denied.

If you don't want it--and who the hell does?--you need to mask up again, especially indoors. Freedom from the annoyance of breathing through a mask isn't over, then. But I never did throw away my masks, and I have a decent (for now) supply of one-use supplements. Time to get them back out again.

If it were only that. But the numbers are starting to spike, and with it, hospital beds will fill once more. That wouldn't matter, normally, either, but those are beds the rest of us won't be able to use if we are sick or injured from something else that would be entitled "normal" in the everyday passage of life.

The worm of resentment has turned. Those unvaccinated complain that those who have had the shots consider them stupid or inferior. Well, yes. I haven't met many of them and now the reason why I'd rather not has been doubled down. Who wants to intentionally get to know someone who's far more likely to be sick from this malady and absolutely guaranteed to be unprotected from it? Is that an expression of superiority, or one of logic?

I've written this here before and I'll say so again: Instead of those who have actually been vaccinated getting cards proving it, there is now a need for those who haven't to tell everybody who have to stay the hell away. Taking the whole country into consideration, the latter are about twice as few as the former, so the burden now belongs to them. The danger still lurks, and they are far more likely to be carrying it than someone like me would.

I met someone like that the other day. He's adamantly refusing to get vaccinated. He said it was "not [my] business" to know why. I later learned, from someone else, that he's a Christian Scientist. Okay, that explains it, but I'm wondering why he didn't tell me. Did he think I would ridicule his religion? Or just him? 

If he's attaching his refusal to his beliefs, he should, I would think, be proud to profess them. Resisting an explanation points to false piety and hiding another reason. Admitting that Biden's right? That's the reason he's risking death?

I don't get these people. I can't get him tied to the stake. I'm sure not going to talk him out of it, ridiculous (and dangerous, including to himself) as his position might be. How sensitive will he be when he gets into the hospital and gets that awful thing shoved down his throat?

I also met the surviving member of a family that lost its father. He got pneumonia, Covid on top of that, and Covid pneumonia on top of that. He had a respirator for an entire month. They removed it a couple of days after Christmas. He lasted, she said, maybe 15 minutes.

Of course, many of those unvaccinated would freak out at the latest vestiges of government control. But like the fines leveled at some ridiculous members of Congress for going maskless--which have been renewed--the price to pay the fiddler might indeed bring them around. I don't know. Feels like the only option left before they may start to die, again, in enormous numbers.

I'm getting tested again just in case. It's much easier now, and a much faster response. The Delta variant's way too ornery. Besides, I want to stick around a little longer.

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

Mister Mark