Sometimes you have to try something

     In 1903, the city of Chicago barred nickelodeon operators from showing a pair of popular Western silent movies, “James Boys” and “Night Riders,” under the theory that seeing shoot-outs glorifies crime and warps the minds of youth.
     The nickelodeon owners — Jake Block, Nathan Wolf, J.H. Ferris, and others — sued.
     This kicked off more than 80 years of police censorship of movies in Chicago, either to protect children, or defend the reputation of the city — Paul Muni’s 1932 “Scarface” was banned here because it suggested there was organized crime in Chicago.
     I’ll pause while you chuckle softly and shake your head at that one.
     This went on for decades, and even Richard M. Daley was so agitated by the swears in the script of “Hardball” that he wanted to somehow deny filmmakers the right to use the word “Chicago.”
     I’m going into this background to establish my perspective as I read Zac Clingenpeel’s article in Tuesday’s Sun-Times about state Rep. Marcus Evans Jr. trying to combat carjacking by banning sale of Grand Theft Auto and other violent video games to minors.
     His heart is in the right place, certainly. But too often public officials focus on the “do something” side of the equation and ignore the “combat the problem” part.

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Donald Trump's gift of silence

 

Henry Ford, bronze, by Hans Wollner (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

     Henry Ford had his good qualities: he revolutionized manufacturing. He was a populizer. He didn't invent the assembly line, but took the idea from the overhead trolleys carrying carcasses through the Chicago stockyards and applied it to automobiles. He didn't invent the car, but made it affordable, cutting the cost by 2/3. He paid his workers more—$5 a day, double the going rate, he said so they could afford cars themselves, but also because the assembly line work was seen as so mind-numbingly dull that he had trouble keeping workers. He didn't coin the term "mass production," but put it on the nation's lips after using it as a title for his 1926 Encyclopedia Britannica article.
     Ford tried to end World War I, chartering an ocean liner and sending it to Europe stuffed with peace activists.
     The good parts, of course, must be balanced by the bad. He blamed that war—all wars really—on the Jews. Ford was a foaming anti-Semite, his Dearborn Independent a Jew-hating rag. As bad as it is to admire Hitler, Ford was worse: Hitler admired him, and gives Ford a shout-out in Mein Kampf—the only American mentioned in the book—as the "single great man" in the United States for standing up against "the Jews." Ford also received the German Eagle, the highest Nazi honor for non-Germans, in 1938 and it was displayed for decades at his museum, Greenfield Village. I saw it there.
     Do they balance out, the good and the bad? I don't think so. It only takes a little spit to spoil the soup. Nobody cares if John Wayne Gacy was a good clown.
    However ... this is awkward, and I'm still thinking through it, so let's just explore together.
     I was researching comic strips, preparing my new book, and was looking at strips created in the Chicago area, such as "Little Orphan Annie," dreamed up 100 years ago by Harold Gray, who was living in Lombard and cartooning for the Tribune. And whenever the subject of what a huge success the strip became, it's mentioned how, in one adventure, Annie's dog is lost, causing national consternation, which is always demonstrated by the same story: a telegram from Henry Ford in Detroit pleading, "Please find Sandy for us. We are all concerned."
     Awww, right? A single resonating pluck on a heartstring. Although the "interesting if true" reflex kicks in. That does get told in a lot of legitimate histories, though I never saw a photo of the telegram, which Gray supposedly kept. It does have what I call "the tang of veracity." Anti-Semites like to speak in the third-person plural, as a kind of verbal backup, to make them seem like more of a crowd. I can't tell you how many emails from bigots begin, "We were chuckling over your 'column'..." or words to that effect. Like pufferfish trying to blow themselves up to seem more intimidating. Now that I think of it, Charles Lindbergh titled his autobiography, "We." Lindbergh was talking about himself and his Ryan airplane, "The Spirit of St. Louis." But still...
     So an anti-Semite who likes dogs. Put that in the pot. And then, in another part of the book, I reached out to the archivist at the Ford Motor Company. Companies and organizations are notoriously spotty about their own histories. Some are active and involved and interested. And some just don't care, since it's not the news they're pushing at the moment. I reached out to the National Confectioners Association, founded in Chicago in 1884, and asked about their origins. Their flack said, in essence, nobody here has any idea about the history of the organization we all work for nor are we interested in finding out. Which struck me as just so lame.
     The Ford Motor Company's archivist sent me a color photocopy of the information I was looking for, a hand-written ledger from 1903. Extraordinarily helpful of them. And while that, coupled with the possibly real telegram, doesn't of course wipe away Ford being a foul bigot who did real harm to the world, if only by serving as a beacon to Hitler, I did feel ... well ... less condemnatory about the man.
     Is that bad? Does that matter? Perhaps the key is that Ford is dead and history over and fixed, so a passing smile in his direction neither harms nor helps him. But what about more current situations?
     As the days clicked on, and January melted to February, with Trump barred from Twitter, and not constantly vomiting forth his noxious worldview on Fox News, or Newsmax, or whatever state cable channel is currently in his favor. Well, I felt ... okay, I'll say it ... grateful for his silence. Not that I now like the man, any more than I like Henry Ford. But his odiousness was mitigated, just a little, but the gift of his not spewing his self-pitying seditious BS everywhere. I appreciate it. Yes, he's scheduled to start speaking again, and will no doubt fill every corner of the media universe like a fart in a broom closet. And yes, that gratitude has a note of the pathetic, like an abuse victim happy that the beast is having a good day. But for the moment, sweet relief.
    There, I said it, deliberately on my blog, where only a few thousand people will read it, instead of the wider sweep of the newspaper. And I'm glad, in a way, because I don't want to be a hater. First, because I sincerely believe the line about hating is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die. But also because if Trump is in Mar-a-Lago, stalking the halls like Richard III, face screwed up in miserable grievance, soliloquying, spittle flying off his lips, plotting revenge against Republicans who aren't sticking with him as he sails off on future treasons, I like the idea of being the exact opposite, that to decent people he is not only fading, but the stark truth about him becomes suffused with a slight rosy hue.
     Then again, I'm a nice guy—shhhh, it's a secret. I can't rightly say I hate anybody. I'm too sympathetic. I pity Trump, a poor broken kitten, and his ridiculously, eternally-duped followers, standing in the street, advertising their gullibility on banners.
     Anyway, this has gone one too long. No mas. I've got a column to write this morning. Thanks for reading.

Mayor needs less hope, more responsibility

Chicago, May 30, 2020 (photo for the Sun-Times by Ashlee Rezin Garcia)

     Reviewing my actions over the weekend of May 29, 2020, the journalistic decisions made and strategic approaches taken to covering the Chicago riots, I have come to the conclusion that I was 1000 percent right in everything I did and would not do anything differently. That said, I’ve learned from the mistakes that weren’t made and won’t let them happen again, not that they ever did.
     That doesn’t quite scan, does it?
     Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s take on the inspector general’s report on the city’s botched handling of the George Floyd riots ... where to begin? Search for the positive, I suppose: We should take comfort the mayor didn’t throw police Supt. David Brown under the bus.
     But then, she couldn’t, could she? The man just took the job April 15, six weeks before the city erupted. Her support comes not so much from her cutting the new guy slack as understanding, if the Chicago Police Department leadership were as inept as the report suggests, it would also reflect badly on Lightfoot, who hired him. The buck stops somewhere else.
     On Friday, Lightfoot said she conferred with her fellow mayors around the country, and they were also caught flatfooted by the unrest.
     “No mayor expected what we all got,” she said, spreading the blame around. I might have to use that spin: Most reporters cowered in their safe suburban homes and didn’t rush downtown. It wasn’t just me.

      The scariest thing Lightfoot said is she hopes the riots are a once-in-a-lifetime event. Wrong! Hope is not a success strategy. Hope caused the problem in the first place. Lightfoot hoped this wasn’t going to happen in her city. The report underlines the kind of magical thinking that worsens disasters like this. Expecting the worst is her job. That’s what the police are for. “Sorry! We were caught off guard by all this crime. We vigorously hoped it wouldn’t occur.”

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America, united at last!

      Joe Biden has been president for only a month and a day, and already the country has come together, as one, something I would have not thought possible, never mind be accomplished so quickly. Democrat and Republican and Independent, from the far left to the far right, joining in unanimous agreement, a single people, united, at least in one regard:

     Ridiculing Ted Cruz.
     How stupid can a man be? Even a congressman? Even Ted Cruz. His flight southward Wednesday was one of those delicious slow-motion political train wrecks that unfolds like a glorious flower opening: first the glimpses of Cruz on Twitter, in his work-a-daddy gray polo and snazzy Texas mask, rolling his big black bag through the airport. Really? Not somebody who looks like Ted Cruz? Can it be? It is! Senator Ted Cruz, fleeing to Cancún to loll on a beach while the state of Texas suffers. Sans power. Sans heat. Sans food, water, hope, help. 

     Let them eat carnitas. While Texas plunges into misery, Ted is plunging into the warm surf. His hometown of Houston freezing while the only thing frozen about Cruz is the margarita in his paw. The jokes write themselves.

     It would look improbable in a Christopher Buckley novel. Yet so delicious real, sparkling like waves in the bright sun. And it just kept getting better. Cruz rushes back and ... wait for it! ... blames his daughters—they made him do it. Ted Cruz throws his daughters under the bus. Not his fault; he was just trying to be a good dad (it's a shame we couldn't get his daughters to ask Cruz to stop betraying the country; apparently he has to do whatever they say). Then his wife's giddy let's-get-OUT-of-here! email chain, handed over to the press by her supposed friends. Meee-yow! The marvel of Cruz actually admitting that yeah, maybe, he might have done something unwise. The heavens crack. Unprecedented!
     And then, the cherry on the top: Snowflake, Cruz's little dog. Left behind, alone in the freezing house that was too cold for his family to tolerate. Gazing pathetically out the door, captured by a press photographer. This is why I don't write fiction. What kind of man does that? I wouldn't leave my little dog alone in a warm house.*
     Was there a voice defending Cruz except his own? I didn't hear it. I can't imagine it. No, the entire nation rolling on the ground and kicking its legs in the air, grasping its belly and gasping for breath. If snark and sarcasm and ridicule were kilowatts, the state of Texas would be glowing like a hot coal by now. 
     It was all so much fun that I am reluctant to spoil the fun and point out something serious: the man is a traitor. Not a ha-ha traitor, or a thoughtless coward traitor, or a traitor to good politics and responsible citizenship. No, a betray your country during its moment of peril traitor. Ted Cruz turned his back on America, echoing Trump's vote fraud lies that fired up the Jan. 6 mob, then voting to toss out millions of legitimate votes afterward. Taking a pickaxe to the basis of democracy. Considering that real, deathless, damning, damaging perfidy, his little field trip to Mexico is nada, as they say down there, on the moral lapse scale. 

    But it is a lot of fun. 
    And a hopeful development. Beto O'Rourke almost beat him last time. Everyone hated Ted Cruz before. After four years of Ted Cruz's lips applied lamprey-like to Donald Trump's capacious ass, plus the grotesque spectacle of his powder to the Ritz-Carleton to soak up some rays while Texas shivers, well, maybe Cruz isn't the strategic genius who is going to succeed in bringing autocracy to the United States after Donald Trump finally sinks into his tar pit of bottomless grievance. Maybe he isn't so smart after all, Princeton and Harvard notwithstanding.

    Americans can forgive a traitor, obviously. We have a much harder time forgiving a fool. 

*The news that there was a security guard/dogsitter tending to Snowflake loped along late enough as to not spoil the deliciousness of the pup's arrival into the story, too much.

Texas notes: Austin icehouse

    With all the bad news out of Texas, I almost suggested to Austin Bureau Chief Caren Jeskey that she bring us up to speed on how she's coping with the crisis. But then I said to myself, "She's a pro; she'll know what to do." Which she did.

     You might have heard a thing or two about Texas weather this week. I sit here a bit stunned and shell shocked in the Austin tundra. Yet my only option is to soldier on. The pipes froze and I had to move out of my tiny house for now. I was fortunate to find an Airbnb to escape to for the week. I’ve been told that the pipes in my tiny house rental may burst in the thaw, as has happened to so many others. In response to this, today I ventured out on a 3+ mile walk to the tiny house to place my papers, books (such as Drunkard and Out of the Wreck I Rise), and other valuables into plastic tubs in case the big burst comes to pass.
     I’ve implored my landlord to shut off the water to the house and open the taps— advice I’ve seen on the city of Austin’s website as well as heard from homeowners in the know to stave off possible bursting. His response has been “everything seems fine and we’ll just wait and see.” I am not sure this is the best approach.

     It took two hours today to walk (well, skate) the 3+ miles from the Airbnb to my house for the Great Bin Project of 2021. (I exaggerate—the contents of a 288' house is actually quite modest and the whole project took about an hour). It’s a wonder I did not wipe out on the miles of ice rink I traversed in my Keen boots. Sure wish I’d save those Yaktrax cleats my father gave me back in Chicago. Oh silly me—I thought I was leaving the North for warmer days.

     After the icy trek I arrived at HEB, our local grocer. When I saw the line was a city block long I opted for a smaller local shop across the street—when I arrived there I saw they were closed. I still had 6 blocks or so to walk home and was starting to feel a little sorry for myself. I love walking but I don't love putting myself at risk of a fall, which I felt I was doing. There was one more little store between there and home and as I rounded the corner I saw that the lot was full. Eureka! I went in and got bottled water (a good move, since we now have a boil water order and the taps have very little pressure). I stocked up on KIND bars and watermelon juice, and I broke down and got a Snickers Bar.

     I also broke down and called a friend. I needed help. She agreed to come pick me up at home, once my things were safely stashed in the bins, and drive me back to the Airbnb. What an angel. As she dropped me off she let me know there was a bag in the back seat for me. It had a picture her five year old drew for me: "Ms. Caren and the person who owns her house playing in the snow." Inside the bag I found homemade soup with a baggie of fresh cilantro, oatmeal, dates, cheese and other delights. I do realize I have little to nothing to complain about. 

      Gas stations are closed due to power outages and a dearth of gas. I was lucky to get to one of the last stations still open on Monday, where it took 45 minutes to fill up my little Honda Civic tank. In retrospect it was rude to fill the tank; I did not know the slow rate of gas coming out was due to the fact that the station was running out of the precious stuff.     

      While I pumped, a group of four underdressed kids tried to pull into the gas station in a beaten up silver SUV, the bumper hanging off and doors dented. They ran out of gas as they tried to get up the driveway to the station. I knew what I had to do, and flagged down a shiny black pick-up driven by what looked to be a duck hunter in fatigues and a camo hat, and asked him to help. Chivalry comes in handy sometimes.
     He jumped out and tied cables to the bottom of their car, then pulled them into the gas station spot. An elderly man was in the passenger seat of the truck and I asked “is he your son?” He said “no, my neighbor. He is always like this, doing things for others.” I took a video of the rescue and the kids told me to put in on TikTok (which I do not have). I told the kids “the Duck Hunter saves the day,” and they cracked up.
     Turns out the truck driver is my neighbor, and his name is Nick. He told me where he lives and I plan to get a big basket of thanks to him once we thaw out.
     So how are you this week? If COVID fatigue and a lack of accessible vaccines were not enough, global warming is wreaking some very real havoc.
     An elderly client has been in a warming center since Friday. I called another to check in and they shared they have not had heat in days. They were shivering and I heard it in their voice; a possible sign of hypothermia. All they’d eaten that day was crackers and cookies. I called the local police department and an Officer Zamora came to the rescue. He called them and offered to go over to charge their phones and bring them food. Mission accomplished.
     Yesterday at 11 am I realized “oh no! I am supposed to teach a yoga class this morning!” I’d accidentally left my calendar at home. I had not washed my hair in days and had major hat head. I threw on my giant faux fur hat, and a poncho over my pajamas. They were understanding since they’d heard of the Great Texas Chill, and I taught the class. We all need to relax our standards these days, don’t we?
     The only thing to do is take it one day at a time. Rest, rinse, survive, repeat day by day.

Flashback 1997: Hoover tapes reveal details of gang life

Larry Hoover

     My colleague Mary Mitchell made a bold plea Thursday for gang leader Larry Hoover to be released from prison. Her argument is that police often lie, and Hoover has been in prison for nearly half a century. True enough. She also scoffs at the idea that Hoover could control his gang from prison. My understanding is that this is not outrageous.  I covered Hoover's conspiracy trial here in 1997, and he seemed quite open about it. My central memory of listening to those tapes is looking over at Hoover in court and thinking, "Lex Luthor he is not."

     Beatings with baseball bats and Larry Hoover's envy of fellow gang leader Jeff Fort were part of a glimpse inside the Gangster Disciples' lifestyle Monday in federal court.
     Hoover, who is serving a 150- to 200-year sentence for a 1973 murder, is being tried with six associates on drug conspiracy charges.
     On tapes played in court Monday, Hoover seemed familiar with the minute details of his operation. "Who on 47 (Street) that's working? Is they folks?" Hoover asked, urging that problem members be brought down to see him.
     "You got to bring these chumps in," he said. "Get Pops and get a crew together and ride. You got a problem with me, you see me."
     Elsewhere, Hoover expressed admiration for the Black Panthers, calling it "the most beneficial organization in the 20th century."
     "It's lean; it's strong," he said, leading into a nostalgic reminiscence about his days of freedom.
     "I was king at 19," he said. "Eighteen—at 18, I was king."
     Hoover remembered seeing El Rukn gang leader Jeff Fort at a church meeting in the late 1960s.
     "You could hear a pin drop when he was walking in," said Hoover, recalling their snazzy suede jackets. "I told myself I could have a mob like that . . . I remember it like it was yesterday."
     To record those discussions, investigators put transmitters in the badges of people visiting Hoover. Recordings were made on weekends from Oct. 30, 1993, until the transmitters were found by a visitor on Dec. 19, 1993.
     Convicted felon Thomas London, 29, was one of several witnesses to discuss Gangster Disciples "literature"—the rules they were forced to memorize, such as: "Nothing can hurt a duck but its beak," meaning they shouldn't talk.
     Gang members who broke rules were subject to varying degrees of "violations," from being punched in the chest to being beaten with baseball bats.
     "There was always someone getting violated," said London, who added that the supposed gang truce arranged by the Gangster Disciples was intended to help Hoover personally.
     "They said they wanted peace because the Old Man was trying to get paroled," he said.

                      —Originally published in the Sun-Times, March 25, 1997

They do, obviously.

 

    
     Now "crap" is an interesting word. Anglo-Saxon, I guessed, upon seeing this carton from Who Gives a Crap brand toilet paper left out for our delayed trash day Wednesday in would-be tony Northbrook.
     I was not particularly surprised to see the moderate oath being introduced by toilet tissue makers. Even mainstream paper mills have gotten bold lately, with their pudgy bears and angel babies growing more, ah, specific. What's the line? "Enjoy the go." In your dreams, Charmin.
     I should say, I'm not offended by the more direct advertising for toilet paper. Like most marketing, it veers from annoying to forgettable. But as someone who has tied his business wagon, so to speak, to a mild oath with everygoddamnday.com, I was interested to see an actual company assume a curse word moniker.
    The company, which we'll call WGAC for brevity, was started by three young men in 2010 who are interested in worldwide sanitation, according to their smart who-we-are video that raised $66,000 on Indiegogo. I always assume that protestations of noble intent and concern for the world at large are mere corporate puffery, a slick patter to distract consumers while snaking a hand into their pockets. But a banner on WGAC's bright, fun web page announces they've just donated $5.8 million Australian (or $4 million American dollars) to WaterAid.
     That's a lot. As is their pledge to donate 50 percent of profits to sanitation and water charity. 

      Add to that a consideration that the giant toilet paper companies just blow completely: attractive packaging. Look at the rolls. They're sort of wild and fun, graphically, are they not? The kind of rolls you'd expect in trendy lofts in in Bucktown or ... maybe ... big old farm houses in Northbrook. The lady down the block obviously took the plunge. Maybe we will too. With that in mind, I checked the price: a buck a roll, or about three times what Charmin costs. Ah. We'll have to think about that...
     Forgive me for being sidetracked. We were supposed to parse the word "crap." Man, was I off-base with my guess that it was some ancient Teutonic word.
     I was worried the Oxford English Dictionary might turn up its nose at "crap" (sorry) the way it hurries past "fuck" without a glance. But it's there, though not at all what I expected.
     The Oxford finds its origins obscure or dialect, and begins by suggesting the word is identical with the earlier Dutch krappe and then fires off, without preface or translation, this 1599 string of Latin, 'carptus, carptura, res decerpta, rustum, decerptum siue abscissum, pars abrasa siue abscissa; pars carnis abscissa; crustum; offella, offula; placenta; pulpamentum." which Mr. Google Translate renders semi-helpfully as: ""Nipped by, GATHERING, a plucked, rust, off or cut off a part of the drying out or removed; a part of the flesh is in the abscissa crusts; offella, a snack; cake; meat."
     Setting the stage, in a garbled fashion, for the first three definitions of "crap," starting with "1. The husk of grain; chaff," and running through plants and weeds and buckwheat, then residue from rendering or boiling, dregs in beer.
     Notice anything missing? Not a word about excrement, beyond it also being something left behind (sorry) which what I thought of as the primary definition of the word. (I don't know why. I'm far more likely to toss away the newspaper with, "I'm so sick of this COVID crap!" than I am to say, "Excuse me Mr. Ambassador, but I've got to step away to take a crap. Continue the discussion without me."
     This tendency is reflected in Wentworth and Flexner's "Dictionary of American Slang," which drives home that, despite pretensions, I don't know my own language. They identify crap as taboo, though its first definition is "Nonsense; cant; lies; exaggeration; insincerity; mendacity' bull," traced to the relative yesterday* of 1939. "Pally, I never heard so much crap in such a short time in my life," from John O'Hara's Pal Joey.
     They derive the word "from the taboo but otherwise standard 'crap'=feces." then get to "2 Anything inferior, cheap, ugly or insulting by its very presence, sp. merchandise that is of inferior material, workmanship, or overall quality; shit."
     Which circles us back to using crap in a product name. Before I checked out Who Gives a Crap's web site, I questioned whether associating any product with the word crap is a wise marketing strategy, even for toilet paper. But that might be my three score years talking. Looking at their presentation, and the actual dollars they've given to world water and sanitation distribution and education, plus the presence of an empty cardboard box on our block as evidence they actually do distribute the stuff, I've decided the name is sharp, effective marketing. Had they called the product, "Hands Around the World Toilet Paper" or some such tripe, my curiosity would never have been piqued. The big Wisconsin mills are so focused on making toilet paper cheap and comfortable, and friendly, they forgot to make it cool. "Who Gives a Crap" does, and while, looking at the name again, we could wonder if there being no question mark at the end is an oversight—Who Gives a Crap?—this has already gone on too long, and we can leave that for my loyal commenters to hash out.

* The dangers of quick-and-easy, on-the-fly etymology. After this was posted, in checking to confirm that the 19th century British toilet maker, Thomas Crapper, has nothing at all to do with the development of the word, I found this, from Hotten’s 1859 "A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words: “CRAP, to ease oneself, to evacuate.”