Art Presages Life
Scene — The breakfast table at the Kane mansion.
EMILY KANE: Really, Charles. People will think….
CHARLES FOSTER KANE: What I tell them to think!
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Politics
So, yesterday I’m driving home from the Indianapolis Public Library, central branch, an ignored treasure if there ever was one, and I get a call. I’m on SR 37 — the future I-69, between Indy and Martinsville — so I can’t pick the phone up. I mean, I’d seen at least a half dozen people already in the texting/driving position, heads bowed slightly, one hand on the wheel, their eyes jerking up sporadically as if they’ve suddenly remembered they’re piloting a ton and a half of metal, plastic and rubber at 68 mph, but jeez, this convo I’m having with Rachel about her stupid boyfriend, you’ve gotta realize, it’s far more important than anybody’s life, right?
Anyway, I’m the good citizen so I wait until I get to Chez Big Mike to find out who’s bugging me. Star 86. It’s a guy with a very deep voice and a very thick Middle Eastern accent. It’s almost difficult to make out what he’s saying…, but, wait, really, not too difficult, as if whoever conjured this man out of thin air wants me to know what he’s saying in no uncertain terms.
He’s saying tomorrow’s election day. And, for god’s sake, the whole of the Senate and the House will be up for grabs. So we must go out and vote. Our future depends on it.
And then the guy signs off, making sure I know he’s from some kind of Arab-American organization, so generically named that it just can’t be real and — you know what? — I’ll guarantee you it ain’t.
Here They Come!
I’ll guarantee you further that this is some kind of political punking, staged by…, well, take a guess. The idea being I’ll be so scared that I’ll 1) poo in my pants and 2) make goddamned sure to go out and vote tomorrow to stop them Sharia Law Ay-Rabs from taking over this holy land Wednesday AM after the votes have been counted.
I suppose some folks are afraid that maybe the dreaded “caravan” isn’t enough to whip up the troops this year.
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Speaking Of Politics
Outspoken — often outrageous — Indiana University political science professor Jeff Isaac and I will dissect the 2018 election on this week’s Big Talk, Thursday at 5:30pm on WFHB, 91.3 FM. It’ll also stream live at that time and I’ll post a link to the podcast at 6pm sharp.
Isaac’s champing at the bit to come on my chatfest because he’s just released a spanking new book called Against Trump: Notes From Year One. Dig this blurb:
In Jeffrey Isaac, Donald Trump, his movement, and his party have met the most lucid, eloquent adversary imaginable. He is both rousing and logical. He is blunt where bluntness is called for, where the alternative to bluntness is blindness.
And y’know who wrote that blurb? Todd freaking Gitlin, uber-famed chronicler of the New Left and prof. at Columbia University. How’s that for props?
Isaac and I will try to figure out what will have gone down tomorrow and what it all means for us, our kids and our kids’ kids.
Honestly, Big Talk’s on a roll this month. My guest next week will be Debra Morrow, exec director of Middle Way House, and the week after that I’ll have Black Lives Matter activist Vauhxx Booker on the program. Booker will also be the subject of this month’s Big Mike’s B-town column, a regular feature in the Limestone Post.
How’m I gonna top that in Dec.?
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A question if I may. Is there a Professor in the Political Science Department at IU to provide a counterbalance Prof. Isaac?
Of course there is. Or I should say are. And he/they can go on their own friends’ radio shows.