Trump does the wrong thing, again, but cleverly

     When Donald Trump does something stupid, it’s usually spontaneous, some from-the-hip salvo, an ill-considered suggestion, like his tweet Sunday musing that unless North Korea starts behaving we might have to suspend trade with China, which would gut the American economy more thoroughly than a Korean nuke to Sacramento.
     But the six-month fuse Trump lit Tuesday spiking the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival act is a sort of calculated genius. I’m not saying his executive order is the right thing to do; it isn’t. Tugging away the legal status of hundreds of thousands of young people who are trying to carry on with their daily lives is bad policy, bad economics and morally wrong.
     The president is doing the wrong thing in a clever fashion, for a change, or at least more clever than Trump usually does things, which is setting the bar low.
     Let’s unpack Trump’s latest jaw-dropper. First, by issuing an executive order nullifying Barack Obama’s 2012 edict providing immigrants who were brought to this country as children, dubbed “Dreamers,” relief from deportation, he blows a big kiss to his alt-right base. The “Make America Great Again” crowd, who, if not all haters, do their own dreaming about a return to a legendary time when white Protestants ran everything.
     Plus they love reversing anything that Obama ever did in office, even if it means losing their own health insurance.

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Port of Chicago: woebegone but still a role to play

     Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed House Bill 1797 on Aug. 25. Unlike most bills the governor has been flinging away, this bill received no public notice whatsoever beyond an obligatory line on the Illinois General Assembly website.

     This is because the bill involves financial relief for a place little known despite its enormous size: the Port of Chicago.
     The Port of Chicago is actually two places: the Lake Calumet Terminal, a 1,600-acre shipping facility, with wharves and silos, transit sheds and warehouses. And Iroquois Landing, a 190-acre parcel at the mouth of Calumet River acquired in 1978. The Port contains the Confined Disposal Facility, a lakeside area where the Army Corps of Engineers dumped contaminated muck dredged from the bottom of rivers and, not unrelatedly, a 36-hole golf course, Harborside International, on a former waste dump.
     Consumers tend to think of shipping as something done quickly. Order a flannel shirt from Land’s End and within days it arrives on your doorstep. The rare time we give shipping a thought, we are often entertaining images of drone delivery, of sushi winging its way to diners in Iceland. That’s our future.

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Some laborers have jobs machines just can't do

    
    Happy Labor Day! Typically I'd post my Monday column from the Sun-Times here. But scheduling interceded. Wanting to have a columnist in the paper every blessed day—see, it's not just me—my boss asked if they could nudge me to Tuesday this week, and, accommodating chap that I am, I heartily agreed.
    So what to run today? I could write something, but Tuesday's story is rather complicated—it involves shipping—and as this is a holiday, I hope you don't mind something out of the vault. Deep from the vault; almost a quarter century. This leapt to mind, for the range of workers it shows—and no, the photographs don't go with it, but rather illustrate various working folks I've encountered over the years.
     But only one guy like the man deboning whitefish in this story. He made a deep impression on me, because he was happy, grateful for his job. At least he said he was. Many times, I've told myself, if that guy deboning whitefish in a cold room can do it for 13 years, you can do this.
     The Fish House, by the way, is long gone — there's a Lexus dealer there now. So is Alfred Dunhill. And Brach's, which took a thousand jobs with it to Mexico, victim of our daft sugar tariffs. Something to keep in mind now that we've got an unfit, unhinged president with his erratic hand on our trade policy tiller.

     One hundred pounds an hour, the whitefish fillets are set before Christ Kostakis. One hundred pounds an hour, Kostakis runs his naked left hand gently over the chilly fish, caressing it, feeling it, probing for tiny pin bones as thick as a blade of grass.
     One hundred pounds an hour, he takes a needle nose pliers and removes the 32 or so bones in an average fish fillet.   

     "You don't see the bones, you feel them," says Kostakis, who has done this at the Chicago Fish House, 1250 W. Division, for 13 years, explaining why he cannot wear a glove to protect himself from the 40 degree temperature.
     "The whitefish has soft meat," adds Carl Mitsakopoulos, treasurer of the Fish House. "A machine would tear up the meat. If you do it by hand, the meat comes out whole instead of ragged - better eye appeal and better quality."
     In this technical age, with the robots of mass production clicking away, it is useful to remember that in reality this is not always the case.
     Just as a machine hasn't been made that can pick pin bones without destroying a whitefish fillet, so there are a surprising range of jobs that are still filled by humans because no machine can do them properly.
     The best cigars, for instance, are still hand-rolled, because machines just cannot handle the variation of natural tobacco leaves.
     "The handmade cigar has to be all tobacco leaf, typically top quality leaf," says Hal Ross, humidor manager at Alfred Dunhill, which sells tobacco at Water Tower Place. "And it makes a huge difference."
     Likewise, the Brach's candy complex on Kinzie Avenue, the largest candy factory in the world, at first seems a wonder of automation. Computers control the big vats that feed into automated ovens, and dozens of varieties are made at the same time in one hygienic maze of production and automation, the armies of cherry cordials and chocolate stars untouched by human hands.
     Except for one thing: those hard peppermints, with the pictures in the center. Sometimes a Christmas tree, sometimes a flag, sometimes a heart. It seems that no machine can make those little mint pictures without making them look all messy.
     So the images are created by hand: each of the myriad mints that leave the factory each year, bearing a tiny original image.
     When the corn syrup candy used to make the mints comes out of huge pressure cookers, it's the color and consistency of petroleum jelly. Workers refer to the substance as "glass."
     Strong men then take the warm blobs and carry them over to stone tables, where they are worked by hand, pressed with metal bars, kneaded and folded while colorings are added, turning them electric greens and hot pinks, deep roses and searing blues.
     The colored "glass" is tugged into long shapes, which a candy artist then works into a picture. Using his hands, powdered in sugar, each man forms what is basically a giant mint - a disc that's more than two feet in diameter, weighing about 100 pounds, with an image surrounded by white peppermint. Each one is slightly different.
     Then the big aromatic blob is hefted into an extruder, a machine that begins slowly turning the disc until it is transformed into a long rope of candy. The rope, when sliced into segments, reveals hundreds and hundreds of quarter-sized mints, each containing a perfect, tiny, handmade rose.
     Food manufacturing is often so labor intensive because machines frequently just can't make the kind of subtle distinctions that a human can.
    "You have to detect sours, ferments, medicinal tastes and off-aromas from a quick sampling," says Wayne Thomas who, along with a staff of three, spends his days "continuously" tasting coffee brewed from the semitrailers of beans arriving at Richheimer Coffee on North Halsted—150 cups a day, by his estimate.
     Asked whether a machine could do what he does, Thomas seemed to savor the challenge of constructing an imaginary one.
     "They could run a sample of coffee through high-pressure, liquid chromotography and determine what compounds are present," he says. "Then go through a statistical analysis of how many people say this is a good cup of coffee versus the spectral analysis of the product. Then they might be able to correlate the information and submit the sample to the instrument, which might then identify an ideal coffee taste profile because of the presence of certain components in coffee . . . "
     But is there any chance of anybody going to that trouble and expense anytime soon?
     "Nah," says Thomas, who, amazingly, sometimes drinks coffee on his off hours. "Coffee is really a strange animal. It is somewhat subtle. It's an individual thing."

                  —Originally appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 27, 1992

Life is moving on

John Ashbery

   I was sorry to hear that John Ashbery died today. Though not terribly sorry: 90 is an age we can all hope for and, anyway, a poet of worth never really dies, not in the way that you or I will.

   Sara Bader and I included excerpts of three of Ashbery's distinctive, enigmatic poems in Out of the Wreck I Rise: A Literary Companion to Recovery—"The Skaters," "The Ecclesiast," and, my favorite, "The Bunaglows," whose lines bear repeating on this day:

For only you could watch yourself so patiently from afar
The way God watches a sinner on the path to redemption,
Sometimes disappearing into valleys, but always on the way.
For it all builds up into something, meaningless or meaningful
As architecture, because planted and then abandoned when completed,
To live afterward, in sunlight and shadow, a certain amount of years.
Who cares about what was there before? There is no going back.
For standing still means death, and life is moving on,
Moving on toward death. But sometimes standing still is also life.

     
   

How I got that bowling ball

    This is the column that explains how I got the bowling ball I gave away—or, rather, tried to give away—in the Saturday Fun Activity. What stands out for me upon re-reading is how different the media landscape is today compared to 20 years ago.  I can't imagine a publicist calling up and trying to get me to go to a party with a Hollywood actress—it sounds like something out of "The Sweet Smell of Success." The Goat is more of a tourist trap than journalist hang-out, or so I'm told. 

     Men are idiots. I almost said "Women make men idiots." But why blame them? They're merely being women, doing womanly things: lounging on red velvet chaises, brushing their long, golden hair, striding smartly about their business in those sharp suits. It's not their fault.
     It is men, weak in the presence of beauty, who do it to themselves. Who, in their infinite capacity to believe in their own imagined splendor, stride into light posts while straightening their ties in store windows.
     Particularly married men. I almost said "Even married men," but that also understates the case. To be married is, among other things, to be out of practice. Out-of-circulation, pickled in the brine of domestic bliss. The rare moments you are dragged out into the light of unfamiliar feminine society, well, you make mistakes. You head down into the basement to get your old bowling ball. . . .
     But I am getting ahead of the tale. It begins like this: I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when the phone rang. A publicist calling with—surprise, surprise—an opportunity. Usually I dispose of such calls in about five seconds. But this opportunity was a little different: a pretty young actress, Jennifer McShane, is in town, shooting a movie with Keanu Reeves. Would I like to meet her? They were having a party for her at a swell downtown spot Saturday night.
     "That sounds like fun . . ." I said, Jiminy Cricket pulling on my sleeve. "But I had better not." I had never heard of Jennifer McShane. I had no burning desire to write about the difficulties of filming a big-budget Hollywood movie. And yet . . .
     "Maybe we could set up something else up, then," the publicist suggested, and I felt myself weakening. I tried to think of some ridiculous, unromantic, neutered activity to invite the budding thespian to and came up with a doozy: "How about bowling?" I blurted out.
     The publicist said yes—publicists invariably say yes—and hanging up the phone I heard the reverberating gong of doom sounding in the distance. This was a bad idea. Embarrassment was afoot. I hadn't gone bowling in about 15 years. My last game, if I recall, I managed an 80. True, this young woman, judging from the 8-by-10 the publicist sent over, was a slight thing, willowy and undernourished. But there was a certain athleticism about her. Maybe she could bowl.
     I considered rolling a few practice games to sharpen my form. I swung by the AMF lanes at Marina Towers to get the lay of the land. I knew the lanes were there, in theory, but wanted to visually confirm it beforehand. It was like we were going on a date or something (you might want to take this moment to reread the first sentence of this column).
     I had forgotten that one of the many advantages of being married is you never have to meet unknown women at bowling alleys. I had forgotten how nerve-racking that could be and now was being reminded.
     Of course I told my wife about the rendezvous. God bless her, she was jealous. While the tabloids are not filled with tales of young actresses falling head over heels for the bowling flair displayed by endomorphic newspaper reporters who bear a passing resemblance to the Bob's Big Boy character at the age of 40, my wife—perhaps infected by my delusional view of the world—was worried about me being plucked away and ending up poolside in Hollywood, some actress's plaything.
     I planned to use my own bowling ball, purchased when I was a teenager. That'll impress her! I was heading down to the basement to retrieve my "Golden Knight" ball, a relic of my misspent teenhood, when my wife offered up a vital bit of helpful advice.
     "Why not just rent a ball?" she said. "Why lug it?" I paused, thinking, perhaps for the first time, and took her advice.
     Later that day, the publicist called. Bowling might be a problem, she said, schedulewise for Jenny. I leapt at the opportunity to reverse my folly: "Fine, fine," I said. "Bowling is a mistake. Let's meet at the Billy Goat instead. We can have a beer and talk about acting."
     At 5:15 I got up from my desk, announced that I was going to the Goat to meet a starlet and left the office. I don't write about the Billy Goat much—a very good columnist who is no longer with us already staked out that territory—but it is a nice place to sit and have a beverage. Like the basement of a crazy Greek uncle with a lot of friends.
     I took a table by myself, facing the door. The clock ticked. Every time someone came in, I looked up, expectantly. A few friends happened by, and we got to talking. I told them I was being stood up by the star of "Cyborg Cops 3." Finally, about 6:30, I abandoned hope.
     "OK, guys," I said. "I'm leaving. If any starlets come by, tell them they missed me." I walked out, thankful to be going home, and even more thankful not to be dragging around that bowling ball.
                —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Dec. 22, 1999

Saturday fun activity: What is it?

     Why didn't I think of this before?
     For years, I've posted enigmatic places, and only once stumped the Great Hive Intelligence.
     Because people get around. And anyplace I've been to and snapped a photograph of, odds are, one of the thousands reading has been to as well.
     But this ... this, thing, I have a good feeling about.
     A musical instrument, obviously. But what sort of musical instrument? 
     I'll give you two hints.
     First, it is a common term, not something exotic and unknown. It is something whose name people will have heard, at least people—second hint alert—of a certain age, of an age nearing my own. Younger people might not have heard of it, for reasons that will become obvious when I tell you what it is.

Obscure starlet Jennifer McShane

     So what is this thing? The winner will receive ... an undrilled, unused though not new bowling ball with an interesting back story. That is, you'll receive it provided you come to the paper and pick it up. I'm not shipping the thing. A bowling ball signed by the obscure starlet Jennifer McShane. And if you're wondering why I'm giving away an unused, though not new, bowling ball signed by obscure starlet Jennifer McShane, it is because I'll be moving to the new building in a few months, and it won't do to have all this stuff I've accumulated. 
    And if you're wondering why I own a bowling ball signed by obscure starlet Jennifer McShane, well, I tell the story in a column, on that I can't believe I haven't shared with you yet. But I will. Tomorrow. Do consider stopping by. 

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Plato's 'Republic,' ripped from the headlines

     Computers prevailed, remember, because they are far better than what came before.
     When writing, you can edit easily. No Wite-Out necessary.
     When reading, the endless resources of the internet are a few keystrokes away.
     But books are not entirely mooted. They retain advantages, which is why, unlike typewriters, they’re still here. Books do one thing technology is still terrible at: they stick around for a long, long time. Any given technology has a way of blooming dramatically then wilting fast. Everything I wrote on my Kaypro is lost unless I printed it out. The Zip drive I bought with my Dells? Useless. With the Cloud, thumb drives are as convenient as thumbscrews.
     But the copy of Plato’s “Republic,” translated by G.M.A. Grube, that I bought in 1981 for a college class is still here, booted up, ready to go when, on a whim, I plucked it off the shelf to pass an idle hour.

     Wow.

     The “Republic” vibrates with relevance, from the very first page, when Socrates and his pal Glaucon head down to check out a festival and, wobbling homeward, are overtaken by friends, who deliver an ominous invitation to stick around in town.
     “Do you see how many we are?” Polemarchus asks.

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