Ennyman's Territory

Father and I: Par Lagerkvist Adds Layers of Meaning to a Simple Sunday Stroll

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 01:34:50 +0000

"Father and I" is a story I've run across in at least a couple anthologies over the years. It's always a rewarding read, so I will share this as a companion piece to Par Lagerkvist's Barabbas, which I wrote about yesterday.

"Father and I" may be one of Lagerkvist's finest short works. It's masterfully simple. On the surface, almost nothing happens. A nine- or ten-year-old boy spends a Sunday afternoon walking through the countryside with his father, a railway worker. They listen to birds, smell the spring air, throw stones into a stream, and walk along the railroad tracks where the father greets passing engineers by name. The world is harmonious, ordered, and familiar.

When darkness falls. everything changes. As they head home the same woods become threatening. The stream that had murmured pleasantly now roars like an abyss. The telegraph poles no longer "sing" but seem to rumble ominously from deep within the earth. The boy's excitement over a glowworm goes unnoticed by his father, creating the first hint of emotional separation.

At the story's culmination an unexpected black train rushes past in the darkness. The father, who has recognized every train and every engineer throughout the day, stops and says in surprise: "Strange, what train was that? And I didn't recognize the driver." Then they walked on in silence, though the boy's body was shaking and his mind now supercharged with anxious thoughts about the future.

The story elements are freighted with meaning. The father represents certainty, tradition, continuity, and a world in which everything has a place. He knows every track, every timetable, every engineer. He possesses an unquestioned faith that gives coherence to reality. But suddenly there is a train that belongs to another order entirely—a train hurtling through darkness toward a destination the father cannot imagine.

The boy realizes that this unknown train is, in a sense, his own future. He will one day be leaving the secure world of childhood and entering a modern existence filled with uncertainty, alienation, and questions his father cannot answer.

What strikes me most is how this story anticipates Barabbas. In both works Lagerkvist writes about human beings suspended between worlds. The father inhabits a world of inherited faith; the son enters a world of existential doubt. Sahak possesses certainty; Barabbas longs for it but cannot attain it. Both protagonists are haunted by something absent—a security, a faith, a meaning that seems just beyond reach.

Lagerkvist's gift is that he never argues these ideas philosophically. He lets a walk through the woods, the sound of telegraph poles, or a black train disappearing into the night carry the entire weight of the human condition. The boy's fear isn't simply fear of the dark. One day he will board his own train for destinations unknown.

* * *

Reading the story always brings to mind a number of my own personal experiences with trains. It also brings to mind a story by Mike Savage about a father and son, and a train, The Lost Locomotive of the Battle-Axe. A youth joins his father for his first deer hunt in the brutal sub-zero snow of the northern woods. Bundled in wool and facing biting cold, the boy trudges through deep powder as they track big bucks. Amid the stark beauty and hardship, he helps field-dress a kill, confronting blood, guts, and the raw realities of manhood. The “lost locomotive” metaphor captures the father’s powerful, steam-like presence and the boy’s emerging sense of maturity. It’s a concise, visceral coming-of-age tale about initiation, father-son bonding, and the chill of growing up.

I also think there is an autobiographical element that makes the story especially poignant. It feels like Lagerkvist looking back across decades to the precise moment he sensed that he was departing from the unquestioned Christianity of his childhood into the uncertainty that would characterize both his life and his writing. The father is loved and admired, but he cannot accompany the son on the journey ahead.

Both stories revolve around fathers, sons, trains and mysteries.

Read Par Lagerkvist's story here: Father and I

Haunted by Grace: Reflections on Pär Lagerkvist's Barabbas

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 02:24:56 +0000

From quite early in my life I've been drawn to European authors, though at that time I didn't know why. Later I realized that living through the World Wars and other horrors of the past centuries has produced a depth of consciousness which to some extent many Americans have only skimmed the surface. Over there, millions died and millions more lived in want while dreading potential outcomes, displacement and personal upheavals.

One of the books I read in a fiction class in college was called Continental Short Stories. If you're a fledgling short story writer, I highly recommend acquiring short story anthologies as a way of getting introduced to new writers. (The same goes for readers, naturally.) In this volume you'll find Sarte, Kafka, Borges, Camus, Aichinger, Boll and many others including my first encounter with Pär Lagerkvist in a story called "Saviour John."

Barabbas was published in 1950. The following year Lagerkvist received his Nobel Prize in Literature. The book explores faith, doubt, guilt, and the search for meaning through the eyes of the man who was released instead of Jesus.

What strikes me about Lagerkvist's writing was the clarity of his prose--spare, direct, and unadorned, yet filled with gravitas. He's not focused on literary acrobatics. Rather, his aim is the quiet exploration of extraordinary themes.

The novel begins with the familiar biblical scene. Barabbas, a murderer and insurrectionist, watches as the crowd chooses his freedom and Christ's crucifixion. Although he is physically liberated, he becomes psychologically imprisoned by the event. Why was he spared? Who was this man who died in his place? And why do others believe He rose from the dead?

What a starting point. Everything flows out from this momentous event.

Unable either to believe or to forget, Barabbas drifts through life as an outsider. He witnesses the early Christian movement but remains skeptical. He meets followers of Christ whose certainty only deepens his own uncertainty. He longs to believe but finds himself incapable of faith.

Throughout the novel, Lagerkvist presents Barabbas as a man haunted by absence. He is neither a committed pagan nor a Christian, but someone suspended between belief and unbelief. His encounters with suffering, love, violence, and death never resolve his inner conflict. Instead, they intensify it.

Eventually Barabbas is taken to Rome as a slave, where he works in the mines alongside Christian prisoners. There he develops a deep friendship with Sahak, a simple but unwavering believer. Their contrasting responses to suffering become the emotional center of the novel. Sahak possesses a certainty Barabbas envies but cannot attain.

After Sahak's execution, Barabbas continues wandering through a world that seems both empty and mysteriously charged with divine possibility. During Nero's persecution of Christians, he is arrested and crucified alongside them—not because he fully understands or embraces their faith, but because he has come to identify himself with the One who died in his place.

The story ends ambiguously. Rather than presenting faith as easy certainty, Lagerkvist explores the possibility that some people spend their entire lives circling belief, haunted by grace yet unable to grasp it fully. The novel asks whether doubt itself may be a form of seeking—and whether redemption can reach even those who never find complete certainty.

The novel is also about identity, for as John Donne wrote:

No man is a island
Entire of itself

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

In this sense, the story of Barabbas intersects with our story as well. Barabbas is not merely a man from the first century. He is every person who has wanted to believe but struggled to do so, every seeker caught between skepticism and hope, every wanderer haunted by the possibility that grace might be real.

The genius of Lagerkvist's novel is that it transforms an obscure biblical figure into Everyman—a soul searching for meaning in a world where faith and uncertainty walk side by side, where doubt is not always the enemy of belief but sometimes the road that leads us toward it.

Efficiency Gets You Nowhere Fast: Why Effectiveness Is Marketing’s Real Edge

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 13:46:07 +0000

"I lived on books. Books taught me how to think."--Seymour Hersh

Marketing Matters, Business North
Published June 2026

When I first began working in a corporate environment one of the books I read was Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive. It was so packed with gems that for several years I read it at least once a year.

The first chapter is “Effectiveness Can Be Learned” and the opening sentence pierces like an arrow: “To be effective is the job of the executive.” But right away Drucker underscores this by letting his readers know that there’s a big difference between effectiveness and efficiency. “The executive is, first of all, expected to get the right things done.”

This distinction seems simple at first glance but it becomes more profound the longer you think about it. Efficiency, he said, is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things. In marketing, it’s easy to confuse the two.

Many of us admire speed, productivity, automation, optimization, and multitasking. We celebrate go-getters who answer emails quickly, process orders rapidly, and fill every square on their calendars with activity. Entire industries have emerged to help us become more efficient. Software dashboards track our productivity. AI tools now promise to save hours. Consultants teach workflows, systems, and hacks.

None of this is inherently bad. Efficiency has value. But efficiency applied to the wrong objective simply gets you to the wrong destination faster.

And that’s Drucker’s point. A company can become incredibly efficient at producing products no one wants. A sales team can efficiently pursue low-quality leads. A marketing department can perfectly execute campaigns directed to the wrong audience. A manager can spend an entire day clearing emails and attending meetings without advancing the organization’s mission a single inch. (I can tell you stories about meetings.)

In other words, efficiency asks: “How well are we doing this?” Effectiveness asks: “Should we even be doing this at all?”

I'm guessing the marketplace is littered with businesses that were highly efficient right before they disappeared.

The railroad industry is a classic example. Many railroads believed they were in the railroad business when in reality they were in the transportation business. They became very good at operating railroads while airplanes, trucking, and automobiles redefined how people and goods moved across the country. They optimized the old model while the world changed around them. What works in Italy or Japan doesn't necessarily make sense here. Yet AMTRACK continues to burn (taxpayer) money while advocates push for new trains in California and here in Minnesota. Bite the bullet. Why this waste?

The same thing happens on a smaller scale every day. It’s probably not uncommon for business owners to obsess over reducing printing costs for their brochures without ever stopping to ask whether the brochure itself has any value. This is where marketing often goes sideways.

Many marketing conversations today revolve around metrics that look impressive but may not matter. I've written about this before. Clicks, impressions, views, followers, open rates, engagement percentages--these can all be useful indicators worth paying attention to, but they are not the ultimate question.

The ultimate question is simpler: Is this helping us achieve our real objective? If the goal is sales growth, are sales increasing? If the goal is customer loyalty, are customers returning? If the goal is brand awareness, are more qualified prospects entering the pipeline? If the goal is trust, are people recommending us to others? It's easy to become mesmerized by measurable activity while losing sight of meaningful outcomes.

This is why effectiveness requires clarity. You can't do the right things if you don't clearly define what “right” means.

I used to have a handwritten note taped on my wall where I could see it every day that said, "Nothing Unnecessary." I enjoyed multitasking and super-productivity. Then, early in my career, I got a review in which my boss pointed out that I was on a team. Relationships matter, too. "Stop and smell the roses," he said. He respected my output but reminded me that efficiency can be a trap.

In other words, as in much of life we need to find the Golden Mean.

Drucker famously said, "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." That statement should probably be taped to every office wall.

This takes discipline because effectiveness often requires saying no. No to distractions.
No to shiny new toys. No to strategies that are fashionable but misaligned with your mission.
No to activities that consume time but produce little value.

In marketing especially, the temptation is to chase every new platform, every trend, every tactic, every algorithm change.

But effective marketing begins with understanding your customer, understanding your message, and understanding your purpose. Only then does efficiency become meaningful. Otherwise, we risk becoming very busy while accomplishing very little.

The challenge for leaders today is not merely improving execution. It is developing the wisdom to distinguish between activity and progress. Because the marketplace ultimately does not reward businesses that are merely active. It rewards businesses that are effective.

A Few Thoughts On Listening

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:44:22 +0000

“Most of us find it easier to speak of the importance of an individual than to show it in practice by listening to one.”
--Os Guinness In Two Minds

How much better this world could be if we would make even the most basic attempts to hear what others are saying, or are trying to say.

Listening is one of the rarest gifts we can offer another human being. We often assume that communication is primarily about speaking, persuading, explaining, or defending our ideas. Yet Os Guinness points us in a different direction. "Nothing speaks louder to a hungry man than a meal," he writes, "and nothing speaks more clearly to a doubter than the not speaking of genuine listening." Silence, when coupled with attention, can communicate respect, compassion, and understanding more powerfully than any argument. (I'm ashamed when I think back on certain memories where I did all the talking.)

Most of us know what it feels like to be unheard. We have all experienced conversations in which the other person was merely waiting for a chance to speak. As Guinness observes, it is easier to talk about valuing people than it is to demonstrate that value by truly listening to them. Genuine listening requires patience, humility, and the willingness to set aside our own agenda for a moment.

Harry Nilsson captured this universal frustration in his lyric, "Everybody's talkin' at me, they don't hear a word I'm sayin'." In an age of constant noise, social media, and endless commentary, those words may be more relevant than ever.

Imagine how much healthier our families, friendships, workplaces, churches, and communities could become if we simply made a greater effort to hear what others are saying—or trying to say. Listening does not guarantee agreement, but it can foster understanding. And understanding is often the first step toward wisdom, reconciliation, and genuine human connection.

Original painting by the author

To See or Not To See, That Is the Question

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:10:23 +0000

To understand the world we live in, we must first see it as it is. Not as "trained" or manipulated to see it. Where do our ideas come from? Our ideas about God, about right and wrong, about how we should live... are they chosen, or... what?

Journal note, Aug. 25, 1985

A long lost friend sent me this verse, with the follow up explanation:

I looked to see
What I thought I saw,
But what I saw
I did not see.

"How many times do you think you see something, then turn to look and what you thought you saw wasn't what you were really looking at; in the real sense of it. On a more philosophical angle, every day we see past what's real to what we want to see, but only when we make efforts to truly see things for what they are we realize it's not what we wanted to see. Our minds and hearts trick us every day into believing what isn't real." ~ S.P.

In the end, the question is not merely “To see or not to see,” but whether we possess the humility and discipline to look again—especially when the first glance flatters us or confirms what we already believe. Every inherited idea about God, morality, politics, or human purpose arrives pre-loaded with the fingerprints of culture, fear, comfort, and desire. The verse from my friend reminds us that our minds are masterful editors, cropping out inconvenient details and airbrushing reality until it matches the story we prefer.

The longer I live the more I've come to distrust the popular narratives we're all supposed to accept and believe. The "Big Bang" theory? The Population Bomb? The global warming apocalypse? That we're descended from monkeys?

True sight is not a passive act but an act of rigorous reconsideration, and a willingness to admit we were wrong when or if it leads to that. It's uncomfortable, yet it is the only path that leads out of the hall of mirrors and into something solid enough to build a life upon.

And once we have tasted that unfiltered view—even briefly—we cannot unsee it without doing violence to our own integrity. My friend’s words linger as both warning and invitation: keep looking, keep turning your head, keep questioning the comforting shapes your heart insists are there. In a world drowning in curated illusions, the most radical thing any of us can do is to see what is actually in front of us, accept it for what it is, and then decide, with open eyes, how we shall then live.

Cancer & The Mind – The Emotional Toll

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:58:38 +0000

When Stephanie Sands shared her story with me it brought back memories from when I was pallbearer at my best friend's funeral in high school. I asked her permission to share her observations.

Cancer & The Mind – The Emotional Toll

I’ve recently been working with an AI system, running various tests that I won’t bore you with. One of our conversations prompted some genuine self-reflection, which led me back to Schitt’s Creek for a second viewing. This time, I learned something quite profound.

Cancer did not just change my body. It changed the emotional lens through which I experienced the world. One of the strangest things I noticed after my diagnosis was that I stopped finding many things funny. Humor began to feel distant, artificial, or emotionally disconnected from the reality I was living in. I just couldn’t relate. I found myself gravitating toward mystery, psychological dramas, thrillers, existential stories, and I did read books related to my illness, which I could relate to more easily.

When I was recovering in the hospital after my neck dissection and soft palate resection, I was reading When Breath Becomes Air. Looking back, that choice says a great deal about the psychological space I was in. I was not searching for escape. I was searching for honesty and relatability. The book did not avoid fear, mortality, uncertainty, or the collapse of assumed permanence. It confronted all of those things directly, and because of that, it felt emotionally real to me in a way that lighter material, like comedy, couldn’t do.

Cancer introduced me to this level of vulnerability that permanently altered how I interpreted stories, entertainment, and even other people. Before cancer, humor and ordinary entertainment were effortless to me; I never took the time to think about why that was, as there was no reason to. After cancer, especially during treatment and recovery, many forms of entertainment suddenly seemed shallow or emotionally unrelatable. My mind was no longer operating in the same psychological environment. I had crossed into a reality where scans determined my fate, pathology reports carried enormous emotional anxiety, and every follow-up appointment carried the possibility of life-changing news.

I think this changes a person’s relationship with storytelling. Serious illness strips away the illusion that life is stable or guaranteed. Psychological thrillers, mysteries, and existential dramas often feel more truthful after cancer because they acknowledge uncertainty. They accept that fear exists beneath ordinary life. They explore hidden danger, tension, mortality, and the fragility of human beings. Those themes no longer feel abstract after illness. They feel familiar.

I also feel cancer creates a kind of heightened psychological surveillance state. I constantly felt like I was on alert. After diagnosis and treatment, the mind becomes trained to search for hidden threats: recurrence, symptoms, scan results, side effects, changes in the body. In many ways, mystery and thriller narratives mirror that exact mental posture. They revolve around searching for hidden meaning beneath the surface, identifying danger before it fully reveals itself, and living with unresolved uncertainty. That emotional structure felt far more relatable to me than carefree comedy because I was living with that unresolved uncertainty.

At the same time, humor itself became more complicated. I don’t think I lost my sense of humor entirely. I think humor requires a certain feeling of safety and emotional distance that serious illness can temporarily destroy. When a person is confronting mortality, physical trauma, and possible disfigurement, or survival itself, the mind often becomes more focused on meaning than amusement. My mind was seeking depth, coherence, and emotional truth rather than a distraction.

Over time, I noticed that humor slowly began returning, but it returned differently. It no longer felt automatic or superficial. It felt more deliberate and more precious. There is something profound about laughing again after a person has lived through a period where laughter felt psychologically inaccessible. It changes the meaning of joy itself. When I was going through my first treatment, it seemed my cancer specialists were all watching Schitt’s Creek, and I could not relate to it at all. My husband watched it while I ended up reading something.

Recently, I have been doing some self-reflection about other things that I had a difficult time understanding and forced myself into others’ shoes. This started with a technical exercise that expanded into more personal reflection. During this reflection, I thought I would just give Schitt’s Creek another chance, and I’m glad I did. I find it hilarious and extremely entertaining.

Cancer didn’t simply make me fear treatment, pain, and death. It reorganized my attention. It changed what felt emotionally authentic, what stories resonated with me, what subjects I could tolerate, and what felt honest. Reading When Breath Becomes Air in a hospital bed after major cancer surgery was not me indulging morbidity. It was me searching for understanding inside an experience that had stripped away many of the illusions I took for granted in life -- permanence, control, and the belief that life was guaranteed to remain recognizable.

* * * * *

A Torture Scene with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 02:31:37 +0000

Last week I had a somewhat disturbing dream involving Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. In the dream, Burton was being tortured by electroshocks. He was seated on a couch in which one cushion had been removed so that his body was on a metal plate. He was wearing a herringbone sport coat and semi-formal attire. With limbs quivering, eyes ablaze with terror and fingers curled alongside his face, he looked like a terrified, helpless animal.

On the far side of the room was a man in a lab coat fiddling with knobs like a studio engineer adjusting a soundboard.

Elizabeth Taylor, wearing an incongruous grin, was standing over her suffering prey looking triumphant.

* * *

When I awoke, my first thought was about the film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which featured a cruel, escalating conflict between Taylor and Burton.

As I reflected further, a number of things came to mind, the first being: This was the not the purpose of bringing electricity into the world. One of electricity's benefits is light, electricity being a source of light in the world. It was not harnessed for the purpose of torturing people.

Looking into it further, I discovered that the Ancient Greeks noticed how rubbing amber produced static electricity. Ben Franklin linked electricity to lightning in 1752. Alessandro Volta created the first battery (1800), Michael Faraday later discovered electromagnetic induction (1831), enabling generation. Electricity exists in nature as electrons and charges; humans learned to harness it in the 18th–19th centuries.

What we see is that humans did not "create" electricity, they discovered it, and learned how to apply it.

In the late 19th century power lines began to appear. The first long-distance line was built to carry electricity between Williamette Falls and Portland, Oregon, a stretch of 13 miles. Within a matters of years high-voltage AC transmission enabled efficient delivery everywhere.

The advent of dedicated electric torture devices for interrogation appeared in the 1930s' The electric prod was purportedly first used by police in Argentina in 1932. Essentially it was a modified cattle prod that delivered high-voltage, low-amperage shocks to sensitive body areas for pain without killing its subjects.

Hand-cranked magneto/dynamo devices (from field telephones or car batteries) were used for shocks in various contexts by the 1940s, notably by French forces in colonial Algeria and Vietnam in the 1950s, and in other places.

The use of electricity for torture spread widely in the mid-20th century because it often leaves minimal visible marks, suiting regimes wishing to avoid scrutiny. It has since been documented in dozens of countries with devices like cattle prods, stun guns, and electrodes.

One of the shocking revelations of the Iraq War was our own use of electricity for torture and psychological coercion at Abu Ghraib prison. We denounced it as odious when Saddam Hussein was doing it, It's a shame our own nation dropped its own ethical standards in this pointless activity. We've been told all our lives that the ends don't justify the means. We also know that any information extracted by torture is unreliable.

Sorry to be so depressing.

"Man's inhumanity to man

makes countless thousands mourn."

--Robert Burns

If you're interested in learning about the history of electricity as a torture technology, click here.

Related Link

The National Stain Known as Gitmo

The Real Reason the U.S. Entered WWI: This Forgotten Telegram

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Sat, 30 May 2026 22:48:48 +0000

Click to enlarge

Ask someone what brought America into World War I and chances are they will mention the Lusitania. The sinking of the British ocean liner in 1915 became one of the most powerful symbols of the war. "Remember the Lusitania" entered the public consciousness and remains there more than a century later.

Yet many historians argue that the Lusitania was not the decisive factor in bringing America into the conflict. That distinction belongs to a far less dramatic event: a coded telegram sent by German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to the German ambassador in Mexico.

I first wrote about the Zimmermann Telegram in 2011. Most Americans have never heard of it. There were no torpedoes, no ships sunk, no tragic photographs of drowning civilians. There was only a message—intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence—proposing that if the United States entered the war against Germany, Mexico should join Germany and, in return, be offered the chance to recover Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

When the contents became public in 1917, the political landscape shifted dramatically. The Zimmermann Telegram reminds us that history often turns on events that are invisible to the public at the time. The incidents we remember are not always the incidents that matter most. Which leads one to ask, what is really happening in the Middle East right now? Or closer to home for that matter?

* * *

During our year working at an orphanage in Mexico I learned a lot about our Southern neighbor and its history. At the time of the Zimmermann telegram, Mexico was in the midst of a ten year revolution, which culminated in the the country becoming a socialist state.

During our 250 year history, Mexico underwent numerous revolutions. This last, and most significant, was the 1910 Mexican Revolution. To understand the political culture under the thirty year reign of Porfirio Diaz, think of the Plantation system of America's deep South, except things were even more lopsided. An estimated 800 to 1,000 wealthy families and foreign corporations owned roughly 97% of the country's cultivated land. This massive inequality—where millions of peasants were left landless—was the primary catalyst for Emiliano Zapata's revolutionary cry of “Tierra y Libertad” (Land and Liberty).

Related Links
The Zimmermann Telegram

The Last Days of Ambrose Bierce: Revisiting the Mystery

Brownsville Girl and The Old Gringo

The Boy in the Bubble: Our Perilous Postmodern Predicament (Revisited)

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Thu, 28 May 2026 14:37:39 +0000

Each of us, whether conscious of it or not, lives inside a meta-narrative — a story that gives shape and meaning to our experience. These frameworks help us interpret suffering, progress, history, morality, identity, and hope itself. The songs we listen to, the books we read, the films we absorb, and the headlines that bombard us daily all reinforce or undermine these narratives.

The New World Encyclopedia defines a meta-narrative as: “A theory that tries to give a totalizing, comprehensive account to various historical events, experiences, and social or cultural phenomena based upon the appeal to universal truth or universal values.”

For centuries, the dominant Judeo-Christian meta-narrative placed God at the center of human history. Life had meaning because history itself had meaning — a beginning, a moral structure, and an end toward which humanity was moving.

Modernism gradually displaced this framework. The new narrative suggested that humanity no longer needed transcendence. Progress itself became the faith. Science, technology, education, democracy, medicine, and human ingenuity would build a brighter tomorrow. The future became our secular heaven.

But as the twentieth century, these Utopian visions encountered the reality of world wars, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, gulags, terrorism and alienation. The collapse of trust and the realization that technological advancement does not necessarily produce moral advancement became self-evident.

From these ruins Postmodernism emerged. It questioned whether progress was ever truly progress at all. It distrusted grand narratives entirely and hope itself became suspect.

It is in this sense that "The Boy in the Bubble" by Paul Simon feels so prophetic.

Listening to the song again recently, I was struck by its architecture. The verses arrive like fragments from a newsfeed: terrorism, drought, celebrity spectacle, scientific breakthroughs, violence, medicine, wealth, and technological marvels. The modern world flashes before us in disconnected images.

-- A bomb in a baby carriage.
-- A baby with a baboon heart.
-- Lasers in the jungle.
-- These are the days of miracle and wonder.

And after each unsettling verse comes the refrain: “Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry.”

But the reassurance feels hollow, which is the genius of the song. The Boy in the Bubble captures the emotional contradiction of late modernity — astonishing technological achievement paired with spiritual exhaustion and civilizational anxiety. The narrator seems convinced that technological wonder should somehow compensate for spiritual dislocation. Look at all we can do, he insists. Look at the miracles. Look at the progress.

Yet beneath the surface lies exhaustion and dread. The one being comforted appears to understand something the narrator cannot: human beings can surround themselves with spectacle and still feel abandoned. We can cure diseases, transplant organs, photograph distant galaxies, and instantaneously transmit information across the planet — yet remain spiritually adrift. The modern world increasingly resembles a giant illuminated carnival trembling atop a void.

One thing that makes the song enduring is how it captures the emotional texture of postmodern life long before social media intensified it. Today we scroll endlessly through catastrophe, innovation, entertainment, outrage, tragedy, and distraction in one continuous stream. We are flooded with information yet starving for coherence.

Even the most amazing reels soon leave us bored. Nothing satisfies.

And what makes the song so incredibly pointed is that while the narrator doesn't see it, the one he's trying to comfort sees it perfectly. She's not only crying because of the brokenness of the world but because the one who seeks to comfort her is so oblivious to it. It's like Graham Greene's The End of the Affair in which the narrator tells the whole story, yet can't see that which is plain to everyone who hears his tale. Listen to this song several times and hear the painfulness in his appeal at the end of each verse.

We reassure one another with the language of progress while quietly sensing that something essential has gone missing. Perhaps that is why the song still haunts listeners nearly forty years later. It understands that our crisis is not merely political or technological. It is metaphysical.

The Boy In The Bubble

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shopwindows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry

It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in the corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry

It’s a turnaround jump shot
It’s everybody jumpstart
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
Thinking of the Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
a loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires, and baby

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all, oh yeah
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry, don’t cry

© 1986 Words and Music by Paul Simon and Forere Mothoeloa

The Pity of War and the Lusitania

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Wed, 27 May 2026 14:41:32 +0000

Illustration by Norman Wilkinson (public domain)

"The first casualty of war is truth." --Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917

This is a follow-up to my blog post earlier this month on the sinking of the Lusitania.

While The Pity of War is primarily about the larger strategic and political failures that produced World War I, Niall Ferguson does make mention of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania within the broader context of wartime propaganda and Britain’s effort to bring the United States into the conflict. This prompted me to want to add to what I wrote last Thursday.

The Lusitania episode became one of the defining propaganda triumphs of the Allied war effort. The ship was not simply an innocent passenger liner in the purest sense presented to the public at the time. The vessel was carrying war-related materiel, including rifle cartridges and shell components, a fact long minimized or obscured in wartime narratives.

Though Germany was not morally blameless, the event was immediately transformed into a powerful emotional symbol through British and Allied media. Images of drowned civilians, women, and children were used to shape public opinion—especially in America—toward viewing Germany as uniquely barbaric. Ferguson sees this as part of the modern evolution of mass persuasion during industrial warfare.

At the same time, we should all consider these uncomfortable questions:
--Why was ammunition placed aboard a civilian liner traveling through contested waters.
--Why were passengers insufficiently informed of the risks?
--To what degree did governments exploit tragedy to mobilize public sentiment?

Propaganda usually simplifies complex realities into moral absolutes, and WWI was no different. Ferguson is especially skeptical of the idea that Britain entered the war purely for noble reasons or that Allied information campaigns were straightforwardly truthful.

Importantly, once the sinking occurred, it became highly effective as a political and psychological weapon. The incident helped prepare American opinion for eventual intervention, even though the U.S. did not formally enter the war until 1917, nearly two years later.

One of Ferguson’s recurring themes is that modern states during this war learned how to harness media, atrocity stories, emotional imagery, and selective truths to sustain large-scale conflict. In that sense, the Lusitania became not merely a maritime disaster, but an early case study in twentieth-century information warfare.

The Pity of War: Niall Ferguson Lays Blame at Britain's Doorstep Regarding WWI, the Great War

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Tue, 26 May 2026 11:40:55 +0000

World War I reminds us how quickly nationalism, alliances, propaganda, and political miscalculation can pull nations into catastrophe. Leaders expected a short war; instead it became industrialized slaughter. The conflict also showed how media narratives and public emotion can overpower caution, creating momentum toward war before societies fully understand the consequences.

Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England’s fault. According to Ferguson, England entered into war based on naive assumptions of German aims, thereby transforming a Continental conflict into a world war, which it then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather was the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces.

* * *

I can't recall when I first began reading Niall Ferguson, the prominent Glasgow-born historian. One of his books, which I wrote about in 2021, was The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die. His book answered one of the questions I have long pondered: How did Western Europe become such a global powerhouse? What were the foundation stones that contributed to the rise of the West? Here's my take on this book: Why Civilizations Fail: Niall Ferguson Sounds A Wake-Up Call.

You can tell from Ferguson's other titles that he's pessimistic about our future unless things change. His most recent title is Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. Another of his books is Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. His aim, however, is not to get us depressed. It's intended to wake us up. We've become complacent.

* * * * *

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

That the war was horrific and inhuman is memorialized in part by the poetry of men like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon and others, but also by cold statistics. Indeed, there were more British casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme than Americans killed in the Vietnam War over a period of ten years. (That battle alone took between 120,000 and 150,000 lives.) And yet, as Ferguson writes, while the war itself was a disastrous folly, the great majority of men who fought it did so with little reluctance and with some enthusiasm. For anyone wanting to understand why wars are fought, why men are willing to fight them and why the world is as it is today, Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War is a pretty good guide through all that foul terrain.

"The First World War was at once piteous, in the poet's sense, and 'a pity'. It was something worse than a tragedy, which is ultimately something we are taught by the theatre to regard as unavoidable. It was nothing less than the greatest error of modern history."
--Niall Ferguson

The Pity of War is a revisionist examination of the causes and consequences of World War I. Ferguson's contrarian position challenges many accepted assumptions, arguing that Britain’s entry into the war transformed what might have remained a continental conflict into a catastrophic global struggle. He contends that Britain may have been better off remaining neutral—an argument that runs against traditional narratives about moral necessity and national duty.

What makes the book compelling is Ferguson’s willingness to question sacred historical assumptions while backing his claims with extensive research, statistics, economic analysis, and firsthand accounts. Even readers who disagree with his conclusions will find the book intellectually stimulating because it forces a reconsideration of how wars begin, how governments justify intervention, and how myths become embedded in national memory.

One of the motivations for the writing of this book (and writing a book is such a massive project that you really do need a large dose of motivation) was that his grandfather was one of the soldiers who fought in that nightmare war, "which remains the worst thing the people of my country have ever had to endure." As a private in the 2nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, part of the 26th Brigade in the 9th Divison of the British Expeditionary Force, Ferguson saw his grandfather's survival as "mysteriously fortunate."

At times the book can feel dense--and in my paperback version the font is too small--especially in its economic and diplomatic detail, but Ferguson's prose is easily digestible if you keep going. He writes with confidence. The result is not merely a history of World War I, but a meditation on power, propaganda, nationalism, and unintended consequences.

Was it "the greatest error of modern history" as Ferguson suggests. This book makes his case.

Tomorrow I aim to do a follow-up on the sinking of the Lusitania, from Niall Ferguson's perspective.

Related Links

WWI RELATED BLOG POSTS

Poilu. https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2021/12/poilu-grisly-wwi-memoir-from-trenches.html

The Great War: So Much Sorrow

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-great-war-so-much-sorrow-and-for.html

The British Generals

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-british-generals-heading-into-world.html

Why did this assassination result in total war?

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2014/06/100-years-ago-today-why-did-this.html

A Book That Changed History: Guns of August

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2009/10/book-that-changed-history.html

Veteran’s Day and My Boy Jack

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2010/11/veterans-day-and-my-boy-jack.html

The Unnecessary War

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2009/06/unnecessary-war.html

The Sinking of the Lusitania Has Lessons for Today

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-sinking-of-lusitania-has-lessons.html

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2010/12/and-band-played-waltzing-matilda.html

A Poem by Siegrfried Sassoon for Memorial Day

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:31:57 +0000

Burying the dead at Somme (public domain)

The war produced many writers and poets of significance. Siegfried Sassoon was one of these, one of the more powerful poetic voices to emerge from the "War to End All Wars." Sassoon rejected the patriotic romanticism common in wartime verse, writing with brutal honesty about trench warfare, exposing its fear, suffering, and senseless waste. His poems often attacked the blindness of political and military leaders while expressing deep compassion for ordinary soldiers trapped in the nightmare of war.

To put Sassoon's writing in perspective, he was a Lieutenant at the Battle of Somme who witnessed this horror firsthand. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme (July 1, 1916), 19,240 British soldiers were killed. This remains the bloodiest single day in the history of the British Army. The total British casualties that day—including those who were wounded, captured, or went missing—reached 57,470.

During the Battle of the Somme (July–November 1916), the British and Imperial forces suffered approximately 420,000 casualties, of which historians estimate around 125,000 to 150,000 were fatalities. This is two to three times the number of Americans who died over a span of ten years in Vietnam.

Here is Siegfried Sassoon's poem Attack.

Attack

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun

In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun,

Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud

The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,

Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.

The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed

With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,

Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.

Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,

They leave their trenches, going over the top,

While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,

And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,

Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop!

Copyright Credit: Siegfried Sassoon, “Attack” from Counter-attack: And Other Poems. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1918. Public domain.

Source: Counter-attack: And Other Poems (E.P. Dutton & Company, 1918)

Dylan Fans Celebrate Dylan's 85th Birthday with a Week of Festivities in Duluth

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Sun, 24 May 2026 15:04:53 +0000

Here are a few photos that capture many of the high points of Duluth Dylan Fest 2026, which culminates today with a Front Porch Birthday Party 11-1 and a sold out concert at the Alhambra, featuring Paul Metsa and sideman Sonny Earl.

Welcome to Duluth Dylan Fest 2026

Acoustic Jam @ Ursa Minor

The Songbook

Greg Tiburzi and Friends @ Sir Ben's

Electric Jam @ The Tavern in Superior

The Stars

The Judges

A young up-and-comer

Winner Doyle Turner

Singer Songwriter Contest Winners
L to R: Lydia Boyum (3rd), Doyle Turner (1st), Emma Lea Heart (2nd)

Masters of Ceremony Amy Grillo and Pat Eliason

Dan Israel Saturday Night @ Sacred Heart

Aaron Brown, John Bushey Memorial Lecture '26

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOB

MAY YOU STAY FOREVER YOUNG

Kate Aisling introduces Mayor Roger Reinert
Photo credit: last four photos by the author.

Related Links

Photos courtesy of Michael Anderson. See more of Michael A's work here with contact information:

https://singingcanoe.smugmug.com

You can learn more about Michael Anderson's career and motivations here:
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2018/12/michael-anderson-unassuming-gift-to.html

Why DNA Points to a Mind Behind the Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Sun, 24 May 2026 02:50:42 +0000

Why were so many intellectuals enthralled by Darwin's theory of evolution as put forth in The Origin of Species?

Could it partially be driven by a desire to not be held accountable to a higher power other than themselves? Or to ethical values they don't want to be restrained by? Why has the State gone to such great lengths to purge not only Christianity from the schools but even a view of science that might suggest that there is a God that created the spectacular beauty and design that is revealed in nature, including the miraculous origins life itself?

I get it, that the Founding Fathers had good reasons for the separation of Church and State. But for decades we have been dictated to "trust the science" while simultaneously not permitting many scientists speak out about what they are seeing as evidence of a mind behind the creation. And why are these legitimate findings are absolutely abolished in the schools.

This naturally dovetails with one of my repeated themes: He who controls the narrative controls the people. Why are people so afraid of open discussion about the implications of contemporary findings unveiled by earnest scientific inquiry?

One of the things I have been reminded of recently is that the attitude of a scientist is very different from that of a mathematician. For mathematicians, 2 + 2 = 4. Always.

True scientists propose theories. They say, "This is what we know, for now." It takes great humility to say, "I am not certain, but this is what appears to be what the facts are saying." Darwin was a scientit. He did not state that what he believed about the origin of species, or life itself, was a certainty. It was a theory that he was proposing. He assumed, incorrectly, that as science advanced and archeology advanced, and the fossil records were unearthed, that his theory would be proven.

Instead, archeology and science have failed to find the evidence for life form transitions of new species on a scale required to demonsrate that our ancestors were monkeys, or snails or protozoa.

The purpose of this blog post is to introduce you to Stephen C. Meyer, a leading voice in the repudiation of the New Atheism movement. Today I briefly wrote on my substack a few thoughts on Meyer's talk Why DNA Points to a Mind Behind the Universe.

About Stephen C. Meyer
He earned an M.Phil. (1987) and Ph.D. (1991) in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. His doctoral thesis focused on the methodology of origin-of-life research. Meyer is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, a think tank he helped found. The CSC is the primary organization promoting the intelligent design movement.

His major books include:

Signature in the Cell (2009): Argues for intelligent design based on the information in DNA; named a Book of the Year by the Times Literary Supplement.
Darwin’s Doubt (2013): A New York Times bestseller examining the Cambrian explosion and the case for ID.
Return of the God Hypothesis (2021): Integrates evidence from physics, cosmology, and biology to argue for a theistic explanation of the universe.

Are you committed to to Lifelong Learning?
Here are some wonderful things to explore.

Friday Miscellaneous: Books, Science and Other Things I've Been Thinking About

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Fri, 22 May 2026 16:31:01 +0000

Today it's Friday. Here in the Northland we've been celebrating our annual Duluth Dylan Fest all week, which kicked off in Hibbing at the home young Robert Zimmerman grew up in there. Music by Geno, Amy and Pat was followed by a tour of the Hibbing High School where Bob first began to make a name for himself.

This was followed by a string of events here in Duluth throughout the week, culminating in the annual Front Porch Birthday Party at the house where Dylan spent the first six years of his life. We'll be gathering there from 11:00 a.m. till 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, Bob's birthday, with music by Greg Tiburzi. If you missed Wednesday's performance at Sir Ben's, you really missed a stupendous rendition of Dylan's Desire album. Big shout out to Greg, Erin Aldridge and Sonja Bjordal. Thank you.

Last night Cowboy Angel Blue performed in the Depot Train Museum and tonight will be the traditional Singer/Songwriter Contest at Sacred Heart. Full schedule here.

* * *
One of the exciting things in my life right now has been a renewed interest in math and science. As followers of my Substack know I have been sharing the Math Circles of James D. Nickel. (Example: The Wonders of the Fibonacci Sequence). This exploration lead to the discovery of new thinking about the world we live in from a physics perspective.

There are so many things that have been discovered about the nature of reality and the universe that are downright astonishing. It's my hope to share some of these things. The implications of Watson and Crick's discovery of the genetic code will blow your mind. How did the Hubble telescope expand our understanding of the size of the cosmos? What does "trust the science" really mean?

My interest in history has never abated. Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War is now in my pile, revisiting the Great War and how it was a mistake for Britain to get involved. How ironic that the war to end all war proved to be the springboard to a century of wars in every corner of the world.

That whole period of history was startling when you see the emergence of Social Darwinism, the birth of the Eugenics movement and the arrogance of Western intellectuals.

On a more positive side I've recently been inspired by some new writers I've been introduced to including David Berlinski and Stephen C. Meyer.

As we wind down into Memorial Day weekend, more than a few Northlanders wonder when summer will start to show its face. What are some things you're jazzed about right now? There's so much still to be discovered. Don't just drift. Get a PhD in Lifelong Learning.

Nine More Applications of Price's Law

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:19:33 +0000

I just learned about Price's Law a few days ago and it intrigued me. Because I've been thinking about city issues like safety and law & order, I wondered how Price's Law might apply to crime, which I wrote about yesterday. But after sleeping on it and considering its implications, I explored additional ways to apply Price's Law.

Derek J. de Solla Price came up with what's now called “Price’s Law” after noticing that half of all published research is produced by the square root of the total number of authors working in that domain It's deceptively simple idea that seems to pop up everywhere once you start looking for it.

In its classic form, it says that the square root of the participants in a domain produce roughly half the output. So in a company of 100 people, about 10 people do half the meaningful work. In a city of 1 million, about 1,000 people may generate much of the innovation or influence. Or in a city the size of Duluth (86,000) 293 generate half the innovation or influence. In short, game-changing leadership is not a crowded field.

The really fascinating part is how universal the pattern feels. The more you think about it, the more applications there seem to be.

Churches and Volunteerism
In many churches, the square root of the congregation often handles most of the ministry, fundraising, cleanup, and organizing. A congregation of 400 may function largely because 20 people quietly carry the institution on their backs.

Family Dynamics

In extended families, one or two individuals often become the “memory keepers,” organizers, peacemakers, and caretakers for dozens of relatives. The entire emotional architecture of a clan may rest on surprisingly few shoulders.

Civilization Itself

One could argue that a tiny fraction of humans created the majority of the ideas that shaped civilization—Newton, Maxwell, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Plato, Edison, etc. Most people inherit culture; very few materially alter it.

Internet Comment Sections

A tiny number of users generate most online discourse. One percent of users may produce half the posts, arguments, outrage, and memes that define a platform’s “culture.” My guess is that most people simply "lurk" to see what everyone's talking about..

Conspiracy Theories
Price’s Law may explain why a handful of highly motivated activists or ideologues can disproportionately shape public narratives. Most people are passive consumers; a small energetic minority drives movements.

Entropy in Organizations
As organizations grow, the productive core does not scale linearly. Bureaucracy expands faster than contribution. This may partially explain why large institutions often become sluggish despite employing thousands.

Marriage and Friendships

In many social networks, a few people initiate most gatherings, phone calls, and emotional labor. Remove them, and entire friend groups dissolve. I've seen this happen

Historical Turning Points

Many revolutions, reformations, and renaissances may have hinged on an astonishingly small number of determined individuals operating at precisely the right moment. In the American Civil War, the Battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg turned the tide of the war, with a devastating outcome for the South. (Both happened the same week.)

Decay of Institutions

A frightening inverse version of Price’s Law: when the most competent square root burns out, retires, or disengages, the whole structure can suddenly wobble. The institution looked massive and stable, but its true load-bearing beams were few.

Price's Law as Applied to Crime and Safety

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Wed, 20 May 2026 13:07:46 +0000

Price's Law (also known as Price's Square Root Law) is a principle in productivity and scientometrics that describes extreme inequality in output within groups. (Keep reading and you'll understand how that plays out.)

The concept was proposed by a British physicist and historian of science named Derek J. de Solla Price in the 1960s, who originally observed patterns in scientific publishing. It states that in any given field, approximately half of all published research is produced by the square root of the total number of authors working in that domain.

For example, if a scientific field has 100 researchers, then √100 = 10 researchers will account for roughly 50% of all papers published. In a company of 10,000 employees, about 100 people (√10,000) will produce half the total output or value.

This makes Price's Law more extreme than the better-known Pareto Principle (commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule). As group size grows, the proportion of top producers shrinks dramatically relative to the whole.

Why It Matters

Price's Law shows how productivity follows a power-law distribution rather than a normal one. A small elite drives the majority of results in research, sales teams, creative fields, companies, and even open-source projects. While controversial and not universally precise, it explains why superstar performers, top scientists, or key employees often contribute disproportionately.

Understanding Price's Law encourages organizations to identify, nurture, and retain high-impact talent — and individuals to strive to be among that critical square-root group.

New Applications

Stumbling across Price's Law got me thinking about an application I'd not considered before: fighting crime. Is it possible that if there a x number of violent criminals in a city, that the square root of that number is committing half the violent crimes? If this were the case, an overtaxed police force could make a big impact by narrowing their focus on these "most productive" criminals. Are there 100 such violent felons in your medium-sized city? This would suggest that ten are doing half of the violent crime, and your city could become much safer by placing them behind bars. And maybe there are only 25. This would suggest five are the really bad dudes that should be behind bars.

Corollary: The square root of all criminals does half of all crime.

I haven't tested this theory yet, but I've an inkling that there's something to it.

What do you think?

How Big Is One Trillion Dollars?

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Wed, 20 May 2026 02:01:41 +0000

A trillion dollars... Wow!

I remember when the media was near apoplectic when the national debt reached one trillion dollars during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Today, it seems we're numb to the enormity of our national debt and especially the speed at which it keeps growing.

We say it so casually now—federal deficits, national debt, 25 trillion, 30 trillion, 35 trillion... And a request from the White House for another 1.5 trillion for the Pentagon. I know what two marbles is, or five oranges. But when you say one trillion its no longer anything but an abstraction. Or a talking point.

So let's put this in perspective. What does one trillion dollars s look like? Here's one way to get a sense of it:

If you stacked one trillion dollars in $100 bills, the tower would rise approximately 631 or 680 miles into the sky, depending on which AI you ask. (Google says 63o-678 miles.) That's more than two and a half times higher than the orbit of the International Space Station. We're talking about Yertle the Turtle on mega-steroids.The stack would dwarf the Empire State Building as though it were a decorative lawn ornament. The Statue of Liberty would disappear into insignificance at its base.

Let's attack this from a different angle. I asked Grok, "How high would a billion dollar stack of hundred dollar bills be?" Here's how to calculate it. $1,000,000,000 ÷ $100 = 10 million bills. Each bill is 0.0043 inches thick, which when stacked would be 43,000 inches. 43,000 x 12 equals 3583 feet, which is 3 times the height of the Eiffel Tower.

A trillion dollars, if you can stack that high, would reach up into the sky 630 to 680 miles. It's one thousand billions. If you spent one million dollars every single day, it would take nearly 2,740 years to spend a trillion dollars.

When politicians discuss adding “just another trillion” to a budget, or when economists speak of trillion-dollar deficits as though they are routine, we ought to pause long enough to picture this tower of money stretching into the edge of outer space.

As of May 2026, the U.S. national debt is approaching $39 trillion. The Joint Economic Committee reported it at roughly $38.9 trillion in early May.

What's scary to me is interest payments on our debt are now approaching or exceeding $1 trillion per year, which means the federal government spends more on interest than many entire nations produce economically.

I keep asking myself how things can go on like this. At what point does the whole shebang collapse like a house of cards?

What I don't understand is how we keep electing people who don't understand basic economics. If you spend more money than you take in, you're going to keep going deeper into debt. Sooner or later you're going be is a very bad place.

Mathematical Challenges to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Sun, 17 May 2026 22:33:04 +0000

"If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know it didn't get there by itself."

The past couple months I've been listening to episodes of Uncommon Knowledge, an long-running interview and discussion program hosted by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institute at Stanford. It features in-depth conversations with political leaders, scholars, journalists, historians, scientists, and other prominent thinkers on topics like politics, economics, history, culture, foreign policy, education, and current events. The discussions are meaty, with lots of protein for your brain muscle.

This week I listened to Mathematical Challenges to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in which Robinson moderated a critique Darwinian theory with David Berlinski, David Gelernter, and Stephen Meyer.

Listening to this and similar lectures has generated a number of insights such as one of the key differences between math and science. In math, 2 + 2 = 4. Period. In science, theories are proposed with a measured humility, in this manner: "This is what we know... for now."

When Darwin proposed his On the Origin of Species, he knew it didn't answer all the questions. He assumed that science in the future would fill in the gaps. So it was strange to me even in high school that every single nature show would include a nod to Darwin. If I was watching a program about sharks they always mentioned, as if it were fact, that this killer instinct evolved over a period of sixty million years. All this was assumed and extrapolated from the uncritical acceptance of Darwin's ideas.

So it was refreshing to learn of other points of view. Gelernter argued that Darwin's theory does not adequately explain the emergence of new species, particularly due to the Cambrian explosion and advances in molecular biology. Meyer promotes intelligent design, emphasizing the complexity of DNA as evidence of intelligent causation, while Berlinski remains skeptical yet open-minded.

All three underscored the lack of free speech in academia regarding Darwinism critiques and the challenge of understanding consciousness, with Meyer suggesting intelligent design could offer broader scientific insights beyond Darwinism.

Problem one with Darwin's theory is the very narrow period of time that all these species came into existence, a period science has called the Cambrian explosion.

The second problem became evident after the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. Here's what that means as regards evolution.

If you want a computer to do something new, you have to write fresh software code for it. That's exactly what scientists discovered about life in the second half of the 20th century, starting with Watson and Crick's work on DNA. To create a new kind of living thing, a nnew species, you also need new "code." That code is the information stored in DNA—the long molecule that looks like a twisted ladder.

[EdNote: Before cracking the code for DNA in 1953, Francis Crick was a code breaker during World War II.]

The sequence of letters along the DNA molecule tells the cell how to make all the different protein molecules it needs to function. Then there's extra information that tells those cells how to organize themselves into the right shapes and structures—like how to build eyes, legs, or the overall body plan of an animal or plant.

In short: just like software code runs a computer, DNA is the instruction manual that builds and runs living organisms. If you want a truly new life form, you need to write new instructions in that DNA code.

"Things are more complicated than Darwin knew. We understand that producing new forms of life now means not just new shapes, new activities in which life engages, but a prior code." And what are the odds of a new species happening? These guys break it down for us mathematically. You are more likely to wake up as a cockroach tomorrow than to see a new species come into existence. (My nod to Gregor Samsa.)

If you want to listen to the program, you can find it here on YouTube. Whereas all three agree that Darwin's conclusions were flawed, they are not all in agreement with the notion of "intelligent design," which is an interesting discussion in and of itself.

MY REASONS for sharing this blog post is to encourage you to (A) reconsider the implications of how Darwin and his ideas have been applied since his death, and (B) to watch or listen to Dennis Robinson's Uncommon Knowledge programs on YouTube. Lots of great guests and very smart people.

TWO FINAL QUOTES FROM THE PROGRAM

A. "Darwin now poses a final challenge. Whether biology will rise to this last one as well as it did to the first, when his theory upset every apple cart, remains to be seen. How cleanly and quickly can the field get over Darwin and move on? Striking sentence. This is one of the most important questions facing science in the 21st century."

B. "Scientists are paid for making guesses, not for making right guesses, but for making interesting plausible ones. And if scientists, after the guess has been made, don't do their job, don't investigate the guess, don't do their best to figure out is it true or false, then we are false to science and we're betraying science."

RELATED LINKS

The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays

Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design

Friday Musings: A Curated Collection from the Quote Vault

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Fri, 15 May 2026 14:08:34 +0000

In a world of rapid change and enduring questions, here are some quotes to roll around in your mind when you take a break from your screens. From Subroto Roy’s vision of a flourishing society, to voices as varied as Hannah Arendt, Martin Luther King Jr., Edward Snowden, and Graham Greene, quotes that illuminate the human condition dealing with justice and bureaucracy, creativity and resilience, perception and courage.

I personally enjoy mashups of unrelated observations because the unplanned juxtapositions can give birth to new and unexpected ideas.

* * *

"A flourishing society would be one which grows along the three planes of science, religion and art under conditions of freedom."
—Subroto Roy

"There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle."

—Rober Alden

"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation."

—Graham Greene

"More is more. Less is a bore."
—Robert Venturi

"Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret."

—Marlene Dietrich

"Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that the horses may not be stolen."
-- The Marquis of Halifax

"Bureaucracies are far better at removing fingerprints from snafus than dusting for them."
—Mark Thompson

“The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.”

—Hannah Arendt

"Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us."

—Stendhal journal entry (10 December 1801)

"Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was."
--Dag Hammarskjold

"Nothing is more common than the wish to be remarkable."

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are ruled by criminals."

—Edward Snowden

“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”

-–John Wooden

"I lived on books. Books taught me how to think."

--Sy Hersh

"A short saying often contains much wisdom."

—Sophocles

“Recommend virtue to your children, that alone—not wealth—can give happiness.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven

"A hot dog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz."
—Humphrey Bogart

"A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing."

--Don Roff

“If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run, then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

——————

Almost Wordless Wednesday: A Glimpse of Duluth Culture Revealed in 7 Posters of Coming Events

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Wed, 13 May 2026 08:21:04 +0000

A random batch of current posters on the library bulletin board.

Roy Orbison was truly one of the greats. Check this out:
Seven Anecdotes from the Roy Orbison/Beatles Tour

Proof positive that we're not just flyover country.

This weekend Duluth Dylan Fest will commence. Be there or be square.

I saw them my freshman year in college... a fun memory way back when.

First class shows for those who love live theater.

It's becoming a Northland tradition.

Looks interesting. Should we come with an appetite?

It's safer than snake-handling in Kentucky.

"Words Can’t Reshape Physical Reality" – A Blunt Conversation with Energy Writer Irina Slav

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Tue, 12 May 2026 13:48:00 +0000

Irina Slav

I can't recall when I first discovered the Bulgarian freelance energy journalist Irina Slav, but from the start I was captured, not simply by her years of experience writing about oil, gas, mining and geopolitics, but also by her wit and her courage to put it all out there regarding the realities of our current energy issues. Her writing is never dry, and routinely downright fun; a contrarian grounded in facts that force you to confront what is really going on.

In short, she seems to enjoy telling truths many seem unable to see because they've been swept away in a fifty year flood of media mischief and misinformation.

So without further adieu, I am pleased to introduce you to Irina Slav.

EN: I admire your courage and the "let the chips fall where they may" attitude you write with. How long have you been writing and how did you "find your voice" as a writer?

IS: If we’re talking professional writing, that started about 15 years ago, but I’d been writing fiction since my teens. I think that helped train my writing “muscles” for any topic, fictional or factual.

As for finding my voice, that happened gradually, as I gained experience and realized there was no point in being polite and worrying about what people would think. I honestly no longer care about offending anyone with hard facts. They are there, whether anyone likes them or not.

EN: Have you always written about energy issues? What was your background and what drew you to write about this important topic?

IS: My academic background is in English literature and linguistics. My professional life began with translations, while I was still at university. After graduating, I spent a couple of years at a daily newspaper where I mostly translated articles but once got so excited about the topic of peak oil (yes, I believed it was coming) that I volunteered to produce my very own feature article. I think we still have the paper edition with that article.

After I left the paper (because the owner, who was a politician, asked me if I wanted to run for the European Parliament as a party candidate and I said “Hell, no”) I started work at a news agency where I was assigned coverage of Russia’s and Central Asia’s energy and mining industries. I discovered oil and gas are a fascinating topic and started reading up on it, on extraction, pipelines, refineries, the lot.

Following my decision to go freelance I had a major stroke of luck when an editor for Oilprice contacted me and offered me a daily engagement. The rest, excuse the cliché, is history. I still find oil and gas production fascinating and hugely underappreciated as the most essential industry for modern civilization. This doesn’t mean I love Big Oil or some such nonsense but I do have a deep appreciation for the people who extract hydrocarbons from the ground.

EN: You’ve spent nearly two decades covering Russian and Central Asian oil and gas before broadening out to global energy markets. Looking back, what’s the biggest misconception you’ve seen policymakers or investors hold about energy security—and how has the last few years of conflict and market chaos either validated or upended that view?

IS: The most destructive, delayed-action, misconception was the belief that globalizing supply chains would work swimmingly and it’s perfectly okay to outsource all the heavy industries to Asia to focus on the “post-industrial” economy. We’ve all seen how well that’s worked.

More generally, the assumption that words can shape physical reality has wrought havoc in the West, whether it’s about energy or geopolitics. We are now reaping what the reality shapers sowed.

EN: In your writing, you’ve highlighted “stranded transition assets” and grid integration failures for renewables, even as banks like Barclays now acknowledge the risks. Do you see the current energy crunch—driven by geopolitics, AI demand, and defense needs—as the moment when the renewables-heavy transition narrative finally cracks, or is the political momentum still too strong to reverse course?

Click to Enlarge

IS: The narrative has been cracking for a while now but the net-zero fan lobby is still very strong and loud, especially in political circles. I think the momentum is too strong for politicians to admit they were wrong about it. The current energy crisis is not helping – it just made wind and solar make sense because they are – and how I hate the word – “homegrown”. They aren’t really but nobody cares about that. I fear we’ll have to witness an actual collapse before we come to our collective senses.

EN: You’ve been blunt about EU policies like the ETS, the 2035 ICE car ban (and its green steel workaround), and methane rule “flexibilities.” From your perspective in Bulgaria, what’s the single biggest disconnect between Brussels’ decarbonization targets and the day-to-day reality of energy supply and industrial competitiveness in Europe?

IS: The biggest disconnect is in priorities. Brussels keeps harping on about “clean” energy while everyone else wants mostly cheap and reliable energy.

EN: Your recent posts have touched on blackouts, demand destruction, negative electricity prices, and the quiet return of gas-fired power in places like Spain. What practical lessons from these real-world failures do you think the energy industry and governments still refuse to learn—especially when it comes to baseload power versus intermittent sources?

IS: What governments appear incapable of comprehending is the fact that it is not okay to have a grid dominated by intermittents. Having some is fine, no problem with rooftop solar and some bigger installations in factory yards but having solar and wind make up a substantial, let alone, larger than half, portion of the energy mix is a bit risky.

EN: You’ve written about parallel realities in energy—one physical and one fabricated by analysts and financiers. With oil prices swinging on tweets, record U.S. exports, and surging Chinese “clean energy component” shipments to Europe, do you see the biggest risks (or opportunities) in the next 12–24 months for both traditional hydrocarbons and the so-called transition technologies?

IS: I think it’s pretty clear by now that hydrocarbons will be in short supply in the coming months. Just how long these shortages will last depends on when the war in the Middle East ends and the outlook doesn’t seem very good right now. So, the risk is shortage, which, I guess, would be an opportunity for those who can source oil and gas and sell them to energy-thirsty countries.

As for transition technologies, the fans will double and triple down, claiming they are safer than oil and gas imports. The problem is those technologies are also largely imported and they will become more expensive, too – energy inflation touches everything. So I think there will be some more rude awakening in the “clean energy” space.

EN: After covering this beat for 15–20 years and living through events like the recent Bulgarian blackout, what’s one piece of advice you’d give to younger journalists, investors, or even ordinary citizens trying to cut through the noise on energy and geopolitics—especially when official narratives keep colliding with physics and economics?

IS: The one advice I would give is “Check if two plus two makes four. If the news says it doesn’t, then the news is false.” It’s a simple thing to do but not easy. A lot of people would rather stick with the false news for comfort, even if they end up paying dearly for that comfort down the line. Those who are not satisfied with “the noise” ask questions. They also buy generators for backup.

Check out her Substack, Irina Slav on energy

Lessons for Leaders from Napoleon and the Battle of Austerlitz

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Mon, 11 May 2026 15:38:00 +0000

My interest in Napoleon Bonaparte was triggered by an observation made in the introduction to Grant Wins the War, James R. Arnold's account of how General U.S. Grant captured the City of Vicksburg, cutting off supplies from the West and sealing the doom of the rebel South in our American Civil War. The author stated, "Of the twenty most brilliant campaigns in military history, more than half were by Napoleon. Only two were conceived and executed by generals in the U.S. Civil War. The first was General Stonewall Jackson’s Shenandoah Campaign. The second, Grant’s victory at Vicksburg."

That simple statement made me seriously interested in learning more about this man. One of the first things I learned was that there were more books written about Napoleon than any other person in the 19th century. After a little research I purchased Chandler's 1200-page The Campaigns of Napoleon, the first hundred pages serving as an outstanding overview of his life, career, philosophy, achievements and more.

* * *

The Battle of Austerlitz—often called “The Battle of the Three Emperors”—was Napoleon’s greatest battlefield triumph. Fought near the town of Austerlitz in what is now the Czech Republic, it pitted Napoleon Bonaparte against the combined armies of Austria and Russia, led by Emperor Francis II and Tsar Alexander I.

Napoleon’s Objective

Napoleon’s central objective was not merely to defeat the Allied army, but to destroy it decisively enough to break the coalition against France and secure French dominance in Europe. He understood that France could not survive endless coalitions forming against her. He needed a victory so overwhelming that it would psychologically and politically shatter his enemies.

And that is precisely what happened. After Austerlitz, the Austrian Empire sued for peace, and the old Holy Roman Empire effectively collapsed soon afterward.

Napoleon’s Strategy

Understanding the map is not important
to getting the point.

Napoleon’s brilliance at Austerlitz lay in deception. He intentionally appeared weak. He thinned his right flank and even abandoned the strategically important Pratzen Heights—high ground in the center of the battlefield. To the Allies, this looked like hesitation or vulnerability. They believed Napoleon was retreating and vulnerable to encirclement.

But this appearance of weakness was bait. Napoleon predicted the Allies would overcommit against his deliberately weakened right side. Once they did, their own center on the Pratzen Heights became dangerously exposed. That was the trap.

At the decisive moment, Napoleon launched Marshal Soult’s corps directly into the weakened center, splitting the Allied army in two. Fog lifted as the French attacked, and the sudden appearance of disciplined French columns emerging into sunlight became legendary, later romanticized as “the Sun of Austerlitz.”

As I read this battle description, I was reminded of Napoleon's 1805 naval defeat at the hands of Britain's Admiral Horatio Nelson, whose bust Napoleon had on his desk out of respect for this master strategist. The Battle of Trafalgar took place only two months earlier so it must have been fresh in Napoleon's mind. You can read here the strategy Lord Nelson used to rout his opponents in Trafalgar, dissecting the combined French and Spanish navies to create mass confusion.

Once the center collapsed, the Allied flanks became isolated and disorganized. Thousands drowned retreating across frozen lakes and marshes, though later accounts may exaggerate the scale of this catastrophe.

Napoleon had achieved what military theorists call the destruction of enemy cohesion.

Famous Quotes Associated with Austerlitz

Napoleon was extraordinarily conscious of morale, symbolism, and memory. Before the battle, he reportedly told his troops: “Soldiers, I shall end this campaign with a thunderbolt.”

And after the victory: “One sharp blow and the war is over.”

Another famous line associated with his philosophy of war: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

That sentence almost perfectly summarizes Austerlitz. He allowed the Allies to execute the very maneuver he wanted them to attempt.

Another relevant Napoleon quote: “The moral is to the physical as three is to one.”

Napoleon understood that wars are fought not only with weapons and numbers, but with confidence, fear, perception, momentum, and belief.

Lessons for Today

Austerlitz still fascinates military strategists, business leaders, and political thinkers because its lessons extend far beyond warfare.

1. The Power of Controlled Weakness

Napoleon demonstrated that appearing weak can lure opponents into overconfidence. (Is this currently what has been happening in Iran?) Strategic patience and misdirection can be more effective than raw force. Modern parallels appear in diplomacy, politics, media, and business competition.

2. Concentration at the Decisive Point

Napoleon did not try to be strong everywhere. He identified the decisive moment and concentrated force precisely there. This principle still governs successful strategy today: Focus resources, identify leverage points and avoid dispersion.

3. Information and Perception Matter

Napoleon manipulated what the Allies believed about him. In many ways, Austerlitz was an information war before it became a shooting war. Modern conflicts—political and military alike—are often battles over narrative, confidence, morale, and interpretation.

4. Overconfidence Destroys Judgment

The Allies believed Napoleon was retreating because they wanted to believe it. Their assumptions blinded them. Austerlitz remains a warning about confirmation bias: leaders often see what flatters their expectations.

5. Leadership Under Pressure

Napoleon projected confidence even when circumstances were risky. His calmness transmitted itself to the army.

Whether in war, politics, or business, morale frequently flows downward from leadership.

The enduring fascination of Austerlitz is that it was not merely a victory of force, but a victory of psychology, timing, deception, and clarity of vision. Napoleon made his enemies participate in their own defeat.

Related Trivia

Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, known as the Eroica ("Heroic"), is a monumental 1804 work that redefined symphonic form, marking the transition from Classical to Romantic music. Originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, it is a revolutionary, large-scale composition characterized by its intense emotion, long duration, and dramatic use of dissonance

Related Link

Goethe on Napoleon
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2010/04/goethe-on-napoleon.html

Air Quality Keeps Getting Better, But Wind Turbines Do Have Drawbacks

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Sun, 10 May 2026 18:14:00 +0000

Remember how smelly diesel trucks used to be and how loudly their engines clattered? Remember those photos of the Pittsburg skyline with smokestacks belching black smoke from the steel mills and the dense black clouds that hovered over the hills of the city? Do you recall the firehouses on the Cuyahoga River that runs though Cleveland, firehouses built because the river was in the habit of catching fire four times a year?

These were a few of the memories that came to mind as I read yesterday's Energy Bad Boys' column titled Harvard Study Finds Wind Turbines Will Cause More Warming Than Emissions Reductions Would Avert. And the clever subhead: Hot air from the wind indusry.

The column begins, "A few weeks ago, we wrote about how Gallup polling found 66 percent of Americans think the environment is getting worse despite the fact that air quality in the United States has improved dramatically since the 1970’s. This improvement was due in large part to the Clean Air Act and its subsequent amendments, as a reader noted."

The authors argue that if the goal is to avoid harmful warming, why build something that causes immediate, noticeable local warming for people, animals, and plants living near the turbines today — especially when the climate benefit is small and far in the future?

They estimate the extra warming from all those turbines could cost the U.S. economy $72–75 billion per year in damages (based on earlier studies of warming costs).

Here's another consideration when discussing wind and solar. The size of their physical "footprint" compared to the energy they produce.

Click chart to enlarge

Bottom Line

Wind (and solar) are often hyped as planet-saving technologies, but they come with their own real, immediate temperature impacts. Instead of spending trillions on wind, the authors strongly suggest we should choose nuclear power instead, because it produces reliable electricity with almost no emissions and no local air-mixing warming effect.

I mention these things because our current Minnesota energy policies include a moratorium on nuclear (based on fear driven by misinformation) and a mandate to be "Net Zero" by 2040. [Fwiw, "Net Zero" in environmental law and policy refers to a state where the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted into the atmosphere by human activities is balanced by an equivalent amount removed from the atmosphere over a specified period.]

And however you slice it, wind and solar still have that major issue of intermittency so that it may not be there in the moments you need it most.

Groups align to lift Minnesota's nuclear energy ban

Is Our Energy Grid at Risk?

Wind farms pictured: Northern Iowa, Southern California, West Texas, San Gorgonia Pass

Bob Dylan's Hibbing Childhood Home: A Northland Landmark Preserved for Pilgrims and Fans

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Newman) — Sun, 10 May 2026 00:30:00 +0000

If you've ever made the pilgrimage to Hibbing, Minnesota, you already know the pull. This Iron Range town isn't just where Robert Zimmerman graduated high school in 1959 or played his first public concert at the Memorial Building—it's where the future Bob Dylan spent the heart of his boyhood after the family left Duluth. The Zimmerman home here isn't a museum with velvet ropes. It's a lived-in piece of history, now stewarded by one of the world's great Dylan collectors, Bill Pagel, and a stop that keeps drawing fans from around the globe.

Collector/Archivest Bill Pagel

The house sits on what fans now know as part of Bob Dylan Drive (or at least the area tied to that spirit). In artist Daniel Botkin's striking 2016 painting Busy Being Born, the Zimmerman home appears front and center in a rearranged Hibbing landscape. Botkin placed it in the lower center, with Milton Glaser's iconic Dylan poster visible in an upstairs bedroom window. To the left, just above the green "Hibbing" sign, is the synagogue the Zimmerman family attended. Behind it looms the Androy Hotel, site of Bob's bar mitzvah. Across the street once stood Zimmy's, the legendary Dylan-themed restaurant and unofficial museum (sadly closed now, but forever part of the lore). The painting captures the whole scene—mining operations in the distance, the Greyhound bus nod to Hibbing's bus-line origins, and even a playful "BobYear" blimp overhead. It's a prenatal portrait of baby Bobby wrapped in a prayer shawl, umbilical cord turning into a shofar, floating above the town that helped shape him. As Botkin explained, he rearranged streets and buildings in the spirit of Dylan's own line from "Desolation Row" about rearranging faces and names.

That home is where young Bob and his brother David grew up. It's the place he left behind when he set out on the road that led to Greenwich Village, Newport, and beyond. Today, both of Dylan's Minnesota childhood homes—the early duplex in Duluth at 519 N. 3rd Ave. East (where he spent his first six years) and the Hibbing house—are owned by Bill Pagel. Pagel, the archivist featured in The Dylanologists and owner of thousands of photos, posters, manuscripts, and even little Bobby's highchair, didn't just acquire them by accident. He once lived next door to the Hibbing house and "pounced" the moment it became available (at a reasonable price). He's been thoughtfully restoring both properties toward their original forms, filling rooms with period furniture based on vintage photos. As Jon Bream noted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune piece that highlighted Pagel's collection, these aren't just addresses—they're tangible links to Dylan's Minnesota roots.

The Hibbing home has hosted its share of modern celebrations, too. In 2021, for Dylan's 80th birthday, the Hibbing Project held a groundbreaking for a memorial in front of Hibbing High School. About 80 people gathered—one for each year of his life. Afterward, the festivities spilled down the street to the former Zimmerman home, now Pagel's. The city even painted a creative crosswalk out front. Nelson French (Duluth Armory board member at the time) orignally shared that his brother lived in the Hibbing house—another reminder that this is still a real home, not a frozen shrine.

Hibbing itself embraces the legacy in quiet but meaningful ways. The Hibbing Library put together an excellent Bob Dylan Walking Tour with 14 points of interest. Fans stop at the high school, the old theaters, and yes, the former Zimmerman home for photos. One Swedish visitor I escorted years ago lit up when we stood there—he'd seen Dylan multiple times back home and in Barcelona, but this was the real deal.

Despite the closure of Zimmy's and Howard Street Books, the community spirit endures. Local efforts like Dylan Days, temporary murals, and ongoing gatherings show the town hasn't forgotten its native son. As one fan commented after his own visit, "All the people were real friendly... you get a true feel of how Bob grew up."

In the end, the Hibbing home isn't just a building—it's part of the thread that runs through Dylan's songs about time, memory, roots, and rambling. Whether you're walking the library tour, or examining Pagel's collection of unique memorabilia, pondering French artist Claude Angele Boni's paintngs, or simply standing out front imagining a young Bob heading off to wherever the music called, it's a place that reminds us: he not busy being born is busy dying. Preserve the memories. They're all that's left you.

A classmates yearbook, signed by Bob
when they attended Hibbing High together.

What about you? Have you visited the Hibbing home or the Duluth porch? Drop a comment or photo below. And if you're planning a trip, check the Duluth Dylan Fest or Hibbing library resources—they keep the spirit alive every year.

And here's a message from the curator of all these memories himself sent to me: If you do a blog post, please include that I (Bill Pagel) am looking for early photographs of Bob taken both in Hibbing and Duluth and early handwritten writings and drawings done by Bob when he was living in here.

THE REASON all this is relevant today is because Jay Gabler of the Duluth News Tribune did a very nice story about Bill and the Hibbing this weekend, with lots of juicy details and photos. Here's the link, with some very memorable photos: A rare look inside Bob Dylan's Hibbing childhood home

REMINDER: DULUTH DYLAN FEST

will open with events in Hibbing, May 17.

Be sure to review the

FULL SCHEDULE FOR

DULUTH DYLAN FEST 2026

CLICK HERE

Noteworthy
Susan Beasy Latto, a classmate and friend of Bob's when growing up in Hibbing, passed away a few weeks ago. A close friend of many in our Duluth Dylan Fest circles as well as a Historic Duluth Armory supporter, where young Bobby saw Buddy Holly perform a few days before his tragic plane crash in an Iowa cornfield. Dylan’s mother Beatty Zimmerman was close friends with Susan’s mother Esther, and years later Beatty threw a bridal shower for Susan, who will be surely missed by many of us.
You can learn more about Susan here: https://www.doughertyfuneralduluth.com/obituaries/susan-latto

Meantime, life goes on all around you.

Don't take it for granted or let it go to waste.