Month: February 2023

Ukraine and America

Polling

President Biden had a “good” last week.  He made a secret trip to Kyiv, followed by a Roosevelt-like speech in Poland. He called on the world to defend democracy in Ukraine.  It all showed a President at the height of his powers in foreign policy, standing up for principle and justice against a foreign aggressor.  The European nations applauded his address. And the world watched Biden paying tribute to the fallen Ukrainian warriors alongside President Zelenskyy at the Kyiv memorial, as air raid sirens sounding once again in the capitol. 

But he returned to the United States to an odd poll.  According to an NBC News survey, Americans are split about fifty-fifty about whether to give more weapons to Ukraine (NBC).  That’s hard to imagine; even most Republican leaders are in favor of continuing to support Zelenskyy.  In fact, they are busy challenging President Biden to send even more aid to Ukraine.  They want US fighter jets, F-16’s, sent to defend the nation.

The Rump

There is a rump caucus  (properly positioned, I might add – in the rump) of the Republican Party that differs. They are few in leadership, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, but they are amplified by Fox Commentators Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard.  They  take the Russian view of the Ukraine invasion, excusing Russian aggression because “…they had legitimate” security concerns.  And their basic point is; we just shouldn’t care about what’s happening in Ukraine.  It’s a waste of money.

Even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis determined that the Russians don’t represent a security threat to NATO’s Eastern European partners.  That despite Putin ally and former Russian President Medvedev threatening to “push back” the borders of Poland and other NATO states in a speech last week (Reuters).  It’s hard to see how influential the “rumps” are.  Events in Ukraine seem very cut and dried, and it takes an inordinate amount of mainstream media skepticism to believe that “everything” we see about Ukraine is a “woke lie”.   

My point is that I don’t believe the polling.  I just don’t think most Americans believe that we should leave Ukraine high and dry, including most folks who would align themselves with Donald Trump.  I don’t believe they are taken in by the Russian propaganda that Tucker and Tulsi are spouting, or the nonsense said by Greene on the floor of the House.

Russian Influence

So let’s talk about the Russian influence in the United States.  

We discovered after the 2016 election that the Russians had outsized influence on the United States through social media.  Throughout all the investigations;  Muller, Manafort, the first Trump impeachment and Giuliani’s flailing efforts in Ukraine:  we’ve discovered the incredible influence of Russian money on the American political system.  It even reached into the FBI, and the New York chief of counter-intelligence corrupted by Oleg Deripaska, the same Putin ally who paid Paul Manafort (NPR).

So there is the obvious question:  is Russian money still influencing American politics?  Is that driving the position of the “far-right” Republicans and their Fox allies?   What we do know for sure, that the MAGA Republicans have an outsized influence on the Republican Party primaries, and therefore on the entire political process.  Many of the prospective Republican candidates for President are trying to gain traction with Trump voters, hoping that Trump himself will somehow decide not to run for the 2024 nomination.  The battle to inherit those voters is all dependent on what the former President decides.

Weapons to Use

What about the other side with the Republicans (and some Democrats), demanding that F-16’s and M1 Abrams Tanks immediately arrive in Ukraine?  The Abrams are ultimately on the way, but the F-16’s remain on hold.  Both of those most advanced weapons systems require intense and lengthy training.  The F-16’s, for example, require a bare minimum of nine months training, even for experienced combat pilots (Luke AFB).  There is no public evidence that Ukrainian pilots are already enrolled in that training, though it’s possible that they are.  Fifty Ukrainian pilots have already been identified for it.

The M1 Abrams tank takes months to master as well – even for seasoned tankers.

The US will supply the tanks and probably the planes as well.  But even better, the US is enabling Ukraine to get German Leopard Tanks and the more familiar MIG 29 and SU 24 Fighters from former Soviet countries now in NATO.  The Ukrainian forces already know how to operate those systems, and they will have an immediate impact on the battlefield.

Biden’s War

The drumbeat in the American media is already beginning:  this is Biden’s War.  And the media is also raising the pressure – will Americans support Biden even if this war drags on through the 2024 Presidential campaign?  

My bet is that America will.  Not only are the Ukrainians impressive on the battlefield, but also in the electronic “warfare” of social media.  And besides all of that – they are in the right in their battle with Russia, and Russia is in the wrong.  I believe most Americans see that, and will stand beside them until the end.  And they’ll stand beside the President’s support as well.

Ukraine Crisis Essays

Fair or Foul

Officiating the Pole Vault in the Covid Year!

It’s been a while, but here’s a “Sunday Story”. No politics here – just a story about folks who try to make sure the competition is fair.

Addiction

I coached track and field for forty years.  My last year as a coach was 2017, six “seasons” ago; so long ago that the high school athletes I coached are long graduated.  While some coaches remember me, even they are growing grayer.  Six years is a long time in the “life” of a high school sports team.

And for a while, I avoided the track.  I used to say that I had polyurethane and fiberglass in my blood (track surface and pole vault poles).  The only way to “break the addiction” was to stay away.  But after a year of near total abstinence, I recognized that I wanted to be around without the “all-in” that coaching required.  So I regained my license, and went out on the track in the black and white uniform as an official.

There were all sorts of jokes from both sides.  The officials that I joined saw me as “that coach” they crossed horns with for forty years. And the coaches looked at me as if I crossed over to the “dark side”.  But track, and in fact, all sports officiating, has a problem.  Fewer and fewer people sign up to do it, and the remaining officials are growing old.  While at sixty-six, I may not lower the average age of a track officials meeting anymore, I don’t think I’m raising it either.  There’s a need, I have the expertise – so why not.

Parsing the Rule

Besides, officiating track is natural to me.  I’ve coached every event in high school track and field, and some events that aren’t.  No event “intimidates” me, and especially my area of expertise, pole vault.  Many officials shy away from that one, leaving a natural opening for me to fill.

My track officiating has expanded in the past couple of years.  This year I even officiated eight indoor meets, and I am close to having a “full” outdoor schedule with twenty-five meets already on the calendar.  It’s fun, (of course, it’s track); and a way to get some extra cash.   And I’m “giving back” to the sport and the athletes I love.

Part of being an official is attending “rules interpretation” meetings. It’s kind of like studying the Torah (or Bible): a bunch of “students” sit around a room and discuss “passages” from the rule book.  They bring varied experiences of their own to the conversation, telling stories that highlight the particular rule we are parsing.  It can be “dry”, I guess; especially after a long day.  But even the driest topic in the rules, the management structure of a track meet (Rule 3), has something to offer.  That’s what last Thursday’s meeting was like.

Show Me in the Book

The rule was being “presented” by a “senior official”, Doug, who has officiated as long as I’ve coached.  We are good friends; even when I wasn’t with him on the “dark side”, and more so now. We share a common goal: make sure kids get the best experience possible from their track competitions.  I respect him immensely.  Not only is he sharp on the rules, but he’s clear in his heart.

When it comes to “the rules”, I tend to fall back on my one semester at the University of Cincinnati Law School.  The concept is “Black Letter Law”: when a law is codified clearly in “black letters” that leave little to interpretation.  As a coach, one of my favorite arguments was to say, “Just show me in the book where it says that”, when arguing a particular issue.  I knew (and still know) that book forwards and backwards – the “black letters” clear and to the point.

Track in Ohio

Track and Field is a spring sport in Ohio.  That means that when we begin at the end of March, it might be in the snow.  I started an early-season track invitational called the “Icebreaker”. There were several years when we literally broke the ice off the apparatus to have the meet.  At the end of the season in June, we are often worried about heat illness and dehydration.  We compete in snow and rain as well as sunshine.  Really; only inches of snow, floods of rain or lightning will stop a track meet.

At the end of the season there’s a series of meets designed to qualify to the state final championship.  At the beginning hundreds compete in events in different parts of the state, narrowing to sixty-four, then to the final eighteen per event at the State Meet.  Getting to state is huge for any athlete, winning it even bigger.  

Throw in the Rain

It was on that first level of the qualifiers, the District meet, that our “Torah” study focused Thursday evening.  The competition began in a steady drizzle, not hard, but rain.  As always, the meet began with the field events, including discus.  Throwing a discus requires the athlete to handle the implement, a two pound or more disc of rubber, wood, or plastic; and spin around to throw it out into a portion of field.  The competition is for distance, and, not surprisingly, holding onto a wet disc is difficult.  The first two sections of the discus participants struggled to throw, but the competition went on.  

Then the rain really turned into a downpour.  No one could hold onto the disc. The official couldn’t write the distances down anyway as the results paper began to dissolve.  They agreed to suspend the competition, and when the heavy rain continued on into the evening, to hold it another day.

Black Letter Law

Rule 3, Section 2, Parts 5 and 6 clearly states that, “…a meet may be suspended by the referee, due to an emergency such as weather conditions.  Competition shall be continued from the point of interruption…All trials and marks made up to the point of interruption shall stand.”

That’s the “black letter law”.  Those throwers in the rain would have to live with their throws, according to the “book”.  Those lucky enough to be among the “suspended”, could throw in the bright sunshine the next day.  Not surprisingly, the athletes and coaches protested – knowing that their best water-soaked marks wouldn’t stand up to the changed conditions.

The “black letter law” is clear – “all trials and marks…shall stand”.  But it’s not fair.  Even some state qualifiers from the previous year would fall victim, not to injury or failure to perform, but to the random sorting of the competitors which left them in the rain rather than the sunshine.

The easy answer as an official would be the one  that starts – “show me in the book”.  And it’s in the book, Rule 3-2-6, throws in the rain must stand. But it’s not fair, and my friend made a different decision.  He threw out all of rain soaked results, and re-did the whole competition from the beginning in the sunshine.  It was a qualifying meet, he wanted everyone to have a fair shot.

The Right Call

My fallback position:  as an official  we wear black and white, we are hired for black and white decisions, black letter law is what I can “show them in the book”.  So I entered our “study” with the thought that Doug was wrong.  But it’s hard to beat his sense of fairness.  Are we really hired just for black and white interpretation, or are we hired to use our best judgment, forged in decisions over decades, to be fair?  

His decision might “hurt” someone.  An athlete that would have qualified to the next level due to the rain, would now be beaten by someone else.  In short, someone who got lucky, and got to throw in the sun, would beat someone who, through no fault of their own, was throwing soaking wet.  In Doug’s more even competition, the better thrower would win out to qualify, instead of the luckiest.

It might not have been “the right call” by the book.  But it was fair.  

Our “dry”  discussion at Thursday evening’s study of Rule 3, section 2, parts 5 and 6; still keeps me thinking, days later.  It’s made me consider a different aspect of our black and white uniformed jobs.  And it gives me an even deeper appreciation and respect for my friend and fellow official, Doug.

The Sunday Story Series

The Peace Between

 Colors

Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene wants a divorce.  No, not from her husband, Perry.  That happened last year.  Now with her new-found powers in the narrowly controlled House of Representatives, Marjorie proposes a whole new form of separation.  She wants the Red States to “divorce” the Blue States.  If only they were the Gray States of Civil War days, we would understand her better.  But for the moment – let’s look at what she’s proposing.

Greene’s theory is that the Red States can no longer tolerate the “woke” policies of Democrats.  She asserts that Red States can’t stand things like education in diversity, equity and inclusion.  Her claim is that Red States need a “primacy” of Christianity, regardless of the First Amendment. They can’t tolerate equal rights for those who are LGBTQIA, or those who are people of color.  

In fact, color is a huge thing to Congressman Greene, painting each state with the “broad brush” of ideology.  She should know better:  her own home state of Georgia is as purple as it comes:  with Republicans controlling the state government, but two Democratic Senators, and a win for the Democratic President in 2020.

But Greene has a solution for that as well.  If a state is Red, then its Blue voters ought to go somewhere else.  And if a Blue voter moves to a Red state, they shouldn’t be allowed to vote for at least, say, five years.  That will give the good Red people a chance to either indoctrinate them (wait, isn’t that what Blue people do?) or send them, “…back to where they came from” (yes, that is a Hamilton the Musical quote).  

Branch and Root

Besides suggesting secession along  terms of the Civil War, there is another huge problem with Congressman Greene’s idea.  America is not painted solid Red or Blue.  Here in Ohio is the perfect example.  

Ohio is a Red State.  Almost every statewide office, from Governor to the State Supreme Court is held by Republicans.  The only exceptions:  US Senator Sherrod Brown, and three of the seven Supreme Court justices.  But Ohio government is so dominated by Republicans, that the two factions in the state legislature are Republicans versus Republicans with some help by Democrats.  The Democrats alone can only impact as a faction of one side of the majority Republican argument.

But Democrats have a huge advantage in percentage of registered voters.  Hard to believe 46% of Ohioans registered to a Party are Democrats, versus 27% Republican.  But the really important number is that 78% of Ohio voters aren’t registered to a Party at all (and therefore can’t vote in Party primaries – Ohio Secretary of State).   So when it all comes down in the general election, Ohio votes about 44% Democrat and 56% Republican.

According to Congressman Greene, if Ohio can’t silence that 44%, then they should ship them out to some Blue State next door (Pennsylvania or Michigan).  In return, Michigan can send their “crazies” from the Upper Peninsula, or Pennsylvania that “middle Red” section between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.  But here in Ohio, Blues infiltrate all over the state, including right here in bright Red Pataskala.   To get all the Blues out, “root and branch”, would require something akin to the Indian Removal of the 1830’s (Trail of Tears) or the great religious migration between India and Pakistan at the separation in 1947 (perhaps a million dead).  We see how those turned out.

Compromise

Of course the United States isn’t going to “divorce” Blue and Red.  We are so entwined there are no “root and branch” removals that won’t destroy the nation as a whole.  But what Greene is really saying, is that she can accept no compromise between the two.  And that’s unacceptable.

Our Madisonian Democracy is based on compromise.  The very foundation of our government, the Constitution of the United States of America, is in itself a compromise.  Two houses of the legislature chosen by different means, the division of power among the three branches, the concept of a sovereign nation made up of sovereign states and of course, the infamous three-fifths compromise: we are founded in compromise, saturated in compromise.  So when any politician from either side says “…there can be no compromise” (sound like a Florida Governor?) there are antithetical to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers.

Barriers

Setting up color barriers, Red and Blue, would be laughable.  But one political Party (Red) has sold their soul for power, and that gives Marjorie Taylor Greene a “bully pulpit” to preach her anti-Americanism.  

My mother was an Englishwoman of Irish descent.  Her explanation of the Irish Flag (green, white and orange sections) was:

“Green for the Catholics, Orange for the Protestants, and White for the peace that shall never come between”.  

 That’s exactly what the “Radical Republicans” like Greene, DeSantis and others are calling for – except it’s Red, White and Blue.

Jimmy Carter

Campaigns

In 1975, I was nineteen, a sophomore at Denison University and an aspiring politician.  I already had experience. At fourteen I helped manage a local judicial election campaign, and at seventeen in the spring of ’74, I helped run Tom Luken’s “Get Out the Vote” operation for a Congressional special election . 

 My “shining moment”was  in the fall of ’75. I managed the campaign to make the village of Granville, Denison’s home, allow liquor sales.  Historically, Granville was headquarters for Ohio’s Methodist Convention, and a “dry town”.  While Denison (at least in my time) was anything but a “dry” campus, you couldn’t buy a beer within the village limits.  We changed that (If I had a nickel for every drink now sold in Granville, known for its pubs and breweries…). By 1975 campaigning was already “in my blood”. 

Denison

Denison gave students an opportunity to “design” their own academic major.  Students could put together courses and “experiences” and graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree molded to their own particular needs.  My degree was in “American Political Studies”. It was an amalgam of political science, history, and education courses; designed to earn a teaching certificate as well as prepare me for Law School and my future political life.  

One semester would involve student teaching,  and one semester would be working in Washington DC and taking courses at American University.  But the “best” part was the fall semester of 1976 – when I would do an “independent study” by working in a Presidential campaign.

Find a Winner

Easy to say:  but which political campaign could I work on?  In the early spring of 1976 there was no way of knowing which candidate could win the Democratic nomination.  I contacted the Sargent Shriver campaign.  Shriver was a Kennedy in-law, and head of the Peace Corps for JFK.  Getting close to a “Kennedy” campaign was always a goal, and Senator Ted Kennedy wasn’t running, still suffering from the political fallout of his Chappaquiddick disaster in 1970.  

But Shriver was out of the race by early April, and I was at a loss where to turn next.  My professor and advisor, Dr. Kirby, was friends with the brother of Ohio Governor Richard Celeste.  Ted Celeste was active in Columbus politics, and the state manager for the obscure former Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter.  I had an interview with Ted (I wore a tie over a flannel shirt – it was 1976). We agreed I would volunteer with the Carter primary campaign in Cincinnati after spring semester was over in early May.

Carter/Mondale

Jimmy Carter was never my first choice.  He was too moderate, too Southern, and too anti-Washington DC for my taste.  But his crack staff of Georgia political operatives, led by Hamilton Jordan (pronounced Jur-den)  had him in position to win the nomination if he could win in Ohio in June.  They had momentum, and I wanted to be a part of the fall campaign for the Presidency.  

So I walked into the Cincinnati “headquarters”, a decrepit office building  next to an “hourly” hotel in downtown Cincinnati.  I already knew a couple of staffers there from the Luken campaign, and within a day I was putting together the “Get Out the Vote” effort for the Cincinnati area.  I was nineteen years old: street campaigning is for the young, energetic, dedicated and sleepless.  That fit my lifestyle just fine.

Carter won Ohio, and the Democratic nomination.  I used my primary contacts to get on the “professional” staff for the fall campaign.  I was a “paid political operative”, at $75 a week!! While today that sounds like nothing at all, it  converts to almost $400 in 2023, enough to live on, as long as I slept at Mom and Dad’s house.

Professional Operative

I spent the summer painting houses, repairing my Volkswagen’s engine, and studying Jimmy Carter.  I read his book, Why Not the Best, and every bit of the “policy bible” I could get my hands on.  In the end, I was a “Kennedy Liberal” in a “Carter Moderate” campaign, but that didn’t bother me.  As a future lawyer there would always be “clients” to represent that I didn’t necessarily agree with. I could make the case for Carter, especially against Republican Gerald Ford, the legacy of the Nixon/Watergate debacle.

I ultimately wrote a thirty-some page paper about my fall experience with the Carter Campaign for my independent study credit.  They put me in charge of eight rural counties around Cincinnati, gathering statistics (by hand, there was no such thing as a “webpage”; and just barely calculators) to analyze.  I also had Miami University in my “territory”, and I helped organize the student staff there.  And I had “the best” job:  I was in charge of the “illegal” sign operation in Cincinnati itself.  All of those campaign signs that “blossomed” at intersections, telephone poles and bridge railings in the middle of the night:  that was my crew.  Luckily for us, the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police were on our side. In fact, some were part of the crew. 

And, in the end, I was back to my specialty:  Get Out the Vote efforts in Cincinnati in the last weeks.  The mantra was  we’ll sleep after the election.

The Candidate

I got to meet Jimmy the one time he was in town.  The “powers” in Atlanta decided to fly him in on the second day of the World Series. It was Sunday, and the Reds played the Yankees for the championship.  Everyone in town was fixated on the “Big Red Machine”. It seemed natural to send Carter to the ballgame.  But Atlanta worried that he might be booed. We said, “Put a Reds hat on and he would be golden.”

But It wasn’t to be.  Jimmy flew in for a brief rally at the Lunken commuter airport.  There was a crowd of a couple thousand there to see him, and the staff was brought in for a “meet and greet”.  When I shook hands and welcomed “Governor Carter” to Cincinnati, he quickly corrected me – “Jimmy.”  He gave us a short pep-talk, then was back on the plane headed to Cleveland.

In fact, I spent more time with Senator Howard Metzenbaum that day.  The Senator was there for the rally, but abandoned by his staff, who were anxious to go watch the game.  In the end I gave him a ride in my beat-up Volkswagen back to his downtown office.  He was a kind and respectful man, and  we had a good discussion about politics and Ohio.

I did get to spend more time with Carter’s daughter-in-law, who campaigned in the “outer” counties with me.  And I got to meet Rosalyn (Rose-a-linn, not Ross-a-linn) as she spent a couple days in town.  

Back to Granville

Carter won Ohio, and the Presidency.  The original count had him up by 5000 votes in the state. Each of us young staffers “knew” that it was our singular effort that got him there.  We walked across Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati early on Wednesday morning after the election was determined. For the moment – we owned that town.

I decided to finish my Denison education rather than try for a job in the Administration. But I spent the winter and spring of 1977 in Washington, working for Congressman Luken and studying at American University.  The next year I was back in Granville. And when I spent that winter and spring student teaching at Watkins Memorial High School in Pataskala, I found another vocation that could compete with politics:  teaching.

In 1980 I was contacted about joining the Carter Staff for their ill-fated campaign.  But it wasn’t disappointment in Jimmy – it  was the “lure” of teaching and coaching that kept me on the sidelines. 

Outside-Inside

I do have a better understanding than most why the Carter Administration failed in so many ways.  The “Georgia Mafia”, so brilliant at the politics of winning the Presidency, were too dedicated to being outsiders.  Washington is an insider town;  the compromise needed for the moderate President to work with a progressive Congress, even from the same party, didn’t happen.  Add to that the economic downturn, and the Iran hostages (with Reagan negotiating to hold until after the election). Jimmy was fated to lose in 1980.

But even with all that, he did manage to bring together two mortal enemies:  Israeli Menachem Begin and Palestinian Yasar Arafat. They negotiated the Camp David Accords, the first agreement between the two sides.  

President Carter

And Jimmy Carter, out of the Presidency at fifty-six, remained determined to impact the world.  His forty years of work through the Carter Center perhaps were more influential than his Presidency.  The organization monitored elections throughout the world, demanding free and fair voting.  It virtually eliminated parasitic river blindness worldwide.  And Jimmy annually volunteered for construction with Habitat of Humanity up until two years ago, when he was ninety-six.

Jimmy Carter is a model of faith, decency and service.  While his Presidency wasn’t what he hoped, his influence on the world was even greater after he left the highest office.  He’s taught Americans how to live, and now, entering hospice, he’s teaching Americans how to die.  I’m proud of my distant association with him, but more importantly, awed by his lifelong dedication.  

Godspeed, Jimmy.

Teaching Race in America

About Sex

I taught eighth grade social studies for fourteen years. For many teachers, eighth grade is “the worst”. Eighth graders are “the top” of middle school, the leaders of their building, and they know it. The old joke was that eighth grade boys thought about sex every eleven seconds. As an experienced middle school teacher, I think it was closer to six. Any slip even potentially “sexual” brought giggles and red faces. Eighth grade girls and boys were on the cusp of full “teenage-hood”, with all of the rampant mood swings that come with that age. It made for some exciting classes.

But I found that if I could bring enough energy to my classroom, those kids would go with me anywhere and do anything. They were just learning to process information beyond memorizing, just old enough to get beyond the stereotypes of American History. They began to see the more complex issues of good and evil that really made America. I taught for those moments when the light went on, and you knew they got it. Eighth graders were still fun, and education could still be eye-opening for them.

I taught middle school, sixth grade through eighth, for the middle of my career.  Then it was back to high school seniors for the rest. I loved “my” seniors, but there was a raw energy in eighth grade it was hard to beat.  

White Flight

One of the lessons I taught to my almost all-white students, was that the fight for civil rights wasn’t over.  It was the 1980’s, and the civil rights marches of the sixties were before their time. Martin Luther King was dead before they were born.  The major legislation:  the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, were already seen as fundamental.  It was hard for my students to imagine a time when those rights weren’t considered important.  (It’s hard to imagine our present time, forty years later, when they are being eviscerated.)

This was the era of “busing” for desegregation.  We were long passed legally required “white” schools and “colored” schools, but we still had segregated schools by neighborhood.  The Courts tried to remedy that inequity by forcing big city districts to move students to create a racial balance.  What it mostly did was create a “white flight” to the suburbs, just over the district (or county) line.  Parents were trying to keep their kids from being bused to integrated schools across town.  That helped create the first big housing “boom” in our rural town of Pataskala, just over the line, twenty miles east of Columbus.

These were the children of  “white flight”.  Many of their parents went to Columbus City Schools that were in “white” neighborhoods, (Walnut Ridge High School, for example).  But, with desegregation by busing; now they were in Pataskala, and faced resentment from the farmers against all the city folks who they quickly out-numbered.

The Race

We had to talk about all of that.  And we had to discuss what “equality” really meant.  My mostly white kids thought that racial equality was achieved by the generations before them.  They saw no need for busing or desegregation or affirmative action.   They felt “equal”.

So we talked about what it was like to be discriminated against.  We discussed how education was passed down through generations – parents who went to “good” schools, understood the classroom, and were able to afford the books and the fees.  And because I was a track coach, I gave them a simple track analogy.

Track is the ultimate in “fairness”.  Everyone starts and finishes on the same lines.  There is no one to help you along the way, each competitor is on their own from gun to tape.  But what if some were allowed to train, with the best coaches and the best facilities and the best shoes; and some were not?  Then, even though the “lines” were fair, the race wouldn’t be.

Fair

Eighth graders know one thing for sure – what is “fair”.  So we talked about how to make life fair, for those who had generations of unfairness leading all the way back to enslavement.  And one more thing my white flight eighth graders had to understand.  Many of them (not all), were the advantaged.  Making things fair might require them to give up some of that advantage, in order to “do fair”. 

It was an interesting conversation with a bunch of thirteen and fourteen year-olds.  They also had a strong idea of what was “fair” for themselves, and many of the solutions offered were those that took away advantages they had as birthright.  They weren’t sure that was “fair” either.

Today

It was the 1980’s.  We were talking about racial equity in an eighth grade classroom.  The two or three black kids (out of the 160 I was teaching at the time), squirmed through the conversation.  They didn’t want to stand out; it was better to fit in and “be small”.  I made sure they weren’t centered in the conversation, but it was a discussion their classmates needed to have.

Teachers don’t have that conversation today.  In our current polarized society,  they would be accused of “indoctrinating”, or perhaps worse, “teaching equity”.  Or more likely, some parents would (ignorantly) demonize the teacher for using “CRITICAL RACE THEORY”.  Because, a segment of our society thinks it’s all “fair” now.  Desegregation is over.  Racial issues are social not legal. It’s all just history.  An entire state made it a “law”, to ban this topic from discussion.  It’s a felony to discuss it.  Of course, it’s easy to say it’s all over, if you are one of  the “advantaged”.  

So teachers don’t bring it up, even here in Ohio. Controversy creates administrative questions. They don’t want to lose their jobs.  

And the eighth graders don’t get it.  

On the Hook

Unpronounceable

The good citizens of East Palestine, Ohio, aren’t stupid.  (That’s “Pal-es-teen”, not “Pal-es-tyne”; welcome to Ohio, also the home of Versailles –  “Ver-sails”, Russia – “Ru-see-ah”, Lima- “Lie-ma” and the unpronounceable Gnadenhutten).  

A Norfolk and Southern train of 150 cars, travelling from Madison, Illinois, crashed in their small town after an axle broke on a single car.   The resulting destruction was “epic”; train cars spilled like toys around the crash site, with fierce fires breaking out around several.  That was the bad news.  The worst news was that at least twenty of those tankers were carrying extremely hazardous chemicals with names as unpronounceable as Ohio’s towns:  Vinyl chloride, Ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene, and butyl acrylate (EPA).

Bad Choices

The hazmat/fire crews faced a dilemma.  The tanker cars were surrounded by flames.  The chemicals in the tanks were heating up, with pressure already escaping from relief valves.  If they left the chemicals in the tanks, they risked uncontrolled explosions, blowing the raw chemicals into the atmosphere and onto the surrounding community.  So they chose to drain out the chemicals into open ditches, then intentionally set the deadly materials on fire.  

The column of black smoke was huge, ugly, and vulnerable to the wind.  Much of the surrounding area was evacuated.  Even partially combusted the chemicals still presented hazards to humans, animals, and ground water. And then there was the unburned chemicals that leeched into the ground.

Alphabet Soup

And now, two weeks later, all of the authorities:  the Federal EPA, the Ohio EPA, Governor Mike DeWine, the Columbiana County Health Department (and, of course, the Norfolk and Southern Railroad); are telling the citizens of East Palestine that the danger is passed, and they can return to their homes.  Except, folks are getting sore throats and coughs.  And there’s a big fish kill on the bordering Ohio River.  And some folks who had to leave their chickens returned to find them dead. Pets are getting sick.  

But Governor DeWine says it’s OK to come home and breath the air.  His suggestion – maybe stick to bottled-water for a while, until the final testing of the deep wells that provide the local water service.   But he assured them he’d bring HIS family home. (But if East Palestine residents want to stay in hotels away from town, Norfolk and Southern will foot-the-bill). And what of the cities downstream, who draw their water from the Ohio River, like Wheeling, Marietta, and ultimately Cincinnati?  Well, they’ll just have to keep monitoring.   All of the authorities seem reasonably sure it’s OK.  Just ignore the upside down fish floating downstream.

Nothing to See

The East Palestine Local School District is back open for business.  The Ohio EPA tested the air inside over 400 homes and found the chemical residue levels “acceptable”.  And while there’s going to be long-term air, soil and water monitoring in the area; as Obi Wan Kenobi famously said, “There’s nothing to see here, move along, move along”. 

Folks who live in Eastern Ohio “ain’t fancy”.  It’s a tough, working crowd; from the old steel mill, coal mining and river barging days.  They want to go home and return to their “normal” lives, but they also know that it’s in everybody else’s interest:  the Governor, the EPA, and most importantly, the Norfolk and Southern; for this crisis to be over.  And they are worried that in the hurry to get out of town, those “officials” are leaving more than  just a mess.  The good citizens of East Palestine will have to live in it.  

I don’t blame them.  Until all of those business and government folks are willing to stand in East Palestine and take a “deep breath”, then a “deep swig” of local water, and maybe live in town for a while – they shouldn’t get off the hook.  The residents of East Palestine are left taking the risks, and perhaps paying the ultimate price.

Accepted Losses

Again

Three are dead, five injured in a shooting on Michigan State University’s campus in East Lansing last night. The shooter, a forty-three year old man, took his own life when confronted by the police.  

The world is sending its “thoughts and prayers”.  “We are all Spartans today”, one commentator said, a phrase of solidarity with the mourning campus. Members of the minority Democrats in the state legislature say “…we cannot let hate win”.  But thoughts, prayers, love; hasn’t put a dent in the number of mass shootings in our “shining city on the hill”, the United States.  It’s the fifth anniversary of the Parkland shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School today, where seventeen were massacred.  There have been protests, marches, dramatic speeches and many, many horrifying acts of violence in the past five years.  Little has changed.

There have been sixty-seven mass shootings in this new year.  In total, 5214 are already dead from guns in 2023, today, on February 14th (Gun Violence Archive). 

Recognition

When confronted with mass shootings in the past (the Oxford High School shootings), the leader of Michigan’s Senate Republicans said: “ If we get obsessed with eliminating all risks, we will then develop and evolve into a country we won’t recognize, because we’ll also have no freedoms.”

We have already “developed and evolved” into a country I don’t recognize, a country where gun violence is accepted and normal.  There is little hope for change.  It’s no good talking about how to “fix” this:  we cannot.  And rather than propose solutions that will not be agreed to, we need to look at why our nation is so emasculated that we are forced to accept these deaths as inevitable, as acceptable losses. 

How did we get here?

Freedom’s Limits

In 1919, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the most famous dictum on limitations on the First Amendment’s freedom of speech.  In his majority opinion in Schenck v United States (245 US 47) Holmes stated:  “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”  

Our freedoms, guaranteed in the Constitution, have never, ever, been “unlimited”.  The bedrock of the American experiment, the “five freedoms” of the First Amendment (speech, press, religion, assembly, petition), are not absolute.  As Justice Holmes said, there always is a limit to their exercise.  And there always will be those who claim the protection of those freedoms  whose actions are beyond the law.

Some limitation on freedom only makes common sense.  Absolute freedom means absolute chaos.  The old saying:  “You’re right to swing your arm ends at the tip of my nose,” describes the balance all of our actions require to get along in society.  Every citizen of right mind “gets that”. 

Unlimited Freedom

But somehow when it comes to the Second Amendment, we have lost our minds.  “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”   The wording is clear, the first section, “…well-regulated militia” modifying the second “…keep and bear arms”.  “Well regulated” was the Founding Fathers control on the public, much as “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater” controlled the First Amendment right.

But in our “modern” world we have detached the second amendment’s clauses.  The current radical view upheld in the Courts is that “well-regulated militia” means every citizen of the United States, from the upstanding to the mentally ill.  It no longer modifies anything.  Our current Supreme Court has moved to saying that it’s “OK” to yell fire in this crowded theater, whether there’s a fire or not.  

We now say that everyone can have a gun.  And not just a gun, but a semi-automatic rifle with rapid-fire capability.  And that gun can have as large an ammunition magazine as possible, in case a person needs to fire dozens of rounds at a time.  

Here in Ohio citizens can carry sidearms without regulation, like the “wild-wild West” of the movies.  Friends go to their young children’s birthday parties with loaded pistols strapped to their hip.   And maybe in our current world they are right.  

Fear Itself

Because, unlike almost any other modern nation in the world, the United States is a nation of fear.  We are told to be afraid; of urban areas, of sex offenders stealing children at the library, of the “stranger”, particularly the stranger of color, in the dark.   Our fear is “ginned up” by some news media and social media because fear increases “views”, and views mean profits.  And our fear is also stoked as a political motivation – “elect ME, and I will protect you from your fears!”  And their offer of protection is simple:  you can have your own gun.

This is our America.  This is the Nation I do not recognize.  Because America always was a Nation that solved problems, that built highways and airports and ran wires across the breadth of the country.  America always moved forward into the future, we have never cowered from the problems of the present.  Except now:  we must “be small” to avoid being a target, and of course, “be prepared”.  And in this America – that means have a gun.

And until we are willing to face that fear – we will never change.  We will cower behind our guns.

The Circus

Celebration

Sure, Democrats celebrated in November.  They held the Senate, in fact, gaining a seat.  What was supposed to be a Red Tsunami (Ted Cruz) or a Red Wave (Kevin McCarthy) in the House turned into a Red Dribble (Marty Dahlman) with Blue tints.  In the end, Republicans flipped nine seats, ending with a narrow five vote margin for House control.

This led to the Republican debacle of the House leadership election, when McCarthy needed a full week and fifteen ballots to wrangle his entire Party to cast their majority vote for him.  As the week went on, you could feel the power of the Speakership diminish, as McCarthy made deal after deal.  Right before the last vote, Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida, still under investigation by the FBI, wrested one more thing from McCarthy in full public view, and finally “awarded” his vote.

Democrats enjoyed the spectacle, the ugly words and bargaining.  They maintained solid unity behind their candidate, Hakeem Jeffries of New York; heaping praise on his abilities and his record in fifteen different nomination speeches. Jeffries himself demonstrated class, congratulating McCarthy on finally earning the gavel, and oratorical prowess. He gave an alphabetical litany of what the Democratic Party is all about.  From “American values over autocracy”, and “Benevolence over bigotry,” to “Zealous representation over a zero-sum confrontation”, he explained the Democratic view.

Paybacks

But after all the Democratic celebrations ended, the Republicans did have control of the House.  McCarthy is now “paying the piper” for the deals he made in that fateful week.  One of those with the creation of the House Special Sub-committee on the Weaponization of Government.  What does that mean?

After the four tumultuous years of the Trump Administration, many Republicans are aggrieved.  Even before Trump was elected and took office, there was an FBI counter-intelligence investigation into his dealings with Russia.  Then, after Democrats gained control of the House in 2018, there were Judiciary Committee Hearings on the Mueller Report.  When a whistleblower, Colonel Vindman, reported that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Zelenskyy for “dirt” on Joe or Hunter Biden, threatening to withhold military aid, the Democratic majority House voted to impeach Trump.  There was a trial in the Senate, where Democrats failed to even get a simple majority of votes to remove the President, much less the two-thirds needed.

And of course, after the January 6th Insurrection, there was the second Trump impeachment.  This time the Senate vote was 57 to convict, and 43 to acquit, still short of two-thirds, but a “bi-partisan” statement of the Senate nonetheless.  That Trump could possibly have been “that bad” just isn’t a Republican option.  He was “wronged”. 

So in our partisan world, Republicans now have the “whip hand” of committee assignments.  And the most prominent Republican “whipper”, Ohio’s former state champion wrestler now Congressman Jim Jordan, is leading the charge to get “payback”, as Chairman of the Weaponization of Government Sub-committee.

The “Weapons”

The overarching theme of the sub-committee is that “the institutions of government” were somehow weaponized to defeat Donald Trump’s Presidency.  From the FBI to the Justice and Treasury Departments to even the National Security Agency, the Republicans proclaim Steve Bannon’s “Administrative De-Construction” theory.  The idea is that the civil service bureaucracy is a treasonous “shadow government” co-opted by the Democratic Party to serve their needs.  So the sub-committee is searching for those “bureaucrats” who “ratted out” Trump (Ukraine), or protected Hilary Clinton (e-mails), or Hunter Biden (hard drive) or even slowed the building of “The Wall” (border).   Oh, and don’t forget the whole Covid thing.

The Republicans learned a lot from the three years and seven million dollars  of the Benghazi hearings in the early twenty-teens.  They were able to “bring Hilary Clinton down”; creating so much negative feeling about her that even Donald Trump could win the Presidency.  And now, they intend to use that same tactic against Hunter, (whoops, I mean), Joe Biden.  They are wading into the implausible Hunter Biden laptop story, complete with the blind computer technician with the tam o’shanter on.

Hearing One

But before they get there, they brought in witnesses to explain “bureaucratic treason”.  Instead of one of the eighteen supposed “whistleblowing” former FBI agents, or even tam o’shanter guy himself, they brought in two US Senators: octogenerian Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.  Grassley “testified” his own opinion that the FBI is biased, and Johnson covered a plethora of bureaucratic complaints from Clinton emails to Dr. Fauci.  Then Jordan added Constitutional scholar and Professor Jonathan Turley to “teach” the committee government.  Turkey also testified for the “Trump team” in the impeachment hearings.

We expect witnesses to either give facts or “expert” testimony.  Grassley and Johnson offered their concerns, without any hard evidence to back their assertions.  But they found a receptive audience in Chairman Jordan and the majority members of the committee. That includes House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, Benghazi Committee veteran Darrel Issa, and, “got-the-deal-done” Matt Gaetz.

Democrats countered with their ranking member, former Impeachment Manager Stacey Plaskett.  In addition former Impeachment lead attorney now-Congressman Daniel Goldman, and former Democratic Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz are on the dais.  Their job:  to counter the Republican arguments and poke holes in witness testimony.  And they were allowed to have one witness of their own. Congressman Jamie Raskin, himself a Constitutional scholar,  countered Turley’s testimony.  Raskin also brings his own experience as an Impeachment Manager and a lead member of the January 6th Committee.  He knows “real” treason.

In the Big Top

If you’re looking for a Congressional “circus”, this is the place.  It will be interesting to see if Jordan and his committee can repeat their “success” of the Benghazi hearings.  A lot has changed since 2014, when Hillary Clinton testified for eleven straight hours.  After four years of Trump, two impeachments, an Insurrection, and a lot more awareness of “our truth” versus “their truth”, I’m not sure Americans will be so easily persuaded.  Perhaps our partisan lines are so solidified, that nothing can alter our final votes.  

But the show will go on, with Jordan as the ring-master, and tam o’shanter guy on the high trapeze.  We’ll have to wait and see.  Maybe Goldman will be the lion who eats the trainer.   

Two Worlds

Joe Cool

I had a  track meeting last night, and sped home to watch the State of the Union (SOTU) address.  I had just enough time left to stop and buy some snacks on the way in.  It’s not quite the National Football League,  Bengals versus Chiefs. But for someone who’s followed politics almost since birth, SOTU is definitely “game time”.   

If you follow NFL football, the Bengals have a young quarterback who is unflappable.  Joe Burrow, “Joe Cool,” sets playoff records.  His patchwork line struggles to protect him, and last year Burrow was sacked more than any other quarterback ever in a playoff game.  And they still won.  Burrow got bowled over, smothered, smashed: then popped back up and threw his next pass halfway down the field for a touchdown.

President Biden is a little like Burrow, a “Joe Cool”; and it’s not just the aviator sunglasses.  In his career, and life, Biden has been bowled over. But now at the end, Biden gave all of us sixty-somethings hope.  He won the Presidency at seventy-eight years old.  Biden’s “gaffes” are a political legend in Washington, and with forty-five years on “the field”, Biden has made plenty.  So as a fan of the “Biden Team” in this SOTU, I always worry:  will the Biden gaffe raise its awkward head again? 

This game was a setup for the President.  He isn’t Barack Obama, with soaring rhetoric reminiscent of Lincoln.  Biden is a plain-spoken man, punctuating his text with “…look folks” and “really, I mean it”.  And he knew that he faced a hostile crowd to his left (“…but they’re really right,” he said).   Gone are the days when the President’s Party claps and cheers, and the opposition Party politely sits on their hands.  Our current Congress more closely resembles “Question Time” in the UK Parliament.  The opposition has no problem booing, jeering, and calling out in the middle of a Biden sentence.  

Draw Play

Remember when we were all so shocked by the Congressman from South Carolina who yelled out, “You Lie” to President Obama?  Well there were plenty of yellers on the Republican side last night, including newly empowered Marjorie Taylor Green.  She made sure the cameras could find her, as she hollered “LIAR” from the back of the chamber.  When that happened to Obama, the whole room stopped.  

But Biden intentionally baited the raucous opposition into reaction.  Biden quoted Rick Scott, the Republican Senator from Florida and Campaign Committee Chair.  Scott has a plan to “sunset” Medicare and Social Security.  And when Republicans, especially Green, squealed that Biden was “lying”, he turned the play; “Well I guess we all agree then – Medicare and Social Security aren’t on the table for cuts”.  The Democrats broke out in cheers.  In football it’s called a “draw play”, when the opposition is faked into thinking pass, and at the last minute it’s a run.  Touchdown for Joe Biden.

Game Plan

Biden laid out the vast successes of his first two years in office. He touted  the infra-structure bill, the “chips” act, the “burn pit” bill, and the other legislative wins.  He hailed the international coalition standing against Russia in Ukraine.  Biden set the table for negotiations over the debt ceiling.  And he talked about the changes America needs to make in policing, in women’s health rights, and in LGBTQ rights.  

Biden laid out his vision for an America that stands for the middle class, where the poor get a “hand up”, and the rich pay their fair share of the tax burden.  He made it clear that he is willing to negotiate, and that if he can get Americans to work together, “There is nothing we can’t achieve”.  It was noisy, it was raucous, it was very different from other SOTUs.  But it was all Joe Biden, cool under pressure; even taking his own good time leaving the chamber.  This “Joe Cool” signs autographs too, and even has a story for the two retired Supreme Court Justices.  Score a victory for Biden.

Silence in Little Rock

The scene then switched, from the noisy Congressional floor to the empty living room of the Governor’s mansion in Arkansas.  Newly minted Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave the Republican response, always a tough job.  In the name of Marco Rubio, there were no water bottles present.   Where Biden described a bustling, energetic world where the government offered help and hope, Sanders’ world is dark and quiet and  scary. There is a criminal around each corner, you need a gun to protect yourself, and the government threatens to rip citizen’s rights away.  Biden’s world is bright with hope, Sanders dark with dread. 

The dogs woke up early this morning.  I had some time to peruse the news, from the Washington Post to the Fox News website.  And it came to me that if all your information came from Fox, then Sarah Sanders sounds right.  The world is a dark, cold, threatening place.  The “woke left” (whatever “woke” means) is challenging your religion, your jobs, and your kids’ education.   

I don’t want to pop anyone’s balloon (like Biden did) but I like Biden’s noisy, excited, and hopeful world.  We don’t have to be scared, we just have to work hard and have everyone; the rich, the powerful, the monopolized industries, pay their fair share.   It sounds like a better place to be.

Another score for Biden.

Up, Up and Away!!!!

Look, up in the sky!!  It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a UFO!! NOOOOOOO, it’s a Chinese Spy Balloon!!

NORAD

Perhaps they thought no one would notice.  A giant helium balloon, the size of three Greyhound buses, carrying a solar-powered package of…something.  After all, it’s between 60,000 and 100,000 feet in the air.  American passenger jets travel under 45,000 feet, and the US military stays below 80,000.  

Certainly the North American defense system, NORAD, tracked it from the beginning.  If they can track eight reindeer and a fat guy in a sleigh, and incoming nuclear missiles, they can certainly find a balloon one hundred and twenty feet wide.  It’s been around for a few days, crossing the Aleutian Islands over the weekend and headed into Canada.  And it showed up in the clear blue sky over Billings, Montana on Wednesday.  In fact, they paused flights out of Billings Airport, in part because the Air Force scrambled jets, F-22 Raptors.  Perhaps with the intent to shoot it down.  And folks on the ground got pictures of the balloon, with a clear view of the solar panels arrayed beneath.

The Air Force didn’t shoot, saying that the size of the object put those on the ground in too much danger.  Maybe it’s still headed east, though it’s exact trajectory, like in the few days before Billings, is a US secret. The Pentagon knows. The public has to keep scanning the skies to see.  But this balloon seems to be able to “hover” over territory, and right near Billings is Malmstrom Air Force Base.  Malmstrom extends over 23,500 square miles of Montana territory, and is home to the 341st Missile Wing, part of America’s nuclear missile deterrent force.

1950’s Tech

So it’s still out there, somewhere over the northern half of the USA.  Take it look, it might appear in the sky over your location.  I hear it just passed St. Louis. Look for a tiny “moon” in the daylight.  

The Chinese have satellites, just as the US does – so why a balloon?   Satellites are acknowledged to be “above” so-called sovereign air space – not to be “messed with”.  But balloons – they’re definitely within the defense zone of the United States, and it would be more than acceptable under international law to shoot down.  This one isn’t a wayward weather balloon, either (and neither is the next one, rumored to be on the way).   Which leads to three questions.  Why did the Chinese send it, what are they looking for, and why hasn’t the US shot it down?

Thumb in the Eye

Why did the Chinese send it?  The military tension between the US and China is continuing to escalate.  Chinese aircraft violated the air boundary between China and Taiwan, causing Taiwan to go on full alert this week.  The US Secretary of Defense reached an agreement with the President of the Philippines to re-open some US military bases in the nation, with the obvious intention of countering Chinese influence.  And the criticism of Chinese influence over US social media, particularly with information gathered through Tik-Tok, is a continual irritant.

The Chinese are “peeing” on corners; intentionally provoking a US response by sending this balloon.  There’s little that this balloon can see that Chinese satellites can’t.  But this slow-motion “thumb-in-the-eye” goes on and on.  It’s a big deal: Secretary of State Blinken just postponed his imminent trip to China.  Congress demands Biden Administration action.  No one in the US wants to sleep in the shadow of a “Communist Balloon”!! (They really should have painted it Red with Mao Zedong’s face on the side). 

And meanwhile, the balloon meanders over the Montana missile fields, and who knows where else.  Most certainly US secrets are secure.  We already hide our ground activity from high-flying satellites, low-tech balloons are merely an inconvenience, not a threat.  So the balloon doesn’t represent a strategic threat, just a diplomatic embarrassment.

Pop the Balloon

Which leaves us with the question – why has the Air Force allowed the balloon to remain up there?  The excuse:  the debris of a shootdown could hurt citizens down below really doesn’t hold water.  The balloon traversed the Pacific Ocean between the Aleutians and Canada, and could easily have been dropped in the water.  We didn’t do it then, and now that the balloon is outed to the US public, we haven’t  done it… yet.

The US is in a “nickel/dime” escalation with the Chinese.  Each provocation by Americans:  Nancy Pelosi visiting Taiwan, re-opening Philippines bases, restricting Tik-Tok, has generated a Chinese response.   A Four-Star US Air Force General warned his staff to expect war with China by 2025.  The media got the memo, and put it on the second page.  This balloon gambit is just the latest – but to take a war-like action, to fire a missile into the balloon and bring it down on US soil, while very satisfying, is definitely an escalation in hostilities.  That “level-up” would likely generate and even greater Chinese response.

Civil War

And the US is happy to have China use 19th and 20th century spy tech in a 21st century world.  To many Americans the Biden Administration is showing “weakness” by not “popping the bubble” and dumping the whole thing in the Mississippi River (by now).  But perhaps Biden is taking a different tack:  the Chinese balloon reminds the world of the ineffectual World War II attempts by Japan to set the US western mountains on fire.  Or of the first balloonist in the Civil War, getting the “high ground” to spot the enemy.  It didn’t work well then, and this won’t work either.  The US, meanwhile, has the most advanced technology in the world – in space,  invulnerable, and aimed at whatever we need to see.

“Red Alert – Red Alert:  the balloon will be overhead to take intelligence in… oh, four hours.  Take your time”.  Meanwhile, Americans can look to the sky to see the green meteor (to the North) and the giant white balloon, somewhere out over I-64.  There’s no basket with men waving with binoculars, but the old Civil War Balloon Corps veterans still sure are proud.

Outer Limits

 There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture…We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical…We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. – Opening narration of the 1960’s TV Show – The Outer Limits.

Davy Crockett

When  I was a student in public school in the 1960’s and early 70’s, I took for granted that the Texas War of Independence, with the battles at the Alamo and San Jacinto, was a major part of American history.  After all, they got a whole chapter in our textbook, a third of the space of the Civil War and World War II, but the same amount as World War I.  

By sheer volume of paper, Sam Houston, Davy Crockett and the boys got more space than the entire Labor Union movement of the late 19th and early 20th century.  The book had more than twice as much about them than the Abolitionist movement before the Civil War.  And, add to that we all grew up with our “raccoon-skin” Davy Crockett hats (more than a little old to actually wear them), and could still sing the theme from the Disney Show of the early sixties; “Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!!”.  

Fighting for Slavery

We never, ever, were taught that those “Texians” were fighting for their “right” to own slaves in a nation, Mexico, that abolished slavery in 1829.  Instead,  we were taught they were fighting for their “right” to self-government, rebelling against the central power in Mexico City and the “tyrant”, General Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, otherwise known as Santa Anna.  

It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned differently.  That’s when I found that John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry was more than just a crazed man that the US military, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant JEB Stuart, had to “put down”.  He was trying to lead slaves to freedom:  maybe not such a crazy idea after all.  For that – he was executed at the end of a rope.

Selling Books

And it wasn’t until I was getting my Master’s Degree in Education that I discovered why I was taught that way.  It wasn’t that the teachers I had in Cincinnati and Dayton and Wyoming (a little city bordering Cincinnati) were “racists” or even necessarily biased towards Davy Crockett.  They were simply teaching from the textbook.  The textbook was their “manual”.  It established the topics, the subject matter.  In “educationese”, the textbook was the course of study and the curriculum, determining the “facts” that were important and those that didn’t need to be discussed.

At the time, the state of Texas determined the single textbooks to be used by the entire state for American History, both in eighth grade and in high school.   Unlike Ohio, where curriculum was set by the state but textbooks chosen by individual school districts, in Texas – one book fit all.

Textbook publishers wrote their books to the specifications of the Texas Board of Education and the Texas Education Agency.  It was the biggest single market sale they could make.  Since every publisher was trying to sell in Texas, we all got Texas curriculum from Texas-oriented books, like it or not.   “Davy, Davy Crockett” was a Congressman from Tennessee, an ally of Andrew Jackson who broke with him on the Cherokee Removal.  He lost his Congressional seat and left his home to start anew in Texas. That was “important”.  Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, even nearby Ohioan John Rankin; all heroes of Abolitionism, were ignored.

Hidden History

There was a whole  American history hidden.  Sure, we learned about the Irish and the Chinese immigrants building the transcontinental railroad. But who built the White House, the Capitol, and the entire structure of the Southern economy?  We were never taught the plain fact that enslaved people, Black people, people working for masters not for dollars; toiled, bled, and died to build those things.

Education was controlled, by the Texas Department of Education.  They controlled the “horizontal”, they controlled the “vertical”; they kept American History in a “soft blur” when it came to the “peculiar institution”.   Your teacher learned history that way, and if they didn’t go beyond their original  high school studies, that’s what they thought was “history”.  

White-Wash

It’s no surprise that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is taking control of Florida’s education curriculum.  He’s found a political tool to unify his base.  What’s surprising is that now, sixty years after the “I Have a Dream” speech, there are still Americans who buy DeSantis’s assertion that “woke” ideas like cultural diversity and inherent racial bias don’t belong in the classroom, at least in Florida.  But perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise – it fits right in with what education did for generations.  It’s likely what many Florida citizens learned in school themselves.

DeSantis controls Florida’s horizontal, vertical and focus.  He is taking Florida education to the outer limits of denial:  a quite literal “white-washing” of the American story.  Unlike the 1960’s and 70’s, it isn’t economic forces driving the curriculum, it’s political control.  And other Republican dominated states in our bifurcated nation are following suit.  The legislative plan is in the Ohio House of Representatives today.  

Yesterday was February 1st, Groundhog Day and the beginning of Black History month.  As the depressing “education joke” goes; “Why is there a ‘black’ history month?  Because all the other months are ‘white’ history.”  Ron DeSantis has a vision of America as a nation of all twelve months for “white” history, just like the old times.   Those are his “Outer Limits”.  On this day after Groundhog Day, the day after they buried Tyri Nichols in Memphis, we have to decide whether to sit quietly — or change the channel.