Sarah Gibbard Cook
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact

True Believers

9/25/2023

1 Comment

 
Picture
To believe something is to think it’s true, right? What other kind of believer could there be? The other kind believes something’s true but will consider new evidence or perspectives. True believers cling adamantly to an idea regardless of evidence. When this goes beyond core values to making every issue a moral absolute, any concession is a compromise with the devil.

Since the late Middle Ages, compromise (from Latin for a mutual promise) has meant settling differences by mutual concessions. The negative meaning is more recent, as in a compromised reputation or immune system. I wonder how much of today’s polarization is because we’ve glorified the second meaning and disparaged the first.   

So here we go again, hurtling toward another government shutdown. Yawn. True believers disdain settling differences or getting to yes. Sound bites, memes, and the nature of charisma favor fiery rhetoric over nuance. What a joy it was to hear UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tell the General Assembly last week, “Politics is compromise. Diplomacy is compromise. Effective leadership is compromise.” Do you suppose any true believers were listening?

Image: Satan (dragon, left) gives scepter to the beast of the sea. Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, detail from Apocalypse Tapestry, Angers, France, 1377-82.
1 Comment

America’s Mayor

9/18/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Hearing last week’s commentaries on the 9/11 tragedy in New York City, I marveled how much can change in twenty-two years. Back in 2001 the nation hailed Rudy Giuliani as a hero for how he led the city’s response to attacks on the World Trade Center. Today the former mayor faces felony prosecution for his efforts to overturn a presidential election.

The rise and fall of his career hold enough dramatic tension for a fictionalized film, based on Giuliani (let’s call him “G” for now) the way Citizen Kane is based on William Randolph Hearst. Highlights:
  1. Scary opening scene of a New York City mugging or mafia killing.
  2. After G successfully prosecutes mafia leaders, Five Families debate a hit on him.
  3. G incites police riot against controls on police misconduct.
  4. G elected tough-on-crime mayor; bits from his speeches alternate with fatal police shooting of unarmed immigrant from Guinea, savage beating of Haitian immigrant.  
  5. 9/11 attacks; G called a hero for city’s response; Time’s 2001 Person of the Year.
  6. Quick flip through increasingly controversial/shocking headlines or photos showing G’s growing immersion in Republican politics, run for president, advisor to Trump.
  7. Meeting where Trump puts G in charge of lawsuits to overturn 2020 election, tells him “go wild” and “do anything you want.”
  8. Jan. 6 speech and attack on Capitol; visual parallels with #3 above.
  9. During arrest or imprisonment, G reflects on his squandered heroism. Tying the film together like Rosebud in Citizen Kane, his action here comes solely from the writer’s imagination. Everything else in these nine points is based on fact or news reports.
If you write the script, I’ll watch the movie!

Photograph by Gage Skidmore (Wikimedia Commons).
0 Comments

South Pacific

9/11/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
     You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
     Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
     And people whose skin is a different shade . . .
          - Rodgers and Hammerstein, South Pacific


As an infant, my child cried each time someone without glasses tried to hold him. All the adults in the household wore glasses. The familiar brought comfort; the unfamiliar or different, distress.

​The 1949 musical South Pacific is not just a war story and a love story. It’s also a story of well-meaning, previously sheltered young white Americans struggling with difference. Nellie says racism was born in her. Lt. Cable says no, we’re taught it from childhood. Rogers and Hammerstein refused pressure to remove Cable’s controversial song, saying “You’ve got to be taught” was the point of the show. Georgia legislators called its rationale for interracial marriage a Communist-inspired threat to the American way of life.

Is it true you have to be taught? I think we’re born to distrust difference, a survival trait stronger in some people than others. Parents and others teach us which differences matter. Glasses? Race? As a separate trait on its own bell-shaped curve, babies show varying degrees of curiosity, which their parents then nurture or discourage. If we’re lucky, high curiosity and low fear of difference will offer us a lifetime of learning, fascination, and growth.

Image: Anonymous parent with glasses.
0 Comments

Hummingbird

9/4/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Californians among you may scoff it's commonplace, but here in the Upper Midwest any sight of a hummingbird is reason to gaze in wonder. This tiny Western Hemisphere native weighs only a tenth of an ounce. Its wings flap so fast that it hovers like a helicopter and can fly in any direction, even backward. Visible most often at bright red flowers for their nectar, sometimes one hovers two feet in front of me to stare me in the eyes. I’ve rarely seen one fly away and never on a branch. Instead, they seem to disappear as suddenly as they appeared, by magic.

These spellbinding birds have inspired literally dozens of poets. Emily Dickinson celebrates their evanescence. D.H. Lawrence pictures them flashing ahead of creation. Mary Oliver calls them “tiny fireworks.” And Robert Frost prays in springtime,
     And make us happy in the darting bird
     That suddenly above the bees is heard
     The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill
     And off a blossom in mid air stands still.”
  
Image: Female ruby-throated hummingbird sipping beebalm nectar.  Photo by Joe Schneid.
0 Comments

    Author

    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 


      ​get updates

    Sign up


    ​Archives

    July 2025
    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact