The best offense is a good defense

     Generally, I tune out the Olympics. For the past 206 weeks I haven't thought about competitive swimming. Why start now?
     But I do like pageantry. So my wife and I watched the opening ceremonies Friday, a rolling street party with boatloads of athletes floating down the Seine, waving happily.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

   The ceremonies were lauded. "A daring feat," The Washington Post gushed. "Paris transformed into a spectacular stage."
     We found the opening dull.
     "It must be dramatic if you're there," my wife kept saying, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. To me, it seemed like standard Cirque du Soleil street theatrics with a few celebrity cameos thrown in, though I'm willing to assume the fault is with me. Like "The Bear," the opening ceremony is something everybody loves, but I just don't get. (Have you ever been to an Italian beef joint? Did you see a dozen people in the back, "yes chef"-ing each other? I just didn't buy the premise.)
     Internalization of dislike — my negative reaction is my problem, not yours — is an important, though rare, survival skill. A more popular route is to become offended, get ruffled, register displeasure and try to rearrange life to suit your whims. A path I just don't understand. You go over someone's house and don't like the wallpaper, you don't then take your fingernails and try to claw it down.
     Who does that?
     A lot of folks. People are constantly getting offended and registering that offense. The opening ceremonies, which I shrugged off, drew howls of condemnation from the religious right.
     “Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, announced on X. I could give another dozen examples.
     As you may have heard, they were wrong — even though the scene involved people at a table, the opening ceremony's artistic director has said it was supposed to be a Greek bacchanalia — Greece being the place where the Olympics originated. (The local Olympic committee, nonetheless, felt compelled to apologize.)
     France is a truly secular society, as opposed to the lip service we settle for here. The French don't need to mock Christianity. They've done one better — they've exiled it from its position astride the body politic. It's against the law to wear a cross to public school in France — or a yarmulke, or a burqa, I hasten to add; don't want to get anybody into a quivering funk thinking they are being singled out.

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Olympic flashback 2008: Celebrating oppression

     Everyone seemed to adore the opening of the Paris Olympics. Well, except fundamentalist Christians who, in their unshakable belief that everything is about them, decided that because one scene took place at a dinner table it was therefore mocking the Last Supper. 

     Myself, I found the opening ceremony dull — boat after boat filled with happy athletes — and switched over to re-runs of "House." 
    I haven't written a word in the paper — with everything going on, the Olympics seem very beside the point. But once upon a time I was all over them. This ran in 2008, just before the stunning opening to the Beijing Olympics — all those drummers — which, ironically, I thought of wistfully watching Paris's laser light show. This was back when we still worried about oppression in China, as opposed to oppression right the fuck here. 

     Olympic opening ceremonies tend toward Chinese-style epic pageantry no matter where they are held. From Seoul to Sydney we got squads of acrobats, platoons of uniformed teens twirling ribbons attached to sticks and other displays of massive hoopla.
     One can only imagine how much more eye-popping tonight's Olympic kickoff will be, since it is created by the Chinese themselves. 

     While we sit and absorb the agitprop, amazed, choking up at the inevitable Coke commercials with beaming youngsters handing gleaming red soda cans to old sages in conical hats and wooden clogs, we owe it to ourselves, as the freedom-loving Americans we once were and may yet be again, to pause and recognize the political reality underlying all this immense gloss.
     Did hosting the Olympics promote the rights of people in China?
     "Not at all," said Xiao Nong Cheng, executive director of the Center for Modern China, a think tank in Princeton, N.J. "This Olympics is bad, and China's people have lost even the smallest right to talk."
     Cheng pointed out that in the run-up to the Olympics, China, terrified at losing face on the world stage, suppressed its citizens even more than usual, and that indications to the contrary — such as a recent Pew survey — are merely lies.
     "The Pew ignored a basic fact that surveys in China, according to official regulations, have to be approved, and all the data filtered," said Cheng. "There are no independent surveys in China. These are controlled, manipulated surveys. The data is not reliable."
     He added that the world media, rather than turn a spotlight onto China, is instead muzzling itself in order to cover the Games.
     "If foreigners want to be in Beijing for the Olympics, they have to seal their lips and follow all the rules the Chinese government set," he said. "The Chinese government worries that the free expression of foreigners might signal to the Chinese people they are supposed to have rights to talk freely and have press freedom."
     There, just had to get that off my chest. Enjoy the Games.

     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Aug. 8, 2008

Google can pull the plug at any time

     Thursday I snapped awake at 2:30 a.m. And not groggy awake, either, but a super-focused awake that I suspected had something to do with the sleep aid I'd tried, sent by a Chicago company hoping for publicity.
     I will do them a favor and not get more specific, except to note their "vanilla lavender sleep latte" contains valerian root. It's supposed to be a sedative but can also cause insomnia. Big time. At 3 a.m. I gave up, padded upstairs and logged onto my computer.
     "Your Google Account has been disabled," I was informed, under a big red circle with an exclamation mark. "It looks like it was being used in a way that violated Google's policies."
     Sometimes this sort of thing can be a phishing attempt, trying to get your data. But I had a big hint that my Google account was indeed disabled: my blog, built on Google's Blogger platform, was gone. 

     If my mind hadn't been focused by the valerian, it was sure focused now. Getting the account back didn't take a lot of expertise — I clicked the big red "Try to restore" button and followed the prompts. Google popped back. So that was good.
     But the question remained: What happened? And how could I keep it from happening again? Email I could get by without. Mostly spam and come-ons touting supposed soporifics that turn out to be stimulants. But I had 11 years worth of writing on that blog.
     Google does not tell you what you've done to get your account booted. A truly Kafkaesque twist evoking the opening line of "The Trial": "Someone must have traduced Joseph K because he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong."
     Poking around Google, I found a laundry list of misdeeds Google suggests might earn banishment, beginning with: "Account hacking or hijacking" and including "Child sexual abuse and exploitation," "Harassment, bullying & threats" and "Terrorist content."
     Only I hadn't done any of these. The only thing I could think of is, my account was deleted exactly at midnight, and my blog posts automatically at midnight. Thursday's was fairly benign: A reader cc'd me a letter sent to City Lit, the Logan Square bookstore that created international headlines by booting a writer off its reading club list for the author's Zionist leanings.
     I ran the letter under the headline, "'Juden raus!' says City Lit bookstore.

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Flashback 2012: Plenty of guards, but no prisoners

     I heard from a reader who said he enjoys the column, even though he's moved far from Chicago and, Nosy Parker that I am, I not only thanked him, but asked where he had moved. He said Hillsboro, where he worked in the prison. I furrowed my brow — did I not visit that prison? No, two hours down the road, in Murphysboro. Which brought up this story, the classic example of making lemonade when life serves you lemons. My former Sun-Times colleague, gone into governmental PR, invited me down to write a story on the prison. But after we drove the six hours to Murphysboro, southeast of St. Louis, we discovered there was a prison, but no prisoners. Not wanting to waste the trip, I adapted.

    The other memory is that I hadn't brought a  photographer on the lengthy trek, but held my phone at arm's length, above my head, clicked once, and shot the eerie blue-tinged front page photo at right. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

    This is twice as long as a regular column, so if you want to bail out, you have my permission, though it does have some interesting details.

    If you make it to the end of this rather long article — that's how we flew back then — I'll give you an update on the prison. And the photo atop the blog is not in fact a jail, per se, but the Virginia Military Institute. 

     MURPHYSBORO, Ill. — Every weekday morning, three dozen guards, teachers, supervisors and counselors — the preferred term is “juvenile justice specialists” — gather here at the blandly named Illinois Youth Center/Murphysboro, the second newest of eight prisons the state runs for criminals under 18.
     When IYC Murphysboro was constructed in 1997, it had a capacity of 100 teens, later expanded to 156. Its population today, like every day since mid-July, is zero. The steel bunk beds are unoccupied, the pool table and gymnasium unused. Only those paid to tend the non-existent prisoners come here anymore.
     Not that they stay long.
     At 8 a.m., there is a roll call of the staffers in blue polos and beige khakis. Then their workday begins by their leaving, together, in six white state vans, traveling in a convoy to the equally blandly named Illinois Youth Center/Harrisburg, 46 miles away, where there are young offenders to be overseen.
     Two and half hours — one-third of their 7½-hour shift — will be spent in transit, at full pay. The state spends $30,000 a month in transportation alone, not only for the vans, but mileage for 30 other employees who transport themselves to Harrisburg and get 55 cents a mile, the state rate.
     Which makes this sleek, brick facility — fully staffed with trained juvenile justice professionals but devoid of actual juveniles — a perfect symbol of the financial free-for-all going on in Illinois as the state tries to figure out how to stop spending billions of dollars it doesn’t have and how to rein in billions more it has committed to spend but won’t get in pensions, salaries and upkeep of hundreds of programs, including juvenile justice facilities it may or may not need.
     Meanwhile labor unions, such as the two representing workers at IYC Murphysboro, battle through the courts, the media and the Legislature in a desperate attempt to keep from losing what they’ve spent years to gain.
     In March 2011, the budget for Murphysboro was cut in half. Then in June, the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice announced it would be closing two adult prisons, Tamms and Dwight, and two juvenile correctional centers, the Southern Illinois Adult Transition Center, in Carbondale, and IYC Murphysboro — on Aug. 31.
     “The state can no longer afford these facilities,” Kelly Kraft, a spokeswoman for Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget office, said in an email.
     The governor said it would save $88 million. Local politicians took the closings — and the prospect of hundreds of jobs lost — hard.
     “It is stunning and sad the lengths this governor will go to punish Southern Illinois,” state Sen. Gary Forby (D-Benton) said when the closings were announced.
     The state has been trying to close the four facilities ever since. But as yet, all four remain open. The Illinois Senate voted earlier this month to override the closings, but the House of Representatives last week refused to act, meaning they will close, maybe, unless the courts decide otherwise.
     “It’s this weird bureaucratic thing,” explained Ashley Cross, chief of staff at the Department of Juvenile Justice.
     When the closings were announced, only 11 Murphysboro staffers accepted transfers to other facilities, while the rest insist on being based here. At first, the juvenile justice specialists were put to work mothballing the facility — inventorying hardware, moving boxes, waxing the floors, or trying to. But that didn’t work well, and there was much complaining. So the specialists have been shipped to Harrisburg to help out there.
     Should Murphysboro be closed? Unlike an adult prison population that bursts at the seams as the failed drug war jams the courts and jails, over the past decade, young offenders have been diverted away from incarceration, not by a drop in crime, though crime is dropping, but by new laws and policies that encourage judges to direct teenage criminals into cheaper and more effective community-based programs.
     When Murphysboro opened 15 years ago as a 100-bed boot camp, a spike in teenage crime had nearly doubled the juvenile prison population in Illinois in the previous four years.
     “We were busting at the seams,” said deputy director Ron Smith.
     Conditions in Illinois, which created the idea of a separate juvenile justice system in 1899, were among the worst in the country. That’s all changed. In the state of Illinois now, there are 939 youths — they don’t like the term “prisoners” — between the ages of 13 and 20 now held in six juvenile facilities, one-third of the number in 1997.
     “We are at an all-time low in our juvenile population,” said Smith. “The lowest since 1985.”
     For the past few years, Murphysboro has housed half the number of kids it was designed to hold. A declining population was not met by a similar decline in staffing, which sent cost-per-inmate soaring — $142,342 per youth at Murphysboro, according to the state, which is what put the facility on the block.
     “We didn’t pull kids out of Murphysboro — they attritted out,” said Smith. “We just didn’t need it, and it slowly attritted down to nothing.”
     That isn’t how the juvenile justice specialists see it — they would like Murphysboro to reopen and return to a boot camp.
     “It was a great program; unique,” said Greg Foreman, president of AFSCME Local 2335, one of the two unions representing the Murphysboro workers. “The things we did for the kids were above and beyond anything that the other institutions provided for them. The staff here actually developed relationships with these kids.
     So this is all about the kids?
     “Yes sir. It’s all about the kids,” he said.
     Murphysboro is minimum security — despite its 12-foot fence topped with razor wire. But Harrisburg is maximum security, and the Murphysboro workers worry that youths being sent there are mixing with hardened criminals.
     “Not everybody belongs in a maximum-security prison,” said Gary Cline, a union steward, noting that at Harrisburg, “everybody gets treated as a thug, a murderer, a rapist. Not all incarcerated juveniles are like that. I’ve seen kids who look like they’ve been in car accidents because they’re minimum-level security kids who were housed in a maximum-security prison.”
     Murphysboro, meanwhile, had “24 hours a day, seven days a week” supervision and a safer environment, according to its staffers. “It’s a great place to be,” said Don Julian, a clinical services supervisor. “Kids can’t get raped here. There’s almost no opportunity for suicide. It is the safest there is, no doubt.”
     That’s why most of the Murphysboro workers say they refused the chance to permanently transfer to Harrisburg or other juvenile facilities. They feel that many youth being sent to Harrisburg don’t belong there.
     Murphysboro “is the only facility in the state of Illinois with open bay housing,” said Cline. “There are some who are starting off on the wrong path, they come to a place, a minimum-security place like this where they can get turned around, not only best for juvenile and best for future victims, but it’s financially best for the state, to get these guys turned around and productive at this young age.”
     What’s happening next? The prison, 15 years old, has the feel of a new facility, and a quick stroll shows the money spent on it, from the five top-of-the-line Estwing hammers in the wood shop to the $5,000 unbreakable Lexan door in the kitchen — everything that looks like glass in the facility is actually Lexan.
     The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, instructing the lower court to “dissolve the injunction that has blocked us from closing Murphysboro and the other facilities. We’re waiting for an order from a judge allowing us to close the prisons,” said Abdon Pallasch, assistant budget director for the state. “The courts set their own timelines. Once the judge does that, we can make Murphysboro’s closing official.”
     Until then, the devotion the specialists have to their place of employment baffles some. “Times are tough now in Southern Illinois,” said Jim Clarke, the engineer left in charge of the building, who calls the staffers “crybabies” for resisting the changes. “They are going to be made. Everybody says, ‘The choices must be made, but don’t cut my facility.’ I don’t mean to insult some very, very good people, talented people. But don’t whine because they’re moving you to another facility. Be thankful you have a job.”

      —Originally published in the Sun-Times, December 13, 2012 

    IYC Murphysboro remained closed for five years, when Gov. Bruce Rauner re-opened it as the Murphysboro Life Skills Re-entry Center, designed to help offenders prepare to adapt to life outside. Between 75 and 150 inmates live there, though during COVID that number swelled to 200. 

Saturday pinch hitter — Jack Clark: "A fly at my desk"

     I've known mystery writer Jack Clark for many years, and enjoy his novels. When I hocked spit out of a dry mouth last Saturday (well, writing a brief bit about the Art Institute's Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit, so not exactly twiddling my thumbs) Jack gently reminded me that he had offered me a perfectly good essay on a subject that literally everybody can relate to.

     Every so often a centipede will get trapped in the bottom or my bathtub or kitchen sink. I’ve never figured out how they get there or what they’re searching for. They’re probably hot on the trail of one bug or another. That’s one of the good things about centipedes, besides being nocturnal and very cool looking; they slither around all night hunting for other insects to eat. During the day, they sleep and generally keep themselves out of the way. 

     But even with 15 sets of legs, they can’t seem to get up from the bottom of the tub or sink. It’s usually morning when I find one of them scurrying around in the depths, making futile attempts to get up those slippery slopes. I’ll usually use a flexible piece of plastic or cardboard to try to help them along. This almost always drives them into a state of terror. They think I’m attempting to kill them, and sometimes I accidentally do. Or I mutilate them so badly that the only remedy is to finish the job. They’re fragile creatures, believe me. Those little green legs are not even close to being heavy-duty. 

     Usually when they do get to safety, they scurry away and quickly slip through some crack in the baseboards, looking like one of those articulated buses as they disappear into that dark world behind the walls. 

     I had a houseguest recently. He was also nocturnal and the centipedes terrified him. He also told me they looked gross. I thought this was pretty funny, considering he was from California. You want scary? They’ve got tarantulas out there in the Golden West, not to mention bears and mountain lions. And, as far as gross goes, some of their rats live in trees. What could be grosser than that? Isn’t bird shit landing on your head bad enough?

     One day as a truck driver, I made a delivery to a small desert town east of Los Angeles. We were moving one sister in with another. They were both well past retirement age, a couple of sweet old ladies, I thought at first.

     It was a very hot day, 110 or something like that, which is not unusual in that part of the world. When we opened the front door to bring the furniture inside, a few dozen flies came in as well. The heat had obviously sapped most of their energy. They didn’t buzz around like regular flies. They floated slowly and barely made a sound as they soaked in the shade. 

     As we were leaving, I apologized to the sisters for letting the flies in. 

     “Oh, don’t worry.” One of them flashed an evil grin and waved an arm above her head. “The vacuum will take care of them in no time.” 

     I closed the door and left the flies to their fate. But I’ve often wondered if in the cool of that desert night, with the air conditioning taking a well-deserved break, the sisters might have heard a plea-like buzzing coming from deep in their front hall closet.

     I’ve occasionally vacuumed up a spider, but never intentionally. As soon as you start waving that hose around, most of them know it’s time to abandon the web. 

     Year ago, in France, I was staying in a hotel in a village about an hour northwest of Paris. It sounds charming, I know. In reality, it probably had more in common with the Bates Motel than with the cute little place you might have imagined. 

     When I carried my suitcase into my room, I found that spiders had gotten there first. They’d taken up residence in every corner. I found a cup and spent a bit of time catching one spider after another, and then tossing them into the vines that grew just outside, then I closed the window.

     The spiders didn’t come back that night, but plenty of other insects did, mosquitos and other annoying pests. In the morning, I opened the window before I left. When I came back later in the day, the spiders were back in their familiar corners. The other pests stayed away for the rest of my visit. 

     I’ve seen plenty of spiders in France but not a single window screen. I believe there is some connection.

     Back in the U.S.A., I watched one spider eat another high on one of my bathroom walls. It was truly gross, and it was grosser still knowing that it was probably a female spider eating a male just after they’d had sex. Where are your demands for equal rights now? 

     I waited until she was done with every last morsel of her late lover. She was still basking in the afterglow when I caught her and tossed her and her last supper straight into the toilet. “Happy now?” I shouted as she circled the bowl on the way out.

     I’ve often wondered what happened when you flushed an insect. They might drown on the way down, inside that measly gallon and a half of water. They could die of trauma from bouncing off the sides of the drainpipe. If they make it to the bottom, they’ll probably find plenty of other creatures waiting. Rats, opossums, and frogs, to name a few, plus scores of insects to eat or be eaten by. If they manage to keep floating along they’ll probably end up going down the Sanitary and Ship canal to the water treatment plant in Stickney. 

     If they can get past that, well, then they’ll really be on their way; the Des Plaines River to the Illinois, to the Mississippi and down to the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico. It might even be a pleasant ride.

     One afternoon, I was writing away, when a little black housefly came by and decided to hang around my desk. He wasn’t very annoying as flies goes, no loud buzzing, bumping, or putting his dirty feet on my arms. He just wouldn’t go away.

     I was involved in whatever I was writing so I tried to ignore him and keep going. After ten or fifteen minutes of this, I looked up and there he was taking a stroll inside my half-full coffee cup.

     Well, this was almost too easy. I put my hand over the cup, trapping him inside. To get him outside, I’d have to open two doors. This would not be easy with one hand holding the coffee cup and the other covering the top. I’d managed it plenty of times before, but this time I took the lazy way out and headed for the bathroom instead.

     And, in truth, I was a bit pissed at the fly. Not only was I going to have to throw out some perfectly good coffee, but the writing had been going okay for a change. I’m not talking a Pulitzer or a National Book Award but maybe a halfway decent review on Amazon: “The middle was a little murky and some of the characters seem to be thrown in for no apparent reason, but not a bad book overall.”

     “Enjoy your vacation,” I said, and I flushed the fly and the remains of my coffee away.

     I went back to my desk but I’d lost whatever inspiration I’d had. So I didn’t fell that guilty about sending the fly to the depths. I figured he’d survive the fall. But how was he going to get through Stickney? A fly dumb enough to get caught inside a coffee-cup trap probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance in what has sometimes been called the crappiest place on earth.

     I finally got back to my legal pad and was busy scribbling away (always do your first draft in longhand, that’s my advice) when I heard a buzzing. I looked up and a shiny golden brown fly was heading down the hallway right towards my office. He was flying faster than any fly I’d ever seen, faster than a speeding bullet, it seemed to me, even louder than the most powerful locomotive. As he came closer, I realized that this very angry looking fly was aiming straight for my head. I leaned far back in my chair and the fly changed directions with me. At the last possible moment, I grabbed the legal pad and held it up to shield my face. My chair started to topple over backwards. I threw the legal pad away, reached for the safety of my desk, and pulled myself back upright.

     I could suddenly hear my heart beating. The buzzing had stopped. The people upstairs were tromping around as usual. Had I actually hit the fly when I’d tossed the legal pad? “Take that, Mr. Fly,” I shouted in triumph. The next instant I had a horrible thought, Oh, dammit. Was that Vince? This was my big brother. He’d died about two years earlier. Had he stopped by for a visit? Had I just knocked him to smithereens after first flushing him down the toilet?

     I’m serious here.

     Vince was my first or second reader for most of my life, and he wrote a bit himself. When I was young and he’d read something I’d written, he’d always tell me it was great. This was nice to hear, of course, but it’s not very helpful. As I got older he started to tell me the truth. That’s usually not so nice to hear, but it is usually quite helpful.

     One day he was flipping through the manuscript of my latest novel. He started at the beginning and kept turning pages. I thought this was a good sign. He hadn’t found anything to complain about yet. 

     He got in fairly deep and finally stopped.

     “Here it is,” he said, and he showed me where he’d drawn a line from one side of the page to the other. “This is where your story starts.” He pointed. “Cut all that other stuff.”

     That other stuff was the first 50 pages. And he was right, of course. After I cut all that other stuff, what was left became my first published novel.

     So it’s not that surprising that Vince might stop by my office if he got the chance. He couldn’t be a fly on the wall because my desk is in the middle of the room. If he wanted to see what I was working on, he’d have to hang around a bit closer. Even with those five beady eyes that flies have, he probably was having trouble with my atrocious handwriting. Maybe that’s why he kept hanging around.

     Vince wasn’t a big coffee drinker, but he’d try just about anything. It used to drive him crazy that I would go back to the same restaurant and order the same meal over and over again.

     You probably think I’m just trying to amuse you here or that I’m off my rocker. No. This really happened. I flushed a dark fly down my toilet and a while later a golden brown one came back and almost knocked me out of my chair. I’m not a religious person. I haven’t spent much time thinking about the possibility of life after death. I figure I’ll find out or I won’t before too long. But maybe that old idiom about the fly on the wall has been around so long for a very good reason. Maybe it’s rooted in truth. 

     If you do get to come back as an insect or animal or who knows what, maybe a tree or a traffic signal, I hope you get to come back more than once. I hope Vince gets a better reception the next time around. 

     The way I look at it, a very dark fly had gone into the toilet and then, a half hour or so later, the same fly had come back, now a much better-looking golden brown— or maybe that wasn’t gold. But he’d come back pissed, and it looked like he wanted to let me know how he was feeling. And that was so much like Vince. He’d tell you what he thought, sometimes with a bit of humor, but there was no guarantee about that part. 

     I never could find the fly’s remains. I don’t take that as the sign of a possible miracle. My office is usually a mess. The other half of the room is my workshop/tool room. I lose small objects all the time. 

     I keep waiting for another fly to act in a similar fashion So far, none seem to be interested in hanging out. I do pay more attention to them than ever before.

     I don’t flush insects down the toilet anymore. But I still eat meat and even seafood now and then. 

     It’s been decades since I’ve bought into the view that humans are superior beings. My argument against is pretty simple: In the last century, somewhere around 100 million people were killed in wars alone. Who knows what that number would be if we included the shooting, stabbings, hit-and-runs, and all the other ways we kill each other in civilian life as well?

     And then there’s this century to think about. Seems to me, it’s already circling the toilet bowl. 

     How’d you like to be a fly on the wall the day it finally goes all the way down? Although, now that I think about it, that just might be the safest place to be.

You don't have to have children to enjoy life. They do help. Unless they don't.

The Newborn Baby, by Matthijs Naiveu (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     The most difficult endeavors are often also the most rewarding. Climbing Mount Everest, surviving Marine boot camp, raising children, are taxing but also fulfilling. Well, I can't vouch for the first two. But that third one — I have considerable direct personal experience. Trust me: being a parent is hard. And exhilarating.
     Back when my friends were having babies, I sometimes greeted the happy news of a pregnancy by describing what I called my "parenthood epiphany." It went like this:

     The week we brought Ross home, I was sitting in the new blue rocking chair about 3 a.m., staring numbly down into his red, distorted, howling face. And a startling thought formed in my exhaustion-sapped mind: Ohhhhhhhh, so this is why those teenage girls kill their kids. Now I understand. We're 35 years old. We have all the money in the world. We desperately wanted this baby, for years. It's the third night. And we're going OUT OF OUR MINDS!

     I told that story, not because I'm a bastard — well, not entirely — but because I wanted the expectant newcomer before me to realize that they were embarking upon a rocky journey. That if they found it difficult at times, it wasn't because they were bad parents, necessarily. It was just the nature of the beast
     Only the story didn't comfort the listeners, it concerned them — I can still see one colleague, an editor at the paper, backing away, eyes wide — and I eventually stopped telling it, so not to constrict my social circle smaller than it already was.
     This came back to me when I saw Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance being pilloried on social media for his remarks from 2021 that people without children do not have a "direct stake" in the country, but are, "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too. It's just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg ... the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children."
     There's a lot to unpack there.
     First, he's completely mistaken. Harris has two stepchildren, and the suggestion that they somehow don't count is simply wrong, as anyone who knows anyone with foster or adopted children — like Pete Buttigieg and his husband — or stepchildren knows.

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City Lit Books pares its reading list

     Gary Ashman is an attorney and a friend of this blog — he has a copy of the original EGD poster framed in his lovely, well-stocked home library. We have shared a cigar or two, and  he even briefly advertised on the blog when it first went live. We haven't conversed in a few years, so it was good to hear from him again. When I saw what the letter he was sharing was about, I asked if he would mind if I posted it here. He didn't. As a rule, I don't react to the lazy Manicheism and reckless Jews-don't-count rhetoric that sophomores and their equivalent wallow in lately regarding Israel and Gaza — there's too much of it, and I try not to traffick in the obvious. When one side premises its argument on, "First you give your country to someone else and disappear, then everything is solved..." there isn't much room for discussion. Plus you see how effective it is — it has gotten the Palestinians nowhere for the past 57 years; of late, the war continues, lives are lost, Netanyahu, who should have gone to prison long before Oct. 7, maintains his grip on power, and nothing changes. 

Vice presidents are always obscure — until they're not

 

Vice president Kamala Harris campaigns in Wisconsin Tuesday
 (photo for the Sun-Times by Anthony Vazquez)

     Say what you will about Northwestern University's former Medill School of Journalism, those annealed in its furnace tend to stick together. Two of my classmates made the complicated trek to Charlevoix, waaaay up in you-can't-get-there-from-here Northern Michigan, for my older son's wedding.     

     Back in the day, I also schlepped to keep up with my far-flung classmates — I think it was my way to be quasi-adventurous while having someone who knew the territory close by and, not incidentally, a free place to stay.
     So when Medill classmate Mary Kay Magistad based herself in Bangkok, freelancing around Asia, I slid by to offer my support. It was a memorable visit — how could it not be? I saw the king and queen of Thailand, at least from a distance, in a procession of red Mercedes ferrying them out of the palace gates, where I happened to be loitering.
     And I saw Dan Quayle, then the vice president, up close. He came to town and I couldn't resist showing up at his press conference. The motorcade arrived, police motorcycle outriders, communications vans, Cadillac limousines flown in on Air Force Two. At least a dozen vehicles, this long line of flashing red lights, a strobing parade of American power where, at the very end, a door flies open and disgorges Dan Quayle. I couldn't help think of that scene in a Bugs Bunny cartoon where a huge spaceship spits out a series of smaller vessels, Russian nesting doll style, until finally out pops tiny Marvin the Martian.
     Quayle was one of the more laughable vice presidents — remembered today, to the degree he's remembered at all, for telling a class he was visiting that "potato" is spelled "potatoe." Spoiler alert: It's not.
     But Quayle also represents all vice presidents, in his invisibility and inadequacy. Among the most astounding things of this very astounding week, after the fact of a powerful man doing a selfless thing for his country — Donald Trump had almost made us forget it is possible — was the alacrity with which the Democrats rallied around Vice President Kamala Harris.
     Not to take anything away from her many fine qualities. But it is a reminder that when you're dangling from a cliff from a sapling that's pulling out of the earth, you don't vet the person throwing you the rope too closely. The party ready to vote for Joe Biden's mummified corpse saw that dusty cadaver magically transform into a living, breathing, talking, fund-raising woman. Talk about an upgrade.

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Unpublished draft: Biden stepping down gives Democrats a fighting chance.

 

Judith, by Jan Sanders van Hemessen (Art Institute of Chicago)

   Sunday was an odd day. First thing in morning I wrote my Monday column, as usual. Joe Biden had not yet withdrawn from the presidential race. But the possibility was on my mind though, honestly, I didn't think he would do it. Friday's optimism had curdled. So I wrote a melancholy column about infirmity and age and when it is time to go. Then when news hit about 1 p.m., I leapt to give the column a quick going over, to reflect the developments. That went online. One editor liked it, but another  suggested I was going to the dad well one time too often — that caught my attention like a right hook — and I should work up something entirely new. So I did. But that was never published — a third editor higher up the food chain found it "political," and decided not to run it. I was disappointed though, since I also liked the column they were going with, didn't argue too much. And as it turned out, many readers were grateful, and none said "Why are you rambling on about Warren Zevon when the tectonic plates of American politics are shifting?" Particularly since I knew that here, I have no higher ups, so you can read what the paper declined to print. 

     I'll admit it; I'd given up hope. Everybody is so selfish, maximizing their own advantage, ignoring the common good. So of course Joe Biden would dig in and cling to his prestigious job with its big jet airplane, even as polls tanked and Democrats scrambled over each other, begging him to leave. Saturday it seemed the whole tangled ball would tumble arguing and clawing and spitting over the precipice, leaving the path clear for juggernaut Trump to glide easily back into the White House. and end American democracy.
     Then ... surprise, surprise ... Sunday afternoon, Biden did the right thing.
     I will admit — I never liked Biden. Having read George Packer's "The Unwinding," Biden came off as the most plastic political hack ever, with his hair plugs and fake grin. Now I think he's a patriot, if not an American hero.
     Biden endorsed Kamala Harris. Not that she's a sure winner. Far from it. Harris has the same handicap that sank Hillary Clinton: She's a woman in a sexist country. Where a third of the women can't be trusted by the men running their states to decide when to have a baby.

     And honestly, in the four years she has been vice president, Harris has not exactly endeared herself to the nation. She has done what vice presidents do, keep busy, keep out of trouble, and stand by in case something happens to the president. That's okay. We'll get to know her better now. The slate is clean; she has a fresh start.

     Harris is 59 years old — almost two decades younger than Donald Trump. And now the focus of the election can shift directed where it belongs — not on Joe Biden's age or agility of mind — but on Donald Trump's utter unfitness to be president.
     And remember. The goal is not to appeal to the 40% who are zipping up their lemming outfits and hot to march after Trump into a brave new world of totalitarian America. It's to appeal to the 5% in seven states who could have sat out the election, thinking, "I'm not bothering to vote for the old guy" who now might be lured out and support a woman of color who can be counted on to do whatever is humanly possible to avoid a nationwide ban on abortion.
     Hope blooms. We now have a candidate who can speak in clear, complete, powerful sentences. Americans can once again hope we have a future that doesn't involve becoming a vassal state of Vladimir Putin.
     And who will she pick to be her running mate? I bet J.B. Pritzker is on the elliptical right now. I'd say go for Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, but a ticket with two women would cause parts of the country to implode out of sheer door-jamb gnawing, toxic male insecurity. Pete Buttigieg could fill the traditional vice presidential role of tailgunner, directing scorn at Trump from now until November.
     Heck, the whole thing could be decided at the convention in Chicago next month — we've sailed into uncharted waters. Chicago is the site of the last contested vice presidential slot, in 1956, when the choice came down to Estes Kefauver and John F. Kennedy. The Democrats, true to form, chose Kefauver, a senator from Tennessee.
     Maybe Biden will start a trend, of old guys realizing they've lost a step or three and deciding to pack it in.
     There's no shame there. The body decays, the mind crumbles. For every timely exit — and Biden's is late, but maybe in the nick of time — a dozen stay too long. Athletes whose legs are gone, singers whose voices are shot. It's not about the age — nobody is suggesting Mick Jagger quit, because he can still do his prancing rooster routine at 80. It's about whether you can still produce.
     So much is at stake in this election. As I said Friday, just the top three — mass deportations, ruinous tariffs, and a nationwide abortion ban — should have been enough to clear the benches and get people voting. But the American public, well, they can be inattentive. Hopefully Biden stepping down and Harris stepping up will catch their attention. Because when you look over the Project 2025 plan the Heritage Foundation has set out for Trump, it amounts to nothing less than a revolution, an overturning of American democracy.
     Who the president is matters. Up until Sunday afternoon, that man could have been Joe Biden, again, for another four years. But he gave up his chance because he recognized reality. Democrats pressed him because they recognize reality. Democrats are the party of recognizing reality, of facts and laws. Our work is cut out for us. But now we have a fighting chance.

If you're wondering about the illustration, recall your Bible. Judith is the heroine who saved the Jewish people by getting the Assyrian general Holofernes drunk and then cutting off his head with his own sword. She's just done the deed, and is looking at her arm in wonder, as if thinking, "I just did that." I love it for that.

It's hard to walk away, but it was time for Joe to go

Carnitas torta, 5 Rabanitos

     When Warren Zevon was dying of lung cancer, he spoke with David Letterman. The talk show host asked the great singer/songwriter what it is like living with his fatal diagnosis.
      "You put more value on every minute," Zevon replied. "I always thought I kinda did that ... but it's more valuable now. You're reminded to enjoy every sandwich."
     "Enjoy every sandwich." A great line, one that I think of, more and more. Even though I'm healthy as a horse. But I'm also 64. Nothing lasts forever.
     I can relate to Joe Biden's predicament, I really can. He's president of the United States, a job that comes with power and attention and a jet airplane. Hard to walk away, and kudos to him for making the tough decision and deciding not to run again. He dragged his feet, naturally, but in the end he did what he thought was necessary to give American democracy its best shot at survival.

Turkey club on wheat toast, Lou Mitchell's

     Stepping down has to hurt. Biden was at peak performance not long ago: defeated Donald Trump in 2020, mobilized Europe to respond to the invasion of Ukraine. One bad night, and suddenly the kids were taking away his car keys.
     Only it wasn't just one bad night but what that bad night represented. If I turn in my grocery list as a column, that wouldn't be just one bad column, but a clanging alarm bell that something bad had happened, and might happen again.
    Biden endorsed Kamala Harris. Not that she's a sure winner. Harris has the same handicap that sank Hillary Clinton: She's a woman in a sexist country. Where a third of the women can't be trusted to decide when to have a baby. But she can speak powerfully and get Americans excited.

Pastrami on rye, Max & Benny's

     Imagine if Republicans pushed against an unfit candidate half as hard?
For some, retirement is easy. My father retired from NASA at 56. Meaning he's been retired for the past 36 years, longer than he worked. The glory of a federal pension.
     At the time I was puzzled. Stopping so young seemed a refutation of his entire career. Did he not want to do something else? Find another job? No. He wanted to paint watercolors and hike the Rockies, which he did until the frost set in. 
     Now he sits and stares blankly at the television. So maybe retiring early was smart. As a bartender said in Buenos Aires, encouraging me to try the tango: "The life is only once."
      Right. But what if you like to work? And the job has a shimmer of significance. Shouldn't you stick at your post, tapping away, as the water rises around your ankles? I always assumed the decision would be made for me. The paper would break apart in the typhoon battering professional journalism. Or I'd make some joke that is no longer funny and be frog-marched offstage.

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Crispy

     Were I trying to create a personal brand, to craft a writerly image, I suppose I'd try to cast myself as the hyper observant scribe, a kind of journalistic Sherlock Holmes, studying cigar ash, taking note of atoms as they flit through the air. Nothing would escape the iron claw of my notice.
     But that isn't true. I don't want to say I'm an oblivious blockhead — that isn't true either — though I have moments of staggeringly oblivious blockheadedness. Or, as I sometimes put it, for a smart guy I can be astoundingly stupid.
     For instance. When I was in Boston in May, hanging out with my cousin Harry, I went to the supermarket for him — he's ill, and shopping can be difficult. He texted me a list: potatoes, apple sauce, tapioca pudding, and such. I searched for the various items — surprisingly difficult in a store you've never visited before — parsing the various vague requests. What exact kind of cheddar cheese slices? (I actually blew that assignment by picking up non-dairy soy slices cleverly disguised as cheddar cheese. Or maybe not so cleverly disguised; still, it fooled me.) 

      One item was quite simple: "Rice Krispies cereal." I rolled my cart to the proper aisle. Except I couldn't find the Kellogg's Rice Krispies. I went down the cereal aisle, scanning the boxes. Once. Twice. On the third time I gave up and settled on the generic version, "crisp rice," all lowercase, an unexpected e.e. cummings homage, with a generic pink cartoon dragon gawping at the stuff. Not something I would eat, but then, not everyone is me. Maybe Harry would enjoy this "crisp rice." Still, I'd better check. The best thing to do was text a picture. So I snapped the photograph above and sent it to him. "No Rice Krispies, incredibly," I wrote. "This okay?"
   I hit "Send." Then looked at the photo I had just sent. 
    "Oh wait," I added. "Never mind. There it is." Which is a drawback of this instant communication. Sometimes just waiting — or looking yet again — works better. In trying to figure out how I overlooked it, I think I was distracted by the bedragoned cereal above. Shunning that, I missed the mark below.

Dazzled by Georgia O'Keeffe

    A busy day Friday, preparing two long stories for our Democratic National Convention special section running next month. Suddenly it was 10 p.m. and I looked up, thinking, "Oh, the blog." Late, and no gas in the tank. So, apologies. This isn't much, but it'll have to do. Besides, it's Saturday. You shouldn't be cooped up, reading. Get outside. That's what I plan to do. 

     Look at the painting above, "The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y." by Georgia O'Keeffe. It's part of the permanent collection of the Art Institute, but currently on display with its exhibit of her Manhattan paintings, "My New Yorks." 
     The show works on a number of levels. First, one tends to think of O'Keeffe as a Southwest artist — all those cow skulls and giant vulvic flowers. So it's disorienting to think of her in a New York flat, at the Shelton, where she moved in 1924, the tallest apartment building in the world at the time. There she painted the factory landscapes she saw from her window. Looking up, she captured buildings framing the sky in a way that echoed the canyon walls she found in New Mexico. 

     Second, you realize that she was doing these skyscraper paintings at the same time she was doing those Southwest paintings, basically commuting between the two places with the seasons, like a bird.
     And third, the exhibit reminds visitors of her sheer technical skill. The above painting tricks the brain to think you're looking at a dazzling sun peeking out from behind a building. The viewer practically squints. You have to pause, and look a second time, to realize you're just regarding regular yellow and white paint. An incredible achievement. "My New Yorks" runs through Sept. 22.

"East River from the 30th Story of the Shelton Hotel." Not the sort of image much associated with
Georgia O'Keeffe, who manages to make the industrial landscape almost whimsical. Maybe it's the tugboat.

Notes from a beautiful country (political rough edges notwithstanding)

     "Do you want to visit a lavender farm?" my wife asked. The honest answer would be: "God no — why would I do that?"
     But we were in Northern Michigan, with a few hours to kill before the weekend's wedding festivities began. I'm a blind blunderer, but my wife has this superpower; she investigates where we're going and discovers what there is to do. So her suggestion is an endorsement, practically a command. In that light, why yes, by all means, let's go. If I didn't take my wife's lead, I'd still be a single guy living in a one-bedroom apartment in Oak Park, and not the father of a groom.
     "Sure," I said. Shortly thereafter we were gawping at the purple wonderland of Lavender Hill Farm.
     This is such a beautiful country. The rural regions hold their own against the national parks or coastal waters or even the gorgeous skyline of a city like Chicago. Driving almost anywhere reminds me of that.
     I know. Democrats are supposed to be twisting in agony right now. Between Old Joe Biden tightening his grip on the steering wheel as the Democratic Party races toward a cliff, and Donald Trump escaping death (by the direct intervention of the Lord God Almighty, as he says, or by the same persistent dumb luck that had him born to a real estate millionaire in 1946), doom is nigh.
     But honestly, I don't feel it. Given how either man won't be around much longer, I'm already looking past them, to what each represents. Biden's biggest achievements so far are repairing America's crumbling infrastructure — bridges and roads like the ones we were gliding across — and mobilizing Europe to stand behind Ukraine. Plus standing for decency and honesty — his claims to spryness notwithstanding.
     Trump represents an America not only grovelling before dictators, but imitating them. On that note: enjoying the Republican convention? I didn't watch a second. News reports convey policy notions that are pure folly. Like those "MASS DEPORTATION NOW!" signs. I don't know if you've noticed, but companies can't staff as it is. Were the United States to actually do what the GOP is suggesting — deport millions of immigrants whom we didn't allow to become legal — besides being an epic human rights disaster, it would crater our economy.
     As would the tariffs Trump loves, whether imposed by him or JD Vance. Chicago should be especially sensitive to this. Remember candy companies? Remember Brach's on the West Side, running 24 hours a day? Swept away by daft sugar tariffs propping up beet farms in Minnesota. It was estimated that three candy company jobs vanished for every sugar industry job saved.

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Motel life: analyze, adapt, overcome.

      Inflation is bad, I know. But the specifics can still be startling. We were striding through the Chicago Botanic Garden earlier this month. It was hot, I was thirsty and a lemonade was in order. So I got in line at a refreshment stand and, in a pro forma way, asked what a cup of lemonade costs. Answer: $12. Mind you, this wasn't a lemonade and vodka, or fancy lemonade squeezed in front of your eyes. Just a glass of plain old lemonade. Made from water, sugar and a lemon or two. Or lemon extract, more likely. 

     Maybe I'm cheap, but I couldn't do it. I turned and fled, muttering apologies. Setting off toward a water fountain, I asked myself what was the most I would have paid for a lemonade there at the Botanic Garden, and decided $8. 
     Or on Sunday. We decided not to drive straight home the day after the wedding, but to stop in Traverse City, an hour south. Take it easy. We booked ourselves in a Best Western motel. What would you think a room at a Best Western would cost? With the $20 fee for the dog, over $300. Not to diss the hotel. It was clean, the clerks were very nice. There were chocolate chip cookies that evening and make-your-own waffles in the morning. 

     Though we did check into the special dog suite — it had an exit to outside the building, and no carpeting. But my wife didn't like the uncarpeted effect, so we quickly changed rooms, from 125 to 108.
    Which meant, when the air-conditioning started this loud whining hum, we were not predisposed to change rooms again. I mean, once is acceptable. But twice, that puts you in the realm of chronic complainers, if not the unhinged.  I figured, we'd get used to it.
     But I am nothing if not handy. And I know that noise is created by vibration. Approaching the air conditioner, I placed my palm firmly on the surface and pressed. The hum stopped. Now the thing to do was try to replicate the effect of my hand pressing hard on the air conditioner front panel. I slid over the one chair and wedged it against the air conditioner. It continued operating, quietly. Amazing. Sometimes stuff works. I was pleased with my handiwork though, frankly, for $306 a night, you expect better.

Artist's Guest House

     As a rule, I like hotels. The thrill of luxury and perfection. The little twin bottles of shampoo and conditioner. The hush when the door clicks shut. The mountain of pillows. Or motels, with their bare bones comfort, rest, sanctuary from the road, uniformity, value.

     And yet. Nothing is more antiseptic than a hotel room. Ideally. You do not want a crumb, a trace of any of the thousands of previous occupants. Generic art on the walls. Anodyne furnishings. Nobody wants to live in a hotel room.
     An Airbnb can be different.  Much better. Or worse. There is a roll-the-dice quality. One pair of guests at the wedding last weekend had their Airbnb cancel at the last minute. Another compared their lodging to a Mediterranean villa. You take what you get. Then again, hotels can screw up too; my sister's hotel lost her second night's reservation, forcing us to scramble to relocate her.

     With an Airbnb, you are moving into somebody's home, often literally, a place they may have recently occupied. The owner is very present in quirky furnishings and decorations. 

     That can be a good thing, or a bad thing. There is a risk, but also a reward. You aren't a guest of Mr. Hilton or Ms. Marriott, but a real person — ideally. Some Airbnb's are pretty corporate themselves.

     Still, a good option, particularly in a pricey resort town like Charlevoix, Michigan. We'd be occupying an expensive suite the day before and after the wedding — the groomsmen would be changing there. So something a bit more affordable was in order for the first two days — and, crucially, a place that allows dogs, as our Kitty was a flower girl in the wedding. This led us to the Artist's Guest House. 

     There was an actual artist, John Posa, and I have never moved into an Airbnb where the presence of the owner was felt quite as strongly as it was here. 

     His widow, Oksana, showed us around the place, explaining that her husband recently died, and since they had bookings, she was continuing on with the Airbnb while she figured out what to do with it. Her husband had used the small building, a former mocassin store, as a studio — there were two big lithography presses in the living room.

   I gave my condolences and then asked how recently he had died, fearing it was last week. She had tears in her eyes, and said it happened in February. Recent enough.
     Not that she was dour. She was kind, upbeat, welcoming. She left us with a loaf of walnut bread baked that morning, some farm fresh eggs. A variety of wines were available at $10 a bottle.
     We settled in, looked around. I liked his prints more than his paintings — the dog over the fireplace seems to be floating in air rather than water — but he certainly had talent, and a sensibility. Having closed down my father's studio a few years ago, I was conscious that this was Posa's space, with tubes of ink scattered around, rollers, pencils he had no doubt sharpened. Long thin drawers contained stacks of fresh prints. He had also been a patent attorney, and had a hobby of going to yard sales and buying contraptions that had their 

patent number on them, then pairing them in tableaus with their patent filings. I was excited, the next morning, to notice a wooden box from Kraft American Cheese. (Any idea what Kraft was patenting? Weigh your options. Perhaps it would be best to think of actual cheese. What does it have that Kraft American cheese-like product lacks? Correct. Rinds. That's intentional. "The principal objects of my invention are to prepare cheese of the type described, in units of such size and shape that can be readily sold ... while at the same time drying out or spoilage of the unsold cheese is practically eliminated; to provide a cheese of the American variety which shall be free from objectionable rind or inedible skin...")  

     The bed was wonderfully firm and we slept well. In the morning, my wife made a lovely breakfast with eggs, peppers, real cheese and bread, plus a grapefruit we had brought with us (like Hunter S. Thompson, I make a point of traveling with grapefruit). I put on one of the artist's CDs: Boccherini quintets for string quartet and guitar. 

    The Artist's Guest House is right on 31, the main drag, but quiet enough, and a brief stroll from Charlevoix's touristy downtown of jam shops and cute little boutiques — certainly better than driving, since the bridge is raised every half hour, tangling traffic.

      We were glad to stay there and would be glad to return, if it's still around. The space's future is uncertain. Then again, all of our futures are uncertain. As a person shielding my own little guttering creative flame from the downpour of life, I tried to look extra hard at the dead artist's studio, reflecting on the brief span it will remain. The brief span that any of us will remain.