Words Matter

U.S. Constitution Word Cloud Map, by Romero Gomez

When we were kids on the playground at Woodland School, in the midst of raging games of four square and tetherball, we would reply to the taunts of playground bullies with a sing-song rhyme, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never harm me.”

I’ve been thinking of that saying over the past week or so, realizing the fallacy of that idea. Words can have – and have had – a powerful impact on our civic life in this nation, painting images of threats, real and imagined, designed to influence action and genuine harm.

A note of disclaimer here. I’ve made a living and a life based on the use of words to share news of our times as a journalist in DC, on behalf of corporate and government leaders as a public relations practitioner, and for the last twenty years or so in university and academic medical center settings on behalf of science.

I’m very familiar with the power of repetition and redundancy, with the power of words to influence opinions and ideas. Repeat an idea over and over with resonance and power, and it will be shared broad and wide as fact. Even if it’s not.

That’s why I’ve maintained a sense of care and awe when using words. Initially, it was based on the oversight of corporate attorneys at the networks who wanted to ensure our reporting didn’t lead to a lawsuit. “Do you have the facts? Have you confirmed with more than one source? Are you ready to stake your reputation on this story?” This was before the Federal Communications Commission had eliminated the Fairness Doctrine – yes, I am that old – and network attorneys worked hard to uphold its standards and concepts.

In the past few weeks, we’ve heard and watched what happens after years of using words to attack and vilify those we don’t agree with. We hear our political leaders weaponize language against those in the other political party. And that violates the core of a civilized society. Any time someone begins a sentence with “All…” be prepared to be skeptical. All Democrats don’t agree on anything. And last week, we watched brave action by some Republicans – so All Republicans aren’t any one thing either.

I’ve lived long enough to have grown up, received an education, married, raised children, and enjoyed a career during the service of twelve U.S. Presidents. Seven have been Republicans, and five have been Democrats, with one more elected this past November. A little addition shows I’ve lived 38 years with Republican Presidencies and nearly 28 with Democrats in that role.

We can argue policy directions, the impact of regulations, whether the Income Tax initially passed by Republicans, or the Social Security and Medicare acts initially proposed by Democrats were wise. We can also disagree on whether public lands and national parks should remain development free forever, or on the wisdom of large infrastructure projects. This is what democracy is designed to do.

It is the words embodied in the core tenet of our constitutional democracy that established a country based on the rule of law – and the concept of justice – that deserve our close attention now.

These are the powerful words we need to hold tight – (as originally written) –

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

These words, misspellings and all, were written nearly 235 years ago and resonate with the promises they seek for our nation. And as I listen to the soaring rhetoric delivered powerfully by Martin Luther King, Jr. just half a century ago, I once again recognize that words can inspire and unite to greater purpose.

Choose your words wisely, my friends.

Today...

from the Minneapolis Star Tribune

I write when I’m happy or moved. I write from my experience of life. And today, I write from a place of horror, sadness, and strong resolve. 

I never thought I would see gangs of thugs, incited by the President of the United States, break into the U.S. Capitol to ransack and destroy the very building and institution established to represent our increasingly fragile democracy. And yet that’s what is happening right now.  

Yes, the British tried to destroy the Capitol building in 1814 – yet here we sit in our homes across the country in the 21st Century, in the midst of a pandemic, with easy access to instant visuals of lawlessness by our own citizens reacting to a call to action – from the President of the United States. 

Pause a minute here.

I’ve written before about my staunch standing in the moderate middle. And I have friends from across the range of political partisanship…all people I care about deeply.  

But today? Today we’ve seen what can happen when we truly cease to think for ourselves.

There are those who may not like the outcome, but Joe Biden won the Presidential election. The 2020 election had more oversight, more reviews, more recounts, more legal challenges, more safeguards in place to ensure people could exercise their constitutional right than we’ve seen or experienced before.

I was a poll observer on election day, and I watched people show their IDs, register on site (as is legally permissible in Minnesota), and swear a legally binding oath before exercising that right. All legal challenges have been knocked down – by both Republican appointed and Democrat appointed judges. All Secretaries of State – both Republican and Democrat – have certified their state’s results.

And only one man – who has worked to promote absurd lies – has refused to agree with the outcome. Unfortunately, this man has promoted those lies as well as promoting violence – and today we witnessed the result.

Let’s pause again here. Take a deep breath, and realize this is not who we are. Not who we are as a people. Shirtless white men in head gear rampaging through the halls of Congress? To what end?

Today is a stark reminder of the privilege white Americans still enjoy. Imagine for a minute the different militarized response if the hordes moving onto the Capitol grounds had been black or brown.

Today is also a day to hug your family, and prepare for the hard work we all have ahead in rebuilding the fragile democracy of our fractured nation.

Public Health Prophet

Mike Osterholm, PhD, MPH by Stuart Isett for Fortune Brainstorm Health

Like many of you, I’ve spent the past week or so reflecting on how our world shifted this year, and what that may predict about our future. 

Unlike many of you, I have known epidemiologist Mike Osterholm, PhD, MPH for nearly 20 years, so I should have been more prepared for all that unfolded this year.

Mike Osterholm returned to the University of Minnesota to start his latest gig at the beginning of September, 2001. It was before the world shifted and our perspective of risk shattered eleven days later.  

When he arrived, he brought with him his reputation as a solid public health professional with just a bit of flair for the dramatic. Even twenty years ago, he predicted a coming flu pandemic that would change our way of life with the ominous line, “I’m not here to scare you out of your wits, but into your wits.”

His office was just down the hall from our public affairs team and we were quite aware that his presence would require our attention and care. Among the first tasks was helping him nail down the name of his new center. He needed a logo and a website, and oh so many other ideas bubbled forth. 

And then planes hit buildings and everything changed.

We all remember what we were doing the morning of the 11th of September. My sharpest memory was Mike in our offices with three pagers going off, monitoring unbelievable media images as they played out on screen.  

He was hearing reports that the Mall of America would be next as a symbol of our materialism.  

Then it was the IDS tower as the tallest building between Chicago and the West Coast.

And then I asked him to move into my office so that his predictions would stop causing more stress for those in his earshot.

That was my first exposure to Mike Osterholm’s remarkable ability to project the possible, if not always the probable. The paperback version of his first New York Times bestseller, Living Terrors: What America Needs to Know to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe, came out in September, 2001 and provided a horrifying laundry list of other ways to disrupt life as we know it.

So, the anthrax mailings that quickly followed 9/11 made perfect sense. Mike was convinced he was a target when a package arrived in a University mailroom leaking a dusty, powdery substance from its brown paper wrapping addressed to him.

We called a hazard squad to come figure out what was in the package. Their arrival, with sirens blaring and personnel in full hazmat suit attire, attracted media interest which was slightly embarrassing when the package turned out to be a batch of cookies that had crumbled in the mail.

Mike has always had a fertile imagination for what could possibly happen when it involves catastrophe and its public health consequences. He’s brilliant that way – taking the possible into the realm of probable human outcomes. And then you realize that of course it all makes sense.

As the state’s epidemiologist, his dogged approach and ability to imagine the possible quickly tracked down the source of foodborne outbreaks, as well as the connection between tampons and toxic shock syndrome. 

As his Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy gained well-earned attention, Mike was frequently invited to speak on the range of public health topics that have emerged in the past twenty years. We learned early on that it was best to have Mike do a presentation following the lunch or dinner hour as he was fond of speaking on food safety issues, frequently noting that lettuce is “nature’s toilet paper.”

His writing and his books are always provocative. So, I wasn’t surprised at all when his next best seller arrived in 2017 and read like a compelling screenplay.  Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs predicts the impact of a highly contagious coronavirus with a degree of accuracy that foretells our next year or so.

It’s not easy being a prophet. During the twenty or so years I’ve known him well, his frightening predictions earned him the moniker of Dr. Doom, as he told us exactly what a viral pandemic could do to our way of life.

He was right and we need more people like him who aren’t afraid to speak their science, based on research, facts, and yes, critical imagination.

Pushing the Holidays

Summer of 1960-something - an Alleshouse family picnic.

This is the season of in gathering – inviting in the people and family we love for gathering around tables to laugh, share, and remember the year(s) past.

This year, none of us truly are interested in remembering this past year and there will be no gathering of family and friends. In fact, the most in gathering we have done involved bringing in the porch cushions and patio furniture to protect it from the weather.

It’s funny – last year, when we did that task, I distinctly remember feeling sad that we hadn’t used our outdoor furniture much at all. We had seven weddings – and a funeral – plus a few spectacular road trips that kept us away most of the warm outdoor season. It was sad to say goodbye for another winter to outdoor furniture that had not lived up to its promise of outdoor fun.

Not true for 2020. This year, of course, was the summer of hanging out at Porcho Myarda – on our porch and in my yard. It’s how we gathered and saw faces of those we loved – at a distance - but the laughter was sweet even then.

And now, here we are barreling into the holidays. Indoors. No gatherings.

So I have a proposal – I say we push out the holidays to next summer. Let’s wait for 6 months and have a Thanksgiving gathering over Memorial Day weekend. And if we hold off on gathering indoors, then there will be fewer people for us to memorialize that weekend.

As much as my childhood family loved gathering at Grandpa’s farm with our relatives over Thanksgiving, we also enjoyed seeing the cousins no matter when we gathered. The photo above is from the early 1960s in our Townview Circle side yard with our Alleshouse cousins.

And, a side note? Although nearly all of the older generation in this photo are gone, Aunt Marge is still with us at 103 and is as fun and interesting as ever. For that, I’m very grateful.

Is This Retrograde?

It’s 4:30 in the afternoon and I have been so sedentary that my watch stopped telling me to Stand Up. It now just says “Give Up!”

I tried today. I really did.

It’s been that kind of week though, hasn’t it?

As if 2020 isn’t challenging enough, Mother Nature decided we Minnesotans have had just enough of seeing friends outdoors for the year. She dumped a bunch of snow on us and then followed that up with ridiculously cold air to freeze the white stuff solid on top of the leaves that are still falling.

My friends from California say it has something to do with the planet Mercury being in retrograde. Sigh.

So here I sit - In the midst of this funk - wondering what Sue Wink would do with this sense of ennui. And wondering how much she would laugh at the idea of retrograde planets affecting life on this Earth.

I’m not really certain Sue was ever lazy like this. She was constantly moving – a font of energy that inspired action all around her. She used to quote her mother’s credo – “Get up early. Dress for the day with pizzazz. Make the day count. And always work to stay thin.”

And she did all of those things – inspiring others as she went. Oh, how I miss her now. 

Sue was my Other Mother when I was growing up, presiding over the house I ran to when my parents were being, well, annoyingly parents.  After my mom died when I was 22, she remained a touchpoint to my childhood until she died somewhat abruptly a month ago.   

If I’m being honest, I didn’t think Sue would stay around too long after Dick Wink left. They were a couple for more than 65 years until Dick died last summer, following a series of unfortunate events that left him unable to fight off an infection. They were a power couple in the musical life of my hometown. And to me, they were a haven of home every time we returned to Mansfield.

Sue surprised all of us by rallying and thriving in her newly single role. She saw friends, engaged with family, danced at her granddaughter’s wedding, and re-engaged with her art, garden, and church groups.

Dick and Sue Wink, laughing as usual…

And then COVID hit. I know the solitude – without Dick – was so hard for her. She just hated the shutdown of life that happened in the Spring. And her girls were very diligent with all of the virus precautions to ensure they didn’t infect Sue. When the weather warmed up, they did arrange for happy hours on the patio – spending time in the safer air outdoors.

Turns out the virus wasn’t the issue. Her daughter Dayna took Sue for a haircut where her longtime stylist noticed Sue had a yellow pallor. A number of doctors and tests later told Sue that advanced pancreatic cancer provided a deadline for making her days count.

And count they did. Her daughters, her grandchildren, and even great grandchildren along with in-laws, and friends filled her time. We made it to Ohio in time for a wonderful visit – time to thank her for providing a haven to this neighbor child. And time for a final COVID-violating hug.

It appears this exhausting anxiety-filled planetary retrograde, along with the freeze in Minnesota, will lift the first week of November.  Maybe then I can get up early and dress with pizzazz to make the day count. Working to stay thin will be a stretch…

Playing with Feelings...

Remember “Lassie, Come Home”?

I didn’t watch much television when I was a little girl. Mom kept us busy with lots of activities, so kicking back to watch a show just wasn’t a thing. Besides, we only had a black and white TV long after many of our friends had moved into the world of color. But then, you don’t know what you’re missing if you’ve never had it.

There was one show that I would seek out in those rare moments of inactivity – Lassie, the program about the adventures of a beautiful, smart collie dog and his accident-prone boy, Timmy. The lack of a color palette had no impact on my ability to get sucked in to a good story line and Lassie had it all. There was a mom in the kitchen perpetually preparing a meal, a dad busily at work on the farm, which left Timmy free to go explore the wide world around him. Inevitably, Timmy would encounter some form of danger and then it was Lassie to the rescue.

As with many shows in the 1960s, one never had to guess when peril was coming. The musical score provided a foreshadowing undercurrent, with an ominous score predicting hazards for Timmy.

Apparently, my mother’s ears also were attuned to the meaning of ominous music coming from the television. Inevitably, just as I was holding my breath, wide-eyed in front of the set as Lassie ran to the farmhouse once more barking his alarm of danger for Timmy, in would swoop my mom to snap off the TV with a brisk, “That’s enough of that, now.”

“Mahhhmmmmm! Whyyyyy?” was my usual wail.  

“That show gets you all upset. It totally riles up your feelings,” was her highly unsatisfactory response. And that was followed by a quick distracting pivot to ask for help in setting the table.

I was remembering this somewhat annoying habit of my mother’s the other day as I feeling those riled up feelings of being upset.

This time it had nothing to do with a TV show like Lassie. It was the result of a series of social media posts by old friends. A majority were re-posts of content from other sources designed to distort, to amplify, obscure, and manipulate how we relate to current events.

At this point in my journey of life, I’m well aware of the way certain words and images can impact what we feel and understand. I’ve built a career out of carefully using the words and images that help my employers and clients promote stronger reputations.  

Sometimes the difference is nuanced – like emphasizing leading edge medical research rather than cutting edge medical research. Most people (patients or customers) prefer being on the leading edge when it’s medicine that can cure, rather than the harsher cutting edge that feels surgical. So those are the words we use when promoting positive breakthroughs. 

That’s the upside of my work.

But it’s the downside that concerns me now.

There are far too many online publishers in the business of promoting extreme and manipulative content designed to anger and upset us. There is an entire industry of content producers whose sole goal is making us angry.

Some of the worst of these publishers produce content that promotes both the far left and the far right, inspiring hatred and vitriol on both ends of the fractured spectrum - with the ultimate goal of gathering IP addresses that can be sold for big profit to partisan organizations. These publishers are not promoting a “one true way of life” for liberals or conservatives. It’s all about personal profit at the expense of our society.

That’s what really riles up my feelings, as Mom used to say - recognizing the tools being used by manipulative sources to inspire hatred, fear, anger, and a shattering of our better selves.

Living on Edge

I yelled at a text today. Not the content. Not the sender. The actual text.

“Who do you think you are, Text? Why are you bugging me in the middle of this lovely day – demanding my attention, asking for a response? Cut it out!”

And that’s when I knew – I’ve slipped over the edge.

The extremes are getting to me. The irrational, over the edge extremes in nearly all spheres of life are making me nuts. Pronouncements coming out of leaders on the left, on the right – mostly from the extremes, actually – have moved beyond baffling into confounding. And it’s not limited to elected or governmental leadership – it’s nearly everyone with a platform which today includes nearly all 330 million Americans.

In the past few decades, I worked with bright men and women where we discussed the beauty of everyone becoming a news source – that we were moving beyond the days where we in public affairs were at the mercy of whatever the editors at newspaper and TV or radio stations thought was news.

We were in the glory days where we had our own websites, our own platforms, and we could publish whatever we wanted to garner the notice of key constituencies, or influentials, as we call them. All we needed to do was make the news interesting, and we could drive top reporters and editors to follow us and share our content. Great, right?

It felt like a democratizing idea – a true marketplace of ideas. Boy, was I wrong!

Instead, without any sort of filter, no fact-checkers, no review at all, anyone can assert anything to be true and important. And it’s making all of us crazy.

With multiple outlets on innumerable platforms running 24/7, the hunger for content – ANY content – leads to unnecessarily provocative commentary across the spectrum. And the results of this fear-mongering, anger-inciting blather is ridiculous. Old friends are arguing with each other, asserting crazy platitudes about the end of life as we know it if the Republicans are in charge or if the Democrats win.

Well – surprise. Life as we knew it is already gone, and it’s all thanks to an invisible virus that is decidedly non-partisan.

The rapid brushfire spread of the virus is exposing raw and angry fault lines in this country. Some communities have been spared the multiple deaths of family and friends, while others are watching physicians, nurses, and entire health systems nearly collapse under the weight of the sick and dying.

My old epidemiologist friend Mike Osterholm always said it wasn’t a matter of if we’d experience a pandemic, it was always about when. And our public health system wasn’t prepared for the extent of this one.

Frankly, this virus doesn’t really care if we argue about masks, hand washing, or physical distancing. It doesn’t care if we vote for a Democrat or a Republican. It doesn’t care if we prefer the First Amendment rights to our Second Amendment rights – or vice versa.

It’s going to do what viruses do – work to infect 60 to 70% of us before it burns out. As Mike likes to say, we’ve got a raging brush fire of a virus seeking out all the human wood it can find – and yes, he likes to provoke attention. So, for the math challenged among us – that means nearly 200 Million of us Americans will need to be infected or get the vaccine before COVID-19 calms down. With a death rate a little over 1 %, we will experience 2 Million funerals and memorials before this is over.

With that sobering thought, I’m going to work hard to avoid the extremes, the edges of arguments that are being salted throughout media channels and outlets. I know we’re all feeling edgy – so efforts to further promote division is the last thing any of us need.

Stay well – and head to the middle.

Exhausted Yet?

I meant to kick off this new decade with renewed vigor and focus.

I thought 2019 had been the tough year – filled with travel, weddings, births, and a very tough funeral. There were multiple trips to my home town, and only two were planned.

There was a high school reunion that – although fun – was a stark reminder that we’re moving into that era when we’re observed with bemusement by the kids around us.

While scheduling a pub crawl for my graduating class, I was making arrangements at one of the craft breweries that has helped revitalize our downtown, and the owner/manager said he’d put up a sign to welcome us. 

“What year did you graduate?” he asked.

“We’re the class of 1974,” I answered quickly.

I heard a sharp inhale, followed by a “Really? That’s the year I was born,” he said.

Yep – we’re in the year when we are all living our Beatles’ birthday – same as Tom Hanks, it turns out.

I greeted 2020 with the goal of making this decade count – more writing, finally finishing the book(s), and just enough work to keep me from getting bored.

Yay, I thought. Finally, 2019 is finished and we spent the end of the year celebrating a truly lovely marriage with dear friends in California before heading to Florida for the start of the New Year.

It was a trip that included a chance to celebrate with college friends, a long-delayed visit to the Florida Keys, and wonderful time with friends on the east and west coast, ending in The Villages just to satisfy our curiosity about that fabled retirement community. And that’s a whole different story for another time.

We made it home by the end of January, fully intending to go off again in February, because, well, February in Minnesota is rarely ideal. And then we started paying attention to the news. It became clear we wouldn’t be traveling in February.

We’re still here - halfway through the year when everything stood still. And there is no vigor and my focus is shot.

I’ve spent the better part of the past four months working with the University of Minnesota’s Medical School as it mounted its broad response to the emergence of this novel coronavirus handling media relations for the faculty and researchers doing basic science, clinical trials, and innovative biomedical engineering projects.

It has been remarkable to watch science take place in real time, with a sense of urgency that encourages a lot of mistakes along the way. That’s the normal course of science – we learn by doing, make adjustments, and then finally, publish results.

That’s not happening now – ideas are posted online, scientists rush to test hypothesis, and media that is hungry for hopeful stories push out results that aren’t really ready for prime time.

With the NIH and FDA relaxing all sorts of standards and requirements in order to speed up roll outs, we’re stuck with the impact of relaxed standards. For example, speeding diagnostic tests to market before they meet sufficient criteria means the tests aren’t all highly accurate. We’ve traded accuracy for speed – something I’ve learned can be a problem when I text my friends. And it’s a bigger problem when you’re asking a population to trust that the test results they’re getting have meaning.

So I’m back to this blog – because I’m not done with Stunning In Silver. Writing is how I process the world around me. It’s how I come to terms and begin to understand my responses to this huge shift in the world around us - the sharp and deep divides, the cultural clashes and transformation taking place, the violent responses to long-standing inequities, and the deeply confusing emergence of extremist groups across the spectrum.

This is an invitation to come along on my mid-point in life musings at this mid-point in the year of significant change – I’d like to hear how you’re processing all that’s happening now. And stay well, my friends.