Journey to Kansas - Going Back to Tennessee via Springfield, Illinois

[Part Three of Four]

We woke up early on Labor Day 2018. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Library and Museum opened at 9:00 AM in Abilene, and we wanted to be somewhat close to there by then.

I remember my first visit to the Eisenhower Library. I was pretty young. The only thing I knew about Abilene was from the cowboy movies and from Gunsmoke about being a rowdy cowboy town. Back during that first visit, that was what I was half-expecting. But Abilene was not. Pretty slow town. I remember the chapel where Eisenhower was buried and his boyhood home. But I mostly remember on that visit long, long ago was visiting prairie dog town -- a large expanse of gopher rodents coming out of the ground.

Fast forward to 2018. While my family made several stops to the Eisenhower Library over the years, we only did the free stuff. The chapel, the house, walking around the grounds, browsing the stuff at the gift shop. This time was different. We were actually going to pay admission to visit the Museum and get it counted on the presidential library passport.

But, alas as we got to Abilene and to the Eisenhower Center, the Museum was closed for repairs! All of the exhibits were moved to the Library. Most Presidential Libraries are off limits except for authorized researchers, but this time, the staff was allowing anyone to visit the Library as part of the Museum exhibit.

Library entrance

The exhibit showed the timeline of Eisenhower's life, especially through the military, how his coast to coast convoy as a young lieutenant led to a personal desire for better roads (hence the Interstate System was approved during his term as President) and the interactions he had with other military leaders.

One thing I didn't know. Eisenhower signed the law to create NASA. This led to JFK being able to promise to land a man on the moon.

Outside on the grounds is the Peace Monument. It is General Eisenhower statue surrounded by a large peace medallion. Peace was very important to President Eisenhower. Here is a picture of the statue and me casting shadows on the dove symbol.

After finishing up at the Eisenhower Center, we drove east, leaving the state of Kansas at the Kansas City, Missouri city limits, as we drove to the Truman Presidential Library. This was a five-minute stop to get the passport stamped verifying our last visit in July 2015.

Leaving the Truman Library, we decided to head north, not east from the KC area. A few miles north of Worlds of Fun, we turned onto US 36, a four-lane highway all the way to Interstate 72, headed to Springfield, Illinois for the night. Since I wasn't driving, I reminisced about US 36. US 36 runs all the way Denver. It goes through the town where I went to high school, where I dragged main on Friday nights. So, US 36 played a big part in my life - going to events in Phillipsburg, Norton, Mankato, Belleville. The way to Concordia. All the towns in my high school year. And when I was a junior in college, I drove all night and most of the next day using East US 36 until I had to get on the Interstate. The same route we were on now in Missouri.

We got to Springfield, Illinois, the state capital a little after 7:00. We were surprised at how rural it was almost up to the city limits. And how quiet the city was. I had reserved a hotel several weeks before the trip that was the closest to the Amtrak station. My daughter would be taking Amtrak back to her home. I didn't realize how close the state capitol building was to the hotel. Here's a view from the front door of the hotel.

Illinois State Capitol from hotel front door

I think Illinois got it right. A small state capital makes it easier for everyone to access state government, unlike Nashville in Tennessee. 

After dinner, we took a walk around the Capitol and took several pictures. Here is one of those pictures. 

A beautiful building! We had to get up early the next morning - one of us had to catch a train, and another had a seven-hour solo drive back home to Chattanooga. Part four will be the last part of this series - the long solo drive home.

Birthday with Mom (and Dad) (and the farm)

[Part 2 of 4 - continued from the Tumblr post of Part one]

My daughter and I woke up on Saturday at the Hays motel on my birthday. In Kansas. Hours west of Kansas City. Back to my roots.

For the first time in over three decades, I was celebrating my birthday with my Mom in the same physical location. A major drawback in living so far away from your parents - the lack of availability or finances to make a round trip to visit on special days.

After buying food at the local Walmart, we headed north to Stockton on US 181. 181 was a frequent path for me when I was younger, but by the time I was in high school and driving on my own, it had become almost not a road traveled at all for me -- especially this part from Hays to Stockton.  Hastings, Nebraska in high school had become my road destination to find a McDonald's and other entertainment.

We greeted Mom/Grandma with joyous celebration upon arrival in Stockton!

And we stocked her refrigerator with a lot of food! It was so good to hear Happy Birthday in person from my Mom. When you get old, you appreciate that a lot more. For you people who can routinely see your parents, don't discredit that moment each year; it is precious.

While Mom was making pizza and cake, we traveled out of Stockton to visit the cemetery to see Dad. I know Dad was so happy for me and my daughter to be here on my birthday. I said with an emotional voice at his grave, "Dad, I made it back here to visit you and to see Mom on my birthday."

I was so pleased that I had made it back to the cemetery just a little over two years after Dad's funeral. I visited other family graves and remembered them as well. My aunt and uncles. My grandfather. And other family members I never had a chance to meet -- my grandmother, an uncle, and great-grandmother and great-grandfather. Always good to remember those who lived before you and who left a part of their DNA for your existence.

I stood in the cemetery and it's loneliness as the wind whistled through the grass. I looked out beyond my family graves and looked at all of the other graves here. People who moved here, lived in this part of the world, and had moved on from this planet.

We left the cemetery to drive over some more rough roads to see the old family farm. The farm where all of those Hunters who were buried at this cemetery lived. Kind of amazing over 100 years of history tied to the farm and to the cemetery.

My arrival at the farm was reality. The last time I visited here at Dad's funeral, even though the farm had passed through other owner hands by that time, it still looked somewhat familiar then.
Now, it did not.

The house that a Hunter built from limestone was gone. Vanished. Demolished. No more.

It was a shock to see.

The farm house as it was in the 60s.

Now just the trees and empty space.

We traveled back to the pavement the quickest we could. The rough roads were too much for the car. And for me.

Back in Stockton, we arrive just in time for pizza birthday lunch with Mom! We stayed with Mom for another day, and my older sister came to visit Mom on Sunday. We went through a lot of old pictures and photo albums on Sunday. I found some great Hunter family information for a second cousin I had just met virtually through Ancestry. Second cousins are the great-grandchildren of the same great-grandparent.

It was joyful for me to stay with Mom for a couple of days. Three nights in Western Kansas. Did me a world of good.

On Monday morning, Labor Day, we left Stockton for Abilene and then went onward east to Illinois. That will be part three of this four part series about my birthday trip.

"I knew better than to look in my mirror - I never looked back." Dad to me about the day of the move.

National Memorial for Peace and Justice

From the view of the Memorial perched on the Hill, one could see the Alabama State Capitol. Before this view, I only knew the State Capitol from Sweet Home Alabama, where the skies are so blue.

On our way home back to Chattanooga from Pensacola, our daughter asked to stop in Montgomery to visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. The weekend we stopped to visit was the first weekend the Memorial was open. 

What a moving sight to see. I'll let the pictures and the captions from the Memorial tell this blog post story.

The first thing seen after paying for admission.

Numerous lynchings in one day in Anderson County, Texas

Haunting image of each block hanging from the ceiling.

Each block hovers over a box of dirt from that location.

 Check out more about the memorial at https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial

 Next to the Memorial is a flower garden to honor the memories. One can see clearly from the garden the State Capitol and the first Confederacy White House.

A very moving memorial of what happened in American history not that long ago. And something to never forget because it did happen here, and not just in the South. If you are near Montgomery, take a short drive off of Interstate 75 to the Memorial. Much closer to the Interstate than I thought it would be making it a convenient stop to learn about this part of history that no one should forget.

TLA Annual Conference 2018 - Memphis

All in for Tennessee Libraries. That was the theme for the 2018 Tennessee Library Association annual conference held in Memphis, April 4-6. The logo was a very cool hand in hand.

Going to Memphis on April 4, 2018 did not escape my background in US history. 50 years ago on April 4, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. The logo for the TLA conference carried even more meaning.

I was fortunate to attend this trip because a large portion was reimbursed by Chattanooga State as this conference was my turn to attend on behalf of the Kolwyck Library.  I did save the college a lot of money on registration because of my personal membership dues in the TLA association combined with the early bird discount gave a really good price for the three-day event.

I planned ahead for the conference and made reservations for a car rental about a month earlier. For this trip I was from South Carolina. But what was funny, it was a Ford Focus, the same car model that I drive to work everyday in - a bit ironic.

Before I get to the list of workshops I attended and the quotes I wrote down from the keynote speaker at the TLA business meeting, I want to mention two profound things.

Profound number one: Meeting Librarians, Meeting People
At the networking opportunities and the SIS get-together, I talked and talked and met people. What's weird was that I knew these people, at least, virtually. For the first time, I met librarians who I had followed on Twitter for years and even retweeted or commented on their tweets. It was very cool to finally connect in person!  The other people I met that I knew only virtually were my colleagues from SIS! Wow - for the first time I met the person who I was co-president with for the UTK ALA-TLA student organization! That seems unbelievable that two people could be co-presidents and not be able to pick a person out of the crowd - hey it worked! I met other SIS colleagues as well and now we are connected after graduate school by knowing who we are!  Networking to me was my number one accomplishment for this entire conference!

Profound number two: For the first time, I was actually able to speak with Heather Lanier, TLA president-elect. She and I had talked before at TLA board meetings - she was always impressed with my meeting preparations, which I told her came from years on the Tennessee PTA board. Heather seemed full of energy and drive. But unknown to me, and something she found out after the conference, she had cancer. And eight weeks later, she was gone from this Earth too soon, too young.

I need to pause a minute.

 

Moat surrounding Memphis Hilton, location of the 2018 conference

Besides networking, I find that conferences provide opportunities to learn through workshops. And I found some good ones for me to attend. Here are the list of workshops and key takeaways:

Workshop One - We're all in this together! How to draw students back into the library. (Academic Library track) Want help finding something but library land is confusing -- website design, books on library shelves. How do we reach our students? How do you get students to use digital resources in the library? Two good audience responses were focus group using library student assistants on the topic of how does the library look to a student, and students are intimidated by librarians intelligence.

Workshop Two - NEDTalks: Lightning talks in the library (Academic Library track) A very cool idea to bring students (and faculty) in to the academic library to do something like TED Talks but on a certain focus or tied to a student/faculty project. Too much information to put into a blog post, but I can see it being used at Chatt State.

Workshop Three - Oral history made easy to build a digital library. A very cool workshop led by my new library friend from Motlow State. She identified the tools and the program for any library to build a digital library of oral histories. I like this idea for our archive team at Kolwyck Library, especially a "Day in the Life of ..."

Workshop Four - All in collaborative video (Academic Library track) This workshop explained how to create videos for touring library / highlighting services or resources / interactive videos including scripting and other pre-production work. I like this idea for our marketing team at Kolwyck Library.

Workshop Five - Four of a kind: Upping the ante for first year academic librarians. I really enjoyed this workshop as three of my colleagues from UTK SIS talked about what they found useful from SIS and one thing they weren't prepare for (tenure track responsibilities especially). I loved when I heard how the Four Frames was useful - it has been for me as well.

Librarians have fun too!

The keynote speaker was Jamie LaRue, ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. I want to leave these four powerful quotes from LaRue's speech as parting thoughts. [Quotes are paraphrased by me, a former reporter.]

1. Parents – do you want your kids to be healthy, to be focused, to be productive? A key indicative factor for this answer is the number of books in the home by age 5. Age 5.

2. Librarians are a trusted profession. People trust librarians.


3. Reference librarians are "transactional to transformational" type of people.

4. Collection development – we need to change our stigma and look at self-published books. Amazon publishing.

2018 National PTA Legislative Conference

One of my many trips during March - May of this year was to Arlington, VA/Washington, D.C. for the National PTA Legislative Conference. The event was held at the Crystal City Gateway Marriott with the Day on the Hill at the Capitol in D.C. Everyone calls this event LegCon - much easier to write about using the nickname.

Charles Scott and I standing in front of the US Capitol

Before I write about my trip and adventures and who I met and more, let me answer this question: what is LegCon? At the core, no matter the level, PTA is an advocacy association--an association working to improve the lives of children and families. Attending LegCon for me was a great way to enhance my advocacy skills, learn and implement new advocacy strategies, talk about PTA priorities to our US representatives and senators, and of course, connecting and networking with other PTA members from across the country. PTAers from every US state was there.

If you are in the PTA, take the opportunity sometime to attend LegCon! It is an experience and training worth having for the rest of your life.

National PTA lines up the speaking points for everyone to base their conversations and chats with their legislators. Our two main asking points were Support Bipartisan Gun Safety and Violence Prevention and Invest in Safe and Supportive Schools. One of the bills we were supporting for Gun Safety and Violence was approved by the House on the very same day as our Day on the Hill!

Now to my travel and walking notes! I had a weird flight schedule flying out of Chattanooga on Delta but flying back into Chattanooga on American. I flew in from Atlanta to Reagan National, took the hotel shuttle to Crystal City Gateway Marriott, and checked in. What a beautiful hotel - I had a view of the indoor pool plus there was a huge underground mall connected to the hotel with all kinds of restaurants, subway stop, and other stores. Very cool -- worth visiting just for the entertainment value!

On my first day, I attended several workshops that got my Tennessee PTA friends and me ready to go for Wednesday's Day on the Hill. The workshops were very informative in preparing strategies, in preparing talking points, and in preparing how to pace yourself.  Good stuff.  And I got to meet PTA members from different states as they paired state delegations with other delegations at different workshops. I met people from Florida, Arizona, Washington state, and much more. And a met a new PTA friend from Tennessee. I love meeting new PTA colleagues!

We decided at our planning session workshop to forego the subway at morning rush hour and pay for taxis out of our pockets. That was a good decision because Wednesday morning was cold and windy!

Tennessee PTA waiting in line at the Rayburn Office Building

We arrived as a group, taking two taxis, at the Rayburn Office Building. There was already a line! Woo - I was glad our stay out in the cold wind wasn't too long. As the acting federal legislative chair for Tennessee PTA on this trip, I had set up a visitation schedule two weeks earlier. Everyone really liked my schedule!

Once into the Rayburn building, Cheryl, Anita, and Charles went to the first appointment with Rep. Steve Cohen (Memphis) while Betsy, Kim, and I visited several other offices as unannounced visitors. We visited four other offices and came back to Rep. Cohen's office. Our group was still sitting in the foyer waiting room, so we joined them to make one big Tennessee group to visit Rep. Cohen. What a great meeting we had and possible future involvement at the local district office with PTA!

Tennessee PTA delegation with Rep. Steve Cohen

We took a lunch break at the Rayburn Office Building cafe area. It was crowded. Rep. Cohen greeted us as he walking by with his lunch - very cool. The serving lines were really long so I decided on a sandwich and Coke. Let me tell you, I had the best PB&J sandwich ever. That's saying a lot since I'm not a PB&J fan.

Well, we decided to split the group for the rest of the day. This gave one group extra time to cross over to the Senate side and get into Dirksen Senate Office Building. That left Charles Scott and me to visit one more representative and then hoof it over to Dirksen for our next appointment.

We had a great conversation with Rep. Marsha Blackburn. We saw a picture of her when she was young with big beehive hairstyle. That was cool to see. She said she had heard of PTA before so that was good joke to break the ice. Always good to make everyone comfortable.

Charles and I standing with Rep. Blackburn

I'm sure my wife would not have approved of my color coordination, but I decided to go with a camel brown suit jacket, purple shirt and tie, black pants and shoes. I thought I looked pretty debonair with all of those colors blending! Of course, I'm always looking good.

After meeting with Rep. Blackburn, Charles and I started walking over to Dirksen. When we walked in front of the Capitol, we got lucky with our picture as there was no one in the background at all. I took pictures of the Capitol and of course the Library of Congress. I spent many hours in that library when I was college student in D.C. Yep, I had returned back to my old college stomping grounds a few decades older and several pounds heavier! When I was a student here, I visited so many US legislators that I no longer have any idea who they were. Well except, Sen. Richard Lugar - he was larger than life in the early 80s.

Selfie

The Library of all Libraries

We had a short wait to get past security to get into Dirksen. Again, the strategy of conquer and divide was working as the one group was meeting with Sen. Lamar Alexander while Charles and I met with a staff member from Sen. Bob Corker's office. Both groups had really good meetings -- so exciting to the do the work of PTA, that is, advocating for every child with one voice!

Group One meeting with Sen. Lamar Alexander

After the National PTA reception in the Dirksen building (where three of Sen. Alexander's staff showed up to mingle with PTAers), I headed back to the hotel to explore Crystal City mall. That is a great place. I had a great meal at King Street Blues, wow, just excellent.

The next day was debriefing. The best speaker of the entire conference spoke that morning - Bradford Fitch from CMG. He gave us great advice and tips to continue the advocacy work we started here and bring it home. After his speech, we sat down with our Arizona PTA friends and planned a strategy of what we were doing when we got back to Tennessee.

After that workshop planning, I caught ride on the hotel shuttle to the airport and flew home to Chattanooga via Charlotte.  I had a great PTA learning and advocacy time. I learned a lot, I reminisced about my college days in DC, I met new PTA people, I conversed with US reps and senators. All in all, LegCon was just a great experience!

The Town Time Forgot: Cairo, Illinois

Cairo, Illinois. | Is a dead town. | We drove through it twice in May 2018.

Our first trip through Cairo we saw one person. One person drinking a Bud Light.  Ironic, we traveled from Cairo to Future City and neither seemed to have a future. Eerily empty.

Cairo, pronounced CARE-o, became a tinderbox of racial unrest and the city never survived it. The Ohio and Mississippi rivers confluence is not very far. Cairo like its Egyptian counterpart is surrounded by water.

Lynching happened in Cairo. The racial unrest probably was around for years but 1900 started the ball down the slippery slope and never recovered. In 1900, Cairo had a population of 13,000 and 5,000 of that 13,000 were African-Americans. A traditional white heritage town had the largest percentage per capita of African-Americans, nearly 40 percent.

Railroads slowly reduced steamboat and ferry traffic that supplied Cairo’s economy. When the local economy sours, it’s easy to find scapegoats. More racial tensions.

Major highway bridges were built to the south of town and contributed even more to economic decline as automobile traffic took off from Illinois into Missouri.

A riot protesting the death of black soldier in the Cairo jail turned Cairo into a Rome is burning town. I remember watching Walter Cronkite on CBS news showing images of the National Guard trying to get order restored. But it was too late – the black residents held a 10-year quarantine of white-owned businesses. The white population created a militia called the White Hats. Eerily KKK. And probably not much different.

A city divided cannot stand. A lack of inclusion and government diversity does not create a foundation. Cairo’s racial divide doomed so many economic opportunities.

When the Interstate bypassed the city in the late 70s, more businesses closed, more people left, the hospital closed, but yet high racial tension remained. Now the business district is virtually boarded up or decrepit.

On our second trip back through town heading to Chattanooga, we saw three people out on the streets. Nobody seems to give a damn about Cairo, Illinois.

An easy way to get rid of racial tension – have no population left to be angrily divided. More like, despair and depression rules the day now in downtown Cairo.

Cairo is, simply, no more.

Point Roberts - land enclave, US exclave, witness protection

I enjoy maps - looking at maps, creating maps, exploring maps. When I was younger and we went on family vacations, I had the Rand McNally Atlas in my hands looking at highway routes. One of my favorite classes in grad school at UTK was GIS map making.

So one day, I was exploring the Canada-US border with Google maps and I noticed something a little weird. I found a part of Washington state surrounded by Canadian land (a land enclave) and US-controlled waters between the land enclave and the main body of land (exclave).

This specific point is called Point Roberts. Point Roberts, Washington.

Point Roberts was created when the 49th was used west of Minnesota until the Vancouver Bay. The five square mile land is at the tip of British Columbia. So when I used street view in Google Maps, I found houses on the Canadian side built up right onto the border. I mean like the US border is part of the lawn border!

Here are some pictures from one of the streets in Canada looking into Point Roberts. Notice the simple yellow painted curb. This is looking from Canada into the United States.

On both sides of this street are houses. Across the road is the start of a recreational area. There is one point of entry for cars and trucks.

So what is Point Roberts economy and education? Children K - 3 attend the elementary school on the point. From fourth grade onward, they must take a 40-minute bus ride through British Columbia to reach Blaine, Washington to go to school.

Economically, Point Roberts has five shipping and receiving companies. Why? Online retail shipping into Canada is costly. Shipping to Point Roberts and trucking it into Canada is much less expensive. Groceries are 30% cheaper and gas a dollar a gallon cheaper than across the border.

During the summer months, Point Roberts doubles in population as Americans come to spend the summer yachting by using the superb harbors and waters.

And with the crossing border and exclave properties of Point Roberts - it has served another useful purpose. A large population of people in the US Marshal's Witness Protection Program live there too.

Google map link to Point Roberts: https://goo.gl/maps/wX8ysebyVtr

Sandy's

In 1970-71, my mom was taking me to see medical professionals for regular monthly visits in Hays. The trip to Hays took an hour. One-way. So, naturally, I got hungry before heading back home.

That’s where I got hooked on Sandy’s. Sandy’s was a fast-food chain with a Scottish-based theme. The workers wore Scottish-plaid berets and the food was really cheap. 

The menu at the Sandy's restaurant included a 15¢ hamburger, a 20¢ milkshake, and a 10¢ bag of French fries. My favorite, the Mariner (fish sandwich), was 15¢.

Once, I was able to splurge for a Big Scott – two single patties with cheese and the special Sandy’s sauce.  As one could guess, Sandy’s was started by three guys who were unhappy franchisees of McDonalds. The Scottish-based theme and the Big Scott were all directed toward their former partners.

Sandy’s was located at 2700 Vine Street in Hays. That’s where the Hays Chamber of Commerce is now across from Walgreens.

Hardees bought out Sandy’s in late 1971 and then they were gone. A few Sandy’s stayed around with different names. One of those few was Bucky’s in Lawrence. I was fortunate to be a student at KU when Bucky’s was still open for business.

I loved the Scottish motif and the food. Back then, news like the Hardees buyout wasn’t in our life cycle. One day, Sandy’s was there, and another day, it was gone, and we didn’t know why.  The beauty of the Web is that now I can find out what happened to businesses like Sandy’s. Boy, I sure do miss it and those prices.

My favorite Sandy’s television commercial – Big Scott.


 

My View on NFL Protests and Television Viewership

So, after two NFL seasons of hubbub about kneeling during the National Anthem, I might as well wade into the controversy.

My short take: a bunch of ‘much to do about nothing’; a politicized outcry about two percent of all NFL players who are protesting. What about the other 98% - jeopardize their livelihoods? Makes no sense to chop off the 98 percent to slap the 2 percent.

In 2016, then San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick began protesting what he saw in policing and the black population by not standing for the anthem. Actually, he sat for the first two preseason games. Then, Nate Boyer, a green beret who served multiple tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, suggested to Kaepernick that kneeling would be much more respectful to him and other veterans rather than just sitting. 

Repeat: Boyer advised that kneeling would be much more respectful than sitting.

The kneeling began after that suggestion from Boyer. The green beret. The decorated military man who also played football.

An odd fact: we found out this year that NFL running back Marshawn Lynch had been sitting for the National Anthem for eleven years. 11 years - for no apparent reason. And no one cared. But Lynch is one of the most eccentric people in the world and no reporter probably even cared what he did on the sidelines.

Kaepernick on the other hand, a few yards short of winning a Super Bowl, was a different matter. Easily recognizable across the NFL and American sports landscape. 

As we found out this year, Kaepernick essentially sacrificed his NFL career for his stance. I don’t think he cares that his football career is over; he is taking his fight onward through his foundation. That what makes America great – creating nonprofits for a cause or for a stance.

Number 45 fired up the NFL base of players and owners calling any NFL protestor a son of a bitch. Even ardent number 45 supporters such as Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was not happy with that comment. But as with a lot of things in America today, the disdain was short lived.

Despite the decrease in television viewership for NFL games, the advertising money has increased. Why? Well, NFL games were an anomaly for the last few years. Television viewership in general had decreased the last few years but not for NFL games until the last two years. For advertisers on television, NFL games are still gold even with the decrease compared to other television advertising options.

But as American ways of seeing things and watching things continue to change, I think television viewership in general across the board will change significantly. Cord-cutters have increased; people who stream online are not counted as viewers. Traditional pay TV (cable, satellite, telephone companies) lost 1.7 million subscribers in 2016 and more than 2.6 million cut the cord through September of 2017. Cord cutters use streaming Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime companies plus free over-the-air antennas to supplement their viewing.

Plus, football’s violent nature has been documented to affect the human brain. There are some longtime football families who no longer want a part of it.  This new cultural outlook has affected the game as well. 

We are on a shifting scenery of change, not very comforting to those of us who want the world to slow down a little – it’s easy to take advantage of these shifts for political gain. And again, that may be short lived too.