“If
our generation could survive coming of age in the 1950s, we can survive
anything.” Gloria Steinem, “Moving Beyond Words”
The implication of feminist Gloria Steinem’s survival quote
is that she is referring to women although she believes that everyone needs to
get beyond gender stereotypes. That
said, the 1950s was probably the best time ever for the American middle class,
not only WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) but other ethnic groups as
well. Progress is more probable, I
believe, in times of prosperity, and America was riding high in the
Fifties. On the other hand, when geezers
get too nostalgic for the Eisenhower “siesta” years, one must admit that
survival was difficult for outspoken African Americans and gays who dared come
out of the closet.
John Cho as Sulu
“Star Trek Beyond” had too many special effects and not
enough story line for my taste, but I loved the opening scene where the
Teenaxi, who look like little dog-monsters, attack Captain Kirk as he claims he
has come to their world in peace. After
Scotty successfully beams him back to the Enterprise,
a couple Teenaxi got beamed back, too.
Later we see that they have been successful assimilated into the Enterprise family. We first see Hikaru
Sulu with a photo of his daughter; then when he reunites with her, she is with
his husband. Voila! He’s gay – a tribute of sorts to George Takei,
the original Sulu. During the final
credits was a transcendent (i.e., beyond words) visual panorama of the Milky
Way.
above, former redevelopment director Bob Farag questions Joe Van Dyck
More than a hundred Gary residents packed city hall to
hear Redevelopment director Joe Van Dyck defend a proposed agreement that would
authorize Maia Company, a Chicago-based group that former mayor Richard Daley
is a part of, to finance and profit from future projects to the tune of 65
percent compared to 35 percent for Gary.
Many feared it would result in the removal of poor people to make way
for outsiders to make windfall profits on potentially valuable land. Van Dyke admitted that current owners might
lose their property if they were in tax arrears. Retired IUN professor Ruth Needleman complained:
“No one in this group is from Gary. I don’t see anyone who is black or Latino.” Nonetheless the Redevelopment Commission voted
4-0 to support what opponent Samuel A. Love called Daley Demolition. While Gary
needs investors, the devil, as the expression goes, is in the details.
On 80/94 a car was weaving in and out of traffic at a
speed of at least 80 miles an hour, tailgating slower vehicles in the way. In “Speedboat” Renata Adler sums up the
consequences of impatience with this anecdote:
Somebody was
nudging my tray along the rail at the museum cafeteria. I was trying to keep my tray from bumping the
tray ahead. I held my fingers firmly on
the tray top, hooked my thumbs underneath the steel bar. The pressure of the nudging tray
increased. I gave in to the superior
determination. Doubtless, the tray
pusher had had an awful day. I let
go. My tray slid into the next tray,
which slid into the next, which crashed into another. At the cashier’s corner, there was a
pileup. Tea bags, jelly, trays all over
everything.
Memorable lines from the Democratic convention: retired
Rear Admiral John Hutson saying, “Donald,
you’re not fit to polish John McCain’s boots” and Mayor Michael Bloomberg
declaring, “I’m a New Yorker, and I know
a con when I see one.” Folksy Bill
Clinton was very moving describing his love and admiration for Hillary,
although MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow took issue with the line, “In the spring of 1971 I met a girl” – a case, methinks, of taking
political correctness too far.
Ray Smock wrote:
The final night of
the Democratic Convention was as good as these things get. The emotional and
intellectual highpoint for me was when Mr. Khizr Khan, the father of an
American soldier killed in action, held up the Constitution and challenged
Trump to read it. He made the profound observation that while many have
sacrificed for this country Trump has sacrificed nothing.
Arguing that the lunatic fringe had taken over the
Republican Party, conservative New York
Times columnist David Brooks wrote: “This week I left the arena each
night burning with indignation at Mike Pence. I almost don’t blame Trump. He is
a morally untethered, spiritually vacuous man who appears haunted by multiple
personality disorders. It is the “sane” and “reasonable” Republicans who
deserve the shame — the ones who stood silently by, or worse, while Donald
Trump gave away their party’s sacred inheritance.”
At IUN’s Thrill of the grill I sat down next to a young
woman and asked whether she was an incoming freshman. Her dad asked why I didn’t put the same
question to him, and I replied that I’d had students older than him. Charles Costo and Jesse Villalpando came to
mind, both of whom became teachers well into their fifties. From a P.A. came the sounds of Marvin Gaye
singing “Sexual Healing.” Sadly there is
no live music this summer like in the past. Shortly after lunch a severe
thunderstorm kept several groups of incoming students in the library
lobby. The parking lot south of Cedar
Hall was a veritable lake. My sneakers
and socks got drenched, and I was thankful the car started.
Spencer Cortwright reports: “There are two species of Wild Hibiscus native to Indiana. Each
likes muddy soils or even shallow water. One Species is pinkish/white (below); the
other species is deep red. These two species are abundant in the preserve north of
campus, but are kind of hard to see because they are in low-lying damp areas.
But if you walk along the top of the levee, then you will have a perfect
view!”
Interviewed by Clara Bingham, Peter Coyote of the
Diggers concluded that radicals lost the political battles of the Sixties but
won the cultural wars. Former Weather
Underground leader Bill Ayes admitted he made mistakes but that they were
inconsequential compared to henry Kissinger who, he claimed, killed 3 million
people, or John McCain, who bombed civilians, or John Kerry, who “slit the throats of two elderly people on
the outskirts of a village because he was leading a group of Navy SEALs into a
Viet Cong-held village and had to quiet them.” Ayers added, “But a blanket apology is just too much. And it is insincere. The Days of Rage? Not sorry.
The Pentagon? (where the Weather Underground exploded a bomb in a
bathroom, causing major damage) Not
sorry.”
Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn
Keystone, S.D., innkeeper Dean Bottorff passed on this Mother Superior
anecdote:
I had a good friend who
as a young man was a novice in the Benedictine Order. He liked to tell about
“Sister Grace” who took the vow of silence. The story goes like this: Sisters
of her convent were allowed to say only two words once every 10 years. After
her first ten years Sister Grace was called before the Mother Superior and
allowed to speak. She said: “Room Cold.”
The Mother Superior thanked her and said she would look into it. Ten years
passed and Sister Grace was allowed to speak once more: “Food Bad!” Once again, the Mother Superior thanked her and said
she would look into it. Ten years on, Sister Grace was back and said: “Bed Hard.” She was thanked again and
dismissed. Ten more years passed. Sister Grace once again stood before the
Mother Superior and said: “I quit!”
“Well,” said the Mother Superior, “I'm
not surprised. All you've done is complain since you've been here.”
