Thursday, October 31, 2024

The Legacy Pantry

 


     My leafy suburban paradise is an upscale community. But that doesn't mean there aren't people living here who struggle. Divorce, addiction, job loss, accident, illness — there are many reasons why some slide down the greased pole of life.
     Last year,  I wrote about the Northbrook food pantry run by the Ark. The latest manifestation of the urge to help those in need recently popped up on First Street just a few steps north of Walters Avenue, in front of the Civic Building, a quaint 1928 structure purchased by the Northbrook Chamber of Commerce last spring.
     It's a clever idea, apparently based on those Little Libraries scattered about. A person lacking canned soup and other provisions can take what they need. Those kind-hearted souls who want to give back to the community can fill the shelves.
     It's only a short distance from my house; I can practically see it from where I sit, typing this. Walking past, I've been casting glances at the pantry — it seems like it is being used. Products appear and then are replaced by other products. I haven't added to the supply myself, but surely, if the cornucopia seemed to be running low, I'd hurry home and see what we could spare.
     The location does seem curious. Sort of off-the-beaten track. First Street is not quite a block long, from Walters to where it dead ends at the corner of my lot. Many confused drivers who miss the big "DEAD END" sign end up there. I can't imagine many needy people wander over to the Chamber for their first Friday of the month breakfast. It might be better situated near Village Hall, or the library. Not that I'm trying to relocate it away from me — I'm not one of those people, worried about my line of vision being disturbed by the needy snagging cans of free soup as I walk my dog.
     Just the opposite. I want people to know it's there. Thus today's notice. I don't get the sense that many needy persons are reading this. But it's the only way I have to spread the word. If someone you know is going through hard times, and could use some gratis groceries, you know where to point them. 

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Some moments more than others

The Auditorium Building, foreground, and the Wabash Building.


     One of the pleasures of navigating Chicago on foot is how the old and the new juxtapose each other. Such as the 1888 Auditorium Building set against Roosevelt University's 2012 Wabash Building. The Auditorium's 17 story tower — once the tallest building in Chicago — framed by the undulating green facade of the 32 story "vertical campus."
     I could go on and on about the Auditorium, designed by Adler and Sullivan, with a young Frank Lloyd Wright creating interior ornamentation. The cornerstone was set by President Grover Cleveland. The 4,000 seat theater has seen many landmark Chicago cultural moments. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuted there in 1891 — George Gershwin was a featured soloist in 1933, playing piano for "Rhapsody in Blue."
     The Wabash Building, being far newer, doesn't have as rich a history. Though you never know what one of the students living and studying there will do someday. It's a green LEED certified building, designed with bird safety in mind. Thus no lighting on the roof, but plant cover instead.
    That's it. I was in the South Loop Tuesday afternoon because a friend asked me to talk to her class at Columbia College. The kids were attentive and respectful and asked probing questions. The sun bathed the city as I walked back to Union Station. The day was June transported to the end of October, a rare gift. Then again, what aspect of life isn't a rare gift? I always try to appreciate whatever moment I'm in, though, to be honest, some moments are easier to savor than others.

Harold Washington Library





Tuesday, October 29, 2024

"Island of garbage"

     Of course I watched Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden Sunday night. Well, part of it anyway. A bit. The thing lasted six hours. I didn't camp out in front of the television and tune in CNN or MSNBC. No need for that. Rather I lay on the sofa in the living room and scrolled X.
     It was easy. Trump's rally was highlighted on a hot pink bar at the top of the screen. Tapping that took me to Trump, live, doing what he has done since June 16, 2015, when he rode that escalator down the salmon-tinted excrescence of a lobby at Trump Tower: malign immigrants.
     "Take our country back," he said. The "...from brown people" is unvoiced. He isn't saying that Norwegian immigrants are ruining our country just by being here. Because of all the crimes they commit. 
     It isn't true — immigrants are actually more law-abiding than citizens, which makes perfect sense, when you think about it — someone should. If you could be deported for a speeding ticket, you'd keep your head down too. No matter. The lying is baked into the Trumpian worldview. I think that's the most repellent part, for me. Prejudice I understand — everybody harbors prejudice to some degree or another. But to create a counterfactual hothouse within your own soul in order for your biases to grow as lush and bountiful as they can. That's nuts.
     The rally got boring quickly — listening to the same old shit — and I skipped down through X to see what others were posting. I was struck by the number of pro-Trump clips, from Joe Rogan's show, from supporters. Suddenly the world was lovin' Trump. At least here. There were also clips of women flashing their breasts — you don't normally see that on the former Twitter. Must be bait to draw in the important young man vote. That was the only explanation I could think of.
     No doubt Elon Musk was putting his thumb on the scales for Trump. He was at the rally, leading chants of "USA! USA!" in his James Bond villain accent. His hat reading "Make America Great Again" in a font popular in Nazi Germany. The devil is in the details. Musk has lately gone all in for Trump, the two open-wound egos locked in a mutual admiration society. Musk bought Twitter — exactly two years ago, on Oct. 28, 2022 — for $44 billion. He decimated its value by turning it into a haven for haters and loons. So he's trying to claw some value back by turning it into a megaphone for Trump — the world's richest man ballyhooing America's greatest traitor. He's counting on a prime place at the trough when Trump is re-elected. Like all who sell their souls to Trump, he forgot to read the fine print. 
     For now, it's working, with nearly half the country. Trump and Musk, presenting themselves a champions of the little guy. Boy, people really are stupid. Maybe our politics is as simple as that.
     Other opinions still came through. Shocked shares of heretofore anonymous, now forever notorious, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe slurring Hispanics:
     "These Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that. They cum inside. Just like they did to our country."
     I tried to think of another instance of the word "cum" appearing in presidential politics and came up empty. Some outlets spelled it "come" which is silly. Another day.
     Then the alleged comedian bored in on Puerto Rico. “I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now," he said. " I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
     Since laughter was sparse, he provided his own. "Ha ha ha ha." Four harsh syllables.
     There's more. He pretended to see a Black friend in the crowd. "We carved watermelons together, it was awesome." He mused on the war in Ukraine. "Who even cares?
     You get the idea. You can watch it yourself, if you're interested — the "love making babies" part is at 2:37. The "floating island of garbage" is at 3:38.
     I have a pretty broad sense of humor, but it doesn't seem remotely funny. Someone on X observed that satire is mocking the powerful; bullying is mocking the weak. Dismissing an island of 3.2 million people as garbage is bullying.     
     A week before the election, we are nothing if not numb. I can't say I was offended so much as puzzled. This is Donald Trump's message in the home stretch? Delivered at the home of the infamous 1939 Nazi Rally. In for a dime, in for a dollar, I suppose. But still...
     It had the effect of supercharging support for Kamala Harris. Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny tweeted Harris's supportive statement on Puerto Rico to his 45 million followers four times in the next hour. Not enough for anyone to feel optimistic about the outcome. But the guttering flame of hope flickered in its cave, trying to push back the darkness all around.
      I didn't tweet anything myself during the rally — what's the point? But just before bed a thought came to me, and I composed a message: "I watched the rally, but missed the part at the end where they open the Ark of the Covenant." The kind of sly remark that does well on X.

Monday, October 28, 2024

'We don't care about women' — 50 years ago, men got all the credit

     Jorie Lueloff ruined her credit the same way many women did in 1971: she got married. Now Jorie Lueloff Friedman, she visited Chicago department stores, trying to update her charge cards with her new name, and found she no longer had a credit history. She had a husband instead.
     "We don't care about women," a clerk at Marshall Field & Co. told her. "Just men."
     That she had a good job — she became Chicago's first female news anchor after joining WMAQ Channel 5 in 1966 — and a fat bank account didn't matter. Her husband, globe-trotting lawyer and failed mayoral candidate Richard E. Friedman, mattered. Bonwit Teller closed her account rather than issue it in her new name.
    That was common. A single woman applying for a credit card, or loan, would find herself quizzed about her marital plans. A married woman would be asked how many children she had and whether she planned to have more.
     But change was afoot. Lueloff Friedman explained what would normally be a private frustration in front of a Washington hearing of the National Commission on Consumer Finance in 1972.
     "The implication is that a woman has suddenly become a second-class citizen or an irresponsible child who can't be trusted to pay her own bills — just because she got married," she testified. "It's not only unfair and demeaning, but ridiculous and unreasonable that a woman should have to forfeit her economic identity because she changed her name."
     She noted that American Express began sending her account's bills to her husband and, when he didn't pay them because she already had, suspended his card, causing him to be locked out of a hotel room.
     Congress acted, passing the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. President Gerald Ford signed it into law exactly 50 years ago Monday, on Oct. 28, 1974.
     Everything old is new again. With a divisive presidential election close at hand, pivoting on the role of women in American society — can one be elected president? Should women be trusted to make their own reproductive choices? — it's a timely moment that recalls the struggles that got us here, and the progress that could be undone.

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Sunday, October 27, 2024

Choose wisely

 

     I'm not rich. But I understand one often becomes rich by putting money first. You ignore your family, your own health, the marvelous and varied world, and focus on doing the thing that makes you rich.
     But I figure, once wealthy, the whole point is that then you are then freed by those riches. You can do what you like, thumb your nose at convention and authority, act on whims. Like buying a major American newspaper. As vile as Amazon can be, as a company, lining up ambulances to cart away workers who collapsed from heat exhaustion, and forcing them to wear adult diapers because they couldn't take bathroom breaks, I always said, "Well, Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post." It seemed exculpatory, as the lawyers say. He was forgiven.
Katherine Graham, by Diane Walker (Nat'l Portrait Gallery)
    And now he cravenly spiked the Post's endorsement of Kamala Harris so as to not affect his financial relationship with the perhaps future president. To ensure he can earn even more money. That he doesn't need. The kind of prophylactic groveling that greased the skids toward fascism. Plus, Bezos is a smart man — he must realize what Trump is. How many reputations he's ruined. Elon Musk could cure cancer and establish a thriving colony on Neptune and he'd always be, to me, the imbecile giddly prancing around Trump. You can't unring that bell. 
     Shortly after the shock of Bezos's moment of cowardice — a failure which will haunt him like that of Lord Jim — my pal, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Weingarten, sent out this week's blog post. I don't want to seize it — you can read the full thing here on his excellent blog. But I believe I can quote two paragraphs without doing him violence. He's talking about Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Post:
     In June 18, 1971, The Washington Post began publishing The Pentagon Papers at a time of extraordinary tension between the media and Richard Nixon’s occultly corrupt government. The decision had been made the day before by the only person with the power to do it: Katharine Graham. Printing the stolen material was possibly a felony. The New York Times had just been enjoined by a court from publishing the documents. It was not unlikely that Nixon’s Justice Department would seek criminal penalties from The Post for breaching that order.
     During a dinner party at the same Georgetown mansion, with the very survival of her newspaper at stake — the government wielded enormous economic power over the media, particularly through licensing of their broadcast affiliates — Mrs. Graham considered a few moments, then gave the order in five two-word bites: “Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Let’s go. Let’s publish.” When her lawyers warned her that the government might come after the editors with subpoenas for the papers, and they might face prison for refusing to cough them up, she ordered that the documents be delivered to her house, so she and she alone would be the one to defy the subpoena. Let them put an old grandmother in jail, she said.

   Courage is remembered. And cowardice is never forgotten. Choose wisely.

 

Saturday, October 26, 2024

Cede fortunae.

   
          "The Death of Seneca," by Jean Guillaume Moitte (Metropolitan Museum of Art)


     Seneca is dead. Needless to say. By his own hand in 54 AD. On order of his former pupil Nero, "some of whose worst misdeeds he did not prevent," in the words of a flap copy writer at the Loeb Classical Library, a phrase that should disturb any one of numerous politicians and billionaire newspaper owners groveling before a more recent tyrant. If only they could, you know, be disturbed by criticisms of their actions.
     But Seneca can spring to life, thanks to his writings. And recent events being what they are, I returned to the conflicted, contradictory epicurean philosopher, starting in on Volume I — Moral Essays.
     As always, I found grist for thought aplenty. In "On Providence," he discusses how the hardships men endure increases in direct proportion to their worth. Quanto plus tormenti tanto plus erit gloriae. "But the greater his torture is, the greater shall be his glory." Uh-huh. Pretty to think so. Spoken like a rich and powerful man who spent his time relaxing in mineral baths at his luxurious country villas. Seneca was a big fan of standing up to abuse — for others, in theory. I don't quite buy it.  
     He does offer an appealing image of fate as a dutiful father. What does a caring parent do for the education of sons? Rouse them from bed painfully early, set them to hard tasks and difficult studies, all for their future betterment. So fate harries and harasses her favorites. "She seeks out the bravest men to match with her ... those that are most stubborn and unbending she assails." In order to shape and improve them. 
     Seneca says that kind of thing a lot — what's the point of being a good, strong person if you never get the chance to show off what you've got? Affliction is a celestial compliment. Gee thanks.
     That is page 21. But on page 233 I came upon something more persuasive, or at least more useful to my current mode of thought: cede fortunae. "Submit to fortune." You have to — what choice is there? Denying fortune doesn't really do much good. Some things can't be changed. Why rail at the inevitable?
    Cede fortunae. Looking at the Latin, it reminds me of one of my favorite lines in the classics, Virgil's tu ne cede malis. "Yield not to evils." Book VI of the Aeneid. Which leads to the essential dilemma: is this fortune's will, to be accepted, or a wrong to be battled? 
     Hmm...good question. How to tell? It's really a restatement of the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
    That can be a tough call. Sometimes something can seem bad but ultimately be good — I use the example of anti-Semitism in Poland in the 1920s. Bad for the people there, generally; good for my grandfather, specifically, since it set him on the road to the United States, so that when Holocaust took place, he was dandling my mother on his knee in Cleveland. Luckily he went where fate blew him.
     I try to keep that dynamic in mind when seemingly bad things occur. A certain development appears bad now. But might it not yield up something good, if I respond in the right way? Might it be, not a setback, but a benefit? A journey? You don't always want to go somewhere, particularly when forced: here's your staff, your hat, get going. But having no choice, you set out on the road, and suddenly you're seeing things you would not have seen nodding at home by the fire. Maybe the setback is really an adventure in disguise. Let's hope so.

Friday, October 25, 2024

Prayers, menu tips: Advice to a new diabetic from Sun-Times readers

     Keep a water bottle by your bedside. Resize your wedding ring so it doesn't fall off. Take berberine, turmeric and cinnamon.
     Readers flooded me with advice after my columns earlier this week about diabetes. Thank you everybody, both for the practical tips and the warm sentiments. I truly felt embraced.
     Some shared huge amounts of information: web pages and podcasts, books and lists. They overflowed with culinary suggestions. 
Smithsonian Institution
   "Now I buy bread with 1-2 carbs (easily found at grocery stores) and eat french toast, grilled cheese etc." wrote Jane R. "Creamy salad dressings are better than 'healthy.' Peanut butter puffs cereal is better than organic 'health' cereals. Dark chocolate coated almonds are low carb and sweet. It's a whole new way of thinking but it works. Go check out the labels!"
     Others were delightfully concise.
     "Have to cut down on bread," was the entirety of Virginia M.'s email. (I decided to use just the last initial of readers' last names to spare them any online blowback).
     Some were spiritual, offering prayers and good wishes. They shared stories of personal tragedy.
     "Our 28-year-old daughter died from complications of diabetes," wrote Robert N. "Our daughter never wanted to accept. She was diagnosed at a very young age and it was an effort to keep her healthy. So many doctors, so many hospital visits. Wore all of us out … and finally her body just gave up."
     Several wrote about their young children. Now when I begin wallowing in self-pity, I rebuke myself: "Show some spine; there are 4-year-olds coping with this."
    The fight brings some families closer together. Mary Lou O. wrote that her 19-year-old granddaughter was diagnosed earlier this year and it has been a bonding experience for them:
     "Our [physician] gave her an order to attend educational meetings with two very helpful diabetic RN/Dietitian/Nutritionist ladies. I attended those meetings with my granddaughter and we both learned a lot about necessary lifestyle food changes. "
     She sent me the nutritionists' business cards — there's a lot of networking, trying to navigate the system.
     A positive tone ran through my emails. Some were more enthusiastic, frankly, than I am quite ready to accept.
     "Welcome to Club Diabetes!" wrote Royal B. Which made me shudder, a little, for its Tod Browning "One of us! One of us!" quality.
     Email gets a bad name, but I found readers, perhaps because they take a moment to gather their thoughts, responded better than some of my actual friends in the real world.
     "That's horrible," a colleague exclaimed when I gave him the news, really getting his back into that second word. He then proceeded to tell me about Ron Santo having his legs amputated — several people shared the experience of the heroic Cubs Hall of Famer, never pausing to consider whether it perhaps is not the story I want to hear right now. There was a bit of that.

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Thursday, October 24, 2024

Indiana Jones and the Pharmacy of Doom


     Yeah, I suppose I've been soft-pedaling the emotional aspect of all this. There's a definite "Why me?" component to finding out you have  a disease like diabetes. Or as I put it to a neighbor. "So not drinking red wine for the rest of my life wasn't enough; now I can't have a piece of fucking toast?!?"
     That isn't entirely true. Your blood sugar craters — 58! — you can have something sweet, and twice I've turned to my drug of choice: two pieces of black Kookaburra licorice. But in general, I'm facing a considerably constrained palate, looking down the road. Suddenly a turkey club on wheat toast is as forbidden as a shot of Jack Daniels.
     But my wife stepped up, preparing delicious, low-carb, low sugar meals. And honestly, the struggle to feel well and get my blood in order made the menu a distant consideration. The hardest part is logistics. Finding an endocrinologist — the one I was sent to isn't taking new patients. Or, my God, filling prescriptions. After I got my doctor to put me on insulin, it took six, count 'em, six visits to Walgreens to actually get the stuff.
     The first trip to the drug store, the insulin was supposed to be ready, but actually wasn't. "Come back after 2," I was told. But when I returned, "the shipment didn't show up." It seems the Northbrook Walgreens doesn't stock Lantus insulin, but gets it from another store. The third time they gave me the Lantus. I went home and discovered they hadn't given me needles. The needles are kinda important. So I returned, a fourth time, and found that my doctor hadn't prescribed the needles. I was told I could just buy them — $80 — or contact the doctor and get a prescription. Perhaps it was cheap of me, but I decided to call the doctor and come back. Why pay if I had them coming? I'd been waiting for days; what's another hour?
     The fifth time Walgreens had the needles, but needed an hour to fill the prescription. I asked why they couldn't just walk the needles over to me — I could see the box; they were right there on the shelf — the way they had when they suggested I buy them? The clerk checked with the pharmacist, who said no, they were too busy. 
    I was kinda busy myself, trying to live my life. Or had been, until this ailment showed up and took it over. Now I was going to spend my days standing in line at the Walgreens pharmacy. "Why this is hell," Christopher Marlowe wrote. "Nor am I out of it."
     At least the Walgreens isn't far from my house. Still, a lot of hustling back and forth. One time driving the few blocks, Hozier's "Too Sweet" came on the radio. I cranked it up, and that song segued into "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Now WXRT was providing a soundtrack to my struggles. I took comfort in, "But if you try sometimes, you get what you need."
    Which indeed was the case. "Hell" is overdramatic. It's merely annoying. And if this is a challenge for a moderately bright, relatively energetic, college educated professional journalist skilled at extracting information and pressing institutions, what must it be like for people who are less resourceful? Who don't have insurance — 7.2 percent of Illinoisans have no medical insurance.  There are yawning cracks in the process that are easy to fall into. Several times I found myself imagining: what if Elon Musk had set himself to trying to get everyone the health care they deserve instead of trying to get somebody to Mars? Idiot.
     Meanwhile, I was online, trying to figure out how to give myself injections.
     "This is a very dangerous medication," chirped That Nursing Prof, with a kind of laugh. "Very important you get this double checked by another nurse before you inject."
     Not an option for me, alas. My daily medical care was going to be very much a DIY, amateur effort, aided by Dr. Google.
     And I don't want to leave you with the impression that I blame Walgreens. It's clear they're understaffed and overwhelmed, and I found, when pressed, the pharmacists and clerks could be kind, and go beyond the call of duty. Getting my Crestor, a statin that allows grapefruit (I figure, claw back what regular life can be regained) I had a conversation with the pharmacist, Anish, that bordered on philosophy, as we mused that grapefruit, like life, delivers its sweet deliciousness mingled with bitterness.
     "That's why I'm so attached to grapefruit," I said. "I'm pretty bitter myself." 
     I'm trying not to be. Yes, there is often the Indiana Jones, escape-from-the-giant-rolling-stone-ball-and-come-face-to-face-with-the-tribesman-and-their-blowguns aspect. When I tried to refill the Lantus pen prescription, Wednesday insurance sent me a text message that it was too soon, based on the minimum doses and not what I was actually taking. Then, after calls to the doctor, Walgreens wanted four days to fill it. I appealed in person, and a pharmacist found the pens — at a different location, but just down the road. But when I went there to claim my pens, I was told they were ready in theory, but not in reality, and had to wait a half hour. I took a seat, and a workman walked over and began drilling into sheet metal a few feet away.
     The beauty of all this is, there really isn't a choice. You can ignore it, and develop one of the hideous side effects — blindness, neuropathy, amputation, death. Not a lot of toast when you're dead, discounting the possibility of hell. Plus, as I keep telling myself, "Nine-year-olds manage to cope with this..."
     I promise I won't write about diabetes forever. It may seem that way. But for the moment, it's the only show in town. If it seems all-encompassing and oppressive, well, welcome to my world. Generally I go about my business, forget about this for 10 or 20 minutes at a time. Work of course is a comfort ("Work," as Noel Coward once remarked, later in life, "is more fun than fun.")
     There have even been moments of happiness. Early on, I had hurried to Sunset Foods to stock up on stuff I could eat. I rode my trusty Schwinn Cruiser, and was coming out of Sunset with its black metal basket full of spinach and chicken and pork chops, and some sashimi for lunch. A gorgeous sunny day: 68 degrees. And I could feel my brain reboot, like I had gotten my mojo back, and for the first time in days was myself again. I went home, laid lunch out nicely, tried to be festive about it, breaking out my new blue whale chopsticks holder. Yes, this is a struggle, but as Hemingway said, the world is a fine place, and worth the fighting for.





Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Diabetes 'a huge public health problem'


     You know what's a great motivator for dieting? The prospect of going blind. Or having your fingers become permanently numb. Focuses the mind wonderfully.
     Or maybe that's just me. I immediately snapped to the idea that diabetes (which I wrote about contracting on Monday) means your body isn't processing insulin properly, causing sugar to overload your bloodstream and rot your plumbing. I leapt to get my blood tested, see a doctor, do whatever I'm told: take drugs, banish sugar and carbohydrates from my diet.
     But maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm an exception. How many diabetes patients receive their diagnosis and then do what they're supposed to do?
Dr. Anthony Pick
   "The minority," said Dr. Anthony J. Pick, an endocrinologist at Northwestern Medicine. "There's a lot of inertia, people who go years with poorly controlled diabetes. Because it's a chronic disease, and it's a lifestyle, a lot of patients struggle."
     With nearly half the country overweight, diabetes has skyrocketed — a third of American adults are prediabetic; 10% have the disease.
     "It's probably getting worse," Dr. Pick said. "It's fairly depressing when you look at the level of diabetes care. It's a huge public health problem."
     Especially given the silly stuff we do obsess over — shark attacks, asteroid strikes — diabetes doesn't get the attention it deserves.
     "There's a lack of awareness," agreed Dr. Pick. "Diabetes is the tip of the spear of chronic poor lifestyle disease: fatty liver, sleep apnea. The No. 1 killer is cardiovascular disease, and diabetes feeds right into that."
     Diabetes runs in certain populations: Blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans get more than their share.
     "Pima Indians have a 90% incidence of diabetes," said Dr. Pick. "In certain populations, the numbers are staggering."
     The jury is still out, but it seems that I didn't get mine from poor lifestyle habits — being obese, not exercising, smoking, etc. (Type 2) — but from my body attacking my pancreas (Type 1). A genetic alarm clock went off, perhaps nudged by other factors medicine hasn't yet pinpointed. Dr. Pick said perhaps even COVID might play a role.

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Tuesday, October 22, 2024

"Riding that storm runnin' through my veins"

 

Luke Combs

     Music is medicine. Not that it literally heals you. Unfortunately. Rather it inspires, bolsters the will, injects courage to push forward and do what must be done. 
     For me anyway. I've always listened to music, especially when I exercise. It's almost impossible for me to work out in silence. Music helps pass the time and encourages me to do better. Particularly on the stationary bike, when I not only listen, but sometimes watch videos. I've watched Andra Day's "Rise Up" — the version using video from the 2012 London Olympics — 50 times if I've watch it once. Always gets the blood going.
    If you read Monday's column, you know I was diagnosed with diabetes at the end of September. It's been a slog. I'm going to write about it again in the paper Wednesday and maybe Friday, "I don't know," to quote Indiana Jones. "I'm making this up as I go."
     I don't want to write about it too much. Nothing is more dreary than to hear some sick person complain. On the other hand, it is new, a body of knowledge I have to master. As any Dante fan knows, if you go to hell, take notes. Not that this is hell. Far from it. I keep reminding myself that his is Affliction Lite. Some people have it much, much worse. I'm blessed to have health insurance, a skilled, compassionate doctor, and a knowledgeable diabetes educator. Still, it does suck; writing about it makes it suck less.
     It helps to have a song. When I was in recovery — well, you're always in recovery — when I was in rehab, music was key. Someday when I take a week off I plan to write a weeklong series, "Songs about Sobriety" highlighting some essential tunes. "Fallen" by Sarah McLachlan or "Mr. Hurricane" by Beast. "Can you imagine even one more day, with a beast right up in your face?"
     When I got drop-kicked into DiabetesLand, I found myself turning more to country music. It has a passion, a raw human emotion, and an honesty that I've been drawn to more anyway, but is extra valuable in a time of distress. Hard not to relate to a song like Jelly Roll's "I Am Not Okay" when you are, you know, not okay.
     A little too dire to be useful, though, as a shovel to dig out of this mess, however. For that, I've settled on Luke Combs' "Ain't No Love in Oklahoma" from the "Twisters" soundtrack as my Official Diabetes Theme Song. An infectious opening guitar riff, then: 
I keep chasing that same old devil
Down the same old dead end highway
Riding that storm runnin' through my veins
Like a shot down, tail spun airplane
Scared of nothin' and I'm scared to death
I can't breathe and I catch my breath
    No shit, Luke. Storm running through my veins indeed — it couldn't be more spot on if it mentioned glucose levels and epipens.  I listen to it every single day, sometimes more than once a day. 
    Enough. My gut tells me I might be straying into oversharing territory. Maybe you can make me feel less exposed by mentioning music you turn to for comfort and inspiration.

     Readers have been very creative when it comes to suggesting songs, and since I wrote this, I've development my "Kick Diabetes' Ass" mix, which I'll share below, in case anybody wants to poach from it.


       

Monday, October 21, 2024

The algorithm will see you now


     People are troublesome. And expensive. We've seen the steady exile of problematic, costly wetware, replaced with vastly more efficient — and a whole lot cheaper — computer programs. Out with telephone operators, in with phone loops. Out with cashiers, in with self-checkout kiosks.
     I get that. And go along, grudgingly. If I pulled into a gas station, and one way went to self-service pumps and the other to an attendant in a freshly starched uniform and peaked cap hustling out to pump the gas, wash my windows and give me a stick of Doublemint gum, I'd certainly opt for him. A few times. But if his gas cost 25 cents a gallon more, it wouldn't be long before I'd find myself guiltily edging into the self-service line, avoiding the attendant's gaze.
     How reluctant I was to use those self-checkouts, at first. As if it were stealing from the cashiers. Which of course it is. Then the grip loosens, and tradition tumbles into the abyss. Technology wins.
     Still, each time you encounter the shift anew, it's jarring. The past month I've been going through ... let's call it a medical crisis, for now. In September, I lost 10 pounds without trying. Then I was thirsty at night. Really thirsty. Up every hour, tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. My eyes were dry. I'd gulp a few Dixie cups of water, put in eyedrops, go back to bed.
     After the second night of this, my wife urged me to get a blood test. So I went to a Quest Diagnostics, the McDonald's of blood testing. I found myself in a crowded waiting room, but no attendant. People lined up in front of a computer terminal and entered their information, then sat down.
     This struck me as something new, the unattended waiting room — the next step with AI and Zoom medical exams. Someday you'll get your full checkup, be poked and prodded and weighed by robots, without ever seeing a living person. There was one at Quest: Every so often, a woman would open a door and bark someone's name. At least machines don't yell at you. Yet.
     Turns out my test wasn't in their system. My doctor's office was a few steps away — I hadn't gone there first due to an insurance conundrum impossible to express in words. So I walked over, planning to get my blood work order and return. But once in the comforting office of a doctor I've been seeing for 20 years, I decided to just get my blood drawn there.
     That evening I received a brisk email titled, "Test result available on Portal." Half the time I can't even log into these things but somehow managed. Checking your results can be fraught — I'm not a doctor, and interpreting raw data can be confusing and scary. I began on my "Comp Metabolic Panel" and didn't have to get far. Front and center, the first item was: "GLUCOSE 318" while the "REFERENCE RANGE" was "60 - 99 (mg/dL)."
     That was all too clear: My blood sugar was triple what it should be. Part of the advice Dr. Google gave was to proceed to a hospital immediately. "Do not delay."

To continue reading, click here. 

Sunday, October 20, 2024

It isn't ALL lies....

Roman toy shop

     Credit where due.
     Donald Trump is a very honest liar. 
     Hear me out. Yes, he vomits forth an endless spew of self-aggrandizing untruths. I can't begin to allude to them specifically, there are literally tens of thousands. A recent favorite: he is "the father of IVF."  WTF? It instills a sense of near wonder. For its pure daftness. He can't believe it himself, can he? Delusion or lie? An interesting question, but also a distinction without a difference.
     Yet through the cracks between the lies shines candor. Trump sometimes says exactly what he will do, pointed truths even more shocking than the lies.  He avows his unwavering support for despots in general and Vladimir Putin in particular. He outlines his intention to use the government to harass enemies, squash the media, subvert elections so his followers never have to vote again.  His passion to expel immigrants, even legal immigrants. 
     He could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose a vote. He said it. And it's true. At this point, he could go to 5th Avenue and shoot someone, to illustrate his point. How shocked would we be and for how long? Not much on either account.
     Said it almost a decade ago. Compare that to Saturday night's calling Kamala Harris a "shit vice president." Which pales next to his truly bizarre ramble about golfer Arnold Palmer's manhood. This is the past and perhaps future president. Someone with a coin toss's chance of being re-elected in a little more than two weeks. 
       None of this is new. Facebook served up a comment of mine from 2016:
So let's review, shall we?
Donald Trump refuses to accept the basic mechanism of our democracy, the orderly transition of power after an election, citing imaginary voter fraud. He closes his eyes to Russian manipulation of our election, denying the evidence endorsed by 17 government agencies. He calls his opponent, stolidly accepting his blather and insults, "a nasty woman." Yet millions are voting for him. I just don't get it.
     Sound familiar? 
     Lately I've seen friends online marveling what the appeal of Trump could possibly be. Really? You haven't figured it out yet. C'mon. Get with the program: his followers are grievance junkies. Their lives are the fault of dark forces beyond their ken. Period. In their view, they are not responsible for their setbacks and wrongs. Others are. If they can't find a job, it's because some Venezuelan who walked across the Darien Gap and can't speak English and is a criminal in a gang nevertheless managed to show up and take it. 
    Even the "can't find a job" trope is generous. Giving others the benefit of the doubt is murdering democracy. A lot of Trump supporters aren't suffering unfortunates, but the gilded upper 1 percent, trying to maximize their advantage. Elon Musk, richest man in the world, prancing around Trump like a cast member from "Godspell." I reviled him before. But the sun will go out and be a cold ember and Musk's infamy for his daft Trump push will still be fresh in my mind.
    Trump might win. If he does, the nation will go to the dark place his backers occupy and the United States of America will certainly fail, or slide closer to failure. For a very long time. The future is dim. When was the last time you saw something made in Russia? They  don't even lead the world in the production of vodka.  
    There is hope Trump won't win. That's as far as I'll go. Trump might lose, both the election and his clown coup that will come afterward. I hate that the media says it "might" happen or he "seems" to be laying the groundwork. It will happen. Take it to the frickin' bank. Strap in. It's going to be a wild ride. Another wild ride.

Saturday, October 19, 2024

Katsura tree


     No matter how many times I visit the Chicago Botanic Garden, I always notice something new. Friday afternoon — sunny, mild, in the mid-60s — it was this katsura tree, caught by the afternoon light in full autumnal splendor.  I'd swear I've never seen it before. One of only two members of its family, cercidiphyllaceae, so named because the leaves, apricot-colored in fall, look like those of a redbud, cercis, though the two are not related.
     The katsura hails from Asia. An ancient Chinese legend places a katsura tree on the moon. As the "katsura man" prunes it, the moon wanes (I haven't found an explanation of what happens when the moon waxes — maybe the leaves grow back). 
    Though Asian cultures tend not to put men on the moon, in the Western fashion, but rabbits. As to why the rabbits don't trim the tree, since they're there, well, nobody says these myths must be consistent. 
     Wood from the katsura tree is used to make Go and chess boards, for its warm hue and beautiful grain, like ripples from a pebble thrown into a pond. 
     Tree experts praise the katsura for being interesting to look at in all four seasons, even in winter, due to "handsome winter branch architecture." I'll have to make sure to circle back and confirm that. The scent of the leaves in autumn is also said to smell like caramel, or cotton candy, or "freshly baked muffins." I photographed the leaves up close, but didn't know enough to come in close and take a whiff. Now I do; good reason to go back to the Botanic Garden soon, as if another reason were needed.




Friday, October 18, 2024

Books on the nightstand: The Whore of Akron


     Really? It's been seven years since I offered up a new installment of "Books on the Nightstand"? Negligent of me — or of you. You're supposed to keep me on my toes, chide me about such things. "Hey Neil! Aren't you reading anymore? Spending all your time watching clips of 'Young Sheldon' on Instagram, are ya?"
     No. Still reading, still researching. Which is how I stumbled upon Scott Raab's "The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James." Published in 2011, the book is an example of that once common, now rare literary form: a philippic, a screed against an individual, an ad hominem attack, in this case keelhauling LeBron James, NBA superstar and the titular whore, roundly damned him for abandoning his Cleveland Cavaliers and flouncing off to Miami in search of championship rings.
     Not the sort of book you'd imagine me reading; me, who nearly asked Michael Jordan who he was when I met him. But I am working on something related to our mutual hometown, came across the book, and figured it would fill holes in my knowledge base.
     Boy, has it ever.
     Frankly, I was a little surprised I hadn't heard of Raab previously. We share at least half a dozen common characteristics, being both: 1) from Cleveland; 2) Jewish; 3) alcoholics in recovery; 4) prone to fatness; 5) associated with Esquire; 6) experience drinking with Wright Thompson, the ESPN scribe. It's a big world, I suppose; you can't keep track of everything. 
     Though Raab far surpasses me in #4 (topping out at 388, while I never weighed more than 225) and #5 (he started as a writer-at-large for Esquire in 1997, while I wrote one profile and contributed a few items to the "Dubious Achievement Awards.")
     What makes "The Whore of Akron" well worth seeking out is Raab's voice. I sincerely couldn't give a shit about LeBron James or his championship hopes in the first decade of the 21st century. But Raab performs the same magic trick that Robert Caro does — taking someone you'd otherwise care nothing about and turning him into a font of fascination, though the book is about Raab far more than LeBron. The author is virtuosic at plumbing the queasy mix of pride and resignation that afflicts all who harbor a little patch of Cleveland in their hearts, starting with his Lost Eden, the 1964 Cleveland Browns championship, which he had the misfortune — in my view — of attending as a 12-year-old.
     "That flag still flies in my soul," he writes. "The roar still echoes in my ears. The vision — of Cleveland triumphant, of Cleveland fans in communal thrall to a joy beyond all words, of a Cleveland team lifting the town's immortal heart to heaven — still fills my eyes."
     Me, I'd observe that success is an addiction too, like anything else, and if you find yourself wanting something too much, and chasing it too relentlessly over the years, maybe it's time to forswear it and find satisfaction elsewhere.  But I am not a sports fan. A guy who has written every day for 11 years plus shouldn't lecture anybody on abandoning oneself to pointless pursuits.
      Raab is a searing, fearless writer. I thought I was candid, having written a frank book about sailing with my father. Raab writes about trying to kill his father: "Once, my brother David and I tried to kill the old man. While he was at shul, we wedged the front and side doors tight, waited on the upstairs back porch until he came around the back door,and then fired every knife in the house down at himi the hope of poleaxing his yarmulked skull with one of them."
      I deploy my cute little metaphors like paper boats in a bathtub. Raab rakes his cheeks with his fingernails and scrawls his thoughts in blood on a white wall. Reading Raab, I felt an emotion that I can't recall ever feeling reading another writer: shame. I felt kinda ashamed, of myself, and my own weak tea craft, compared to the high-octane heat he brings to cavailing James as a loser and headcase. My favorite passage, the one I read out loud to my wife, is:
"I'm calling my wife now. As ever, I get rolled into voicemail. I try the landline. Hope. I try her cell again. Nada. Landline. Cell. Landline. Cell. Landline. Cell. She is unavailable. Unreachable. I miss her. I want her to be there for me every time I want her to be there for me. I want to whisper in the small pink shell of her ear that as our years together have unfolded, the mystery of our love grows ever more unfathomable, especially the mystery of where the fuck she is or why the fuck she doesn't answer her fucking cell phone."
     That last sentence, the pivot it makes, is brilliant. Though speaking of his wife, the book does have a notable flaw — in my view. And to give you an idea of the gap between us, I can hardly articulate the sin he commits. But here goes. His beloved, respected, wife makes her first appearance in the book when he calls her over for a handjob, an act which is almost a leitmotif in the book. That doesn't seem respectful. While I'd never judge another man's relationship with his wife, I do know that if I presented my wife in that fashion in a book of mine, she would rip my heart out and taunt me with it as I died. So if you do read the book, and you should, know that's waiting in there.
     Otherwise, it's all pain and Cleveland fandom, set out in Hunter S. Thompson level prose that snaps between Los Angeles and Miami and Cleveland. There are descriptions of basketball games, but not too many. A book should create a world, and as someone who only vaguely knew that James eventually won a few of those championships — I think, I'll have to check (four; quite a lot, really) — it's a joy to see him portrayed as a quitter and a crybaby. 
     Yes, I wish Raab could put some distance between himself and the salmon-to-spawn desire for a championship that so animates sports fans, step back, and explore why the self-worth of an individual — many individuals — can rise and fall on the record of a team whose efforts, really, have nothing to do with them. To him, it's a given.
     "I truly believe that Cleveland's collective soul will be redeemed on that great and glorious day," he writes. "Nothing less." 
      Trust me, as someone associated with a city whose baseball teams have won a World Series apiece in the past 20 years: redemption is elusive.
     Plus I wish he could have considered how a guy supposedly in recovery can take that much Valium and Vicodin. 
     But those are quibbles. October hasn't been the best month, and "The Whore of Akron" is one of those books I opened with gratitude and read with pleasure, an escape from grim reality hanging all around like fog. I've already picked up his second book, "You're Welcome Cleveland" and will turn to that next.
     Sometimes, when someone accuses me of being successful, I point out that I'm not even the most successful writer living in Northbrook — that would be Bob Kurson, author of best-selling "Shadow Divers" and other wildly-popular volumes. Now, with the discovery of Scott Raab, I can say I'm not even the most successful alcoholic Jewish writer from Cleveland with a troublesome family. Still, given what Scott Raab has gone through, and how excellent he is at conveying it, I do not begrudge him the title one bit. Okay, well, maybe a little.

Thursday, October 17, 2024

Ten years after

 

Unarmed, 2016, by Nick Cave (Museum of Contemporary Art)

     Blog posts and newspaper columns are a different species of beast. The blog can be more freewheeling. It can be either more in-depth or more trivial. Whatever the tone, I try to bring the same professional chops to everything I write, blog or paper. So it's flattering when the Sun-Times notices something on the blog and asks me to rework it into column, as with the piece below.  If you want to see how I changed it to run in the paper, you can read Friday's print version here


   One traditional job that the media used to do faithfully is to keep track of the passage of time. It's been 10, 25, 50, 100 years since such-and-such an occasion. 
    I almost began the next sentence, "This is important because..." but I'm not sure it is important. Maybe. Anniversary stories do allow readers to mark the passage of time, remind themselves of important events, and I suppose tell those new to the scene what they've missed.      Newspapermen used to roll their eyes at the obligatory Pearl Harbor anniversary stories — readers would scream as if we'd bombed the USS Arizona ourselves if we missed one — but I bet at least a few readers looked at the stories and thought, "The Japanese attacked us? Really?"
     Despite their frequent eat-your-peas quality, as a writer, these stories can still be worthwhile, if you take the time to do a deep dive into the subject. I learned a lot from the piece I wrote in 2017 for the 50th anniversary of the unveiling of the Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza. The reason I dug into the topic more than usual is because I really hated the Picasso sculpture — it seemed a wiley Spaniard's cruel joke on the artist pretensions of Midwestern rubes — but that didn't seem the route to take when celebrating the half century of the iconic ornament. So looking for someone to tell my why the hunk of junk didn't suck, I talked to everyone from curators at the Museum of Contemporary art to mirrored balloon dog artist Jeff Koons, combed archived, reading oral histories with Gwendolyn Brooks who wrote a poem for the occasion despite thinking the thing "looked stupid." The money was good.
     Or such stories can provide small pauses, a dip of the head in recognition of something significant that happened, and a glance at what has happened since because of it. This Sunday, Oct. 20, is the 10th anniversary of ... what Chicago event? Does anything come to mind? See, this is why these pieces have value. I'd be pressed to cough up an occurrence from 2014 unprompted. The Obama presidency ... that happy world before Donald Trump went down that escalator. And...
     What else? Any guesses? A significant, city-shaking moment. National news.
This is how I describe it in my book, "Every Goddamn Day":
     On the dashcam video you can see squad cars, one, two, three of them. You see Laquan McDonald, 17, walking down the center of Pulaski Road, a little hop in his step before Officer Jason Van Dyke, within two seconds of exiting his car, gets into his shooter's stance and fires 16 shots into the teen, who spins to the ground. 
     That's enough. Van Dyke became the first Chicago police officer in 35 years to be charged with first-degree murder in connection to a duty-related shooting. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and got out after serving three. Detained a thousand days for executing a teen who was walking away from him, carrying a three-inch knife.
     There was other fallout. Mayor Rahm Emanuel decided, well, maybe he didn't love the city as much as he was continually professing, and decided not to run for re-election, leading to a pair of sub-par replacements, first the grim Lori Lightfoot, now the feckless Brandon Johnson. Emanuel slunk off to become the American ambassador to Japan, which is about as far from Chicago as you can get without leaving the earth's magnetic field.
     So a life lost — Laquan McDonald would be 27 now. A competent if jerkish mayor exiled. A city pushed down a bad road. The teen himself part of a skein of wrongly killed Black victims whose recorded deaths would rattle everything — sort of a dry run for George Floyd in 2020. Yet another reminder that there are few situations a gun can't make worse.
     The anger that the Laquan McDonald shooting sparked seems to have run dry lately. Now Black men are drifting away from Kamala Harris because, well ... she's a woman. Or something. Shrugging their way toward a candidate who'd see to it that the Jason Van Dykes of America are never again held accountable. That's the downside of looking back. You hope to find progress, but too often all we see is decay.
   

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

I don't understand = space aliens did it

 

     People are so stupid. You don't need me to tell you that. Particularly with the election bearing down on us. The news is one endless festival of idiocy. 
     Spend five minutes scrolling ... just about anywhere. X, Instagram, Facebook. Hardly matters. People leaping to establish their "I'm a dope" credentials.
     I don't go around fact checking lies on the internet — if I made a habit of that, it's all I'd ever do.
     But sometimes I can't help myself, and give in. Curiosity gets the better of me. I was on Facebook, the other day, and it served up the post on the right. A huge, well-made stone wall, from antiquity apparently. Since it's posted by "Real UFO's And More" they don't even have to come out and say it. Their readers  do it for them.
     "Aliens," concludes one. "HUGE GIANTS," another. "Proof that our religions and history books are bullshit" (I actually agree with half of that one)
     To be fair, some state the obvious. "Once again this has absolutely nothing to do with aliens or UFOs."
     "Who knows how this was accomplished?" the caption asks.
     Archeologists, I assume. I plugged the photo into Google Image, and instantly found the wall is at an Inca site in Peru called "Saqsaywaman." 
     Among the sites offered was "EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SACSAYHUAMAN FORTRESS." 
     The site explains:
     "Despite the Incas being an advanced civilization, they didn’t know the wheel. So they used a technique of hard-work movement. First, the colossal lime rocks were carved in the same quarries of Muyna Waqoto and Rumiqolqa situated 32 kilometers far away. Next, they situated the giant carved stones over oiled logs. These stones were tied down by thick ropes by several people who pulled them. In this form, the stones were sliding over the wooden reeds. Please note that the Incas re-carved these stones, refining them even more, in the same place of construction.
     "According to the chronicler Pedro Cieza de León, more than 20,000 people participated in the construction of this Inca complex, and its construction lasted a century, approx. The process was slow, but the result endured over time to the present."
     Eyewitnesses, watching the thing built. Not aliens. People. 
     I never thought of this before — and as a rule, I try not to see racism crouching under every bush. But maybe part of this whole "aliens had to have made this!" nonsense is ignorant white people who can't conceive of brown folks long ago doing something with a high degree of skill. A problem that plagues us to this day.

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

"Troubling on all counts"

   
Protester, Republican National Convention, July, 2016

     Readers sometimes write with interesting questions. This, from Alexander B. was slugged, "Israel and the Election."
     "This troubles me," he begins. "First, why is the presidential election apparently so close?"
    Why indeed? Well — and thank you for asking — a number of reasons. 
     First, the dupes are invested in the fraud. That's why there's so little erosion of the Trump base. They've punched the ticket, gotten on the train. They won't get off. They can't. Subsequent developments and revelations do not affect them. Or as I keep saying: Once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the exact nature of the reality being ignored hardly matters.
     They are joined by various newcomers, dopes on the left. Latinos willing to support the most anti-Latino president in history because they've convinced themselves he isn't talking about them, personally. Blacks who are more comfortable with a bigoted, mean, white man than a joyous woman of color. Palestinians, doing that cutting off their future to spite their past thing that Palestinians are so good at, supporting Benjamin Netanyahu's best friend in the world and a hardened Muslim hater over a member of the current administration. 
     Plus a confederacy of the ugly and malicious, the toxic and terrified. Fear junkies and rage addicts of every race and nationality. Subjugated if pious women who want all their sisters to join them in permanent second class citizenship.
     And never forget the cowardice and short-term self-interest of Republicans, who handed their party over to Trump and grovel in a way that will shame them someday, if our country has a future, and mainstream Christians, who violated every tenet they supposedly embrace in service to their army of imaginary zombie babies.  
     Rich asshats like Elon Musk, who in my dream world will be forever tarred by prancing around Donald Trump, jamming a dagger at the heart of his adopted country when it needed him most. Catiline, Judas, Elon.
     "Second," Alexander continues, " polling seems to show that we don't necessarily favor Harris to handle foreign affairs, wars etc."
     Policy doesn't matter here. This is a tribal issue. It's cute, to me how old line media will publish a chart comparing how Trump and Harris stand on the Law of the Sea and the sugar import tax, when most of America made their irrevocable choice long ago based on their grandparents' political leanings and their own cerebellum lizard brain. 
     "Third, Israel is getting hotter and we're sending weapons systems and troops to help."
     And a good thing too. Israel is our ally, sadly in the grip of a leader as bad as Trump. He won't be there forever. It will only seem that way.
     "Fourth, Netanyahu loves Trump and the feeling is mutual."
     Dictators always support each other. Remember, the World War II axis of Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo and, for a time, Stalin.  Birds of a feather ... When you abandon human values, the first thing you do is look for is company, backup. To pretend your perversion is A-OK.
     "So, is Netanyahu helping Trump because the ignorant voter mass would prefer him to handle war issues?"
     Which ignorant voter mass? Israel's? They did elect Netanyahu, though their parliamentary system led to him making common cause with their right wing religious crazies and die hard fanatical settlers — which is going into the weeds, foreign policy wise, for most Americans, speaking of ignorant voter masses, who view Israel as the place where Jesus was born and will return after the welcome arrival of Armageddon. Which, I have to admit, feels a lot closer today than it did last year. It hailed Tuesday morning. Burning frogs might be next.
     "Troubling on all counts," Alexander concludes.
     No argument here. 

Monday, October 14, 2024

Fall color


     When our house was built, around 1905, it was surrounded by an apple orchard that continued to the north and west. At some point the property was divided up into lots, and the line between our land and our neighbor's was marked by a sugar maple tree.
     We bought the house 24 years ago, and one of the countless arborists we hired over the years observed that a root that had grown wrapped around the maple's trunk. It would eventually strangle the tree and kill it, he said, but we couldn't cut the root, because that would kill the tree too.
     Sad, because it's such a beautiful tree.
     Well, nearly a quarter century later, predictions of the tree's demise turned out to be premature. It was particularly beautiful Sunday morning, with the sun first striking the leaves. I snapped a few photos, then just stood there in the center of the street, admiring the colors.
     I appreciated the beautiful colors, spontaneously, then was glad that, despite everything going on, I could appreciate them. A sort of double gladness, soon replaced by pedestrian concerns. But I had it for a moment. Sometimes, a moment is all you get.
     Autumn is upon us; enjoy it while it's here. Who knows what life will be like for any of us come winter?

Sunday, October 13, 2024

The Stag at Eve



     It's been a while since I thought a New Yorker cartoon was funny.
     In fact, I can't remember when that last happened.
     I almost said, "It's been a while since a New Yorker cartoon was funny." But I have that superpower of stepping out of my own perceptions and realizing that I'm not the only person in the world. They still print them, after all. Young people might find them hysterical. They probably do. I sure hope so. Me, I just find them strange.
     Once, New Yorker cartoons were great fun. I just pulled seven large format New Yorker cartoon collections off my shelf, looking for a certain cartoon I mentioned in the comments Thursday in my cri de coeur about the New York Times muffing its coverage of our gathering national disaster. 
     Flipping through the pages, I was immediately reminded just how fleeting humor can be. Lots of bosses chasing secretaries around desks. Not so funny anymore. All the Black people were jungle tribesmen or servants. Not so funny anymore. A reminder that we communicators have got to change with the times. I try to keep my frame of reference current, but sometimes it feels like I'm always rushing to keep up with some change I don't care for in the first place. Sometimes I envy those guys who just fold their arms and stop adapting. Staying on top of things is exhausting. There are so many ways to screw this up. But I have a professional interest not to let myself be stuck in the 1990s.
     A couple rarities. "The Seventh New Yorker Cartoon Album" was published in 1935, 10 years after the magazine was founded. I can't find any information about it online, but my hunch is it's the first album and the "Seventh" is a joke, or an attempt at one anyway. Not to disparage that brand of chuckle — senior year of college, the humor magazine published its 50th anniversary issue, crafting a half century of clips to highlight, even though it wasn't four years old. We thought it a bravura performance at the time and maybe it was.
     And "The Stag at Eve," a thin, softcover 1931 volume of mildly risque cartoons, mostly prurient, a few vaguely anti-Semitic, by top New Yorker artists, including several by William Steig. "Trouble with you, Baby, is you need awakening," says a pint-sized Steig lothario, leering at a female pal with a big ribbon in her hair as he arches toward her on a sofa.
     My guess is an attempt to monetize cartoons that couldn't make it into the magazine — something New Yorker artists also did that in more recent years — see 2006's "The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker."
     The title, "The Stag at Eve," is worth noting, a reference to the male deer that often pops up in the background of paintings of Adam and Eve, a reminder of the introduction of sin into paradise and the, umm, need for redemption through Christ. A sly reference to the off-color jokes within).
     Oh, the cartoon. I was trying to capture the strange way the East Coast media is clinging to the rituals of a normal presidential election, even while covering the campaign of a liar, bully, fraud and traitor who very clearly will tear apart American democracy and impose a dictatorship if given the chance. And I thought of this cartoon. Odd, in my memory, the view of the boat was closer up, and I could see it in the style of Edwin Booth, a New Yorker cartoonist known for his daft, complicated eccentrics. But it wasn't.
     It was drawn by Bruce Petty, and ran Nov. 28, 1959.
     I did not learn that flipping through my stack of cartoon collections, of course, as pleasant an interlude as that was in the pre-dawn dimness of my office. But in three seconds searching online. The reality, once I finally tracked it down, wasn't as impressive as it had been in memory. That happens a lot.