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Over the years I’ve enjoyed Twin Ports and area politics from afar up the shore. It was quite delightful and entertaining listening to guns roar over the heavy cruiser Des Moines. I bubbled joyfully hearing the burbles of promise and prosperity coming from plans for a giant aquarium that lacked all but whales to turn the Twin Ports into an oceanic splendor. And golly gee, what could surpass the fun quotient of multi-colored school plans in pink, blue, yellow, aquamarine, and indigo? Of course, the ultimate color was ledger book red, but I’m sure many of y’all knew that and went along with the coloring book theme for fun.
That was the idea behind the Air Bus Plan (remember that one?). There was going to be immense fun and profit from the huge repair facility serving half the planet and situated right here in the Northland, with employment galore for several heaps of masses. Do you recall the name of the “giant” airline in Minnesota that was going to pair with another giant? (I’ll give you that one—it was KLM.) Breath ran out long ago waiting for the first giant Air Bus, and we might almost have forgotten the whole thing if it weren’t so tragicomic. When I think back over the years of quality entertainment, I have to applaud and thank fortune I was present to see all these wonders in person.
I don’t want to leave the impression that out here in the rural village we’re entirely immune from political nut jobs. I ran for office myself, so the case is proved in that regard, but it is still a romp to look at grass roots for a ground-level view of what makes sane folk shake their heads in woeful dismay. Grass roots should be the ground zero and home base of American Democracy, and it is. On the hometown level, a voter could take a question of objection direct to a politician. They could, but an awful lot of the true blue nut bars run around talking to and asking people as ill-informed (in many cases as malicious) as they are. Instinct tells these human failures that gossip and innuendo can’t easily be traced and that they can leave their mark much as dogs do on fire plugs and posts. This gives people something to do, and for those that do it this seems to be about as high as they can ever aspire. I guess we should be glad they are doing that much, but it’s only the sort of joy one would have finding a full diaper on your doorstep. “Oh look, So-and-so dropped by!” You can always tell the crap sharers, can’t you?
Rural or urban, there are community-oriented folk. I like them. They give the best entertainment per time spent. It is utterly and absolutely inspiring listening to a community organizer spiel off the profound litany they picked up at jargon school. (Did you know one of the bigger ones is right here on the Almost Iron Range—in its dreams—called Grand Rapids?) At community jargon college, the pliant student is pumped up with a vision that requires being taken out and spread. In many respects this is much like the full diaper in the paragraph above, but more finely and nicely delivered. Instead of being plopped, it’s presented, and in these matters that seems to do for those who are easily satisfied. I wonder why anyone has to tell us what community is, because by defining it to this or that it is then limited and bound. Community is. Community consists of everyone in the pool for whatever and any reason. This includes those who don’t want to be bothered getting wet, those who want to skinny-dip, the ones looking for an exercise routine, and those happy getting their toes wet. Who in hell has any right to try to define community for all those types and forms? We might call them busybodies, but idiot would do just as well.
I say idiot because when you disagree with one, that’s what they turn into, and with remarkable speed and agility I might add. If you don’t agree with their concept and hold on community, then you are against the community. Well, I beg their pardon indeed, but I am still here and am contributing the necessary voice of telling idiots to put their brain cells into service and then use them for other than stirring up specious and spurious issues. People don’t agree or disagree to be a community. They are one. Folks who think that community has to be fixed with agreement or other false standards do more division and harm in a community than they know because they repeatedly draw the lines of for and against. Taking sides in a community is one way of participating, I grant you, but there is no side needed in working together and in not drawing silly distinctions where none are needed. However, that sort of work suits some perfectly, so I suppose we can be glad our idiots have found occupation. But why so many in politics? Does make it more entertaining, though, doesn’t it?
In practicing what I preach, I took a question of campaign performance and practice to one candidate. The campaign manual uses the term “felony.” This means the contents are not suggestions, and candidates for public office have to follow a higher standard than someone vying for Garden Club Secretary. It was really quite clear that some practices were prohibited and therefore illegal. You’d be concerned, wouldn’t you, if someone asked you to explain a potential felony? You might, if you had a lick of sense, be thankful to be alerted to a potentially serious problem. But if you’re in politics, you might also be a trifle egocentric and highly defensive (increases dramatically when in the wrong). You know you have met the true form of what a politician should not be when they’re asked about bad behavior and they say you are wasting their time.