Back and Forth and the Hampton Froth

Hampton, New Hampshire is a very civilized town. Citizens are not allowed to confront each other except according to very strict rules: During School Board meetings, members of the School Board may ask questions of members of the public, but members of the public are not allowed to ask questions of the School Board; same is true for Budget Committee meetings. 

No "Back and Forth!"

But back and forth is allowed at the "Deliberative Sessions" where warrant articles are discussed. The old town meetings are simply not practical in a town of 20,000, we are told, although fewer than 500 ever attend a deliberative session.

During, these exchanges, citizens are expected to keep their comments to below 3 minutes, so everyone can have a chance and nobody hogs the microphone.

The upcoming session to discuss the warrant article granting public funds to the Sacred Heart School promises to evoke a "to and fro among citizens." There is a moderator to be sure things don't get too testy, although in the past the moderator has also made sure one side doesn't prevail if it's the side he does not favor.

Here is an preview of what may happen this time:

Ms. Proforma:  Giving this small amount of money to the Sacred Heart School is all about the kids. This is a wonderful school, which teaches real values and we are sniping about the money when it's all about the kids! I have been in education for 20 years, and I'm there because it's all about the kids. That phrases has profound meaning for me, because, that's why I'm here!

Mr. Contrarian:  You know, I sort of feel insulted by that phrase--as if you are more about the kids than I am. My objection to this article has to do with its violation of the separation of church and state.

Ms. Proforma: Well, but it's all about the kids in the end. Do we fund this wonderful school for the kids, or not? It's all about the kids!

Mr. Contrarian: This reminds me of the man who lives next door to the woman who grows a fabulous flower garden. I mean, it's gorgeous: reds, purples, yellows. But, the problem is she uses a really pungent fertilizer to grow those flowers, and so the man walks over and says, "Love the flowers, but you know, the aroma just knocks me off my feet!"

And the woman responds: "But it's all about the flowers!"

You see, they are talking past one another.

Obadiah Youngblood

Ms. Profundo: People who talk about "separation of church and state" always say this article is about being constitutional, but those words "separation of church and state" are nowhere in the constitution. It's just not a thing!

Mr. Contrarian: This is true: those 5 words together do not appear in the Constitution. But this Constitution was written in the 18th century, when they used different words. And the very first words of the Bill of Rights, the First amendment, are, "Congress (i.e. government) shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion." 

Now what could that mean? How can government establish religion? Well, the only 2 ways I know is to either simply declare an official religion--like the Church of England--or to give money to support religion, the way Germany does: if you register with your local Lutheran church, then 3% of your income tax goes to that church. This warrant article is like that--government funds, public funds, to a church.

Obadiah Youngblood

Ms. Proforma: Separation of church and state discriminates against religious schools.

Mr. Contrarian: Justice Alito would agree with you. He wrote that in his opinion about that case in Maine about the kids who lived in a part of the state so remote the only school within reach was a religious school, but the state refused to fund it because it was a religious school and taught evangelical Christianity--a violation of church and state. But Justice Alito said that is discriminating against religion. 

I agree with Justice Alito, it does discriminate. But I think that's a very good idea. We discriminate every day, as we make choices. Discrimination is not necessarily a bad thing.  Discrimination on the basis of race can be bad, but discriminating about which institutions we support with public funds is essential. We can choose not to support a specific religion because we know that will protect all religions to thrive, not favor one.

If we did not do this, then religions looking for an audience could simply seek out under-served areas and grow there with government support, no matter how extreme their views might be.

Ms. Profundo: Well, but these public funds are not used for religious purposes by the school. And this school has more non Catholics than Catholics. And the religious teaching is pretty minimal.

Mr. Contrarian: The fact is we have no information about how much religious instruction occurs at the school or how the money is used. But we do know that you cannot separate the school from the church. The church would give up nearly everything else it does rather than lose its school because the school is necessary to continue the work of the church, to bring the next generation of Catholics into being. That is essential for the church, but we should not grant taxpayer funds to accomplish this.

Ms. Profundo:  But this is hardly a church school. It's more a private school.

Mr. Contrarian: A private school with crucifixes on the wall and most of its budget from the archdiocese of Manchester. You cannot say it's just "Catholic lite." 

In the state of Utah, a state heavily dominated by one church, the kids in the public schools, which receive public funds, leave the school building at noon, walk next door to have lunch and religious teaching at the Mormon church school, and  they return about 90 minutes later to have their public school classes. That is a way of guaranteeing separation of church and state. Hampton could learn from Utah. 

Amna Nawaz Turns PBS News Hour into Al Jazzera

Before I begin, let me say that I am appalled by the Israeli hard right government seizing land owned by Palestinians outside Gaza and around the country. Israel is clearly no longer the refuge for Europeans from the Holocaust, but has morphed into something else.

Having said that, as someone who has watched the PBS News Hour since the McNeil/Lehrer days, it is hard to watch since October 7. Since then the horrid pictures of dead and wounded children are the lead of every broadcast.

Tonight, Amna Nawaz did a 10 minute interview with a very appealing Palestinian poet who was arrested and harassed before he escaped to Egypt. 

Bias does not have to be bald and stated, as it is on FOX News, it can be simply the selection of what story you choose to report. Before this segment, were stories on Gaza residents with the bodies of their families.

My own personal estimate is there are 10 minutes of stories of Palestinians injured vs stories of Israelis injured.

One would like to think if PBS existed during the Holocaust, they would have been reporting every night from Auschwitz, and aroused public opinion in the United States, which had Nazi sympathizers right up to the moment Hitler declared war against America, and some even after that. 

But one wonders about where PBS News would have been when Americans fire bombed Dresden, Tokyo, Berlin, Hamburg, and dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Presumably, Americans would have had little sympathy for those innocent civilians we bombed on the way to defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The rational would be: 

1. They started it. We're ending it.

2. Those civilians voted for Hitler and in Japan, without a vote the people supported the Emperor; they are not really "innocent."

3. This is what war is: In modern war, there are always innocent victims.

What PBS could do would be to have people who are good at analyzing the ethics of what we are willing to allow to achieve military ends discuss all this at length on air--they have a full hour on their broadcast. During this, some would argue about what the "rules of engagement" mean, how they were developed, and how to analyze the horrific events going on in Gaza and Israel, what the background of this conflict is now (with Israel settlers pushing Palestinian off their land) and the suffering of Israelis under rocket attacks and terrorist attacks from Gaza.

There are no good guys in this conflict and plenty of bad guys, but it's disappointing to see the News Hour giving way to a personal bias from one of its newscasters.

Just think what would be said if every broadcast began with a story about Israelis dealing with the death and kidnapping of their relatives by a news anchor named Judith Cohen.

 

Sacred Heart School: Is it All About the Kids or All About the Cash?

 

Last night, the Budget Committee of the town of Hampton voted 4-3 to recommend the warrant article granting public funds to a religious school, Sacred Heart School.

The "recommendation" appears in bold letters at the bottom of the warrant article on the ballot. 

For those who are unfamiliar with town voting on warrant articles, in New Hampshire townspeople no longer go to town hall meetings--Hampton has 20,000 people--so they go to the high school one day in March and they are given a thick packet of warrant articles and a black pen and they work through the 20 pages of material and vote on the two articles they are actually interested in and then on all the others, just to feel like engaged citizens. 

But they know very little about the other articles and generally vote "yes" if the various town committees have recommended "yes."

In the case of the warrant article granting $50,000 to Sacred Heart School two separate bodies recommend for or against: The School Board and the Budget Committee.

The usual understanding is an article is "recommended" if a majority of the Board votes to recommend, but this year of 5 School Board members only 2 voted to recommend, and the rest abstained. Someone in power decided that was good enough and the warrant article will get its coveted "recommended by the School Board."

One of the favorite arguments for those in favor of the SHS article is, "It's all about the kids." That one particularly rankles the opposition, because it suggests that it's not about anything but the kids, that is is ONLY about the kids, and the opposition keeps saying, sure, it's about the kids--but it's not ONLY about the kids; the real issue is separation of church and state.

To hear the advocates for the SHS article keep repeating this insults the opposition because it implies if you're not for the article then you do not care about the kids.  

This insistence on the  "All About the Kids" clearly means the SHS crowd is simply not hearing, not listening to the objections. 

"Just show me the money"  seems to be the response.

No member of the School Board, other than Wendy Rega has actually ever said the words, "separation of church and state." It is as if the Chairperson, the Shepards, Frank DeLuca have never heard the opposition say those words. DeLuca actually asked why the member of the public opposed the article, as if the member had not just spent 3 minutes talking about separation of church and state. Willful deafness.

August Maake

Other deflated arguments have been that it saves the town money to send kids to SHS, which is cheaper than paying to educate them in the public schools, but with public schools having open seats and enrollment declining, with all that excess capacity, it saves no money to not keep those seats filled--the teachers, the facilities are already paid for; paying for SHS is now an add on.

Another favorite, which one of the Committee members used to explain his vote is, "We've always done it this way."

But, of course, that was the same argument used to argue for segregated schools in the South. The Constitution tells you what you cannot vote on and you cannot simply vote locally to ignore the basic law of the land.

"Local nullification" has been pretty well defunded since the Civil War.

Of course, with the current Supreme Court of the United States, it looks as if separation of church and state is now unconstitutional, but as far as New Hampshire goes, the state constitution is as explicit as it can be that funding religious schools with taxpayer money is not allowed. Chris Muns read the parts o the NH constitution and that much was clear. A lady who identifies herself as "Attorney" keeps raising the NH law 189.49 which seems to allow public funds for religious schools-- but it doesn't take 3 years of law school to know that the state constitution trumps any state law which violates it.

The problem with the constitutionality argument, of course, is what is deemed to be constitutional, no matter what the words of the constitution say, is nowadays only a matter of what any Supreme Court, state or federal says is constitutional. But that, of course, can change as the courts change in composition.

Then there is the argument that this warrant article simply reflects the will of the voters, an effort to show good will toward Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal church. This argument is put forth by people as if the Board and Committee recommendations never happen.

Of course, this "well, the voters like this" argument  has been said repeatedly at both the School Board meeting and the Budget Committee meeting; But if you really wanted to let the voters decide you would not recommend for or against but simply say nothing. But in saying you recommend it, obviously--Well, duh!--you are putting your thumb (or as one speaker said, an elephant) on the scale.

Obadiah Youngblood

And as Matthew Saunders, a member of the Committee said last night, "We, as the Budget Committee are not in the business of using taxpayer funds to express good will."

Below is an unedited video--the speakers are at the beginning and then you have to scroll to the end to hear the vote of the Committee.

https://reflect-hamptonnh.cablecast.tv/CablecastPublicSite/show/1617?site=1

Democracy in Hampton, New Hampshire: The 3 Minute Rule

 Last week,  the Hampton School Board meeting opened with a time allotted to "public comment." This is, apparently required "by law."  Mad Dog knows this because that law was referred to by Lois Costa (Superintendent of SAU 90), later in the proceedings. Apparently, by some law 30 full minutes of the meeting have to  be open and devoted to public comment. This is so important that even after the article on which people had come to comment upon had been voted on, and put to bed, Ms. Costa insisted the required time allotment of 30 minutes at the end of the meeting be fulfilled, albeit in a most peculiar way.

But when a member of the public rose to comment, he was told the "3 minute rule" was still in effect. 

During his first period to comment, that same member of the public had been cut off by the chairperson of the School Board, Ginny Bridle Russell, mid sentence, with a "You have exceeded your 3 minutes. Wrap it up!"

There were only 3 members of the public present so during the first required period of public comment, only 9 minutes were used, owing to the speakers being cut off after 3 minutes. During the second required 30 minute comment session only one member of the public remained but he was restricted, once again to 3 minutes. 

The 30 minutes thing is apparently law.

The 3 minute thing is apparently not--more a whim thing.

During his next 3 minutes, that member of the public (MOP) was asked a question by one of the school board members, and he answered, but when he responded to a comment by Ms. Russel, the MOP tried to respond which really brought the house down.

Another member of the board, Les Shepard, nearly leapt out of his seat, objecting that a mere member of the public addressing the chairperson is not allowed at School Board meetings.

"We don't do back and forth here" one of the other members tried to explain. Members ask the questions; members of the Board do not answer questions from the public.

We have all heard of "the bully pulpit," but in Hampton, this concept has been transmogrified into "the bully from the pulpit." 

Apparently, the 3 minute rule is not state law for town meetings--it is not applied to Budget Committee meetings. Until he hears otherwise, Mad Dog will assume this is a rule by custom, designed to prevent one person from droning on too long and hogging the podium enforced only at the School Board meetings.

But what really transpired at the School Board meeting was the chairperson cutting off a member of the public because his comments had drawn blood--he had replied to the chairperson's argument that her desire to use public funds to support a religious school was "all about the children" and because she "cared for every Hampton child, no matter where they choose to go to school." The member of the public has said he also shared the concern for every child of Hampton, but that didn't mean he wanted to pay for their first communion dresses, or for their Bar Mitzvah's. 

Ms. Russell, the chairperson, had enough and cut him off, finding he had exceeded his 3 minutes.

The School Board meeting went on for 2 hours and 37 minutes, most of which was devoted to topics like the color of the paint on school walls, scheduling, and Ms. Russell took some time to tell everyone about her career in Hampton, since moving here in 1973, and all about the offices she had held and the great things she had done, all of which took more than 3 minutes.

The fact is, the purpose of the 3 minute rule may be sold as a way to be sure everyone has time to speak, but it is actually a way for public officials to suppress real debate, to prevent reasoning and reasoned arguments from being presented. Many reasoned arguments, especially about weighty topics like the separation of church and state, require some context, background and development, and cannot be adequately summarized in 280 characters or 3 minutes. 

The fact is, the School Board is not interested in reasoned arguments or real debate. Members of the School Board are either frankly bored by reasoned arguments or they know they cannot do that kind of thing, so they withdraw. Just look at them on that video and you can see something that goes beyond being uninterested to actual contempt--Mr. Shepard did not put his head on his desk and go to sleep during public comment, but he did look as if he might nod off. 

A republic depends on representatives representing the people, the citizens. What we have in Hampton is not that. The elected representatives are arrogant; they believe they have the power and they are the only ones whose opinions count, and certainly they should never be questioned and required to respond to questions.

Hampton School Board Splinters Over Sacred Heart School Warrant Article

Tuesday, December 12, 2023, a night which will live in epiphany. 

The Hampton School Board has 5 members. 

It is still not clear whether that coveted box at the bottom of the ballot saying "Recommended by the School Board" will be attached to the ballot article. Someone has to "check" on it with someone. 

School Board meetings have agendas and rules, and they open with a time for public comment and members of the public are allowed 3 minutes to speak their minds and then the chairperson cuts them off. Nobody gets to hog the microphone.

So, the public, all three of them, got their 3 minutes each.

The link below shows the whole meeting, but the parts of the meeting devoted to the Sacred Heart School (SHS) funding begins after the Pledge of Allegiance with public comment, and then there are about 2 hours of meanderings through committee reports and idle chatter, then the vote and then a bizarre post mortem comment session. You just have to scan through it.

None of the School Board members explained the reasons for his or her vote, except for Frank DeLuca, who said he had to abstain because he is a parishioner of Our Lady of The Miraculous Medal church, and one of the speakers had remarked that any parishioner of the church voting to funnel public funds  for his own personal church would violate his public trust as a public official, and apparently Mr. DeLuca got that message.

While none of the School Board explained a vote, in the prior meeting the chairperson had said she was voting public funds to a church school because she care about "every Hampton child," including those attending SHS. That was addressed by one of the speakers who remarked that she had failed to mention that 75% of the SHS students are not even from Hampton, and that even if you focused on the 25% of students who live in Hampton, "caring about the children," as he did, did not mean he wanted to pay for their first communion dresses. He said that was the job of the parents, not the taxpayer. 

He also went on to say that while some argue this issue is not about separation of church and state, but instead it's simply "all about the children"  (even those attending SHS,) the truth is that while this may be about the kids,  it is not only about the kids: It's also about the principle of separation of church and state.

To make that point, a famous speech by John F. Kennedy got read, and is there for all to see on Channel 22, in which he says, "Because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured...So it is apparently necessary for me to state again, not what kind of church I believe in, for that should matter only to me--but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no church or church school is granted any public funds...Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you--until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped."

Instances of the ripping of that fabric in Hampton, New Hampshire were recounted: men driving by, shouting profanities, while children played in their yards, online vilification of Hampton women as being "God hating," all because these mothers had  signed a petition for separation of church and state.

(Apparently, John F. Kennedy would have been called a "God hater" by these people.)

And the vote came, amid some confusion. 

The Vote:

To recommend: Virginia Bridle Russell

                             Les Shepard

Abstained:          Wendy Rega

                             Andrea Shepard 

                             Frank DeLuca

Although a majority of the School Board did not vote to recommend (a majority of 5 is 3), it is not clear what the white box with the recommendation will say. Do you need a majority (i.e. 3 Board members) or simply a plurality for that coveted "Yes, recommended by the Board"?

To Mad Dog's mind a "recommendation" should mean, we affirmatively recommend this. But when the majority say they can neither recommend nor oppose, that is not a recommendation. But that may not be what the powers that be think.

Mad Dog actually liked the post show show: Because, apparently, there is a rule that there should be 30 minutes in total of public comment, and the chairperson had limited the three public commenters to 3 minutes each, interrupting any speaker who went past 3 minutes,  there were only 9 minutes of 30 spent in public comment. 

So after the vote was taken and safely stowed away, they called for the other 21 minutes of comment from the crowd of 2 people who constituted "the public." Only one actually spoke and he was told he had better limit his remarks to  3 minutes. (Not clear what happened to the remaining unspoken 19 minutes.)

During this session Frank DeLuca asked the lone speaker why, after all these years, after voting through this warrant article every year since 1994, anyone would now find a reason to oppose it. The reply was simple enough: the man who rose to oppose said he was not living in town in 1994, but even if he had been, he said, simply doing something over and over because "we've always done it that way" is not always a good idea, especially if an important principle has been ignored by that custom. He cited the racial segregation of schools, which had always been done that way, but eventually we decided that custom was unprincipled.

This was a particularly rich moment because in the previous School Board meeting, when asked if he was disturbed at the article which gave public funds for religious purposes,  Mr. DeLuca said he said he hadn't seen the warrant article yet, so he couldn't possibly comment on an article he had not yet seen. But tonight he said, well this same, identical article has been presented the same way every year for the past 29 years, so what are we arguing about?

When Ginny Bridle Russell said she supported the warrant article and she would never abstain, but would always take a stand--but she hoped voters would vote their own conscience. The member of the public replied, "Well, but then you are taking a stand to try to influence voters." 

This exchange finally aroused Les Shepard, who raised his hand and object to the public addressing the chairperson in such a manner. The public man was told that School Board meetings do not allow for "back and forth," between the School Board members and the public, which, of course, was exactly what Ms. Russel had precipitated.

Watching this youtube now, it is apparent that the chairperson of the School Board has taken the idea of a "Bully pulpit" into a new realm of "The bully from the pulpit."  The chairperson cut off criticism of herself, declared herself immune, declared herself righteous and outspoken and then withdrew to allow her fellow Board members to close ranks around her. 

If ever there is a contest for "most controlling personality" we have our candidate for the honor right here in Hampton.

So, all and all, it was an exciting night. Two and one half hours of dreary boiler plate declamations, interrupted by 30 minutes of the fog of war.

The youtube video below shows the discussion of the warrant article beginning right after the Pledge of Allegiance at 1 minute, with three speakers from the public, each speaking 3 minutes and that ends around 12 minutes. Then there is a nearly 120 minute interlude during which the School board discusses a variety of things, including, literally the paint on school walls but the vote on the article occurs at 2:02, two hours after the meeting began. So if you can scan ahead, go for it. The vote is worth watching. (If anyone knows how to edit a youtube video so only the 15 minutes devoted to the Sacred Heart School warrant article shows, please let me know.) It was during this exchange, the Board said only they can ask questions but they do not answer questions from the public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Mo0VoF7oA

Sound and fury signifying something. 

We don't yet know what. 

Effete University Presidents Overdose on Political Correctness

 

"This should be the easiest question possible" Representative Elise Stefanik said, and she was right.

Liz Magill

But the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT could not answer it.

It's not original to wonder, "Under what specific context would calling for genocide be okay at Harvard, Penn or MIT?"

I've always wondered just what a university president does, beyond going hat in hand to the waiting rooms of billionaires, while wearing an expensive suit, and asking for a million dollar donation.

Gordon Gee, a sort of gadfly of university presidents, having got himself million dollar gigs at Brown, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, and West Virginia, once said his job was to be sure the official campus bird is the crane, as in one of those things you need to build large buildings. And when someone asked if he was going to fire the athletic director for having said something particularly politically incorrect, Gee responded, "I'm just hoping the athletic director doesn't fire me. We all know where the power is here."

President of Harvard, Charles Eliot, in the 1920's  said that the mixing of the races was an anathema and we should forbid immigration to keep the blood lines of America pure.

But, Liz Magill, a Constitutional scholar could not bring herself to say, "Freedom of Speech is not an absolute right. As Oliver Wendel Holmes said, 'You cannot falsely shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater.  And you cannot advocate by speech for the violent overthrow of the United States government. And, it is clear, nobody on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania should be allowed to call for a new Holocaust or genocide."

Once, at a very fancy cocktail outside Washington, DC an Arnold and Porter lawyer, in his very expensive suit and I got to talking about the ouster of Larry Summers as president of Harvard after he said that women did not seem to gravitate toward math and science, thus violating the politically correct dogma that women can do anything as well as men, and in high heels, while dancing backwards. So he was gone. Faculty voted him out as if he had reaffirmed Harvard's support for eugenics.

"A damn shame," the Arnold and Porter lawyer told me. "He had such a perfect blend of skill sets for the job of being Harvard's president."

"And what could those skill sets possibly be?" I asked. "Being Harvard's president has got to be one of the easiest jobs in the world: You just sit back, keep your mouth shut and watch the donations flow in."

So, Liz Magill has lost her sinecure and, if there is any sense left at Harvard, Claudine Gay should lose hers. I didn't hear what the MIT president said.

It's interesting how Ivy League colleges have been clamoring to put women, particularly women of color, in their presidential offices. Maybe now, they'll be looking to place John Fetterman clones, big guys who talk straight and don't ever try to parse and adjust their words, but hit you between the eyes with, "Call for genocide on campus? We'll gen your backside right off campus."

Slaughter of the Innocents: Gazza and Israel

 

Nightly images of dead and dying children from Gazza are a mute argument against the Israeli strategy of counter terrorism.

You come and slaughter our children and rape our women, look what you get in return!

The problem is with the "you."

Those Palestinian children did not rape your women.

It's a question of what you are willing to allow to respond to an outrage.

And it's also a question of the enemy your are fighting.

In the 1940's, there was Hitler and the Japanese military. If you ravaged civilians on your way to defeating the German and Japanese armies and navies, there was a clear outcome you could point to: Hitler dead, the Japanese military defeated and surrendering on the deck of an American battleship, and it's all over.

Never mind all those innocent children you incinerated in Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Hiroshima, Tokyo and countless other cities and towns around the world.

They were "innocent" bystanders, but we were willing for them to suffer to accomplish the greater good of a military victory, an end to that war.

And then there was always the question of whether those children and their families were completely "innocent" or actually "willing accomplices." 

In the case of Germany, it is now pretty clear a sizable part of the population, including children in the Hitler youth, fully embraced the stuff Goebbels was feeding them about being part of a master race and the need to exterminate the  vermin Untermensch.

 But isn't a twelve year old boy so malleable as to be innocent for having been recruited into that gang? What is "innocent" in a child? The American army executed 16 year old boys who acted as spies for the German army when the Americans swept into Germany. But, of course, those kids were post pubertal. In Gazza we are seeing 7 year old kids dying. What kind of threat could they be?

Those Gazza kids and their parents are more powerful than any Israeli bomb, simply from a strategic viewpoint. In practical terms alone, the Israelis are simply stupid to drop bombs on them.

You cannot defeat an idea. You cannot kill hatred with bombs. Couldn't do it in Belfast. Couldn't do it in Selma, Alabama. You have to find another way. 

You bomb a church in Birmingham and kill four little Black girls, you've already lost the war. The wives who sent off their husbands with packed lunches to the Ku Klux Klan rallies have to watch the images of those dead girls on TV and everything begins to crumble.

Frontline's 20 Days in Mariupol

Just what I needed, after daily servings of the carnage in Gazza, a documentary of children dying and mothers crying from the Ukraine: "20 Days in Mariupol."

Can I bear to watch yet another 90 minutes of unremitting horror show? 

But, as President Zelensky has said, as long as people can see the horror, they will do something to try to help; when Ukraine recedes behind the news from Gazza, help to Ukraine dries up.

Republicans in Congress from Rand Paul to Marjorie Taylor Green to Lauren Boebert are trying to "America First" the country into abandoning Ukraine. It's not even a new story: Charles Lindbergh and a whole bund of right wing American Nazis tried to keep America from coming to the aide of embattled Britain, and would have gladly come to terms with Adolph Hitler and his control of Europe from the Rhine to the North Atlantic. 

Now, it's Vladimir Putin and his murderous hordes launched against Ukraine.

A democracy which had the misfortune of having a border with Russia is simply being annihilated by a dictator. The NATO countries seem aware of the threat posed. They suspect once Mr. Putin has crushed Ukraine, like Hitler, he will look for another country to accuse of provoking him into a war he cannot avoid.

Democracies barely work, so the attraction of the dictator, the strongman who claims to be essential to control, law and order and harmony is understandable. Italy has put a immigrant hating woman, Georgia Meloni, in power. Hungary voted in Viktor Orban, another White power autocrat and even the Netherlands just voted in Geert Wilders, who is a vehement anti Muslim and right wing champion.

So we are not the only ones dealing with Confederate Congressmen who speak ominously of Ghost Buses in the sky coming to seize your government from you, of Marjorie Taylor Green who says this is, always was and always should be a White Christian nation and Lauren Boebert who says the Constitution never mentions separation of church and state and the right of individual citizens to own howitzers is not only guaranteed by the 2nd amendment but God given.

Today, waiting for the light to turn green at Lafayette and Exeter Road, I saw a plaid shirt guy in his mega pickup truck, flying a big Trump flag take the right hand turn and head toward Exeter, no doubt in pursuit of ghost buses and planning to execute the plan Congressman Clay Higgins was talking about when he told the head of the FBI, we are coming for you; your day will come.

Standing against these middle aged men and young women are the quiet members of the Hampton Dems club--mostly men past retirement age and a spectrum of women in their middle years. 

Hampton is not Mariupol. 

Yet.