Abortion is murder; oh wait, no it’s not

Museum of Science & Industry

     Less than 48 hours after the draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would scuttle Roe v. Wade was leaked in the press, the Louisiana legislature moved a bill out of committee that criminalizes any abortion, from the moment of conception, as a homicide, allowing women who have such a procedure, or anyone who performs one, to be charged with murder.
     Meanwhile, at the same time, states like Illinois rush to guarantee the right of women to control their own bodies, and certain companies, like Levi Strauss, Yelp and Uber, announce they will pay for female employees to go out of state to have an abortion — raising the specter of a nation where a citizen doing something in one state can get reimbursed by her boss, while doing the exact same thing in another state lands her in prison.
     Unless it doesn’t. Late Thursday, after even anti-choice advocates protested that they were overplaying their hands, supporters clawed the bill back. For now.
     Punishing women who get abortions makes for bad optics and, besides, it implies that they are responsible for their own decisions, and not merely the playthings of men, who are the ones with volition and therefore the ones who should be punished.
     Louisiana tossing out harsh laws and then yanking them back is the kind of chaos we can expect in the months to come. Religious fanaticism and forethought do not go hand in hand. If you set your daughter on fire because you feel shamed by who she is dating, then you probably didn’t deeply consider that you won’t have a daughter anymore and might be casting an even greater shame on your family.
     Ditto for political fanaticism. If you bar immigrants because you are terrified at the thought of a diverse America, then the strawberries rot in the field, because we actually need immigrants to make the economy work — to be surgeons as well as pick fruit, I must point out.

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Deranged

     And we thought the first Trump administration was a nightmare. During the Biden administration, rather than slowly grope their way back toward being decent people and loyal Americans, the MAGA crowd is deteriorating into a permanent state of foaming nonsensical madness, where no fact cannot be dismissed nor situation twisted into something contrary to what it is. Those lost in fealty to the former president have a phrase, "Trump Derangement Syndrome," they apply to anyone paying critical attention to his crimes or, indeed, critically pointing out anything about the 45th president did or does, such as my observation here Tuesday that the news he wanted to lob missiles into Mexico, then deny we had done it, revealed in former secretary of defense Mike Esper's memoir this week, would have been big news in a less crazy America.
     Prompting the following tweet. I know I shouldn't reply—what is the point? This guy has four followers. But sometimes you just have to point out the obvious, out of fidelity to reason, the country and whatever shred of hope remains of our nation avoiding utter ruin. Of course he never responded. They seldom do.

Rainbow Cone shines up north, too

 

     Once upon a time, in order to savor the quintipartite joys of an Original Rainbow Cone, you had to somehow get yourself to Beverly. Not too difficult if you were already in Beverly, or near it, or at least on the South Side. But an insurmountable hurdle to guys like me, far, far away from the Pepto Bismol-pink ice cream shop at 9233 S. Western Ave.
     Then Rainbow began popping up at Taste of Chicago, where I first tried the five-layer frozen delight, perhaps the pinnacle of the Chicago ice cream world. (Which is a small planet. There’s Margie’s hot fudge. And Lezza’s Spumoni & Desserts. And ... that’s about it, right?)
     For the unenlightened, a Rainbow Cone’s fivefold path is, from top to bottom: orange sherbet, followed by four ice creams: pistachio, Palmer House (New York vanilla with walnuts and cherries), strawberry, chocolate. As with actual rainbows, the wonder was hard to find, but that’s changing.
     The past half-dozen years, Rainbow Cone has run a summertime kiosk on Navy Pier. Last year, another opened in Lombard.
     Beginning Wednesday, deprived North Siders can partake, as Rainbow Cone opens at 3754 W. Touhy Ave. in Skokie in a symbiotic relationship with Buona Beef.
     I swung by Monday with one goal: to enjoy a Rainbow Cone — whoops, I mean, to talk to Lynn Sapp, granddaughter of founders Joe and Katherine Sapp, who opened Rainbow Cone in 1926.
     “I grew up right behind it, and my grandparents lived above it,” she said.
     Has a lifetime of proximity muted the allure?
     “No. I’ve always loved Rainbow,” she said. “It’s kinda like a drug for me.”
     But scarcity drives value. Is she concerned the proliferation of Rainbow Cones — there’s also one in Darien — will dilute the magic?

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"What need we fear?"

 
     Question:

     Given that former president Donald Trump is a relentless, proven, consistent, pathological liar, why doesn't that fact preface every new report of his latest fabrication?

     Why float each new fib as if there were even the possibility of being true?

     For instance, his claim that he "had to run the military" while Mike Esper was secretary of defense, the typical ad hominem smokescreen in response to the jaw-dropping claims in Esper's new memoir, A Secret Oath.

     In a sane America, the secretary of defense revealing that the ever-fibbing president wanted to fire missiles into Mexico and then pretend we hadn't, or bring in soldiers to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters, would have been huge news and led to the gravest crisis.

     But we no longer live in that world.  In this world, it barely caused a ripple. In this world, it's just Monday, with news Tuesday sure to efface it with something even more horrendous. 

     Because no excess of Trump's is damaging. To him. His fans literally do not care what comes out, because the source can always be impugned, and his fan base will never falter. Thus he can shrug off the truth and plaster it over with a thick crust of lies that neither he nor his audience believe.

     "What need we fear who knows it," Macbeth asks, "when none can call our power to account?"

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass

     The Boeing Co. isn’t the first sharpie to show up in Chicago with a smooth patter and a suitcase filled with dreams to end up slinking out of town on a Greyhound bus.
     Their departure is supposed to be some kind of insult. But remember who Boeing is. A fine piece Friday in the Sun-Times detailed Boeing’s departure. It mentioned their $1.2 billion first quarter loss but politely sidestepped the 737 Max disaster.
     Remember? Boeing engineers tried modernizing an old plane design by spitting on their thumbs and smudging the computer code, ending up with some horrific glitch that sent one plane powering into the ground, killing 189 passengers. Sending Boeing into spasms of inertia and blame offloading for five, count ’em, five months until the same thing happened again, killing another 157 people, at which point Boeing mumbled, “Umm, yeah, well, OK maybe there’s a problem here ...”
     Not the company we want to keep.
     Given the blundering that Boeing embodies, who can even pretend their nesting here is some kind of civic adornment? Of course they prefer to be near Washington, D.C., close to the regulators and Justice Department officials who will be harrying them into eternity. Or should be.
     Some of the 500 jobs at Boeing’s headquarters were lost in the pandemic, and some might stay when the headquarters moves. But even if they all vanished, 500 jobs is chicken feed. That’s one big law firm. Sidley Austin has almost 500 attorneys. Plus another 500 support staff. Status and number of employees do not go hand in hand.
     Any idea who the biggest employer in Chicago is? You’ve got it: the federal government. Necessary, but nobody is thumping their chests saying “Chicago’s got 3,800 mail carriers ...”
     Does anybody even care anymore what companies are headquartered here? Excepting the company they actually work for, and maybe not even that, now that we’ve become unmoored from our places of employment. When Bally snagged the Chicago casino, did anybody other than me think, “Oh, that’s so cool, because Bally is headquartered right here, in Chicago, where it was founded in 1932 ...”

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Big G Ghetto

     Loving words is not without its disappointments. Because many people don't care.

     And subscribing to the New York Times can also be disheartening. Because sometimes they drop the ball.
     Those two sources of  let-down merged Thursday, reading the Arts section, topped with Robin Pogrebin's story, Reviving the Renaissance Temples of Venice's Jewish Ghetto, about exactly that. I read it twice, not because it was so interesting—it really wasn't—but to make sure what was left out truly wasn't there.
     Venice's Ghetto, the tiny acre and a half island where up to 5,000 Jews were forced to live, lest they pollute Christian Venice, is the original ghetto. It's where we get the word, taken from an iron foundry that was located there 600 years ago.

     The etymology isn't a big secret. The second sentence of the Venice Ghetto's Wikipedia entry is: "The English word ghetto is derived from the Jewish ghetto in Venice."
     That might not be a big deal. But it is interesting, is it not? Worth sharing. 

     I suppose, in their defense, maybe they assume that everybody already knows. Though you didn't know, did you? And you're pretty smart.
     Why include it? I'd say it's the most relevant, germane aspect of the story. Otherwise, it's a rehab story about a place you'll probably never see.
     Maybe I'm just bitter. I've been to Venice twice and didn't get to the Ghetto either time. The first time because I was there with my dad for a single day at the end of a very long trip and had no energy, time or intention of going. Though I tend to hit synagogues abroad—muscle memory—we had been to temples in Charleston, Bridgetown, and Rome. That was enough. 

     The second time, five years ago, I did hope to go.  But we got hung up at the Palazzo Grassi, ogling Damien Hirst artworks.

     Though I comfort myself with the thought that now I have a reason to go back to Venice. With millions of dollars being poured into restoring these synagogues, it's better to have waited until they were looking their best.

    Still, c'mon, New York Times. A little respect for the etymologists. History matters. To some of us, anyway. If you find yourselves writing a travel piece about Normandy Beach, at least mention that there was a famous landing there a long time ago. It'll be news to some folks, and those who already know, well, we expect a least a nod.

Wilmette Notes: From Chaos to Peace

    I haven't been inside a movie theater in over two years. I was just musing that, after two vaccines and two boosters, I'd maybe possibly go sometime in the indeterminate future, if the right film came along. Wilmette Bureau Chief Caren Jeskey has once again beaten me to the punch. Her Saturday report:

By Caren Jeskey

     "Everything Everywhere All at Once" at the Davis Theater had me stifling sobs, just as the play "Spring Awakening" at Porchlight did last week. The first hour of the film was chaotic and jarring, absurd, bizarre and sometimes violent. It brought to light the disjointed, incomplete existence many of us are feeling.
     I was tempted to walk out. I had reserved seats in the middle of the theater away from everyone else in a row all its own, and was double masked for my third movie of COVID. I was with a friend who did not seem to want to run out of the theater screaming, like I did. So I stuck it out.

     My favorite bodies of work often start slow or uncomfortable. They take a commitment to get through, and the rewards are worth it. "Schitt’s Creek" is one of them. It started off with annoying and unrelatable characters. I just didn’t care about them, and I wanted to stop after the first few episodes. The comedic brilliance of Catherine Anne O'Hara kept me around, and I was also intrigued that three of the characters three of the characters are related in real life. "Schitt’s Creek" became an all time favorite.
     The show turned out to be a gift to all who made it through the beginning to be rewarded with convulsing belly laughs. It was also poignant, and showed how family ties can be the strongest bond of all, despite the difficulties of maintaining a sense of oneself amongst those who know you best.
     The first hour of chaos in "Everything Everywhere..." sets the stage for one of the sweetest emotional releases I’ve been led to via cinema. It gave light to the fractured parts of ourselves; the good, the bad, and the ugly. The movie is a vessel for connection. It had me feeling less alone when the characters erred and then found their ways back to themselves. It provided a visceral experience of battling with oneself and one’s family of origin with all of the ambivalence and cognitive dissonance that entails. It ultimately reminded us that we are all in this human existence together at this precarious time. The movie shows that vulnerability with those we love can provide a window into salvation.
     When I say salvation, I mean the dictionary definition: “Preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss.” Being human intrinsically comes with the inevitably of being affected by each of these three things. We are harmed multiple times in our lifetimes, either physically, psychologically, or emotionally. Perhaps all three, just the perils of being human.
     When the roller coaster experience ended, we stumbled out of the movie, with me wiping tears into my sleeve. We decided to have dinner at a local establishment. A young woman who was sitting at the bar paid me a compliment. “You’re so skinny.” Well, that got my attention, seeing as I concur with a 20 year old client who said to me this week, "I feel old and decrepit."I quickly realized why she approached me. She was suffering. Her two year old child had just been removed by DCFS. She told me her story, and there was nothing I could say. I hugged her, and she cried.
     The next day I reached out and found three references for attorneys who specialize in such cases, and sent them to her.
     In a Zoom staff meeting a few days later everything went wrong. The internet was intermittently failing for part of the time, someone was recovering from an uncomfortable medical procedure, and a colleague didn’t realize that she was making quite the ruckus into our speakers with her movings about.
     It was a mess. It reminded me of the first hour of the movie. Things were falling apart, but the ultimate goal was achieved. After things settled down, in the last ten minutes we looked into each others’ faces with warm, reassuring smiles. These days the best we can do is find those moments where we can pretend everything is OK.