democracy | The Direction of Intention

Check Your Stems [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Wild Carrot. Queen Anne’s Lace. Throughout every season we find ourselves marveling at the aesthetic structure of the plant. The graceful curves and shapes. They inspire movement and floral symbols in my paintings.

Summoning the Oracle, Google, I learned that a common question asked is how to discern Queen Anne’s Lace from poisonous Hemlock. They are surprisingly similar in appearance. “Poison hemlock stems are smooth, while Queen Anne’s Lace stems are covered with tiny hairs…” The moral of the story? Check your stems.

Check your stems.

The verb form of the word ‘stem’ concerns origins. Comes from. Arises from. For instance, the stem of the word ‘democracy’ arises from ancient Greece. The word literally means the people (demos) rule (kratos). “Democratic government is commonly juxtaposed with oligarchic and monarchic systems, which are ruled by a minority and a sole monarch respectively.” Healthy disagreement, opposing points of view expressed without fear en route to compromise, is the beating heart – the stem – of a democracy.

The stem of the word ‘fascism’ comes from Latin and means, “bundle of sticks,” – the visual symbol evolved to include an axe at the center of the bundle, representing “a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government.” Elimination of opposing points of view is the stem of fascism.

“Fascism’s origins are…ultimately centered on a mythos of national rebirth from decadence.” You could find no better or clearer tag line for a fascist intention than Make America Great Again. You could not pen a better blueprint for the fascist overthrow of democracy than Project 2025. The forcible suppression of opposition. Political violence as a necessary means of national rejuvenation, the demonization of the “other”.

As demonstrated in their gathering in Milwaukee, the reds are now a perfect expression of their symbol: a bundle of tightly bound sticks in lock-step – with an axe hanging over their heads ready to eliminate any voice of opposition. It turns out, like their sycophantic VP pick, many of these men and women, who once called their supreme red leader “America’s Hitler” and “a wannabe dictator”, were right. Sadly, they lack the courage of their convictions. They fear the axe. They lack a basic grasp of the necessity in a healthy democracy for genuine voices of opposition.

Is it rule by-the-people-and-for-the-people or a fascist autocracy?

How can we discern democracy from poisonous fascism? Check the stems.

Open your eyes and look, really look. The red hats have wrapped themselves in the flag so they might appear like the Grand Old Party. They are not. To anyone undecided or confused or jaded, I can only offer this advice: it’s important to check your stems before you ingest too much fascist hemlock believing you’re dining on democracy.

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Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, autocracy, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, dictator, fascism, GOP, hemlock, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, MAGA, mythos, origin, poisonous rhetoric, political violence, Queen Anne's Lace, singer song writer, stems, story, studio melange, the melange, this part of the journey, Wild Carrot | 1 Comment »

Don The Hazmat [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 18, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Last night while Kerri, 20 and I were playing a game of Rummikub, Rob texted. He asked, tongue firmly planted in his cheek, “Wow! You’re so close to the (RNC) convention, are you going to swing by?” I responded without thinking, “Only if I had a hazmat suit.”

Protection from toxic waste.

Before dinner and before playing the game, 20 told me that earlier in the day, while he was driving, he caught himself pondering what he would do to survive if the red tide sweeps in, stains the White House, and reconfigures Social Security and privatizes Medicare as is promised by their conservative blueprint for authoritarian rule, Project 2025. I asked, “Did you ever imagine in your lifetime that you’d be worried about the overthrow of democracy by a populist dictator?” His dad was a WWII veteran, as was Kerri’s father. My mom was a little girl living in Pearl Harbor on the day it was attacked because my grandfather provided services for the navy. In a single generation, the very threat our elders, our “greatest generation,” fought to eliminate, has overtaken the minds and hearts of the Grand Old Party. They’re currently holding a convention in Milwaukee to forward an agenda that would appall Abraham Lincoln but Adolph Hitler would applaud. “Did you ever think…?”

It’s too late for hazmat suits. The toxin is already racing through our system.

In this past week we’ve repeatedly heard the phrase, “We need to tone down the rhetoric on both sides.” It’s not the rhetoric we need to tone down, it’s the reality we need to face. We’re pretending that this an election like any other election, that it is “systems usual.” It is not. Our two party system is now a one party system attempting to fortify our young democracy against a dictatorial leader and his followers who are filled with fascist dreams. The dialed-up rhetoric of Democrats is akin to sounding an alarm warning of a system-annihilating storm. The rhetoric of the reds is the storm.

Unlike the ideal outlined by our founders, this is not a party of conservative values debating with a party of progressive values to find a compromise path forward: a system designed to achieve balance from opposing points of view. This is an ultranationalist aggression attempting to dismantle our system of governance and replace it with one that forcibly suppresses – and eliminates – any form of opposition.

The body dies when the toxin is ignored and allowed to attack the internal organs.

We play Rummikub with 20 to unplug from the worries of the day. Last night while we played, a terrific storm roared through the region, shaking the house with wind and buckets of rain. Dogga paced as lightning flashed. It was hard to concentrate on the game. I couldn’t help seeing the storm as a metaphor (of course…). With so much toxic waste spewing just up the road, and potentially washing away democracy’s foundation, it is no longer possible to unplug. It’s no longer wise to unplug. Not if we want our good house to survive the red storm.

an image from the archives: House On Fire, watercolor

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Filed under: Awakening, DR Thursday, Edges, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: Adolph HItler, artistry, authoritarian, Constitution, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, dictator, division, fascism, founding fathers, GOP, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, populist, rhetoric, RNC 2024, Rummikub, storm, story, studio melange, the melange, toxic, toxic waste, two party system | 1 Comment »

Unfurl [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on April 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m proud of her. Twice this week Kerri has fact-checked friends on FB who posted articles riddled with misinformation meant to rile. It took her less than a minute each time. In posting a link to the fact-check, she wrote, “Please check your information before you pass it on. xo”

It seems like such a small thing but it’s lately apparent that it’s becoming everything:

We forget that democracy is not a thing. It is an idea. It is an action rather than a noun. We forget that our democracy is young. Very, very young.

It worries me when I hear politicians making laws placing limits on the discussion of ideas at school. It worries me when I read that parents want teachers to teach “only the facts”. In today’s bubble-discourse it is a valid question to ask, “Whose facts?” Discerning between fact and fiction requires minds and hearts capable of questioning, capable of challenging the “facts” they are being fed. The notion of the purpose of education as a feeder-of-facts is nothing less than a sign of moral and mental decay. This is especially true in our great age of information with its ever-present shadow of rampant misinformation.

Democracies collapse when ideas and ideals are no longer debated, when winning-at-any-cost overshadows compromise, when respect for divergent points of view is overrun by intolerance. Healthy democracies are an ongoing tug-of-war; creative tension generated by a lively and respectful exchange of perspectives. This requires a system of education that nurtures these qualities and capacities.

Democracies collapse when they aim for an end result rather than steward a living process.

The point of education in a democracy is to consciously and carefully unfurl young minds so they might become active questioners, expansive thinkers, participating citizens in an ongoing experiment in a complex system called democracy, capable of stewarding their communities forward through an ever-changing world toward the promises inherent in the IDEA: equality, inclusion, governance by the people, for the people.

I would hope that we become capable of grokking governance-by-the-people which necessitates a people educated in ideas, reinforced in their curiosity and capacity to question, to converse and debate complex issues, capable of discerning ruinous power-over-agendas from the central idea enlivening their budding democracy: power with.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FERNS

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Education, Power, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, collaboration, community, Compromise, curioisty, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, debate, democracy, divergence, education, equality, expansive thinking, facts, ideas, inclusion, information, information age, information bubbles, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, misinformation, power with, purpose, questioning, stewards, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Look It Up [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I find that I have a different definition than most people of the word ignorant. In the book of words it is an adjective describing the lack of education or sophistication. I’ve come to understand it as a noun, someone who ignores in order to shore-up their belief. So, in my book of words, someone who ignores information, facts, data, someone who refuses to question, is an ignor-ant.

I’m writing this post a few days ahead. It’s the day of the Iowa caucuses and, if the polls are accurate, most of the caucus-goers are dedicated ignorants. Thought-foundations built upon quicksand. It brings to mind two quotes. The first is from Isaac Asimov:

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

And, isn’t that a proper summation of our times? A democracy can only survive over the long haul with an informed populace. Ignorance, ignorants, will be the death of our democracy. It begs a question that’s ever present and hard to ignore: what are we (they) afraid to learn? That brings me to the second quote that popped into my noggin. This one is from Robert Pirsig:

“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They KNOW it is going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas and goals are in doubt.”

The ostrich buries its head in the sand, the monkey plugs its ears. The fate of the MAGA lemming is the trap of the dedicated ignorant. It makes possible the untenable: angry insistence of being the great defender of democracy while championing a fascist yet being completely incapable of discerning between the two. It requires a wee-bit of knowledge and study to understand the difference between fascism and democracy. Fanatical embrace is the only available path to those who fear facts, information and ideas that might call into question what they already surmise: what they believe, what they think, what they are told might not be true.

Ignorance is never the equal of knowledge. I’d never take my car to be fixed by a someone who calls him/herself a mechanic yet has no knowledge of how an automobile works. It seems basic. I wonder about the Iowans going to the polls (or any republican for that matter), exercising the great power of the vote, yet refusing to exercise the freedom of thought, the expansion of mind, that their democratic privilege affords them.

In my book, that is the definition of an ignorant.

read Kerri’s blogpost about KNOWLEDGE

like or not. share or not. support or not. comment or not. either way, ask questions and seek to know beyond what you think.

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Filed under: Education, Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: anti intellectualism, artistry, cult of ignorance, culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, education, fascism, ignorance, ignorant, intellectual, Iowa caucus 2024, Isaac Asimov, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge, learning, politics, questioning, Robert Pirsig, story, studio melange, the melange, the power of the vote, vote | 2 Comments »

Steward The Radical [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 26, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m reading Gordon MacKenzie’s brilliant book, Orbiting The Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide To Surviving With Grace. There’s plenty to love in this little book that extrapolates beyond the corporate cubicle. This morning I laughed heartily when he compared two organizational systems, the pyramid and the plum tree. Traditional versus Holistic. Mechanistic versus Organic.

For me, the point of his Fool’s argument, sketched on yellow-pad-paper, comes down to this: the traditional pyramid, a hoosegow of compartmentalization, kills collaboration and snuffs the creative. It is purposeful division. The holistic plum tree, an integrated dynamic continuum, enhances collaboration and stimulates the creative. He draws an arrow pointing to the words “Enhancement of collaboration,” and writes, “This is radical.” [his underline]

It might seem radical to suggest that a system that intends collaboration is radical until you consider our current state of affairs. The latest attack on “the woke” by “the traditional” is, in essence, a pyramid that fears a plum tree. Pyramid people have an investment in exclusion, in standing on the top. Supremacy, white or otherwise. Keeping the cubicles intact, keeping the hierarchy in place.

Plum tree people, the proudly “woke,” reach across and eliminate division because they recognize the truth and power of the continuum, “integrated in a single creative ecology” otherwise known as a “community.” It is the opposite of supremacy. Float all boats.

There’s a race to the bottom in these un-united united states: the recent scrubbing of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, the banning of books, red-legislators knocking themselves out trying to bleach our history, bury our past, snuff a questioner’s right to question (i.e. to learn), eliminate a woman’s right to choose; to squeeze gender-identity into a too-tight-airless-box…

In this environment, to suggest a system that intends collaboration, a system that enhances collaboration, is radical. Of course, democracy, by definition, is a system that intends collaboration. It is a system that needs collaboration to survive. It is a plum tree. The real and present danger of the pyramid, as Gordon MacKenzie points out: a pyramid is a tomb.

Democracy is radical. That people of diverse backgrounds and orientations might come to the table together with full respect for their differences – in fact a celebration of their differences, and intend to create “a more perfect union” is-as-has-always-been, a bright star to follow. It is a radical dream that demands open eyes, the capacity to ask questions of ourselves and each other, to tell our full history, to consider the perspective of all the human-beings sitting across the shared table. A radical dream, an ongoing creation stewarded into the future by the radical collaborators, keepers of the dream, the proudly woke.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PROUD BUTTONS

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Filed under: Edges, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, collaboration, community, corporate systems, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Gordon MacKenzie, holistic, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mechanistic, organic, plum tree, pride, pyramid, story, studio melange, systems, the melange, traditional, woke | 1 Comment »

Take Pride [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 13, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

This is Pride month and, for myself, to the the brilliant rainbow flag I’m adding a metaphor: the circle.

The circle is a universal symbol and that is precisely the point. Ubiquitous. Common. Applicable to all.

Google the metaphoric meanings of a circle and you’ll discover simple, nonpareil aspirations. “The circle is both an image and metaphor of completeness and equality. There is both protection and democracy within its confines as people face each other without visual hierarchy.”

Completeness and equality. I rolled these words around a bit. Celebrations like Pride are how we strive to complete the dream of equality. Or, better: how the dream of equality strives to fulfill our founding intention. It’s written in our Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident.

Protection is a word but in practice it is among the deepest of human necessities. Protection is the gift of equal inclusion. Every single point on the circle is necessary; “…without visual hierarchy”. Inclusion has recently been made a tug-of-war term, a specter of the scary monster, Woke, but beyond the ruckus it is not an abstract highbrow concept. Not really. It’s a fundamental: a community that cares for its own. In tribal communities being cast-out is a fate worse than death. An outcast is never safe. Safety-for-all is among the aspirations of Pride. To come safely home. One need not be woke to grasp the concept. Compassion for others requires very little sophistication to grok.

And so, for me, I take Pride in the circle. That which leads back to itself, the original source. Our oneness. Our deepest humanity. Wholeness. Original perfection. Timeless. All the colors of the rainbow.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CIRCLE

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Filed under: Language, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, circle, community, compassion, completeness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, equality, humanity, inclusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pride, protection, rainbow flag, safe, safety, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Creative Think [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 15, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

The truth is that I could talk with MM all day. Our calls are few and far between but it always feels as if we’re picking up a conversation from yesterday. His perspective on life is vast, deeply rooted like an oak tree, yet simple enough to play on a banjo. As per usual, he left me with a head-full-of-thoughts-to-think.

One of the thought-rocks he dropped on my head was this: we’ve lost touch with our connection to the humanities. And, we’ve lost that connection, not by accident, but through reckless intention. Years ago I was wide-eyed with disbelief when the local school system stripped history and the humanities from their course offerings to make more room for STEM; science, technology, engineering and math. “Short-sighted and fundamentally stupid,” I said to no one listening. Art was long gone. Music was nowhere to be found.

It’s hard to measure the real worth of the humanities on a test so it was sailed off the edge-of-the-curriculum-world. What , exactly, is the value of kindness, the worth of considering others, the merit of empathy and understanding interconnectivity? How important is it to know where you come from? The origin and cycles of knowledge and the grand mistakes of the past? What might be your intellectual lineage, your moral ancestry? How important is it to consider opposing ideas, to recognize there are many ways of seeing a single event? What happened the last time an out-of-control authoritarian impulse attempted to quash a diversity of opinion? How worthwhile might it be to understand that democracy is nothing more or less than an idea about how humans might create community together? It is not a given. It is not a fact. It is an ongoing relationship. The province of the humanities.

The operative word is “together.”

I laughed aloud the day after my call with MM. Two articles crossed my screen. Because I’m searching for jobs I’m paying attention to articles like The Ten Most Important Skills For Workers. You’ll not be surprised to learn that analytical thinking currently tops the chart but the king is about to be unseated by a new/old champion: creative thinking. Also rising in the top ten are “curiosity and lifelong learning” and “motivation and self-awareness” Of course, “unmotivated and unconscious” have probably never topped the list of desirable skills…though most factory work – and varieties of corporate work – generally produce those qualities in previously motivated human beings.

[I take a moment of silence to recount the multiple times I have, in my life, been told I was un-hire-able because I was too creative. “You’ll see how to improve things and want to make changes,” a manager famously told me. “My job,” he said, “is to keep that from happening. To maintain the status quo.” In another famous jaw-dropping moment, a potential employer told me I was not an attractive hire because I was educated so, “I would want things.”]. A cautionary tale to all those who currently fear exposure to ideas and the other purported horrors of the humanities and a fully educated mind.

Educated = curious = questioning. It’s simple.

Listen to Sir Ken Robinson ask a still-relevant question about whether or not our schools kill creativity. Killing creativity is the same as killing the humanities. Killing our humanity.

Ultimately the horse race between the analytical and the creative is itself symptom of the schooled ignorance. They are not really separate things. The right brain and left brain are only detached for the sake of study and discourse. They are ends of a spectrum and one cannot exist without the other. Like science and art: both are concerned with dancing to the beating heart and movement of the universe. They are two ways of walking at the yet-unknown. They are not oppositional.

Another quote from MM roared into my mind: if you ignore 100,000 years of human evolution, you might-could just miss the fundamentals.

It’s consilience. The unity of knowledge. The whole system. Heart and brain and gut. That’s the loop that MM and I regularly travel. We circle out and return once again to E.O. Wilson.

“One day we’ll figure it out,” posits MM. It’s another reason I adore our conversations: with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, he is, all the same, infinitely hope-full.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CREATIVE THINKING

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Filed under: Creativity, Education, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, consilience, creative thinking, curioisty, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, desire, education, EO Wilson, evolution, gut, heart, hope, humanities, humanity, ideas, ignorance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, motivation, Sir Ken Robinson, story, studio melange, the melange, togetherness, unity of knowledge | Leave a comment »

Drop The Leaf [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 28, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve spent hours of my life in figure drawing classes. There’s nothing more beautiful or complex than the human body. There’s nothing more sacred. When I was very young, I drew people – both naked and clothed, both male and female – from photos in The National Geographic magazines. I drew figures and bits of bodies from plaster casts – both plaster-naked and plaster-clothed. I drew figures from those weird artist wooden mannequins, never clothed, sex-neutral, gender unknown.

A friend just sent a story from The Washington Post. A principal in Florida was forced to resign after sixth grade art students were shown a picture of Michelangelo’s David. Had my eye-roll been any more pronounced my eyeballs would have popped out of my head and rolled across the floor. This principal’s forced resignation: a fig leaf by another name.

It’s true, The David was strapped with a fig leaf by outraged clergy shortly after it was displayed in public in 1504. Humanity has grown-up a bit since then, or so we might have hoped. It’s true: history repeats itself though you’d think with all the bodies sunning on Florida beaches, with the ubiquitous sex in movies, on television, and used to sell everything from automobiles to vacation destinations, that the un-leafed David might be understood as high art rather than an affront to any pretend moral authority.

Don’t look up if you visit the Sistine Chapel; Adam has yet to eat from the tree of knowledge and is naked, naked, naked. Touched by god. It is, after all, a painting of the day he was “born.”

The Greeks-of-yore, those whacky inventors of democracy and critical thinking, understood the body to be virtuous. Michelangelo was drawing from that deep pool of tradition and wisdom rather than the shallow frog pond of pretend-pious-purity. David, a biblical figure, stands naked before the giant Goliath. Virtue with a slingshot. Sacred and beautiful.

It takes a modern-day-Florida to turn virtue to vice while elevating vice as virtue. The cure for their fake-moral-fig-leaf is simple: attend a few figuring drawing classes. Drop the leaf. Or, go to the beach and open their eyes.

read Kerri’s blogpost on LEAF IMPRESSIONS

Filed under: Art, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, critical thinking, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fig leaf, figure, figure drawing, gender, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Michelangelo, Sacred, sculpture, sex, story, studio melange, The David, the melange, The Washington Post, vice, virtue | 1 Comment »

Recover The Reins [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 8, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” – Phaedrus

My first question: is this the Phaedrus from Plato’s book or a quote from the guy who hung out with Socrates? Historically, they are one and the same person but one is a character and the other the person upon which the character is based. I suppose it doesn’t really matter since either way the words are sifted through time and translation.

And, either way, they are as relevant today as when they were spoken/written. They are especially relevant on this day since today we vote.

Phaedrus, the character-in-Plato’s-book, offers an analogy of the soul as a charioteer holding the reins of two horses. One horse is good and pulls toward the sacred. The other horse is bad and pulls toward material gain. The charioteer steers them to a common center. The middle way.

Things are not always what they seem. A wild teasel. A strawberry in a skeleton costume. It was my first thought when she showed me this photo. It’s appropriate to the Halloween season-just-passed and the election-day-present.

One thing is as it seems: this nation’s soul has lost the reins of the chariot, if it ever had them. The wild teasels are run amok, their pundits loudly claiming to be strawberries. Many are deceived and deceiving. Conspiracies. Angry thorns in their mouths.

The horses pull this way and that. They are quite capable of ripping the chariot in half.

Today we vote. Perhaps it is possible to see through the seeming. Perhaps we can recover the reins and bring our divided team toward a common center? A middle way?

read Kerri’s blog post about SEEMING

Filed under: Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: analogy, appearance, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deception, democracy, division, election day, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle way, perception, Phaedrus, plato, republic, socrates, soul, story, studio melange, the melange, vote, wild teasel | 1 Comment »

Learn How To Use It [on KS Friday]

Posted on September 9, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

The young man came to our house to bid on a job. He is days away from becoming a new dad. We talked about becoming a parent, his hopes, dreams, and his fears. He and his wife have decided to homeschool their son; the very real possibility of his child being shot in a classroom was a major factor in their decision.

Having spent much of my life working in and with public schools, it broke my heart. Kerri and I acknowledged that, were we new parents, we’d probably make the same choice. “Every man/woman for him/her self” is winning the day over “I am my brother/sister’s keeper.”

Who hasn’t seen the video of a mother teaching her son what to do in the event of an active shooter at school? She purchased a bullet-proof backpack to help keep her child safe. Who hasn’t heard the description of what the bullet from an assault rifle does to the body of a child?

About the budding new democracy called The United States of America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.” He also wrote, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” And so it is.

As I’ve previously written, as a child in school, our safety drills were about atom bombs. Outside threats. This generation, this young artisan, about to become a new dad, knows his son will have to drill against an internal threat. A country that refuses to protect its children and opts, instead, to protect its gun lobby, its money.

“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.” ~ Alexis de Tocqueville.

Freedom is an art form. A practice. It’s an ideal that a community practices and creates together. No one does it alone. And, therein, lies our problem. Every man/woman for him/herself is not freedom. It is chaos. Anarchy. It has our children ducking under desks and carrying bulletproof backpacks. Or, avoiding school altogether.