I Read All That. For What?

I looked at my considerable library the other day and sighed. The following books--nearly all of which I read cover-to-cover-- are there on the shelves (in alphabetical order of the authors):

• Twilight of Democracy--Anne Applebaum
• Oath of Honor--Liz Cheney
• Disloyal--Michael Cohen
• Border Wars--Julie Hirshfield Davis and Michael D. Shear
• Betrayal--Jonathan Karl
• I Alone Can Fix It--Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker
• The Fifth Risk--Michael Lewis
• Unthinkable--Jamie Raskin (actually, I gave this one away after reading)
• A Very Stable Genius--Rucker and Leonnig
• Midnight in Washington--Adam Schiff
• Fear--Bob Woodward
• Peril--Woodward and Robert Costa

I don't publish this list to tell you that I'm smart or smarter than most. I write this to say that I made a thorough investment in absorbing relevant facts. All are evocative, in some way, of the horrors of not only 45-47's mismanagement of government, his ugly stupidity, and his endless lies, but also the potentialities of another term. We are there now. These works' expositions have been all too predictive, and we are just two weeks into four years of onrushing hell.

I thought the idea of reading works like this is to be more informed and forewarned, so at the very least, should the opportunity present itself, one can cast a logical, rational vote in favor of someone else offering an alternative that simply makes more sense--or, in this past case, some sense, which is a lot better than the sense 45-47 projected, which is none. This is how democracy's supposed to work, I thought. I didn't exactly run out and become the first on my block to buy these books--I prefer to read reviews first--but I did spend a considerable amount of money purchasing them.

It all circles back, though, to a single question: For what? These all attack 45-47 in some way. None of them stuck with the general public; they bounced back and forth in the same echo chamber. They created rage, yes, but also numbness.

The authors of these works, too, must be asking themselves this question, too: If a more informed public cannot become a more enlightened public to a degree in which efficacy occurs, does the First Amendment even matter anymore? Does education? Does conversation?

How the hell did this monster win more individual votes? The inefficiency of the Electoral College in 2016 was enough of a misnomer--or what we thought was a misnomer. But this time, he won.

He. Won. All that information revealed above, all that verifiable truth-telling, couldn't amount to success at the ballot box. I haven't read anything from anyone discussing it, and I get the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as MSNBC online. Nobody has touched this. Doesn't this bother anybody?

It brings me to another quandary: What do I do with these books now? Do I go on eBay and sell them as a set of futility? Do I keep them as an example of how incredibly stupid a fraction more than half the nation is and has been? Do these represent a decent archive of what we were supposed to do, but didn't?

Did I overinvest? It would suggest so. By the time I came to the most recently published book, the chaos, the depraved behavior, the idiocy had been well documented both daily and in these kinds of works--to the point at which I, like many have now, gave up because everything represented a reprint, more or less, of what had come before it. 

The dead horse had been beaten. I knew who to be disgusted with. I knew what laws had been skirted. I knew that the game had been fixed by people who should have known better or had been consumed by unrealistic fears or inspirations or quasi-religious obsessions. And even though the daily record revealed this implicitly but the books had not--I knew about those who were supposed to be on the side of justice for all had either dragged their feet, didn't step up when they were needed, or overlooked what was right in front of them.

But I digress. Do I keep all these works to skim over them again when the day comes that it becomes finally obvious to even 45-47's supporters that they've been hornswoggled? That they'll be inflationized into oblivion, with no relief in sight? Or will they believe, once again, conjured chimeras invented by those ready for all excuses, any excuses, to avoid responsibility?

Well. Edward Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is still out there and can be purchased for, perhaps, comparable reading, since our empire is about to collapse into nothing more than empty rhetoric. And there's always Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly, which describes in clear and decisive tones how people with all kinds of advantages squandered them because they valued the wrong things and couldn't get beyond their own myopathy. Seeing as how we are about to be engulfed with blind, ridiculous Christian nationalism--and we are--maybe some of the more daring scholars left will begin work on how religion was used as a weapon turned out unsuccessfully, as it always has and always will be.

Then we will have another set of books to buy, read and collect. They will sell like hotcakes in the first three or four months, then fade away to something else. All of which suggests that there are no universal truths--or there may in fact be, but we can't get ourselves to pay attention much past staring down at our noses.

Sorry this is so dismal. When I get cause to write something more positive, it'll appear here. Give it a minute, okay? Or four years?

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

Mister Mark

They Wouldn't Print It, So I Will

After all, this is what I have a blog for--

Every year, my congregation has a booklet that it puts out, filled with missives on the season written by its members, spanning about 300 words. It's strictly volunteer, but many people, like me, pretty much do it yearly. The church leadership gives us a biblically-based theme, and we expand on it.

In past years, I've heard good things about my entries. But in those years, there was reason to note that Christmas was a time for peace and joy and hope--which were pretty much the themes suggested this year, too.

Except I don't feel that way this year. If you read below, you'll see why. I don't think it's absurd or otherwise subversive; it's just where I am and will be for some time. The original shock of the election results has led to a depth of attitude that I find, and feel to be, uniquely devastating.

So I wrote about it in this year's contribution. And got it sent back to me. The leadership of the congregation, which I joined because it pretty much dovetails with my personal feelings on religion and its purposes (and still does), won't run it. They get it, I was told, they understand, but to publish anything this despondent would give them a reputation that might put it in jeopardy with other congregations they have combined forces with. So here, too, is a place where political considerations hold sway, where being politically correct has to take precedent.

Not here. Not in this blog, where I've been anything but. I have much more to say on this topic, but we'll settle for this right now. I was asked to modify my attitudes, but I refused. "I can't fake this," I replied, and I won't.

I don't want to waste the effort, so I'll run it here. I'll leave it up to you. Would you run it as an example of how people might be potentially feeling, or dismiss it as the attitudes of one? Is this such an awful thing to say as representative of one person belonging to one congregation and thus should be left to him to speak for himself?

If so, okay. Again: This is what I have a blog for--

For Christmas Booklet, 2024

This isn’t writer’s block. I’ve had that.

Nope. Not it. Writer’s block means the words are inside but just won’t emerge right now. They strain without coherence. They arrive, though. They always do. They just need a minute.

This is different. I’m without words. Not sure I’ve ever been here before.

Is this the definition of hopelessness? Where there’s no possible way to describe how you’re feeling? Where you could never imagine depths into which you still feel yourself falling?

I’m there. Which is to say, nowhere.

Not counting on that angel to show up and say, “Do not be afraid.” Uh-uh. Wouldn’t matter anyhow. We’d have to argue about the meaning of that, too, about someone born of migrants, who will soon be hunted down by a vicious ruler, using the power of government to assure dominance.

This is fundamental. This is a direct threat, allowed by those who should have known better. Who have found simple logic wanting.

Who define being human in ways I cannot fathom, with condescension and superiority. Who allowed thought to be eclipsed by raw emotion and an anti-reality.

And, in immense self-delusion, actually believe that God wills this. They have allowed themselves to be led about as far away from The Mount as can be.

I taught some of them, too, in subjects in which they should have connected with their civic responsibilities, their human obligations. I feel responsible, though I certainly didn’t lead them there. But nobody could have anticipated abrogation of thinking wrapped around Christian nationalism.

I am afraid. There’s no getting around it. I am afraid for my country. I am afraid for myself. I am afraid for humanity.

It’s the only thing left when you’re backed into a corner with no way out and no defense. When you don’t know what’s coming but you can guarantee that it’ll hurt a lot.

Zechariah was struck into silence by Gabriel when he doubted his good fortune and had every right to believe he was being blocked from it. I’m there now.

I’m done talking. All that writing I’ve done, all that reading, all that fleshing out of ridiculousness, has resulted in an empty return. 

When I see hope, I mean the real thing, I’ll say something to somebody about it. It’s not on the horizon right now.

I can’t. The words aren’t there.

Talk later. I hope.

I don't want to unnecessarily embarrass the powers that be that stood in the way of publishing, but after all, I did want to make it public, and this is really the only way I still can. I wonder, now that they think about it, whether they regret the decision to 'spike' it or not.

It reflects what's going on all over--that people are retreating for reasons that are taken out of context or mostly imagined. I find that astonishing. What is freedom of expression, after all, if you can't say something that someone, anyone (maybe even everyone) might have an issue with? Otherwise, it's empty.

Yet, I must remember my own context. Church publications normally don't want to stir up controversies and disagreements. Better to play it safe. Doing otherwise would be highly unusual.

But these times are, themselves, highly unusual--in which certain things had better get said before we dull ourselves to accepting the unacceptable. Which is, based on the acquiescence of high-level media entities, just around the corner.

So there it is. I print it because someone prevented me from doing so, and--far more importantly--not one word of it needs to be changed or deleted because my feelings have been somehow reduced. If anything, that volume has grown.

Enjoy. Or ruminate.

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

Mister Mark

A Bag That Wouldn't Open

Those of us who travel a little have favorite bags that we insist we take with us. They may be roomier or more attractive or more convenient or be part of a matching set we wouldn't do without.

I have a leather duffel bag that I simply love. It looks classy and has inside pockets that allow for extra storage. It has a handy strap that makes it easy to fling over one's shoulder. I think it's perfect.

But trouble arose the other day when I tried to open it. The zipper wouldn't go all the way across the top, as it usually does. It got stuck.

Being a guy, and having been in this situation before, I tried to force the zipper where it was supposed to go. Sometimes that really does work. The teeth on the zipper just aren't aligned quite well enough, and straightening them out and giving it a good yank solves the problem.

Most times. Not this one. You could see it, too. Faulty zippers hide nothing. It shall not pass.

It opened more than halfway, though, so I managed to stuff an appreciable amount of clothes into it. I wasn't flying, thankfully, so my trunk and back seat handled the rest.

When I returned home, though, the issue remained before me: Where do I get such things repaired? Or was it time to throw this, too, into the trash?

Of course I googled it. And found an old ally, one on whom I'd relied before, who'd fixed other bags I thought were lost. It's a you-break-we-fix kind of place with handy people who solve unsolvable problems. When I lived in the area, it was a go-to place for me some 30 years ago. Back then, it had advertised as strictly a handyman's paradise, located in a strip mall tucked off a major street. Now, it had moved, along with other businesses, to another strip mall slightly north. It was now primarily a shipping business, with its original name, listed in diminished lettering, a kind of yeah-we-still-do-that.

Not that the proprietor was particularly cordial back then. I learned he was from Uzbekistan. His accent was thick, his manner gruff: "What do you want?" was his hello. He always seemed to have a two-day beard.

But his skills were nonpareil. He could fix anything. It got so that his face softened when he saw me--not enough to grin, but without his normal, more combatant look: You again? I was thrilled to know that the business was still there. I have no idea exactly what the name--with three initials that represent something of an acronym, I would guess--stands for, but for me, it stood for a solution for my problem. The rest of it wasn't worth quibbling about.

The grizzly-faced one wasn't there, though. His son was. I remembered him, too; larger, friendlier, accent not nearly as thick, but born over there for sure.

He took one look at the bag, almost with a same-old, same-old demeanor. All I wanted to know was one, could he fix it; and two, when I could have it back. He didn't bother with that. "I'll be right back," he said, and disappeared behind a curtain.

In a moment, he came back with a pliers. "Just make sure you don't get the teeth on top like that," he said, in advising me how never to return with this issue. He moved maybe three of them back into place. Then he brought the zipper over. Fixed.

"What do you want for that?" I said, taking out some money, and I meant it. The 'job' had taken, maybe, a minute. For me, its value could last years.

"Nah, no problem," he said. I stared at him. Such a valuable act. He could have charged me twenty bucks, even more. I would have paid it in a heartbeat. This is America, after all.

I wonder what a native-born American, one who sounded pretty much like you or me, would have charged. Would he/she have been so nice?

Never to return? Not so. It had been at least 15 years since I'd been there. Would it be 15 more, I'd make a beeline. If he, and I, were still there.

I wonder if he'd filed for citizenship. Or, not. If the latter, he could, if the incoming thugs were cruel enough, be deported.

Criminal? Yeah, right. Drug dealer? Silly. See one, seen them all? Ridiculous. You never know, though, true? He could be hiding a cache' of drugs. But then, I might be using that classy bag for exactly that reason. Would anybody be searching it? Ever?

Business leaders are already nervous. Why send all the papers-less immigrants away? They fit a perfect role--doing jobs that white citizens won't, or ones they consider beneath them. Will the whites take them when they're vacant? We've already seen by the fallout from Covid: Don't count on it.

For a while, an insipid while, though, we will have to watch it unravel. This is the "mandate" that the incoming president thinks he's received. It isn't. What he really got told was in the response to his overwrought, overhyped scream that the country is getting overrun by gays and trans-people--which, of course, is absurd. People just don't want to hear about that. They don't want a government that prioritizes them.

They wouldn't have had one in any event. But he fooled lots of voters into thinking so, and the Democrats, in an amazing piece of inertia, refused to respond. Thus is the detritus of elections.

But now the cabal is saddled with deciding the scope of the simply overwhelming job it has promised it would do--never mind the damage to our economy and national vitality, which it wrongly believes will revitalize. Beyond the recession it will cause, it will be depressing, debilitating, dejecting. It will deny our very identity.

A year from now, I want he who fixed my bag to be there. I want him to try to fix something else I'm sure I'll wreck. He's the expert, every bit as much as Elon Musk believes himself to be an expert on electric cars, spaceships, and damn near everything else. 

But this expert matters. He helps people. Not Musk, who helps only himself. Like someone else we know.

The Uzbekian has nothing to prove, of course. All I want to know is if the purge has or hasn't found him. Word is that it will start soon with a raid on Chicago (NYT). That will tell a few things, either way, about how stupid, how tragic, all this is.

God bless the America I used to know. It's leaving for a while. Dreadfully, something else will replace it. It begins Monday at 11 a.m. Central Time. It'll be up to someone else to fix that massive damage, to the country, to its image, to its posterity. It won't be so simple as twisting a pliers.

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

Mister Mark

I Can See Them Coming: Repeats of 1850 and 1957

The trouble on the horizon is awful. I don't see it diminishing anytime soon.

Talk has already started. The governors of some blue states are already putting out gestures of resistance:

• Pritzker, Illinois: "You come for my people, you come through me."
• Newsom, California:  Has called for a special session to bring more resources to combat attacks on immigration, abortion, and LGBTQ rights.
• Hochul, New York: Has promised to combine forces with Attorney General Letitia James to "protect New Yorkers' fundamental freedoms."
• Walz, Minnesota: Has promised to make Minnesota a 'safe haven' for people to practice their rights.
• Healey, Massachusetts: Has refused to participate in deportation plans;
• Polis, Colorado: Has joined with other Democratic governors and ex-governors to form Governors Safeguarding Democracy. He and Pritzker are co-chairs.

So what if you were 47, with control of both houses of Congress--as it appears is going to happen? What would you do?

I'll tell you what I'd do: promote and get a law passed much like the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The territory of California, which had declared itself to be a separate republic (much like Texas), had had its population swell up by more than 100,000 because of the Gold Rush in 1849. It quickly applied for statehood, but as a free state. The South pushed back because that would upset the free-slave state balance, which had roughly been maintained by one slave state being admitted to the Union shortly after, or shortly before, a free state also had, for about a quarter century. If California's admission were to upset that apple cart, there would be secession and a civil war if no offer could be made that the South could accept.

Henry Clay to the rescue. In the last major bill that he promoted before his death, he proposed the Fugitive Slave Act, to pave the way for California's admission.  That law demanded and made it legally binding for authorities from slave states to coerce law enforcers from free states to try to help them find fugitive slaves and transport them back into captivity. It did not allow for state authorities to opt whether or not to do so.

The Fugitive Slave Act caused intense outrage in the states where slavery had either died out or had been legislatively forbidden. It resulted in some free states passing "personal liberty laws," giving state enforcers the right to refuse assistance to federal authorities, or authorities from slave states, assigned to take fugitives back into slavery.

In other words, the Fugitive Slave Act warded off war, but could not guarantee peace. The actual Civil War, it has at times been disingenuously said, was caused by a reaction to a threat upon states' rights. Another situation, with geography largely flipped on its head, may in fact be happening and very soon.

Laws in states mentioned above (and others), passed in objection to taking immigrants and putting them into concentration camps, separating children from their families, and shipping them out of the country--never mind if the country of their origins will accept them back--would set up very definitive new states' rights situations, the enforcements of which may create a deep and abiding constitutional crisis. What if the governors of such states activate their National Guard units to protect immigrants? And what if 47 activated the U.S. Army to challenge that?

Then the National Guard folks would have an unalterable choice to make: Justice, or the law? There would be no choice, if their oath to the Constitution would be genuine. If that should come to pass, all the big talk by blue state governors might come to naught, or at the very most, a paper tiger.

Flipped on its ear, too, would be the purpose of the Supremacy Clause: to guarantee that laws would be enforced properly and fairly, regardless of what state governors would think of them. In 1957, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas brought out the state's National Guard to 'protect' Little Rock Central High School from having to admit nine black students, in violation of the earlier Supreme Court ruling that demanded it. President Dwight Eisenhower, in a much celebrated decision by liberals, called out the 82nd Airborne to parachute near Little Rock and march to the school to override the governor's decision (even though Ike didn't much like doing it). The National Guard had to stand aside and watch. It did not resist.

Faubus, in other words, dared Eisenhower to take action, and Eisenhower called him on it. Perhaps the same thing will happen to 47. I think we know how he'll respond, and this time with all the justification that the Constitution, which he otherwise might dispense with at his leisure now that the Supreme Court gives him all the license he needs, guarantees, and with joyous enthusiasm. Eisenhower said little in performing his presidential duties, though. I don't think 47 would remain quiet in the least. He would be pompous, hypocritically self-righteous, and endlessly obnoxious.

So did Faubus press the Guard into service to gain political points with his constituents? Cynics might agree. In the list above, I see at least three potential candidates to make presidential runs in 2028. Democrats are hardly possessed with political purity. The same thing's possible.

So what goes around, comes around, though it might take more than six decades in one case, 175 years in another. Would the same thing happen if a Republican Congress should pass a national abortion ban, one that might even prohibit interstate travel to have one? What kind of constitutional showdown might that cause? And what kind of resistance?

I do not see acquiescence ahead. Talk of resistance lasted about four years, but much of it was talk. This, I think, will be the real thing. That will cause crackdowns, overenforcement, and the sting of authoritarianism. It will open wounds that will remain raw. 

I do not see settlement ahead, either. Secession? We seem a long way from that. But the emotionalism brought by a repeat and reports of immigrant abuses would reach new heights. Coercion would inflame that emotional cauldron even more. From there, it is difficult to know what the future will bring.

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

Mister Mark

The Country's Really at Stake Tomorrow

I hope so much that I'm preaching to the choir here. But just in case--

For the love of God, vote.

And vote with your brain. Vote the way you actually see things with your very eyes.

If you're in the 3rd Congressional District, or know somebody who does: Tell them to vote for Rebecca Cooke, over incumbent Derrick Van Orden, the latest impostor who wants to keep his job as a Republican bobblehead. It's the only Congressional race in the state that's anything near competitive, due to Republican gerrymandering that spans more than a decade. This used to be Ron Kind's seat, but he stepped down. Rebecca represents a real choice, a new beginning, for the 3rd. Please vote for her.

For the U.S. Senate, please avoid electing a Ron Johnson clone by turning back Eric Hovde and staying with someone who's done a tremendous amount for this state, especially in the realm of health care: Tammy Baldwin. Hovde has thrown millions of dollars that, as a billionaire, he doesn't need, in addition to PAC money poured into the race by Mitch McConnell. McConnell sees the photocopy of Johnson's eccentric stupidity, his caving to moneyed interests, his enthusiastic inclusion of lies and innuendoes, his horrible pandering, and his terrible policy positions. Baldwin has fought back against Hovde's blithering, amateurish approach of sheer volume of smears. Don't let him succeed. 

Wisconsin needs Tammy Baldwin. Please vote for her.

And, of course: this is the moment to turn back a lying, disgusting, two-bit phony who's trying to return to the White House. That this election is going to be decided by a whisper thin margin tells you a lot about how White Christian Nationalism has nearly overwhelmed the rhetoric of this campaign, the exaggerations, the threats, the monstrous lies that ex- has included.

I have written much about ex-'s incompetence, his stupidity, his cruelty, and his meanness. It is the height of naivete for anyone to suppose that his words have been nothing but stunted, awful political rhetoric. He will make mincemeat out of the Constitution and abuse the military to deal with domestic issues. In short, he will turn America into a police state. He will also completely abandon Ukraine, pleasing Vladimir Putin because (remember?) he wants to build a hotel in Moscow.

Expect, too, wars with either Mexico or Iran. He wants to invade Mexico to stop immigration from that territory, as if he would with all the coastlines we have. He wants to show his mega-religious political allies that God will be pleased if he devastates Israel's number one enemy. With no accountability now to hold him back--the Supreme Court has set the table for him very nicely--and with his second term providing him with no political consequences, count on him to:

• Try to stifle all media opponents by legal or quasi-legal means;
• Try to expand book banning to include anything written about gays or trans-people;
• Take away any effort to contribute to battling climate change;
• Get us out of NATO and leave Europe at the mercy of Russia;
• If he gets both houses of Congress on his side, take away Social Security and Medicare;
• Ditto for control of Congress--before the above mentioned, he will end abortion in the U.S.;
• Cripple the economy with a misguided, repeatedly stupid attempt to foist China with tariffs; and 
• Put immigrants into concentration camps, where they will suffer and die by the thousands.

I'm sure that list, a highlight reel, is far too short. It can all be avoided by elected Kamala Harris President.

She doesn't have the elixir of magical policy alternatives; indeed, she would be far better off trying to mimic what Joe Biden has tried to do. But her campaign has undersold (at least in ads) the good that Biden has done for the economy and for relaxing the devastating anxiety caused by Covid. She has basically tried to sell herself by continuing to say that she isn't ex-, and trying to bring in Republicans who see things clearly. We will see, after tomorrow, whether that will work.

That she managed to recover much of the support lost by Biden after that disastrous debate in June is all to the good. But her momentum slowed down when ex- played it cagey by avoiding a second debate. He knew he would once again be made to look like the fool he is. So instead he relied on ridiculous, shouting, fear-mongering ads on TV, to which Harris could not respond with any kind of effective timing. He threw every kind of nonsense at us, including fears about support of trans-people, as if she had caved their every whim. (Note that Hovde copied those ads to the letter in Wisconsin.) If he wins, that change in strategy will be remembered as the turning point.

If. MSNBC's Steve Kornacki believes that Pennsylvania will be the deciding vote. I still believe that too many battleground states are too much up for grabs; it will be an absolute photo finish. Either way, we will still be left with a nation comprised at least halfway of people who, apparently with blind religious connection, have been fooled into thinking that the Almighty has willed this result. The movement it has engendered will not go away, either way it goes. But that will be a discussion for another day.

In the meantime: In the name of God, vote. Vote like the country's at stake. Because it really is this time.

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

Mister Mark

No, Jeff. I Don't Believe You. You Gypped Me.

Jeff Bezos has gypped the subscribers to the Washington Post--I am one of them, electronically--by walking away from his major public responsibility: Taking a position on this incredibly contested presidential race.

Not only did his cancellation of presidential election endorsement come at the last second and was timed maybe as poorly as it could have ever been, his explanation, made days later, riffs at ex post facto darts being pulled out of his back.

Bezos is trying to take the high road after torpedoing his own editorial staff at the Washington Post and removing a recommendation for Kamala Harris, the only move that makes any sense this fall.  He says it's the "right thing to do" because the newspaper should not appear biased.

That is colossal nonsense. Newspapers, as a rule, try as hard as they can not to be unnecessarily biased by the way they report facts. They seek balance, sometimes disappointingly because the underlying cause of big stories are often well-known before they reach the print stage. But the point is that they usually bend over backwards to avoid accusations, true or not, of misrepresentation.

So newspapers are, by their nature, normally as unbiased as entities could possibly be. Bezos' entreaty in the name of objectivity is pretentious and defensive. That has nothing to do with whether or not they should take positions on vital issues of the day. That's what the op-ed page is supposed to be about. But Bezos has nixed what I believe to be the Post's sacred obligation: to serve as the public's positional system on choosing the most important person in the nation and the world. Dozens of papers still do this and don't think twice about it. Bezos has not only thought twice, but thought wrong.

The timing of the decision, so close to the election itself, reveals this. If Bezos was that devoted to his high-minded principles, why didn't he come out and take this position, say, last spring? It has been more than obvious that siding with one or the other has reached an all-time high. If he was to do the public a lasting service by toning down the temperature of debates and disagreements, that would have been the time to do so.

It's kind of like a baseball hitter with a swing flaw. He should fix it in the spring, when the season's still young and the race is still blurry and largely undecided. He shouldn't wait to work on it when it's two out in the ninth, the bases are loaded, and he stands at the plate.

It all smacks of something else, too. Bezos is a multibillionaire. He has been roundly attacked, probably unjustly, by ex- during his woebegotten presidential term for his involvement in post office issues.The attack is a hazing, though, for not supporting ex- politically. It really means nothing else.

But that's enough. Bezos wants ex- off his back, just because it's too much of a hassle otherwise. Does that matter to the rest of us?

That's a good question. For the Post to avoid a presidential endorsement at this late hour cannot be anything but abdication of political and citizenship responsibilities. It is the direct ignoring of the simple fact that that paper represents a significant degree of the electorate, one that depends upon it for representing their views.

Yes, the Post tries to be balanced in its approach, and anyone who follows it can't help but agree. It has conservative columnists with whom I disagree strongly--but it has them. It has run plenty of stories about those who support ex-, even though I dislike them deeply. For it to be designated as responsible, it has to do so.

But the chief columnists, those who are read most consecutively and most often, remain those who lean left. The paper's readership has demanded it. It has relied upon it for opinion leadership. Their combined attitudes can't help but steer the paper's conclusion that ex- cannot possibly return as president.

Which is why a quarter of a million subscribers have cancelled at this point. If Bezos is so worried about losing money--I'm guessing he's really not--he shouldn't have waited until the ultimately decisive point to worry about this.

So, no: I don't believe his effort to smooth this over with high-minded principles. It feels empty and pointless.

The Los Angeles Times has also very recently declined to take a position in the race, too, infuriating much of its staff as well. Run by another billionaire, it all looks to be a cabal by rich people to save their toys so they aren't unnecessarily scratched.

Will it matter to the average voter? No way to tell. But for two major newspapers to abrogate their responsibilities now, at the last minute, tells me that it's capitulation to a tinpot phony who might in fact fool enough people in battleground states to walk away with this thing. When the heat came on, two newspaper moguls up and walked away. When it came to have some guts, they had none.

We have three days to know whether that mattered.

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

Mister Mark

"That Librarian" and Our New Reality

Amanda Jones worked like other school librarians worked: largely undetected. But she stood up for the right to read in Livingston, Louisiana, and there she called down opprobrium upon herself.

You know who they are now: the people who, for all the wrong reasons, think certain books should be removed from libraries, many of which they've merely heard of and haven't read. They make up all kinds of fear-mongering scenarios that never happen and never will. They connect what they do to a higher calling, believing that they are in concert with God and that justifies personal attacks and outright lies.

They call those who resist them, as they should be resisted, all kinds of damning names such as "groomer," pretending and assuming that librarians, somehow, are leading children into horrible lives.

And they have weaponized social media to do so. It can open opportunities to having and keeping friends, yes, but also wield devastating slander and libel on someone with no other motivation other than to set things straight. It can demonstrate the devastation of standing in the way of ignorance and hatred. "There really is no arguing with these people," she wrote. "They will believe what they want to believe, even when shown the truth, and when shown the truth they will often lash out with hate."

She kept a journal of her awful experiences of, in essence, trying to stand up for the rest of ourselves, and turned it into a book, That Librarian, out just recently. The saga is not pleasant. The criticism of groups such as the self-appointed Citizens for A New Louisiana lurched into genuine libel, and Jones, with funding help from a Go Fund Me site, tried to take them on in court. But the local judge, perhaps affected by members of the above mentioned group who turned up at the session, didn't allow herself to separate the quasi-religious issue from that of the personal damage it had caused Jones. She denied the request to sue. Jones fiercely defended her rights and appealed. Her account documents what happened in-between.

It was a personal hell, not of her own making. It's a story not that unfamiliar: When people begin to understand what the Bill of Rights is really all supposed to be about--letting minorities do what they think is right and living and let living as long as no one gets hurt--gets in conflict with righteousness many claim but can't live by, then you can get people fired up for foggy but somehow palpable reasons.

What book banning seems to be all about, when all else is swept away, is people who rail against the public displays of homosexuality and transgenderism and cherry-pick the Bible to justify their attitudes that if God would never permit it, why should they? Thus, why should they pay their hard earned tax money to someplace that tolerates it? And if it tolerates it, doesn't that mean it promotes it? It has more to do with discomfort in viewing and experiencing it than notions of righteousness, anyhow. But the religious angle stands as a firewall, a leakproof organizing strategy.

It doesn't seem like the book banners, the alt-right, and the white Christian nationalists are interested in being educated. Education is about knowledge, facts, truth, and what they're pushing isn't about these things. What they stand behind is really a belief system, which happens to be profoundly undemocratic and exclusionary. In truth, it's a believe system based in nostalgia, a longing to turn back the clock to a time when Christianity was more universal, when whites ruled society, when women were subservient to men, and when gay people stayed closeted. It cdhrainly doesn't appeal to be, but for those feeling enominically or socially "eft behind," or perhaps, simply out of step, it may be. a kind of a lifeline. It bestowers meaning, belonging, identity. It creates an us-versus-them world, at the heard of which is fear of difference and fear of change. Hate is its by-product. It's powerful stuff and what makes it so miserable to be targeted by them, and so frustrating to go up against. Do they believe the lies about that book or this book being inappropriate? I'm not sure, but I'm sure that they need to believe what they believe to maintain good standing with others in their communities.

There really is no arguing with these people. They will believe what they want to believe, even when shown the truth, and when shown the truth they will often lash out with hate.

It's time we admit that the United States has had an ominous history that hasn't aways been fireworks and "Yankee Doodle." Our country has some awesome ideals but has history of not living cup tot hem--of mistreating women, children, people of color, and the LGBTQIA+ community. Admitting the dark side of our country's history doesn't mean we hate our country.  It is the opposite.

I want to live in a country that earns its title of being the best until it is no longer a delusion or lofty idea but a fact. Instead, I live in a country whose current politicians are too busy dragging us through the mud with manufactured outrage over teaching real history and including books in our libraries that speak the truth and feature all members of society. I would love to stand in from of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and ask them what in God's name they think the are going besides causing us to backslide as a country.

The world can be pretty confusing these days. What I see is a society growing more open-minded to people who are different from them, and a backlash from a segment of people who are uncomfortable with this. These folks see it as a zero-sum game. Any movement toward openness and acceptance somehow takes something away from them. This is where and the victim talk comes from, and the steading raising of volume and distortion in their claims as the truth fails them and they reach for fear mongering.  American was founded not as a Christian nation, as they like to believe, but as a pluralistic democracy guaranteeing freedom of worship and the promise of equality. We still have a long way to go in the equality department, but the progress we have made should be celebrated, not feared. What Christian nationalists want nothing to do with this celebration. They want to turn back the clock to a time and a place that never was. It's sad and too bad. All it would take is a bit of courage, positivity, and generosity. True Christian values. But fear, hate and intolerance are easier and maybe more emotional satisfying in the short term. Indeed, they're playing the short game, and it won't end well.

Every day I wake up wondering who or where the next hate campaign will be launched. All across the country ate speech is running rampant, funding is being threatened, and our libraries are under attack. People are no longer hiding their racism. I don't know if I'm relived, because at least they are showing their true colors so that we can identify them, or if I'm just sad and wish they'd go back to hiding it.

She filed suit against Citizens for A New Louisiana and its spokespeople, Ryan Thames and Michael Lunsford, but got it thrown back in her face when the parish judge went along with the whole business not as a legal tort, but as a morality play of which she was apparently the guilty person. It set off a social media war. She was accused of things she couldn't have done.

The good part about this is that Jones set up a Go Fund Me account, and got herself enough money for appellate pursuits because there are plenty of people out there who love their libraries and don't want them to become right wing echo chambers. In the meantime, she became something of a media darling and was asked to speak in various places about the horrors of this obsession. And, as you can see, she took time off from what had suddenly become her incredibly stressful job to write her book.

So she's doing fine, sadder but wiser, of course. But I wonder about other librarians who, like her, want nothing more than to do their jobs helping people with the wonders and joys of reading. What happens to them when they are attacked? Who rushes to their aid?

I have done some reading connected to my advocacy position with the Friends of the Shorewood Public Library. Some librarians do "weeding" of some books that might bring public scrutiny. Such a practice can be deemed "normal," since some books really do need to be gleaned from the stacks due to lack of borrowing or simple wear and tear. But some librarians use this practice to do sneaky removals of potentially controversial works. People, young and adult, who might need to read them go wanting. Thus the undermining process works all by itself, without anyone raising their voices.

This is the ex- aspect of our lives now, that people have grasped onto something they can brag about without realizing how others are being hurt and how the culture is reduced. Not that they care. Self-righteousness begets compassion and, worse, critical thinking.

This upcoming election will not end this. Part of it is obviously, and ridiculously, to curry favor with ex-, or to be connected to him in some palpable way. But his defeat would not make this disappear, and his victory will accelerate it. If you like your local library, get ready. They're coming for it. It's just a matter of time.

If your local bookstore has a copy of Jones' book, just sit with it for a minute and read the final two dozen pages. It contains her advice about how communities can gird themselves against these unwarranted, pathetic attacks. In a word: Organize. In another: Inform. In a third: Warn.

This is part of our new reality, that others are trying as hard as they can to avoid facing reality and demand that we do, too. They have no right to do so, but they will seize power if they can get it--just like their hero is trying to do again.

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

Mister Mark