But are your vegetables really clean?

     Tofu is white, cool and gelid, and if you need to find it in a grocery store, you would proceed to the ... 
     No, no, wait, hold that thought. I'll answer it shortly. 
     Well, eventually. I'll answer it eventually.
     There's something more incredible I want to tell yo about.
     Did you know they sell a product designed to clean the inside of your washing machine? 
     I didn't.    
     Tide, of course. "Washing Machine Cleaner." I took a photo in case you didn't believe me.  I could hardly believe it myself and the thing was right in front of me.
     Were I been less busy, maybe I'd have stayed and studied the product. As it is, I snapped this and hurried on to my task. I don't know if the cleaner is a sort of liquid or an infused sponge or a kind of hand grenade.
      I would have thought that the drum of a washing machine is already very clean, since it's always being filled with sudsy water, then agitated with wet clothes, and rinsed, thoroughly. 
     But wait, as Ron Popeil would say. There's more.
     They also sell a spray to clean vegetables.
     An expensive spray it is. $5.99 for 16 ounces. You can buy red wine for far less.
     Red wine from France.
     And the vegetable cleaner comes not in one, but in a variety of brands: three types offered for sale at Sunset Foods. Who buys that? You'd have to be insane. 

 If you're wondering where this is coming from, my wife has the flu. I was busy making peppermint tea and pumping ibuprofen into her when she informed me that I would have to do the shopping. Of course dear...
    What was I supposed to say? No...?
     Target. Sunset. Max & Benny's. Sure, I've been to these places. All the time, on small scale errands. But never on a Saturday. With a list. 
     A long list. 
     I'm tempted to post the list, but that strikes me as crossing some sort of line. Spousal cruelty, perhaps. As it is, this is a fraught topic, but my wife is a good sport, or will be, when she's feeling better. 
    I hope.
    The list. A full 8 x 10 sheet of paper, covered —covered—with a small scrawl detailing products and brands, flavors, sizes, prices, beginning with "—Bounty Paper towels [lg amount -select sizes if available]."
    Before I left she stressed the Bounty part. Don't be gulled into getting cheap paper towels that don't work. This was foreshadowing, but I missed the logic at work, and didn't realize it applied to more than paper towels.
    Nowadays a "large amount" is a given. Try buying a small amount somewhere that isn't a 7-11. Stores realized that customers will warehouse their merchandise for them if given a small discount. I bought an enormous slab of paper towels-- 8 rolls--for $9.99 and a second, equal size slab because it was half price. I didn't even try to figure out what "select sizes if available" meant. (A reference to the way the towels are perforated; my wife had actually explained that to me, prior to my leaving, but in the heat of the moment, I forgot).
     Space—or rather, your attention span; space here is unlimited—won't allow me to go into the careful calculations required before each item was slid into the huge red bin on wheels Target calls a shopping cart. My wife had written simply "Ibuprofen." The price range was astounding -- 100 200 mg tablets cost the same as 40 200 mg liquigels. Less than half the cost, per dose. I compared the small reddish pills—they looked like Tylenol, and we had that--with the ovoid blue caplets. I didn't remember any instructions as to one being superior to another. 

     The true difficulty came with "Aquaph0r." I was fairly confident, Aquaphor-wise, as I remembered the squat white jars with the blue lid scattered around the house. So I know what it looks like. But standing in the vastness of Target, I realized I had no idea what Acquaph0r is. A cream? A cleanser? A lotion? My wife and son both use it. Something for the skin. Not knowing its nature, I couldn't figure out where to search for it. Personal hygiene? Office supplies? I approached a lady with a name tag, begged for help, and she guided me to the right expanse of shelf,   which is where the real trouble began.
    A small, 3.5 ounce jar of Aquaphor is $6.99. A monster 14 ounce jar, $14.29. Two small jars would yield 7 ounces of the stuff, whatever it is, for $13.98. You were paying almost twice as much for the convenience of small jars.
     If my wife has a Primary Shopping Directive, paper towels notwithstanding, it is this: save money. Drilled into me. For years: I am  a spendthrift idiot for not looking at prices, figuring out amounts. Be be be. Frugal frugal frugal. Why buy brand names when the ShopCo brand costs a fraction of the amount? 
     So I tried to think on my own, using the Primary Directive as a guide. Was this not a huge saving?  Twice as much Aquaphor gloop, whatever it is, for the same price (God, I sure hope it isn't some embarrassing personal hygiene product. I'm utterly buggered then). I took the large jar and put it in my cart. She would admire my ingenuity.
     Or would she? Qualms set in. I had never seen a jar that size in our house. If it was such a bargain, why hadn't she bought it? Maybe I, me, could have some input in the household process. Okay ...  I ... I would swing by the pharmacy, where they had all those travel tubes and empty jars, buy a small jar—it wouldn't cost $7 certainly—and scoop out some of my bargain Aquaph0r. 
     Problem solved.
     The image of myself with a tablespoon transferring white cold cream, or clown make-up, or hemorrhoid ointment, or whatever, from one big jar to a little travel jar spurred me to whip the phone out and bother the sick woman to confirm the wisdom of this. 
     "Honey," I began, explaining my reasoning. 
      "Absolutely not," my wife instructed, explaining that in this case the need to divide the cream trumped the need to save money. My divide-the-larger-jar-ourselves idea was waved away as lunacy.
     I won't go into the internal debate over the dizzying array of brands of toilet paper. I was attracted to a brand with ridges. I had never seen it before. It looked futuristic, like the toilet paper you'd find aboard the Pan Am rocket ship from "2001 A Space Odyssey." But I had to buy 18 rolls of it. I couldn't sample one, as a test. We'd have to live with that ridged toilet paper for a while, and what if it was the Wrong Toilet Paper? What if there were something inherently wrong with ridges that I didn't know about? You can't very well take toilet paper back, can you? "I'm sorry, I'm returning this plastic wrapped palette of toilet paper. It has ridges." 
     That's when I encountered this display, for a product to clean out your clothes washer. To be honest, it further unsettled me, as if I had glanced down an aisle and seen a row of mummified puppy heads, the latest thing. What is this? (My wife later informed me that washer cleaner is not the scam it seems -- mold -- but that she used a rag with some Simply Green). 
      At this point in Target my mind must have shut down, because I simply left, without getting two of the 11 items on my list: milk and cereal. Basic stuff. I'd suppose that the idea of buying food at Target was alien to me, but I managed the Amy's frozen burritos--which my boys consume after they spurn home-cooked meals. I think I simply missed her elaborate explanation of the sort of milk to be gotten, four gallons (my younger boy guzzles it). As for cereal, my wife helpfully listed a few examples: Raisin Bran, Special K, Rice Krispies, in case I wasn't familiar with the term.
     Maybe it was because my cart was full, packed with blocks of paper towels and toilet paper. I'd need to start on a second cart. The bounty set me back $107.50.
      Perhaps rebelling against the Target mega-cart, at Sunset Foods, I chose one of those small, urban grocery carts that look like they're made for dolls. Usually they're fine for what I want, and more maneuverable, around my fellow Northbrookites, their faces masks of pain and the ravages of time, standing in the center of the aisle, blocking it with their carts, whining into their cell phones to Herbert, their husband, apparently. 
      I dragooned a butcher to help me with the Amish split fryers and the pork chops. With the later, he said something like, "I could make a joke about that," and I almost replied, "What? What is it? Tell me the joke! It's because I'm a Jew, isn't it?" I didn't actually say that, but took the thought as evidence my composure was starting to crack. I had been shopping for over and hour at that point. 
      Done? I've hardly bgun. There was the wait at the deli counter, the Banana Choice: yellow or green? Squinting at what seemed to be "comic pears" in my wife's handwriting. Looking at all the variety of pears—who knew. Anjou pears and Bartlet pears. Ah, comice pears, only 99 cents a pound. I wouldn't eat a pear if you put a gun to my head: mealy. I bought four.
     Near the end of my shopping trip at Sunset, I realized I had forgotten the milk and cereal at Target. Go back? Never. It's milk. And cereal. It's the same everywhere. Right? Raisin Bran was on sale -- that would do. By the time I got to the milk aisle, my little cart was tottering with merchandise piled upon it. I'd have to get another cart. Maybe two gallons will serve. Two gallons ought to last a while, right? He's just one teenager. 
      A quick swipe of a red card, $121.50 vanished from my life and I was on my way to the third stop, Max & Benny's, where my list was simple: chicken soup, to nurse the sick girl. No matzo ball, which I had a hard time understanding, intellectually. Chicken soup with no matzo ball? Some kasha varnishkas on the side. My people's comfort food. Think bow tie noodles with some kind of grain tossed in. Cookies for my college student to bring to a party.  Three items. 
     The soup was in a blizzard of sizes and varieties. I called home again. Do you want noodles and chicken in it? Or just broth? No noodles.
     I picked out a pound of cookies, added six ruggeleh—little square pastries, for the sick girl. My wife loves 'em. Total bill for my soup, cookies, kasha, half dozen ruggeleh and pint of broth: $31.97. They get you at Max & Benny's.
     And so home, having been gone about two hours on a cold, slushy, sleeting day. I would have been more relieved, had I not known what was coming.
     They took turns reacting in goggled horror. Two gallons of milk! My younger son was aghast. I was supposed to get four. Two would be gone in a moment.  And where was the Special K? "You didn't get Special K?" he said in a tone normally associated with "Lassie's dead!" 
    "The pills don't work," my wife informed me, of the ibuprofen. "Only the gel-caps work."
     "You could have told me that," I replied.
     "I can't think of every possibility," she replied.
     "You told me which flavors of Greek yogurt to get..."
     Then the soup. Why no chicken? 
     "I called," I said weakly. "I asked you. No chicken."
     "No noodles."
     "They were paired, on the sign. 'Chicken and noodles.'"
     She was sick, so I let the matter slide and slunk upstairs, happy to ... well, write this post assuming I don't delete the whole thing, which is probably prudent. 
     In the past, I vaguely resented my wife doing all the shopping -- obviously done to keep control on finances, to prevent spendthrift me from buying expensive stuff. From now on, I will only be humbled and grateful. Thank you honey for sparing me this. I thought my mind would crack. In the parking lot of Sunset, for one crazed moment I considered going home, grabbing the gasoline from the garage, spreading it around the ground floor and burning the house down, then starting life afresh as a hobo. But that would be bad. I decided it might be better just to let you do the shopping. 
     Tofu, by the way, though it is white and chilled and gelid, was not to be found among the cheeses and the yogurt and the kefirs and the eggs where I expected it to be, and where I searched for it, for quite some time, until I began to look for an employee, finding one on the other side of the store. It was in the "Organic produce" section, next to the lettuce, I learned this after asking a clerk, who obviously had never heard the word "tofu" before, and then accompanying him while he consulted with another clerk who had. Of course, tofu. Made from soybeans. Grown from the ground. Practically an apple. 
    This is what the philosophers would call a "Category error." I had lumped it with other white, cool, gelid materials, like cream cheese, when it really is a plant. Like lettuce—next to the lettuce, in fact. So learning was accomplished, though I fervently hope never to have to put my newfound shopping skills, at least not after this flu passes. Which, I'm told, should be another eight days. By evening, I was coming down with it too, and as I sniffled and hacked and ached, I thought, happily, "One of the boys can do the shopping..."  

Saturday fun activity: Where IS this?

     Starbucks coffee is too strong for me. Industrial strength, I'm not sure what it's intended for. Stripping the paint off old buildings. Or maybe I drink too much coffee to be its target customer. I like a coffee I can drink in volume. One cup of Starbucks and not only don't I want another cup for a day or two, but the entire idea of coffee is thrown into question. I only go there if I'm meeting someone who suggests meeting in a particular Starbucks, and half the time I get a cup of tea. Drinking Starbucks coffee, it's like a wine connoisseur drinking a bottle of Thunderbird; too overpowering and destroys an experience that should be sublime. 
    Then there is the whole drink-it-and-get-out corporate vibe the place radiates. I can't settle in with my coffee and scone and newspapers and just be. It seems rude, with the line and the other people prowling around, looking for a place to sit themselves. Starbucks is like Whole Foods, a stage set of expensive fakery that many people fall for. And I used to fall for, years ago, if I recall. I suppose it's like McDonald's. Cool, during the initial red and white tile new stage. Now it's just commerce.
     Small coffee shops, on the other hand—independents, or modest chains—that's a different matter. They still have personality, soul, gumption. When I was living on Pine Grove and Oakdale, I'd love to walk up Broadway and hang out in Intelligensia or, if I was up in Evanston, sink into one of the old cast-off chairs at Kaffeine.  Maybe that isn't fair: they're commercial too, just on a tinier, small ball scale. Maybe that's why I prefer them: a certain kinship.
     Or this place. Quirky, with a resident ... well, I guess I better not say, lest I give away the game too easily. This one will probably be cracked in a moment by one of its patrons, who as a prize will get a bag of fine Bridgeport coffee—the kind I drink at home, and also the brand served at The Grind, the coffee stand in the Northbrook train station, which is where I discovered it.
     Remember to place your guesses below. Good luck. 

Spoiler alert:

This was a toughie, not solved until an unprecedented 2:13 p.m., and it took the sleuthing of King Dale, the Tiger Woods of the Saturday Fun Activity and now our four-time champion to ID this place as the Jupiter Outpost, 1139 W. Fulton Market. The resident I almost revealed is an "urban turtle" named Phoebe. 

Happy New Year, and follow the damn law

    We're a nation of laws, when convenient.
    If you're a conservative, for instance, trying to spin your fear of Hispanics into something noble, then respect for the rule of law is a hugely convenient fig leaf to cover your shame. You can cry a river over the stern demands of legality as you explain, again, how you would love to relieve the 11 million immigrants who live in a twilight limbo, would leap to give them hope for a measure of dignity and protection, but gosh, they entered the country illegally, and so the law requires them to be punished forever.. 
    It doesn't. But that's their story and they're sticking to it. 
    Except when the law cuts the other way -- say voters, and courts, and public officials, and basic human decency conspire to let gays out of their own second class cellar, at least when it comes to matrimony, suddenly the rule of law is a mere vapor, a frost of nothing, a hint to be accepted or rejected on an individual whim. Suddenly heroic government clerks and wedding cake bakers are applauded when they take it upon themselves to decide what laws to enforce and what laws to ignore. Individual morals matter, not the law. 
    That's their argument and they're sticking to it. I would suggest it's hard to have it both ways. Though I imagine that being a hypocrite with the self-awareness of a toaster must ease the process.
     Robert L. Hinkle, federal judge in Florida, issued a ruling Thursday—and good for him, or his staff anyway, for working New Year's Day —that addresses the situation in Florida, a state whose ban on gay marriages was found unconstitutional, but where clerks were nevertheless balking at actually issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. Hinkle's ruling, which you can read in full here, has a passage worth repeating:
    "History records no shortage of instances where state officials defied federal court orders on issues of federal constitutional law," the judge writes. "Happily, there are many more instances when responsible officials followed the law, like it or not. Reasonable people can debate whether the ruling in this case was correct and who it binds. There should be no debate, however, on the question whether a clerk of courts may follow the ruling. ... the Constitution requires the Clerk to issue such licenses." The judge ordered clerks statewide to do their jobs.
    The Florida ACLU called the order "a New Year's Day present from federal Judge Robert Hinkle."
    It's a present for everyone—maybe this is a contributing factor to those clerks dragging their feet.  Because any American citizen (or alien resident, for that matter) can get married in Florida. In fact, it's quicker for out-of-stater. In-state residents have a three-day waiting period and a funky training course they are encouraged to take. Out-of-staters can breeze right in without either. No residency requirement to get a marriage license in Florida, just a photo ID. The license will set you back $93.50. (If you want the full Florida marriage experience, go for the four-hour Florida Premarital Preparation Course designed to "increase your chances of creating a fulfilling, lasting marriage." I'm sure it's priceless and educational: traffic school meets Nathaniel West). The course costs $30, you can take it online, and they'll knock $32.50 off the cost of your license. Plus, if you're a Florida resident, taking the course entitles you to skip the three day waiting period to give residents a chance to decide if they really, really want to tie the knot. 
     The ceremony will set you back another $30. Plus they charge a buck for a copy of your marriage certificate, and you have to provide a stamped, self-addressed envelope to mail it to you.  
     Something to think about. The temperature in Miami was 84 degrees Thursday.
   

You need to do the gun math

 

Kent firing a Thompson submachine gun at the FBI range

    You don't want to rush to make hay from a tragedy, dipping your fingers into the fresh blood to underscore your political points.
      Besides, the poor woman who was shot to death by her 2-year-old in a Walmart in Idaho this week, well, really, do you really have to comment? It's clear, isn't it?
      Then I read that the mother was a nuclear researcher. Which just shows how this is not a matter of intelligence, but emotion. 
      Frankly, I view the argument about guns as purely a question of math.  If she had weighed the probability of a felon assaulting her in a way that let her get to the gun in her purse—in slow motion perhaps—versus the odds that her 2-year-old might dig into her purse when she wasn't looking, well, that isn't much of a puzzler either.
     I wrote this column nearly 20 years ago. It lays out my views on the subject in a way which even the staunchest gun rights advocate couldn't debate. Not that anybody's really debating this anymore.
     I've decided to include a few photos of myself and the boys when we were guests of the FBI at its training range in North Chicago, just to show that we're not anti-gun fanatics. We shot guns, we had fun, though we also left the guns with the FBI. where they belong and didn't start toting them around with us. Because guns are dangerous—that's seems really obvious, stated plainly. But look how many people miss this, to their sorrow.
     As a coda, after this column was published, there were two unexpected reactions. First, a top manager at the newspaper called me into his office and yelled at me. See if you can guess what he yelled at me for. And second, I received more complaints about this column than any other I've ever written in my entire career—thousands of angry emails—but not from gun rights advocates, or anything having to do with guns. Can you guess what set people off? I'll tell you after the story.

     The goal was to buy some aspirin. Nothing expensive — aspirin is aspirin. So I went for the generic store brand. But Walgreens has two types: "Extra Strength" 500 mg tablets, and regular, 325 mg tablets. I reached for the 500 mg size. I like to think of myself as an Extra Strength kind of guy.

A liberal takes aim.

     Then I stopped. The Extra Strength were $4.99 for 100 tablets. The regular, $3.99 for 300 tablets. I realized, to my horror, that I would have to do the math. I squinted hard. I held my breath. I let out a loud "Nnnnnnnn" sound that, I'm sure, attracted the attention of store clerks.
     One hundred tablets of 500 mg meant 50 two-pill doses of 1000 mg each; 300 regular tablets meant 100 three-pill doses at 975 mg each. I was about to pay a dollar more for approximately half the amount of aspirin. I grabbed the regular.
     In a world where people stopped to do the math, Walgreens wouldn't sell many bottles of Extra Strength at that price.
     But people don't do the math, as a rule, instead basing their decisions on a sexy label, such as "Extra Strength."
     The problem is not limited to cost-comparison shopping. I was reminded of this while reading Michael O'Neill's letter to the Sun-Times this week. O'Neill says that he wants the legal right to carry a gun to protect himself. He points out that 38 states already allow residents to carry firearms, and reassures us that he has "no criminal intentions."
     There is sound math behind O'Neill's reasoning. A gun's usefulness is directly proportional to how available it is. If my handgun is locked in an attic safe, the range of instances where it could do me any good is severely limited. Should polite felons remember to phone first and say they're on their way over to get me, then I'd be ready.
      Otherwise, the gun is almost useless. If, however, that gun is loaded and on my hip, the set of circumstances when it might come in handy is greatly expanded -- unarmed felons who demand their money before hitting me over the head with a brick are in trouble, for instance.
     So at first glance, the answer is simple: O'Neill is right. We should all carry guns. There is, however, more math to do. Like usefulness, the danger of a handgun is also directly tied to its availability. Carrying a gun around increases the chances that I will shoot myself in the foot while drawing it to scare off the newspaper boy, or that I may decide to rakishly thrust the gun into my belt — the way they do in the movies! — and accidentally unman myself.
     Conversely, locking the gun in a safe in the attic lessens the chance that your little Timmy, whom you carefully trained in firearms safety, is going to have his head blown off by little Billy, the dim neighbor child who discovers your chrome plated .38 Special in the bureau drawer.

Ross tries the Glock.

     To me, the decision is a no-brainer, not based on the Constitution, but on probability. Police carry guns because they can reasonably expect to encounter crime during an average day. I am not a policeman. Even if I thought I'd be attacked once a year, I wouldn't carry a gun. Because the slim chance it would help me during the few seconds of the attack wouldn't balance out against the risk the gun would pose to me and my family every moment of the rest of the year.
     I'm not anti-gun. Like any little boy, I love guns. I have fired handguns at target ranges and enjoyed doing so. But I wouldn't own one, for the same reason I wouldn't own a Bengal tiger. The pleasure of having a big cat padding around the apartment just doesn't outweigh the risk that — no matter how tame — the tiger would one day decide it wants to taste the baby.
     Maybe that makes me a coward.
     I wouldn't ride a motorcycle either. I understand that they are a lot of fun, that there is a close-knit community of motorcyclists, that a Harley-Davidson is a work of art whose engine sounds like God Almighty clearing his throat.

     But I also know that the nurses at Presbyterian-St. Luke's call them "donorcycles" and the answer to my favorite party trivia question — "Why are there more heart transplants in summer than in winter?" — is, "Because people ride motorcycles in summer, and that's where donated hearts come from."     
     In life, people put their chips down on the odds they like. I've placed my bets on a boring, work-a-daddy four-door sedan with an airbag and a shoulder belt. And any felon who asks for my wallet can have it -- to tell you the truth, even if I had a gun, I like to think I wouldn't shoot somebody over $17 and a few credit cards anyway.    

     But a lot of people would. A lot of people are so eager to shoot somebody that they want to carry around loaded weapons. Balancing the hazy, hard-to-figure risk of popping some mischievous teen or hapless motorist or themselves against the crystal-clear, ingrained movie fantasy of Clint Eastwood gunning down bad guys, they chose the fantasy.

     Math is tough, after all, and not that much fun.

     —Originally published in the Chicago Sun-Times, April 14, 1996.

     What upset Larry Green about the above was that it mentioned Walgreens, a big advertiser, even in a neutral, discussing-the-price-of-aspirin fashion. They hadn't even complained; he was just terrified they might and, if I recall, the head of advertising had complained. I tried to explain my philosophy that specificity leads to more interesting writing. Didn't get me very far, but I'm still here, and he's long gone.
     And the line about the donorcycles enraged the top flack at the American Motorcyclist Association, the group that lobbies to allow motorcycle riders to not wear helmets, who wrote a deceptive post fingering me as the enemy of freedom and directing their membership to deluge me with hate emails, which they did. For years afterward, if I got an email saying simply, "You're an asshole," I would write back, "Don't believe everything your motorcycle masters tell you." 

An encounter at the cookie counter

      There must be something cruel about what I do, I realized, standing in the parking lot of Joe Caputo and Son's Fruit Market on Dundee Wednesday afternoon, wondering if I should hurry back inside and take a picture of the lady I had just met. She'd make a good photo: her brightly rouged cheeks, her deeply lined face, that festive red bow on her hat. I would use it to illustrate the piece I'm about to write. 
      But ... I thought, pausing. She'd also be identified, and maybe that would be a bad thing. I'd have to stay my hand, a little, in describing what had just happened, and maybe the sense of it would be lost. 
      Not that I thought poorly of her. Just the opposite.  I liked her, almost immediately, after she sidled up to me at the cookie counter at Caputo's—have you had Caputo's cookies? Italian. The best. We were going to a party, and my wife had instructed me. Go to Caputo's and get a box of cookies. Not that I needed persuading. I'm always looking for something to do at parties, and now I had something to do: eat the cookies we brought.
     So now I was picking them out, carefully, with my tastes in mind, and this lady bubbles up, and expressed interest in the cookies. Which ones were good?  Could I help her?
      I told her I was partial to the amoretti—almond. But there was the chocolate Nutella. Oh no, too heavy, she said. Then the sesame. 
     "They have a purity, " I explained. 
      She was so friendly, I introduced myself—"I'm Neil Steinberg!"—and she introduced herself, and I told her I had gone out with a girl in college with that exact name; not her of course, because she was 10 years older than me, if not 20. She also lives in Northbrook, and taught Sunday school, and told me some details of her life, then we turned and looked at the case and talked about cookies some more, her shoulder just touching mine. She said how she is alone at New Year's, but was going to have a spree anyway, gesturing back to the bottle of white wine in her cart, and now these special cookies. She started to make her selections.
     "I'll leave her in your hands," I said to the clerk, as I made my farewell. At the line, I thought, "I wonder...?" I waited, and paid for my items, and decided that, if I had understood things correctly, she'd be in the line next to mine. I looked, and there she was.
     "How are you!?" she said brightly.
     "Same as five minutes ago!" I answered, perhaps a little abruptly, and looked at her. All that make-up. The red circles on her cheeks. A bright red bow. How hard it is, I realized, to face the world alone, to spend New Year's alone. And how brave to make yourself up anyway, at 65 or 70, and go out, and chat up young men, well, younger men anyway, at the cookie counter at Caputo's. 
    I reached the parking lot, and put the groceries in the back seat, except for the separate little white bag of auxiliary cookies that were never going to make it to the party. Maybe I should have gone back and gotten her picture. Maybe she would have loved that. She seemed the sort, ready for anything. But one must tread lightly on the lives of others, and I made a judgment call, and got into the car, and snaked my hand into the bag, and drove away, thinking that I was going to try to hold onto a little of what that lady was projecting, the joyousness, in the face of what must be a lonely reality. 
      Have a happy New Year. Whatever situation you are in, put your best face forward, embrace those you've got, and if you haven't anybody, reach out to others until you do, make conversation and be friendly. It'll all work out, and if it doesn't well, you tried your very best, and that's a kind of success too. 
   

USA's 2014 Report Card: Good work, could do better

     The United States leads the world in production of websites, prisoners, sunflower seeds and pricy health care.

     Chicago, I was surprised to learn, is the third largest urban area in the world, with a population of 6.8 million, right behind New York and Tokyo. Not a conventional way of viewing the city, but well, we’ll get to that.

     All of this learned from pawing through a fascinating thin volume, “Pocket World in Figures: 2015 Edition” which The Economist magazine sent as Christmas thanks for ponying up the big bucks and subscribing (worse, I bought two subscriptions, one for me, one for my son at college in California. He insisted).

     New Year’s Eve being upon us, rather than rehash stories that weren’t that interesting to begin with, but did occur during the past 12 months, I thought we could join hands and graze through this little book. So let’s take a moment to see our city and nation as they appear, not close up to our jaundiced eyes but from afar, to those taking in the whole big blue marble at one glance.

     The news, statistically, is surprisingly good. The United States is the biggest economy in the world by far: $16 trillion, almost exactly twice that of second-place China. We export 20 percent more than China, second only to the European Union. But we do have to borrow a lot to keep going: $440 billion deficit, more than the next six nations: the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Canada, France and Brazil — combined. Though it could be worse: Our government debt is equal to our nation’s gross domestic product for 2013; in Japan, it’s more than twice the GDP...

     To continue reading, click here.

WOW! You'll be SHOCKED at how gullible people are....

   

     That was fast. 
     2014, as I'm sure you know, runs out tomorrow, and ....
     I mean, I hope you know. 
     It would be scary if you didn't know, if you were just learning it now. "What? The year is OVER? But I was just starting to get used to it..." 
     Sorry.
     There are only three things a journalist is supposed to do during the week between Christmas and New Year's: 1) Remember all the celebrities who died in the past 12 months. 2) Review all the news stories during the same period; 3) Talk about parties and bars and resolutions and weight loss. 
     I've done all those things, in years past.
     I'm kinda tired of them.
     Maybe you are too. The frenzy over Robin Williams' suicide was excessive last August. "The Full Diana" as I call such media swoons. Not to take anything away from the man, but I can't see revisiting it again in honor of the calendar clicking. He's still dead. We get it. Ditto for the news, much of which wasn't worth noting once, while it was happening, never mind being reguritated months later. As for parties and bars and weight loss, well, you're on your own. 
     I could give you the State of the Blog report. That's what I did exactly one year ago, on Dec. 30, 2013. The blog has a history! Cool. Last year's summary had a certain tone of weary resolve that I'd be hard pressed to duplicate. What's the line from Bruce Springsteen's "Straight Time?" "Sooner or later it just becomes your life."
     In the last six months of 2013. the blog was averaging 918 hits a day; the high month was 32,000 visits. 
     We're doing much better now, averaging about 1200 hits a day, and our high was 43,000 in October, nosing toward my goal of 50,000 visits a month, which I've abitrarily determined represents Success of Some Kind. An advance of about a third, not to go all numerical on you, but the Internet has made us measure our value in clicks.
     Though candor demands I point out that, based on my spam filter, a certain number of those clicks—5 percent, 10 percent?—must be robot spiders, which search the web for, well, whatever robot spiders are looking for. 
     There's other good news. Some of my posts have done very well. "Welcome to the Steinberg Bakery" posted Feb. 16 got nearly 10,000 hits, which I fancy is due to its being a sharp piece of satire. I sold enough of the blog's poster to break even. The new blog poster is designed and being produced at Hatch Show Print in Nashville, and will be sold here soon. (The old one is going to be taken off sale, so if you want one, order it now or wait to buy it at a premium Leslie Hindman's in 20 years).  
    2014 was the first full calendar year where I wrote this blog, every goddamn day, without fail. Most days are pretty smooth. I've felt a little, umm, spent a few times, but not so much that I'd contemplate quitting the thing, at least not yet. Even if half of the audience is random clicks in China and automatic spambots looking to post their Viagra come-ons, that's still 600 people a day reading. Not mass market, but not bad. Enough to keep plodding forward, and hoping for some miracle.
     The title of this post is a nod at the way the Internet has become crowded with the journalistic equivalent of carnival come-ons, meaningless lists, cheap tricks to get you to click on something, providing very little content. Some recycled racy photos, a half-witted caption of some sort. It must work because there's enough of it. I'm hoping there is an audience for something else, something a bit more human and considered. I might be wrong here. We'll see. 
      The advertising is certainly encouraging. Thanks again to Marc Schulman of Eli's Cheesecake, and Mike Pilkington at Bridgeport Coffee. Thanks as well to past advertisers, Lise Schleicher, at BasketWorks, and the folks at the University of Chicago Press. And welcome to Chicago Mailing Tube, which will be advertising as soon as they get the art to me. 
     And of course thanks to you. It means a lot to me that you take the time to read. That's something. More. That's everything.