Mike Dunn needs to share, too

In comments, bookslinger recommends Dunn's recent letter to the TO Acorn. I had read the letter and wanted to write about it, thanks to bookslinger for prompting me to just do it. As bookslinger notes:

It is telling that not once does he mention the students which he serves, in his letter about "what makes (him) tick."

Indeed. What he does say is this:

Here's what makes me tick:

I grew up in the 1950s eating graham crackers dipped in milk while watching television on a 1956 Packard Bell with wooden knobs. Superman, Roy Rogers, Billy Graham Crusades, Ozzie and Harriet, Mighty Mouse, Disneyland, Lawrence Welk, Lassie and the Untouchables with Elliott Ness were favorites.

The 1950s instilled in me a sense of optimism, faith, justice, morality and patriotism. I still have the 1956 Packard Bell TV, and it works.

Our congressman was a Democrat, James Charles Corman. Corman was born in Galena, Cherokee County, Kansas, on Oct. 20, 1920. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1933. Corman served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps with the 3rd Marine Division from 1942 to 1946. He was in the Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima actions. He was my congressman from 1961 to 1981.

Congressman Corman did something I never forgot: he conducted polls before he voted. Our family would get a letter about every three months asking our opinion of about three different issues. Corman would tabulate the results and then vote, representing the wishes of voters in his district.

I loved Corman. He was a war hero. He conducted polls. He listened to the people. He was honest, uncorruptable. He represented the people when he voted.

He listened to the people.

When I got elected to the Conejo Valley Unified School District School Board, Corman became my mentor and the example that I've followed as a trustee.

Following Corman's example, I polled teachers asking when they wanted Christmas vacation to start. The result: Union bosses Arliegh Kidd and Susan Falk issued a complaint that I violated the labor code. I polled PTA presidents seeking opinions on school closures. The result: Trustees Dolores Didio and Dorothy Beaubien gave me a "Stalin style" no witness, show trial and censured me. Didio and Beaubien should retire.

James Charles Corman, congressman, war hero, family man, my mentor, my example to follow, died in 2001 at 80 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Corman and Ronald Reagan are my heroes.
Michael Dunn
Newbury Park

Oh god, where to start.

There's this romantic movie called "The 1950s". Fans of this movie become so engrossed in the beautifully written plot that they cannot, will not, netflix something new for a change. It's "The 1950s" or nothing, because this movie is the height of human achievement, the nexus of imagination and moral fortitude.

But all they're really talking about is a movie. And it's not like it's a documentary. It's just a movie.

I grew up in the 1970s, and while fans of "The 1950s" really only see the drug scenes and permissive sex scenes, my movie has its own optimism. I grew up optimistic about the equality of women and racial minorities being, you know, normal. SOP. I also got to watch the moon landing on TV- the culmination of a decade of a governmental and societal drive toward progress and science.

Growing up in Southern California in the 1970s, you could believe that racism was a thing almost of the past, and that sexism soon would be. When my grandmother told me that Martin Luther King was a trouble maker and the KKK were upright citizens, I could chalk that up to the outdated memories of an old southern woman. And when Phylis Schafly and friends put out their hysterical tripe about the ERA and how it would be the ruin of American women, you could hope that their craziness was a soon to be vanished backlash against necessary and just change.

And I never, no never, thought of or heard anything about a war on Christianity, of all things. Saying Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays hadn't yet become a political statement.

So my own personal movie is optimistic and hopeful, but also cautious and not a little bit disappointed in the way a certain sector of society and opinion seems to have taken on the identity of the victim, howling about the low returns they're getting on their goddamn movie, "The 1950s".
(Hey: remember that the top tax rates in the '50s jumped around in the 80% range most of the time? Which meant that a lot of the optimism of that decade was given solid grounding in the building of vital infrastructure and the funding of priorities deemed important by the American people.)

Mr. Dunn: there was nothing "Stalin style" about your censure on the school board (Also note that in future, for stylistic purposes, you may want to use stalinesque).

There are rules in any governing body, you chose not to learn them. You said that taking training would be agreeing to brainwashing. You were given the opportunity to apoligize and stop acting like a spoiled ass, you chose to chew your gum and cross your arms and continue acting like a spoiled ass.

Of course, you weren't censured for being an ass; that would in itself be against the rules. You were censured for breaking the rules.

So, this open society you fear so deeply- the one where there is no right or wrong, only what feels good, the one that you're pretty sure George Soros is forcing us into- is this in evidence when you flout governmental rules and standards of decent behavior in your work on the school board?

Ignoring the rules of the governing body you've been elected to serve on: would that be right, because its in some way respectful of the rules? Or wrong, because you are just doing what feels good to you, based on your love of a fictionalized plot that you developed all on your own?

PS: I don't serve on the board and I haven't asked any of the members, but I'm betting that if you really wanted the teachers' opinions on anything, there's probably a means to legally ask for said opinions. That might mean asking someone who knows the ropes to advise you as to the how.