Sort of

  Are you in or are you out?  The question seems to be asked by a perpetually plaincloths person.  That electronics geek in blown out sweatpants.  Or the no wedding ring cottonflannel shirted girl seen in the ray of light that crosses the coffee shop everyday but only at a certain time.  It's not really about sex or sexuality.  It's not only being asked of specific people.  The question comes up at certain points in American history.  And it certainly comes up for people in creative cycle, chains of command and production, and in any kind of planning.

  It's come up again in the article in Foreign Affairs ("Why the U.S. May Not...") by Milly and Schmidt.  Ahead of field firming and category organizing, it prompts.  Even to people holding out on dipping into anything political, paying attention to anything military, the article asks deeply and profoundly...Are you American?  If so, no matter your state of mind or favorite flavors, you do know where your loyalties must go, correct?

  Even progressives of the past brought it back to defending nation: loyalties must go there.  If not by themselves, as part of fundamental change to balance of power not just because of personal and social innovation, but because nation as definition is what we are working with.  One world, floaty ephemeral world, idealistically perfect world...cha, that's nice but...

  Milly and Schmidt's article goes far and wide as a sports ball and reminds there is a game going on.  Other nations are doing all sorts of stuff with radio and airplanes; energy and cheap tools.  It's a sort of general invite to think of country always as having a military, one which inevitably does the heavy lifting when it comes to defense.

  It sparked a memory of grad school for me.  One of those free-for-all writers reading their works nights.  There hadn't been a theme pronounced.  And it occurred before the keynote address.  People were a little startled and amazed to realize that most of the disparate readings were about cyborgs and armeggedon.  Who are we?  An older student looked outward from beneath a combed moo of white hair and asked.  Whoever we were we'd picked up on changes, some so historic there was no way to shake it off.  This stuff was touching everyone's lives.  The turn of century was happening two decades before and after the calendar marked the actual date.

  While the militaries of the world are their own breed of entity they do not exist in isolation.  What are we gonna do?  is broadly asked.  The thinking around the question comes from anywhere and everywhere.  That is strength-building, not weakness, by the way.

  In both of the books I'm reading--From Pearl Harbor Into Tokyo and The Fire Line--the study of such action-writing includes elements and forces being as much character as the people.

  A couple years before September 11th, 2001 I was writing for a newspaper in Massachussets (which I'm not sure I'm spelling correctly in the bright sun today).  It was pre-1999 too, the mythology of Y2K was reaching a crescendo.  So was a D.C. rubbing itself in suntan oil for their own bonfire, really heating up.  The overall meter reading on end of the world because computers may or may not know the date, at that time, in that place was barely registering.  Really?  All of civilization lost? was the tongue-in-cheek from most of the office workers.  People who'd been working two, three jobs to make up for savings just gone, to support the one of three kids who really wanted to go to college, to eat out once a month and cook a goddamn, goshdarn dear steak on the grill they'd been paying on for 32 months.  The same people who'd hang back getting on an elevator and mumble-communicate, had it up to here, the hand would indicate over the head.  Can't really sufficiently explain what I'm feeling right now.

  As if a lasting legacy other than what people had proven themselves to be was possible a lot of lame duck suggestions came down.  Did you know one aspect of my job is also cleaning lady?  An office ham would yawn, stretch, and knock political drivel off a desk into a recycling bin.  It was like spring fever had taken hold and though not everybody liked Prince, anyone anywhere might break into some emotive version of party like it's 1999.

  The Mayor, Gary, kind of like TV"s Commish, would take the papers out of the bin and pop it into the closest binder.  He might quip about auxilary help which could be even more part time and he'd go back to his office and straighten up the pens.  He kept a routine and would make sure the file cabinets were locked and outer labels straight too, and then read the postmail.  He kept the piles separate...advertising; real person; and to be re-read later in the afternoon.  One morning he was deep into a serious stack of like nine pieces of mail, his brow furrowing then relaxing, when he stood up and said, *This is something.*

  Being there like in a principal"s office, ready to cover updates from the departments and Selectmen's meetings, it wasn't my place to ask, "What is it?". And it was another couple days, maybe even into the next week, before somebody had to get off sitting on the copy machine because here came Gary.  He had this way of like continuing a conversation from somewhere else when he'd come into a room full of people (nervous habit) and that day he was saying is interesting.  Not sure how it will work.

  "Looking to make something function?" A Planning & Zoning person asked.  "You've come to the right, uh, correct department!"

  "Awfully cheery Bob, but yeah, I want people to put their heads together on something."  Gary had put the received mail in a big binder, and made two replicas.  He delivered the two other binders to two other departments.  On the way back to his office after a trip to straighten maps of the town, Bob was standing in the hallway with the piece of mail on two palms.  You could tell he didn't really want to say but did, "Not sure what to do with this Sir."

  "Then put it back in the binder and give it to the next guy, person."

  At the next Selectmen's meeting all three binders were there on the group desk.  Gary sighed and shrugged when he spied the binders before the meeting.  He leaned back against the hallway wall and said, *We'll see."

  Motions and tablings.  Agreements and no's.  Timelines.  Verdicts on procedural? It was towards the end if the meeting that a Selectman who'd aspired to be on the Supreme Court moved the binders from table corner to, an elbowing of the sitting-next-to pass this, front and center. 

  "Gary."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "We've looked at this document, and there are some notes here from Department People 

  "Such as?"

  "We'll let you keep the notes.  I don't think we even need a copy.  Do we?" Heads shook no not necessary and someone slid the pile of binders closer to the front edge.

  "Do you need anything from us to proceed?"

  "Should be good, but thank you."

  Over the next couple months Gary worked with a broad diversity of people to develop statewide safety measures especially around communications.  One of those projects that aren't in the spotlight, until they are.  A "topic" that should not be dropped despite political transition.