The Deception of the Thrush

Ok, Dad, I promised I'd get back to your comments. I did look up the Gallup Poll where people ranked the "Greatest Presidents" in U.S. History. In the most recent one, it is true, Reagan came in first, Clinton in second, Lincoln third. In previous polls I think Lincoln has sometimes come out ahead, but yep, the Gipper did win it for this year. Frightening, yes.

One hit to Lincoln's rating may have come from African-Americans in the poll. Honestly, I don't know how I would feel about giving my vote to someone who thought that people of my race were inherently inferior, even after considering this fact in its historical context. That and past experience has shown me that blacks sometimes get tired of being expected to repeatedly praise Lincoln when the black heroes of the Civil War period are relatively neglected (where's the multi-million dollar Frederick Douglass museum, and why aren't Dubya and Illinois Governor "God-I-Wanna-Be-President-So-Bad-It's-Embarrassing" Blagojevich speaking at its opening?)

So, that's a vote I think you have to at least sympathize with. But that's the only motivation that seems reasonable to me; otherwise, why pick one of those other two guys over Lincoln, or perhaps Roosevelt? I mean, I miss Clinton too but, come on people. So, yes, that poll result was surprising and disheartening. On the other hand, even Reagan only came out with 13% of the vote. So part of the phenomenon we're seeing is the spread in people's choices; Reagan may have won because there is that small contingent of people out there who really do believe that he was the Great One. Probably the rest of the people polled have rarely thought about the question, didn't really want to put a lot of thought into it just for the sake of Mr. Gallup Man on the phone, and therefore reported the first name they could think of. Lincoln is a natural response, and given the wistfulness of Democrats this day and age, Clinton may have been an unfortunate but perhaps reflexive response.

Posted by Karin Cox at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I kid you not, it snowed again this morning. Pittsburgh is so weird.

While I am submersed in finals and other such business, my mother has generously offered to post another guest blog, the content of which may be found below. So please direct your comments to her :-) I will return to the land of the living in a week or so.

I-55 Out My Back Door

The trip to our son's is Interstate all the way. If good fortune provides a chauffeur, I watch the passing countryside--especially beautiful in April. Trees and shrubs, sparsely green, do not yet conceal the contours of newly-sprouted earth.

(Incidentally, not all of Central Illinois is "blue-bowl-sky" covering fields of corn and beans.)

Quite often I'll think, "What a beautiful building site that would make"--but, oh yeah, it's next to the Interstate.

As we approach the city--by golly!--here are nice new houses with their naked backs turned to "moon" the traffic. The approach to these homes involves traveling several miles to an exit, turning onto a leafy country road, winding through sun-spattered woods, to arrive at this wonderful "secluded" spot where are nestled the lovely expensive homes with the Interstate as a backdrop.

Why, do you think, one would spend so much $$ just to have a back yard that is viewed by millions of travelers--including friends, enemies, strangers, and sometimes the strangest? Does the hum of the traffic become white noise and the travelers, just invisible beings?

To me it's akin to riding a train at night, with the interior lights glowing; I would look out on darkness and wonder who is looking in!

Posted by Karin Cox at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's been a frustrating morning. I've been up since 4:30, plagued with the usual insomnia, and then I had to go in for a subject at 8:00 a.m. Then I find out that the scanner is down and I have to send her home. So, kind of pointless.

And what's worse, this morning I wrote a nice blog entry and then I lost my internet connection and somehow that made me lose it. So, here's another go.

We were talking about the Walker. There's also this new Lincoln Presidential Library open now in Springfield, Illinois. (Click here to read about it) I was talking to my mother about this and proceeded to initiate an incomprehensible rant on the Great Lincoln Obsession of downstate Illinois.

Central Illinois is just about like any other Midwestern agricultural region. Every town needs to stake out its claim to fame. Maybe this emerges from a sociological principle: Any coherently-banded group of people desires to create a symbol worthy of outsiders' pilgrimage. Or, maybe it arises from the belief
(possibly irrational) that surely any municipality has the capacity to rake in tourist revenue, somehow. We've all heard of giant balls of twine. But more commonly, small nameless towns try to resucitate the past. For my hometown, that past was Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln. Not that that was a particularly original idea. Lincoln served as state legislator in Vandalia, but he served all sorts of offices elsewhere, and those towns celebrate him equally, as well as probably any Illinois town where he bought a newspaper or drank a cup of coffee. O the Abe Icons of my childhood, how could I ever count them all! I remember some fairly good Lincoln impersonators, and there's a nice Lincoln statuette in the garden that was built in a vacant lot of the Wal-Mart-ravaged downtown. I remember hundreds of people, some women, dressed as Lincoln and jumping through a mock window frame, supposedly re-creating a legend of Abe leaping from a burning state capitol building. And so on.

But it's not just my hometown. It's the entire state. Note that this is the first state-funded Presidential Library, and likely the first with animatronic eighteenth-century characters (creepy, if you ask me).

Why does the Lincoln Obsession bother me? I don't deny the meaningfulness of his presidency; it deserves careful study. The Civil War period presents as many complex and worthwhile issues as any other. The person of Lincoln himself is often poorly understood. Note that in the article I linked, only Barack Obama mentions that Lincoln's opinions on racial equality leave something to be desired. So, both the man and his time leave open some interesting historical questions.

So what could possibly be wrong with the Lincoln Obsession? First, the excessive focus on this one historical figure overdoses us on the same stories which have surely been stripped of meaning by now. How many times do public school kids learn about the Civil War? They could tell you the standard line like they recite the alphabet (The South was Bad, Aren't you glad you aren't from the South, because the rest of the U.S. is A-O.K. and perpetually defends freedom and liberty.) When I was in history class, serious instruction generally stopped after the mid-1800's. Sometime when you get close to graduation, some instructor mentions that Vietnam happened ("It had something to do with Communism. I don't know, just write that in your notes.") Likewise, the Lincoln frenzy comes at an expense to discussion of other times and other places.

Second, the Lincoln Obsession does nothing to remove downstate Illinois from its stagnation and provincialism; alas, it probably helps fuel these ailments. Why not spend that Lincoln library money on investing in your schools, in instilling your workforce with real skills (rather than blaming China), or cultivating the arts, or new green spaces, or build libraries where people actually go for the books instead of RoboAbe? Why not turn your interest towards what's happening in the world, and to the political leaders of this century, and engaging with the modern divisions that need to be resolved in our nation, and even within those little farm communities, rather than repeating the same tale of the Blue and the Grey? Expand your imagination a little bit. We can't live off of these icons forever.

As always, dissenting opinion is welcomed. Have a good day.

Posted by Karin Cox at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Well anything I can write here will pale in comparison to my mother's previous post, which generated a record 18 comments.

All I can do is present some of the most interesting news items I've seen this week. Here we go:

White House Letter: President Bush's iPod. My two favorite icons of American culture (ha, ha) in a single article. Amazing.

Study Cautions Runners to Limit Their Water Intake This is somewhat alarming news from the New England Journal of Medicine, even if you aren't a marathon runner.

An Expansion Gives New Life to an Old Box I was just happy to see the NY Times devote such praise and coverage to a Midwestern cultural institution. The Walker "has been one of the liveliest museums in the country, an institution that maintained a strong independent voice despite its ties to the mainstream art world." Who knew?

Posted by Karin Cox at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Karin has "drawn a blank" in her attempt to produce a new blog. For quite some time she has suggested I "guest blog." Considering she usually recoils from my attempts to do anything for her, here I am. However, I do think this is an offer for my sake--not hers.

My mother, Karin's grandmother, came through more than her share of difficult times. The runt of her family (caring for and out-living everyone, including her own husband and Karin's older sister), Grandma stood quite tall for a person only 4' 11.75". When circumstances caused her to tensely await an "outcome," she'd say she was trying to "make her mind a complete blank." She even waited for her own death that way--supposedly.

I've often wondered if a person could really do that--willfully think of nothing. Or in the process of thinking of nothing, would one indeed be thinking of something-----*nothingness*?

Just a few weeks before Grandma died, on one of my daily visits--when conversation lagged--I asked her what she was thinking. She, slowly, but unhesitatingly, answered, "Nothing--nothing at all" ---or at least it was nothing she cared to share.

So, my friends in the upper echelons of learning, what do you think?----and, do you care, enough to share??

Posted by Karin Cox at 07:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

So, both John and I have persistently encouraged my mother to guest-blog, and yet she still resists. Well, Mom, I'm reserving today for you. I've sent you instructions for how to login to UThink and Create a New Entry. Now the ball's in your court :-)

Posted by Karin Cox at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's April Fools' Day.

My mother will tell you the same thing-- in April, it is difficult to resist quoting the well-known opening lines of The Wasteland.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Yes, he spelled "cruellest" with two L's.

So, what did you expect, visiting a blog named for a verse from The Four Quartets.

Oh, but did Eliot not just hit the nail on the head. As children in elementary school classrooms--walls bedecked with pastel cut-outs of flowers and butterflies--As children, we are told that Spring brings life. And with that first bug on your windowsill, the chirping birds in the morning, and the first flowers out of the ground, the buds on the trees -- yes, absolutely, they didn't tell us wrong. And you too develop a new liveliness -- you remember what it was like to be free, free to go outdoors, to go barefoot, to run and to play. And as the same children, the joy came upon us and out we went, and enjoyed a new life. Now, as I am older, I feel more reflective about these things. Maybe it's surprise that the climate has such an effect on me, when I thought I had a tight grasp on my own identity. Maybe it's anxiety at engaging with the world again...winter kept us warm....when the world is narrow and focused on keeping out of the cold, higher hopes are forgotten and perhaps that was a good thing. From a Buddhist point of view, we give in to desires and hopes because they promise us beauty and joy, but these desires and hopes in themselves embody the necessary condition for suffering. And Albert Camus, he liked to characterize Hope as a form of Nostalgia...the most crippling kind...maybe that's one reason why Eliot mixes desire and memory in the same verse.

Every so many hours I open my web browser and there's the Times with another headline, and these headlines seem more and more surreal every day, and the mystical side of me -- I don't believe in that side, I just indulge in it because I enjoy the poetry -- the mystical side of me believes it all has something to do with April. So, here I carry on my unidimensional, tunnel-vision life, and every click onto Internet Explorer unfolds increasingly bizarre stories of who the world has lost or will lose this Spring. Terri Shiavo -- better referred to by her full name Theresa Marie, as an editorial used this morning -- with every click, we go from a vaguely smiling woman, to an ugly legal battle, to legislative fury, to click...click...click...and one day she is no longer alive. Now, Karol Wojtyla, a tracheotomy, a feeble wave on Palm Sunday, a feeble wave on Easter...click...a high fever...click..."grave condition"....click, failing organs, but oh if he isn't so "serene", how dare the Pope be anything but serene. And the flocks of people praying for him. Explain to me, folks who pray--I'm not trying to be critical, I just want to understand -- why do you pray for the Pope as he dies? What are you praying for? What sort of event or circumstance do you think would turn out more poorly than anticipated if you did not pray?

In the meantime, Johnny Cochran dies, and I'm told that "Chicken Magnate" Frank Perdue dies. Iraqi citizens and soldiers of all nationalities and hungry people and neglected mentally disabled people and homeless people all die, and we won't notice or frankly care.

You're going to forgive me for this entry, aren't you? It's not like I want to be morbid or make people depressed. No, no, that's really not my intention. It's the conflictedness of Spring coming back again. Being so aware of being alive makes you so aware of fragility.

Fragility is not bad. People turn from machines of wood and metal -- posts that stand rigid in the January snow, that remained fixed in climate-controlled buildings and churn out their daily product -- they turn into something much softer that you actually want to embrace. It's not all bad. I don't feel all bad. It's Spring. It brings life.

Posted by Karin Cox at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)