Author: Teach313

Last night Madman and I exchanged ideas about many things, including the nature of the Democratic party. The exchange set me thinking about the Democratic Party, but the press of time and obligations kept me from expanding beyond the debate about Sen. Webb’s response to the State of The Union Address. Before I had to move to school-related work, I jotted down these names: James Webb, Howard Dean, Paul Wellstone, Barbara Jordan. These people seemed to me to be what the Democratic party could and should be.

It’s an odd group, but then, the Democrats are an odd bunch. Republicans have always had a easier time defining what they are for and against. An elephant is an apt symbol for the Republicans because you always tell where an elephant stands. Just look for the trampled plants and small amimals, and the huge piles of dung.

Now, the Democrats , thanks to Thomas Nash, are the donkeys. I was a city kid, and when I first saw the elephant and donkey cartoons, I thought the donkey was a mule. I like the idea of a mule as a symbol of the Democrats. Stubborn, determined, independent, and smart. Kicks like a, well, a mule, when messed with. Part horse, part donkey, a mongrel for our mongrel nation. Poor farmers had mules. Rich farmers had horses. (The sterile thing is a bit of a problem, I admit.)

So, there you have the Democrats – ornery, independent, stubborn, tough, hard-working. No rajah would ever ride a jewled studded donkey.
Which leads me to the four Democrats I mentioned. They stand out in my mind as people who spoke plainly and eloquently for the common man and against power and privilige. Howard Dean built a campaign around the emerging blogosphere. He grew personally as much as the blogsphere did during the 2004 campaign. He rallied people and together the Dean movement began to replace the discontent, frustration, and isolation so many people were feelling with an active community that is still growing and expanding and changing this country.
    Dean was derailed by his own missteps and by the Democratic establishment. But he didn’t quit. He worked and took over the party. He has withstood the establishments attacks on him by ignoring them, and continuing to work for the people. 2006 turned out pretty well. With Dean in place, I expect that 2008 will be better.

James Webb is still a new kid on the block, but his start is promising. His Wall Street Journal op-ed, hard on his unexpected victory over Sen. George Allen, was a chastisement of the corporate elite in their own journal of choice. His State of the Union response was riveting. (I’ve painstaking analyzed it in Booman’s story of the 01/24/07.) Webb speaks for the poor and oppressed. Because of his family background and historical bent, he understands and empathizes with the poor whites of the South. He does not excuse nor support the racism that has too often marked poor whites in the North and South. But he understands the social forces that have led to that racism and his message is able to reach poor whites in the North and South, not because it is “coded,” but because he understands what generation after generation of being kept underfoot feels like. He understands the class system in America and clearly excoriates those at the top. He is a Senator to watch.

Paul Wellstone died too young. His death was a tragedy to his family and the country. He was a rare voice in the Sanate for the powerless and the oppressed. The Senate is the locus of establishment power in Washington. It’s members as nearly always wealthy, white, and male. Women and minorities are making inroads, but change is slow in the Senate. In the Senate, Wellstone stood out like a small, Jewish, radical adademic at a Presbyterian-Episcopal-Baptist leadership conference. But he wouldn’t shut up or sit down. When the Emperor had no clothes, Wellstone would point and laugh. The country has needed him tremendously these past few years. This naked Emperor has had too many fearful flatters.

Finally, Barbara Jordan, another great loss years before her time. When this country last faced the kinds of Constitutional threats we face today, when Nixon shredded the Constitution and spread The Viet Nam War across SouthEast Asia, Barbara Jordan’s moral vision and fierce intellegence called his actions into question.

I was a young teen at the time, mesmerized by the Watergate Hearings. My father had voted for Nixon for three times because he couldn’t vote for him four times. When the evidence of the hearings pointed more and more inauguably to the criminal nature of the Nixon administration, my father held out as long as he could. And then Barbara Jordan spoke with the rolling majesty of an Old Testment prophet, her voice like the peal of trumphants that destoyed the fortress walls around the White House, her intellect and moral stature lifting the country from the depths of Nixon’s madness. My father never mentioned Nixon again.

That’s my Democratic party. Strong voices from across the map. Voices for the small against the big, the weak against the strong, the powerless against the powerful. The Democratic Party needs to speak for the voiceless and to serve the oppressed and forgotten. I hope that now we will see new Democratic voices step forward and lead the charge.

The Booman Backstory of Family Man is complete and online. Following the link to the website. Go to Archives. Begin with the FM introduction and follow the documents in order. I’ll be going back and cleaning up the sloppy typing mistakes and whatnot, but the story is complete.  There is a place at the bottom of each page for comments or to email me. Feel free to use either or both. If you find any plotting errors, names, dates, etc, please bring them to my attention and I will correct them.

I’ll now return to the Meta-story and continue to reveal the dark secrets and quiet heroism of the men and women of the Frog Pond.

To those serious souls who object to this diary as inappropriate for a political blog, well, a community needs humor as well as politics. If Booman finds this Project inappropriate, well, I doubt anyone will read this, so I can grovel. Please, Booman, please, it’s a joke. I worked really hard on it. And your part has yet to be written. We could work out a deal. Do you still want to be the 6’5″, 240 lb, ruggedly handsome Giants QB, the two three-time Super Bowl MVP? It could be arranged. And we can just edit out the desert sheik picture and the infamous “Shorts still” from the Peace march. Think about it, OK?

This Christmas has left me a little down, and I probably should just go to bed, but I don’t seem to be able to. I’ve been reading through BT and ET, and wandering around my mother-in-law’s house, instead. Once again this familiar memory from my childhood drifted into my mind. I think I’ll write it, and then go to bed.

 It must have been in the mid sixties. (My childhood memories have a certain fuzziness about them.) My family had gone up on Christmas Eve to visit some older friends who had built a small cabin in the Poconos. We were driving home late on a snowy night. My folks had put the rear seat of the VW down and my older sister and I slept under piles of covers.

I woke up and watched the snow through the back window. My parents were quietly talking and my sister was deeply asleep and snoring softly. As we climbed through the mountains, I would see the sky, then the darkened houses and businesses, then the sky again.

The VW chugged up a long climb and when it reached the top and my view leveled off, I saw a sign. “Welcome to Bethlehem.” We began our long descent into the valley, and I saw darkened houses, some with a few candles in the window, and closed businesses, their owners long gone home to be with their families on Christmas Eve.

Halfway down the hill we passed a steel mill, its huge doors wide open in defiance of the cold, the snow, and the season. A huge bucket suspended from the the ceiling poured out a vast river of molten steel that glowed orange red against the blackness of the night and splashed into molds on the floor far below.
Then our Beetle fought its way to the top of the rise, crested the hill, and coasted down the other side, and the steel mill was gone.

I awoke on Christmas morning in my own bed. I suppose my father had carried me upstairs and put me to bed without my waking up. I have never asked my family about that night, about Bethlehem and the steel mill. I do not know if I dreamed it, or it was real. I only know that it is one of the strongest memories I have of Christmas as a child. Now I do not want to know any more about it. The image is firmly attached to Christmas for me, and every Christmas I try to find time alone. When I do, I am a child again stretched out under old, woolen blankets in the backseat of that ’63 Beetle, peering through the rear window as the river of molten steel silently pours from the heavens in Bethlehem. And I am filled once again with mystery and wonder.

This started as a comment to Booman’s story, WSJ: Critiquing Blogs. As so often happens, there was a lot to think about and my comment entered that gray area between comment and diary. A dia-ment? Well, whatever it is, certainly in the rough.

There is at least one overlooked point in the WSJ comparison of bloggers & traditional reporters. There is an overlapping range of goals for the two groups. Three keys goals of both are reporting, advocacy, and community building. These goals are intertwined. The first two are often blurred, and the distinction is often in the eyes of the beholder. Although we don’t usually think of it as such, the WSJ also works to build a community, a group of people with common interests. The key difference in my mind is that bloggers and blogging are more democratic, more inclusive, more conducive to building communities, than are traditional media.

We are living through, and to one degree or another, participating in, a Jeffersonian generational revolution. For all our faults and growing pains, I think we are on the right side, the side of openness and democracy.

There is a place here for an analysis of the economic structures of reporting in the MSM and blogging, but I defer to those with more knowledge of the subject. I can only pose this question: How can we of the blogosphere create communities that provide economic freedom for the talented reporters among us to have the time and opportunity to report and for the passionate, informed advocates to effectively advocate?

    This diary is a comment on and divergence from Booman’s story on conservative reaction to the announcement that VP Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter is pregnant. Booman concludes that the private lives of the Cheneys are their business and that we on the left should stay out of it. Commenters agreed and disagreed. I happen to agree, but there is a larger issue here. The issue is not family privacy, Gay rights, or the necessity of two parent families. The issue is the double standard, one for PLUs and another for everyone else.

     PLU is a convient shorthand for “People Like Us.” PLUs are good people by definition. The Bush Family is the model of the PLU world view. If you are born a PLU, you don’t commit crimes, you make mistakes. You are helped out, not prosecuted. If you are born a Bush, you can avoid all wars, Viet Nam, as well as the War on Drugs. The law doesn’t apply to you. If you are born a Cheney, you and your lesbian partner can have a child and not have to worry that you might lose your job if anyone discovers your little secret. Bush PLU’s are anti-abortion, until one of their little darlings gets inconveniently knocked up and then a quick, quiet trip to a discreet, private clinic and all is fine.

    If Bush had been born poor, not a PLU, he would have been in Viet Nam and walking through the jungle, dodging Viet Cong bullets, not playing junior jet pilot, when he felt like showing up. If Mary Cheney wasn’t a Cheney, she would risk the power of the state being used against her partner to deprive her of parental rights.

    A while ago, we had a debate on the pages about what a progressive stands for. Several creeds and litmus tests were proposed. Here’s mine.

   A Progressive wants everyone in this country to be treated decently, fairly, and with the same respect and opportunity as everyone else. We want our laws and our institutions to be aligned with our rhetoric. When we say, “All people are created equal,” we mean all people. When we say, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” we mean that everyone’s life is equally precious, everyone’s liberty is equally valued, and everyone’s pursuit of happiness has equal value. Progressive is to Privilege, as Liberal is to Conservative. A Progressive wants our country, our democracy, to continue to improve, to progress. We are liberal with freedom, liberal with opportunity. A conservative wants to retain privilege in the small group of families that make up Bush’s PLUs, to conserve power and privilege.

   Yesterday, I talked with the mother of one of my students. The family lives a terrible project in Detroit. Two parents, four jobs, three kids, no way out. She is expecting another child in April. Will Mary Cheney’s daughter be sitting next to her in my inner city school classroom? Will she be diving under her bed when bullets come through the bedroom wall? Will her parents be so exhausted from working two lousy, dead end jobs, that they have little time or energy to read to her? Will she come to know the police as a barrier between her and her community and the “good” people in “good” communities?

     Good job, Baby Cheney, you figured out the Bush system while still in the womb. This is a great country, if you choose your parents wisely. The privilege system is what Bush conservatives are conserving, and that system of privilege is what progressives should be tearing down.

     
Update [2006-12-7 17:7:17 by Teach313]: Minor editorial corrections made by author.

    Last night, well, early this morning really, a strange idea came to me. We were talking in the 3rd cafe of the night about BTers we’d met and not met. About meetups that we’d been to and had to miss. And this really strange vision jumped into my brain. A bus. Some kind of tour bus/rv/van/or something. Pick a two or three or four week period and drive it from clusters of BTers to other clusters of BTers. A Froggy Bottom 24/7 Cafe on wheels. BooMan by Bus. A Moveable MeetUp.
    Some people might ride a short way. They get off and make their way home however they might. Others might stay longer. Some people would meet the Traveling Pond along the way, and  join them for that night. State campgrounds and national parks. The Ritz for Mary and the parking lot for others. Rest stops and mountain overlooks. Breakfast at greasy spoons and over campfires. Stopping to rest, shop, hike, take a break, whatever. And then, another meetup.
     Flexibility is the key. See who’s interested and go from there. See what vehicles are available, or what we’d need to rent. Work on costs, routes, etc., after we see if I am the only person insane enough to even consider doing this.
    With as many good writers and photographers as are in the Pond, I could see us producing a book from this adventure. Perhaps a series of articles. Maybe a film. Certainly some great blogging and podcasts. The technical expertise is here. The imagination is here. The country is out there. We’re scattered across it. What do you think?
      Be honest. I’ve had looney ideas before and I’ll have them again. You won’t hurt my feelings. And to head off the obvious question, I am not drunk or in any way chemically altered. It is possible that I’m nuts.

Mythmother directed my attention to an editorial in the LA Times by JOSHUA MURAVCHIK, at the American Enterprise Institute. This editorial cries out for a bit of rhetorical analysis. Allow me to take a stab at it.

Muravchik presents a clear and direct call for action. His opening sentence, “WE MUST bomb Iran,” leaves no doubt about his intentions. He then proceeds to simplify the entire debate and obscure any complexities. He must have mistaken the editorial page for a Bush daily briefing.

(More below)
He begins by proving that economic sanctions won’t work because Old Europe are wimps and China & Russia can’t be trusted. Is there an echo in here? I thought Rumsfeld had resigned. Besides the Iranians are clerical fanatics who can’t be bought of. Yeah, we could overthrow the regime, but you know them. They’re all are nuts over there. One’s as crazy as the next.

So we have two choices. Let’s get rid of the silly one first. We could let them build their bomb. But you know that Iran is trying to take over Al Qaeda, and they already control Hamas and Hezbollah. You know, says Muravchik, that they’ll slip nukes to the TERRORISTS as soon as they can. He quotes Ted Koppel, the noted international scholar, as proposing that we tell Iran that we would hold them responsible for any nuclear explosion anywhere in the world.

But here’s the catch. “But would any U.S. president really order a retaliatory nuclear strike based on an assumption?” Nah, never. We only act when we have iron-clad, indisputable evidence. Not us, no way.

Besides, Israel is threatened by the Islamic nuke. How would defenseless Israel defend itself? How could they retaliate against nuclear aggression? I suspect with a few of the poorly hidden nuclear tricks Israel has up its sleeves.

The next step in simplifying the world’s problems is to obscure and minimize differences and disagreements in the Islamic world. It turns out that there are no differences. All Muslims love each other and hate us. It’s a war of civilizations and theirs is monolithic and steadfastly opposed to ours. White hats — us. Black hats — them. Any rivals to Iran would be intimidated by their power and join forces to create a billion strong horde going for our throats, once they subdue SouthEast Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe. Then, it’s us.

But isn’t attacking Iran likely to be a bad as our Iraq blunder? Nah, Muravchik assures us.

The only way to forestall these frightening developments is by the use of force. Not by invading Iran as we did Iraq, but by an air campaign against Tehran’s nuclear facilities. We have considerable information about these facilities; by some estimates they comprise about 1,500 targets. If we hit a large fraction of them in a bombing campaign that might last from a few days to a couple of weeks, we would inflict severe damage. This would not end Iran’s weapons program, but it would certainly delay it.

That’s right, ya’ll, rewind past the disappointing sequel and replay the video from Gulf War I. Remember those fun nights around the TV. Bomb exploding, flames lighting up the Iraqi night sky, cool military videos of smart bombs sliding down bad guys chimneys, pilots enjoying cool drinks in the hangers in Saudi Arabia. That’s the plan. Forget the mess in Iraq now. It won’t be like that. Really. Trust me.

In case you still have some doubts about bombing Iran, Muravchik helps clear up the picture further. He ties the Iranians to Lenin. That’s right the Iranian mullahs all secretly dream of being Lenin. And how could we have defeated Lenin? Why, by listening to the only voice of reason in the 1917 British Government — Winston Churchill. The rumpled one wanted Britain to attack the Bolshies and destroy them. If he had prevailed on the chicken-hearted Brits, 100 million Soviets wouldn’t have died under Stalin, Hitler would have stayed a disgruntled house painter and Nazism wouldn’t have had to rise as a response to the Bolshie threat. So we wouldn’t have had WWII or the Cold War, both of which we won, of course, as we’ll inevitably win the war with the Islamists.

There’s no mention of Churchill’s vehement defense of keeping India, South Africa, and the rest of the pink parts of the globe as jewels in Her Majesty’s Crown. His mission was unfailingly imperialist, and the Bolshie’s were at threat to the tottering Imperial power of Britain. But that’s beside the point, keep it simple.

And so, we are left with the Neo-Con mantra, “Don’t worry, Bomb’s Away!”  I love the smell of a simplistic world view in the morning. It smells like victory.

[update]See additional chart below.

The Scottish branch of my family was unified against two groups: Catholics, or as they were called, “the Bloody Papists,” and the Scottish Episcopal Church, “as good as Bloody Papists.” They had loud, long, and well-reasoned debates why both these institutions did the De’ils work here on Earth. But then the debates got messier. One branch stayed with the Church of Scotland. They generally prospered and settled into the middle class.

Tensions frayed when a member of the family broke away and joined the Relief Church in a heated argument over the cost of establishment for the Church of Scotland. Two brothers never spoke again when Great- Great-Great-Great Uncle Lawrence called his brother’s beloved Church of Scotland, “A hand maiden to the Whore of Babylon.”

(More sad history below)

But sadly, G-G-G-G Uncle Lawrence live to see turmoil in his own house. Lawrence’s family had migrated with the Relief Church to join the Successionist Church of Scotland. His son, also named, Lawrence, threw out his son, Lawrence, named after his grandfather, out of the house after a heated argument over the Burgher — Anti-Burgher split. Lawrence pere and Lawrence fils split openly when the younger Lawrence, in a fit of Knox inspired piety, condemned his family for their defense of the discredited patronage system.

But when young Lawrence had a family of own, he too came to know the pain of the family curse of the schism. For we are a proud family and we demand correctness of thought and speech. When Lawrence’s beloved daughter, Mary, began to study Calvin’s Institutes and Knox’s sermons, she soon saw that the Anti-Burger faction of the Associate Presbytery fell short of the spiritual truths of those great men of God. Through many a long Scottish winter night, she exhorted her father to see the truth. He refused. Finally he ordered her and her “false New Light Anti-Burgher clap-trap” out of his house.

Poor Mary was just as unwelcome at her cousin, Lawrence’s house, as he was firmly a Church of Scotland Old-Light Burgher. Her namesake aunt, Mary, would also have nothing to so with her, as she was Church of Scotland New-Light Burgher. Aunt Mary famously replied to her niece, just before she slammed the door in her niece’s face, that she “would rather clasp a muckle asp to my bosom than allow a New Light Anti-Burger into my home.” Great-Great-Great Aunt Mary was a pious woman, indeed.

Poor Mary finally found shelter in the home of a kindly New Light Anti-Burgher family and eventually she married the youngest son, Laurence. Things settled down for a bit, but the entire family saw each other only on Sunday’s as they passed, unspeaking, on the way to their respective churches. One notable family gathering during this time was when the entire clan gathered to burn the Pope in effigy. Sadly, even this potentially healing  moment went agley when a Glasgow ice storm appeared unexpectedly, protecting the effigy from flames. Each faction saw this defeat as God’s punishment on them for joining with  those who had fallen away from the true path.

Mary and Laurence lived well into their ninety’s, long enough to see four grandchildren born. (New Light Anti-Burgher’s are notoriously doubtful about the propriety of sexual relations.)
The last years were marked by sadness and despair. Their beloved grand-daughter, Mary, and grandson, Lawrence, (his father, Laurence, and named him after Old Lawrence in a failed attempt to reunite the family), split with the Family and joined the United Original Successionist Church. Mary and Laurence cut Mary and Lawrence out of their wills and banned their grandchildren from attending their funerals. “As if we would be seen attending a New Light Anti-Burgher funeral,” huffed Mary, a remark that still has a wide and approving circulation in United Original Successionist Circles.

Many things are certain in Scotland, rain, alcohol, and depression, just to name a few. But nothing is as certain as a split over dogma. Mary married Laurence Sharp, a  United Original Successionist Church vicar and had twins, Mary and Laurence. Her brother, Lawrence, married Mary Hamilton, and had a daughter, Mary. The Hamilton’s were so devoted to the Reformed Presbyterian Church, that Lawrence laid aside his principles and joined. The entire family reviled him as a weak man who threw over God for a woman. His wife was called, when she was spoken of at all, which was rarely, as “that succubus.”

Laurence Sharp was a restless soul. He sought the truth of God by turning again to the works of Calvin and Knox. He and Mary came to have grave doubts about the United Original Successionist Church. They were particularly concerned by the use of instrumental music in the church and the resurrection of rood screens in some United Original Successionist Churches. They gather others with similar doubts around them and were part of the original group that founded the Free Church of Scotland, a band of sincerely devout believers that was so tiny they came to be known “the Wee Free’s”.

My branch of the family left Scotland at this point. Their odyssey in America is a topic for another time. My Scottish family has died out. The ongoing doctrinal disputes whittled the once vigorous clan to nothing. Children tired of their elders arcane disputes and left the parents’ churches. Several rejoined the still vibrant Roman Catholic Church. One distant relative has a high position in the Vatican Office of Doctrine.

Most of their churches are gone. Most Scots have never heard of them or the doctrinal splits that shattered that once the family. The hated Catholics and the despised Episcopal Church of Scotland live on. The Church of Scotland is slowly withering away. And in a tiny, overgrown graveyard outside Paisley, next to the ruins of a old church, you can see a burial plot of one branch of my stunted family tree. The weathered stone is difficult to read. The last name is unintelligible, but the first name is either Lawrence or Laurence. Under that name is the family motto, “No Compromise, No Reconciliation.”

The week ended with a bang in my humble schoolroom. One little darling lost the glow-in-the-dark superball she earned for her behavior last week. She was in tears and angrily accused everyone nearby of stealing it. This wasn’t likely as she dropped it two steps from the treasure chest and it probably super-bounced across the room and under something. I told her to go or she’d miss the bus and I’d look for it. I’d straighten it out on Monday, I assured her. She stumbled out to her locker, tears streaming down her face, folders slipping out of her hands, shedding papers,pencils, lip gloss and god knows what else in her wake like a New Jersey trash barge headed into a hurricane. The other kids screaming that they didn’t take that bald-headed girl’s superball and other less than helpful comments was a perfect complement to the drama that only a wronged eight-year old can suffer.

After she went to her locker and I had squelched the howls of indignation from the falsely accused, I went to my secret goody stash and slipped another superball into my pocket. I told the class to clean up their tables and be in their seats, ready for dismissal, when I returned. Unfortunately, my high speed race to catch the bus missed, and I saw it pull away. Kenya was sitting toward the back by a window, folded arms cushioning her face, her body jerking back and forth in her patented full-body crying jag. Several girls were crowded around her, patting her shoulders and stoking her hair, alternately feeding and being fed at the emotional feast. She didn’t see me as I held up the ball that she’d get on Monday.

I went back upstairs to see if the class had kept it together for the four-or-five minutes I was out of the room. I should have known better.

(so much more below)
DeRay, the biggest boy in the class who is only two merit badges away from making Eagle Bully, was pounding on Darvin, the smallest boy, who has more mouth per pound than Don King. Darvin has yet to learn the Chris Rock rule of the ghetto. If you’re small and you have a big mouth, you better be smart, funny, or fast. Darvin is none of these. When I walked in, he was the practicing catching punches with his body while scrambling to his feet and being knocked down again. The class was in a frenzy, first the drama of the lost (or was it stolen?) superball and the flight of wounded Kenya, followed hard on its heels by a real, punches-thrown-in-anger pounding. The little ones were on an emotional joyride not seen in my room since our much despised principal had broken a heel and fallen flat on her back as she entered the classroom.

I grabbed DeRay and, in Serious Teacher Voice, barked, “Seats, now!” Strangely, unexpectedly, it worked. There was a mass diving for seats. One hand firmly on DeRay’s shoulder to keep him from going after Darvin yet again, the other on Darvin’s back to direct him to his seat, eyes flashing, head turning rapidly to make Serious Eye Contact with the Usual Suspects, I ordered the kids to follow me out the door and go to their lockers. I must have looked like Robo-Cop without the arsenal. I had to take DeRay to the office to get him suspended. We definitely need another meeting with Mom and GranDad.

     “In line, ready for dismissal, when I get back,” I whispered, in my best “Uh-oh, he’s getting quiet, he must be really angry” voice. I picked up this technique at a professional development session entitled, “Classroom Management Tips from Clint Eastwood.” It’s a show stopper.

Or so I thought. I whipped into the office with DeRay still in my grip, zoomed into the principal’s office, demanded DeRay be suspended so that his family would have come to a meeting, told the principal that, no, I didn’t have time to fill in the forms because my class was unsupervised, and whipped back upstairs in no more than one-and-a-half, maybe two minutes. Too long by thirty seconds.

I heard the distinctive sound of another fight as I took the stairs four at a time. I dodged some overdressed stragglers from first grade whose huge winter coats with oversized, fuzzy hoods made walking and seeing a major challenge.

I rounded the corner to my room a bit too fast. Kouri and Te’ Aandrik slammed into me, Kouri’s shoulder dealing me a particularly unfortunate blow. He is a small boy and his head is no higher than my navel. Te’Aanrik’s poorly aimed kicks were as likely to hit any of the many kids who had swarmed to the excitement as to hit Kouri, his intended target. Innocent victims were howling in indignation, Kouri was yelling,”What’d I do? I didn’t do nothing?,” Te’Aandrik was trying to organize his legs to go where he was aiming, and I was trying to catch my breath and avoid grabbing my injury.

“TWO LINES –  RIGHT NOW,” I roared, as much as you can roar while doubled-up and trying not to swear. “LINE LEADERS – GET THE CLASS OUT THE DOOR.” LaTaya and Thomas jumped like they been shocked and took off down the stairs. The class raced after them. Kouri and Te’Aandrik tried to lose themselves in the crush of the noisy, mass exodus.
 

“Te’Aandrik and Kouri – FREEZE.” I used the top-drawer Teacher Voice. The voice that has been used by teachers since the spitball was invented. The voice that has famously turned aside cattle stampedes and rogue elephant charges. They froze.

“Monday, during Gym time, we’ll discuss this,” I whispered. I wasn’t reverting to Clint, I could barely speak. “Monday.”

They turned and walked slowly toward the door, Spiderman backpacks dragging behind them, chins on their chest, muttering softly, the mantra of the Elementary student caught red handed, “I didn’t do nothing. He hit me first. What I do?”

I watched them go and slid slowly down the wall into a sitting position.Two of my kids came back up the stairs. “We’ll be good Monday,” they said with the purest earnestness they could muster. It was pretty impressive.

“I hope so, ” I muttered,” God knows, I hope so.” They turned and slowly walked away.

 I looked at the cracked hall clock. Ten minutes had passed since Kenya lost the superball. Ten minutes in the life a child can feel like ten hours. And sometimes they help their teachers re-experience time’s elasticity.

Many members of the netroots community have been angry, upset, or uncertain about Jim Webb of VA. His record is not what you expect from a Democratic Senator. He is an Annapolis Grad and a former Marine. He was Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. He started out as an Democrat, changed to the Republicans, and has returned to the Democrats.

Today, in the Wall Street Journal, Senator Webb has an op-ed piece. Webb has gone to the paper of record for corporate power, where he has clearly and forcibly stood up for the people against that same corporate power. Read the entire editorial. It’s worth your time. I’ve snipped out some prime pieces below.

Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard.

BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

The most important–and unfortunately the least debated–issue in politics today is our society’s steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America’s top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future.
<snip>

At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners’ pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind.

The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of “God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag” while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to succeed.

With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.

Sen. Webb develops this theme, and others, in his excellent book, Born Fighting.

What do you think? I’m excited about him. He is man of substance.