Hamas and I

As an observant Jew I understand why so many muslims vote to live under religious law. Hamas, the Christian Coallition and I agree that secular American life is vulgar, permissive and materialistic. We agree that it is tolerant of homosexuality and atheism. I think that's a good thing. Given a choice I prefer heresy to boredom but I understand why others would not.

Like men everywhere I respond with Pavlovian salivation to scantilly-clad female bodies but like many of my obserevant Christian and Muslim siblings I prefer the presence of modestly dressed women, particularly when those women are young and related to me.

I too use religious observance as a buffer againt the exesses of what I consider a morally dangerous world. But, Yankee that I am, I'd rather immorality remain a physically safe option for eveyone, even me and my kids.

I also identify with the wish to live in a community that shares my values and habits.

When I go into the observant Jewish section of Chicago, and neighborhood called West Rogers Park, aka the "Chood." Though I know few of them it feels to me like home. I understand their ways, I know why the men have beards and the women have skirts that are long. I even know what they're all reading on any given week. Like everything that's familiar the fellowship of my tribe comforts me.

I am beginning to see the Arab world's embace of political Islam as less a rejection of western modernity than a search for something more wholesome than Madison Avenue or Washington currently offer. In that search I am their ally.

However given our different attitudes about tolerace I'm sure my fundamentalist Christian and Muslims brothers will understand if I join their search for righteousness from a righteously safe distance.

BushHamas&Google

"Maybe they do some bad things but I trust them and believe that, fundamentally they are on my side." That's how Bush supporters feel about his administration, how Hamas supporters feel about the new Palestinian government and how I feel about Google. Of course the scales of the bad things are different. Google and Hamas have killed far fewer people, but the willingness to give ones champions the benefit of a doubt is the same.

I am, like so many millions, a Googlephile. I see them the way Bush and Hamas supporters see their heroes; as principled champions of what I cherish and more importantly, warriors willing to do righteous battle against my enemies. Bush fights Al Qaeda, Hamas goes after Israel and Google takes on Microsoft. I was disappointed to hear that they would censor their Chinese language searches. Given the height of their rhetoric about not being evil taking China's side against the Dali Lama seemed is a real let down. Just like I assume Bush fans are sad he that terror attacks are up and Palestinians deeply regret the Israeli bombs and missiles that rain upon them in retaliation for Hamas attacks.

All our heroes have principled detractors. It's reasonable to fear the ubiquitous tentacles of an unchecked, ravenous Googlezilla. The foes of Bush and Hamas are far too numerous to list. And like the other fans I acknowledge the reasonableness of the criticism but am just willing to give my team a pass mostly because they're my team.

I understand Hamas and Bush supporters better now that Googles' actions too require my patient understanding and faith. because of what I must forgive I am more sympathetic to what last week, seemed baffling fidelity to the evil. Bush and Hamas supporters are not merely a bunch of deluded simpletons brainwashed by clever marketing. I see them now as, like me, merely people willing to give wide berth to a characters they believe are pursuing ultimate good.

And as such they are, like me, dangerous.

Trib Editorial

The Chicago Tribune's "analysis" of George Bush's prewar WMD claims omits perhaps the most crucial available fact; By the time Bush ordered US forces to invade Iraq virtually all of its "intelligence" had been proven wrong to a level of scientific certainty. For example in September of 2002 the White House posted on its website photos of what it claimed was new construction on a WMD manufacturing facility at Al Furat south of Baghdad. On December 10, 2002 Hussein's government escorted hundreds of journalists to the site . With cameras rolling they documented not just an absence of new construction but abundance of cobwebs. More telling was the claim of a renewed Iraqi nuclear program. The administration said the famed aluminum tubes were suitable only for use in constructing centrifuges as part of a nuclear program. Iraq said they were for an attempt to "reverse engineer" conventional rockets. On 7 March 2003, weeks before the invasion, Nobel prize winner Muhammad El Baradai, head of the Internation Atomic Agency, reported to the UN Security Council that; "The Iraqi decision-making process with regard to the design of these rockets was well-documented. Iraq has provided copies of design documents, procurement records, minutes of committee meetings and supporting data and samples." He concluded that based on the evidence: "the IAEA team has concluded that Iraq efforts to import these aluminum tubes were not likely to have been related to the manufacture of centrifuge, and moreover that it was highly unlikely that Iraq could have achieved the considerable redesign needed to use them in a revived centrifuge program."

These are but two examples of the verifiable scientific evidence that refuted all the administration's testable prewar claims. Between 27 November 2002 and 17 March 2003 Bush's claims were investigated by more that 200 physicists, engineers, biochemist and manufacturing experts, many of them American. The scientific refutation of those claims was and remains a part of the international public record.

The the President and the Chicago Tribune chose to ignore the published and verified scientific record with regard to the administrations claims is difficult to excuse as mere incompetence.

Spy on me, please!

I want my daughters to have FBI files. I want them filmed by hostile government agents during a mass protest against injustice. If they get lucky, they’ll be tear-gassed; not so much to do damage, just enough to make a good story. Like I was tear gassed as a child. Just like my mother wanted it.

When I was eight my mother led our whole family into the marches against segregation in Chicago. The FBI spied on us then, too. In the sixties, the Bureau claimed to be looking for “communists,” now they’re hunting “terrorists," but they look for enemies among the same group of Americans: protesters, we who dissent. At civil rights marches there were countless guys in suits taking movies and snapshots of us all. Sometimes it was the FBI, sometimes the Chicago Police Department’s in house anti-subversive unit, the Red Squad. My mother taught us to smile a wave at the camera. Even at eight we understood they meant to scare us, I was in Catholic schools at the time so I was well acquainted with the notion of stuff going on my “permanent record.”

But my mother wanted protest on our permanent records. She insisted that she and her children be counted among those whom bullying law enforcement did not scare.

I am overwhelmingly proud of my childhood dissent. I wear the suspicion of the FBI as a badge of honor. I long to be included on Bill O’Riley’s enemies list.

When my daughters are little old ladies and their grandchildren ask “Where were you guys when the rebels saved us from Bush?” I want them to brag, “We were in Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, we’re not lying, check our FBI files!”

I want my daughters to know the joys of rebellion, the delights of fighting outgunned and against the grain. I want them to breathe deeply the electric air outside the main herd. That the other side has the FBI just makes the fight more romantic. A ragtag band of news junkies, partisans, and assorted kooks against the great media/industrial death star, Morpheus against the Matrix, rebels against the state, like in 1965 and 1776.

I had despaired that my children would have no great monsters to slay, no forge for their mettle. But there ain’t a greater call to American action than a warning from the FBI to shut up. Conscience makes rebels of us all.

I haven’t been to an anti-war march in a few months but I’ll be at the next one I hear about, with my daughters. If the FBI is there filming we’ll all smile and wave for their cameras. But to save the bureau time and effort: my name is Aaron Freeman, two “a’s, two “e’s”. Please print it out in seventy-two-point font. Than king George might read it without his spectacles.

Less Democracy, Please!

Could sombody please stop the spread of democracy in the Middle East? I do not like the way it's turning out. Iran for example has been having elections for almost thirty years, since the overthrow of the Shah, and look who wins them. Iran's election have produced presidents ranging from moderate right wingers like Abul Hassan Boni Sadr to full-tilt ultra-religious wingnuts like current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose politics appear to only slightly to the left of Pat Robertson.

Iraq's democracy has provided some interesting political innovations including their pre-election ritual of having 20% of the electorate bombed by a foreign power. Nonetheless Iraq democracy has turned the country from a secular, socialist state into an Islamic republic aligned with Iran. Iraq's two biggest political parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and DAWA are not just supported by Iran but were created in Iran during the reign of the Ayatollah Kohmeini. Which is fine, Iraqis have every right to vote in whatever government they want but does America have to pay 6 billion dollars a month for it?

Among Palestinians their first round of elections brought us President Yassir Arafat and now the big political dog is Hamas which wins election after election no matter how many of their leaders Israel blows up. Which is all fine, "Self determination," I'm down with it but I'm worried the cancer of middle east democracy will matastesize to other Arab nations. From what I read if democratic elections were held in Saudia Arabia the biggest votes would go the the Saudi Nuke Israel Party followed by the Burn Israel Party and running a close third would be the Drive the Jews into the sea party.

It's not like we don't know how to put the brakes on Islamic democracy. Back in 1991 Algerian voters seemed on the brink of electing an Islamist government and the ruling party, supported by France and the US, just canceled the elections and outlawed the Islamist parties. But I'm sure there are less in your face, more artful ways of... not frustrating Middle Eastern democracy but calming it down. We got the the Deiboldt Corporation and Karl Rove could be looking for a new job any day now.

Again, I'm all over democracy, within reason. Full-frontal democratic governments, reflecting the will a majority are fine in theory but in practice are scary as hell. I'm sure that's why we've done away with it here in the United States.

The Saddam Eight

Saddam Hussein is the Bobby Seale of Baghdad.

As a Chicagoan, the trial of Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants is a trip down memory lane. Once again the accused are throwing the charges in the face of the court and aiming to put US justice on trial. Saddam is, so far, more genteel than Bobby Seale in how he's addressed the court. Hussein has not yet called judge a "fascist dog" but he is every bit as proud, defiant and smart as the founder of the Black Panther party. He wears berets too.

The reporting of the Baghdad and Chicago Eight are about the same. Both proceedings were almost entirely political, with their outcomes forgone conclusions months before they began. Yet both show trials were covered like they were legit. Both sets of defendants are caricatured as dangerous loons and their legitimate legal objections mostly ignored.

A difference between the trials is the happy fact that all Chicago Eight defense lawyers made it through the proceedings alive. Baghdad's US-trained cops are apparently even worse than Chicago's. Also unlike Bobby Seale, Hussein has not yet been bound and gagged, though in the US he's suffered the 21st century equivalent, he's been cropped and edited.

Barack Obushama?

Talk about trying to be all things to all people. Illinois Democrat Barack Obama in addition to being everybody's hope for a progressive future, is now even an apologist for George Bush. According to the Chicago Tribune Obama was asked at a town hall meeting whether Bush should be impeached for lying us into a war and 30,000 dead Iraqis, to which our junior senator replied "Well, FDR, JFK, LBJ -- we have a pretty long list of presidents who maybe were not entirely forthcoming with intelligence information before they went to war." saying Bush was "maybe not entirely forthcoming" Is like saying "LeBron James is maybe not entirely short."

If "everybody does it" is Obama's idea of legal defense then call former Illinois governor George Ryan and tell him charges are dropped. Cause the list of corrupt Illinois governors is even longer than the list of "maybe not entirely forthcoming" presidents. If "everybody does it" trumps investigation and prosecution we should just lay off the torture trial of former Chicago police captain John Burge. Everybody tortures, Bush would get off on that one too, wow. Set Burge free. Send him over to Baghdad to train the Iraqi police.

Maybe there's something in the Washington DC water that suppresses people's (or at least politician's) ability to get mad about folks for doing wrong. Maybe it happens when they smell the power. Obama’s impeachment defense combined with his earlier attempt to excuse the administration for Abu Ghraib in Baghdad look like another in the senator's endless attempts to remain the Will Smith of American politics, "a cute black guy everybody can agree on."

I'm rooting for him but he doesn't get to treat us like knuckleheads or spin the crime of war.

Truth is, of course Obama's too smart to be the first US Senator to call for Bush's impeachment, (sigh, but it sure does feel good to say those words!) But Saint Barak has just got to find a less insulting story. Ask our senior senator Dick Durban, his thoughts on impeachment and he says, "I want to get hearings on the intelligence committee." If you're entirely cynical, like if you're paying attention. You could call Durban's position a cautious dodge but at least it appeals to grownups.

Obama could say something like "If we tried to impeach him the evil republicans would shoot us dead in the streets!" That'd be believable.

I'm sure our benighted Barack will eventually find his footing on this issue as well. I'm certain the Senator's rhetorical cynicism is little more than a political speed bump is not the beginning of what Brits call "reverse metamorphosis," the transformation of a butterfly back into a slug.

President Gilliigan?

OK I admit it is anti-intellectual, politically incorrect and possibly treasonous but, I think the new Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the cutest politician on the world stage. Now don’t get me wrong, my views are entirely superficial. If US news reports are true, always a big if, Ahmadinejad’s politics are so far from mine I couldn’t see them with the Hubble telescope. He’s a holocaust denier, anti-Israel agitator and just generally maddening.. Compared to Ahmadinejad, Dr. James Dobson is a hippie. I don’t even want to think about his views on Jewish Negroes.

But every time I see him I think, “It’s Bob Denver from Gilligan’s Island… if Gilligan were a right wing Iranian Shiite Muslim. ” And it’s not just one or two good photos like newspaper columnists who run the same picture for years. I’ve seen a bunch of pictures of the guy with all kind of expressions in all kinds of lights and with each viewing, I wonder “Are the Skipper and MaryAnne involved to Iranian politics too?”

Even the guy from that old US embassy takeover picture who wasn’t Ahmadinejad but looked sort of like him was cute.

Of course my response to President Ahmadinnejad aside from being shallow and irresponsible is potentially dangerous. If everybody’s analysis of politicians stopped with their ranking on a cuteness scale political discourse would be in deep doo-doo.

If all consumers of politics were a superficial as me our country could end up being led by shallow suits who smile sweetly while undermining everything we hold dear.

Thank goodness this is America where stuff like that can’t happen.

Tortured Explanations

Condi could not have been clearer; "the United States did not have torture relations with that man, Kahlid Sheik Muhammad." Pay no attention to that blue dress with the bloodstains.

I am proud that the secretary of state is going to set the Europeans straight about how America treats it's victims- I mean prisoners- I mean detainees.

I hope she explains to them that the use of snarling dogs to intimidate people who've never even been charged with anything is just our way of promoting inter-species understanding.

Administration critics need to understand that against the threats of the 21st century, we cannot rely on 20th century interrogation methods we must look forward and embrace the techniques of the 15th century. Don't think of it as the rack; consider it "violently assisted yoga." Hanging hooded suspects from the ceiling by their wrists should merely be considered "a dangling conversation."

And as for the reports and photographs of the Gulfstream V, with tail number N379P, that's been used to whisk detainees to secret locations around the world where they have subsequently just disappeared? Give us some credit. We are, at our own expense, helping those people accumulate massive frequent flier miles.

I'm certain that once they get the right perspective Europeans will be proud to join our noble struggle against undue process. After all, and without any doubt, the United States is not a nation of torturers. Of course that does depend on what the meaning of is, is.

Billion Dollar Beg

News Item - The US Agency for International Development has posted on its website an opportunity to apply for a grant of a billion dollars to anyone who can develop a plan to stabilize ten Iraqi cities identified by the administration as crucial to defeating the Iraqi insurgency.

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If the government’s offer of a billion dollars to anyone on earth who can come up with a plan to stabilize Iraq weren’t so comic it’d be tragic. Thank goodness, it's funny. Two and a half years after transforming Iraq from zero terrorism to, by every measure, the number one terror state on earth if not the history of the world. The administration is now like Vincent Price at the end of the movie “the Fly;” trapped in by its own creation gone wrong screaming, “Help me!”

They're offering a billion dollars, that used to get you a whole war now they’re hoping it’ll buy them out of one.

As embarrassing as the offer is I consider it a positive sign that they now, finally think stabilizing Iraq so important they won’t even entrust it to cronies.

At they didn’t just automatically give the money to Halliburton.

The request was posted on the USAID web site on 30 November and the President announced his plan to stabilized Iraq on November 31st. Do you think he was trying to get the money himself? Since the offer was still on the table as of Sunday we can only assume the USAID did not accept the Bush plan.

But as easy as it is to mock and ridicule the offer, which I’ve been doing non-stop since I read it, as a loyal American I feel a responsibility to my country, in addition to my bank account, to offer my plan to try get the billion dollars- I mean, to stabilize Iraq. To paraphrase the late Dr. Martin Luther King, “I have a scheme!”

I call it the Strategic Negro Initiative. It relies on the well-established fact that Islamist’s are sympathetic to African Americans. Remember that when students took over the US embassy in Iran back in 1979, they not only let the black men go free, them let them take the white women with them.

My plan, the SNI, would send every available African American to Iraq. Everybody from Al Sharpton and Oprah to the guy with the big afro in the Office Max commercial to Michael Jackson, I repeat, we’d get Michael Jackson out of the country, which in itself would be worth a billion dollars. In my plan we would fan out to the key Iraqi cities as ambassadors of good will. Oprah would host a series of mosque-hall meetings where she’d talk to Iraqi women about how she once an insurgent. Jesse Jackson would deliver speeches in defense of America that would not only stir religious hearts but rhyme and Colin Powell would do a whole lot of apologizing.

The SNI would shock the Islamist world into re-evaluating America and all it stands for because we colored people have credibility like almost no others since the world knows we didn’t vote for Bush. As Iraqi resistance fighters admired 50 Cent's pectorals, attended Spike Lee film festivals and ran in terror from Mike Tyson they’d have less time to fight and the cities would thus calm.

So there it is, my plan. I guarantee it’ll work. And just to show what a loyal American I am, the USAID can have it for only half a billion.

The Devil and Ramsey Clark

Ramsey Clark was a law man, born to it. Son of a Supreme Court Justice. Prosecutor of Viet Nam war protesters, including the sainted Dr. Benjamin Spock. Even though Clark agreed with the anti-warriors he prosecuted to the full extent, 'cause the law is the law and it must be obeyed. Folks said Ramsey Clark was such a great lawyer that during a trial when he just looked up at a judge, his honor would immediately say "objection sustained." They said if you cut Ramsey Clark with a knife, statutes and concurring opinions would pour out from the wound.

But that didn't stop folks eyes from a rolling and tongues from wagging when Ramsey Clark sat down at the defense table of the worse defendant anybody had ever seen. The defendant was known by many names. Some called him "the butcher," to some he was "the Tyrant" many didn't call him anything 'cause he had killed them. And to their families the defendant was just "the devil." The devil had been brought to trial for crimes against humanity, divinity and common decency. And his chances of acquittal did not look good.

The jury was twelve grieving widows of the devil's victims. Who wiped their tears with severed arms and hands of their murdered spouses.
The prosecuting attorney was St. Michael the Archangel and the presiding judge was the Lord God Almighty.

The prosecuting angel pointed to the list of charges with his fiery sword and called upon the souls of the unjustly killed to cry out their testimony against the devil. They wept forth the pain of their suffering at the devil's hand. They wailed miserably recalling long imprisonment, torture and horrors only the dead could bear to repeat. They spoke of families split, loyalties betrayed, pleas for mercy unheeded and spirits of the innocent crushed.

When the deceased had finished their testimony some in the court swore they'd noticed a tear in the eye of the devil himself. By the time the prosecution rested. Ramsey Clark, all present in the room and all watching on Court TV knew his client was in trouble. There was no doubt that what was alleged had occurred. There was no debate about who had ordered the atrocities. It was clear the hearts of judge and jury ached for the blood of that heartless devil. Ramsey was none too fond of the creature himself. But you would not have known any of that when Ramsey Clark stood to address the court.

"Your honor if you please, I have but one witness to call." said Clark, "I call to the stand... the prosecuting attorney Michael the Archangel of G-d." A hush fell over the courtroom since no one had ever heard the like of such a thing. "Highly irregular" mumbled the judge our Lord. "Outrageous." muttered the jury. "Legal" said Ramsey Clark. And nobody could disagree.

The prosecuting angel moved slowly to the witness chair, looked up at the lord and did not have to swear since all knew his testimony would be true. "Archangel" said Ramsey Clark. "How came you to this land to capture this devil and gather this evidence?" "By holy and righteous war." Michael shot back. "What court" asked Clark, "issued your warrant?" The angel thought a moment, then sat straight up in his chair and declared "The court of conscience. I saw what had to be done and I did it." "Then you claim no legal warrant." Clark said, "No judge authorized your invasion. No law sanctioned your deeds."

At that the angel grew red about the face. His eyes narrowed and he stared fiercely at his legal foe. "Even now Mr. Clark? Knowing all the evil this devil has done, will you still help him hide behind the law?" Clark answered, "The law is a strong tree. Whomever it protects I stand by it. Would you, good angel cut down that tree?" The angel thunderously replied, "With the strong arm of a righteous G-d I would. I'd cut down all the trees of the earthly forest to get at that that ungodly devil." "Oh," said Ramsey Clark, stroking his stubby chin, "And when the last tree was down and the devil turned on you where would you hide, all the laws being flat? When the winds of injustice blew against you, good angel where would you find shelter? I grant this devil law's protection not for his sake but for my own and yours." and with that Ramsey Clark turned and walked back to his seat. "Your honor the defense rests."

The judge, God Almighty, drew in a breath so deep it pulled half the life from the room. "The jury" He said, "Will retire to consider it's verdict." The Jury forewoman turned briefly to her colleagues then stood and calmly said, "We have our verdict Lord. We find the defendant not guilty. It may not be exactly according to the evidence but even in grief we too can stand for justice."

Folks say that after the verdict, as the courtroom emptied, the Devil reached out his hand to thank Ramsey Clark but Clark refused the shake saying, "Today the law's a tree that protects you with its vigor. Tomorrow it may be a pistol and I'll be glad to pull it's trigger."

The Hawk

They say God was in a particularly foul mood one day. The stars weren’t twinkling right - electromagnetism wasn’t attracting properly, and the priests...well, we don’t even want to talk about what they were doing.

God had just had it. Back in biblical times an angry God used to just wipe out humanity. But over the last five thousand years the Lord has ahd a lot of therapy, counselling, hung with the Dalai Lama some - she’s not so violent anymore. This particular day God just counted to ten, took a deep breath and released all her rage, exasperation and divine anger in one icy breath.

They say this frozen, Godly breath became a cold wind and it circled the universe for a billion years. They say the cold wind blew through chunks of space dust and froze them into comets. They say the wind finally came to rest on earth and once here it came to the place that most reminded it of its home back in heaven, Chicago.

We call this cold, angry Chicago wind - the Hawk.
In the summer the Hawk just lazes around the surface of Lake Michigan keeping the sailboats going and blowing flies, mosquitoes and unwary suburbanites away from the city. But there is something about really cold winter days that brings out the worst in the Hawk. It gets riled up, and starts acting mean. On frigid February days the Hawk blows in off a wintry Lake Michigan looking for trouble. It sweeps down from the northern suburbs. Some folks say the chill starts even further north, closer to Wisconsin, but stuff that far from Chicago is hardly worth considering.

The Hawk turns 5 degrees into minus 17, it can turn zero into thirty below. Jumbo Jets fear the Hawk. There’ll be two or three times every year when O’Hare field will just shut down ‘cause the Hawk has taken over the runways and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

In the city proper the Hawk has that urban energy. It passes over the hard bodies of ten thousand frozen rats picking up icy anger from their dead, cold spirits. Fur coats, ski masks and fuzzy mittens just make the Hawk mad it takes that stuff as a sign of disrespect. You can wear five layers of Afghan issue nuclear powered thermal long johns, which might keep you warm for a little while but the Hawk doesn’t give up. It will keep pressing, swirling around you, probing for openings. First you might start to feel a little chilly around your wrists or ankles, wherever the layering is thinnest. That’s the tip of the Hawk’s beak. From there it’s just a matter of time till the cold works it’s way to your fingers and toes and then to your head and then - to your heart. It will drive you shivering to your knees crying frozen tears and swearing “enough!” You will vow to leave this vicious inhuman cold and go somewhere warm and sunny like...like...like when you think about all the other places in the world you could be and how they compare with where you are.

You’ll take in a deep icy breath. You’ll stand back up straight and you’ll say to yourself what Chicagoans have been saying for a hundred and seventy years. The only thing we can say in the face of the Hawk is...”Bring it on!”

Lawnchairs in Winter

You can tell winter has arrived in Chicago when the lawn chairs start coming out. Yeah that’s right, lawn chairs in the winter.

First you gotta understand about Chicago Snow. In Chicago the snow is political. We elect and throw out mayors based on how they handle the show. They say that in election years the mayor assigns one city worker for each snowflake.

Then there’s Chicago show itself. Ours ain’t like that snow. Chicago snow is not the wimpy, New England, go visit grandma in the sleigh kind of snow you you see in the movies. Ours is city snow; tough, heavy, darker and meaner than that picture postcard stuff. Just get to the streets of Chicago snow has got to pass through a gauntlet of chimney soot, factory smokestacks, pigeons and auto exhaust. Only the toughest flakes make it to our town and only the toughest Chicagoans shovel it.

Once the snow hits the ground in Chicago it gets even tougher and to us more beautiful. Since a Chicago winter can last two, maybe three years the snow can hang around for a while. After a few weeks our snow ripens to a lovely gray, like the hair of a beautiful mature woman. And we become more respectful of it, being careful where we step on it knowing the beneath that gorgeous gray is just about pure dog poop.

A lot of Chicagoans don’t like garages, even some people who could afford ‘em. We think of our cars like the Eskimos think of their sled dogs; we figure exposure to the elements toughens them up.

Normally we don’t sweat a little snowstorm. Half a foot, no big deal, we just break out some lunchroom trays and use ‘em as sleds to slide down the hills in Lincoln park. But when the show gets to be about a foot deep we have to dig our cars out of their parking spaces.

That’s why we have the lawn chairs. When you have spent two hours shoveling your ninety-seven Impala out of the out of a parking spot, you do not want to come home to find your space taken by some (disdainfully) VW Beetle or worse one of then Cooper Minis. Those are the cars Chicagoans put in our glove compartments. They’re lucky we let then on the streets of our beloved city. But they definitely don’t deserve our shoveled out spaces.

So to prevent such travesties we put lawn furniture in our newly cleared out parking spots to remind people to respect our labor. So if you’re in Chicago some winter and see a lawn chair resting proudly between two big mounds of snow. Sit down and take a load off. Then when the spots hard workin’ owner comes back. Congratulate ‘em on a spot well dug.

Yates

I assume our national leaders thank their lucky stars they live in Washington DC and not Texas. Andrea Yates has been in prison since 2002 because she killed five people she thought she should kill. All sides in the case agreed that Andrea Yates suffered severe post-partum depression. That she truly believed her children needed to be killed was never questioned. But in Texas mere mental illness leading to the belief that what you did was right don't keep you out prison.

In Washington DC, on the other hand, hundreds of congresspeople, senators and the like, tell us they believed at the time that all those Iraqis, none of whom had ever done anything to us, needed attacking. the congresspeople and senators were of course, as Colin Powell said, "Dead wrong."

But in the nation's capitol, more than 100,000 deaths later, unlike Andrea Yates, politicians get to say, "Oops, my bad. Let's move on. Hey, how 'bout those tax cuts!"

On that TV show, "Texas Justice," imagine what Judge Larry Joe would say to one of our pro-invasion senators. "Now your story is; you authorize a war, bombing and killing and such, 'cause you read that some Iraqi tole some Englishman that some other Iraqi had weapons that hadn't nobody ever seen hide nor hair of? You know son I was born at night but it wasn't LAST night."

I guess if Andrea Yates had been in Washington DC not only would she have avoided trail but to have questioned her about what she did would have be considered siding with our enemies in the war on mental illness.

Less Democracy Please

Could sombody please stop the spread of democracy in the Middle East? I do not like the way it's turning out. Iran for example has been having elections for almost thirty years, since the overthrow of the Shah, and look who wins them. Iran's election have produced presidents ranging from moderate right wingers like Abul Hassan Boni Sadr to full-tilt ultra-religious wingnuts like current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose politics appear to only slightly to the left of Pat Robertson.

Iraq's democracy has provided some interesting political innovations including their pre-election ritual of having 20% of the electorate bombed by a foreign power. Nonetheless Iraq democracy has turned the country from a secular, socialist state into an Islamic republic aligned with Iran. Iraq's two biggest political parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and DAWA are not just supported by Iran but were created in Iran during the reign of the Ayatollah Kohmeini. Which is fine, Iraqis have every right to vote in whatever government they want but does America have to pay 6 billion dollars a month for it?

Among Palestinians their first round of elections brought us President Yassir Arafat and now the big political dog is Hamas which wins election after election no matter how many of their leaders Israel blows up. Which is all fine, "Self determination," I'm down with it but I'm worried the cancer of middle east democracy will matastecize to other Arab nations. From what I read if democratic elections were held in Saudia Arabia the biggest votes would go the the Saudi Nuke Israel Party followed by the Burn Israel Party and running a close third would be the Drive the Jews into the sea party.

It's not like we don't know how to put the brakes on Islamic democracy. Back in 1991 Algerian voters seemed on the brink of electing an Islamist government and the ruling party, supported by France and the US, just canceled the elections and outlawed the Islamist parties. But I'm sure there are less in your face, more artful ways of... not frustrating Middle Eastern democracy but calming it down. We got the the Deiboldt Corporation and Karl Rove could be looking for a new job any day now.

Again, I'm all over democracy within reason. But full-frontal democratic governments, ones that put into action the genuine will a majority of the people is a fine idea in theory but in practice it's scary as hell. I'm sure that's why we've done away with it here in the United States.

Physics and Jews

I love that physics is so religious. Listening these Nobel-prize winning ultra-materialists talk you’d think you were in church. Einstein spent half his life trying to prove that G-d doesn’t play dice. Steven Hawking, says G-d not only plays dice but rolls them where we can not see. And this is even after Neils Bohr told all them physicists to, and I quote, “stop telling G-d what to do.” But it never stops, physics are forever speculating on “the mind of G-d” and trying to figure out whether if in creating the world G-d had any choices. More recently physicist Leon Lederman wrote a whole book about “G-d Particle.” Is this a physics lab or a revival tent?

Physics and Judaism definitely share ideas, for example both embrace mono-creationism, that our universe was created and remains animated by a single, all-powerful thing. Physicist call it the energy of the big bang, rabbis call it the power of G-d. But they agree that all existence, from Britney Spears’ baby to Usama Bin Laden’s beard, is powered by that one phenomenon.

Physics and Judaism also have the same idea about the nature of G-d which is: “I dunno.” A lot of us don’t even write out the word, “G-O-D,” we instead write “G- dash- d,” lest we delude ourselves that we have even the beginnings of an understanding of G-d’ nature. Physicists are less with total ignorance but insist on it anyway. Any proton pusher or beam jockey can show you beautiful math to explain what happened half a second after the big bang and paint you grand, elegant pictures of what happened since. But the moment of the bang, the moment before it? There matnatics crumbles. Equations deliver nonsense. Physicists call their unknowable creator “singularity.”

Both Judaism and physics deal with their uncertainty deity my means of extremely precise methodology. The rituals of both the Jews and the physicist are so minutely detailed that people with obsessive compulsive disorder look at them and say, “Damn, you didn’t have to do all that!”

Both observant Jews and responsible physicists are required to behave with immense precision and like it or not, and they mostly don’t, they must accept that G-d is not only stranger than they know, she is stranger than they can know.

Maybe that’s why there are so few physicists and and so few Jews.

Libby

I Google "Scooter Libby." I click on the Justice Department web site and there's the Libby indictment. On indictment page one, count one, paragrah "A," sentence one it says, "Beginning on or about January20, 2001 and continuing through the date of this indictment, defendent I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooty Libby," was employed as Assistant to the President of the United States, comma." I say, "Say wha-" "Assistant to the president of the United States?" I'm reading this the same week Newsweek's cover says "Cheney's Man." Then I look up the salaries of the top White House staff. "Assistant to the President" tops the White House pay scale. A hundred and sixty one thousand dollars a year. Not too shabby. So now I'm really curious as to how come I don't know this. How come headlines don't say "Two of the President's top aides involved in CIA leakgate?"

I call my friend the dashing network anchor and ask, "How come I don't know Scooter Libby was "Assistant to the President?" Dashing Network Anchor says, "You mean assistant to the Vice President." The same thing when I call my friend the big time editor, "Vice President, Cheney's guy." Then I call my friend the Media Decision Maker. I say, "Scooter... assistant to the PRESIDENT? Is there some kind of policy you guys got at your fancy news organization not to mention that little nugget?" Media Decision Maker says, from a great height, "You mean assistant to the VICE president." "No I mean Assistant to the President, you know, Bush 43 who wishes his poll numbers were that high? According to the indictment and the salary Libby's number one job was 'Assistant to the President.' Did you read the indictment?" Media Decision maker says, "Well, no but I'll get back to you."

On the one hand it's conforting that, at least among my media friends, there's no conspiracy to protect the president. On the other hand it is terrifying that prestigious journalists reporting to millions are relying on second hand information spun by G-d knows who. My reporter friends are good, honorable people. But they're also mostly my age and have, I believe, 20th century news habits. When they Google they tend not to click the department of Justice site for the Libby indictment or intelligence.senate.gov to read the actual committee report on prewar WMD claims. Instead they click on the Washington Post or New York Times' coverage of those documents. That used to be the best we could do.

But like I said, I feel better thinking there is no conspiracy by the press to protect the president. Although there is that Newsweek cover story "Cheney's Man." Within the article is an insert graphic of that pictures the top half of page one of the Libby indictment as if it had been torn from the rest. In the jagged edge of the graphic tear just happens to delete the phrase "Assistant to the President." But again, I'm sure it's just coincidence.

Go Fitzgerald

I know mayor Daley prays for US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald just like the old Russian Jews prayed for the tsar, “May G-d bless and keep him, far away from us.” Because the more time Fitzgerald spends investigating DC scandals the less time he’ll spend incarcerating Chicago pols.

Before he became “Mr. Plamegate” Fitzgerald was Mr. Indict Everybody in Governor George Ryan administration and Mr. Scare the daylights out of anybody involved in Chicago’s hired truck program. Fitzgerald’s investigation scared Mayor Daley so bad that for weeks hizzoner was speaking in whole sentences.

I am certain that with a single heart, every Chicago pol wants to hear but one news item this week, “Plamegate probe extended!” I can hear Alderman Stone, saying “Fitzgerald needs to stay on the job. He needs to ask a whole lot more questions about …uh Karl Rove.”

I’m sure Alderman Dorothy Tillman thinks Fitzgerald ought to find out a lot more about Scooter Libby, like, what exactly did he say to that New York Times reporter and why do they call him “Scooter” anyway? America need to know these things.

And you know the whole Plamegate thing is ultimately about the Iraq war. So IÂ’m positive Alderman Beavers wants Fitzgerald to get himself over to Baghdad with his whole staff, espprosecutors his prosecuters, and take some time and find out what really went down with the whole Niger, yellow cake, forgery thing. ThatÂ’s a much more important for the country and the world.

I bet the entire city council believes FitzgeraldÂ’s talents are wasted on piddly little political patronage nonsense here in Chicago.

A got to admit that as a lifelong Chicagoan I am with my City Hall brethren on this one. I hope Fitzgerald indicts huge, splashy DC names before he comes back here. ItÂ’s not that I donÂ’t want to see Chicago pols doing the perp walk, Lord knows itÂ’s always highly entertaining. But I do worry a bit about our cityÂ’s international reputation. I donÂ’t love that we are the worlds punch line for political sleaze. I am not thrilled that Kurdish politicians were accused of stuffing ballot boxes in the recent Iraqi referendum reporters said theyÂ’d taken a page from Chicago. IÂ’m not saying it ainÂ’t true but IÂ’d like us to be seen in context.

If folks are going to say Chicago pols are dishonest, corrupt and immoral I’d rather that they also said, “Just like them folks in Washington.”

And if the mayor has to jet off and turn himself in to the federal prison in Minnesota IÂ’d like him to fly up there with his fellow, newly convicted felon, aboard Air Force One.

OJ, Katrina and daNile

It’s a river in Africa but as a Negro, my life too depends on “de-Nile.” Like most middle-class black people, I play on myself whatever mind tricks are necessary to not be angry about racism in America.

Most of the time, denying that race matters in America, is easy. On any screen of any size, movie, computer or iPod, I can find happy, included Negroes, entertainers, athletes, surgeons even, exemplifying the best of our national smorgasbord. That’s what I want to see and believe. And because I’m a middle class American, it’s what I can see and believe… most of the time.

Then comes something like the OJ trial and my tissue of racial denial is blown away like thin flesh before a bomb. Suddenly the on every channel the skin color of the jury is topic “A.” Time magazine is darkening the picture of OJ on its cover apparently to make him seem more menacing and endless talk of Mark Fuhrman, an LAPD detective, turns “the ‘n’ word” into a national chant. And half my white friends want me to agree that Johnny Cochran’s playing “the race card” is bad for the country which make me angry and defensive at being somebody’s “touchstone” for black freaking culture!

But then I tell myself the hysteria is not about race but celebrity… and beauty… and Hollywood. I refused to believe that in 1995 it is still controversial to marry “outside your race...” largely because I’d done it and I wanted to think my own life OK.

Then the trial ends. Time passes. I exhale. The river denial again flows, easy and comforting. In my community I am not a skin color but an individual, liked, respected. Except of course if I try to hail a cab or walk into a fancy store. But I’m not dwelling on that because I mostly drive or ride my bike. And I don’t go into those stores anymore.

Then comes the New Orleans flood and black people are “looting” and whites are “finding food” and all those old folks at the convention center who look like my relatives were abandoned and the world saw it. But the white guy in my health club says, “maybe the president didn’t order a rescue because he just didn’t believe what he saw on TV, you know how the media lie.” And the former US secretary of education says if we just abort all black babies the crime rate will drop! And my rage and frustration at injustice and arrogance and denial and denial… that’s right de-nial is my destination, because it has to be.

I clutch denial to my heart because white people are like the Republic of China. If they scare you, if they break your heart, even if they hurt you, you still have to get along with them. You can’t stay mad at them because they are too big and too powerful.

As I was a month after the OJ trial, I am already over my rage at the New Orleans flood. I’m down to simmering resentment and by next week I expect mere annoyance.

By Kwanzaa I’ll be a happy camper; my spirit having joined my African ancestors lazily drifting on de-Nile.

My Own Private Planet

I sure hope I’m right because I may never change my mind again.

When I first started getting news from the Internet I became my own editor in chief. I sampled broadly from the endless salad bar of net news sites. Over time however I became frustrated with mainstream news sites because of what I considered their “bias” and “cowardice” and boringness. I started deleting news sites that annoyed me.

Now I make links not just to favorite news pages but to the sections of those sites I am most interested in. For me each day’s top news stories always involve the Chicago Cubs, the world year of physics and the weekly Torah portion… not necessarily in that order.

It makes my mornings sing. I click directly to the daily box scores and bible commentaries without a bunch of inane headlines screeching propaganda at me. I begin my days immersed in delights. Between Moses’ arguments with G-s, the MINOS neutrino experiment at Fermilab and the glass-like arm of Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood I spend the first twenty minutes of my news-consuming day in bliss.

As for the international stuff that just depresses the daylights out of me like Iraq and Afghanistan, and torture; for me it’s like Hemmingway says, “In the fall the war was always there but I did not go to it anymore.”

When it comes to US politics between Air America radio, Mother Jones magazine and the nation.com if evidence emerges that the Bush administration are not villains, I will likely never hear about it.

I’m not crazy or sticking my head in the sand. I know not everyone agrees with my particular views but I just don’t want the aggravation of reading about theirs.

Google News which promises to scan 4500 news sources around the world and present to me only the stories in which I am already interested and upon which the planet and I already agree.

MSNBC’s Newsbot keeps track of the stories I click on then suggests other stories of the same sort I might like. Thus global news conforms itself to my tastes adapting over time to my interests. I like that.

Of course no system is perfect and the odd pro-war commentary or Michael Jackson quote slips through my filter. But a mere mouse click and I am happily listening to upbeat quotations from Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. My world remaining solid and predictable as Newton’s laws.

And that’s OK because my views are already well-reasoned, compassionate and rooted in oldest traditions of moral philosophy, what I happen to feel at the moment.

Having my own views and opinions ceaselessly reinforced makes me a much happier person. I am more satisfied with the state of the world as I see how much of it agrees that I was right all along. A more satisfied Aaron has more joy to spread round among family and friends.

Of course I remember the old days when everybody got the same news and responded to it in their own way. And I certainly understand that no one ever died from listening to an opinion with which they did not agree. But I figure, “Why risk it?” Besides, I am sure that if something really, really important happened some news of it would eventually show up on some kind of way on Chicago Cubs dot com.