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.

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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.

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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