I wasn’t able to watch the impeachment hearings live, but I have seen selected highlights. Beth was able to listen to some morning testimony live, and she sort of helped me seek out things she thought were significant.

In doing so, she had a take on it all I hadn’t expected: Regardless of the president’s behavior, whether it rose to impeachable, or anything else political, she was inspired.

I didn’t really get it until I listened to parts of the State Department folks. When I did, I understood. These people, despite what anyone wants to smear them as, are true public servants. A lot of their testimony served as a sort of civics lesson in just what the heck the diplomatic corps does. The answer is, a lot, and under very difficult circumstances, working for very different leaders every few years.

We live in an age when skepticism about government has grown from healthy to malignant. Hard scrutiny about the limits of what government does, and oversight of government—local, state, and federal—is absolutely a good thing.

But dissing every one and every thing in the government is a cop out. It abdicates the whole idea that we hold some responsibility for the conduct of our government. It doesn’t delineate between the things government can and should do, and those things that perhaps, despite the best intentions, aren’t practical. As such, we get into binary thinking—all good, or all bad. And we never have the constructive conversation and debate.

I once worked at a wine importer and distributor, and one of the women I worked with was whip-smart, she had gone to Princeton, was making a good buck, and…she decided to join the Peace Corps. After that experience, she joined the State Department, and has repeatedly moved to points around the globe for her work. She’s now in the United Arab Emirates, reviewing visa requests to visit the United States. Not an unimportant task in that part of the world.

She’s proud of her work, completely apolitical in her observations about it, and I’m glad she’s on the case.

There are a lot of good people in government—we heard a few of them testify last week, and thanks to my friend in the UAE, I know it for a fact.

Drivers running red lights. Drivers causing gridlock. Drivers texting. Drivers watching TV on their phones. Pedestrians walking and texting or reading their phone. Bicyclists who don’t use those bike lanes we gave them. Pedestrians who walk in bike lanes. People who buy a damn plastic vest and slap it on their ill-trained dog and fake that it’s a legitimate service dog. People who let their dogs pee anywhere.

Sometimes people get on my nerves. And it’s beyond annoyance–lots of this stuff is dangerous. Last year was the worst for pedestrian fatalities in decades. This despite inroads on reducing drunk driving, cars that stop themselves and correct their courses themselves. There isn’t a smart automotive device that can make up for our stupidity sometimes.

I have this dream. A superhero who swoops down and smites people at just the instant they commit these various offenses. OK, maybe not smites them, but scares the bajeezus out of them. Something like what I experienced growing up—just about the instant I did or said something stupid, my mom was somehow right there and she’d thump the top of my head with her finger—as if if she was testing the ripeness of a melon. It didn’t really hurt but man it got my attention.

Anyway, I’d call the superhero BM Man or BM Woman. As in Behavior Modification.

Just think. Traffic would move better, walking wouldn’t be an adventure, dogs would only go where they should, we’d all learn to live in fear in of BM Woman and consequently, treat each other lots better than we do.

I see a graphic novel here.

The suggestion box is open.

Anyone who has followed our Safe & Sound blog for a while knows who Wanda Bridgeforth is. You’ve seen her photo here. You’ve read her writing here. But do you know what she sounds like? Now’s your chance!

Earlier this month I spent an hour with Wanda in a StoryCorps booth in Chicago (aside from their studio in New York City, StoryCorps has two satellite sites: one in Atlanta and the other in Chicago). While there is no guarantee Wanda’s interview will air nationally on NPR, I can tell you this: a short excerpt of the conversation Wanda and I recorded will air at a special StoryCorps event in Chicago this Friday. How do I know this, you ask? Because I’ve been selected to host the event!

I know. I didn’t believe it when they asked me, either. But check out this official invitation from StoryCorps:

StoryCorps Live: The Greatest Generation

Since StoryCorps Chicago first opened in 2013, more than 200 people aged 90 and above from the Chicago community have visited us to record their stories and memories. Join us for a public event featuring excerpts of these recordings, plus audience discussion and refreshments. Hosted by author, teacher, and journalist Beth Finke.
WHEN: Friday, November 22, 2019 at 11am

WHERE: Renaissance Court, our neighbors in the Chicago Cultural Center, at 78 E Washington Street. (Accessible entrance at 77 E Randolph.)

Selected interviews have been edited down to five-minute pieces, I’ve been given bios of the nonagenarians interviewed in those, and I’ll be introducing their pieces at the event. Among others, you’ll be hearing from a Japanese-American man who talks of internment camps in the 1940s; a woman whose work at a University of Chicago lab in the 1940s was part of the Manhattan Project; a Hyde Park resident who talks about the complexities of growing up in early 20th century with a white mother and a black father; and a fabulous writer we all know who relives her memories growing up in Chicago’s lively Bronzeville neighborhood.

That last member of the Greatest Generation is, of course, our 98-year-old Wanda. Snacks and refreshments will be served at the event, an ASL interpreter will be on hand, and the event is free. All you have to do is RSVP online here or phone Renaissance Court at 312.744.4550 to let them know you’re coming. Look for me there — next thing you know, I’ll be hosting the Oscars.

Communication technology breakthroughs have always been scary and disruptive—the invention of the printing press, to name one, was considered an enormous threat to the of order of the day. As were inventions like the telephone and television.

The technologies themselves have never been good or evil per se. It’s the behavior of  people who use the technologies that are good or evil. The current technological power may be unprecedented, but really, in terms of the hill we humans have to constantly climb regarding behavior and ethics remains the same.

Take Twitter. In my lifetime, by my view, we’ve always had an analog version of it: bumper stickers. A car whizzes by, or sits there parked; the sticker—a virtual middle finger—reads “I’m right, you’re wrong,” later! Oh sure, Twitter is theoretically “interactive,” but really, online forums don’t invite true conversations; they enable us to chuck spears back and forth. Unless we decide not to.

And Facebook? Sure, there’s good (outside of its corporate behavior). But the analog to the bad in Facebook, to me, has always been the Christmas letter. Or at least some Christmas letters (I’m not a total Grinch). The ones from people we’re out of touch with that detail everything from kids’ test scores to bouts with IBS. If you’re in my inner circle and I’m in yours, I’d already know. If not, and you just want to say you’re thinking of someone, well, that’s where Christmas cards come in.

What got me thinking about all this was a piece in The Atlantic on the difference between grieving and mourning in the age of social media. The author had lost her young sister to cancer. And she observed what happened online in the aftermath—it wasn’t all good. In the piece she does not condemn social media, but invites participants to think about what they’re doing in times of other people’s loss. The basic idea is that there are people grieving a terrible loss, and what you do in mourning online can help or hurt. Or perhaps, best, do nothing.

She starts by describing a modern phenomenon: Learning on social media that someone died. Here’s a taste of her phenomenally well written and considered piece:

The morning after my sister Lauren died was cold and quiet, a mid-March prairie dawn, lit by gray half-light. For several hours I tried to figure out how to get out of bed. The most routine tasks are extraordinarily difficult in the early days of grief—Lauren’s death had torn a hole in my universe, and I knew the moment I moved I would fall right through it. Meanwhile, across the city, a former classmate of Lauren’s learned of her death. I’m still not sure how—she hadn’t kept in touch with Lauren during the three years since they graduated high school. But bad news travels astonishingly fast. The classmate selected what is perhaps the only picture of the two of them together, and decided to post it on Lauren’s timeline. Beneath it, she wrote “RIP” and something about heaven gaining an angel.

This Facebook post is how many of Lauren’s close friends learned that she had died. We—her family—hadn’t yet been able to call people. The first post sparked a cascade of statuses and pictures, many from people who barely knew her. It was as though an online community felt the need to claim a stake in her death, through syrupy posts that profoundly misrepresented who she was and sanitized what had happened to her.

The author goes on to spotlight the important difference between mourning, which is a public act, and grieving, which is private and internal. She doesn’t condemn social media outright, and acknowledges that it may be valuable in terms of shared mourning. (BTW, I came to find the article via…social media.) She just says let’s be careful and thoughtful out there.

She concludes with this advice about how to behave on social media in the wake of a death:

My proposal is simple: Wait. If the deceased is not a close family member, do not take it upon yourself to announce their death online. Consider where you fall in the geography of a loss, and tailor your behavior in response to the lead of those at the center. Listen. Rather than assuming the bereaved are ready for (or comfortable with) Facebook or Twitter tributes, send a private message, or even better, pick up the phone and call.

If you don’t feel comfortable expressing your condolences to the deceased’s friends and family, perhaps it isn’t your place to publicly eulogize.

I’m going to heed that advice, and hope you will, too. I also hope you’ll read the entire piece.

My Seeing Eye dog Whitney and I gave presentations to three more groups of third graders this past Tuesday.

Whit’s always up for a class visit.

It’s Disability Awareness Week at Sherwood Elementary and Red Oak Elementary Schools in Highland Park, Illinois. An athlete who is blind had been at both schools the day before to give presentations, and the third graders were eager to tell me all about her. “She was born blind,” one of the kids called out. “She learned to use that white stick when she was in first grade,” another young voice added. “She’s a triplet!” one exclaimed. “And she does triathlons!” I had to laugh. “One thing you’ll learn for sure today,” I told them. “Some of us blind people don’t have a lot in common!”

I’d learn later that the young woman who’d visited them Monday was Ashley Eisenmenger. An article I found in Illinois Country Living Magazine reports that she competes as a member of a Paratriathlon Development Team Through the Dare2Tri triathlon club based in Chicago.

The third graders were rightfully impressed with Ashley’s athleticism, but the questions they asked during my Q&A Tuesday revealed they were far more interested in the differences between being born blind and becoming blind:

• Do you sleep with your eyes closed or open?
• Did you go from being able to see to only seeing in one eye and then being blind?
• How do you know what person you are talking to?
• How do you know what you’re eating, do you just smell it and know?
• Do you have a husband?
• That lady who was born blind uses a stick that looks like a candy cane, if you’re born blind can’t you get a guide dog?
• How do you use the bathroom?
• When did you get blind?
• Can you drive?
• Is it hard to be a blind author?
• Are you going to be blind forever?
• When you dream can you see colors?
• If your husband isn’t home, how do you know what you are wearing?
• What author are you, anyway?
• Do you play video games?
• Are your dreams puffy?
• Would you prefer to be seeing?
• How do you know that your dog sat down when you told him to sit?
• How do you take a shower?
• Even if you can’t see, does sitting close to your computer screen hurt your eyes?
• If you don’t have a white stick, then how will you know if there is a big rock in your way?
• Is it busy in Chicago and its hard?
• Does your dog ever go to sleep?
• Do you know a second language?

That last question may seem out of nowhere until you learn that kids are taught in English and in Spanish at Red Oak Elementary: it’s a dual-language school. And my answer to that question was yes. “Of course I do,” I said with a smile. “I know Braille!”