The Conversation

Blogging is a new, strange experience for me, and not one that I'm fully comfortable with. I love to write, and long-form discussions come naturally to me. Those who know me well are aware I pass through short-term obsessions where I learn everything I can about a selected topic and go on and on about every fascinating aspect of it. Writing blog posts is the perfect outlet for that. I can sit down for a few hours and empty out my mind without talking anyone's ear off. That part comes naturally to me. But putting it up on the internet and telling people to read it is not my idea of a good time.

There's a certain weight placed on anything published, even if it's just put up on a free-to-use blogging website. If something's in print it takes on a different voice - for better or for worse - and I don't enjoy it much. It's too much pressure. When you're talking with your friends about your thoughts on life it's just a causal conversation. But put it in a blog and suddenly it's “Oh,look at you with all your big opinions.”

So why do I do it? To challenge myself. You can never grow unless you try new things, specifically those that frighten you. And I do it for practice. I see myself as a writer. I doubt I'd ever be good enough to do it professionally, but it's a skill I have and like any skill it can only be developed through practice. When I put it up for others to see it holds me accountable for quality. I'm aware exactly how cynical and nit-picky I am when reading what others write, so I know if others are reading what I write I can't half-ass it.

But the real reason I do it is to be part of the conversation. I am fascinated by media and politics and the clash of ideas that make up our culture. It's why I'm a news junkie. It's why I love opinion pieces.

I've spent a lot of time reading the ideas and opinions of others, keeping track of the twists and turns of public opinion, but I was never part of it until I started blogging. Now my small, quiet voice is part of the discussion. In my small way I am having an impact on things. I am participating, not just observing. And it's not just politics – in fact I rarely write about politics. I prefer writing about the arts and my progress in life. But whatever topic I choose to cover I am impacting the culture by putting my ideas out there to float around in the mix.

There is so much power in the way things are defined. One of my favorite examples is the 2009 health care debate in America. If you polled people on their support of “universal health care” it scored significantly higher than polls asking about “government takeover of health care.” Two names for the same policy, completely different reactions. Of course, I'm less interested in short, convenient labels than I am in the exchange of actual ideas. But it demonstrates how we are all battling for the way things are understood and defined.

This is why I love participating in political opinion polls. I was first called for one around the 2010 election and couldn't have been more excited. The constant state of campaigning and elections in Wisconsin right now has given me even more opportunities to answer these multiple choice questions about my political views. Because that is the real way to get your voice heard. Voting is the most important thing, but there are major limitations. There's no place on the ballot for “I don't think this guy can fix any of our problems but I trust him more than the other one.” There is simply yes or no. In a survey you can share your more nuanced stances. And despite what they'll tell you, these things effect the decisions politicians make. And they effect what gets discussed in the media and therefore among the public. It doesn't have the clear yes-or-no distinction of election results. Your ideas become part of the shifting, nebulous mass of public opinion and policy. The dirty process of democracy.

I believe in the popular modern philosophy that there are very few absolute truths. There are my ideas and there are your ideas and they are both right and they are both wrong. And when I hear your ideas they change mine, and when you hear mine they change yours. And the conversation is a journey to understand more and more, and move closer and closer to a truth that we will never actually reach. But if you talk and if you listen you will move yourself closer.

My goal as a writer is never to lecture to a captive audience. I don't mean my essays as definitive statements on the way things are. I consider myself most successful when an idea I muse about is filtered through the experiences of a reader and then comes back to me as a new idea. I realize that sounds like the kind of pretentious, convoluted and ultimately meaningless description you'd read in an avant garde literary zine, so I'll give some examples to try and clarify what I mean. I started this whole blogging experiment with a two-part exploration on independence and dependence. This was inspired by and centered around my experience working with people with disabilities. But upon reading it my able-bodied friend told me he reached some very important conclusions about his own life and his dependence on others. That hadn't been my intention, but the conclusions he reached were there in what I wrote. I laid out the dots, he connected them, and we both learned new things that we couldn't have individually.

My most recent and most successful post was about my idea that a major part of human behavior comes from the need to be understood. It spurred a few interesting dialogues. I had been serving as an apologist for young folks, explaining that their actions are a lot less selfish than older generations would assume. This got one of my friends, a choir teacher, to start a conversation about how difficult it is to teach something as long-term and patience-based as music to children who live in the instant. Another friend explained that, despite my stance suggesting it's not the main motivation of our generation, she indeed does want to be famous. And in discussing it I had to admit that I too have a secret desire for notoriety; it's another factor in why I write. Both of these conversations were branches off my original point, things I mentioned as minor details to get my point across in my essay. But seeing these connections made is what gets me to keep posting my writing for public scrutiny, despite the accompanying anxiety.

Let's be clear here. My blog is not going to change the world. I'm lucky if I get 30 views on a post. I've had this thing for four months and it has been viewed less than 700 times, which I think includes times I've signed in to edit things. But we can't ever really know what our full impact is. Everything we take in changes us, and everything we put out changes others. I know I inspired one of my friends to start writing himself, and that's pretty cool. And I think of all the fantastic articles I've read without ever giving notification to the author how their writing changed me. Maybe I've had that same impact on others. Maybe not. It's not important. It doesn't matter if I receive recognition or gratification for what I do. All that matters is that I am participating.

Why I'm glad the mining bill failed

By the time I post this it will be almost a week since ­­­Gogebic announced they were dropping their plan to build a mine in northern Wisconsin because the State Senate had taken too long to pass the requested bill.  You could say I’m behind the times in writing this now, that I’ve missed out on the discussion.  Or you could say I’ve had enough time to maturely think and reflect on it all.

For those of you not fortunate enough to be living in the political dreamland that is Wisconsin, or for those who live here but don’t follow politics, I’ll break it down for you.  Deep beneath the surface of Wisconsin are large deposits of iron ore, mainly in the northwestern portions. For a long time it was mined and shipped through the Great Lakes.  It’s a huge part of Wisconsin and Minnesota culture: the creation of the Duluth-Superior area, the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  Even Wisconsin’s beloved Badgers are not named after the animal but after miners who lived their lives underground.  A Florida- based company, Gogebic (whose name sounds like the name of a mining civilization in a fantasy story) recently expressed interest in creating a new mine in northern Wisconsin, bringing along with it a promise of 600 to 700 new jobs.  There was a major stipulation, however.  The state government would have to reform its laws to make the process of gaining mining permits easier and reduce the power of the DNR to regulate mining.  A bill was crafted that gave Gogebic basically exactly what they wanted.  Now, in Wisconsin both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office are controlled by Republicans, giving them a free pass to do just about anything.  But after a round of recall elections the Republicans only have a one-vote majority in the Senate, making Sen. Dale Schultz (the one Republican senator who is willing to vote based on his convictions instead of party lines) the most powerful person in Wisconsin.  Schultz felt that the new bill was too lenient so he refused to sign it.  This led to negotiations where the bill’s authors tried to make changes that could win one vote, either from Schultz or a lone Democrat.  After protracted negotiations, Gogebic pulled out, saying that Wisconsin clearly wasn’t serious about getting a new mine.  Some believe that this is just a power play by Gogebic to get more of what they want, but as of this posting the bill is dead and the mine is dead.

As suggested in the title, I am pleased with this outcome.  I can think of better outcomes, but I can also surely think of worse outcomes, namely having the bill passed as originally written and having Gogebic run their mine the way they want.  I want mining to be a reality in Wisconsin, and I know that most people who live in the area where the mine would be want it to be a reality.  But it must be done correctly.  There is a desperate need for jobs, especially in Wisconsin which has been the only state to continue losing jobs as the rest of the state bounces back.  But there is also a need to protect the state’s beauty and natural resources.

Have you been to northern Wisconsin?  Maybe you haven’t but I hope for your sake you have.  It’s God’s country.  It’s a coniferous paradise.  Its wild, unchecked beauty is one of the great assets of our state.  We destroyed it once in the lumberjacking days but it has come back strong.  I would hope that this time along we would protect it, not exploit it.


An open pit mine wouldn’t be the end of the world.  The actual area covered by a mine would be small; if you lived in the area and thought it was an eyesore you could just drive around it.  Or maybe you’d like it.  On the way to work in Waukesha every day I pass by a quarry that is actually quite beautiful.  The tools of industry have their own artistic quality.  But the unseen impact would be huge.  Consider the air pollution, though I guess at this point we’re all just used to that and have no intentions of preventing it.  But the damage to the water table would have a lasting, powerful impact.  Water pollution would damage the ecosystem and reduce the quality of life.  This could in turn decrease tourism revenue in the state, as the north woods will quickly become a less desirable location to visit.  Those supporting the mining bill seem to think state regulations exist just to feed an ever-growing bureaucracy and create more desk jobs for greedy government workers.  But these are legitimate channels for us to protect the natural beauty of our state and for people to file grievances.  They protect our right to not have the damages and excesses of industry intrude on our lives.


The prevailing voice in the debate seems to be “jobs now.”  Not good jobs now, not safe jobs now.  Any jobs now.  So badly that the government tries to meet every beck and call of any company promising 600 jobs.  Never mind that we could look at Appalachia and see how little the mining industry actually improves the quality of life for its workers.  Never mind any long term decreases in the quality of our state and its other industries.  These guys are promising jobs, why aren’t we doing everything in our power to give them everything they want?


When Gogebic pulled out they didn’t take anything with them.  The iron ore, the resource that would produce those 600-700 jobs, is still buried here in Wisconsin.  The fact that we failed at allowing a Florida company to take and sell it is not a loss.  We still have the iron and the right to do with it as we please.  What our legislators need to remember is that we are in the driver’s seat.  This is not a new factory that can be planted anywhere with sufficient population and infrastructure.  This is a resource we have that others are trying to commercialize.  We have something they need.  In order to increase their profits they need to seek our permission to dig up and ship off chunks of our state.  We should be seeking to ensure we get the most possible benefit from this.  We should find a mining company that is looking to benefit Wisconsin as much as it profits from Wisconsin.  And if we can’t find one, someone should make one.  Don’t we have entrepreneurs here in the state?  By taking our time and making intelligent decisions we can make a plan that improves the long-term viability of the state instead of just taking whatever terrible offer gets thrown at us.

The State of American Discourse, pt 2. : "Crossing over" in primaries

Michigan primary today.  Big exciting stuff.  Neck and neck race, the media would have you believe.  It's times like these, when the system doesn't function as we expect it to (i.e. everyone just votes for the winner of New Hampshire and we phone it in for the rest of the primaries) that things start to get crazy.  Those of us who love the messy process of politics embrace and celebrate the chaos.  Some of us seek to create even more chaos.  You saw it in 2008 with Rush Limbaugh encouraging Republicans to vote for Clinton to prolong the primary process and you're seeing it today in Michigan going the other direction.

I should point out right away that this issue, like voter fraud, is something that can be used to easily rile people up but doesn't actually occur on a large enough scale to be significant.  Yes, there will be Democrats who vote for Santorum today to give Romney less time for his general campaign - or  better yet make the unelectable Santorum the Republican candidate - but most Democrats will stay home or cast a symbolic vote for Obama.  Which is why you won't hear any long-term talk about changing primary rules in states to prevent this, but it is fun to debate the ethics.

It's easy to see that this is weak politics, everybody knows that.  Attempting to influence politics by selecting a candidate in a primary that you would never dream of voting for in a general election, while perfectly legal in Michigan, is a weak political game.  It goes against the whole purpose of democracy, which is to allow people to select the leaders they desire.  If you are a Democrat and you vote for Santorum today, you are behaving wrongly.  This is the same to me as redistricting fights, or attempts to disenfranchise voters, neither of which I will ever understand.  Yes, I understand the desire to have your party stay in power, but you choose a party because you believe that their views are what's best for the area they represent.  If you believe so strongly in what they're doing, why not let the strength of their arguments influence the election instead of political trickery?

The question gets more complicated, though, when you get into this article I read today:
'Romney blasts Santorum for 'dirty trick' calls to Michigan Dems encouraging vote in GOP primary'
Two important notes first:
1) I don't normally get my coverage from Fox News (though I don't rule them out either - all voices are important) but this popped up on my Google News feed.
2) How have editors not figured out at this point to avoid phrases like "blasts Santorum"?  Come on, guys.  We know you know what it means.

So now Rick Santorum is (supposedly) sending robo-calls to Democrats, explicitly courting them to cross over.  His campaign is itself engaging in sabotage of the Republican primary.  And doing it in they shady political way of waiting until the night before so that there isn't time for your opponents to use this information against you.  Everything about it is easy to villianize, especially if you're in the Romney camp.  Yet if you think about it, if this is actually happening and not just a smear from the Romney folks, Santorum's not doing anything wrong.  Rick Santorum is asking people to vote for Rick Santorum.  Yes, he's asking people who wouldn't normally vote for him, but what's so wrong with that?  Americans are frustrated with the deadlock and have been since way before this past year; what's so bad about a Republican asking Democrats to engage in some bi-partisanship?  Of course, it should be noted that for the most part this is a political ploy to capitalize on the trickery of others.  Still I can't find any argument that would make it unethical for Santorum to court Democrats, even if their reasons for wanting him to win in Michigan are so vastly different.  Democrats shouldn't be crossing over in this primary, but why can't a guy ask for a little help wherever he can get it?

The State of American Discourse, pt 1: Mitt Romney's Taxes

I'm not ashamed to admit that I love politics.  By this I mean actual politics (people sharing and debating ideas to determine which course of action best solves society's problems) not what passes for politics today (a bunch of people trying to yell louder than one another).  For this reason I, like many of you, am very disillusioned by the way politics is handled today, both in the media and by the politicians themselves.  But not disillusioned enough to turn away.  I have a curious fascination with it all.  In the same way that film buffs sometimes love bad movies most of all, I am obsessed with bad politics and bad journalism.  So I've decided to make a segment to discuss the many, MANY, MANY times that people remove political discourse from the realm of the useful and transplant it into the world of Shit That Does Not Matter At All, distracting you from what we should be discussing.  So, without further ado...

The Republican primary race.  Mitt Romney is in the lead, as he should be.  Being the most centrist candidate and therefore the most likely to attract independent voters, anyone with the most basic understanding of presidential politics can see why he would emerge as the front runner.  Anyone except Newt Gingrinch, who himself wants to be the front runner.  Unfortunately his stance on the issues and his winning personality have only brought him to third place and he needs an extra push forward to get to the lead.  Or instead of pushing to the lead he could just cut down everyone in front of him.  Let's go with that one.

So his plan has been to pressure Romney into releasing his income tax returns, saying that it's important for voters to not have to face any surprise revelations later in the year.  I love this tactic for its ridiculousness.  Firstly, Romney is a career politician.  He's held multiple elected positions over a long period of time; anything hiding in his tax returns would have come out by now.  Secondly, since when did the party of no taxes start judging a candidate's character off of what he pays in income taxes?  Best of all is just the process of watching a bunch of millionaires who spend most of their time defending millionaires suddenly spar over who is the biggest, elitist and therefore worst millionaire.

Mitt Romney will make his taxes public if he gets the nomination.  He has to; it's the law.  I can understand if Newt doesn't like this process, but it is the way it was before he started running for president.  He wasn't asking anyone to release their tax returns back in Iowa.  Why does he bring it up only when he's finding himself looking up the totem pole with precious little time?  The American primary system is unique.  It's downright bizarre.  But no one was complaining about that during the few months every four years when candidates pretend they care about Iowa.  No one complains as we dart from the Midwest to New England to the South weeding out potential candidates while a state like Hawaii, who is already basically left out of the presidential election by virtue of their late time zone, has no chance of impacting the race considering how late their primary is.

Newt Gingrich is painting this as a matter of integrity.  If Mitt Romney was only more honest, he'd tell us how much money he makes.  Yet Romney is the one behaving with dignity.  He committed to the electoral system we have, with its strengths and weaknesses, and is following its flawed rules.  He could even quell this whole thing by releasing his taxes, where he surely has nothing to hide, but that would be giving in to a bully.  Whereas Newt had no problem with a primary system that favors the voice of some Americans over others until he found a rule that makes it personally harder for him to become president.  Then it's an injustice.  Where's the integrity in that?