Going to the dogs

     For a supposedly smart guy, I can be pretty thick sometimes. I suppose that's true for everyone, in one situation or another. But each specific instance nevertheless comes as a surprise. Our private defaults must assume we're perfect. No wonder life can be so disappointing.
     I was trucking to my gate in O'Hare a few weeks back, heading to Colorado, and I passed this gate.
     Gate K9. Like the K-9 corps in the Army, thought I.
     Established in World War II. Known as "Dogs for Defense." Training German shepherds and sheep dogs and such for sentry duty. The hope was to also use dogs to sniff out wounded soldiers on battlefields, but that never worked out.
     Also in police departments.
     And here I had the thought that I can't quite believe.
     I wonder how they came up with the designation "K9"?
     Why that particular letter and number? What was their significance?

     I chewed on the puzzle for only a moment.
     And then it struck me.
     Oooooooo. "K9." CANINE. Latin for "doglike." Now I get it.
     How could I not realize that until now? It seems almost impossible. Maybe I did realize it but then forgot. Which might even be worse. Either way, I don't see any harm in admitting it here. In fact, I see a benefit. Admitting mistakes is important, because even though we all make them, many people just can't seem to do it preferring to cling to error, out of habit, despite overwhelming evidence. Because they think that makes them look better, to be in the Never Wrong club. I refute that. Like any skill, admitting error should be practiced, as a kind of intellectual exercise, to keep our minds limber. 

‘The goal is to impact women more positively’

 

Patricia Dzifa Mensah-Larkai

   When it is 9 a.m. in Chicago it is 3 p.m. in West Africa. A fact I learned Friday, chatting with Patricia Dzifa Mensah-Larkai, an administrator at the Ghana Boundary Commission, which tries to keep that nation’s borders and internal boundaries where they are supposed to be and settle disputes.
     “Most Ghanaians speak or understand nine major languages,” she said, ticking them off: Twi, Fante, Akuapem, Ewe, and such. “That doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing. Not everyone is able to understand all the different languages.”
     Mensah-Larkai also speaks French and English, which is how we could communicate. As to why we were talking, thank Toastmasters International, which sent an email introducing “five inspirational females” to commemorate International Women’s Day, which is Tuesday. The holiday was established by the United Nations in 1975 to “honor the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.”
     Toastmasters held their 87th international convention in Chicago in 2018. Regular readers might recall I went and discovered a touchingly sincere, upbeat global organization that seems to exist on a plane apart from the grim chaos of daily life, which goes double for both International Women’s Day and the UN.
     That could be reason to either embrace them or ignore them. I chose the former, asking to speak with the inspirational female in Africa because, really, how often do you get the chance?
     “I love to empower women, in terms of giving value, making sure the skills are God-given, not just on certificates but putting them into practice,” Mensah-Larkai said. “To say, ‘I’m not going to settle for less. I’m going to work and try, not to attain the average, but always strive for excellence.’ To ask myself, ‘What I can do better?’ and then look for the answer.”
     She grew up in metropolitan Accra, a city of 4 million people, in what we’d consider a cop family — her grandfather was a police officer, as was her mother. Her father — both her parents are deceased — was career military.
     I wondered how the public and law enforcement get along in Ghana.

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Dick move.

Did the mayor channel her inner Jeff Spicoli?

    Did Mayor Lori Lightfoot really say, "You dicks! What the fuck were you thinking?" on a Zoom conference call regarding one of the city's controversial Columbus statues? Followed up with the even more astounding, if true, "You are out there measuring your dicks with the Italians seeing who's got the biggest dick...I am trying to keep Chicago Police officers from being shot and you are trying to get them shot. My dick is bigger than yours and the Italians, I have the biggest dick in Chicago.”
     Ahem. Let's consider the evidence.
     The claim surfaces in a lawsuit filed Wednesday by former Chicago Park District deputy general counsel George Smyrniotis. Which in itself means nothing. Anyone can sue anybody claiming anything. Though the charges are plausible enough that the Sun-Times reported them, in dashed form. 

     The natural assumption is that, were the allegations purely fictional, their creators wouldn't have conjured them up then placed on a conference call involving numerous real people who could either confirm or deny the claims. 

     Until those people are able to do that, we are left to conjecture; belief that Lightfoot actually said this certainly does not require a radical shift in the perception of the mayor as a thin-skinned, foul-mouthed bully who frequently browbeats opponents and underlings. That's Lightfoot's brand. 

      Funny that the paper would dash "dick," one of those sometimes risque, sometimes not words, like "cock," which EGD explored in 2015, neither among the seven dirty words that can't be said on television. More of what I consider "The N-Word Effect," trying to pretty up reality for the 1 percent who claim not to be able to stand it. Before long our news stories will be a Mad Libs maze of dashes and redactions: "——!" said [a political figure]. "Why don't you —- —— your—-?"

     "Dick" is not a common slur, but one of those words hardly heard outside of teen movie comedies. I'm wondering if it's a cultural thing. Lightfoot was born in 1962, two years after me, and grew up in Massillon, Ohio, 50 miles southeast of where I grew up in Berea. So we can be considered roughly equals, in our linguistic milieu. "Dick," as an insult, strikes me as having a certain juvenile, 1970s quality, certainly less current than "asshole" which in my mind came to replace it among adults. Her "You dicks!" ejaculation is a near quote from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," 40 years earlier, and it is odd to see the mayor of Chicago channeling Jeff Spicoli. 

      It's also interesting that Lightfoot would use it in both its metaphorical ("You dicks") and literal ("I've got the biggest....") senses in the same rant.  I can't recall ever using it in its literal sense, but this is an area given to euphemism.

     So how long has, umm, dick been around? Long a generic term for a man ("Every Tom, Dick and Harry...") it's tough to tell how long it has been used to describe jerks and anatomy.  My trusty Wentworth and Flexner Dictionary of American Slang drops the ball, dick-wise, focusing on the word as a synonym for detective, with citations, and only at the end of the entry flopping out "4 [taboo] The penis. Colloq."

Patridge's 1961 "A Dictionary of Slang 
and Unconventional English" traces
the penis definition of "dick" to 1860s 
military slang (thanks to Tony Galati)

    The Oxford English Dictionary, surprisingly, picks it up, not in my full set, but in the Supplement, labeling it "coarse slang" and tracing the word in print only to 1891, including, among its citations, Henry Miller's 1934 Tropic of Cancer, "That circumcised dick of his."

      What it doesn't have is Lightfoot's first meaning, as a synonym for "idiot."  Here Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang traces it only to 1966, to Norman Bogner’s novel, Seventh Avenue: “He’s a dick. I don’t know from respect, except for my parents.”

    The mayor issued one of her trademark non-denial denials.

   “I am deeply offended by the ridiculous and outrageous allegations in that lawsuit," she told WBBM, going on to call the lawsuit "without merit" which is not quite the same as "I didn't say those words."
       Though even if she did say it, baldly denying things that make her look bad and are later found to be nevertheless true is another one of her go-to moves. To me, the more damaging statement was "Where did you go to law school?" which is almost as bad as "Don't you know who I am?" (Lightfoot graduated from University of Chicago Law School, whose prestige is in inverse proportion to the number of graduates you know personally).

     She doesn't have much reputation left to lose at this point, though it'll be interesting to see how much this sticks with Lightfoot.  Sexual metaphors applied to oneself tend to echo for a long time — I would imagine that those who know anything about disgraced former Cook County Commissioner William Beavers know he once described himself as the "hog with the big nuts." Hard to get that one out of your head.

      This episode had one unexpected effect: it might have pushed me beyond the typical head-scratching puzzlement and bedrock scorn that most observers have increasingly felt for Lightfoot over the past year into a kind of pity. She's so bad at this. It makes a kind heart want to start rooting for her, a little bit. Almost.

     

    

Wilmette Notes: Survival

     Last week, several readers didn't grasp that EGD's Saturday post was written, as it has been since April, 2020, by North Shore Bureau Chief Caren Jeskey. So I've added her photo and bold-faced byline as subtle clues as to whose work you're reading.

By Caren Jeskey

     As Russian tanks roll into the beautiful country of Ukraine while a deranged homicidal maniac embarks on a plot to take over the world, we stand by helpless. The only thing I can think to do is call my representatives and weigh in about where I stand, spread the word about how to get some help out there, and continue focusing efforts on rehousing our new Afghani neighbors. I just hope that we will have the same chance for many Ukrainian survivors when they make it to our shores.

   I’ve been thinking a lot about the children and people with disabilities in Ukraine. It’s impossible not to think about the nightmare they and their families are enduring, but it’s also dangerous to ruminate upon.
     In the summer of 2020 I recall being overcome with grief while biking in Austin Texas where I was living. I got off my bike, leaned it against a tree, took my shoes off and stood in the grass. I doubled over with sobs, an ambulance whining past. I lived a block away from a COVID care center and would hear those sirens for many more months, along with Life Flight helicopters whirring overhead. That level of grief leveled out for the most part, save the occasional good cry I have while contemplating the enormity of this global situation. So much fear, dread, sickness and death in such a small period of time.

     I am dismayed at the prospect of a new spike in the coming weeks and months.

     Balancing the distance and horror from far away is closeness and connectivity here.
     A child nuzzled my fuzzy gloves the other day. I was jauntily bouncing down the sidewalk on a long walkabout, which I have resumed after a sedentary period of winter blues and blahs. I came across a man, a boy, and a friendly golden lab. The lab beelined towards me, wagging his tail and smiling, so I held my hand out to say hello. Before I knew it, the school aged boy with him took my gloved hand and held it to his mouth. I laughed and said “oh no, you can’t eat my gloves!’ and pulled my hand away.
     He picked my hand up again, gently lifted the back of it toward his mouth, and placed his lips on it. He did the same with my other hand. “Oh! You’re kissing the backs of my hands!” I said, which prompted me to give him a warm side hug. His father clarified. “He’s drawn to soft things.” “Oh! I see!” I said, and introduced myself. They told me their names and we chatted a bit. I assured his father that I am vaccinated (and yes, of course I had the afterthought of "that's more physical contact I've had with a stranger in years,") then we set off on our separate ways. I still recall the child’s name and the dog's name, but not the adult’s. This seems to happen often. I have a special affinity for children, animals, and elderly people. I always have. My grandma Marie was like that too, and so is my father. An affinity for the vulnerable.
     As I set back off on my luxuriously solo miles long ramble, a couple free hours stretching in front of me, I felt extra grateful. I thought “I should hang out with that kid some time.” I envisioned his parents getting a break while the child and I hung out in his living room with the sweet lab.
     The boy would be surrounded with his softies and we'd quietly coexist. I imagined telling his folks that they needn’t worry, since I have experience with neurologically-diverse children and adults from my many years working in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Not to mention that my first yoga certification was at Yoga for the Special Child where I was taught how to massage and manipulate overly toned (Cerebral Palsy) and underly toned (Down syndrome) muscles into more comfortable positions. I also provided 1:1 therapy for a girl with autism back when I was in college- she was a little older than the fuzzy glove lover.
     If you’d like to learn more about autism, I recommend the delightful movie Autism: The Musical, and Act 2 of this episode of This American Life. Love On The Spectrum is quite illuminating and enjoyable too.

  

Haters harm themselves first

     David was walking his 14-year-old puggle, Dakota, down his quiet street in Glenview Tuesday morning when he noticed a plastic bag at the end of his driveway. Inside, a smorgasbord of antisemitic flyers. He called the police, then took a photo and emailed it to me.
     “I reported to the police and they are aware that it’s been happening in West Glenview over the last two weeks,” wrote David — I’m not using his last name; given he’s already received his ration of hate for the week, I didn’t want to invite more.
     He wasn’t terrified.
     “I didn’t feel threatened,” he said.
     Nor do I. Antisemitism is an odd brand of hatred. Usually, bigots try to shore up their broken selves by sneering at those they consider beneath them. But antisemites jeer at a group they imagine simultaneously beneath and above them, both rats and world dominators. Vermin who nevertheless run the banks, the government, the media. (I sometimes hear from readers whose careful analysis of this column detects a subtle Jewish influence, particularly when concerning subjects like Yom Kippur.)
     To be honest, I took only the most detached interest in the screeds; mostly, because they are an example of vanishing print media.
     ”That’s old school,” I told him. Almost nostalgic, like finding a Tony Alamo pamphlet on a bus station men’s room urinal.
     Normally, I wouldn’t magnify this stuff. It’s just dull. But distribution of antisemitic material is at “historic levels,” according to an Anti-Defamation League report issued Thursday, up 27% in 2021 over 2020.
     And I do have a personal insight I’d like to share, if you’ll journey with me back almost 30 years, to 1993. There was a Neo-Nazi named Jonathan Preston Haynes who murdered Dr. Martin Sullivan, a Wilmette plastic surgeon, because he gave patients what Haynes dubbed “false Aryan beauty.” As the case unfolded, it came out that Haynes had sent form letters seeking white supremacist subjects for a book.

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Flashback 2011: The Main Event—Replacing city's century-old water mains

City workers repairing a water pipe (Sun-Times file photo)

     This week I was talking with someone in the water department regarding an upcoming story, and mentioned this column from 2011 which, to my surprise, I've never posted here before. What I remember most about this is piece how it came about. I was having coffee with Rahm Emanuel—mayors other than Lori Lightfoot did that kind of thing—and he said something like, "You never write about me," and I replied, at least in memory, "You're not interesting."

     Unfair! The mayor said: he had just gotten approval for this big water main project. 

     I explained that if I wrote about the funding, I'd just be ballyhooing his administration. But when the pipes actually went in the ground, I'd be right there. And so I was. It took a while to get this in the paper, and I remember bumping into him—mayors other than Lori Lightfoot went about in public, and you could run into them—and him saying, "Where's my water story?" or words to that effect. 

     Water is the most democratic thing the city of Chicago does. Residents of the fanciest penthouse to the meanest flophouse expect clean, cold, Lake Michigan water to flow whenever they open a tap.
     Everybody pays the same: $2.01 per thousand gallons, whether at Navy Pier, next to the Jardine water plant, or every one of the 125 far-flung suburbs that buys Chicago water.
     At least until Jan. 1, when the price jumps to $2.50 per thousand gallons, the hike intended to pay for Mayor Rahm Emanuel's ambitious 10-year plan of infrastructure improvements, a massive effort to correct years of neglect.
     Chicago is crisscrossed with 4,300 miles of water mains, from enormous trunk lines five feet in diameter to the little six-inch feeders that run down residential streets, a billion gallons a day coursing through the system.
     In the past, the city replaced these mains at the rate of about 29 miles a year.
     Which sounds impressive until you do the math: At that rate, each main is replaced once every 148 years.
     That's bad.
     Bad because pipes do not last forever, particularly not in Chicago, with its 30-below-zero winters and 100-degree summers.
     Buried iron pipes expand and contract, eventually cracking. Small leaks undermine the ground beneath the pipes, causing them to sag and snap. Inside, minerals from the water build up, like an artery choked with cholesterol—a process called "tuberculation"—so that a six-inch main only has the capacity of a three-inch pipe.
     Meanwhile, the outside corrodes, the walls grow fragile.
     How fragile?
     One length of water main replaced this fall on West Superior between Leclaire and Cicero was laid in 1894 and 1900. Crews couldn't dig closer than two feet to the old main; any closer and the 40 pounds of pressure inside might burst the pipe.
     "The pressure of the ground is basically holding the pipe together," said resident engineer Steven Skrabutenas. "Then you've got 600 gallons of water a minute flowing into your work trench. It doesn't take long to fill up a hole, and you have to do an emergency shutdown and repair it."
     About 20 percent—roughly 1,000 miles—of Chicago mains are a century old or older, according to the Department of Water Management.
     They must be replaced, at a cost of about $2.2 million a mile, including the cost of replacing the street.
     That's why, in mid-October, Emanuel released his new budget calling for a boost in water bills, 25 percent now, then 15 percent every year for the next three years, the increase going to repair Chicago's decrepit mains and sewers.
     "We need to invest in our infrastructure to maintain the quality of life for people across the city, protect our homes from flooding and our cars from sinkholes," said Emanuel. "If we don't invest and proactively make upgrades to our system, we will continually be forced to react and make emergency repairs at a greater cost to everyone."
     The plan is to raise the rate of replacement toward 90 miles a year over 10 years.
     A monumental task, as can be seen by watching just one repair job—"Item 120"—the installation of 1,974 feet of eight-inch ductile iron pipe along three blocks of West Superior.
     The first shovelful of dirt was turned on Sept. 29, with an exploratory hole dug to take a look at what's down there—you can't just start digging on a city street, which conceals not only water and sewer pipes, but also gas mains, AT&T cables and buried electric lines. You have to figure out what's where.
     "Everything is records," explained Skrabutenas, who carries around a little orange notebook filled with his meticulous engineer's handwriting. "Everything I got is here in record books. I got the pipes. I know where everything is at, what we did, how many feet, the pieces, the locations, what parts I use."
     He took out plans, large technical maps of the underground as Chicago believes it to be. He uses them as a guide but also constantly updates and fills in gaps—about 5 percent of the network under city streets isn't recorded, because the information was lost, set down wrong, or never noted to begin with.
     Sometimes things show up that aren't supposed to be there or are there but unmarked. A gas line that's labeled inactive might turn out to be live.
     "I'll give you an example," Skrabutenas said, spreading the plans across the hood of his truck. "This is the location of each house. This is No. 3042. From the line, the location of this is supposed to be 166 feet. I verified and saw the line, and it's not, it's 159 feet. So I upgraded it to tell them how it really is. . . . You want to check everything."
      Infrastructure is in three dimensions, so they need to know not only where these lines are, but also how deep.
     "Do I have room to go over, or do I need to do something else?" he asked. "I want to verify where it is so it all works."
     Once they knew what was under West Superior, work began in early October, with a machine crushing the pavement in a four-foot-wide stretch along the south curb, and then a backhoe digging a trench five feet deep—water mains in Chicago must be at least that deep or they'll freeze in winter.
     The trench is dug by a track excavator with a two-foot-wide bucket.
     Backhoe operator John Dombroski worked a joystick, following the hand signals of his "top man" standing at the lip of the trench.
     "I won't even watch the bucket, I watch his hand," said Dombroski.
     "He's so good he could comb your hair with the teeth of the bucket," added Skrabutenas.
     An additional benefit of Emanuel's plan, besides critical infrastructure improvement, is the addition of 1,800 construction jobs—both at the water department and its contractors and suppliers.
     Working a water crew is a good job but at times a tough one.
     Because water goes everywhere in the city, water crews find themselves in places where they're happy to be inside a trench.
     "This isn't the best place to work, danger-wise," said foreman Stan DeCaluwe, noting that most at risk are the area residents. "The last site, two men were shot on the corner about 120 feet away from where we were digging."
     But gunplay is a rarity.
     "Mostly our problems are theft on the job site," said DeCaluwe. Tool lockers get broken into.
     The new main is eight inches in diameter—to increase the capacity to larger buildings that might be built in decades to come.
     The new pipes are 18 feet long, and their manufacturer suggests they're good for 300 years, coated with a protective resin outside, wrapped in plastic and lined with concrete. They are also ductile iron, which has a little more give.
     "You've got more forgiveness," said Michael Sturtevant, deputy commissioner for engineering services.
     One of the more surprising aspects of the process is that the new main was set in place, then covered back up with dirt.
     "You can't leave these trenches open," said Skrabutenas. "I can't shut this block down for a month."
     The new main was pressure tested—100 pounds for two hours, to check for leaks, then flushed with chlorine for 24 hours, to sanitize it and prevent bacteria from being introduced into the system.
     On Nov 17, after 34 days of work, service was transferred to the new main, house by house, and the old main was shut off. It's left in the ground—there's no point to remove it.
     From now until April, the water crews will focus on leaks.
     "If something is going to fail, typically it fails more often in the wintertime," said DeCaluwe. "Everything's hampered by cold weather."
         —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Dec. 27, 2011

Ukraine’s woes may foretell our own

By Damien Hirst

     Nobody cries like a bully.
     One moment they’re standing over some sprawled victim, fists doubled, hurling abuse. The next they’re waving a hand in the air, weeping over the boo-boo on their knuckle.
     It’s a disgusting display, seen the world round. The truth — you’re beating up the weaker kid, because you can, and because doing so makes you feel good — can’t be recognized. So a pretext must be found.
     At times there is almost a ritual aspect to it. Haters and despots clutch at their chests and pretend their aggression has a reason, that they are the victims.
     This curious ceremony was seen again in the days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A flutter of official indignation as the Russian army massed around its neighbor.
     “Stop this hysteria about the intentions of Russia in the region,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin demanded.
     If there was any push for war, he said, it comes from the Ukrainians, or the Americans.
     “I believe in diplomacy,” Vershinin said.
     He could have been sincere. Shelling cities might be considered an extension of diplomacy, in a Clausewitzian sense (“War,” the Prussian general once wrote, “is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”)
     At least the people invading their neighbor have a reason to lie. What excuse does the Red State hallelujah chorus have? Beyond craven envy of a leader unconstrained by law or conscience.
     Me, I saw the invasion and gave thanks for Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
     What? Forgotten already? Let me remind you. The House of Representatives impeached Trump in December 2019.

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