"You must live for others"

Bust of Seneca at the University Club (actually, the "pseudo Seneca," as I discuss in a post 10
years ago. The real Seneca, a rich man at the court of Nero, was far chunkier).

   MAGA types coined a term, "Trump Derangement Syndrome" to describe those who, in their estimation, focus too much on the man who was recently the president of the United States and will be again if we're don't fight hard against him and maybe even if we do. 
     While, like so much of their rhetoric, TDS isn't real, but just a negative term attached to something which is in fact positive — caring for your country intensely and wanted her not to be run by a demagogue and madman is a good thing. Yet sometimes I wonder if I'm not seeing Trump in places where I ought not to.
    For instance. The Roman philosopher Seneca does not write about current events. He killed himself on orders of his former student Nero, speaking of deranged tyrants, in 65 AD. Yet I was reading his Letter No. 48 on Monday (hey, don't judge me — it's a free country, for now; we may still read what we like) and came upon this:
    "No one can live happily who has regard to himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility."
    And I heard, "Trump," as clearly as if someone in the room had spoken his name. The guy never seems very happy, does he? It's his own boundless and inflamed ego, an insatiable hunger to be the center of all things, eating himself alive. Then Seneca offers up what could be a precise, dozen-word synopsis of the liberal mindset: "You must live for your neighbor, if you would live for yourself." (In Richard Gummere's 1917 translation of "Alteri vivas oportet, si vis tibi vivere" in volume 75 of the Loeb Classical Library. A more updated translation would be, "You must live for others if you want to live for yourself.")
    I might have left that be — if I wrote about every noteworthy passage I find in classical literature, it's all I'd ever do. Then Seneca sets the stage for the 2024 election:
    "Lo, Wisdom and Folly are taking opposite sides. Which shall I join? Which party would you have me follow? ... The one wants a friend of his own advantage; the other wants to make himself an advantage to his friend."
     It is shocking that this choice is still a head-scratcher for many Americans, but Seneca dives right into that: "It is clear that unless I can devise some very tricky premises and by false deductions tack onto them a fallacy which springs from the truth, I shall not be able to distinguish between what is desirable and what is to be avoided!"
     Bingo Lucius (Seneca's first name). 
     He urges his friend not to turn his back on others:
    "Men are stretching out imploring hands to you on all sides; lives ruined and in danger of ruin are begging for some assistance; men's hopes, men's resources, depend on you. They ask that you deliver them from all their restlessness, that you reveal to them, scattered and wandering as they are, the clear light of truth. Tell them what nature has made necessary, and what superfluous; tell them how simple are the laws that she has laid down, how pleasant an unimpeded life is for those who follow these laws, but how bitter and perplexed it is for those who have put their trust in opinion rather than in nature."
    That last part surely overstates the case. You can respect nature and observe law yet somehow not enjoy a "pleasant and unimpeded life." But still, grist to chew on in 2024, doubly impressive in that it was written nearly 2,000 years ago, found in a book first published in 1917. Lies curdle quickly — that's why Trump has to keep spewing them, to replace them as they fester and fall apart. The truth never grows old.

Labor Day also time to honor co-workers, clients

     Anne. Dale. Mike. Steve. When I think of my first job at a daily newspaper, at the old Wheaton Daily Journal on Schmale Road, the actual tasks — opening mail, making calls, reporting stories, editing copy — are completely forgotten.
     The people I worked with, however, leap to mind, clear and vital after 40 years. Anne's precise manner of speaking. Steve's useful life advice delivered over whiskey — "Be careful where you put it."
     When we talk about employment, we usually focus so much on our jobs — the labor we do — and so little about who we do it with. Which is a shame, really, because those human interactions, the conversations, collaborations, friendships, rivalries, tend to set the tone for our working lives, far more than the specific duties we're fulfilling, tightening a bolt or selling a car or composing a sentence.

With Ashlee Rezin at Roseland hospital.

     On Labor Day 2024, those of us lucky enough to have jobs should remember we work with, and for, human beings.
     I've been working continually since I was 9 and began delivering the Berea News Sun. What I remember most, beside how much I hated that electric alarm clock whining to life at 4 a.m. and muscling the big green Schwinn Typhoon with its double newspaper baskets jammed with folded papers through the pre-dawn darkness, were the subscribers.
     Some were friendly and paid on time. Some didn't answer the door even though they were clearly at home. Maybe money was tight. Maybe they realized they could dodge a boy holding a hole punch and a ring with well-worn cardboard cards, yellow for those who paid bi-weekly, purple for prepaid subscribers.
     Through open doors I'd catch glimpses of other people's lives. My route covered Whitehall, the curving streets of identical newly built ranch homes set along cul de sacs where we lived, and Sprague Road, a busy road lined with older, more run-down houses.
     In the seven years I had the route, I learned the blue-collar subscribers on Sprague Road had less but tipped better than the comfortable suburbanites on Whitehall. A life lesson never taught in school.

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Some insults cannot be ignored

 

    Yesterday morning, EGD hit 10 million pageviews since it began on July 1, 2013. That seemed a big, round number, so I took at screenshot of the blog odometer and tweeted it, then went about my business. 
     A significant moment. Though it didn't strike me as hugely significant. Yes, quite a bit of clicks. But half are from China, meaning they're not actual readers, but some kind of robot spider doing ... God knows what. Trying to break in. Good luck fellows — that's like tunneling into a abandoned elementary school. Not sure what you're hoping to find.
     A more significant figure is 680 — that's the number of real live subscribers following the blog. Every morning I fire off a mass email to my mailing list, giving them each the day's post. A steady trickle of new people ask to have their names included on the list, and every so often someone asks to be taken off. I politely thank them for their previous interest, and never think to refuse — I don't want to force my words on anyone. If you aren't happy, then this isn't for you. I set you free.
     Until Saturday, that is, when I got this unprecedented email, from John F. Take a read:  

     Hello Neil…I’ve enjoyed your masterful writing, insights and turns of phrase. Brilliant, all of it. Except you’ve proven to be way too much Chicago-centric for me and, unrelated but relevant, your unnecessarily snide remarks about CNN’s ongoing political coverage (yes, based on the Harris/Walz thing) smack of too much Trumpism for me, and ANY defense of Trumpism, even the slightest, is way too much for me. Under the cloak of guilt by association, he and his cult-like followers are too much evil, in ALL ways, for me. Please remove my email from your list. Thank you.

    As much as I liked his beginning — "masterful!" —  and am guilty-as-charged for Chicago-centric, I have to admit I was gobsmacked by the rest. First, I didn't find fault with CNN's ongoing coverage — I don't watch it — just this one particular program. 

     Second, I've been accused of being a lot of things, but offering "too much Trumpism" is not one of them. If you read Saturday's post, it wasn't critical of Kamala Harris or Tim Walz in any way. Just a fairly moderate expression of disappointment with CNN for being trivial in its Thursday interview with the candidates. They asked nothing about abortion, or the opioid crisis, or a dozen other hot button issues.  Merely served up Trump's insane "she's not Black" calumny to get a reaction (which Politico promptly and nutsily cast as Harris skirting the issue) and asked about a dramatic photo, about Gus Walz crying. Tangential stuff. Frankly, I was worried I was just disgorging the general liberal opinion of the interview that I had absorbed on X. But I had to write something...
    I considered John's accusation. My initial thought was, "You work for CNN, don't you?" Then I thought harder and wrote back:

     Typically, I add people when requested, and also delete them when requested. I don't want to be anywhere somebody doesn't want me to be. That said, your suggestion that my post today is somehow a defense of Trumpism cannot be simply accepted unchallenged.
     I've been ridiculing Trump since the 1980s, when I wrote for Spy magazine. Yes, as a debater, I know that sometimes you yield a point in order to win a larger one.    But your accusation is sui generis — no one has ever said anything like that before — and rather than let you depart in error, I would humbly request that you stick around and perhaps look more closely. I'll start by saying that extremism is a Trump crime, and so taking a manichean view of him does his cause more benefit than harm. As Nietzsche said, when battling monsters, one must take care not to become a monster. I will not let you go and become a monster. Here, read this piece I wrote about Trump six years ago. That is not a man defending him in any way. Please reconsider.

     Nothing back from him yet, and I'm starting to think I never will hear anything. That's people for you. Honestly, I wondered if this isn't a Trumpie play-acting, trying to jam a barb through the armor — really, how could any sentient being come to that conclusion? But no Trumpie would make up an email like that.

    Not a biggie. For a blog as popular as mine — 10 million hits and counting! — I feel like I'm still delivering personal attention to my readers. I hope that maybe I've inspired John F. to step away from his way unfair assessment.  My entreaty could work. "A kind word turneth away wrath." If he persists in wanting to exit the fold, of course I'll grant his wish, cut him loose and let him drift off and be forgotten. You really can't argue with folks anymore — they're too set in their ways. But that doesn't mean a person shouldn't sometimes try, just for the sake of general principles.

Postscript:

     To file under "Hope, There Still is." I received this Sunday morning:

     From one not-a-monster to another, I can’t help but admire the fact that you turned my anti-Trump screed into EGD column fodder. Good on you, but note my pointed use of “any” and “in the slightest” referring to the vile, indeed monstrous scourge of Trumpism, those words meaning too much for ME. I stand behind that belief.
     Know that I didn’t mean to ruffle the feathers of your defenders, now that I know you (and they) agree with us that the Orange Scourge truly is an existential threat to our very way of life. Project 2025 is no kidding matter.
     As for dredging up the ghosts of manichean (new to me, so I looked it up and actually learned something) and Nietzsche (didn’t he play for the Packers?) now THAT’s name-calling!
     Know too that I meant no harm, just a bit of friendly rhetorical jousting, which you’re VERY good at, every goddamn day.
     Carry on, Kind Sir, and yes, keep me on your favored list of 600 or so staunchest admirers.
     Cheers,
     John F,

Made you look!

 

    Yes, we tuned into CNN Thursday night to see how Kamala Harris and Tim Walz did in their first interview after the Democratic National Convention. Because the interview had been ballyhooed into an Event of Significance. My wife and I wanted to see how they did. 
     What we got was CNN triviality interspersed with bald attempts to catch the pair in a contradiction. What did Harris think when Trump said she wasn't Black? Didn't Walz once say he had carried a weapon during wartime? What about that cool photo the New York Times took of one of Harris's nieces watching her speak? What about Gus Walz crying?
     All deflected away more or less deftly — more by Harris, the former prosecutor, less by Walz, the former football coach.  The next morning WBBM prominently aired the quote where Harris squelched the "changed race" gambit with "next question." Emotion over substance. So what was all that blustering about "policy" about? Isn't not being a traitor policy aplenty? We can hash out their position on the Law of the Sea later.

     The bottom line that keeps drifting out of sight for the major media is this: they're running against Donald Trump. The liar, bully, fraud and traitor. Convicted felon. Who led an insurrection against the country and will do so again, given the opportunity. Who cares what Harris said about fracking in 2020? Who could possibly care? CNN apparently. It's like the old joke where the flight attendant pushes the cart down the aisle and says, "For dinner, we have chicken, or shit mixed with broken glass" and the passenger replies, "How is the chicken prepared?" 

Don't hold your breath waiting for that new Illinois flag

The Illinois state flag, below. Just about anything would be an improvement.

     Social media gets a bad name. But there are wonders to be found. Brooklyn graphic artist Max Kolomatsky started noticing crude handmade signs in his neighborhood, then redesigned them and photographed the vast improvements next to their inferior inspirations, posting the shots on TikTok. Seeing the result is like taking a lungful of sweet air after being underwater too long.
     The joy of good design does not get the press it deserves. Thus Illinois, an island of cool blue sanity in a churning red sea of backward-straining discord, should be lauded for holding a contest to find a new state flag. Kudos to Gov. JB Pritzker, who last year created the Illinois Flag Commission, and to Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who followed through Wednesday, announcing a contest to find a replacement.
     To quote Phil Connors, the TV weatherman trapped in an eternal Feb. 2 in "Groundhog Day," "Anything different is good."
     OK, not strictly true — Elon Musk-owned X is different though not an improvement. Fear of making things worse pushes people to prefer errors of omission over errors of commission. We become frozen, nostalgic and change-averse.
     The penny was a great idea when the United States began minting the Fugio cent in 1787. Now, pennies are a waste and an embarrassment. Like you, I never use the copper slugs, but, should the United States finally scrap them, I'd leap up and start doing one of those ecstatic Greek dances. Because, if we can finally do that, maybe we can, oh, make the leap into universal health care. Small steps.
     Not that Illinois is exactly a pioneer, flagwise. Utah, Georgia and Mississippi are already updating their flags, and Minnesota adopted its new flag in May. Their old state banner looked like someone had set a white dinner plate on a blue carpet and then thrown up on it. An indecipherable mess, replaced by a clean, simple, beautiful standard with two shades of blue and a single star. Illinois should do so well.
     As this might be read by someone who saw the story in the Sun-Times Thursday and is already busy with their crayons, a word of advice: Put the work in.

     Chicago has a particularly beautiful municipal flag, adopted in 1917 after a contest, albeit one conducted the Chicago way. The winner was a writer named Wallace Rice, who, in classic we-don't-want-nobody-nobody-sent fashion, suggested the competition, wrote the rules, judged the entries and declared himself the winner. Sometimes the best candidate for a job really is the boss' cousin.

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Have you been to New York City?

 

Manhattan skyline from Jersey City

     Maybe we'll enjoy the post factual world. Think about it. Trump gets re-elected — a coin toss right now. Democracy goes down the toilet, sure. But we all then can live in fantasy worlds of our own construction. We don't have to trouble ourselves with what is true and what is not.
     Because facts can be difficult things. My column Wednesday was about New York City introducing rolling garbage cans, 40 years after Chicago did. It begins with this sentence, "Most Chicagoans have never been to New York City." Of course I considered whether that is actually true. I couldn't find anything as simple as a survey — nobody asking Chicagoans, "Have you ever visited New York?" So I thought about it. My analysis went like this: 11 percent of Americans never leave the state of their birth — there are surveys on that. Fifteen percent of Chicagoans are children, who usually haven't traveled many places, never mind a city 700 miles away. Seventeen percent of Chicagoans live below the federal poverty line — not much tourism there, and New York is a particularly expensive destination.

Most Americans never see her.

     The tourism industry offers some clues. A 2012 Hotwire survey found 62 percent of Americans have never been to the Statue of Liberty — true, you can visit New York and not go, but it's high up on the must-do list. A 2018 VOA News study found only 30 percent of 2,000 Americans had been to the Empire State Building. Yes, New York reports 60 million tourists a year, which would mean the entire population of the United States cycles through every six years or so. But many are from overseas, and many are repeat visitors — I've gone at least dozen times, if not two.
   The search can lead you down all sorts of rabbit holes — are Chicagoans more or less likely to travel than the average American?  I decided to go with "most." Most Americans don't have a passport either (not that you need one to visit New York, but possessing a passport is connected with a tendency to take significant trips — like visiting New York. A 2018 Victorinox survey said 13 percent of Americans don't own luggage — hard to go to NYC without it). 
    I wasn't the only person to wonder about the opening sentence's veracity. An editor changed it to "Many Chicagoans probably have not been to New York City." Which irked me, first because of that "probably" — no, I thought, "Many Chicagoans have abso-fucking-lutely not been to New York City." I knew why the editor did it — the truth being hard to find, smart to dial back the sentence. I have a writerly edict about that — "It's better to be vague than wrong."
     But I have another imperative: "If you are going to take Vienna, take Vienna." A line of Napoleon's. Meaning, don't be half assed.  If you want to say something, say it. Don't pussyfoot around. I talked to the editor and we changed it back to "most" and jettisoned that "probably." 
     The next morning — aka Wednesday — I had qualms. Doubt crept in, and and I  looked harder. Still nothing definitive, and Google now vomits up reams of Reddit pages of people speculating and chattering. I looked for a New York Tourism office in Chicago and came up empty. I fired a query to the New York City Tourism Office — the office is closed until Sept. 2. Maybe that's part of the problem. As social media and automatic systems grow, the availability of humans who can answer questions shrinks. I phoned, finally got someone. They're checking, but I bet they run into the same problems I did.
    Though I'm still working on the question. That's the beauty of this whole daily business. One may persist over time. I'm starting to fear this is a research failure on my part — the truth is out there, as they say, I'm just not finding it.  Maybe the hive can be of assistance. Is a correction in order? I'm still thinking Chicago consists of 51 percent homebodies, at least New York wise. That if 1.3 million Chicagoans have been to New York, 1.4 million haven't. Though I could be wrong.

Katz's Deli

New York boldly goes where Chicago went ... in 1984

     Most Chicagoans have never been to New York City. That's too bad. I know the local fashion is to despise the place, sight unseen. But I have been there, many times, for business and pleasure. New York is not without its allures. Manhattan has an energy that generally eludes Chicago. There is interesting architecture, a noteworthy theater scene and numerous good restaurants.
     True, the place is provincial as hell. I know that is the opposite of expectations — Chicago is supposed to be the Midwestern cow town, full of rustics who escaped Iowa and Kentucky and still have pig slop ground into the seams of our boots as we stand gawping at the tall buildings.      But New York is far more parochial. That Saul Steinberg drawing, compressing the nation between the Hudson and the Pacific into a bare brown rectangle? That's actually how they view the world.    

     Earlier this summer, Eric Adams, New York's mayor, announced a daring experiment. He said ... and I can barely get this out without laughing ... he said the city will now introduce rolling garbage cans with hinged lids, crowing that now, instead of piling their garbage bags in the street, a Gotham tradition as ingrained as hot dog carts, this new, Space Age technology will be embraced.
    "We're going to catch up with everyone else and get these plastic bags off our streets," Adams promised.
     Raising the question: How far ahead of New York is Chicago, rolling trash can-wise? How much catching up does New York have to do?
    Forty years. Forty years ago, next week, in fact. On Sept 5, 1984, in the 8th Ward, the first wheeled garbage cart in Chicago was tipped into the first garbage truck equipped with a lift. Four other wards also took part in the pilot program.
     At the time, Chicago's garbage record was nothing to brag about. For decades, garbage collection was a notorious mess of patronage, inefficiency and almost unfathomable squalor. Before World War II, apartment dwellers routinely threw garbage out the windows, as in medieval times. They had to be threatened with fines to do otherwise.

     In the 1940s, half of Chicago's alleys were “lined with open piles of filth.” Only about 15% of garbage found its way into a metal can with a lid. A third of the trash was heaped in “old washtubs, battered baskets and boxes.” A quarter was left in open piles, with the last quarter dumped into large concrete containers. Garbage collectors went at the piles with shovels.

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