I can’t recall a time, since the Civil War in our country’s history, of more rancor and suspicion than the one we’re experiencing right now and over the past five years. The labels of Democrat and Republican have taken on an extremely contentious sense of competition, as during no other time in my seventy-six years. This is due partly to our having endowed each with truckloads of stereotypes and presumption not seen since the last world war with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy.
What bothers me about Democrats the past five years is the almost “Anything goes” lack of parameters (defined limits) in their quest to please everyone. Republicans have also disturbed my sense of balance with their delusional, self-righteous desire for almost absolute monarchy (which they see as strength and power) with a truly dangerous muttonhead on the throne, who they know will addle their imagined opponents by creating more sneering power for themselves. Such rancor isn’t even for enemy nations. It’s all internal.
The rest of the world is beginning to see us as a big Punch and Judy show on the world stage. We’ve lost our sense of balance and manners, as well as almost every other remnant of civilized discourse and behavior. I’m happy that space travel is still on our collective agenda. Relocating to other planets may eventually be our only option to avoid what we have now created. Maybe there will eventually be a planet for Democrats and another one just for the GOP. JB
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
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