Northshore Notes: Emotional Safety

     I typically include a headshot of my Northshore bureau chief Caren Jeskey atop her Saturday essay, to help remind readers who is writing this. But she looked out of place amongst the fire-breathing men I created using the Dall-E AI program, so we're doing without it this week. I'm hoping, after two years, most readers have gotten with the program. Me, six days a week; Caren on Saturdays.

By Caren Jeskey

Created by Dall-E

     We cannot always avoid difficult people. They cut us off and rage on the roads. They go postal. They take the parking spot we were patiently waiting for. Since we cannot change them, what do we do? How do we make our communities safer? The health of a community, after all, depends on its individual members.
     On all of us. The change isn't something we need permission to make. First of all, I am sure I’ve cut someone off without realizing it. I've also gone too slow in the fast lane before being able to merge. I always remind myself, when annoyed with strangers, that no one is perfect. It’s better to let it go than sacrifice my nervous system balance. (Plus these days I might get shot if I react at all). A pick-up owner I know in Austin used to say "accidents are the fault of the slow drivers. Not the tailgaters." Hard not to let that one piss me off, but over time I tried to see her perspective. She's right, but what's the use of fighting when she was not open to hearing my take on it?

     We can be around difficult people and react less. You aren't responsible for what they do, but you are for how you respond to it. I practice particular meditations, often called Metta or Loving Kindness, that help me think good thoughts towards others. All others. With practice, it becomes easier. When on a crowded train I stay calm and alert, and if I’m feeling irritated I remember that we all have beating hearts within a cage of bone. Realizing their precarious human form helps me move out of anger more quickly. I remind myself that adults are kids in grown up suits, and we are all marching towards death in our very short lives.

     I still have the urge to talk shit about MAGA maniacs. I have been actively trying to cut it out. I can better spend that energy helping campaign for more mature, wise, and intelligent politicians. I can focus on my own self-growth and keep the finger pointing down. Those we rail against generally don't care. In my brief martial arts training I learned that directing vitriol towards others weakens us. Push-ups don't. With loved ones we are on a more intimate journey, and sometimes there are opportunities to talk. This short video about how to talk to MAGA friends and family (yep, I know some) more effectively is helpful. I also have "safe topics" with some folks so that we can avoid arguing about something that one of us cannot seem to have a conversation about.  Sure, there's also the selfish piece where I don't want to accidentally get shot with a hunting rifle by an anti-feminist.

     Granted, it's hard to live amongst those we feel are a threat to democracy. "Looks like the U.S. will never separate church and state. I had a man call me a “wacko” just this week, for being a trans ally. It smarted for a bit. Then I realized it's best to simply move on. It's not his fault that he did not mature past elementary school. It's partly the fault of our society. Tolerance and compassion must be taught at home, and in schools more often. We must teach ourselves to raise our emotional IQs over time throughout life, and model this intelligence. It's considered to be more important than IQ, even in excelling academically."

     This topic came up for me today, Friday, because I attended a talk based in Austin, Texas (via Zoom). We learned more about how to protect the liberties of Texan residents and therapists that are being stripped away by those in a Trans (and any other form of "other") Panic. Those of us who hold equal rights for all in high regard are being threatened in this bizarre period of time, a throwback to less-enlightened ages. I also had the pleasure of spending 90 minutes or so in a group on Zoom with Reverend Ward Ewing this past week. He’s a non-alcoholic chairperson of Alcoholic Anonymous' General Service Board, who said “... the greatest difficulty I have with the institutional church is with the claim of knowing the truth. Anyone who has studied theology knows that ‘truth’ has changed dramatically over the ages. This claim to know the truth plays a central role in the churches’ developing a view of us versus them. At its worst it has led to witch hunts, inquisitions and persecutions; at its best it leads to hypocrisy and arrogance. I believe it is this claim that encourages within religion the desire to control and the spirit of perfectionism.” 

   As long as those who believe in heaven more than practicing the golden rule on earth- and as long as we have people in the world who do not see the value of all human life - have any degree of power, our world will continue to be broken.

All work and no play makes Elon a dull boy

 

"They all work until 9 p.m." 1913, Lewis Hines photographer (Library of Congress)

     My particular unit of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Neil Steinberg column division, keeps long hours.
     Most days, I’ll wake shortly after 4 a.m. and stare into the darkness, puzzling out some wrinkle in whatever I’m working on. Then toss back the covers and pad up to the office to iron it out. That shifts into polishing it in earnest in the morning after the coffee’s brewed. Hunting around for the next column in the afternoon. And it’s not unknown to get a far-away expression at dinner — oops, it’s “separate,” not “seperate” — and bolt back to make a change.
     Still, I don’t consider myself overworked, because a) it’s my choice, b) I really like doing it and c) if you counted up the scattered minutes, I don’t think it would exceed the 37.5 hours a week I officially work. It’d be impossible to tally.
     Everyone’s job is different, of course, and I’m in something of a unique position. Still, COVID-19 has taught many employees to value flexibility. They’re more interested in having a life outside work, not less. Nobody wants the boss hovering over their shoulder, and many professionals are trusted to do what they need to do, where and when they need to do it. “Get ready to put in a lot more hours!” is not a diktat that anybody, columnist or carpenter or cop, will greet with much enthusiasm.
     So while the ongoing public tantrum that Elon Musk has been throwing since he paid too much for Twitter last month grew extra boring of late, Wednesday’s twist of the knife caught my attention.
     Musk ordered his remaining employees — he has already fired half of Twitter’s staff — to commit to “long hours at high intensity” or quit. Why? Basically because he spent too much and now wants to squeeze more return on investment out of his employees’ lives. Working for Twitter, Musk wrote, will become “extremely hardcore,” a term with an apt connection to pornography since both forms of grinding are obscene.

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The New York Post does a reverse ferret

     Consider the conundrum of the reformed sinner. Should their past wrongs be held against them? Or the slate wiped clean, to celebrate their epiphany by joyously welcoming them back into the band of the righteous?
     It depends on why they made the shift. A convicted murderer who runs into a burning home to save a baby has still done something heroic; it might not obviate his crime, but it does accrue to his credit, assuming he didn't do it with an eye on the cameras. The key is whether it was done selfishly, or for pure motives. Liz Cheney might be a rock-ribbed Republican who adheres to their various revanchist policy beliefs. But her leading the Jan. 6 committee still was magnificent, and I didn't join my fellow liberals grumbling about her stance on abortion rights or her telling Dick Cheney she loves him. The act was too important, too self-damaging among her cowardly and traitorous peers.

The moment the votes were counted,
the New York Post reversed course.

     Her motives seemed to be a desire to do what is best for the country. It can be a tough call. Mike Pence certainly did the right thing on Jan. 6.  

     Of course, his years of groveling compliance helped bring our nation to the brink. And his book tour courage now has the air of a rat darting out of its hole to nibble on the carcass of a rhino. Compare Cheney's self-immolation to the New York Post this past week doing what my friends in the British media call a "reverse ferret" — an institutional 180 degree spin in outlook. That is a different matter.

     Yes, I am glad that, after the Republican midterm shellacking, they licked their finger, tested the wind, read the memo from Rupert Murdoch and reversed course, turning on Donald Trump with a snarl. Welcome to the Resistance. 

     Yes, I think their treatment of Loser L. McLosey's throwing his hat in the ring, "FLORIDA MAN MAKES ANNOUNCEMENT," reporting that he is making his third run for president, is epic, ranking right up there with "HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR."

     The Post treated him as one of those "Florida man..." stories (Since 2013, the sharing of "Florida man..." headlines highlighting the Sunshine State's supposed lock on tales of down-market and absurd criminal behavior, have been a source of Twitter humor: "Florida Man Arrested in Local Park for Practicing Karate on Swans" and such.

     The Post ran across the bottom of its front page Wednesday, sending the reader to page 26 — part of the joke, deep in the paper, along the tide tables and the horoscope. The Sun-Times played it straight, story on page 1. Myself, I would have delivered a bit more heat with that. Mainstream publications seem to finally have figured out how to treat Trump. Even NPR tweeted the news this way: "BREAKING: Donald Trump, who tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and inspired a deadly riot at the Capitol in a desperate attempt to keep himself in power, has filed to run for president again in 2024." That is both completely factual and the proper light.

     So, returning to my opening question, are the Post now among the good guys. The New York and Washington Posts, brother in arms? Hardly. Why? Because for years the Post, and its Fox parent, amplified and encouraged Trump's bullying, sedition and lies. Because the Post is turning on Trump now for the same reason they embraced him: to kiss up to the powerful. It isn't as if they suddenly care about immigrants. In Rupert Murdoch's calculation, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is more likely to be president in 2024 than the twice-impeached flailing fabulist. It's what I long ago dubbed "Horserace Journalism." Put your bet on the horse you think is going to win. That isn't ethics.   

     Welcome the Post to the fight, but don't turn your back on them. Because the winds could yet change direction.

Trying to be real in Uptown

Marc Kelly Smith is your genial, and sometimes not-so-genial, host at the Uptown Poetry Slam.

     A good poem messes with your head. Or should. It sneaks in there, starts grabbing fistfuls of wires, yanking out some, jamming in others, making new connections like the operator at a telephone switchboard. You come away not quite thinking the same as before.
     Not every poem for every person, of course. That’s why there are so many poets and so many poems. Even a poet you love can leave you cold. I’ve read T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” again and again. The cat poems? Once is plenty.
     And as much as I love some of Jeffrey McDaniel’s previous books, his new one, “Thin Ice Olympics” wasn’t really registering with me until page 67 when I got to “Dad Museum,” which begins:

     ‘You live and work in a room filled with your dead father’s memories,’ my wife says as I lean over to write...

     You too? I mean, my dad’s still alive, sort of, but I sit writing this in my office with the framed photo of my father’s ship, the Empire State, sailing past St. Mark’s Square in Venice, and his chrome-plated Vibroplex telegraph key and crested Turner microphone and tubes of Winsor & Newton paint ... there’s more, but you get the idea.
     “Dad museum.” How could I have not thought of that before? Maybe because I’m not a poet.

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The computer stumbles

   Look at these four photos. A mixed bag. Above left, you have a clown lamenting over voting machines. Above right, people walking by garbage cans.
       To the right, a woman sitting on a train. And below, another woman having a private moment outside a courtroom downtown.  They are among the 48 photographs that Apple Photo scraped together out of my 66,000 or so shots stored therein. So, my question is ... what do you think was the one search term was that kicked up these four photos? An engine designed by Apple, mind you, one of the premiere tech companies in the world. Take your time. Look closely. I'll give you a hint. It isn't "people." Or "streets." Or "voting machines." 

     (Nor could I break up the above paragraph into two, since sitting next to the photo somehow stopped that from happening. When I think of how buggy Blogger, the system where I write this I shouldn't be surprised (nor complain. It is free. I suppose you get what you pay for).

     I was searching for something to go along with Caren Jeskey's post last Saturday, and ended up having to use the Dall-E AI program (named as a riff on the movie Wall-E) to draw what I needed: suitcases. These four photos came up when I searched for the word "suitcase." 

     To be fair, there were also photos containing suitcases. But too many others, like these, that didn't. Only voting machines, garbage cans, purses and radiators that looked like suitcases, to a computer. There are still a few bugs in the system, which I suppose is a good thing. Not our overlord quite yet.

  

Ready for their close-up

     "Most self-published books are crap," I told author Mark Houser, dubiously, when we first spoke. "If I write about this, it'll be the first self-published book I've written about since 'Leaves of Grass.'" Then I saw those photos...

    They are domed or stepped back or crenelated, like castle towers. With illuminated clocks or fierce gryphons or flying buttresses. Urns and eagles, ladies liberty and neon signs.
     In Chicago, there is the azure blue of the American Furniture Mart, whose windows seem to float against perfect summer skies. Or the white summit of Mather Tower, a reminder that the top four stories started crumbling and were lopped off, only to have the city eventually force the owner to helicopter in a replacement. The glittering gold crown of the Carbide and Carbon Building.

     Chris Hytha, a 25-year-old Philadelphia photographer, calls them simply “Highrises” on his sleek online project presenting stunning high-resolution photographs stitched together from close-up drone shots of grande dame buildings across the country.
     But I prefer “antique skyscrapers,” the term coined by his collaborator, historian Mark Houser. I learned of the project when Houser’s self-published 2020 book, “MultiStories: 55 Antique Skyscrapers & the Business Tycoons Who Built Them,” fell into my hands.
     Not just a valentine to lovely old structures, the book is a scholarly attempt to puff off the dust and view them afresh.
     “Imagine if you never saw a building taller than five stories, when the tallest thing you ever saw is a church steeple,” said Houser. “This technology was mind-bending.”
    And as photographed by Hytha, it still is. The book put Houser on Hytha’s radar.

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Is bullfighting a sport?

     This ran in the Sun-Times Sports Saturday section. Why? They have all that glorious space. Really, it's like a Sports Illustrated-quality magazine wrapped around a newspaper. They happily gave this story room to stretch its legs and run.

     Jane Addams went to a bullfight in Madrid and it changed her life, for the better.
     More about that later.
     I toss out that fact not to use the famed Chicago reformer and social worker as a human shield to cover my own attendance at a bullfight — which did not prompt me to devote my life to good works, at least not yet. But as a reminder that morality is complicated.
     Though the reason I went to a bullfight is fairly straightforward: I found myself in Madrid on a Sunday afternoon in early October, toward the end of bullfighting season. In fact, when my wife declared we were going to Spain, attending a bullfight was the first activity I thought of, before the notion of Prado artworks or Gaudi architecture crossed my mind.
     Honestly, it was the one thing I really wanted to do, fulfilling the cliche and touchstone of Spanish culture, plus a hangover from a lifetime reading the works of Ernest Hemingway, with his idolization of machismo, hunting, fishing and the confronting of angry cattle.
     My wife is not a fan of Hemingway and was not enthusiastic about the idea. Really? A bullfight? A few hours of bloodletting and sadism? On our vacation?
     She didn’t speak those words, but I drew them out of her expression, and I mustered two arguments. First: “We have to go, we don’t have to stay.” It wasn’t hugely expensive. Tickets are as cheap as 5 euros — about $5 with the strong dollar. Go, pop our heads in, take a look, flee in revulsion if need be. I think my primary goal was to tell people that I had been to a bullfight, not quite grasping the head-shaking censure I would eventually face. (“How could I not?” I flustered to one friend. “Because it’s the 21st century,” he answered, coldly.)
    Second, and this addressed the moral objections: “Those bulls are dying whether we go or not.” Bulls have been fought in public spectacle since Roman times. The practice isn’t going to crumble because my wife and I take in a flamenco show instead. Leave virtue signaling to smug zealots.

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