I’m pleased and a little amazed how sometimes when I’m on the verge of typing something interesting and posting it to my blog my traffic goes up. Thus it has been the past couple days. There is a reason for my being coy and quiet. I’m under something of a threat. If I write about the school board’s legal woes my side will get nothing. Considering how little “my side” has gotten since this brouhaha became a cause celeb-re eleven months ago its hard to imagine the other side giving an inch.
In some ways I’m so dug in that I have a perverse (and that’s the only real word for it, self-righteousness being what it is) reluctance for the other side to see the light and beat their swords into plowshares. I am just as guilty as anyone else of desiring vindication and as blinded by the false sense that a legal victory will supply it. I’d like Art Johnston to go all the way to the US Supreme Court and win a judgement that the Duluth School Board has violated his free speech rights and then levy a multi-million dollar judgement against the District. If insurance will pay for this dreadful fight maybe that makes it OK. To hell with our children!
In a couple hours I will have a remarkable experience – the chance to sit down and talk one on one with our Superintendent over lunch. I haven’t been in a one on one situation with him since well before the Art Johnston Crisis. We will get to take the measure of ourselves once again. I for my part mean to be candid. As I told Mr. Gronseth almost a year ago, just days before the Art Johnston inquisition began, that I fully expect to be in the majority of next year’s school board after this year’s election. Gosh, I hope that honesty wasn’t what led to this sorry year-long spectacle. After all, for those wishing to prevent such an occurrence, ridding the current School Board of Art would have put me one vote farther behind in achieving that goal.
Recent events suggest that this might have been the exact reason for going after Art. That is the suggestion I will make when I finally explain the “Atom Bomb” post that I have yet to proof read and post. It’s all about St. Francis – and, trust me, I don’t mean the popular new Pope of the Catholic Church. (you can also watch the beginning of the last 30 minutes of our most recent school board meeting to get a preview of what I’ll be explaining. The stuff appended to it after it had been hacked has been removed.)
Last night I began the last organizational hurdle that has kept me from focusing on Art Johnston and the coming school board elections as I intend to. It was a small but tedious task. I had a folder full of the miscellaneous notes I’ve made over the last six months. I needed to see which scraps of paper had pearls of wisdom, important historical anecdotes I didn’t want to forget about, or reminders of back burner chores I intended to accomplish. I did it. Those scraps of paper that were not discarded have been put into order. Oh, I still have some other rearranging of files to get done but this I can do at my leisure.
The real question I have for the Superintendent is whether he feels he has any influence with the school board members who are so insistent that he be protected from further shoves from Art Johnston. If, as he suggested, he does not and he finds the his majority plunging into the Federal Courts to destroy an innocent man I will feel compelled to lay out the case for Art and the case against the current School District leadership in a very different court – the court of public opinion. I’ll do it here, I’ll offer my thoughts to the local paper, I’ll right opinion pieces for the Trib, I even play to write a book (or a series of pamphlets) to raise money for Art Johnston’s legal fight. I’ve already got the first twenty thousand in hand of the hundred thousand I will likely need for Art’s defense next year.
Those of you who pray please pray that I will soon have cause to hold my tongue and bind my fingers on the tittle tattle that has been bringing so many of you to this blog. The natural curiosity of my readers about the warts and blemishes of the school board pale in significance to the needs of ISD 709’s children. Besides, as I have written previously, I’d much rather spend the next year writing about my family than waging war.
