Due to things like the casual paternalism of a good number of our elected officials, I'm persuaded that publishing needs to be added to the base curriculum of all American public schools and universities. My view:

• Publishing is one of the essential personal skills, like balancing a bank statement or passing a driver's test. Publishing should be on the list of state standards for public high schools; it should be in the general education requirements for American universities. Democracy requires it, and technology now makes it possible. If you can save a Word file as a pdf and load it onto the website of one of the on-demand printers, you can publish a book that preserves the stories of your community or asks the questions your activist group is trying to keep up in public view. If you can sent an email you can publish a blog that tracks the words and actions of an elected official or an email newsletter that lets people know what's happening in your neighborhood. Publishing is about as easy as writing a letter to the editor used to be, and it is more important.

After publishing is well in place, next comes organizing.

Today, thanks to Elizabeth Bennion at Politically Speaking, WNIT's public affairs programming, my question (word for word) reached our Indiana senator Joe Donnelly. I asked:

• Senator, could you give a one-minute seminar on ways that individual citizens and local groups can make their voices actually matter in American politics today? (video--34:56 to 36:37)

His reply was about the excellent service his Washington staff provided individual constituents who had personal questions about social security checks or veterans benefits or military service medals when they contacted his office by telephone. ("Just call our office," he began. My students laughed when they heard him begin that way.) In other words, he missed the point about successful activism that I hoped was clear in my question, or he didn't want to answer it that way. I was disappointed.

I was disappointed not to hear a Washington insider give some clues about what actually works, but beyond that I was displeased by the paternalistic nature of his reply: "Don't you worry, we can get your question answered, just give us a ring." That was the general concept, not a quotation, and I thought it was lightly laced with a tone. A tone I didn't like, a tone of Washington satisfied with itself on one level even when it knows it is plainly broken on many another level.

PS. I told the story a little differently here. In class we talked about the difference between a responsive, paternal elected official who can solve a person's problem with the bureaucracy and the chance to be heard and perhaps help improve some policy touching perhaps millions of people.