[Updated from 8/8/18] So Walker has no interest in seeing the inside of any of the state facilities where record-breaking numbers of citizens are incarcerated at the cost of a billion taxpayer dollars a year, and where thousands of state citizens work in a system where he's at the top of the organization chart.
Is there another state bureaucracy which he has never visited?
I don't think the main reason Walker rigidly keeps his distance is because felons can't vote. Or that he believes he has nothing in common with inmates, or their families, or the totality of experiences and realities which lead inmates to prison.
OK: I'm sure some of that helps keep Walker in his bubble.
But what I think is really disturbing about his frankly odd intransigence on this issue, a stance he presumes has some kind of merit or value to it, some virtue attached that would resonate with someone, anyone who might say, 'Yeah, good for him; I totally support that' - - is this:
He's completely without curiosity about the institutions.
What they and everything inside - - inmate, walls, corrections officers, cells, teachers, kitchens, maintenance workers, classrooms, administrators, recreation equipment, toilets, yards, everyone, anyone, anything - - looks and feels and sounds and even smells like, in totality.
How could someone in his position, and with so much responsibility as a former legislator and now as Governor for and about who is inside as inmate or employee, and what their daily lives are like, and what their futures hold, and whether anything he has done or is doing or could be or might be done or should be done is having any positive effect on anyone or anything inside - - how that Chief Executive could be without a shred of curiosity significant enough to have a visit scheduled, then a door opened, and then...who knows?
And that's the heart of it. Take one step inside and a light bulb might go off and a new or dormant synapse might fire, and who knows what might happen next?
Having none of this basic human quality called 'curiosity' means never putting one's self into a position where one might have to change or want to change because something unexpected was seen, felt, learned and incorporated as part of a remade new self.
[8/9/18 updates:
1. I pass along this on-the-mark 2015 column by syndicated columnist Richard Cohen, a 2012 list of things Walker shrugged off, a later compilation of issues across which Walker declined to let his intellect roam, and one of several recent Walker's 'what, me worry' dodges.
2. Fine comment, (also below):
A caricature of said person might function as a candidate zooming about, distracting 24/7/365 by addressing crowds of strangers, getting validation from polling data and focus group ratings, and faking relationships with more strangers by pretending to be one of them through Twitter posts about sports and beers and burgers, but a person without fundamental curiosity about the world right in front of them is a soul separated from one's true self and the deeper depth of humanity and life.
Walker would do well to at least be curious about why he is so incurious about other people, and the nitty-gritty of the job he keeps saying he wants, let alone about what makes him tick.
Is there another state bureaucracy which he has never visited?
I don't think the main reason Walker rigidly keeps his distance is because felons can't vote. Or that he believes he has nothing in common with inmates, or their families, or the totality of experiences and realities which lead inmates to prison.
OK: I'm sure some of that helps keep Walker in his bubble.
But what I think is really disturbing about his frankly odd intransigence on this issue, a stance he presumes has some kind of merit or value to it, some virtue attached that would resonate with someone, anyone who might say, 'Yeah, good for him; I totally support that' - - is this:
He's completely without curiosity about the institutions.
What they and everything inside - - inmate, walls, corrections officers, cells, teachers, kitchens, maintenance workers, classrooms, administrators, recreation equipment, toilets, yards, everyone, anyone, anything - - looks and feels and sounds and even smells like, in totality.
How could someone in his position, and with so much responsibility as a former legislator and now as Governor for and about who is inside as inmate or employee, and what their daily lives are like, and what their futures hold, and whether anything he has done or is doing or could be or might be done or should be done is having any positive effect on anyone or anything inside - - how that Chief Executive could be without a shred of curiosity significant enough to have a visit scheduled, then a door opened, and then...who knows?
And that's the heart of it. Take one step inside and a light bulb might go off and a new or dormant synapse might fire, and who knows what might happen next?
Having none of this basic human quality called 'curiosity' means never putting one's self into a position where one might have to change or want to change because something unexpected was seen, felt, learned and incorporated as part of a remade new self.
[8/9/18 updates:
1. I pass along this on-the-mark 2015 column by syndicated columnist Richard Cohen, a 2012 list of things Walker shrugged off, a later compilation of issues across which Walker declined to let his intellect roam, and one of several recent Walker's 'what, me worry' dodges.
2. Fine comment, (also below):
podman said...
At the height of the juvenile prison crisis in Wisconsin he flew to Cuba to visit Guantanamo. Par for the course for him, like when the news that Wisconsin was 49th in the nation in road quality he raises the speed limit. WTF!
August 9, 2018 at 10:18 AM
A caricature of said person might function as a candidate zooming about, distracting 24/7/365 by addressing crowds of strangers, getting validation from polling data and focus group ratings, and faking relationships with more strangers by pretending to be one of them through Twitter posts about sports and beers and burgers, but a person without fundamental curiosity about the world right in front of them is a soul separated from one's true self and the deeper depth of humanity and life.
Walker would do well to at least be curious about why he is so incurious about other people, and the nitty-gritty of the job he keeps saying he wants, let alone about what makes him tick.
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