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Editor's note: The following interview was conducted by phone on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 20, 2020. Eight weeks later, on March 17, New York Live Arts announced the cancellation of the premiere of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company's Deep Blue Sea, originally scheduled to run April 1425 at the Park Avenue Armory. We have decided to share excerpts from that conversation with Jones, though the premiere of Deep Blue Sea has not yet been rescheduled.

Deep Blue Sea is a massive undertaking. A host of recognized creatives in architecture, design and music are working with Bill T. Jones to fill the Park Avenue Armory's 55,000-square-foot drill hallamong the largest rooms in New York City. "It is my honor to be commissioned by the Armory," says Jones, who also performs in the work, ending a 15-year hiatus from the stage. "But the Armory is a motherf***er. There is no space like it. Where do you rehearse?" The answer has largely been "away from the city," hosted by Bethany Arts Community, MASS MoCA and others; each residency has been a chance to experiment with building a cast of 100 people. "Working people. Family people. Not a bunch of cool dancers from Brooklyn," he says. "Well, some are cool dancers from Brooklyn. They can be between ages 16 and 70. I was going to say 65 but then realized I am already 68, so that's not very fair."

It's good to reconnectwe last spoke in 2011.

Right. Life goes on.

It seems auspicious that today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as his speech "I Have a Dream" is among the source material you've referenced for Deep Blue Sea. How does it appear in the work?

I perform it backwards, with the words in retrograde, so it sounds like a bit of Dada poetry. I suppose it's too late for a spoiler alert now. That speech, though, is an American icon and, for me and for a lot of people, it's as important as the United States Constitution. I grew up in a Martin Luther Kingloving household. My parents were very religious people, and I always thought I agreed wholeheartedly with this notion that we shall overcome. Now it's very much an open question.

"Will we overcome?"

Don't you ask the same question?

At times.

Right. And why is that? There is a very sticky and potentially explosive conversation that, along with the election, is going to ask us, "Are we really still this beacon, this light on a hill, this conglomerate of disparate groups and stakeholders that we call American democracy?" This work deals with that ambiguity.

Your sources also include Moby-Dick. Where does Melville intersect with Dr. King?

Well, in Moby-Dick there was a little black boy on the boat whose name is Pip. He is an unlikely character among the macho, cantankerous and combative population of the Pequod, which Melville has artfully used as a metaphor for modern society. He is the least powerful person on the boat, and this is what attracted me to him. The fact is, I turned an accusing eye on myself: I remembered so much about the book, but I didn't remember this character! And I suppose reading the book in the wake of Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, trans rights, all those things: We look at the under-observed in our society with newfound respect nowat least some of us do. Martin Luther King and Pip come together in that poetic, though tenuous and metaphorical, association.

Is this a first time for you collaborating on production design with an architect?

Hm. Yes, it is. And Liz Diller says, "I don't do dcor; I'm involved in dramaturgy."

So much of her and her partners' work is about movement. The High Line isn't really a building at all, but a path; The Shed has movable components; The Juilliard School renovation is about circulation and space

What you say about movement in their work is very true. Is Deep Blue Sea an architectural project? Yes, it is, and no, it is not.

You once said to me that "creation, when you're in the heat of it, is a near-sacred thing that you don't really control. It controls you." Do you still feel that way, or do you feel more in control now? Do you even want more control?

I don't think it's changed much. I don't think that I have the ultimate agency, particularly when you're working with persons who come from very distant disciplines like architecture, and they are very accomplished artists who have strong senses of their own voices. I am not more free. Am I more diplomatic? I don't know. Am I better at working through problems? Not really, but I do have people around me who are, like Janet Wong, my associate who is an extremely politic and kind person, and yet she's very strong. Whereas I might scream, she has other ways of getting what she wants.

What besides dance interests you today?

I'm reading the work of Octavia Butler, who is in some ways the grande dame of Afro-Futurism, before it even had a name. Now, of course, it's a visual art movement; there is a version that is coming literally from Africa. We are now in the postBlack Panther era, and the black community is not the only community that is interested in speculative space. Native American people, Asian people, queer people, are all in some ways using speculative fiction.

Along with their main objectives, it seems social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo aim to remind us we have physical bodies, as opposed to just virtual identities. Is that another association for you as a choreographer?

I appreciate your framing of the question, but some of us have lived our whole lives, our whole creative lives [pauses] If you are a black man of my description, and you're working in the white avant-garde, you know these things deep in your bones. Maybe there was no language or no appetite for discussing them as there is now, but it's not like it was a revelation for many of us. I would say to you as a writer, when you say "we," who are you talking about? Who is the "we" that makes aesthetic judgments and defines art movements?

You said earlier that the idea of "we" was a central question of Deep Blue Sea.

That is a central question of my life right now. Because I have been the cool black guy in a room full of cool white people. There was a time when I could count on one hand, Ralph Lemon, Bebe Miller, Blondell Cummings, Ishmael Houston-Jones: There were only a handful of us. Why was that? Let's talk about our historyeven in the avant-garde. Let's talk about our history in light of what we have discovered about our society. On that note, I think I have to go because I have to be upstairs in one minute.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you. There is a lot more here we can be talking about. These are questions about the field that I think are crying out for serious attention.

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The Show That Would Have Been: Bill T. Jones Talks Deep Blue Sea - Dance Magazine

With the Alliance Theatres Festival of New Works postponed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), the Midtown venue is bringing those works to the masses through a new free online series, the Virtual Play Club.

The festival, which was to take place March 30 through April 30, was to include a presentation of the four finalists from the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition and the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab.

While the Reiser lab presentation is still to come, the Alliance/Kendeda contests finalists scripts are being showcased in a series of events April 16 through 24, where the public is invited to a live conversation with the playwright to discuss the script. Also, the finalists scripts will be posted to the theaters website for view April 9 through 24.

According to a news release, the Virtual Play Club series will end with an artists roundtable discussion moderated by Rachel Karpf, former artistic producer with the WP Theater in New York and featuring all four finalists, as well as Atlanta playwrights Will Power, Steve Coulter, Kimberly Belflower, Mary Lynn Owen and Mark Kendall.

The schedule is as follows:

April 16 at 4 p.m.: Unkindness by Logan Faust (NYU Tisch), a conversation with the playwright, director Matt Torney and associate producer Amanda Watkins. Unkindness tells the story of Bonnie, a grieving mother, and Elijah, a would-be prophet, as they struggle to survive after their only motivations for survival, their son and faith, respectively, are taken from them, the release stated.

April 17 at 7 p.m.: Djarum Vanilla by Cary J. Simowitz (UCLA), a conversation with the playwright, director Keith Bolden and associate producer Amanda Watkins. According to the release, Djarum Vanilla is described as follows: November 2014. Missouri. The Darren Wilson verdict is imminent. Protests are becoming a daily part of life in Ferguson. The nascent Black Lives Matter movement is gaining national traction as racial tension in Missouri reaches a boiling point.

April 23 at 4 p.m.: Monster by Ava Geyer (UCSD), a conversation with the playwright, director January LaVoy and associate producer Amanda Watkins. When self-help guru Drew Capuanos compulsive masturbation comes to light, he retains the services of the only person who will still represent him: his power hungry 24-year-old female assistant, the release stated.

April 24 at 4 p.m.: Stitched with a Sickle and a Hammer by Inna Tsyrlin (Ohio University), a conversation with the playwright, director Lauren Morris and associate producer Amanda Watkins. According to the release, the play is described as follows: Aleksandra, a political prisoner at a Gulag camp and part of the camps theater troupe, is forced to help Soviet authorities disguise the existence of the camp in front of a visiting American delegation.

April 24 at 5:30 p.m.: Artists roundtable discussion

All virtual events are free and open to the public, but RSVPs are required so each link to the live conversation may be emailed to participants. For more information, to view the scripts or to RSVP for the events, visit http://www.alliancetheatre.org/virtualplayclub.

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Alliance Theatre spotlighting playwriting contest's scripts online through Virtual Play Club - MDJOnline.com

Campus Reform is counting down the craziest outbursts from triggered leftist students.

Whether its social justice warriors blocking streets and shutting down events, or Antifa members assaulting conservative students, weve seen and covered it all at Campus Reform.

From the West Coast to the East Coast, leftist students have been captured on video melting down, lashing out, and threatening conservatives.

WATCH:

Story continues below the video...

Here's the full countdown...

When Milo Yiannopoulos, Steven Crowder, and Christina Hoff Sommers spoke together at an event titled The Triggering at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, protesters did their best to shut things down. One protester, later labeled Trigglypuff by social media users, gained nationwide attention for her childlike outburst.

WATCH:

Conservative activist Hayden Williams was on campus at the University of California-Berkeley when an angry leftist approached his table, threatening him and the students with him. When Williams pulled out his phone to record the incident, a man later identified as Zachary Greenberg, sucker-punched him, before threatening to shoot him. The incident sparked national outrage, eventually leading to President Donald Trump bringing Williams on stage to laud his courage at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference.

WATCH:

A student at Western Washington University lost her mind at the sight of a Donald Trump sign on campus, shrieking incoherently at the man holding it for more than two minutes. At one point, a university employee runs to the scene to offer help, thinking the student was screaming for help, at which point the crazed student can be heard saying oh no, Im good, before continuing her yelling.

WATCH:

A conservative student at Sacramento State University was allegedly assaulted by a leftist peer following a social media disagreement. The assailant, who shouted motherf**ker, youre going to end up f**king dead and called the conservative student an Uncle Tom, had to be forcibly restrained by multiple people before fleeing the scene.

WATCH:

At the University of Kansas, a group of leftist students attempted to shut down a Young Americans for Freedom meeting after becoming enraged at the groups stance against safe spaces on campus. In the video obtained by Campus Reform, protesters can be seen berating the conservative students, leading some online to refer to the incident as Trigglypuff 2.0.

WATCH:

At Binghamton University, a leftist mob of over 200 descended upon a Turning Point USA table on campus. Police had to be called after some in the crowd made threats towards the conservative students, before tearing down their table and discarding their property. In response, Rep. Tom Reed visited the school to offer his support to the conservative students, meeting with Binghamtons President to express his concern over the incident.

WATCH:

At Dartmouth, Black Lives Matter protesters stormed the library during finals week, demanding students join in their protest. One student can be heard asking them to leave, saying I have a final tomorrow.

WATCH:

Follow the author of this article on Twitter:@Cabot_Phillips

Link:
VIDEO: The craziest campus leftists of all time - Campus Reform

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | April 15, 2020, 11:30 a.m.

As families, communities and colleagues around the world grapple in their own ways with the invisible threat of the novel coronavirus, humankind shares an unusually acute sense of traversing a period of deep historical import. Once-bustling downtown areas sit deserted while citizens everywhere sequester themselves for the common good. Social media platforms and teleconferencing services are ablaze with the messages of isolated friends and loved ones. As medical workers risk their lives daily to keep ballooning death tolls in check, musicians and comedians broadcast from their own homes in the hopes of lifting the spirits of a beleaguered nation. It is a time of both ascendant empathy and exposed prejudice, of collective fear for the present and collective hope for a brighter future.

It is, in short, a time that demands to be documented. Stories institutional, communal and personal abound, and it is the difficult mandate of museums everywhere to collect this history as it happens while safeguarding both the public they serve and their own talented team members. This challenge is magnified in the case of the Smithsonian Institution, whose constellation of national museums19 in all, 11 on the National Mall alonehas been closed to visitors since March 14.

How are Smithsonian curators working to document the COVID-19 pandemic when they are more physically disconnected from one another and their public than ever before? The answer is as multifaceted and nuanced as the circumstances that demand it.

In recognition of the sociocultural impact of the current situation, the curatorial team at the Smithsonians National Museum of American History (NMAH) has assembled a dedicated COVID-19 collection task force even as it has tabled all other collection efforts. Alexandra Lord, chair of the museums Medicine and Science Division, explains that the team first recognized the need for a COVID-specific collection campaign as early as January, well before the museum closures and severe lockdown measures took effect nationwide.

They've been working with their partners since before the crisis, she says. The Public Health Service has a corps of over 6,000 officers who are often deployed to deal with emerging health crises, some of them work at CDC and NIH. We started talking to them during the containment stage and started thinking about objects that would reflect practitioners as well as patients.

These objects range from personal protection equipment like N95 respirators to empty boxes emblematic of scarcity, from homemade cloth masks to patients hand-drawn illustrations. Of course, physically collecting these sorts of items poses both logistical and health concernsthe last thing the museum wants is to facilitate the spread of COVID through its outreach.

We have asked groups to put objects aside for us, Lord says. PHS is already putting objects to the side. We wont go to collect themwell wait until all of this has hopefully come to an end.

The artifacts collected in this push will feed into Lords upcoming In Sickness and In Health exhibition, a scholarly look at infectious disease in America across hundreds of years of history. Already deep in development before the COVID crisis, the exhibitionwhich will include studies of two antebellum epidemics and one pandemic followed by a survey of the refinement of germ theory in the 20th centurywill now need a thoughtful COVID chapter in its New Challenges section to tell a complete story.

A complete medical story, that is; the economic ramifications of the coronavirus are the purview of curator Kathleen Franz, chair of the museums Division of Work and Industry.

Franz works alongside fellow curator Peter Liebhold to continually update the American Enterprise exhibition Liebhold launched in 2015, an expansive overview of American business history that will need to address COVIDs economic impact on companies, workers and the markets they serve. For me, as a historian of business and technology, Franz says, Im looking at past events to give me context: 1929, 1933, 2008. . . I think the unusual thing here is this sudden constriction of consumer spending.

As federal and state governments continue to place limits on the operations of non-essential businesses, it is up to Franz and her colleagues to document the suffering and resilience of a vast, diverse nation. Usually, she says, We collect everything: correspondence, photos, calendars. . . and we may collect that in digital form. But were still working out the process. Above all, she emphasizes the need for compassion now that Americans everywhere are grieving the loss of family, friends and coworkers.

With many busy parents suddenly thrust into de facto teaching jobs with the closures of schools across the country, the museum has placed special emphasis on shoring up its educational outreach. From the beginning, says director Anthea Hartig, the museum privileged K-12 units, because we knew thats what parents would be looking for. Some 10,000 Americans responded to a recent survey offered by the museum, with most pressing for a heightened focus on contemporary events. Now is the perfect time for the museums leadership to put that feedback into practice.

Hartig sees in this crisis the opportunity to connect with the public in a more direct and sustained way than ever before. Thousands have already made their voices heard in recent discussions on social media, and fans of the Smithsonian are taking on transcription projects for the museums with fresh zeal. Beyond simply livening up existing modes of engagement, though, Hartig hopes that her museum will be able to seize on the zeitgeist to make real strides with its digital humanities content. Our digital offerings need to be as rich and vibrant as our physical exhibitions, she says. They should be born digital.

For inspiration amid all the flux and uncertainty, Hartig is reflecting on the NMAHs response to the terrorist attacks that rocked the nation nearly 20 years ago. We learned a lot through 9/11, where the museum was the official collecting authority for Congress, she says. That moment in history taught her the value of quietness and respect when acquiring artifacts in an embattled Americaquietness and respect matched by the thoroughness of being a scholar.

Hartig appreciates fully the impact of the COVID moment on Americas cultural seismology, noting that every fault line and every tension and every inequity has the capacity to expand under stress, in all our systems: familial, corporate, institutional. She has observed a proliferation in acts of goodness paralleled by the resurfacing of some ugly racial prejudice. Overall, though, her outlook is positive: History always gives me hope and solace, she says, even when its hard history. People have come out through horrors of war and scarcity, disease and death. History teaches us that little is unprecedented and that all crises, in time, can be overcome.

Benjamin Filene, NMAHs new associate director of curatorial affairs, shares this fundamental optimism. On the job for all of two months having arrived from North Carolina Museum of History, the experienced curator has had to be extremely adaptive from the get-go. His forward-thinking ideas on artifact acquisition, curation and the nature of history are already helping the museum to effectively tackle the COVID crisis.

For a long time, Ive been a public historian committed to helping people see contemporary relevance in history, he says. Against the backdrop of the coronavirus crisis, he hopes to remind Smithsonians audience that they are not mere consumers of history, but makers of it. We [curators] have something to contribute, he says, but as a public historian, Im even more interested in encouraging people to join us in reflecting on what it all means.

And while hindsight is a historians best friend, Filene maintains that historians should feel empowered to leverage their knowledge of the past to enlighten the present as it unfolds. I personally resist the notion that it has to be X number of years old before its history, he explains. Well never have the definitive answer.

He views history as an ongoing refinement that begins with contemporaneous reflection and gradually nuances that reflection with the benefit of added time. Even when youre talking about something a hundred years ago, were continually revisiting it, he says. We can ask questions about something that happened five months ago or five days ago. But no doubt we will be revisiting this in five years, in 50 years.

With that future reconsideration in mind, Filenes priority now is the collection of ephemeral items that could be lost to history if the Smithsonian fails to act quickly. Using our established community networks, full range of digital tools, publicity outreach, and more, Filene hopes the museum can persuade Americans everywhere to set aside certain items that we can circle back on in a few months.

Paralleling the efforts of NMAH, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is mounting its own campaign to document the impact of COVID-19 across the country. Curator William Pretzer frames the museums objective as collecting as a way of building community. In the coming days, NMAAHC will be issuing a plea to organizations, community groups, churches and individuals to pinpoint artifacts emblematic of this time and allow the museum to collect them.

Many of these materials will be digital in naturediaries, oral histories, photographs, interviewsbut Pretzer makes clear that internet access will not be a prerequisite to participation. Were going to work with local organizations, he says, without violating social distancing, to talk to members of their communities who maybe arent online. Then, at a later date, NMAAHC can employ these same relationships to preserve for posterity the signs people put up in their stores, the ways they communicated, the works of art they created, the ways they educated their children.

Since its founding, NMAAHC has committed itself to building relationships with African Americans nationwide and telling emphatically African American stories. Pointing to the heightened tensions of COVID-era America, Pretzer says this collection effort will offer the chance to analyze topics we often talk about casuallythe digital divide, health care, educational gaps, housing problemsunder this pressure cooker circumstance, and see how communities and individuals are responding. He stresses that the museums interest in these narratives is far from strictly academic. People want to have their stories heard, he says.

Pretzer likens this all-out community push to the one the museum mounted when collecting Black Lives Matter materials in 2014, which told a richly textured story using artifacts from community groups, business owners, activists, photographers and law enforcement personnel. It took us to Ferguson, it took us to Baltimore, he recalls. Thats when we made connections with local churches." Now, as then, Pretzer and the other curators at the museum hope to uncover the institutional impact of current events on African Americans, which will by nature demonstrate inequalities in lived experience.

The Smithsonians curatorial response to COVID-19 extends beyond NMAH and NMAAHC, of courseevery Smithsonian knowledge hub, from the Anacostia Community Museum to the National Air and Space Museum to the National Museum of the American Indian, is reckoning with COVID in its own way. But the various teams are also collaborating across museum lines like never before, supporting one another logistically as well as emotionally and sharing strategic advice. Pretzer says that roughly ten Smithsonian museums have put together a collaborative proposal to conduct a pan-Institutional collection effort and are currently seeking funding to make it happen. The concept is a 24-hour whirlwind collection period in which we would try to collect from around the country the experiences of what its like to be under quarantine. And from that initial binge, we would create connections that would allow us to continue.

As far as physical artifacts are concerned, all Smithsonian museums are taking the utmost care to avoid acquiring items that Americans may still need and to thoroughly sanitize what materials do come in to ensure the safety of museum staff.

What were learning is to give ourselves a lot of room, says Hartig. Were trying to be courageous and brave while were scared and grieving. But were digging deep and playing to our strengths.

Ultimately, she is proud to be a part of the Smithsonian during this trying time and is excited for the Institution to nurture its relationships with all the communities and individuals it serves in the weeks and months ahead. Were very blessed by our partnership with the American people, she says. What can we be for those who need us most?

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How Smithsonian Curators Are Rising to the Challenge of COVID-19 - Smithsonian.com

President Donald Trump points to US Senator Tim Scott, left, Republican of South Carolina, alongside US Senator Lindsey Graham, right, Republican of South Carolina, during a Keep America Great campaign rally at the North Charleston Coliseum in North Charleston, South Carolina, February 28, 2020.Photo: SAUL LOEB (Getty Images)

On Monday, the Pied Piper of the Coronavirus claimed that he had total authority over all of the land. As Republicans raised their chalices to the Dollar Tree dictator masquerading as president, anyone in America with a double-digit number of teeth and the ability to read without moving their mouth looked at each other like, Fuck is this bitch talking about now?

Trump still claims that he shut down states during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and, in turn, was the only one who could open those states back up. Like a black dad walking around the house in an undershirt and pleated church pants, he wanted the rest of the house to get in line. However, governors everywhere looked at the president and burst out laughing while asking: Whose mans is this?!

They quickly informed him that he wasnt the person who shut down states and he wasnt the one that was going to reopen them. And their proof? Oh, just a little thing that Trump continues to wipe his untanned ass with known to the rest of the world as the Constitution.

Undeterred, Trump then rolled out here and noted he was going to authorize the governors to decide when to open the states, to which governors laughed and exclaimed, How the fuck is he going to authorize us to do something we always had the power to do?

So in this spirit, The Root senior writer Michael Harriot and I have looked at all the things President Trump has authorized:

Both Sides Act of 2020: The White House quietly issued an executive order that designates white supremacist groups as official arms of the Republican Party. Trumps new proposal also gives the Justice Department the authority to declare Black Lives Matter, Colin Kaepernick, the Democratic Party, The Squad and any non-sports gathering of more than two non-white people as a terrorist caravan. Diamond and Silk were specifically excluded, as well as Surgeon General Jerome Allens apparently crack-smoking, binge-drinking Big Mama and Pop-Pop.

Juvenile Justice: In a stunning recess appointment, Trump gave Cash Money Records the sole authority to take over the 99 and the 2000s. Although his proclamation didnt list any caveats, cabinet officials noted that the order to back dat azz up will only apply to those who have successfully applied for the federal designation of big fine woman.

Open Relationships: President Trump has authorized all former exes to date other people. We all know how hard it can be to get over someone as perfect as we are, but President Trump has authorized you to try.

The Beyonc Doctrine: White House staff says the president is currently working on a number of ways to court the much sought-after Beyhive vote in the 2020 election. They didnt offer any specifics, but insiders familiar with the campaign say President Trump not only is leaning toward authorizing ladies to get in formation, but he may counterbalance the preliminary policies with a presidential decree giving all Americans who like it, the option of putting a ring on it. However, the doctrine only applies to those who can effectively demonstrate that they are ready for this jelly.

African-American parental murder rights: Not only did Trump rescind the rights of all children who previously went in and out that door, but his newly signed authorization grants black mothers the privilege to remove their children from the face of the earth. While civil liberties advocates criticized the law as excessive, the legislative fine print only grants take you out authority to those who brought you into this world.

The Stop Sonning Me Law: This law bans Yamiche Alcindor from all press conferences.

The Lindsey Graham Executive Order: In a private ceremony, Sen. Lindsey Graham was authorized to continue wearing his leather submissive outfit around the White House, while wearing a ball gag. In a statement to The Root, the South Carolina senator said: Mugfjkemmmm. Mmrtgggfhg.

Religious Freedom Funds: White House advisers have hinted that the president may authorize funding for broadband blessings. The proposed mainline will allow evangelicals to tell Jesus what they want. The proposal also includes block grants that not only give Jesus the authority to fix it, but authorizes a select number of people to have a blessed day.

While Trump resisted authorizing a pardon for famed tiger aficionado and likely Trump supporter Joe Exotic, other presidential authorizations include designating KFC employees as essential workers, making Fox News exempt from telling the truth and granting a 30-day period of not doing shit for any head of state facing a global pandemic.

When asked why he was authorizing everything instead of focusing on the rapidly spreading coronavirus, Trump turned away from the Netflix movie he was watching and said he knew who was responsible for COVID-19:

That bitch Carole Baskin.

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Trump Authorized the Governors to Do What They Were Going to Do Anyway. Here Are Some Other Things He Authori - The Root