The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930

I first saw the Smoot-Hawley Act referenced in a tweet on X. A couple days later a second columnist referenced it. The next day a Wall Street Journal op-ed cited this tariff action that preceded the Great Depression. What was it and why was it suddenly in the news?

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 was a U.S. law that raised tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to historically high levels. Sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, it was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. The act aimed to protect American farmers and industries from foreign competition by increasing the cost of imported goods and encouraging domestic production. 

Key features included tariff rates reaching up to 50% on some imports, with an average increase from about 38% to 45% over previous levels. It expanded on the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922, but its scope and severity were unprecedented. The legislation was highly controversial. Over 1,000 economists signed a petition urging Hoover to veto it, warning of retaliatory trade measures and economic harm.

The effects were significant. Many countries, including Canada and European nations, retaliated with their own tariffs, leading to a sharp decline in international trade—U.S. exports and imports dropped by about 67% between 1929 and 1933, which exacerbated the Great Depression as global economic cooperation broke down. While it’s debated how much Smoot-Hawley directly caused the Depression’s severity, it’s widely seen as a policy misstep that worsened an already dire situation.

Throughout most of my adult life I've attributed the longevity of that period of economic austerity to FDR's policies. It would appear that this Tariff Act did not help matters, and very likely contributed to making them worse.

One difference between Smoot-Hawley and today's tariff action is that the latter was enacted by executive order, the former by an act of Congress. 

Politically, it contributed to the Republican Party’s loss in the 1932 elections, paving the way for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, which later shifted toward freer trade policies with the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. Today, it’s often cited as a cautionary tale about protectionism’s unintended consequences.

Whether addressing local, state or Federal issues, it's not a matter of intentions that we judge our leaders by. Everyone claims their intentions were good. As for how this current action plays out, one would hope that our whimsical tariff war doesn't trigger a decade-long global economic slide. During a portion of that Great Depression there was 25% unemployment and food lines. What happens next in our current scenario is anyone's guess. 

Related Links

FDR's Folly

FDR Related Stuff

Painting at the top of the page by my grandmother, Elizabeth Sandy.

The Alarming Rise of Suicide in America, Plus One More Thing to Think About

"He was a most peculiar man
That's what Mrs. Reardon says, and she should know
She lived upstairs from him..."
--A Most Peculiar Man, Simon & Garfunkel

Painting by the author.

A Wall Street Journal story about U.S. suicides caught my attention last month. It made me think about a blog post I'd written about Golden Gate Bridge suicide-attempt survivors. Tonight, while listening to The Essential Simon & Garfunkel (CD) I noted two songs on suicide, "A Most Peculiar Man" and "Richard Cory." 

I'm certain that one of the reasons Paul Simon's songs connected with so many young people in the Sixties was the angst he was able to capture in songs like Sounds of Silence, I Am A Rock, The Boxer. It was a post-JFK world during a war we didn't understand. We were coming of age and looking for America, but with our innocence somewhat stripped away.

The WSJ story by Julie Wernau was titled U.S. Suicides Reached a Record High Last Year, subtitled Older men are at highest risk, while suicide rates among young people have declined. 

One feature of the story was how Wernau tied the suicide data to a mental health crisis. She followed this by stating that nearly 50,000 people in the U.S. lost their lives to suicide in 2022. That's a pretty alarming figure, the highest since 1941 and a pretty grim milestone.

The Wernau article brought to mind a blog post I'd written a couple years ago on Medium about a stat that you don't often read about. It had to do with suicide attempts made by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The stat that struck me was not the quantity of people who have leapt to their death from that bridge, nearly one every 16 days, but rather it was this: all 29 people who survived their suicide attempts off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge said they regretted their decision as soon as they jumped.

That’s a mind-blowing statement. Each and every one who survived was immediately regretting their decision to leap to their deaths.

In my post I referenced an article titled The Jumpers, by Steve Taylor, Ph.D. The Jumpers opens by introducing us to a Ken Baldwin who had struggled with depression much of his life. Taylor shared details of what brought him to this point, then segues into several details about suicides on the Golden Gate.

From the beginning there have been 20 suicides a year at the bridge, he wrote. He went on to say, “Every jumper has a 98% chance of success, a much higher percentage than for hanging, drug overdose, or shooting. The bridge is 225 feet high, and after a four second fall, jumpers hit the water at a speed of 75 mph, with a force equivalent to a lorry crashing into a wall.”

The moment Ken Baldwin let go of the railing he immediately thought, “What am I doing? This was the worst thing I could do in my life.” He instantly thought of his wife and daughter and didn’t want to die.

He recalled realizing that everything he thought was unfixable was totally fixable — except for having just jumped.

* * * 

A second article Google found for me had a slightly different angle. Instead of being about people who survived after attempting to jump to their deaths, this one was about people who intended to jump but were stopped by police.

This article, by Stacey Freedenthal, Ph.D., LCSW., was titled Where Are They Now?: The Fate of Suicide Attempt Survivors. What Dr. Freedenthal found was that of 515 persons who intended to jump from the bridge and were stopped, only 7% went on to actually kill themselves at some point later in life. It was "a remarkable testament to the fact that a suicidal crisis is often — very often — temporary.”

One of the reasons I find this topic important is because it dovetails with another issue that I am concerned about, the legalization of physician-assisted dying. (Often referred to as doctor-assisted suicide.) I have written about this topic a number of times since the early 90s after doing a series of articles for a seniors publication on ethical issues in terminal health care.

The editor who handed me the assignment stated that I had to write four articles as a journalist before writing the fifth in which I could lay out my own conclusions. I found it to be a remarkably rewarding experience as I interviewed ethicists, oncologists, nurses and proponents (a member of the Hemlock Society, for example.)

The final article in the series was titled The Pros and Cons of Physician Assisted Suicide. In that article I began by noting the four reasons it seemed logical to legalize assisted dying. (Mercy argument, patient’s right to self-determination, economics and the reality that people are already doing it.)

But in my readings and in online forums, I discovered a range of concerns and red flags that ought to be considered. One of these red flags was this:

Many, if not most, people have wished they could die rather than face some difficult circumstance in their lives. Doctors who are given authority to grant this wish may not always recognize that the real problem is a treatable depression rather than the need to fulfill a patient’s death wish.

In a General Debate Forum on America Online someone shared this perspective:

“I know many individuals with significant disabilities: quadriplegia, post-polio survivors, persons with MS, etc. A number of them have tried committing suicide in the past and are now thankful that a mechanism wasn’t in place that would have assured their death, because they got over whatever was bothering them at the time and are happy with life again.”

As I read the stories of people who attempted to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. I could not help but connect it again to this argument against legalization of assisted suicide.

Currently there is a lot of money being invested in legalization. I would urge caution.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Related Link
The Bodyguard and Richard Cory

Fixing the Problem vs. Kicking the Can Down the Road: Why Are We Dealing with Yet Another Government Shutdown Crisis?

Illustration: AI collaboration using art by author

Many problems in government--and in life--are like surgery. No one wants to have surgery, but you have to do it. What's more, the sooner you do it the better. In many cases if you wait too long even surgery won't save you.

This is exactly what's wrong with the national debt and many other government problems. It involves pain. It involves surgery. No one wants to have surgery, but if you put it off the patient will die. And this nation is not immortal. 

This is the reality we are faced with. 

The same applies to crime. We're afraid to take the necessary steps to deal with it for fear of anarchy. Well, guess what? Anarchy (a state of disorder due to the absence of law and order) is what we've got. So the authorities have two choices: anarchy now or more a destructive anarchy later. The latter might be more than we can handle... 

No pain, no gain. It's either pain now, or kick the can down the road.

To their credit, the Founding Fathers created a Constitution designed to protect us from the kind of tyranny they'd experienced while under the thumb of England. To our dismay, they "kicked the can down the road" when it came to the matter of slavery. The bloodiest war in our history came two generations later and it almost killed us. 

* * * 

Another can we're kicking down the road is our bloated bureaucracy. I remember years ago reading that the Soviet Union failed because of its excess government. The government purportedly had subcommittees for every facet of its planned economy, including one to determine how many bristles to have in a toothbrush.

True or not, bureaucratic bloat is readily acknowledged to be an expanding drag on our economy. A recent Wall Street Journal article stated that our Federal, state and local governments have added 327,000 jobs thus far this year. These are not production positions to help us compete economically with China. Instead we are all too often adding new layers of permitting oversight and red tape that strangles the businesses who produce the nation's wealth that sustains us.

Whether we have a government shutdown this week, the reality is that neither party is fixing the problem. Do we really have to hit a debt ceiling every six months? Instead of really addressing the causes of the crisis, each party--using the megaphone of media--blame the other side.

As I said up front, no one wants to have surgery, but we have to do it. What's more, the sooner we do it the better. If we wait too long even surgery won't save us. 

* * * 

This blog post is my opinion. What's yours?

The Conundrum of Consumer Spending

"What's good is bad, what's bad is good
You'll find out when you reach the top
You're on the bottom."
--Bob Dylan, Idiot Wind

The Wall Street Journal had a story this morning that began like this:

"Stocks edged lower Tuesday on worries about consumer spending, after Dick's Sporting Goods and Macy's reported weaker sales, sending their shares sharply lower."

It's a perfect illustration of the contradictions inherent in modern life. The other day I wrote about the massive self-storage industry that has been generated by consumerism. America's "I gotta have it" attitudes have morphed into "Where can I put it?" Eventually, we get to this point: "How do I get rid of it?"

And yet, if American's don't fulfill their duty and continue to be good consumers, businesses fail, people get laid off, and the economy weakens.

It seems like we put a lot of responsibility on consumers to keep the economy afloat. Naturally, the banks and financial institutions will continually remind you that the benefits of this or that new credit card can help solve your money problems. 

Haha. More debt is a solution? According to one recent source, "As of the second quarter of 2023, the total consumer debt in the United States is $17.06 trillion."

KEEP IN MIND that this does not include the U.S. government deficits. That's right, American's are on the hook to help pay that down, too. That is, if our legislators had the courage to tell us that we will all need to chip in and pay the bills our taxes are supposed to be used for to run the country. We're talking more than $30 trillion on that deal.

Hmmm. So we have mixed messages to consider. Be responsible vs. Spend like there's no tomorrow.

Good luck.

America's Hoarding Habits Are Making Self-Storage Entrepreneurs Rich

Two weeks ago I saw a story in the Wall Street Journal titled: Is There a Limit to Americans’ Self-Storage Addiction? Billions of Dollars Say Nope. The article begins with a little story about how one entrepreneur milked Americans' addiction to "stuff" to become a multi-millionaire. From there the authors drilled down into more details about the self-storage phenomenon.

One of the observations I made during my trip to Italy in April was that the Italians I stayed with in Florence and Parma (at Air BnBs) had a lot less living space and even fewer possessions. Where did they keep their things? When I looked into it, as of 2018 there were only 50 self-storage facilities in all of Italy. By way of contrast, in this country we have over 50,000 facilities containing 546 units each.

How much stress is created simply by agonizing over where to put all our stuff?  Clutter is a major U.S. industry. How did we become this nation of hoarders? 

* * * 

According to the Self Storage Association, Americans spend an average of $180 per month on self-storage rent. This number can vary depending on the size of the unit, the location of the facility, and the demand for storage space in the area. For example, a small unit in a rural area may cost $100 per month, while a large unit in a major city may cost $300 per month.

In 2022, Americans spent a total of $38 billion on self-storage rent. This number is expected to continue to grow in the coming years, as the demand for self-storage space increases. Here are some of the factors contributing to this growth.

Declining homeownership  The number of homeowners in the United States has been declining in recent years, as more people rent their homes. This trend is leading to an increase in the demand for self-storage space, as renters need a place to store their belongings.

Declining living space The average size of homes in the United States has been declining in recent years. This is due to a number of factors, including rising housing costs and the growing popularity of urban living. As homes get smaller, people need more space to store their belongings, which is leading to an increase in the demand for self-storage space.

Of course the flip side of this argument is this: how much junk doyou really need? To reiterate, this seems to be an American problem, not a global one. Consumerism has bedazzled us so that we think we have to have every new toy, even though last year's toys already bore us.

The rise of e-commerce The rise of e-commerce has contributed to an increase in the amount of stuff that people need to store. As more people shop online, they are ordering more items, which they need to store somewhere. Self-storage may seem an affordable option for storing these items, but wouldn't you money be better spent paying down your debt and achieving financial freedom? Instead, we load up our credit cards and pay even more to store what we don't need or use.

* * *

Here's a little reminder from a fellow hoarder: you can't take it with you.

Flash Mob Crime a Sign of the Times

Mob: a large crowd of people, especially one that is disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence.
"a mob of protesters"

* * *

Do you remember Flash Mobs? They didn't appear by accident. They were orchestrated events that were designed to appear spontaneous happenings involving lots of people in a public space. These flash mob eruptions had been taking place in various spaces around the country so that it was almost a fad of sorts. The aim, it seemed, was harmless entertainment. 

We even had one in Duluth, directed by Crystal Taylor who had been designated "Flash Mob Organizer" by Mayor Ness, if my memory is accurate. The event took place in the summer of 2011. The flash mob occurred during Sidewalk Days, an annual event that draws people into town for a week of shopping and real life face-to-face socializing. 

A darker form of flash mobs has been happening recently in San Francisco and Minneapolis. You may have heard about mass shoplifting events in San Francisco in which groups show up and steal as much merchandise as they can then flee. Now the police are saying that criminals are using Snapchat and other apps to organize these stealing sprees. 

On November 20, 90 people showed up to overrun a Nordstrom's store in San Francisco. These were people who didn't know one another, but responded to the announcement of a flash action. Today's Wall Street Journal stated, "The thieves stole more than $100,000 of merchandise in one minute before escaping in 25 separate cars that had their license plates removed or covered, prosecutors said." 

I remember reading about how revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were coordinated through Twitter and other social media. If these flashmob robberies were to continue unabated, it could easily result in copycat events around the country. 

How would this play out long term? Would the government use A.I. to gather intel ahead of such events in order to intercept these organized mobs? To do so would require a further intrusion into our privacy in the name of security.

Chicago and Los Angeles have had similar mob crime events as well. It seems to me that if the thieves continue to get away with it, what's to stop it from spreading?

You can read the WSJ story here: Flash-Mob Thieves Use Apps to Plan.

Here is the article I wrote about the Flash Mob in Duluth ten years ago: Flash-Mob Invades Duluth

Here are some videos from various places showing how quickly thieves can snatch and go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6d5wGaT2Qo (2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQclP8fREWk (3 weeks ago)

https://www.foxnews.com/us/repeated-organized-flash-mob-robberies-san-francisco-security-experts

Democracy's Twilight (Another A.I. Collaboration)

Photo by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal each have an eNewsletter that arrives in your inbox at the start of your day.  Monday's Times had a link to a story titled A Robot Wrote This Book Review. The article was actually written by Kevin Roose about a book titled The Age of A.I. and Our Human Future. One of the book's three authors was the late Henry Kissinger.

For some years now I've been following the evolution of Artificial Intelligence, periodically testing some new A.I.-powered program that gets highlighted on a website. Though Mr. Roose pans the book, he does include an A.I.-written review of the book which is actually quite interesting. 

The app that powers Sudowrite, the interface that enables us to utilize the machine, is GPT-3. If you want to experiment with this tool yourself, be aware that your trial period is only three days, so if you get hooked you'll have to discipline yourself to go to sleep at night because you only have a finite amount of time to play with it.

The results are sometimes hit and miss. This one, in my opinion, was surprisingly forceful and provocative. 

Democracy's Twilight

Dimming light, but not yet dead;

You were worshipped…

The nations surrounded you, 

Made bright by your heat

As you flamed and flared

In your last days.

The shade of your children left you alone,

Their cities empty and their voices unheard.

The young ones had been taken from you,

And the old ones died one by one.

In your twilight, your rivers ran dry.

Your seas became blackened and silent.

You fought a long battle against disease,

But the enemy was too strong.

You were weakened, then you were brought down.

Your mountains were mined for their precious stones,

For their ore and for their coal.

They stripped off your clothes, so they could see your bones.

They cut you down to size.

Your forests were cut down, as were your trees.

They pulled up your flowers and your grasses--

Your crops were taken from you.

Your animals were slaughtered and left to decay.

In your twilight, the people grew sick and sad;

They grieved for their loss and for what had been done.

They cried and moaned and wept and cursed their fate;

They wept because there was nothing they could do;

Nothing they could do – but mourn – in their twilight.

* * * 

Our Amazing DNA: We Are Indeed Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge."
--Psalm 19:1-2

This past Sunday our church had a guest speaker who gave message on the above passage from Psalm 19. It began with an imaginative "what if" story about the moon landing of 1969. What if as Neil Armstrong stepped down from the Eagle landing craft he noticed a Swingline stapler by his foot there on the surface of the moon. What would people think? 

Obviously, it didn't appear out of thin air. The stapler, as simple as it is, demonstrates features of an intelligent design behind its creation.

This tale became a stepping off point for his sermon, which highlight four points. This blog post is based on his third, our amazing and mind-blowingly complex DNA.

Some of the details he shared were so over-the-top incredible that I didn't even want to share them until I'd confirmed them from multiple sources. Here are a few details about our DNA to wrap your head around. Sources include Britannica Kids (courtesy our speaker Dan Vander-Ark), Nature.com and ScienceFocus.com. 

* * * 

DNA is the material that carries all the information about how a living thing will look and function. For instance, DNA in humans determines such things as what color the eyes will be or what color your hair will be. Each piece of information is carried on a different section of the DNA. These sections are called genes.

DNA is in every cell of every living thing. It is found in structures of the cell called chromosomes.

When DNA works correctly, it helps keep the body functioning properly. DNA helps cells to make the proteins which cells need to live. DNA also allows living things to reproduce. The genes in DNA pass along physical traits from parents to children.

Those are the basics about DNA that most of us have been familiar with. We see physical traits in our kids that were in our parents, passed down over generations. But here's the part where it becomes remarkable.

DNA has an extremely complex structure. It's made of chemical substances that are linked together like a chain. Each piece of DNA has two long strands, or chains. The two strands are joined together. They form a shape like a ladder that has been

twisted into a spiral. We've come to know this as the double helix. This ladder has 3 BILLION RUNGS!

Nature.com puts it this way: "The double helix describes the appearance of double-stranded DNA, which is composed of two linear strands that run opposite to each other, or anti-parallel, and twist together. Each DNA strand within the double helix is a long, linear molecule made of smaller units called nucleotides that form a chain."

Every cell in our body has a strand of DNA in the nucleus – and that strand is 6 ft long! But it would be only 50 trillionths of an inch wide. And if you put all the DNA in all of our cells together it would stretch twice the diameter of the solar system. 

This seemed so unbelievable to me that I had to check it out, lest I be guilty of passing along "fake news." That led me to the Science Focus article, How Long Is Your DNA?

"Your DNA is arranged as a coil of coils of coils of coils of coils! This allows the 3 billion base pairs in each cell to fit into a space just 6 microns across. If you stretched the DNA of one cell all the way out, it would be about 2m long and all the DNA in all your cells put together would be about twice the diameter of the Solar System."

In other words, the DNA in your cells is packaged into 46 chromosomes in the nucleus and supercoiled using enzymes so that it takes up less space. 

Vander-Ark went on to say, "Human DNA contains more organized information than the Encyclopedia Britannica, which contains approximately 44 million words." 

In a 1999 Wall Street Journal article George Sim Johnson wrote: "If the full text of the encyclopedia were to arrive in computer code from outer space, most people would regard this as proof of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. But when seen in nature, it is explained as the workings of random forces."

* * * 

A suitable close here comes from Psalm 139, a Psalm of David from 3,000 years ago, and even more astonishing today.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Illustrations courtesy Zephyris, Wikimedia Commons

License details here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DNA_orbit_animated_small.gif

Something Old, Something New: 9/11

 

Wall Street Journal, 9-12-2001

Up until I started blogging in 2007 I used to journal every morning before work. Here's what I wrote on that morning two hours before the plane hit the first tower:

“The eastern sky is clear, but fierce looking clouds threaten us from the west. It may not be a pretty day.” ~ Journal entry, Sept. 11, 2001

* * * 

My cousin Gary was a career firefighter most of his life, many of those years a fire chief. His father served his community as volunteer fire fighter and rescue squad worker. What I didn't know was that the actor Steve Buscemi (Fargo, Reservoir Dogs) was once a fireman when he was younger, before Hollywood. 

As it turns out, because of that experience, when the twin towers fell, he called the old fire station he used to work at and when they didn't answer he drove to Ground Zero and put in five 12-hour days aiding in the search and recovery efforts taking place. The experience shook him emotionally. You can read the story here. 

* * * 

Bob Ossler was a chaplain who spent 45 days serving the needs of those at Ground Zero during those first weeks after the tragedy. The book he wrote about that experience was titled Triumph Over Terror. Here's my interview with Mr. Ossler.

* * * 

One thing I recall from that day, besides the lack of interest in celebrating my birthday that night, was how fragile life is and that we really can't take tomorrow for granted. The proverb "Who can tell what a day may bring forth?" became very real, much like Pearl Harbor must have been for Americans who lived through that nightmare.

EdNote: The "old" was the WSJ front page. The new was learning of Steve Buscemi's background as a firefighter and participation in the subsequent search and rescue efforts.

The Power of the Poetic: Poet Laureates Local & Global

FRIDAY NIGHT  LIGHT

It came in the mail today and I'm listening now to my newest Dylan CD, The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert! (Exclamation point in the title.) It has become apparent that with the Nobel Prize announcement everything Mr. Dylan has ever done is being revisited and being amped up in importance. 2016 is the 50th anniversary of a major year in the young poet performer's life. From a marketing point of view, one could not possibly ask for a more powerful endorsement of one's career than the Nobel Prize which was announced in October, to be celebrated next weekend.

The Wall Street Journal today published a front page story about this event with the title Bob Dylan Is Blowin' Everybody Off, But Minnesotans Don't Mind.  I like the way they used the word Blowin' which hearkens back to Mr. Dylan's second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and its opening cut "Blowin' in the Wind."

This alone shows the power of Dylan's music and influence. Can you imagine a Wall Street Journal article in the 1960's that would headline a story with the slang Blowin' or Changin' or anything so anti-establishmentarian?

Dylan has spent a lifetime knocking the masters of war, haranguing the rednecks who pummeled Emmett Tell, denouncing the pathetic murderers of Medgar Evers and Hattie Carroll... and has now been endorsed and recognized as an important voice for our world in our time.

In Our Time was the title of Ernest Hemingway's first published book of short stories, another American winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Whatever people think of the man himself (he has his detractors) his influence and impact on the direction of literature is indisputable. For me personally, In Our Time was a life-changing experience. In the same way, as has been previously noted by John Bushey and many others, Dylan had a similar influence and impact on rock and roll, the signature sound of the Sixties.

All this to say, yes, Mr. Dylan is worthy of this recognition and honor. He has been more than a songwriter, more than a performer. His presence has made a difference that will extend far beyond his moment in time.

* * * *

In our local community poetry has emerged to become a surprisingly vibrant feature of the Duluth arts scene. That a Nobel Laureate was born here may be a contributing variable in the equation, or maybe there's just something in the water.

This Sunday there will be a ceremony and inaugural reading by the incoming Duluth Poet Laureate Ellie Schoenfeld at the Peace United Church of Christ. I for one have been a longtime fan of Ms. Schoenfeld's pointed and inventive turns of phrase.

Here's a piece from her most recent collection titled The Dark Honey.

Taking It Off

Some years are just
one hair shirt layered onto another,
each one doing its best
to fuse with skin.

Now is the time
I will finally peel them off,
a slow psychological striptease.
I examine each one only briefly
then throw it
onto an enormous fire,
that original bonfire
fueled by grace and forgiveness,
by the bones
of a thousand other troubles.
Its tongues of flame
sing torch songs and the blues, praises
for every dull, flawed, and disastrous thing.
Its flames lick and illuminate wounds,
leave smoke and spark and new mirrors.


Finally the last one comes off.
I stand here
naked and perfect.
Just like you.
Just like everyone.

* * * *

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Open your eyes.

Throwback Thursday: How Will It End?

The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey as Truman, is a wonderfully original film about a man whose whole life, unbeknownst to him, has been lived in front of TV cameras. His life is a TV show. The story becomes a vehicle for many insights and questions about our own lives, the roles we play, our level of awareness as regards what is really going on outside our own little world.

One of the themes in the film is a pin Truman is wearing. "When Will It End?"

Despite the comic story line, amplified by Carrey's naturally inventive style, the film is serious in tone. And this question is not simply for Truman's audience, but for each of us as well.

We're all familiar with sayings like "it came to pass," with which we comfort ourselves during hard times or a cold spell. Nothing lasts forever, we say. Yet when we say this, we seldom apply this across the board. We generally live as if we ourselves are not going anywhere any time soon. And by extension, few of us can imagine a future in which the United States is no longer the United States.

So when we read books and articles about the fall of the Roman Empire, designed to teach us lessons about how nations and empires fall, how is it that we do not, almost cannot, relate it to our own nation, which is currently the world's strongest superpower?

Last Saturday I wrote about bread and circuses. Someone responded Monday by sharing an article with me from the Wall Street Journal that day regarding a prediction that the U.S. will be history by 2010. According to Andrew Osborn, a certain Igor Panarin has predicted for more than a decade that the U.S. will break up in a civil war due to economic and moral collapse.

This is no lightweight academic. Panarin is a former KGB analyst who is head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. The factors that will bring us down include "mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation"... along with collapse of the dollar. His new portrait of our United States will be a breakup into six pieces, Alaska ultimately returning to Russian control.

The story sounds far fetched, but stranger things have happened. No one expected the USSR to unravel as quickly as it did when the Soviet empire began to implode. Would the Wall Street Journal print something like this if it were the rantings of a lunatic? The friend who forwarded this article found it on The Drudge Report.

There was a time when Britain basked in the glow of knowing that the sun never set on the British Empire. How long can the United States be so blissfully oblivious to the reality that all things must pass?

Which leads directly to my question. How will it end? Nothing lasts forever. We know that. So, what next? The evidence that America is in decline is all around. Predictions of decline have been heralded for some time. How serious is our sickness? Will the patient recover?

Is this all too far out? You tell me... because an inquiring mind wants to know.