One More Detour on the Writing Road

A 4th of July post, courtesy of Charles Pierce:

There are things we all own together. That’s what the park taught me, although I was too busy pulling Pampers out of trees to notice it at the time. I came out here again because I needed to be reminded of that because it’s almost the Fourth of July, and there is a great building conversation about what kind of a country this is going to be, going forward. Louisiana, under rising Republican star Bobby Jindal, has decided that there is money a’plenty for charter schools that teach the fallacy of evolution, but no money at all to keep open the public libraries. When did we decide as a nation that we didn’t need public libraries any more? We are deciding, in 100 different ways, whether or not a political commonwealth is actually something we can afford any more. The conversation is going on out of earshot, but it is the low murmur behind dozens of different decisions being made as regards budgets and spending and, of course, The Deficit, which is many things, but most egregiously, it is an alibi for selling off our national birthright piecemeal, like one of the yard sales along Wallum Lake Road, as the pavement surrenders to gravel. There in the gentle woods, I learned something about keeping a public trust, something that too many people in our politics have decided is a sucker’s game.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/fourth-of-july-state-parks-10284053#ixzz1zaRdQEqs

Mirrored from Kristine Smith.