Biography
As I sit down to write this, I realize this may be the hardest writing
I have done in a long time. Even though this candidacy is
a farce, it still has meaning to me and I hope to you the reader. And
when I say farce, I mean it in the antiquated definition of the term,
not the more modern idea of fakeness. A farce used to be a dramatic
or comedic exposition that poked fun or created satire, often with serious
meaning behind it. The very fact I proclaim an honorary
candidacy is satire enough for me. I think the oft heard phrase that
one votes for the lesser of two evils is reason enough to give Americans,
at least in their minds, a third choice.
But I digress, as they say, probably because I am hesitant about laying
my life out for scrutiny. I have only been in the papers twice that
I can remember, except while I was a reporter. Once when the local newspaper
asked teenagers about life and the second when I ran for state legislature
at the age of twenty. Both were not the best of experiences. In the
first I had to take ribbing for months afterwards from my peers, in
the second I was subject to massive negative press by my own party and
more ribbing from my coworkers. Yet I am determined to go through with
this, so here goes.
I was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, about fifty-seven years ago. Except
for a bit of traveling in my youth, I have lived here most of my life.
Ive worked at many jobs, floor maintenance, food service, rough
carpentry, punch press operator, cattle feeder, fruit ranch worker,
cat skinner, cemetery sexton, foundry worker, reporter, contract driver,
insurance salesman and most recently as a health care aide. I have no
hobby except being an amateur historian. True that gets one into a lot
of different things, but nothing so concentrated as to be called a hobby.
So Ive tinkered with music, amateur rocketry, drawing, computers,
writing fiction ( hmmm maybe this candidacy is an example), poetry,
bow target shooting, ancient weaponry and research. I enjoy a good beer,
a better wine and hot Chinese food. I am constantly catching up on bills,
singing karaoke when I can and palavering with friends over coffee.
Pretty much an average American I believe, at least in scope if not
particulars.
And I am an inveterate reader and I like to think of myself as a concerned
citizen. I try to pay attention to politics, foreign policy, domestic
policy, economics and military history. That does not mean I fully understand
any of them but I keep trying. Oh, I also make sure to vote, at least
in every Presidential election year. I give what I can to charity, too
little by my lites, work as much as I can, to try keeping up with the
bills, and havent had my own TV on in over two years and havent
seen a movie since The Return of the King. I listen to public radio
and when time permits at work I watch one of the learning channels or
C-Span. I quit reading fiction a couple years ago and my reading choices
are mostly history books or books on human potential, science and socio-philosophical
subjects. I try always to be aware of what I dont know and try
to be willing to change what I think I know when I am made aware of
new information. I class myself as neither Left nor Right, just a man
trying to do the best he can and to keep on slogging.
As a candidate I bring to you a totally ineffectual - - politically
- - but maybe interesting choice intellectually. Perhaps, because I
am willing to do this, you can think of me as a tiny voice of some,
hopefully, of the ideas you have had yourself. Or at least of ideas
and questions that you might have asked yourself or wondered why the
public dialogue has not asked or promoted. I am a cynical and angry
American, though I try to temper those traits in order to remain a reasonable
human being. I am constantly befuddled by the lack of long-range thinking
in the public and private sphere and the tendency of participants in
politics to be quick to call names and cast assertions. And I am affected
by that because I have that tendency myself and have realized how little
that has gained me. I also fear long-range thinking, when guided only
by ideology, big government, when used to abridge rights and hinder
creativity rather than to protect and promote them, and the tendency
to treat complicated subjects like a choice between fiddle-de and fiddle-dum.
I am humbled by the strong currents of history, yet invigorated by historical
examples of men and women who have cut across or even tamed those currents.
I am hopeful always, though it is often like riding the edge of the
Abyss and flipping a coin on which way to steer. I am disappointed by
the seeming lack of understanding about many of the subjects brought
up in public discourse and further the pride that speakers seem to take
in that lack of understanding. I have a deep and abiding Faith which
does not allow me to give up and guides me in my life, though I think
I often screw up the guidance that I am given. I am confused by the
mantra of private is good, government bad. Especially since much of
our economics, including the private sector, depends on government spending
and programs. I am also confused by the hatred of welfare for individuals
but not for companies. Confused by the desire for unbridled choice for
some but not for all. Confused by the strong desire for security without
thought of consequences, aggression without forethought and the invasion
of thought itself with commercial messages. I was raised in a fairly
conventional and religious family, yet always, always, with a respect
for the differences of others. I have found Americans, in my travels
and my hometown life, to be generous and good people, yet always able
to reserve a part of themselves for what I can only call good-natured
hoodwinking, thus the existence of salesmen, an art I practiced in the
past. Americans are not mean-spirited by nature, are strong and forthright
in their views and sometimes, like myself, a little bit too self-concerned
to look at things as closely as they should. I admire many persons for
acts of courage and charity and the compulsion to build and create.
I also fear acts of courage in dubious causes and charity towards dubious
ends and compulsion without conscience and wisdom in any enterprise.
And I will be the first to admit that I may not be an adequate judge
of any of these things.
I grew up in Oshkosh, attending Catholic grade and high schools. I went
to college for about two years in an off and on way, working a semester,
schooling a semester and spending way too much time in the student lounge.
I am a little dense, so it took me some time to realize higher education
was not education but job preparation, so I left college for a lifetime
of work. I went to California to work in the fields, reveling in one
of the best jobs I have ever had. Nothing like looking over acres of
orchards you have competently disked during a beautiful hot sunny day.
I came back after a couple years (truthfully I couldnt earn enough
and I missed the winters - - call me weird) and worked various jobs
till about twelve years ago I wound up helping challenged individuals
for a living.
I have always tried to be a learner. And not the rote type of learning,
but the type that puts what we learn into a context of living. The difference
I think is that between learning how to play a musical instrument and
learning how to make music, it lies in the more complete application
that true learning allows. And such learning also, I believe, leads
to a chance to attain wisdom, something not often valued today. Needless
to say I havent attained that lofty goal either. And some would
say this candidacy proves it.
For most of my life I have been an observer, content to fend off lifes
problems and watch others, including my nation, do the same. In the
last few years I have just begun to try taking more active control of
my life, and success has been moderate to say the least. From such personal
attempts, I have begun to appreciate the immensity, the complication,
of the web of life that has been created in America and the world. My
Dad, I realized late in his life, had lived to see the major developments
of all that I took as a given. He was born before massive use of autos,
before radio, television, flight, world wars, nuclear energy, big government,
large labor movements, the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, the Empire State
Building and mass production. My Mom was only slightly younger, so she
lived through those times too. And both of them weathered them all.
They focused on family, church and community and did the best they could.
It would be like me living through the dawning of space flight, zero-point
energy, trans-dimensional gateways, warp drive and practical immortality.
They lived through inconceivable change and kept on slogging. They raised
us kids, paid off their house and took part in all the connections of
social life and society. They lived through it all, not by adopting
some high-faluting paradigm, not by espousing an all encompassing ideology
and not by endless discussion and complicated planning. They lived by
concentrating on the human, the bonds of family, the bonds of community
and the basics of food, shelter and health.
Almost every day of his life, until he began getting sick, my father
would work. When I was young, he was up with the sun and still hitting
it long after it set. Often he went to work when sick, injured and disgruntled.
It was only on the day of my mothers death, while I was hugging
him, that I really felt the strength, the granite-like solidness of
the man. It was a lesson, still not fully integrated, that I have carried
through my life. A product of times he had not formed, except by his
labor, and a man swept by incredible currents of history, yet he had
created a strength, a center, that allowed him to operate in a world
alien to that in which he was born. In many ways he shows all of us
the very basic virtues we need before we can begin to tackle any of
the problems we now face or soon will face.
I never saw him afraid, except in the face of death. And not his own
death, but that of my mother. That and the time he was temporarily
fired by a hotheaded boss who soon realized he needed my Dads
skills and called him back. Those faces of his fear have helped form
my own basis for fear. I decided long ago, and I hope I can keep that
mind set, that only the suffering of others and the loss of ability
to take care of those I need to take care of are the real fears I should
be concerned with. I have not always been able to be true to that, and
I remember a time in the Wyoming mountains when I displayed personal
cowardice as our car was about to go over a precipice. I started to
get out of the car, leaving the driver to whatever fate. I was always
thankful he called out to me, Thanks a lot Gamsy. I got
back in the car, grabbed his jacket in my hand and determined if I couldnt
pull him with me then we would both go over. I was lucky, the car stopping
just before the edge. I have never forgot the shame of that, that I
was so callous that I would leave another with no attempt to save him.
I cant help making that a principal I have used as a lens to look
at all things in life. If we cant at least try to save others,
then we might as well give up being human.
It has been such instants in my life, and I think in everyones,
which gave me permanent mind sets about a lot of things. I acquired
acrophobia, something I have been blest to overcome, by being stranded
on the side of a quarry wall when I was in grade school. I learned patience,
a little bit along with some new cuss words, and the value of constant
effort, when I faced a washout while irrigating fields in California.
I learned a modicum of coolness when bees, in those same fields, decided
the diesel cap on my tractor was a good place to swarm. I realized I
had some musical talent when I strummed my first guitar chord. Realized
I could learn whole new things when I wrote my first line of Basic on
my first computer. Realized what being a father and parent was really
about, the very first time I held my first son in my arms, moments after
his birth. Realized that for the first time in my life, here was a being
totally dependent on me for just about everything, and it sobered me,
literally, for the rest of my life. At least if I have anyone depending
on me. I experienced in meditation what I had been taught, less than
effectively, all my life by religion, that I could come into the Presence
that is the ground for all existence. And I learned instantly, when
one of my challenged clients suddenly displayed savant capability,
that there were others than I who were able to excel far beyond anything
I had conceived possible. The list is long. And only recently I have
begun to grasp the fate of death in a very personal way, and that it
must be prepared for as with anything else important in life.
My present family, other than allusion to it, will not be dealt with
here. I might submit myself to scrutiny, but they have no part of that
and the possibly onerous consequences. Suffice to say I love them and
honor them and am proud of them. They are in large part my reason for
toiling and learning and trying. And they are not the business of this
candidacy. Since I am not really running for office, they are not a
subject of discussion or scrutiny - - - please.
And as I grow older, I have come to respect what is. And that is all
of it, religion, business, government, virtues, pollution, overcrowding,
starvation, war, peace, science, holism, books, tyrants, saints, media,
nature, Sun, moon and stars. All of it. I am coming to realize that
existence is truly a stage, a canvas and an ongoing story. I marvel
at how the skyscrapers can be built, how the internal combustion engine
operates, how a bullet can end a life. It is part of what I live in,
what I am still learning to understand. It is that wider world we are
all part of, though it may not be on our mind all the time, sollipciously
slipping out of focus for much of our lives, yet always there in the
waiting room of attention. And I grapple with how to put it all in my
frame of meaning. How do I think of it all? How do I reach out to it
for knowledge and wisdom? How do I operate on and with it for the best
of results for me, mine and all of humanity? Perhaps that is what the
Work of life is about. To have a sense of everything, to make sense
of everything you can. And to keep the art of love alive through it
all.
Well, enough of such thinking, back to the bio. Lord, youd think
Id have learned terseness by now, but verbal venting is one of
my faults (as if you couldnt tell). And that is the subject of
this next section, my faults. After all, if I am going to claim honorary
candidacy, then I should give you a complete picture of who you are
reading about. And I have often been amazed the regular
candidates never seem to get to this subject. My Mom would say all
work and no play makes Ken a human version of a plow horse. I
think, along with the sterling qualities our politicians tell us about,
they should also tell us of their darker side. Heck it might even garner
the vote of those who read Gothic fiction, where dark heroes win the
day from more one-sided competitors.
And boy am I dark. Impatient, rude, grouchy as only someone over fifty
can be, egotistical, sexist, two-faced, lying, cheating, irreverent
(as if you couldnt tell), over-critical, picky, prejudicial and
just plane dumb. Luckily I am seldom all of those at once. No, I take
my time and meter out these faults, in part so they are less visible
to my friends and family. And I will not use the techniques of the resume
to convince you these are really strengths, such as I am very
two-faced when it comes to saying negative things about a friend, instead
choosing a less than honest appraisal of that person. Nope I am
simply two-faced on a lot of things and make no bones about it.
The same with the rest of my faults. I practice them as seldom as I
can but wholeheartedly nevertheless. I make no excuses, cop no pleas
and deny nothing. I am guilty, guilty, guilty. And I cannot understand
how other politicians have escaped such grossness. Perhaps, if they
are unsuccessful in getting elected, we have a whole new crop here of
human potential gurus, who could put out $39.95 courses on how to be
perfect beings. I know I am not, and depending on what day you catch
me, I might be slightly inebriated, cussing like a muleskinner, cheating
on a stop sign, envious of a better card player, lying about the size
of fish I caught, or other matters of size, grouchy about anything that
pricks my thin skin and judgmental about everything (or I wouldnt
be doing this). And always, always, always, as President Carter would
say, lusting after women in my heart.
And the worst part of all this is that my virtues seldom make up for
my vices. It is a constant battle, stopping myself mid-thought a hundred
times a week, to keep from practicing my faults to the exclusion of
all else. Infrequently I have learned to suffer fools gladly, and boy
do I have a large list of fools, have compassion for others and practice
Christian love for all the least of the earth. I too seldom practice
almsgiving, patience and forgiveness. I practice even less the seven
virtues, and honor few of the eternal verities by attention to them.
I too often dwell on what Id do if I were king, better yet emperor.
I focus on perceived wrongs instead of possible challenges. I look darkly
on the future, leaving Hope broken-winged on the lip of Pandoras
box. I see mostly problems and have a hard time working out solutions.
I plan almost nothing, learn very little and understand even less.
I think you get the idea, I am a fallible, foppish and feeble human
being. I do not know what Id do if I were offered those fabled
deals that supposedly abound in politics. I cannot guarantee,
if I were a real candidate, that I would be immune to bribes and graft,
much less corruption of other kinds. I am just honest enough to let
you all know this, so never, never, vote for me in the real world, should
I ever be dumb enough to run. Such as I are better in the fantasy realm
of the pseudo than the realm of real politick. I think, if given the
chance, that I would wind up a millionaire and you would be poorer for
my term in office.
However, perhaps I am wrong. Maybe in the world of the half-measures,
brokered deals and spin laden sphere of politics, we actually need a
scoundrel. If so, I apply for the job. And you, the voter, will at least
know what you are getting. Perhaps it would cause you to keep a very
close eye on me. In fact, using a method from the criminal justice system,
you might put an electronic bracelet on me so you would at least know
where I am. In fact, maybe that is a possibility for all our leaders.
At least we would know some of those who are in meetings together. Maybe
we should also extend that to advisors and the captains of industry.
Heck we could really get information about skullduggery then. And getting
back to my candidacy, I will be the first to apply for the
cuffs.
I am reminded that one of the family members of those murdered in 9/11
recently said that if the government cannot keep us safe, then all the
other duties of such government are for naught. I want to second that
notion, and let you know that it is the example of those family members,
as well as of the heroes aboard the plane that did not make its target,
who have in part inspired me to create this candidacy. They are mainly
average Americans, citizens personally affected by what their government
does and does not do. In other words, they are us. True we do not often
think of that, yet it is fact. At least for me, there is a tinge of
selfishness in my candidacy, I want to live in a modern, safe, thoughtful
and competent America. I want to live in an America which does not act
upon needless fears, does not abet hatred, and always, always calls
upon its citizens to let shine that light of freedom and public good
our forebears brought into this world so long ago.
Humbly, I am a beneficiary of that lineage. Of all that I am, this is
one of the most important. I am an American. Blest by principals and
ideals I had nothing to do with the forming of. Saturated by civic responsibility,
moral rectitude and patriotism, though seldom practicing them effectively,
I generally know what is right, proper and good for this nation. That
does not mean I can create a plan to bring that about. Rather, I often
gripe and snipe at what others are doing or suggesting for America.
In one way this candidacy is by way of apology for letting those others
determine the playing field. This time I am creating the structure and
ready to be judged upon its adequacy. If I can offer nothing else to
my country, at least I can offer this one effort to try and present
ideas I think neglected or orphaned. I do not really know what good
this will do in the long run, yet I am determined to give it a try.
Hopefully it will be of some use to my fellow citizens and the country
we love. Thank you.
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