When tragedy becomes ordinary

Also: Justice Thomas' workaround, in plain sight [Donate ❤️]( [View in Browser](  October 29, 2023 Dear Cog reader, In a stunning mea culpa Thursday night, U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, of Maine, apologized to his constituents. Golden is a Democrat from Lewiston, where a man armed with an assault rifle killed at least 18 people and injured 13 others on Wednesday evening. It was Golden’s determination to protect his family from "this dangerous world that we live in" that prevented him from supporting an assault weapon ban in the past, he said. He had too much confidence in his community, he explained. He thought “we could be in full control.” But as has been all too painfully clear in the headlines of the last few weeks, none of us are in full control. Of anything. We’re not in control in Israel or Gaza. Not in Acapulco or Lewiston, Maine. And yet, we have to carry on. Cog senior editor Cloe Axelson wrote about this conundrum — [the idea of the unfathomable and the ordinary coexisting]( — for us this week. “I don’t worry much about my kids, or my family, or things that are outside of my control. I’m not in the habit of imagining mass death,” she explained, “but I also can’t pretend it's not happening. Not when tragedy is so ordinary.” No one understands that better than Gina Pelusi, whose mother was killed by a stranger with a gun when she answered her door on a Thursday morning in February 2014. Gina learned about this week’s mass shooting as she put her little boy to bed. “The image of this man holding up a high-powered gun — as if he were hunting people — is something I will have a hard time shaking,” [she wrote]( That’s the power of fear. It lingers in our peripheral vision, haunting us. But as I sit here, struggling to organize my thoughts, I keep returning to [a piece Amy Julia Becker wrote for us]( about an entirely different kind of fear — the fear she felt when her first child was born with Down syndrome. She felt disoriented and alone. Because fear shaped her imagination, she writes, “I couldn’t envision a good future for her or for us as a family.” Then over time, love began to reshape her imagination. “I thought we would swim through fear forever,” she writes, “but instead we were called to walk on solid ground.” When the unfathomable happens, we all look for the solid ground. We try to focus on what we can control. For Rep. Golden, that’s asking for forgiveness from his constituents and action from Congress. For Gina, that means honoring her mother by fighting for gun control. For Cloe, it’s focusing on the small things. “We drink water and brush hair and carve pumpkins. Fold piles of laundry and decide what’s for dinner. We write, and work. Try to be grateful for the mundane things we get to do, because we are lucky to be alive to do them.” I hope you find some solid ground this weekend. Thanks for reading, Kate P.S. For an upcoming project, Cog is asking readers and listeners to tell us when Boston first felt like home. Where were you? What were you doing? Please [share your memories with us](. Kate Neale Cooper Editor, Cognoscenti [Follow]( Support the news   Must Reads [We must do more than believe these tragedies are inevitable]( On a Thursday morning in February 2014, gun safety advocate Gina Pelusi's mother was shot dead after she answered a knock at her door. I wish we didn’t have to share and relive the most horrible moments of our lives in an attempt to persuade people to wake up and do something, she writes. [Read more.]( [We must do more than believe these tragedies are inevitable]( On a Thursday morning in February 2014, gun safety advocate Gina Pelusi's mother was shot dead after she answered a knock at her door. I wish we didn’t have to share and relive the most horrible moments of our lives in an attempt to persuade people to wake up and do something, she writes. [Read more.]( [The ordinary and the unfathomable, all at once]( I am not an anxious person by nature, writes Cloe Axelson. I don’t worry much about things that are outside of my control. I’m not in the habit of imagining mass death, but I also can’t pretend it's not happening. Not when tragedy is so ordinary. [Read more.]( [The ordinary and the unfathomable, all at once]( I am not an anxious person by nature, writes Cloe Axelson. I don’t worry much about things that are outside of my control. I’m not in the habit of imagining mass death, but I also can’t pretend it's not happening. Not when tragedy is so ordinary. [Read more.]( [The future I imagine for my daughter]( Amy Julia Becker was disoriented when her daughter was born with Down syndrome. She couldn’t imagine how things would ever work out. And she felt grief for the baby she thought she'd have, a hypothetical child who had never in fact existed. But slowly love overpowered her fear, and began to reshape her imagination. [Read more.]( [The future I imagine for my daughter]( Amy Julia Becker was disoriented when her daughter was born with Down syndrome. She couldn’t imagine how things would ever work out. And she felt grief for the baby she thought she'd have, a hypothetical child who had never in fact existed. But slowly love overpowered her fear, and began to reshape her imagination. [Read more.]( [A 1989 statute prevents Supreme Court justices from accepting honoraria. Justice Thomas found a workaround]( Judges have been prohibited from receiving honoraria or any other gifts since the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. The statutory ban covered all judges, members of the Supreme Court and district judges, like me, writes retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner. So what happened with Justice Clarence Thomas? [Read more.]( [A 1989 statute prevents Supreme Court justices from accepting honoraria. Justice Thomas found a workaround]( Judges have been prohibited from receiving honoraria or any other gifts since the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. The statutory ban covered all judges, members of the Supreme Court and district judges, like me, writes retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner. So what happened with Justice Clarence Thomas? [Read more.]( [More funding for Boston's police intelligence center is a mistake]( The BRIC (Boston Regional Intelligence Center) and others like it have long produced significantly flawed analysis, writes attorney Sarah Sherman-Stokes. The Boston City Council approved $3.4 million in additional funding to the BRIC -- at the expense of our privacy, and our civil rights. [Read more.]( [More funding for Boston's police intelligence center is a mistake]( The BRIC (Boston Regional Intelligence Center) and others like it have long produced significantly flawed analysis, writes attorney Sarah Sherman-Stokes. The Boston City Council approved $3.4 million in additional funding to the BRIC -- at the expense of our privacy, and our civil rights. [Read more.]( What We're Reading "Today, a 15-year-old child in Palestine or Israel has already lived through six major rounds of conflict and countless other violent incidents. She may have lost loved ones or friends. ... And she may have lived most of her young life in a near-constant state of stress and fear. Even if she came through it all without a scratch, she will never be a child again." "[The Cost of War Will Be Counted in Children’s Lives]( The Atlantic. "One gardens with the same unblinded hope and the same willingness to concede as one lives, always ready to say, If not now, later; if not this year, next year. "[What Gardening Offered After a Son's Death]( The New Yorker. "On August 17, Speer learned that his execution date had been set. He was transferred out of his unit to a different part of the prison. As he walked out, he heard voices calling out that they loved him." "[Will Speer Found Hope Enough to Share on Texas’s Death Row]( Texas Monthly. "Amtrak was good enough for me and every other judge I invited to my Yale Law School class." — Nancy Gertner, "[A 1989 statute prevents Supreme Court justices from accepting honoraria. Justice Thomas found a workaround]( ICYMI If you’d like to write for Cognoscenti, send your submission, pasted into your email and not as an attachment, to opinion@wbur.org. Please tell us in one line what the piece is about, and please tell us in one line who you are. 😎 Forward to a friend. 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