Bends Toward Justice

For a little while last summer I thought about writing out my position on Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling, because it felt a little like he was being blackballed from the NFL for it.  But when I thought about that feeling, I didn’t think it was exactly true, and the moment seemed to slip away. I think it would have stayed like that for the whole country: eventually the new normal for a while might have included one or two players at a sporting event kneeling or sitting, or putting a fist in the air during the anthem.  It might have even gotten to where they couldn’t say why they did it. Then the Divider-in-Chief stuck his tweet in. You have to laugh.  The incredibly tone-deaf, insensitive, money-mad owners of the NFL standing with their players against the big bully.  They, at least, understand that all the kneeling and arm-locking this past weekend wasn’t about Black Lives Matter or disrespecting the flag.  It was a statement that what really matters in football is putting a winn

Because of the events of Charlottesville, the issue of taking down statues of Confederate heroes is back in the news and on the internet. One group took matters into their own hands and pulled one over. Defenders of the status quo, including the President, wondered if we would soon be taking down monuments to the likes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Today I saw, but did not read, a story that said someone has proposed renaming Boston's Faneuil Hall . That's silly, I think. It reminded me of a controversy we had some years ago when a statue was created of George Cleeve , who is credited as the first European to settle in the Portland, Maine area. The statue ended up on private land, because some felt history indicated he may have owned a slave. Here's a good opinion piece that lays out the argument, and, I think, sets out good guidelines for taking down or not taking down statues. Those who claim the statues represent a part of our history that cannot be e

"T he trouble is that essays always have to sound like God talking for eternity, and that isn't the way it ever is. People should see that it's never anything other than just one person talking from one place in time and space and circumstance." --Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's the end of the school year, and my students all have essays to write. Many of them also need to fix a research paper. Meanwhile, last night I couldn't sleep, and felt the need, inspired by something on Facebook yesterday to look up the part of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where the narrator quotes some assembly directions: "Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind." (p. 146) I got caught up in the book, again , and read on to the part around page 156 where he is explaining how the rules of writing seem to have been made up after the fact, and "became convinced that all the writers the students were su

Written Initially Several Years Ago,  Published this Week for the Anniversary of the Portland Rum Riot The Gathering Crowd Bricks thudded against the door of Portlandʼs City Hall. Fifty to 75 young men, most under 20 stood, shouted, and occasionally hurled bricks at the door on the Middle Street side of the building in the early evening of June 2, 1855. Another five- or six-hundred stood about the area, drawn by the ruckus or called out by the earlier fire alarm. Some, like Elbridge Hall had followed Deputy Marshal Oren Ring, “with no more object or interest than to see him seize an Irishman.” Others had come intent on seeing Mayor Neal Dow, “The Napoleon of Temperance” fined and imprisoned, given “a taste of his own medicine.” All would be disappointed. Some would be injured. One would be killed. The 'Maine Law' Background In the early nineteenth century Portland, Maine was a drinking city. In his memoirs Dow claimed, "It was normal for workers to drink on the j

Is President Trump a Fascist? Recently on FaceBook I shared a comic, “How to Spot Fascism Before It’s Too Late,”  that listed elements of fascism, and illustrated many of them with images and quotes from President Trump.  Some of my right-leaning and Trump-supporting friends and their friends objected to the characterization.  I also feel uncomfortable with throwing around such a vague term; the connotations are so strong!  Like comparing someone to Hitler, or calling them a Nazi, it isn’t discussion or argument, just hyperbole. I said the comic showed why educated people are nervous.  So, I wasn’t claiming that Trump is a fascist, just that there are enough similarities to make someone nervous.   What I’d like to do here is establish some kind of definition of fascism, with a list of identifying characteristics, then compare President Trump’s statements and policies and actions to them.  I want to try do it in a way that minimizes emotional response and partisan analysis, but one