Category: Education Page 1 of 8

There are 150 teacher years in Connie’s immediate family and her first book, written for Performance Learning Systems, Inc., in 1989, is entitled “Training the Teacher As A Champion.” In this day of Betsy DeVos, you can expect to hear some comments on how our educational system is being undermined from the top down.

Mother Jones & Union Activism in the U.S.

By Connie Wilson

On September 16, 2025

In Editorial, Education, Local, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

Activist and organizer Mother Jones.

We’re on the way to the 56th Nashville Film Festival. Driving 7 hours to Paducah, Kentucky was the start.

On the way, we stopped at a rest stop in Southern Illinois, where I communed with Mother Jones, patron saint of the magazine for the reasons you can read here for yourself. Mother Jones was a union organizer and activist. So was I. Mother Jones formed the United Mine Workers, hoping to stop the exploitation of underage minersand the habit of taking advantage of immigrant labor that still exists.

I led the 3-year charge to unionize (organize) the SEA (Silvis Education Association) and I worked hard and long, as, I’m sure, Mother Jones did. My efforts were once scorned by a dinner partner who tried to assign malign characteristics to unions, when, in fact, they are one of the reasons that American workers began to be paid a living wage and treated fairly. This particular critic didn’t like the NEA (National Education Association) and was a white male who was, no doubt, during his working years, a managerial type.

Union Organizing by Mother Jones

When I started teaching in Silvis, Illinois, in 1969 unions were the farthest thing from my mind. We had an education association, which was basically a milk-and-cookies type after-school meeting with no power at all. There had been no recognition of the organization as representing the teachers who taught in Silvis, who numbered about 50 souls in grades K through 8. The SEA had been in existence since 1962, a time period when I was still in high school.

It wasn’t until at least 10 years after my employment began in Silvis that I became aware of the fact that every other school district around us had representatives who sat down with the school board to discuss issues like salary, class size, and work hours, while we had nothing. We read our new year’s salary in the newspaper and it rarely went up. I started teaching in Silvis for $5,280 a year and, out of that, paid for pre-school supervision for my then-one-year-old son. If you think that sounds like a paltry sum for working a full year, you are right.

In defense of the hair do that looks like it was beaten by an egg-beater, I had my sun glasses on top of my head until a few moments before this picture was taken.

I remember saying, to our then-principal, “They should never have rattled my cage,” which had to do with the administration taking my one day of personal leave when my son was hospitalized with double pneumonia and I was told to go right to the hospital from work. I was gone one day. The district took advantage of my necessary absence due to the ill health of my then 2-year-old son, showing absolutely no sympathy to the first-year teacher. (I remember being asked, “Is he going to die?” to justify leaving after I got the call that he was in the emergency room.)

So, I began finding out what it took to unionize our milk-and-cookies organization. It would require a vote supervised by the League of Women Voters and the next 3 years were a blur of finding out how to achieve this. The days of a powerless organization that had no discussion rights with the administration and had to content itself with reading next year’s salary in the local newspaper were gone.

It took me three years of P.R. efforts and going door-to-door in the Silvis neighborhoods, while my two best friends, Linda and Judy went off to Egypt and rode camels during Easter break. But not me. I worked on finding out how to get our group recognized by a recalcitrant school board and administration for 3 years and later was asked to lead workshops elsewhere by the IEA (Illinois Education Association) because we chose to run three candidates at once rather than do the “bullet voting” that the IEA recommended. I defended myself against dogs that ate the buttons off my coat and endured teetering on the brink of blasted-out concrete porches (no idea why the center portion of one house’s porch looked like it had been Ground Zero for an explosion, but it did).

We won the vote and, as far as I am aware, the Silvis Education Association still has negotiating rights with the Silvis School Board. In order to get that right, our organization had to interview and then back new candidates for the school board. We campaigned for our endorsed candidates, whom we interviewed at the local library, and put up billboards. I organized a phone tree to contact local voters. We won, but it took three years of work. We elected four members of a seven member board. Unlike DJT, we were not out for revenge. We just wanted what every other school district’s employees had: collective bargaining rights.

That is what Mother Jones helped miners to achieve and I’d recommend reading what the rest stop monument informed us about her life and achievements.

I may not have single-handedly made Silvis teachers rich (or rich-er), but we established a Sick Leave Bank into which employees could contribute a day (or more) of their unusued sick leave towards someone with a catastrophic illness. I know that it came in handy for Marion Gray when she was out a lengthy period recovering from a mastectomy. We were able to secure some other benefits for the underpaid Silvis employees, and, most importantly, we opened the door to the SEA being treated as a representative organization for future teachers in the Silvis School District.

And that’s your history lesson for the day.

56th Nashville Film Festival Screens September 18-24, 2025

By Connie Wilson

On September 15, 2025

In Education, Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews

If you are planning on attending the 56th Nashville Film Festival to view any of the 150 or so feature films, shorts, animated shorts or documentaries (Sept.18-24, 2025) check out some reviews of a few of the offerings that have appeared on this blog and on The Movie Blog previously, usually after having seen them at Sundance or SXSW.

Also, please pay attention to the warnings about “spoilers.”

The 3 films I saw at other festivals I’ve listed in the order I enjoyed them, at the time. It’s tough comparing a 7-minute hilarious short (“Retirement Plan” from Ireland) with a full-length drama like “Omaha,” but both are worth your time.

I’ll be covering more in the week to come on the ground in Nashville and there are others up on WeeklyWilson and The Movie Blog.

Enjoy!

https://www.weeklywilson.com/retirement-the-7-minute-short-that-tells-the-truth/https://

www.themovieblog.com/2025/02/retirement-plan-a-7-minute-short-that-amuses/https://

www.weeklywilson.com/omaha-is-a-film-for-our-times-from-debut-feature-film-director-cole-webley/

https://www.weeklywilson.com/the-beguiling-screens-at-sxsw-on-march-9-2025/https://

www.themovieblog.com/2025/03/the-beguiling-short-screens-sxsw-2025/

“Matter of Time” Documentary at 56th Nashville Film Festival Features Eddie Vedder

By Connie Wilson

On September 10, 2025

In Education, Health/Medicine, Movies, Science and Medicine

Eddie Vedder performing in “Matter of Time” from Director Matt Finlin’s documentary, winner of the Jury Award for a Music Documentary, at the 56th Nashville Film Festival. (Photo by Tim Durkan).

In 2014, musician Eddie Vedder and Jill Vedder co-founded the EB Research Partnership ,a non-profit organization dedicated to finding a cure for the genetic skin disorder epidermolysis bullosa.^[135] Director Matt Finlin’s one hour and 46 minute documentary follows Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam fame as he gives a series of fund-raising concerts in Seattle in 2023 to raise money to find a cure for this horrible disease. Sixty million was raised for research that resulted in 140 research projects, over the past eleven years.

This is an absolutely heartbreaking look at a lethal disease. You might want to have some Kleenex handy if you make it through the 105 minute documentary dry-eyed. Half of the documentary features Vedder singing onstage at Seattle concerts, accompanying himself on acoustic and electric guitar and ukelele. (No Pearl Jam). I admit to knowing very little about Eddie Vedder going into this film, other than remembering his 3 year feud (1994-1997) with Ticketmaster. I knew that Vedder had composed musical scores for films like “Into the Wild” (2007) and the 1995 soundtrack for “Dead Man Walking.” The Pearl Jam debut album “Ten” Rolling Stone voted 209^th out of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time was on my radar . The thirteen times platinum sales with the song “Jeremy” coming in at #11 on VHI’s list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s is another testimony to Vedder’s success.

Eddie Vedder.

I was always aware of the existence of Pearl Jam, but a huge fan I was not. However, after seeing how much good one entertainer has done over a period of more than 10 years, I am a fan. I also admired Vedder’s public stance on pro-choice and other issues and the candidates he supported during past presidential campaigns.

E.B.

Called “The worst disease you’ve never heard of” E.B. is also dubbed the “butterfly disease” because the slightest pressure on the skin of a child with the disease can mean agony. Open wounds can lead to an aggressive form of cancer; the patient often doesn’t have a long life. Septic shock can set in if the patient gets an infection, so measures must be taken to wrap the victim in gauze each day for protection. When clinical trials were discussed, one of the oldest patients that could be found to take part was only 27. We get to know another patient who dies at 16, which we learn near the documentary’s end.

PARENTS SPEAK

What the children and their parents go through is mind-boggling. As Eli’s mother says, “We just want someone to understand what we’re going through on a day-to-day basis.” Another mother says, “It tears you apart as a child and as a family. I would give anything for my child not to have E.B.” Things that we all take for granted are huge hurdles—like taking a bath. It can take 4 to 5 hours (and much gauze) for each mini-mummification application. Playing with Leggos or simply trying to crawl with such sensitive skin are impossibilities.

A young sufferer from E.B. in the award-winning Music Documentary at the 56th Nashville Film Festival “Matter of Time” from Direct

People stare at the children afflicted with E.B. which caused the 8-year-old sister of Eli to make a TikTok video and posters that read “Just say hi.” The social stigma is there. There are children, like Rowan, who say, “I just want the wounds to stop happening and for my life to be like everyone else’s.”

In the midst of all of this suffering (Charlie, who was abandoned at birth, and was “in pain from the moment he was born”) becomes the adopted child of one family after an orphanage initially gave the woman who would become his adoptive mother syringes of morphine and sent the newborn to her, essentially to die. Charlie surprised everyone by having a fighting spirit. He survived and went on to join the family as their much-loved adopted son.

CHILDISH ADVICE

One young sufferer, an accomplished artist, gave this advice: “Live each moment to the fullest and do not dwell on the things you can’t change.” Later, this artist—who lost an arm to the disease as the prosthesis did not “take”—says “Live your best life for as long as you possibly can.” It’s no surprise that terms like “resilience” and “fortitude” are used to describe the courageous children and parents who are interviewed onscreen and share their truth.

REMARKS

Eddie Vedder performing in “Matter of Time,” raising funds for E.B. research. (Photo by Tim Durkan).

As one parent said, “It tears you apart as a child and as a family. It pretty much turned our world upside down.” It is remarkable to learn that at least two sets of parents chose to adopt children with this disease when they had been abandoned by their biological parents and were left alone in an orphanage.

If this sounds like a terribly depressing film, you’re right. But there IS a light at the end of this particular medical tunnel. There is research attempting to “change dread into hope”. Because of celebrities like Eddie Vedder (in the credits, Adam Sandler and Meg Ryan are also noted) E.B. has made progress. E.B. is much closer to being cured than 95% of other such diseases, thanks to fund-raising efforts like Vedder’s. Thanks, also, to Director Matt Finlin and company, who brought this story to public view, winning the Jury Prize for Best Music Documentary at the 56th Nashville Film Festival.

BREAKTHROUGH

The 140 research projects have succeeded in identifying the specific gene that causes the disease and keeps the Collagen VII from doing its job effectively. There are three forms of the disease mentioned—EB Simplex, Juztional EB and Recessive dystrophic EB. The science is relatively straightforward. For some forms of the disease, there now is a treatment that involves injections of a live virus that goes into the skin cells and clips out the faulty gene, replacing it with a healthy one. It is stressed that this is a treatment, not a cure,–and that it only works on certain forms of the disease–but, as Jill Vedder (Eddie’s wife) and various researchers in the field tell us, “A decade ago, it was hard to imagine a cure. We are on the edge of a cure for E.B. We can now manipulate cells in a petri dish and we have a viral-based gene therapy.” Hence the title: “Matter of Time.”

Director Matt Finlin of DoorKnockerMedia accepting the Jury Award for Best Music Documentary at the 56th Nashville Film Festival on September 21st, 2025.

At the end of this informative and emotional documentary, this message appears onscreen:

“For millions living with rare diseases, time is not a luxury; it’s a race against bureaucracy, funding gaps and government priorities. It’s up to us to accelerate science and ensure that life-changing treatments reach the people who need them most.”

Among the diseases mentioned are Cystic Fibrosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease, and ALS . With the current administration in power, the funding for research looks exceedingly bleak. Here is an NPR report that tells just how deep the Trump cuts are: Trump administration makes deep cuts to science funding : NPR

It is important to know the facts about whether or not your government is supporting the research to help vanquish diseases like E.B. Even more relevant, will the current CDC support vaccines to prevent measles, whooping cough, polio, Covid-19, bubonic plague and many other diseases that we all thought were gone forever? Under this administration, those diseases are coming back. The CDC has been co-opted by an unqualified anti-vaccine chief who is taking all of us down with him. I am a cancer survivor. With RFK, Jr. heading up the CDC, I am worrying about even being able to get a vaccine booster shot for Covid-19 before I return to Texas for the winter. I fear for the retirees heading for Florida, which has recently announced a cessation of vaccination programs. Keep all of this in mind when you next vote. Ask yourself whether the USPO, the FBI, the CDC, the (now demolished) Education Department, the Defense Department are being run in the most effective manner by experts in their fields, or whether we are now fully mired in a kakistocracy. (Kakistocracy: System of Government that is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.)

This is a well-done look at a disease few of us know much (or anything) about. It is skillful in weaving Vedder’s concert footage into touching first-person testimonials to the progress that money for research has made and can make for these brave children and their families. I hope that everyone who goes to this one because they are Eddie Vedder fans gives him great credit for spearheading private efforts like this for over a decade and demonstrating compassion rather than the futile “thoughts and prayers” that we primarily get from the top.

KUDOS

Award-winning Director Matt Finlin (“Matter of Time”) with Weekly Wilson/ The Movie Blog reviewer Connie Wilson on Sunday, September 21st, at the 56th Nashville Film Festival.

Similar kudos to Director Matt Finlin and Blue Leach cinematography as well as Screenwriter/Producer Karen Barzilay for their hard work and vision in bringing information like this to the public’s attention. In addition to Vedder’s acoustic music, Composer Kevin Drew and Broken Social Scene composed the music, and James Yates edited. All are to be commended for bringing a difficult topic to the screen to add to the awareness of the public and, hopefully, to bring more financial support. All have done a good job with a difficult subject.

CONCLUSION

In 2022 at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival I reviewed Michael Burke’s documentary about ALS sufferer Brian Wallach, “No Ordinary Campaign,” at its World Premiere. “Matter of Time” reminded me of “No Ordinary Campaign.” Both were heartbreaking and well-done.

As one young E.B. sufferer articulated, poignantly, in the film, “I hope more people being kind to other people will come out of this.”

So do I. A change in leadership at the top is the first step towards that goal of going forward, not backward, in important health and science research.

Department of Education Is Latest on the DJT Chopping Block

By Connie Wilson

On July 16, 2025

In Editorial, Education, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Local, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer

“As Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated in her dissent to the decision that allows DJT to destroy the Department of Education, ‘When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it.’ Right now, the law is whatever Trump says it is.”

So wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in dissenting from the Supreme Court giving Donald J. Trump the green light to destroy the Department of Education.

Supposedly, a President cannot unilaterally abolish a federal agency that was created by an act of Congress. Except that Trump says that whatever he says goes, and the Court’s conservative super-majority has agreed. I’m sure we all remember the Access Hollywood tape, where DJT said, “When you’re a star, they let you do whatever you want.”

The demolition of the Department of Education will be a cruel act of sabotage towards not only vital educational research and financial aid for education, but, also, will further undermine the rights of low-income students and students with disabilities. Trump has never been known for his compassion for the weak. His attitude towards the frail and sick and disabled can be compared to that of ancient Sparta, where those with disabilities were thrown on the rocks to die a cruel death.

blind justice statue

Medicaid will no longer be able to help the poor in America. Trying to use it for health care will be death by 1,000 paper cuts. And now the Department of Education, long a target of the Trump MAGA hordes, is in the cross hairs.

This is not the United States of America I grew up in, and it is not the nation I love. We need to stop this man and the monsters and incompetents within his administration before they ruin us forever.

We Need to Act on Weather Issues NOW

By Connie Wilson

On July 13, 2025

In Editorial, Education, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Local, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Scary stories, Science and Medicine, Texas

[Excerpts from “Flash Floods and Climate Policy in the New Yorker, by Elizabeth Kolbert (7/12/2025)]

Flash flooding in Davenport, Iowa on July 11, 2025

As anyone who has read my blog knows, I am with Greta Tunberg, the Swedish activist for climate awareness, in feeling that we must do what we can to stop the frightening proliferation of weather catastrophes, brought on by the global warming that former Vice President Al Gore has tracked for decades. It isn’t a matter of not believing it is happening any more. We are in the midst of it happening.

On Friday, July 11th (2 days ago) the area where I am currently living (Iowa/Illinois border) was hit by an EF2 tornado. The area where we spend the harsh Midwestern winters, Texas’ Hill Country and the Guadalupe River, has now lost over 110 lives to the rampaging river. Experts say that the warming atmosphere allows more precipitation to be held in the clouds and be dropped during flash floods very quickly.

Areas all over the planet are experiencing flooding. (Italy, China, etc.) We are not immune here in the United States. Obviously, moving 1,000 miles from one area to another in the U.S., as we did in May, has simply exposed us to flooding in both places. It’s raining in Texas in the Austin area right now on Sunday, July 13th.

Camp Mystic, Texas on the Guadalupe River. Over 110 dead and many still MIA.

Read the excerpts from the article (below) and tell me that this isn’t a problem that needs to be addressed with slogans other than “Drill, baby, drill!” And it needs to be addressed NOW!!!

The Trump Administration has made no secret of its disdain for science, and on June 30th it recommended cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from projects aimed at improving climate and weather predictions. Among the many research centers the Administration wants to shutter are the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the National Severe Storms Laboratory, and the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations. The last two of these are based in Oklahoma; all are funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is part of the Commerce Department. “I cannot emphasize enough how disastrous closing the National Severe Storms Laboratory and CIWRO would be—for ALL of us,” Stephen Nehrenz, a meteorologist with the CBS affiliate in Tulsa, posted on X after the budget proposal was released.

Nearly six hundred people have left the agency since President Trump took office, many because they were fired and others because they took early retirement. Among those in the latter group is Paul Yura, the warning-coördination meteorologist at the Weather Service’s office in New Braunfels, Texas, which handles forecasts for Kerr County. A story that ran on the weather blog of KXAN, Austin’s NBC affiliate, in April, when Yura announced that he was leaving, noted that he had “tremendous experience understanding local weather patterns while ensuring timely warnings get disseminated to the public in a multitude of ways.”

flash flooding in Davenport, Iowa on 7/11/2025

Davenport, Iowa, Friday, July 11th, 35th St. area and near Duck Creek area were hardest hit.

The amount of rain falling on so-called “extreme precipitation days” has, during the past several decades, increased by twenty per cent in the region that includes Texas, by almost half in the Midwest, and by a staggering sixty per cent in the Northeast. European researchers concluded that the Kerr County floods in Texas bear the fingerprints of warming. “Natural variability alone cannot explain the changes in precipitation associated with this very exceptional meteorological condition,” the researchers wrote.

In a sane country, information like this would prompt two responses. First, steps would be taken to limit the dangers of climate change by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Second, more resources would be devoted to preparing for weather extremes. Unfortunately, that is not the sort of country we live in now.

The federal government is openly trying to maximize fossil-fuel consumption—and, hence, emissions. On Monday, as twenty more deaths were reported in Texas, Trump signed an executive order aimed at further hobbling the solar- and wind-energy industries, which had already been kneecapped by previous executive orders, as well as by the provisions of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, approved by Congress earlier this month. On Tuesday, as the death toll climbed by another ten people, the Environmental Protection Agency held hearings on a proposal to scrap Biden-era limits on emissions from coal-fired power plants. Trump and congressional Republicans have put an end to, as one commentator put it in Forbes, “any notion that a true energy transition is happening in the United States.”

Meanwhile, the White House is actively undermining the nation’s ability to predict—and to deal with—climate-related disasters. In April, the Administration dismissed nearly four hundred scientists who were working, on a volunteer basis, to draft the next climate-assessment report, which is due, under law, in 2027. Late last month, it shut down the website of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, where the Fifth Assessment report and its predecessors used to be available. It has cut off grants to climate scientists, kicked nasa climate researchers out of their offices, and hired climate-science deniers to fill key government positions.

What The Bill Will Do: What We Need To Do

By Connie Wilson

On July 5, 2025

In Editorial, Education, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

(By Patricia Hoffman, with updates from the blog.)

For the people that didn’t have the time to read the entire bill that Trump just signed..here’s the worst of the worst…

UNTIL IT HITS HOME, TRUMP VOTERS WILL KEEP LOOKING AWAY—

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” isn’t a budget—it’s Project 2025 turned into law. A blueprint for authoritarian rule disguised as fiscal policy.

And the damage? It’s about to hit YOU.

Here’s how it’s coming for YOU:

WHEN THE STORM HITS & NO ONE COMES

Sec. 80307–80309: Slashes climate resilience + FEMA funds

Hurricanes, floods, and wildfires will leave your town in ruins—and there’ll be no help coming. Just ask North Carolina. Recently Trump’s old Press Secretary, now Governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee, called to ask for help for her storm-damaged state. Guess how responsive this administration would be to a blue state?

WHEN YOUR MEDICARE IS GONE

Sec. 44141 + 44122 + 44131: Medicaid work requirements + limits + blue state penalties

Can’t prove you worked enough hours? Say goodbye to coverage. Missed the paperwork? No backpay. Live in a blue state? Tough luck. The goal, according to a NY Times analysis, is to make the paperwork so difficult that it is nearly impossible to claim aid, even when it the applicant needs it and deserves it. “Death by a thousand paper cuts.”

WHEN YOUR MEDICARE, MEDICAID, & VETERANS CARE DISAPPEAR

Sections 44141, 44122, 44131, 44125

Work requirements kick seniors off Medicaid.

Blue states lose funding for expanded coverage.

Gender-affirming care banned—even for veterans who served this country.

Retroactive coverage is eliminated—so if you got sick before paperwork cleared, too bad.

And veterans? They’ll face longer wait times, fewer providers, and reduced support for mental health, PTSD, and service-related conditions—while Trump brags about giving billions to his golf resorts.

WHEN YOU CAN’T AFFORD A DOCTOR

Sec. 44110 + 44125: Cuts all care for undocumented people + bans gender-affirming care

Your local hospital shuts down because funding dries up. You get in line—and find out your service doesn’t exist anymore.

WHEN YOUR GROCERY BILL DOUBLES

Trump tariffs + SNAP (Food Stamp) cuts in Sec. 10008, 10012

Your produce costs more, your gas costs more, and your neighbor just got kicked off food assistance at age 64. RiverBend Food Bank in the Quad Cities is already on record issuing warnings about their concern(s). You’ll have the GOP to thank for not being able to provide food to the needy in the richest country on Earth.

WHEN YOUR PHARMACY, POST OFFICE, OR BANK VANISHES

Budget austerity + deregulation (Sec. 50002, 50003)

Demonstrators in Davenport protested both the autocratic behavior of DJT and his ICE raids.

The institutions holding your small town together disappear—and with them, your access to medicine, checks, and mail. During DJT 1.0 there was already an assault on the USPO because of Trump’s appointee to top administrative positions, who had stakes in the private delivery of mail. Good luck on keeping Benjamin Franklin’s legacy to us alive and well. And this doesn’t even factor in the many small businesses that can’t make plans from week to week because of Trump’s on-again/off-again tariff obsession or because they are Latino and can no longer operate their food truck or small business amongst all the chaos that the King of Chaos hath wrought.

WHEN YOU LOSE YOUR JOB

Sec. 90004–90006: Civil service purge + pension gutting

You’re fired to make room for a Trump loyalist—and your pension just got slashed while you weren’t looking.

WHEN YOUR DAUGHTER’S SCHOOL TEACHES OBEDIENCE, NOT MATH

Sec. 30061 + DEI bans. This is a technique right out of the most recent “rules” handed down to Russian schools by Vladimir Putin. (See “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” documentary).

A still from Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borestein and Pavel Talankin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Pavel Talankin

Education turns into indoctrination. The path to college narrows. DEI is gone. If she’s not a legacy or male, she’s left behind. Women’s rights, fought for since the 70s, are already disappearing, as access to abortion has been rescinded and now the GOP evangelical supporters will be focusing on eliminating access to the morning after pill. Your job as a female (J.D. Vance and Elon Musk would approve) is to return to the fifties, when a woman’s place was in the kitchen and popping out babies to raise the country’s birth rate. Back to when the “good” jobs were reserved for males only. I remember that era well. No females need apply to join the ranks of professional occupations. It was fine to be a secretary, a hairdresser, a teacher, a nurse, but don’t apply to medical school, law school or engineering school.

WHEN BOOKS DISAPPEAR FROM YOUR LIBRARY (if they haven’t already)

Federal anti-“woke” regulation in play

The books your kid loves? Gone. History? Whitewashed. And no, it’s not up for debate. If DJT says that it’s the Gulf of America, get with the program. If DJT says he really won the election of 2020, be prepared to say “Yes, Sir” or STFU. Rewrite the insurrection at the Capitol as “warriors”for Trump instead of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

January 6th: Trump-inspired invasion of the Capitol. All pardoned, with no cogent plan to separate those who had attacked police officers and headed militia organizations.

WHEN BLACKOUTS HIT & THE GRID FAILS

Sec. 42108–42301: Repeals environmental safeguards + Clean Air Act

Wildfires, rolling blackouts, and air so dirty your kid needs an inhaler. All so fossil fuel execs can cash out faster. Trump is even attempting to bring back coal, which he remembers from his youth. While China is making progress on their emissions, the U.S. is moving backwards, intentionally. Climate change is just a hoax for the GOP. Don’t worry about the steadily increasing incredible heat or the much-higher-than-normal hurricanes and tornadoes. Just agree with your Dear Leader.

WHEN YOUR 401(K) VANISHES

Market panic from deregulation + chaos economics

Trump’s chaos spooks Wall Street. Your retirement evaporates. No more dream home—just dreams deferred.

Adam Kinzinger.

WHEN YOUR SON IS SENT TO WAR

Sec. 20001: Indo-Pacific military escalation

Trump fans the flames abroad, then demands your kid carry the torch. No plan, no diplomacy—just body bags. If the planning and leadership for armed conflict is as slipshod as the recent Yemen SNAFU (that put the Editor of the ‘Atlantic” in the loop) or DOGE, good luck to us all.

WHEN LGBTQ+ KIDS HAVE NOWHERE LEFT TO GO

Sec. 44125: Strips healthcare + protections. Phone banks for suicidal LGBTQ kids are already gone.

Your gay nephew? Your trans friend? Denied care, expelled from school, forced into the shadows. Gays and women should “learn their place.” This bill makes “Don’t ask; don’t tell” look absolutely progressive.

WHEN BILLIONAIRES GET TAX CUTS, YOU GET THE BILL

Trump’s bill eliminates the tanning bed tax, free IRS filing, and expands MAGA-branded savings accounts while cutting food, healthcare, and energy support for working families.

They’re redistributing wealth upward—and branding it as patriotism.

Meanwhile, you can’t file your taxes without paying TurboTax.

WHEN PARENTS CAN’T AFFORD CHILDCARE OR PRE-K

Missing Now: The bill slashed child tax credits and cut funding for childcare—directly impacting working parents.

You’re expected to work more while getting less—and pay more for someone else to watch your kids.

Universal Pre-K? Gone. Raising smart, independent thinkers isn’t part of their plan. The less critical thinking the GOP is capable of doing, the better. Trump chose the Republican party to be his standard bearer (despite years of contributing to Dems) because he knew they’d be easier to con. And he was right.

WHEN YOUR COMMUNITY CENTER CLOSES & PARKS FALL APART OR ARE SOLD OFF

Elon Musk

Sections 41009, 80301–80309: Guts historic preservation, climate justice, national park maintenance, and local community block grants.

No summer rec program. No park repairs. No local arts grants. Small towns and underserved communities will be hollowed out.

WHEN THE GOVERNMENT ISN’T WORKING—BECAUSE TRUMP & MUSK FIRED EVERYONE

Sections 90004–90006 (Schedule F): Guts civil service protections and allows mass firings.

RFK, Jr.

Experienced public health experts, FEMA coordinators, and environmental scientists—replaced by political loyalists who will say “yes” to anything. Non-medical Health & Human Services leader Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is already sowing distrust of the medical experts. During Congressional hearings it was necessary to explain some of the medical terms to the people in charge, because they have no background in medicine or science. Already debunked theories about ADD and ADHD being caused by vaccines that have saved millions of lives now cause things like the recent measles epidemic that began in Texas. Do you remember the polio vaccine? The Department’s advice and public pronouncements about vaccines (etc.) are so unreliable and off-the-mark that one of the nation’s leading experts in the field, Dr. Michael Osterholm, has formed a group to put out knowledgeable advice to the unsuspecting public. Sowing distrust in public institutions is perfect for a leader who may well be a Russian asset, as it cuts deep. We become the laughingstock of the educated science-based world as we stumble from crisis to crisis led by erroneous and/or prejudiced information distributed by the very agency that should be guiding our medical choices. The experts in those agencies are already resigning in protest and are being recruited by countries who recognize that vaccines have saved millions of lives over the years. So, in addition to dying because of misinformation, we face a brain drain in any scientific area you can name (and it’s already happening.)

It’s not about draining the swamp—it’s about drowning it in sycophancy. DJT’s vulnerability to flattery was recognized by Russia way back in the eighties, and they certainly are getting their money’s worth for their support. (And they don’t even have to stop bombing Ukrainian citizens, but are actually stepping up their attacks. (So much for ending the war in one day!)

WHEN TECH GIANTS RULE—AND YOUR STATE CAN’T STOP THEM

Section 44001: Blocks states from regulating AI, education tech, or privacy standards for 10 years.

Even if your state wants to protect your kids from unregulated AI or TikTok-style data mining—it can’t. Even Margery Taylor Greene, the laughingstock of the bunch for her antics and lack of knowledge admitted she didn’t know about this AI regulation and doesn’t like it. (Comes under the category of “Even a blind pig….”)

Trump’s bill hands the future of technology to unaccountable megacorporations. Read the Peter Thiel piece on this blog; consult Substack for more on the topic.

WHEN THERE’S NO ONE LEFT TO WATCH THE POWERFUL

Sections 50002, 50003, 80121(h): Guts the CFPB, PCAOB, and court oversight of fossil fuel permits.

Corporate fraud? Unsafe consumer products? Toxic pollution? Nobody’s checking. Nobody’s stopping it. After all, you can peddle Bibles and gold tennis shoes and Bitcoin (known to be preferred by the criminal element) and perfume and everything else under the sun. There is not one murmur of protest from the GOP in power about this indiscriminate feathering of the Trump nest and this blatant disregard for the emoluments clause of the Constitution, check your conscience at the door!To understand the Emoluments Clause and its implications for Trump, consider the following points:

The Emoluments Clause is found in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution.
It prohibits federal officials from receiving gifts or payments from foreign states without congressional consent.
The clause aims to prevent corruption and foreign influence in U.S. governance.
Trump faced lawsuits alleging violations due to his business interests receiving payments from foreign entities.
Next, Trump will be attempting to change the emoluments clause via the courts he has stacked,because, after all, perhaps he can pick up the gift of another free luxury airplane if he just asks.

The powerful will act with impunity—because Trump removed the referees.

WHEN BLUE STATES PAY THE PRICE FOR CARING

Section 44131: Penalizes states that expanded Medicaid (i.e., most blue states)

If your state worked hard to give people healthcare, it now gets less federal funding. Why? Because this bill rewards cruelty and punishes compassion. (See Steven Miller and Tom Holman for examples of cruelty and lack of compassion in living form.)

Trump said it himself: “I have the right to do whatever I want.”

This bill gives him that power—with your tax dollars.

This is not a warning.

This is happening.

It’s theft wrapped in a flag.

It’s censorship, cruelty, control—and collapse.

.Joni Ernst

If you live in Iowa, remember that one of your Senators is over 90 and the other one, Joni Ernst’s response, at a town hall meeting that pointed out how many citizens could die because of Medicaid cuts, responded that “Everybody dies” and then traveled to a cemetery to film a sarcastic response that also involved mentioning the Tooth Fairy and looking to God for help. This same female Senator, who served in the Armed Forces, voted to confirm a totally unqualified individual to become Secretary of Defense.

If you’ve been silent, speak up and vote the GOP out in the mid-terms, before they destroy our democracy and the trust of the citizens in nearly every once-trustworthy institution (if that hasn’t already happened). Even Elon Musk, the Godfather of DOGE, recognized what a terrible bill Trump’s bill was and how much it will add to our national debt. The Republican party was afraid to go after Medicare to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans, so they went after Medicaid and the poor instead, all the while hiding behind the patiotic notion of expelling illegal aliens (primarily Latinos). While they promised to focus on the most dangerous criminal element, the records show that many of the “illegal aliens” are not criminal elements at all. Remember: those in this country illegally who have been working picking our crops, cleaning our houses, working at our slaughtering houses, have paid into Social Security but can never derive any benefits from the money they paid in. Just as there was no pre-planning or selectivity when all of the January 6th rioters were turned loose (some straight from prison), there has been no true careful planning of the campaign to deport illegal aliens. The entire game plan has been to “blame Biden” at every turn, even though much of the “blaming” is lying. There is never any accountability for a malignant narcissist who would stack every government organization with only Trump loyalists to the point that we have become a kakistrocracy (look it up).

Knowledge is power.

Please share this information and educate fellow Americans.

We can only hope and pray that, with help from Russia and computer hackers and access to networks like StarLink, with computer experts like those on the DOGE task force, the GOP hasn’t already fixed our previously fair election process beyond repair. There are some indications that this may have occurred; it appears that there is nothing DJT won’t authorize if it allows him retain power and make money. That’s the kind of leader Donald J. Trump (and his cronies) is. It’s been quite clear from the outset, since past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.

Trump is a convicted felon, a businessman who bankrupted his own companies multiple times (6?) and seems hell-bent, with this bill, on bankrupting the USA. Perhaps that is what the money from Russia that bailed Trump out numerous times is demanding as payback for their longstanding (nearly 40 years) support. Jeffrey Epstein described him as “my best friend” and then died, somewhat mysteriously. We were warned early on what might happen if DJT were to regain power. And now it has.

The mid-terms, like winter, are coming. Make them count. Make those responsible for this travesty pay. Vote them out.

National Labor Relations Board Computer Data in Russia’s Hands

By Connie Wilson

On April 24, 2025

In Editorial, Education, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Local, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

“A whistleblower told Congress and CNN that DOGE staffers secretly used Starlink (Musk’s satellite network) to export vast amounts of sensitive worker, union and employer data from the records of the National Labor Relations Board. Russian hackers then logged onto the NLRB’s computers, USING THE RIGHT PASSWORDS, the whistleblower said.”

Where does your mind go when you read this?

Do you wonder, as I did, “Gee. How did the Russian hackers KNOW THE PASSWORDS?”

Or do you say “Well, DJT is definitely in the tank for Putin. Everything he has done—nearly all of it very detrimental to our country in so many different ways—is something that Russian media is crowing about on their official television channel. ”

I could go on at great length about the damage to our country that has been visited upon us to date, but I don’t need to explain this to anyone with a functioning brain and the ability to “connect the dots.”

Think about the above and be afraid. Be very afraid.

And while I am pondering the horrors of being stuck in a kakistocracy (look it up), if you have, so far, been giving Donald J. Trump the benefit of MANY doubts and honestly do believe that he is acting in our country’s best interests and is treating the Presidency of the United States the way it should be treated—well, then you’re not really paying attention, so move long,.

Nothing to see here if you’ve drunk the Kool Aid.

“You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone”

By Connie Wilson

On February 26, 2025

In Editorial, Education, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

By Susan Caskle

“Bee Gone: A Political Parable”

Big, if true.

Elon Musk claims DOGE is uncovering all kinds of waste and fraud, outrageous scams perpetrated on the American people. These scams are so blatant and obvious that even youngsters untrained in forensic accounting can find them in moments. The implication is that federal workers, who are experts in their fields are either too stupid to have seen them or irredeemably corrupt. Look at the Social Security Administration, for example. Musk posted that his minions had found more than 20 million entries in the database with ages over 100 years old, including millions of people listed as over 150. It’s “the biggest fraud in history,” Musk said.

Except, of course, it’s nothing of the sort.

Because of a coding quirk in the vintage computer program the agency uses, an unknown birth date defaults to 1875, 150 years ago. These people are listed in the system, but they aren’t receiving Social Security checks—as a 2023 inspector general’s report had already concluded. In reality, only some 44,000 centenarians are alive and receiving checks, a figure that jibes with census data. And while there are certainly some fake numbers, even the conservative Cato Institute says those are mostly illegal immigrants who use them to get jobs, which means they pay into the system but get nothing out of it.

What else has DOGE turned up?

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was eager to tell us, saying last week, “I love to bring the receipts!”

But the only examples she offered were a few programs related to equity and inclusion, such as a $3 million Patent and Trademark Office program offering internships to minority inventors, and a $57,000 award for climate mitigation in Sri Lanka. Those may go against current administration protocols but they certainly don’t amount to fraud, since the money for them was duly appropriated by Congress. And cutting them will hardly engender significant savings in a $7 trillion budget.

You know who does know how to find waste and fraud?

The Inspectors Generals in our government agencies.

But Trump fired them all.

*****

Elon Musk.

Elon Musk’s claim to have cut $55 billion is already a fantasy—this week DOGE claimed an $8 billion savings for cutting a contract actually worth only $8 million.

Catherine Rampell (“The Washington Post”): “Trump voters want a shake-up and many cheer the wrecking ball. There are legitimate problems with the status quo, but the fix isn’t to indiscriminately fire air traffic controllers, gut public health agencies, or cut funding for cancer research. Trump is not fixing the problems MAGA voters care about. He’s creating new, much scarier ones.”

Said Martin Wolf in “Financial Times: “It’s a coup that will pave the way for autocracy, plutocracy and dysfunction. You can’t boost efficiency by hacking away at a complex bureaucracy, but you can chase out conscientious workers and replace them with loyalists who’ll do your every bidding. And once Trump and Musk achieve their goal of dismantling the civil service, it won’t be easily rebuilt. “This is destruction, not reform and whatever they have been told, ordinary Americans will not benefit.”

But we know who will.

(The lyrics to Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” that contain the phrase “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot” are: “They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”)

“BEE GONE,” warning about all the above, can be purchased on Amazon. Read about it here: https://conniecwilson.com/product/bee-gone-a-political-parable/

“Mr. Nobody Against Putin” Screens at Sundance Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On February 1, 2025

In Education, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Movies, Politics, Reviews

Pavel Talankin, director of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Helle Moos.

“Mr. Nobody Against Putin” about the Putin-dictated shift in Russia’s schools was made possible by a young Russian schoolteacher named Pavel (“Pasha”) Talankin. At the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pasha was serving as the school videotographer and event coordinator for Karabash Elementary School, the biggest school in what is a very small town of 10,000 people deep in the Ural Mountains, Russia’s industrial heartland. Karabash was world famous because it was once dubbed “the most toxic place on Earth,” with an average life expectancy of 38 and a huge copper mining plant that has blackened the mountaintop with pollution. One commentator called it “the most depressing place I’ve ever been” and “the darkest place on the planet.” But to Pasha it was home, where he lived near his widowed mother (his father drowned in a lake when Pasha was 9) in a two-bedroom apartment in the city center. Pasha’s humble flat contained 427 books, carefully arranged by color coding, and he has a dog named Nebraska.

NEW RUSSIAN PROGRAM

At the outset of the Russian invasion, Pasha sent out an e-mail ( described as “an overly long e-mail”) about the exhaustive program Putin’s government was pushing on Russian schools. The New Federal Patriotic Education Program was an impediment to actual teaching. Said Pasha, “Few of us were prepared for such an effort to interfere in our ability to teach…I am a teacher forced to do the exact opposite of what a teacher should do.” I could relate to Pasha’s dismay, because I lived through a push from those above me in pay grade to make all of us jump through hoops to select students for the Scripps Spelling Bee Competition. It soon became clear that 75% of my classroom time would have had to be spent doing spelling bee trials to select the finalists. The other things I was supposed to be teaching, which included, at that time, literature, grammar, composition and spelling, were to be shunted aside in favor of the Spelling Bee lady, who apparently outranked me on the food chain (even though I was ostensibly Department Chairperson and had been there many more years and had an actual degree in my subject area, which this woman did not. She, however, was married to a fellow School Superintendent; I was not). I soon cut to the chase and selected my contestants based on abbreviated preliminary bees, which left me free to go back to actual teaching. Things did not go quite as smoothly for the woman who insisted that ALL of our classroom time be spent running things the way the local newspaper dictated and she soon ran in a ringer who had not competed at all, as he was in the hospital with a broken leg during her many elimination bees. But he had an I.Q. of 152, so the rules that Mrs. Superintendent had imposed on us all soon went out the window, given the upset wins her trials were creating.

But for Pasha, the restrictions were going to get worse, and they came from much higher up.

NEW RUSSIAN TREASON LAWS

A still from Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borestein and Pavel Talankin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Pavel Talankin

Initially, shooting the film for this documentary was risky, but not illegal. But in April of 2023 Putin and his government passed a law mandating life imprisonment for treason and strengthening the laws about “treason.” Things would become increasingly dangerous for Pasha as he filmed what was happening in Karabash.

Pasha: “It’s a very unpleasant feeling. It’s like you’re in a room and the walls are closing in and the air is leaving. You remain trapped in the system. I love my job, but I don’t want to be a pawn of the regime.” Pasha actually resigned his position at one point, but when director collaborator David Borenstein contacted him, suggesting they act on Pasha’s idea, he withdrew his resignation and set about documenting what was going on in Russian schools. Pasha: “I’ll use my camera to film the abyss this school is sinking into.”

Others in the town mention how even first graders are being asked to recite war poems.

Pasha: “Since last year there is no freedom to be found here. All Russian movement is for the children’s movement.” Every day there are clubs being formed that resemble the Nazi Youth Clubs of Hitler’s day/ Victory Day, the holiest day of the year when parading crowds carry pictures of their dead veterans, seems to suggest, “Maybe one day you can be a dead soldier, too.” Pasha notes that the young people will have to carry the burden of victory over evil. Pasha: “All of you will die, but know one thing: Mother Russia will never forget you. Every warrior’s name will be carved into a plaque.”

At this point, Russia is losing 1,000 soldiers a day in the Ukrainian conflict. Says Pasha, “It’s now time for the mercenaries to teach: marching drills, grenade throwing competitions, shooting competition.” The film of boys as young as 10 being handed guns and sighting down the length of them is frightening. They are shown handling weapons of the Great Patriotic War, including Mosin, SVT machine guns, etc.

There are scripted lessons after scripted lessons. Proof that the school is complying with the directive is required. Soon, the scripts are given to the students, as well. They are being brainwashed by the state in the New Federal Patriotic Education Program.

KARABASH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER

David Borestein, director of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Helle Moos

Pasha films history teacher Pavel Abdulmanov. Abdulmanov is strictly by the Russian book. He suggests that, “It’s so crucial to eliminate dissenting views so there is no split in our Mother Country. If you don’t like it, go to the country that you think is better.” When asked to name the Russian historical figures he admires most, he names Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s father of the Gulag system; Viktor Abakumov, Stalin’s spy hunter; and Pavel Sudoplatov, Stalin’s assassin for enemies. Sudoplatov masterminded the murder of Leon Trotsky from an ice pick driven into Leon Trotsky’s brain. Abdulmanov tells his students daily that “Russia could destroy Ukraine in a couple of days” and warns that countries in Europe will “soon be riding horses” as there will be no wheat or oil from Russia. He also tells the students that “state policy in Ukraine is decided by radicals and Nazis,” suggesting that Russia must eliminate the Nazis in power in Ukraine. Abdulmanov was given a luxury apartment as a reward for being named Teacher of the Year at the school.

LASHING OUT

Feeling an uncontrollable urge to lash out, one morning Pasha plays a recording of Lady Gaga singing the United States National Anthem, rather than the Soviet anthem. Soon thereafter, a police car is parked outside of Pasha’s apartment.

PASHA’S MOTHER

Throughout the film Pasha is shown bringing his mother flowers as she works to repair damaged school books in the school library. He repeatedly praises his mother. She is a particularly dour woman who never expresses any warmth towards her only son. At one point, he says he is going to stop over with something for her that evening and she tells him “Forget it.” Her view on the changes in the school’s atmosphere : “I am sorry, but people love war. It’s always been like that. People love to shoot each other.” Also representative of the town’s collective feelings is Masha, one of Pasha’s students, whose brother is drafted into the war effort. She says, “I could care less about the war as long as it doesn’t impact me personally.” This seems to be the main opinion of the town. (Masha’s brother eventually defects and is killed.)

GRADUATION

Pasha is in charge of arranging for Graduation Day. He addresses the assembled crowd, saying, “My dear friends: wherever your life takes you, I wish you solid ground under your feet. There’ll be turning points you’ll have to choose. Sometimes to express your love, you must sacrifice everything, but I know that your choice will come from your heart. Thank you so much for working with me through this year. I love you very much. The time for the last bell has come.” This heartfelt speech is followed by dancing in the most toxic town on Earth and students tossing Pasha into the air in celebration.

That night, he flees Russia. He is being paid as co-director of this impressive effort for the BBC’s Storyville, but he was not present at the Q&A at Sundance.

Mr. Nobody Against Putin: Graduation Day

A still from Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borestein and Pavel Talankin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

CONCLUSION

Pasha put in three years of work on the project. He tells the camera, “Even a guy like me should have some principles. By June I am done here.”

This was a brave act of principle in the face of an oppressive autocratic regime. Having just completed a University of Texas class entitled “Putin’s Rise to Power” that laid out the ways in which Putin has closed down and expelled Western journalists from Russia. I am now enrolled in a class entitled “Misinformation and Disinformation.” Our first lecture went into a great deal of detail about how difficult it is to get truthful reporting out of Russia.

This documentary is a real treasure and should be seen by anyone who loves democracy. It was a courageous and brave act by someone who has risked his entire life to help alert the world to the truth of Vladimir Putin’s plans for world domination.

“Blitz” is Steve McQueen Film Screened at CIFF 2024

By Connie Wilson

On October 25, 2024

In Education, Local, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Reviews

“Blitz,” from British director Steve McQueen, depicts Londoners during the Blitz of World War II in 1940. The harrowing drama focuses on a young bi-racial boy (Elliott Heffernan) sent to the countryside by his mother (Saoirse Ronan) for safekeeping. Approximately 500,000 young children were sent to the countryside from London to protect them from the blitz. Young George Hanway, age 9, jumps off the train taking him to safety, and tries to return to his home in Stepney, Clifford Lane, and his piano-playing grandfather (Paul Weller) and his Mom. The blitz (short for “blitzkrieg”) took place from September of 1940 through May of 1941. Forty-three thousand civilians, primarily in London, were killed; that number represented half of Britain’s wartime civilian casualties.

GENESIS

I began wondering what caused Writer/Director Steve McQueen to go back in time, historically, and create such an accurate depiction of what it must have been like to live through the war-time bombing of London. Perhaps the germ of an idea came out of McQueen’s expressed wish to do with the city of London something similar to what Martin Scorsese has done with New York City? McQueen has a highly developed artistic background; it serves him well in “Blitz.” When asked about the inspiration for the film, he mentioned a picture he had seen of a small boy of the time being sent off to the countryside on July 5, 1940. It was this picture that guided much of the search for a young boy to play the lead role, as McQueen envisioned the blitz being seen through a child’s eyes.

Young boy being sent to the countryside during the Blitz in 1940.

July 5, 1940 British child being sent to the countryside for safety during the Blitz.

CAST

Elliott Heffernan was cast as that small child, the daughter of Rita Hanway (Saiorse Ronan), a white worker in the factory making bombs for Britain, and the son of an absent father from Grenada, who is deported, leaving nothing behind for his wife and child but a St. Christopher Medal given him by his own mother. McQueen has said, in other interviews, “To some extent he (Elliott Heffernan) carries this movie.” Elliott was 9 when filming began. “He was 8 when he auditioned,” says McQueen. “So he was a little boy, and he auditioned because he’d never done acting before. As soon as I saw him, I thought, ‘Oh, he is the truth!’ He wasn’t going to pretend to be a child. He was a child.” (“Deadline” interview).

Also carrying the movie and singing in it, as well, is Saiorse Ronan (“The Lovely Bones,” “Brooklyn,” “Atonement”). McQueen’s lead actress has two strong films out this year with “The Outrun” receiving Oscar buzz. Says McQueen of Saoirse Ronan, “She’s like Bette Davis. She’s that good.” He called her “interesting” and “fascinating. “She makes the ordinary extraordinary, the arbitrary fascinating.” The eyelash scene, where Rita asks George to “make a wish” on an eyelash plucked from his cheek was actually something that occurred naturally between Saiorse and Elliott while they were bonding between scenes. McQueen chose to take the normal gesture and use it prominently in the film.

MUSIC

For composer Hans Zimmer, this is a deeply personal movie. His mother was evacuated from Germany and spent the war years in London. He remembered her stories about living in Mayfair, with bombs dropping all around. Zimmer reflected on his childhood when composing the score. He constructed it from a child’s perspective of terror and chaos, opening with an orchestra of children’s recorders. Zimmer’s score for this film is mentioned as a probable Oscar nominee. There are also many period songs utilized in the film and much (too much?) singing.

Back in 2016, when McQueen received the Artistic Vision Award here in Chicago, he said, “Sound is so important in film. People need to lean in to listen. It gives them something to do”.

CAST BASED ON REAL PEOPLE

Leigh Gill (“Joker,” “Game of Thrones”) portrayed “Mickey the Midget,” a Jewish East ender, Mickey Davies, a local optician and community organizer who stepped up to help make the time spent underground in the subway more humane. (Buckets for rest rooms, for openers.) There was a movement to memorialize Mickey IRL, but it died when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London.

Benjamin Clementine (“Dune: Part One”) portrays Ife, who was based on the real-life E.I. EKpenyon, who was a law student from Nigeria who became an air warden in Marleybone. Ife (translated as “love” in Nigeria) teaches George to sing “Alleluia” as George accompanies him on his route, telling the locals to honor the blackout during the blitz. [Like all the horror movies where you know it’s a bad sign when someone is going to go to the attic or the basement, the well-meaning promises that Ife makes to George about returning him to his home the next day seem based on shifting sand.]

Paul Weller (“Grosse Pointe Blank”), a true musician, plays Gerald, or Grand-dad, as he is called. McQueen said seeing a picture of Paul McCartney with his father and a piano in Paul McCartney’s original house triggered the selection and one of the more haunting images (spoiler alert) is of Grand-dad’s dead body after he becomes one of the victims of the blitz. The camera lingers on his face in the rubble.

There were two Black clubs in London at the time. One was the Shim-Sham and, on the Piccadilly side, there was the Café de Paris, which the locals frequented because it was below ground and, therefore, considered safer. Onscreen, the local bandleader, Ken “Snakehips” Johnson is well-played by a young Black man in a white tux and tails who introduces a stunning Black singer in a white dress who sings “Oh, Johnny.” (Both were impressive.) Sadly, two bombs entered the ventilation shaft to the underground club and a scene is set in the remains of the club that involves young George, which seemed to be reaching a bit in depicting the adventures of the 9-year-old.

PICARESQUE HERO

Young George, with his mother and grand-dad, as he is leaving for the countryside.

Filmed at 13 locations around England and London, McQueen has said of “Blitz,” “It’s a very dark fairy tale. It’s the Brothers Grimm. And that’s the journey George goes on.” In the English-speaking world, the term “picaresque” is used loosely to refer to novels that contain some elements of this genre; e.g. an episodic recounting of adventures on the road. An English Literature major, I recognized enough picaresque elements of “Blitz” to recognize that the term applies to the adventures that young George has while trying to return home. While some of the adventures held your interest—especially the accurate re-creations of such things as the flooding of the tube (which actually occurred and killed 34 people)—having them ALL happen to George on his journey seemed a bit much. (Mid-film I wrote, “Film needs a bit more to sustain it when it’s simply George being taken advantage of.”)

CONCLUSION

Saiorse Ronan and co-star Elliott Heffernan in Blitz.

In some ways, the comparisons to “Belfast,” which opened the 58^th Chicago International Film Festival, are valid. Both turn the clock back on time, although “Blitz” does so in a much more arresting style, visually. The opening scene alone, where an old-style leaky canvas firehose is proving almost impossible to control while fighting the fires in the streets of London, is riveting. Others along the way, especially the scenes of how life went down in the tube (subway) are equally mesmerizing.

The attempts to recognize real heroes like Mickey Davies and to preach a bit in one subway scene (“We are all equal members of this country, willing or not…Treat each other with compassion and respect.”), while laudable, come off a bit obvious to everything going down around us in the world today. We can applaud the message and hope that it is internalized by everyone, but, in this country, at least, we are about to go to the polls to vote for a new President, and one of the candidates has made a mockery of that message. One critic used an expression “muffled by good intentions,” which applies, but even more than that, there was something so old-fashioned about the film that it surprised me it was a Steve McQueen film.

The movie opens in theaters on November 1^st and will be streaming on Apple by November 22^nd. There is also an Apple special that is a “behind-the-scenes” look at the making of “Blitz” that should be truly entertaining, just as researching some of the real-life background for the film proved to be.

It’s a powerful film. It will resonate with anyone who hopes we learn from the mistakes of our past and forge better paths to peace.