Flashback 1984: "Everything is fine, everyone is happy"

   

Ronald Reagan at the College of DuPAge

     Barack Obama returns to Chicago Tuesday night to give his final speech as president of the United States. Through the combination of equal parts pushiness and blind luck that have been the twin pole stars of my career, I am scheduled not only to attend the speech, but to be a local representative in the White House press pool, accompanying the president during his five hour visit. I'm excited to be part of it, and apprehensive not to screw up.

     It will be the third time I've heard a president give a speech, live. The occasion previous to this was election night, 2o08, when indulging my then-13 year-old son, I attended the enormous rally in Grant Park. And the first time was in 1984, when Ronald Reagan campaigned for re-election at the College of DuPage and I, then opinion page editor of the Wheaton Daily Journal, went to hear what the Gipper had to say.

     This column is in several ways characteristic, in that it focuses on something that most people in the room wanted to ignore, and it ends just as the part most journalists would focus on—the speech itself—begins. You can consider that a flaw or an attribute but, avoiding the passing issues of the moment helps it, I believe, resonate today, where shouting down any whisper of protest was a highlight of every rally of our president-elect. There are a few cliches and clunky word choices but, in my defense, I was 24 years old when I wrote this.

     

     It was only a small sign. But it caught my eye. all the other signs and banners decking the gym for President Reagan's visit to the College of DuPage were blue and red. This one was green.

     It said, 'Bread not Bombs" and had a nuclear symbol in a circle crossed with a slash. It was taped to the wall, opposite from where Reagan would be speaking. I knew that a sign like that could not last long in this hall, and I settled down to watch it.

     I did not have to wait long. A few feet away, Liz Seeland—a Young Republican from Wheaton College—stood handing out American flags and hand-painted signs to the people streaming into the hall. She saw the sign and, with a bunch of flags in one hand, she stacked up cardboard boxes in front of the sign until no one could see it.

     "I didn't just do that," she said to a group of three boys who smiled at her as she blocked the sign.

    The three boys—Pete Kobs, Oliver Schmittenberg and Jeff Letus, all 16 years old and all from Glenbard West high School—kept their place in front of the sign.

    "It makes me mad," said Pete, referring to the sign. "If kids don't like Reagan, they shouldn't be here."

    "There's a difference between stating your views and being out of place," said Jeff.

     Suddenly a boy in a gray sweatshirt came over and pushed the boxes away.

     "We want to show Reagan our views," said Jim Interlandi, also from Glenbard West.

     "nothing is anti-Reagan in that message," he added, looking at the sign. "If those people have the right to say what they want, I have the right to say what I want."

     now the sign was visible again, hanging to the right and below another sign—twice as big—that said, "RON, AMERICA NEEDS YOU." It was the only sign in sight that had not been painted by the sponsors of the rally, the only one that added a note of dissent.

     It was too much, apparently, for the three schoolmates. They eyed the sign uncomfortably.

    "Gish, I wish I could rip that sign down, it makes me mad, said Pete, after Jim had left. But nobody moved toward it.

     A few minutes passed, then suddenly one person, glancing guiltily in all directions, ran up and tore the sign down, leaving it in a crumpled heap on the gym floor. His friends looked on in approval.

     A College of DuPage student named Jennifer ran up and tried to put the sign back up, but it wouldn't stay in place.

     "Everybody has a right to their opinion," she said, adding that she was in fact a Reagan supporter.

     Jim, who had struggled to keep the sign up, said he wasn't going to try to put it back up. "It would only get ripped down again," he said, grimly. "Maybe if I can find some more tape." He shrugged and went to look for his friends.

     From the back of the room, it was a scene of pure enthusiasm. The band played soaring, stirring marches. The green sign had disappeared—it wasn't even a lump of cloth amidst the confetti that covered the floor. An hour went by. Then, a few minutes before Reagan arrived, I noticed a tinge of green in the center of the crowd. It was the little green sign, held aloft in the midst of signs like "AMERICA NEEDS REAGAN" and "WMEN FOR REAGAN." Holding my press credentials up in front of my face, I worked my way into the center of the crowd.'

     Lisa Cargill, 18, was one of perhaps a dozen protestors, gathered in front of the press bleachers. They raised their hands in peace symbols and held tiny signs with slogans like "No Nukes" and "I don't love Reagan." Lisa held up one corner of the little green sign.

     "We are going to try to be seen and try to be heard," she said, shouting above the music. "People are taking our signs down, kicking us, hitting us with sticks."

     Indeed, the people around them were not happy. "Get a job!" someone shouted. "Get a real life!" another shouted. 

     I moved away from the group, to the back of the room. The chants were louder now. "Four more years," and "We want Reagan." I wanted to see if Reagan would see the sign abover the crowd. The roar was deafening, as the high school marching band finished playing "Maniac" and went into "Hail to the Chief." The green sign fluttered briefly, but then disappeared below the waving flags and placards. Perhaps somebody pulled it down, perhaps those holding it up got tired.

    When Reagan finally took the podium and looked out over the thousands of people, not a hint of dissent was in view. He smiled at the smiling faces, waving flags, and blue and red signs. No doubt, as he started to speak, he was thinking about how everyone is happy, and how everything is fine." 

     

     

There was something big behind the iPhone, and it wasn't just Apple

     Alexander Graham Bell was not trying to invent the telephone when he did just that. What he was trying to do, at first, was make a better telegraph. It was the 1870s, and the telegraph was 30 years old — about as old as cellphones are now. Like cellphones, the telegraph had become enormously popular, so popular that messages backed up at telegraph offices, waiting to be sent. The problem had to be solved; there was no point in telegraphing a message from Washington to Baltimore if it took three days for operators to get around to tapping out your message. You could walk it there in two.
     Bell was working on sending many messages simultaneously through the same line in the form of different tones, then stumbled onto the idea that these tones could be a voice, a reminder of the often accidental nature of technological advancement.
     So it is fitting that when Apple  founder and

chief executive Steve Jobs began to develop the iPhone, which he unveiled on Jan. 9, 2007 — 10 years ago Monday — what he was trying to do was safeguard the iPod, his wildly popular music player responsible for nearly half of Apple's revenue. Jobs saw how cellphones decimated the digital camera industry, and worried his competitors would include music too. Then Apple might become Kodak: just another once-hot tech company.
     Jan. 9, 2007, was also the day Apple dropped the word "Computer" from its corporate name, because it was going to be more than a computer company. You can't sail across the ocean without leaving the shore.
     When Jobs announced the iPhone, at the company's MacWorld convention in San Francisco, he telegraphed his priorities by the order he listed them....

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Too bad we're not as clever as our tools

    Life isn't fiction, but sometimes it'll arrange itself thematically, or seem to.
     For instance, on Christmas Eve, we met some old friends who lived in the city, took in a movie, then headed to their place to scarf Chinese chow. Their son, to my surprise, opened the front door by pulling out his cell phone and tapping a few buttons. I'm not sure how that's an advantage over a key, but it is different. 
     Golly, I thought, or words to that effect.
     Technology seems the same for a while, then it changes. Not so long ago I'd plot out where I'm going on Google Map before I left. Now there's no point, I can just plug the address into my phone—it takes a few seconds—and, should I need directions, it'll tell me where to go. 
     The other day, I was picked up in a new Audi A4, a sleek piece of German engineering. I was intrigued to notice that the cabin temperature registered on the climate control knobs. I admired the economy of that—the knob surface was just wasted space before; why not put some data on it? Countless engineers gazed at those fat blank buttons, until one day, one engineer thought, You know....
     The display reminded me of bathroom sinks that so charmed me in the tiny bathrooms of Japan—built into the back of the toilet tank, they not only saved room, but the water you used to wash your hands helped fill the tank. Amazing.
    The New Technology Chapter came to a close, for my purposes, Saturday, when I heard a report on the radio about the Consumer Electronics Show, now going on in Las Vegas. LG unveiled its OLED "wallpaper TV" which is only 1/10 of an inch thick. That's really thin. 
     Which leads to the obvious closing question: why can't people be as clever as the technology we create? It might have been stronger to end on that note, but let's make it an actual rather than a rhetorical question. Why? Maybe because a gizmo, no matter how wondrous, is a lot simpler to put together than a society. Maybe because a society is comprised by the whole jumbled bell curve of people, some of whom are staggeringly dumb. Maybe something else. Maybe the gizmos should reflect a bit of wonder back on our staggering society because, without our current culture, flawed though it is, there would be no cool technology to feel good about.

Wow indeed. Trump's tweets truly terrifying

     One of the most significant of the many wonders about our president-elect is the genius Donald Trump has for instilling sincere amazement into the discovery, or I suppose "re-discovery," of what we already know.
     By Friday I, along with half the county, had spent 19 months taking an intensive cram course in just how brittle, vindictive, mean, petty, and small focus Donald Trump can truly be. We knew. 
     At least we thought we knew. 
     And yet. 
     Here, maybe you missed them. First this:

     
     Followed by:

    In case you haven't heard, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the one-time box office action hero and former governor of California, is the host of "The New Celebrity Apprentice," the post-Trump reboot of the reality TV show that The Donald stared in for 14 years, before being elected president of the United States.
     Schwarzenegger's "Apprentice" turn was panned by the critics, and if Trump is to be believed—did I just write that?—also in the ratings.
      Let's ponder these tweets a moment, shall we? The strange use of quotations around "swamped,"--an odd usage when referring to getting killed in the ratings, assuming that happened (checking ... in the real world ... yes, "opens weak" according to Variety) then the helpful parenthetical, "(or destroyed)", to shed light for those confused. 
    Then a reference to the "ratings machine, DJT" -- that would be him, Donald J. Trump, referring to himself in the third person. Quite regal, or pathological, of him. Would you call yourself by your initials? I wouldn't do that on a bath towel.
     Ending with the truly strange "But who cares"-- you, obviously, Donald, since you're tweeting it to your 18.9 million followers—and the dismissive "he supported Kasich & Hillary," which explains the whole score settling motivation (Variety doesn't mention Hillary or Kasich, but suggests that opening against "The Bachelor" might have been a factor). 
    But that isn't the incredible part, at least not to me. The incredible part, again to me, is this: he's being inaugurated president in two weeks. He sent these Jan. 6. He stands in a morning coat with his hand on a Bible in 14 days, on Jan. 20.
     A few thoughts:
     A) You would think the man had better things to do, more pressing matters to occupy himself with.
     B) He's executive producer of the show. He's attacking the star of his own show. Which, again, should not be surprising. There was an odd resonance with his attacking the intelligence community for revealing how his buddy Putin skewed the election in Trump's favor. He'll undermine his own business interests if ego is involved, he'll blind our nation's eyes and ears rather than acknowledge he was Moscow's puppet of choice.
     C) I've never been elected president and never will. But you think it would make you a little satisfied. A little safe. A bit above the fray. That it would float you beyond the schoolyard payback of Trump's tweet. That it would make you happy.
    No. Trump is impervious to experience. The wound never heals, the thirst is never slaked. Whenever I write about Trump, I hear from haters who support him claiming that I "hate" Donald Trump. Not true. How could you hate someone so pitiful? So broken? He's King Midas, breaking his teeth on gold food, starving amidst the riches he craves. Nothing is enough.
     I've seen a number of Facebook postings asking why the media doesn't just ignore such tweets. And I can see the logic -- why even bring up something so trivial? And the answer is, because the guy who is rolling in this triviality is going to be leader of the free world in 168 hours. Because his doing so speaks to how completely fucked the country is. 
    Which brings us full circle to my observation at the beginning, that Trump can make the familiar seem fresh. You've barely processed this hour's shock when the next comes whistling overhead, exploding like a shell. People are worrying about "normalizing" this? We can barely perceive it, barely register what he's done before he's off to the next folly.
     Yes, hope is necessary -- I sincerely hope that Trump proves so fraudulent, erratic and deceptive that little of what he actually claimed he will do will get done. But don't confuse hope with expectation. To look at that pair of tweets is to feel true despair, to see the image of the freight train bearing down on us, forming in the dark, light growing larger fast, horn blasting. 

Are you shunning Trump to hurt him or help you?

     The Amish withdraw from the wicked world, but the wicked world goes on without them.

     Just as well, since the Amish don't reject cell phones and SUVs because they want to undercut modern life, but for their own benefit.

     That question — am I withdrawing to help myself or hurt someone else? — is worth bearing in mind as Donald J. Trump is inaugurated president two weeks from today, and we judge who participates and decide how much we will own the country shaping up before our startled eyes.

     A tough call. It was almost shocking when Barack Obama welcomed Trump into the Oval Office immediately after he squeaked out a victory with the help of neo-Nazis, the FBI and Vladimir Putin. But a victory nonetheless, and as pained as Obama's expression was, treating Trump with dignity seemed smart. It preserved a tendril of influence, and Trump could at least glimpse what class looks like.

     On the other hand, you had to feel good when stars turned down offers to entertain at the inauguration. Nobody who loves Bruce Springsteen would want to see him crooning "Born in the U.S.A." for Donald Trump. Yet Hillary Clinton will be there. Bad for her, good for the country.

     There will be big protests. I'm glad Trump might see the majority who voted for someone else. Though I also sense that many protestors are the same folks who backed Gary Johnson because they believe all politicians are the same. Had they cared less about their own moral purity and more about the country's fate, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.

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How many calories was that forbidden fruit?

     Not to put you on the spot or anything.
     But do you remember why God banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden?
     Yes, Eve gave Adam a bite of the forbidden fruit—we're not sure what that fruit was, maybe a pomegranate, maybe a fig, maybe an apple.
     But where was that fruit from? 
     Right, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (There is a theory that medieval artists settled on an apple for the forbidden fruit because evil in Latin is "malus" and apple tree in Latin is, well, also "malus.") 
     As to why God didn't want people to have knowledge, well, that's religion for you. Some things never change.
      Although, the first thing, the very first thing that eating from the tree causes Adam to do is to be ashamed of being naked, so he fashions clothing for himself, which spills the beans to the Lord about what he's been up to. Small wonder our society is so massively screwed up.
     But I digress.
     The focus on health being what it is, many restaurants, such as the Au Bon Pain Bakery pictured above, have taken to posting the calories of the items they offer. Helpful to those watching their weight, which is just about everybody nowadays. 
     Though it led me to a puzzlement. The pecan rolls above are 740 calories, about a third of the entire daily caloric intake an average-sized man, such as myself, should eat. Who, I wonder, would ever order and consume a pecan roll, knowing they're ingesting 740 calories worth of butter and glaze and pecans? I sure couldn't. 
     Then again, the world is not me. Notice that most of the pecan rolls are gone. If posting the calories of the things killed sales, then businesses wouldn't do it. 
     A few theories:
    1) People don't notice. The numeral is, you will note, in a different, thinner, lighter font.
    2) People don't care. Some blessed portion of the population is thin, no matter what they eat. 
    3) They do portion control. You could of course buy the roll, eat half, and save the other half for a treat the next day. Or if it constitute your entire breakfast write the thing off as a spree.
     The human mind has an infinite capacity for tuning out information that contradicts its desires—obviously, since we elected Donald Trump—and what is a tiny clutch of numbers compared to the deep satisfaction of snarfing up a pecan roll? Although some people do perceive information and act on it. Fifty years ago about half of Americans smoked. Then decades of information campaigns had their effect, and now the number is less than a quarter. Which is both heartening and depressing, in equal measures, both true progress and, well, that lingering 20 percent who'll happily buy a burst of cheap contentment now for the risk of painful, prolonged expensive death later. That's people for you.

If Trump won't lead, there's always Pope Francis

  

     If you visit the University of Notre Dame, located near but not actually in South Bend, Indiana, as I did a few years ago, scouting colleges with my boys, you might be surprised, as I was, by the Jordan Hall of Science.   

     Though opened in the relative yesterday of 2006, Jordan Hall is a gorgeous brick edifice with crenelated ramparts, Gothic tracery windows and arched doorways festooned with carved stone statues. Not statues of Catholic religious saints either, but the Catholic saints of science: Louis Pasteur, Madame Curie, and, I noted with amusement, Galileo.
     Galileo Galilei, you may recall, ran afoul of the church by claiming the Earth revolves around the sun; heresy because it implied that little old us are not the center of the universe, the hub of God's creation.     

      The church has come around since then, and admitted the Earth does indeed revolve around the sun whether the pope says it does or not, just as — and you saw this coming, didn't you? — the Earth's climate is heating up because of the carbon emissions humanity has been spewing into the atmosphere for the past 200 years whether Republicans acknowledge it or not.
     Most of the world accepts this, but the GOP — in the lazy denialism that also elects a Donald Trump to the presidency — are loath to recognize this ...

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