Buh-bye 2025, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out

I ran into protesters at the No Kings rallies who turned a line from my column into a sign. 

     Old man 2025 goes out one door, with his long white beard, scythe and hourglass. A brand new baby in a diaper, with a sash proclaiming "2026," is supposed to come toddling in another.
     Doesn't feel that way, does it? Whatever your expectations of 2026, "shiny and happy and new" doesn't describe them.
     Old Joe Biden goes out one door. Donald Trump comes toddling in another. Well, a baby of a sort ...
     But not what tradition led us to expect. That was 2025. The solid foundation of America felt like the floor of a bouncy castle. 

     My mother departs without a word — so uncharacteristic of her — and my granddaughter enters with a cry. I always heard codgers crow about how great their grandkids are but never understood what they were talking about until now. It's like taking a bath in liquid happiness.
     That's 2025. Very wrong and grim, interrupted with flashes of hope and joy. The return to the White House of a man who, in my view, ought to be in prison. Then the country pushes back, with Chicago and Illinois at the forefront. Two No Kings protests. A new pope, from Chicago, trying to put the kindness back into Christianity.
     Donald Trump's war on immigrants was the biggest story of the year. Soldiers patrolling Downtown. Masked government thugs seizing people off the street based on the color of their skin. Routinized self-dealing. The Swiss handed the president a gold bar. Caring about stuff like that felt as dated as Jimmy Carter's cardigan. The normalization of an administration of infamy that we should never feel comfortable with, not until it is gone and history. Not even then.
     What was Harriet Beecher Stowe's line? "This horror, this nightmare abomination! Can it be in my country! It lies like lead on my heart, it shadows my life with sorrow."

     Sorrow mixed with pride. The Sun-Times was on the front lines, covering ICE rampages, and I've never been prouder to be associated with the newspaper, its fearless reporters and photographers. I wish I could say I led the way. But I didn't. I tried to provide perspective, to put up some covering fire where I could. When Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza urged Chicagoans to patronize Little Village businesses to make up for locals afraid to leave their homes, we sat down to dinner to discuss the situation. More recently, I reported on landscapers — easy pickings for ICE, standing in people's yards, working — as if you'd find "the worst of the worst" raking leaves in Evanston. The worker we focused on, Rey, is set to be let out of custody at any moment.
     Otherwise, I saw my job as to not dwell in one place too long — I had 141 bylines in the paper in 2025 — offering a variety of snapshots of the roller coaster that was 2025.
     Entering my 39th year on staff, I tried to shake it up a bit. In August, architecture critic Lee Bey and I hosted an architectural boat tour on the Chicago River that was so popular — tickets sold out in a couple of hours — that we held a second one, raising thousands of dollars for Chicago Public Media, meeting supporters and readers. That was fun.

To continue reading, click here.

The boat cruise was a lot of fun (Tyler LaRiviere for the Sun-Times)

'In conclusion, it is important to note that AI will play a crucial role...' — The State of the Blog 2025:

Daley Plaza, March 7, 2025

     This blog debuted on July 1, 2013. For its first decade, I would present a "State of the Blog" around the actual anniversary, usually the last day of June.

     But this year, as June melted into July, I was in New Jersey, helping my older son move his young family down the coast, and didn't feel like picking through the past year. So I just skipped it. No one noticed.
     Beside, I do pretty much the same thing at New Year's, marking the end of the calendar year, and I figured: once a year is plenty. Maybe even too much.
     You don't need me to tell you that 2025 seemed fairly grim. The return of a liar, bully, fraud and traitor to the White House when he really should be in prison. Elon Musk's giddy defacement of the federal government. Masked thugs seizing people on the street based on the color of their skin. The normalization of an administration of infamy that we should never feel comfortable about, not until it is gone and history. Not even then.

     On the personal front, a series of losses, beginning with my mother in June, then my cousin Harry in September. Sister Rosemary. Lori Cannon. Tony Fitzpatrick. As bad as that is, it seemed a foretaste: the people you love are going to go, one by one, and then, eventually, your turn. I mean, "my turn." 
     Not a lot of gas in the tank to pick over a years worth of column. But plodding forward is something I do well — God knows I've had practice — and now that I've done my picking, I'm glad. Because honestly, when I look back on the past year, unaided, it all blends into a uniform buzz. But actually rambling through the entries, I do find pieces that make me feel ... well, proud would overstating the case. More like "Satisfied that I'm not completely wasting your time, and mine."
     Five point three million views over the past year. Though if we discard those outside the United States, all bots for sure, it falls to 1.6 million. About 4,500 actual readers a day. That sounds about right. Small ball, social media wise. Kim Kardashian gets 5,000 hits in a minute for coughing into her fist on Instagram
     But if 4,500 people were gathered in an auditorium, waiting to hear what I say, that would seem a considerable crowd, and I would show up and choose my words carefully.
      Enough. What were the highlights?
     In January, I presented a surprisingly moving visit to Cooperstown, 'No crying in baseball'? There is if you visit the Hall of Fame.

     February, a story that began about volunteers who sit in court as silent witnesses during pet abuse trials, turned into one gripping case of animal cruelty: "Oh my God! It's a dog! It's alive!"
     In March, I thought to compare a fictional TV gay fire fighter with the real thing and —mirabile dictu —the CFD actually cooperated, itself a noteworthy occurrence.

     In April, after Illinois comptroller Susana Mendoza put out a video urging Chicagoans to go to Little Village, to make up for locals afraid to leave their homes, we sat down to dinner together to talk about the situation.  

     In May, the founder of Facebook announced that most Americans have fewer than four friends, and offered to sell them some AI buddies. I mused on real friendship in "Mark Zuckerburg wants to sell you new AI friends."

     In June, Chicago said goodbye to Sister Rosemary Connelly, whose life I was proud to outline. 'She saw our kids as people, not as disabilities.' 

     July found me in Washington with my new granddaughter. I looked at the capital of a nation renouncing its basic values, with DEI at DC memorials ripe for purging.

     August was goodbye to Lori Cannon, tireless 'AIDS angel,' dead at 74: 'She took care of the whole universe'. I also spun a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park into a rumination on humanity in What if crowds don't have to spoil the view.

     September, I was back in Washington, talking to the National Guard: At least the Washington Monument is safe. And when the guard arrived in Chicago, I wrote a front page story recounting Chicago's long history as a battleground for federal troops.

     October I turned the dullest bit of history ever into a front page story: Erie Canal, the ditch that made Chicago great, marks its 200th birthday. 

     November, the blog continued to support those our government is lashing out at: People still exist even if the Trump administration refuses to see them.

     In December, a rare bit of satire, mocking YouTube sleep videos: Can't sleep? Don't count sheep — use this guided meditation for healthful snoozing.

     Thanks seem in order. First to all the regular commenters, particularly those who point out errors without trying to make sense of them. "When you write 'hte,' do you mean the Norwegian surname, or did you misspell 'the'?" 

     To my wife, for bearing up under this odd obsession of mine. To Charlie Meyerson, for regularly amplifying this blog on his Chicago Public Square. To Marc Schulman, at Eli's Cheesecake, for supporting this blog from the very beginning. If you haven't clicked on their ad, gone to their enticing website and bought a cheesecake, well, I don't see how you can live with yourself.

    My world got smaller, colder and darker this year, with the exception of one glorious grandchild, which, when she's within sight, banishes all other considerations. 

     I complain a lot, as is my nature, but I still love writing this. Love writing just about anything, really. The buzzing cloud of life's concerns falls silent, and it's just me tapping away for a few hours, turning out another one of these things. That people also read them and get something out of them, well, icing on the cake.

    How did Norma Desmond put it? 

     "You see, this is my life. It always will be. There's nothing else. Just us. And the cameras. And those wonderful people out there, in the dark."

     Gloria Swanson was 51 when "Sunset Boulevard" was released. I'm 65. Tick tock.

American transplant system rigged to favor rich overseas medical tourists

Harrison Roberts

     More than 5,000 Americans died waiting for a kidney transplant in 2025. About a dozen a day. One of them was my first cousin Harrison Roberts.
     He was a rambunctious little boy. My earliest memories of Harry are him bouncing on my back at our grandmother's house on Thanksgiving. He was a hefty kid, so that took some indulgence on my part. But I'm seven years older. I managed.
     His father Bill died when Harry was 15. Cancer. Then 20 years ago Harry got cancer himself — colon cancer, Stage 4. Doctors told him to go home, get his affairs in order and die.
     That wasn't acceptable to Harry, in his late 30s, with two young daughters. He fought, enduring intensive rounds of chemotherapy.
     Harry lived near Boston. Years would pass when we didn't speak. But I happened to be in town doing research around 2005 and visited him. We spent a few hours at Mass General while he underwent chemo. It wasn't a big deal, to me; saying goodbye seemed the decent thing to do.
     I didn't realize that when you get cancer others tend to avoid you. Harry later told me he had friends who were reluctant to step inside his house. Like they'd catch it or something. We were closer after that.
     Harry beat the cancer. But the chemo fried his kidneys, and they began to fail. For the past four years, he was on dialysis.
     Dialysis forces a person to sit in a chair three hours at a stretch, five days a week. Harry made calls, often to me. We talked about books, politics, family, everything. We spoke almost every day.
     Sometimes we ran out of things to say and would just silently sit for five or 10 minutes, the phone line open. I'd hear ambient sounds from the hospital or dialysis center, which Harry once described as "a cross between a medical clinic and a bus station."
     He needed a kidney. Harry had friends and relatives line up to offer one — at least six people. We were all rejected.
     Harry's theory was that Mass General didn't want to risk reducing its success rate by giving him a kidney. He'd not only had cancer but a quadruple bypass. Dialysis erodes your heart. If he got a transplant and died, it would lower Mass General's batting average.
     Harry might have been onto something. A nurse pulled him aside and told him he was wasting his time there.
     I'd been urging him to go someplace else for years. There are other great hospitals. Barnes in St. Louis. The University of Chicago Medical Center. The University of Illinois Hospital has a well-regarded transplant program. I reached out to UIH. They were enthusiastic. Sure, if Harry gets to Chicago, they'll evaluate him.
     By then he'd had another setback with his heart. Plus vein problems. He'd lost part of his foot. Travel was out of the question.
     We watched his oldest daughter graduate college on Zoom last year; I stayed with him while his wife Yi attended the ceremony — two weeks driving him to dialysis, hanging out, talking. He taught me to play Go.
     None of this would have made print — not everything belongs in the newspaper. But on Dec. 16 The New York Times ran a front-page story, "Hospitals Cater to ‘Transplant Tourists’ as U.S. Patients Wait for Organs."
     At first glance I thought the story was about Americans going overseas to get organs while patients here languish — Harry and I had joked about buying a black-market kidney in Southeast Asia.

To continue reading, click here.

Leafy suburban paradise

     Whew, the heavy lifting is over. Hanukah and Christmas, with all the latke making and tree trimming, forced feasting and gifts, given and received. With only the hoop of New Year's Eve to jump through — don't drink and drive and the rest will work itself out. 
      I wrote recently about how hard it is to give gifts. "Part mind-reading, part scavenger hunt, part potlatch," that last word being an Inuit celebration where you burn or give away your possessions as a sign of status. 
     But getting gifts is also problematic. You have to feign enthusiasm, usually. A sour face and "Shit, what am I supposed to do with that?" just won't serve. Then put the new prize somewhere — directly in the garbage is rude, though I have been tempted. 
     I'm particularly difficult to buy for, because I truly want nothing, and more and more view possessions as burdens that I would gladly dispose of if only I could. 
     So kudos to my younger daughter-in-law, the doctoral student, who managed the neat trick of giving me a present I actually was glad to receive, the above t-shirt for Hanukah. I have a lifetime's worth of graphic t-shirts and would never consider buying another. But this one is special — can you see why? "LEAFY SUBURBAN PARADISE," my longtime trope, like Homer's "wine dark sea," used to describe my hometown. She heard it, or read it, and took the time and expense to create this piece of custom apparel. 
     That really is the key to present-giving —not cost, not even aptness, so much as pre-meditation. We want our loved ones to think of us, and she certainly has. 

     You know, I thought I really grabbed the brass ring of life with my magnificent wife and two sturdy, smart sons. But the arrival of two caring and resourceful, kind and funny daughters-in-law, well, I'm a rich man indeed, particularly when you factor in the grandbabe. It's good that discretion forbids me from writing about her because otherwise I'd rarely write about anything else.

    Anyway, forgive my bragging a bit. If Northbrook wants to commercialize the shirt, I hope they will reach out and we can discuss licensing fees.   

2025 was a fine year when many good things occurred.

 

Original cartoon by K.C. Green

    With the year waning, the Washington Post editorial board came up with a list of "25 Good Things That Happened in 2025." Displaying it prominently, on the upper right corner of their web site.
    They start with Chicagoan Robert Prevost becoming the first American pope, Leo XIV. Hard to argue that one. 
    Hard to argue most of their points. A growing American economy, despite random tariffs imposed and withdrawn with mad, Lewis Carroll abandon. Overdose deaths and obesity down, alternate energy and tiger populations up.
     There was only one thing I completely disagreed with — No. 15: "Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming adopted universal school choice programs, bringing the total to 18 states." School choice is a sham to direct public dollars into private, often parochial, schools. It benefits those who are already ahead of the game, and leaves those in public schools in an even worse situation.
    No, what bothered me most was the exercise. Though the editorial board pointed out that they've done this before, I couldn't help but reflect how the Jeff Bezos-owned Post has drifted Trumpward over the past year. Ticking off everything good that happened in 2025 is a half sly way of saying, "Things aren't so bad!" I thought of that meme of the dog sitting in the burning room, saying, "This is fine."
     Everything, of course is not fine. When your house is on fire, you don't list the rooms that aren't burning, yet and admire the as-yet-unsinged curtains. How can you cite China's lowering carbon emissions and rising support for nuclear power without noting that our country has abandoned clean energy across the board?
     No mention of immigration at all. Any list I created would cite the good thing of regular Americans turning out, in Chicago and elsewhere, to push back against ICE, to defend their friends and neighbors.  I'd say if you mention Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce getting engaged — a joy to the world for sure —that the massive No Kings rallies deserve a place of prominence too.    
    Most telling is what is missing. Not a word about our president. The name "Trump" doesn't appear in their list of two dozen plus one good things that happened this year. Of course not. Everything Trump touches dies. So a little credit for not trying to spin one of rare defendable actions —eliminating the penny, for example.

      Still, an unwelcome bit of ballyhoo. A reminder that there are sins of omission as well as sins of commission. The MAGA world stands on chairs and howls their praise. While the bought-off, the compromised, and the oblivious, cough into their fists and talk about California embracing phonics education. 
     Good things happened in 2025. But so what? Unless some really good things happen in 2026 and 2027 and, especially, 2028, we're still going to be fucked, utterly. Never forget that.

     

Armored car

     Sometimes you notice something and realize: "Haven't seen one of those in a long time!"
     Like this armored car that pulled up at the entrance of the Chicago Botanic Garden as my wife and I were leaving Monday.

     Strolling through the grounds, I'd read a sign board listing the price for specialty cocktails — $17 —and figured there had to be a joke in there somewhat. "Must be raking it in with that spiced rum hot wassail concession..."

     But rather than say that — shutting up is an art form I struggle to master —I fell to musing on the subject of armored cars. I used to see them all the time. Then again, I used to be walking around the Loop five days a week. There could still be one on every street corner, for all I know.

     But i doubt it. I couldn't remember last time I'd seen one. I haven't touched money in weeks. My automatic assumption is that a decrease in cash usage has led to reduced demand for armored cars.

     Half true, according to an initial AI gloss. I asked if the armored car business suffered because of decrease use of cash. Cash is down but other services are up:

"Yes, the decreased use of cash due to digital payments puts downward pressure on the demand for traditional cash-in-transit (CIT) armored car services, forcing companies to diversify into handling high-value goods, documents, or investing in technology like smart safes; however, cash still remains vital for many, so the industry isn't disappearing but evolving with new security needs. 

     Seeking to back that up — you cannot trust AI — I found this marketing report, that suggests steady growth for the CIT industry, thanks to that diversification.

     Which got me curious — just what do they charge for hauling cash around? How much, for instance, to transport $1 million in cash five miles across Chicago? AI said that it depends on the route and the level of security provided, but anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $1,000 on bonded services like Loomis or Brinks.  Sounds right.

     My next question is: should I use AI to answer these questions, or tracking down the original sources? It seemed to boil down to a question of expectations. The first answer differed from what I thought —armored car companies are suffering — so I had to confirm that it was correct. The second answer, about the cost of armored car services, had what I call the "tang of veracity," so I trusted it. Why not? Everyone else seems to be doing it.

Flashback 2006: Have a happy one — try, anyway

Ron Bernardi, of Sunset Foods in Northbrook, setting the tone in 2024.

     How was your Wednesday? I've had better. While you were hugging relatives and chugging nog and whatever else you do at this happy time of year, I was struggling through a computer snafu of my own creation and then trying to reproduce the writing I had stupidly lost. It left me at 6 p.m. drained, teeth on edge, wondering how to spread some joy on your Christmas Day. Then I realized: I've been at this a long, long time. I bet there is some joy from years past that will serve. This does big time —it even includes a shot at Donald Trump, and a reminder that he never, ever learns or changes, since my observation of 19 years ago is spot on today. This ran back when the column filled a page, and I've kept in the original subheadings. Merry Christmas.

OPENING SHOT

     "Do you think this is a particularly grim Christmas?" I asked the managing editor. "People are saying it's grim."
     "I think that depends upon whom you ask," he said. "Look at our circle."
     I instantly understood.
     "We're middle-aged," I said. "Everything seems grim."
     We both laughed.
     Phyllis, the bartender at the Billy Goat on Washington, has her own theory about why the season feels the way it does.
     "It's the weather," she says, leaning in, as if confiding a secret. "Too sunny. Too warm. It isn't right. Something is out of whack."
     Something is always out of whack. Especially at the holidays, so often plagued by problems and pressures. Getting everything wrapped and ready and everybody in the car and all the relatives and grudges to deal with once you claw through the traffic and get there, made all the worse by the canard that everything is supposed to be perfect and happy and Norman Rockwellian.
     Christmas is a time to rest and reconnect, to celebrate and ponder, and try to be a little less miserable than usual. To whatever degree you can, I hope you have a happy one, and remember this: It beats working.
     Usually.

IT DRIVES 'EM CRAZY . . .

     Donald Trump is not the brightest man. Yes, he is rich, but his father was a millionaire real estate developer — an inexplicably obscure fact — and he would have been flush had he never done a single deal.
     So naturally Trump would thickly rise to Rosie O'Donnell's bait, to her unarguable observation that Trump isn't exactly a moral role model for America's youth. He should have laughed it off, but instead he replied with a barrage of insults — that Rosie is fat, is loud, is a lesbian. Typical Trump, as classy as a gold-plated toilet handle.
     The media, of course, responded like grade schoolers on a playground, shouting, "Fight! Fight!" and egging the participants on to deliver fresh insults and keep the thing going.
     Perhaps I'm biased, but Rosie seems to be the winner here. Has The Donald learned nothing from being ridiculed, non-stop, for the last 20 years? When someone castigates you, the most cutting response is to pretend you're indifferent. Oh really? Did Rosie say that? How wry. . . .
     Even better is real indifference. I've earned my share of enemies — OK, more than my share — over the years, and have learned that nothing leaves them fuming in the dust like warmly casting away all hard feelings and resentments on my part and viewing them affectionately, with perhaps a trace of pity.
      Forgiveness is always portrayed as a humble, spiritual act, and I guess it can be. But abandoning resentment also makes you feel good and can be a clever, soft form of attack, as well. The Florentine master, of course, said it best.
     "The wise man will not lock the chamber of forgiveness," Dante wrote in his Convivio. "Because to forgive is a fine victory in war."
      

On the watch

     'Tis the season to buy expensive watches, apparently. There were 28 photos of watch faces in ads in the front section of the New York Times on Thursday. So while I still believe — as I wrote before — that wearing watches will be less prevalent because of the clocks built in to cell phones and such, all those fancy watches represent one rather large exception that I didn't consider, not until my colleague Richard Roeper, passing me in the hall, yanked up his sleeve to show a knee-weakening example of the Swiss watchmaker's art and noted, with typical pith:
     "You can't bring your car into a bar."
     Translation: Financially successful men will always want to strap on a few grand — or a few dozen grand — worth of wristwatch, as a subtle reminder to those who might not otherwise grasp that their cisterns of cool capital are deep and wide and filled to the brim. Must be nice.
     Speaking of watch ads — I couldn't examine two dozen-plus photos of pricey timepieces without noticing that the old custom of watch ads showing 10:10 still holds mainly true — 26 of the 28 watches advertised had that magic hour, though the precise time tended to be 10:08 or 10:09 on many of the watches.
     The classic explanation is that setting the hands that way shows off the manufacturer's logo, typically under the "12," is balanced, and resembles a smile. Though sometimes the practice is carried out to irrational limits, such as the "woman's dual time zone stainless steel watch with diamond markers, mother-of-pearl dial and purple galuchat strap," a steal at $1,320.
     The watch has two faces, with both set to 10:10, which is just silly, plus being a reminder that a true world-shaking executive could figure out the time on the coasts by simple addition or subtraction of an hour or two, without the crutch of a second dial.

TODAY'S DEFINITION

     Galuchat: The skin of various fish, such as dogfish, small sharks, etc.
     You'd think for $1,320, they wouldn't give you a fish-skin strap.

TODAY'S CHUCKLE:

     John Williams from WGN called just now and asked me to talk with him a bit.
     While waiting to go on the air, I phoned my wife.
     "I'm a gonna be on the raydyo!" I enthused.
     She listened in, and called me immediately afterward.
     "You sounded good — very cheerful," she said.
     "I was just feigning cheerfulness," I admitted.
     "Well, feign it when you get home, too," she said.    

— Originally published in the Sun-Times, Dec. 24, 2006

At Christmas, cops, Chinese cuisine and a fallen firefighter hero

     Ah, Christmas memories. Crouched in the back of a CPD squad car cruising through Englewood. Diners crowded into a busy River North Thai restaurant. The great rose window of the Rose of Sharon Community Baptist Church, backlit by flame.
     Not your average Christmas memories. Then again, I am not your average Christmas celebrant. In fact, I've never observed the holiday in my life. Never woke up and scampered downstairs to see what Santa left me. Never lived in a house with a tree. Not once. I'm a Jew. We don't do Christmas.
     Okay, not generally. Some Jews do. They figure, the holiday is secular enough, why not join the party? Why miss out on fun, even if it's somebody else's fun? And I don't judge them.
     Okay, maybe I judge them a little. Cookies and carols are one thing. But a tree? Really? A "Hanukkah bush"? It's like wearing a medal for a battle you didn't fight in.
     What I have done, quite religiously, is work on Christmas. This year, needing to blow off a week of vacation or else lose it — and never losing vacation is close to holy writ for me — I deliberately took off the week of the 15th, so as to be back now, to lighten the load for my colleagues who have presents to wrap and mistle to toe and whatever else it is must be done to commemorate Jesus's birth.
     When I started at the Sun-Times, I'd work the night shift at Christmas, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., grumbling mightily, trying to hide the fact that being in the newsroom on Christmas was great. You got paid double-time. There were platters of cookies and cold cuts. Not many people around. Often a bottle tucked somewhere. I remember sitting at the slot — the U-shaped central news desk — with ... thinking hard ... Jim Merriner, maybe? Silently sipping bourbon in white styrofoam coffee cups. Listening to the police scanner crackle at midnight.
     Being me, I tried to take advantage of the opportunity, wondering: who else works Christmas? I spent Christmas eve, 1986, riding around Englewood in the back of a police cruiser with a pair of rookies. Writing the story gave me a lot of respect for police officers — I was scared, running up the stairway of a pitch black six-flat, and I was with two cops.
     Another Christmas I visited Asian restaurants and interviewed Jews — and Muslims — happily chowing down. One said that eating Chinese food on Christmas is a Jewish tradition. Prompting a rabbi to phone me a couple days later to express outrage that I had somehow maligned Jewish traditions. I said something along the lines of "Rabbi, don't you see that you complaining is a worse insult to Judaism than the thing you're complaining about?" Leading to further complaints, meetings and apologies, teaching me a valuable lesson: save candor for people you respect.

To continue reading, click here.

'Celebrating you on your special day'

 

    Modern life is jammed with decisions. Do this, buy that. Or don't do that, don't buy this. Being married, my wife and I typically make decisions together. In the past, big decisions — buying a condo; having children. Lately, small decisions.
     A friend of her family, Bobby, turned 100 over the weekend. He was a classmate of her mother's —used to dip her pigtails in the inkwell, he used to say. There was a party, at his apartment in Arlington Heights. A card seemed in order. The Hallmark shop in Northbrook closed long ago — sending cards is not the thing it used to be, I suppose. So we went to Osco, which has a wide selection of cards.

     The birthday section offers age-specific cards, intended for children turning 1, 2, 3, and such. We speculated, as we hunted, whether there would be a "So you're 100!" card. My  hunch was there would not be — think of how small that market is. But there it was. An elegant-yet-lighthearted, gold-lettered card —you wouldn't want something too jokey, or too serious, or leering. I examined it.

      "This one is pretty," my wife said, showing me another card, cheerful, arty, with cut-outs of balloons. A nice card. But also, I felt, a missed opportunity.
     "How often do you get the chance?" I said, making the case for the 100 years card in my hands. My view carried the day, and we bought the card. My wife had me make copies of two photos of Bobby and his wife, posing with her parents and other friends, at some long-ago occasion, maybe 60 years ago, and we tucked them in the card.

     The tough part about decisions is there are usually multiple factors involved, and you can't consider everything, try though you might. My wife, sharper than me, saw the problem minutes later, in the car.

     "I wonder how many people will buy that exact card?" 

     Produced by American Greetings, it was probably in every Osco in the city. 

     We arrived at the party. I could not resist looking about and noticing three of our card's distinctive blue envelopes, piled atop gifts. And two more on the piano. Plus one identical card that had already been opened. And ours. Making seven in plain sight. No doubt more elsewhere.

     No big harm. Repetition is a key part of growing old, routines you cherish, and those you don't. The birthday boy and his family may have even had a laugh over the seven identical cards. That's a present in itself.

The Chicago City Council fights an inferno with squirt guns

 

     Well, it took 'em long enough.
     Where was this City Council spirit of rebellion when Richard M. Daley was giving away the city's parking meter concession in 2008? Cutting off a major revenue stream for the next 75 years, leaving $4 billion on the table, a blunder called "the worst privatization deal in U.S. history."
     A few days of review, and the Council rubber stamped the folly, 40 to 5.
     No more. In a rare Saturday vote, the council voted 30 to 18 to send Mayor Brandon Johnson its own budget plan, rejecting his spending plan as unworkable.
     Is it? Heck if I know. The details of municipal planning are a nosedive into the weeds.
     But maybe we should peer into the undergrowth anyway. Given the entire future of Chicago is teetering on the edge of a cliff, ready to plunge into bankruptcy and ruin, we are obligated to put on our thinking caps and consider it, once again.
     When I wrote about this in 2014, as Rahm Emanuel grappled with the issue, the unfunded pension obligation was $32 billion. Now, it's more than $50 billion.
     That's the central problem. The city is on the hook for more pension debt than 44 states — Chicago has a bigger pension burden than Florida.
     How did that happen? Politics. Chicago has 32,000 city workers. Whether those workers vote for you or an opponent can decide an election. Easy to promise them gravy you don't have.
     And that isn't the only problem. COVID hollowed out the city's economic life while ramping up expenses. Texas started sending busloads of undocumented immigrants, and while housing them was the right thing to do, it still cost money.
     Chicago sure needs the people. The city's population is 2.7 million. You know what it was in 2020? 2.7 million. In 2010? 2.7 million. The city population has roughly plateaued for the past 45 years. Chicago has has fewer people now than it did 100 years ago. Can't tax people who aren't here.
     That's the deficit side. Now let's look at the proposed solutions.
     The mayor wants to put a head tax on business — that, plus his lack of even a flicker of political savvy, stirred the Council to act against him. But their proposal is just as weak as his. Increase fees on plastic grocery bags. Sell advertising on city light poles. Video poker.
     Do you see a difference in scale? The problems are enormous, involving billions of dollars in forced payments, hundreds of thousands of people wandering off or staying away. The proposed solutions are so feeble. The house is on fire, and the mayor and City Council are fighting over an array of squirt guns, arguing which will work best.
     Sigh.

To continue reading, click here.

Getting hung up on art

"Lyra" by Jessica Joslin

     Context is important.

     I went to the West Town Chamber of Commerce in Ukrainian Village on Friday night. Some of Tony Fitzpatrick's artist friends had gotten together to put on a show, "Black Swan Elegies," in his honor, and invited me. The Metra schedule gave me the choice of being a little early or a little late, and I chose early, so I could leisurely walk a cigar up Western and then east along Chicago Avenue. 

     I was the first guest there, so had time to  admire the various artworks, such as Jessica Joslin's dramatic bird above. 

     After I'd looked at the pieces, I went into the hallway, toward the front room, where there was a bar, and a spread of cookies. The choice was wine, but the bartender kindly dug up a bottle of chilled water for me. 

     Passing back through the hall, I noticed this line of little birds — Tony did like his birds —and appreciated their crisp uniformity, so snapped a photo.

    I looked for the placard, for the artist's name, the piece's title. But didn't notice one, and didn't think much of that. An oversight perhaps.

     More people arrived. I talked to friends in the front room. Then decided to go back into the gallery, now filling up with people. 

     Only then did I realize my mistake. For a bright guy, I can be extraordinarily dense. Do you see it coming? I certainly didn't. I had a good laugh at myself. Those unfortunates who have to always insist that they're right, even when they're wrong, never know the pleasure — nearly a joy — of having a good laugh at your own expense. Not art. A coatrack.

 

Stray photo

 

     This is weird. So my wife and I have dinner on Wednesday. We light candles for Hanukah. We watch a little TV, endure the president's pathetic rant. About 10 p.m., I walk the dog.
     Back at home, I go to post my photo of the four candles on the blog — I figure, this is a year to be Jewish a little more prominently. Show we're not afraid. I'm not afraid, anyway. Not yet.
     I look at my photos, and there's the black and white photo above, the most recent photo. I didn't take it, didn't download it, don't know the person in the photo or how it got there.
     I asked Prof. Google to explain. The possibilities ranged across the board. Shared by somebody with access. Hacked somehow. I had a hard time believing it was something done intentionally. What would be the point? A test? Next time it'll be something vile. The cops will bust in, and the incriminating evidence will be spattered across my phone. 

     Nah. That can't be. Maybe the photo was transmitted years ago and somehow, through some alignment of the planets, congealed on my phone. Strange stuff happens.
      Several times in recent months, a random Facebook video was sent by me to my son. Only I didn't send it. This seems something like that. An artifact, a glitch. When you consider how pervasive these networks are, how omnipresent the phones, in our hands for hours, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. I am using an iPhone 12, and have been poised to get a new phone —the 16 or the 17, anybody notice a difference? They cost about the same.

     My wife urged me not to post the photo — it's not a kid we know, but someone's kid, unless it's an AI composite, and children should be kept offline as much as possible, lest their images be seized and put to unspeakable purposes. I made a pouty face, and she then suggested I do an image search, which I did. Turns out the photo was posted to X the day before I saw it, by the Paris Review, along with a quote from the poet Alice Oswald. A blip from a network I signed up for years ago but now seldom visit. 

     Oswald is an English poet of considerable renown. Of course I looked at her oeuvre, starting with "Severed head floating downriver," which seemed apt for this occasion. It begins:

It is said that after losing his wife, Orpheus was torn to
pieces by Maenads, who threw his head into the River
Hebron. The head went on singing and forgetting,
filling up with water and floating way.

And ends: 

    this is how the wind works hard at thinking
    this is what speaks when no one speaks

   I deleted the photo from my phone. But the unease lingers. These devices, they're cracks in our lives. Our light shines out, wanly and is largely ignored. Meanwhile, all sorts of stuff seeps in. 

600 percent more bullshit

     Yeah, I watched the speech Wednesday night. Switched away from a very satisfying "American Masters" program about Dick Van Dyke on PBS to do so. I had no idea Van Dyke's road to success was so rocky — the number of blind alleys he went down, the failed shows, the misfires, and then "The Dick Van Dyke Show" was cancelled at the end of its first season, and only an extraordinary effort by its producer saved the program at the last moment. Life is struggle.
     But I was curious. Of course I hoped for some kind of Captain Queeg quality gibbering breakdown. Icing on the cake of a generally lousy few weeks for the Orange Enormity, not that his base is paying attention or cares at this point. Maybe a few are feeling a flash of unease that something might not be perfect. But that ain't no revolution. Once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, as I always say, the precise nature of the reality being ignored hardly matters.
     I distracted myself by sending out quips on Bluesky. He launched into his diatribe, and I thought of a train. "All aboard …. for Crazytown!"
     Though it wasn't even that terrible, not by our sub-gutter standards. Just the usual lies. His greatest hits. I'll grant him this — his skin tone looked almost normal. That's something new.
     My wife couldn't stand it, and fled the room. Me, I marveled that he was reading — had someone written down a rambling rant, and he was repeating it? There wasn't an artful sentence in the whole spiel. It was like watching a baby cry from a script.
     What struck me was how expected, unsurprising, and dull it all was, more of the same, in the standard spirit that everything he says is a confession.
     “One year ago our country was dead, absolutely dead,” said the animate corpse, his soul a suppurating slab of putrefaction.
     “We are respected again,” said the international laughingstock.
     Prescription prices were falling “400, 500, even 600 percent,” said the innumerate moron. Math doesn’t work like that.
     I think I'll end here. But we shouldn't hurry past that math gaffe. He's done it before. A 10-year-old can grasp the reality: If an apple costs a dollar, and I give you a 90 percent discount, then the apple costs you a dime. If I give you a 100 percent discount, then it's free. I'm not sure a 500 percent discount even makes sense, in this context, but it could mean that I'm paying you $4 to take it.
     The pharmaceutical companies aren't paying you to take their drugs. And I'm not going to bother flagging all the other lies in the speech, except to note the media still does not call the lies. "Untruths" or "fabrications" or whatever. Which itself is idiotic. We descend to his level, or toward it anyway. 
     The whole thing left me sad — this is the man who is destroying America? This? This? Who might yet upend democracy? This thing? We shouldn't skate by the $1,776 payment to each soldier. Of course it might never be delivered — he said the checks were on the way, which means nothing. And it seems that the payments might be real, but have nothing to do with him. He's just taking credit for them, which is par for the course.

     Maybe he's trying to spin the payments into a bribe of some kind, to buy the soldiers' loyalty. Cheap, to sell out our country. But then Trump sold the entire United State government to Elon Musk for $274 million. Trump probably thought it was a lot, but it was selling us out for very little. I've seen a lot of corrupt officials in my day at the paper, and it's always shocking how little they get for their betrayals. America sold its soul for nothing.

Flashback 2013: Is Sandy Hook a shrine or a school?

9/11  Memorial, New York City.

    The slaughter in Australia and the murders at Brown meant that the faces of the first graders slain at Sandy Hook were popping up on social media again. I suppose that passes for reflection. This column ran a dozen years ago, an artifact when such killings sparked national conversation. With our democracy imperiled, musing on the uses of memory seems almost antique.

    "Cursed shall be the ground because of you.”
     Strong words, particularly coming from God, who utters them when he condemns Adam and Eve for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
     The idea that the ground itself can be poisoned by the acts committed upon it is very old, and slumbers in a dark antechamber of the human heart, waiting for atrocities like the Newtown shootings to re-awaken.
     More than a month after 20 first-graders and six staffers were killed at Sandy Hook school, the question is: should the school be made into a memorial or returned to its intended use? The community has had several meetings, with more debate to come.
     You would think that the answer would break down along lines of impact — that the most affected, the devastated parents and loved ones, would push for a memorial, while the lesser-impacted town folk would pause over the cost of replacing an entire school.
     But it is more complicated. Some parents want their kids to go back, while outsiders insist they never be asked to return.
     In a way, they’re playing out, on a large scale, what individuals who suffer tragedies go through. They are torn between focusing on the bad thing and forgetting about it, or trying to. To forget too quickly feels wrong. As does lingering too long.
     Sadly, we have had enough atrocities that we can look to the past for guidance, although they offer a mixed bag. The scope of the bloodletting isn’t the issue — Columbine went back to being a high school, its name unchanged, after a dozen students were killed, while Brown’s Chicken pulled down the restaurant in Palatine where seven died. Gacy’s house was bulldozed but the apartment where Richard Speck killed eight student nurses in 1966 was later rented out.
     Cinemark reopened the Aurora, Colo., movie theater where 12 died, renaming and reconfiguring it. If you go to the Oriental Theater* on Randolph Street, you are at the exact site of the Iroquois Theater, where the worst theater fire in American history occurred, killing 600 people, many children.
     To me, the Iroquois offers up the key to the what-to-do puzzle, one people overlook during these discussions. Newtown gives every thinking person a visceral shudder, while the Iroquois Theater doesn’t, because the fire happened a long time ago — 100 years exactly, later this year. Time heals. Pearl Harbor still means something jarring to us but the Argonne doesn’t, even though 2,000 Americans died at the former and 26,000 died at the latter, a battle in World War I.
     All this talk of remembering the Newtown massacre forever shows that people don’t realize what forever means. Ford’s Theatre was seized by the United States government after Lincoln’s assassination, announcing that no public amusements would be held there, forever. But in the late 1960s, Ford’s was restored and returned to a theater — “Our Town” is playing there now.
     What do I think? Every time I hear someone say, “No child should be asked to go back to Sandy Hook Elementary School,” I reply, “Because you wouldn’t want to ask anyone to confront something terrible?”
     Our nation fails that way. From the symbolic fiddling we’re considering, briefly, regarding gun control, to our habit of kicking the economic can down the road, we are a people too hot to build memorials for tragedies and too timid to address their causes.
     Is the ground cursed because of the killings or sanctified because of the deaths? If it’s cursed, tear the school down and put up a granite monolith; if it’s sanctified, what better memorial to slain students than a school?
     I don’t believe in curses. The whole debate has a tinge of the irrational. How does the impulse to raze the school square with the common sentiment that mass killers’ names shouldn’t even be put in the papers, in the flimsy theory that doing so rewards their desire for fame? (People always assume these murders are done for notoriety, based on nothing but their own desire for glory).
     I will admit my bias. Londoners kept going about their routine during the Blitz, to shake their fists at the Nazi bombers. The Israelis, at the height of the Intifada, when suicide bombs were going off in coffee shops and at falafel stands, would quickly hose away the gore, replace the windows, right the overturned chairs and reopen for business.
     That seems the path of the hero. To say that kids will be traumatized re-entering the school both insults the kids and implies that people should simply avoid their fears — that is a bad lesson. If one of my children were killed at that school, I’d vastly prefer his tribute to be a ban on high-capacity clips over any marble megalith. The best honor for the kids who died is to do whatever we can to keep the kids we still have alive. But that won’t happen, because it’s easier to light an eternal flame than to take daring action.

          —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Jan. 25, 2013

* The name of the theater was changed to Nederlander in 2019.

Two tales of the federal government

    An example is not proof. At best, a hint, an indication. One example does not settle the argument, though bigots —and always remember that prejudice is a form of ignorance —offer up their instance or two. Or make them up, when they can't be bothered to find a fact. And pretend that the matter is settled. 

     When it is certainly not settled. An episode may illustrate a greater truth. Or might be deceptive, an outlier. 

    Last week, two stories related to the federal government caught my attention, and though neither represents a vastly complex situation, they do neatly bookend the range of possibility.       

     The first is from me:      

   Wow. Give it up for the United States government. It takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin.'

    I'm serious, or semi-serious anyway. Given that Cheetolini and his henchman Elon and whoever else is in a position to grab a fistful of wires and pull have been tearing at the federal bureaucracy for almost a year now, well, you'd expect the whole thing to grind to a sheering halt. 

     And yet.

     So we're planning an overseas trip for the spring. Airplane tickets. Hotel rooms. Tickets to the palace. And I noticed that my passport will expire six months, minus a few days, after the trip is set to end. Which is technically fine, and would probably get shrugged off, most likely. Although: if your passport isn't valid for six months, in some places it isn't accepted. There are stories.

     I am what they call "a worrier." You probably already figured that out. And I knew as the cab pulled away from my house, heading off to our big trip, in addition to my worrying about the toaster coming to life and setting fire to the drapes which we don't have, and the refrigerator door hanging open, and everything else I conjure up to mock the idea that I am Conradian wanderer out of Lord Jim, I'll also worry until we get back that every checkpoint we pass would snag me on my passport. "Oh sorry Mr., ah, Steinberg, your whole trip is ruined because your passport expires five months and 27 days after this trip is scheduled to end..."

     So I did something uncharacteristic. I took action, took care of it. I went online, filled out the form. My wife took my photo against a white wall —the first one was rejected, so we took another, and that was fine, except for the aging. I filled out the forms, checked the boxes, plugged in the credit card number, and was done at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 10.

     The passport arrived — mirabile dictu —  in the mail Saturday. Three days and change later. About 76 hour after we applied. Yes, I paid an extra $22 for quick delivery —in the money bonfire that is a vacation, it seemed a minor expense.  

    So the government works, right. Not necessarily. Consider this second tale, from reader Elaine Sniegowski:

      After a reunion of old nurser friends at a local restaurant today, I headed home with only one stop along the way — the post office in Tinley Park. Who would ever believe what happened next? Waiting in a short line in front of the service counter in the post office I noticed a small handwritten sign. “No stamps. Sorry!”
     Unbelievable ! How could a post office not have stamps?
     Raising my voice a little, I called to the lone worker at the counter and asked “When will you have stamps?” Not until Monday he replied. Two whole days from now.
     My Tinley Park Post office had failed me. And at Christmas time. Another lady in line called to me, “Try Jewel” I didn’t want to try Jewel. I wanted my stamps from the post office . So, I headed home stampless. Cards lingering on my desk, impossible to mail. Maybe on Monday….maybe.

    And the truth lies ... no doubt somewhere in between. If it helps, Tuesday I was at the Northbrook post office substation on Church Street, sending a couple packages. They had plenty of stamps, and I bought a booklet, just in case. 

Why does Israel keep defending itself?

Street protest, 2014

   

     There was a lot of reaction to Monday's column. Most of it positive, from people glad to see that attitude in the newspaper. But there was one puzzled response. I'm sharing it because it reflects a common attitude:

     Yes, another comment on today's column regarding the murders on Bondi Beach.
     No one deserves to die this way. Or, to die because some other doesn't agree with them.
     Not being Jewish, I perhaps will never understand why the debacle in Gaza as a response to October 7th was necessary. I also most likely will never understand why Israel insists on treating Palestinians living there and in the West Bank the way they do. I will never understand why Israel feels a constant need to defend itself, and, in the process, create an excess of hate among those outside who see that said "defense" as genocide, It's almost as if constant war and fighting is the lifeblood of Israel. And cruelty to people with impunity is somehow fair. Why is it that a Jewish life is worth more than a Palestinian one?
     You wrote, "once you view them not as individuals, but as faceless members of groups, you're capable of anything." And so, it is. Deaths due to genocide are not worse because of the ethnicity of the victims. Or even the number.
     I read the book "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza", by Peter Bienart. You are probably familiar with it. It outlines the historical sins of the Jewish people, who are hardly a non-violent population. I ended up with more understanding of the history, but I still do not have a good answer to why it can't stop itself from continuing its' poor treatment of others. Is there no forgiveness to be had ever? Will the Palestinians ever be allowed to live in the small area of land that is supposed to be theirs without constant illegal encroachment by Israel?
     I'm an outsider to all this. Make it make sense. Make it stop.
     I wish you could explain to people like me. Just a person trying to live my life.
     Barb O.
     Cedar Lake, IN

     A lot to unpack. But anything in particular stand out for you? It did for me. I replied:

     I doubt I could explain it to you. "I will never understand why Israel feels a constant need to defend itself" seems to suggest that you can't even perceive that Israel is constantly being attacked. Or maybe just don't care. Maybe you should ask yourself why Palestinian suffering so moves you, while you can't even see Jewish suffering. I have an idea, but I'd rather you think about it. There might be some insight to be found there. Maybe not.
     NS

     I didn't expect a response, but I got one — criticizing me for being "to close to the issue" to share her indifference to Jewish life and shifting the topic. A reminder why response is fairly pointless.

     I appreciate your taking the time to respond.
     I was hoping perhaps to gain some insight into this issue from someone who surely has spent more than his share of time on it.
     I can see from your response that you are too close to the issue. That is understandable.
     You are incorrect that only Palestinian suffering moves me. I see it all over the world. Every day.

     What I do not see is a capacity for forgiveness. I was hoping you could tell me forgiveness is possible. I believe that unless one can forgive one's transgressor, the wound will never heal. Without forgiveness, without justice, there will be no peace.
     So, I guess there will be no peace there. The killing will continue.
     I'm sorry.

     I didn't quite know what to make of that, and decided it was time to move on. I replied:

     I actually agree with you about the forgiveness part. I think we saw that in the solution to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
     NS

You can party on a beach in Australia, but you're still a Jew

                     "A people still, whose common ties are gone;
                      Who, mix'd with every race, are lost in none."

                                                          — George Crabbe

     You can shave your beard, move to Australia — or your grandparents could, permitting you to party on a New South Wales beach in cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.
     Even with an Australian accent, putting shrimp on the barbie by the Tasman Sea, you're still a Jew.
     Not held personally responsible for the death of Christ so much anymore. Generally, that particular deathless sin, one horror used to justify a million others, now plays second fiddle to a more recent wrong that can be laid at the feet of any random Jew, anywhere in the world.
     Now, all Jews carry the stain of recent Israeli policy in Gaza, and no joyous gathering anywhere on earth can be free from the risk of blame showing up, uninvited. Punishment delivered by those whose hearts are so big they agonize over the sufferings of a people they may have never met. And so small they can vent the resultant fury on the most marginally-connected victims. 

     No matter that Jews tend to take up the cause of their adversaries with a zeal seldom found elsewhere. They still count as Jews, and die just the same. Also par for the course. In the 1940s, you could convert to Catholicism, but if your grandmother was Jewish, into the pit you go. They call it "blind hatred" for a reason — it neither sees, nor assesses, nor stands on ceremony.
     A thousand people on a beach in Sydney, celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, which arrived in Australia 15 hours ahead of Chicago. Two shooters. At least 15 dead and 42 wounded, including two police officers.
     About 117,000 Jews live in Australia, out of a population of 28 million, most in the cities. The shooting was on Bondi Beach, on the east side of Sydney.
     If that number seems vanishingly small, it is 0.35%, or nearly double the percentage Jews make up of the world population. Our numbers dwindle through assimilation and intermarriage in a way that murder could never contemplate.
     That doesn't mean people don't still try.
     Like most groups, Jews feel a kinship with each other. I've never been to Australia, but if I did, I might slide by a synagogue, the way I did from Bridgetown to London to Taipei. Check out the locals, catch a bagel and a whiff of home.
     So their deaths still hurt. The odd thing about such attacks is, they're really an eloquent argument for the importance of a secure Jewish state. Because if you're Jewish, and feel you're safe where you are and let your vigilance ebb, you might be caught in an enfilade from two gunmen on a pedestrian bridge.
     You either empathize with other people or you don't. And once you view them not as individuals but as faceless members of groups, you're capable of anything.
     We have a president damning Americans for the crime of coming from Somalia. A federal government sweeping people off the street for being brown-skinned. And as if the war in Gaza hasn't been blood-soaked enough over the past two years, we have no shortage of self-appointed avengers keen to mow down a few more innocents. In Australia.
     One horror begets the next, and the rising tide of nationalism reaps the bounty. Along with funeral directors and granite monument salespeople.

To continue reading, click here.