How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

     The media has so much going wrong at the moment — bowing before a despot, decimated staffs, meddling owners — that it seems almost unfair to mention traditional flaws.

      But when it comes to certain aspects of American psychology — UFOs, the lottery, and the supposedly paranormal — the media collapses into a heap and just can't seem to get up. 

      There is no persuasive evidence that UFOs are anything but lies, delusions, fakes, or misinterpretations. Yet supposed sightings are still routinely ballyhooed. The lottery is an expensive dream — you can fantasize about winning millions without ponying up any cash, and the odds of actually getting them are exactly the same — and yet the media cheerleads relentlessly for them in a full-throated chorus.

     And the paranormal....well look at the headline above, snipped from the electronic Washington Post.

    That first part is pure credulousness. It should read, "These patients THINK they saw what comes after death." And the next part, "Should we believe them?" makes it seem that this wild claim is is simple plain truth, just sitting there, waiting for us to accept it.

    The story, by Mark Johnson, refers to near death experiences reported by thousands, the "strange visions and journeys that challenge what we know of science." 

     They don't. I dream every night, and the Washington Post doesn't speculate on an actual dreamworld where Madonna and I are walking hand and hand through her Manhattan apartment, admiring the antiques. The Washington Post would never — not yet anyway, let us count our blessings — run a headline, "God spoke directly to these people — should we believe them." 

    The question here is not, "Is there an afterlife and is this evidence of it?" but "Why do people so need to believe their precious selves continue on after obvious and undeniable physical death?" (Just as the question regarding UFOs, as I've written previously, is not, "Are these smudges glimpsed in the sky really visitors from outer space?" but, as Carl Jung pointed out, "Why do people look up in the sky to find validation?")

    There is a journalistic edge that is different than the usual go-along-to-get-along attitude. A cross-armed skepticism that does not give into the normal nodding grease of social nicety. If you write to me and say that your Timmy is in heaven with Jesus, I would never dream of arguing with you. Who am I to strip away this clear source of comfort? But if the Sun-Times ran the story of a the tragic go-kart death of a 10-year-old with, "Boy skips helmet, winds up in heaven with God," I would complain to the editor. We don't, can't know that. I complained when the Sun-Times started calling ourselves, "The hardest working paper in America." How do we know? Did we do a survey? Sure, it can slide by on mere puffery. It's like "The world's best coffee." But why put a lie — or at best, an exaggeration — on every page of our newspaper? Nobody listened, of course. But I still said it, and as I sometimes tell readers, "I just work there. I don't run the place."

     You might point out that the desire for immortality and unchecked ego go hand in hand — that's why rich people are always trying to freeze their heads and embrace all sorts of nutritional hoo-hah — which also gets credulously lapped up by the media. Isn't one life enough? Such a rare and exquisite gift, What does it say about humans that we waste the precious time we have clawing after time we don't? I'd like to see the Washington Post tackle that one. Oh right, they can't, not so long as they're owned by another self-adoring billionaire, who reminds us of Gore Vidal's deathless line about the very rich: "They don't have to conspire because they all think alike."

The dawn after his night

      So Jesse Jackson was buried Saturday, and more than two weeks have passed since the great civil rights leader left us. 
      Time for a word from our sponsor. 
      Yes, the paper has already flooded the zone on the subject — was it a lot for some readers? No doubt. But the Sun-Times is the voice of Chicago, and Jackson was the city's major figure over the past half century; and if you disagree with that, name another. Which is a version of the question I use to drive home his significance: who is his replacement? The immediate, obvious answer: nobody.

     Doubly ironic with the current war against DEI. Now, that we need someone like Jesse Jackson more than ever, we lose the only one we ever had.
    In our newspaper meeting before Friday's big ceremony, my first question was one of tone — we'd be live blogging, I said. What if Biden falls asleep? We need to note that. I was worried about my potential for injecting snarkiness into the proceedings. Cracking wise at a funeral.

     Though as it turned out, I never felt particularly snarky. I was moved. By the music. the stirring words, particularly Obama's. So much so I stopped taking notes. The enthusiasm of the participants. 

      Though snarkiness came in the fifth hour, when the fourth president to take the podium, the president of Colombia, was talking about his nation's biodiversity. I had no idea why he was there and, taking my cue to leave ahead of the crowd, realized that politics had pushed family aside — most of his kids had yet to speak — and not for the first time.
     Not that I said that, yesterday. I've gotten quite good at blunting my edge. One doesn't last 38 years — this month — on staff at a newspaper without the ability to read the room. This was supposed to be about Jackson. Not me.
     So in his obituary, I went light on certain trademark Jackson qualities that perhaps should have received more play. For instance? An exasperating aspect that David Axelrod captures beautifully in his excellent memoir, "Believer: My Forty Years in Politics." He was a key adviser to Harold Washington, and recounted the night Washington won re-election as mayor of Chicago in 1987:

     "That night, at a boisterous post-election reception, we were confronted by a logistical problem. Two inveterate camera hogs, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and boxing impresario Don King, were on hand and would almost certainly try to flank Washington at the lectern for the 'hero' shot in the morning papers. It wasn't the photo we wanted, as Harold worked to bring a diverse city together. So we decided to flood the stage with a multiracial crowd of supporters, who would provide the backdrop for Harold's acceptance speech. To ensure that Jackson and King were not in the picture, we would provide catnip by asking them to do out-of-town media interviews that would keep them busy almost right up to the moment Washington took to the stage.
     "It seemed like a good plan, but we underestimated the skills Jackson and King had in navigating their way to the limelight. Though the reverend and the impresario reached the stage after the backdrop crowd was in place, each worked his way to the lectern form opposite sides, like knives through butter. By the time Washington began speaking, they were, just as we feared, flanking him, nearly jostling the mayor's fiancee out of the way. When Washington finished his remarks, Reverend Jackson, who was planning a second race for president in 1988, grabbed the mayor's left arm to hoist it in the familiar victory salute. Yet Harold was a strong man, and his arm didn't budge, He kept it plastered to the lectern while he waved to the crowd with his other hand.
     "'I'll be damned if I was going to let that SOB lift my arm up,' Harold whispered as he left the stage. 'This isn't his night.'"

     That struggle is too perfect not to include in all this verbiage about the man. Although it really only underlines my belief that our good qualities and our flaws are often the same thing. Without superhuman drive and bottomless ambition, Jesse Jackson never shoots from divinity school to Martin Luther King's side in an eye blink. They're all of a piece. 

     This has been Jackson's night — his fortnight, actually. Jackson certainly deserved it. Watching tears stream down Jackson's cheeks during Obama's victory rally at Grant Park in 2008, Axelrod summed up the man in one sentence better than I did in 100.
     "He could be a shameless hustler and relentless self-promoter, but the reverend also was a trailblazer who had devoted his life to civil rights."   
     A giant, departing during a time of dwarves. Jackson had his failings. We all do, and there won't be 50 people at my funeral. But every time I point out one of Jackson's flaws, I remember that nowadays we have leaders who are all flaws. 
     

Three presidents, and thousands of everyday people, celebrate the life and legacy of Jesse Jackson

      This was an assignment. I don't get asked to cover much spot news. But my obituary of Jesse Jackson racked up millions of views, and the paper wanted me to bring my perspective to Jesse Jackson's Chicago homegoing. The natural focus seemed to be the three presidents in attendance (actually there were four — the president of Colombia, for some reason never explained, spoke, in Spanish, late in the program) and I think that worked, though there was a lot more going on, a joyful multitude — I think my favorite speaker was Detroit Piston Isaiah Thomas, who wept as he described Jackson speaking at his mother's funeral. The music also was wonderful, lots of soaring gospel, and while I'd heard each of the presidents speak in person before, it was inspiring to hear them again, particularly Barack Obama. Before the ceremony, I had a chance to talk with Father Michael Pfleger a bit, and promised to stop by his church some Sunday, and with my old pal, Sen. Dick Durbin. I was pleased at grouping the Daley's for a portrait, and talked with Rich for the first time in a decade. 

     In life, the Rev. Jesse Jackson sought out the powerful with tireless intensity.
     In death, the powerful sought him out, one last time, as three former U.S. presidents and a galaxy of lesser luminaries paid boisterous tribute to the civil rights leader Friday on the South Side. of Chicago.
     Former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Jill Biden were joined by thousands of celebrants in a five-hour "public homegoing" service at the House of Hope, 752 E. 114th, a 10,000-seat facility in the Pullman neighborhood.
     Obama brought up the country's divisive climate under the Trump administration and praised Jackson's voice of inspiration calling on Americans to become "heralds of change." Many speakers spoke to this being a moment for the country not to despair, but to have faith and take action, as Jackson would have done.
     Each day, Obama said, brings “some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law, an offense to common needs.

     "Each day we’re told … to fear each other, to turn on each other and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all. ... Everywhere, we see greed and bigotry being celebrated, and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength," he said.

     Obama said it’s “tempting for some to compromise with power” or for Americans to simply put their heads down.

     “But this man,” Obama said, pointing to Jackson’s casket, “Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson, inspires us to take a harder path. His voice called on each of us to be heralds of change, to be messengers of hope, to step forward and say, 'Send me wherever we have a chance to make an impact, whether it’s in our schools, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, our cities, not for faith, not for glory or because success is guaranteed, but because it gives our life purpose.'"

For Obama, that inspiration came from Jackson's 1984 presidential run. He described being a college student and sitting in a "janky apartment" in New York as he watched Jackson debate his opponents on TV.

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Dante guides us through hell, and today's politics

     Unlike you, I've watched a movie with Roger Ebert. And not just any movie, Fellini's "La Dolce Vita," my colleague pausing the film to comment on the composition, the symbolism, to explain a cinematic reference.
     You might remember the movie: black and white, 1960, Marcello Mastroianni playing a louche Italian journalist, with Anita Ekberg capering in the Trevi Fountain at midnight. When I finally got to Rome and hurried to the Trevi Fountain, well, it was nice. Very ornate. But it was also missing something, or, rather, someone.
     Just as, years later, when I had the chance to watch the movie, solo, I found it long. And kinda dull. The experience, too, was missing something vital — Roger Ebert's narration.
     Dense art like "La Dolce Vita" — the movie is three hours long — benefits from smart explanation. I'm a word guy, but needed someone more knowledgeable than myself to point out that our term for predatory press photographers, "paparazzi," comes from a character in the film, a pushy photographer, Paparazzo, a name Fellini said he chose because of its buzzing quality, like a pesky mosquito. I'd have missed that otherwise.
     Ditto for Dante Alighieri. I've been reading books by, and about, Dante for decades. It's what I do for fun, which should give you an idea of how fun my life is. So of course I ran out and got Prue Shaw's "The Essential Commedia." Because that's what I do. 

     For those completely unfamiliar, the Commedia, sometimes called "The Divine Comedy," was written by the Italian poet in the early 1300s. It is divided into three books — Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, and tells the tale of Dante, both author and character, lost in a dark wood, guided by the Roman writer Virgil through fiery hell, then up purgatory's steep mountain, and finally to a glittering, complex heaven.
     Why bother with such arcane stuff? "Dante makes you see things," as T.S. Eliot once said.
     Such as? The book offers fresh insights with each new reading. In hell, Dante runs into Capaneus, pelted with burning embers yet still howling blasphemies.
     "His enraged defiance embodies a crucial notion: it is the sinners' states of mind which is their true punishment, rather than the physical torments to which they are subjected," Shaw observes. "Persistence in the obdurate state of mind which caused them to sin is the punishment. There is no possibility of repentance or a change of heart."
     Lot of that going around today.
     Dante was Catholic, and the Commedia revolves around sin and repentance, evil and punishment. A number of popes are met in hell, jammed headfirst in a hole in the third level, for simony — the buying and selling religious offices. "For your greed is a blight on the world," Dante reprimands one. "Trampling on the good and raising up the wicked."
     A criticism handy yet today.
     Hell gets most of the attention, with winged demons and lakes of fire. Though Purgatory is fun too. Halfway up Purgatory's mountain, Dante finds himself lectured by Marco, a fellow Florentine.
     "The laws are there, but who enforces them?" Marco asks. "No one."
     Testify, brother.

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Picking wheat out of the chaff

     Sometimes I include the backstory. Sometimes I don't. Wednesday's column didn't come out of the blue — what happened was, two weeks ago, some Red State troll site posted my 2023 column, "Why Restrict Child Porn But Not Guns?" using the 1st and 2nd Amendments to the Constitution to argue that we could have some sane gun laws. My column basically said, "The 1st Amendment is important, but we carve out an exception for child porn, which is illegal to make, own and sell, in order to protect kids. So why not carve out a few exceptions to the 2nd Amendment — mandatory trigger locks come to mind — for the same goal?"
     Nothing earthshaking there, right? I don't know what about that reasoning, beyond that it suggested gun ownership should be subject to law, which it already is, drove gun nuts crazy. Or, rather, crazier. But they thrashed around when the column was first published. My theory is that the headline I wrote includes the words "child porn," drawing a Beavis and Butthead "Heh heh, you said 'child porn'!" reaction. Plus, maybe, since the idea of gun control is beyond their comprehension, their churning minds somehow mashed my reasoning into an argument for child porn. Hard to say. I'm not the Stupid Whisperer.
     Anyway, the kerfuffle died down, eventually, as kerfuffles do. But two weeks ago something happened to inject oxygen back into the embers — someone must have posted it on ArmedLunatics.com or some such thing. Suddenly the paper was inundated with calls — Why was the Sun-Times employing a pedophile? Three concerned colleagues mentioned it to me. I got my first real death threat.
     In thinking about the matter — my superpower, thinking about stuff — I began to wonder how turning "pedophile" into a random slur to throw at people who support policy you don't like, affects people who actually work with the actual problem. I made one phone call — to the Chicago Children's Advocacy Center — and they surprised me by calling back. Not something many organizations would do in our curled-up-in-a-defensive-ball era.
     In writing the story, I wondered how much context I should give. Why address this now? I had said something similar in a column a month ago, when my name made a cameo in the latest dump of the Epstein files. At first it was a long paragraph but then, as I cut — I typically write long and then pare — I decided what Char Rivette was saying is too important, and there was no need to dilute her message by interjecting myself into the equation. It did skew the story more toward Epstein, and less toward Trump fans calling everybody pedophiles — everyone, that is, but the alleged pedophile in the Oval Office. But that was probably okay. My editor agreed.
     I thought of tucking a little introductory italics graph here, on the blog, the kind of insider nod that EGD readers like. But then decided, just as, if you're going to take Vienna, take Vienna, so, if you're going to stay out of it, then stay out of it.
      But Thursday rolled around, and I figured I could unspool the back story, which might have enough heft to hold your interest, illustrated by a photograph of the sky the other night using my new iPhone 17. A big improvement.

Fight against child abuse made more difficult by Epstein scandal

     The children arrive every day.
     "Monday we had 11 kids come in. Tuesday we had 10," said Char Rivette, chief executive officer of the Chicago Children's Advocacy Center. "Wednesday only six. Every day, brand new cases. I see them and think: How would this child feel if they thought they're being trivialized? Especially teenagers. How painful that is, to feel those feelings, being hurt so badly by multiple people throughout your life."
     Hurt by being sexually abused. The few cases that enter the system — most are never reported — begin at the advocacy center at 1240 S. Damen Ave., a colorful facility designed to be comforting to young victims.
     "We investigate all allegations of child sexual abuse in the City of Chicago, with the Chicago Police Department and DCFS," said Rivette. "We come together to make sure these kids are heard, and move forward with investigations. We interview kids, make sure they have everything they need. We also do education, outreach and prevention. We want to put ourselves out of business."
     We were talking because, with the Epstein files straddling the news, a salacious national scandal of the rich and powerful, and pedophilia now a casually flung political slur, I began to wonder how this affects people working in the trenches every day trying to help anonymous children who have been molested. I reached out to Rivette and asked how this affects her ability to do her job.
     "Two things," she said. First: "I sigh, because this is a problem that has been historically huge in the world, especially in the United States. Then it gets sensationalized. We've been hearing about Epstein for years and years, and it can be really distracting from what happens. The sensationalism it creates in the media makes victims even more reluctant to come forward, because it doesn't feel safe. They're afraid they're not going to be believed, and nothing is going to change. ... This Epstein thing makes it seem more scary."
     Second, she realizes: "OK, here's an opportunity to bring this to the forefront. I try to see it as an opportunity to educate."
     So let's educate. What do people need to know?
     Child sex abuse is common.
     "One in four women report being sexually abused as kids," she said. "It's just so underreported."
     The assailants are not jet-set real estate millionaires who sweet talk victims off playgrounds.
     "The stats are that 90, 95 percent of children know their abuser," said Rivette. "A lot of those folks are relatives or people close to the family. Mom's boyfriend. A neighbor. Older cousins. That's far more problematic than being trafficked by a stranger or being picked up on the street. ... We see up to 2,000 cases a year here. There are kids coming in because of dad, cousin, uncle, boyfriend. That is the primary perpetrator. That is where we need to focus our energies."

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Mailbag

   

     Not a ton of reader reaction to Monday's column on the war in Iran. Not surprising. Protracted historical metaphors might be useful, but do not set the blood aflame. Probably a good thing. How many self-appointed patriots leaping to defend newly-launched carnage, scraping together indignation from the freshly-spilt blood of those put into harm's way, do you want to indulge?

Hi Neil-
     With all our brave military heros [sic] now serving in Iran and all over the world for our freedom; I was disappointed to read your page 2 Top News Article. It appears to divide the country; and/or, support the division of our country for political reasons. 

     Greg V.
     Downers Grove, Illinois

     There's no point in answering something like that. But the day was young, and sometimes I can't help myself:

Greg:
     Our soldiers aren't in Iran, yet — in case facts still matter. Though I imagine that's coming. As for dividing the country, it's already divided — actually, not even. Only a quarter of Americans support Trump's war. What disappoints you is to see the division reported. Don't worry, if your tyrant has his way, with the help of people such as yourself, that won't happen anymore. Thanks for writing.

     NS

     Another reader complimented Monday's column and ended his email, "Dulce Et Decorum Est," which I recognized as the title of the Wilfred Owen poem about a gas attack in World War I, and dimly remembered writing a blog post about it.
     I called up the 2013 post, after a far different president, Barack Obama, was considering approaching Congress to ask for permission to attack Syria after Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people — the red line Obama said they mustn't cross. Our president ended up dithering; he didn't order those air strikes, at least not in 2013. He did, a year later,  for all the good it did. Not much — over half a million Syrians died between 2011 and 2021. I wonder how many Iranians will die in this adventure.

     It troubled me, a little, to see some of the same thoughts in Monday's column as were expressed in 2013 — apparently, when America charges into war, I automatically think of World War I, that monument to pointless slaughter.
     There are worse go-to moves, and 13 years is a long time. Few readers, I imagine, rattle their newspapers and think, "Heyyy, I read this metaphor in 2013!" Actually, few readers have physical newspapers to rattle. But still. You don't want to be a one-trick pony. "That Steinberg, he's really good at comparing whatever's happening now to World War I. That's his speciality of the house."

    Oh well, there will be plenty of opportunities to develop fresh approaches to this war. It doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. World War I lasted four years.