History is not the story of the past; it is the study of the future. None of these children in 1950 EVER expected to be wearing masks like these a generation later!www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

Yeah, I know. “Photoshop.”  Actually, no. It is a double-exposure from 100 years ago. During the Spanish Flu influenza, 1918 to 1920.  That pandemic came in three waves. One in the Spring of 1918, a second wave in the Fall of 1918 and a third a year later. It killed about 650,000 Americans.  Three waves of a pandemic. Humm, where have I heard that before? History is not the story of the past; it is the study of the future. We get pandemics just about every 50 years.  50 years ago?  I’m glad you asked. It was the Hong Kong Flu, 1968, and it killed 100,000 Americans.  And with each pandemic the rules are the same: social distancing, testing, vaccine – and face masks. www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

This is not Photoshop; it’s a real home. It’s also a metaphor for the turmoil of today’s political, ethnic, legal, (fake, real, made up and conspiratorial) journalistic climate. When all is said and done, this era may appear to be ‘upside down,’ but, like this house, ‘we are still the same country and the same people.’ All ‘problems’ in America get resolved, usually with great sacrifice by a few for the many. Whine and complain all you want; we are the only country where you don’t have to be born to privilege to become rich.  Want proof?  Immigrants choose to come here instead of Mexico or Albania or Russia. Upside down or not, we are still the best possible place on earth for those not of privilege to ‘make it big.’ www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

The great power of art is to transcend its components. Anyone can splash paint on canvas or collect loose pieces of wire. But it is what the artist DOES with the paint and wire that changes the world.  Art is also a metaphor for life.  In these troubled times we are all loose wires. The components of the next age are available for us to reshape America. It is now up to the legal, political, elected artists to pull the disparate strands of our dissatisfaction into a cohesive actuality for the next year, decade, score and century. www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

It’s easy to say how BAD things are right now: COVID19, race riots, high unemployment, an unpopular president, overseas wars that never end.  This is just the cycle of history in America. Every 50 years, almost to the year, we have the same problems.  Don’t believe me?  50 years ago was 1968. We were in the middle of the Vietnam War, there were race riots in many major cities, unemployment was high, two of the leading political lights of the era were shot dead (Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy) and we had a very unpopular president. Then and now, “we have never been more divided.” What solved the problem of the era: a technological boom. Today we call it the ‘Rise of the Computer.’  History is not the story of the past; it is the study of the future. The historical lesson?  America does not have racial problems. America does not have labor problems. America does not have social problems. America has economic problems. There is not enough money ‘running around’ in the middle and working classes.  Until everyone is paid a live-able wage and every company and every corporation pays its fair share of taxes we will continue to have the same problems we have now, had 50 years ago, had 100 years ago, had 150 years ago. Don’t believe me?  Read your history. www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

In these days of the COVID19, people are looking back at the Spanish Influenza of a century ago and drawing real world parallels. Good! History is not the story of the past; it is the study of the future. This year is also the Centennial of the 19^th Amendment. Make sure you never forget what your grandmother – or great grandmother if you are a millennial – did for you 100 years ago this August. www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

The true value of education is keep you from making a fool of yourself . . . . and your proof reader and your boss and the copy editor and the printer . . . . . www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

The basic lesson of history NOT TAUGHT in schools today is events come in cycles.  Times of economic stress – like today – come with widespread protest that the lower and middle classes are not making enough money while the ‘rich’ and ‘large companies’ are draining the economy of its wealth. The only way to ‘level the playing field’ is for the rich to pay higher taxes so lower and middle class wages will come up. This is the cover of a radical labor paper in 1916. If this political cartoon appeared today – without the logo advocating violence – it would be as relevant today as a century ago. America does not have racial problems or social problems; it has economic problems. The faster we teach this reality in our classes, the less ‘social stress’ we will have.  www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

This is not photoshop. These are actual combat soldier during World War II and many of them do not look 20. The single most important function of a society is the education of the young.  Because ‘boys’’ this age are going to conquer the world and what they KNOW at the time of the conquering will be the course of the future. If they are not reading, their understanding of the world will be based on the last book they closed in the last class they took before they ran off to war.  www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

History is not the story of the past; it is the study of the future.  102 years ago America went through another pandemic. It was called the Spanish Flu and it killed 50 million people worldwide – 675,000 of them in the United States. And what did we do then?  To quote the CDC:

With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly.

Welcome to the past!  www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi