Political Hobbyism: No Substitute for Genuine Participation

Andy Borowitz tried to make me laugh. He didn't. He couldn't.

He wrote a book called Profiles in Ignorance, in which he tries to summarize the last 30 years or so of political malapropism, in which he tries to say (at first) that both parties are guilty. As he goes along, though, he is forced to admit that the major perpetrators are the Republicans by far, hands down.

We all know this. He tries to sarcastically bring some of the biggest dolts among them back: Michelle Bachmann, Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, blasts from the past whom we'd all like to forget. But he's also forced to take us back to the person upon which much of our horribly damaged political discourse has been based, along with the first of cults that formed around him: Ronald Reagan.

Finally! I said to myself. Someone came out and pointed the finger where it belongs: the first place where facts didn't matter, where naïveté and meanness met. The rest is a jagged line that nonetheless cascades downward irregularly, but inevitably.

Of course ex- emerges as the major miscreant, but all he did was pick up where someone else's awfulness left off. He has just become the combiner of the worst aspects of what politics shouldn't be.

He's not the problem. The problem is that way-way too many folks think he's the best guy for the top job. Still. They won't be budged off that dime. Still.

So what's the solution? Borowitz seems to think that the more we get out there, the more people will start to change their minds. I wish he were right, but I don't think so. The current rightward swing has always had a cultish feel to it, a locked-in, never mind aspect that's as ridiculous as it is scary.

People who dig in their heels won't listen. I had plenty of experience about that when I tried to get people to join the NEA. They'd heard what they'd heard, decided not to test their values, and some shut their mental doors hard. Going door to door to convince people that their thinking has been faulty can be risky, is in fact pretty insulting, and can deepen the retreat into the rabbit hole.

It wasn't as if someone had approached them for the first time and they would have that a-ha moment, now you tell me. It doesn't happen that way. When you talk to people in hopes of proselytizing them, you talk to someone who hasn't exactly been living in some upstairs cellar, hiding from information. We all get a landslide of it daily. Like most of us, they've chosen to absorb and believe some of it. The rest they've decided on, and if you hand them the part they don't believe, you're out of luck despite all the good intentions in the world.

Often, it's a belief system that you're challenging, one that can overcome whatever facts you happen to be offering. Because there are facts and there is the truth, to them made up of some of those facts, conveniently those that fit nicely into that belief system and reinforces it. It makes them feel secure and stable and able to put their next foot forward. Reality may, or may not, be related. Viewing the world differently than the one you thought existed yesterday can be scary stuff.

What needs to be done, then, is what people who've been connected to politics have heard for a while, especially on our side of the river: Get people out to vote. If Democrats to that, especially in this part of the country--and given an equal chance, which Wisconsin's gerrymandering sure won't do for state legislature and Congressional races, but is irrelevant for statewide races--they win, nearly every time.

One of the things that Democrats in particular still can't get used to is the simple fact that, no matter how righteous you want to be and/or actually are, it's about winning first and foremost. You can't make anything happen if you don't have the hands on the wheels of power. 

Best example of that? Hillary Clinton. She was the best qualified presidential candidate anyone had ever heard of. Her attitudes toward significant public policies were the soundest. So? She wasn't likable enough, and way-way too many people gave up on her (amazingly) and either stayed home (the number one problem) or voted for ex-, who gave us four of the most tension-filled, outrageous years of any president, ever.

Andy Borowitz thinks that the best way to overcome this inclination is to get out there and canvass communities, not just give money to your favorite candidates, then stand by and watch. I went to try to get people out to vote in west central Wisconsin back in 2016 by simply asking them to do so. A popular response: It's none of your business who I'm voting for. That is chickenshit language I'm voting for the wrong person I know it, but I don't want to talk about it because you're going to try to talk me out of it. Yet I kept hearing it, again and again--in places where Democrats usually carry the day.

So even that might not work. But we have to continue to try. To yield to cynicism and inertia invites what's now at our shoulder: Fascism, the lazy man's government--just leave it to someone with a big mouth.

Borowitz is right about one thing: Activism, the real thing, is the best we have. Faking it by only watching MSNBC and cursing at our TV sets won't do it and won't substitute for the real thing. We know the best ideas and have known them for some time now. Plenty of people want to hold us back from them. They must be defeated at the polls, and watch for themselves as these good things are wheeled out and initiated.

So it's numbers first, ideas second. You have to win to prove your point. You can have logic and facts on your side, but it won't matter. Respect for democracy still exists, though it's been frayed by challenge. While we still have it, we still must use it to move us in a direction that's preferable. The other choice is tragedy.

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

Mister Mark

Off the Deep End with the State Legislature Republicans

You knew it was coming. You knew it had to be soon.

Republicans just have to ape each other's suppression. It's almost required. They go into the rabbit hole to see how much they can emerge as morally pure in their intentions.

What is done in one state has to be done in another. "Wisconsin's trying to be Mississippi," said a teacher colleague of mine, Bob Reynolds. He was right. He said it about 30 years ago.

Wisconsin's Republicans fall right into line. The objects of their desires (I have to be careful about how to use that word) are the state's public and school libraries.

They love free speech as long as they approve of it. When they don't, the walls go up high and quickly. You can hear the breast-beating for miles.

They trade on fear--fear that has been addressed before. They pretend that nothing like it has been attempted before, that they have the answers now, that they will save the state from plunging itself into the vestiges of immorality and decadence.

They've panicked about being panicky. Once again, they're trying legislation that includes words that are too broad in meaning to be effectively enforced. Once again, they're trying to play the one-size-can-fit-all game.

Senate Bill 15 and Assembly Bill 10 (they are one and the same) try to limit materials from entering our libraries, whether public or school, that have bad intentions to them, mostly sexual, but also relating to human abuse. Sounds noble, and the proponents would like you to regard them as brave defenders of decency. 

They are trying to prohibit "1) any picture, photographs, drawing, sculpture, motion picture film, or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body that depicts nudity, sexually explicit conduct, sad masochistic abuse, physical torture, or brutality that is harmful to children; or 2: any book, pamphlet, magazine, printed matter however reproduced or recording that contains matter described in item 1, or explicit and detailed verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of sexual excitement, sexually explicit conduct, sadomasochistic abuse, physical torture, or brutality and that, taken as a whole, is harmful to children."

Whew. That about covers anything whatsoever that could be considered naughty. Good thing they came to the rescue. From now on, then, no child will be exposed to anything like this in any library.

Oh, but there's more: "Beginning in the 2024-25 school year, the bill requires each school board and operator an an independent charter school to adopt a policy that specifics criteria for determining whether certain material is offensive material, which, under the bill, means the material is offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for children. Under the bill, if a public school pupil will view or otherwise have access to offensive material as part of classroom instruction the school must provide the parent or guardian of the pupil with an outline of the curriculum and a summary of the instructional materials that contain the offensive material, information regarding how the parent or guardian may inspect the complete curriculum and instructional materials, and an explanation of the exemption available to parents and guardians under the bill. The bill requires peach public school to make the complete curriculum and all instructional materials available for inspection by parents or guardians upon request."

Okay. So parents can see everything that will be taught in every class in every public school (doesn't allow for private, as if their intentions will and have always been clean and pure), just in case they have questions about what's going on there. This is in response to the old bromide that parents don't have enough say in schools. 

One more time: Parents will never have 'enough say' in schools, because they're parents. Schools are not child care. They are schools. That's their main job. They're supposed to reflect, in some sense, the world they're teaching kids about. You don't like that? Change that world.

But why now? Why is this suddenly a big deal? Have our libraries been selectively, or secretively, bombarded with prurient reading material, with naughty pictures?

Of course not. This falls under the vague notion that curricula that includes, say, critical race theory will be designated "harmful" if it implies that white kids should feel bad about themselves. Which, even if critical race theory is taught in our schools (it isn't; again, it drills too deep and there's no time for it), nobody can prove what's considered "harmful," outside of someone's feelings being hurt (not accounting for any minority kids' feelings being hurt because they have to sit there and take everything that happened to their ancestors, which was forced upon them by mostly white people).

This will fail, but only because Tony Evers is governor and will veto anything like this that comes across his desk. Did you need a good reason for electing him over the pathetic, narrow, intolerant bully Tim Michaels last fall? Here's one that sticks out like whatever's presently floating above us. Evers is basically an educator, and he knows that there should be a looser, not tighter, rein on the information that kids are allowed to absorb.

Besides, the language of these bills muscles out such things as the Holocaust (which included physical torture, as sponsored through the evil Josef Mengele in his experiments with Jews as guinea pigs), and the Japanese 'rape' of Nanking, in which soldiers competed to see how awful they could treat the Chinese they had brought under their control, particularly women. It cannot, as well, or isn't supposed to allow, descriptions of waterboarding, which this country's troops not only performed on Arab prisoners in this very century, but at the opening of the 20th Century, also did to Filipinos to get them to reveal information.

These are some of the worst aspects of human behavior, including some that this nation performed. So we cannot now require students to read about that? We cannot discuss it in classes? Really? We cannot allow descriptions in print of some of the worst kind of treatment of human beings by other human beings, to show students that, under certain circumstances, people are capable of such disgusting acts?

The other reason should be that the state Supreme Court would throw something like this back at them with proper disdain. But that now can't be guaranteed because its judicial philosophy might easily tilt toward those making such horrible proposals.

That may change, though. There's a state Supreme Court election coming up, and two of the four candidates (for one spot, and money's flying around like snowflakes) are likely to be those with a more tolerant view of education than the one espoused by these repressive proposals. I've spoken with one of them, and he's worked with students and schools.

Another reason to get out there and vote in this normally poorly-attended campaign: We can avoid the deep end. You can still vote early, and you can still vote in the primary next Tuesday, too. Make your voice heard.

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

Mister Mark

What's Inside Capsule #1? Want to Be Around to Open It?

Those that remember the first moon landing in 1969 remember, too, that Armstrong and Aldrin did a little excavation. They brought back samples of the moon's surface.

Few flinched. Scientific studies indicated that there was almost nothing to be worried about. In all likelihood, the moon's surface was not radioactively absorbed.

Still, scientists were careful. You never knew. This is a completely different world we were dealing with, only tangentially connected with ours. It wasn't a large bunch of people who opened the containers.

Want to be around when we open what we've shot down? Nobody's talking about this. This, too, is a completely different world we're dealing with now: Our own.

Any debris on the moon wasn't likely to harm us. What was there had been there for millions of years. But whatever's inside the objects we've brought down recently, it was planned. Someone wanted us to find it. Why would they be that obvious to float it by in broad daylight, at an altitude that might intercept our own flying objects?

Nobody's dealt with the question that ought to be nagging darn near everyone: Why would someone send objects, one of which was as big as a small car, over the United States? Why now? Why here?

I'm talking about the last three we've brought down (With more to come?). The Chinese tried the old U-2 (Remember that one? We looked pretty bad there.) trick and attempted to explain their measurements as weather observations. Yeah, right. Nice try.

At least we know about that one, though. It's within the realm of cloak and dagger: The Chinese spy on us, and we know, or should know, that we spy on them. China has just said that we've sent at least ten balloons over their territory since last year.

Fine. So what's up with those other three? Are they Chinese, too? Do we need a Balloon Treaty now? The latest one floated over Wisconsin, they're saying now. Do we need to gape in wonder, or yawn in boredom, when the next one floats by?

The silence that's gathering around all this might be reassuring. It might mean--should mean--that people are being very careful with this stuff. But too much silence for too long means trouble. It means that someone doesn't want us to know about it.

It's too early to demand answers. That we've shot these things down is a reasonably good housecleaning response: nobody wants junk in the sky (Heaven knows, we have enough of that on the ground.).

Let's eliminate a few. No, said the White House, this isn't the work of aliens, and I would concur. I like Neil DeGrasse Tyson's reasoning: If some alien beings or forces had the reach of, say, across the galaxy--not exactly around the corner, and surely light-years (literally) farther than from here to Mars--would they show up in this extremely primitive form? I've always had the feeling that aliens have stopped by, flown over, taken a good look, and gone right by. Why the hell would they have anything to do with slobs like us, who can't figure out that our planet is slowly dying and who still haven't concluded the simple fact that skin color makes absolutely no functional difference? That doesn't make us the least bit interesting.

No, it isn't Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, either. They're already concentrating on interplanetary flight and don't have the inclination to distract themselves, much less the rest of humanity.

If it were some other corporate experimenters dabbling in space flight, they either aimed a little low or need a little more work. Even so, they wouldn't be reasonable substitutes for drones, which are much smaller and designed to hover much lower. (But would they be categorized as such to make them less threatening, in which case--fail!) 

If it were another nation trying things out, why would they drift over our skies? Okay, Moldova and/or Sierra Leone would run out of airspace quickly, but wouldn't they take the trouble to tell us they're coming first? Are their compasses so dysfunctional? Or do they care so little about irking us?

I'm not sure I'm in the kind of mood that says, 'I can't wait to learn what this really is.' I'm not scared too much, either. Too much time has gone on. Not enough danger has been implied. Now, I'm a little annoyed and want to get on with things.

I mean, it isn't like school shootings or anything. That's a mystery no one can unravel. And much more urgent.

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

Mister Mark

Not So Stupid At the Stupid Table

I am not a techie. Anyone who knows me knows that.

It's a tribute to the maxim that how smart you are has little to do with the answers you have, but the questions you can ask. My questions about running my laptop expose the nakedness of my simplicity and stupidity. Today's youth of early adolescence run circles around me, I'm quite sure.

I need this thing, but it scares me to death. One wrong hit on one wrong key and weeks of work can disappear. The device's capabilities, of course, can prevent that, if you know and can conceive of it. Understanding that magical things are even possible can empower one in fascinating new ways. If you don't know what you don't know, though--apologies to Donald Rumsfeld--you're up a creek for sure. It's the modern hieroglyphics: If you have no clues how to begin, you have no clues about how to proceed. There is no Rosetta Stone. The laptop becomes a snarly monster that you're afraid to touch.

Such a thing happened to me the other day. True reveal: I've written a novel. Some people from New York have taken a look at it and made recommendations, one of which was to change the start of it. So I did.

Of course, I have to send it back to them. Part of it, that is. Some editors want the first 20 pages, some the first 30, some the first 40, some the first so-many chapters. You can't just send the whole thing to them and ask them to stop reading at a certain point. That's verboten. I guess they can't help themselves, or think you're trying to be sneaky and think they aren't tough enough to stop after what they initially ask for. In which case, they hit the 'delete' button and you're toast.

But okay: Seems easy enough. I was allowed to send the first 40 pages back to this editor. To his credit, he's been very nice about it, as opposed to many in New York and elsewhere who impatiently discard you once their very sinews aren't tingling with your prose. No sense jumping to conclusions: Publishing a novel is one little step at a time.

Here's the thing, though: Sending part of a document to someone requires a series of commands. There's no dropdown on my laptop to do this with two flicks, though. Uh-uh. I had to know a combination of processes to put myself into position to have this fellow review my new writings.

I had written the novel on a Word file, which seemed easy enough. Page numbers can be arranged and everything. Off I went. But now I had to shave some of it off and send only that to someone.

I had no idea how to do it. Many of the commands define themselves; these people really do want you to succeed. Not this one, though. I floundered in techie fog.

So a whole new career, perhaps, late though it may be in life, was in abeyance until I figured out the damn secret, if you will, about shearing off part of a novel and letting someone see it and nothing more (for now).

Enter the Apple store. One of the very nice things about owning a MacBookPro is that, if you're close enough (and I'm less than 20 minutes away), you can schedule an appointment to allow a pure, unadulterated techie look at what you want and tell you how to do it, or do it for you. I was at that moment.

Making an appointment was awkward enough. I had been there before. You'd think they'd have my name under Doesn't Have A Clue, or something. A young lady--I must be careful not to say 'girl,' but she sure looked young enough--lined me up and 48 hours later, there I was.

A different, but also young, person flagged me upon entrance. In Apple stores, along the back wall, there is a bench known as the "Genius Bar," which takes care of folks with real problems, that is, problems that they can actually describe in terms that us mortals could not possibly seek to understand.

I apparently didn't have that level of problem. I had what sounded to be a simple, two-step, one-minute issue that revealed, again, just how out of touch with modern technology I really was. The young man pointed me not toward the Genius Bar, but to a table toward the middle of the room. I was to sit there and await someone who would try hard to hide just how pathetic I was.

It didn't feel comforting, either, to see that that table was crowded with people who looked about my age; looked absolutely stricken, too, with helplessness. The implication was obvious: Please join these other idiots. I settled in and waited humbly.

To its credit, Apple doesn't let you wait long. In a few minutes, a young, fairly attractive lady sauntered by with a motherly air about her--there, there, I'll fix your owie. She introduced herself as Margaret, and I described my problem.

"Okay, let's see here," she said in diving right in. I'm sure she anticipated but a minute or two in putting something of a Band-Aid on me. I figured I was typical--someone who, after never being raised with it or having barely incorporated it into their careers, could only handle the simplest commands. Any multiple functions, especially at one time, would propel us into a sea of uncertainty and paralysis.

Funny thing happened, though: She couldn't do it. Either. She opened what looked like the appropriate file, the one which handled printing (Now, how in the hell was I supposed to figure that out on my own?), and played with some empty spaces. Nothing doing.

She went back a few steps. Maybe, in her hurry, she had skipped something. Still she flailed.

I felt better with every passing minute. I had a problem even the expert couldn't fix. Then I started getting scared. This was something a system should be able to do, and someone trained, and I assumed decently experienced, in handling that system couldn't figure out how to do it. Maybe nobody else could, either. Maybe the universe's karma was hard at work here, telling me that the whole stupid novel was a bad idea anyhow, and that I should forget about it.

Margaret pulled up short. "I'll be right back," she said, and I felt better upon concluding that I had something that needed to be done that apparently not that many people needed to do--otherwise, she'd have done it almost automatically. I was at the stupid table not feeling all that stupid anymore.

Margaret played the fall-back card: She got her boss, a slightly overweight, stone-faced guy who feigned just enough patience to suggest that this should have been handled, but all right, let's get on with it. He bent over and, within maybe 30 seconds, did the required commands. Up popped the file ready to be e-mailed, adjusted the way I wanted it. "Oh, yeah, I just about had that," said Margaret, who needed to let me, and him, know that she wasn't all that stupid, either.

To my everlasting distress, though, the boss did it so fast, and then disappeared into the back where no one could access him, that I had no idea how he had done it. I had taken a 3 x 5 card with me to copy the process down, but in his utter efficiency, he neglected to tell anyone just how it had all happened. So--in case I should need to send the first 30 pages or three chapters to someone else who didn't want 40 pages, I would need to make another appointment, get assigned to the stupid table again, and endure more embarrassment.

Or maybe someone else would, too. And feel stupid. Like misery, it loves company.

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

Mister Mark

The Military-Industrial Complex? Don't Condemn It Too Fast

Anyone of my age or around there, anyone who studies 20th Century history can bring it forward whenever they want: Eisenhower's presidential farewell speech.

That's the one in which he warns us of the all-pervasive (even back in those days) "military-industrial complex." (On the Yale Law School's website) That was in early 1961, in the recognition that after we had gone through the Second World War, we were also confronted with a pervasive threat of communist, authoritarian dominance by the Soviet Union--the Cold War. It necessitated, without question, the maintenance of a military establishment unheard of in our national or, indeed, world annals. It meant, though, that our heavy industry had to expand to meet unique and ever-demanding needs.

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience," said Eisenhower. "The total influence....is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government."

And so it continues. The chief authoritarian, ex-, wants no other government but the military, one that he can use the powers of commander-in-chief to dominate. If he takes over again, will make that frighteningly clear. We would become a police state, with law enforcement tied securely to the military to suppress what we once held dear. Indeed, police departments gain the benefits of obsolete military hand-me-downs; it would be an easy transition to accept military commands. With his inherent military powers, he will circumvent Congress and render it pointless.

In the meantime, though, over the last 75 years, we have developed weaponry, in power and scope, that no other country can match (though China's certainly trying). Our defense spending is staggering. Yet, few people considered mainstream politicians ever bothers to complain. 

It's a knee-jerk response in every federal budget. The Pentagon says what we need, and we deliver. Any slowdown suggested, any questions asked, are interpreted as weak, naive, and irresponsible. Such is the world that exists and that we have certainly helped create. We are armed to the teeth, and we will stay that way.

It sounds like a monster to which we have capitulated. You might be right about that. But it has had side benefits, too.

In diplomacy, it has put staunch backing behind our words. You want some of this? we keep saying. Nobody does. Yes, we gave up in Vietnam, but only because we had enough soul left to keep ourselves from re-introducing nuclear destruction, though we feared Soviet retaliation, too. Like it or not, that mutually assured deterrence (nicely known as MAD) has kept the peace, or kept the world from being utterly destroyed, for three-fourths of a century.

But with our military-industrial complex operating at full efficiency (and deepening its justifiability), we have also provided weaponry for other nations to utilize to warn away potential invaders from nations we support. This is what NATO has been about, and South Korea.

It has also been what Ukraine has been about. Yes, NATO nations have helped them, too, but our military assistance has been relatively low-key to this point. No news reports have emerged about how much our military resources have been strained by our help to the Ukrainians. We are not under duress. And Ukraine fights on.

Consider the first shipment of weaponry from us to Ukraine, last March:

• 2000 Javelin anti-tank missiles (we'd already sent them more than that pre-war);
• 1000 light anti-armor weapons
• 6000 anti-armor systems
• 100 drones
• 100 grenade launchers
• 5000 rifles
• 1000 pistols
• 400 machine guns
• 400 shotguns
• 20 million rounds of small arms ammo, grenade launch rounds, and mortar rounds
• 70 laser-guided missiles

Chump change. Probably gathering dust and spider webs somewhere.

We get our cake and eat it, too, at least for now. We come off as the great defender of democracy, but lose no enlisted people in the bargain. This is all because of the military-industrial complex, which has turned out an immense storehouse of hardware, ever strengthening, ever updating. (Also because 46 countries, in all, have given things to Ukraine, in an impressive coalition of the willing also attributable to us. Check Wikipedia.)

The food chain continues. Does Poland give Ukraine stuff? It sure does. Because we give stuff to Poland. Do the Germans give Ukraine tanks? They sure do. Because we went first and give Ukraine our tanks.

Committing troops to Ukraine will probably be impossible, given our recent history in Afghanistan and resistance by anti-democratic Republicans. There will be a tipping point at some juncture when attrition meets morale. Either way, we will be looking at capitulation of another kind. 

We have not granted Ukraine the use of our jets yet; Ukrainian president Zelinsky has gone to Britain for that help. But the request is coming, especially if the Russians regain ground they've lost. This cannot go on forever without our greater and deeper participation. Britain only has so many jets. We have lots more.

Joe Biden is all right with it for now. More hardware on the way. "Putin has already lost Ukraine," he said the other day. Well, yes, in terms of what he expected. And no, in terms of the fighting itself. As in Vietnam, escalation will happen gradually. But it will happen if Ukraine does not drive Russia out or decide it must negotiate.

In the meantime, though, Vladimir Putin must deal with the silent opponent he can't dismiss: our military-industrial complex, which hasn't dominated the Russo-Ukraine war to this point, but can and might someday soon. Nobody has suggested raising taxes yet. That moment isn't far away.

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

Mister Mark

Amazed, But Back in the Saddle in Sturgeon Bay; A Moment for Gratitude

It amazed me. I never thought I would hear from them again.

The other day, I heard from someone connected with the Writers' Night at the Tambourine Lounge in Sturgeon Bay. I hadn't been connected with them for nearly three years.

It's an expression, if you will, about the cultural cadre that's developed there. On Thursday nights, the bar closes but the stage there--a very small one, at that--opens up for songwriters, essayists and poets to display their wares for a small but engaged group of devotees.

Or, anyway, it used to. Then Covid hit with a wallop and it shut down. Even with the gradual recovery that has ensued, nobody endeavored to reopen the venue. At least, not until now.

I learned about it at a writers' retreat in the summer of 2019. When it concluded, it was suggested that we try out our writing by reading it aloud on stage. I decided to try that.

Being on stage and reading to a group of people hasn't scared me. First, because I used to read things to my classes in Cedarburg, and the number of kids somewhat equalled the number of people listening in Sturgeon Bay. Still, you get butterflies because it's your own stuff and you're never quite sure how it will be received.

Second, because the last time I read something to someone, it was at the NEA-RA in 2009, when I read about 70 percent of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. That was to some ten thousand people. That reception was spooky; almost no one reacted. I think it was because I had surprised them at how powerful Lincoln's rhetoric could sound. The follow-up comments of some people afterward suggested that I had done what nearly no one could: Shut the RA up with the force of Lincoln's words. That was a proud moment, one that I'll never forget.

So no, reading to 20 people, or so, wouldn't intimidate me. In fact, I drove up there every four or five weeks or so--about five hours round trip, and with the session starting at 7 p.m. and lasting two hours, I'd get home at nearly midnight--and people came to expect me. It because my little cubbyhole, my hideaway I utilized to stay culturally connected. It became saturated into the rhythm of my life.

I named myself Mark from Milwaukee, and got quite comfortable with the small stage, dim lighting, and enthusiastic listeners. Nearly everyone else, to my knowledge from Door County or the area, applied verse to music. I don't recall more than one other person who read anything in prose or poetry.

So I was empty when I'd heard that the lounge had been closed. I checked back twice, once in 2021 and once last year. Nothing doing. I'd pretty much given up on it. It didn't feel like any enthusiasm was left.

Then, just two weeks ago, I heard from someone who must have kept the business card I'd given some of the listeners after I'd performed. The Lounge had opened again, he said, though only regulars knew at that point.

I was gratified first, because he had thought of me, and second, that I'd been considered enough of a "regular" for him to reach out to me. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I wrote back.

There was no dearth of material for me to choose from, since the last time anyone had heard me read was January, 2020. I kept things short for now. I had two novels in the works to draw from. They would come later.

But I'd also been burned by a false notice on Facebook. Who to trust? I called the Holiday Hotel, which is just around the corner from the Lounge. They would have the latest update.

Yes. Yes. It was open on Thursdays. Worth the drive, about 2 hours and 20 minutes? Of course.

It was a smaller cadre than I'm used to, though, because the re-opening hasn't been widely publicized. People were there by invitation, of which I was also quite appreciative. I hadn't met the facilitator, either, so that was a little awkward. But I got my chance. I made the best of it.

The format hadn't changed much. Someone gets up there and sings their new creations, someone else gets up and reads their new writings (or, with me, some of my old ones dating back three years). Back and forth. Everybody gets their few minutes. The stage is small, but their hearts are large.

It usually ends at 9 (starts at 7), but it ran over this time. No matter. New creativity needs room. I stayed until the end. Hey, they listened to me. I owed them the same.

It felt a little rickety, but I'll keep writing stuff and return in about a month or so to read it. We'll see if the rough spots wear off by then.

Even from that far out of town, to feel connected again, to feel as if I belonged and someone had also recognized that, was a giddy tonic. Retired as I am, out of the national union cause for more than a decade now, one simply fades away whether one likes it or not. To have anyone remember me felt like an oasis in the desert.

I'll return for more refreshment, then. We'll see what transpires. Right now, I'm just grateful.

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

Mister Mark

Officially Eliminating Black History? Impossible.

It must be to gain political points from a populace that's in the same rabbit hole. I can't think of any other reason outside of abject racism, about which I wouldn't be the least surprised.

Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, denier of all deniers, is out to eliminate Black history. He can't do it. At least, he won't succeed in his efforts.

Has the College Board capitulated to him in changing certain aspects of Black history curricula? Well, that answer has to do with determining whether the changes it has announced constitute a significant adjustment to DeSantis' attacks.

But I sincerely doubt that the attacks have much substance. Here's what I think happened: Someone lit up DeSantis because the curricula used to have provocative titles, one relating to being Black and queer. That got DeSantis' ire going.

Any reference to 'queerness' in any curricula, regardless of how it's offered and to what age, smacks of 'wokeness' (whatever in the hell that is) and cannot be allowed, at least not in his purview, the state of Florida. And anything that is 'woke' refers to that which is not based on history dominated by white folks.

Did he read the Advanced Placement curricula? All those pages? Count on it--he didn't. He saw the labels, concluded their irrelevance, and took action. And he did it on the first day of Black History Month, so as to throw cold water on that matter, too.

In other words, he remains as uninformed as he always has, and is happy living in that narrow little tunnel. To him, there is no new history, no new findings, no thinking that needs to be expanded.

He wants Florida instructors to create "Western civilization" courses, which of course teach history from a European perspective. Yes, indeed, it does, but it can't avoid the introduction of slavery, its deleterious effects on that part of humanity, and its contribution to money-making mercantilism and its developing dependence upon colonization, and the extension and perpetuation thereof. What will you do with that, Ron?

He also blanched at the inclusion of Black Lives Matter. Does he really think that the removal of that from course descriptions will eliminate its recognition in instruction? Who's he trying to kid?

The College Board, in other words, took away some of the more provocative titles. Did it take away the substance? It says it hasn't. So, in other words, it mollified DeSantis and went on its merry way, still instructing, or planning to instruct, students upon some Black Americans who accomplished much but who happened to be gay, even mentioned the additional roadblocks they may have had to vault to achieve what they did.

The College Board, in other words, is hiding in the weeds, hoping that DeSantis buses himself with other things, and this will suffuse into educational trivia. Remember "cooperative learning" and the hubbub that knee-jerk reactionaries had over that in the '90s? Where did that go? Has all cooperative learning disappeared because of it?

No, it hasn't. People either dispensed with promoting it temporarily and came back to it after the shouting had subsided or continued to do it but called it something else. Such subterfuge is all too common in educational circles by people, particularly supportive administrators (God bless them) who know what's happening and don't see much wrong with it.

That's what the College Board is hoping. They don't want teachers to stop teaching what it has planned. They just don't want to advertise labeling that could be upsetting to a few very highly placed people. It's being sneaky in plain view, which is what Republicans have become very good at.

But to subvert the teaching of Black history is impossible, especially now that documents like the 1619 Project have been written and published. That Pandora's box has been opened, and it what it has revealed cannot be conveniently put back.

Teachers in Florida have also been advised to hide certain books so that authorities cannot find them and suppose--gasp!--that their ideas have been utilized in any overt or covert teaching. While I cannot see that, in terms of students, there is any difference between hiding books and burning them, the very idea that some non-obscene books need to be hidden from public view goes right in the same corridor with authoritarian censorship, the kind of which we have pledged ourselves immune from in this country.

Ron DeSantis, as unenlightened as he is, will find that while he might be able to temporarily create an intellectual prison in Florida, he seems to be running to be president of a country that will stringently object to his shenanigans in a cheap intent to secure votes. Here, in the United States of America, that never works. It never has, either. 

The College Board is trying to get around him until the next shiny thing gets our attention. May it completely succeed.

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

Mister Mark