I’ve been sitting here at my desk  in front of the blog template for almost an hour already, unable to clear my mind and get to someplace fun & happy!

I hate using this blog to preach about shit, but I also hate just ignoring the blog for an entire day because I can’t think of something fun & happy.

So many of my readers here are not from the US. You come here to the blog every day from South America, Central America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and countries of the Far East, the Middle East, the Near East, India, Canada, and Russia.

And of course it makes me wonder what you can possibly think about this insane country of ours, especially now.

Oh — and by the way, in case you hadn’t already heard, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds announced yesterday that their North American tour, which was set to begin this fall, has been cancelled.

And, NO, they didn’t say it was because the US is so insane right now that they wouldn’t be caught dead here…. it was something to do with a pandemic.

Anyway!!

The news here this morning is that Columbus — the nearest city to Crazeysburg, 50 miles from here — announced that those few nights of rioting is going to cost the city and its small businesses over $3 million. (This doesn’t count what the pandemic has cost them, either. Small businesses have absolutely lost their shirts from the virus.) (If you don’t understand that phrase — it means that you have lost everything, including the shirt off your back.)

(I don’t know — doesn’t that look like at least 3 million more votes in Trump’s lap? Hmmm….)

That remark wasn’t really my point. My point is that this is a democracy, and people are always going to protest about something, and sometimes the protests will be violent, and there are always going to be factions in this country virulently opposed to other factions in this country. And the fact that we are allowed to have our opposing ideas, and even our violent opinions, and our individual understanding of what truth is even when it’s completely at odds with what everybody else’s truth is, is what makes a democracy so sacred to human rights.

However, the thing that confounds me about the US now is this whole up-swelling of younger people who have the misunderstanding that a democracy is a “cancel-out” culture. That if  someone disagrees with you, that person needs to be cancelled out (silenced) in some way.

(My problem with my play, Tell My Bones, comes under that banner, but I want to add that the director called me twice yesterday, assuring me that he was not abandoning the play. That we were going to have to wait it out, for when NYC gets back to some sort of “normal.”)

The sad situation in our country is that most public schools no longer teach History or Government, or even World History. Private schools are where children get the prime education nowadays — whether they are Catholic schools or strictly academic schools.

Public schools are no longer funded well enough to focus on anything but the basics. There’s no Art, no Music — without parents paying separately for it, and then it usually happens after school. A lot of the schools no longer even have libraries. And even the school sports teams are funded by parents paying for the kids to be on the team.

Yes — isn’t that insane? You no longer have to try out and see if you’re good enough to make the team. If your parents can afford to pay for you to be on it, you’re on the team.

What’s even worse, is that sports like swim teams, that hand out trophies for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place — well, now anyone who participates gets a trophy. Just for showing up. Because no one wants any of the kids to have hurt feelings.

This has been going on for a couple of decades already.

Even at the college level — a friend of mine is a college professor and he’s not allowed to use red ink to grade papers because the color red is too threatening to students.

This is not a joke. This is real. Red ink is too threatening.

An entire culture of young people coming out of our public schools who are not adept at handling challenges or conflicts or the opposing opinions of others.

And they aren’t taught how a democracy is run, either. They don’t even study the Constitution of the United States or the Bill of Rights  anymore (in public schools). They aren’t taught History, for godsakes. Or that tolerance, however difficult it can be, or impossible it can feel sometimes; it’s the foundation of the civil liberties of all Americans.

(And I guarantee you that a lot of politicians are banking on you not having a clue what the fuck is really going on with all that anymore. Even if you think you’re on the “right” side. That same side is banking on you not knowing how to even really think.)

I just saw a comment just this morning where a well-known Hollywood actor was making a movie about a revolution in another country and he said that it made him think about how the Europeans came to America and what happened then to the Native Americans who were already here.

Honestly — he had to act in a movie in Hollywood before that thought occurred to him??!! WTF??!!

When you study History and World History and Government you learn about things that are really important.

About how history has an uncanny way of repeating itself — all over the world. And to expect that violence is met with violence — so, if you want to choose violence, which is your right, you need to expect violence to come right back at you. Whether you’ve murdered someone, or whether you’re fighting for your inalienable right to live.

It has astounded me, the outcry in the national news that the recent riots were met with riot police, or even the militia. Or that what was intended to be a peaceful protest became violent anyway — on either side. Or that people with an organized agenda of some kind will barricade themselves behind innocent, well-meaning  people and allow them to become victims of violence that they didn’t start.

Where is the “news” in that? This has gone on throughout all time.

And so many people bringing up now what happened at Kent State in 1970, when the Ohio National Guard was called in and unarmed students were killed.

Yeah, that happened. I’m surprised they didn’t teach you that in school. It’s part of our history — people fighting for change and for their rights and losing their lives because of it.

I can’t forget it because I lived here back then. Ohio was very violent back then, and the country itself was very violent. Non-military groups, of all colors, were arming themselves and were setting off bombs everywhere and blowing up buildings. Shooting all sorts of people — on all sides.  Aside from flat-out assassinations, well-known public people, from politicians to pornographers, wound up in wheelchairs for life because of snipers’ bullets. And riots were common. And blow back was common.

It’s awful. I’m a pacifist and always have been. I cannot handle violence. I expect something more rational from all people. And I’m usually really disappointed. But violence is a part of an equation. We’re all allowed to make any choice we want to make, but we also have to at least be aware that no action exists in a vacuum. There’s going to be a reaction — it’s part of the laws of Physics.

That stuff that they teach you in school, right?

Anyway. It all sucks, of course. But what I have a hard time dealing with is this lack of education in a huge section of America, and this lack of critical thinking and this idea that Liberals — who were once the embodiment of tolerance — are now at the forefront of the culture of cancelling-out; of silencing people; of  the idea that someone is not entitled to their views if they oppose yours.

And this lack of History. My god. Honestly. If I see one more person putting forth the image of Bob Dylan and quoting his song “The Times They Are A-Changing”, I’m going to scream.

The times are changing. It’s a no-brainer, gang.  But you’d be much better equipped quoting other songs he wrote, that weren’t so “feel-good.”  He wrote a ton of them. I leave you with a couple of those today.

All right thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

“Only A Pawn In Their Game”