wisconsin

We Americans tend to assume that we are the only place experiencing political crazy time, but that is far from true. If you have been following the news from England in the past month or so, you know that Brexit-- the UK's exit from the European Union-- has been a crazy hot mess. For those following along at home, the UK voted by referendum to exit the EU. The hope within the UK was to negotiate an agreement where they could keep some of the good parts of the Union while pulling out. A key sticking point was the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which was open so long as both were in the EU, with great advantages to a lasting peace there. UK Prime Minister Teresa May, a Tory, negotiated what she thought was the best deal she could get. However, the Parliament rejected it overwhelmingly. Now the EU is pretty much shrugging and saying "that's the best deal you're going to get." If the UK exits the EU without a deal, things get... messy. Li

It's the shortest month, and in some ways the cruelest. I always felt a little cursed because of my February birthday-- in Michigan, it came in the middle of gray, sad slush season, when winter lingered too long.  But there can be beauty in it, too, of course. Either way, let's haiku about February this week. Here, I will go first: My mom saved the day With an ice cream cake and love Went to bed happy. Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable formula, and have some fun!

As the field for the Democratic presidential nomination grows and grows, that is only one-- but perhaps the most important one-- of the "Who's Next?" questions that our larger society faces.  Here are a few others: -- Who is next to be indicted in the Mueller probe? -- Who is next to create a song that people will hear in the background at pools all summer? -- Who is next to change their field and transform a slice of our society? -- Who is next to re-shape the way we think about faith in this country? -- Who is next to write a book that no one expected to take off... but does? -- Who is next to challenge those in power in a way that changes the way we think? -- Who is next to love where love is not deserved? -- Who is next to save a life when no one is looking, and to tell no one about it? -- Who is next to move us to action?

I found this PBS interview fascinating: It raises a lot of questions for me, of course. One of them, raised explicitly in the interview, is crucial: Are low prices for goods and services always worth the offsetting cost in income disparity within the larger society?

As haiku go, it's hard to deny that the Medievalist nailed it this week: My breath billows out, A white fog of frozen steam, It's January. I love that image, of the white fog... and I'll be living it this week, too! On Wednesday, our high temp is predicted to be -14!

What a week this was in politics! The Mueller probe, the showdown over the shutdown, etc. etc. etc. And it seems like most weeks are like this, one way or another. I'm coming to realize that for some people politics seems to be taking on the role that faith and religion have traditionally played. It gives them meaning and provides a worldview; it assigns a place in a group with an ideology. These people spend much more time obsessing over cable news than nearly anyone does in church in a given week. Part of it seems to be the delusions of importance that we place on politics-- that we pretend that government and its choices really has a great deal of agency over our daily lives. The truth is that the choices we make-- about who we love, how we act, what we choose as our vocation-- almost always matters much more to the outcomes in our lives. And yet we give in to the grandiosity, looking for a Democratic "savior" or believing that any president can "Make America Grea

Yesterday morning, Roger Stone was arrested at home based on a remarkable 24-page indictment charging him with offenses related to Wikileaks and the 2016 Trump campaign. And when I say remarkable, I mean it-- the thing is an entire case-in-chief packed into a thin sheaf. You can read the whole thing here .

Yeah, it's cold now, pretty much everywhere. So light a fire, make some comfort food, and enjoy the coziness of winter! Let's haiku about all that comes with this time of year. Here, I will go first: Late January light It's crystal shards and starbursts Horizon line white. Now it's your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable formula and have some fun!

So if we can't even get a State of the Union address off the ground, it would seem that the state of our union is pretty messy. Here is the lay of the land right now according to the New York Times (which also provided the photo above): -- The Constitution requires that a State of the Union message be given -- From 1801-1913, it was written rather than delivered as a speech -- Most presidents since then have delivered a speech before a joint session of Congress (Jimmy Carter was an exception in 1981; he delivered a written message) -- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has refused to invite the President to the floor of the House to give the speech. -- The President can't just show up and start talking (at least not with lights and amplification), since the facilities are literally controlled by the Speaker of the House. My hunch is that President Trump will find a way to turn this into some new kind of political theater, so stay tuned! And no, none of this is normal.

For many, perhaps even most, people there is no tangible sign of the partial government shutdown. That's because little of what the federal government does is providing direct services. They inspect the meat rather than sell it, so when you go to the store you still see a lot of meat, but don't see the fact that inspections have been cut. And when you get sick, you don't know the cause. The FBI Agents Association just put out a fascinating report on how the shutdown has impacted their work. You can read the whole thing here . The most obvious consequence of the shutdown is that the agents are not being paid. But there is more: -- forensic interviews in sex offenses agains children are being delayed. -- counseling services for sex trafficking victims has been curtailed. -- they can't fund local initiatives. -- funding for some kinds of investigations has run out. -- translators are unavailable. I suspect there are many agencies with similar problems...

Yesterday morning, I went to Minneapolis's gigantic MLK breakfast . 2500 people were there, including both Minnesota Senators, a bunch of Congresspeople, and a fun bunch of people from my school. The speaker was Don Lemon, who both like and kind of know a little bit. I left the event glad for the time with my friends from school and the pretty good speech by Don Lemon, but disappointed, too.  Like many events celebrating King, the point seemed to be to reduce his message to the easiest, least controversial bits-- basically, "people should be nice to each other." It's a good point--in fact, it is the heart of Jesus's Second Great Commandment-- but it is also one that few people disagree with in principle and which has been articulated already by activists as diverse as Rodney King, Rodney Dangerfield, and Barney the Dinosaur. (I suppose this is one area where it really does not matter if a speaker is black, white or purple). There was, in fact, almost no discuss

Sometimes, Haiku Friday introduces me to something I did not know. This was one of those weeks, and it was all thanks to this haiku by Gavin: The Red Green Show, eh? Canadian TV’s “best.” SNL in plaid.

Tomorrow is MLK day here in the US. It's an important holiday, given that the legacy and present reality of racism is the defining challenge of our country. The day set aside to consider this, though, is increasingly being used to celebrate a false sense of "mission accomplished." I co-authored a piece about it with one of my heroes, Nkechi Taifa, who has done more than anyone I know to address the racial disparities in our criminal justice system.  You can read the whole thing here . It begins this way: As politicians and office-holders trot out their annual tributes to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., beware of a big lie that has too often been front and center in these speeches. In short, it is this: That there was racism in America, that Dr. King came and solved the problem, and now we are lucky to live in a post-racial America.