Remember how Marco Rubio and his state department were deporting foreign-born college students for protesting against Israel? Well, a federal judge ruled against “the incredible shrinking Secretary of State,” as Esquire columnist Charles P. Pierce calls him, for violating the students’ Constitutional right to free speech. Read Pierce’s take on the situation below. —Chris Hatler, deputy editor
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Another L for the incredible shrinking secretary of state.
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Marco Rubio, the incredible shrinking secretary of state, discovered over the weekend that federal courts will find your butt to kick no matter how small you've rendered yourself in service to the mad king.
How is this even a question? This was clearly protected speech. The people sharing it were on United States soil, which means they're covered by the Bill of Rights. And the true absurdity of Rubio's action was the many, if not all, of the deportations involved criticism not of this country, but of the government of Israel. As is customary, the administration took refuge in utter incoherence.
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My dad was a garbageman from Queens, hauling other people’s trash by day and flipping it online at night. By contrast, I’m a magazine editor, rolling up to a Manhattan skyscraper every day, where curation and items “priced upon request” are the coin of the realm. My dad bought his shoes at Payless; I’m writing this in Thom Browne oxfords in a stylish midtown loft I share with my fashion designer husband. We moved very differently through life.
My job gave me a month of bereavement, and I promised my mom to use that time to help her clear out even more of his shit. But after a few days of moving through the grief like fog, I still couldn't bring myself to unpack the boxes he’d so carefully organized for us to sell. It was too much. Too final. But the Pokémon cards—those were ours. Those felt different. Those felt possible.
I carefully selected 50 cards from his binder and bought brand-new sleeves for them—penny sleeves and top loaders for extra protection—and spent an afternoon slipping each collectible into its new holder, one by one. From there, roles that used to be filled by my mom and sister were now mine alone. I cataloged. I staged. I photographed. Then, as we always did, I turned to eBay. Search, filter, scroll.
I toggled the settings to show me “sold listings.” And as the results flashed across the screen, I realized that my dad had been sitting on a goddamn gold mine.
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I’m in it. I’m deep into the college-search process with my two high school daughters. College fairs. Arcane admissions data. Mailboxes stuffed with brochures from schools you’ve never heard of. We, as a family, have toured an even ten. They are starting to blend together. Lots of stonework . . . huge bookstores . . . minuscule dorm rooms. At the end of every tour, we look at one another and say, “This feels like it could be the one.” My own personal Groundhog Day.
It was when I started talking to friends who already have kids in college that I realized I was going about this all wrong. Among my generation, a new way to pick colleges has emerged. I call it the Do-Over.
Everybody wishes they could relive their college years. Well, you can. Not by going back to school yourself—that would include all the boring parts—but by steering your college-bound kids to what you miss (or failed to experience the first time around).
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