POSTPONED: BUS-eum Tour

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Kristine Zylstra-Tabke

The interior of the BUS-eum.

media release: In an ironic twist of historic fate, an expert on the 1918 global pandemic now cannot commence a long-planned speaking and exhibit tour about that or other related topics because of 2020’s viral curse.

When Dr. Michael Luick-Thrams attempted to fly Friday from Germany—where he lives and teaches—to his native Midwest, he discovered at Frankfurt Flughafen that he had a fever, so could not board a plane. Now, a 2.5-month speaking tour across America’s Heartland will have to be scuttled, having already been shrunken from its planned eight-month duration—a schedule shredded by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Local programs were to be held from August 14 to September 5 at venues across Wisconsin [details at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12Nx2RTH7nBAeJTmvAebd8sZSxJY8VfJWMwYGLrsZGP8/edit#gid=732160635 ], when the Iowa-based TRACES Center for History and Culture that Luick-Thrams directs was to show its “BUS-eum,” sponsored by Dane Arts and ArtsWisconsin.

Luick-Thrams and the TRACES team already are working to rescue what they can from the crashed tour: All of the BUS-eum’s theme-related, TRACES-produced narrated videos are now available via YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXietD-X0Q-LXgAcZ7eehA/videos ; all exhibit texts and leading illustrations, with related titles, can be downloaded by entering “Michael Luick-Thrams” at Amazon. Additional topical information and documents have been posted on TRACES website, www.TRACES.org.

America Under Attack: Corona’s Predecessor 

About TRACES’ new BUS-eum tour: TRACES’ new BUS-eum tour will traverse the American Heartland until the November 2020 election. Our schedule and related details are under “Events” at: www.TRACES.org

Corona has arrived: What’s happening?

As this coronavirus is new, it seems to be in a class of its own, yet it is not unique: The global flu pandemic of 1918 provides a rich source from which to draw lessons and warnings, and advise us of what various governments and individuals did a century ago that worked well and what did not. So informed, we can more effectively respond to what might seem like an exceptional, all-encompassing crisis, yet avoid reacting in unproductive or even counterproductive ways. In this way, one pandemic addresses another:

·       Then, the U.S. government/ Army had goals opposite to the medical community, including many Army doctors.

·       Contradictory messages encouraged large gatherings for national purposes, yet frowned on local smaller gatherings.

·       “Fake news” gave the pandemic its name, the “Spanish Flu” rather than the “Kansas Flu”, where it originated.

·       A lack of transparency and outright honesty delayed supportive responses by communities, medical personnel, and governmental bodies.

·       An epidemic at Fort Riley in the fall of 1918 was spread by deploying U.S. soldiers to the European front. By 1919, the epidemic turned pandemic, and returned stateside in a mutated form brought by soldiers, where it raged for weeks, even months—only to return in later waves of abating voracity.

·       Many children’s health was not affected, yet school officials debated whether removing children from schools would increase or decrease the flu’s spread.

These takeaways offer urgent lessons for us to apply to our current emergency. Executive Director of TRACES Center for History and Culture Dr Michael Luick-Thrams and staff created a two-part video series, “The Killer: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19;” links to both videos are on TRACES YouTube site.