Transitions and self-indulgence

This blog was supposed to get the writing juices flowing–to limber me up so I could (finally) start to recognize my potential as a writer. As it turns out, it hasn’t worked that way. It’s become the thing that I write. The other stuff–the stuff this was supposed to stimulate–just hasn’t happened.

With the exception of the past two days, I’ve either written or published something (usually both) every day since early 2020. Though the lunacy of the past almost-three years has made things easier, it’s hard to write something fresh and new every day. As with all daily activities, the quality’s been variable, but the effort’s always been there.

But now I feel something pulling on me. I’d like to think it’s God nudging me toward the next thing–whatever that is.

I feel like I’m at a crossroads–then again, aren’t we all? As I get older and realize the weight of the things I’ve messed up, it makes me work harder not to make those particular mistakes any more. Sometimes I fail monumentally, but those failures are becoming less common–though I’ve had my share over the past month or so.

I don’t want to be the person I am; I want to be the person I can be. I want to keep the good about myself and undo the things I know have added weight to other peoples’ lives. I recognize that life rarely works that way, but it’s still a pretty goal.

I want to be what God created me to be–accountable only to him, but responsible to the people around me. I want to do my best and have it be good enough.

I want to silence the voice that comes out of the dark corners of my soul, the places where my secrets and flaws are magnified and trumpet themselves in an almost deafening volume sometimes. I want to stop playing chess with that dark ugly version of Chris. He’s awfully good at it. Countermoves are easy when your entire goal is to create damage and accuse someone of being awful, then stand back while that person convicts himself.

I’ve written a lot about God’s love on this blog, but the truth is I’m a hypocrite when it comes to that. I like the idea of it, but I’m not convinced yet.

I’m not dying at this particular time, but the days are no longer endless. The transition to the next thing hovers out there. With luck, it’s over the horizon someplace. But the time is shorter to make things the best they can be.

That may or may not involve writing. That’s kind of up to God. But this is the end of a year–a pretty good one, all things considered. And it’s time to start considering a transition.

I have no earthly idea what that means. I just hope I can approach that transition with gusto and grace.

And I hope whatever comes is something I can use to help make things better for those around me.

About my first boss

I wouldn’t say that my first boss was ever really a friend. We knew each other. On and off, we liked each other. Of the people I’ve worked for, he was one of the better bosses. (No, shade thrown there–I’ve had some outstanding bosses.)

And in fairness, I could be a pain in the ass in those days.

But I learned a lot on that first job. One of the lessons was that the person in charge sets the tone for the organization. Even when that person’s not there, you still feel their presence. They establish the rules. He set a great framework.

My first job was at a small supermarket in upstate New York. I worked in the meat room, which was also a deli. It was my best experience at a small business, a sweet, easy job, though I was too immature at the time to realize it. You went in. You cut meat, made subs, and did whatever. And the worst thing that could happen to you was the rare customer who got angry for no reason or you had to was the machine that made cube steaks.

It was drilled into us that while it’s important to be friendly, the customers aren’t there for the ambiance. They want to come in, get their stuff, and move on. To this day, it’s hard for me to not morally judge people who take nineteen years to make a sub (I’m looking at you, Publix).

The back room wound up being a collection of irregulars that rivaled Cheers. Mostly they were older guys, but they treated us kids as equals, more or less. They’d come in, grab a coffee, and sit on the rollers you unloaded the groceries on, and shoot the shit. When they were there, it was probably the most fun I ever got paid for.

My boss wasn’t thrilled by their presence, but he tolerated it. And I learned a lot from those guys. I picked up sayings and habits I still use to great effect today. And I still use skills I picked up on that job.

The tone of that back room is what I try for when I deal with people at work. It’s light whenever it can be. You get to know each other, and maybe razz each other a little. But underneath it, if you need something, it’s a team sport.

It took me a long time to realize the depth of what I learned at that job, and then to apply those lessons. I’m pretty good at it now. I’ve had some wonderful mentors, but my first boss set the baseline.

He closed the store several years ago. I talked to his son, who’d been running it and suggested I text him. I did, thanking him for the experience.

I found out yesterday that he died. I haven’t seen him in probably 15 years or longer. But he put an imprint on me that’s still there, and that I hope I pass along to others.

People die–all of us do. But our influence can outlive us, and that’s the greatest legacy. It can affect people we don’t even know exist.

So today, I’m grateful for that first boss and all I learned there–even if it took me too long to realize how to use it. And I wish his family peace as they face this loss so close to the holiday season.

The picture is of Galway Market, which used to be in Galway, New York. It’s the first place I ever worked and though it’s been closed a while, it still holds a place in my heart.

A challenging travel day shows the good in people

I traveled before the latest storm of the century, but I was trying to get out of Chicago, a major hub, also ground zero for the bomb cyclone named Ditka or Elliot or ET or something. I was traveling four days before Christmas. The people who couldn’t get out of town yesterday, they might not get out until Saturday, given the forecast (50 mile per hour wind gusts, wind chill of 40 below).

Around the country, a lot of people tried to travel during a busy time during a major winter storm. At one point, I heard that 190 million people–more than half the population of the country–was under some type of winter weather advisory. (Here in Tampa, we have (dun dun dun) a freeze warning.)

No one threw a monitor at an American Airlines employee.

In fact, no one was rude or overbearing to anyone. People were decent, even as gate agents begged for volunteers and told a lot of people their bags would have to be checked to their final destinations because the overhead space was gone. Even as people stood huddled around monitors trying to see when their flight might leave or if they might be able to fly standby.

When we see people acting like idiots in public places–like crowded airports or on black Friday, there tends to be hand wringing and pronouncements that people are schmucks and things aren’t what they used to be.

That ignores the vast majority of people who do their best to get through a difficult circumstance with class and dignity–who understand it’s hard for everyone and no one purposely set out to make things difficult.

The people I traveled around yesterday were pleasant and decent. They didn’t yell at the gate agent. They didn’t get in peoples’ faces for wearing or not wearing masks. They talked to each other, or not, as they wished. They did the best they could.

That’s what people do. For the most part, they try their best to be decent, even when things are difficult.

If you’re traveling today, best of luck to you–you may very well need it. But you’ll be in good company. And you’ll be served by people who got up this morning knowing how hard their jobs would be–and who pasted a smile on their faces and decided to do their best anyway (well, most of them).

It’s no fun traveling at the holidays, and it’s less fun when Jim Cantore is excited. But people are doing their best, and if there’s nothing else to celebrate, that’s quite a bit.

Stanford asserts its moral purity in the proper use of language and we’re all richer for it.

Sometimes people are so agonizingly pretentious in pointing out presumed offenses against others, that they irritate more people than they convert. To this proud pantheon of aggressive progressives, you can add Stanford University.

Fifteen minutes ago, it was considered progressive to talk about someone’s preferred pronouns. Giving credence to someone’s preference was considered respectful and appropriate. Now, it’s a slur to discuss preferred pronouns because it “suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference.” You should just say pronouns.

This is according to the Stanford’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI), which seeks to “eliminate many forms of harmful language, including racist, violent, and biased…language in Stanford websites and code.” It’s a multi-year, multi-phase project (aren’t those always the best kind?) to remove harmful language from IT and presumably act as a model for others to emulate to eliminate bad things and create a world safe for bunnies and unicorns.

If Stanford wants to eliminate the words dumb (ableist) and stupid (imprecise), they get to do that. It’s a free society. But these lists tend to turn from suggestions to moral imperatives–kind of the progressive equivalent of saying Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays.

The words the forward thinkers at Stanford want to consign to the ash heap of history included addict or addicted, crazy (the ghost of Patsy Cline is screwed) and insane, lame, OCD, paraplegic and quadriplegic, tone deaf, and stand-up meeting. (Apparently, stand-up comedy is okay–for the moment.) All of these words are ableist.

Senile is ageist and referring to the Philippine Islands is colonialist, unless you happen to be Filipino.

If you call someone chief, you’re either trivializing the elected position of chief or just using a slur. Guru is considered a slur because it negates real guru status. Spirit animal demeans the significance of true spirit animals and any use of the word tribe equates indigenous people with savages. All because cultural appropriation sucks.

Aside from murdering Mr. Takagi, Hans Gruber showed gender-based insensitivity by calling his hostages ladies and gentlemen. At least he didn’t call them prisoners, which is also hurtful. And since he died when he fell from Nakatomi plaza, he doesn’t have to worry about the indignity of being called a convict.

Also any use of he or she without first checking to make sure that’s the pronoun a person has requested people use is wrong. You should always presume that people prefer the use of a plural pronoun unless told otherwise.

In the imprecise category, we’re not allowed to be Americans any more because there are 42 countries in the Americas. As United States citizens (the preferred term), we’re no better than any of them (and we’re probably worse). Fortunately, for my flight later today, I’ll be taking Delta, not United States Citizen airlines.

Any use of the word prostitute defines people by just one of their characteristics. It’s possible whore is okay, though, as it’s not addressed in the guidelines.

And instead of saying Karen, we must say demanding or entitled White woman because it’s okay to lump pigment-deficient people together negatively. And people of color, which was once preferred is now a slur because…we should name the specific group or use Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

Straight people shouldn’t be called straight because that implies they’re normal (also a word that shouldn’t be used.) Survivor is bad (the band will be bummed). And user might offend people who exploit others for their own gain. That’s right, that sociopath you work with has feelings, too, and you should never demean them by pointing out they use other people.

The list goes on (and on). You might call it beating a dead horse, but that would normalize violence against animals (because of the multitudes of people who seek out horse carcasses and smack the snot out of them). We aren’t supposed to reference trigger warnings because you could stress people with what follows. Content note is somehow better, but you are allowed to use trigger as a verb. Eventually they’ll figure out a trigger is part of a gun and guns are bad.

And best of all, although the standard admits there’s no proof that rule of thumb came from a British law that allowed men to beat their wives with a stick no wider than their thumb, some people think it’s an actual thing, so it’s best not to use it.

Except that use might offend people who exploit others for their own gain.

Somehow none of this is considered paternalistic (if one can use such a word) toward the people who they’re supposedly trying to protect. As if the use of the word guys will send anyone who doesn’t identify as male into a tailspin from which there is no recovery.

Any pushback against this dumb, stupid nonsense can be quickly branded as privileged assholes exerting their supposed right to be privileged assholes. After all, these lists are about decency and it won’t will you to follow them.

The fact that these lists reek of arrogance and turn people off to some of the reasonable terms in the list is irrelevant. Right makes might and any time you’re offended on someone else’s behalf, you are a wonderful human being. Until those words become offensive, then you’ll be something else.

The hard thing Jesus wants from us

I don’t like Kari Lake. She’s myopic and bad for the country. I don’t like that she gave her political opponents what we euphemistically called the Italian salute. I don’t like that it’s all about her and everyone else can kiss her butt. She seems like a person devoid of warmth to me.

And I am to pray for her. I am to love her. I am to want the best for her.

It’s not just her. It’s the guy who does four miles per hour in the parking lot at Publix. Or the person who screws up traffic by stopping twenty-five feet behind the next car at the stop light so you can’t make the left at this light. Or that person who works at making your life miserable simply because they can.

I’m to love the unlovable because Jesus loved me when I was unlovable. He still loves me when I’m unloveable. When I make the same mistakes again and again and again, he doesn’t walk away.

I don’t have to like these people. I don’t have to give them a big hug and a sloppy wet kiss. I don’t have to buy a beer for them. And I definitely don’ t have to let them use me as a doormat.

But I have to find my way clear to love them. When things are hard and I want to strangle them or at least give them a piece of my righteously offended mind, I need to take a breath, step back, and remember what I’ve been asked to do.

That’s the hard part.

It’s easy to love someone who treats you well. Everyone can do that. It’s harder to take a second and try to look past what’s been done and understand why they did it.

If Jesus came to a time when it wasn’t comfortable to live and he died as horrific a death as humanity could engineer, he didn’t do all that stuff so we could be comfortable in our Jesusy cocoon.

He came so we could do the hard things. He asks us to do the hard things. And he will honor our efforts to do the hard things.

The real reason for the season

I’ve seen more people bitching about people who lose their mind when someone says “Happy holidays,” than I’ve seen people who actually lose their mind over it. But the signs and the bumper stickers are out there, reminding us of the reason for the season.

For me, Jesus is the reason for the season. I’m a Christian. That means that Jesus was the reason I got a little flustered a couple weekends ago when I looked at what I wanted to get done for the holidays and realized time was a problem. He’s the reason I’m agonizing over what to get for those hard-to-buy-for relatives.

Yeah, there are other holidays around this time of year. Hannukah, New Year’s, Kwanzaa, Bob Barker’s birthday. But let’s pretend for a minute that Jesus is the only reason for the season.

Would Jesus have me wigging out about the things I need to get done and the time in which I need to do them? Would he be pleased that you’re at wit’s end trying to figure out how to find the perfect gift within your budget? Is he excited that you’re exhausted from all the special holiday Christmas concerts, parties, and events for your kids? Does he care about that business trip I’m trying to get done before the end of the year?

To some degree, the answer is yes. But Jesus made a point of not coming just for the holy people. Part of the message is that none of us are righteous, not even Dolly Parton. We all mess up. We all fall short.

Jesus is the physical manifestation of the fact that God is madly in love with us anyway.

We’re all imperfect. God loves us anyway. We should do our best to love each other.

It’s simple, but not easy.

But it should take a load off to know that we don’t have to perform for his love.

When you love someone and they do their best, that’s always good enough. And when they see things a little differently, that’s not a reason for anger and dismissal.

If Jesus is the reason for the season and we really believe that, it means we need to stop being so damned uptight about everything. It means we get to accept love and let it work its way through us and change us.

Jesus said you can tell his followers by their fruit. But fruit just happens in trees and bushes. An apple tree doesn’t grunt and groan to generate apples. It’s an apple tree. They just come.

So, yes, Jesus is the reason for the season. He is. Not our understanding of him. Not our need for everyone to celebrate according to our wishes.

He didn’t demand that we cajole people into seeing things our way. He asked us to love his father and to love him. On these two commandments hang all the prophets and the law.

The mass exodus from Christianity and the mirror

When I read stories about things like the Mass Exodus for Christianity in America, I’m uncomfortable. I’m not shy when it comes to writing about my faith. I’m also the guy who stopped wearing his WWJD bracelet years ago because I knew I wasn’t providing an example that brought people to Jesus.

A good Christian lives the type of life that makes people look at Jesus and say, “Hey, I want some of that.” I can be a generous person. I have a great sense of humor and I’ve worked really hard to become different than the asshole I was earlier in my adult life. But I’m hardly a beacon of Christian living.

It’s possible that none of us are.

But I can make Eeyore look like an optimist. I can be small and petty. I can make the entire world about me. I can be mercilessly judgmental. And I can throw a stay away vibe better than the most aggressive rattlesnake.

I’m better than I was and I lot of that has to do with prayer and honesty in front of God. But I’m not a model Christian. I’m probably not attracting throngs of people to the faith.

I’m a flawed person who understands where he falls short and wants to be better. Life features a lot of things that will always be unchangeably hard. The last thing I want to do is to add to those things. First do no harm.

But that’s a low bar.

Jesus came to show us a way to make things as right as they can be here. He didn’t come to wag a finger in our faces. He didn’t come to lecture us and tell us that we needed to try harder to please our Heavenly Supervisor as we head toward that big performance appraisal in the sky.

He came because sometimes living here sucks. And if free will doesn’t allow him to make the suck go away, at least he wanted to show us he didn’t look at all the suckiness from high atop the thing. He bared it with us. He went through all the crap we go through, but with bad shoes and no air conditioning. He wants to accept us as we are and love us as we try to be decent to each other.

If religion is a lot of marketing, in a dark, increasingly hostile world, that should be the easiest message to sell. But we’re so bad at it.

God knows my flaws, but somehow he sees clear to love me anyway. So I need to do my best to love you. That I fail at it so often isn’t a function of God, but of me.

So if you look at us–at Christians–and say you don’t want any part of that, then I’m sorry. It really isn’t horrible or scary. It’s made me much less small and self-centered. It’s made me grateful and helped me see beyond the dark, damning voices that can dominate my mind sometimes.

I’m a Christian, but I’m not God. And I’m not so arrogant as to say God can’t manifest himself in different ways to reach different people.

I know life is hard and it really sucks sometimes. I just hope the next time it sucks for you that I, or someone like me, will help it be a little less sucky. And that we won’t be jerks about it.

As for what happens later, after we die, that’s not for me to work out. I just need to do my best while I’m here. And that means helping you out, too.

We’re robbing the next generation of optimism

I felt a rush of optimism this morning during my run and thought about how optimistic I’d be if I were 17 and running and had my whole life in front of me to start before I got to the point where everything hurt and my body made me lay off periodically.

Then I thought about how cool it would be to have my whole life in front of me again–a giant unwritten sheet of paper. In 1986, there was a song by Timbuk 3 called My Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades. I was older than 17 then, but the message resonated with me.

I’m the farthest thing from 17 now, and I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a world where you have to be trained what to do when someone enters your school with a gun and starts executing your classmates.

We’ve stolen optimism from our children. I don’t think we’ve done it intentionally, but done is done.

On the right, we’re preaching a gospel of how decrepit out country is. It’s corrupt and broken and if the next election doesn’t go the right way, we won’t have any country left. We have to fear the immigrants and the liberals (Communists) and the pedophiles who seem to pop up everywhere someone opposes any fire-breathing conservative.

On the left, it’s no brighter. We’re a more racist, homophobic misogynist society than we’ve ever been and unless we vastly modify the underpinnings of everything there is, we have no hope of being anything more than a scourge on the world. How can you be optimistic when there’s so much carnage and injustice in the world? To see a bright future is to deny the experienced of those who are so badly victimized.

Both sides are right–and wrong.

We do need to pay attention to our borders, and though pedophiles aren’t lurking in every school library, they’re out there. Crime’s a problem, but it’s been a problem before. In the 1980s, it was all the rage to remove the radio from your car to prevent the predators from stealing it. Now our cars have computers in them and if someone’s going to steal them, it’s more likely they’re after the catalytic converter than anything else.

And we do have issues around race and decent treatment of minorities, from Jews to the LGBTQ+ community to people of color. But I’m almost old enough to know when separate-but-equal was a lie we told ourselves to keep the status quo. In spite of my fondness for Yeoman Rand on Star Trek and Gayle Shufelt in seventh grade, someone decided I was a gay boy and need to have my ass kicked.

We’re a long way from perfect–and no one should be persecuted for what they are–but we aren’t collectively what we were when I was seven or even seventeen.

As a society, we’ve done amazing things. We have a world of information at our fingertips. We’ve created food substitutes for people who can’t eat standard fare. People who died of heart attacks in their mid-fifties when I was a kid would live to their eighties today because of improvements in healthcare. In spite of all the cultural arguments, magnet schools provide opportunities I never dreamed of to find and pursue your passions.

It’s not wrong to be optimistic. You don’t need to check your privilege for seeing the future as a place of possibility and wonder.

In the past three years we’ve been through a series of things our grandparents wouldn’t understand. Our technological abilities are increasing geometrically, far outpacing our ability to adjust societally to them. It’s a time of transition, and it’s not pretty. But given the rate of change, maybe pretty isn’t a reasonable expectation.

The future will be amazing because we have a generation coming that has more opportunities than we’ve dreamed of. They care about the things that affect them, and though they aren’t making all the decisions we think are best, that’s how it works with new generations. My children are part of that generation and they give me hope that the future will be far greater than the past ever was.

As those destined to fade into memory, we need to do a better job creating a framework for optimism and affirming it where it exists.

If we don’t at least allow for the existence of magic, we’ll never ever find it. And neither will our children.

Disability’s not a dirty word, but it can be a scary one

It’s almost been like clockwork recently–I run for a couple of months, then something happens and I have to stop. Earlier this year, it was a Fibro flare and a bad Moderna hangover. Then it was the Covid. Then I got cellulitis in my foot. This morning was the first decent run I’ve had in a month–six miles. My pace wasn’t quite what it was before, but it wasn’t bad.

If anything can give you an appreciation for running, it’s not being able to run. Seeing someone out getting their work in and knowing you can’t do it is a punch in the gut sometimes.

I thought about that this morning as I looked at Twitter and saw a post from a woman who’s name includes Disabled is not a dirty word.

I’m not disabled. I’ve never qualified for the special hang tag that lets me park next to the store. But I have been limited. I’ve worked from bed because that’s the best I could do. I’ve stopped to rest as I’ve crossed the living room because I didn’t have a choice.

Working from a desk is better. Crossing a room is better. Running is better. There’s no world where I want to be the guy who can’t work a full week because I can’t work a full week.

Disability terrifies me. Thinking of it gives me vivid flashbacks of 2015, when severe health problems combined with a project from hell at work shook me in ways that still reverberate.

I don’t like being damaged goods. No one does. If I’m completely honest, having been limited for the better part of a year back then, disabled is a scary word. It’s filled with dark memories, more terrifying than an entire Well of Souls filled with snakes. It makes me feel weak and tiny and impotent.

Having been there, it also fills me with gratitude. This morning’s run was hard. I wasn’t making the pace I wanted, so I pushed myself the last mile and just got in under the wire. Yesterday’s run came before the front passed through. It was miserable and I was still sweating half an hour later when I got in the car to go to work.

And yet, both runs were marvelous. I understand once again the great privilege of running.

I also understand why that person insists disabled’s not a dirty word. It’s hard to sit inside, living life vicariously through people on TV while the world goes on outside. You feel forgotten and useless–kind of like Buzz and Woody when Andy starts to get older and starts to dream of girls and cars instead of cowboys and space.

Ours is a performance-based world. The bottom line is the bottom line and if you can’t help there, then we’ll find someone who can. It’s important to be productive–to accomplish things. But it’s also important to be human. To find room and ways to accommodate those who need a little extra help to contribute.

I didn’t choose to be sick in 2015. It wasn’t my fault. It just happened. I was blessed that my employer accommodated me–and probably would’ve accommodated me more if I’d asked them to.

That experience gave me appreciation for the people who have to make accommodations to find their best lives. And for the abilities I have right now to find mine. I do my best to not take runs or even cross the room for granted.

Though odds are against it, we could all be the guy who can’t cross the room. So it’s best to appreciate it each time we can–and to not forget the people who can’t.

Protecting parental freedom by unilaterally banning books

Clay County Florida librarians have been banned from purchasing any new books, or replacing existing books with new copies. There has been no reason given for the ban, but there have been scores of politically instigated challenges to library books. Most of the challenged books being pulled from shelves, pending review by a District Curriculum Council made up of rotating school officials.

The man behind most of the challenges, Bruce Friedman, gave cursory explanations for his requests, saying the reason for the request was to protect children and objectionable materials was inappropriate content. Beyond that, he gave almost no specifics were provided in the requests. Until recently, the books were pulled under a policy that called for review after a single complaint.

Although the county has cited the lack of specifics as it’s stopped taking Friedman’s challenges seriously, he’s compiled a list of more than 3,600 books he thinks should be pulled from library shelves. He’s filed more than 350 challenges that have resulted in 102 books being pulled from library shelves. Until recently, he hadn’t read any of the books.

Clay County is about halfway between St. Augustine and Gainesville. Its Library Media Services procedures manual lays out the following standard for library books under Florida Law HB 1467: they’re free of pornography, they’re suited to student needs and ability to comprehend the material, and their appropriate for the students’ age and grade level. Most of the books Friedman cites have been pulled from lists compiled by conservative groups and contain LGBTQ-friendly content, as well as concerns about racial topics.

According to a media release by Governor Ron DeSantis, HB 1467 “aims to preserve the rights of parents to make decisions about what materials their children are exposed to in school.”

That justification is paradoxical when one person, Friedman, a guy who lived in New York City until seven months ago, has assumed the mantle of making those decisions for all the parents in the state. Friedman has said, “You don’t want little children questioning their budding little bodies.”

From the time a little boy realizes it feels good when he touches his pee pee, kids question their budding little bodies. As they pass through puberty, the questioning becomes an obsession–it’s part of growing up.

Yes, there is a group of people who want to sexualize children and who believe enlightenment comes from getting them to reconsider their birth sex. But those people don’t make up the content of 3,600 books in a standard school library. There’s no data to indicate that school librarians are progressive zealots set on making kids demand sex. Yet Friedman justifies his actions by saying librarians are encouraging “surgery and hormones.”

Is it possible there are inappropriate books and that Friedman’s efforts might catch them? Yes. But at what cost? And why does one person get to decide what all the children in a specific county get to read?

It’s ironic that Friedman is citing Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, which prohibits Critical Race Theory in Florida classrooms as part of his justification. But Friedman is being just as arbitrary and inflexible as the most woke progressive, threatening to file challenges designed to overwhelm the review system–because everyone should see the world as he does.

In a free society, one guy doesn’t get to determine what everyone in a county gets to read. He doesn’t get to make decisions for all of the parents in the county. According to Friedman, if anyone who gets in his way as he tries to set an example for the entire country, he’ll “run over them like a dead body.” Veiled threats of violence are apparently okay if your heart’s in the right place.

If you don’t want your kid reading a specific book, that’s your right as a parent. No one’s forcing kids to bring these books home. But if you want your kids exposed to a diversity of viewpoints, Friedman thinks his opinions, typically based on not having read the book, outweighs your parental authority.

That’s not freedom; it’s very much the opposite.