'I prefer to be true to myself'

Frederick Douglass

     My column in the newspaper only runs about 720 words, or just about enough room to begin in a fashion, make a point, and then wind up.
     A benefit, generally, in our age of Internet-stunted attention spans.
     Though such limits can be frustrating when you have material as rich as "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,  An American Slave."  
    You leave stuff on the cutting room floor that doesn't really belong there. Like the beginning of the book, that starts simply enough:

     "I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, having never seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant."

     Within those three sentences, Douglass establishes all the parameters of his tale: his tantalizing proximity to freedom, just across the border in Pennsylvania; his inherent concern for the truth; the position of people held as chattel, on par with animals, and their owners' desire to keep them sunk in profitable ignorance.
    The opening had nothing to do with the point of yesterday's column—given how Christianity energetically supported the enormity of slavery, its support of Donald Trump should puzzle no one—but I really wanted to mention it, along with one line written by Douglass, who had no formal education and wasn't taught to read until he was 12 or so.
      He is discussing a subject he finds embarrassing—his conviction that God Almighty was directing particular favor toward him. He believed that, though born a slave, divine providence was guiding him toward freedom. He admits this conviction reluctantly, noting: "I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false and incur my own abhorrence."
     Bingo. Most people can't write, not because they are unable to string words and sentences together, though that certainly is a factor too. But because they try to make themselves look good, by leaving out hard truths that run counter to their self-estimate, or undercut their pride, or make them feel slightly ridiculous. That makes their work both dull and puffed up, a bad mix. I used a phrase, more succinct though not as elegant as Douglass': "You can write some interesting stuff if you don't care how you look."
     Douglass understands that if you are honest, the reader will follow along with you, and forgive a multitude of sins. Besides, Douglass is right—a generous providence, or Divine Will, or dumb luck, or something, conveys him, Daniel through the Lion's Den, out of the hellscape of slavery, and into the history books, a part of which he has written himself. 

Douglass reminds us: Christians supported far worse than Trump

Frederick Douglass

     Everyone is ignorant of something — most things, when you consider the vast storehouse of knowledge on subjects from accounting to zoology.
     Some hide it better than others. But we can all improve, and it’s good to spend at least as much time re-filling your own leaky bucket of information as you do pointing with derision at the leaky buckets of others.
     For instance.
     The Democrats have, since the election of Donald Trump, been fluttering our hands to heaven in amazement over his strong support among the religious — 81 percent of evangelicals voted for Trump. Millions of Bible-toting Christians see Trump as faith in action. Causing left wing America to ask: how, how how anyone professing to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ could also support the thrice-married, pussy-grabbing, lie-telling, insult-hurling, petty, cruel, vain, un-repentant Donald Trump?
     Puhleeze.
     Let me meet that question with a question of my own:
     Have you any idea of what Christianity has tolerated in this country? Supporting Vladimir Putin’s puppet is a trifle compared to the enormous mechanism of horror that religion in America has enthusiastically endorsed, not for a few years, but for centuries.
     Ken Morris, great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass is speaking this week at the American Writers Museum, in conjunction with its show, “Frederick Douglass: Agitator” featuring words and personal artifacts of the great abolitionist.

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It's a dirty world

     The Best Western in San Dimas, east of Los Angeles, is probably one of the nicest mid-price motels I've ever stayed it, with its red tile roof and palm trees and sparkling courtyard pool.     
     But what really caught my attention, as a fan of motel hype, was this little TV remote control caddy trumpeting "CLEAN WORLD" and "CLEAN REMOTE." I've written before about Hampton Inns ballyhooing their clean sheets, but this seemed catering to a new, very specific concern: all those grubby fingers of former guests smearing against these plastic buttons.  
     I vaguely remembered where this had come from. A 2012 University of Houston study claiming that hotel remote controls are particularly filthy, along with bedside lamp switches.
     They are, though only marginally more than the rest of the room. The study looked at 18 separate areas in hotel rooms, and found fecal matter on 81 percent of all surfaces.
     My bias approaching this topic was that the world is a dirty place, and that, dirty as they no doubt are, hotel rooms are still probably a lot cleaner than their guests' homes, because while they get used a lot more, they also get cleaned a lot more. 
     Not true, according to a quick review of the literature, such as Hotel Hygiene Exposed, a report that found, "the average hotel room appears to be dirtier than a typical home, an airplane, and even a school."

     Even a school. That's pretty dirty, particularly a Chicago school. The report suggested a few common sense practices: not just the obvious wiping down surfaces with antibacterial wipes, which though wise, seems such a fussy way to begin your stay, but also refraining from setting your toothbrush down directly on bathroom counters, one of the dirtiest spots in a hotel room. 
     In general, I administer a generous dose of trying-not-to-think-about-it to these situations, though I do make a point of opening the doors to exit public bathrooms with a paper towel or, in a pinch, my handkerchief, though it then goes back into my pocket to be clamped over my face later so what's the point? (Many people seem to view handkerchiefs themselves as disgusting, a reminder that hygiene is in the eye of the beholder, sometimes quite literally). 
     The world is a dirty place, and spritzing the bathroom counter in your hotel room with Lysol seems a few steps on the path to wearing a white paper mask and cotton gloves in public, the way women do in Asia.
     If I seem unusually passive, resigned to mucking around in the ordure of a freshly-cleaned motel room, remember: I've read "The Secret House: 24 Hours in the Strange and Unexpected World in Which We Spend our Nights and Days" by David Bodanis (Simon & Schuster, 1986) a rollicking look at our homes on a microscopic level.
    It begins with one of the better openings of any science book I've ever read: "From the alarm clock a spherical shock wave traveling at Mach 1 starts growing outward, spreading and spreading till it hits the wall. Some of the energy it carries causes the curtains over the window to heat up from the friction of the onslaught; much of the rest rebounds back, enters the ears of two sleepers, and finally rouses them awake." 
     Soon the sleepy residents are beginning their day, staggering across carpets filed with "mites, thousands and thousands of tiny mites: male mites and female mites and baby mites an even, crunched to the side away from the main conglomerations, the mummified corpses of long-dead old great-grandparent mites. Brethren of theirs stir in the bed too, where they have spent the night snuggling warm and cosy under our sleepers ... it sounds unpleasant, but is quite normal."
    Meaning "nearly 100 per cent of our houses are host to these creatures."
    Cleanliness is in large part an illusion. It helps not to look too closely.
    Late in the book, a dinner guest goes to the bathroom, and what takes place after he flushes the toilet, Bodanis takes the better part of two pages to describe.
     "As a toilet flushes normally most of the water and contents go swirling down the drain but because of all that swirling a certain aerated froth is momentarily created on the topmost layer of the water. It's only a few hundredths of an inch thick, but precisely because it is so thin it's not going to stay where it's created for long. This flush-induced froth separates off from the rest of the water as it does down, hovers briefly in the air and then goes soaring up."
    This cloud of moisture and microscopic fecal matter hits the ceiling, and within minutes is distributed throughout the house, where the microscopic organisms contained within reside for days and weeks, very much alive. "They nestle on the floor and cabinets, on the sink, toothbrush and wall." 
    You get the impression. So yes, motel rooms are somewhat dirtier than everywhere else. But it's really just a question of degree. The house you're in right now is infected with bacteria, fungi, molds, viruses, amoebae, micro-creatures of all description, filth of every variety. The surfaces, the air. You know what turns out to be a prime location for bacteria to thrive? Somewhere moist, craggy and nutrient rich. Any guesses? 
     Your face. Frankly, I'm not sure if the specially-scrubbed TV remote is less a symbol of your host's meticulous care and more an unwelcome reminder of just how messy our lives really are. I'm generally a fan of vigorous cogitation, but here is one area where I truly believe, it's better not to think too much about it. 
    

Used with permission. 

Stories that never got written, #1: Urban Prep College Signing Day

     Not every story gets written. Good ideas fall by the wayside for a variety of reasons. 
     I was trucking up Clark Street from the Madison Street bus to meet a friend for lunch in the middle of May when I came upon this scene. Students lining up to declare their names and what colleges they were going to attend in the fall while ceremoniously donning a baseball cap from that school. It seemed proud, joyous, inspirational, and the sort of story Chicagoans don't read about enough.  As it happened, the evening before I had taken a plane from Los Angeles to Chicago along with a bunch of very tall athletes coming here for the NBA draft look-see. Chicagoans were laying in wait at baggage claim for these young men to get their autographs, just in case. The Urban Prep event seemed a real world counterbalance to that, the giving of overdue recognition to champions in their own right.
     I took some photos, shot some video, and interviewed a few people—the two energetic ladies below, relatives who had come to cheer their nephew. "It's been such an incredible journey," said one, telling of a young man who lost his father and overcame hardships. I didn't have a notebook, so I wrote on a folded copy of the newspaper I had brought to read on the bus.
      The Urban Prep administrator I pulled aside was busy running the program and said he wasn't the right one to talk about it anyway, giving me a name and phone number, and I proceeded to my lunch. That afternoon, back at the office, I phoned him, left a message, saying who I am and why I was calling. He never called back.
     No crime there. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he knew my work, or thought he knew it, and didn't like me. Maybe Urban Prep doesn't want publicity, although that's unlikely: they held the program in Daley Plaza, they must want people to know about it. Maybe he never got the message. Maybe something else.  
     And I didn't persist: just the one phone call—my fault; I suppose my thinking was, "I'm not going to beg you"—and then moved on to other things. The scribbled-over newspaper has been sitting on my desk for 10 weeks. Time to throw it away. Maybe next year, I'll try to contact Urban Prep in early May, get a jump on this. Maybe not. It's a big, busy world, and stuff gets missed. Still, you feel a little bad about the stories that got away. 


    

Israel forgets: being Jewish means more than not running buses on the Sabbath

Pro-Israel demonstration, Chicago 2004

     Now that's the Israel I know and love.
     I've gotten in the habit of pretty much ignoring what goes on in the Promised Land. Everything there is a problem (Promised to whom?) particularly as its government continues the rightward slide toward nationalism so poisoning our own country.
     While America, under the leadership of Donald Trump, is trying to be great again by harassing refugees and flipping the bird to immigrants, Israel joins the fun by reminding its non-Jewish residents of the Jewish state, officially by a new "Nation-State" law, that they don't belong, don't run things and never will.
     Is that helpful? To insecure nationalists, sure. To those trying to nudge Israel toward a viable future in the 21st century, not so much.
     A full-time job, opposing that slide in our own country. To keep our own religious fanatics from trying to turn the supposedly neutral government into an auxiliary of their church, in league with the least religious, least moral president since ... well, ever.
     Given that, why bother with Israel? Because by seeing how Israelis combat their problems gives us a hint how to cope with our own.
     So — talk about burying the lede — what's the good news out of Israel that has me smiling?
     A thousand Israelis took part in a mass Arabic lesson at Habima Square in Tel Aviv Monday night, to protest to the new Nation-State Law which, among other ominous rumblings, downgraded the status of the Arabic language because, well, nationalists like to stick their thumb in the eyes of those they consider beneath them. It's makes them feel better about themselves, which is what nationalism is all about: dressing up in the shiny uniform of your own people, strutting about and pretending to be magnificent.
     You fight that ... how? In part, by embracing the thing that nationalists would see denigrated. Just as in Denmark last week, Danes offended by that nation's new anti-niqab law have been protesting by covering their own faces. Or just by not being silent. Imagine if American liberals celebrated our country's diversity with half the volume that Republicans denounce it? Imagine the roar.
     Sitting at my kitchen table, reading the news, I had an epiphany. As much as I am without question Jewish, and am proud of that, my central identity has nothing to do with the God of Deuteronomy or my mom being Jewish or studying Talmud or an affinity for gefilte fish, or whatever particular marker of Judaism you care to name.
     What I like about Judaism is, first, the thinking part. The clear-minded, rational understanding of what's going on. Plus the compassion part, a feeling for others that I fancy is intrinsic to the faith, and not just the usual insincere chin-music.
     And second, is the doing part. Not leaving it all in God's hands, or hoping that justice is waiting in Heaven. But tikkun olam, repairing the world, right now, starting with whatever part of it happens to be right in front of you. So if your country tries to undermine the very language your neighbor speaks, then you need to go somewhere public and learn it.
     Nationalists view multi-culturism as dangerous and naive, and in 1300, maybe it was. The world as a zero sum gain; if one group wins the other must lose.
     But if we look at actual history, the human beings who somehow manage to cooperate and overcome their outward differences get to raise cities and develop agriculture. Those who realize that science has no nationality get to cure polio. While those who file their teeth to points and fight everyone who isn't like them eventually die out. Nationalists miss this; they see only the high they get from regarding themselves, but are blind to the cost. Our modern world has many benefits—running water, commerce, this computer stuff. But it scares some folks, and they want to go back to the womb.
     Don't let them try. Push back. We've got a good thing, with this modern world. Let's not wreck it. Nationalism is like any other drug that makes you feel really good until it suddenly doesn't. Germany soared, for a while, until it didn't. The sticky end always comes. A strong Jewish identity created Israel and brought it great success. But the world is changing, and a new strategy is needed.

Feeding pigeons with the Bird Lady

Myriad Birds, by Kitagawa Utamaro, 1790 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

    Video confrontations are a constant of the online world. Jangly images of jarring exchanges, heated words, sometimes violence. 
     We see them all the time. Yet rarely do you watch such an encounter and think, "I KNOW that person!" 

     But when Block Club posted a video of State Rep. Jaime Andrade, Jr. "confronting a pigeon-feeding woman" I immediately suspected I had written about this person, from the title alone. Because really, how many are there? Watching the video, she's a grainy presence, but with that accent, there can be no mistake. 
     Below is my column, from five years ago. To be honest, the pigeon lady wasn't the most eccentric person related to it. I wish I had saved the self-pitying voicemails that Ald. James Cappleman left for me in the dead of night after this ran, but alas I deleted them. They were, in my opinion, unhinged.
     Perhaps the source of his discomfort was clashing with the pigeons' champion. Were I State Rep. Andrade, who seems a nice guy, I would take a moment to pause and reconsider. Pigeons are a nuisance, yes. But does he really want to walk in Ald. Cappleman's footsteps, years behind? Is that wise? 

     Young Kang is not crazy. Yes, she speaks quickly. And yes, she has a heavy accent; she's from South Korea.
     And yes, she feeds pigeons in Uptown, every day, without fail. But she certainly can explain herself, if you take the time to listen.
     "I am a citizen," she says. "I am an American. We have a free country. This is my life. I am a bird lady. I have been doing this a long time. Everybody knows me. All of a sudden, this alderman, he thinks he can overpower everything. . . ."
     That would be James Cappleman, the new alderman of the 46th Ward, who has made a name for himself as a die-hard foe of pigeons, introducing anti-pigeon legislation into the City Council, arranging for his ward's pigeons to be spirited away to Indiana to be killed, even sweeping up after Kang, which led to a supposed scuffle with her last May that left her charged with battery.
     "This is really hurting the community," Cappleman said in December. "It's hurting the businesses. We have to put a stop to it."
     "I don't know what is his problem," says Kang. "I'm doing right because I'm a Christian. These are God's creatures. I have to take care of that. I was proud of that. Every day for years. The other alderman . . ."—that would be Helen Shiller— ". . . I have no problem. The lady says, 'I like birds, too.' All of a sudden, [this] alderman is elected. He is not talking to people. Just like a dictator. All of his guys coming in. They are like gangsters."
     I phoned Shiller to see how she managed to avoid a pigeon crisis in her 24 years as alderman, but she declined to chat. Cappleman was reticent too, though his chief of staff said that Kang has agreed not to feed pigeons and that most in the community do not share her fondness for the birds which, based on my discussions with ward residents, seems true.
     The one voice missing in all this, it seemed to me, is Kang's. So I asked her if I could watch her in action. We met in front of her apartment on North Winthrop. I expected to sit on a park bench with a bag of bread crumbs. "Feed the birds . . . tuppence a bag . . ."
     What I find is more Jason Bourne than Mary Poppins, a clockwork operation that involves driving to specific sites around Uptown—14 locations in all, where she scatters white rice while keeping an eye peeled for the cops, the alderman and his henchmen—whom she believes are following, threatening and harassing her.
     "They know my house," she says.
     Because of that, she has enlisted a silent partner—Ed Gross, 72. "We work together," she says. "He's a retired policeman."
     Ed drives a Prius. In the back is a 100-pound sack of long grain rice—the idea that rice hurts birds is an urban myth. I follow.
     Our first stop is a CTA parking lot by the L station at Wilson Avenue. Ed does the honors— a few dozen pigeons rise into the air from nearby eaves, wheel across the blue sky and swoop down to peck at the rice. The duo goes through 100 pounds every day.
     Kang is 60, married, though her husband is incapacitated. They once lived in Lake Point Tower, owned restaurants and buildings—she owned Daruma in Evanston.
     "I can live comfortably, driving a big car. I don't have to feed birds. I chose this life," she says. "Somebody has got to do it. This is my life. I was living large. Everything changed in my life. I learned a different way. Not material possessions, not shopping anymore. The Bible says to help the poor and animals. That's what I do. Somebody has got to do it." 

     How did she start feeding pigeons?
     "I just [started] coming here, a very convenient neighborhood, very reasonable rent. I have to exercise every day, I see the problem at Wilson and Broadway. I saw 500 birds on the street. I saw a lot of sick birds. I [cleaned up] dead birds. . . . I know there is no natural food, no source. Everywhere you go, the condos. I feel like, 'Oh my God, I have to face this.' So I start doing it."
     What about people who just don't like pigeons? Selfish, she says: "We all have a problem with me, me, me, my, my my. But I know this is not criminal."
     She says she never pushed Cappleman:
     "I never hit him. I never even touched him. That's why the charges were dropped."
     Cappleman's office says charges were dropped because she agreed to stop feeding birds. A vow that, if made, is not being kept.
     "I respect him as an alderman, but I think I'm right. That's a commitment, you take care of birds. It's not like, the alderman hates it, I can stop. They depend on me. They are waiting for me. I feed them. The alderman tells everyone I'm a criminal. They treat me like criminal. What is a criminal? Hey, I take care of God's creatures. That is criminal? All my money and energy. If I am wrong, I still have to do it. I have to save the life. What's wrong with that? If they have to hang me, if they have to kill me, I'm going to die."
     She feeds pigeons for a full hour. I leave glad I'm not the guy determined to stop her.

             —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Feb. 20, 2013

‘Normal people turn into crazy people’ — sports parents aided by expert guidance

     One of the many benefits of working at a newspaper is that expert advice is never far away.
     When my younger boy decided to play football in the 7th grade, I was concerned. He had played other sports — basketball, baseball. But football seemed not just difficult, but dangerous.
     As I was brooding on this I noticed my colleague Rick Telander, nearby at a desk — not his desk, since he was never in the newsroom long enough to need one, instead traveling the world covering sports. He was once a star cornerback at Northwestern and drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs. He knows this stuff.
     I told him my kid was starting football and asked if he had any sage advice. He replied immediately with one sentence:
     “When he gets his first concussion, make him quit.”
     Right, Rick was also in the forefront of moving the concussion disaster from guilty NFL secret to general public knowledge. I promised him I would.
     But most people don’t work at a newspaper. Which is why my attention was caught by a bright, newly published volume called “#HeySportsParents! An Essential Guide for Any Parent With a Child in Sports” by Sharkie Zartman and Dr. Robert Weil. The former, a five-time All American volleyball champion at UCLA; the latter, a Chicago podiatrist with a radio show, “The Sports Doctor.”

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