I wanted to quickly correct two errors in my post today.

The first was careless, but significant:
Referring to the ICE facilities, the text should have read, “The plan: two dozen facilities, total capacity of up to 100,000 “bodies.”” rather than 100,000 bodies each, which would be even more alarming!

The second was just embarrassing, but since I’m sending this anyway:
This familiar passage should have said, “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, which I transposed to read: “Government of the people, for the people, and by the people”

If you had already the post (wow, good for you), and noticed that error, congratulations on the close reading!

The corrected version of the post is on Substack now: Go to corrected post

Thanks for being a subscriber!

Michael

These pieces were mostly written in response to events as they unfolded—political, cultural, and personal. Some are tightly focused on the moment in which they were written; others continue to feel relevant and resonant. The entries included here are those I believe still hold value, either as records of that period or as reflections that speak beyond it.

On Substack, only a small number of these archived columns are presented as samples. They are meant to give readers a sense of the earlier voice and concerns that inform the current work, without overwhelming the publication’s focus on new writing.

The full archive lives on the website, boomerwithaview.net, where all of the columns I have chosen to preserve are “shelved” together in one place. There, they can be read as a body of work—documenting a particular stretch of time and providing context for the Memoir Project and related writing that followed.

These archived pieces are not being revised or rewritten. They remain as they were originally published, reflecting the voice, perspective, and urgency of their moment. Read on their own, they stand as a record. Read alongside the memoir and AI Field Notes, they also offer a point of comparison: a pre-AI baseline against which changes in form, method, and process can be observed.

With students safely loaded on buses and ushered homeward in crosswalks by a flag-armed safety patrol, several staff members began to file into the library for yet another after-school meeting. As we pulled up child-sized chairs around the well-worn tables, this looked like any of hundreds of gatherings we had all attended. Like any of thousands around the country any day of any week. But this one was different. Since Columbine, a new responsibility had appeared on the job description of public schools and educators. To reading, writing, computing, critical thinking, sex ed, AIDS, bullying, and reporting suspected abuse, now added was how to keep our kids safe from an armed intruder. Unofficially, we also understood the implied duty to throw one’s body over students as a shield against an assault rifle. Our job today was to consider the more mundane parts of our safety plan.

“Not all of my windows have blinds to close during the lockdown. I’ll have to cut black tag board to fit over those.” “Sounds good…if you have time to tape them up when the time comes.”

“We’re supposed to keep our students under their desks or tables and away from the doors. But won’t they just be sitting ducks if he (no one ever said “she”) gets in somehow?” “Speaking of getting in, with the center room, we have 3 doorways into the classroom. They will all have to be checked and locked. Meanwhile I have 23 frightened first-graders to keep quiet and calm under their desks!”

“We need to talk about what to do if it happens during a recess and we have 200 children spread around outside.” “Yes, we’ve identified gathering points in three neighborhoods adjacent to our grounds. Playground supervisors and available teachers need to lead students directly away from the school and to those spots.” It was quiet for a full minute as everyone stared vacantly, imagining the scene of adults bellowing into bullhorns as others tried tried to herd happy playful children away from danger. Tears welled in the eyes of a second grade teacher.

And so it went. Every solid idea added to the plan was accompanied by two or three new questions to resolve.

In the years right after Columbine, meetings like this seemed mostly an obligation to plan for an event that could never occur in our school. An exercise in empathy for colleagues in a far away city. Gradually, as violence is visited on schools again and again, the unimaginable has become expected, reinforced by similar horrors in nearly every other type of public venue. Yet, a school shooting remains unique in the visceral response it produces. Or should produce.

Parkland has caused me to return to the blog today after more than a month of bewildered silence. I started writing publicly about this time last year largely because I could not stay silent in the face of what so many of us perceived as threats to our democratic ideals and civic decency. Twelve months later, the threats, far from receding, have metastasized and accelerated. Reality and rhetoric are blurred in tempests of tweets and by a tumultuous administration. Hundreds of dedicated, skilled journalists have tried to document events and reveal what is behind them, the fourth estate striving to do its vital job while Congress refuses to do theirs. Passionate columnists, both left and right of center, have struggled to put the unprecedented into current and historical context. Nearly every day brings a new or recurring theme that prompts me to sit at the keyboard, only to be overwhelmed with the thought that my past year’s writing has been merely spitting into a hurricane.

But not today.

Who are we– as a nation, as a society– if we continue to allow our children to be murdered, knowing it is going to happen, with no unified effort to keep it from happening?

Who are we if we compel our students and their teachers and other school staff to go to their schools afraid that what they saw on last night’s news could happen to them, with no hope of anything changing?

Who are we if we keep electing representatives who put their own interests over the lives of our murdered children and the rest of the more than 13,000 annual gun victims?

Who are we if we shake our heads at the cynical and single-minded pronouncements of the NRA, but accept that their stranglehold on Congress and state legislatures is unassailable?

How many smug, “it’s a mental health issue”, Representatives would continue to accept the NRA’s version of the Second Amendment if the most recent slaughter had occurred in a school in their own district? Why don’t they and their voters get it that Newtown is Every Town?

It took a little under 3000 deaths on 9/11 for the U.S. to set parts of the Constitution aside, suspend some civil liberties, and engage in two wars that have cost trillions of dollars and over 8,000 American lives and those of countless Afghans and Iraqis. How many gun deaths will it take before we are willing to make stopping this American carnage one of our highest priorities?

17 students and teachers were murdered in Parkland. Coincidentally, that is the same number shot to death almost 22 years ago at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. The citizens of Dunblane started the Snowdrop Campaign, named for the springtime flower blooming at the time of the shooting, and gathered over 750,000 signatures on a petition to change the country’s gun laws. In less than a year, the UK Parliament banned private ownership of handguns. In the intervening 20+ years, there have been no school shootings in the UK and only one mass shooting, taking 12 lives, in 2010. (Licensed ownership of sporting rifles and shotguns is allowed, but no semi-automatic assault-style weapons.)

Well, that’s one way to go. To date, the U.S. has chosen a somewhat less restrictive path. Judging from our pattern of the past two decades the favored responses of those in power are: 1) Thoughts and Prayers, and 2) Addressing mental health issues as the root cause. As to #1, I would love to know what those thoughts are, as well as the specific prayers, and statistics on their efficacy. And #2, well, the seriousness of that approach can best be evaluated in light of the 2019 Trump budget that calls for drastic cuts in the federal funds for mental health services.

As of the past twenty-four hours, Trump has been promoting his solution of arming existing school staff. His descriptions tend to “evolve” from hour to hour, but I think a fair representation of his proposal is that: about 20% (I also saw 10%-40%) of a school’s staff would be armed; they would be “certain highly adept people, people who understand weaponry, guns”; they would receive a “little bit of a bonus”; and that schools should not engage in active shooter drills because they (the drills) are “crazy” and “very hard on children.”

Hmm. I think there may be some built-in competition for craziness here. I’ve spent most of my life in public schools and it would take another 1000 words, just off the top of my head, to say just how crazy this is.

No, the high school students in Parkland have it right. Things must change. This isn’t complicated. As a recent Washington Post editorial put it, “The Second Amendment is being turned into a suicide pact.” But for our children and our grandchildren, it is not suicide. They are being murdered and, if we do not try to put a stop to it with drastic electoral, legal, and cultural changes, we will be guilty of being accessories.

If it weren’t happening against the backdrop of a potential Constitutional crisis, it would be humorous. Well, it’s actually kind of humorous anyway. But it is also a perfect metaphor for the Trump administration, as you will see.

On Tuesday, in an apparent attempt to match his boss’s classy behavior in notifying Director Comey of his firing via TV news, Sean Spicer and staff kept trying unsuccessfully to inform the press of the same news via an email statement, according to an article in the Washington Post. Finally giving up, after three hours of technical problems, Spicer stood in his office doorway and shouted an announcement to the reporters who were within shouting range. He then ducked inside and his staff locked the doors.

The White House was reportedly taken aback by the speed and harshness of the blowback, with criticism building from Republicans as well as Democrats. Having previously said there would be no more statements, Spicer and two staffers “were suddenly speed-walking up the White House drive to defend the president on CNN, Fox, and Fox Business,” where their reporters and camera crews did interviews with the White House itself as backdrop. Upon completing those, the intrepid press secretary was facing a conundrum.

It was now after sunset and Spicer found himself hiding in the hedges in the dark, wanting to hightail it back to his office. But between the bushes and the building were “a swarm of reporters wanting to know why President Trump suddenly decided to fire the FBI Director.”

After a few minutes, he sucked it up and emerged, telling the reporters he would answer some questions. But only with the cameras off.

“‘Just turn the lights off. Turn the lights off,’ he ordered. ‘We’ll take care of this. Can you just turn that light off?’ Spicer got his wish and was soon standing in near darkness…with more than a dozen reporters gathered around him.” After ten minutes of Q&A, he abruptly turned and escaped.

See what I mean? Metaphor, ready made. (If I thought the president might read this, however, I would definitely spell it out. You know what I mean if you saw the May Day interview of Trump in the Oval Office by CBS’s John Dickerson. Dickerson commented on the quote by George W. Bush regarding the office being oval and having no corners to hide in. Trump agreed that there are no corners, so the room has a certain openness and anyone outside looking in the windows would be able to see him, but of course no one could get that close. Dickerson started to explain that it was a metaphor, but gave up.)

But, back to Spicer’s metaphor. This anecdote unintentionally encapsulates the Trump administration modus operendi. Everything will be fine if we can just shed a little darkness on it. Fine for Trump. Not so much for our democracy.

Democracy Dies in Darkness

James Comey was just the most recent career law enforcement official to be fired by Trump while engaged in unwelcome investigations. Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for Southern New York, and Sally Yates, the acting US Attorney General, were let go with similarly suspicious timing. They, like Comey, had reputations for independence and integrity and were seen as threats to his independence.

An independent investigation of Russia’s influence on the Trump election by definition would shed much needed light. In spite of his erratic behavior regarding Clinton email, Comey’s FBI effort was seen as the best hope for that light and an honest report. On the other hand, the president and the Republicans on the congressional committees charged with that investigation have made their target anyone who can be found who has leaked information.

If these actions weren’t enough to prove the point, Trump tweets spell it out. With increasing stridency, he broadcasts his demands to stop the Russia investigation and find those who talk to reporters instead.

The battle lines are becoming clear. The Washington Post ran a front page article on Wednesday to give a more complete picture of all that transpired in the previous 24-48 hours. They cited 30 sources from the White House, Justice, and the FBI. Thirty. 3-0. These people don’t like what they are witnessing and want the rest of us to know about it.

Ah, yes. The press. To be fair, they are a thorn in the side, a pain in the neck (and lower) to all administrations. Their job, when they do it well, is to keep the government honest by keeping klieg lights on its activities. No one likes to be that exposed. But that is the price of democracy. And the media isn’t perfect, nor are politicians, so at times we just muddle through and count on checks and balances to keep the country on the rails.

What is brand new in 2017, totally unprecedented, is that this Oval Office occupant has declared war on the press and is waging that war daily. Consider:

• Trump used his rallies and tweets for months to repeat epithets and slogans to demonize and undermine the press. This message became gospel for his congregation.

• The ugly language and constant refrain of “fake news” aimed at the media continued and was amplified after assuming office.

• In this environment, the State Department was stripped of most of its senior officers and staff, and a Secretary of State installed who refuses to engage with the press in any meaningful way.

• The president’s spokespeople reflect his contempt in their own interactions with the “mainstream” media.

• Numerous federal departments, under Trump appointees, instituted gag rules, prohibiting staff to communicate with the press or even with Congress. Some but not all of these have been walked back.

• Access by the press to Spicer’s communications department has been restricted, at times with favorable access rewarding favorable coverage.

I mentioned the Washington Post earlier. If you have read it in the past couple of months you have probably seen their masthead. Since February, they have added a motto for the first time ever. I was surprised to learn that it has been in the works for about a year, so was not a direct response to the Trump presidency. But it could have been and it resonates.

The executive branch clearly hates the glare of the light. The legislative is in the hands of a party that has shown little interest in flipping the switch yet. Fortunately the judiciary has so far shown a willingness to stand up to the challenges it has received. And the fourth estate is under attack. But, it seems that many in the press see this moment for what it is. A time to stand in the breach. A time to just turn the lights on.

The Nobel Academy shocked the world last fall when they announced that the Prize for Literature was being awarded to songwriter, Bob Dylan, the first American to be so honored since Toni Morrison in 1983. That reaction was mild compared to the one that greeted Dylan’s silence following the announcement. After being skewered in both the US and Swedish press for two weeks, Dylan finally released a statement explaining he had simply been rendered speechless and would attend the ceremony to accept the award if possible. But, Patti Smith ended up standing in for him. The saga comes to an end this weekend, as the academy has announced they will hold a small private ceremony with Dylan.

In a rare coup for such a new publication, this blog is able today to report this exclusive behind the scenes story. A set of odd circumstances gave me the opportunity to interview someone with first-hand information about how drastically Bob Dylan’s life has changed since last fall. My source was speaking on condition of anonymity, because his office is only two doors down from Dylan’s agent, Brian Greenbaum at Creative Artists Agency, and he doesn’t want to lose his job. This person painted a picture of a late life renaissance, a Boomer reborn if you will. (Yes, he was born in ’41, but we gave him honorary status in the 60s.)

The timing of the Nobel announcement was key. “Bob had just received the results from his MyHeritageDNA test.” (Note: my source kept referring to Dylan as Bob, which is mainly what convinced me of the authenticity of the account.) “As a Minnesota native, it should have come as no surprise, but the results indicated he was at least 80% Swedish.” Still, Dylan had spent his entire life believing his family had come from Russia. He was stunned and still processing his newly realized heritage when the Nobel announcement was made.

Although his first impulse had been to question the DNA results, Dylan saw this award as some kind of divine confirmation of his Swedish roots. “How else to explain that he was getting the Nobel Prize for friggin’ Literature?” my source asked reasonably.

Dylan, who was at the end of a tour, immediately went into seclusion to reflect on the revelation. Those close to him were used to this kind of thing, so did not think much of it. The Nobel people, on the other hand were livid. When word of their reaction reached him, Dylan went even deeper into contemplation.

When he contacted his agent two weeks later, it was with an enthusiasm that had been missing for many years. Dylan had been rereading his autobiography, Chronicles, Vol 1, to review his early life in this new light. One result of this was for him to drop his initial theory that this book was the reason for the Literature prize.

More importantly, though, he now realized his life had been full of foreshadowings pointing to this inevitable cultural rebirth. For example, there was his boyhood best friend who had moved away from Duluth, to the little town of Stockholm, Wisconsin, just east of Minneapolis. He spent many weekends there, and had fond memories of the stacks of paper thin pancakes his friend’s mother made. Also, his early folksinging days in the Village are legendary, but few people realized he lived with friends in a flat across the Brooklyn Bridge on Stockholm Street.

Greenbaum arranged for a private meeting between Dylan and the president of Gustavus Adolphus College, in St. Peter, Minnesota. Dylan proposed that the College, the foremost Swedish language institution in the U.S., immediately begin a project to translate the entire Dylan songbook, nearly 400 songs, into Swedish. In return, the college has received a $10 million contribution to establish the Bob Dylan Chair for Folk/Rock Literature.

There was a brief period when the agency had to push back on their star’s new-found Nordic obsession. Dylan, who refuses to text or use email, had sent them a note, saying he needed to change his name. My source gave me a photocopy, which says:

God dag, Brian. Please have your attorneys start paperwork for a legal name change to Robert Allen Johanneson. You see, I Was Young When I Left Home, and I thought I would be Forever Young. But now I Feel a Change Comin’ On. Who I’ve been up to now, well, It Ain’t Me Babe. Ever since the Nobel Prize, that Simple Twist of Fate, I’ve had the North Country Blues. Then, last week, I was feeling Like a Rolling Stone so I got in my car, man, and it was like Highway 61 Revisted. I drove most the night until I saw the thunderclouds and thought, “Whoa, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” It was a sign, like I’m Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. OK man. Thanks. I mean “tak”. Bob

Turns out this is a thing with Dylan. I suggested the note was probably a kind of joke, since it was mostly composed of his song titles. I was assured it is common and he takes it pretty seriously.

They have been stalling him on the name change, but have not been able to dissuade him from insisting on singing in Swedish from now on. The students at Gustavus Adolphus have several dozen songs completed and Dylan has been using a phonetic version of the translations to rehearse for this weekend’s performance at the small Nobel ceremony.

I expressed doubt that this would go over very well, but my source just laughed. “I’ve heard several of the session recordings,” he said. “Mumbling in Swedish doesn’t really sound much different from mumbling in English!”

I need to post this before someone else gets wind of the story. But, I did do some additional research and found there are some “fake news” versions of Dylan’s foray in all things Swedish. I’ve confirmed, for example, that there is no truth to the rumor that he has had a giant dragon tattooed across his back.

On the other hand, watch for an announcement in the coming days about Bob Dylan’s upcoming tour. Starting sometime in June, he and his band will perform free outdoor concerts throughout 14 northern states in IKEA parking lots.

Inauguration Day 2017 and the Women’s March the next day may mark the birth of a new spirit of activism in this country. Trump’s speech was at least a wake up call that we ignore his challenge to democratic principles at our peril. I’m reposting this from Facebook because it represents my first public expression of conscience. January 21, 2017

Dear Senators Murray and Cantwell, Congresswoman Del Bene, State Senator Palumbo, and Representatives Stanford and Kloba:

(This letter is being emailed to each of you individually, to the Seattle Times, and posted on Facebook.)

I saw off my wife, Ann, to the Seattle Womxns March this morning, torn about accompanying her or not. I decided to stay and write to you instead. Neither of us has been particularly active politically before. But, Donald Trump said at least one thing on Inauguration Day that I agree with: “It’s time to get to work.” That is true for us and it is particularly true for you. 

I have thought it a curious debate when people have differed on whether Trump is or is not “my President.” Like it or not, he was going to be. However, when I listened to his speech yesterday, it became clear. Donald Trump is NOT my President. Not my choice, but his, and that is true for most Americans whether they realize it or not.

In his final opportunity yesterday before taking office, he yet again disqualified himself from doing so legitimately. Certainly, the intrusion of Russia and the FBI cast shadows on the outcome of the election. But, far more damning is the fact that, ever since becoming Birther-in-Chief, Trump has built his prominence and candidacy on a foul foundation of lies and manipulation of public audiences and the media. That he has been able to manage that so successfully as a private citizen makes the prospect of his ascension to power with access to nearly unlimited resources truly frightening.
Surely, Trump’s inaugural speech must have sent shivers through you as well. He painted a stark and false portrait of today’s America. He conjured nonexistent existential threats from which he promises to save us, when in fact HE is the threat from which the country must be saved.

That’s where you come in. My wife and I voted for each of you. So did a majority of those in the state and your districts. We chose you to stand in our place in Washington and Olympia. It seems that role may be more vital than at any time in the past 60 years. Congress and state legislatures must be a check and a safeguard in the face of a dangerous Executive Branch. Politics as usual must be abandoned. Not only must the party find a coherent and unified strategy (and perhaps a bit more backbone), you must find creative and effective ways to communicate with and enlist Republican colleagues who will be willing to put country above party. For once, winning re-election cannot be the highest priority for anyone in either house.

On the other hand, if we are any indication and if the women’s marches around the country today are any indication, courageous leadership on your part will be recognized and rewarded. We’re counting on you.

Sincerely,
Mike and Ann Massengill
Bothell, WA