Category Archives: Commentary

Life at street level

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Saturday, September 19, I invited J. over for an end-of-summer dip in the pool. It’s been a cool, cloudy September, and with the neighborhood urchins back in school only a few hardy residents have been coming out to do a few laps. The sun, sinking toward the south, now hides behind the building most of the day, so there’s nothing for sunbathers to bask in. The pool, once crowded and noisy, is empty and quiet now.

The pool’s water is warm, but the breeze can be nippy on wet skin. J. finds it hard to get into the water, so he lowers himself slowly, while I start to shiver and my teeth to chatter when I get out and the air hits me. I noticed that a young woman who jumped in for a few laps scurried inside after a brief rub with a towel. There’s no drying off naturally at sunset when the 65-degree Fahrenheit air is blowing.

Dried off and warmed up, we decided to eat before J. continued on to work. He mentioned Western Avenue, which seemed too far to me under what felt like time and energy constraints. We settled on Calypso Café — not his idea of new and adventurous, but at least we hadn’t been there in a while, and the menu is pretty varied.

This trip also gave me a chance to see what was left of Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop — which is nothing, just a very clean excavation, with no sign of construction that I could tell. Ostensibly, a clean site presents a better picture to potential investors than a doomed building, although I wonder who’s buying or lending right now. As I told J., it looks to me like the University of Chicago wanted to flex its muscle and show the neighborhood it means business.

To me, this raises the question of what business the university is in, exactly. Given the number of times they contact me by phone, e-mail, and mail to plead for funding, I would think they’re focusing on their core mission, which I think would be education, research, and medicine. On the side, however, they can’t seem to resist the real estate business — owning and managing the local shopping center, buying property and providing vague explanations, and now buying and redeveloping the old Harper Court.

J. asked me if other big universities carry so much weight in their neighborhoods. To his surprise, I laughed. The University of Chicago is a flea compared to, say, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

I like Ann Arbor. From the bed and breakfast where I stay, I can walk to countless local boutiques and shops, like Peaceable Kingdom and the People’s Food Co-op and Café Verde. For those students who require their suburban comforts, Borders and Starbucks are right off the main campus. But my favorite, even now that many of the brick streets have been paved over, is Kerrytown, a quaint and quirky shopping center where you can find so much variety at the shops or the frequent farmers’ market. At Kerrytown, I feel like I’m in a small village artisans’ market — something that the “college town” of Hyde Park sorely lacks. So much here is spread out and is purely utilitarian; many of the limited storefronts are dedicated to salons, dry cleaners, locksmiths, optometrists, dentists, and the like. A great boutique like Parker’s Pets (akin to Kerrytown’s Dogma and Catmantoo) is isolated on a boulevard, away from other shops in an area that has little to draw pedestrians. Open Produce and The Fair Trader are also wonderful additions to the area, but they’re far from the heart of the university, and students and staff would have to go out of the way to shop there — with little else nearby to browse except a dollar store.

Now imagine Parker’s Pets, Freehling Pot and Pan Company, Bonjour Bakery and Café, Toys Etcetera, The Fair Trader, Istria Café, and Open Produce all on one or two blocks. Throw in a movie theater and even a small venue for folk and world music nearby, and you’ve pictured downtown Ann Arbor. If the university is going to micromanage Hyde Park, can’t they come up with a master strategy and vision that’s as conducive to community and participation as Ann Arbor? Even the 55th Street side of the Hyde Park Shopping Center, with its landscaped courtyard and arts, garden, and book fairs, is a step in the right direction.

My understanding is that a mixed-use high-rise is planned to dominate Harper Court. Perhaps density is ecologically “green” and the best use of urban space. I’ve noticed, though, that high-rises don’t foster community in the way that clustered storefronts and courtyards do. Imposing and bulky, often with little open space, high-rises seem distanced from their surroundings. They don’t entice the neighborhood to gather. Much of urban social life happens at street level, spilling out from restaurants, pubs, taverns, cafés, shops, and three flats, not from high-rise hulks.

Nowhere in Chicago is this more evident than in Lincoln Park, where the main streets like Lincoln and Clark, Armitage and Diversey, are filled with people shopping, eating, drinking, and hanging out in front of the most popular places.

By contrast, the primary commercial street near the University of Chicago is 53rd Street, where many of the most interesting shops (including those that were once in Harper Court) have disappeared, including, for example, the Chalet (replaced by a chain) and the import store (owner retired and moved). Because of the proximity of Kenwood Academy and for other reasons, the police discourage loitering, so what makes Lincoln Park sociable, popular, and successful is considered a threat in Hyde Park. Even men playing chess are dangerous, at least according to those who had the chess tables at Harper Court removed years ago, driving the rowdy players over to Borders and Harold Washington Park, where they continue to disturb the peace with their intent stares at chess pieces.

I’d be happy to be wrong, but unless the street level of a high-rise complex is engaging in design and offers something for many, the university’s plans don’t seem to add all that much to the development of community except a modern face. Unless there’s something really compelling at that level, I suspect most of us will still be at the park watching the chess players, at Promontory Point soaking up rays, or indulging in a croissant at Bonjour, and still wishing there were some place to go and some place to hang out in Hyde Park.

Please Mr. Postman (the blue U.S. mailbox)

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At times separated by an ocean or by hundreds of miles, John and Abigail Adams wrote thousands of letters to each other, covering personal matters such as their farm, family, health, and hopes, as well as their views of freedom, the American Revolution and government, and its participants. Despite the distance, quite possibly their correspondence benefited from postal efficiencies introduced by fellow revolutionary and occasional nemesis Benjamin Franklin, who was appointed Joint Postmaster General of the colonies for the Crown in 1753 and Postmaster for the United Colonies in 1775.

Adams wrote prodigious numbers of letters throughout his adult life, to Abigail, children and grandchildren, and friends on both sides of the Atlantic. Through letters, he and Thomas Jefferson, past their primes and their ambitions, rekindled their friendship and their dialogue about the rights of man and the role of government. Adams finally quit writing in extreme old age, when his eyes were nearly sightless and his hands shook too much to manage a pen. Only physical infirmity deterred him.

As revolutionaries, then as president and president’s wife, John and Abigail had a great deal to say. Like Benjamin Franklin, they were keenly aware that what they wrote would become part of U.S. history.

Blue mailbox

I happened to be reading John Adams by David McCullough when I saw the Washington Post story about vanishing blue U.S. mailboxes that had become a fixture on city street corners and in the downtown area of many a burg. With e-mail, texting, social media like Facebook and Twitter, 24/7 mobile phone access, and other instant, on-the-go ways to communicate, who today takes the time and effort to write letters? Many seem to be able to communicate what we have to say in Twitter’s 140 characters (even John Quincy Adams), except when we’re texting cryptic messages back and forth: “whr ru?” “*bcks.” “b thr sn.” If you feel you need to communicate at greater length, you might start a blog, which, without a theme of general interest to the world or of particular interest to a special niche, will probably quickly fizzle out from lack of participation on both ends, readers’ and writer’s. Of course, you might not want to say to the world what you would to family, or to family what you would say to friends.

Although she did not have much to say, my mother wrote letters to sisters and brothers spread out across the country — Pennsylvania, Arizona, California. She didn’t like writing letters. I don’t think any of them did, because letters she wrote and received invariably began with an apology that the writer had not written sooner, followed by numerous apologies for having nothing to say, descriptions of the local weather, a bit of news if there were any, e.g., “Diane starts school in two weeks, Where did summer go?” Why write when there was so little to say and it was such a disliked chore? The answer — long distance was relatively expensive and reserved for truly important and immediate news, like deaths. Usually only one aunt, more affluent and urbanized than the others, called once in a while just to chat — and possibly to avoid writing a letter.

My mother also kept a diary, one of those old-fashioned small books with psychedelic covers popular in the 1960s. Five years of entries for, say, April 8, fit on a page, with perhaps three to five lines on which you could summarize the day for posterity. “A.M. Sunny but snowed in P.M. Insurance man called.” Writing didn’t come naturally to my mother, and she seemed painfully aware of it. She told us that, when she died. she wanted her diaries burned — clearly not for their lurid content or insights into her thoughts, but, I suspect, because she didn’t want anyone to see how mundane they were. I complied, although of course now I wish I hadn’t. I did keep my own two equally dull diaries from my childhood, although I rarely look into them — there is that little of interest in my colorful childish scrawls.

As someone who is paid to write, I’ve found that most people, even those with advanced degrees, are not comfortable expressing themselves in writing. Ostensibly, they worry about such things as grammar, flow, and polish. Could I make them sound better, more intelligent, more interesting, please?

I don’t think people are afraid of their technical shortcomings as writers, whether of professional communications, day-to-day diaries, or letters to family and friends. I suspect there’s a deep-seated fear of revealing our thoughts and how we think to those who know us personally. Unlike John and Abigail, my mother didn’t have congressional congresses, wars, courts, diplomacy, or politics to write about from a firsthand viewpoint. That left her feeling like most people, who think they have nothing worthwhile to say or are afraid to say anything worthwhile from fear of offending or causing an argument or a break (something that troubled Adams less than Jefferson). So they talk about TV shows and tweet about the weather, what they’re listening to or watching, where they’re eating, perhaps what they’re reading. We’re afraid to write, or are unable to write, paralyzed by our lack of material or the unwillingness to be ourselves. We’re afraid to be judged by what we say and how we say it.

I write letters — lots of letters. For all I know, they bore the recipients. But I love the sensory experience of writing, the glide of pen across paper and the appearance of writing, which is almost magical. I may start out on one mundane topic, which leads to another, and another, and, on occasion, sometimes a broader topic of more general interest. A comment about a Victorian novel may lead to a different perspective about some aspect of contemporary life. Writing — not typing — helps me to think questions through and to remember details. Knowing that I am going to write letters keeps me on the lookout for things to write about — the lack of fireflies this summer, neighborhood news, overheard conversations, interesting perspectives on the news and the world, quirks of human behavior, including my own. Sometimes a seemingly ingenuous observation launches me into what I hope is a worthwhile digression, making me perceive a topic or problem differently. Letters allow me to think out loud in a way that a journal, with its audience of one, can’t. Even without a dialogue, I can imagine my audience’s reaction, just as perhaps John, Abigail, and the other assorted family members thought of each other centuries ago as they sat at their desks, dipped their quills, and looked out over the bleak fields of winter and the ripening fields of summer.

Communication doesn’t have to be instantaneous or uninterrupted for the emotional connection to remain strong. To remember this, read some of the most poignant letters from any war — or the letters of John and Abigail Adams. When Abigail reminded John that he was sixty years old, he replied, “If I were near I would soon convince you that I am not above forty.” Could John Adams have conveyed his feelings and the implicit compliment to Abigail so eloquently in a text message? One can only imagine how Abigail’s heart rose as she held the paper and read of his love and lust for her in John’s own handwriting.

My heart still rises in the same way when I receive a handwritten letter, no matter who it is from or what it proves to be about. It’s an old habit that dies hard — and I’m not the one to fight it. Long live the blue U.S. mailboxes.

Lincoln Park Zoo docent program slated for extinction

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Mary Schmich left a voicemail to interview me for an August 30 Chicago Tribune article, but I didn’t get the message in time to meet her deadline. I sent the following letter to the Chicago Tribune and to Schmich. As soon as I get some post-surgery energy, I’ll be writing more here.

To the editor:

As a former Lincoln Park Zoo docent during the 1990s (I was 29 when I joined the program), I read “Zoo docents fading from landscape” by Mary Schmich (August 30, 2009) with interest. During my docent service, I received laudatory letters from donors, ovations after animal presentations, and kudos for tours; helped develop a popular “Escape to the Tropics” weekend during the winter; talked to families who delighted in both the interaction and the information; participated in numerous revenue-generating programs such as family workshops; and delivered in countless other ways on what was one of the four prongs of the zoo’s mission: Education. And I was one of more than 200 people of various ages and professional backgrounds, including not only retirees, but working teachers, college instructors, lawyers, nurses, dietitians, executives, Ph.D.s, and so on, doing the same — all on a volunteer basis. To paraphrase the Peace Corps slogan, “It was the best job I ever loved.” I left it with regret for personal reasons.

According to a zoo document quoted by Schmich, “the antiquated volunteer utilization model . . . does not enhance the zoo’s strategic initiatives and often does not set up volunteers for success.” Neither “strategic initiatives” nor “success” is defined. I admit I felt successful when, for example, families paying to attend workshops requested me as their tour guide and when I could persuade children — and their parents — to overcome their fear of snakes to touch one and find out that reptiles are animals, just like us. It’s hard to believe that the docent program, and docent-guest interactions like these, didn’t benefit millions of zoo visitors during the docent program’s nearly 40-year history. Surely the education mission and the visitor experience remain important to Lincoln Park Zoo.

To find out how to enhance its strategic initiatives, Lincoln Park Zoo might consider redesigning the docent program with help from its sister institutions. For example, Prospect Park Zoo (Brooklyn, New York) “is welcoming applications for its Docent Program . . . Docents lead group tours, interpret exhibits, present biofacts and other touchables at Discovery Stations, assist in our interactive Discovery Center, work at zoo special events, and teach visitors how to interact with alpacas and sheep at our barn area. Docents who successfully complete Live Animal Handling Training are also eligible to present short Live Animal Encounters to the public, teaching children and families about animals from the Zoo’s collection of education animals.” According to the Saint Louis Zoo, “Our docents are volunteer Zoo educators who are dedicated to teaching schoolchildren and the general public about wildlife, ecosystems and conservation. In sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm about our Zoo animals, they help increase our visitors’ caring attitude toward nature. Docents are critical to the successful operation of the Zoo’s Education Department and the greater zoological community.” Closer to home, “Brookfield Zoo docents will host the next National Association of Zoo & Aquarium Docents (AZAD) Conference September 7–12, 2010.” (The 1993 national AZAD conference was hosted by Lincoln Park Zoo docents.) These, and many other zoos and aquariums with thriving, successful docent programs, can provide the kind of guidance that Lincoln Park Zoo isn’t able to obtain from a consultant focused purely on business.

Renowned primatologist and herpetologist Russell A. Mittermeier Ph.D., the president of Conservation International and the only working field biologist to head a major international environmental organization, says, “The dedication and efforts of docents are a major contribution to the education of society. Their volunteer services are exerting a real impact, particularly on this country’s young people who show a growing interest in natural history and conservation.” This fits in perfectly with the Obama administration’s nationwide service initiative.

During this severe economic downtown, when Lincoln Park Zoo has had to slash budget and staff, it seems counterintuitive to squeeze volunteers and downsize volunteer programs. And it would be deeply regrettable if Lincoln Park Zoo were to dismiss as an “antiquated model” one that so many zoos and aquariums, and environmental leaders such as Mittermeier, have embraced as essential to conservation education and human appreciation for our fellow earth travelers.

Sincerely,

Diane Schirf

We back the bid and you can too

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I first noticed this proclamation displayed prominently in the building across the street, the pillars of which had been painted in colors complimentary to the logo, then in my building, then seemingly everywhere downtown. This ubiquitous display of Olympic love, it turns out, had been carefully orchestrated to coincide with a visit by the International Olympic Committee.

Who is the “we”? I wondered.

The answer to that in this case is no mystery — every business that needs to stay in the plus column of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s ledger. When Da Mare’s cruising, you want to make sure you, your business, and your building conform to his mantra, even if you personally pay your taxes in Naperville or don’t care one way or the other. It’s the wise thing to do.

I live in Chicago, I care, and those signs don’t speak for me. I am not part of the universal “we.”

I don’t back the bid. I don’t think I’m alone.

I’m sure many Chicagoans and suburbanites crave the excitement, prestige, and economic stimulus it’s claimed that the Olympics would bring to Chicago. I don’t. I also don’t desire the long-term disfigurement of places like Jackson and Washington Parks for the sake of a two-week event whose benefits are debatable.

I’m jaded enough to wonder if Daley, during whose reign the classic Soldier Field was transformed into a futuristic glass toilet bowl where the regular folks are huddled together on one side of the field while the wealthy and influential take the other, envisions the Olympics as the capstone of his legacy. Perhaps he has Chicago’s best interests at heart, at least when they coincide with his.

Rootless, I’ve remained emotionally detached from Chicago, even as I approach my 30th year here. I missed the regime of the first Mayor Daley and have never been interested in the Machine, whether yesterday’s powerhouse or today’s more sophisticated and streamlined version. But a recent incident in Hyde Park is a measure of how I feel about the government of the city that works. A local restaurant was shut down by city inspectors for not having the right kind of Dumpster, or for having an outdated one. J. and I had the same thought: “Sorry, we gotta shut ya down until ya get the right kind of Dumpster. Say. I gotta card here of a guy who sells the kind of Dumpster ya need, the kind in the city ordinance. He’ll fix ya up good. He’s the mayor’s [insert relationship here].”

That’s how the city of big shoulders works. And that’s part of why “we” back the bid, although no one asked us, just like they didn’t ask us if we wanted the runways at Meigs Field rendered useless by enormous Xs gouged into them late on a Sunday night. That’s just the way it is in “My Kind of Town.” The mayor’s way or the highway.

So, no offense, but I hope I don’t see you in 2016, unless you’re here for the zoo, the aquarium, the planetarium, the museums, the parks, the universities, or the professional sports — all things that Chicagoans are and should be proud of.

2016 would be my 37th year here.

Help.

State of the art fair

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Saturday J. and I went to the 57th Street Art Fair, arriving around 50 minutes before closing. I have a one-sided love-dislike relationship with art fairs:

On the love side:

  • They’re outdoor community events, an ancient human tradition I adore. I love the idea of a crowd coming together under the open sky for an event that’s important to individual participants and to the community. In this case, the community is not only geographic, but artistic: creators, patrons, buyers, browsers (like me).

  • At a good art fair, there are amazing varieties of materials, styles, techniques, themes, uses, and so forth. Someone selling conventional wall paintings may be parked next to an artist who crafts jaw-droppingly lovely inlaid wood bowls, and both may be near another artist whose etchings are whimsical and witty. We saw everything from knitted and crocheted pins to erotic statues of fat women (a personal favorite for some reason).

  • Sometimes I find something I love that I can both afford and use, for example, niobium earrings from Sozra at the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. It was there I also found a three-dimensional clock for J., which I think featured a cat in a tiled kitchen and an evocative seascape seen in the background through a window.

In the dislike column:

  • Much of the art doesn’t appeal to me. A couple of nicks in a keystone of polished wood. Colorful, childlike scrawls. Abstract anything. Garish colors. Urbanscapes. In some cases, it doesn’t appeal to my eye or my taste; in others, it seems bland or unoriginal or uninspired; in others, it seems like a cynical cheat. Corollary: I have no cohesive taste or style, so I would not be able to choose art, decorative or fine, to create a beautifully designed interior space. I would end up with a hodgepodge of styles and colors, leaning toward the cool end of the spectrum.

  • I have no room. Being a pack rat junk collector, leaves little room for displaying art properly. Having a cat who likes to chew, bat, and knock things over is another factor.

  • I have no money. Let‘s say that I had control over my collection of miscellaneous 1970s kitsch, souvenirs, and other junk. Still, I can‘t afford much that I like, for example, whimsical etchings (three figures) and erotic sculptures (five figures) — and wouldn‘t they complement one another?

The weather forecast called for rain, but at least on Saturday the clouds held off. There weren‘t the crowds I remember from a hot, sunny day a few years ago. It may have been the threat of rain and the relative coolness of the air, the proximity to closing time, or the state of the economy, but there was a lack of people and energy, I felt.

J. and I have very different browsing styles, which can be challenging. And I didn‘t see anything that stopped me in my proverbial tracks. I should have gone with less of a hope of finding something because I was disappointed in my mission.

One thing made me smile, though, despite it being fundamentally a little sad. One artist was accompanied by a beautiful little dog with little or no use of its hind legs. When the man went for a walk, he strapped the dog‘s back legs onto a little car with wheels. While those legs dangled uselessly from their straps in the air, his good front legs pulled him and his wheels along. The dog, who otherwise spent his time lying on a blanket behind the display, seemed content enough with this arrangement, strange as it may at first look.

We went to 57th Street Books with its 20 percent sale for members, and such were my mood, purse, and space issues that I didn‘t buy anything. This has to be a first.

Not surprisingly, Medici on 57th was crowded, with a 15-minute wait, but the spinach and goat cheese pan pizza was worth it. It gave us the strength to start going through some of J.‘s papers. Even though they aren‘t mine, filling a bag with the nonessential ones and dropping it down the chute was satisfying and cathartic.

Creatures of habit

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For the most part, the human being is a creature of habit. Intuitively, I’ve always known this, but now and then circumstances remind me how deeply programmed we are to stick with the routines that we are comfortable with and that make us feel in control and safe.

I observed the power that routine has over us a couple of years ago when I enrolled in a short story writing course. A number of tables were arranged to form an open square, with the instructor in the middle of the head table. Everyone else could sit where they chose. An older woman selected a spot near the instructor; later she mentioned that she has a hearing problem, so her choice was based on a reason. I sat in one of the chairs left when I came in without giving it much thought, as did everyone else, or so I assumed.

When I walked in the next week, however, those who had arrived earlier were sitting in the same seats as they had the week before, and those who followed headed without hesitation for their previous chairs. I made a comment about this and how I was determined to break the pattern every week. The reaction? A self-conscious, nervous titter and a few deprecating remarks. It was odd to see so many adults who couldn’t get past the assigned seating mentality of elementary school.

At work I’ve noticed the same behavior at meetings, whether the group is large (20 or more) or small (6). Each person gravitates to the same area of the table, and the same seat he or she always chooses if available. Some of this can be explained by social relationships — people who are friends herd together — but not all.

Lately two women who lunch together in the second-floor café have drawn my attention. The younger woman invariably faces east, the older woman west. I’ve yet to see them vary the pattern — a pattern of which they may not even be conscious.

Habit and routine — I suppose they are at least partly a reaction to the uncertainties of daily life. I may not know what kind of mood my boss will be in, but I can control my morning routine of coffee at 5:30 a.m. and shower at 6 a.m. I may be caught in traffic, but if I’m lucky I’ll get “my” spot. And at the end of the day I can sit in my place at my short story writing class. It’s there for me (unless Diane takes it).

Growing up, my understanding was that my father favored the Democratic party because he thought it favored the working man, while I was told my mother voted Republican because that’s what her father had done. (Yes, Mom voted for Richard Nixon.) Although some policies or postures may have interested them more than others — for example, my dad followed anything to do with Social Security — politically both were creatures of habit, voting less on specific issues of the time than in their personal comfort zones.

I suspect that’s exactly how most Americans vote — as much from habit as conviction. While the habit formed around the conviction, that’s what makes it that much harder to break the habit and periodically re-examine the convictions more critically. Emotionally, it’s like sitting in the same seat and using the same parking space. It’s comfortable, and nonthreatening. “Straight ticket” voting even makes it easy.

This year’s election, however, seems to have thrown voters off. The unfriendly rivalry between Obama and Clinton left many of her supporters embittered. McCain isn’t conservative enough for some, and his choice of Sarah Palin, her questionable suitability, and her political baggage have left some moderate Republicans shaking their heads and confiding to family and friends that this may be the year that they have to vote the other way. Change, even undefined change, is the new vision.

The habit of voting emotionally without thought or reflection is hard to recognize and harder to break without a compelling reason; smokers don’t quit until they become short of breath, or their chest X-rays don’t look right — and not even then. It’s taken an expensive, now unpopular war, an economic crash, and a bleak outlook to rock our complacency. The “winner” will be left with the equivalent of a shattered chandelier, a glue stick, a ticking clock, and orders to “fix it.” There are only two choices to perform the impossible. If there’s any time to put aside our usual thought patterns and prejudices and to carefully consider who is more likely at least to pick up the pieces, this is that time.

Don’t just punch. Think. Think hard. Think hard again. Think about the long term. And then punch.

Because how bright the future is depends on the choices we make. Don’t make them from unthinking habit.

Reach out and touch someone

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If you feel like you must reach out and touch someone, please do. Except for the period between, say, 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. Call it the graveyard shift, or the dead zone for personal phone calls. There are two reasons for this voluntary blackout period: (1) Many people are asleep and don’t require an ill-timed wake-up call, and (2) it’s likely you are tired or drunk or both and are going to dial (or punch) incorrectly — several times. You may even become belligerent (yes, I’ve heard this happen) when the poor, sleepy, working soul at the other end of the line makes the mistake of not being the person you think you called, but didn’t.

To the person who punched my number at 12:04 a.m.: It was clearly a wrong number the first time. Was it quite necessary to call two more times to hear my answering message and to be satisfied?

Dream: Whipping boy (bonus: Viacom vs. Google)

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Before I get to my latest nightmare, I should mention that I read a judge has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom the names and IP addresses, along with everything they’ve ever watched, of every YouTube user. I’m not a lawyer and don’t know the law, and presumably the judge is and does, but my common sense and practical sense immediately asked, “Why? Why should the representatives of a corporation get their mitts on that volume and kind of data, the vast majority of which is irrelevant to their case?”

I’ve not been a registered user of YouTube for very long and signed up mainly so I could track a handful of favorites. My personal viewing habits are not the stuff of litigation–I click on links in e-mails and blogs that lead mainly to videos of cats and other animals, engineers talking about cats, lions attacking Cape buffalo, Jason Trusty’s Puppet Bike in Chicago, awful vintage TV commercials, and the like. While Viacom should have the right to find out who steals and uploads their copyrighted material, what does this have to do with me and what I watch?

The popular argument in these situations is that it shouldn’t matter to me if I have nothing to hide. It does matter, however; it matters on principle. If my viewing habits, or those of people like me, were essential to the case and if the records were to be turned over to a law enforcement agency, I would feel differently. Viacom is using its power as a corporation to obtain information that no one should have access to without clear cause–even if that information is no more significant than that I watch animal videos.

Google’s position strikes me as reasonable–if you complain that your copyrighted material has been uploaded to YouTube without your permission, they will remove it. Viacom’s response is that they have had to employ an entire department to watch YouTube. Yet, whether YouTube existed or not, or whether they operated differently, it seems to me Viacom would still be stuck monitoring the Internet. People will always find a way to steal and a place to which to upload. YouTube makes it easier, but that is its purpose for most of us who upload our animal, vacation, music, and other personal videos. Monitoring is the cost of doing business; I imagine that big corporations with touchy reputations like Microsoft and Wal-Mart have public relations people whose eyes are peeled for negative coverage online.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think it’s giving out irrelevant personal information on the off chance that, among the chaff, there’s a kernel of relevance.

All this leads, I think, to a dream I had the afternoon of July 4, Independence Day in the United States. The first part has nothing to do with anything, but it’s interesting that my subconscious think that the world operates in weird, unwitnessed ways. The second part touches on rights.

I was watching one of our high-rise buildings under construction when I saw it rotate 180 degrees, then rotate back. It happened quickly enough that I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw it happen again later and couldn’t deny it. Someone from development explained it to me, although I am sure I didn’t understand.

I was by the pool at home, wondering about what I had seen, when The Flamingo rotated 180 degrees and back before my eyes. I looked at the person next to me, who had also seen it. When it happened again, I speculated about how I didn’t notice this when I was inside, although surely one would be able to feel and see it. That I could be oblivious to my building turning back and forth on its axis periodically was both marvelous and horrifying.

I had just passed through security at work when I noticed that the person ahead of me had knelt to clean an escalator rail and was trying to hide his face. An enraged security guard threw me to the ground in his haste to get to this person, who he picked up and slammed violently down. “I know who you are!” he kept shouting.

The person was no more than an adolescent boy carrying toy masks or flat shapes in not-quite-pastel colors. I saw a line of them hanging, including a pink owl. Every time the boy tried to say something, the guard would kick or punch him or throw him to the ground, often hitting me because I was stunned and still in the way. I could not imagine who this boy was or what he had allegedly done that would warrant such violent treatment, and the toys/masks I had seen seemed symbolic of his innocence. I found myself unable to speak up to stop the violence. My silence made me guilty. As I tried to recover myself, I debated with myself whether I should report my ill treatment to the office manager upstairs, but I thought she would dismiss my complaint as trivial and me as a whiner.

When I woke up, I was thinking that we are not quite yet the society the founders had envisioned as they risked their lives.

Dream: The royal wedding, and all aboard

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This morning I dreamed that I was looking at paintings that appeared to depict a Russian royal wedding and that it was vital that I put them into the correct order. I did not know whether they should be arranged chronologically or in some other order. In the middle of the stack I came to a magnificent full-length portrait of a woman in an ornate costume (the bride or her mother?) and thought perhaps she was meant to be the culmination of the series. I had a feeling that, if I didn’t get the order precisely right, something very bad would happen to me. Then a light started flashing beyond my closed eyelids — my alarm — and I woke up thinking some catastrophe was about to occur.

The early Sunday morning alarm was to get me up in time for a trip to Ann Arbor. I’m on the train now, passing through a cross section of countryside that probably represents a good portion of the eastern and midwestern United States — family farms, small towns, and industries of various sizes. In minutes you can pass everything from fields, trees, taverns, decaying houses, and bland new subdivisions to massive concrete smokestacks that put food on the table and a blight on the landscape and the soul.

As industry grew and promised a higher quality of life for more people, did anyone question whether this was any way to live? I remember a story about a place in Brazil where the air quality was so poor that the writer’s lungs began burning within minutes of getting off the plane. The lungs burn; the soul sickens; the animals die or disappear. Is this the fit legacy of general prosperity?

Unbeknownst to me, my dad lived a double life. Early every morning for 26 years, or nearly 30 percent of his life, he went to work at the Ford Stamping Plant in Lackawanna, New York, an industrial city south of Buffalo dominated then by Ford, Bethlehem Steel, and the rails that carried their shipments. The few times I went to or through that part of Lackawanna I must have felt like I had entered an alien world where all the beauty of nature had been completely supplanted by the ugly dreariness of steel, concrete, and pavement.

And every night he came home to a trailer facing an open field and backed by woods in which deer, rabbits, woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, cardinals, blue jays, and other animals thrived. He saw owls a few times; occasionally I heard whippoorwills. When we went to the butcher’s, they’d give us suet for the snowbirds, and we’d buy enormous bags of birdseed at the feed store or grocery. Watching the antics of the chickadees or cursing the aggressiveness of the blue jays gave both my parents great joy — a joy they could not have found in Lackawanna.

I have to remind myself that I can’t completely disparage industry, although I can lament some of its lasting effects. Without it, and unions like the UAW, men like my father might not have earned a living wage, been able to provide their wives and children with health and dental care, and had enough to live on during retirement (for my father, 23 years). In areas where industry has come and gone, the blight is felt the most — the negatives without the benefits.

It’s easy to forget about or ignore industrial blight when it doesn’t surround you — out of sight, out of mind — or when it blends into the urban landscape. From the vantage point of a train, as it travels through different human settings like a bit through layers of sedimentary rock, it is impossible not to compare and contrast the smokestacks of Hammond, Indiana, with the forest, fields, and farms of south central Michigan. Life on a farm is hard and uncertain, but there is a natural rhythm to it combined with an indefinable emotional satisfaction. Life in the shadow of the factory is also hard and uncertain, and the reward is to be able to provide for the family. In that shadow, however, how many wither and die inside?

As I see decaying or abandoned mills, plants, and other remnants of the age of industry in my train travels, I wish that we could reclaim the land — tear down the concrete and steel and let nature rebuild. But there is neither the money nor the will to restore the land, and so the Rust Belt grows ever rustier — part of our legacy to our future.

The land of the free

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Here we have two countries, far apart geographically and culturally — China and the United States.

It’s been reported that, with every wave of Tibetan rebelliousness, the Chinese people grow more impatient with the Tibetans. They were ignorant savages until we gave them civilization! Without China, without us, they’d still be in a technological and cultural dark age. Who are they to question Chinese authority? How dare they? Why can’t they be more like us?

Meanwhile, the rebellious Tibetans think, “Without China, we’d be free.”

Americans in the Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago of the 1800s who read about the Indian wars in the west undoubtedly had a similar reaction. Those savages! Complaining about the desecration of their hunting grounds and their sacred this and that. Why can’t they live on farms and in towns? Why can’t they be more like us?

I suppose this is natural — we tend to be most comfortable with people just like ourselves. This explains Chinatowns, Little Italies, exclusive country clubs, high school cliques, and team pride. We like who we are, and we secretly wonder why others don’t aspire to be just like us — even when, like the Tibetans and the Indians, they clearly like who they are, too.

That’s why the public’s reaction to the government intervention at the FLDS ranch in Eldorado, Texas, is interesting. Given the unproven allegations of child sexual abuse and the group’s theological beliefs (including polygamy), I didn’t expect much sympathy from the public. Almost everything about FLDS is different — their religion; their dress and manner; and their work, community, and family lives. I expected many Americans to dismiss them as a dangerous cult, a threat to the normal order. Yet many people who are posting online seem sympathetic to them without worrying why they can’t be “more like us.”

Whether we admit it or not, I think part of that is because they have a certain resemblance to the middle class. Their dress may be old-fashioned, but it’s not exotic or foreign. They believe in God, although their theology is unorthodox. They practice polygamy, but so have others before them. Without the sexual abuse charges, they seem more eccentric than menacing.

Of course, it’s also easy to take their side because, unlike the Tibetans and Indians, they aren’t a different ethnic group that happens to have land and resources that the rest of us want. This makes it much easier for the man and woman on the street to feel for them.

I would like to think that part of it, too, is post-911 privacy and rights usurpation backlash. For years the U.S. government has taken advantage of our fears to insinuate itself into our lives and to ferret out our information — even data on the books we read and buy. At last there may be a sense that the government has gone too far, that George Orwell was only a couple of decades and a few details off. If hundreds of children can be taken from their mothers based on one unproven allegation made by phone by someone who can’t be found, what could happen to you or me and our families?

Like the Tibetans, like the Indians, we are not Borg. We will not be assimilated. Resistance is not futile in the land of the free and the home of the brave.