Flashback 2011: Forget something?

Kitty in Colorado in 2011

     The house is busy with people again — two sons, one new daughter-in-law and a soon-to-be daughter-in-law. My younger son is getting married. So I hope you will forgive me for slipping my EGD duty and sharing something from our mutual past. This is when our dog Kitty — now a spry 14 — was new to the household, which back then was always abuzz. Though reading it now, it occurs to me that one sad day I will no doubt do exactly what the last sentence suggests.

     Routine is wonderful — I am of an age when I savor the small quotidian consistencies of life, perhaps too much, simply because they’re so expected, so manageable.
     Every morning, I’m the first one awake. If I were to open my eyes and hear someone downstairs, I’d be alarmed — I’d think, "intruders!" — because no one in my family ever gets up until long after I do.
     I throw on some clothes, go downstairs, put on the coffee, go out and fetch the papers, read them a bit, maybe do a little work, maybe eat some breakfast. Frankly, I enjoy having the house to myself before the commotion starts. It’s like I own the place.
     At some point, it occurs to me that we have a dog. Maybe I’ll hear the softest yelp — she sleeps in the younger boy’s room. So I pad upstairs and peek in on her. Sometimes the pup is a flattened blonde mop of dozing canine cuteness. Sometimes she is up, in her little crate where we keep her at night to prevent her from getting into trouble. She looks at me, her bright little shoe button black eyes aglitter, her entire mien expectant, tail awag, all dressed up and ready to go out.
     I suppose a harder man than myself would shake my son’s shoulder and growl, "Up on yer feet yah worthless sack of supine laziness and walk yer galdurn mutt." But I don’t even think that (well, except occasionally, and even then it’s more of a weary "And why am I doing this?"). What I typically think is: Sleep is good. I wish I were asleep. But I’m not so I might as well walk the dog.
     And frankly, having been up for a while, the thought of walking the dog in the great outdoors seems pleasant, another manageable routine task that I can accomplish without screwing up.
     Usually.
     So I go downstairs, toss on a jacket, gloves, a wool cap, grab the leash, a plastic newspaper bag, a couple of dog treats.
     On this particular day, having gathered those necessities, I plunged briskly out the front door, leash in hand, and into the frosty morn and was bounding down the snow-covered front steps when I stopped, laughed, looked around, then said aloud, to no one in particular, pronouncing each word slowly and clearly:
     "The dog."
     Then I spun around and went back inside to bring her along too, thinking: This is why airplanes crash. This is why surgeons leave scalpels in patients. This is why skydivers leap from planes without their parachutes. Because if you do the same thing every single day, day in and day out, eventually you’re going to forget the most important part. If you do it enough times, then one fine day you’ll find yourself trying to walk the dog without a dog.
     — Originally published in the Sun-Times, Jan. 19, 2011

Does second Trump term put our republic at risk?

 

Benjamin Franklin, by Joseph Siffred Duplessis
 (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

     When Benjamin Franklin was asked whether this new Constitution being hashed out was establishing a monarchy or a republic, he famously replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
     And since that day in 1787, the United States of America has continued to be a representative republic, its leaders chosen by democratic ballot, despite a number of existential threats.
     Sometimes, the enemy was foreign. The British, trying to claw their rebellious colony back, burned the White House in 1814. The Japanese destroyed our fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Soviets aimed their nuclear missiles at us from 150 miles away in Cuba 20 years later.
     Though the gravest threats were always from within. It was the United States, not Japan, that rounded up blameless American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II and put them in internment camps. It was the United States, not the Soviet Union, that imposed loyalty oaths and restricted freedom of expression during the years of McCarthyism in the 1950s. It was the United States, not some foreign oppressor, that let the voting rights of Black citizens be voided by terror in the South for a century.
     Some of these lapses were uncharacteristic. Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, was also the man who suspended habeas corpus. Under his watch, federal troops occupied the Chicago Times — no relation, alas — because a local general didn't like the tone of its editorials.
     But that was a time of extreme crisis. The ultimate self-inflicted wound to our republic was the Civil War, cracking the country in half for four full years of bloody conflict. More Americans died in the Civil War than in any other war.
     What can we expect in a Trump presidency? Where to begin?
     Goodbye, Ukraine — they're toast, their resistance to Russia in vain. Open season on immigrants — Trump said he'd begin deporting them on Day One, though he also said he'd build a wall, and Mexico would pay for it, and that didn't happen.
     In a weird way, Trump's proven proclivity for untruth now becomes a source of comfort: Is this policy or just palaver to entertain the base?

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All the news except the most important part

 

     The Sun-Times has excellent headline writers. The first thing I noticed Wednesday when I unbagged my paper was the perfect way the front page headline, "HEAVY WAIT" encapsulated the long evening before.
     That said, the second thing I and every other reader immediately saw was that the paper had gone to press before the outcome of the election was settled. The edition contained all sorts of information except the one thing that everyone most wanted to know: who won? 

     Same with the New York Times. A drawback of print journalism — yes, you can spread it over the kitchen table. But it lags. A print newspaper is a relic, immediately outdated. An increasingly unacceptable flaw.

     The paper went to press about midnight. The last thing I added to my column was that the result wasn't looking good for Kamala Harris. She had all but lost, but there was still a very narrow path to victory, and if we declared Trump the winner, there was the risk that the outcome would somehow flip. As satisfying as that outcome would be for the future of our starcrossed country, it would still be bad journalism to blow the call. Or as my mantra goes: "Better vague than wrong."
     I'd prepped for Election Day writing three columns — one I called "Trump wins," one I called "Kamala wins" and "No decision." I assumed the last would be the one to run and worked hardest on that. What I didn't realize is that it would be chosen at 9 p.m. and mooted about 5:30 a.m., when the election was called for Trump. I like to think I added perspective to the situation — but still, a less-than-ideal work around. On my blog, I could quickly adapt the piece to reflect current, grim reality, starting with the headline, which was "The coin has been tossed and is now spinning" in the paper, and "The tossed coin lands" in the blog
     Looking at the papers, and thinking about the long four years ahead, I couldn't help but sadly speculate that by the 2028 election  — if we're still having elections that is — whether there will also be print newspapers, or newspapers of any kind for that matter.  
    That's probably alarmist, and there is too much alarmism going around already. Newspapers were circling the drain whether Trump got elected or not. Sure, he might stamp on their fingers as they dangle from the cliff. Or he might supercharge their importance. Someone has to oppose the tyrant. 

     That last sentiment sounds overly optimistic. Trump is about ignoring reality, not confronting it. Accepting his toxic fantasyland, his dismal Disney World, and living in it. 

      Still, surrender is premature. I had a relative call me and announce that the nation is dead. I disagreed, explaining that even if all of Trump's threatened changes take place, from deporting immigrants to banning trans athletes from high school sports, that won't quite undo democracy. The thing is tenacious and just won't die.

    Yes, he's against fair elections — except the most recent one. Not a murmur of complaint, oddly. 

    Yes, he's against the media, an independent justice system and fair courts. But those won't unravel quite so easily, and from what we saw of Trump's mental deterioration during the campaign, he isn't exactly Mr. Peak Efficiency at this point, not that he ever was. 

     Yes, his minions will be busy. But at some point they are going to bark against an American public that still expects their Social Security checks to arrive. Many bad things will happen — I figure China will strike a deal with Trump, give him a box of baubles and a state dinner, then invade Taiwan. I tend to hold out faith in the country I love, but I don't want that belief to render me dim-witted. Times change.

      Still. I just don't believe the American dream will die that easily. It's too valuable, too cherished, at least by those of us not on our knees welcoming the Great Yam God. 

      Print newspapers, on the other hand ... well, we'll see. 

The tossed coin lands.

Photo by Ashlee Rezin

     My father built a chalkboard for us kids. Which I would have forgotten long ago, but for one moment: Nov. 5, 1968, when the presidential race results coming in on our Zenith black and white television clashed with our bedtime.
     My sister wrote: "Who won the election?" on the chalkboard and then put Richard Nixon's and Hubert Humphrey's name below them, and a box beside each name.
     The idea was, my parents, up late, would learn the outcome and make an X in the proper box and we, waking up early, we would see it and be immediately informed of the news.
     A child's eagerness: tell me now. How does the story end?
     Be careful what you wish for.

     Nixon won in 1968. And Donald Trump was re-elected Tuesday.
     The stakes could not have been higher — the former and future president's politics of bigotry, grievance and vengeance, shredding democratic norms in a toxic dreamworld of his own fabrication, or Kamala Harris adhering to big tent Democratic aspirations and respecting the time-honored habits of democracy.
     The coin has been flipped. And it has come up Trump. Now the question is: what kind of country are we going to be? That's easy. We already have our answer. We will be Trump's country. Again.

     What does that mean? Will he start the deportions on Day One? He said he would. He also said he'd build a wall and Mexico would pay for it. He says a lot of things. This might seem a strange moment for optimism — the last coin in your pocket when all your other money is gone. But what else is there? Despair? Embrace ruin? If we are ruined, then we were ruined already and this is the diagnosis, the undeniable lump on the CAT scan. If we are sick, then maybe we can get better Just not yet. 
     I would never be so glib as to say it doesn't matter. Though it might be comforting — or terrifying — to look around and ask instead: what kind of country are we now? A  country that would re-elect Donald Trump, obviously. That chooses a 34-time twice-impeached felon over a prosecutor who is also a woman of color. 

      "Better I should know," as Sarah McLachlan sings. We can feel anguish over where he will take us. Or that he will be starting from right here, with all the conflict and animosity raging today. We did get through four years of Trump before with our basic country intact, though I hesitate to imagine what another four years will do. 

     I know of an organization that teaches you must reach rock bottom before things get better. I had hoped that the first Trump administration was the nadir. Obviously not. The bottom is still ahead of us. Oh goody. There are hells below this one, and the United States just bought a ticket there.
     Here's a reassuring thought: we aren't going anywhere we haven't already been. This is a struggle that did not begin with Trump —as I've said for years, he is not a cause but a symptom — and will not end now. I remember, in 2016, looking at the election map, seeing the divide between the blue in the north and the red in the south and thinking: "It's the Mason-Dixon line. We're still fighting the Civil War."
     Think about it. The institution of slavery was the central cause of that conflict. To be able to treat people as slaves you had to deny their humanity, and consider them chattel, property you can buy or sell.
     Look at the top Republicans issues — immigration, reproductive choice, trans rights. They're still busy identifying classes of people whose dignity and integrity can be snatched away.

     We survived four years of a Civil War — our bloodiest war ever. 

     ‘This horror, this nightmare abomination!" Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote of slavery in 1852. "Can it be in my own country!” 

     Words that have taken on unexpected currency. We survived that. We'll survive this. Somehow. Maybe. Maybe we didn't survive. Maybe we're already dead, and just don't know it. Or rather we do. Now. Some of us do. We're finding out.

     The United States has been at an impasse for eight years. Neither four years of a Trump presidency, from 2017 to 2021, ending in the insurrection at the Capitol Jan. 6, nor four years of the Joe Biden's administration that followed, has tilted the playing field in one direction or the other. The election wasn't even close. It looks like Trump will sweep all seven battleground states.
     Myself, I feel a certain calm. Say what you will about Donald Trump, for a congenital liar, he can be very frank, especially over the past few weeks. Very direct about who he is and what he stands for. You can't say anyone was deceived who didn't want to be deceived. 

   Maybe "calm" is the wrong word. When my wife asked me this morning how I was, I answered, "Numb." The implications will take a while to sink in. For now, I'm holding onto the numbness. It feels ... like nothing. Which given the circumstances, I appreciate.

     Kamala Harris — like Biden, originally an unexceptional party hack — rose to the occasion.  She did. I find myself indulging in sports metaphor: she left it all on the field. Since her boss flamed out on national television in June — had Biden stepped aside when he should have, maybe this nightmare might have been avoided — she ramped up quickly and campaigned forcefully. It just wasn't quickly or forcefully enough. 
     The choice was clear. And stark. Half the country wants a liar, bully, fraud and traitor. On the bright side, he stopped talking about the election being rigged.

     On Monday, my mother called.
     "Are you moving to Canada if Trump wins?" she asked. "Because we'll go with you."
     "No mom, I'm staying right here," I replied. "It's still my country."
     Flight is a pipe dream. Would-be strongmen are on the rise the world over; Canada has its own proto-Trump waiting in the wings, Pierre Poilievre. You can't run from trouble. It finds you.
     Besides, people seldom leave. The closest I actually encountered was a former state rep who told me that she and her husband had bought a condo in Portugal to sit out Trump 2.0. I made a face.
     "I plan to be on the last train out," I said. "Not the first."
     Cowardice knows no party. How much can you love America if you turn tail and run when the going gets rough?

Guest voice: "Kamala Should go Nuclear"

Victim's watch, stopped at the minute of the bombing. (Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum)

     Election Day at last. A terrifying relief (if that isn't an oxymoron). I knew the stakes are as high as possible — democracy, literally on the line — when my good friend Cate Plys shared this essay explaining just how high they really are. Ideally it should have run in a major publication two weeks ago. But alas, space is tight, and she has to settle for here now. I'm posting it, not so it can serve its stated purpose of nudging Kamala Harris out of her comfort zone, but because it contains much relevant information you might not know. As I've been saying for months, if you're not terrified, you're not paying attention.

     I just got an email from Kamala Harris with the subject line “No regrets.”

     She emails me all the time, even though I never answer. Today I finally hit the reply button--because please. Kamala should have regrets pouring out of her ears, just like everybody else.

     Regret has a purpose. It makes us want to do better. Every single day is another chance. 

     Unfortunately, Kamala Harris only has one day left. Today.

     She should regret not giving straight answers on the issues most important to swing state voters — immigration, government-financed sex change operations for prisoners, pretending President Biden was fit to serve a second term. It’s a strategy, but a cynical one no one should be proud to use even if she wins. 

     Rather than straight answers about Harris’ positions, the Democrats want to scare voters to the polls. If there was ever a year when that could work, it’s 2024 when the Republicans are running a monstrous candidate. Yet the Democrats can’t even get this right.

     Look what they’ve tried so far: 

     A fascist Trump takeover of the federal government, soldiers patrolling the streets, no more elections? 

     Come on. You’re talking about a country that can’t wait to let AI and Amazon run their lives.       Absolute abortion bans, with miscarrying pregnant women dying of sepsis in parking lots after hospitals deny them medical care? 

     Maybe half the population is biting their nails, when Democrats need voters to run screaming out of the room.

     So here’s what I emailed Kamala: 

     Talk about utter devastation. 

     Talk charred desolation bereft of life for thousands of years. 

     Talk about nuclear war. 

     As we head into an election day when a majority of voters may pull a lever for Donald Trump, who could then press a button and end the world, it is time. 

     It’s not crazy. It’s the sanest way to think about it, if you can stand to think about it all. 

     The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a journal founded by scientists and intellectuals at the dawn of the Atomic Age, set its famous Doomsday Clock symbolizing the world’s danger of nuclear war at 90 seconds to midnight for 2023 — “the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been."

     They reset the clock at the same dire warning point for 2024, “in large part because of Russian threats to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.” 

     Last week, the Forecasting Research Institute released a report that practically nobody heard about because we were all talking about garbage. The FRI asked 110 nuclear experts and 41 “superforecasters” to consider the risk of a nuclear catastrophe by 2045, the 100th anniversary of the atomic age. 

     They defined “catastrophe” as a nuclear event killing 10 million people. 

     “Experts assigned a median 5% probability of a nuclear catastrophe by 2045,” according to the FRI report, “while experienced forecasters put the probability at 1%.” 

     The experts add that several all-too-realistic future scenarios could double or triple those numbers. 

     Perhaps a 15% chance of nuclear war would sufficiently terrorize Americans to vote for you, Kamala Harris. Perhaps not. We revel in post-apocalyptic movies, from “Planet of the Apes” to endless “Mad Max” sequels. Tell voters the real thing isn’t nearly as entertaining. 

School uniform (Hiroshima Peace 
Memorial Museum)

     The U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. “Little Boy” was a mere 13 kilotons. About 166,000 people died in the first four months alone — instantly, then from burns and radiation. 

     The Atomic Heritage Foundation website includes this survivor testimony: xxx “The appearance of people was… well, they all had skin blackened by burns… They had no hair because their hair was burned, and at a glance you couldn’t tell whether you were looking at them from in front or in back… Many of them died along the road — I can still picture them in my mind — like walking ghosts.” 

     The first hydrogen bomb from 1952 was already 700 times more powerful. Today, nine nuclear weapons states hold 12,200 nuclear warheads, 90% in the U.S. and Russia. 

     That means 5,500 nukes are aimed at us. Did that make you do a spit take with your morning coffee? 

     Even a 5% possibility of nuclear war should scare voters. The FRI experts believe a NATO-Russia military clash would increase the likelihood of our incineration to 15%. They predicted a 5% chance that NATO and Russia will fight, but that might be overly optimistic now: 

     As the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists noted, Russian President Vladimir Putin “announced the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus” in 2023 as part of its invasive war against Ukraine. 

     This past September, Putin warned that if Ukraine uses its Western-supplied missiles to attack deeper into Russia, Russia would be at war with NATO. 

     This month, U.S. says it’s observed 12,000 North Korean troops training with Russian soldiers, and 3,000 transported to eastern Russian training sites.

     Plus, North Korea — ruled by manifestly insane dictator Kim Jong-un — has its own nuclear weapons. They tested an intercontinental ballistic missile on October 24th. A week and a half ago. On Monday, North Korea fired a “barrage of short-range ballistic missiles” into the sea toward Japan. And according to South Korean intelligence, North Korea is getting ready for its seventh nuclear test.

     Elsewhere, the FRI experts think China invading Taiwan would double the chance of nuclear war, and they calculate the chance of invasion at 25% by 2030. 

     Why? Last March, the U. S. Air Force’s Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs featured “The Ambitious Dragon: China’s Calculus for Invading Taiwan by 2030.” The article noted that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech to the 20th National Congress “repeatedly reinforced the narrative that ‘complete reunification of our country must be realized, and it can, without a doubt, be realized.’” 

     Two weeks ago, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te made a speech for Taiwan’s National Day declaring he’ll “resist annexation or encroachment.” 

     Then, China conducted a military exercise surrounding Taiwan with an aircraft carrier, a swarm of other ships, and 125 fighter jets. 

     Oh, and did I mention the FRI experts say there’s a 25% chance Iran will have a nuclear weapon by 2030? That, they think, will double the threat of nuclear war. 

     I doubt many Americans even remember that last year Vladimir Putin “suspended” Russia’s participation in the New START treaty, the final remaining arms control agreement between Russia and the U.S. START included regular communications and notifications between the two countries, to avoid the misunderstandings that make for good screenplays. “Dr. Strangelove,” anyone? Anyone?? 

     Russia also backed out of its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 2023 — which the U.S. never ratified at all. 

     Kamala: Tell voters they might trust Donald Trump more on immigration and the economy. Now they have to decide whether they also trust him with the nuclear football. 

     There’s time for one more play before the polls close. Better make it a Hail Mary.

  

      Cate Plys is a former Chicago reporter and columnist who now writes the Chicago history website “Roseland, Chicago: 1972.” She participates on WGN host John Williams’ weekly current events podcast “The Mincing Rascals.” 

Genbaku Dome, Hiroshima

Lessons from the West Ridge shooting. 'What is hateful to you, do not do to others'

     A small wooden box sits on the corner of my desk. Open the shiny rosewood cube, and there is a clear sphere containing a clock. In the top, a shiny round plaque reads "The CAIR-Chicago 2010 Award for Courage in Journalism: Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times. For Fair, Accurate And Inclusive Media Representation of Minorities."
     That last word clunks, doesn't it? Nowadays "minorities" has a discordant 1970s ring and has fallen out of favor. Associated Press style discourages use of the word as a noun because the truth is, we are all in some minority.
     Any suggestion otherwise — oh, for instance that this is a white, Christian, straight nation, and anyone else is somewhere between a tolerated guest and an unwelcome intruder, exists only in the minds of a minority of Americans, ironically — a large minority, alas — requiring them to go through increasingly vigorous distortions of fact.
     I mention the award, not to brag, but because of something I said receiving it at the ceremony. Looking out over 1,500 attendees in at west suburban Oak Brook Terrace, women in headscarves, men with full beards and embroidered round caps — "CAIR" stands for the Council on American-Islamic Relations — I spoke from the heart.
     "I've been a consistent supporter of Muslim rights for one simple reason," I said, or words to that effect. "Because I'm Jewish, and see you as another loathed minority trying to get through the day."
     That seems fairly simple. Belonging to a group that has suffered, historically, from the most hideous persecutions, should make a person more attuned to suffering of others. Because to sympathize only with yourself and people exactly like you is neither profound nor courageous. Just the opposite: it's a failure of humanity, common as dirt and leads to many of the problems we see around us today.
     You can look at the wrongs done to your people and try to ensure they never happen to others. Or be inspired by those wrongs to try to emulate them.
     On the last Saturday in October, a 39-year old Jewish man, on his way to synagogue in West Ridge, was shot, police allege, by a 22-year-old, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, who, according to Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, “planned the shooting and specifically targeted people of Jewish faith.” Abdallahi was charged with attempted murder and, once authorities went through his phone, with hate crimes and attempted terrorism charges.

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Flashback 2004: We're obsessed with flags that have lost meaning

      My esteemed colleague Eric Zorn has begun a feature on his excellent Picayune Sentinel where he invites columnists to share their "regrettable" efforts, which he describes as "commentary that, in retrospect, you wish you hadn't written, perhaps because you've since changed your mind or simply realized that you hadn't thought the issue through."

     The column item below instantly came to mind, not because I think I was wrong — I don't think I was — but because of the blowback. Hundreds of outraged emails — so much that I felt the need to walk it back. 

     I regret it because the point I was making — nix the black flags — wasn't worth jamming my arm into a hornets' nest the way I did.

     I remember being truly horrified by the reaction — I was 20 years younger — and felt the need to pour oil on the waters, which I did in an item I'll tag after the original post. It was back when the column filled a page, so these are just two brief squibs that ran a week apart.  Eric says he'll address this in his blog Thursday.

Opening shot

     When can we get rid of those black POW/MIA flags that have been flying under the American flag for the past 30 years? Or are we stuck with them forever? I'm all for honoring vets, but the black flag has always had negative overtones, having originated in Rambo paranoia centered around the belief that American prisoners were still in Vietnam years after the war ended and the government was for some reason concealing the fact. The flags, in addition to honoring sacrifice, also suggest, unfairly, something shameful about the country, or at least they did. Now vets say they are just a generic tribute to all the prisoners of war and missing in action. Perhaps. But there are better ways to honor U.S. service personnel. The flags will probably disappear one by one, as those who care passionately about them move on. A good thing, too.
           — Originally published in the Sun-Times, Feb. 4, 2004


Collateral damage

     It has been a disturbing week, for me. In fact, in my 20 years of newspapering in Chicago, I can't recall anything more disturbing. Last week, I wrote about the black POW/MIA flag. I thought I was directing my fire at a slur against the government. But whatever I thought I was shooting at, I ended up hitting a lot of proud soldiers and grieving relatives, and I'm sorry for that.
     I got 500, maybe 1,000 e-mails — I lost count. Many took my opinion — those flags seem to say something negative — and twisted it into the most extreme, treacherous, anti-vet attitude they could imagine, a blanket damnation of history, heroism and the country itself. Their replies couldn't have been stronger had I suggested we dig up Arlington Cemetery and build a theme park. Full-bore outrage mixed with the harshest personal attack. Lots of name-calling. Lots of out-of-the-blue anti-Semitism. More death threats than the typical column generates.
     Which puzzled me. Because, if I came across someone who I thought was completely wrong about something, and I wanted them to understand why they are wrong, I don't think I would begin my argument by telling them what a loathsome moron they are and how I'm going to kill them.
     But that is a logical argument, and as I read through the responses — and I must have read hundreds — I quickly understood that this is not an area of cool logic, but of hot passion, of raw, hard emotion, built up through loss and suffering and acts of heroism met by a shrugging public, a shrugging public that I had volunteered to become the poster boy for. My opinion was a stick I had shoved into an open wound.
     That's what bothered me most of all. It wasn't being called names — I get called names every day. I am a Jew, so the intended insult doesn't sting. It was who was doing the calling and why they were flinging those terms. Being accused by vets of being anti-vet hurt because I'm not ignorant of history — though I did not realize that the black flag isn't a relic, but means something vital to all sorts of people today, people who don't think that the government is a spider's nest of treachery.
     I'm not the guy those vets were attacking. I'm the guy who trots his kids onto the front porch on Veterans Day and has them say the pledge with their hands over their hearts and then tells them about how the Rangers went up those cliffs at Normandy into the teeth of the Nazi machine guns, and that's why we get to loaf around all day.
     For those who managed to write civilly, despite their feelings, thank you, it was an education. And for those who heard a twig snap and began firing into the darkness of cyberspace, you may not know it and certainly won't accept it, but you hit a friend.

     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Feb. 11, 2004