July 4 is drawing to a close and a severe thunderstorm has rolled in. The dog is a little concerned and is curled up in my office as I begin typing this post.
It’s a rather fitting image of the state of our country. Not 20 minutes away from my house a man has shot over 20 people today, killing some, during an Independence Day parade. The silent shock and following gloom was palpable all day in the North Shore region.
In a grim twist of irony, the killer’s father recently liked a social media post about protecting our 2nd Amendment rights “like your life depends on it”.
I’m imagining that this storm is finally washing away the remaining blood on the pavements in Highland Park. The street in my neighborhood looks like a river and my wife mentions that this kind of storm feels “cleansing”.
My mind immediately returns to another cleansing storm in August 2020. A Chicago man posted deliberately false information to incite a riot and succeeded. My neighborhood became a war zone overnight. Thankfully in this case there was no loss of life.
My wife and I woke up to businesses and the bank on our block being destroyed for no other reason than a pretense.
The following afternoon, a derecho pounded its way through Chicago, cleansing the dirty streets and sending the remaining rioters running for shelter.
