As Deval Patrick moves on, and we remember Mario Cuomo, it’s good to remember what made them special communicators. There’s a lot more to the legacy of both, but the “performance art” aspect of politics (as Patrick referred to it) enables political and policy victories. It changes the conversation, the set of expectations. And everyone seems to acknowledge that Patrick changed the tone, immeasurably for the better in my view.
And it’s been sorely disappointing to see Democrats, including our immensely talented President, lose their voices in the last several years because they don’t seem to speak from a place of conviction. Where was the vigorous moral defense of health care for everyone? To whom do you say, “Sorry, you don’t deserve health care”? Where were the personal stories of people who had been able to get necessary health care for the first time?
I grew up in New York State, and met Mario Cuomo when I was 16. He was genuine, friendly, talked fast, and asked about me — where I was applying to college and so forth. Some politicians talk with one eye looking over your shoulder, as if scanning the horizon for someone more important; some speak abstractly, or condescendingly; some have the special skill of treating you like an old friend. Cuomo was the special kind.
Cuomo came to prominence in the Reagan era, elected in 1982. New York State went for Reagan in both 1980 (aided by the Anderson candidacy) and 1984. He provided what counterbalance there was to Reagan’s triumphalist conservative rhetoric, speaking in a frame of reference generated from his Catholic background: In his words, to “make love real in a sinful world.” Remember the poor. Make peace. Do justice. It’s the ethic of the Beatitudes, of the parable of the Good Samaritan, but also of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah — and of the Koran and Buddha.
This is a frame of reference that those in Catholic-heavy, Kennedy-dominated Massachusetts understand as a matter of culture. (Many representatives of what passes for evangelical Christianity are not much concerned with poverty.) But it appeals beyond Catholics and Christians, to people of other faiths, or of none whatsoever. We understand the idea of fairness, of justice, of shared destiny because we have lived it ourselves, because we have experienced hardship ourselves, and because decent people wish the best for themselves and their neighbors.
Mo Cunningham describes a similar religious tint in Deval Patrick’s speeches:
Most Americans and nearly all American politicians speak only the language of individuality, the unbridled market, interests, ambition. Deval Patrick speaks that language too but almost uniquely in American politics he speaks America’s second language: the language of Biblical religion….
A more recent occasion came when Governor Patrick announced that he would offer comfort in the state for some of the undocumented Central American children pouring into America last summer. Here some of his reasoning was explicitly religious. ““My faith teaches that if a stranger dwells with you in your land you shall not mistreat him, but rather love him as yourself. For you were strangers in the land of Egypt. We are admonished to take in the stranger, for inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, Christ tells us, you did it to me.” His remarks were a reminder of Winthrop’s prayer in The Model: “If thy brother be in want and thou canst help him, thou needs not make doubt of what thou shouldst do; if thou lovest God thou must help him.”
via MassPoliticsProfs| Deval Patrick’s Second American Language.
Well, almost unique. He was preceded by some 24 years by Mario Cuomo.
This is a morality I understand. I do not understand allowing our neighbors to be homeless in a Massachusetts winter. I do not understand sending refugee children back to the butchery of Central American gang wars. I don’t understand a morality that says certain people have to go without health care, or food. I do not understand a moral blinker that posits divisions of “those people” and “our people”, even as we share a rather small geographical area. And who is my neighbor?
The role of Catholicism in Massachusetts political life has probably receded in the last 15 years, at least partly due to the abuse scandal and some of the Church’s more conservative teachings. (To be fair, the role of organized religion, generally speaking, has been receding for probably 400 years.) Perhaps that may change with a new Pope focused on social justice.
But I have wondered if increased secularization will lead to less concern, less urgency for the least well-off. Has Atlas Shrugged displaced the Beatitudes? Is it sufficient to appeal to enlightened self-interest to help ourselves, and the most vulnerable?
jconway says
I fear that the real polarity in politics is between those that favor individual autonomy over mutual responsibility. There is a growing home for libertarian Silicon Valley types who fear the religious right, support choice and equality, but also strongly oppose unions, fair trade, and worker’s rights in our party. We should be concerned about this instead of gloating about a majority free of working class whites or the religious enclaves of the South and Midwest.
Our party was once a Rust Belt party, our party was the party of the urban worker, the immigrant, and farmer from time immemorial. Mario Cuomo got this. He was very eloquent about expressing his convictions and framing them in stark moral terms. The candidate that does this wins the election-every time. It’s why Warren beat Brown, while Coakley limped along in platitudes to two defeats. It’s why Obama beat a McCain unmoored from his maverick persona in deference to a radical base, and beat a Romney more comfortable with power points than with people.
This is a moral cause and a fight for social justice. It always has been and always well be. Mario Cuomo in his famous speech excoriated Reagan as the party of social darwinism and exalted ours as the party of St. Francis.
Surely we can echo Pope Francis, let’s make ours a party for the poor, a party for the downtrodden, and a party for the forgotten. One of the most eloquent lines in the most recent Papal encyclical is as follows:
This responsibility is our own. Our neighbors are our responsibility. Always. Whether they are black, white, brown, gay, straight, immigrant or native born. Whether they are men or women and especially when they are children or the elderly. To paraphrase Humphrey, those at the dawn of life and those at the twilight. This is the Democratic party my great great grandfather joined off the boat from Ireland, the party his grandson rejoined after the horrors of the Depression and the Second World War, the party my dad joined to defend civil rights and end an unjust war, and the party my mother relied on when she was a single mom on welfare during the worst of the Reagan years. This is our party.
It should not be a secular party devoted strictly to issues of bodily autonomy. This should be the party of social justice, the same spiritual pull that drew Thoreau, Gandhi, and Dr. King together in a single arc bending towards justice. There is a strong spiritual pull that comes from helping one another forge a community of solidarity. A spiritual pull-one that crosses sectarian lines and unites all faiths and those who place their faith in their fellow man.
As Thomas Frank hammers home in everything he rights, we can win, and win big, when we fight for ordinary people and put them at the centerpiece of our political project. Our agenda is not a Hollywood agenda, our agenda is not an Upper East Side or Harvard agenda, but a main street agenda. One that can win over Main Street in Cambridge and Melrose as well as Fitchburg and Worcester. And one that can win over Main Streets from Dayton to Daytona, from Rochester to Reno. Let’s make it happen.
Bob Neer says
Wikipedia:
Talk is cheap, however uplifting. I’d say Governor Patrick’s legacy, and President Obama’s too, for that matter, should be judged more by their actions than their words. On that front, there is much to admire.
Charley on the MTA says
As far as I know, neither Mario Cuomo nor Deval Patrick have either owned or bought or sold or borrowed slaves. Unlike some people.
But thanks for setting that important moral bar.
Bob Neer says
From the same article you quoted:
There are some pretty harsh words in this vaunted “second language” if one listens to it as interpreted by that Wikipedia passage.
jconway says
Can we not use the language of the founders, many of whom eloquently uttered wonderful words about the equality of man while owning other men? Their actions undercutting their own ideals does not diminish the power of those ideals for those of us who wish to follow them today and to do so while actually living up to the noble intended purpose of this country. If anything the fact that Washington and Jefferson owned slaves should push us forward to ensuring we create the society they envisioned even if they did not have the moral courage to follow through on their own words in their own time.
David says
Bob’s point, if I may be so bold, seems to me to be that the founders’ actions, rather than their words, should be taken as the best reflection of their view of the “intended purpose” of this country.
Christopher says
Slaveholder Jefferson was still right to proclaim that all men are created equal, giving us a vision of what we should aspire too even if he were not personally ready to go all the way.
jconway says
I get the founder’s fetish on the right is a dangerous thing, but Charles Beard’s historiography has largely fallen out of favor and his methodology was discredited. I enjoy reading him and it serves, along with Zinn, as a useful counterweight to mythical exceptionalist narratives. But I also think that Zinn’s history is rather dour, focused on the failures as much as the successes, and well balanced approach admits the flaws and embraces the virtues.
I would argue that Thoreau, Galveston, Douglas, and Lincoln in their own way each articulated a return to first Declaration principles approach to constitutionality that overturns slavery and justifies egalitarian public policies. De Tocqueville largely does the same thing with his seminal work, the spirit of the common people seems to align with the lofty ideals even if the elite themselves were hypocrites on slavery and many other issues.
Saying John Winthrop owned slaves therefore everything he said is invalidated seems like a rather slipper slope to slide down. It’s like the recent argument that since LBJ used the n word and was probably a racist in private, that it somehow invalidates his efforts on behalf of Civil Rights. Or that since Lincoln favored colonization and was leery of equality that he shouldn’t be revered as an Emancipator.
jconway says
I get that David was clarifying a point rather than endorsing it or making his own, though either is free to defend the Marxist approach to the founding.
jconway says
An economic approach to history is by formally called Marxist historiography, so I am not throwing that term as a pejorative. I’m also not a detractor, I do tend to view it as one layer of analysis out of many, rather than the only layer of analysis to apply.
David says
I think it’s a great idea to use the founders’ words as we would like them to be used. They are, after all, great words – no argument from me on that. I just think we should be careful about suggesting, as your earlier post did, that the founders really did want full equality for all Americans, regardless of sex, color, creed, or sexual orientation, but just couldn’t quite get there for some reason.
jconway says
I didn’t mean to imply that they did. Historically, no matter how hard hacks like Jon Meachem and more earnest folks like Gordon Wood try and reconcile it, they definitely did not favor gender or racial equality. John Adams in his writing may have, but certainly not to today’s standards. I do think a nuanced approach would say that those ideals have been reinterpreted for different generations, as the abolitionists I mentioned did, to justify better policies.
The arc of history bends towards justice, and the founding was the first break towards a democratic republic. We still have a long way to go before those words are converted into reality for too many American. But the protesters today are acting in the same spirit that drove the first patriots, even if they would be appalled at the kind of diversity and equality we have today. Obama’s 2nd inaugural articulated this point a lot better than I did 😛
Bob Neer says
Charlie was talking about the value and power of statements of principle. I agree they have a lot of power, but one has to consider the context in which they were written to understand and apply them most effectively to the present. Governor Patrick has said a lot of things. His legacy as a “liberal evangelist” will be judged primarily on his actions. His words are important insofar as they contributed to the latter.
SomervilleTom says
In my view, you are turning handsprings to avoid the glaring truth.
The Catholic church in Massachusetts sold its soul to the Devil when it intentionally aligned itself with the most extreme elements of the GOP. Your phrase “some of the Church’s more conservative teachings” turns handsprings to avoid this truth.
Even your use of the passive voice in that entire paragraph betrays the reality of what actually took place. The abuse scandal didn’t just happen. Cardinal Bernard Law was an active player in destroying the lives of thousands of innocent victims. He was also an active and influential player in Massachusetts politics. Rightly or wrongly, the Massachusetts political and governance system appeared to be complicit in both the abuse scandal and in Mr. Law’s subsequent removal from justice.
Similarly, the simultaneous decision to join forces with the political elements that advocate unrestrained greed, self-interest, and sheer power didn’t just happen. The resulting loss of political influence as a role of those willfully arrogant steps therefore also didn’t just happen.
The greatly diminished role of the Catholic church in Massachusetts is the direct consequence of that institution’s explicit and intentional betrayal of the responsibilities of the role. The Catholic church in Massachusetts betrayed its own beliefs and teachings, abused and squandered its political influence, and is rightly now paying the price.
It seems to me that first steps towards repairing the enormous damage the institution has done to itself involve humility, genuine repentance, and clear evidence that concrete and effective steps are being taken to prevent such abuses from ever happening again.
A first step might be for the institution to follow the lead of the new Pope and focus a great deal more on social justice and a great deal less on continuing the arrogant attempts to impose an archaic, patriarchal, and exploitative view of women on the society it wishes to minister to.
The healing of the Catholic church requires, in my view, a willingness of the institution to focus rather more on its own internal failings and rather less on the perceived failings it ascribes to the society around it.
merrimackguy says
I think the Catholic Church in MA is an arm of the Democratic Party, like the rest of the social services establishment. They get millions from the government to run their programs, and then turn a blind eye to the obvious social issue disconnect.
Maybe they shouldn’t have given all those annulments to Kennedys. Turned out it was a gateway drug.
jconway says
O’Malley is a down the middle Catholic as far as I’m concerned. Burying Ted was an act of basic decency, not an endorsement of all of his views or every action he had in his life. Similarly, you would have to back up the millions from government argument since most funds have dried up. O’Malley opposed casino gambling, abortion, euthanasia, the wars, and the death penalty while supporting immigration reform and universal health care. He has apologized profusely for the abuse record, sold property to pay victims, and converted all the old palaces into student housing for BC.
I’d rather a balanced bishop like O”Malley calling both sides to follow their conscience rather than what’s popular than an ideologue who downplays Catholic social teaching on labor, healthcare, immigration, and social and economic justice to focus strictly on using the state to impose Catholic sexual ethics on the rest of the population.
Peter Porcupine says
But I digress.
It was the Catholic Church who kept choice and contraception illegal and/or denied as health care up until 2002 when Finneran finally allowed MA companies to cover it. And their chosen arm for doing so was the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Issues of marriage equality were likewise treated (Rep. Goguen, for example)
The rhetoric of the Catholic church bears no resemblance to their boorish and bullying behavior.
I am a devout Christian, but I thank GOD I’m not a Catholic. And when it is stated above that ‘organized religion’ has been on the downswing for 400 years, I would say perhaps the Roman branch of the church, but not religion overall.
jconway says
I fear we are getting drawn into discussions about the particular merits and demirts of the Catholic church and missing the real meat of the conversation Charley was trying to start. He was referring to the church’s record on economic policies, and I would also add that we can thank Cardinal Law, as reprehensible as he was, for lobbying against the death penalty.
O’Malley has taken a lot of flack from right wing Catholics for his recent comments that he personally would allow women priests if it was ‘his’ church, and also for getting ashes and blessings from a Methodist minister in Sudbury. He also wasn’t around in 2002 during these fights.
I might add porcupine that even if aspects of the local Democratic party were anti-choice or contraception that the MA Republican Senator you voted for had a terrible record on these issues on Beacon and Capital Hill, and Polito was also on the wrong side of this fight and she was your party’s LG nominee while we nominated Coakley, incidentally a Catholic, who has been a fighter on women’s issues her other foibles notwithstanding.
What denomination are you in? They are all in precipitous decline save for Catholicism, and we can only thank immigration for that boost which I am sure will be temporary. Locally it has closed far fewer churches than its mainline counterparts, even if church closures dominate the headlines. Anyone who is continues to be religious these days is part of a declining trend in the US which will look European in a generation or two outside of the deep South if trend lines continue.
I am the only churchgoer left in my confirmation class, ironic since I actually dropped out of it at the time due to doubts. Only white male churchgoer in my 8th grade class at the time, not sure who still goes now. And I certainly felt like a minority at U Chicago as a lefty Catholic since the campus Catholic group was quite socially conservative and the campus Dem groups were fairly secular. That seems to be the way we are going, at least outside of the black and Latino communities which remain religious and economically progressive.
Peter Porcupine says
A Methodist.
And our Sunday School is full of the children of lapsed Catholics who want their children to have religious education – but not from that institution.
(BTW – to which Senator do you refer? Not snark, really not sure)
jconway says
Voted for the Blount amendment and broad leeway to Catholic hospitals not to serve contraception, not to mention you’re entire party in the Senate and House and majority on the court feels employers shouldn’t offer contraception. You can’t have it both ways porcupine and say the national party doesn’t speak for local Republicans but tie my party to Tommy Finneran and the other DINOs we regularly complain about here. It’s not fair.
It’s also not fair to call the RC sexist. I got nothing against Methodists, I live with two Methodist pastors and I intend to be married by a third to their daughter. Before meeting them, I attended Harvard Epworth UMC in high school during my lapsed period. I was the first in the family to go back to Mass, now my brother and sister in law are following me after getting burned out by evangelical churches, my ma might start going back to. The future wife isn’t swimming the Tiber yet, but she has grown to prefer the RC with it’s warts to the UMC with it’s warts, largely due to the racism directed against her dad in his last two parishes. Her mother has experienced plenty of sexism from congregations that feel she shouldn’t have been appointed their pastor, enough to drive her back into full time hospital chaplaincy where a woman pastor is more common. That said, I would hesitate to call the Methodist church racist or sexist in spite of those experiences, and would ask you extend my church the same courtesy.
jconway says
I think Charley explicitly condemned the church’s record on abuse and it’s record on social issues concerning bodily autonomy. The church, particularly it’s members in Massachusetts, have had a long and distinguished record agitating on behalf of workers, immigrants, and social justice more broadly. It’s a biblical language that the sometimes deist sometimes agnostic Lincoln was comfortable with, the Catholic Cuomo was comfortable with, and the Congregationalist Deval Patrick is comfortable with.
The point is these two liberals were quite comfortable arguing that our fight is a noble, moral, and spiritual fight. I think it is hard to argue this fight for justice is not a moral one. The particular moral qualms about various Christian figures in our distant past (Winthrop) or recent history (Cardinal Law) should not undermine the power that these words can have seeding the inspiration required to win this fight.
SomervilleTom says
I like the overall piece.
I take issue with the penultimate paragraph of the diary, not the thrust of the diary itself.
jconway says
Still not sure where Charley is disagreeing you. He argues they lost power due to secularization trends in general (you don’t see Mainline Protestants having the power they once had here either), and credibility gaps with the laity over sexual ethics and their own hypocrisy on the abuse scandal.
O’Malley seems personally and ideologically aligned with Francis, and I suspect many of the priests I had growing up were also excited by the changing of the guard. I also think as the Moral Monday movement shows, that every community of faith-including humanists and alternative believers-has a say in opposing the Darwinian and Randian economic and social vision of our shared foes. There is a new crop of evangelicals and Catholics who recognize that it is the market that primarily threatens the family-not gay families. That recognition if cultivated, could have a profound change on the way we view our politics. I am hopeful that as abortion and gay marriage finally begin to get recognized as settled issues, we can start having those conversations.
SomervilleTom says
I enthusiastically share your approval of the longer-term history of the Catholic church, especially in Massachusetts.
My comments are directed very specifically at what I see as a distinct betrayal of that history in the past three decades or so, beginning with the formal persecutions of politically active clergy like Father Drinan.
jconway says
One wonders how many right wing priests might’ve run had he been allowed to stay in office. Msgr. Vaghi, the former Republican operative who converted Bork and Gingrich comes to mind. John McGlaughlin of the McGlaughlin group also ran as a pro-war, pro-Nixon priest around the same time as Drinan. He didn’t win and eventually left the priesthood to marry and later become a media personality.
That said, it definitely seems like his position on abortion was the main reason he was banned. The irony is, rhetorically it doesn’t contradict Catholic teaching on the subject-merely whether the state has a role in enforcing it. His reasoning directly influenced Cuomo’s Notre Dame speech.
Charley on the MTA says
I’m saying that the Catholic church is one reason (among many) that Massachusetts is considered relatively liberal, as regards social safety net programs. My hope is that MA doesn’t turn away from that tradition of support because of the church’s diminished influence, due to the factors we both cite.
Christopher says
Bob’s snit about them above and their well-documented intolerance notwithstanding, Puritans had great faith in the power of education, and continually sought to discern God’s will through reason and discussion. They founded Harvard and Yale and set us on the path toward enlightenment even if they were not always particularly enlightened themselves. That both the state they founded and their main successor denomination, the United Church of Christ, are now bastions of liberalism I would submit is no coincidence even if it seems ironic on the surface.
sabutai says
I mean, what? The Pope to the rescue? Sure, he isn’t openly corrupt or snide about people who don’t agree with him, but they’re selling the same ideology, just with a softer pitch.
The majority of the Supreme Court, the greatest obstacle to equality in our land, is Catholic. The greatest example of the Coldness of Conservatism, and its failures is Sam Brownback. And he’s doubling down on his eradication of Kansas in the name of ideology. Paul LePage is Catholic, as is John Boehner and the odious Virginia Foxx.
Yes, you can riposte with Joe Biden and the Kennedys. Of course. Because this idea that Catholicism makes you some sort of great communicator (is Liz Warren Catholic?) or good person is horse hooey. I was raised in Catholic Church, and the idea of putting a Papist above a good ol’ revivalist preacher as a motivator and communicator is risible. Insofar as religion impacts your ability to communicate with empathy, I would not put the Catholics high on the list.
It’s nifty that two people who were in the news and you like are both Catholic. But wow is it a stretch to call it more than coincidence. (On another note, strange that I have read little of Cuomo’s biggest legacy that I can remember — his ongoing flirtation with a presidential run in 1992 that kept many candidates and activists off-balance, opening the way for Bill Clinton to build his organization.)
jconway says
First off, Deval is a Protestant, and Charley’s post has little to do with Catholicism. Charley’s point is that liberalism should be evangelized and that these two fantastic orators were great at communicating the moral urgency of liberalism to a mass audience. Cuomo paid a serious political and personal price for respecting the right to choose, within his faith and outside of it. I don’t see why his Catholicism is to be used as a cudgel against him, as if the sins of a moronic convert like Brownback somehow outweigh the great crusades for social justice waged by Catholic Democrats and the religious faithful of all denominations.
Charley is saying let us not let liberalism become a sterile, cold, individualistic ideology. Liberalism used to be synonymous with concern for the common good. And that concern used to be univeralist and embracing of all faiths or those with no faith. Now, liberalism is synonymous with a host of elitist cultural cliches, many of which your above post unintentionally embodies. Too secular, too remote, too aloof, too stuck in the academy.
A Democratic party secularized to the point of moral numbness is one as we have well seen that is far more receptive to an atheist vulture capitalist from Silicon Valley with the right cultural attitudes than it is to a predominately Catholic union hall in Dayton. Far too many progressives, even on this site, would vote for a libertarian against Joe Moakley, a liberal stalwart on every issue save for abortion. I am not endorsing cultural conservatism, I am saying our movement is more than a series of cultural attitudes and reactions. At it’s best-it is an uplifting ideology that tries to unite all Americans to look out for one another. And that communitarian spirit was embodied more broadly by the general population when it was more devout.
There is a reason Rand and Reagan were mutual admirers, there is a reason an athiest pro-choice, pro gay marriage libertarian like Koch can still find a home in the Republican party-because theirs has always been a movement united by the belief that it is better to make the rich richer. Let’s go back to our roots and make liberalism once again mean making sure everyone has a fair shot. Full stop.
SomervilleTom says
The very word “evangelical” tends to exclude the institutional Catholic church in favor of Protestant denominations such as the Southern Baptist tradition of my family of origin. I have learned a great deal about evangelism, moral and otherwise, during my life and I submit that very little of that comes from the institutional Catholic church. I’m not bashing the Catholic church, I’m just observing that “evangelism” has not been part of its culture in Massachusetts or America during my lifetime.
I enthusiastically agree with the premise of the diary that a “liberal evangelism” is urgently needed. I find the exchanges about the Catholic church (that I have perhaps mistakenly contributed to) a distraction from that premise.
In my view, again without bashing the institutional Catholic church, that premise — that we urgently need a revitalized liberal evangelism — is today and will be for the foreseeable future set back by attempting to fold the institutional Catholic church into it.
I think it’s long past time we talk about “liberal evangelism” and leave the Catholic church out of it.
That train has left the station, and it left an enormous number of Massachusetts liberals standing on the platform when it did so.
jconway says
I think we are on the same page in terms of what liberal evangelism means and why it is essential. I would contend there are Catholic allies within and without the institutional church ready to take this on. O’Malley, Francis, Cupich and other institutional leaders will be allies on some issues and opponents on others. Their work in areas where they align against us shouldn’t dismiss their potential in areas where we might be able to work together. That’s how I’ve always viewed it. And this should apply to any kind of group outside of the progressive movement. I welcome libertarian allies against militarization, the drug war, and social conservatism , I reject their worship of the free market. I welcome socially conservative skeptics of the market to join me in hoping to restrain it, while rejecting their views on social issues.
Liberalism if it is to survive and thrive must articulate clear and concise moral principles to back up the policies it wants to implement. As Bob pointed out, we need strong grassroots pressure and organization to ensure they are elected when the poetry of the campaign has to give way to the prose of governing. But being evangelist about the morality of our cause is essential.
merrimackguy says
On average you are 25% of the comments on many posts and I bet 50% of the words.
Christopher says
If you actually read jconway’s posts over the years you will note that he has in fact done quite a bit with his life – more than most his age I’d reckon.
merrimackguy says
and just about every one is debating mostly him. I don’t know what he does- I’m only guessing that he has limited options. He’s posted 8 times already today on top of 14 yesterday. Yesterday ran to several thousand words.
I don’t really care. I just don’t read them after a while. I thought maybe he’d appreciate having it pointed out- sort of like an annoying habit.
Christopher says
His comments are always substantive and IMO contribute greatly to the discussions, even when we disagree. You sound like you are describing EB3:)
jconway says
Like I said to his critics, you don’t like what someone posts feel free to pass on by. I’ve liked some of your posts in the past, some of them I dislike it, it’s all good. I assume most of us are blogging here because we are bored at work. I blogged a lot less when I was in school and when I was unemployed, if I can get my ass in front of a classroom in the next year you will see a lot less of me here as well. Cheers, and hope the rest of you day is better than your morning.
Charley on the MTA says
I don’t know what points you’re responding to, but I don’t think they’re the ones that are actually in my post.
merrimackguy says
as this post had gone in so many directions that I thought that might be pert of it.