Modern Links to Lincoln

Posted on April 16, 2022 by admin

Abraham Lincoln Museum and Library. Library is across the street, on right side of photo.

It was spring break in the Chicago Public Schools this past week (April 11-15). Despite busy lives, I thought my wife and I should do something special with Alex, our 13-year-old grandson, so I proposed a visit to Springfield, the Illinois capital, to visit the Abraham Lincoln Museum, which we had never seen. The museum is part of a complex, opened in 2005, that includes the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, an invaluable resource for students and scholars on about Lincoln, the Civil War, and related historical topics, and the Illinois State Historical Library, founded in 1889. Across the street sits Springfield Union Station, which now contains an exhibit about the 2012 Steven Spielberg movie titled Lincoln. The library and museum are connected by a walkway above the street.

Springfield Union Station

From Chicago, Springfield is a fairly easy day trip, about three to three and a half hours each way, depending on traffic. The Lincoln Museum and the State Capitol are popular field trip destinations for Illinois schools, particularly those in central Illinois. Even with many schools out on the day we came, the museum was an obvious magnet for smaller groups of teens and for families. Lincoln, despite nearly 160 years’ distance in time from us today, remains one of the most fascinating figures in U.S. presidential history. The museum notes that only Jesus Christ may be the subject of more biographies than Lincoln himself. It is interesting to contemplate that both had more obscure beginnings than most major historical figures. Does that add to the fascination? I suspect that may well be the case.

Others have written about the museum and library since it opened, but this is a unique time to visit, given contemporary events in Ukraine, where war is ravaging an entire nation much as it did our own in the 1860s. One is almost compelled to make comparisons, and guests were asked to use flower-shaped paper cutouts and glue to write messages on blue and yellow strips that will be displayed to communicate messages of support to the Ukrainian people in their struggle for freedom against a Russian invasion. Blue and yellow, of course, are the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Jean and Alex both wrote their own messages; I wrote mine in Russian, which I learned half a century ago at Cleveland State University in classes half filled with Ukrainian American students. Мир, I wrote on half of the petals I glued together; Свобода, I wrote on the overlying petals: “Peace” and “Freedom.” Unfortunately, I do not know any Ukrainian, but most Ukrainians know Russian. The message is clear enough.

Depiction of antebellum slave auction

But back to Lincoln and his own times, when a battle raged for the unity of the nation in the face of slave holders determined to maintain white supremacy at any cost in a war that soon enough led to the liberation of more than four million enslaved African Americans. Nothing is ever simple, and Lincoln was not perfect, but his saving grace, unlike a recent American president, is that he never thought he was. He was simply an elected leader who was determined to find a path for his nation through its darkest days, and somehow succeeded. But he was also assassinated by John Wilkes Booth before he could ever see some of his most important gains for equality sacrificed to political myopia and expedience with no opportunity to do anything about it. His own vice-president, Andrew Johnson, proved not only inadequate to the task but riddled with racial bias. Vice-presidents in those days were often mere ticket balancers with little thought given to their abilities to lead the nation. Sometimes, one wonders how much has changed in that respect.

The intriguing thing about the museum is the way in which its designers have chosen to convey to visitors the realities of Lincoln’s life and times. This is truly a modern museum. After taking advantage of the opportunity to “get a picture with the Lincolns,” standing among their images in the lobby, we attended a short holographic presentation called “Ghosts of the Library,” in which a young researcher named Thomas helps people envision how the thousands of documents and historical items in the facility can come to life and share their stories. We realize that every item in the collection has its own story, so many that one could spend a lifetime hearing them all, but, of course, we had only a few hours to get the gist.

But that gist then, for us, moved to another theater, in which another narrator walked us through Lincoln’s life from a deprived childhood in a wilderness cabin to the peaks of power in the White House, surrounded by turmoil and controversy, until a gunshot rings out, and we know that Booth has struck at Ford’s Theater, and Lincoln at that point, as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton famously stated, “belongs to the ages.”

Paralleling that sequence are two very different displays, one small, approximating the size of the cabin in which Lincoln grew up, showing him reclined before the light of a fireplace, book in hand, educating himself, for he had only two years of formal education in his entire life. But his absolute fascination with books, and his ambition, served him well. In those days, one became a lawyer through such self-study under the aegis of a practicing lawyer, and it gradually became clear that Lincoln was an intellectual match for most of those around him. He served in the Illinois legislature in the 1830s, in Congress during the Mexican War, and despite periodic defeats including two Senate races, finally won election as president of the United States.

For Alex, seeing the cabin in which Lincoln grew up seemed to make an impression. Although Alex’s life had its challenges before we were awarded custody, he now lives in our three-story brick home with three bedrooms and modern furnishings. Yet, here was Lincoln, teaching himself to read and ultimately making one of the most profound impacts on human history. As I said, perhaps that is what makes the story so compelling.

Depiction of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln

Across the hall was a replica of parts of the White House and a sometimes-noisy presentation of the Civil War years, with holographic figures in one part of the passageway speaking aloud what was often said in print, in letters, newspapers, and other forums of the time. Some are angry men denouncing him as incompetent, but another is a young woman writing to the president about her brother, serving in the Army, who, in her view, did not need to serve alongside “Negroes” who would be unlikely to fight. The comment is even more compelling in light of our historical knowledge that Black troops, who joined the Union army in the second half of the war, were among the bravest, perhaps in part driven by the emerging news that Confederate forces who captured Black soldiers simply executed them instead of placing them in prisoner camps, although plenty of white troops died under inhumane conditions in such camps before the war ended. What comes across most clearly from this mode of presentation, in a way that written words cannot convey so well, is the sheer nasty divisiveness that infested the country in Lincoln’s time. It makes me wonder what impression this makes on anyone who still approves of the January 6 insurrection at the nation’s capital, inspired by a president who refused to acknowledge loss. When one thinks about Lincoln’s losses on the way to the White House, and the high cost of political division during his presidency, the lack of political grace by some today is even more appalling.

All of that is already compelling enough for a museum visit, but the museum offers one more powerful witness by including what docents warn is a display that visitors may find deeply disturbing. This new exhibit, “Stories of Survival,” opened at the Lincoln Museum on March 22 but was developed by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. It displays artifacts and photos from the Holocaust in World War II, but also more recent events such as the migrations of refugees from Middle East hot spots such as Syria. The stories and images are heart-wrenching. In my mind, they force two compelling questions: What is different today from the slaughter of the Civil War, and how does that contrast with events in Ukraine?

The biggest single factor, it seems to me, is that those who were resisting the Union in 1861, and who started the war, as Lincoln anticipated, by shelling Fort Sumter in South Carolina, were doing so not to advance human freedom but to preserve the domination of one race over another. In Ukraine, a sovereign nation, Ukraine, although an offshoot of the politically depleted former Soviet Union, is seeking to preserve its gains in building democracy and freedom. It is the commitment to its own independence and the attraction of a more dignified and promising political system that drives the impressive Ukrainian commitment to fight so well against the odds. The outcome remains in limbo, the destruction remains appalling, but the desire for a free and better life could not be clearer. In other cases, such as Syria (which has been aided by Russia), the power of an oppressive system remains the driving force in continuing genocidal warfare now into the third decade of a twenty-first century that we might have hoped would bring an end to such conflicts. Instead, we find ourselves confronted with evidence of a continued determination by strongmen throughout the world to enforce their will and of the ability of all too many to follow such leaders and excuse their behavior.

It is a sobering realization that the struggle for human freedom, dignity, and equality remains the compelling work of our time.

On the way home, I asked Alex what he felt he had learned from his visit to the Lincoln museum. Sitting in the back seat of the car, he thought for a moment and then said, “Being president is a very difficult job, and lots of people will be against you or criticize you.”

If he got that much out of it at his age, I thought, this trip was well worth the time. I did not ask about the “Stories of Survival” exhibit. It’s a bit much for the most mature adults to take in, let alone a seventh grader.

Jim Schwab

No Time for Cowards

Posted on March 9, 2022 by admin

Crowd at Daley Plaza in Chicago, March 6

This past Sunday, I attended a rally for Ukraine at Chicago’s downtown Daley Plaza. I am no expert at crowd counts, but it was clear that hundreds attended, filling most of the plaza. The point was painfully obvious: People were hugely upset with the unwarranted Russian invasion of Ukraine that began two weeks ago.

It is hard not to notice such things in Chicago, particularly on the near North Side. We live about one mile from a neighborhood known as Ukrainian Village. Chicago hosts the second-largest Ukrainian population in the U.S., estimated at 54,000. Many of us know or work with Ukrainian-American friends and colleagues. One of our daughters has a long-time friend from her junior college years. She talked to her recently and reported that, while Ivanka had talked to her frightened grandmother in Ukraine, she subsequently learned that her grandmother died in a Russian attack on her apartment building.

Welcome to Hell on Earth, Putin-style. Nothing is too brutal or inhumane if his personal power is at stake. Despite this savage reputation, well-earned in places like Syria, he has his admirers in the U.S., including a recent former president who shares an inability to put morality ahead of self-interest. Trump’s willingness to sacrifice Ukraine for the mere bauble of finding supposed dirt on Joe Biden surely provided a signal to Putin that Ukraine was fair game. The infamous telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zalenskyy, of course, led to Trump’s impeachment, followed by a highly partisan acquittal in the U.S. Senate. Both Trump and Putin have massive amounts of blood on their hands. With more than 2 million Ukrainian refugees so far flowing into Eastern Europe, this is no time to be polite in saying so.

My own awareness of the crisis is heightened by having been a political science major at Cleveland State University, where I indulged in Soviet and Russian history and learned a modest dose of the Russian language in a class half full of Ukrainian-Americans. That enabled me to read some of the signs at the rally that were not in English, though most were. One caught my eye: Русскийй Военный Кораблъ: Иди Нахуй. It was the challenging anatomical assignment that a Ukrainian commander on Snake Island threw back at a Russian warship that demanded his troops’ surrender. It seemed to sum up the sentiment on the Ukrainian side of the conflict.

Why was I there? Along with having donated $100 that Trip Advisor offered to match to support the efforts of World Central Kitchen to feed the mass of refugees at the Polish border, I felt it was the least I could do in a nation of comforts while millions of Ukrainians were being forced either to flee their homes or fight for them against a massive invading Russian army. That army has been finding, to Putin’s surprise, that Ukrainians are not inclined to surrender their sovereignty, especially in the face of massive human rights violations and war crimes. What awaits them if they surrender may be worse than the fight itself, so they will fight.

The issue is that, after reaching seemingly comfortable accommodations in recent decades with autocratic and authoritarian regimes in major nations like Russia and China, we collectively underestimated the potential malevolence of such leadership anywhere. It is certainly true that the United States alone, and even NATO and the European Union collectively, cannot hope to convert every nation in the world to democratic principles. Those are societal features that must be internalized by any culture that wishes to share a more enlightened world view. Whole books, particularly but not only by political scientists, have explored the necessary conditions for fostering such systems. In the past decade, even in the U.S., we have seen just how fragile democratic systems can be when faced with an onslaught of disinformation and the personality cults of those who offer simplistic answers to complex questions.

But the problem for Ukraine is different. Ukrainians had been steadily and deliberately working to steer their own society toward those principles, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy represents a remarkable commitment by new and talented leadership to those ideals. The problem is that Ukraine is a former Soviet republic with an extensive Russian border, led by a neighboring leader who suffers from profound paranoia and a delusional belief in the glory of the former USSR. Putin is remarkably lacking in moral principle and empathy, and thus, it should be no surprise that, at the same time that he refers to Russians and Ukrainians as ethnic “brothers”, he is willing to kill his alleged brother in order to save him from Western-style democracy. It is the classic bear hug of an abusive older sibling whose only real concern is getting what he wants, no matter the cost in human lives and suffering. If they don’t love me, the thinking goes, I will make them wish that they did.

The concept of doing the hard work required to create a Russian society that is actually attractive to the outside world escapes him. After all, he does not even trust his own people with the truth. If he did, the Russian Duma would not have rubber-stamped legislation to impose 15-year prison sentences on those who tell the Russian people anything the Kremlin does not want them to hear—such as the simple fact that Russia has launched an unfathomably violent attack on a peaceful neighbor.

The challenge for America and the democracies of the world is to rise to the occasion and accept whatever sacrifice may be necessary to squeeze the Russian war machine dry of whatever resources it needs to maintain its grip on Ukraine, which could easily be followed with a bear hug of Moldova and other former Soviet republics and allies, possibly including some that have already joined NATO. That, of course, could trigger the insanity of world war. It is certainly the case that direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia may be highly inadvisable at the moment, given Russia’s nuclear arsenal and the possibility of increased irrationality by Putin if he senses that he is a trapped man. The stakes for the world in such a case are extremely high.

There are, nonetheless, numerous ways in which we can help and indeed already have helped, including provision of military weapons like anti-tank missiles and other vital supplies.

The sudden withdrawal from Russia of major Western companies can also send a signal to Russian citizens, otherwise deprived of legitimate information, that the world is unwilling to tolerate Russian aggression. At the rally, for instance, one speaker noted that McDonald’s was still doing business in Russia. That is no longer true. Dozens of major U.S. corporations, including McDonald’s, are suspending business in Russia, although McDonald’s is paying its workers while the stores are closed. That move may be more powerful than simply withdrawing completely, by causing numerous workers to wonder about the logic of an American company paying them to stay home. Even AECOM, a major infrastructure and engineering consulting firm with which I have had some experience, has chosen to suspend operations in Russia. Eventually, Russia will have a difficult time replacing such expertise.

No discomfort for America and even most of Europe, however, can even begin to approach that of the struggling, fighting Ukrainians in this moment. The last time the United States saw large numbers of war refugees wandering its own landscape was during the Civil War. Even the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, killed nearly 3,000 citizens in places of commerce or government, but those who fled returned to homes physically untouched by conflict. If we muster the will, we are capable of far more support for Ukraine in the present situation than most of us imagine. Are gasoline prices higher as a result of banning imports of Russian oil? Let’s find a way to handle it without turning it into a partisan cudgel over inflation. In the longer run, we can only benefit from expanding our commitment to electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, and other ways of escaping the nagging noose of fossil fuels. A world that needs fewer and fewer resources from corrupt petro-states is a world that already is better prepared for peace.

It is one thing to expand world trade as an avenue toward peace. It is another to be fatally dependent on fundamental commodities that put us in the death grip of authoritarian states. We have the means, the wisdom, the diversity, and the creativity to find our way out of that death grip. Let’s get busy, stop bickering, and commit ourselves to a more democratic and less violent world.

Jim Schwab

The Struggle for Climate Sanity

Posted on February 7, 2022 by admin

It is Sunday evening as I start this blog post. Whether I finish it tonight is less important than simply getting it done. I had intended to get it done earlier, but other matters intervened, including a death in the family, so I am doing it now.

Part of my motivation is that I feel a small sense of empowerment from a successful start to a two-month series of Adult Forum discussions of climate change at my own church. I became the volunteer coordinator of the Adult Forum, which is the adult discussion group that meets during the Sunday school hour, in 2017, just in time for the 500^th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. That is no small thing at a Lutheran church. Last week, introducing the moral and ethical questions surrounding the biggest existential question of our times—the radical environmental changes produced by humans in the industrial age—we had eight people in attendance, not huge but remarkably good as church attendance struggles to regain traction after two years of pandemic lockdowns and fears of new waves of COVID. Our congregation has taken the pandemic seriously, and many of the elderly and the immunocompromised watch the weekly services online. This week, Adult Forum attendance grew to ten. Most people seem committed to the series. And they have lots of questions and paid rapt attention. I supplement what we do in our one-hour discussions with email distribution of links and attachments to additional material.

We started on the first Sunday by focusing on Katharine Hayhoe’s new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. My choice was deliberate. Before we tackled the science and the social and planning issues of climate change, it seemed important to consider how climate change became such a divisive issue for American society and the world. And there seemed no better place to start than with this excellent book.

Roots of Division

Why and how did climate change become such a divisive issue? Part of the answer is that climate simply became one of several issues that provided potent material for political polarization, which has also infected debates about racial justice, immigration, and a frequently paranoid distrust of science that has hampered efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic. In other words, the larger political environment swept climate change into the cauldron of this hostile partisan warfare. Consider the timing. Newt Gingrich’s right-wing uprising in the Republican party during the Clinton administration, a predecessor of the later Tea Party during the Obama administration, came along just as climate change was emerging as a topic of serious scientific debate. In due course,

Source: US EPA

looking at the data, an overwhelming percentage of scientists in relevant fields came to accept the basic premise that human activities of the Industrial Age are the only credible cause of the warming effects we are seeing today, but the political discourse on the right largely dismissed the evidence. That discourse of dismissal was heavily supported by the fossil fuel industry and a public relations campaign to muddle the issue, a matter discussed in 2010 in the book by historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt.

However, there is also the fact that climate change poses a long-term threat that many people find difficult to recognize as a more immediate crisis, at least before it is too late to reverse the damage. History is replete with examples of people failing in this way, and George Marshall, in Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, published in 2014, explains why we are prone to disregard distant threats in favor of the problems immediately in front of us. Of course, in recent years, as evidence of the more visible and tangible impacts of climate change has accumulated, our attention to the larger problem has grown. But so, too, has the denial in some quarters, fueled in part by the growing distrust of science and scientists, who used to enjoy much higher regard in most quarters of modern society. But that was before they inherited the thankless task of explaining what Al Gore two decades ago called “the inconvenient truth.”

A Matter of Values

Katharine Hayhoe is one of those people who has found a mission in life. Such people are blessed because a positive mission, even or especially in the face of challenges, serves to help clarify one’s values. Hayhoe is clear about hers. An evangelical Christian from Canada, now working at Texas A&M University, she is committed to caring for the poor, the hungry, and the sick, but also to the truth, which means that, for her, facts matter. They matter greatly. She also likes to discuss what faith can teach us and how we communicate with each other in a civil and loving manner, something that is not always easily achieved. There are, in fact, times when the only option in a hostile conversation is to walk away.

The central point is to understand who we are and what we stand for as we undertake to persuade others not only that climate change exists and matters, but why it matters. And so, at the very outset, Hayhoe provides a chapter titled “Who I Am.” It is her suggested inventory of self-assessment:

Where I Live
What I Love Doing
Where I’m From
Those I Love
What I Believe
Be Who You Are

The underlying point, she stresses, is that people will care about climate change for different reasons, their own reasons. People, she notes, generally already have the values they need to care about the issue but often have not connected the dots. The only way those of who do care can help them connect the dots is by first inquiring about those values they share, and then listening. Without listening, we are largely talking past each other, which yields more tension than progress.

Photo from Shutterstock

As an example, she cites the day she spoke to the West Texas Rotary Club, whose banner declared “The Four-Way Test.” The test was, first, Is it the truth? Second, Is it fair to all concerned? Third, will it build goodwill and better friendships? And fourth, will it be beneficial to all concerned? She reports that she skipped the luncheon to spend the next 20 minutes reorganizing her presentation around those principles, noting, for example, that nearby Fort Hood, a military base, now draws 45 percent of its power from solar and wind, “saving taxpayers millions.” She won over some skeptics because, once they connected the dots, the whole proposition of confronting climate change became more meaningful in terms they understood and accepted.

Facts and Tribal Loyalties

“Facts are stubborn things,” President John Adams once wrote. They don’t bend to our preconceptions or political wishes. Nonetheless, people like to be able to choose the facts they embrace while ignoring those that fail to confirm their biases. To varying degrees, this probably describes all of us because human nature is seductive about illusions, but reality can be harsh when it asserts itself. The role of education is, in large part, to help us learn how to learn and, in the process, be willing to confront our biases. Learning is a life-long challenge.

One crucial bit of learning regarding opinions on climate change is that not everyone is on one side or the other. There is a spectrum between the polar opposites. While completing work on Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation several years ago, I discovered the work of two researchers, Tony Leiserowitz and Ed Maibach, who had produced a journal article titled “Global Warming’s Six Americas.” They systematically described six camps, or tribes, of people with different perspectives on climate change. Two, one on either end of the debate, corresponded with our common tendency to divide people into “pro” and “anti” factions. One, the Alarmed, are those who see a serious and near-term threat to the planet from climate change. Another, the Dismissives, reject any mention of climate change and are most likely to buy into conspiracy theories and misinformation.

But between them are four other groups:

Concerned, who accept the premise of climate change but see the threat as less immediate;
Cautious, who still need some convincing but are open to persuasion;
Disengaged, who “know little and care less”; and
Doubtful, who don’t see a serious risk.

I was pleasantly surprised that Hayhoe introduced their work in her first chapter, noting that the percentages of Alarmed had grown in the past decade, basically siphoning some numbers from the Concerned. The two groups combined form a narrow majority, while the Dismissives constitute about 7 percent. The percentage of Cautious had remained at about 20 percent.

The most important fact emerging from the survey work of Leiserowitz and Maibach is that those totally dismissing climate change as a reality are in fact a distinct minority. One conclusion that flows from that is that those working to educate the public on climate change have a large field to work with and can reasonably sidestep the Dismissives. Arguing or even talking with them is likely to prove a waste of time.

The Futility of Guilt

One approach that Hayhoe almost categorically rejects is laying guilt trips on individuals over consumer choices, in part because the tactic seldom includes a realistic assessment of the alternatives that people face in deciding how to live their lives and get things done. She particularly dislikes what she calls purity tests. For example, she notes that one British colleague questioned why she flew to a speaking engagement in Alberta instead of taking the train from Texas. The problem is that no such direct train route exists. Hayhoe calculated the time, hours, and expenses involved in even attempting this approach through roundabout scheduling and found, for one thing, that the miles involved in driving to Oklahoma City to catch a train east and north into Canada from New York City, in order then to use the Canadian rail system to cross the country from Toronto were enough to get her colleague from London to Irkutsk in Siberia. It would also take several days in each direction. It simply was not a practical option.

Many potential alternatives for reducing our carbon footprints must first be created through the political or economic system before individuals can be held accountable for failing to use them. In many parts of the country, people lack the ability to meet online efficiently because our nation has yet to make adequate or high-quality broadband available. One cannot use options that one does not have. People cannot be blamed for driving a car to a meeting in a location where mass transit is not available. It is small wonder that people often feel their efforts do not matter when they are faced with a paucity of individual consumer choices, especially when powerful forces have worked to ensure that more desirable choices cannot be implemented. Understanding this fundamental point is essential in recognizing why the debate over infrastructure policy is a debate about what future we wish to create for ourselves. Once upon a time, our nation chose to facilitate nationwide mobility by creating the interstate highway system. Today’s debate is in part about creating a network of charging stations that will make driving electric vehicles feasible for the average motorist. Societal choices dictate many individual choices, and focusing guilt on individuals is in most cases an exercise in futility. We could better spend that time moving mountains on Capitol Hill.

Why Everyone Matters

There is a great deal more to the book than I am recounting here, as is the case with almost any book that is well worth reading. The important conclusion Hayhoe offers, however, is one that should be common sense but suffers from a surfeit of wishful thinking. Basically, climate change is a situation wrought by humankind and, ultimately, fixable only by humans. Hayhoe makes clear that, in her belief system, it is illogical and irresponsible to expect God to intervene to solve the problem because God has given us agency to tackle problems of our own making. She quotes Proverbs: “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity.”

Our failure lies in not realizing that we are simply subject to the rules of physics. Put another way—one perhaps more akin to Eastern philosophies–we have not aligned our lifestyles and social systems with a sound understanding of natural systems. As Hayhoe states, “If humans increase heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the planet warms. Pretending we can defy physics by putting our heads in the sand or cultivating a positive attitude will merely keep us slightly happier until (and more surprised when) the axe falls.”

False hope is often fatal, and at the very least self-destructive. Hayhoe prefers rational hope, wherein we recognize risk and understand the stakes involved in the situation we have created, noting that this requires courage but also provides vision. Ultimately, vision is not simply some magical gift from the Almighty. It flows from the hard work of clarifying our goals and beliefs and acting on those beliefs. It is the hard but rewarding work of empowering the willing.

Jim Schwab

FOBOTS

Posted on January 26, 2022 by admin

Photo from Shutterstock

Over the past weekend, two legendary quarterbacks who may be outlasting their time in the spotlight went down to defeat with their teams. Neither Aaron Rodgers, of the Green Bay Packers, nor Tom Brady, recently with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, will be headed to the Super Bowl. At their current salary level and respective ages, there is also the question of whether they can find a National Football League team that wants to spend what is necessary to keep them on the field. If not, retirement may be involuntary for either or both.

Rodgers earned some well-deserved opprobrium when he dishonestly claimed to have been vaccinated, even though he was not, putting his team and others at risk because of his own arrogance. The NFL probably buttressed that arrogance with a modest penalty that was largely a slap on the wrist for a man with an eight-figure income. He has enjoyed a secondary stage hawking State Farm insurance, but for superstars, such ads are merely an auxiliary revenue stream. They can, however, last a lifetime. Just ask Joe Namath. For some, there is a new career in sports announcing, a legitimate second career for people like John Madden. Such alternatives require a different set of talents from sports itself, so not everyone can make the transition. Honorably, some athletes have used their celebrity power to advance charitable causes and social justice; LeBron James comes to mind. Endorsements, of course, require little more than lending one’s name to a product or project, a process commonly known as branding. But that does not always put one in the limelight, at least not directly.

That is the question I wish to raise here because the desire for attention is a matter of personal psychology. There is nothing inherently wrong with continuing in a position as long as one is capable. However, there are issues involving personal maturity and perspective that are worth exploring. For example, does your reluctance to step away from the limelight betray the lack of any larger focus in life than simply being the center of attention, or do you have a larger sense of purpose? Conversely, is your determination to remain on stage a function of narcissism or an oversized ego?

Merriam-Webster states that the earliest known use of the acronym FOMO—fear of missing out—dates to 2004. Merriam-Webster defines FOMO as “fear of missing out: fear of not being included in something.” Because I jokingly refer to myself as a “compulsive extrovert,” I can relate somewhat to the idea, which long ago went viral, but emotional and professional maturity must at some point prevail. One cannot be everywhere, and priorities are essential. We can all stop and ask ourselves why something matters. In many if not most cases, we must also ask whether it matters.

I propose that we apply the same logic to what I will now label FOBOTS: the fear of being off the stage. As Merriam-Webster’s definition states, FOMO simply relates to a desire to be included. FOBOTS is about being the center of attention. Much more ego is involved. The maturity equation here is different and far larger. The question is whether the person in the limelight is hogging (or hugging) it because of a deep need to feel important, or has some larger purpose for which he or she is uniquely suited. In the latter category, I would suggest that, while Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was frequently in the limelight, it was not often complimentary in his day, he suffered a good deal of withering criticism for taking principled positions on hugely significant issues of human rights, and he was clearly more interested in moving the agenda on civil rights than in self-glorification. He also left behind a very strong bench of independent thinkers in the civil rights movement who have continued to carry the banner long after he was assassinated. Moreover, he was still very young (39) and capable when the assassination occurred. He knew it was a possibility because of the racial hatred and violence that still exists in the United States of America, but there is no evidence that it is the outcome he wanted. No one with his skills and vision wants to be murdered. Such people do want the satisfaction of moving the moral arc of the universe, to use the biblical metaphor. To care about that, they must care about others.

So, who really suffers from FOBOTS? Certainly, plenty of politicians. The sickness today is clearly rampant because the former president, refusing to concede loss in the 2020 election despite an absolute dearth of evidence of voter fraud, cannot abide departing the stage, even when he is harming the prospects of his own Republican party by supporting primary candidates whose agenda is to help Trump exact revenge on his perceived enemies and those who refused to participate in his scheme to overturn the election. In contrast, former President George W. Bush, having served his two terms, virtually disappeared from the public stage and launched a new avocation as a portrait painter. His father, President George H.W. Bush, willingly departed the White House to allow a peaceful transfer of power to President Bill Clinton. And most notably, President Jimmy Carter, who lost re-election to Ronald Reagan, has used his post-presidency to advance a variety of humanitarian causes in a dignified manner consistent with his own Christian principles.

With Trump, however, we have the spectacle of a defeated president who refuses to concede and refuses to honor the results, and simply manufactures false accusations by the wagon load to justify his position. What is best for the country matters little; it is the loss of the limelight, the fear of being off the stage, that dominates his psyche, which was shaped by early successes in life in being able to garner public and media attention as a glamorous son-of-wealth businessman and reality television star. Sorry, Trump followers, there is nothing more there. This is not about your welfare or any agenda that benefits anyone other than Trump himself. It never has been.

If the damage were limited, however, to a continued presence of Trump in the political quarrels of the day, that would be one thing. But the sickness runs deep enough, and the mass paranoia wide enough, to allow him to intimidate hundreds of other Republican politicians who also suffer FOBOTS. The fear of being primaried by a Trump wannabe is so pervasive that almost an entire generation of Republican leadership has lost its moral stature to the point of fearing losing their own smaller stages—as Senators, U.S. Representatives, governors, and now even as Secretary of State in swing states. Only a handful of Republican leaders, notably including Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois—are willing to defy him and seek to build the badly needed new leadership that can guide the Republican party out of its moral wilderness. Notably, Kinzinger, while choosing not to run again this year, is launching a new organization to fight what he considers right-wing extremism in the Republican party.

The underlying question of FOBOTS is the emotional intelligence and maturity it takes to realize when it is time to make room for others who can follow in your wake. This requires having had some sense of a larger professional and moral purpose in life. To avoid FOBOTS, it is necessary to think through, in both moral and practical terms, what legacy you wish to leave behind. For many people around the world, that vision is focused on family, on creating opportunities for children, modest goals that do not require oversized egos, and those people should be admired. For the rare few, at various levels of public attention, the public stage is an opportunity to advance a good cause, to elevate humanity, to make life better for others who follow. FOBOTS is an indicator of narcissistic personality disorder.

There is nothing wrong with being in the public spotlight. I have occasionally enjoyed being there myself. But the question always remains: Why are you there, and what larger positive purpose will your presence serve? If you cannot answer that question with honesty and integrity, it may be time to find the exit. Use your time in the shadows to search your soul.

Jim Schwab

Truth and Consequences and January 6

Posted on January 6, 2022 by admin

Reused with permission from Wikipedia

Like most people, I learned of the insurrection that resulted in five deaths and considerably more than 100 injuries to Capitol police from television news. Don’t ask me which channel; it was probably either CNN or MSNBC, but honestly, I don’t remember. I only remember what I saw—the searing image of American citizens attacking the seat of their own government on behalf of a President who lied to them because his twisted psyche did not allow him to admit that he had lost an election, fair and square. If he believes that the election was stolen, it is not because he has ever had any evidence to that effect. It is because he has repeated the lie to himself so often that he has internalized it completely. Such men are very dangerous.

There are plenty of good, well-written commentaries on the events of January 6, and it is not my aim to add another broad assessment of the day. The testimony before, and the final report of, the House Select Committee will add immensely to our knowledge, but it remains to be seen whether it can change minds. Even in 1974, as Richard Nixon was about to resign the presidency after a visit by a delegation of distinguished Republican Senators convinced him the gig was up, about one-quarter of the American public still sided with him, either disregarding or disbelieving the criminality on display from the Watergate affair. Even the most venal and corrupt politicians have always had their supporters, often until the bitter end. It is not as if the larger public is composed entirely of angels, after all. When the support fades, it is usually because the politician in question is no longer useful.

Corrupt and authoritarian politicians are almost always bullies who are highly skilled at making offers that their followers, and often others, cannot refuse. There is nothing new about this phenomenon. It is as old as civilization itself. The Bible is replete with evidence of such venality, dating back thousands of years.

So, what do I have to offer?

On the afternoon of the insurrection, I was preparing for a pair of sequential consulting meetings when the news caught my attention. That led to a mercifully brief text exchange with someone I will leave unidentified. I will paraphrase for clarity while sharing its essence. The point is not who it is, but his perceptions in the face of what effectively was a coup attempt. I understood his politics for many years beforehand; sometimes, he would needle me about it, and sometimes in recent years I was forced to terminate a conversation that, in my view, had departed earth’s orbit and no longer made sense.

But at that moment, I had to believe even this riot, insurrection, coup attempt, call if what you will, would be too much even for him. I was wrong.

I asked if he was still happy with Trump after Trump had incited an insurrection at the Capitol.

I was told that, after years of corruption that no one had challenged, except for Trump in the previous four years, “people are fed up.”

I want to step back here and make two points about this expression of frustration.

First, regarding corruption, this is a vague term that, without specifics, can be used as a broad brush against almost anything one disagrees with, and I believe that was happening here. There is, in my view, little question that corruption has at times affected both political parties. Personally, I have been perfectly willing to cross party lines to vote against candidates and office holders with documented records of corruption of any kind. I intensely dislike politicians who put self-interest ahead of the public interest. I am also aware that my disagreement with their policies does not constitute evidence of their corruption. Those are two different things, and we need to respect that difference if democracy is going to involve any kind of principled debate about what is best for our society. There are times when those lines are blurred, and times when it is clear. For instance, I was pleased last year when Democrats in the Illinois House of Representatives voted to replace long-time Speaker Michael Madigan, who had become entangled in a corruption scandal involving Commonwealth Edison Co. and its parent Exelon, with Chris Welch, who became the first Black Speaker in Illinois history. Welch may not be perfect either, but it was time for Madigan to leave. He has retired into obscurity, but he may yet face federal charges. I could name dozens of such situations in either party.

But to suggest that no one had addressed such corruption until Trump did so is ludicrous. It also demonstrates a willful blindness to facts. The litany of evidence of Trump’s shady transactions in both business and politics is overwhelming, from the $25 million fraud settlement in the lawsuit against Trump University, to the tax and insurance fraud charges now being brought against the Trump Organization by the Manhattan District Attorney, to the investigation of Trump’s demand of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to allow Trump to claim victory in that state in the 2020 election—the details have filled multiple books over many years. No matter the depth of evidence that Trump not only does not fight corruption, but personifies it, followers will insist on dismissing such evidence, almost surely without ever reviewing it. Nonetheless, it is absolutely clear to anyone reading all this, as I have, that Trump has never been the weapon against this corruption that this complaint suggests.

For those who may think otherwise, or want to better arm themselves to discuss this topic, I include a short, incomplete bibliography of Trump-related investigative literature at the end of this blog post. Beware: It may keep you occupied for weeks.

But there is also the claim that “people are fed up.” This deserves closer analysis. One could ask, Fed up with what, exactly? My correspondent cited Biden “bringing back old retreads that Obama had in his cabinet.” That is hardly a crime, of course, and may well have indicated a preference by a new president facing a crisis of confidence in government for choosing experienced people who know how to make government work. That is hardly cause for a riot, let alone a coup attempt, and I said as much, though admittedly I may have sparked further anger in referring to the corruption claims as a “bullshit excuse” for an insurrection—especially since the express purpose was to prevent certification of the election. He also noted the need for better trade agreements, for someone to “actually help the working person,” and the loss of manufacturing jobs. I would readily agree that these are all legitimate political issues, subject to debate both on the streets and in the media, and in Congress and state legislatures, but justification for an insurrection?

Reused with permission from Wikipedia

That was the red line I could not cross, nor could I accept that anyone else should be allowed to do so.

The idea that all this frustration, not all of it based on accurate perceptions, justified an attempt to overthrow an election underlines a sense of civic privilege that I find appalling. If your preferred candidate failed to make his case to the American people—and that is precisely what happened to Trump—it does not follow that the only path forward is insurrection. The presumption behind this logic is deeply rooted in white privilege, even if its advocates do not wish to consciously own that brutal truth.

After all, if anyone is entitled to a sense that they are pushing back against persistent injustice, it would be African Americans, who can cite centuries of brutal suppression and slavery prior to the Civil War, the use of home-grown terrorism through organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to suppress Black voting rights and citizenship and economic opportunity, Jim Crow laws that enforced inequality well into the 20^th century, vicious housing discrimination, and violent police actions, such as those of the Alabama state troopers who assaulted peaceful demonstrators in Selma in 1965, all of which make pro-Trump protesters’ allegations of unfairness pale in comparison. Yet, most African American citizens have persisted across centuries to use what levers they have within the democratic system to achieve a more equitable society. Admittedly, there are times when tensions have boiled over, but who could reasonably have expected otherwise? I am not justifying violence, but asking reasonable people to consider the disappointments to which Black Americans have been subjected for generations before making comparisons to the complaints of the MAGA crowd.

Moreover, such issues of delayed justice have affected other minorities, such as Chinese, the subject of an immigration exclusion law for decades, the Japanese internment during World War II, and widespread prejudice and discrimination against Latino immigrants over the past century. One could go on, but the point is clear. All have sought doggedly to work through the existing system to resolve injustice.

That leads to the next element of the exchange, in which I insisted that any Democrat instigating such an attack would be accused of treason, and that to react otherwise to Trump’s insurrection is “blatant hypocrisy.” I wanted to draw direct attention to the double standard that was being applied by many Republicans in this instance. In fact, I added, “Coup attempt is crime.” Democrats made similar allegations, of course, in the second impeachment trial.

That led to the countercharge that Democrats were hypocritical in allowing “looting, burning, shooting and harassing of innocent people” in the demonstrations and riots that followed the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in the summer of 2020. He then referred to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot as “part of the elitist liberal problem in this country.” As with the corruption issue, we were back to the broad-brush approach to asserting problems without specifics.

At that point, I decided to end the conversation because it seemed clear that the discussion was going to veer off track. I made clear that “I have never endorsed violence and I never will.” But I added that in Trump’s case, “This is an official condoning this,” which separated it from mayors who did not like the violence in their cities, but were faced with challenges in deciding the best approach to handling it. His comments also ignored the fact that 93 percent of Black Lives Matter protests were completely peaceful. I contrasted such practical policy decisions to “federal crimes encouraged by a US president who should know better.” And with that, the exchange ended.

I realize, of course, that this is just one such conversation among millions of exchanges among friends and relatives with contrasting views across the country. I did not completely disagree with all of his concerns, but I also was deeply puzzled as to how those of us worried about the future of democracy when it is under attack by followers of a demagogue like Trump can wrestle with jello or shadow-box with phantoms, given the vague and disingenuous statements with which we are confronted, including some of his.

In the meantime, speaking of stealing elections, we are watching some amazing voting rights shenanigans, to say nothing of phony “audits,” at the state level. What will we say when the second insurrection anniversary rolls around? Will anything have changed?

Partial Bibliography: Recent Books on President Donald Trump and/or the Insurrection

Johnston, David Cay. The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family. Simon & Schuster, 2021.

Karl, Jonathan. Betrayal. Dutton, 2021.

Leonnig, Carol, and Philip Rucker. A Very Stable Genius. Penguin Press, 2020.

Leonnig & Rucker. I Alone Can Fix It. Penguin Press, 2021.

Raskin, Jamie. Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy. Harper, 2022.

Schiff, Adam. Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could. Random House, 2021.

Woodward, Bob, and Robert Costa. Peril. Simon & Schuster, 2021.

Woolf, Michael. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Little Brown, 2018.

Jim Schwab

My Ode to Negativity

Posted on January 1, 2022 by admin

I am proud to announce that I started the New Year on a negative note. Having had a very mild fever Thursday evening and a very mild nagging cough, I thought the better part of wisdom these days was a COVID test, even though I would have bet serious money that it was something else, like a mere cold. But it did make me slightly uncomfortable. The fever was gone yesterday. So, at just after 8 a.m. today, I walked to a nearby National COVID Center, which offers free tests without appointment and was open today from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. I strongly suspected there would be no line, that few other people had roused themselves out of bed, let alone showered and dressed and gone outside, so early this holiday morning.

I was right. I got there, a storefront on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago, and the lone public health nurse staffing the place greeted me, the only person who had arrived, the only person the whole time I was there, had me fill out the forms, gave me both the rapid antigen and PCR test, and we chatted a bit while I waited 10 minutes for the antigen result. We discussed our dismay at the apparent lack of critical thinking among anti-vaxxers, and when I said I was trained to think analytically, she asked what I did, and we discussed the relationship between urban planning and public health, which goes back more than a century to Jane Addams days, when health officials and civil engineers and planners made common cause to clean up the city, build sanitary sewers, and pay attention to what makes cities healthy places to live. We discussed college as a gateway to learning how to learn for a lifetime. It was a great conversation. Then the ten minutes were up, and the antigen result (75% accurate, she said) was available: Negative. We must wait three days for the lab to e-mail the result of the 99% accurate PCR test, but I would stick with my original hunch.

But out of an abundance of caution, and a concern for those around me, I am still glad I took the time to find out for sure. You just never know, which is one thing I have also learned in spades as a planner specializing in disaster issues. This pandemic has been nothing if not a public health disaster, which always brings us back to this question of critical thinking. Give me one wish for 2022, and that would be it. The gift of critical thinking for the entire population of the U.S. and the world. I can dream, can’t I?

Jim Schwab

Fighting Lunacy with Lunacy

Posted on December 13, 2021 by admin

Thanks to the New York Times, I learned over the weekend that birds are not real. Oh, the information has been out there, and I don’t know how I missed it. Perhaps I am just not tuned into the metaverse, being over thirty [1] and all . . . . but I just did not catch on. Now I know. I understand.

You see, the birds have long since been replaced with drones that are surveilling our every movement. It is important that all right-thinking Americans be aware of their real purpose. Join the Birds Aren’t Real movement and find out. I personally intend to alter my disguise daily when I go outside so that the bird-drones can never identify me as the same person twice. Tweet the warning. Tweet it wide.

Okay. Let me keep this blog post shorter than my usual ruminations and just point you to the Times article by Taylor Lorenz that brings attention to what I think is one of the most effective satires on disinformation that I can recall in a long time. As the article reports, “Birds Aren’t Real” is the increasingly popular fabrication of Peter McIndoe, a college dropout who moved to Memphis, but grew up home-schooled in a conservative Christian family outside Cincinnati and later in Arkansas. It began as McIndoe’s spontaneous joke against pro-Trump counterprotesters at a women’s march in early 2017, after Trump had been inaugurated. It grew on social media to the point where 20 million people have viewed a TikTok video in which an actor portraying a CIA agent confesses to having worked on bird drone surveillance. “Birds Aren’t Real” paraphernalia, such as t-shirts, are available. Why do birds sit on power lines? That’s how the drones are recharged. The whole “conspiracy” has grown its own subculture, in which followers are in on the joke and those who take it seriously, well—they’re seen as

Another instance of massive drone surveillance of a fishing community in the Louisiana bayou.

having bigger problems than just bird drones.

Some supporters apparently refer to their brand of conspiracy satire as “fighting lunacy with lunacy.” Yes, there is still a need for the House Select Committee to continue its investigation into the January 6 pro-Trump riot in the nation’s Capitol. Numerous people were killed and injured, and it is serious business. It is important for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to pursue the Trump Organization for tax fraud, for the New York Attorney General to continue her investigation, for charges of election tampering to be pursued against Trump in Georgia.

But we can also laugh because, if there is one thing the true believers in disinformation cannot abide, it is not being taken seriously. Trump himself, who suffered a secret humorectomy[2] by alien doctors at some unidentified point in his adolescence, especially cannot handle being an object of satire or ridicule. So, join the joke: Birds Aren’t Real. Your belly laugh at the absurdism involved will make your day and help keep you healthy.

And remember, if some bird poop lands on your head, save it for evidence. It’s all part of the plan to make you believe. Just make sure you can trust the people who do the lab test. 😊

Jim Schwab

[1] Unfortunately, I passed that age in 1980, before PCs and the Internet even existed on any large scale, but I’ve struggled to overcome this limitation. I live in fear of the solution revealed in the 1960s hippie movie, Wild in the Streets. I mean, since the 2016 election, you just never know what might become possible.

[2] This is the surgical removal of one’s sense of humor, including the ability to laugh at yourself. You won’t find the term in medical dictionaries because the coverup of such surgeries is all part of the conspiracy. If you must ask which conspiracy, you are clearly gullible and have bigger problems than the rest of us can solve. You may even have been an involuntary and unwitting victim of such surgery at a young age.

What Makes Us Grateful

Posted on November 28, 2021 by admin

Marybella at Lurie Children’s Hospital

People often lean toward traditional expectations of traditional holidays. We expect them to unfold in predictable ways. It’s not just, for instance, that we know we should be thankful on Thanksgiving, but also that we have family traditions of a feast with certain preparations and foods and activities that are all part of what we anticipate. We relax with pleasure when we are able to follow the script.

Last year, seven months into a pandemic the likes of which our society had not experienced in an entire century, our expectations were tempered by the need for limited crowds and our awareness of those who had succumbed to COVID-19 who could no longer share a meal with us. This year, many of us reverted to accepting somewhat larger crowds, tempered by issues of who was vaccinated, but sought nonetheless to recover as much of that traditional script as situations allowed.

No one likes to have the holiday disrupted by sudden illness. I recall a Thanksgiving in 1990, when my wife and I were still relatively new residents of Chicago, because I suffered sudden illness. I don’t recall how I felt the night before, but I woke up that morning with a fever that reached 103°F., accompanied by some other miserable symptoms. I was in no condition to go anywhere or meet anyone. Jean simply ushered me to the car and took me to a hospital emergency room. Following x-rays, the doctor informed me I had pneumonia. He sent me home with antibiotics, and the next few days, as I recall, were less than inspiring. I was listless and tired, and I learned that pneumonia is an exhausting disease. I got it twice more in the next ten years or so, but never again.

On Wednesday of this past week, our daughter Jessica and her new husband Greg and their four kids arrived, but the youngest, Marybella, 7, was not faring well, coughing up mucus. Her behavior wavered between fatigue and her usual effervescent enthusiasm. Jean suspected something was wrong. On Thanksgiving morning, Jean convinced Jessica to let her take Marybella to a nearby emergency room, where she spent all most of the day. She updated us by phone. The doctors tested for COVID and ruled it out, as they did subsequently for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). They ultimately concluded it was pneumonia and arranged for her transfer to Lurie Children’s Hospital. Jean joined her in the ambulance. Jessica took me to the first hospital, where I retrieved our car as well as the purse Jean left behind when she rushed into the ambulance.

The other nine of us, including Jessica, proceeded with a mid-afternoon dinner at Jean’s insistence, but afterwards I drove to Lurie to pick up Jean, and Jessica and Greg followed. They stayed overnight with Marybella, who occasionally got the chance to talk to her siblings by phone, and then stayed most of Friday. Jean ate a pick-up dinner of the ample leftovers once she was back home for the night.

That could have put a damper on Thanksgiving, and to some extent it did. We were all quite naturally worried about Marybella. Jean reported that she was in a critical care unit, with a doctor and nurse stationed outside her room. A playful kid, Marybella sometimes rang the bell that signaled a need for help just to try it out until the nurse made clear to her that it was not a toy and she should not use it as one. Despite a heart rate reaching 170, possibly a result of panic during episodes of difficult breathing, her lively attitude was still apparent.

Jessica reported that Marybella also expressed gratitude toward her brothers and sisters, grandparents, and everyone around her. Being hospitalized, with all the attendant tests and medicines, has a way of focusing a young mind on the people who are helping her endure a crisis.

Not that she and her siblings have lacked reason for grief and anxiety this year. Their father died in ambiguous circumstances in late February. Like other students across the nation, they were attending school remotely at the time. They moved and changed schools in the fall. Life has been rather unstable, but they are seeking to regain their bearings.

Marybella’s challenge made me think hard about my own perspective in recent days. I have been busy, which is one explanation for a lack of recent blog posts. I was approached in early November with a new short-term consulting assignment that needed to be completed by the end of the month. That pressure was lifted slightly this past week with the extension of a federal agency deadline, but I have other work that will easily occupy my time until mid-December and perhaps beyond. I had looked at Thanksgiving as a chance to relax for just a day or two, but that was not going to happen.

As if one illness were not challenging enough, the parents took another daughter, Shanaila, to the Lurie emergency room on Friday evening, bringing her home at 5 a.m. Saturday after doctors determined she has strep throat and prescribed antibiotics. She slept well into the afternoon. What a weekend.

Meanwhile, we had five teens and tweens in the house needing attention while Jessica and Greg spent time with Marybella. On Friday morning, I found an intriguing idea in the Chicago Tribune, which included, in its Arts & Entertainment section, a glowing review of King Richard, a new movie about Richard Williams (played by Will Smith), the outlandishly ambitious father of international tennis stars Venus and Serena, who defeated the odds associated with raising five daughters in impoverished Compton, California. The movie has been billed as a tribute by the daughters to their persistent but deeply principled father. I consulted with Jean, and we decided it was a good bet for entertaining the kids in the late afternoon.

When I announced that we would attend a movie after they helped us clean the house, the first reaction was a question: What movie? This is a gang still hooked on Marvel Comics and superhero films, so there was puzzlement when I mentioned King Richard, a movie they had not even heard of. But Lashauna, a high school freshman, mentioned she had done some sort of school project about Serena Williams, although she still thought the idea behind the movie sounded “lame.” A movie about the father of two tennis players promised none of the high-powered action and special effects of the Batman and Superman films that dominate the box office.

“Just try it,” I said. “It might be better than you think.” Even a “lame” movie, however, provided adequate motivation to help clean a room or two in exchange for a trip to the local theater.

King Richard, in fact, has dramatic action. Williams defends his daughters by confronting gang members in the ghetto, gets beaten up more than once, but steadfastly pursues his audacious plan to turn his daughters into world champions with the help of coaches persuaded by his determination and, more importantly, the dynamic talents of Venus and Serena. The movie ends after Venus, at 14, nearly defeats the reigning top seed in her first major tournament, attracting enormous media attention and rich corporate sponsorships. Despite family squabbles, the gratitude of the two daughters for their father’s overarching vision for their futures becomes the dominant outcome of the story.

Once we were back home, with Marybella still in the hospital fighting to regain health—she suffered some lung damage at birth that complicates matters—and with the parents staying with her for a second night, I asked what they all thought of the movie and why they liked it. Lashauna admitted it was a good movie and that her assessment that it was “lame” was premature. Her sister Shanaila liked the fact that Venus became the first female African American world tennis champion. Jean, a retired teacher, liked the fact that Richard Williams insisted that his daughters get A’s in school as a condition of playing tennis. I simply liked the positive reactions to my choice of movie. Young adults do not alter their perceptions of life in snap decisions. It occurs one movie, one story, one mind-shaping event at a time. As a mere grandfather, I keep trying.

As I write this, I am plugging away at professional and personal tasks in a very different way than I had planned just a few days ago, and my expectations for the coming week remain positive, but tempered by a new experience. I too keep learning something: When God throws you a curve ball, learn how to change your swing. You may adjust enough to hit one out of the park, but you may also learn to be thankful just for reaching first base. You may also learn that gratitude sometimes resembles the smile on the face of a young girl in a hospital bed, fighting pneumonia but happy to be alive.

Jim Schwab

Rising from the Ashes

Posted on October 8, 2021 by admin

Wall art at the Peshtigo Fire Museum

Back on August 11, during a family vacation that involved circumnavigating the shores of Lake Michigan, my wife and I and two grandsons visited the small town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and spent an afternoon at the Peshtigo Fire Museum. It is housed in a former church that the museum acquired in 1963. While there, I decided to purchase some items from the small gift shop near the front; the museum sells a handful of books and mementoes. One was a reprint of a special edition of a local newspaper that commemorated the 1871 fire that destroyed the town. The other was a small book by the Rev. Peter Pernin, a Roman Catholic priest who wrote about surviving the fire.

I may have acquired another item or two, but if I did, I have no proof. Planning to write this blog post on the 150^th anniversary of the Peshtigo wildfire and the Great Chicago Fire, which both occurred on October 8, 1871, I wanted to read the items and discuss them here. Hours of searching my home office and the rest of our home turned up nothing. This is excessively unusual because I tend to be meticulous about keeping track of such acquisitions, but the anniversary approached and a maddening sense of futility took hold.

In frustration, I wrote to the museum through its online contact form and asked whether they could send me a new copy, and I have sent a $100 donation for their trouble. When I finally get a chance to read the material, sometime in coming weeks, I will supplement this post with a discussion of the historical materials. But before going on with the story, I want to commend the museum for a quick response from Wendy Kahl, who promised to send me replacements and expressed appreciation for the donation. I don’t remember the price of the items, paid in cash, but it was a fraction of my offering. The point, however, is that this small museum, in a small town in a rural area, is staffed by volunteers and operated on a shoestring by the Peshtigo Historical Society. They are, however, helping to preserve a vital piece of American history. Although I don’t often appeal for donations on this website, I will now. Those willing to help this humble enterprise can send donations to the Society at 400 Oconto Avenue, Peshtigo, Wisconsin 54157.

Most of us can gain only the tiniest inkling of the scale of loss suffered by a town like Peshtigo, which was a thriving lumber company town along the Peshtigo River near the shores of Green Bay, an arm of Lake Michigan, after the Civil War when catastrophe struck. I was about to write “when disaster struck,” but I quickly realized that the word “disaster” does not begin to do justice to the deadliest wildfire in American history. The extent of the devastation was so severe that no one really knows how many people died, but 1,500 or more seems to have become a reasonable estimate. The best narrative of the event I have read is Firestorm at Peshtigo by Denise Gess and William Lutz, published in 2002, but the museum website lists a few other resources.

Those resources in total can do far more justice to the story than I can hope to do in a blog post. However, the point that I can make here is one that, curiously, seldom occurs, although it is clear enough in the book by Gess and Lutz: the organic connection between the two fires in Peshtigo and Chicago. Separated by more than 250 miles, it is not that their fires shared a proximate cause. That would clearly be impossible. Recently, syndicated Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page mused about theories propagated by Chicago-area writer Mel Waskin that meteors delivered the ignition while recognizing how far-fetched that sounds and confessing to his own belief in pure coincidence.

But one can rely on science while saying that the two fires on the same day were more than pure coincidence. The reality is that a hot, dry summer plagued the entire upper Midwest from Chicago to Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Minnesota. Such conditions are the natural breeding grounds for wildfire, as fire experts in California and Colorado have long known. During the long summer of 1871, note Gess and Lutz, various fires peppered the landscape from Lake Michigan to the Dakota Territory. Storms in Texas drove winds northeast to Michigan and Wisconsin. But, as we now understand, the conditions were ripe throughout the entire region for a much larger conflagration.

Photo of a burning building at the Peshtigo Fire Museum

And it came, a raging inferno that swept through more than 2,400 square miles of northern Wisconsin, literally destroying the small town of Peshtigo. One reason the Peshtigo Fire Museum struggles in some ways to tell the story is that so few of the town’s structures and valuables were left in any recognizable condition when the fire subsided: a pile of metal spoons forever fused together by heat, a badly charred Bible. Small wonder that much of the museum consists of other artifacts from the rebuilt town that are not really part of the fire story. It’s hard to populate a museum with what no longer exists and could never have been saved. But they can tell the story with what they know and with the paintings in which people reimagined the horrors they had faced.

There is another point, however, that is often ignored: Chicago and Peshtigo, economically and environmentally, were in those days joined at the hip. Peshtigo was essentially a company town, largely under the control of Chicago magnate William Butler Ogden, who owned a steam boat company, built the first railroad in Chicago, and served as the city’s first mayor. Ogden Avenue and a few other things in Chicago bear his name to this day. He was a legendary presence during the city’s first half-century.

In 1856, he also bought a sawmill in Peshtigo. The lumber industry was in high dudgeon in the upper Midwest in those days, shipping logs down rivers to Lake Michigan and down the lake to mills and yards in Chicago, where the new railroads could ship it to markets in the East and elsewhere. Chicago was a boom town with a dense downtown of largely wooden buildings, but the same milieu of sawdust and bone-dry lumber created the same conditions for a wildfire that existed in the northeastern corner of Wisconsin, just miles from the Michigan border. It is not clear that anyone knows definitively what actual sparks triggered the fires in each community, but the common ingredients of fuel, heat, and oxygen that power wildfires were clearly readily available in both cities at the same time, largely driven by commerce.

It is hard to imagine today how dangerous it all was. Even without a fire, logging was an inherently dangerous occupation, with many men maimed or felled by attempts to control rolling logs as they were corralled downriver to lake ports, or by trees that fell as they were being hewn (known ominously as “widow makers”) in a time that knew neither worker’s compensation funds nor work safety regulations. Expecting the owners of logging mills and lumber yards to understand the dangers of wildfire any more than they cared about reducing workplace injuries would have been unrealistic at the time, although a dawning awareness of the need for such regulation led to Wisconsin leading the progressive era with state-level reforms by the turn of the 20^th century.

Aftermath of the fire, corner of Dearborn and Monroe Streets, 1871. Reproduced from Wikipedia.

But for the many people who fled or succumbed to the fire on the fateful day of October 8, 1871, that was all in the distant future. The immediate reality is that many were burned alive, some died after jumping into the Peshtigo River to escape the flames, and thousands lost homes and all they owned in a matter of hours as the fire spread. Meanwhile, the same happened in Chicago, where 17,450 structures fell to flames that swept through a three-mile area in just three hours, including the supposedly fire-proof new headquarters of the Chicago Tribune. More than 100,000 people, one third of the city’s population at the time, were displaced from their homes. For weeks, the city lay in ruins as community leaders sought ways to finance and rebuild a city from the ashes. Chicago, of course, even then had far better access to capital and media attention than lowly Peshtigo, which remains a town with a population of just 3,500, some fifty miles north of Green Bay, the nearest city of even modest size.

Chicago’s media dominance, and its ability to retell its own story, continues. The Chicago Tribune, for instance, produced a commemorative special insert magazine, “The Great Rebuilding,” with a great deal of useful documentation. The Chicago History Museum opened its special exhibit on the fire today. But at long last, Chicago media outlets are also paying attention to their sister in tragedy with articles like the one in the Tribune describing at length “the fire you’ve never heard of.”

Chicago also had the resilience, although the term was not in common use, to conceive of rebuilding in a way that would avert future disaster. If you notice a lot of masonry construction on your next visit, you are seeing the legacy of the Great Chicago Fire, which altered local thinking about building codes and fire resistance. Similar shifts of thinking about structural fire safety, of course, occurred throughout urban America over the next half-century because structural fire was strikingly common at the time, and insurance companies and firefighters alike realized something had to change. But that may be a longer story for a future blog post.

The fires also fed our nascent understanding of the dynamics of wildfires and how they are influenced by weather, in the short term, and climate over longer periods. As Gess and Lutz note, the Peshtigo fire gave us the word “firestorm” as the result of a growing scientific recognition that the intense heat of a large wildfire can create its own weather within the conflagration, including tornado-like winds up to 90 miles per hour, caused by the differential between the heat of the fire and the cooler temperatures of the surrounding atmosphere. Tornadoes, of course, are born of such meteorological conflicts, an endemic condition of the vast interior of North America where colder northwestern winds meet in mortal combat with warmer winds from the Gulf of Mexico throughout the summer and into autumn. In commemorating the two fires, we can also recognize that they came at the dawn of an entire science of wildfires that is working against time today to catch up with the deleterious impacts of climate change.

History matters. And I hope that I have sparked more than a smidgeon of interest among readers in what I consider a deeply intriguing and intellectually challenging topic.

Jim Schwab

Buridan’s Blogger

Posted on September 25, 2021 by admin

Source: Shutterstock.com

In the fourteenth century, French philosopher-priest Jean Buridan, a student of William of Ockham, posited the hypothetical story of a donkey that starved to death while situated equidistant from two delicious bales of hay. The fictional donkey was supposedly a victim of indecision and thus the object of intense navel gazing among those who want to debate the existence of free will. No one ever asked, to my knowledge anyway, whether the donkey was mentally ill or simply traumatized and thus incapable of acting on his own behalf. Mental health, after all, was not well understood in the Middle Ages. That’s one of many reasons why the term “medieval” has derogatory connotations.

I mention this because it has nothing to do with why I have produced nothing on this blog for two months. Despite not just two, but a multitude, of topics to choose from, I failed to choose any, but I can certify that I am neither mentally ill nor incapable of satiating my hunger to address the vital issues of the day.

I simply failed to find adequate free time to do so because numerous other personal and professional priorities intervened. This blog has always been the product of a creative mind seeking yet another outlet beyond those provided in other aspects of my life. Put simply, I prioritized other attractions or compulsions beyond a couple of equally intriguing blog topics. Even donkeys are more creative in their choices of food than Buridan’s paradox suggests. But I won’t take the comparison any further.

The simple fact is that this blog is and always has been a sideline activity, subject to interruption by more urgent demands on my time. Over the past two months, my wife and I took a weeklong vacation in which two grandsons, 12 and 17, accompanied us as we circumnavigated the shores of Lake Michigan. I may yet write about that in various ways, but I have not found time. Instead, when I returned, I reported to duty at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for a prostate biopsy. The results were ambiguous, or so I was informed, so I get to do it again in a few months. At least they put you out, so you don’t know what the doctor is doing while he is doing it, but it certainly blows your day. I was also busy on planning consulting work, launching my fall semester University of Iowa disaster planning class before Labor Day, professional volunteer work, and then helping a daughter who became the victim of a hit-and-run accident involving four vehicles on I-80 just after the holiday. She is largely okay, but for a minor head injury that causes headaches, but her car has been totaled, and I just helped her find a replacement. Before I knew it, weeks had gone by in which this blog remained a back-shelf priority.

Multiple bales of great blog topics remain in front of my fertile mind, waiting to be chewed on. Trust me. I’ve been dying to tackle them, but my brain is not starving. Instead, it was overwhelmed by the shiny objects on the other side of the barn. This blog, however, remains important to me as a unique form of public service that seems to be of value to nearly 32,000 subscribers. But it is also a one-person show. I am my own writer, illustrator, editor, and administrator. Ain’t nobody here but me, and Google Ads does not generate enough money for a fast-food dinner, let alone to hire help. As slugger Pedro Cerrano says to his voodoo god Jobu in Major League, before hitting a home run in a playoff game, “I do it myself!” (Yes, I skipped the preceding obscenity. This is a family blog, after all.)

Jim Schwab

Home of the Brave

Book Reviews and Discussion with Jim Schwab

Modern Links to Lincoln

No Time for Cowards

The Struggle for Climate Sanity

FOBOTS

Truth and Consequences and January 6

My Ode to Negativity

Fighting Lunacy with Lunacy

What Makes Us Grateful

Rising from the Ashes

Buridan’s Blogger