Flashback 2006: Sometimes, the denial is worse than the charge

Perseus with the Head of Medusa, by Antonio Canova (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

    No column in the paper today — an editor asked me to instead write something Sunday  about my late colleague, Jack Higgins. 

    In the meantime, Facebook served this up as a memory Thursday, and I thought, "I must have already posted that." But no. It's too fun not to. Yes, sad that Jesse Jackson Jr. was lost to mental illness and prison. But that was in the future when I wrote this column, a reminder that columnists used to throw their elbows a little harder than we do today. (If there even is a "we." Some days it feels like it's just a "me.")

OPENING SHOT

     A classic tale from the colorful career of Lyndon B. Johnson gives politicians of today nearly all they need to know about dealing with abuse.
     The late, great Hunter S. Thompson, of all people, tells a publishable version:
     "Back in 1948, during his first race for the U.S. Senate, Lyndon Johnson was running about 10 points behind, with only nine days to go. He was sunk in despair. He was desperate. And it was just before noon on a Monday, they say, when he called his equally depressed campaign manager and instructed him to call a press conference for just before lunch on a slow news day and accuse his high-riding opponent, a pig farmer, of having routine carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and children.
     "His campaign manager was shocked. 'We can't say that, Lyndon,' he supposedly said. 'You know it's not true.'
     "'Of course it's not true!' Johnson barked at him. 'But let's make the bastard deny it!' ''

I'M NOT DUMB !!! I'M NOT! REALLY!

     When the first smirking colleague passed along a letter purporting to be from Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., I thought it was a joke.
     "You wrote this yourself, didn't you?" I accused. He swore it was legit.
     Could it be? Was the congressman really denying being dumb ? And at such length. He mentions the word "dumb" seven times: dumb , dumb , dumb , dumb , dumb , dumb , dumb.
And the amazing thing is, I never called him " dumb ," not directly. What I said was that he "isn't very bright" — a premise that he amply illustrates below.
     Just to assure you that this isn't some kind of elaborate parody — a fantasy sequence – I should say I spoke directly to Jackson 's press secretary, Frank E. Watkins, and he assures me, albeit a bit frostily, that the congressman did indeed pen the letter.
     But enough preliminaries. Let me step aside and present Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., in his own words. He writes:
     "Neil Steinberg says he doesn't like me . . ."
     Actually, I never said that either. The fact is, I do like him. A lot. It's the Jesse Jackson Jr.'s of the world that make my life a bed of ease.
     ". . . because he has a bias that I'm not very smart. Note that he doesn't just say my ideas are dumb , but that I am dumb . . ."
     What I actually said was that Mayor Daley "isn't dumb " — which is also true. He sure didn't write me a long, aggrieved, self-indicting defense. The man's too smart for that.
     ". . . a very personal and subjective view without a factual basis. The last time I checked they don't award college, seminary, law and honorary degrees to dumb people."
     That's the dumbest — now I am using the word — part of the entire letter. I graduated from Northwestern University and, trust me, they slapped degrees upon some world-class idiots. Not to single out NU — I think anyone who ever attended any college, seminary or law school anywhere would heartily agree. With the exception of Jackson , that is.
     "Steinberg says I'm dumb because I've offered an amendment to the Constitution that would provide all American students with a 'public education of equal high quality . . ."
     The key weasel word here is "provide." If I thought Jackson's amendment had a chance to provide anybody anything, except perhaps a cynical chuckle, I'd be all for it. But it wouldn't. How could it help? Right now parents allow their own children to fail in school, even though it dooms them, hurts the economy, raises crime, drug use and a raft of social woes — if that isn't inspiration enough to make school work better, then what's a constitutional amendment going to do? Nada.
     "It's not a dumb idea to put one of our basic beliefs into our most important legal document — that every child in America has the right to a public education of equal high quality."
     Window dressing. Product placement. Chin music. How could kids across the country have a "right" to an equal high quality education when kids in the same school, even in the same room, don't get an equal education? It's impossible.
     "He says such an amendment would be a 'waste of time and make the Constitution a place for meaningless symbolism.' That's like saying the phrase 'shall provide for the common defense' is merely symbolic when it just resulted in a 2006 Defense Department appropriation of $453 billion . . ."
     Well, he prattles on from there, but you get the idea. Bottom line is: He stands by his charmed notion that a constitutional amendment would somehow fix our broken schools. Why stop there? The biggest problem in our schools — as any teacher will tell you — is not money, but parents who don't care. Why not get a constitutional amendment to fix that? A line demanding that parents love their children and take an active interest in their education. Jackson could call it "The loving parents amendment." And obesity. With fat kids being such a problem, why not tuck in a line that all children have a right to be healthy and of moderate weight. Why not put that in the Constitution, too?
     Because it would be . . . no, no, I won't say it.

BUT WAIT, IT GETS BETTER . . .

     Then, as if holding some kind of master class on ham-handedness, Jackson proceeds to send the offending column out to everybody he knows, begging them to support him (perhaps he sensed that, prior to his plea, I didn't receive a single communication backing the congressman. Not one).
     This provoked a mighty trickle of confused, automatic support — and quite a bit of name calling, which always helps one's case — as well as e-mails such as the following:
     "When I got an email from Jessie Jr. soliciting an attack on you I knew you must have been right on target. Bravo."
     Which should explain to my colleagues the hoots of laughter that have been echoing out of my office all day.

            — Originally published in the Sun-Times, January 11, 2006

Unpublished files 2020: Magnificent Mile looting Foxx’s gift to city

     This week, the paper moved from one computer system, Chorus, to another,  something called BrightSpot. My immediate concern was the advance obituaries written over the years, which I tend like a flock of prize sheep. Some I've been watching over since the days of glowing green Atex screens; people live a long time. I called their names, and nudged them with a crook, guiding them toward a new pasture.
     This was necessary because only published stories migrate over to the new system. The unpublished are lost. So my obituaries secure, I went looking for anything else worth rescuing before Chorus vanished down the well of time, and found just one, this. I didn't know why it wasn't published, but my blog post of that day — Aug. 11, 2020 — gives a hint:

      I wrote three columns—that's the good news. The bad news, from your perspective, is that none of them are running here today....

     As to when they'll run, well, that's above my pay grade. Both could run today, or neither, or one Wednesday and one Friday, or never. 

     Or three and a half years later. This must have failed to meet the light of day because of the trenchant editorial comments, which I've included — this doesn't happen very often and, rattled, I might have set it aside to consider them, then just forgot about the story in the commotion. Anyway, with candidates jockeying for Foxx's job, and the serial bumbler being nudged off-stage, at long last, this seems relevant. I was downtown twice this week and, given how empty certain stretches remain, my point certainly has merit.

     Thanks Kim Foxx!
     Before Monday morning’s looting of Michigan Avenue fades into memory, someone should tip their hat to our state’s attorney, who invited this mayhem by dropping charges against rioters in June. Hundreds of cases were tossed out.
     Yes, police can only do so much. Time spent trying to put away someone for grabbing an armful of Nike t-shirts is time not spent solving murders. I get that.
     But the flip side is, why bother arresting anybody if crimes short of murder are going to be ignored?
     If you can drive to Michigan Avenue, bust out a window, load your car, then drive away without being arrested, or secure in the knowledge that if you are, you’ll merely have the back of your hand patted by the Cook County state’s attorney, guess what? People will do it.

     there are two relevant points below from yesterday’s Hinton story below that we need to better address in here. they don’t negate your point but they do need to be incorporated somehow - you can talk the perception of “getting off the hook” as it relates to announcing that you were dropping all sorts of minor charges in June. BUT you can’t say looters were let off the hook if they simply haven’t gone to trial yet.
     Foxx said she hasn’t prosecuted any of those people arrested in connection with the May or June looting because the cases are just getting trial dates now, blaming the delay on the pandemic largely shuttering courts until July 1.     

     Foxx announced in June that her office would focus on dismissing charges stemming from arrests at demonstrations and for citywide curfew violations after a week of protests and civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

     You can be the squishiest liberal in the world, like me, and not want to see Chicago descend into lawless chaos. You can be cheering Black Lives Matter, keen for racial justice, and not want BLM re-branded as a synonym for violent anarchy, assuming it hasn’t been already. When you see how badly Seattle botched its slide from protest into Jacobinism, you have to passionately hope that Chicago will not follow suit.
     Do I have to explain why? Let’s just touch upon the top three bad things that come from Monday’s spree:
     1. The loss to merchants already slammed by four months of COVID-19 and the rioting two months ago. Gary, Indiana also had a vibrant downtown once but, guess what? Now it doesn’t. Every day like Monday is a step in that direction.
     2. Chicago’s reputation is important. It guides investment, luring new residents and tourists, should the world opens up again. The Magnificent Mile being ransacked is big national news. I heard from a friend in Texas, for God’s sake, expressing sympathy. We know we’re in a bad way when Texans pity us.
     3. Donald Trump, the personification of bigotry and ruin, is hoping to distract voters from his miserable failures as a leader and human being by weaponizing civic unrest in places like Chicago. He was elected in 2016 by dangling the ooo-scary specter of Mexicans sneaking over the border to rape your sister; now he’s hoping for a repeat by holding a flashlight under his chin and describing what happened on Michigan Avenue before dawn Monday. If he hasn’t jubilated this news yet, he will. The fact that Lori Lightfoot felt the need to point out, “This is criminal activity,” is telling. The former prosecutor feels obligated to explain that breaking into stores and taking stuff that doesn’t belong to you is a crime. That means we’ve done enough ripping up the social contract and need to start taping the thing back together.
     These are days to challenge the best of us. New police superintendent David Brown seems to be at least talking the talk: “Criminals took to the streets with the confidence that there would be no consequences for their actions,” he said, certainly a grim nod in the direction of Kim Foxx giving lawbreakers a wink and a thumbs up in June.
     We’re stuck with Foxx — thank you, Toni Preckwinkle — and I hope she learns from this, improbable though that is. I’ve learned, but it’s a lesson I already know too well. When someone is inept in one area, they tend to be inept in another. When Foxx ran, I opposed her because she couldn’t handle her own campaign finances. A person who can’t run effectively can’t hope to govern. But she passed the not-as-terrible-as-Anita-Alvarez test and got into office, where she hopelessly bungled the Jussie Smollett case, then bungled her reaction to her own bungling. Now this. In her post-looting press conference, Foxx said she is “heartbroken, angry, confused.” Obviously. Time for her to shake that off.
     The city raised the bridges to cut off access downtown only after the looters had done their work. It’s harder to raise the bridges before trouble arrives, but that is the challenge we face. We can’t hold police officers accountable to the law and then not hold criminals accountable. That isn’t working.

Down the rat hole for Valentine's Day

Rat & Heart, by Banksy (Sotheby's)

     Once upon a time my wife-to-be lived in an apartment on Melrose, down the block from the Nettelhorst School.
     The two things I most remember about that apartment are both romance-related. First, on Feb. 14, possessing both the key to her place and more creativity than money, I let myself into her apartment while she was at work and cleaned it, thoroughly, as a Valentine's Day present.
     Second, on the south side of the sidewalk was a hole shaped like a heart. Not a perfect Valentine's heart. A lopsided heart, one lobe somewhat bigger than the other. The discrepancy made it extra endearing. 
     Whether you see what is coming next can be considered a test of how romantic you are. Take those two facts — 1) a young courting couple and 2) a heart-shaped depression in the sidewalk. 

     What happens next?
     Of course the heart becomes part of the pair's personal romantic mythology. One of us — I can't remember who, probably me — notices it.
     I say "probably me" because, in most relationships, the less attractive half tends to try harder. And as a stocky, large-headed, potato-nosed, endomorphic struggling writer improbably dating a lithe, strawberry blond stone beauty attorney sprinting up the big law ladder, try I did.
     One Valentine's Day she got in the car for our date, holding a card and a small box containing four chocolates. She handed me the gift. I glanced nervously toward the back seat. Waiting there was a red laundry basket filled with presents. A bottle of wine. Flowers. A balloon. Candy. I'd seen the basket, first, in some bazaar in the basement of Field's and decided to just fill it. Kinda pathetic, really.
     So I noticed this heart, stopped, and stood on it. She stopped. We kissed. Doing so quickly becomes a private tradition. We spent the better part of a decade in the neighborhood, first when she lived on Melrose, then when we lived together a bit south on Pine Grove. So we'd often stop on our sidewalk heart and kiss.

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Genug shoyn

"Jews in a Synagogue," by Rembrandt van Rijn (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     The rules for the comments section on this blog are fairly simple. I ask that remarks make sense. I expect them to be on topic, not to go on too much about other articles about other things in other publications, for instance. They should not suggest that I am an idiot.

     Otherwise, readers are free to expound upon ... almost anything. Their own lives. Related or semi-related situations. 
     But there are always exceptions. Novel situations arise. My November 6, 2022 post, "Everybody hates the Jews" recently started receiving numerous comments. At first I happily assumed that some group had noticed it, perhaps based on the latest surge in anti-Semitism, and were debating it among themselves. Pretty to think so. Then I saw what was being posted — long ruminations on Israel that had appeared elsewhere online. Written in the same style. Obviously posted by the same person. Because I agreed with them, I let them go.    

     They kept coming, usually beginning, "A person typed online earlier..." I read them, at first, then scanned them. Three dozen over the past two weeks. They kept coming and coming. And while discussion continuing on this blog, is one thing, I'm not running a bulletin board for fanatics to spew — even spew that I generally agree with. A meal is as good as a feast. Better.
     Monday I'd had enough. The only question was, how to express it?  I came up with a two-word phrase. I don't speak Yiddish, but I heard enough growing up that this remained tucked away in mind. A very useful, very Jewish expression, one that I am happy to boost here: genug shoyn. Pronounced "guh-NUUG shhhayn". Or in English: "Enough already." In the "stop it, you're bothering me" sense. Not entirely obscure — the New York Times explored the expression in 1998. Try it out: "genug shoyn. I have the sinking feeling it will be an increasingly useful concept in the near future.

We need to remember — people forget

 

     Talk about conspiracies!
     The first LVIII Super Bowl commercial I saw, days before that glorious pageant of sport and commerce, was the “Don’t Forget Uber Eats” spot pinballing around social media.
     It begins on a movie backlot with a young assistant handing Jennifer Aniston a green bag filled with flowers.
     ”I didn’t know you could get all this stuff on Uber Eats,” the gofer enthuses. “Gotta remember that.”
     ”You know what they say,” Aniston sermonizes. “In order to remember something, you’ve got to forget something else. Make a little room.”
     Then we’re off to the races, in a series of celebrity vignettes about forgetting. David and Victoria Beckham, in their kitchen, trying to put their finger on a certain 1990s pop group.
     “Remember when you used to be a Pepper Lady?” David asks, waving a jar of pepper.
     “Wasn’t it the Cinnamon Sisters?” former Spice Girl replies.
     Has to be a plot, right? Can’t be a coincidence. President Joe Biden is mercilessly grilled for being a forgetful octogenarian. And boom, the Super Bowl, already rigged to highlight Taylor Swift and thereby increase the impact of her eventual endorsement of Sleepy Joe, immediately unloads a highly effective ad that is basically a valentine to forgetfulness.
     None of the actors in the commercial are particularly old. Though David Schwimmer (who, for those just joining us, starred with Aniston in “Friends,”) does have a certain, ah, weariness in the best vignette, as he makes a beeline to his former co-star.
     “Jenn!” he says, arms spread for the hug. “Hey!”

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Photos provided by Uber.

Flashback 1987: Ending the agony of terminal illness by suicide — Hemlock Society fights for the right to die.

 

"The Death of Socrates," by Jacques Louis David (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     My colleague Tina Sfondeles wrote an important story on a pending law that would let terminally ill Illinoisans end their lives. When I read it, I immediately thought of this story, written a few weeks before I was hired by the Sun-Times. It made an impression on me. I can still remember Don Shaw pulling that big amber bottle out of the drawer. I also distinctly recall thinking, "These people are hot to kill themselves." I was 26. Now that I've had 37 years more of experience, I know that one reason the American medical system is the cruel, expensive farce it often seems to be is because control is wrenched away from the people who should exert it. 

     Don Shaw died at 81 in May, 2001, at a senior care facility in Evansville, Indiana. The Hemlock Society was renamed End-of-Life Choices in 2003, and the next year became Compassion and Choices. 

     Asked what he would do if he ever was struck by a catastrophic illness, Donald Shaw pulls open a desk drawer and reaches for an amber plastic bottle filled with 50 red capsules. Each capsule contains 100 milligrams of the tranquilizer Seconal.
     "What I would do is take it out of the little shells — a hell of a job — and mix it with honey or ice cream," he says. "The stuff is bitter."
     Shaw goes on to describe how he would drink whiskey, to multiply the fatal effect of the overdose, eat a light snack and take an antiregurgitative to help keep the poisonous mixture down.
     An amiable, robust man of 67, Shaw talks casually about the prospects of suicide, as do many members of the Hemlock Society, an international group advocating that terminally ill people should have the right to kill themselves.
     The Hemlock Society reports having 13,000 members, most of them in the United States. About 300 of those members are in Illinois, mostly around Chicago.
     Shaw, a former Episcopalian priest, is chairman of the Illinois chapter. His interest in the subject of escaping terminal illness through suicide began after his mother's protracted death.
     "My mother died of cancer when I was 25," he says. "My aunt and I took turns caring for her 24 hours a day. Until one day she said: `Don, I'm going to stop eating. I just want to die.' And for me it was absolutely sensible."
     Members of the Hemlock Society plan for their own deaths, convincing relatives not to take "heroic" measures to keep them alive, stockpiling fatal doses of drugs and lobbying for a variety of "right-to-die" issues.
     They support legislation, such as the Illinois Living Will Act of 1983, which created a document where signers request "that my moment of death shall not be artificially postponed . . . if at any time I should have an incurable injury, disease or illness judged to be a terminal condition by my attending physician. . . . "
     The society was formed in 1980 by Derek Humphry, a British journalist who assisted his terminally ill wife in killing herself. His book chronicling that experience, Jean's Way, and other writings, including Let Me Die Before I Wake, a guide to suicide methods, are distributed by the society.
     The name of the society, "Hemlock," refers to a poisonous herb of the carrot family. The poison is famous as being the one Socrates, the Greek philosopher, was forced to drink in 399 B.C., a suicide that ironically goes against Hemlock Society principles, which state that suicide should be voluntary and not due to any emotional, traumatic or financial reason unassociated with terminal illness.
     "I'm sorry we have the name, but I'm perfectly willing to make the best of it," says Shaw.
     The Illinois chapter holds monthly meetings, where members watch films related to the right-to-die movement, discuss issues and socialize.
     "It's an interesting group of people," said Louise Haack, a retired teacher. "I've been to two meetings; it's nice to be with people of like mind. So often the perception is that this must be a bunch of Gloomy Guses. But this is not the case. The people I have met through Hemlock are very lively indeed, and most are bent on living a long and productive life."
     Haack, 62, has her own stockpile of drugs, but worries about the drugs losing their potency over time.
     "I probably do not have a lethal dose of anything at this point," she says, "because medicines do become outdated. You need a spectrum of medical doctors who will prescribe 30 of this or 30 of that so you can acquire a lethal dosage, and that is a handicap nowadays."
     Like Shaw, Haack's interest in the Hemlock Society came from the death of a parent. Five years ago her father died of colon cancer at age 88.
     "That made me realize it would have been nice if he and I could have had a conversation about how we'd like to leave this earth," she says. "Fortunately, we had pretty good nursing-home care, and the principal physician in charge was in tune to not having this old gentleman returned to the hospital for any reason. The doctor knew how I felt, and had some discussions with the nursing-home staff. Nothing in writing, but a tacit understanding.
     "My father was struck with influenza, which could have been `cured.' They could have called for an ambulance, taken him to a hospital, all that garbage. But they did allow my father to die, without making an issue of it, and I'm very grateful for that. He did have a peaceful departure, certainly compared to what it could have been. A certain amount of homework can prevent the horror stories we have heard of.
     "A friend had mentioned the Hemlock Society. I wrote away for literature and joined. I've been very, very impressed with the thoughtfulness and leadership and care with which these subjects are being discussed. I don't thing everybody needs to make this commitment, but everyone needs to look at this issue and think about it."
     According to Shaw, while death was once an accepted part of the cycle of life, today it is a distant and taboo subject.
     "Death is a part of living, a part of life, Shaw says. "In most cases it's welcome. But still death is something that is not talked about, not prepared for. One reason is that people don't die at home anymore. They used to die at home. Everybody knew what death was about. Children saw it. In the old days, there was no place else to die. I think the problem began when death was removed from home and placed in the hands of specialists, hospitals and funeral directors."
     Shaw has certainly planned out his own death in some detail. Not only has he arranged a convenient means of suicide, should the opportunity to kill himself arise, but he has planned the ceremonies surrounding his passing. His tombstone is already in place, in a cemetery in Enid, Okla., and preparations have been made for his wake.
     "A cocktail party: hors d'oeuvres, some of my special music," he says, smiling at the thought. "It's going to be a joyous occasion, if I die soon enough. If I get to be 85, they're won't be as many people there.
     "I have here my suicide letter to my family," he continues, producing a 1,200-word document beginning "Dear Family and Selected Friends" and dealing mostly with Shaw's belief that suicide is a valid avenue should "the dissatisfactions of life significantly outweigh the satisfactions."
     When asked what he meant when he referred to a suicide-inducing "catastrophic" illness, Shaw said it was "some physical condition the treatment of which I was not able to pay for."
     It is an attitude that is questioned by some people.
     "When do you decide a disease is life- threatening?" asked Ken Howard, head of the clinical psychology department at Northwestern University and an expert in the area of suicide. "I see a potential harm in having a support group that says whenever life is too hard for you - you have skin cancer that may or may not metastasize - you monitor it yourself, and whenever you get too scared go ahead and take these pills. I don't think that's good advice.
     "I'd like to see the extent that their plans are really followed through," Howard said. "My experience with people who have taken that position is once they get the first signs of a life-threatening disease they do what everybody else does: fight dearly."
     Howard said that, rather than being ultimately concerned with death, Hemlock Society members instead are trying to gain a feeling of control over their own lives.
     "One way to make peace with the fact that you're going to die is to say you have the power to make that happen," he says. "It's a case of ultimate control; one way of saying: This is my life, and I have some say in it."
     And in fact, Shaw reports that, in the five years of his being chairman of the Hemlock Society in Illinois, he has never had a member commit suicide.
     Shaw's son, David Shaw, 37, a lawyer in Evansville, Ind., finds himself in general agreement with his father's principles, but also suspects that there are other issues at work, beyond avoidance of terminal illness.
     "I'd say that's probably a fair observation," says David Shaw. "If he's going to go, he'd rather do it himself. I'd say it's a matter of control. I'd think he'd like to go out with style."
            —Originally published in the Sun-Times, March 3, 1987

Auto Show Flashback: 2012: Tesla Model S electrifies Chicago

2012 Tesla Model S

     The Chicago Auto Show opens to the public Saturday at McCormick Place, so I reached back into my almost limitless supply of car stories and came up with this, when I was one of the first people to drive a Tesla Model S. I think I assessed it well — mentioning range anxiety and cost. It's poignant to remember Elon Musk back when he was just a brilliant business innovator and not a logorrheic Henry Ford wannabe troll, egomaniac and cheerleader for right wing nuttery. Ah well. Enjoy.

     From the curb, the Tesla Model S does not look radically different from other new cars. Attractive, yes, sleek and streamlined, this one a pleasant gray, with a hatchback and a certain Jaguar-ish quality.
     But not the sort of vehicle that has the kiddies pressing their faces to the van window, shrieking “Look! Look!” as it blows past.
     Slide behind the wheel, however, as I got the chance to do last week in Oak Brook, and some of its more distinctive features present themselves. There are no physical gauges or buttons — just a screen where the speedometer would be, and, to the right, where a radio would be, a 17-inch diameter flat screen, the largest in any car, according to Tesla. The car has no gas tank, no tailpipe, no engine; in electric cars it’s called a motor.
     Electric cars are no longer new — regular readers will recall my blowing around town in a Nissan Leaf last year. But the Tesla Model S is unique, in that it is the first luxury sedan designed from the ground up as an electric car — a necessity, since the company producing it, Tesla Motors, has built only one previous model, its short-lived Roadster.
     Indeed, the company is perhaps more interesting than the car. Tesla, founded in 2003, is that rarest of birds — a new independent American car company. And while the initial temptation is to lump it with previous quixotic attempts to start a car company — Tucker, Bricklin, DeLorean — Tesla might be different, in light of the jaw-dropping resume of past successes of its billionaire co-founder, Elon Musk: PayPal, the online payment system; plus SpaceX, a private rocket company, contracted to NASA to supply the International Space Station, and more.
     What is Tesla selling? The Model S has an all-aluminum body, a low center of gravity, its motor giving torque that pins you back in the seat when you mash the accelerator.
     There’s no key to turn, no button to push. Sitting in the driver’s seat is enough.
     “When you sat down in the car, your butt turned it on,” said Shanna Hendriks, Tesla’s communications manager, noting the weight sensor in the seat (and yes, I couldn’t resist the inevitable reply: “It’s been a long time since my butt turned anything on.”)
     Range is still an issue. At first I was impressed the Model S advertises a 300-mile range between charges, but that is for its top-of-the-line $85,000 model with a brawnier battery. The basic $57,400 model has a range of 160 miles. Which is more than most drive in a day, but a big part of our love affair with cars is the illusion of endless possibility, and not being certain you can make it to Rockford and back is something of a buzz kill, but one Tesla insists people will get over.
     Then there is the stereo volume control.
     “It goes to 11,” said Hendriks. “I don’t know if you’re a Spinal Tap fan, but it goes to 11.” This has to be the first cult movie punchline to find its way into automotive design.
     “That was Elon Musk’s idea,” she said.
     The Model S also has way-cool door handles, smooth oblongs of chrome flush with the door until you touch them, when they gracefully glide out to be opened.
     The rear window is small, but the biggest design flaw I noticed is the cup-holders — there are just two, hidden under the center armrests, which slide back to reveal them, meaning you drive with the point of your elbow sitting on your coffee cup. Hendriks assured me they are working on a console to hold cups out of harm’s way.
     If you buy a Model S now, expect delivery around July 2013; you’re behind the 10,000 or so fans who put down deposits three or four years ago. “People have waited a long time for this car,” said Hendriks.
     The Tesla business model is also distinctive. There is nothing as 20th century as dealership lots crowded with cars. You can try a Model S — I was permitted 10 minutes behind the wheel — but you aren’t allowed to purchase the car you drive and take it home. This is no impulse buy. Rather, you order the Model S, like kitchen cabinets; pay $5,000 to prove you mean business, then wait three months until the factory is ready to turn its attention to you, when you pony up another $5,000 and specify colors and options.“Every car we sell is custom built,” said Hendriks.
     This year, Tesla Motors is making 5,000 cars — intentionally fewer than demand — but next year it plans to produce 20,000.
     The cynic in me is tempted to shrug off the Tesla Model S as the new Tucker Torpedo — snazzy but foredoomed. Making cars is a very costly undertaking. Ford has a tough enough time staying in business, and they’ve been doing this for a while. Upstarts can flourish, for a time, then wither. At least up to now. The Oak Brook dealership has a very clean, well-thought-out feel — think the Apple store but for cars. The sense I left with is that while launching a successful American car company — the Model S is made in California — is still a longshot, if anybody can pull it off, these people can.
        — Originally published in the Sun-Times, August 2, 2012