Feast of the Holy Innocents. That Gets It About Right.

I'm writing this on Memorial Day, when we are supposed to set aside things and think about those who gave their lives for this country. It's a good idea. We should do that.

But a new list of those dying before their time is growing. They were, and are, children. They get taken from us by lonely psychopaths with, mostly, automatic weapons. We need to set aside a day, now, to consider that, and to consider why that has happened.

I've lost step with the Catholic Church, largely because I've stepped away from it. But the other day, I recalled that somewhere in its liturgy, there is a day devoted to innocent children dying for no good reason.

That would be the Feast of the Holy Innocents, on December 28. If you recall the basis of the birth of the savior of the world in a little stable outside of Bethlehem, it is because King Herod was after him. To be thorough, he decided that the oldest child of each family be sacrificed so that, in the end, he'd get the one he was after.

Governments, when acting purposefully, can be quite thorough. Of course, it didn't work. But nobody kept track of the numbers of innocents that did get murdered. So the church decided that the best it could do is recognize the barbarity with a separate day devoted to the victims.

I like that calendar selection, between Christmas and New Year's. It's a quiet time. Nobody expects anything big to develop then. There aren't a lot of 'other things' going on. All the better to set a day like that aside.

Not that anybody has recognized it much. But maybe we should recalibrate that day, now that dozens of innocent children are getting slaughtered, for no good reason, usually in our schools.

For we need that now. We need to remind ourselves of the uselessness of what is going on, the utter nihilism, the meaninglessness, of rubbing out lives barely begun. We need to remind ourselves of the wanton devastation wrought to communities which only wanted to get on with their lives.

The only thing we've good at regarding those tragedies, up until now, is the determination of getting beyond them, to pretend that life merely goes on. We haven't, and it isn't. That continues to haunt.

So we need a day to remind us. All kinds of good may come from it. Maybe.

Maybe people will come to see, once again, that schools need funding to protect themselves.

Maybe people will see, again, that like when they attended, schools are places of energy and fun and accomplishment, places where kids can get hold of themselves in mass self-actualization.

Maybe they will see that schools are largely good places, even if they aren't perfect.

Maybe they will remind themselves of the carnage, of the atrocity amidst which we live on increasingly borrowed time. Maybe they will tell themselves that something has to be done about it that will make some of us uncomfortable, but at least they will still remain alive to feel that way. Better that than riddled with bullets designed to make short work of us.

Now, what exactly to call it? You shouldn't bogart a name like that from a church. Besides, assuming that all the kids were holy would be presumptuous--though those of us believing in an afterlife would like to think that their souls went to a good place, undeserved that their deaths were.

We have to call it something that connects their murders to the devices that delivered their ghastly, bloody ends, something that reminds us of the guns that sent them there. At the moment, I'm not that clever. Something to do with helplessness, though. That strikes the right tone.

But the date matters. It must be a date that dovetails with other thinking presently going on. It must revitalize, at least for that moment, the place from whence we have sprung. It must remind of us work we must yet do.

The anti-abortionists gather to protest on January 22, the date that the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade was made (though I wonder whether they will any longer now that that decision seems destined to be overturned). They unite to mourn lives not begun. I wonder if they will approve of a celebration of the end of lives barely begun--or that somehow, they can ascertain a difference.

Maybe that should be the name for the national memorial to those slaughtered in school shootings. We should gather there, in a place otherwise uncelebrated, in western South Dakota (see the previous blog), on December 28. We should make sure the news media sends someone there. 

Maybe it doesn't yet surpass, say, September 11 for the sheer numbers of those slaughtered. But it will. Count on it. There have been twenty-seven school shootings so far this year in the U.S., including a curiously underreported one in a fairly tony part of Washington, DC that I bet you don't know about, one that could have brought at least as much devastation as that of Uvalde, Texas, one that I will write about soon.

Three thousand dead at the World Trade Center? That won't seem like a very big number at all. And we will never, ever be through with this, either. Never. The number will grow with a grinding inevitability that will crush us beneath it.

I have no idea what such a thing would look like, nor would I make any attempt to design it. My skills, such as they are, are limited to words on a printed page. But the more I write, the more it calls out. The more they call out; the innocents.

Who's with me on December 28? Somehow, I don't think the Catholics, as devoted as some of them are to ruining public schools, are going to mind much.

Because they're all innocent, all the dead kids. I'm betting none of them would have hurt a flea. And now they're gone, violently, despicably, ridiculously.

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

Mister Mark

A Memorial to All the Dead Children? They Certainly Deserve It.

Emporia, Kansas, is another one of those little towns that happens to have a university attached to it that few people know about--Emporia State. It's a couple of hours southwest of Topeka.

It prides itself on education development, most specifically teacher training. A student who really wants to know how to teach, the nuts and bolts of it all, would do worse than attending college there. There are no great stadiums and/or arenas to fill up on evenings and afternoons, of course; that is reserved for the bigger names. That's okay. Teaching, at its best, is like that. No empty bragging.

During my time on the NEA Executive Committee, I was assigned to go there once a year and help select the five newest members of what was developed there to honor the best teachers among us: The National Teachers Hall of Fame. This is separate from the more celebrated, but just as much fun, process of selecting the National Teacher of the Year, done in Washington, DC, and usually honored in the Rose Garden of the White House, something I was also involved with for a couple of years. The processes were totally differen and, not surprisingly, few in any nominated appeared on both lists, at least not to my recollection. Meaning: There are lots of really outstanding teachers out there. That's just scraping the very top of the list.

While very little else of note will ever be developed in Emporia, Kansas, I thought that an addition made after my service had ended was a good one: A memorial to those teachers killed while doing their jobs. It's right on the Emporia State campus, on 18th and Merchant Streets, for anyone to stop and consider.

There will be two more names added now, having been in the wrong place at the wrong, barbaric moment: Irma Garcia, whose husband subsequently died of a heart attack, in her 23rd year of teaching at the same school, 48; and Eva Mirales, whose husband is a school district police officer, in her 17th year of teaching, 44.

At least they're up somewhere. They won't be dead and forgotten. Emporia may not be a magnet for tourism, but from now on, someone will say their names beyond Uvalde, Texas. I hope there's still room on there. It's filling up slowly but surely in this sick, sad, stricken nation of ours.

They should be honored. They served the country as much in their own way as those we will honor again on Monday, who put on a military uniform, put themselves in harm's way and did not return. That they are shoved into a quiet little corner of Kansas, way-way off the beaten path, is a testimony to the relative anonymity of teaching--but not of its impact.

But what about the kids? Yes, crosses and soothing commentary now appear outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and they will no doubt stay there for an extended time. But should that just be confined to that place? Shouldn't there be another memorial dedicated to the children who have died in these despicable attacks? Shouldn't their names be displayed where people can always see them? Is that too maudlin, or should we remind ourselves of the tragedy of lost years and lost childhood?

Which begs another question: Where should it be? 

Here's another question: Does that matter? If little Emporia, Kansas, has a memorial for slain teachers that few will see, doesn't that justify putting a children's memorial in a place where more will see it? Or is it enough to just get something up?

I'm not sure of that answer. But something should be considered. We need to remind ourselves of how awful this nation has become. It isn't too much to ask to find a way to perpetually honor these kids. All they wanted to do was their homework. They got gunned down instead.

The geographical center of the United States, which isn't going to move anytime soon (as opposed to the population center, which is always moving), is in western South Dakota, near a town called Belle Fourche (big enough to be included in the National Geographic Atlas of the World), not far from the Wyoming border. It is right up against the foothills of the Black Hills, where another group of forgotten Americans cling to their tradition and burial grounds.

Let's start another tradition there--the tradition of listing the names of the children who have been murdered in their schoolrooms or school grounds. Let's build a memorial there and leave plenty of room for the dozens more who will no doubt be added because a stricken country is too paralyzed, now, to do the right and decent things about the weapons that put them there.

Anybody with me? Anyone else want to expand Memorial Day to include these innocents?

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

Mister Mark

Teachers All Over Cried Tuesday. Believe It.

All over this ailing nation, teachers cried Tuesday. They may still be crying.

They're crying because they hear the children crying. For not all of them died instantly. You can count on that. They cried out for their Mom and Dad, knowing they were beyond help.

Maybe that's why the murderer wiped some of them out such that the parents had to endure swabbing to guarantee a DNA match so that they could ensure identification. He probably couldn't stand the wailing he hadn't planned for, so he shot them again, shot them in the face to turn it off.

Teachers feel that agony. It is nearly too much. I felt it, too, while watching the now almost rote reports of this sick phenomena the corner for which only America has. I've no doubt that many had to turn off the TV, too.

Nobody who has spent a career in schools can detach from feeling what the parents of a new set of dead kids must be feeling. It's inevitable for them.

The abject emptiness, first of all. They understand that 19 helpless children and two teachers, wanting no more than to make it to summer vacation just two days away, are at once wiped from the map of humanity.

Yes, we now know that the local police messed up. If you aren't used to a situation, if. you can't visualize that the ultimate evil is upon you, you'll fall back on the presumption that all is or can still be well. But that shouldn't deflect us from the real issues.

So much joy, so much energy. Gone. So many possibilities, too.

For that's why those who stay in education do so: To embrace possibilities, so see all that in front of them. It drives them on. It allows them to endure the junk that gets in the way of it, junk that, sadly, the system provides for them all too often.

It allows them to endure someone else's theory and change in tactics: Let's try this. It causes them to roll their eyes in acceptance of the next great idea that never, ever has enough funding to ensure that it will even be tried completely, much less allowed to succeed. As they age, there is more eye-rolling.

But never complete despair. "You may give up on yourselves," I was fond of saying to each group I taught toward the end of my career, "but we will never give up on you."

Sometimes, someone needs to send that exact message and someone needs to hear it. For them, too, stuff gets in the way of the core issue: Doing well. Fulfilling one's potential, regardless of what that may be. Not so good in math, maybe, but a sure ace in English. You know, like that.

In 4th grade, kids need to hear that a lot. It's early for them, but their awareness is building. They can begin to see the world in front of them now. They can't help it; there are too many outside stimuli, far more than anyone reading this needed to absorb when they were that age. They need to hear: Not gonna be easy, but you've got this.

I know nothing about the gunman--journalism will handle that in the coming days--but in all likelihood, he sat in someone's 4th grade class once. He might have been hopeful and energetic. He might have had a sense of humor once, too. He must have lost all that somewhere. Darkness must have taken over.

If one of the first things he did after gaining the age of adulthood (certainly not adulthood in actuality) was to go out and get an automatic weapon, the purpose for which was never in doubt, something had already settled within him that was wicked and awful and, in the end, bullying. For only a bully storms a helpless education classroom and takes it over by slaughtering innocents. 

It's the same mentality to pick on someone else with name-calling and noises and transmitting their obvious inferiority. It's just taken to the nth degree, is all.

But bullies have terrible self-esteem. The murderer had to know that he wasn't going to survive that day, regardless of his plans. Or, he somehow had acquired such invincibility that he thought he would somehow escape.

Either way, he has inflicted incredible pain upon far more people than his nihilism could ever embrace. People are suffering now, suffering in empathy, suffering in vacant rooms once filled with joy, suffering out loud, suffering in silence.

Suffering, too, because it seems that the people who should act in common sense can't, or won't, once again. They make up solutions that provide phony bulwarks, strawmen that exist only in their own minds, to get the conversation behind them because the reality is too great for them to handle, too:

• Arm the teachers--Someone dusted this one off and brought it back. This would have been done already if teachers wanted to. But they don't want to. The reasons are so obvious that only a mindless dolt could have come up with it.
• Put retired military service or police in there--As if you could find enough of them willing to put their lives on the line again? Milwaukee can't even get enough lifeguards, despite raising the base wage, to guard more than four of 22 pools this summer. And you want to do what?

But never the weapons. Can't touch those. That's the other Big Lie that we've had to put up with for more than 30 years now, and still advancing: That someone wants to take away everyone's guns, that removing automatic weapons are a slippery slope, that mental health should be a greater priority.

Mental health will be a priority in Uvalde, Texas, you can count on that. For where does a school go after this? What does a community do? It never wanted to add to the growing list of places condemned forever to be a testament to our ridiculous obsession with guns and their effects: El Paso, San Bernardino, Oak Creek, Orlando, Parkview High, Columbine High, and the rest.

And of course, what do these families do? Recovery is impossible. How many will go sideways?

For the teachers there--perpetual haunting: That could have been me. Survivor guilt? Highly possible.

And tears. They have not ended, not by a long shot. There, and elsewhere. Teachers are not numb. They never will be. Thank goodness for their tears, ironically. It shows we have some soul left amongst us.

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

Mister Mark

A Maven to Remind Us from Whence We've Sprung

Marie Yovanovitch impresses me as a prim and proper little (she's quite diminutive) duck, paddling like crazy beneath the surface. Service is her watchword: Decent, respectful, meaningful service. In that realm, she would loom larger than even she had figured.

Her memoir of her foreign service, most of which took place in the old Soviet Union, Lessons from the Edge, depicts a career filled with challenges you and I would quickly, and gladly, shy away from: bullets whizzing by in places like Somalia and Russia, for instance, where civil wars dominated the proceedings. Few of us think about foreign service officers like her slogging within the chaos and frightening conflict. We got just a taste of it when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for whom Yovanovich once worked, got dragged through useless Republican smearing when Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in Benghazi in 2012. Coping with foreign violence happens out there all the time.

Within it all, she constantly had to remind herself to keep her head down and do her duty. That, and a dogged, fierce devotion to her father's advice--"Just do the best you can. That's all anyone can expect of you," she gradually worked her way into one of the most significant foreign service positions--perhaps now the most significant, in retrospect--of ambassador to Ukraine, then a decidedly apolitical appointment that turned out to be one of the most political of the past half-century.

First, though, she had to battle her way through a foreign service that was thoroughly a man's world--"male, pale, and Yale." She had the brains and she knew what she wanted, though. Enough people saw her sincerity and talent to fit her through more than one needle. Her accounts of dealing with foreign leaders, most of whom wanted to grease their own palms sufficiently to justify dealing with the richest nation on earth, are a sad forerunner of what we, and she, had to deal with after 2017.

She got caught in the switches because the biggest weasel to ever live in the White House, backed by an even bigger weasel, Rudy Giuliani, who wished in his sycophantic zeal to lubricate the skids for a second term, tried to manipulate and lie and obfuscate corruptive intent onto Yovanovitch, simply because she would be the last person to do such nefarious actions. Because of her unbudgeable integrity, she would be in the way of ex- attempting to smear Joe Biden and the Ukrainians into a image of doing to the country what the Russians did in the previous presidential campaign.

It was all done badly and clumsily and wickedly, and reeked of transparency. It got Giuliani's boss impeached, even though we all knew the outcome of that far before it happened. The two of them, obsessed with image, took a look at the little woman, who otherwise would never hurt a flea, and probably figured that raining sudden corruption charges upon her would result in her slinking away without a peep.

They figured wrong. Finally adjusting to the new reality, she finally concluded that her once helpful but now albatross-like idealism about the facts and justice would not be sufficiently served if she just let the process happen. Seeing the same corruption that she vowed to oppose in Ukraine play out right in front of her in Washington, she turned to fight. She got good lawyers who volunteered their services pro bono and managed to dodge another sycophant, the excessively religiously afflicted Mike Pompeo, who happened to be her latest boss at State. She responded to Congress' (read: Democrats') wish to set the record straight and testify at two hearings: one closed door, the other very open door.

By the time you've managed to get there, at the very end of the book, you kind of figure: She's got this. She'd been through so many dangers and balancing acts that a few nasty, twisting, manipulative Republicans weren't going to bother her all that much. She saw them coming, and with the help and support of lawyers and family, stood strong as she stared them down.

She had this much figured out: They wouldn't see her cry. That way, they couldn't dismiss her as yet another weak woman. Whatever else they would throw at her, that much would remain her dominant attitude.

They tried to catch her by asking her to recount her activities again and again, much like detectives trying to wear out a guilty suspect. She wouldn't let them, though she wearied through the effort. Her time abroad and her experiences had attached a firm savvy; by that time, she was no one's fool.

For Republicans to believe the nonsense that got Yovanovitch in front of a hearing at all, for them to double down on their narrowness to convince themselves that she had something to hide, is and should be added to a long list of national embarrassments. For them to convince themselves that she was the one who should be investigated for corruption is one of the most awful Orwellian twists on the meanings of words that could ever be attempted by weak politicians.

The writing of the memoir is dense. Yovanovitch must have kept a detailed journal because her accounts of conversations and events are so vivid. I would have wished for more actual conversations with people being quoted, because such inclusions move the intense narrative better. But once you dive into her story, it isn't prohibitive. You realize, above all, that a career in foreign service, if done right, is remarkably selfless and is the essence of servitude. All this for poor slobs like you and me, who thought they knew something about diplomacy but never knew the details which make our foreign involvement what it is.

I met a couple of these people when I represented the NEA in Ankara, Turkey, in late 2004. I couldn't be anything but impressed by their steadfastness in sticking with the facts, even though they were working for an administration they might have opposed. They were professional and very helpful--just what you want Americans to be for other Americans in a foreign land that wasn't especially embracing, even at that point.

You can't help but marvel as you ask yourself if there are still people like that, pure and humble (an essential quality) patriots? Isn't it ironic that to remain that way, they have be so distant, so far from the internal chaos and disruptiveness that we're presently undergoing?

I was a bit disappointed, though, that in her epilogue, she deals only with the shoring up of the foreign service and the public's need to know more about it. She assumes, unfortunately, that we will somehow get past our present maladies. Her focus is to forge onward into a future in which foreign affairs are restored to their prominence. We aren't there, though. One of the most important things that's on the table--and won't be solved immediately--is if we will deal with other countries in all but a tertiary way. 

Ex- didn't want to. Think of him in office now, with Ukraine under fire. He wouldn't have done a thing. In fact, he might have seized this time as the best one to get out of NATO. That would have served Putin perfectly, as he appeared to have done anyhow.

Marie Yovanovitch is a maven, though, who put pen to paper to remind us from whence we've sprung. In her work, she makes a solid contribution to the history of a confused era--not only her record, but what she actually did. She is a great American. She has lived a great life. When you're finished with this, you can't help but still think we have a chance to continue to matter in the world because there are still people like her around.

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

Mister Mark

Far As I'm Concerned, Water Street Is Russia

We all know about the disgusting invasion by the white supremacist kid (because that's what he is, a legal adult but just 18) in a Buffalo supermarket. This is an outrageous violation with clear racial portent. We shake our heads in near despair.

I've got another place with what should be similar reactions, but for different reasons: Milwaukee, where I live. But nobody's stating what's really going on, because we're too 'woke' to face it and besides, any mention of the reality will bring down accusations of racism. Maybe.

But somebody has to say it: Just a couple of miles from my residence, for a considerable amount of time but it's in acceleration now, black people are shooting other black people at staggering rates.

This is in tandem with a new emergence of black leadership in the city. The new mayor is black. The chief of police is black. The county sheriff is black. I do not envy them one whit. But, besides the clear problem, this must embarrass them considerably.

None of them are stating the obvious yet. Nobody's calling out their own race as the major perpetrators of unprecedented violence, one assault at a time, just east of the Milwaukee River. Shootings in the normally black neighborhoods of the northwest side have accelerated, too. 

We have learned to compartmentalize those violent acts. Nobody else goes there who needs to do business in the city. Nobody else shops there, goes to the park, goes to church. Yes, that means de facto segregation that is thorough and unyielding. But safe is still the number one word in livability.

Water Street, though? Water Street used to be a thriving center of restaurants, bars, and nightclubs in the downtown Milwaukee area, just north of the entertainment district (PAC, etc.). It absolutely jumped on Friday nights. With some wisdom, the Milwaukee Bucks decided to build yet another major arena, the FiServ Forum, just north of the Bradley Center, which used to host the team. From Water Street, 

it's a simple walk to the Forum.

Last year's team surged at just the right time and won the NBA championship, the first for such a small professional sports market in 50 years. The night of the clinching of the title, though, there were a few shots fired in what's become known as the Deer District, an open-air courtyard in front of the arena, which has clandestinely become a gathering place for those without the money to pay for the tickets one needs to actually see the team, which increase upon the challenge of the competition (if you've looked at the website).

Of course, this event served to spoil the celebration to a degree. And there had been shootings near there before that point. They seemed to be few and far between, though.

No more. Twenty people--twenty--were shot in the Deer District Friday night after the overflow throng watched the Bucks on the enormous TV screens brought out for that purpose. That no one, apparently, died is downright amazing. A nice place for an enthusiastic gathering of genuine sports fans, though, has become a dangerous snakepit.

Because black people have been shooting other black people here in increasing numbers. If I'm wrong, I'll admit it here. But I've yet to see reports of white people shooting black people on purpose, and/or the other way around. It's a very big stain on blacks' reputations and it's becoming a very big barrier to diversity in a city that needs it very badly. 

You can't call it a hate crime. But it's loaded with all kinds of hate. And, perhaps, fantasy, about whether nothing can happen to someone who has a gun.

Somebody, preferably black, needs to step forward and admonish the perpetrators in an official way, someone with a little gravitas. Jesse Jackson's pretty old. Cory Booker? Kamala Harris? The present, local officeholders are hesitant for obvious reasons. Someone has to start this ball rolling.

I know this sounds horribly racist. I don't see it that way, though (and no, I didn't vote for Bob Donovan for mayor. OMG.). It's a hard look at the realism of the phenomenon. I'll say it again: Prove it to be otherwise, and I'll write an apology here. I don't relish the thought of this, nor have I been lying in wait for the opportunity. I kind of sound like Tucker Carlson, perish the thought, though I'm not a fan of 'replacement theory' and never will be.

But this is another way, too, in which lax gun laws come back to haunt. Constitutional libertarianism has a bottomless pit of accountability. Nobody needs, or seems, to be responsible for anything. Nothing can be prevented until it happens. In both big and small ways, it's way too late for Milwaukee. And those lax laws were passed by primarily white people in the state legislature, filled with brainwashed Republicans who simply don't care.

The Bucks play in Boston in a crucial seventh game to decide advancement this afternoon, and the team has called off the Deer District gathering. It would be well advised to close it until further notice.

Alex Lazry, owner of the Bucks, who's running a decent campaign for governor of the state, has an ad bragging about how 80% of the materials for the Forum were acquired within the U.S. I'll bet he'll remove that now. Attachment to what's gone down there has to be removed ASAP. He can't brag about that anymore.

If this isn't guaranteed to stop, people will, like me, shy away from that part of the city. Millions of dollars in business will drift away. The major local news organizations have not yet done any deep analysis of this blight on our city. They would be well advised to. Water Street has been a cash cow for decades. If it dries up, it will join other efforts to stimulate businesses and create another place to avoid, if it already hasn't.

I live in a part of the city where that stuff hasn't happened. Yet. But nothing's untouchable anywhere. Someone can simply get in a car, bring in a weapon, and open up somewhere nearby, much like the lout in Buffalo. I rue that day. In the meantime, I'm sorry to say, Water Street might as well be Russia.

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

Mister Mark

Dear Bailey: You've Been Taken by Republicans

I'm not sure how or why I got on the mailing list for Hillsdale College in Michigan, a training site for conservative ideologues, but I did. It's probably how I got on so many other sites for charitable organizations: Mailing lists are exchanged and/or bought and sold.

Nevertheless, I could help but open a missive sent to me today. In the height of pretentiousness, Hillsdale wants to make sure that all 4th graders have a copy of the U.S. Constitution.

Of all the driving issues facing us, this is the one they're focusing on? This is how they're driving to raise money?

Within the mailing, of course, was contained a nice, glossy copy of the Constitution. Not like I don't have one: I can haul out any number of books that both list it and explains in minute detail many of its passages--though in a way the patrons of Hillsdale College might not appreciate. On the other hand, I also have, through the Library of America, the commentary of such Founding Fathers as Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and John Marshall. Anyone who reads their writings are forced to conclude that though Hillsdale's self-declared patriots are all hyped up about originalism, they've pretty much forgotten, as they choose to forget much of our history (though they consider themselves the masters of it), that it cuts both ways. (More on that below)

Besides that, they've copied, it would appear, a rather primitively written letter to them, presumably by a 4th grader, requesting a copy of the Constitution. Here's the text, replete with spelling and punctuation errors:

Dear Hillsdale, Collge

I am in the 4th grade this year. 

I just wanted to ask if I could have a U.S. Constitution.

That would be amazing if you guys could! I also think you guys are amazing. I also think you guys are really nice. (I hope) But I hope you guys also had a good summer! I also hope you are having a great time in college!

I love America.                        thank you!

Bailey

The letter, supposedly written on a legal pad, is outlined with hearts connected by think blue lines, suggesting the revered national colors (why would it be green, after all). I might be tempted to write Bailey back:

Dear Bailey:

Someone sent me, without asking, the letter you wrote to Hillsdale College (remember that spelling, please), asking for a copy of the Constitution. This can only mean one, or several, of the following:

• That they took out your last name and address in order for them not to be sued;
• That they sincerely believe that 4th graders need a copy of a document that they aren't close to understanding yet but could if they really, really tried, forgetting what they were thinking about when they were 4th graders;
• They believe that your parents are naturally Republican, and that only Republicans are interested in what the Constitution really says and that Democrats never even look at it;
• That they think you'll remember any of this functionally in ten years so that you'll be a loyal American--that is, a true-red Republican;
• That they think that someone is intentionally refusing to let them look at a copy of the Constitution, and if they aren't they want you to think that, as if some teacher thinks it's a subversive document (Have your teacher explain the meaning of "subversive"); and
• That all you need to do is get a copy of it and, upon reading it, you'll naturally know what's in it.

What they really want to do is rile up the Republican base and get it to believe that, somehow, denying 4th graders active access to the Constitution, as if they can't get it anywhere else, is yet another way that liberal educators, especially those in public schools, are masking the real meaning of America from its youth. This, like anything else that's been brought up to frighten parents shell shocked from the pandemic, is complete nonsense and, actually, an active lie.

Please do not ignore, too, the fund-raising aspect of this. Because if people send money to print up copies of the Constitution that it already has--it sent me one, again, without asking if I needed it--it will be able to take that money and spend it on other things that people can't see but naturally go along with. This use of distraction is, by now, part of the Republican playbook.

In other words, your innocent letter has been utilized by a college that either must be yearning for cash or awash in it and wanting to support like-minded candidates for Congress (and, not long from now, for president, as if we didn't know who that was), that it will stop at nothing to pull on the heart strings of what it wishes to call patriots throughout a terribly indoctrinated and intimidated political party to raise yet more bushes of money to unleash yet more misleading political ads like the ones now playing in Wisconsin, just one state west (and south, haven't forgotten the UP) from Hillsdale.

These are not nice people, Bailey, as you had hoped. They are cutthroat politicians posing as reflective educators. They want anything forming a business interest to be dominant in our lives, instead of government regulating it. The Supreme Court, filled with these kinds of people, are about, however, to regulate women's bodies such that they cannot perform birth control on it (I wonder, Bailey, if you're male or female. The name is androgynous (remember to get meaning from the context), so I can't tell. If you're female, though, you'll be growing up in a very hostile and dominating country in which your rights, which many people have fought for, will be badly diminished in many parts of it.). They say that since the Constitution never mentions abortion, the federal government has no right to permit it. 

This reasoning takes us back to when Congress established that the 'necessary and proper' clause permitted it to establish a National Bank, backing Hamilton's demand that a national treasury needed a place to put its money, since it had the power to borrow and print money and a need to tax its citizens. The bank isn't mentioned in the Constitution; what gave it the right to establish it, as Jefferson tried to say? Well, the combination of several statements that are already there, said Hamilton. And so the bank was created and of course still exists.

The same reasoning permitted Roe v. Wade to be issued nearly 50 years ago, after the right of privacy had been established even though it isn't mentioned, either, adding that to the 14th Amendment. But as it usually has done now, the Supreme Court wishes to look past that and exclude whatever it feels like excluding without precedent (another word to look up or ask about, which used to be important but no longer is). This is authoritarianism (have your teacher explain that, too) in an official capacity. This will ruin the nation if it continues. These five (at least) bandits keep saying that the law matters, but in fact their actions say that it doesn't--at least, what the law used to be, which is irrelevant in this case but not in others.

So Bailey, I'll bet you never imagined that your letter would cause such an uproar. Rest assured, someone made it up, someone you're likely never to meet. You, too, are a cat's-paw. You, too, have had a well-meaning request turned inside out by shameless, presumptuous, deceiving people.

Reading this may cause someone to presume that a 4th grader couldn't possibly understand the concepts within. But if he or she can truly understand the Constitution, this letter would be a cinch.

Remember this when you get to be 18 years old and can vote, Bailey. Be sure to read your by then well-worn copy of the Constitution many times. If, by then, that actually matters anymore.

Sincerely,

Your Friend (believe this),

Mark

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

Mister Mark

Civil Disobedience Will Make A Comeback, Gratefully

You can see it coming as the leaked memo brings the Roe v. Wade horizon right to our doorsteps.

Civil disobedience will come roaring back. A new Underground Railroad will be constructed. It will be enormous. It will have tentacles throughout the flyover states.

Let the organizing begin. And hurry the hell up.

An incredibly naive, surreptitiously lying (about Roe being "settled law"), frighteningly authoritarian, exceedingly religiously afflicted Supreme Court has managed to begin beating women on the head ahead of accepting any particular case lying around that would give it the chance to wipe out the woman's right to choose, even as edited and compromised as Roe has become in the last 25 years.

It would even, said the memo, take away the right to abortion from women who have been victims of rape and incest. So a 12-year-old girl, raped by her father, has no choice but to bear the fetus. It deputizes crazy men to act crazy. Even encourages them.

That not only defies logic, it defies humanity. It's barbaric. How can you tacitly approve of an act of violence by guaranteeing an unwanted result that no one wants to take care of?

If that doesn't increase the buying of guns and/or pepper spray for self-protection in this country, I'm not sure what would.

Watch what else happens. States that will quickly legislate to echo the ruling, those that have no respect for women's bodies whatsoever, will also try to keep women from going to other states that do to have their abortions. Then let's see how the 'originalist' Supreme Court deals with Article IV, which says that each state must respect the laws and rulings of other states.

Will this increase the taxes in those states for enforcement? How, in fact, will enforcement be done? Word of mouth? Checking uteruses every few months? Looking at doctors' and hospitals' records, which is another outrageous violation of privacy?

In the meantime, there will be a considerable number of people interested in preserving women's rights, and not all of them will be women. There are devices that are easily built and bought that can deliver abortions in pregnancies' early stages. Yes, it will be risky. Yes, finding those who can operate them in secret, risking an increasing severity of punishment, will increase the cost. And yes, women who can't afford it will either die trying, or leave live fetuses in garbage cans. The number of each will increase.

I can't imagine an act that would delegitimize the Supreme Court more than this one. Civil disobedience will rise precipitously. It will rival the Dred Scott case in 1857, when an equally sharply definitive Supreme Court said that slaves couldn't be citizens and had no rights.

The Court has unleashed a cascade of lawlessness. The effects will be far beyond abortion itself. States most greatly affected will have to act like a police state to see to it that such an absolutist ruling is followed. Such draconian enforcement will spill onto other matters. So will resistance.

Wait and see how this spills, too, onto TV ads in gubernatorial races. We will be forced to view this sickening ruling with bullying promises on how it would be carried out.

In Wisconsin, one thing is clear: Tony Evers' re-election will be the only thing standing between women's rights to choose and The Handmaid's Tale. Expect the rhetoric from Republicans to reach dizzying heights of monstrosity. The hysteria will be exquisite.

Be on the lookout for ways to contribute to the resistance of this ridiculous ruling. A vast expanse of organizing looms ahead. Civil disobedience looks to be making a comeback. There will be plenty of grateful women.

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

Mister Mark