The invasion of Chicago

     Donald Trump has already shown he'll do anything to create footage for a campaign commercial. He'll call West Point graduates back from all over the country to hear him mouth empty platitudes lauding the country he betrays. He'll pack his fans into an auditorium in Tulsa at the height of an infectious pandemic—or try to, thwarted only because even his rabid supporters balked at risking their lives to give him his boisterous backdrop.

    Now he's risking lives again, sending officers—from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an agency he routinely ridicules, plus the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Marshals Service, and the Department of Homeland Security, to Chicago, 200 of them, in order to ... well, fight crime in some undefined way.
    "Frankly, we have no choice but to get involved," Trump said Wednesday, calling his effort a "surge."
    In his view, no, he has no choice. He can't choose to cope with the COVID pandemic. A little late for that. He has no choice but try to distract the public from the worsening  epidemic he bungled from Day One. To try to create a bleak aura of menace to infuse the commercials he needs to give his fear junkie Republicans their next fix and get them to turn out and vote for him, again, despite his clear record of incompetence and failure.  

     He has no choice. He can't—or won't—protect the lives of United States soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, not when his Russian masters are putting a price on their heads. Not a peep about that. But when it gives him a chance to lash out at Democratic cities, he has no choice.  His is compelled by whatever pathology has ruined him as a human being and threatens to ruin us as a country too. 

     Give George H. W. Bush credit. Willie Horton's crimes were in the past when Bush served him up as the poster boy for white fear. He didn't go out and recruit Horton, nor cause new crimes to occur so he could point hysterically at them. 

     Donald Trump can't say that. Strike that. Donald Trump can say anything, and does. 

     "Politicians running many of our cities have put interests of criminals above law abiding citizens," Trump lied, mouthing the words Stephen Miller wrote for him. “These same politicians have now embraced the far left movement to break up our police departments causing violent crime in their cities to spiral–and I mean spiral seriously—out of control.” 
     Says the man who can't control his own mouth, not for a minute. Yet he would control us.

Illinois needs to pick a poet, but which one?

     The great Midwestern poet is, without question, Tom Eliot of St. Louis.
     What, never heard of Tom? Maybe you’ve been led astray by his phony British hauteur and borrowed high church Anglicanism. But T.S. Eliot, as he styled himself, is as Missouri born and bred as Buster Brown Shoes. Chicago’s Carl Sandburg just can’t compare.
     We could argue this. That’s one joy of loving poetry. You’re free to love what you love, though sometimes choices must be made. Such as when selecting a new Illinois poet laureate — submissions are being accepted until Aug. 15. I limned the parameters of the job in my column Monday. Now I’m wondering who’s in the running.
     I discussed this with Mark Eleveld, a member of the search committee.
     “To me, it’s a no-brainer: Marc Smith,” said Eleveld. “He’s such an outsider. Marc provoked and stoked the fires.”
     Smith is not only a prolific poet, but in the mid-1980s he created the Uptown Poetry Slam. The Slam pried the fingers of Received Pronunciation toffs like Eliot from poetry’s throat and let it sing, returning it to its dramatic roots, sensual and gritty.
     Eleveld is biased — he’s Smith’s friend. I’m biased too. Smith has invited me to be featured speaker at the Slam, twice. So I thought I’d better check with a neutral party: Tony Fitzpatrick, poet, artist and notorious truth-teller.
     It should be Smith, right?

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Pica poll

     Pica is an interesting ailment. Technically a mental disorder, it is the compulsive consumption of non-food materials: dirt, for instance, or old paint, chalk, or hair.* While some studies suggest that mineral imbalances might be a factor, and certain groups, such as pregnant women suffer from it more frequently, the causes are mostly psychological rather than physical: stress, psychosis.
     Since I know some of my fellow aging journalists read this effort, I should acknowledge a second meaning of the word "pica"—a typographic unit of measurement. I have an old pica pole right here from the pre-computer days.
      Both meanings are nearly half a millennia old, and both are from the same root. Pica is Latin for magpie. The first definition in the Oxford English Dictionary has to do with rules regarding religious offices—not sure how the bird figures in there—and the type size somehow comes from that. The Oxford doesn't speculate, but maybe the typography term evolved from the printing of these rules. Or the black-and-white bird. The printing sense goes back to 1588, but the disease—and this is surprising, since we think of medicine as modern—is even older, 1563. "The magpie," the OED notes, "being a miscellaneous feeder"
      I've never met anyone afflicted with pica, to my knowledge. But if I came upon such a person, a box of plaster of Paris in one hand, while the other shoves big fistfuls of white powder into their chewing mouth, I would not take in the scene then begin to laud the merits of filet mignon. I would not argue. I would not discuss. I would gaze, startled, then back away. Excuse me, not my table. What other reaction could there be? One does not casually lead another away from deep disturbance. That is a job for professionals.
      This sums up my current political position regarding supporters of the president. It isn't politics, it's pathology, so I never argue with them. Never. I hardly even bother keeping track of their current set of rationales, lies, delusions, malice, misunderstanding, folly, fear, and whatever else leads them to support, still, despite everything, an obvious liar, bully, fraud and traitor—obvious to people other than themselves, of course. If they haven't snapped to the situation long ago, what am I going to tell them? 
      I don't want to diminish the significance of those people. They bode worse for this country than anything their hero could say or do. The current president will fade, please God, someday. But his supporters will remain, and anybody who thinks they will be marinating in shame, or regret, or even reconsideration, just isn't paying attention. Just as they spent eight years under Barack Obama howling and clutching at themselves and batting away health care, so they will return to being the permanent opposition. I'm looking forward to that because, really, who could reasonably expect anything else?
      It's liberating, in a way. Less stress. Fuck 'em, fuck the horse they rode in on. You can't fix them and shouldn't try. Fans of the president—the name sticks in my craw at this point—do still write me. Incredible as it is, they are either are just now detecting a certain anti-Trump bias in my writing, or pretending to, pretending that the scales have just fallen from their eyes. I usually wordlessly block them, knowing that anything I say will only antagonize them further. Sometimes, I admit, if somebody says that my carefully reasoned column is just ker-ray-zeeeeee, I might indulge my own little private obsession, and reply by quoting one of my favorite lines from Samuel Johnson: "I have given you an argument, sir. I am not also obligated to give you an understanding."
    Doing that enlightens them not at all—I can only suppose—since they go in the filter. For all I know they write back heartfelt replies, explaining how my wise response has made them see the error of their ways. I never check.
     Where am I going with this? Heck if I know. Well, maybe I do. It's Tuesday, and I have to write something. Grabbing old stuff and putting it up was beginning to seem unambitious. The usually mid-July lethargy is mixing with the four-month pandemic slough—I'm finding it hard to get motivated knowing that whatever I do today I will be back here doing it again tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow into infinity, or close to it.
      Although: I ordered some of those green tea mints from Sencha. They have a pleasing tea flavor, zero calories and are fun to ruminatively pop while reading or writing. So that's something new.


* On Facebook, my friend Joseph Schlesinger made this fascinating contribution:

Is it possible to be a pica elitist? The following is from Stephen Birmingham's "Our Crowd," describing the eccentricities of financier James Seligman's family:

James's son Washington had curious dietary theories, and lived on charcoal and cracked ice and almost no food. His teeth were black from chewing charcoal, and the ice he sucked between the bites of charcoal made him a somewhat noisy dinner companion. Whiskey was also a part of his diet, and he always had a glassful before breakfast. He had his suits constructed with a special zinc-lined pocket to hold his ice cubes, and once, when his tailor mistook Washington's instructions, Washington cried out, "No! No! The right pocket is to hold the ice! the left pocket is for the charcoal!"--to the bewilderment of other customers in the shop.

Pica pole.

Complete this phrase: ‘Roses are red, violets are blue...’

Portrait of Dr. Felix J. Weil, by George Grosz (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

     

     Attention poets!
     Are you looking for meaningful employment during these difficult economic times? Would you like a job that uses your poetical skills and involves both travel and reading your work in public?
     Good news: The State of Illinois is seeking to fill the prestigious position of poet laureate. Qualified candidates must have lived in the state for 10 years and seen their work published by a non-vanity press. Awards are helpful. A letter of nomination is required.
     But you must act fast. The deadline to apply is Aug. 15.
     “This role is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to contribute to and shape the cultural history of our great state of Illinois,” said first lady M.K. Pritzker, who will select the new laureate from a list of nominees.
     So why are you hearing about this only now? The idea was to make a splash in early spring. Certain cataclysmic events intervened.
     “Maybe April, maybe tie it into Poetry Month,” said Mark Eleveld, a book publisher on the search committee. “It kept getting pushed back.”
     The post has been empty since 2014 — the administration of flint-hearted Bruce Rauner certainly wasn’t going to do anything poetic — when the last poet laureate, Kevin Stein, stepped down.

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Corneisha Fowler builds reputation for excellence

     As a rule, it is smart not to remark upon the personal attributes of one's professional colleagues. We all have our burdens. Let he who is without sin, etc.
     And yet. Mark Brown ... and I hope I'm not talking out of school here. I think it's commonly known. Maybe not. But either way, Mark ... well ... he's a nice guy. Which can make life complicated, particularly in this business. Myself, for instance, I'm more conventionally configured: a jerk, a schmuck, insert your own derogatory term here, something of a bastard—I get that one a lot—any kindness a mere veneer, a cheap tin-plating concealing the rot within. I'll be honest. I prefer it that way. It's liberating. Be who you are.
    But Mark, alas, the poor fellow. Under that surface niceness, more niceness, all the way down to whatever core of genuine kindness beats within. The man struggles with it. Readers saw this quality on display Sunday, when his column focused on a 23-year-old Corneisha Fowler. Two years ago, Brown wrote a column helping out SisterHouse, a WestSide recovery home for women—see what I mean? Nice. He focused on Fowler, who candidly told her story about recovery from addiction.
     The problem is, as he explained it, is prospective employers are not as kind as Mark—few people are—and they kept seeing Brown's story, first thing. Which I am not linking to for reasons obvious. So he wrote an update Sunday about how Fowler has been clean for two years and is a valued employee at Rush University Medical Center.  It was so positive that, four graphs into it, I looked up, thinking, "What is this? Why am I reading this positive stuff?" When he deftly revealed his purpose, to put something on that all-important Google search page above the grim story, for future employers and such to see first. The story itself was interesting—I got to the end, which I always do with Mark's columns but seldom with other columnists who, in deference to his spirit of comity, I shall not name, even though it goes against my inclination to hurt in a gratuitous fashion whenever given the opportunity.
     Of course one story is only a start, and it puts the story from two years ago one position down. What she really needs is for other stories, such as this, to appear, and for people to link to Brown's story, to make sure it maintains the search engine oomph it needs to stay above Mark's original story, which has had a two year head start, clickwise.
     Anyway, as somebody who knows something about having a single vastly negative story welded to one's name, however fairly, I thought it might encourage the illusion of niceness among those unfamiliar with my life and work were I to put something up as well, and encourage people to read Mark's story and post it on their Facebook pages, or tweet it, or whatever. I'm sorry that, in doing it, I had to spill the beans about Mark's inherent kindness and decency—really very Zornian, now that I think of it. But as I said, I'm a genuine asshole, and don't care who I hurt in this job, one of the many differences between us, as Mark would tell you himself were he not, you know, such a good guy.

Flashback 2012: UL fights fires with science

Ready to burn: a bedroom at UL in a house about to be torched.

     A reader who works at UL, the former Underwriters Laboratories, commented on a column, and I thought I would share the visit I made to UL; a habit of mine, probably a bad one, of pushing my stuff on strangers. But as I tell young writers, if you don't care about your work, then nobody does. It didn't matter; I found I hadn't posted it. Let's correct that. Not many reporters get into UL; I lucked out. A neighbor who worked there was telling me that UL would be burning down a few houses the following week, and I asked, "Can that process be observed?"  She managed to get me in, but it was a near thing, and I could tell UL is one of those organizations that shrinks from the public gaze. I'm not sure why. Maybe they're just terrible at publicity, a common ailment.

     The fire in the house at 333 Pfingsten Rd. in Northbrook started on a sofa in the living room. In minutes, the room was engulfed in flames, the smoke detectors bleating out their alarm, unheeded.
     No one called the fire department—indeed, firefighters were already there, nearly a dozen, from departments across the country, watching the progress of the blaze on television monitors in a nearby room.
     The world headquarters campus of UL—formerly Underwriters Laboratories—is at 333 Pfingsten, the house on fire is one of two homes built side-by-side within UL's Building 11, an enormous hangar, 120 feet square.
     The false ceiling is the largest land-based elevator in the world, raised and lowered by four enormous hydraulic cylinders, one at each corner, to test the ideal height of sprinkler systems and see if they can put out burning roomfuls of car dashboards or barrels of whiskey (or, memorably, rolls of toilet paper, the charred, soggy remains of which took two days to clean up using front-end loaders). The ventilation system is so powerful it can capture the black smoke pouring out of a house aflame and scrub it clean by actually reburning the smoke. Fresh air is pumped back in to keep house fires from sucking out all the oxygen in the room.
     UL runs more than 100,000 tests a year on 19,000 products from toasters to X-ray machines at 68 facilities around the world. Founded in 1894, with 1,700 employees in Northbrook, UL nevertheless is one of the lower profile Chicago-based businesses.
     "Most of my neighbors have no idea we're out here," said John Drengenberg, Consumer Safety Director at UL.
     In this test, UL has been investigating firefighting procedures, funded by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security.
     "What we're researching is the best way to ventilate the fire," Drengenberg said. "This is focused not on consumers, but on firefighters. How can they best do their job, how can they best keep their men safe?"
     Residential fires have declined but firefighter injuries have not, and the theory is outdated techniques might be to blame. Under scrutiny in today's test is the practice of chopping holes in the roof to let out heat.
     "That was the best way at one time—it may not be the best way today, and the reason is that so many materials in your home are synthetic," Drengenberg said. "The backing on your carpet is reconstituted soda bottles. You've got synthetics on your drapes, your furniture. They're infinitely more flammable than cotton, silk or leather, because they're oil-based."
     In decades past, homeowners were told they had 17 minutes to get out after a fire started. Now they have three, four minutes.
     Gathered in an observation room are firefighters from Chicago, the suburbs, New York and Cleveland, plus representatives from federal agencies and colleges.
     "The fuel has changed, construction has changed, our mindset has not," said Frank Rodgers, district chief of the Morton Grove Fire Department.
     Eight minutes after the fire is set, the house's front door is opened, as if firefighters were entering. Black smoke pulses from under the lintel. Two firefighters—UL has its own full-time fire department —advance with a hose. Meanwhile, on the roof, a 4-by-4 hatch is opened—as if a hole were being chopped—and water is shot through. Sensors measure temperature, smoke density.
     The fire is put out quickly—it will be a longer process to repair the damage so the house is in condition to be burned again. Tests run through the end of February.
     While some firefighters present are eager to take the results back to their departments, UL will carefully study the results before issuing an official report.
     "We still have to analyze the data," Drengenberg said.
     "Since everything in the fire service has been largely based on tradition, now it's more science-based, but before they accept any new options, they want to see the data," said Daniel Madrzykowski, a fire protection engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "The thinking is, 'This isn't how we've always done it, so why should we change?' And that's really the importance of all these tests."

       —Originally published in the Sun-Times Jan. 25, 2012

Texas Notes: Virtue Signaling

     Our regular Saturday report from EGD Austin Bureau Chief, Caren Jeskey.

 “We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.”                               ― Immanuel Kant

     I once spent time on a tobacco farm in a small town in Kentucky. The land owners, rich and humble, were still overseers. The migrant workers lived in a large dorm-like building with beds, a kitchen and bathrooms. The beds were spaced apart for privacy, but there were no room dividers. It was very clean, temperate and well appointed yet it was still just a giant room where grown men had to live together for meager wages. Couldn’t the landowners have truly shared their wealth with the men who did dangerous and back-breaking work every day? What if they'd each had a small home where brothers or friends could be roommates, and spouses and children could come and join them and wages to support a family? Wouldn't this be more humane?
     The land owner told me a story. One of the workers came from Guanajuato Mexico to work on the farm and quickly found his new job to be untenable. I was young and very fit back then and helped plant one day, it was brutal. This young man was so distraught that he packed his bags and left after just a few days. He was walking down the road trying to get back home to Mexico when the landowners and his brother, also a worker on the farm, drove down and found him. The owners escorted him back home via airplane and spent some time with his family. This surely created a tighter bond and more trust between the owners and this family of workers. The land owners did their best to be good people; however, they were in an industry that included marginal employment of a corral of men hired on as workhorses, and it just didn’t sit quite right.
     Yes, we can have industry and hire workers. No, we cannot sit in ivory towers like Jeff Bezos (worth an estimated $178.4 billion) is doing today while his Whole Food workers are expected to have face time with hundreds of potentially COVID ridden members of the public each day. One person should not possess such wealth and if they do, they should not be allowed to exploit others to keep their deep pockets from tearing.  

      My Busia (great grandma) used to tell me to “be kind to everyone.” Her daughter, my Grandma Marie, also showed kindness to strangers around every corner. My Grandma Olive always had a smile and a joke, and I don’t think I ever heard her say an unkind word about another human being. My parents taught me about the value of justice since I was a young child, and tried to give me diversity of experience. They chose socially redeeming work when they could, and showed me the value of integrity and honesty in less-redeeming work. I believe that these messages have molded me into a person who cares about others. I have not always been a good person to those I love (including myself) and I have had relationship challenges like everyone else. I knew, though, that I (must always strive to be more balanced in order to be a better member of society. I now seek to have harmony across all boards and minimize conflict when I can. I admit when I am wrong to the best of my ego’s ability, and say I am sorry when I need to. I will continue to use my voice and take actions to contribute to social justice. 

Our Present Image (detail) by David Alfaro Siqueiros (MoMA)

  In my estimation virtue signaling, if honest, is a proper use of one’s voice. Had I not heard stories of the importance of practicing ethical humanism as a child, had I not witnessed my family doing so, who would I be today? Living in the South has provided me with a brand new challenge to test my mettle. For the first time in my life I find that I have right-leaning, Trump supporting, all lives matter believing (of course they do, but that misses the point of striving for justice for all), non mask-wearing, anti-vaxxers— some with ingrained white supremacist beliefs— in my life. Shouting and screaming at them won’t get us anywhere, from what I have seen, but patient discourse and modeling just might. Let’s keep holding out for hope.

     “Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.”                                                                            ― Kofi Annan