From December 2012 — Jordan Russell Davis (Stand Your Ground)

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Josh Davis

The nation spent a good part of this year trying to make sense of Trayvon Martin’s killing.  Remarkably, at least to me, much of the discussion centered on whether or not the young man assaulted George Zimmerman and not about whether George Zimmerman should simply have left the scene and yielded authority to the police.  As that matter heads to trial in Florida, some news sources are beginning to tell the story of Jordan Russell Davis, whose death strikes me as yet another example of why the “stand your ground” laws in Florida and elsewhere need to be undone.

Jordan Russell Davis was shot to death outside a convenience store in Jacksonville, Florida by Michael David Dunn.  Davis was 17 and African American.  Dunn is 45 and White.  Davis was in an SUV listening to loud music with friends.  Dunn drove up to the convenience store and complained about Davis’s music while his girlfriend was in the convenience store.  The two men argued.  Dunn reportedly fired eight shots at Davis.  Davis was killed, none of the other young people in the car were injured.  Dunn’s lawyer claims Davis saw a shotgun in Dunn’s car.  The police have not found the gun.  Dunn’s lawyer suggests they are not looking hard enough.

There is no dispute that the music was loud.  There is also no room to question whether Dunn could have driven away rather than shoot the young man.  In Florida, however, and other states with “stand your ground” laws, people in Dunn’s position are not obligated to retreat.  Instead, if they fear for their lives, they are free to “defend” themselves as Dunn seems to think he did here.  The cost, in both of the recent Florida cases, is the life of a young man.

I suspect that it is not a coincidence that both of the young men killed were not white.  Fear (the motivating factor, it seems, for both Dunn and Zimmerman) is sometimes rooted in stereotype.  Admittedly, I do not know enough to call Dunn a racist or to assign such a motive to this killing.  I do know, however, that a recent study by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission shows that in a world where only 3.1 percent of homicides are cross-racial, 15.6 percent of claimed “justifiable” homicides are cross-racial.  This statistic is suggestive of an underlying race problem and is just one good reason “stand your ground” laws have got to go.

The other reason is this — these killings show that the underlying notion gun owners will show restraint in conflict is simply not true enough to give them a perceived license to shoot.  George Zimmerman should have left the scene.  Michael Dunn should have driven away.  Others, whose names we don’t know, should also have retreated rather than taking a life.  But when faced with confrontation and in possession of a pistol and a perceived license to act, people are clearly tempted to kill.  One unnecessary death is too many.  That we know of at least two in the recent past is reason enough to be done with these laws.

The “stand your ground” laws are pernicious because they create a culture that supports the belief that it is sometimes okay to resolve a confrontation over the volume of music with a handgun.  Even if Dunn ultimately loses his case, Jordan Russell Davis will never hear another song.  We need to build a culture that resorts to deadly violence only when there is no other option.  Requiring a gun owner to retreat rather than kill seems a simple solution to a growing problem.  In a civilization of laws, the laws should encourage good citizenship rather than protect misguided vigilantes.

Let me be clear that this was not conceived as an argument for gun control.  I think of it as a plea for reasoned lawmaking.  Whatever the reasons for the “stand your ground” laws may have been, we now have enough experience with them to know that they delegate judgment to the wrong people.  These aren’t gun owners protecting their homes.  These are gun owners initiating confrontations on the street and then killing.  It’s the opposite of lawful and any law that legitimizes such behavior needs to be repealed.  Right now.

2/1/2013 — The NRA keeps extolling the virtues of law-abiding gun owners.  I urge you to consider that argument in the context of this story.  There really is no way around it: people carrying concealed weapons are dangerous.  If we are going to keep our children safe, we need to radically change our approach to gun ownership.  The President’s efforts in that regard are long overdue.  We need to make sure that the change he now wants happens.

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From June 2012 — Reunion

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Josh Davis

In my own small corner of the world, this is a big week.   My 18-year old stepdaughter will graduate from high school on Friday.  My 17-year old son will finish his junior year the same day.  And on Saturday, I head to Swarthmore College for my 25th reunion.  It will be a week full of speeches about endings and beginnings.  At graduation after graduation, reunion after reunion, speaker after speaker will try, one way or another, to offer meaningful advice about life’s journey.  No one asked me to make such a speech.  If they had, I would have told this story.

29 years ago, in the fall of 1983, I arrived at Swarthmore College.  Swarthmore is outside of Philadelphia.  Its campus is an arboretum.  The physical beauty of the campus is matched only by the intellectual rigor of the classes.  I remember across all that time how nervous I was.  And I remember too the intense worry that I would not find friends.  On arrival, my new roommate, watched me unpack my stuff and said quietly, “I requested a neat roommate.”  And I remember replying, trying to suppress a smile, “so did I.”  Patrick McNamara and I became fast friends (though the sides of our room were kept to different standards).  And I made others too — many of whom, including Patrick, are still close friends today.  The friends part turned out to be relatively easy, but is not the point of this story.

After a few days of orientation activities, classes started.  I remember clearly being astonished at how much reading there was to do.  And in each class, the reading was preparation for the conversation that followed.  We would walk in, somewhat sleepy, to a professor not ready to tell us what the answers were, but instead to ask questions that would lead us to talk to one another about what those answers might be.  It took a while, but we caught on.  The classes were very different — I had a seminar on the Holocaust, an Economics class, an introductory Psychology class, and an English class.  The method though was, essentially, the same.  Read, think, prepare, and then talk together so that we might somehow understand better what there was to know.

One class in particular stood out to me.  In my sophomore year, I took a course called Proust, Joyce and Faulkner taught by a man named Philip Weinstein.  It would be unfair not to tell you that he was a legend at my college.  For the first class, he assigned the first chapter of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.  In spite of my excellent Massachusetts public education, I had not read Faulkner.  For others in that boat, I need to say that it is tough sledding.  The sentences go on.  There are italics.  It is never clear what year it is.  Said differently, reading Faulkner can be dizzying; it is as if you do not know where you are.

After we had all sat down in class, Professor Weinstein came in.  He is (still) tall and thin, with a very quiet but authoritative speaking voice.  He also manages to speak in sentences that are stunningly beautiful — you want to write them down.  As he talked about the book, it seemed to me he had read something I had not.  To him it made sense, and understanding the story was critical to unlocking its meaning.  I took notes furiously.  I went back to the library.  I reread the chapter.  I looked at the notes.  And, by the end of the night, I felt as though I had read the book Professor Weinstein was talking about.

And that’s really what I learned at Swarthmore.  Listen.  Go back.  Look at the notes.  Talk about it.  Eventually, you can find the thread that makes it make sense for you.  Being willing to risk not knowing along the way to finding out can be thrilling.  Imagine a desk with pile of books, a story that doesn’t quite make sense, and a blank notepad.  These are the ingredients of a great journey.  My story is about a book — but it can be any problem or idea that life presents to you.  That’s what I learned at Swarthmore.  And, every day, when I get ready to talk on the radio or to a Court or with a client, I apply those lessons.  Think about it.

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Twilight Talk Podcast (Scott Brown, Interim Appointment, Twitter and more)

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Josh Davis

On Monday night, I joined Mara Dolan on “Twilight Talk.”  We talked about the upcoming Senate race; Scott Brown; and Twitter privacy.  The podcast follows:

 

Twilight Talk- Josh Davis 2

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#Bqhatevwr: Why Scott Brown won’t win

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Josh Davis

The race to be the next US Senator from Massachusetts is about to start in earnest and all signs (including a tweet that says “Yes.  Get ready.”) suggest that former Senator Scott Brown will run again.  With the impending race hanging over his head, Scott Brown turned to twitter this past weekend to take on some critics.  In a series of confrontational tweets, he responded to those who disagree with him with thoughtful argument after thoughtful argument.  One tweeter was dismissed with the word “whatever.”  Another got a similarly dismissive comment and, finally, he dismissed all of his critics with the single, powerful word: “Bqhatevwr.”  Over the past few days, the tweets have been removed from his twitter feed and the word has attracted ridicule from foe and foe alike.  My point is not to speculate as to what motivated Brown’s tweet or clear misspelling.  My point is that the frustration evident in the tweets is connected to the reasons he lost to Elizabeth Warren and the reasons I think he is likely to lose again this time.

Scott Brown rode a wave of good feeling to his victory over Martha Coakley.  The combination of barn coat, truck and plain speaking struck home with the voters in the Massachusetts special election.  For a brief time after his election, he was, party notwithstanding, the most popular politician in the Commonwealth.  When now Senator Elizabeth Warren entered the race, she faced an uphill road to election.  When she won by a large margin she did so not because she rode the President’s coattails, but because her campaign and the debates revealed Brown’s tendency to “bqhatevwr.” The nice independent guy image did not survive the campaign, and, without his barn coat, Brown is a very beatable man.

Successful republicans in Massachusetts either ride personality (Weld) or good luck in opponents (Romney) to victory.  In his first race, Brown had the best of both worlds.  In his second, he faced an opponent who improved dramatically during her months on the campaign trail.  Her rambling answers became focused and so did her message.  In response, Brown went at her with ferocity.  His attack on her past claims of Native American heritage defined the debate moderated by Jon Keller and left him looking aggressive rather than nice.  In another debate, he struggled to identify a “model Supreme Court justice,” looking as he answered like the kid who (despite studying) only remembered part of the answer to the test question.  His response to her claims that he did not adequately support women’s rights was that he is a good husband and father.  The combination of these performances led Brown to avoid a final debate and resulted in a margin of victory for Warren that defied even optimistic Democratic estimates.

On the other side of that defeat, GOP folks said it just proved that you can’t win against the Democratic “machine.”  That statement requires the belief that Scott Brown is a good candidate for the US Senate.  Prior to the campaign he lost, I thought that was true.  In other words, I looked at his victory over Coakley and thought it suggested a real political gift.  I do not think that any more.  Instead, I think that Scott Brown is a very lucky man whose luck has run out.  He won a race thanks to personality and a weak opponent.  He won his party’s nomination because all the others in party who might have run thought it a losing battle.  When he lost to Elizabeth Warren he did so because the race cast doubt on his personality (he seemed mean) and because she was a very strong candidate.

This time around I do not think it will be that close.  Neither Ed Markey nor Steve Lynch have personalities that will set the world on fire.  Both, however, are lifelong public servants with deeply held, principled beliefs.  Scott Brown’s independence seems more about not wanting to lose than believing in something.  He has already challenged Markey’s claim of Massachusetts residency.  In so doing, Brown reminded all of us of how he dealt with Senator Warren.  He already has the coat off and is throwing punches.  When we elected him the first time, we didn’t elect a combative man.  Now that we know that is who he is, we are unlikely to elect him again.  Last weekend on twitter, that’s the guy we saw.  He sat down and started taking people on —  Bqhatevwr.

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From June 2012 — Horse Racing, Hope and Change

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Josh Davis

In 1978, Affirmed won horse racing’s triple crown — the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes.  Since that time 11 three years old horses (the same number as have ever won the three race series) arrived at the Belmont Stakes with a chance to win the third.  All have failed.  In a little less than 3 weeks’ time, I’ll Have Another will go to the post at the Belmont with a chance to win one of sport’s most elusive prizes.  For a lot of different reasons, hope most notable among them, I think it will happen.  In so many ways, on this day after the Preakness, I feel like it is 1973.

The gap from Affirmed to today is the largest gap between triple crown winners.  When Secretariat ran away with the Belmont Stakes in 1973, it had been 25 years since Citation had accomplished the feat.  At that point in time, as it is now, racing was down on its luck and in desperate need of a hero.  At that point in time, as it is now, so was (in many ways) the country.  Secretariat filled that bill.  He made the cover of Time and Newsweek.  He won his races in dramatic fashion.  Indeed, until I’ll Have Another made his run in the stretch yesterday, I have never seen a horse make a move like the one Secretariat made on the backstretch of the 1973 Preakness.  As anyone who lived through that time remembers, for a few weeks in the late spring of 1973, a country recovering from Watergate was transfixed by a horse.

I know I was.  As a second-grader in the Newton schools, I found an athletic hero who wouldn’t let me down.  He didn’t just win, he won by a lot.  And he did it with spirit.  I also found — through my interest in him — a sport with a history of heroes (like Man O’ War and Seabiscuit) and villains (like Onion, the horse who beat Secretariat in the Whitney Stakes and Allen Jerkens, his trainer).  I remember reading all I could about racing — and learning the names of the triple crown winners.  Since then, my affection for the sport has continued — although I confess that horror stories of equine abuse have marred my once-starry eyed love for all things racing.  Still, as a young boy, I remember nothing as thrilling as watching Secretariat prove, again and again, that the extraordinary was possible and that hope could be rewarded.

So today, while reading about I’ll Have Another’s young jockey, Mario Gutierrez, and his now redeemed trainer, Doug O’Neill, I thought about how hope works.  For weeks, Gutierrez has been telling anyone who would listen that “he is an amazing horse.”  For weeks, the racing world has focused on horses with more established human connections, like Bodemeister and his trainer Bob Baffert.  For the next few weeks, it will all be about Gutierrez and his horse.  Watch the tape of his stretch run in the Preakness — only one other race horse has ever moved like that.

As the Belmont Stakes gets closer, the news media (not just the sports folks) will start to pay attention to the possible end of the long triple crown drought and to this amazing horse.  And I wonder whether this country, in the midst of economic worry and global concern, will take a deep breath that Saturday and watch the race and hope for what has increasingly seemed impossible.  That’s what we did in June of 1973 and we were together reminded of what is possible.  So, this sunny afternoon, I remember how Secretariat made my 8 year old heart leap and, you know what, I’ll Have Another.  Keep your eyes open — and pay attention — the extraordinary sometimes happens.

1/28/13 — As you may know, I’ll Have Another proved to be unsound and so did not run in the Belmont Stakes last summer.

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From 2012 — Colorado (my blog following the Aurora shootings)

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Josh Davis

Many of us have spent a lot of this weekend trying to make sense of madness.  We now live in a world that includes the reality that a night at the movies can explode in gunfire, just as we learned last summer that a morning at the supermarket could.  As the list of places that explode grows, so does our sense that there must be something we can do together to make us safer.  At the same time, we must also understand that we (as a country) have an incomplete understanding of mental illness and an inability to figure out what to do about assault weapons.  Some part of what happened in Colorado is beyond explanation.  Some part is a consequence of our failure to recognize and treat illness, on the one hand, and to regulate the distribution of assault weaponry, on the other.  The time is now to face these twin demons before another shopping center or movie theater explodes in bloodshed.

In some respects, recognizing and confronting mental illness is as tough a challenge as we can possibly face.  Such illness is, in most cases, invisible.  A mentally ill person can appear normal, can hold down a job, and can deceive even people he or she knows well.  And, unlike a person with pneumonia, a mentally ill person faces stigmatization if he or she seeks treatment.  Families have trouble understanding and dealing with such disease as do employers and friends.  As a consequence, people who know they are not well do not seek treatment and, as their illness goes untreated, they sink deeper into madness.  That descent is as surely a disease as an untreated infection and we, together, need to learn to recognize such illness and to urge people who need help to get it.

The day of the shootings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, called on President Obama and Governor Romney to take a stand on gun control measures.  Both men declined the invitation, instead urging people to pull together rather than risking a divisive political conversation.  Now that some time has passed, I think Mayor Bloomberg was right to speak out immediately.  Just as we had to pull together as a community to understand the horror that visited us in Colorado, we have to pull together as a community to make sure it does not happen again.  Mayor Bloomberg’s call to think about guns is one of the more important ways we might act to protect ourselves against similar evil in the future.

As the news plays out over the next few days, I am willing to predict two things with confidence.  One, the number of people who had reason to suspect that the killer was not well will continue to grow.  Two, the number of politicians willing to call for renewed efforts to ban assault weapons will not.  I think the next phase of our community response to this tragedy should tackle both of these predictable pieces of news.  Let’s invest in better public education about mental health issues and appropriate responses — encouraging one another to push people who are ill to seek and obtain the help they need.  And, let’s decide that the Second Amendment can abide laws that make it impossible to buy weapons designed to inflict mass casualties.  No one needs a weapon like that to protect their home, and we can protect all of our homes by changing the laws about those weapons.

There is no way to erase the losses so many suffered in last week’s tragedies.  We can, however, learn from what happened.  As we mourn the dead and take note of all the promise contained in the lives lost, we can also make them this promise — we are paying attention and we will endeavor to learn from what happened last week.

1/28/13 — I have posted this as the Congress starts to address an assault weapons ban and other changes to our gun laws.  As we all know too well, Aurora did not lead to change.  Instead, it took the horror of Newtown to wake our leaders up.  Let’s please work to make sure that real change happens now.

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Taking the boys to Pippin

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Josh Davis

Last Spring, Wellesley High School teacher David McCullough garnered national attention for his speech to the school’s graduating seniors.  He told them, again and again, that they were not special.  In painstaking detail, he let them know that they were (in this world) one of so many that the notion of their individual extra-ordinariness was a parental fiction.  Last week, I took my two fourteen year-old boys to see Pippin at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge.  Pippin is a 40-year old musical written by Steven Schwartz (the man responsible for Godspell and Wicked).  It’s message: the pursuit of an extraordinary life leads to the discovery that’s what’s extraordinary about living lies in what we might think of as ordinary life.  I took my boys to the theater not just because the show was brilliantly acted and sung, but because theater can teach in a way that speeches and parents cannot.

This theme, by the way, is everywhere you look.  The Huntington Theater’s production of Thorton Wilder’s Our Town made the same point in a somewhat different way.  There, in the final act, the dead look at the living and wonder if we ever appreciate the moments of our time here.  The answer, of course, is not as much as we should.  There is so much planning in life, so much thinking about what’s next that the observing and feeling of the now is tough to manage.  Pippin’s grandmother exhorts him to live — telling him (with the help of the audience) that it is “time to get living.”  Her message, like Wilder’s, is not to lose the now in the pursuit of the next.

For me, the experience of hearing McCullough last spring and seeing both of these plays this winter focused my attention on the words I use as a parent.  I have amazing kids (and stepkids).  I am persuaded that any one of the four of them (or even every one of the four of them) could change the world for the better.  I know that I have let them know that I think they are beautiful, smart, gifted, wise, capable, amazing and so forth again and again.  I also know that I have urged them to dream and to reach for those dreams.  I worry that I have somehow suggested that not achieving greatness would be a kind of failure.

So, that’s why I dragged the boys to Pippin.  I wanted them to get caught up in his journey from battle to royalty to life on a farm.  And I wanted them to see, as Pippin does, that the love between two people outshines anything else that the world has to offer.  Indeed,  men and women have often abandoned the pursuit of greatness for the company of their beloved.  And, somehow, I thought that as they sat and watched Pippin, they might get it.  Just as I imagine David McCullough thought that, if he just said it right, the students at Wellesley High School might get it as well.

As I think about it, though, I bet they didn’t get it.  The notion that the joy in life is found in our day-to-day struggles and our familial relationships is, in many ways, the product of adult reflection.  I remember sitting up late with my college friends and imagining our lives.  No one of us planned something ordinary.  Instead, our dreams were big and the notion of personal happiness was secondary.  Now, years later, conversations focus on the personal.  Some of us have had complicated journeys.  Some have had some sort of fame.  In the end, though, we all define our corner of the sky by the people who live there with us.  As parents, I think we teach this lesson by osmosis — with an implicit understanding that it will not be learned until later.

One of my sons, after seeing Pippin, said that he felt he’d heard poets make similar observations about what matters.  I assured him he had.  Trust me, he’ll hear it for years before it really makes sense.  In the end though, maybe that’s for the best, for those dreams, those late night conversations, those imagined possibilities — they too are the stuff of our lives.  What we need to do is — as Pippin’s grandmother and Wilder’s Emily suggest — find the space to notice where we are and to attend to each of the steps we make along the way.

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From December 2012 — Home (thoughts about parenting)

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Josh Davis

Parenting is a constant challenge.  From the earliest moments when the baby thinks you know what he or she needs and you don’t until the moment they head off to college (and beyond), you draw on instinct, nerve and worry.  Kids push buttons, they remind you of you at your worst moments and they need, demand even, to be seen and appreciated on their own.  Ultimately, I assume my job is to help my kids find their way to adulthood.  Now that they are teenagers, this means not solving some problems.  Every once in a while, this can lead to real frustration.

My oldest son is in the process of applying to college.  A few months ago, he decided to apply early decision to Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania.  “Early decision” means that he commits to attend Muhlenberg if the college accepts him.  I did not know much (if anything) about Muhlenberg when he started this process.  Emerson’s primary interest is in theatre.  Muhlenberg, it turns out, has a great drama program that fits comfortably in a traditional small liberal arts college.  For my son, it seems to be just right.  The best part is that he really made the decision that it is where he wants to go.

In addition to letting him decide, I have worked hard to stay out of the application process.  He read me part of his essay, but I don’t really know what it says.  He dealt with his teachers to obtain recommendations, and he has navigated the electronic wonder of the modern application process.  He does it all so fast that it is impossible for me to understand, watching him, what it is that he has done.  My role is simply to enter my debit card information to cover the fees associated with applying ($61 so far).  The other thing that I get to do is wait.

Here’s the challenge I mentioned at the start of this piece.  Last night, I asked him to check on the status of the application and it turned out that there was a little piece missing.  The missing piece is inconsequential.  We fixed it in seconds.  But today I find myself worrying about the “we” part of this.  My own worry and engagement lead me to push him to double check to make sure things were all where they should be.  I wonder if I should have (instead) continued to leave him alone to face the application process.  Would it have been better for him to get to the point where he wondered (on his own) about where he stood and (on his own) checked to see?

I don’t think so.  In the end, we want our kids to be able to function as adults, but we also want them to know that we are here for them.  Part of being here means paying attention to pitfalls that our experience teaches us are lurking — like not remembering to double check that everything is where you think it is.  I hope, without knowing, that last night will lead Emerson to check his work more often and to do so in a way that improves its quality and thoroughness.  More importantly, right now, I trust that we have put Muhlenberg in a position where it can make a decision about my son.

Here’s the best part.  After the high drama of finding this mistake, we all had dinner together.  It was one of those meals where everyone at the table managed to find a story about someone else that made them laugh.  At one point, Andrew (14) laughed so hard that he spat his drink across the table and hit Emerson square on.  Malcolm (also 14) had almost lost a drink in similar fashion moments before.  And it’s that laughter and safety that mark the place where each of us is always welcome, whether or not we have all of our papers in order.

January 25, 2013 — Emerson was admitted to Muhlenberg.  Funny how, so often, things work themselves out.

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From 10/15/12 — Malcolm’s Campaign

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Josh Davis

My son, Malcolm, is a candidate for President of the student council at his middle school.    He announced his candidacy last week.  Within moments, there were posters around his school and a Facebook group dedicated to his election.  Over the course of the first week of his campaign, its message has migrated from one that suggested that it was somehow right that he should be elected (echoes of Dukasis’s first campaign for governor) to one focused on his desire to represent the other students at the school.  Malcolm seemed instantly to understand that a campaign message that suggested his own superior gifts would not be as effective as one that emphasized his desire to serve (remember Deval Patrick’s first campaign — “it’s not about me”).  The President needs to learn from Malcolm and, on Tuesday, he needs to bring humility and eagerness to serve with him to his debate against Mitt Romney.

I’ll get back to the upcoming debate, but I want to focus on Malcolm a little longer.  His first poster featured a particularly dashing shot of him in a science classroom.  It read:  “Vote for Malcolm Davis.  He’s Probably Smarter than You.”  A friend made it.  It’s funny (sort of) and certainly attention-grabbing. At the same time, it conveys a sense of superiority and entitlement (something Mal doesn’t have, by the way).  The campaign at his school will run for several weeks and he worried, I think correctly, that this approach risked making his opponent, Rachel, seem more appealing.  And so he changed it.

That’s what we need on Tuesday.  We need Obama to change his approach.  In the first debate with Romney, he was the President of his first term.  Somehow, his manner suggests that he does not need to take the time to explain to us what it is he is doing or would do.  Part of why there is so much controversy about the health care bill is that the President didn’t ever make the time to explain to us how it worked or why it was right.  In the first debate, he behaved just as he has governed, as if he thinks that he is probably smarter than you.  Whether he is or not is beside the point.  Explaining is not an imposition; it’s leadership.

Malcolm’s second poster says — “You Should Probably Vote for Malcolm Davis.”  Here, his message is less about him and more about his constituency.  It respects their thinking and the idea that they will decide.  Still  though, it is campaign without substance.  In his third poster, he is holding a window fan.  It says, “I am a fan of your ideas.”  And that is where his poster really captured his message.  At dinner the first night of his campaign, he explained to all of us that he wanted to make sure that the student government at his school focused on the students’ ideas for the school.  The student council President sets the agenda for these meetings.  And so, his Facebook page says that agenda will be determined by what the students want to have discussed.  In other words, he wants to represent the people whose votes he seeks.

I have been down on the Town Hall format as a comeback venue for the President.  Thinking about Malcolm’s campaign has me hopeful.  Obama needs to look the voters in the eye, take the time to answer the question clearly, and show an eagerness to lead us.  Sure, he also needs to take Romney on directly.  But, the forum should help with that.  Romney seems to have trouble with real people.  He thinks he is probably smarter than you.  He thinks his “success” means he should lead.  His friends are NASCAR owners.  Come on — Tuesday is the moment when likability should assert itself.  Obama has to make the effort to connect and explain.  If he does so, things should change in his direction.

Malcolm’s campaign is taking off.  There are t shirts, posters and bracelets.  The debate is a week or so away.  I am confident that he will not view the debate as an imposition.  Instead, he will see it and treat it as an opportunity to connect with the people he hopes to lead.  The President has that opportunity on Tuesday.  He’d better make the best of it.

1/12/13 — Malcolm was elected and now serves as Student Council President.  His campaign slogan evolved and his last poster read:  “Your Ideas, Implemented.”  Now, he finds that the same folks (voters) who so much wanted a say seem apathetic about government.  The upcoming dance gets some attention, but longer term efforts (like replacing pencil sharpeners) simply fall on deaf ears.  It’s a good reminder that the governed need to remain involved.

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From December — a Letter to the President

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Josh Davis

Mr. President, America is ready for the conversation you seem not to want to have.  On Friday, after a mad man shot and killed 20 children and 6 adults, your White House told us that it was not time to talk about gun control.  Yesterday, in your remarks at the Newtown prayer vigil, you promised action but seemed to define it as a conversation about what to do.  Watching you, I could see on your face the burden of speaking at yet another vigil.  And you have missed others — you didn’t go to Wisconsin following the killings at the Sikh Temple, and you didn’t have time to make sense of what happened in a mall in Oregon last week.  There just wasn’t time.  All of these deaths.  All of these mad men with guns.  Mr. President, it is not time for a conversation; it is time to act.  Enough already.

Like Tuscon, Aurora, and Portland, the killings in Newtown demonstrate our failure to meaningfully deal with the twin challenges posed by guns and mental illness.  We need to act on both fronts.  With respect to guns, immediate action is necessary.  There is no need on this earth for any one of us to own an firearm designed for use in a war, let alone an assault rifle.  Nothing in the Constitution is to the contrary.  If you could not buy a “Bushmaster” weapon, the criminal in Connecticut would not have had one.  This isn’t a tough question that requires conversation.  It’s an easy question that demands a quick and decisive answer.  The same is true with high-capacity clips.  We were “lucky” in Aurora that one such clip jammed and thus limited the damage the man with the gun could do in that theater.  Mr. President, if you want to avoid future vigils, this is what you have to do.

The men who wrote our constitution could not have imagined the world in which we now live.  They could not have known how good we would get at killing.  Nothing about the language of that document, or the time in which it was written, suggests that they wanted citizens to hold weapons for the purpose of killing one another.  The notion of a “militia” (the critical component of the Second Amendment) has to do with protection of a community.  Mr. President, please understand that the measures I am asking for here are about protecting our community.  You said it last night — we have to keep our children safe.  If we are going to do that, we have to take action against killing machines now.  The time for talking was over several massacres ago.  Enough already.

So too with regard to mental illness.  Parents whose children are ill (like Nancy Lanza) have too few resources available to them.  So too, people who are themselves ill have poorly-defined and underinsured routes to treatment.  In addition, the stigma of mental illness leaves too many people who are not well sitting in apartments or houses by themselves afraid or otherwise unable to request (or afford) the help they so clearly need.  Mr. President, this is a catastrophe and a threat to all of our safety.  Education and action are required, and they are required now.  We have reached the point where we know to alert authorities about abandoned bags in airports.  We need to get to the point where we alert authorities about those of us who are not doing so well, and where the  authorities know how to react in a manner that offers immediate help, and hope for healing.

I am angry about what happened on Friday.  I am angry because, notwithstanding all the death, Mr. President, your administration has done precisely nothing to control the spread of firearms in this country.  I am angry because we are, as a nation, victims of a system that fails to properly treat too many mentally ill people.  And I am angry because we have reached the point where somehow we seem to think that events like this just happen, that they are part of what we pay for freedom.  It’s nonsense.  Our government can make us safer.  We need a leader to make it happen.  Mr. President, it’s your job.  Stop talking around it, and get to work.   Enough already.

1/22/2013 — I need to say how encouraged I am by what the President is doing.  I am grateful for his willingness to fight the necessary battles.  If he prevails, a safer society will be his greatest legacy.

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