One of the pleasures of being in the public eye is the chance to meet folks who are passionate about the same sort of things you are. Last summer during the campaign I met a fine young man, Gosh that makes me sound old and patronizing, Karl Schuettler. Karl is a bright young fellow of his generation with a formidable collegiate education and limited employment prospects. He will be remedying that, or delaying a return to underemployment, by heading off to graduate school soon.
His chief interests are International relations, East High and hockey. In pursuit of all these ends he has taken on the masochistic task of attending Duluth School Board meetings. Its been painful but he has taken pains to post thoughtful, insightful and diplomatically candid assessments of these meetings and the characters he reports on. I know he is neutral because Art Johnston once griped at one of Karl’s posts when I sent it to him because it was apparent that Art is not one of Karl’s favorite board members. Karl has done right by me so, of course, I’m happy to describe Karl’s assessments in superlatives. That doesn’t mean I always get a pass from Karl. In fact, one of my proposals at this week’s board meeting gets a serious and probably accurate critique from Karl to wit: paying Art Johnston’s legal fees should he be vindicated. Its a serious issue that I’ve thought a lot about over the years and I hope to write a post on the issue of bleeding the accused into a state of financial impotence as a police tactic.
Whatever else you read about our last meeting, if you really want to get a good look at how dysfunctional we are, read Karl’s take. Things will likely get much worse so I’m glad Karl is heading off to some place more uplifting.
Oh, and I knew I had to link to Karl’s blog post even before Claudia came down in her bath robe to ask me what made me laugh so loud I scared the cat off the bed a floor above. It was Karl’s gnats.
