Since high school, I worked on a number of campaigns, from local school board stuff to Paul Simon’s presidential campaign and a bunch at every level in between. One thing I’ve never forgotten is simple: read the election law. With all the “will we have a winner on Election Night?” blather, it seems few in the media have bothered to do that one very simple thing.
I went to bed in tears last night.
They weren’t tears of pain or shock or outrage. They were the tears you cry when the last of your grandparents “goes home.” They’re the tears of grief at the loss you’ve suffered, and the tears that say “It’s your turn now.” You have to tell the stories you learned at their knees, as you go on to make a difference in the lives of others as they made a difference in your life.
I’m still in tears this morning, because I’ve got lots of stories to tell.
Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is more than 50 years old, yet it reads like it was written yesterday. In that letter, King identified “the great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom” not as the hoodwearing Klanners or the poltically powerful White Citizens Council folks, but the Moderate. Fortunately, King also identfied the cure to that block, if only we’d embrace it.
BBQ: In KC, it’s how we recognize the Apocalypse, and it’s also a beacon of hope.
The language of mountains is all over the COVID-19 coverage, from the talk of “reaching the peak” of infections to the euphoria of “hitting the plateau.” But here’s the thing: we’re still on the mountain, and the descent is much more dangerous than the climb.
Kansas Gov Laura Kelly (D) issused a statewide “Stay at Home” order yesterday, and beyond the impact on corralling the COVID-19 epidemic, it also is forcing some in the Kansas GOP to straddle a very nasty fence, like US Representative Roger Marshall.
During the 1918 worldwide flu epidemic, some leaders understood the first rule of viruses, and others did not. The rule is simple: a virus does not care.
Here’s the story . . .
It’s rough being a career member of the US State Department workforce in the Donald Trump era. These days, there’s a new rule: don’t do anything to make the guy in the room with no corners look bad. This is becoming increasingly hard for anyone to follow.
John Lewis has been a fighter his whole life long. He is the last living member of the Big Six, the speakers at the 1963 March on Washington for civil rights, and now is a senior member of Congress fighting pancreatic cancer. But it’s important to remember that John Lewis was not always old.
If burning sources that lie to you is not a cardinal rule of journalism, it damn well ought to be. I suspect that Marcy’s honest sources will respect her more for this, and her dishonest ones will be very very nervous. Isn’t that something that all journalists ought to strive for? Sullivan lauded Marcy for being a journalist with a conscience — which she is, but that’s not the point here. The point is that Marcy is a journalist with a spine.
