$20,000? No? How about cookies?

     When I wrote about Leonard's Bakery in Northbrook earlier this week, the most interesting part never made it into the piece. The owner was not particularly chatty, so I ran Leonard's through Nexis, thinking there must be press on it. There wasn't. Not a word, ever, by anybody, over the past 20 years. Which is a shame because the place really is a treasure. Maybe I'll spend the day there for its 30th anniversary in August. 
    Well, there was one thing. This, written by me four years ago. I like how I contrasted my real-life emails with the upper echelon moral squishiness of a Tribune panjandrum. 
    There is an interesting typo in this—what I call a "brain cramp." When I refer to "rugellah," which are sweet little pastries of cinnamon and raisins, I'm actually thinking of "mandel bread" which are, like I describe them, soft versions of biscotti.  

     Would you be interested and available to speak to the JCC Women's Auxiliary Luncheon on Wednesday, September 5th at Birchwood Country Club in Highland Park? The topic would be politics. Love to have you! Please let me know.
     A funny 2006 "Saturday Night Live" bit begins with Steve Martin on his cellphone. "I'll be home by morning," he says. "I'm just doing this, uh, corporate gig . . . I don't know, some corporation." Then his hosts enter the room. "We are so excited to have you here," says one. "This is a great day for Hamas!"
     "Hamas?" says Martin, in a small voice.
      Martin isn't so sure he's the right guy to perform at "Hamas — a Victory Celebration." But the money is so huge he can't say no. And his hosts try to reassure him. "You are a hero here for your comic genius, your ability to play tender moments, and your well-known hatred for the state of Israel!"
     Life imitated art this week when Chicago Tribune columnist and editorial board member Clarence Page found himself in hot water for accepting $20,000 and a trip to Paris to give a three-minute speech before a suspected Iranian terrorist group. He says he had no idea whom he was talking to until he got there.
     That seems curious to me, having just gone through my own delicate if infinitely more low-rent negotiations for a talk. Forget Paris. I wouldn't go to Highland Park without knowing what I was getting myself into.
     "Politics" is sort of a broad subject. Anything else you can tell me about the talk? How many people do you expect?
     I should mention that, on rare occasions, I've gotten what I considered a hefty amount of money; Elmhurst College once paid me a few thousand dollars to deliver a lecture.
     We usually get about 50-70 to attend. Although, you could be a big draw. We'll give you lunch if you like. The food is very good
     Though I prefer to get paid, I often end up speaking for nothing, or whatever token the group wants to give. The Rotary gave me a lovely date planner. Twice. I've been given potted plants, paperweights. A synagogue once offered a plate of ruggaleh — think biscotti, only softer and Jewish — which then became my gold standard of excellence.
     Hmmmmm . . . I try not to speak for free. Do any of your ladies bake? I'm a sucker for ruggaleh . . . if you can have someone bake a plate of ruggaleh, we have a deal.
     The key question is whether speaking fees constitute bribes. People doing unethical things try to ritualize them — in the old days, crooked pols ran insurance agencies and anyone wanting to corrupt them bought a hiked-up policy. A similar scam would be: speak to us, we pay you a huge fee, and nobody has to accept envelopes stuffed with cash.
     The issue isn't bias. You can argue that Page — who, I should add, I've never met and rarely read — is in the bias business. He isn't paid to be neutral, but to give his opinions. The question is transparency — the idea is those opinions are based on his honest analysis of the world, not a $20,000 check cut to him in secret. That's why the Tribune has its policy, although it seems odd — they aren't against their writers taking money, per se, they just want to sign off on the transaction.
     To me, bias is on the page. You can be Simon Pure, you can send back the promotional pens sent to you at Christmas, and still let your personal prejudices ruin your work. Or you can be a cauldron of rigid notions, but set aside your own feelings — I wrote Ronald Reagan's obit for the Sun-Times and I despised Reagan. But the piece was fair and respectful and nobody complained.
     Ingratitude is a writer's best friend. I like to think that if Elmhurst College started, oh, refusing to admit black students, I'd leap upon them with a snarl, and not pause, thinking, "Gee, but those are the nice folks who asked me to give an Andrew Prinz Guestship Lecture for Political Awareness." I'm hard on Northwestern, and it gave me a scholarship.
     Neil — We will pay you! We are not asking you to speak for free. I will get you a pound of ruggaleh from Leonard's Bakery in Northbrook. Would $300 do it?
     It seems odd to even have this controversy in the era of Citizens United, when corporate money is deluging the American political process. I have sympathy for Page. One moment you're living the high life in Paris. The next your boss has you kneeling on a rail. Par for the course, that journalists still get in trouble for the crumbs that come our way. Of course, $20,000 is a very big crumb. A lot of money, though still too cheap a price to sell your reputation. But isn't that always the most shocking aspect of scandals? The smallness of the stake. Postage stamps, crystal. My guess is that 20 grand will look less and less to Page as the years go by. Not to be on a high horse. I might have grabbed for it, too. People tend to take what they can get.
     $300 is good. I've written you guys down for Sept. 5. You can skip the ruggaleh if you like.

                                     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, July 6, 2012

As American as baseball, mom, apple pie and Jews

     It's the last Monday in February and 20 teenage boys are waiting in a gym in Deerfield. It could be any high school gym anywhere, except for the big silver mezuzah on the cinderblock doorway, an Israeli flag next to the American flag, and the banner reading "Rochelle Zell Jewish High School."
     Paul Chanan gathers the boys in a circle and begins the traditional start-of-practice pep talk.
     "Today represents the first day of what will be a real long journey to reach some very lofty goals," says Chanan, an options-trader-turned-teacher. "Coach Zouber and myself are incredibly proud to lead this team of great guys, of great competitors and of great community. This is going to be a joy for us, and we are honored to be your coaches. But we are going to ask a lot of you. ... We are going to ask that you give us everything that you have. ... We are going to absolutely 100 percent demand 100 percent from you, all the time. We are going to compete with great hustle. With maximum intensity. With aggressive style of play and with an unyielding passion for the game of baseball and for your team."
     "Yes coach!" the boys reply.
     Not realizing that Rochelle Zell is a new school — founded in 2001 — whose students range across the spectrum of faith, I went to practice expecting a scene out of Chaim Potok's The Chosen — earlocks and fringes flying as guys round the bases, outfielders punching their gloves and razzing the hitter in Yiddish.
     In Potok's novel, baseball is pushed by teachers because "it was an unquestioned mark of one's Americanism and to be counted a loyal American had become increasingly important."
     Rochelle Zell's team was started four years ago — not by teachers, but by a pair of freshmen, Jon Silvers and his best friend, Adam Gilman, both now 17 and co-captains.

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We're still here? Great, let's eat.

Marc Becker

      Purim begins March 11 at sundown. A joyous holiday, in case you aren't familiar, a rare break from fasting and mourning and general fretting about life. Purim celebrates the Jews' escape from doom — in Persia, officially, at the hands of the evil Haman, adviser to King Ahasuerus, but also a general thumb-to-nose-and-wiggle-fingers "We're here and you're not" at adversaries from Pharaoh to Hitler to, well, Donald Trump.  We've victims, sure, often, periodically, but also survivors. The faith is a direct living link from now to ancient Babylon, which is incredible, or would be, if anyone besides ourselves valued that kind of thing.
     Purim is, alas, extra timely this year, as we have a president constantly giving winks and dog whistles to the anti-Semitic, white nationalist fringe of the Republican Party. Emboldened, the haters are crawling out of their basements and troll holes to kick over headstones in Jewish cemeteries and phone bomb threats into Jewish day care centers, and other acts of alt-right bravery. How far will it go? As far as they can without consequences. Bullies, remember, are also cowards.
     You don't have to squint too hard to see Trump as a modern day Ahasuerus, with his own twin Hamans in the form of Stephens Bannon and Miller. Among the most pitiful remarks I heard from Jews mulling over this turn of events was the hope that Trump's daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism, will "be our Esther" -- the hero of the Purim story, Ahasuerus' wife, who intercedes on behalf of the Jews and saves them.  
     Is that your escape plan? Purim? Purim is just a story. It never really happened. If  the fate of American Jews is in the hands of Ivanka Trump we are truly screwed.

     But we've strayed from the point of this: hamantaschen, the delightful tri-cornered pastries that Jews eat on Purim because, well, we can. They come in cookie-based and yeasty cake-based forms, and when I brought some of the hard cookie-type from Mariano's last week, my wife dispatched me to Leonard's Bakery for the soft puffy cake version, which she prefers.
    A word about Leonard's. I have to be sent to Leonard's. I never go to Leonard's on my own volition, because if I allowed myself to entertain the thought, "I think I'll go to Leonard's today" then I would go every day and weigh 400 pounds. So I can only go a) when requested by someone else or b) to pick up a bobkha cake to wow a dinner guest or host.
      Rolls. Breads. Cookies. Cakes. Goodies from Leonard's illustrated my wildly popular "Steinberg bakery" post. It's heaven. 
     While there, picking up yeast hamantaschens for my wife and, heck, a few cookie types for me, I chatted with Marc Becker, the owner.
     "Have you tried the chocolate?" he said. I admitted I had not, being a traditional type, and limited myself to apricot, poppy seed and raspberry. He handing me a warm cookie-type chocolate hamantaschen and I bit into it on the spot. Rapture.
         I expressed admiration, as I do, for the bakery's graphics, specifically for the bottom of the box, which has the word "Ouch!" and their trademark baker, not beaming as on the top of the box, but his mouth an "O" of distress. It's a small touch recommended, Marc said, by his friend Michael Krasny.  Leonard's celebrates its 30th anniversary this August, and while the excellent quality is what brings you there, I have to admit I like the extra little touches, like the message on the bottom of the box. 
     Opening tucked in a remote corner of a strip mall on Dundee Road, just east of Pfingston, seemed an iffy proposition back then. Marc wondered, "Who's going to come to see me in this corner?"
    Obviously people who want really, really good rugellah. And cookies. And coffee cake. And hamantaschen. People complain that the suburbs lack authenticity, and for the most part they're right. But Leonard's is the real Megillah, as my people say.

Northbrook murder close to home but not close to heart

Murder scene

     I live in a village. As villages often do, Northbrook has its own set of quaint local traditions, like the annual pancake breakfast at the Village Presbyterian Church. When the boys were younger we'd never miss one — they have raffles, puppet shows and the Boy Scouts put on a display of knots, a tent and a canoe. One year we used a device to twirl strands of hemp into rope, an important scouting skill, apparently.
     So my wife and I go Saturday, to the 61st installment of what has been deemed a "pancake festival," I assume, because now you can have seconds. We do not particularly want pancakes, but do like to support the community — the breakfast benefits Northbrook's various holiday celebrations through the year.
     We're there, gobbling flapjacks. Sandy Frum, the village president, is pouring coffee. She moseys over, sits down and we chat. She has just been to New Zealand. I steer her toward a more local topic: that new building being constructed on Shermer; what is going to go in it? Another paint store? We've already got two. No, she says, another real estate office.
     I consider asking her about the murder. On Dec. 7 a lawyer, Jigar K. Patel, was strangled in his office, not a block from my house. The police assured the public there is nothing to fear but didn't arrest anybody. Which seemed ominous. If they know who did it, why not arrest the guy? If they don't know, how can they be certain we're safe? Maybe a maniac is stalking Northbrook.
     She would know what the true story is on that.

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The generosity of the Target Corporation

     Don't get me wrong. I like Target. The stores are clean. They're big and bright. The red bull's eye design element really holds the place together. They have stuff I want. On weekends, when my wife goes to do an errand, to pick up enormous blocks of paper towels and slabs of toilet paper, weighty jugs of cat litter, I tend to go along, to lug the litter and look around. 
     There's always something interesting, a heretofore unimagined product, like a cleaner to clean the inside of your washing machine, which I always imagined was clean enough already. I wrote about that previously.
    Or this display, noticed last weekend. Before I say a word about it, I want you to take a look. I'm curious as to whether what popped out at me, immediately, also pops out at you. See the picture to the right? The little display next to the paper towels, pushing gift cards? Look at it closely.
     Anything leap out at you? Anything odd?   
    Yes, it could be that the "holiday" display is still up in March—I suppose the holiday could be Easter, but do you give Target gift cards at Easter? It's possible, though I just suspect somebody's falling down on the job at this particular Target. Anyway, that wasn't what I noticed.
    Anything else?
     How about "free sleeve with all holiday gift cards."    
     Free sleeve? These cards are a great money-maker for these stores, since you pay them for a plastic card that costs almost nothing, they have your money for a period of days and weeks until the recipient redeems the value of the card, which sometimes never happens because the cards are lost or forgotten. Sweet. Consumers spent $150 billion on gift cards in 2015 and $1 billion worth were never used. 
     So it is natural that Target would want to give you something in return, like this ultra-chic paper sleeve to put your gift card in. 
     A tremendously chintzy drop of generosity for a story to be ballyhooing, am I correct? That's like a hotel crowing that they give you clean sheets. 
    Is there a word for a gift so paltry it's worse than nothing at all? I can't think of it. Our language of gift-giving is surprisingly sparse. We have to borrow a Cajun term for "lagniappe,"  one of my favorite words, meaning a small present meant to seal the deal, that free cookie the baker gives you as you browse. The "free sleeve" is an anti-lagniappe, a present so expected—"We put a fresh paper examination table strip with every check-up"–that it makes you question the entire transaction. 
    "Free sleeve..." Is there a chance they were joking? A bit of whimsy cooked up by some harried copywriter, deep within the Target organization? Nah...

      

George Orwell's "1984" a best-seller, Snapchat worth billions—any relation? Discuss.

Workshop of Ralph H. Bauer, inventor of the first video game (Smithsonian Institution)

     Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, went public Thursday. By day’s end, its share price jumped 44 percent, making the company worth $34 billion, about equal to General Mills, makers of Cheerios.
     The offering interested me because I use Snapchat, by necessity. Since it is, I suspect, unfamiliar to many readers, I ought to explain it.
     Snapchat is a photo sharing and messaging app. Like life itself, Snapchat is fleeting. The recipient has a set number of seconds — say 10 — to look at the photo being sent. Then it vanishes, irretrievably.
     This has obvious utility if you are, say, sending naked pictures of yourself. Which let me rush to mention is not why I use it. Snapchat also allows messages to be written across the photo sent, and add a variety of comic trappings. If you want to send a photo of yourself as a dog, with floppy ears, snout and lolling tongue, Snapchat will do that.
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Liberals can wear jackboots too

 

Middlebury College

   Middlebury College is a lovely place, nestled in the mountains of Vermont. I visited with my older son in 2013 when we were looking at colleges. They were fiercely proud of their liberal arts heritage, and referred to Robert Frost so often I thought he went to school there. He didn't, but lived nearby.

     The place has less to be proud of after last Thursday, when a student mob disrupted an attempt by Middlebury political science professor Allison Stanger to host Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, a highly controversial 1994 book that attempted to show a scientific link between race and intelligence. His attempts to speak were shouted down, and after he was removed to a remote location to conduct his talk via TV link, he and Stanger were attacked, sending the professor to the hospital.
     Here's the Washington Post coverage of the incident.
     I agree with those who find The Bell Curve disingenuous hogwash. Still. Violence is violence. It is unacceptable whether being used to terrorize a religious minority or bully a political scientist whose works you find hateful. There is no justification for it. If you believe in your ideas, if you believe they are true, you should also have confidence they will prevail against somebody whose ideas you find reprehensible. Not because you shouted him down and kept him from ever expressing those ideas. That isn't a free society.  

      College students should know this. But college is also an age of tremendous narcissism, personal drama and lack of perspective.  I was not taken with Middlebury, which has its own private ski slope. "It's a four-year summer camp for rich kids," I quipped. Perhaps their sense of privilege is such that the very idea of other opinions is intolerable. They need to work on that. 

     Totalitarianism is on the march in America. If tomorrow Donald Trump formed the Red Hats, squads of thugs who swagger around, roughing up illegal immigrants and Muslim refugees and liberals, they can now point to Middlebury College as justification. And who could say they don't have a point? Well, I could. It's the worst kind of hypocrisy, to use your erstwhile foes as your moral compass the moment they commit a transgression you would like to try yourself. The way Americans trembling at the thought of sharia law will suddenly point to Saudi Arabia's draconian practices and wish we could do the same. It's rank hypocrisy but then, there's a lot of that going around too. 

    Toleration is meaningless if you only extend it to those whom you agree with. Charles Murray's work might be of dubious scientific value, but it is an argument nevertheless, and those bullying him at Middlebury College did not him, but themselves, a grave disservice, elevating his reputation while undercutting their own.