Government makes the planes fly on time, and much more

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia

     The American Taxi was waiting outside at 4:15 a.m. It zipped us to O'Hare in 25 minutes. We checked a bag, breezed through security. The flight left on time. The attendant let me take both a stroopwafel and a chocolate quinoa crisp. The plane landed safely at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. The Uber showed up and deposited us at the apartment, exactly four hours door to door. Our daughter-in-law met us in the lobby with the baby.
      It's nice when things work. This happened two weeks ago. I imagine Friday, with flights slashed 10%, trying to relieve an air traffic control system groaning under the government shutdown, air travel will not go so smoothly. Doting grandparents coast to coast will be stranded in hellish airport lounges while breathtakingly cute babies go undandled.
     Why should this be?
     Much of the federal government has been closed since Oct. 1. This might be time for a little honest talk. Pull up a chair.
     Among the biggest lies in the firestorm of untruth we've been enduring is the palpable fiction that government is bad.
     "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help,'" President Ronald Reagan said, overlooking the fact that he himself was a government employee, and that the citizens whose welfare was supposedly his main concern depend on the government for a spectrum of services. For their mail. To ensure the safety of products they buy and the purity of medicine they take. Often for health care. To encourage clean air and pure water. To appoint fair judges to rule on federal law. To supply soldiers to patrol distant trouble spots. And much more.
     Everyone is on board with the government helping themselves. Those farm subsidy checks are cashed. After every disaster, the emergency aid is gratefully accepted. Yet the specter of other people, people we don't like, also being helped is the soft spot into which the anti-government spear is driven. Our current president began his second term in a blaze of government destruction, inviting an unelected nationalist oligarch to tear apart agencies piecemeal, while hoovering up our private data for his own use.
     Do you know who decimating government helps? Billionaires who don't want to pay taxes. And bigots who quail at the thought of people they hate receiving benefits. That's what the current shutdown is about. Democrats want to extend expiring tax credits that make health insurance less expensive for millions of Americans and reverse Medicaid cuts. That we don't have the universal health care found in nearly every industrialized nation is one scar racism left on the face of our body politic.
     This shutdown does not affect the reign of terror run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, lurching around Chicago with their guns and pepper spray, hunting down preschool teachers.
     The government that should be working smoothly, like air traffic control, isn't, while efforts that shouldn't be done in the first place, like extrajudicial ICE kidnappings, hums along; dogged, thank God, by outraged residents — love to you all — defending their communities, and a pesky legal system demanding that people be treated as human beings, no matter the condition of their paperwork.

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Mailbag

     Lots of email about yesterday's column on Gov. JB Pritzker unleashing an f-bomb on the president. I tried to answer each one intelligently, and think you might enjoy glimpsing that process rather than anything else I might write. 

     I was ecstatic when I saw our gov say that to Trump. Bless him!
     No better way to get your point across.
     Ginny M.

     We are still a free people allowed to speak freely. What good is that right if we don't use it? Thanks for writing.

     NS

     I read your article this morning and find that Governor Pritzker and his language to be offensive. The Governor is obviously frustrated with all the drama the state of Illinois is under. We all want to return to normalcy . The Governor in expressing his disdain with trashy language lessens him as a person. Remember he’s the guy that avoided taxes and removed toilets from his house. We can do better without him shooting off bad language.
     Patty L.

     Luckily, I'm not responsible for what you choose to be offended by. Though given what's going on in this country, led by a chronic liar, bully, fraud and traitor, friend to dictators and pedophiles, I can understand a person deciding to take refuge in quaint attitudes, complaining about naughty words. But please don't mistake it for virtue. It's a form of escapism and — no offense intended — cowardice. Thanks for writing.
     NS

     Most readers stop writing at this point, but Patty took another swing.

     At least someone finally standing up to all the democrats who have pulled the covers over peoples eyes.

     I wouldn't dream of arguing with you. Thanks for writing.

     Italians have a saying regarding foul language: “ Quando ci vuole, ci Vuole” translation: ( When it is needed, it is needed.)  💞 your columns.

     Bob A.

     Ooo, I like that. I'm going to tuck it away for future use. My favorite Italian saying, used to explain whatever is going on in the current clutter, shortcoming and disorder of life, is Tengo familia — "I have a family." Thanks.

     NS

     Hi Neil, I’m curious if there is one ST writer who can say one positive thing about the President. There are many to be said and written! You and the ST are so savagely slanted against him it would be nice to hear other views especially from a service that I have so respected until recently. You stand behind our Governor to tell him to F off? Really? Is this what you teach aspiring writers and reporters? Come on we can all do better in some areas. You can’t tell me Kamala would be a better president? It’s laughable! Things are looking way up especially getting criminals out of our cities. Unless you guys like this? Please offer other views for us for us long time loyal readers. 

      Best, Kevin L.

     Sorry, can't help you there. Of course Trump has positive aspects, and I've written about them — he pushed for a vaccine against COVID (that he later minimized). He got rid of the penny. And Hitler built the Autobahn. So what? Your email is the classic red herring argument — "Boo hoo, you're mean to my president, who is so great." Let me state the situation plainly, since you seem to be confused: Donald Trump is a liar, bully, fraud and traitor trying to dismantle the American democratic system so he can stay in power forever. That you are blind to the fact and want to be catered to so you feel better, well, that's your misfortune, and ours. Kamala Harris would have hands down been a better president. Again, your being blind to it doesn't change the matter — colors don't wink out of existence when a person chooses to wear blinders. I'm glad you are, supposedly, a long-time, loyal reader. But given that, you aren't reading too closely, are you? I mean, it doesn't seem to have helped you much. I'd say try reading for comprehension, rather than begging the news to be skewed to suit your pitiful misunderstanding of life in America today.

      NS

     I’ve always been curious with lexicology and, specifically, swear words. What actually makes a swear word a “swear” word? Why is “fuck” a swear word and “wish” isn’t?
     Yvette C.

     Now, that is an excellent question. My off-the-top-of-my-head guess is it has to do with oaths — "By God's wounds!" or whatever — which were the initially "forbidden" words and terms. You were swearing, as in an oath. But let me look into that on tomorrow's blog. Thanks for asking.

     Bingo. In my OED, the first 11 definitions of "swear" — nearly two pages — have to do with oaths. Finally, we get "12. Swear at — a.To imprecate evil upon by an oath; to address with profane imprecation; gen. to utter maledictions against; to curse."

      Which is why, now that I think of it, they're also called "curse words."

     My wife said that Neil Steinberg is the best columnist in Chicago. 
     And I said, “No shit!”

     Dodd B.

     Tell your wife "thank you," and she is too kind. Part of me wants to demur with "Well, yeah, because I'm the only columnist in Chicago at this point." That gives the short shrift to esteemed colleagues, such as Eric Zorn and his invaluable Picayune Sentinel, or Lee Bey, who does an incredible amount of excellent work. I'm still shaking my head in awe and smiling over the fantastic piece he did on painting the Edgewater Beach Apartments. (I mean really, who even does that? Writes about a building being painted?) And such a wealth of detail, from the hue of the paint (sunset pink) to the amount (500 gallons) to my favorite, the seaplane that the adjacent hotel once had.
     But I digress, as is my wont. Thanks again.
     NS

     I found your discussion to be fascinating. In Eric Zorn's blog, we Joe Schmo readers have been having quite a discussion. I would say debate. But most of us primarily elderly white and mostly on the liberal side readers seem to be on the same page. When I was a young lad on the south side, I lived in fear of certain words. They were likely to bring down the wrath of hell(Oops- can I use that word) from my very socially conservative parents. Did you know that having your face slapped hurts and soap doesn't taste very good. But as a senior citizen, I have arrived at the view that even though words can be a powerful force, I am a lot more concerned about actions than potty mouth. Trump is a fine example. He is boyishly proud of himself for the killing of those on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. There has been no trial or proof evident of their guilt. There are many other examples of those he has harmed. Cleaning up the language has not helped any of them. I'll bet their families and friends would be more than happy to listen to a few nasty words to have them back or otherwise doing better.. So while I admit words can have a powerful effect(quote Lincoln and MLK) I am personally more concerned about actions than F's, H's, S's and D's.    
     Laurence S.

     Good, good — "fascinating" is what I'm going for. I too admired Eric Zorn's treatment of the topic. And yes, despite having liberal Jewish parents, like you, I know both what it's like to have your face slapped, hard, and to have your mouth washed out with soap.
     I too am a senior citizen, barely. I can ride public transportation for half price. And while I fancy myself something of a wordsmith, I like to use the full range of words, and find censorship is never ending. Allow certain words to be off-limits, and the ring grows. We start with the "n-word" and get to the "f-word" and very quickly the reader has no idea what you're talking about.
     I can't understand the horror that supposed adults have over these words. I recently wrote a profile on Cynthia Yeh, the percussionist at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She used the phrase "beating the shit out of" a drum. Said it twice. I thought the usage was charming, and contrary to the pretense of high culture that gets draped over classical music. I liked it so much I asked my boss if we could print the actual word?
     We dashed it. And the CSO was so aghast that I quoted the musician saying that word, which she actually said, twice, they said, in essence, "Beat it. We don't want to work with you on stories anymore." I've never written anything about the CSO since. I found it very sad. Then again, there's a lot of very sad going around. Thanks for writing.

    There's more, but that should do for today. See you tomorrow.

JB Pritzker says what the Sun-Times can't

 

     One of the countless anecdotes regarding my hero, Samuel Johnson, is about a lady complimenting him for leaving out "bad, low and despicable words" when compiling his great 1755 dictionary.
     "No, Madam, I hope I have not daubed my fingers," he replied, as if including dirty words would actually soil his hands. But being Johnson, he had to add, "I find, however, that you have been looking for them."
     No crime there. While most adults don't search for swears, we do notice them — that's one reason they're used, as intensifiers, to draw attention, language's yellow highlighter. Consider a headline in Monday's Sun-Times, "PRITZKER TELLS TRUMP TO 'F- - - ALL THE WAY OFF' IN VIRAL VIDEO."
     If only more people did that.
     This might be a good moment to register my personal objection to those dashes. Who are they supposed to protect? If you know the word — and pretty much anyone who can read knows this one — you automatically fill it in yourself. Perhaps some would swoon to see those last three letters in print. But they'd get over it.
     We could help them. Obscenity shocks, some folks, anyway, because it's rare. If we used such words more, they would become less objectionable, the way gay people rehabilitated the slur "queer." Gov. JB Pritzker can say the word, but the Sun-Times won't print it undisguised — don't blame me, I'd do so in a heartbeat. But as I sometimes tell readers: I follow our style; I don't set it.
     Not every institution is so inhibited. The University of Chicago has a stellar reputation, one not particularly associated with lewdness. Yet parents of prospective freshmen visiting the school were once treated to linguist Jason Riggle's class on obscenity. With projected charts tracking the frequency of specific obscenities. In Rockefeller Chapel. No one complained. Nor did Pritzker's word choice cause a stir.
     "We've gotten more used to politicians intentionally breaking these rules to convey extra strong feelings," Riggle said. "We totally expect that. It tends to convey authenticity because you're breaking politeness norms — you can't be held to them because you're so upset."
     Swearing is an expected transgression.
     "It's not that unusual, but it is unusual — that's kind of the whole point," Riggle said.
     The surprising part of this episode is how little "pearl clutching" there was afterward.
     "I had to go looking for it," Riggle said. "The fact that this didn't cause more of an uproar is fascinating. That he was talking to teachers adds an extra meta level."
     The University of Chicago has a long history of frankly studying obscenity — well, as frankly as they could. In 1934, U. of C. professor Allen Walker Read published a 15-page academic paper called "An Obscenity Symbol" without ever specifying the word he defends, arguing it is not the natural physical act that makes such words objectionable, but our reaction: "Thus it is the existence of a ban or taboo that creates the obscenity where none existed before."

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Crunchy and beautiful

     Okay, give it up for Trader Joe's.
     I admit, I resisted them, for years. First, because I am a Sunset Foods guy — well run, lots of selection, nice staff who I tend to know on a first name basis, starting with jovial pater familias Ron Bernardi, part owner of the chain who nevertheless will still sometimes pitch in, bagging. 
     Second, because I'm a brand guy. I don't want ketchup, no matter how supposedly marvelous, from some esoteric catsup company. I want Heinz Ketchup. I want General Mills Cheerios, not whatever Oaty Os knock off someone is trying to sell. Anything off brand makes me think of those white boxes of generic food we had in the 1970s. Sure, my wife picks up Kirkland olive oil and I will use it in my stir fry. But I'm not happy about it. I don't want to eat chocolates that have the same brand name as batteries.
     Like Costco, Trader Joe's is heavy on store brands. And their graphics were initially sort of cheesy. I remember when the first Trader Joe's promotional materials started showing up at the house, I looked at their low rent, clip art illustrations and thought, "What the heck is this?" 
     But my wife became a fan — they are constantly cycling through their offbeat products, and you never know when one will disappear. I tag along with her, eyeing all the bounty, noting how much of the store is given over to booze and snacks, thinking of that line from The Band's "Up on Cripple Creek" — "A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one."
     Admiration, perhaps, but grudging admiration. Except of course for the free sample — a chunk of cranberry pie last time we were there. What kid doesn't love free samples? Trader Joe's also has the most energetic, pleasant staff imaginable; really, once I almost invited one home for Thanksgiving.

     Still, I held back. Trader Joe's, just not my type. 

     Then I noticed a bag of their Fall Leaf Corn Tortilla Chips. Why? Because the bag was beautiful, the burnt sienna and orange and yellow, the leaf shaped chips. I didn't say a word, but my wife caught whatever psychic signal I was sending out, swept over and grabbed a bag ("I don't have to speak," The Band sings, "she defends me.")
     Normally salty snacks are the one thing I'm armored against. But these I had to try. They just looked so good. And they taste good, are good, complicated chips — with not only white and yellow corn flour, but tomato, carrot and pumpkin powders, along with a "trace of lime." Great with Red Gold salsa.
     She's bought two more bags since then. Yes, the product could vanish at any time, like that blueberry sauce she bought when the boys were small and they all still talk about, the Lost Eden of blueberry sauces. But until then...
     Don't get me wrong. I'd still rather hop on my Schwinn and head to Sunset for a basket full of food. And the Fresh Farms on Milwaukee has my heart, with their Valencia juice oranges — oddly hard to find, even in the affluent North Shore. They also have dozens of different varieties of bulk Russian and Polish candies. Plus — and I love this detail — a little garbage can, always filled with wrappers, as if to say, "Spokojnie, spróbuj jednego. Masz pozwolenie" — sorry, "Go ahead, try one. You have permission."
     And the bread. Don't get me started on the breads baked at Fresh Farms. Worth an entire column. In fact, if I had any sort of confidence that I could actually make it happen, I'd love to walk the aisles of Fresh Farms with its owner, talking about just how incredible the place is.
     Wait, we were talking about Trader Joe's. Sorry. I do get carried away. Fall Leaf Corn Tortilla Chips. Tasty and beautiful. Get 'em while you can.

Balloon Museum a temporary escape from the daily disaster

"Airship Orchestra," by ENESS

     If you want relief from the growing national crisis — and at this point, who doesn't? — the Balloon Museum, which opened last Thursday at the Fields Studios, 2828 N. Pulaski Road, offers escape for an hour or two to a place where inflation is a good thing, and denizens are puffed up only with air, not ego and malice.
     "EmotionAir: Art You Can Feel" is less museum, more sprawling play zone along the lines of Meow Wolf, the "artertainment" immersive experiences out West whose purpose is to give visitors something big, colorful and unusual to pose in front of on Instagram.
     Workers were busily tacking down carpets when I got a sneak peek last Wednesday, which might have detracted from the overall effect. Though I also didn't have to pony up $39.83, the weekday toll for teens and seniors (more for adults, and more on the weekend) which no doubt honed my sense of childish wonder. Kids under 3 are free.

     I admired the colorful benignity of ENESS' "Airship Orchestra," the first of 18 tableaus — artworks if you're feeling generous — 16 stolid, striped, violet and blue squashlike balloons, some with bunny ears, all with eyes, to get visitors off on a cheery, anthropomorphic foot.

     Then came large grey cylinders that slowly collapse — rather like our democratic norms — and reinflate, a hopeful touch. Leading into "ADA," by Karina Smigla-Bobinski, a white room with an enormous clear helium-filled balloon, studded with charcoal sticks like a sea mine, a "self-forming artwork" that will cover the walls with black streaks by the time the show ends April 6. It did make me think of an actual artist: Iceland's Olafur Eliasson, who had a diverting show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2009.
     The enormous ball pit is clearly a highlight, though concern that I not lose my phone in the thing squelched whatever gleeful abandon one is supposed to experience. Here being ahead of the crowd helped. One visitor during the Balloon Museum's New York run reported the wait to get into the pit "felt like forever."
     "Invisible Ballet," a storm of silver balloons, is disorienting fun. I felt compelled to take a video and toss it onto social media, where the first response taught me a new term, "timeline cleanse," meaning something that isn't an Edvard Munch scream of shock at the latest offense against social decency.
     Next came Momoyo Torimitsu's "Somehow, I Don't Feel Comfortable," the one display that — in my opinion — rose to the level of actual art. Truly, you could cart it over to the MCA and it would fit right in.
     A trio of enormous inflatable pink rabbits, crammed against a too low ceiling, "Somehow..." is a comment on kawaii, the culture of cuteness that has gripped Japan for the past half century. Kawaii sells $4 billion a year worth of Hello Kitty stickers and backpacks. But it is also the happy face on a straitjacket of enforced helplessness and passivity, an attractive trap of being "something innocent, pure and small that should be protected" that many women spend their lives trying to escape.

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 "Somehow, I Don't Feel Comfortable," by Momoyo Torimitsu

Fall back

Clock with perpetual calendar, by Jean Antoine Lépine (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

         It's Sunday, Nov. 2. Did you remember to set your clocks back?

        Just an hour. Though we live in an era where some people seem stuck on pushing time even further backward, to some mythic time in their distant past. They're never very specific as to exactly when. Vague glory days, perhaps immediately after World War II, though that recedes past memory for most. Once I pressed a reader — what year are you talking about when things were better? Pick one? She replied 1952, and I wrote a blog post on just how grim that year actually was — polio rampant, the Korean War raging, Jim Crow deforming the South, McCarthyism creating a pall of fear.

     I actually don't think it is a specific era that MAGA is trying to regain — when American was "great" — but a social order where the people they don't think should count today indeed didn't count for much. Votes were suppressed — a future they're striding for. The national narrative was scrubbed of Blacks and gays and women. White folks were top dog, by definition. The world was their oyster. In theory. In memory.

    There is a useful word for this hunger: revanchism. A policy of trying to claw back what has been lost, to retaliate against those who have taken it, in your estimation. We see this everywhere. Vladimir Putin decides that Ukraine belongs to Russia because of something that happens in the 10th century. Encouraging diversity undermines merit — merit being what white folks display when they collect the cream. A world where we were top dog, and called the shots. We said "Jump!" and the world responded, "How high?" 

     At least in our memory. In the memories of some. Or, rather, their fancies, since they don't actually remember such a time. Because it never really existed.

    We do fall backward an hour every autumn. And just that one change throws people. The truth is, there is no going back, only forward. I grew up in a time when, with an eye on the 21st century, there was a lot of talk about the future, speculation about what things would be like. Now, not so much. Now our potential futures seem grim, from the authoritarian state being imposed by Donald Trump, to the violent storms caused by global warming, to the menace of artificial intelligence (though why people should fret over the hazy possibilities AI, and not the climate change ravaging the world right now, right before our eyes, is a mystery. Or maybe not such a mystery — it's always easier to consider esoteric danger than true threat. That's why we obsess over shark attacks, but not heart attacks).

      The future is coming whether we consider it or not. It could hold for us a decent society, where people are free to speak, write, think, vote. Where health care is a right for all, not a privilege for a few. Where education mattered. Or it might not. We seem headed for a very different future, a crude patchwork cobbled out of impressions of the past. Do we really want to go back there? Falling back an hour is hard enough. We can't fall back years and years, and shouldn't try.

Restaurant field notes: Smoque

     Certain restaurants exert a sort of tractor beam. You might not head there for a night out, but if you are in the neighborhood, if you stray into their field of attraction, you are inevitably drawn in. It really isn't a choice — their allure pulls you.

     Such is the case with Smoque, the barbecue joint at 3800 North Pulaski. I found myself a dozen blocks south, checking out the Balloon Museum experience — I'll share that Monday. That required I show up about 11 a.m. So when I finished experiencing giant balloons, about 12:30, there was no doubt where I was going to lunch.
     The only question was what to eat. Trying to avoid bread, I nixed the sandwiches, and happened to have ribs for dinner the night before. So no ribs. My mind quickly settled on the brisket platter.  Sure, I could have got it with slaw and two sides — but one of those sides would have to be beans, and the other probably corn bread, and while I did have my insulin with me, I didn't want to overload on carbs. The full platter also cost $27.50. Which is quite a lot of for a quick solo lunch on a Wednesday.
    So I opted for the a la carte platter, depicted above. Which cost ... I almost said "only cost" but that isn't quite right ... $18.50. Or $4.62 per slice. Quite a lot, really. 
    Although. It is very, very good brisket, falling apart at a touch. And the sauces are superb. I went from looking at my order rather dubiously, prior to the first bite, thinking, "That's it?" to eating it, quite quickly, and realizing, with satisfaction, "That's it!"

     I have to point out that service at Smoque is excellent, as warm and inviting as their brisket. None of the take-this-and-get-out tone found at too many places. I ordered a side of mac and cheese to go, for my wife for dinner, and the smoked beans for myself. Taking my tray, I wondered where they were, and was told the sides were already bagged and tucked in a hot box, waiting until I finished my meal — which, lingering, took all of three minutes. That's the thing when you're selling gold — even a little bit, well, it's still gold.