The Opposite of Fascism

It’s six am on a Saturday morning and I should be writing my usual run-down about events around town. I can’t. Believe me, I’ve been trying since about four am and that door is shut.

Today is an important day in our community and across the country.

What do we believe in? What do we reject? What can we do to put our beliefs into action?

I found this brief video to be quietly truthful and terrifying.

This is Fascism, Randy Tolley on Instagram

I have no advice today. I bring no folksy anecdote, no inspiring parable, no impassioned exhortation.

I have only deep gratitude for the good people who are living out their goodness in thought, word, and deed. Whether it is quietly, day by day or in an unexpected burst of bravery - - that surprises even themselves - - all of it is a gift.

My father was a deeply cynical man who didn’t think much of my earnest idealism. Yet I learned shortly before he died that he was driven all his life not just to do the expected things but to feel that he had “made a contribution” to the greater good. I thought he didn’t believe in anything, but he did: making a contribution.

He did not mean monetary contribution. He mean doing the thing that you are most uniquely driven to do that will benefit the world you are in. Doing the work. The kind of work that’s the opposite of fascism. The way he saw it it would have been support for the common good.

For all who do the work - - be careful, stay safe, and know how important you are.

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Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday. Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018. 2018 . But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest. In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

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