This posting is a copy of an email sent to Blair Kamin, in response to his Chicago Tribune article, Soldier Field Gets What It Deserves, on the loss of national landmark status for Soldier Field, published on April 24, 2006:
Bravo. How impotent we feel when those in power make decisions so patently bad, but yet with such blind, delusional conviction. The impotence in the face of stupidity is eerily the same here as in that other national case of “soldiers’ disfigurement”–the Iraq War. But I can celebrate your critique and applaud your thinking in a way I cannot congratulate the many and eloquent critics of the Iraq War. The hurt there goes too deep for indulgence in camaraderie and rhetorical pleasures. The devastating loss, of individual lives, of national honor, of credibility and leadership in the world—how can we bear even to look on, much less make reasoned arguments against it? Painful and grotesque as the landmark’s abuse was, we—you—are not muted from the possibility of pointed critique and verbal repartee. Here where the stakes are but a mere building on a list—however important the list, and however disastrous the loss—we can stop, chat, and learn a little better thinking, in hopes it might help elsewhere. A great service—thanks.