I sent the Reader a second old column to reprise. It was renamed the Aborted Girl Redux.
Only the preface is new. It was prompted by the Tennessee legislature expelling to young black state senators for using a megaphone during demonstrations by pro-choice protesters.
I wrote another column which has been submitted as well. It will show up at the end of this week. Its long Title is: How the heirs of the KKK stole a Pope’s infallibly to divide and conquer America
I took a welcome several month break from cranking out weekly columns but so many ideas are in my head now it will be a pleasure IF I CAN PUT THEM INTO COLUMNS. IF?
While I was preoccupied with other things I piled many projects up over my office. I can’t quite let go of them and that means I’m having difficulty putting the piles away lest I want to pull them out again. A lot of these have to do with organizing my family records and stories. They were less organized than I imagined. The recent death of one of my Dad’s first cousins prompted this and led me to read some treasured stories my Aunt Mary wrote about our forebears.
The other project is a more general book about how the Republican Party was taken over by people Teddy Roosevelt would have called the “Lunatic Fringe.” At the moment I’m am engaged in writing columns for the Reader that help explain the long complicated souring of the Grand Old Party. Somehow the columns are making themselves into a book that covers the rainbow of ugly colors that tells that tale.
And here is how its preface begins:
Uppity legislators Justin Jones and Justin Pearson removed from the Tennessee legislature.
I wear my 2015 censure by the Duluth school board with pride. It was handed to me by self righteous people who tried to remove a fellow school board member as if they were Tennessee Republicans. Tennessee just removed 2 black legislators for a “breach of decorum” thus denying a 150,000 voters of their voice.
The log in the eye of the “decorous” Republicans won’t admit that their voters tried to topple American Democracy on Jan 6th, 2021. But when it comes to the five-minute-long speck with a megaphone to protest AR-15’s killing school children their vision is 20×20.
I was put off by GOP self righteousness years before I wrote this column. I’ve asked the Reader to reprise it in honor of people of conscience.
The Aborted Girl
Originally published April 27, 2006.
In 1990 I was ecstatic when the popular Republican State Auditor Arne Carlson replaced the opportunistic “pro-life” political hack who had defeated him in the gubernatorial primary…..READ THE REST
