The Impossible Will Take a Little While

I have an admission to make: I had a hand in Scott Walker's victory last November. No, I didn't vote for him and I did vote for Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate. But voting was all I did last fall. An act that added up to about 10 minutes of my time -- walking the one block to my neighborhood polling place, filling in my ballot, and walking home. Walker won, and I went around saying, "How bad can he be?" In reality, I was despondent and had disengaged from the process. 8 years of GeeDubya compounded with the disappointment in Obama. (YES, I AM disappointed, and I'm not afraid to lose friends on Face Book for stating that. Obama is a big disappointment to me.)

Well, February came and we learned very quickly how bad Walker could be. All of a sudden virtually everything that I had taken for granted here in my beloved home state of Wisconsin was in danger. Much has changed, and it is uncertain that we will be able to get it back. The recalls did not gain a majority of Senate Democrats, though they did slim down the margin enough for one Republican who shows signs of retaining a sliver of his humanity (all the rest have sold their souls to the corporate devil, as far as I can tell) to perhaps be able to step across the breach.

Like many of my fellow Wisconsinites, what our state's "Arab spring" did was to shake me out of my despondent stupor, and get me to put my shoulder to the wheel of change. You see, for 10 years I've been singing, "Come back Woody Guthrie …" and wondering where the leaders were. Where were the charismatic and eloquent people who would lead us Americans out of the wilderness? I was waiting … and waiting … and nobody was stepping up. I am a child of the sixties who grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, one of the hotbeds of anti-Vietnam War protests. I knew what my leaders should look and sound like, and they just weren't forthcoming. And I was losing hope.

The protests of February and March were exhilarating, galvanizing, and inspiring. What I realized was,
We the People are the leaders, the agents of change. "Be the change you want to see" is more than just words. We are the ones who must turn the wheels of change. And it's not easy. It takes work. It takes time. It takes you out of your comfort zone perhaps. Puts you in danger of arrest (or in some places, worse.) But it is the only thing that makes things better. And those rights that we hold so dear? They can, will, indeed have disappeared in the blink of an eye, because the powers that be -- all of the powers other than the power of We the People -- don't really believe we should have those rights. They have always been precarious. We were lulled into thinking that they were a given, but they're not … unless we fight for them.

There are leaders -- politicians and whatnot -- who will help us fight for our rights, but it is my responsibility as a citizen to be out there being a leader. What can I do? I am required to teach my students social studies … civics! Sure, I teach the larvae, the kindergartners, but there are appropriate ways to teach them important concepts that lay the groundwork for being good citizens. Ta dah!

We've got the big recall coming up -- the puppet himself, Scott Walker. With the gerrymandering and the voter suppression (yup, I believe that's what it is) getting voters to the polls is more important than ever, and it is a tangible place to put energy.

I'm not asleep anymore. I am not despondent. I've made me some hope. It was civil rights activist Bayard Rustin -- look him up if you don't know him -- who said that hope wasn't something you find, you have to make it.

Today my dear friend Chuck sent me this article -- the inspiration for my post. I hope that it inspires you the way it did me.

Another Day, Another 2 Book Reviews

"And it was summer, warm, beautiful summer ..."

For me that means reading. Lots of reading. I have read 2 books so far, as different from each other as night and day, as the saying goes.

First is Ben Logan's memoir of growing up on a Wisconsin farm, The Land Remembers. You don't have to be from Wisconsin to enjoy this book. (And by the way, real Wisconsinites do not refer to themselves as "Sconnies.") Ben Logan was born in 1920 at his family's "Seldom Seen Farm" in the hill country between Gays Mills and Mount Sterling, Wisconsin. Reading it, I was struck by two things:

1) Everything Logan writes about happened just one generation ago, my parents' generation. His father farmed with horses, they had no indoor plumbing or electricity, and his family was entirely self-sufficient. I remember visiting relatives on a farm like this in northern Wisconsin, 40 years ago. The changes that have been wrought in a single generation are almost beyond belief, and not all bad of course, but something was surely lost in the headlong rush forward in the name of "progress".

2) The land ethic that Logan learned from his parents seems way ahead of its time. He was taught to be a steward of the land. His father did not jump on every (or even most) agricultural bandwagons, because he was cautious of the long-term effects. Farmers were peddled a lot of snake oil in those days, much of which has led to the environmental crises we are facing today.

The Land Remembers is a beautifully -- even poetically -- written book. Ben Logan left Wisconsin as a young man and had a successful career as a writer and radio broadcaster on the east coast. He returned to Wisconsin in the eighties and bought back Seldom Seen Farm (it had been sold at some point) and lived there until a few years ago. When he moved off the farm, he donated it to the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, with the agreement that they would keep it in use as a sustainably-managed farm.

Highly recommended, especially for people with an interest in sustainability or lovers of memoir.

The second book of the summer is Daniel Pinkwater's The Neddiad: How Neddie Took The Train, Went To Hollywood, And Saved Civilization. In this book, Pinkwater takes the epic quest/hero's journey fantasy and turns it on its ear. It is the early fifties and Neddie Wentworthstein is moving with his family to Los Angeles. On the way he meets a shaman named Melvin, who gives him a small stone turtle, telling him not to lose it. Neddie, of course, has many adventures and encounters both friends and foes, before he is able to complete his quest.

If you are not familiar with the writing of Daniel Pinkwater, you don't know what you're missing. His sly sense of humor isn't necessarily of the laugh-out-loud-'til-your-stomach-hurts variety, but he had me chuckling throughout the entire book. He pokes fun at Jews, Republicans, military establishments, Madison Avenue, Hollywood, and anything else you can think of. A couple of high points, but I don't want to spoil all of the jokes for you:

We only stopped for gas, plus once, when we were across the state line in San Bernardino, California, at McDonald's fifteen-cent hamburger stand, where you Buy 'Em by the Bag. "This is a good idea," Seamus Finn said. "They should open more of these."

and

"There's only so far we can go with this sort of thing," Aaron Finn whispered. "I think it may be against the law to torture people, even if you're a movie star and a Republican."

I can hardly wait to read the companion book, The Yggyssey, next up. These books would make an excellent gift for any 11-13 year olds you know, especially if they're getting a little overdosed on the kid wizard from Britain.

Welcome To Our Home ...

... in the Great Bayou of the North.

Here is the pass-through between our house and garage. Don't forget your hip waders!


Some of the resident water fowl. It's the spring migration (from the bathtub to the backyard.)


But in all seriousness, yesterday I had my first sighting of red-winged blackbirds at the bark park. Today I saw a whole passel (gaggle?) of robins in our backyard, also a first for the year. I know that spring is on its way.

Schools in Trouble

Wisconsin schools are in trouble, big time. Since 1993 we have attempted to function in spite of legislation that (in simplistic terms) caps the amount of revenue that school districts can raise through property taxes without going to referendum. This legislation was pushed through by former governor (and GOP presidential candidate) Tommy Thompson, under the influence of an absolutely small minded, greedy organization -- Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. What has happened is that every year the cost of educating students goes up, while school districts cannot exceed the caps. The gap gets larger every year. For example, my school district has had shortfalls of 7-10 million dollars almost every year since 1993. This has resulted in massive cuts in programming and permanent teacher lay-offs. (We are going to referendum for the third time this November, in an attempt to avoid another round of major cuts.)

Not surprisingly, the school districts that have suffered the most are the very large urban districts and the very small rural districts. Suburban districts are faring somewhat better because their tax bases are growing, largely as a result of white flight from the urban districts. (Isn't that special?)

The chickens came home to roost in a big way last week, when a majority of the Milwaukee School Board voted to explore the dissolution of the Milwaukee Public School system. In doing so, they stated that "the system is broken." This was big news, even on a national level.

Milwaukee is not the first district in Wisconsin to do this. It may not have made the national news, but the tiny school district of Wausakee in the northeast corner of Wisconsin voted in August to dissolve and send their children to a nearby district. This is significant for me, because a whole branch of my family grew up in that school district. A number of my cousins have taught in Wausakee, and one was even the superintendent of schools for a number of years. This has got to be devastating for their community.

Hard to know where this will lead. It depresses the hell out of me.