A hot dog and coffee on Touhy....

For those outside the Chicago area: yes, there's a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Niles.

    
     File this one under, "No wonder should go unremarked upon."
     Spent the morning in West Englewood, reporting on a story — we'll get to that next week — finishing up about 12:30 p.m. Time for lunch. I considered a couple Harold's Chicken Shacks; when in Rome... But there wasn't anywhere near by to park, and I just kept driving.
     Somehow, parking a few blocks away and ambling over to get in line and grab lunch in Englewood seemed a Bad Idea. Maybe I was being timid. 
     Hurtling down 95th Street — man it gets suburban fast — I passed countless Burger Kings and McDonalds and Wendys and Popeyes. Never considered those for a second. Not hungry enough for fast food, except of course for White Castle, which are special.  White Castle has a soul.
    But the pair I passed were on the other side of the street, and U turns for Sliders.... I kept going. 
     Onto 294 North. Love that road. Fast. I had an errand in Niles, so got off at Touhy going east. By now I was getting hungry. Papa Chris Place presented itself. It was well after 1 p.m. A hot dog would do the trick. I went in, ordered a char-dog, mustard, grilled onions, and ketchup. They didn't give me grief over the ketchup, not so much as a haughty glance. But that wasn't the wonder.
     Cup of black coffee.
     It was a decent dog, good pile of hot crinkly fries. Ate, checked the morning's email. When I finished, I took my tray to the garbage, fished out the green plastic basket I had thoughtlessly tossed in, after my eyes strayed over the "Don't throw your basket out" sign. Returned the ketchup bottle to the condiments, not far from where a Sun-Times sat ready for the next patron hungry for more than food. Went back to the table, retrieved my white styrofoam cup of coffee, and was leaving. The restaurant is set up so that, to exit the seating area, you have to pass by the counter, and as I did a woman behind the counter called to me, "Can I freshen up your coffee for you?" 
    I hadn't drunk much, maybe an inch worth. Good coffee, but hot, and I was eating. But I set down the cup, lifted off the cover, and she topped it off. 
    I can't remember that ever happening at a hot dog or burger joint, never, not once in my life. It certainly would never happen at a McDonalds. No minimum wage automaton would ever stop a patron going out the door to give him more coffee. That's probably a fireable offense at McDonald's. 
     "Thanks," I said. "This is my first time here. And thanks for subscribing to the Sun-Times." That last part probably sounded crazy and she ignored it, but I was glad they had the paper sitting out on the counter.
     "Come back again," she said.
    A nickel's worth of coffee. But it made me very happy, stepping into the parking lot, to see this sight, the Leaning Tower of Niles.  Not the bonus coffee, of course, but the gesture. A small kindness, a generosity of spirit, manifesting itself in subtle ways. I figured, whatever blurt of good publicity this blog could offer would be an apt way to return the kindness. It's the small things that make life rich. 

"Fourth City" just doesn't sound right

     "Third City." Chicago hasn't quite wrapped its head around that one yet, have we?
     "The Third Coast," yes. Particularly the fine Thomas Dyja history of Chicago of that name. Read it; you'll be glad you did.
     Otherwise, "Third Coast" is a bit shared, a bit greasy, like one of those loaner jackets at a fancy restaurant: too many other folks slip it on for anyone to be comfortable in it. Lots of cities on the Great Lakes use the "Third Coast" moniker. Cleveland has a number of "Third Coast" businesses. Milwaukee too.
     To be honest, Chicago is still leaving claw marks on "Second City." We were second in the United States in population for so long, starting in 1890 and for most of the 20th century, following New York, which was humiliation aplenty. We got used to it, with a little brother swagger. New York was so far ahead, almost triple the population, there was no hope of catching up. So we might as well turn the silver consolation prize into a point of pride.
    Then Los Angeles scooted past us in — wait for it — 1982, which shows you just how hard we cling to former glory. We ignored the shift out of ego and because Los Angeles really isn't a city at all, not a proper one but a vast agglomeration of contiguous places....

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Never ever gonna golf.

     No, as a matter of fact, I've never golfed, not once in my life.
     Not from any animus. I'm not anti-golf. I have no opinions or emotions about it.
     If you asked me why I have never golfed, I guess the honest answer is that I've never had the opportunity. Nobody ever asked me. My father, a nuclear physicist from the Bronx, never golfed, not once. Nor did I know anybody who golfed. 
     My in-laws did. It seemed a fun, quasi-athletic thing, and did tempt me. Since I've been in suburbia, for the past 15 years, when it got warm I'd promise myself to slide over to whatever that golf course is on Willow Road and take a few lessons. 

    But May would turn into June, and June into July, and I never did it, and this year the intention isn't there. 
     Not that I haven't been on a golf course: I have. A magazine once sent me down to Montego Bay, Jamaica, where I walked 18 holes at Round Hill with Arnold Palmer, interviewing him for a story, or trying to. He wasn't having a very good game; in fact, that might have helped me to never take up the sport, because Arnold Palmer wasn't having fun, and he's really good at it, generally.
     It was a beautiful place, though. Like being in heaven, but with golf.
     Rich people seem to always golf—it's the reward for their lives of success, fame and money. Michael Jordan and whoever's president, tycoons and stars and such. They all love golfing. Which made me a little tempted. Here's something people do hundreds, maybe thousands of times, and I've never done once.
   Well, I did go to miniature golf, which is fun, but also doesn't count. And I seem to remember going to a driving range, some time in the hazy historical past, but my guess is I was no good at all. Should I find myself on a course, I know I'd be horrible, and I can embarrass myself plenty here, in print, without seeking out further embarrassments in the physical world.
    I was prepared to go golfing with my younger son. But he didn't take to it either. Golf camp might have something to do with it. He was maybe seven years old, and we sent him to a five day "Golf Camp" at the Northbrook Park District. I imagine it was two hours of basic golf tips in the morning. 
    At the end of the first day, my wife called me at work. 
    "He's quitting golf camp," she said. "You'll have to call them and get our money back."
    I asked her to wait, let me talk to the lad first. I sat him down and gave him a speech that went something like this: "You can't quit golf camp. First, because it's golf camp. Everything else you do for the rest of your life will be harder than golf camp. If you can't get through golf camp, what will you be able to get through? Second, it's golf camp. It cost $200" (or whatever the figure was). "When you get older, you're going to want us to buy you guitars and automobiles and pay for college tuition, and we're going to say, why should we spend this money when we threw away money on golf camp and you didn't even go? Third, it's golf camp, it's five days long, and I'm making you go through with it."
     That speech worked. Actually, talking out what the problem was worked. It turned out, the instructor, in trying to impress upon the kids how dangerous a driver could be, slammed on forcefully on a fence post, splintering it, and that scared my boy, who was seven, remember. Once we got to that point, he was able to make it through the week.
    But golf never stuck with him, and I can't say I blame him. It must be genetic. 

Filipino president-elect a glimpse of Trump administration

Rodrigo Duterte

     If you're curious what it'll be like to live in a nation led by an erratic demagogue prone to uttering horrible things about women, there is no need to wait until Donald J. Trump is sworn in as president of the United States in January. All we have to do is turn our gaze to the Philippines right now.
     For those not paying attention — and really, we're Americans, we can't keep track of every tinpot territory — 10 days ago the Philippines elected Rodrigo Duterte, the tough-talking mayor of Davao City, over a field of far more qualified but tainted by association politicians. Think Hillary Clinton's lightweight cousins.
     I hasten to point out that "tinpot" was sarcastic: the Philippines has 103 million people and is the 12th largest nation on earth, its population equal to the United Kingdom and Canada combined.
     Out of sight, out of mind. But believe me, we'll be hearing more of them. Duterte started his campaign by saying how he'd abolish the Filipino Congress and kept voters buzzing with his jaw-dropping remarks, the capstone being how he, as mayor, should have had dibs when Jacqueline Hamill, a 36-year-old Australian missionary, was gang-raped and murdered during a prison riot in 1989.
     "She was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first," he joked, to the laughter of supporters.... "

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"The Ewww Factor"

        The email from yesterday's piece on transgender individuals and bathrooms can be imagined: frightened, ignorant people, prattling on about "God's law," as if any self-respecting deity from any defendable theology would not strike them dead on general principles. just for the offense of uttering His name as a hallelujah chorus for whatever uninformed nonsense they seem determined to uphold. They don't merit reading.
     But I did get one email from a transgender lawyer that included the email she sent me in November, when last I addressed this issue. I re-read it, and thought, offering as it does something too little heard in all this— direct testimony from the people most affected—it would be of interest to you.

Hi Neil,

    I read your column on the transgender controversy at District 211. I found it thought-provoking, as most of your columns are. I did want to share a few thoughts of my own with you.
     One of the difficult things about growing up transgender is what I call the "ewww" factor. Growing up as a boy who acted like a girl caused people in my life, including classmates, to act towards me as though I were "ewwwy". Trans kids are often shunned as "different". Because human beings are social animals, this shunning is very painful and difficult. When the government, itself, however, takes the position that certain kids have to be treated differently from everybody else, the results for those kids are devastating. While I understand that discrimination against black people is different from discrimination against transgender people, I am sure that I do not need to remind you that one of the bases of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education was a cultural/social study about how black children felt about race, a study that involved children picking out dolls of different races in response to certain questions. It is simply not good or right for the government to tell certain children that they are different from other children and cannot be allowed to join with them as equals.
     Your column quotes Cates ["Inside the Girls' Locker Room," Nov. 5, 2015], the Superintendent of the district as saying, "Measures of privacy allow developing teenagers to choose for themselves whether or not to use privacy areas . . . safeguarding matters for transgender teens we believe will be helpful to students in our locker room." But, of course, Cates is not allowing transgender teens to choose for themselves whether or not to use privacy areas--he is requiring them to use privacy areas and allowing cis-gender kids to "choose for themselves".
     Some girls are born with penises. Some boys are born with vaginas. It is high time we as a society learn to accept that fact. Allowing trans girls into the girls locker room on the same basis as other girls, and allowing trans boys into the boys locker room on the same basis as other boys, does not pose a threat to anybody. And if, as Cates says, the district will allow students to choose for themselves whether to use privacy areas, cis-gender kids who have some (I think irrational) issues with trans kids can themselves use the privacy areas.
     You say that the "fervent desire [of trans girls] to stride easily into the girls' locker room and be welcomed as one of the gang is still, at this cultural moment, constrained if they also possess a penis." I understand that locker room use is different from bathroom use. But for over a year I used women's bathrooms in courthouses all over the Chicago metropolitan area while I still had a penis. No one was embarrassed, inconvenienced, bothered, or hurt. Transgender people are required to live 24/7 as the gender to which they are transitioning for certain periods of time before they can access certain types of transition health care
     I think you could have taken a bolder stand with your column.
     Yours very truly,
     Joanie Rae Wimmer
     Attorney at Law
     Downers Grove, Illinois 

Gut feeling steers you wrong on potty wars

    One evening last summer. Dinner over, darkness settling upon suburbia, the citronella candles flickering. We're sitting around the iron table on our deck with old friends from the city, a couple and their 19-year-old son.

     The lad hunches over his phone, arranging to meet up with a buddy later, and refers to this friend as "them." His mother explains that the friend exists in some zone between the genders and so rejects the prosaic "he" or "she," instead going by the plural, "they."

     Just as I was smirking, thinking how strange this is, no doubt some practice bred in the superrich petri dish of The Latin School — the city kid's alma mater — my older son pipes up that he, too, knows someone from Glenbrook North who goes by "they." Now there's two. Nearly a trend.

      "What's wrong with 'it'?" I ask. "A perfectly good word."

     Harsh, yes, but I was viewing it from a grammarian's point of view. I didn't realize that the American Dialect Society picked "they" as a singular pronoun for the 2015 "Word of the Year"....

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A cold spring

     A Facebook friend posts a video about how the Rothschilds control every central bank in the world. I watch as much as I can stand, a few seconds.
    Not only anti-Semitic crap, but old anti-Semitic crap. That's like floating conspiracy theories about fluoridated water.
    I start to type a reply, get a few letters, then stop.
   Sigh. Erase what I've begun, unfriend the person and move on.
   A few posts down, my attention is caught by a video of an Asian woman dancing vigorously. Harmless stuff, until I eye the comments.

   "This is why The American Empire works so hard to control us, which includes going so far as to install an *african-American*into the white house," Eric Hudson opines. "Because they know that without such controls, Black people will take over the world, just by being ourselves."
     Sigh.

     I almost type, "Take over the world ... by dancing vigorously?"
     But why bother? Why even be part of it? You reach into the cage, more often than not, you draw back a bloody stump. And who's fault is that? Theirs? They obviously have no control over thoughts that border on random hallucination. You do. You have discernment. So discern, goddamn it.
     I'm not the Idiot Police. Can't be the Idiot Police.

    Because there are so many of them
    And only one of me.
    So don't try.
    Not that I'm alone. Lots of sensible people, crossing swords with the army of madmen, like some monster horde in one of those "Lord of the Rings" movies I can't watch because they're just so exquisitely boring. I've fought this fight enough, in the past and, I suppose, again in the future. Retire from the field, for now anyway.
     To tell you the truth, I'm getting tired of Facebook too, tired of the shit that people believe or, worse, don't even believe but are too thick to wonder about, and just pass along because, either way, it's interesting.
     And then there's email.
    "Why should Trump bother releasing his tax returns if media is complicit in the cover up of crimes evident in Obama’s tax returns," something called Orly Taitz—some kind of pun, no doubt—writes. Into the filter with Orly. In doing so, I'm told I have 12 previous emails from him—a patient man, I am. Filter them all. Talk to the hand, Orly.
    It must be Donald Trump. Just watching the Republican Party collapse in front of him last week, a little voice has been whispering, "He's going to win you know."
     The Voice of Doom perhaps.
     Though honestly, even if he doesn't win, the damage is done. Republicans will elbow each other to take the Trump Highway in 2020. And the shame of a major American political party embracing this fraud, this unqualified clown, after hectoring and catcalling Barack Obama for seven years, to roll at the feet of Donald Trump like puppies. You want to vomit. Having watch them be venal hypocrites for decades, I thought I had their measure. But they still have the capacity to astound.
     "6 Corporations Own the Media."
     Jets chasing a UFO.

     Every patriotic fiber in my body says Hillary Clinton is going to win. And then the haters and howlers who have been writhing under Barack Obama can go back to hating and howling. They may even be secretly relieved, to be spared the burden of actually having to try to get something done. I'll sure be relieved when she wins, and not secretly either.

     Until then, well, it's in the 30s today. A cold spring, in more ways than one.