How did Sinéad O'Connor die?

     Silence speaks volumes.
     Particularly in journalism, which has rituals as strict as any kabuki.
     In obituaries, for instance, when a deceased person is relatively young — say their 50s — and no cause of death is given, that usually means they killed themselves but their family doesn't want to say so. 

     Which is their right, I suppose, if it comforts them in their time of suffering. However, when the person in question is a public figure like Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor, who was found dead in her home Wednesday, July 26, and the family asks for their privacy be respected, the silence curdles. Nature and the media abhor a vacuum.
     O'Connor wasn't just any singer. I don't want to add too much to the geyser of general praise, except to note that like most people I admired her music, bought all her albums when they came out, and never stopped listening. I suppose if I had to pick a favorite song, it would be "Jackie," just for its mythic quality, and her angry defiance in the face of heartbreak. "'You're all wrong,' I said, and they stared at the sand/'That man knows that sea like the back of his hand/He'll be back some time...'"

     The police say the death isn't "suspicious." Which I read as, "we know but we're not telling you." Such matters could be filed under "Curiosity, idle," except O'Connor was hailed as an iconoclast and truth teller, and it would ironic — in a bad way — if she succumbed to her well-publicized demons but nobody wanted to say because they were trying to buff her image in death. Problems that can't be talked about can't be addressed, which is why woes that were once hidden now end up in the media. Sometimes. That's how change happens. When O'Connor ripped up that photo of the pope on "Saturday Night Live" in 1992 to protest the church's sexual abuse of children, it was shocking and shameful to many, particularly in her native Ireland. But eventually the problem was dragged out into the light — due to courageous acts like hers — and by the time she died this week, she was a hero for saying the unsayable.

     There is no shame in suicide, just as there is no shame in cancer or heart disease or anything else. There is shame in refusing to recognize a problem because it embarrasses you, or saddens you, or is awkward. Maybe it doesn't apply, and I hope that is the case. It's a bad end. Maybe O'Connor just spontaneously died — she did have several physical health concerns. Or maybe she took her own life. It could be valuable to know which is true.

Works in progress: "Worth the pain"

     My initial temptation was to play today's post as just another reader submitting an update on a writing project. But of course today's author, Caren Jeskey, is an old friend to EGD, having owned the Saturday post for almost three years before she decided to strike out on her own. So it's with pleasure that we welcome her back today. I know that she was missed. Take it away, Caren:

"I really see people in recovery from severe addictions as modern day prophets, because these are folks who have had to figure out pleasure and pain and consumption in a dopamine overloaded world. They really provide this roadmap of deep wisdom for the rest of us.”       —Anna Lempke, M.D.

     Shankar Vendantam’s comforting voice poured through my Bluetooth speaker last Sunday. It was the podcast Hidden Brain’s episode “The Path To Enough” on WBEZ. Guest Anna Lembke — a Stanford psychiatrist and researcher — talked about dopamine fasting. I’ve heard this hot topic mentioned a lot this past year, mostly from young, astute therapy clients.
     According to Dr. Lembke on NPR’s Life Kit last year, “we have to start to intentionally avoid pleasure and seek out pain. And by doing that, we will reset reward pathways and ultimately be a lot happier.” She notes that depression and anxiety are more present in wealthier countries, where access to immediate gratification is easier. She prescribes 30 day fasts from our "drugs" of choice. “I will have patients see me for depression and anxiety, expecting that I will prescribe an antidepressant. But instead what I say is ‘hey, can you eliminate cannabis from your life for a month? Hey, can you stop playing video games for a month? Can you cut out alcohol for a month? Can you not watch any Netflix shows for a month?’”
     One of the keys to reducing dependence on a screen, a habit, a feud, an unhealthy relationship — or any other mood altering substance or destabilizing behavior — is making a decision to do it, (with medical help if necessary). Getting support from others is also invaluable — support groups, therapists, friends who get it, partners. The more the merrier, as long as they offer the right kind of support.
     You can learn how to ride out cravings. When feeling the pain from withdrawal, you can distract by forcing yourself to do things you’ve been avoiding, or by pushing yourself to engage in a healthy, pleasurable activity. Once you see that you can pause and say "no" instead of "yes," you will feel empowered, and emboldened to do it again and again.
     It’s unfortunate that substance use disorders, formerly known as “addictions,” have been historically met with stigma instead of the treatments they require. Disorders are not moral failings. Unhealthy habits often begin before the brain is even developed, or after stressors and traumas, or to people exposed to drugs and alcohol as children, or because of problems with the brain, and other forgivable maladies that lead the seeker into dangerous quick-fixes.
     As we try to stay balanced in an upside-down world, cultivating inner peace as often as possible can be a panacea that keeps us away from harmful choices. To this end, I meditate daily with the app Insight Timer. It's free, or you can give a donation if you so choose. When I'm feeling overwrought — thankfully rare these days — and don't want to hear an angelic voice cooing at me, I will pick something that addresses what's going on inside, such as anxiety or stress. Learning about what's happening and addressing it makes me stronger, and more hopeful. Dr. Ken McGill’s adult feelings wheel and brief exercises to “improve emotional self-awareness” are useful.
     In her talk Healing Addiction on Insight Timer, psychologist, meditation teacher, and author Tara Brach describes why reaching for dopamine highs backfires. She uses the Buddhist concept of a hungry ghost inside of each of us. Trying to fill up the insatiable ghost inside only leads to overconsumption.
     Practicing moderation, cultivating mindfulness, staying connected to others, and cultivating a loving heart are ways that we can experience life’s challenges with more internal grace. Compassion and forgiveness have to be practiced, and sometimes taught, which can be done using Metta meditations, for example. When we send ourselves, everyone we know, and everyone in the world well-wishes using this technique, we can feel a sense of relief. At least we have taken a break from pointing fingers at others.
     Having healthy loving relationships with real humans is ideal. Some say that “the nature of the relationships we build is the biggest factor in our mental and physical health and our well-being. To explore what drives love, both objectively and subjectively, is to develop therapies to help those who may struggle to form healthy, stable relationships, the successes or failures of which will have lifelong consequences" according to The Scientist. Dr. Lembke points out that we need others for basic safety, as well.
     For those previously isolated by living lives mired in unhealthy habits, support groups can be a big piece of finding healthier relationships. For this reason, I’ve provided links to many free groups at the end of this piece.
     I felt disappointed that Dr. Lembke neglected to address secular recovery groups when she mentioned Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous on Hidden Brain. Secular groups are not anti-religious, but are science, medicine, and psychology informed. This makes them more accessible to those who do not believe in a god or a higher power.
     Alcoholics Anonymous and affiliated 12-Step groups stemmed from the Oxford Group of Christianity. Their slogans, signage in the meetings and all of their literature is religious. For example, in the Big Book of AA the participant is instructed “on awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.” In this traditional model of recovery that was formed in the 1930s by men, people are often told to pray. Many have tried and left these programs for just this reason, unnecessarily. No one told them about non-religious A.A. Many who might have lived, have died.
     I am sure you can imagine what it might feel like to be told to go to a mosque or a temple for services if you’re Christian? Or a Christian church if you’re Muslim or Jewish? Or any church if you are an atheist? That’s how many people feel in traditional A.A., which is still often mandated by courts in the U.S. and abroad. Cases have been won against employer and court mandated attendance, but it’s a slow battle. In the meantime, many people do not have the access to this wonderful, donation based support system if they are not told that atheists, freethinkers, Buddhists, agnostics, and everyone else in the world are welcomed there.

     "Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world."

                         —Wayne Dyer

Resources and Links:

Hidden Brain: The Paradox of Pleasure and The Path to Enough

Care And Compassion Over Tough Love: Shatterproof
Secular AA Website
Secular Organization for Sobriety
Beyond Belief Sobriety
Back From Broken Podcast
A Woman's Way Through The Twelve Steps Book
Alcohol & Drug Foundation: Reducing The Risk
Support, Don't Punish: Harm Reduction Campaign
Chicago Harm Reduction Therapy
YouTube Video about AA Agnostica
Emotional Sobriety
Buddhist Recovery Network
The Sinclair Method (I personally know people this has worked for, but like many things it does not work for everyone. Most doctors will Rx Naltrexone, which reduces cravings, but not all understand how to facilitate an effective process).

 

Joe Biden is too old to run again

     The median age for Americans is almost 39, according to the U.S. Census.
     Which might be surprising — we feel like a much older nation, and for good reason. Look at our leaders. President Joe Biden is 80. Majority leader Chuck Schumer is 72, and minority leader Mitch McConnell is 81. The oldest senator, Dianne Feinstein, is 90.
     To ask if that is “too old” is to ask the wrong question. Of course, people can be busy and productive to a very old age — we just visited Edith Renfrow Smith, making jelly at 109.
    But things happen. Feinstein has struggled to do her job. McConnell froze in the middle of a news conference Wednesday, standing silent and stricken until he was led away. He returned later and declared himself fine. Maybe he is fine. But the writing is on the wall. As I like to say, you can ignore facts but that doesn’t mean facts ignore you. As Francis Hopkinson Smith once said, the claw of the sea puss gets us all in the end. Sooner or later, the strong riptide drags us out to that cold, dark ocean from whence none returns.
     No wonder we cling to the dry shore. Nobody wants to leave the party. But is that a smart governmental strategy? The McConnell episode is a reminder that anything can happen at any time. It can come for you in the middle of a news conference. And the older you are, the closer you are to whatever is going to eventually come and get you.
     That’s why those handicapping the 2024 election are deluding themselves. The life expectancy of an 80-year-old man is seven years, meaning that should Biden be reelected, the oldest president ever, he’d be pushing his luck to reach the end of his term.
     Right now, Biden gives very few news conferences and hasn’t sat down at all with a reporter from a major newspaper. He walks stiffly, speaks awkwardly, was at a loss to say how many grandchildren he has or what his favorite movie is.
     Sixty-seven percent of Americans — including half of Democrats — think Biden is too old to run. I am among them.
     It isn’t that he hasn’t been an effective president, from marshaling European support for Ukraine to his infrastructure bill. The question is: Will he remain so until he’s 86? Are we willing to bet our country on it?
     This is where his probable opponent comes in.

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Big bike race in Northbrook!

    

     The cliche about the suburbs is that they're one big undifferentiated anodyne nowhere populated by glozing neuters, to borrow Thomas Pynchon's phrase. An attitude formed after World War II, when culture was roiled by the image of identical ticky-tacky boxes set along interchangeable streets.      

     That such living arrangements were highly attractive to people packed into decaying city apartment buildings might have been the truth that such generalizations were trying to obscure. Just as the more I hear Chicagoans complaining about people saying they're from "Chicago" instead of, I don't know, Des Plaines, the more insecure they seem. If where you live is so great, then why are you so greedy about it? Abundance should be generous. For example, I'm always shocked to see Jews who squint hard and evaluate newcomers who adopt their religion. To me, anyone reckless enough to want to call themselves a Jew should be welcomed into the club, no questions asked. 
     Yes, some suburbs, maybe even most, are sprawling bedroom communities. Absolutely. And most poetry is crap. But just as bad verse doesn't indict the concept of poetry, so bland suburbs shouldn't poison the concept. For all the talk bout "15-minute cities," I'm the one who can walk to the library and the post office, the village hall and the grocery, the hardware store and the drug store and the bank and the neighborhood book store. Most Chicagoans can't say that. My house has wide cedar flooring and a spire that some blacksmith pounded out of strips of iron in 1905. 
     You never know what's going to happen in Northbrook. I was shopping at Sunset on Sunday (an hour before my infamous trip to Aldi, which seems to have broken Reddit, based on accounts from survivors who have staggered over to fall weeping at my feet) and the bagger was none other than Ron Bernardi, 79, whose uncles started Sunset in 1937. He immediately brightened — was I going to write about the Northbrook Grand Prix Bike Race on Thursday? I hadn't planned to, but of course promised him I would.

     Northbrook has a velodrome — a stadium for racing bicycles — and last year hosted a Grand Prix. This year is a repeat performance on Thursday, July 27. 

     "Let me show you my office," Bernardi said, and sprinted up the stairs. I followed. He grabbed a press release about the bike race. I watched last year, as bicyclists tore around our downtown. Good bicyclular fun.

    While I was in the office, he of course showed me photos of his family, proud immigrants from Italy, and outside, an arcade machine that plays a real accordion when you put in a quarter, next to a photo of him at 15, playing the accordion, an instrument once closely associated with Italian-Americans.

    As we listened to the music, I thought: This is not the stereotypical suburban experience. A reminder that interesting people are everywhere, if you are open to them. Odd that some people don't know that. And if you want to claim you are a Northbrook resident, even if you've never been here, please be my guest. There's plenty to go around.

     Anyway, the race is in downtown Northbrook from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Unlike NASCAR, which charged $267 to stand there and watch the racing, admission is free.

The 2022 Grand Prix Race.

 

Real men can laugh at themselves

     My mother laid the trap.
     “So what are you doing today?” she asked.
     I fell in, telling her, in my naive, Lucy-and-the-football fashion.
     “We’re going to see the ‘Barbie’ movie,” I said.
     “Not ‘Oppenheimer?’” my mother replied.
     “No,” I said. “We’ll see that later.”
     “Oh,” my mother said. My blood ran cold.
     That afternoon, my brother told me that, in their conversation, our mother was perplexed as to why I, the son of a nuclear physicist, presented with the choice between a movie about the father of the atomic bomb and a movie about a plastic doll for girls, would choose the latter.
     I was not surprised. All that meaning had been compressed within her single syllable: “Oh.”
     In my defense, I’ve already lived “Oppenheimer.” Among my earliest memories is being held over a bubble chamber in my father’s lab to see the subatomic particles flitting around. I’ve watched people use real manipulators — those robots arms at Homer’s nuclear plant in “The Simpsons” — to handle radioactive material at NASA. The linear particle accelerator at Fermilab? I’ve been inside it.
     “Barbie” was my call because ... the movie sounded fun. I wanted to do something fun. To celebrate finally giving COVID the boot.
     And “Barbie” is fun. It reminded me why people go to the movies in the first place. For two hours, I really was somewhere else, Barbie Land (though not so fully as to fail to notice the movie also spells it “Barbieland.”)
     Margot Robbie should win the Academy Award. And Ryan Gosling is Ken. Barbie’s neglected boyfriend, exiled to the periphery of the endless girl’s night dance party. This buff, superfluous figure sadly flexing on the beach for his fellow Kens. I felt for him. As someone who, in my day, has looked into the eyes of my share of Barbie types and realized they were just not into me, I could relate to Ken.

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Wrangle carts, earn quarters

     Whenever I hear of "food deserts," those urban neighborhoods without access to grocery stores and fresh food, I feel a pang of guilt. Because whatever the opposite of a food desert is — a food oasis? — I live there. 

     A marvelous, if pricy, grocery, Sunset Foods, is within walking distance of my house, and another half dozen supermarkets are within a 10 minute drive: Jewel, with its bargains ($7.99 a pound for steak, I mean, c'mon!), Whole Foods, not as pretentious since Amazon bought it, plus you can bring your unwanted Amazon packages there to return. Trader Joe's, with its quirky corporate identity and ephemeral store brands, products that appear, catch your fancy, then vanish forever. Over on Milwaukee Avenue, Fresh Farms Market, with its Polish candies, fresh-baked dark Eastern European bread and juice oranges. Not to forget Costco and Target.
     You'd think that would be enough. Sunday we went shopping at Kohl's, and had to pop next door to Aldi — a chance for my wife to get her shopping done. I'd never gone before.

     Immediately we were confronted with a dilemma. The shopping carts are chained together, requiring a quarter to free one. It seemed too much trouble.

    "Let's just grab a basket," I said, already feeling my humor curdle. Paying for carts? But there were no baskets inside the store. We weren't in Sunset. My wife fished for a quarter, came up empty — who carries quarters? For what purpose would anyone do that? — and a kind woman passing by simply gave her a quarter. They're basically worthless.
     Aldi was new and kinda empty, not enough products filling the void and what they had were off-brands that I'd never heard of. Millville? I'd have left immediately, but my wife declared the prices low, and wanted to walk every aisle, exploring. 

    "Have you no pride?" I muttered, immediately realizing that I have enough for the both of us. I wondered where "Aldi" came from, and later found it to be an abbreviation of "Albrecht-Diskont," a discount grocery chain founded in Germany in 1962 by brothers Theo and Carl Albrecht. It has over 10,000 stores in 22 countries. The place didn't seem very European.

     She picked up tangerines and canned pears and tomatoes and such. While she paid, I stepped outside to take a few photos and examine the cart system. Signs that I hadn't noticed before — I should have, there were two big ones — revealed you get your quarter returned. That was the point. They weren't charging for the carts, they were extorting a quarter from their customers to corral the carts. "You better bring our cart back if you ever want to see your quarter again, buddy." Thus saving on hiring a cart wrangler, like the man Sunset has stationed full time in the parking lot. I watched a shopper return his cart, the quarter poking back out the same slot it had gone into.
     My wife came out with the cart and a small pile of the groceries. No bags. Just like Costco. The no bags situation irked me at first. It seems rude. I briefly contemplated scooping up the groceries in our arms, in order to leave the cart there. But there were a few too many. We'd parked at the far end of the parking lot, away from other cars. We rolled over. I got in and started the car, and my wife volunteered to return the cart. I hit the stopwatch on my phone.

     Two minutes and 50 seconds, to return the cart and come back as opposed to stranding it on the little raised oval of grass next to the car and letting somebody else do it. Call it three minutes. For a quarter. Or, times 20, $5 an hour to be temporarily dragooned as an Aldi cart wrangler. The psychology of the thing was interesting. It obviously worked. The parking lot, empty of carts, while at Sunset they accumulate.
     My wife came back, and told me that after returning the cart and getting her quarter, she again encountered the helpful woman who had given it to her, and returned the woman's quarter, the kind of small human encounter that embroiders life and makes it bearable.
     Still, my wife announced that Aldi would not join the rotation of grocery stores we patronize. Not because of the cart system or the weird unfamiliar brands, but because there weren't enough of them — the store didn't have a wide enough range of foodstuffs to make going there worthwhile. You save money but don't get your shopping done. 

    Editor's note: given the huge reader reaction to a post on Aldi — this was the most read thing I've written over the past 12 months — you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be back. Until then, those who are confused over what is happening here might want to avail themselves to the concept of the Dunk Tank Clown. 

No stupid history, no crime scene kitties

Photo for the Sun-Times by Ashlee Rezin

     What is it about stupid people anyway?
     You can believe the most god-awful nonsense — factually incorrect, self-flattering, steaming kettles of BS — and parade that stupidity around to the delight of your fellow idiots, cheering and high-fiving one another at big rallies, celebrations of toxic dumbness.
     Yet let somebody point it out, let them cough into their fist and mutter, “You’re stupid,” and suddenly the stupid fall to the ground, clutching themselves, declaring their injury to heaven.
     It’s so ... for want of a better word ... stupid. How can some people get upset if you call them stupid when they’re perfectly happy being stupid? It’s a mystery.
     Say your house were on fire — a situation even more dire than being stupid. And I say, “Your house is on fire,” causing you to collapse in a heap and declare yourself insulted, insisting that your house — obviously ablaze before us, thick black smoke pulsing out of the windows — is fine and how dare I suggest otherwise? Rude!
     Who does that? Stupid people, I suppose.
     I haven’t written much about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, honestly, because I still suspect he’s some kind of a sham — a performance art piece perhaps — designed to make Donald Trump look good, between his daft war on Disney and his imbecilic assault on history.
     Maybe you haven’t heard. In its constant quest to make white people feel better, the state of Florida’s No. 1 priority, apparently, is downplaying race when teaching American history.
     Florida’s new curriculum, unsatisfied with presenting racism as a dusty relic of the 19th century, is taking the next step and redefining America’s original sin, slavery, as something akin to high school shop class.

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