"Wise Old Owl" Reappears

Thanks, Mike, for your insightful feedback.  Yes, it is the old challenge to “be in the world but not of the world.”  Essentialism may yet become my career engine, for it is much-needed frame of analysis.  I visited for two hours with a former UW-Madison Ph.D. professor of mine, who was at one time head education policy analyst for the California State Legislature!   He was also the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction lobbying in Washington, D.C., where he worked closely with Senator Edward Kennedy and staff.  He is age 79 now, but he is an “insider.”  He has a practical grasp of public affairs that is amazing, and, yes, sobering.  Yet, he remains an optimist.  He and I agreed.  The essence of public life is to assure fairness, and by this, I mean decent wages, medical care, affordable housing, bread and butter stuff, not social engineering like affirmative action.  He spent a year in the UK on a research fellowship to study educational policy there; his comparison between elections there (no electronic media) and here (too many elections that wear out people) was, as always, astounding, insightful.  As Edmund Burke of old in England observed in the 1700’s, political parties serve us well if they only maintain discussion of, public education about vital issues, regardless of the back-room dealings.  With this, your humble servant concurs.  I am hoping my former professor will morph into a career coach yet for me.  He seems lonely, and frankly this writer is lonely for a “wise old owl” to offer constructive reality checks, guidance.  Take care.  Keep in touch.