[I was going to embed the video, but ABC seems to have overlaid hyperventilated live coverage of the Kavanaugh announcement. Grrrr! ABC! Instead, we get this fun picture from Team Bjorkman of their candidate cracking up crack Vermillion reporter David Lias with his steely gaze and firm grasp of policy.]Bjorkman formerly served as a circuit court judge and the president of the South Dakota Judges’ Association.
…Bjorkman told ABC News his judgeship experiences gave him a “front row seat to see much of what’s wrong in society.”
“Everyday from the bench, I saw much of what the left and the right are fighting about,” he said.
…While serving as a circuit court judge, Bjorkman said he presided over several cases involving drug addiction and mental illness, which he attributes to a “lack of affordable and timely healthcare” [Meena Venkataramanan, “A Number of Judges Are Running for Congress,” ABC News, 2018.07.10].
He said he decided to run for Congress because of a South Dakota Law Review article he was writing about “how dysfunctional childhoods put people on the path to prison.”
“I don’t look at issues through a partisan lens. My views cut across party lines,” he said [Venkataramanan, 2018.07.10].
Writing isn’t just about shouting at other people; writing helps the writer understand himself and his world and decide what he wants to do to improve both.
…Bjorkman fears that the influence of special interest groups on Congress hinders its ability to achieve progress on healthcare and leads to “political football.”
“When I was a judge, I listened to both sides. And when you take money from one side, it’s hard to say your decisions aren’t influenced by that side,” he said, adding that he won’t “accept corporate PAC money” or “pay congressional dues” [Venkataramanan, 2018.07.10].
Bjorkman pitches his courtroom experience as his best qualification for reasoned decision-making in Congress:
Ultimately, Bjorkman attributes his judicial experiences to helping him cultivate an objective mindset that’s shaped his politics.
“I think people yearn for representatives who come from a less partisan background. People need an advocate who is not a pawn of special interests or the political machine,” he said. “I’m from outside the party structure. I’ve never been in party politics, and I don’t owe my positions to any political party or hierarchy” [Venkataramanan, 2018.07.10].
Judges can be excellent legislators IF they give their full attention to the people who come before them. It seems that Judge Bjorkman has. He’s absolutely right about this:
“writing helps the writer understand himself and his world and decide what he wants to do to improve both.”
Again, for this to be effective requires an open heart and mind. The best thing I have found about writing is that it slows down what I call Turbohead. That’s when thoughts, ideas, scenes, etc., are whirling through my brain too fast. I cannot type or write as fast as I can think, and that’s good. Writing also makes my thoughts better organized.
Of course none of that works if one is simply cranking out predetermined boilerplate.
Debbo understands that writing must be a critical process. As the words come to our pen, we critique them, see if they mean what we mean, see if they can be better, see if they can be omitted.
Simply transcribing boilerplate or anyone else’s words is not a critical activity; it is a mechanical activity that strengthen the fingers but not the mind and soul.
Bjorkman’s policy paper was not boilerplate. It was an exercise in research, reading, and expression that led him to think not only, “How can I explain these problems?” but also “What should I do about these problems?”
![[I was going to embed the video, but ABC seems to have overlaid hyperventilated live coverage of the Kavanaugh announcement. Grrrr! ABC! Instead, we get this fun picture from Team Bjorkman of their candidate cracking up crack Vermillion reporter David Lias with his steely gaze and firm grasp of policy.]](https://dakotafreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-07.08.46.jpg)
Good for Bjorkman.
Judges can be excellent legislators IF they give their full attention to the people who come before them. It seems that Judge Bjorkman has. He’s absolutely right about this:
“writing helps the writer understand himself and his world and decide what he wants to do to improve both.”
Again, for this to be effective requires an open heart and mind. The best thing I have found about writing is that it slows down what I call Turbohead. That’s when thoughts, ideas, scenes, etc., are whirling through my brain too fast. I cannot type or write as fast as I can think, and that’s good. Writing also makes my thoughts better organized.
Of course none of that works if one is simply cranking out predetermined boilerplate.
Debbo understands that writing must be a critical process. As the words come to our pen, we critique them, see if they mean what we mean, see if they can be better, see if they can be omitted.
Simply transcribing boilerplate or anyone else’s words is not a critical activity; it is a mechanical activity that strengthen the fingers but not the mind and soul.
Bjorkman’s policy paper was not boilerplate. It was an exercise in research, reading, and expression that led him to think not only, “How can I explain these problems?” but also “What should I do about these problems?”
Exactly.