Notes and comment
The heroes’ march
by John Marshall
The incineration of towns and forests in the American west recalls a special horror for those who have been in a big fire, or close to one. Tenements and factories ablaze in New York; a paint warehouse exploding in the night. And in Salina years ago, the old theater building at the former Schilling Air Force Base roared up like kindling only moments after a matinee ended.
Big places, big fires. A reporter never forgets, especially when children and infants die.
And the heat, a great scalding curtain pushing out from the flames. The heat is enough heat to singe eyebrows at 50 yards, peel paint from buildings and vehicles. It leaves the throat seared and the lungs heaving.
Big fires, big heat. It’s a wonder how the firefighters out west go against those infernos, their flame walls from hell. Heat that would boil water and broil flesh, and there they are with hoses, shovels, picks. They do this day after day and night in the choking air against the devil’s breath. They rest awhile, and they return again into the heat and toward the flames. This is a hero’s march, the plainest bravery against a landscape ablaze, the backdrop of hell’s orange walls.
***
A different threat
A couple of weeks ago, at an event hosted by Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich., Attorney General William Barr compared the notion of a covid lockdown to one of America’s darkest historical chapters. He didn’t say whose notion it was, but continued: “You know, putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest,” he said. “Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.”
Would that put it ahead of, or slightly behind, masks?
***
The forgotten plan
At noon on August 9, 1974, an America on edge saw Richard Nixon resign the presidency. Televisions and radios across America tuned in for the farewell. In Washington, the center of government, even those most remote from politics watched or listened.
But something else was happening, and no one noticed. At the Department of Commerce, weather scientists had prepared for an afternoon meeting with other executive agencies. They were trying to devise a plan to bring the long-range problems of climatic change to the attention of a new president.
“…the next President, or the next few Presidents, might have a 50-year plan in which to make ready this civilization for the changes that climate might force on mankind,” wrote Theodore H. White in “Breach of Faith.” his book about Nixon’s fall. It was published in 1975.
The scientists stepped away from their work to watch with the rest of the nation as the president resigned, and as the helicopter carrying him and Mrs. Nixon lifted away from the White House lawn.
No one is sure about what happened to the scientists’ report or to that afternoon meeting nearly 50 years ago. What we are sure of, is that nothing much has happened since.
***
Our character referendum
A long-form writer is most comfortable taking the protracted view. Novelists, non-fiction writers, historians and essayists practice their mission with a slower walk, one with greater definition and context. The daily news is a sprint; their work is more a marathon.
In Britain, the sprinter will often seek out the marathoner for a look at where the race has been and where it’s headed. “The Guardian,” a British newspaper, recently asked the writer Martin Amis how the covid pandemic had affected the American psyche, Donald Trump, and the political currents of the American election season. (Amis, an acclaimed novelist, essayist and story writer is British, and whose homes include one in New York.)
” When the pandemic really presented itself, I thought: ‘Surely Trump can’t lie ten times a day now? Because this is life and death,’” he said.
Nothing has changed. Covid, Amis said, has exposed the shrewdness with which President Trump understands his followers.
“He realizes that there’s no meaningful hypocrisy, any more,” he said. “People are proud of being dishonest, sharks and vultures; they care as little about marital fidelity as they do about the deficit.
” This election is going to be a referendum on the American character, not on Trump’s performance.”
***
