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This podcast grows by word of mouth, so forward away. Today, I share a conversation with Congressman Jim Himes. You can hear the full episode here.
One of the things I didn’t learn in school was how to categorize emotion. As my therapist wife said, “you name it, you tame it.” Naming it doesn’t mean the feeling disappears, but it does make the emotion easier to work with. As I watched a plane fly over New York City yesterday, I registered what I was feeling: fear.
On the one hand, Ukraine is far from where I write this. On the other hand, you don’t have to be a military strategist to realize that beyond the awful suffering we are witnessing, the risk of nuclear war has increased. We are animals, wired to sense danger.
Mentally ill people cross lines that are unthinkable for the sane. In 2006, when Putin murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, the agents used the radioactive element polonium. From that perspective, Putin has already used a tiny nuclear weapon. Litvinenko accused Putin of something so crazy that it was out of Tom Clancy novel—using the FSB (modern-day KGB) to blow up civilian apartment buildings in 1999, blame it on Chechens, spark mass fear and bring Putin to power. Now that Putin’s mask is completely off, Litvinenko’s claims no longer seems as outlandish.
Against this backdrop of extraordinary uncertainty, I was so appreciative of Congressman Jim Himes for sitting down with me to talk about Ukraine and public service. While Putin is scary, history is full of scary things we solve by staring at the facts, working together and responding appropriately, no matter how great the challenge. Covid, the invention of these miraculous vaccines and the effort at masking and testing is an example of just this sort of effort.
Jim is a father, husband, Rhodes-scholar and Goldman and Harvard alum. Over my career, I’ve spoken with a number of Rhodes-scholars and while they were all quite different, they also share one trait, which is the ability to process information very quickly. Jim does that. He ended our talk with a remarkable comment, one of the most thoughtful answers to the question I always ask, which is what he didn’t learn in school.
This is a scary moment. If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, that would be very dangerous. However, if Putin suddenly loses power, the ensuing power vacuum inside Russia will also be quite uncertain.
Earlier today, I watched a Red Square news conference with a Russian leader I once met, Gennady Zhuyganov, the head of Russia’s Communist Party. Yes, he is a dinosaur, but the bizarre conspiracy theories he offered were jarring and about as stark a contrast as you could get to Himes’ coherent logic. We will find our way through and sharing stories is part of the way we do that.
Happy Sunday.