Monkey Business

“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.  H. L. Mencken

The phrase “monkey business” is an offshoot of the nineteenth-century word “monkeyshine” and suggests morally questionable or otherwise objectionable behavior.  A 1952 comedy of that name starred Cary Grant as scientist hoping to invent an elixir to keep people from aging and co-starred Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe.  In 1987 unprincipled reporters looking to bring down Democratic frontrunner Gary Hart discovered that the married Colorado senator had boarded a pleasure boat named the Monkey Business with his attractive paramour Donna Rice.

Front page NWI Times headline: “Meer’s charges dropped.”  Shortly before last November’s Michigan City election, LaPorte County prosecutor John Lake charged two-time Mayor Ron Meer with six felonies in connection with allegedly intervening on behalf of his step-son, who was arrested for drug possession following a traffic stop. After Meers requested that the arresting officers be reassigned, Police Chief Mark Swistek and two assistants resigned.  Meer, a Democrat, subsequently lost his bid for a third term by 79 votes to Duane Parry, the first Republican mayor of Michigan City in 40 years. Defense attorney Scott King, formerly mayor of Gary, had called the charges a “political hit job,” and greeted the dropped charges wit this statement: “Nothing has changed my mind that these were political considerations made in the bringing of these charges literally of the eve of an election.”

For the past year the Merrillville FBI office has evidently been seeking to gather dirt on former Gary officials who had worked for Gary mayor Karen Freeman Wilson.  While no grand jury indictments have as yet been forthcoming, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana Thomas L. Kirsch recently charged longtime Whiting mayor Joe Stahura with using political donations totaling over $200,000 to pay off personal debts stemming from gambling at casinos and race tracks. He and his wife also redirected large sums of money to settle debts incurred by their daughter.  Mayor since 2004 and a council member for 20 years before that, Stafura helped develop a lakefront park, an annual Pierogi Fest, and an interactive children’s museum and Mascot Hall of Fame. U.S. Attorney Kirsch dubbed the case “another black eye” for Northwest Indiana but is recommending leniency in return for the defendant’s cooperation with the federal investigation into his finances. As part of a plea bargain, Stafura agreed to resign and no charges were filed against his wife.

If the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office decide to target a politician, they have unlimited resources at their command and can browbeat officeholders into accepting plea bargains or face long the possibility of lengthy prison terms.  No wonder their conviction rate is well over 95 percent.  As longtime county officeholder John Petalas told Jerry Davich, author of “Crooked Politics in Northwest Indiana,” there is much less local corruption than in the mid-twentieth-century, but now U.S. attorneys have much more power and are much more aggressive in seeking convictions.  Petalas added:

    There are hundreds of elected and appointed officials who work in Lake County.  It is not fair to label everyone a crook because of a small minority who betray the public trust.  Every time one of these guys gets in trouble, they make bigger headlines than a double murder investigation.  The bigger the headlines, the bigger the perception that all politicians are crooks.  There are some elected officials in this part of the state who went to jail for things that are completely legal for state officials to commit.

Davich quoted me as saying, “It’s outrageous how U.S. Attorneys have gone after people like former Gary clerk Katie Hall and lake County surveyor George Van Til for petty things – such as their staff selling candy bars or picking up a tuxedo – while millions in so-called “legal graft” are siphoned into law firms for attorneys’ fees.”

 After violating the Hatch Act for making the White House the backdrop for his acceptance speech with a thousand guests sitting close together without masks, POTUS appeared at a New Hampshire rally where supporters booed upon hearing from a state official that masks were required.  Brenda Ann Love wrote: “My Grams has stopped going to church. It was really the only place she’s socialized since my grandfather died. Most of her friends are dead, and, as she says, “the Trump Idiots won’t wear masks. They think this is a hoax.”  She’s lived through the Depression, WWII, several other wars, and says she’s never been this scared.  And she called me Brenda Ann, so I know she was serious.”

photo by Ray Smock

Ray Smock wrote:

    I am sitting on our deck drinking coffee while reading the news of the aftermath Hurricane Laura, the fallout from the Republican convention, the latest police shooting in Kenosha, and the story of thousands gathered on the Mall in DC, just as they did 57 years ago, to call for racial justice in America.  Maybe the four-year-long hurricane that Trump unleashed on our country will be over soon and we will experience some calm and the sunlight of Truth. I desperately want the Trump storm to subside. I want political calm again, even though politics is never ever completely calm.

    Donald Trump has caused the belittling of government and the destruction of our Constitution. He weakened government just when we needed its help the most. His ineptness to lead us out of the pandemic, resulting in more American deaths than in all our recent wars, and throwing millions out of work with no federal lifeline, has done more harm than a century of hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis.  We can rebuild from nature’s disasters. But how do we rebuild a whole nation back from the terrible, cruel, soulless winds of Trump? How do we find again the domestic tranquility mentioned in our Constitution?

    We can do this. We can restore our damaged political system. We need it now more than ever to work for all of us. We do not need chainsaws and bulldozers for this job. We need our ballots. We need to use them. Neither of our political parties is perfect. No one of us has all the answers of how best to fix major problems. But it should be clear to enough of us that the political wreckage all around us must be fixed and fixed quickly to get us out of a leaderless pandemic and restore our economy.

    We can fix it together in November with our greatest source of power, a power stronger than the worst dictator. We are a republic. We are the people. The power is in our hands.

Great Adventure

“When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.” Amelia Earhart

 

Growing up in Atchison, Kansas, Amelia Earhart earned the reputation of being a daredevil and tomboy who believed girls should have the opportunity to do anything a boy could do.  Her first plane ride in 1920 changed Amelia’s life; becoming an aviatrix became her passion. By the following year, she had saved enough money to pay for flying lessons from highly-regarded instructor Anita Snook. Within a few years she was a seasoned pilot.  In 1928, in what was a well-planned publicity stunt, Earhart was a passenger in a transatlantic flight piloted by Wilmer Stultz, admitting, “I was just baggage.” Upon returning to America she and the two-person crew received a ticker tape parade in New York City and a reception with President Calvin Coolidge. Due to her resemblance in appearance to Charles Lindbergh, she was dubbed by the press “Lady Lindy.”  Determined to prove her mettle on her own, in 1932 Earhart completed a 14-hour solo flight across the Atlantic, battling strong winds, icy conditions, and mechanical problems.  Her celebrity status led to frequent appearances and commercial endorsements. In 1935, I learned from historian Ray Boomhower, Purdue University hired Earhart to be a counselor to female students and established a Fund for Aeronautical Research in her name that helped in purchasing a twin-motored Lockheed Electra for Amelia’s next great adventure.

By 1938 Earhart had decided to attempt an around-the-world flight and have an account of it be the penultimate chapter in a memoir that would raise money for further aeronautical research and exploration.  After a false start, the ill-fated flight began June 1, 1938, in Miami, Florida. Flying to South America and then east to Africa and Southeast Asia, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan had completed 22,000 miles in a month and had just 7,000 miles to go, across the Pacific.  From Lae, New Guinea, the next leg was 2,570 miles to Howland Island.  She never made it; the plane went missing and a radio frequency snafu caused a waiting naval vessel to lose contact with her plane.  Her last message was that the Lockheed Electra was running out of fuel.  Despite an intensive search, no trace of her or the plane was ever found.

 

Earhart’s disappearance has been the source of speculation and conspiracy theories that exist to this day.  Indeed, it is the primary reason people remember her.  Because America would soon be at war with Japan, some claimed her plane had been shot down and Earhart captured, accused of being on an intelligence mission, and executed.  Romantics wondered wishfully if she and Noonan had escaped to a deserted Pacific island; more likely, they landed on a coral reef that eventually submerged.  Most experts believe the plane simply ran out of fuel, crashed into the Pacific, and sank to the bottom of the sea.

 

My great adventure was leaving law school and traveling to Hawaii to commence working on becoming a History professor. For as long as I could remember, I’d planned to become a lawyer, and for three summers I’d worked at distinguished Philadelphia law firms as a mail room messenger. I observed young associates working 60-80 hours a week hoping to make partner, an outcome that seemed to depend on whether they could generate business for the firm.  In other words, not as glamorous a situation as on the “Perry Mason” series.

 

My senior year at Bucknell, I took Education courses and student taught, which I thoroughly enjoyed. At Virginia Law School many students were undecided over careers or had been pressured into being there. After a dorm mate committed suicide, I started contemplating whether, much as I enjoyed most law school classes, the legal profession was for me.  On a whim I looked into the University of Hawaii’s graduate program and discovered the History chair, Herbert Margulies, was someone whose work on the Progressive Era I admired.  I wrote Margulies a letter, and he urged me to apply and indicated I could receive an assistantship that would cover tuition and pay me a couple thousand dollars.  After meeting with Bucknell mentor, Dr. William H. Harbaugh in Lewisburg, PA, (hitchhiking part of the way) who warned me I’d never be rich and have at least a half dozen years of schooling yet but told me to go for it if that’s what I really wanted, I took the plunge with Toni’s consent. I’ve never looked back and marvel at how well it worked out and that I had the nerve to do it.

 

Toni agreed to move up our wedding date six months, after which we drove her Volkswagen Beetle across the country (a Southern route since it was mid-January 1965, a time when Yankees were viewed with suspicion), shipped the VW from California on to Honolulu, and boarded a plane.  I began work on a Master’s degree, and Toni obtained a job at a downtown law firm. We found a small apartment on Poki Street (why we later named a cat Poki) about a mile from the Manoa campus and close to a bus stop for Toni to commute to work while I walked to classes.  Some evenings we’d hang out on Waikiki Beach near nightclubs with live Hawaiian music and once splurged at Duke Kahanamoku’s for dinner and a show featuring Don Ho of “Tiny Bubbles” fame. I did research at Iolani Palace and we spent a glorious week on the then-barely developed island of Kauai (below, left).  Since phone calls were prohibitively expensive, we’d send and receive audio tapes from our families. I retain many other fond memories of our 18 months on Oahu and have been back to the islands several times since.                 Graduation, 1966

My adventure pales in comparison with the millions of immigrants to America, including Toni’s grandparents.  John Petalas posted a 1922 photo (below) of charter members of AHERA (American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, founded to counter bigoty emanating from hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan  Anne Koehler, who emigrated from Germany many years ago, wrote about spending a delightful evening with friend Dorothy: “We were sitting in the car at Weko Beach in Bridgman, Michigan where they play taps at sunset during the summer. A car pulled up halfway. Dorothy talked to the driver and found out that he was from Germany. We started to talk from car to car and I found out that this spry gentleman is 92 years old. He hails from Stuttgart in southern Germany and came to this county in the 1950s. He remembers growing up under Hitler and barely missed being drafted toward the end of the war. I was happy to find out that he shared my dislike of our president.”

Dominguez family and George Van Til

My “Great Adventure” post received close to 50 replies, many from former students, including Jim Reha and Sarah McColly, collaborators Roy Dominguez and George Van Til, niece Cristin and nephew Bobby, with whom I’ve shared some adventures.  In the New York Review of Books “Personals” section was this message titled “In the Time of Corona”: “Chinese-Russian grandmother, youthful 60s, seeks a kind, self-supporting, healthy single man 60-70s with whom to share some life - enjoying career tai chi, theater, War on Drugs, Buddhist meditation, and more.” War on Drugs must refer to my favorite band that nephew Bob Lane and I saw perform at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, CA.

Satellite Camp

"'I’ve been achin’ for a while now, friends

I’ve been achin’ hard for years.'

He’s kind of like an artist

Who uses paint no more."

         Replacements, “Achin’ To Be”

Preparing to visit former Lake County Surveyor George Van Til, a longtime faithful public servant who, incredibly, is in federal prison, I took a roll of quarters as instructed by wife Patti for the vending machines in the visitors room since George would be missing lunch. Driving down Route 41, I thought of trips with Juan Anaya when I was on his Indiana State PhD dissertation committee.  Years ago, I put together a session on the Calumet Region for an Indiana Association of Historians conference at Rose-Hulman Institute featuring Steve McShane, George Roberts, and Lance Trusty.  Toni and granddaughter Alissa went along, and we visited the Eugene V. Debs house adjacent to the Indiana State campus (before its restoration it was a fraternity house).  The night before my prison visit I stayed at Drury Inn, which offered free dinner (meatballs, pasta, salad, and hot dogs) and breakfast plus yogurt and a banana for later.

Eagles of Death Metal moments before Paris massacre performing "Kiss the Devil"

On TV were updates on the horrific Paris bombings.  The worst massacre took place at Bataclan music hall where Eagles of Death Metal was performing.  Despite the name, the band has an upbeat bluegrass style that Josh Homme, who also played with Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures, describes as desert rock.  Formed in Palm Desert, California, near Palm Springs, the group toured earlier in the year with the Joshua Tree area rock band Graham Rabbit, which I saw perform at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown.

Even though briefed on what to expect, I visited the Federal Correction Institution with some trepidation, noticing the barbed wire fencing as I drove south on Route 63 before turning onto Bureau Road.  Near the prison entrance was a Dollar store; George Van Til told me later that if visitors came dressed too provocatively, guards send them there to purchase more appropriate garments.  The minimum security “satellite camp” was some distance from the main building and resembled a public school. In the parking lot I spotted a family of five was walking toward the entrance.  I followed them, opened the door, and it closed after me with a loud thud.  A guard gave me a form to fill out, then took my drivers license, and after a short while escorted me to the visitation room.  I soon spotted George, looking gaunt (he’s lost 100 pounds) and somewhat spectral (with white hair and beard and wearing a grey sweatshirt) but better than I’d expected.  After I used quarters to purchase for him a salad, burger, and pop (he’s not permitted to handle money), we found seats across from one another and could speak freely.  The next three hours went by quickly, as George, starved for company, had much to talk about.

The highlights of his week, George told me, were playing piano at Sunday church services and having visitors.  These have included State Representative Charlie Brown and Bill Pelke, a high school classmate who befriended Paula Cooper despite her having killed his grandmother.  George has five roommates and shares bathroom facilities (one toilet, a couple urinals, sinks, and showers) with 60 inmates.  Over six feet tall, he’s thankful to have a lower bunk but must make his way to the bathroom at night in the dark.  When he has trouble sleeping – which is most nights – he listens on a radio to classical music or show tunes on NPR (National Public Radio) out of Indianapolis.  He feels that he’s wasting precious days of his life and – with anemia and heart problems - might die before he gets out.  Next week will mark seven months since his incarceration – midway point unless he’s transferred to a halfway house.  When he arrived, most inmates were white; since Obama ordered the release of some 6,000 federal prisoners, many of whom were already in halfway houses, as a result of the prison population shift, the satellite camp now has a majority black population with a considerable number of Muslims.

Active in Lake County politics for amore than a quarter-century, George talked about longtime East Chicago mayor Robert Pastrick, whom he described as a consummate politician who made alliances and kept different factions loyal to him by employing a velvet glove more than an iron fist.  Shortly after George started attending IU Northwest, Political Science professor Fedor Cicak encouraged to him join a club that morphed into the Young Democrats, whose members included Congressman Ray J. Madden’s press secretary Tony Trapane and Lake County Treasurer John Petalas.  George also recalled taking courses with Political Scientist George Roberts and Historian Ron Cohen.

 Lake Co. treasurer John Petalas; NWI Times photo by John J. Watkins

George tries to stay under the radar and avoid talking to others about why they are in prison, but several inmates in the visitation room greeted him with a smile.  One elderly couple played cards; she put an unlit candle in a pastry purchased in a vending machine.  Other couples held hands or cuddled awkwardly in adjacent chairs.  A pre-schooler pushed a truck around a corner, causing his mother to jump up worried it might cause trouble.  A guard monitored the two bathrooms to insure no hanky-panky inside.  Many inmates don’t have money to buy necessities at the commissary.  Sometimes George purchases small items for them.

George recently read Ira Shapiro’s “The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis.”  During the 1970s George worked for both Indiana Senators Birch Bayh and Vance Hartke.  He was one of Hartke’s pallbearers when the Senator was buried at Arlington cemetery.  George spoke highly of such Senatorial “lions” as Robert Byrd, Frank Church, George McGovern, and Ted Kennedy.

A rumor was circulating that Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – now being held in Florence, Colorado - will be executed in the Terre Haute facility’s main prison building.  Recently there was a drill for such an eventuality whereby all inmates are confined to their cells or temporarily housed in the Satellite Camp.  Over 50 inmates are on death row; three have been executed since 2000, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.  Other current inmates include Somali pirate Abdulwali Abdukha Muse (release date 2038) and “American Taliban” John Philip Walker Lindh (release date 2019).  Former notables include singer Chuck Berry, pitcher Denny McLain, Illinois governor George Ryan, and Native American activist Leonard Peltier.

Back home, I read about Newt Gingrich’s 2012 run for the 2012 Republican nomination in Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s “Double Down.”  When Newt surged in the polls, Mitt Romney’s team went negative, bringing up the former House Speaker’s marital infidelities, ethical lapses, and influence peddling in return for $1.6 million in payments from Freddie Mac as a “historian,” not a lobbyist.  Referring to 2004 Republican efforts to disparage John Kerry record as a Swift Boat commander, Newt complained, “I’ve been Romney-boated.”  I liked this excerpt:

  Whenever he was asked about his latest successor as speaker, Newt compared John Boehner to [Ohio State coach] Woody Hayes: three yards and a cloud of dust.  Gingrich, by contrast, saw himself as a gunslinging quarterback rolling out of the pocket and heaving the ball downfield.  His style produced its share of touchdowns but also plenty of interceptions.

Woody Hayes got fired in the wake of an incident that took place in waning minutes of the 1978 Gator Bowl against Clemson. Down by two points but in field goal range, Ohio State QB Art Schlichter threw a pass that Charlie Bauman intercepted near the Buckeye sidelines.  Coach Hayes cursed Bauman and then tried to punch him in the throat.  Despite his dismissal, Hayes remained a professor of Military History at Ohio State and till the end of his life defended American atrocities in Vietnam, even the My Lai massacre.  At Woody’s 1987 funeral disgraced former president Richard Nixon delivered the eulogy.

Sheriff Roy Dominquez, onetime political ally of George Van Til, released this post concerning the proposed immigration detention center across from the Gary airport:

The FIGHT continues: Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson may have said she has withdrawn her support for the ‘Immigration Family Separation Prison’ but she didn't state her opposition to the project. The Mayor says she is a fighter for civil rights but somehow convinced herself that deporting Hispanics was a morally correct way to resolve the African-American unemployment rate in the City.  Mayor, you owe our entire NWI Community an apology and you can first begin by stating your OPPOSITION to this GEO endeavor and stand on the right side of history.

At a condo board meeting I mentioned visiting George Van Til, a political prisoner, taken down by political and corporate enemies to whom he did not kowtow.  One board member declared that Republican Tony Bennett, former Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, did things a hundred times worse and went scot free after agreeing to pay a $5,000 fine.  Not only did Bennett tamper with Indiana’s school grading system in order to help a certain charter school stay afloat, but he misused public resources and could have been prosecuted for wire fraud.

Poet Hollis Donald wrote a eulogy about Benny Guider called “I heard a Train Coming” addressed to the family of Nina and Will Hardeman.  Here’s its ending:

Benny was a giant of a man, who talked about nothing but his family.

He was the “Jack of all trades.” He did miracles for this city.

He could pick up loyal friends like leaves picked up by the wind.

This train carried many people

But you could distinguish him in the end

Because he was the one that was a real friend!

I heard this train coming –

Then suddenly it stopped at he gate

And now it’s gone

I looked around and my friend was gone.

I looked around and me friend was “Gone on Home.”

Eiffel Tower

Buildings all over the world are displaying the tricolors of the French flag to express solidarity with the victims of terrorism.  IUN’s flags are at half-staff.