"These Truths": Trying to Lasso a Hurricane

Jill Lepore admittedly didn't know what she was originally taking on when she did the exhaustive research for her discursive, if not necessarily thorough, history of the United States, These Truths: A History of the United States. "I undertook the incredibly delightful and joyful work of learning and writing about many people, events, ideas, and institutions I'd never studied before," she wrote in her acknowledgements. To write a history of this country is always trying to lasso a hurricane. It's too big with too many narratives at once.

And it shows: She goes out of her way to ignore the assassination of one president, James Garfield, without a mention, even though it rubs up against one of the great concepts now being dismantled by 45, civil service reform--and the creation of the Deep State, the embodiment of what, until he took over, kept the necessarily enormous government of our enormous democracy functioning and relatively competent--and covers that of another, William McKinley, with a single phrase of one sentence. She does the Kennedy assassination with a particular emphasis upon the NRA's reaction: to try to prevent the proliferation of automatic weapons, at least in 1963. Only Lincoln's murder, with its thunderous impact upon Reconstruction, is given the kind of attention it deserves.

But she does, in kind of an ongoing, gee-whiz way, also enlighten us with the origins of such things as the idea behind the Secret Service protection of the president, a 'wire service,' the Associated Press, the real name of the Freedman's Bureau, the creation of IBM, the founding of the PTA, the establishment of the League of Women Voters, the idea behind Time magazine, the origin of the word "broadcasting," and, in a detailed telling, the origins of political consulting and polling, both of which, she says, have driven our politics right into the ground.

These things are not vital to the story, but quirkiness that keeps the narrative going. Oddly, though decidedly a liberal but not an uncritical one--she's rather scathing to liberals for their smug abandonment of activism at the end--she pays little attention to the Indian Wars of the post-Civil War era, focusing more on their result, the cultural destruction of indigenous peoples. She would rather focus upon the Trail of Tears, and Andrew Jackson's defiance of the Supreme Court. She certainly discusses the formation of the Constitution, but does not include it in the text or an appendix. Though she does mention that John Brown befriended Frederick Douglass and tried to enlist his active support for his famous but disastrous raid at Harpers' Ferry in 1859 (Douglass took in Brown as a friend and guest but refused active participation, as noted in David Blight's exhaustive biography of Douglass), she does not add that Douglass had to flee for his life for a while before Virginia broke away from the Union in 1861; not satisfied with active sedition, Virginia wanted Douglass' hide as well. And though John Quincy Adams was thoroughly defeated in his attempt at a second term by Andrew Jackson, who never forgave Adams for his "corrupt bargain" with Henry Clay to win the presidential runoff vote in the House of Representatives in 1824 (note: don't count 45 out even if he gets beat in November; he can win one more term and you know he's ornery enough if he survives his own poisoning with hydroxycloroquine, if indeed he did so, which I personally doubt), he was greatly respected as an abolitionist, and his funeral in 1848 was very well-attended.

These Truths is far more about the sweeping ideas and the institutions that gave them life. To her credit, she writes simply, in a way that anyone who paid attention in high school and isn't intimidated by the 789-page length. I recall looking up just one word, "capacious," and, if I had paused for a moment, I would have figured out the definition in context anyhow, having capacity. Other histories aren't so kind: The Glory and the Dream, William Manchester's brilliant, enormous opus about America from 1932-72, requires a dictionary close by when he jumps out at you with a word nobody's heard of, except perhaps on the SATs.

Yet, These Truths borrows from one of the Founding Fathers, Hamilton, to develop and maintain a focus through a single question that he posed as the basis for The Federalist Papers: can a people govern themselves through reason? She does not exactly answer that, but she does hint that at this point, a changing of course is necessary, and our generation blew its opportunity to do so. If we have brought on such a ghastly phenomenon as 45, we have some work to do. I'm glad that she noted that the best Obama could do, beyond health care, is prevent the republic from going bankrupt. Besides that, his presidency will be known for being largely symbolic and like a gerbil in a cage, since the Republicans were so good at blocking everything else.

She seems to agree with something I've concluded long ago: That our generation, the baby boomers, blew the country we were handed. Our parents wanted us not to suffer from the same problems that they did: a depression and world war. We dodged both and were handed affluence and opportunities galore. And what did we do with it? Founder in gluttonous self-absorption. Conservatives, with their enormous wealth and now law and courts to protect it, are just as guilty as liberals, who rested on their laurels after Brown v. Board and Roe v. Wade, both attacked and diminished almost as they were declared.

We forgot where we came from and that it isn't automatic. The ultimate example of that is now president. We got what we deserved. And now depression's right around the corner, brought to you by neglect at the highest levels.

So she leaves us with 45's election and what it means: That our information-twisted-and-challenged culture, filled with "truthiness," is now fighting itself in ways that seem stuck and immutable. Two narratives have emerged, one less able to be sifted and blended in with the other as we go. We have two nations now, as John Edwards said: but wherever he is, he didn't mean what's happened. One rich, one poor, is what he meant, even more because of Republican meddling in the tax structure, and that's still true. But that's been disguised and smoothed over for now. We are going backwards, as Lepore says, with a narrative that seems to be satisfactory for disturbingly many.

In less than six months, we will decide what to do with that. I wonder whether a new history of the country will have to be written then, or if anybody's proud enough of the result to go to the trouble. As it is, this book is filled with thoughtful reflections and ruminations. As history, it is oddly superficial in terms of facts, but thorough in terms of meaning, another balancing act between facts and truth. It's easy to read yet dense. But it's worth your while.

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


Mister Mark

Why Has This Country Gone Bonkers? Part 1: Originalism

It's a question that keeps coming back to me, almost by default, as I watch what goes on around me: Why has this country gone bonkers, with so many people so emotional, so irrational, so acting without logic or reason?

It has to explain why we can't arrest this virus. It has to explain why we elected, even by default by the back door, such a horrible president (indeed, why he even got close) and why a considerable percentage of us still cling to his every word. Saying that the facts don't tell you the truth is the easy way out: It means you just get the gist and nothing means exactly what is uttered. We're living, now, in that kind of world. It floats along, waiting the next pronouncement that means nothing.

I think it's three things: anti-intellectualism, phony American exceptionalism, and our geographic position in the world, which used to be a strength but is now a real drawback (all of which will be discussed). We sit here alone, with disrespected connections north and south, neither learning about them nor from them. And the rest of the world is, well, over there, someplace else, where we can't reach them regardless of their relevance or competence.

Instead, we cherry-pick the most authoritarian of them--Hungary and Turkey and Brazil, for instance--and have little or nothing to do with the rest, who used to rely upon us for genuine leadership but now, bitterly, prove that they will get along without us. It didn't take nearly as much as we thought it would to sever their friendship and loyalty. Our badly elected leader never gave them the credit they deserved. Now we drift along, alone, sharing little, learning nothing.

We certainly don't copy anybody near us. Remember not long ago, some twisted guy dressed up like a cop and even made his car up to look like a police car so he could, with an automatic weapon, slaughter more than twenty of his fellow Canadian citizens? Well, Prime Minister Trudeau solved that problem quickly: He issued an edict making automatic weapons illegal. The next person who brandishes one in public, if they're not a member of the military or police, can expect to have to immediately seized. Can anybody imagine doing that here? How many mass shootings can take place without an automatic weapon?

But our obsession with the Second Amendment--the core of the problem--is relatively new. Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States, believes it really began in the late 1980s, when a philosophy called "originalism" emerged. While not being sure who started it--but the Reagan Justice Department cultivated it--it has taken hold and become a discussion topic on nearly all federal court cases since. It's the supposition that there's a way to determine, or at least to come to a ruling because of, the way the Founding Fathers believed a certain kind of case could be decided when the Constitution was first written.

That's absurd. First of all, the meaning of the Constitution has never been carved in stone. If it had been, at least three states--New York, Massachusetts and Virginia--would never have had ratification votes as close as they were; there would have been a greater consensus. The role of the states, the balance of powers among the three branches, were all topics on the table and difficult to ascertain at the time of ratification. To base a current court decision on a concept determined in 1787 or thereabouts is a way to extend a conservative conclusion to a matter that couldn't have been ascertained back then--to take a modern situation and reduce it to a common denominator. It's impossible to do that, but the originalist narrative has taken hold and settled itself inside our jurisprudence.

For instance, because the days of the latter part of the 18th Century involved the frontier, and people really did carry guns with them partly to protect themselves, it's been assumed that the original intent of the Second Amendment was to preserve the right of individual protection. Yet, there's almost nothing written on the subject back then.

Was it destroyed? No, it didn't happen. The conversation back then almost never went there. The original intent of the Second Amendment (read it) was, and still ought to be, the preservation of state militias, or the National Guard, as it is now called. But the Supreme Court has ruled that cities don't have the right to ban handguns within its borders, due to the originalist concept. So guns proliferate, and so do needless deaths and injuries.

But the Republicans got the people on the Supreme Court that they wanted, and that philosophy held. Now the NRA has what it wants--it didn't always want that, by the way--and can feed the gun manufacturers all the support they want. It has run out of money for now, but if 45 is re-elected, trust me, it will make a comeback.

Holding a gun, I can say anything I want, whether I'm in fact someone who wants to back it up or not. Holding a gun, I can make a ridiculous claim about the Constitution and someone will be nearby to listen and support. Holding a gun, I can be as racist as I want to be. Holding guns has changed our culture, and not for the better.

One of these days, there will be a showdown between races, since anyone can own a gun. We don't think of black people wielding weapons, but I don't see why they wouldn't, do you? Then the police will be caught in the middle, and won't be able to side with anybody.

What will happen then? I don't know, but I don't want to be anywhere near it. Thing is, it might be by default. We already know that such a showdown could happen anywhere at any time. If such murders as took place in Georgia the other day keep happening, it will take place sooner rather than later. Anger can only be contained for so long, and this isn't Canada. People like their guns here and they have legal backing.

Because of originalism, a fake concept perpetuated by expert messaging. It is pretentious and absurd. It was created to justify a conservative position that never was.

That's Part 1. Did you expect this to be simple?

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


Mister Mark

What If He Gets Sick?

We have to entertain the notion now; it's creeping up all around the creep. What happens if the president gets sick?

It would seem that the 25th Amendment might have to be invoked. It's common knowledge, now, that Covid-19 is, or can be, a debilitating disease, if not a fatal one. It can attack the whole body and put someone in bed for weeks. It can also kill, slowly or quickly. In the meantime, there will be a point at which the victim of a bad dose will be very racked up.

And the disease is particularly unkind to older people (which is why I got tested the other day, and await results, though I don't think I have it. Better to know than not to know.). 45 is in his 70s. He's a prime target.

In his twisted mind, I understand why he wants to appear in front of the press and cameras on a daily basis: He wants to appear indestructible, as poorly as he handles the press. But he doesn't wear a mask because he thinks that implies weakness. He has to mingle with people daily. He gets tested daily. But that doesn't mean (as it doesn't mean the same with me) that he won't get it or can't get it. All it means is that he doesn't have it at that particular moment.

Secret Service agents are getting sick. Aides to the veep are getting sick. The White House is a place of very narrow hallways and cramped offices; the breeding ground is obvious.

We have to be prepared for it. The 25th Amendment is the only constitutional safe haven we have, and looking at it carefully, it really isn't. Again, what is usually implied by the Constitution doesn't have to apply to this president. He will invoke an end run when and where he can.

The staff will be hard-pressed to create excuses for him, but they'll try to do it. It's been done before. I have it on good knowledge, from a late member of Ronald Reagan's Situation Room staff during his second term--and his is a second-hand account--that Reagan spent roughly the last year and a half with clear signs of senility. The public was kept away for the most part. They stood him up when they had to, Sam Donaldson's reports notwithstanding, and got him to the finish line.

But 45 has to campaign this year. What he gets sick and has to campaign? That will be impossible. The lack of public appearances will be obvious now. There's no middle ground with this guy. He's all-in, everywhere, regardless of whether he's wearing people out or not.

Not only that, but this White House has been very leaky. Secrets are never kept. The staffers can't help themselves.

It may be possible for some decision-making to the transferred to Pence without letting 45 know it's being done. His grasp of governmental reach is questionable to begin with, so he not know it's happening. But there will also be a distinct lack of activity; tweets will be reduced and so will routine trips. He's been hankering to get back out on the road to begin with; he sudden withdrawal will be all too obvious.

Somebody will have to take the first step if 45's bed-ridden. As with other amendments, a shorthand version is always at work. Generally speaking, the public believes that if there's any significant evidence that the president is too incapacitated to do his job, the week and the Cabinet can tell Congress that and the veep takes over. But it isn't quite that simple.

The amendment says that the "principal officers of the executive departments or (my emphasis) of such other body as Congress may be law provide" make the decision that the president can't do his job very well and have to turn power over to the veep. There's quite the devil in those details.

Do you think that the Cabinet, appointed as 45's loyal toadies without independent judgment that they can get caught making, will for one minute consider rendering judgment to take their boss' job away from him? Undoubtedly, they'll defer to Congress.

And, there's the notion that 45 has made several members of the Cabinet "appointed", but not official; he hasn't run them past Congress. He can claim that they are, in fact, not Cabinet members, and can be fired or not included at any time--not counted as the principal officers and, therefore, not allowed to participate in the decision. He can simply leave it up to the Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows (from whom we have heard practically nothing), to choose the group, which would likely tilt the decision in his favor.

There will be confusion, which is 45's ballpark. There will be delay, which plays right into his hands. There may be chaos, on which he thrives. Meanwhile, the clock ticks and he might get sicker and sicker, with his already horrible judgment becoming more bizarre by the day.

The Republicans, especially in the Senate where Mitch McConnell can tell his members what to have for lunch, will insist upon an investigation. That will waste more time. Who will conduct it to anyone's satisfaction, especially in light of the shambling pseudo-investigation of Brett Kavanaugh's abuse of Christine Blasey Ford, with vague conclusions by design? It might move forward, but at a snail's pace.

You might as well write off the 25th Amendment as irrelevant, then, except if McConnell sees this as an opportunity to bring at least some government competence into place wth Pence's previous experience, never mind his twisted religiosity. Or, if more federal judgeships are dangling in the mist and he wants someone to sign off on them. Then he'll move.

So no, the 25th Amendment won't do the trick, even if 45 gets sick. The greater fear should be if he gets beat--no sure thing--and refuses to leave office, sick or not. That will be the greater challenge for American democracy, and something that should be discussed ahead of time. Only Bill Maher has dared to bring it up to prospective Democratic candidates, and nobody has directly answered the question. It needs to get answered, and with enough panache to reassure people that this election won't foment an attempted coup d'etat.

More on that later. In the meantime, our sick society will probably get sicker as we wait to hold another sick election. But it's all we have.

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


Mister Mark

Woke, Fifty Years On

Up to a certain point, I spent most of my college freshman year believing that I'd gone to the wrong place. Last week, fifty years ago (I would have written this last week, but my laptop was in for repairs), that changed abruptly.

I remember it well. My roommate, Scott Langer, came in and said that, just across the way at the Lawrence University Chapel, a politically-charged atmosphere was raging. Speeches were taking place on the chapel steps. Political awareness was reaching a fever pitch.

That was true all over the country as well. It was May 5th, 1970. The day before, four students had been gunned down by National Guardsmen at Kent State, in Ohio. It was a typically cool spring day, partly cloudy.

They, and hundreds of other students, had been protesting President Nixon's invasion of Cambodia, which threatened to expand the Vietnam War even though he had promised to wind it down. He said that Cambodia was a place for "sanctuaries" for Communist North Vietnamese troops, and the invasion had to take place to clean them out. The results were predictable: Cambodia, too, eventually fell to Communist forces.

Little did we know, though we discovered it not much later, that bombing of Cambodia had been happening since the year before. Nixon's deception was deep and abiding.

I remember saying to Scott that at a certain point, citizens had to do what was right and speak out against this rotten war, which had now entered its sixth year and was going nowhere. I had supported President Johnson's gradual escalation from my vantage point of Grafton, Wisconsin, because my world was narrow and nowhere near as informed as others had been. But I had been to college for nearly a full year now, and my perspective had changed with more interaction, more information and more chances to absorb them.

It was time to act, or at least tune into those who were acting. I didn't know what would transpire when I grabbed my jacket and headed to the chapel, next door to my dorm of Plantz Hall. I must say I rather surprised myself that day.

I met my girlfriend, her best friend and her boyfriend, a fellow frat brother (they got married eventually), at the demonstration. Political activists were voicing their objections to Nixon's expansion of the war. Suddenly, they proposed that we march right on down the main street of Appleton, Wisconsin, College Avenue, and let people know how we were feeling.

I never hesitated. It was about two in the afternoon, as I recall. Yes, yes, it was time to act, time to get involved, time to be all-in. Nobody flinched. Off we went.

College Avenue widened into four lanes, and we took up the inside two of them. Traffic slowed down, but could pass us in either direction; we weren't going to halt traffic for our concerns, which I think, looking back, could have gotten us thrown in jail. As it was, I thought we'd be in one for sure eventually.

We plunked ourselves down at the intersection of College and Oneida, as central an intersection as there could be. We changed slogans and sang songs. I don't recall exactly how long we were there, but it had to be half an hour at least. We allowed traffic to turn right and detour itself; again, probably why we weren't immediately thrown in jail.

There was some violence. Some of the students, a small number, decided to break some windows. The vast majority of us had nothing to do with them; that wasn't our goal. We needed to make a statement, though, and that we did.

That began a week of intense activism. Eventually, the faculty voted that classes were optional that week so that students who became politically charged could engage in campus-wide activities to raise awareness about the war and the need to stop it. That took place after a candlelight procession that evening, and a student convocation in the chapel the next day.

Of my three classes (we had trimesters with three classes required for each), only one met that week. It was in English, and I attended; no need to make that professor upset. Besides, I liked him, and I liked the subject: It was an English literature course that I had no trouble getting into. The philosophy professor who taught Logic was a radical, and there was no way we would have his classes. The third course was with a sociology professor who had come in from St. Norbert to teach a mass media-connected course. He was really funny and a great lecturer. He wasn't coming in, though, to this very charged atmosphere.

That freed me up to be politically active and a bit daring. I participated in an effort to hold up the draft office by coming in and asking them questions: I always thought that somewhere in the FBI files, my name is still there.

But probably the part of the week that had the biggest impression upon me was something I would continue to do for decades: Canvass the Appleton community to get people to sign a telegram to send to Nixon to stop the invasion. Of course, it had little effect on anything, in the end; the war would slog on with three more years of active American participation. But that wasn't the point back then. We thought that if we could make any difference, at least we ought to try.

We had heard stories about how conservative Appleton was, so even though we were dressed well--I actually had a sport coat on--I wondered how much of a risk I was taking. I remember being pretty nervous at first. But as I got into the day, I found that people were willingly conversant--my approach was respectful, so that may have had something to do with it--and many signed the telegram. Just one visit was unfriendly; a woman who said she had two sons in Vietnam. She didn't keep the door open long enough for me to tell her that I was trying to get them home so she could see them again. I hope she did.

But it was successful, in that I collected a lot of signatures and involved myself in surprisingly deep conversations. People really were bothered by the invasion, and wanted to know more. I felt proud at the end of the day.

I walked away from that experience owning a new attitude: one in which I was, and would be, politicized permanently. I left nothing on the table that week; I did what I could. So did many others.

It informed my eventual declaration of political science as a major, with American politics as an emphasis. It made me look for later opportunities to get involved. It gave me momentum to be a social studies teacher. And it drove my activism within my teachers' union, all the way to Washington, DC itself for six years.

I was no longer just a jock. I was an activist. I wasn't just a college student anymore; I was a citizen.
This blog is a way of extending it.

Fifty years on, we are now in the grip of another awful president who leverages his power cruelly and with little care for others. I'm going to stay woke and stay involved. I'm not sure what kind of a country we actually have left, but I'm going to help to save it for my nieces and nephews. Onward.

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


Mister Mark

Republicans in Wisconsin? Sucking A Little Wind

I don't know if anybody's noticed, but Wisconsin Republicans don't look so good anymore. Suddenly, things have gone downhill.

Their chickenshit stance on the election, disguise as macho--making people stand out in the rain, with virus all around, and so the number of urban polling place are reduced so to play toe percentages and give themselves the beset possible chance of victory for a bad incumbent in the state Supreme Court race--backfired horribly, losing by eight percentage points. The memory of Robin Pos dressed like Spaceman Spiff resonates.

Then there effort to involve that same court in twisting Governor Tony Evers' arm behind his back and make him open up the state completely, despite the pandemic, has hit an interesting kind of wall. The case was heard last Tuesday, now eight days ago. The conservatives still hold, however briefly, a 5-2 edge. Funny that a decision's taken this long. Could it be that they don't know what to do when confronted by--as incumbent candidate Daniel Kelly tried to keep insisting he relied upon--the plain language of the statutes?

What's taking them so long? Cat got their tongues? Do Rebecca Bradley and ImPatience Roggensack suddenly have a problem, once they actually looked at the law and realized that freedom, in this case, means death to hundreds of stupid people?

The governor has stuck to his guns. Despite tragedies at food-packing plants in Green Bay and Janesville-Beloit, the numbers of ill and dead, though awful, remain low for a state of this size. His metaphor of 'turning the tail instead of flicking a switch (perhaps borrowed from Minnesota, whose governor uses the same terminology, or vice versa) is proving to be one of the few calming gestures amidst a culture constantly on the edge.

Plus, simply, it's smart and defuses Republicans angst, genuine or otherwise. A consensus is developing here and elsewhere that, however we may reopen the economy, we have to do it smartly to give everyone the chance to enjoy life again. Allowing retail to open with no more than five customers in a store cuts close to honoring that consensus. (And it says here that those businesses should adapt the Costco Concept and prevent anyone from entering without a mask. Whining will ensue, briefly. Then people will get on with it.)

The calendar also work in Evers' favor. We know have less than two weeks left in the extension of the Safe At Home restrictions that Republicans have railed against. Each day that the state supreme court delay its decision makes that decision more moot, and makes Evers appear genuinely statesmanlike. Vos can scream bloody murder about regional openings and the need to open up the whole state, but with each hour that moves toward Memorial Day, it rings more hollow.

Without Mr. F. Gow--most recent former governor of Wisconsin, in initials--at their back, to clean up and legitimize their radicalism, Wisconsin Republicans appear rudderless and out on a limb. They look worse by the day. Tony Evers has taken their legislative advantage and shunted it aside with deft, measured moved designed to exude calm as well as deal with this terrible disaster, fomented on us by a clueless, horrible president who, day-by-day, fits the walking definition of "useless."

More on that later. In the meantime, it's been fun to see meanness turned into mush, into empty grumbling. Gerrymandering will be with us a while, so we must celebrate small victories when we can get them.

And they will never be one-sided in this, perhaps the ultimately purple state. The northernmost, most rural Congressional District, the 7th, has just elected a climate change objector by 15 points. But the margin for 45 in 2016 was 20. That five percent may be the difference this time around. Their second thoughts may yet save Wisconsin--and, perhaps, the republic. But it looks nowhere near as dismal as it did four years ago.

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


Mister Mark

What Do We Do With This?

Joe Biden was asked, point blank, by Mika Breszinski, who has street cred, whether he had sexually assaulted Tara Reade in 1993. His answer: Absolutely not. It never happened.

Tara Reade says yes. So what do you do with this? Look into the motives of the accuser? She says she'll vote for Biden for president nonetheless. At least she's not crazy.

Then why did she wait until now to come forward? We return to Kavanaugh, and before him, Clarence Thomas and their crocodile tears. And let's not forget the primary beast, 45, and his multiple, blatant, assaults, the revelation behind some he has paid off (and who is doing his best to pivot on the Biden business and lump himself in with the rest of the poor male victims).

Is it that Reade, who must understand something about Washington politics since she worked as a staffer on the Hill, needed to clear her own conscience, having absorbed an attack without going public about it all this time? Did she think that the establishment was going to give her a pass and go without investigation or scrutiny?

She had plenty of opportunity to upset Biden's applecart. Biden did run for President and Vice-President twice in-between. If she would have come forward back then, the accusation probably would have had better attention. That's why it's such a head-scratcher. What's the point now?

If she's right, it's still he-said, she-said, 27 years ago. A neighbor corroborated, but didn't come forward, either. Protecting her privacy? Well, no. Not now. And, now that Reade has come forward, the matter is moot. If privacy was the point, nobody would have said a thing, ever.

Is it that now it's more fashionable, more socially acceptable, for women to come forward? Is this, at last, the legacy of Harvey Weinstein?

If so, fine. No sexual assault or harassment should ever go unanswered or unclarified. It's too serious a matter. Relationships between the genders are improving, in a way; things are 'out there' more often. But it's glacial.

Me-Too has its point. But after that point, it adopts a vindictive feel. If you don't step forward for many years, I'm sorry, but your street cred has taken a dive. Or is it that like the above Supreme Court nominations, there are now things at stake, things that look now a bit clearer? But what can be more at stake than a woman's dignity?

Or am I underestimating the onus that women feel about stepping forward? It's still up to the individual. She can get a good attorney, then go forward. She can do that any time she wants. Where else are we going to leave this?

Look, I'm a guy, and within that comes some bias. But Christine Blasey Ford and Tara Reade have, and had, the same problem: No corroboration; someone to listen to them, but too far back (like E. Jean Carroll, who said 45 raped her; suspicion is enormous, but she waited so long). They may very well have been abused, but they detached.

When you come back around, you must use the facts that are still out there and that are agreed to. The other side has its day coming to it, and the emotionality that accompanies these messes must subside. We want to be fair about the facts. We still like the two-source rule: If two sources can verify, we're good with it. Ford and Reade, and for that matter, Anita Hill, haven't done that and never did, despite media coverage.

At least Biden didn't display utter immaturity, like Kavanaugh, the victim's victim, who hid behind a very abbreviated investigation. Biden came forward willingly, too and no weasel words. He didn't insult his questioner, or his accuser. He didn't call it 'fake news.' He said women have the perfect right to say such things. He isn't hypocritical about that. But it feels a bit hollow.

And old. 45 has set the non-standard for dealing with this: grab her for fun, pay her off, keep lying until it goes away. And he got forgiven by enough people to back into the presidency by the back door. A big deal has been made of it, but to what end if someone else has already gotten away with so much? Biden hasn't paid anybody off. And, he says, he isn't lying.

Tell you what, though: Whatever woman Biden reaches out to choose for his running mate should vet this thoroughly. The decision should be based on her qualifications, but the onus of running with a potential molester still smacks of ultimate hypocrisy and piggy-backing for prestige. Here's an interesting question: Has the available supply of female candidates just been reduced? What if he can't find one now?

We haven't emerged from this yet, but the obvious conclusion is what the cynics have been saying all along: This has nothing to do with the position. It's personal, not policy. The Puritan Ethic has lost this battle. Can we get beyond this tawdriness now? Can we focus on the real debate, the future of our flagging country? Now that both sides have appeared dirty for some time now, can we have done with someone's definition of morality and just argue where in the hell we seem to be going?

We seem to be stuck. More journalism might be what's needed to establish a potential motive behind either person's actions, or both. Democrats, who now were coalescing behind a ho-hum candidate in order to get their ducks in a row and rally to get His Awfulness out of there, must now wonder: What did we just do? Maybe all we have to do is wait: Either something else comes out here, or it doesn't.

Republicans will, I predict, now bring something else out. Perhaps Hunter Biden again? We haven't heard from Sen. Ron Johnson in a while, and he was at the forefront of that wild goose chase. They aren't exactly beating a dead horse. They'll do what they can to give dispersions life. Such are the hazards of running for president.

Short of new revelations, maybe we just need to get on with things. The future of the country is clearly at stake here. What a shame if this got in the way of it.

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


Mister Mark

It's May 1! We Turn the Page: What An Awful Month!

It's May. We made it.

How, I have no idea. I go outside to shop for food, to buy some spray bottles, to pick up prescriptions, and to walk some. I also took a drive, though that wasn't smart. Those excursions were the exception, though, not the rule. I have no urge to run about, throwing myself at the atmosphere. Way, way too dangerous.

Maybe you were smarter than me. Maybe you're getting everything delivered. But for me, things are really close, so I put on my mask and gloves and have at it. Just about everything I need is a block away. I know I'm lucky, but I also know that that was the plan all along.

Monday, I walked into the hardware store to buy a spray bottle. One of the clerks sneezed. There I stood, about six feet away. But he wore a mask. Think I'll be all right.

25 days to go on shutdown. Maybe, if all goes well. I have my doubts. Everything still feels arbitrary.

The back of my left hand has a rash or something, perhaps from excessive washing. No matter; it'll get washed anyhow. That's a small annoyance. At least I know it's clean. I have plenty of soap, liquid and bar. I'll be fine. I cover my hands with soap in the bathroom, step outside to view a small clock with a sweep hand, make sure it goes 20 seconds, and wash it off.

My supply of disinfectant spray is decent; I use it rarely because I have to go outside rarely. But it's still there. I stocked up on sanitizer when I could, then got two spray bottles so I'm never far from it. Gloves, I think, will be a problem; I'll have to either order some or look for some fairly soon. But again, I don't go out that much. I can stretch the supply.

I'm getting out some CDs that I haven't played for a while. I'm throwing a few away; I have no idea why I bought some of them. But that winnowing out feels like it's been waiting for a while. It kind of feels like I'm listening to some of this stuff for the first time. I'm impressed with my taste, sort of.

I found a safety pin the other day. Big deal? You bet. One of the homemade masks my brother and sister-in-law sent to me had its elastic earhook break upon washing, thus for a while rendering it useless. The safety pin brings it back into play. One more day I don't have to rewash everything.

My strategy of reading one chapter a day with three books got a little stale, so I dived into something I've been waiting to read: These Truths: A History of the United States, by Jill Lepore, who writes for The New Yorker. 97 pages in, and it's really well done, even though as a retired history teacher, I know the story and many of its fascinating parts (though her research is impressive and I'm still learning stuff I didn't know). This book is written the way history should read. I'll review it here when I'm done, but it's huge, and I have a ways to go.

It's May. We turn the page on an awful month. Nothing good to be said for it when lockdown has encompassed it, other than we survived. But that's never a bad place to start.

My wine supply is ebbing slowly. So far, with the exception of one night, I've had my normal limit: two glasses. That other night, well, nothing good to be said for it, except to remind myself why I put the limit in place.

Yeah, my hair's getting pretty shaggy on the sides and back; not much left on top anyhow. I look like a mad professor. Actually, I kind of like that. I shave, that is, I reduce what's on my face, every two or three days, at which point I don't like myself. Not supposed to touch my face anyhow, though if the virus isn't inside, it doesn't matter. Just keep the hands clean, dude.

Onward. It's a lonely time, but one for thinking about how to advance through life a little better. I do know this: every breath I take is now not taken for granted. When you monitor yourself for the awful virus, existential thoughts aren't far away. You think about what you've accomplished, what you've had to overcome, and how that directs you now; some of the deeper thinking I've done.

In Milwaukee County, those with Covid-19 symptoms can get tested, no questions asked, so that's an advancement. We should have been there long ago, though, and 45's utter incompetence is still, and will always be, to blame, as well as his utter irresponsibility to lead. But we have what we have, and the fight is still about staying alive long enough to throw him out.

It's not about being hot about it anymore. It's about being cold about all this. The Chinese had a point about revenge. Celebrate being alive for May, and June, and the months ahead, so we can celebrate in November.

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


Mister Mark