Ravenswood Notes: Assuaging Fear

    So much is said about a city like Chicago, it's unusual to run into an entirely fresh take. But if anybody has ever postulated, as EGD Ravenswood Bureau Chief Caren Jeskey does today, the city as revered ancestor, I haven't encountered it. Her Saturday report:

     It’s 5 a.m. and I’m up writing from my Chicago apartment. The Brown Line and Metra rumble by repeatedly in the near distance, sounds that make me smile. I don't even mind the gentle shaking of the building. I am a die-hard Chicago fan who experiences this city as a living entity, a family member— perhaps one of my eldest ancestors. At once warm and fierce, she lays down the rules. Be strong. Don’t give up. Don’t complain, and if you do get over it soon. Be smart and savvy, and know your place. You might be privileged but don’t forget where you came from. Don’t look the other way when others need help. Stay on your toes, aware. Keep those car doors locked these days and stick to safe areas at safe times of day, but love and respect all of me. Do not live in fear. Be brave. Be tenacious.
     Since I am speaking of my particular family, Chicago has also guided us to grow things in her soil. Green beans under the skyway on the far south side. Roses wrapping around the Virgin Mary statuette in the Vet’s Park area of South Deering. Tomatoes and cucumbers, grown out of necessity by an immigrant railroad worker, to sustain the family, precariously (and often unsuccessfully) protected from rabbits, squirrels, and birds in the shadow of Senn High School. Eye popping, deep green leaves and happy, colorful flowers in a copious container garden on a back deck in Rogers Park. Rows of crops planted outside of the McCormick YMCA in Humboldt Park, where a Schwinn bike factory once stood. Palms rescued from the alley on a porch in Ravenswood. And always, always propagate.
     Avocado pits cracked open as roots break free, rambling vines spilling out onto window sills in glass jars filled with water. Jade and Tradescantia zebrina pups sprouting up from clippings that friends and neighbors shared. A baby rubber plant that’s at least 25 years old on an alley salvaged end table in a window on Wilson.
     I thought I’d be writing about fear today. Waking up at 4 a.m. after not enough sleep prompted me to take two hydroxyzine (not a regular habit since as an old school Polish/Irish/Lithuanian girl— who turned 52 this week— I am deathly afraid of prescribed medications even if they are needed). I have a feeling my Polish ancestors were the type who made tinctures from herbs and medicinal plants they grew themselves. While I am also drawn to natural remedies, I am out of practice and don’t have the intuitive sense of which plant medicine I need these days. Plus I don’t trust it enough not to die while forsaking pharmaceuticals like a Sri Lankan shaman tragically did this week. 
     In the past, I had tens of jars of dried flowers, roots, and leaves that I’d pull out in the wee hours when anxious thinking tried to take hold, preventing me from enjoying my zees. Chamomile and peppermint to relax, star anise to settle a tummy, sage for purifying and comfort, senna after eating too much cheese, St. John’s Wort to boost the mood.
     Today I reached for the prescribed meds and embarked upon a meditation. This combination usually works. Breathe deeply, choose a mantra. “Clear mind” on the inhale, “don’t know don’t know don’t know” on the exhale (as taught to me by Ana Forrest many moons ago), or simply “I am OK right now. It’s time to sleep.”
     But no. I’m wide awake and realized that fear woke me up in the first place. I’m having complications after round two of three of a dental procedure, and that scares me. Will my gums ever be the same? I’ve had a falling out with a childhood friend, which is unnerving even though our expiration date may have come. I’d like to be in a state of calm acceptance about this. I will get there, but have been ruminating about our last conversations and how angry I feel about being misunderstood. It will take some processing and active healing though, since one of the reasons I came back home was to reconnect with people. Since I got back in May, I’ve learned that I have some healthy friendships and familial ties, but I also have vestiges of a sometimes broken past to face.
     I could go on about what troubles me, but you get the drift. We all have things on our minds. I know that as I age, and those I love age, it behooves me to live a life that’s as present as possible, taking each challenge as it comes with as much grace and courage as I can muster. Good rest and healthy habits that contribute to the most balanced version of myself are the only recourse for the daunting task of being human.
     Off to water and prune. Wishing you a good day.

Northshore Notes: Better Late than Never

     Happy October! EGD Northshore correspondent Caren Jeskey and I are very different people, luckily for her. But we do keep discovering similarities in outlook, such as our sharing the Big Love for architect Jeanne Gang. When the University of Chicago Press asked me to write my upcoming book, a daily history of Chicago, my very first thought was: "I've got to get Jeanne Gang in there." And I did.

     Although today's post underscores a difference: just because I need a vacation doesn't mean our indefatigable Saturday essayist needs one too. Caren isn't about to neglect her duties just because the cat's away. So I'm pleased to pause my "Dozen Destinations" space filler to share her Saturday report. Another snippet of my 2009 travelogue returns Sunday. 

By Caren Jeskey

     Chicago continues to surprise and amaze me. A friend called to say she could not make it to my September birthday dinner, so she suggested a local kayak trip instead. We met at the WMS Boathouse last Saturday morning, which Jeanne Gang designed. As a Gang fan, I was delighted. The structure was completed back in 2013, yet it had not been on my radar. 

     One of the buildings houses rowing training equipment and an education center complete with padded benches nestled into the woodwork, and a library of books children can take home. The design is fresh and crisp with skylights, floor to ceiling windows, and light colored wood ceilings and staircases. Gang earned the U.S. Green Building Council’s silver LEED score for the sustainability factor of the building. 
     In Gang’s words, “Ecologically, the overall goal of a healthy river led the design team to focus on diverting stormwater from the city’s combined sewer system, one of the largest impediments to improved water quality. The boathouse’s roof drainage elements and site design together function as its stormwater management system, diverting 100 percent of runoff from the sewer. Green infrastructure—porous concrete and asphalt, native plantings, gravel beds, and bioswales (rain gardens)—is used to store and filter runoff before slowly releasing this filtered water back into the river. Existing habitats were maintained and strengthened with a mix of native grass, plants, and trees, and silt fabric prevented compaction and erosion during construction. These efforts serve as a model for softening the river’s edge, supporting its ongoing revitalization. With structural truss shapes alternating between an inverted 'V' and an 'M,' the roof achieves a rhythmic modulation that lets in southern light through the building’s upper clerestory. In summer, the clerestory lets in fresh air, while in winter, it allows sunlight to warm the floor slab, minimizing energy use throughout the year."
     Then it was time to get into the water ourselves. Boat stewards fitted us with life jackets and expertly placed our single person kayaks into the river. They gave us step by step guidance on how to get in and out of the boats. The last time I dismounted a kayak was back in Austin, which ended in an unplanned lake dip. Thankfully, I managed to avoid a dunk this time.
     We set off northbound from the dock between Belmont and Addison at a leisurely pace. Regal herons perched on concrete slabs and tree branches. One took flight right over us, showing us its 6’ wingspan and graceful ability to soar. It was a cloudy day, so turtles were not sunbathing along the shore, but a few peeked their heads out of the water to check us out as we floated along.
     Folks who are interested can take part in planning river development on October 1 and 6 for the South Branch and Bubbly Creek areas.
     After our relaxing water jaunt, we took a short walk past The Garden bike park. We watched cyclists young and old landscaping dirt mounds, and doing twisty turny things in the air from atop their bikes. We headed south and saw a father and son who’d set up a Pickleball net in an empty parking lot, which reminded us that we’ve been talking about visiting the court at the new Architectural Artifacts location. We followed the path to Belmont Avenue and found a sweet view of the city.
     When it was time to leave this burgeoning nature oasis in the city, we headed to Avondale Coffee Club with our laptops to get some work done. Turns out, the pair of friends who founded the shop were there to regale us with stories about their establishment. Jacqueline and Adam let us know that everyone who works there functions as equals, like a well-oiled family. They bought their first 150 pound bag of beans from a farmer in Guatemala via an Instagram post about seven years ago, and the rest is history. They source most of their coffee beans through Golden Mountain Coffee Growers whose mission is to "fight poverty through quality coffee." Jacqueline roasts the coffee at Reprise Roasters in Libertyville. She won a Gold Medal for her "Double Anaerobic Fermentation Category 3: Filter" last month at Golden Bean, the "world's largest coffee roasting competition," and is heading to the Word Championship in Hawaii later this year.
     We also met Kati, their business partner and Adam's life partner, as well as teammates Brian and Zach. They are celebrating three years at their Evanston location today and this evening, where they are offering a rare 20 percent discount on their beans from 5-8pm.
     Damn you, mortality. I wonder how many amazing finds Jeanne Gang, the gang at Reprise, and other talented locals have in store for us? If only we could live forever and find out.

Summer Fiction Week #2 — "Regarding My Mother's Photography"

       If you've ever seen a Sally Mann or Jock Sturges photograph, you've perhaps wondered how, in later years, the children depicted in those jarring images came to view their youthful brush with cutting edge art photography. I certainly did, leading to this story. 

      Recent articles in the popular press, written by people who should know better, have tried to create the impression that some sort of terrible rift exists between my mother —the photographer Harriet Jane Gordon—and her two adult sons: myself and my brother David. They interpret our absence from the opening of her retrospective exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art as somehow indicative of a hostility on our part—or otherwise, why would we have not shared in such a crowning event in our mother’s professional career?
     Let me begin by saying that such speculation, particularly Chas Mywald’s piece in ARTnews, is invasive and unwarranted and only serves to heighten the already superheated media frenzy over my mother’s photography. As it happens—not that it is anyone’s business—I sent a card of best wishes to my mother on the eve of the Whitney show, and understand, through channels, that she was pleased to receive it, despite statements to the contrary attributed to her in print and on certain hateful web sites.
     When it comes to David, I will not presume to speak for him, other than to say that he is a private individual, pursuing his particular field of interest, who does not care to enter into enervating public controversies. I am told he tried to visit the Whitney show, anonymously, but had to leave hurriedly when he was recognized. We have talked on the telephone, recently, and I can say with confidence that he was never spoken to Chas Mywald, or anyone else at ARTnews and does not bear our mother any ill will. Nor do I bear our mother any ill will.
     I am not suggesting that our childhood was utterly without difficulty. Growing up under the circumstances which we did was frequently difficult, at times extraordinarily so. Anyone who has seen works such as “Neil Astride Alaskan Moose” or “David Dressed as Harlequin” (and at this point, who hasn’t?) knows that these were not easy sessions to participate in, particularly considering our ages at the time. Many people do no realize that the football team posing with David in “Harlequin” is the very junior high school squad he would later attempt to join. The chasm yawning under me in “Neil in Peril” is not some clever photographic effect, as people often suppose, but the Atchafalaya Gorge in Smokey Mountain National Park. Ever the perfectionist, my mother took 45 exposures, and it was only when the sapling began to slowly pull out of the soft earth of the cliff edge that my entreaties were heeded and I was hastily hauled up. 
     Despite the occasional mishap, we generally enjoyed helping our mother with her work, carrying her large 8 x 10 view camera up mountainsides near our home in a heavily-wooded section of North Carolina, collecting specimens for those montages of animal excreta of which she was particularly fond, playing for hours in the crisp, cold Montavista River while mother tried to get exactly the right combination of dwindling daylight, splashing water and capering, unfettered boyhood.
     Particularly hurtful are the stories that we do not appreciate the artistic merit, or even the financial worth, of my mother’s photographs. I do not dispute that, after college, I permitted my former roommate, Edgar Witherspoon, to take possession of two dozen silver gelatin prints, including the series “Maturation 1-12,” but I did not, as N.K. Kleinfield has suggested in The New York Times, leave them out on the curb. Due to their extraordinary size it became necessary to store the photographs somewhere and whether or not my transfer of the photos to Edgar was a gift or a loan is a legal matter I am not permitted to discuss. The story about David going after our mother’s photographs with a linoleum knife at the Phyllis Kind Gallery is an utter fabrication. He was merely trying to block the door to the exhibit, and left quietly after police were called.  
     The problem, I believe, stems from the singular nature of the photographs, which excite people’s interest—interest that would normally be directly toward my mother, who is after all the creative force at work here. But which is blunted by her frequent, almost daily pronouncements and interviews in the artistic and mainstream press and of course on-line. Because of the paucity of unknown facts or unexpressed opinions related to our mother, curiosity is instead directed toward her subjects, particularly my brother and myself. Our success in avoiding the limelight and managing, despite great odds, to live quiet, private lives, only served to further stoke the fires of public interest, which is why I am writing this, as an attempt to satisfy the legitimate questions raised with growing frequency in the year leading up to the Whitney show.
   I have a job, working in the food preparation industry. I am married, and live in a middle-sized city in the South-Central portion of the United States. My wife has always known about my mother’s photography and been very supportive. I owe her a great deal.
    David, as I state previously, should be allowed to speak for himself, if and when he feels moved to do so. I am not a professional, and do not feel comfortably evaluating the emotional state of others, particularly close relatives.
     Speaking for myself—again, contrary to the lies and distortions already alluded to—I in fact do have several of my mother’s photographs, stored away. I keep them not simply due to financial considerations; I am proud of the artistic legacy these works represent and my central if at times unwilling role in their creation, and would even consider displaying some of the less jarring photographs in my home, were it not for the presence of my own young children, whose welfare must be considered.

                                                                     

Flashback 2000: Born to be killers

  

     
     This is a relic from another era, when I'd pair with a photographer — in this case, my favorite shooter, Robert A. Davis — and do a deep dive into an overlooked urban problem. It's very long — 2800 words, almost four times a regular column. So I hope it'll hold your attention.

     The dogs are taken from airless garages, from abandoned apartments, from dark basements. Already a crowd is gathering. The dogs have heavy chains on their necks and deep, untreated gashes on their legs and faces.
      A circle forms — lots of children. Bets are taken. The dogs are kicked or "bumped" — slammed together to get them going. Usually that's all it takes. The dogs bite and rip each other, snarling, spattering blood. The crowd cheers, shouts encouragement. Sometimes the dogs are separated by a pry bar, to prolong the fight. Eventually one is the victor and the other, if it is lucky, dead. Money changes hands.
     It happens every day in Chicago, and also frequently in the suburbs and Downstate. What started out as a recreation and gambling sport among gang members has spread to the larger community, with even young children raising stray dogs and fighting them in such numbers that officials call it "an epidemic."
      "It's definitely getting worse," said Catherine Hedges, shelter supervisor of Chicago's Fury Friends Foundation. "I see abuse from dog fighting on an almost daily basis. Nearly every day a volunteer comes back from walking a pit bull to say somebody approached them and said: `How much do you want for that dog?' They think he would make a good fighter. They don't want the dog as a pet. They don't want to take it to the park and play. They want it as a fighter."
      Staging dog fights is a felony, but cases are difficult to prove. Dogs can't testify, and police officers, already overburdened by the relentless crush of crime against humans, do not put a high priority on trying to solve them.
     Except one: Sgt. Steve Brownstein, a 46-year-old officer who wages a one-man crusade against the abuse of animals, particularly dogs, particularly dogs that are forced to fight and kill each other.
     Brownstein has seized 700 animals since May 1999, and made 200 arrests. Operating out of the public housing unit at 51st and Wentworth, he strolls through the projects, chatting with residents, about rumors of dogfights and animal hidden in basements. Holding a flashlight, he crunches through the gloomy rubble of abandoned apartments, looking for chained dogs guarding drug stashes.
      He has seen a lot.
     "They beat these animals," he said. "They feed them hot peppers. Feed them gunpowder. Lock them in small closets. They do everything they can to make these animals vicious and mean."
     Brownstein said trainers will starve dogs, then throw a piece of meat between them and have the dogs kill each other for it. They'll put heavy weights on the animals to build up their strength. When there is a dogfight, if the wounded dog does not die, they will throw it alive on a garbage dump or leave it in a vacant lot or apartment to die a slow death.
     "The more fortunate dogs are the ones that die during the fight instead of after the fight," he said.
     People will set dogs on fire when they lose a fight, or something worse. "I've had dog fighters tell me, including teenagers, they're angry at a dog if it loses a fight, they want it to suffer, that's why they leave it locked in a closet to die a slow death of its injuries."
     Brownstein has seen children snap the necks of puppies, and it is the dehumanizing effect that such violence has on children that worries him most. He remembers one 12-year-old boy, "Speedy," who he first met when he impounded the boy's dog for fighting, and next heard of after the boy had raped a 7-year-old girl. The two events are not unconnected in Brownstein's view.
     "I think that when a child enjoys the suffering of an animal, has no empathy and compassion, it becomes very easy for that same child to grow into a teenager and adult who can inflict pain upon fellow humans and still have no empathy or compassion."
     Despite his humanitarian zeal, Brownstein has made a lot of enemies. Top police brass work to undermine him and some of his fellow officers call him "Dogman" and "Gomer Pyle," for his awkward, flapping manner.
     Unsurprisingly, those whose dogs he has seized are his fiercest critics, picketing Brownstein and peppering him with official complaints.
     "He's gone crazy," said dog trainer Walter Ward, who had his dogs seized this summer by Brownstein. "He does good, but he does a lot of wrong. . . . Someone has to stop him."
     Even Brownstein's allies admit that he is a man on a mission.
     "He's a driven individual, and at times that can be his undoing," said Dr. Gene Mueller, president of the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society, which just named Brownstein its Humanitarian of the Year. "He's drowning in these reports (of abuse). How can we expect him to follow up on them all? It's impossible. People say this is all Steve Brownstein, but it's so much larger, and has to be tackled. He needs more assistance, more resources."
     Dogfighting is a Class 4 felony that could, in theory, bring three years in prison. Even witnessing a dogfight is a misdemeanor. But felony dog fighting prosecutions are rare: there have been just nine in Cook County in the past two years.
     "It's so common. You continually hear calls about dog fighting on the radio. But the attitude is: `They're expendable; who cares?' " said a police officer in the Deering police district on the South Side. "The state's attorney will not approve felony charges for dog fighting."
     The state's attorney's office said it is aware of the problem and doing all it can.
     "The people doing it are becoming more bold," said John Gorman, a spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office. "It is moving out of the basements and into the parking lots and empty lots. More dogs are being killed and maimed, and when these cases are brought to us, we prosecute them as best we can."
     Still, many police officers are not aware of the felony dogfighting law, even though it has been on the books for more than a decade, said Mueller, the former head of the city's Animal Care and Control Department.
     "There have been less than a handful of prosecuted cases," said Mueller. "Because animal welfare laws are contained within agricultural law — an archaic, infrequently used part of the code — the police officer on the street, the reviewing desk sergeant, the state's attorney at the district, didn't recognize the criminal code."
     It is not that police are unsympathetic. Many officers in inner-city neighborhoods have stories of grim encounters with dogs abused by gangs.
     "Before I was a lieutenant, I worked on a tactical team and went on narcotics raids," said Lt. Nick Rotti of the Calumet district on the Far South Side. "We'd come across dogs . . . it's heartbreaking to see the things that are done to them. I've seen dogs on raids, they leave them chained in these abandoned buildings or basements where they hide their drug stash. I've actually seen the skeleton of a dog chained to a pole in a basement. The dog just starved to death. They left it there to lie dead."
     The bigger problem, police say, is building a felony case.
     "You have to keep in mind, without admissions and without facts to support it, it's very difficult to get that felony upgrade," said Pat Camden, a spokesman for the police department. "When the facts support a felony, the state's attorney's office has been more than cooperative."
     A lack of statistics on dog fighting is one sign of how recently officials have come to understand the severity of the problem. Only last year did the city began keeping track of emergency calls regarding animals. So far this year, 1,764 complaints of animal abuse have come into 911 — triple the rate of last year — with another 2,061 complaints of "inhuman treatment" of animals to 311.
     "We've done community education, tried to help people see the relationship between animal abuse and interpersonal violence," said Ted O'Keefe, director 311 City Services. "We've come to an awareness that this is a problem, not just in terms of animals, but a problem that can have an impact on our children as well."
     Indeed, concern for dog fighting is growing not out of heightened sympathy for the dogs, but from a recognition that violence against animals can lead directly to violence against humans.
     "This is a child welfare issue," said Brownstein. "I do hear, from people, that this is about animals. `People are shooting each other and this is about dogs.' My response is that in addition to the fact that this is extremely cruel to the animals, it is a fact that when children and teenagers become desensitized and sometimes actually enjoy the sufferings of animals it then becomes a small step for them to commit violence toward their fellow human beings."
     Mueller said he did not fully understand the impact of dog fighting on children until a chilling encounter as principal for a day at a West Side magnet school.
     "I was in a fourth grade classroom — 10-year-olds, 11-year-olds — and the subject came up," he said. "I said, `Let's talk about dog fighting. Who has seen dog fighting?' Every hand shot up. I said, `I don't mean Molly slipping out of the yard.' Every hand. It was unanimous. The kids said it happens all the time, in the alleys."
     Mueller remembers in particular four boys in the class.
     "These four little boys — 10-year-old boys — said that this was so exciting, that there was nothing as exciting in their neighborhood. This is not a violent video game. These children are seeing in first person this incredible cruelty. . . . This is not the cause of violence, but we have this terrible, unrecognized poison in many neighborhoods in Chicago that our children are being exposed to."
     Worse than a child witnessing a strange dog in a fight, Mueller said, is when it is a dog that the child has learned to love, usually while the adults are waiting for it to grow old enough to fight.
     "Pit bulls are used for currency — someone will give a pit bull puppy instead of $20," said Mueller. "They'll raise the puppy. Build trust, and over the course of a year, the dog grows and gets bigger. Then the person in charge of the family — the dad, the cousin — says, `We're going to fight it.' They take it out in the alley to fight. You can imagine these children having this animal they may have developed love and empathy for, out in the alley. All the other neighbors are there. They're cheering. They're screaming. The whole neighborhood. One of the animals loses, which itself is a terrible tragedy. But then there are these 10-year-old kids."
     Dog fighting is a particular problem in the city, but it is certainly not limited to urban areas. Earlier this year, Brownstein consulted Elgin police on dog fighting after officers began receiving complaints.
     "I don't think there is any part of the state that doesn't have some form of dog fighting," said Officer Chuck Thomas, a 16-year veteran of Joliet Township Animal Control. "What police run into most are the backyard fights. But there's also big money in it. It's organized. There are professional fighting rings all over. It's very, very hard (to crack down on)."
     Compounding the problem is the difficulty of locating, never mind gathering evidence on, a dog fight, fleeting encounters which are either hidden from view or easily dispersed at the glimpse of a squad car.
     Just last week, Chicago police Officer Lyteshia Gunn, responding to a report of a dog fight in the 10100 block of South Lafayette, saw a group of neighbors gathered around two teenage boys, each holding a pit bull on a leash.
     By the time she pulled over and got out of her car, the group had scattered. Soon Brownstein and half a dozen other officers were on the scene, which was spread over a block. At the center were two bloodied pit bulls.
     "How long have you had these dogs for?" Brownstein asked some men nearby. "You know there was a fight going on."
     Nobody was telling. The matter took almost a half hour to sort out. Two men were handcuffed and put in a squad car, and two teens, 13 and 14, claiming ownership of the dogs, were also arrested.
     "I don't know nothing about no dog fight," said one of the boys, who said his dog had no name. "I just call it `girl."' Asked about the wounds and the fresh blood glistening on the dog's legs, the boy said: "That ain't blood."
     Several officers stood watching Brownstein conduct the investigation.
     "We get calls on this constantly. It's a daily thing," said Chicago police officer Larry Dotson. "By the time we arrive, unfortunately, the dogs are already gone. Or they'll leave the loser, maimed, as we arrive."
     At least one of Brownstein's superiors described Brownstein as a "loose cannon." But his most vocal critics tend to be the people he has arrested.
     One of them, Doris Blumenberg, of the 10800 block of South Parnell, said Brownstein kicked open a door in a business where she works and seized six dogs without cause.
     "There are so many complaints on this man, it's incredible," she said. "How long has he been doing this? . . . He only takes blacks' and Hispanics' dogs."
     Blumenberg claims she is not a trainer and was not responsible for the dogs. But in court she pleaded guilty of cruelty to animals. And her neighbor said she has personally seen her hauling dead dogs out to the garbage.
     "She was fighting these dogs," said Bernadette Lewis, 31. "She was supposedly training them, but she would leave the dogs in the basement, all the windows boarded up, no air, no food, no water. They were just in there dying. They were eating each other, and all the dead dogs she would put them in garbage bags put them in garbage cans at the side of my house and leave them there for weeks at a time."
     The stench was almost unbearable, Lewis said.
     "It's a money thing," she said. "They bet. We saw it plenty of times. These dogs, all they want is for someone to love 'em and care for 'em. They're not asking to be abused. They don't want nobody to abuse them. It's a shame. It really is a shame."
     While Brownstein's obsessive manner turns some off, others see beyond to what he is trying to do.
     "His social skills aren't the best," said Hedges, from the Fury Friends Foundation. "But he is doing the right thing. He definitely is not crazy, definitely not a menace. Everyone thinks he's the bad guy, but he's risking his life to try to end the No. 1 form of abuse toward these animals. The police department should be supporting him."
     Indeed, the police department stands behind Brownstein. Recently, after several months of working alone, he was assigned a new partner.
     "Obviously, we don't think he's crazy," said Camden. "We think he's very dedicated to what he's doing and takes a personal interest."
     "This is not something that exists solely in Steve Brownstein's head; I wish it was," said Mueller, who calls dogfighting "an epidemic." "The terrible reality, I can tell you, after being at Animal Control for many years, is this is a pervasive poison in almost all the wards in the the city of Chicago. This is not a black issue, not a white issue, not a Hispanic issue. All types, all creeds, are fighting animals out there. They do it for gambling. They do it for fun. It's a terrible problem."
     — Originally published in the Sun-Times, Nov. 5, 2000

Texas Notes: Cracker Jack

        If, like me, you woke up this morning looking forward to what EGD Texas Bureau Chief Caren Jeskey has to say, that's testimony to how smoothly she has integrated into our little community. Now if I can just find six more correspondents like her, I can cough into my fist, put on my hat and tuck back into the shadows. Alas, I suspect she is sui generis, a thing unto herself, and the other six days will be my problem for the foreseeable future. Not that we HAVE a foreseeable future. But a guy can dream, right?

     Jane Addams, the mother of social work, is quoted as saying “the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” When I was 19 I started volunteering at Chicago House, in a hospice program for men and women dying of AIDS related illnesses. I was guided there during a class at DePaul University called God, Justice and Social Concern. It was taught by one of the most impressively humble, intelligent, witty and warm men I’ve met thus far in my life, Father James Halstead. Not a religious person myself, somehow I did not mind the required religion classes at DePaul. I dove right in and followed Father Halstead around, taking several classes with him and basking in his presence as often as possible. He had one of those auras that calms you down like a Quaalude might, without the side effects. He used to ride a bicycle around campus with upright handle bars and a basket, and either a gentle smile or a look of deep contemplation on his face, and his cheeks looked like apples. He reeked of goodness and health. I’m now thinking he and Mr. Rogers must have been distant cousins. To fulfill requirements for his classes I found myself bowing with the woman in the basement of a Muslim mosque somewhere off of North Elston, inhaling incense and the sounds of cantors at a Greek Orthodox church in the Gold Coast, and I felt most at home at a little Buddhist temple somewhere in Lincoln Park. I ended up becoming a yoga and meditation teacher after that—practices that have been a part of saving my life.  

    While volunteering at Chicago House I felt it was my duty to do this work. It was the most natural thing in the world to drive over to the near west side hospice house tucked in with all of the other red brick buildings, and find out who needed help that day—a ride to visit family members, company to walk to the neighborhood bodega, or a healthy friend to sit with tired bones and chat or play a game. One of the men asked me to take him out dancing at a club on Clark near Belmont in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood to celebrate his 34th birthday. He dressed up in a silky red shirt, tight black pants and Kenneth Cole wingtip shoes, and we danced to Chic and Stevie Wonder until he ran out of steam. I drove him home as we laughed like kids at the memory we had just made, talking smack about the man who had the nerve to dis’ him and the beautiful queen with the red lips and stilettos, putting everyone else to shame with her stunning presentation and countenance. When he was admitted to the so-called AIDS Ward at Cook County Hospital I sat next to his bed so he wouldn’t be alone if he woke up. He slipped away. I went to his funeral on the South Side of Chicago and his family greeted me with warm hugs as if I was a part of the family. I still have a thank you card they sent me for helping take care of their man.
     After that I continued to work in social services and loved trying to make this world a kinder and more equitable place. I felt I had a purpose. I worked in a program for drug-using pregnant women and we took care of them and their babies and gave them a chance to get well, and many of them did. One day years later I was walking down the street in Wrigleyville and a tall, robust, dark skinned young man came jogging up to me, “Ms. Caren! It’s me!” I did not recognize who I’d last seen as a chubby school aged boy whose mother was in and out of recovery and domestic violence shelters as she tried to piece her life together. He wrapped me into a bear hug, his friends giggling at the scene, and shared that all these years later his mother was doing very well, a leader in her recovery community in her home town in the South where she had moved. He was also thriving, a true delight. After that I worked with homeless teen moms with mental illnesses and found other roles that allowed me to serve the disenfranchised, of which there were and are many. I taught yoga and meditation and biked all over Chicago, year after year, and felt that I was really doing something.

 I found myself in a hospital job, since that’s where the money (if you can call it that) is for social workers. I proceeded to become the person I never thought I’d be, I swore I would never become, the burnt out hospital social worker with almost no hope left after long days with no thank yous and almost constant pressure and criticism for not working more magic. My career took on a life of its’ own and it seemed there was no getting out of the rut. Maybe I felt some kind of punishing duty in bleeding myself dry, and I missed the memo about self-care coming first. I’d waver between being a health nut and drinking my blues away, I could not find a balance.
     Sometimes I’d sit on the bench outside of the ER, numb and unable to make it any further after a particularly grueling shift where an abusive doctor asked me if I’d gotten my license in a Cracker Jack box when I did not do the unethical things he expected. On one such night a friend happened to call as I sat on the cold mental bench decompressing after work. She instructed me to get up, walk to my bike and get over to her house. I rode the ten miles or so to her cozy Evanston home where I started to come back to life. Friends routinely asked me why I didn’t quit that job, learn how to follow my heart, follow my bliss, do something that I loved. I’d think “and who will pay my bills? What else can I do? This is what I’ve been trained for.”
     In days to come I had to ignore the married nurse whose wife I knew, who would flirt with me and give me unwanted compliments. He’d say racist and classist things to spark my ire and called me the Socialist Worker as an insult. “You know, all of these patients are taking advantage of you. They should all be put on island somewhere so you can take care of the patients who really deserve it.” I ignored him, choosing not to pick this battle. I placed a blank look on my face and asked if the homeless unconscious 20 year old laying in the ICU bed, near death, has had any improvement. Then I walked past the nurse into the patient’s room and began to search his belongings to see if I could find a contact number to call amidst the wet and stained bunches of papers in his tattered bag.
     I finally mustered up the courage to walk away from hospital social work once and for all, and I was able to shape a career that I love once again. With impeccable self-care I enjoy my well-balanced life outside of work. I serve clients who’ve had unimaginable trauma in their lives, and I do it from an abundant wellspring. 

     I’ve come full circle. I started as young and idealistic and supported by fine people such as Father Halstead. Today I am older, wiser and hopeful that I can maintain a good life, and from that I can offer myself to others in a healthy way. I am surrounded by people who are doing good in the world and enjoy life. We prop each other up as needed. The COVID crisis has allowed me to give and receive help in an authentic and real way—the help we give and receive when we realize that we are mortal. As one of my favorite yoga singers Krishna Das says, we are “live on earth for a limited time only.”
     We have lost more lives to COVID-19 in a few months than we did in a span of over seven years due to AIDS related illnesses in the 80s. The Father Halsteads of the world help people lay a foundation of care that enables us to go forward with faith in good works. "The ultimate moral test of any government is the way it treats three groups of its citizens. First, those in the dawn of life—our children. Second, those in the shadows of life—our needy, our sick, our handicapped. Third, those in the twilight of life—our elderly,” said former Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1976. This still rings true today and so let’s make it happen, together. As my Buddhist teachers say, may we all be well, happy and peaceful and may we remember that we are not alone. 

Works in progress: Cate Plys

     Caren Jeskey stepping up to pinch-write on Saturdays helped the EGD community to see many things. For me, it became clear that there is a benefit to a weekly breather, both to myself and to the readers: a different perspective, a palate cleanser after six days of Neil-Neil-Neil-Neil-NEIL-Neil. So when Caren decided to step away and start an audio blog (which you can find here) my first thought was that I should keep the tradition of Somebody Else Saturday going.

     But how? With whom? 

     Luckily, I know many creative folk, few longer and none better than my Northwestern classmate, Cate Plys. We were on the college humor magazine together, and have been close friends ever since. She's had a wide-ranging career — columnist at the Chicago Reader, the  Sun-Times and Tribune, and more. Since October, 2021, she's been exploring the complex world of "Roseland, Chicago: 1972." I invited her to tell you about it. In coming weeks, I'll turn Saturday over to other friends with interesting projects. If you'd like to nominate yourself, you know where to find me. Take it away, Cate:

     Thanks, Neil!
     Full disclosure, I can’t quit Neil, and vice versa, because he came to my Gramma’s house in Hegewisch for Thanksgiving in 1982. That, and we know where each other’s bodies are buried.

     “Roseland, Chicago: 1972” started as the serialized story of Steve Bertolucci, a 10-year-old Roselander in 1972, and what becomes of him. But Roseland, Chicago, and 1972 — they all demanded more. They got it. I’m just a girl who can’t say no.
     The thing is Steve and his friends live in a strange world called 1972, a place so far removed from 21st century Chicago that even those of us who once dwelt there may barely recognize it when we catch a brief glimpse of it now, whisking around a corner or disappearing into a crowd, always just out of reach.
     I was there. I saw it. But the more I wrote, the simplest things began to feel like science fiction in reverse. I had to ask myself: Would anyone who wasn’t there believe it?
     It was a brave old world:
     Every expressway into Chicago was guarded by a massive set of neon red lips, looming 80 feet in the air on black steel pylons, blinking electronic messages underneath like “Celebrate National Secretary’s Week!” and “Happy Birthday, Eddie Barrett!” The Dan Ryan lips, which Steve’s family passed on rare car trips downtown, kept vigil over the city at 85th Street.

     Chicagoans believed in God and the devil so viscerally that when “The Exorcist” played here to massive crowds in ’73, Tribune film critic Gene Siskel saw a teenage boy faint at one showing. Six more terrorized teens retreated to the lobby, one literally trembling for a full half hour.
     Knowledge was distributed to the people each morning and afternoon by young boys who threw onto their front porches folded wads of cellulose which had been boiled, mashed, and flattened into sheets later embedded with information. These were called “newspapers,” and everybody read them. Everybody. Even kids like Steve.
     Who’d believe kids used to read newspapers? Yesterday I saw two parents pushing a stroller. The approximately 18-month-old child seated inside was clutching an iPhone with both hands, focused on it to the exclusion of all else.
     I realized I’d have to persuade readers that the 1972 world had, in fact, existed. Marshal the evidence. So Steve’s story became an immersive project on Substack for anyone who’s game enough to take a dunk in 1972. To start, each chapter is followed by Chapter Notes explaining points of interest covered, ranging from MAD Magazine  to Jays potato chips.
     Optional Chicago History Chapters delve deeper into places, people and pop culture as they emerge in the story, so far including the Wrigley Building, Chicago before it was Chicago, and a look at Chicago newspapers circa 1972.

     For those brave enough to jump in the deep end without a lifeguard, there are two additional sections to explore: THIS CRAZY DAY IN 1972, and Mike Royko 50+ Years Ago Today. As I warn readers on the About page, however, enter at your own risk. No sensitivity reader has combed through any of it. 1972 isn’t a safe space--though frankly, neither is any other year with which I am familiar.
      TCD 1972 goes through the year week by week, pulling fascinating pieces out of all five of Chicago’s daily 1972 newspapers. This material is the news--and so to a great extent the reality--that Steve and everyone he knew swam in. If you dip a toe into the roiling 1972 waters regularly, the first cold shock of sexism, racism, and teenagers getting expelled for long hair begins to wear off. You get used to the water, you see beyond the splashing, and you start to feel what the world looked like to 1972 Chicagoans.
     And the letters are hilarious.

     Why Royko? 1972 newspapers are peanut butter, and Mike Royko is the chocolate that elevates the peanut butter into a delectable treat. You can have one without the other, but why would you? Royko dominated the Chicago newspaper landscape in a way that can’t be overstated, and uniquely in the city’s history.
     Also, 10-year-old Steve’s family subscribed to the Daily News. That meant they got an afternoon newspaper thrown on their front porch by a paperboy, and the first thing a Daily News reader did was open the paper to page three and read Royko in a long, thin column next to the fold.
     Each Royko 50+ covers a week of columns, pulling the best quotes and providing the sociopolitical context that Mike’s contemporaneous readers brought to his work--so you’ll even get the inside jokes. For instance, Mike’s column from September 19, 1972:  

     Mike proposed a new statue for the Civic Center Plaza—now Daley Plaza—which was already home to the Picasso. Mike’s statue idea was based on two recent news events he assumed his readers knew all about. First, the city and its newspapers were going nuts over the recent announcement that Marc Chagall would create a huge piece of public art for the First National Bank plaza, rivalling the nearby Picasso.
     Second, the Better Government Association (BGA) had just completed a hilarious investigation with the Daily News in which reporters followed CTA workers around and documented their busy work days. The pièce de résistance was a worker named Tad, photographed on the clock carrying five cases of beer from a liquor store to his CTA truck.
     Mike's readers had all seen the BGA's picture of Tad in the Daily News — it would have been like a viral Tik Tok video. Mike's column, then, only included Tad's statue, created by the paper's art department. For Royko 50+, I hunted down Tad's original infamous picture so readers today can see him in all his glory, compare with Tad's statue, and appreciate Mike's delicate wit:
     “Before all of our downtown plazas are covered with great works of art by Picasso, Chagall and other international artists, we should set one aside for a statue that would have meaning to Chicagoans,” wrote Mike. “Unlike our famous Picasso, there can be no confusion about who Tad is and what he is doing: He is a man carrying five cartons of beer….It is inspirational, because most of us would like to have a job in which carrying one armload of beer gives us our daily sweat. But the fact is, most of us don’t have the gumption to get out there and find a city job that allows us to flop down and rest.”     

     As I recall, Mike Royko threatened to break Neil’s legs once (editor's note: he did, and not in a joky, "ha-ha, I'll break your legs fashion" but in a "next time asshole I'll break your fucking legs" fashion), or something like that. I cover extra-column Royko doings in a Weekend Edition, and we’ll have to get Neil’s story in there soon.

     Lastly, sometimes an item in the news or Mike Royko sends us down an unexpected Chicago History Rabbit Hole, and then anything can happen. Take Mike’s February 25, 1972 column, in which Mike gets a tip that a has-been mobster named Louis Tornabene is scheduled for a small-time hearing at the Chicago Avenue police court. Mike shows up to mock Tornabene, because he used to be a tough guy running a mob strip joint called Eddie Foy’s, and now he’s a used car salesman.
     This rabbit hole leads us through FBI wire transcripts to the seedy strip joints that used to line the South Loop streets, on to one of the most famous entertainers of the late 19th century-early 20th century, and finally to the worst single-building fire in U.S. history, the Iroquois Theatre fire. That’s all thanks to Mike mentioning Eddie Foy’s, seen here in its 1950’s-60s heyday courtesy of John Chuckman’s Photos on Wordpress.

     Come over some time and take a stroll in 1972. It’s easier to appreciate when you can get out any time you want.

"A feast of joy, love, harmony and grace"

Barbara Gaines

     "Ready?" says Barbara Gaines, to the singers, technicians and assistants scattered around the otherwise empty Civic Opera House theater one morning last week. "Let's do it."
     "Here we go," adds stage manager John Coleman. "Act 4. Quiet please."
South African soprano Hlengiwe Mkhwanazi climbs the stairs at stage right, glancing tentatively around at her feet, looking for something, lifting the curtain and peering underneath.
     "L'ho perduta, me meschina!" she sings, in Italian. "I've lost it; unhappy me!"
     A handful of notes of Mozart sung in her strong, achingly clear voice is enough to jolt me out of the up-to-that-moment ordinary day. It's like someone popping open my skull and laying cool wet cloths on my brain. Ahhh.
     But only for a moment.
     "Stop please," says Gaines, leaping up. "Okay, great. We're going to change something."
     It's the third day of stage rehearsals for "The Marriage of Figaro," the first production of the Lyric's 61st season, which opens Saturday night. Gaines, on of Chicago's top directors, who founded Chicago Shakespeare Theater and has directed some 30 plays there, is back at the Lyric, part of a savvy strategy to expand its reach beyond the circle of people who, like myself, just love opera, to lure those who might be drawn in by a star director.
     Gaines' job is to sweat the smallest detail, like when Mkhwanazi's character, Barbarina, lifts the curtain, looking for a lost pin.
     "I realized we revealed the set way too early," said Gaines, explaining why she wants to delay the moment. "It works better with the music."
     Gaines reflexively reassures as she instructs.
     "Barbarina, you were perfect, " she says to Mkhwanazi, who sang a show-stopping "Summertime" in "Porgy and Bess" last year.
     Gaines made her Lyric debut in 2010 with Verdi's far grimmer "Macbeth" and is excited to have been asked to take a crack at something lighter.
     "So much more fun, a lot more laughter," she says, during a break. "The joy of it. It's all about love, and passion. It's all of us, all of our stories. It's not about those dark productions where the count is a miserable bastard. He's a human being with empty spaces in his heart and tries to fill them, like all of us do."
     Gaines promises, if not quite Robert Falls-Grade shock, then plenty of surprises.
     "Some of the things on this stage has never been done before," she says.
     Such as?
     "At the very end of the overture—the best overture ever written," she says. "We have two singers and an actress doing a little improvisation that tells you the entire story. It's great fun.  What it says to the audience at the very beginning: 'You can laugh, you can enjoy yourself, this is going to be fun up to the end,' which is hilarious, but totally a surprise. I don't think it's been done in the history of 'Figaro.'''
     And she wasn't referring to the entire second act being performed in an enormous bed, 25 feet across.
     Directing the cast, Gaines is constantly in motion, watching the action from various perspectives.
     "I'll just stay here," she fibs, tucking herself into a seat for, perhaps five seconds, before she is up again, leaning over the pit, on her toes, then on stage, stopping action again, Daniel Ellis, her assistant director, following her like a pull toy duck.
     "When they do things, it gives you ideas, and you have to institute those ideas before you forget them," she explains.
      Gaines has said you can't hear the 4th act and not feel that you are in heaven, "a feast of joy, love, harmony and grace."
     Readers ask—and complain—more about my occasional opera column than any other topic. Gaines, talking about the differences between theater and opera, nails it so well, we'll give her the final word on the subject.
     "You know what it is?" she says. "I am not a religious person. I don't like people telling me what to do. But when they start singing, when the count asks the countess for pardon—perdono—there's this whole song about forgiving. Please forgive me. I think ... there must be a God, because the music is so beautiful. I think it is some of the most beautiful music that has ever been written, the finale of this opera. It goes from this beautiful moment of grace and forgiveness to let's celebrate, get drunk and have fun and live."

Bottomless

 

     Our son works in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan. So when we visited him last week, we got a hotel room next to the new One World Trade Center, steps away from the site of the old, and of course we paused to contemplate the 9/11 Memorial, "Reflecting Absence."  

     If you've never been, the footprint of the north and south towers of the old World Trade Center have been preserved, two squares formed by bronze parapets, listing the names of the 2,983 people who died that day in the terrorist attacks, plus those lost in the 1993 precursor bombing.
    Water cascades 30 feet down each side — the largest manmade waterfall in North America— and in each pool, what I consider the brilliant stroke, is "a smaller, central void," in the words of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Those two square pits you can't see the bottom of, a perfect physical evocation of endless grief after profound loss. You yearn to see a bottom, but there is no bottom. Only emptiness.

    The design, by the way, was done by an Israeli-American architect, Michael Arad, his work picked out of more than 5,000 submissions. While not generally a fan of memorials, some events are so enormous, our humanity demands it. Which makes me wonder how we will commemorate COVID. Arad has proposed something interesting to honor the 50,000 New Yorkers who died of COVID: a "floating sanctum" at the bottom of the Central Park Reservoir.  It would only appear when the water is lowered for maintenance. Most of the time it would be out-of-sight, which is fitting, since even the most terrible events submerge in our consciousness. Time heals whether we want it to or not.

     “I liked the idea that for one week each year, you could access a place in the city that at other times is just a submerged memory,” Arad told Architectural Digest. “The Reservoir exhales, the level of the water sinks, and the dam appears so you can traverse it on foot.”

     I imagine, on that one week a year, it'll draw quite a crowd. For a long time. But not forever. Nothing is forever. Not even grief.

Encounter with an owl

     If human eyes were as big as owl eyes, relative to our heads, they would be the size of oranges. Then maybe we, too, would be able to swivel our necks 270 degrees, the way owls can—out of necessity, since their eyes are not mobile eyeballs, like ours, but tube-shaped, like a pair of binoculars, ideal for hunting small animals from the air at night. 
     This is an Eastern Screech-Owl—the hyphen looks odd, but if it's good enough for Sibley's, it's good enough for me— encountered Friday on the south bank of the Chicago River, just west of Orleans. 
     I was hurrying to catch the 5:12, noticed a group of city dwellers along the riverbank, fishing—the Friends of the Chicago River, having an event—and then saw this fellow perched on the leather gauntlet of Natalie F., who works for the Brookfield Zoo. I detoured down the stairs to the river bank to take a closer look.
     Eastern Screech-Owls range across the entire United States east of the Rockies. Screech-Owls west of the Rockies are Western Screech-Owls, aptly enough, and almost identical, except they have no red varieties. Their loss, as the red is quite pretty.
      This owl, I was told, is named "Weasley," obviously a nod to the red-haired Weasley clan in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, whose use of owls as messengers has to count as one of the more creative uses of owls in fiction.
     Though not the only one. The best magic-based kids book series before Harry Potter also prominently features owls. In fact, chapter four of C.S. Lewis' "The Silver Chair," the fourth book of his Chronicles of Narnia, is called "A Parliament of Owls," his description of a gathering of owls to discuss their business of the day (and itself a pun on Chaucer's allegorical poem, "The Parliament of Fowls"). The term stuck as a collective noun to denote groupings of the bird.
     When our boys were growing up, my wife and I read them "Owl Babies," an excellent picture book by Martin Waddell, illustrated by Patrick Benson. It has a very simple plot. Three owlet—the term for young owls— siblings, delightfully named Sarah, Percy and Bill, wake to find their mother gone, and the entire plot is their fearful wait for her. (Though I'm not an expert, mom looks like a Spotted Owl to me).

"Malle Babbe" by Frans Hall

     Publisher's Weekly called the book "hauntingly lovely," and years ago, when I went over for tea and chocolate cake at Ann Lander's East Lake Shore Drive condo, I brought her a copy of "Owl Babies" as a present, knowing she collects owl figurines and images. She was pleased with it.
      I'm tempted to sail off into owls in art, where they represent everything from the devil and madness, such as in Frans Hals "Malle Babbe," a 1630s painting of a drunken madwomen, to wisdom and calm. In ancient times Athena, the goddess of wisdom was often depicted with an owl mascot. 
    Well, maybe just a little side trip. The most famous ancient Greek coin, the tretradrachm, featured Athena on one side, and an owl on the other, starting the tradition of putting animals on the backs of coins, and in ancient times the coins were referred to as Owls. 
     Coveting the thing and wondering how available they are, I went on eBay, and was surprised to see specimens of the 2500-year-old silver coin for as little as $400. Then again, the owl tetradrachma is perhaps the most forged coin of all time, so buyer beware.
    I think I'll do without. Besides, there is no need to spend big bucks and reach back into antiquity to find what may or may not be an authentic  Greek owl coin. Greece struck a number of modern versions, including 1 and 2 drachma coins, issued by the military junta in 1973, a nice example of which can be had on eBay for $4.
     

How can we miss Elon Musk if he won't go away?

     Hunkering down is a survival skill. There are times to fight, and times to flee, and times to keep your head low and wait.
     That last option seemed the only thing to do when Tesla mogul and Space X founder Elon Musk rode into town as the new boss of Twitter in late October. Yes, I began ballyhooing my stuff on Mastodon, or whatever they call their imitation of tweets ("PUBLISH!" the purple button says). But the service is even more random and ineffectual than Twitter, which is saying a lot, given how little traction my work gets there. Mastodon seems more like storing a few gallon jugs of water stashed in the basement — a symbolic gesture that won't really help much should  disaster occur.
     Besides, whatever change Musk was fomenting — inviting antisemites out of their holes to strut around in the light of day, banning a few journalists who had the temerity to write stories about him — didn't affect me in any direct sense. Twitter has always been a free-fire zone of malice and 99.999 percent of the stuff flying around I never see anyway. It's a breeze upon which to send my little balloons of writing wafting off into the aether.
     Honestly, I wouldn't have noticed a change except that I lost about 400 followers. I was closing in on 10,000, which is nothing in the larger picture, but a milestone in my dusty corner of the Sunset League. Now I've sunk below 9,500 and falling steadily, though I can't tell whether those are people more moral than myself fleeing the service, or robot followers being evaporated by some more efficient purging system put in place by the new regime.

    Now Musk has done one of his spurious polls to see whether he should step down as the head of Twitter, and the answer was a resounding "yes"—57 percent of 17 million voters said, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass, Elon." Never mind that those polls can easily be manipulated by the spambots and web robots that supposedly proliferated after the people in charge of getting rid of them were fired, or quit, when half the staff left upon Musk's arrival. It seems as if Musk will ignore the result anyway, in classic MAGA it's-only-fair-if-I-win style.
Last week I did ask myself if, by staying, I'm passively enabling evil, the good German sweeping his front step and not looking at the smoke coming from the crematorium. But all human systems are freighted with bad, and tweeting once a day doesn't seem like participating in wrongdoing any more than paying taxes or buying products. Leave reaching for moral purity to the vegans. Donald Trump was president for four years and I didn't go anywhere; how is this different?
     Musk has said he will abide by the people's choice, and maybe he will. Hard to tell when you're dealing with such an established hypocrite and liar. He could always bring in some even bigger asshat to run the thing. One hopes he goes back to running Tesla's, whose stock cratered in his absence, losing a third of its value over the past six months (including the 5 percent leap for joy it did Monday on learning Musk might stop spending his days sniping at people on Twitter).
     The poll strikes me as a fig leaf. With both Twitter and Tesla hemorrhaging value, the farce is bound to end sooner than later, as adults nudge Musk aside to a setting better suited to his ranting and preening.

     There's a reason children are warehoused in schools and not put in positions of authority. Ego is poison, attention an addictive drug, and people without the moderating influence of humility, maturity and good sense should avoid flailing around in public. Elon Musk spent $44 billion — most of it other people's money, of course — to cement his reputation as a bully with the impulse control of a toddler. From the public point of view, that might be a service, long term. Now we know. At least he was born in South Africa, and so can't be elected president of the United States. It's happened before.
     And then Trump went away. Or at least is in the painful, protracted process of going away. Waiting works. I've worked for my share of bad bosses before. They tend to move on down the pike if you just are patient. They arrive, manifest their inability, flail around, and then head off to explore new horizons while those behind heave a grateful sigh. The model I used was a previous classic business disaster, when Quaker Oats bought Snapple for $1.7 billion in November, 1994, twice its actual market value, ran the brand into the ground, and sold it for $300 million, half its actual worth, in March 1997. The entire fiasco didn't take three years to unfold, start to finish. I can't imagine Musk lasting that long. Heck, at this rate, he'll be gone by springtime.