When I was seven Gary Konkol put a bee down my dress....

I have told you before that I write letters for progressive DEMS since 2009. Last month it was the Constitutional Convention....lots of serious info to impart, not much room to play...500 word limit...this time I played abit. How Trump and his ilk smash public dialogue.

Published Friday. Portage Co Gazette The Katrina(Shankland) I refer to is my state Rep and one of my best pals. Splendid orator. And my Dad was a Catholic priest, so had a snazzy funeral ....Please to enjoy. Jody.


CYRANO BEE WARNS: NO DIALOGUE EQUALS CHAOS

When I was seven Gary Konkol put a bee down my dress. Caught in my unders, it stung and bit me. Sister Regina made Gary write "I will not put a bee down a girl's dress" 200 times on the blackboard. He said he did it because he liked me. Failed communication all the way around.

Fast Forward, we're 13 and my job was to hold our clunky yellow telephone with the long cord that snaked its way through our kitchen to the attic, so my brother and Gary could play guitar to each other. Sparked by the BEATLES and WLS, both became magnificent musicians. From Ed Sullivan to the guys' fingertips, dazzling communication.

The most emotional part of Dad's funeral was the sanctuary packed with ivory clad clergy passing verse like the BAND performing "The Weight". Contrast that with the Aretha/McCain funerals. Both had great gatherings of emotion, almost frightening in its intensity, because we know it was aimed at a solitary angry unbalanced man left back at the White House. Nobody invited the guy with his bag of bees. Unusual funeral discourse.

Kamala Harris asked Kavanaugh whether he could think of any laws governing control of a man's body. Pointed dialogue, alas, he declined to participate. DeVoss is considering replacing K-12 schooling with just watching Fox News all day, a fun twist for the children. No dialogue. There are generations growing up now learning to lie, and hate half the country.Trump's erased the diagrammed sentences from our blackboards. Phrontifugic Sister Regina might like a crack at Tan Grampa. Remember when your mom told you to wipe that scowl off your face lest it become permanent? That's our souls now.

Tangerine Idi Amin and his ilk came in with populist language, married to big money and thoroughly lacking in honesty and integrity. Trump has made mendacity/lying a way of life. Media reports in the Florida governor's race the Republican will spend three million a day diminishing his Democratic opponent, devaluing public dialogue.

Dialogue has to begin in the streets, classrooms, homes. We cannot rely on TV or the internet. The Republican political aim is to privatize everything. Healthcare, schools, dialogue, all pushed to the margins.

John Dewey said a democracy that's lost the art of public dialogue is a democracy on it's way to chaos. He said that in 1927. 90 years later we see exactly what he meant. Two years before my bee incident Kruschev said "We will destroy the US from within". The undertaker 's been installed in the White House.

Wake up. Brush your teeth hard. Stare in the mirror for signs of life. Find your own Ed Sullivan: Beto, Kap, De Niro, Katrina. Become a threat to the tyranny of the dull mind. Dialogue!