Sunday, October 13, 2013

Dan Savage puts Obamacare in perspective

I don't normally do two posts a day — one seems plenty. But I have a weeklong series starting tomorrow, "Handy Concepts," and the newspaper tossed up my Monday column early, so I thought I might as well post it here as well. There's no one like Dan Savage to cut through the fog and bullshit about a topic, and he does so to great effect, at least on me, regarding Obamacare in his new book, "American Savage."

     For a moment, I was almost sorry Dan Savage is gay, sorry that he writes a sex advice column, sorry that he’s someone who can be so easily dismissed by the people who need to hear him most.
     Sorry that he waited until Chapter 13, 203 pages into his new book, “American Savage,” to turn his incisive mind to Obamacare, long before the Republicans shut down our government and held it hostage over the issue.
     I had been half watching the shutdown through latticed fingers, as the latest chapter in the endless political Punch & Judy show to which our politics have devolved. I did not see it in the clear, moral terms Savage paints, didn’t see the deep hypocrisy.
     “Jesus commanded his followers to clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and care for the sick,” Savage writes. “Making health care available to all seems like a no-brainer, Jesus-wise among the most Christian projects a president, or a nation, could possibly undertake.”
     But it isn’t, for reasons he explores. Tea Party sorts despise the government. They hate the president even more. “Barack Obama is bad,” Savage writes, channeling Tea Party thought. “He runs the government (bad) and he’s a socialist (bad). And if a government-running socialist is for something, well, then that thing must be very bad.”
     This, despite the fact that Obamacare is tepid, far from the one-payer system found in every other civilized country in the world. Even though it is basically a giveaway to the health-insurance industry that doesn’t quite fix the problem (the chapter is called, "Still Evil. Less Evil. But Still Evil.") a policy first thought up by Republican think tanks and first tried in Massachusetts by a Republican governor - Mitt Romney, remember him? - who would later completely renounce its undeniable success in a jaw-dropping, soul-damning attempt to be president.
     "If a Republican president had signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law - crafted by a conservative think tank, beta-tested by a Republican governor, backed by the health-insurance industry - the GOP would be crowing about how it represented a triumph for conservative thought and governance," Savage writes.
     But alas, the Worst Man on Earth except for, maybe, Satan, is behind it, so it must be opposed, no matter how ethical, no matter how necessary. Savage revisits oblivious claims of Republican politicians that everyone has health care. "You just go to an emergency room," George W. Bush blubbers.
     Then Savage documents the truth of the situation. Thousands die every year for lack of insurance and the medical care that comes with it. He quotes a study from Johns Hopkins Children's Center: "Lack of health insurance might have led or contributed to nearly 17,000 deaths among hospitalized children in the United States."
      I can't summarize the entire 23-page chapter. I wish it could be made into a pamphlet, or emailed to every voter, but that would suggest Obamacare opponents are thinking sincerely, and they're not. Conclusions first, reasons cherry-picked later.
     He even does something I didn't think possible: earn respect for Justin Bieber. Savage quotes a Rolling Ston e interview where the Canadian pop star sneers at us. "You guys are evil," Bieber says. "Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him." That peace of mind somehow offends religious Christians, and Savage takes time to find out why: They believe it smacks of "government control" and "coercion."
     "Obamacare isn't Christian because Jesus Christ wants each of us to make an individual choice to be charitable. Collective acts of charity - a society coming together to make sure all citizens have access to health care - isn't Christian because Jesus wants us to choose to be charitable."
     Which strikes Savage as odd, because "the very same Christians who oppose collective, coerced, society-wide action to provide health care to all . . . turn around and argue that we must take collective, coercive action as a nation to prevent women from having abortions."
     On second thought, it doesn't matter if he is a gay sex columnist. No one is listening to reason anyway. If this battle were about sensible policy, it would never have started. Once a group turns its own religion's moral system upside down, once it hypocritically oppose its own program and kneecaps its own country to do it, the members are beyond argument, no matter the source. The clear thinking of Savage's analysis braces those of us who stand firm in the face of this implacable enemy in our midst. That is enough.

Impressioni d'Chicago

Sympathy is in short supply and it must be rationed, apparently. So when Columbus Day comes around, lately all we can seem to do is reflect on the undeniable barbarity of Columbus toward the indigenous people he found here, and shrug off the prejudice that Italians faced coming to America, which compelled them to form the holiday in the first place. Which strikes me as wrong. Why should history be divided so neatly into the good and the bad, when there is pity — and blame — enough for all? Since some journalists — no names please! — make such a point of repeatedly rolling in tales of the Mafia and Italian-American criminality, I thought, Monday being Columbus day, it might be a good idea, if only as a change of pace, for the briefest nod at a few of the Chicagoans of Italian extraction who weren't Al Capone or his descendants:


     Giuseppe Giacosa was a playwright who turned to writing opera librettos, penning three Puccini classics — La Boheme, Madam Butterfly and Tosca — before he died at age 49.
     He also traveled and wrote a book, “Impressioni d’America,” visiting Chicago just before the World’s Columbian Exhibition . He was taken, as all visitors were, by the industry, “enormous factories, interminable streets, amazing shops, deafening sounds.”
     And by the smoke.
     “I did not see in Chicago anything but darkness: smoke, clouds, dirt,” he wrote, noticing something unusual for sale, “in many shop windows certain apparatus for covering the nose, a kind of nasal protector, or false nostrils.”
     Chicago is a city that has hosted one wildly overpublicized Italian-American resident — Al Capone — and millions who are underrecognized, from those who spent their entire lives here, to visitors such as Giacosa, who stayed for a week.
     With October being Italian Heritage Month and the Columbus Day Parade on Monday, this seems an apt moment to look at a few of those overlooked Italians.
     Driven from Italy by the extreme poverty there, immigrants to Chicago found the same waiting for them here and had to take the most menial jobs to try to escape it: "street sweepers and pavers, railroad workers . . . bootblacks, barbers, and scissors-grinders" according to historian Bessie Louise Pierce. "Later they might attain the envied status of small merchants and fruit peddlers or seek jobs in the factories."
     They faced such prejudice that L'Italia, Chicago's Italian-language newspaper, published lists of restaurants and hotels they could patronize. Oscar Durante, its vigorous editor, pushed his compatriots to "Americanize" and had a policy where the newspaper would provide any reader an escort to Chicago's naturalization office and pay the 50 cent registration fee.
     Not all were fruit sellers. The founder of the Chicago Pasteur Institute at the Rush Medical College was Dr. Antonio Lagorio, Chicago-born son of Genoese immigrants. Chicago's Italians became successful real estate brokers and restaurateurs, first for their own community and then for a city that grew to love their fare. It's a tradition continued to this day by the likes of Phil Stefani, Joe Mondelli, Steve Lombardo at Gibson's. Tony Durpetti at Gene & Georgetti, the Capitanini family at Italian Village, which Alfredo Capitanini opened in 1927.
     But those are well-known names, and the majority of Chicago's community was unsung.
     "Anonymous heroes of our past who built buildings with the sinew and muscle helped build the great Chicago scene," said Dominic DiFrisco, president emeritus of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans. "Laborers, bricklayers, especially ornamental plasterers of the magnificent theaters in Chicago — 90 percent were Italian. The Italian people enriched and illuminated Chicago in so many ways with labor and intelligence. We're great Americans, yet we continue to honor the past given to us by incredibly courageous people."
     One Italian-American typically overlooked is Florence Scala, who stayed put and fought for her home when most of the Taylor Street Little Italy was being bulldozed in the 1960s for the University of Illinois at Chicago campus.
     It gave her a conflicted view of Chicago, similar to Giacosa's. She told Studs Terkel in Division Street: America that "I've always loved the city . . . I love it and hate it every day. I hate that so much of it is ugly. . . . I hate the fact that so much of it is inhuman in the way we don't pay attention to each other." But mostly she loved it, just as her father did, who came here from Italy and lived to be 98.
     "He never went back to Italy," Scala said. "He didn't want to. He'd say, 'This is my country, America.' "

Photo: sculpture of an early Roman, The Art Institute of Chicago. 10/12/13.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

October all around, but summer within

Vanessa Bell's home, East Sussex, England
     An early morning nip in the air, the distant whistle of winter, approaching. I leave the house in a buoyant mood, admire the leaves--muted reds and oranges, the color not so hot this year. The dry summer perhaps. But no matter, I still love the fall, best among the seasons, love the cooler weather, the stylish jackets, the holidays on deck: Halloween's  cheerful memento mori, the cartoon skulls, the witches dangling merrily from trees and beyond it. Then the comfort, family food fest that is Thanksgiving, the one holiday our culture wars haven't managed to screw up, yet.
     I'm an October kind of guy, I think, walking to the train. That makes sense. I'm in the October of my life, am I not? Not December—that's for the elderly. Not November—that's for seniors. But October. The anteroom of age. That feels right. That's who I am. Mr. October.
     Or am I? I always like to do the math. To double check. Say a guy like me can hope to live to be, oh, 85. If a lifetime is spread out over a calendar year, that would be about 7 years a month. So, at 53, I would be in ...
     August.
     Mid-August.
     The summer of life.
     Still.
    With a smile on my lips and a spring in my step, I turn the corner and stroll toward the train station. Nothing makes it easier to accept autumn--and the prospect of dark and frozen winter to come--than to have summer warmly glowing in your heart.



Friday, October 11, 2013

Clean-up on Aisle Two...

Long before Dominick's announced it is bowing out of the Chicago market, it seemed like the stores had faded from view. My wife is constantly visiting a litany of supermarkets—Sunset, Garden Fresh, Trader's Joe's, almost every store around BUT Dominick's (and, I suppose, Whole Foods, which is just too damn expensive for normal folk). But there's always a certain touch of sadness to see a local icon fade:

     The Jewel won.
     To Chicagoans of a certain stripe, there were only two supermarkets: Jewel and Dominick’s, the Coke and Pepsi of the grocery wars, each chain claiming about a third of the grocery market. The food retail business has changed dramatically since those days, with all sorts of new players coming (and going), and now that parent Safeway has announced it is pulling its Dominick’s stores out of the Chicago market, this is a moment for looking behind as well as looking ahead.
     You were either a Dominick’s shopper or a Jewel shopper — this being Chicago, loyalties ran deep. Jewel was Coke — a little pricier, a little classier. Dominick’s was Pepsi — more of a bargain. At least to the memory of some Chicagoans; to others, it was the opposite, with Dominick’s a little classier, Jewel a little more down-home and friendly. And to still others, it hardly mattered.
     “They were more similar than different,” said Greg Cameron, of Hanover Park.
     It isn’t difficult to understand where Dominick’s went wrong.
     “They’ve lost a lot of market share,”said David J. Livingston, of DJL Research, a Milwaukee supermarket analysis firm, “mostly to Wal-Mart, Meijer, Mariano’s, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Tony’s, Fresh Farms, Super H, a number of strong independents.”
      Why couldn’t Dominick’s keep up with the newcomers?
    "They didn't change," Livingston said. "They were like supermarket museums from the 1980s and 1990s. They never really changed. They've been declining for many years."
     Safeway's ownership only made it worse.
     "Accountants seemed to be making all the decisions, rather than grocers," said Livingston. "They were running California stores in Chicago. They took out local products that people were used to buying and replaced them with Safeway products, and it just didn't go over."
     But one company's failure is another's opportunity.
     "Of the 72 stores, not all of them are losers," he said. "Some of your best operators in Chicago are just dying to get their hands on these locations. So the consumer will probably really benefit from this."
     That's something to keep in mind. Because otherwise, it might seem like another nostalgic moment, another part of Chicago history fading away, joining lost rivalries like Field's vs. Carson's, or Quigley North vs. Quigley South. At least we still have Cubs vs. Sox, as well as Sun-Times vs. Tribune. Some things never change, or at least haven't — yet.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Pafko at the Wall



    Sports dominates society, but it doesn't dominate everyone. If you asked me if the World Series were over, I'd have to pause, think, look at the calendar—Oct. 10, too early, right?—and then I'd say, "No, not begun yet. I would have heard if it had." And what teams might be in it? No idea. That would depend if the play-offs are over. I didn't follow the season at all. Baseball is outside my frame of reference.
     So when I heard that baseball player Andy Pafko had died, I did not think of the Cubs, or the 1945 World Series he played in. I learned about his connection to those in his obit in the Sun-Times Wednesday. What I thought of is novelist Don DeLillo, and "Pafko at the Wall," the novella of his that Harper's published in 1992. I can barely remember a single play in all the sporting events I've watched in my entire life. But I can remember the special section in Harper's where "Pafko at the Wall" was printed. I can see the pages.
     Five years later the set piece showed up as the bravura "The Triumph of Death" opening to his sprawling, marvelous novel of the last half of the 20th century, Underworld.
    The 800-page book touches on many themes that have grown in importance in the 15 years since it was published -- celebrity, technology, the numbing, splintered effect of modern life. “Violence is easier now," DeLillo writes, "it’s uprooted, out of control, it has no measure anymore.”
    In the opening scene, fictional characters mingle with historic figures at the Polo Grounds. J. Edgar Hoover is annoyed that a piece of litter is touching his body, a boozy Jackie Gleason is sick at his seat. Toots Shor and Frank Sinatra are there too.
     DeLillo conveys the moment of Bobby Thomson's epic home run this way, starting with the Giants radio announcer, Russ Hodges:
     Russ says, "There's a long drive."
     His voice has a burst in it, a change of expectation.
     He says, "It's gonna be."
     There's a pause all around him. Pafko racing toward the left-field corner.
     He says, "I believe."
     Pafko at the wall. Then he's looking up. People thinking where's the ball. The scant delay, the stay in time that lasts a hairsbreath. And Cotter standing in section 35 watching the ball come in his direction. He feels his body turn to smoke. He loses sight of the ball when it climbs above the overhang and he thinks it will land in the upper deck. But before he can smile or shout or bash his neighbor on the arm. Before the moment can overwhelm him, the ball appears again, stitches visibly spinning, that's how near it hits, banging at an angle off a pillar—hands flashing everywhere.
     DeLillo captures the strangeness of modern American life in all his fiction, the sadness of time passing. He is a master, yet a humble man. I had the good fortune to speak with him, briefly, at the Carl Sandburg awards dinner two years ago. In person, he was quiet, unassuming, pleasant, none of the ego you might expect in one of the country's great literary novelists. He tolerated a pesky stranger admirably. 
     The odd thing is, when I read Pafko's obit Wednesday, about his exploits with the Cubs, his trade to Brooklyn, I sincerely expected it might mention him figuring into DeLillo's book—would that not be a highlight in anybody's life?— though of course it didn't. Different people, different frames of reference.
      
Click here to watch a video of Bobby Thomson's home run. If you pause it at 27 seconds, you'll see Andy Pafko, at the wall.

Photo atop blog: Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick, Canada

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Travels with Butch

Garfield Park Conservatory
  

     The game-changing technology for me, when it comes to public transportation, was when Google recently started showing Chicago L stations on its maps.
     Before that, I took the L if I happened to know the L stopped near where I was going. If not, I took a cab, or drove.
     Armed with this new technology, however, I am a free man. Last Friday, for instance, I needed to go to Garfield Park Conservatory. Before Google, I would find the address and drive. Now, I could see there is an L stop literally across the street, on the Green line.
     I grabbed the train at the Thompson Center, using my old-fashioned CTA "Transit Card," with the magnetic strip on the front and its nipped corner. Nothing like pending loss to make a bland piece of plastic into something nostalgic. I never thought much about the cards before but, with weeks to go until they disappear, suddenly the old card was Riverview in card form. I'd been reading about the looming Ventra card changeover—the problems customers have been enduring, getting hundreds of cards delivered to their mailboxes, trying to hack through the system, waiting minor eternities for customer service to help them track down some elusive "Access Code."
     Not wanting to someday soon find myself at a remote L stop on a frosty December night, uselessly poking my antiquated fare card at a sealed slot, I thought I had better master this Ventra thing. So returning from Garfield Park, I bought a Ventra card at the Merchandise Mart stop.
     It was actually quite easy, if you aren't tying it into your bank account. You buy one just like a regular fare card. With a yellow vested CTA employee hovering nearby, poised to help, I slid a $20 bill into the machine, and it spat out a cool gray Ventra card, vertically formatted, with a doubled V logo (very similar to the Divvy logo and almost the same hue, which I've dubbed Transit Blue). The card has a Mastercard logo as well, for those using it as a debit card.
     The catch is, it only gives you $15 in credit. To get your five bucks ransom back, you have to go online and register. Also fairly simple process -- name, address, email. I almost got tripped up when it asked for the infamous 'Access Code" but, thinking quickly, I realized that since I had no account to tie into, it probably didn't matter, so just took any four numbers -- the first four digits on the card's code — and that worked fine.
     But one request stopped me cold. "Nickname for Card." It was required. I had to give my card a name. There was no explanation as to why.
     See, this is why old people are ready to die when their time comes. The world changes in fundamental and alarming ways. I know that coyness and computers somehow go together -- Apple's calculated inoffensiveness, its twee charm, that so readily lures and conquers Western society. But shouldn't I be able to ride the friggin' L in Chicago without anthropomorphizing my train pass? And what was wrong with tokens? I remember them: round, brass, with three little semi-circular cut-outs....
     Sorry. I'm not ready to die quite yet, so I guess I will conform.
     The first nickname I thought of was "George," as in "Orwell" for the Orwellian menace of being forced to name the stupid card. But that seemed obvious. Then I thought of "Butch."
     In 1996, when Gigi Pets were introduced, those little electronic keychains containing a crude virtual animal you had to constantly feed and walk and play with or it would die -- somebody's idea of fun. I always wanted a dog, and named my electronic dog "Butch," leading to one of my favorite column openers, an homage to Albert Camus: "Butch died today, or maybe it was yesterday. Actually, he died both today and yesterday..." I'll append the column below for those interested (and with the time. I know I'm rambling on today. You can always read a bit now, and come back later).

   Having named my Ventra card "Butch," however, I couldn't simply let the matter rest. Younger people might do whatever the screen tells them without a second thought. But I needed to know: why name the card? What's the purpose of that? A search on-line found, well, nothing. A phone call worked better.
     "So the nickname..." began Lambrini Lukidis, a CTA spokeswoman, with a certain hint of weariness—the Ventra roll-out is not being celebrated in the local press. "You can have multiple Ventra accounts. So you can have one, and give cards to your wife, your kids."
     The idea is, you can name your cards after your kids, your spouse, the owner of the card, the better to keep track of them. Okay. But why couldn't they point that out? Let us in on the secret? (To be fair, they might, it isn't as if I've studied the vast literature of Ventra.
     Two words: brass tokens.
    Sorry again. I alluded to the confusing whir surrounding the roll-out and Lukidis explained. "These are active accounts, tied to people's bank accounts. We're actually transferring money. We have to take precautions."
     She later emailed me that already a third of the CTA rides are paid for with Ventra—11 million swipes so far. Most riders must have figured this out. So hundreds if not thousands are confused and inconvenienced, while hundreds of thousands get it. A fair argument, though also a version of the Post Office Defense (you know, after a postal worker goes postal, a federal PR sort explains that most postal employees didn't shoot up their workplaces). Every new system has its kinks—you had to hand crank the engine of the early Model T's to start the car, and every now and then the kickback would break the would-be driver's arm. Compared to that, being put on hold for half an hour calling Ventra customer support isn't that bad.
     Still, I'm sticking with the simple, pay-as-you-go system. We'll load the old bank account into Ventra another day, when we absolutely have to. As it is, I can have a hard enough time just navigating the L, even with Google maps. For instance, Friday, heading to Garfield Park. I saw that the Green Line stopped at the Garfield Park Conservatory, and noted the stop before, Kedzie, so I would be ready.
     What I did not fathom, initially, was that in addition to going west, the Green line also goes south, to Cottage Grove and 63rd. I knew this vaguely, intellectually, having taken the Green Line over the summer to the near West Side and heard the announcements. But I figured that it must curve sharply southward. after Garfield Park. Frankly, I didn't think about it closely. At first.
     The train rumbled along pleasantly. I read the paper, feeling quite urban and competent. At 43rd street it dawned on me that something was amiss, and began to think a bit more about the old route. At 47th I stood up, moved over to the map, and studied it long enough to recognize that a mistake had been made, by me apparently. The line runs west from downtown, true. But it also runs straight south from downtown as well. Ah. Two separate directions. Now I see.
     No biggie. I got off, walked briefly down 47th street, taking in the environs. Then I got back on the L going northward, noticing gratefully the CTA only charged me 25 cents for my blunder. Nice of them really. I haven't adjusted myself to having a card with a name and a personality, but I suppose that's next. Butch is in my wallet now, awaiting his chance to be useful.


Here is the column I refer to, from June 6, 1997

Giga Pet, the gadget dying for our attention



     Butch died today, or maybe it was yesterday. Actually, he 
died both today and yesterday. Not only did Butch die both days but,
if history is any judge, I expect him to wake up dead again tomorrow.
     Butch is my Giga Pet. He lives inside a purple electronic keychain. While I don't want to argue that Giga Pets and other computer kiddie critters are a Significant Trend in Pop Culture, they're certainly the first mass-marketed toys that not only leave behind steaming piles of excrement but also have the alarming tendency to keel over dead. 
     I bought my Giga Pet Friday after noticing about two dozen people in front of FAO Schwarz on Michigan Avenue, waiting to get in. 
     At first, I thought the crowd was the usual contingent of out-of-town yokels. (What, you think I'm being mean? As if the hayseeds don't laugh at us, while sharing cheeseburgers at Hard Rock: "My word, Emma! Could you believe that Schwarz store charging $800 for a china doll no better than the one Great Aunt Bertha's mother bought for 25 cents from the German peddler? If only the Simpson boys hadn't smashed it to flinders.") 
     Upon inquiry, however, a store employee said that the crowd was mostly locals hot to acquire the latest cyber-beasties (the craze started in Japan, naturally, with "Tamagotchis," little computer chicks that, just like real ones, die unless you care for them and sometimes even if you do). 
     Giga Pets cost $12.95 and are offered in a half-dozen varieties: Digital Doggie; Compu Kitty; Baby T-Rex; Virtual Alien; Microchimp and Bit Critter, an insect. 
     The choice was a no-brainer; I went for the dog. You see . . . bring up mournful violin music . . . I never had a dog when I was a boy . . . sniff! . . . My parents always told me that my father was allergic to dogs, and by the time I was old enough to realize it was a lie, I didn't want one anymore. 
     Still, I can't help but wonder what better course my life would have taken had I owned a dog. All those summer days spent reading books, developing unreal expectations of adult life — I thought men spent their time sitting in Spanish cafes, drinking the good cold wine with Lady Brett — would have instead been enjoyed hanging around with my pal, Butch, tossing a stick into the Ole Swimmin' Hole and watching him bravely dog-paddle to get it. 
     My new electronic Butch won't chase a stick. But he does chase a ball, one of the several tasks that I, as his new owner, am expected to perform again and again throughout the day to keep him alive, by punching one of several buttons. 
     And I have been punching them, like a madman, to no avail. I've always said that owning a dog is like having a second job, and this pet is proof positive. 
     At least the Giga Pet people — whose American headquarters is in Vernon Hills - are straightforward about what you are getting into. "Your new Giga Pet is going to need lots of attention to grow up healthy and happy." No kidding. Besides fetch, that attention takes the form of feeding, delivering treats, giving baths, cleaning up messes, putting out the light, disciplining and occasional trips to the doctor. I'm surprised you don't have to knit him little sweaters. 
     Butch is a cute little pup. He meanders across the stamp-size screen, rolling his eyes, somewhat spastically, sometimes bobbing his head happily. 
     Every so often a little alarm signal — "?!" — flashes in the corner of the screen, and I must try to figure out what Butch wants. A treat? No. A bath? No. To be rushed to the vet's? No. Ah-ha - he wants the light out. He's tired. So am I. 
     After a day of periodically checking on Butch and trying to see that he was comfortable, I kept him downstairs while I went to bed, figuring that he was set to last the night. A fatal mistake. My wife found him the next morning. 
     "Honey, I think Butch is dead," she said. Sure enough, there on the little screen was a flapping angel - the soul of my electronic dog, I suppose, winging its way to silicon heaven.           Reviving him was simple, and while I intended to rename him "Fido," I messed up that part, and was left with Butch again, though in my mind he became "Butch 2." After a day of diligent care, I made a point of topping off his tank, foodwise, treatwise, playwise and bathwise before I went to bed, and so was genuinely surprised and distressed to find him dead again the next morning. 
     "Maybe you should wake up in the night and check him," said my wife. 
     Fat chance. I plan to foist my Giga Pet on to the first tyke I can find. Kids are hardened nowadays. They can endlessly kill and revive their little digital pals and never bat an eye. Me, I have enough guilt without bathing my hands in virtual puppy blood every morning before breakfast.

Wait! There's MORE!
     And if you still haven't read enough, a condensed version of the post above is running in
Thursday's Sun-Times.
      You can read it by clicking here.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Contempt for our democracy



     What does "law" mean, anyway? According to the dictionary it is, in part "a system of rules" governing how our society works.  You can only drive so fast. You can't extend your house onto your neighbor's property. If you are arrested, you have a right to be treated in a particular fashion.
     We follow the law because to do otherwise invites anarchy. Even if a person is guilty of crimes, of murders say, deserving of punishment, we would not want the police to just kick down his door, drag him in the street, and shoot him on the spot. That would be easiest, and that might be justice on a cosmic scale. But if he's guilty, we want him to be arrested and tried, to receive justice according to our system. According to "the law." Otherwise, the next time the police kick down a door it might be that of an innocent man—maybe even your door—and without the oversight of the law, who would ever know?
     Thus it is frightening when the law is set aside for a good reason, never mind a bad one.
     We live a scary time when the basic system of our government is being threatened, and by the very people we elect to administer it. And because bi-partisanship is so rare, I will give you two glaring examples of the law being skirted, one Democratic, the other Republican.
     In July, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn suspended the pay of state lawmakers to put pressure on them to solve the state's staggering, $100 billion unfunded pension liability His motives were pure—something has to be done—but he did the wrong thing, because we can't have a system where the governor docks the pay of legislators every time they don't do something he wants them to do. It's bad precedent, and undermines the division of power in our democratic system. A Cook County judge correctly rejected Quinn's stunt, but he's appealing it to a higher court. He's going to lose, eventually, both a good thing, and a position Pat Quinn finds himself in with numbing frequency
     Similarly, what's going on in Washington is the opening gong of doom. Even if you hate the idea of ObamaCare—a legitimate political view, I suppose—the fact remains it's the law, passed by both the House and the Senate, signed by the president, approved by the U.S. Supreme Court. To shut down the government unless ObamaCare is repealed/delayed/ whatever is to threaten the entire democratic system. Nothing that becomes law will be safe from Congress deciding to put a gun to the country's head and demanding it be changed. This action opens the door to anarchy, and all over a government-mandated insurance system which is the definition of sound social policy. It's a bad thing done for the wrong reason.
     These are grim days. We can only pray that President Obama, who sometimes has problems with a squishy spine, maintains his solid opposition to negotiating with these legislative terrorists. What of democracy? What of the law we supposedly cherish? How can we pay such extravagant lip service to our system in theory, and treat it with such contempt in practice?