Cooking Made Easy

By Patrick F. Cannon

Regular readers of this space will remember my tribute to my late mother’s culinary skills in the article titled Home Cookin’. Some wondered if her accomplishments had influenced my own efforts to advance the cause of haute cuisine.

Indeed they have. I had meant for some time to share my expertise, but more mundane matters always seemed to intervene. This morning, however, I awoke with such a feeling of accumulated guilt that I felt I could no longer withhold my kitchen secrets from a wider world.

Now, my wife Jeanette has a shelf full of cook books. You should forswear the use of any of this advice from so-called experts. If you look into any of these alluring tomes, you will notice vast lists of ingredients and pages of instructions. No human can follow them without getting lost. The following recipes are all inclusive. Simply follow them and you can’t go wrong.

Let’s start with breakfast. Now, as we all know, a productive day must start with a hearty breakfast. If pressed for time – and aren’t we all? – simply grab a box of Cheerios, pour some into a handy bowl and add some milk. Whole real milk is preferred, but 2% is acceptable. Never use skim milk; it is a watery abomination. Adding a bit of fruit can be a healthy addition. (By the way, there is no such thing as “Almond Milk.” It’s juice, for God’s sake.)

If more time is available, can I suggest bacon and eggs? Many happy homes have been torn asunder by an inability to properly fry an egg. Bacon is relatively easy. Put strips of bacon into a frying pan and cook on one side until they look done, then turn over and do the same. I suggest putting the strips on a piece of paper towel to drain while undertaking the eggs.

Do not cook the eggs in bacon fat! It will overwhelm their delicate taste. Eggs must be fried in butter; no substitutes permitted. Simply melt some butter in a non-stick frying pan, then crack the eggs and slide what’s inside the shell into the pan. I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you how to crack an egg. If you botch this simple task, cooking is clearly not for you. Anyway, there are two parts to the egg, the white part and the yellow part. The yellow part, called the yolk, should stay intact during the cooking. If it breaks, or leaks, the purist will throw this egg away and start anew. I would suggest feeding the offending egg to your dog. Dogs, as we know, will eat anything.

Some people will like their eggs “sunny side up.” This simply means you cook the egg until it seems done, then gently transfer it to the plate. But many prefer what is called “over easy.” These are queasy folk who are sickened by runny whites. The double-queasy want their eggs “over medium” to err on the safe side. For the first, you turn the egg over and cook for an additional 10 seconds, for the second, 15. If you lose track of the time, you might end up with “over hard.” Again, if you have a dog, that would be an option; or, you could try that old family refrain “take it or leave it.”

You must, of course, serve toast. Like me, you should always keep a loaf of Wonderbread on hand. Invest in a toaster. Most have controls that permit one to customize one’s toast. For example, it might have a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being “why bother” to 5 being “burnt to a crisp.”  One is constantly amazed at the wonders of technology.

If you want to get exotic and add side dishes like hash-brown potatoes, you needn’t worry. They, and many more breakfast sides dishes, are easily available in your grocer’s frozen food case.

Now that we have dispatched breakfast, we can move on to lunch. As a first option, I would suggest calling a friend and meeting him or her at a local restaurant. This gets you out of the house and hones your social skills. If you have to stay at home, I suggest the classic soup and sandwich combo. For soup, can I suggest one of those classics, Campbell’s Chicken Noodle or Tomato? You can, by the way, enrich the Tomato soup by using milk instead of water.

Although some restaurants gussy up the simple sandwich by adding exotic ingredients, including the dreaded avocado, simple is always better. Really, all you need are two slices of Wonderbread, some sliced lunch meat and cheese preferable pasteurized, processed American. I do tolerate some lettuce and tomato, if time permits.

As to condiments, ketchup must only be used for red meat, or fried bologna. Mustard may also be used for red meat, and goes well with ham and uncooked bologna. Mayonnaise is most acceptable for fowl, but has been known to be slathered on any sandwich, particularly the “Club”, which features turkey and bacon, along with lettuce and tomato. For the bigger of mouth, this classic is often double-decked. For the inattentive, ingredients in the lap are a possibility.

There you have it. Two-thirds of the daily nourishment dealt with, without recourse to any cook book. But a major challenge awaits!

(To be continued. Next week: Dinner is served!)

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

It’s Just Too Much!

By Patrick F. Cannon

I would never claim that our times are more vulgar than any in the past, but our claims would surely be at least competitive.

The word itself has many meanings and uses, which to me boil down to this – that which is more than it needs to be is vulgar. Let me give you an example. In a movie whose title I can’t remember, and whose plot escapes me, Bing Crosby is auditioning a girl singer, whose identity is lost in the mists of time (it was probably in late 1940s). As she sings her song, she does dance moves and gesticulates (love that word) in time with the song. Bing stops her, and asks her what is more important, her or the song. Then he sings the same song, standing quietly and enunciating every word of the lyric clearly. As I recall, she gets the message and goes on to be a great star! Of course. But would she now?

Tony Bennett, now in his 90s, still just stands there and delivers the song. Others who do the same are mostly jazz or folk singers, not exactly performers at the top of the charts. Live pop performers now rarely appear without a troupe of barely-clothed hard bodies, of both sexes, writhing behind them; and behind them, a band which seems to mostly consist of over-amplified guitars and an electronic keyboard, which makes a variety of strange sounds. At the front, of course, we find the Beyonce’s and Lady Gaga’s of the world, both of whom have actual talent, but have concluded that vulgarity sells better than the song itself. Can we blame Cher for starting this? Or maybe it was Liberace?

Having written five books on Chicago architecture, I see a good deal of vulgarity in the built environment. It’s interesting to me that similar ornament can be coherent on one building and vulgar on another. For one of our books, my partner Jim Caulfield went to Buffalo to photograph Louis Sullivan’s Guaranty Building. Built in 1895, there is scarcely any of the façade that isn’t covered with ornament – but somehow Sullivan’s genius makes it work. In contrast, for an otherwise nondescript condo building in Oak Park, the architect chose to apply panels of Louis Sullivan-inspired ornament to the façade. there it looks ridiculous and, yes, vulgar.

Vulgarity in architecture was raised to its absolute peak in Las Vegas, where it’s not unexpected, but even great architects are not immune to artistic overreach. The great Frank Lloyd Wright’s occasional flights of fancy sometimes miscarried, but most fortunately remain unbuilt. Current superstar Frank Gehry has designed some truly wonderful buildings, but several real stinkers too. His “Fred and Ginger” apartment building in Prague still bemuses the locals; and what was he thinking when he designed 8 Spruce Street in Manhattan, whose façade seems to be melting? Another stinker – and I realize my opinion may not be widely shared – is the Hotel Marques de Riscal in Spain. I’d rather stay at the Holiday Inn.

Let me end with a tribute to comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan, who work “clean.” Let me admit here that when I was in the Army, my utterances often included the classic profanities: f_ _ _, m_ _ _ _ _f_ _ _ _ _, and c_ _ _s_ _ _ _ _.  I’m being delicate here, but you know what I mean.

After I left the Army, I largely abandoned their use, other than occasionally muttering them to myself on the golf course or in traffic. I also stopped eating ham for several years, after having to eat too much of it in Army mess halls. Eating ham isn’t vulgar, but profanity as a verbal crutch most certainly is. And when did comics of both sexes decide that their sex lives were endlessly fascinating? And when did we start agreeing with them?

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Leaping Lizards!

By Patrick F. Cannon

For those of us who live in Chicagoland, it’s been another eventful year. The capital of the Midwest got a new mayor, Lorie Lightfoot, whose tread on the political establishment has been anything but light. As usual, the Feds have indicted two aldermen, and have raided the offices and homes of a few more. Even though the murder rate continues to decline, you wouldn’t know it from listening to the evening news. Oh, and a special prosecutor has been named to look into the handling of a case of a no-talent actor who phonied up an attack on himself designed to get him a raise on a television series shot in Chicago, and then got off with a slap on the wrist.

There was much more, but all of it was eclipsed by the discovery of an alligator in a lagoon at Garfield Park. Until the poor creature was captured by Frank Robb, an expert imported from Florida, sightings and un-sightings were daily fodder for the local TV stations and even made the national news. He was dubbed “Chance the Snapper” in honor of Chicago’s own Chance the Rapper. Even after he was exiled to a refuge in Florida, his fame demanded a few follow-up stories, which may have finally stopped. Robb also had his moment of fame and must have been tempted to hire an agent. (As recently as Tuesday, there was a flash report on the news that he had found love. By the way, Robb sports a biblical beard. Biblical beards and tattoos seem to be today’s daily double. Why?)

My own experiences with the American Alligator are considerable. Most recently, on my many trips to Florida, I have spied the odd one lazing on the banks of a water hazard at one of the state’s many golf courses. Other than discouraging one from seeking a lost ball, they seem to mind their own business, which seems to be sleeping in the Sun.

On one trip, my brother Pete, his wife Mary Beth, and my wife Jeanette and I went to the Florida Everglades, where we took an air boat ride through that fascinating landscape, which I’m told is actually a slow-moving river. There were several very large gators in the waters surrounding the starting point, no doubt regularly fed by the owners to add a bit of atmosphere.

But my ultimate experience with the noble reptile came during a family trip to Disney World in the Summer of 1983. Son Patrick and daughter Elizabeth were then teenagers; we had taken them to Disneyland in California when they were much younger, and decided a trip to see the recently opened Epcot in Orlando was in order. We booked a package trip through a tour company, which included air, hotel and rental car.

The beginning was not auspicious, as one of the engines of the chartered jet caught fire at the gate. It was soon put out, and we were assured it was just a bit of spilled fuel that had ignited. We managed to get to Orlando, whose airport then was little more than a glorified hut, with outdoor baggage claim. We picked up our rental car, which broke down before we got to the main road. Duly issued another one, we finally made it to the hotel, which was OK, and even had a nice pool.

I won’t bore you with our experiences at Disney, except to say that we had a good time. Once we had exhausted its possibilities and ourselves, we had some free time and were looking for something else to do. In those days, Disney World was pretty much it; no Universal Studios or any of the other attractions that have turned Orlando into the fantasy capital of the world.

We did, however, stumble upon one of our Republic’s great roadside attractions: the legendary Gatorland Zoo and Jumperoo. We entered through a gators mouth (natch) into a building whose gift shop sold every possible gator-themed item – everything from refrigerator magnets to giant plush gators. The zoo itself included every imaginable permutation of the animal, with caimans and crocs thrown in for good measure. But it was the “Jumperoo” attraction that has embedded itself permanently in our memories.

Imagine if you will a platform extending over a pool full of alligators. Upon it stands a man with a wash tub full of raw chickens. The man takes a bird and holds it over the pool. In just a split second, a gator seemingly leaps up about four or five feet and grabs the chicken in its frightening maw and splashes back into the water below. While it chomps on its chicken, another chicken takes its place; another gator leaps – and so on until the tub is empty. (We were later told that the gators don’t actually leap, but rear up on their tails.)

Understandably, the audience was mesmerized, including our good selves. By the way, we couldn’t help noticing that the crowd mostly looked like it too had emerged from some dark and dismal swamp. Whole families seemed to share only one set of teeth. It may have been that Disney was a bit too rich for their blood, or perhaps it was just a matter of taste. Nowadays, a single day ticket at Disney costs about $110; at Gatorland, a mere $29.95.

Can’t recall just when, but the original building was destroyed by fire, but apparently has been lovingly rebuilt, including the gaping jaw entrance. You could enliven your next trip to Florida with a visit. I see on their web site that the show goes on.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Tax and Spend

As far as I can tell, the main difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is that the Republicans want to lower taxes and spend; and the Democrats want to raise taxes and spend more. In the end, it may be a wash.

In days of yore – that is, before Donald Trump was elected – Republicans mostly ran for office promising to cut spending and, hopefully, reduce the National Debt (capitalized on purpose because it has become so enshrined in the public’s mind). Perhaps you’ve noticed that this traditional litany has disappeared; indeed, the Republicans lowered taxes and recently struck a deal with the Democrats to raise spending. Is it any wonder then that Paul Ryan has decamped for small-town Wisconsin? And that increasing numbers of traditional Republicans are declining to run for re-election?

In the meantime, dozens of Democrats are running for President. While there is little to choose between their proposed programs, some of the candidates are more amusing than others. For example, a few days ago Judy Woodruff of the PBS Evening News interviewed New York mayor Bill de Blasio. He has an interesting past. He spent his honeymoon in Cuba, even though the travel ban to that worker’s paradise was still in effect. He was also a public and vocal supporter of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. If through some miracle (you know, like the one that gave us Donald Trump) he was to be elected President, you can be assured that our relations with Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela would improve dramatically.

Woodruff asked him about his tax proposals. He would, he said, raise the top rate to 70 percent for incomes exceeding $2 million per year. The current top rate is 37 percent, which I actually believe could be raised modestly, perhaps to 45 percent. By the way, our tax rates are progressive, i.e., you do not pay the top rate on all income, only that exceeding (currently) $501,000 per year. Thus, the hated “one percent” of earners pay an average of 26.87 percent of their income to the Feds. That, by the way, accounts for 37.3 percent of total income tax revenue; the percentage for the top five percent is 58.2 percent. To bore you further, 44 percent of Americans pay no income taxes at all.

Let’s assume that candidate de Blasio would be satisfied with about 40 percent for the first $2 million, then the 70 percent for the rest. Then, take someone with $10 million in taxable income (sports and entertainment figures as well as titans of industry). They would get to keep $3.6 million, and happily give the government the rest. Since most of the Democratic candidates believe the rich are stealing their income from the poor anyway, that would be justice indeed.

While you ponder that, closer to home (Chicago), the Chicago Tribune reports that four members of the Chicago Teachers Union have returned from a junket to Venezuela funded by their fellow union members through crowd-funding. (See Kristen McQueary’s reasoned commentary in the August 20 Tribune). Their glowing reports found their way onto union internet sites, although the union now seems to be backing away from them, without actually disavowing their opinions, which strongly support President Maduro and his band of humanitarians. It seems that the Venezuelans who are left – according to the United Nations, four million have decamped – are highly literate. This is all to the good, of course. Without much actual food to be had, perhaps they can eat their words.

Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

A Porcine Fable

By Patrick F. Cannon

The old gentleman didn’t need an alarm clock. His inner clock told him it was 5:30 am, and he came awake. As usual, he could hear his wife puttering in the kitchen. When he finished showering, shaving and dressing, the coffee and juice would be next to the granola on the kitchen table. The radio would be tuned to the local all-news station, so he could get the latest weather and traffic reports before leaving for the office.

In the adjoining bathroom, he turned on the shower – all the settings preselected – and removed his pajamas. He couldn’t help but notice an unpleasant odor. He sniffed his pajamas, but they seemed OK. Even after his shower, the odor persisted, and it occurred to him that it might be a plumbing problem. He must remember to ask his wife to call a plumber to check and clean the drains.

The odor lingered as he got dressed. He chose his usual conservative tie, then carried his suit jacket with him to the kitchen and hung it on the back of a chair. His wife was at the table, eating some fresh fruit and reading the Washington Post. He never read the papers at breakfast, not wishing to start the day in a bad mood.

“Elaine, do you smell something?,” he asked his wife.

“Now that you mention it, I do”.

“I think it might be the plumbing – who knows, maybe some critter died in the pipes or there’s a clog. In any event, could you call the plumber?”

“Of course. I think there’s someone there by 8:00; I’ll call then.”

After he finished eating, and drank his second cup of coffee, he returned to the bathroom to do the needful and brush his teeth. When he was done, he fetched his suit coat and briefcase, kissed his wife goodbye and left the house. His car and driver were waiting at the curb. The driver opened the back door, and said “good morning, sir.”

“Good morning, Joe”.  He settled in the back seat and checked his cell phone for messages. Nothing urgent, so he punched his office number. “Irene? I’m on my way – traffic’s not too bad, so I should be there in  about 20 minutes. Anything up? Good. See you soon.”

Strangely, the smell seemed to have persisted. Maybe it’s the sewers, not his plumbing. Not unheard of in this city. “Joe, do you smell something funny?”

“You know, I do. Maybe it’s something in the car?”

“No, I smelled it at home too. I think it might be something from the sewers, but it sure is annoying.”

When he arrived at his office, the staff was already busy. He said a general “good morning” and entered his private office suite. His secretary looked up and smiled. Then a strange look came on her face – she seemed to be sniffing the air. “What’s wrong?,” he asked.

“I don’t know. All of a sudden, there’s a strange smell that wasn’t here before. Kind of like a barnyard.”

Senator McConnell’s jaws dropped with the sudden realization that the odor might be emanating from him, that it had followed and hung about him from the moment he had gotten up. He sniffed his hand and the smell got worse!

Moral: When you spend too much time in the pig pen, eventually the smell becomes permanent.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Doth Age Wither?

By Patrick F. Cannon

With the Democratic Party already feverishly trying to find a presidential candidate who can beat the hated Donald Trump, there has been a good deal of talk about whether some of them might be just a bit too old to take on the challenge.

As someone who has himself reached an age older than any of them, I can tell you that I would be reluctant to accept the minimum four-year commitment of running the free world (and I’d hate to lose my afternoon nap). This doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of doing a bang-up job – I’m taller than any of the top three, and just as well educated. By the top three, I mean of course Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and good old Joe Biden. I would describe the first two as doctrinaire and Joe as confused.

One of the hallmarks of old age is the conviction that one has finally discovered the wisdom of the ages. This is OK for someone like me, but is dangerous for a politician. Jimmy Carter is a perfect example of a President who had all the answers, but was a bit confused about the questions. Both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren think they have found the secret formula for success. While their programs are somewhat similar, their styles are slightly different.

Warren was for many years a law professor. This has given her a talent for lecturing voters as if they were her students, not unlike President Obama. As with most professors, their version of the truth brooks no opposition. You want to pass the exam; you better listen up and regurgitate. While she doesn’t necessarily want to abolish Capitalism, she seems determined to jail all the capitalists. Dare I say that she believes you can legislate morality?

Like Professor Warren, Sanders is for free college tuition and Medicare for all. Unlike Warren and most of the other Democratic aspirants, he isn’t for these things to pander to the so-called “base”; he has always detested Capitalism as a committed Socialist should. In an office that demands flexibility above all necessary traits (think Franklin Roosevelt), Bernie has gotten more rigid with age.

What he would love to do is what has failed everywhere it was tried – punish the successful by taking their money and giving it to the wise government to redistribute as it sees fit. I’m sure he sees the Labor governments just after World War II in Britain, Castro’s Cuba and Chavez’s Venezuela as worthy examples. I must say that the people of Vermont seem to have exhibited a perverse sense of humor to have harbored a Brooklyn Marxist to their leafy bosom for so long. Kudos to them for being willing to share.

Joe Biden is just a bit younger than Sanders, but because he’s been around so long, he has managed to actually establish a record that his moral betters can now decry. Unlike Bernie, who managed to do almost nothing in his years in the Senate but yell at people (have you noticed that he spends most of his time yelling instead of speaking?), poor Biden committed the sin of working across the aisle to get needed legislation passed, then compounded the felony by spending eight years as President Obama’s loyal vice president, whose record he must now defend to that same carping base.

But who knows? Maybe the Democrats will decide that someone younger and less rigid might better appeal to the majority of voters who identify as Republican or Independent (by far the most numerous at 42 percent). It may also occur to some of them that if 80 percent of Americans are mostly happy with their health care that “Medicare for All” might be more of a nightmare than a dream.

This old fogey held his nose and voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. I might be persuaded to vote for Joe Biden in 2020, but if the choice is Trump or Sanders, I might just spend the day playing Mah-jongg or Pickle Ball.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Nothing Funny About It

By Patrick F. Cannon

Regular readers of this space, and some friends and family, know that I have been publishing chapters of a (comic, I hope) history of the world. Nine chapters have appeared here, the last being a survey of our great scientific achievements. Chapter 10, when I get around to finishing it, will be The Age of Revolution.  Following that will be something on the Industrial Revolution.

And that might be the end. When I look at the 20^th Century, I struggle to find anything funny. Last week, I mentioned rereading Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. The book ends with the Battle of the Marne in September 1914; after that, opposing trenches were dug from the Swiss border to the English Channel, and barely moved until the Spring of 1918, when something approaching mobile warfare returned, ending in the November 11 armistice. During those four years, approximately 40 million people died, including six million civilians. Here are the number of soldiers (rounded off) who died in action among the main combatants, with the approximate total population of the country in parentheses:

Germany                                 1,773,000 (68 million)

France                                     1,358,000 (39.6 million)

Great Britain                              908,000 (43 million)

Russia                                      1,700,000 (166 million)

Austria-Hungary                     1,200,000 (52.8 million)

Italy                                             650,000 (44.4 million)

United States                              116,000 (100 million)

Wounded would have been between three and four times those numbers. Appalling numbers to be sure, but let’s look at the same countries (minus no longer existing Austria-Hungary) for World War II, when at least 90 million died, including 45 million civilians:

Germany                                 5,500,000 (78 million)

France                                        218,000 (41 million)

Great Britain                               383,000 (43 million)

Russia                                      9,000,000 (175 million)

Italy                                              301,000 (45 million)

United States                               417,000 (132 million)

Comparisons of the two are instructive. For example, the far lower number of deaths for France and Great Britain in World War II can be largely explained by the fact that they were defeated by Germany in 1940 in a mere six weeks. In 1914, the French had gone to war with enthusiasm; in 1940, with deep pessimism. While some French units fought well, most didn’t and they dragged Great Britain down with them (thus Dunkirk).

The much higher casualties for Germany and Russia reflect the bitterness of that struggle. German dead on the Russian front were probably 70 percent of their total for all theatres. Many experts feel that the 9 million for Russia may well be conservative, with the true number closer to 12 million.

While the numbers for Germany, France and Italy are for Europe only, the others are for all theatres of operation. In Asia, Japan had 2.2 million dead; China 2-3 million. Adding everything up comes to about 130 million total deaths, military and civilian for both World Wars. To this we can add the “ethnic cleansings” in the Balkans, Africa, and Turkey; the Russo-Japanese War; the several Arab-Israeli conflicts; the Iran-Iraq war; numerous civil wars like Spain, China and the ongoing one in Syria; and of course our own wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan (and let’s not forget Panama and Grenada!).

Civilian deaths too were much higher in World War II. Not only were six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, but aerial bombing and outright murder killed many more – the Japanese, for example, were thought to have killed tens of millions of Chinese civilians; and the Germans ruthlessly murdered Poles and Russians. And let’s not forget that Stalin caused the death of perhaps 10 million of his own countrymen in the 1930s; and Mao the same in China the 1960s.

In sheer numbers of deaths caused by conflict and official murder, the 20^th Century is the undisputed champ. But as a percentage of population, it pales in comparison to the religious wars in Europe in the 15^th and 16^th Centuries; and the Bubonic Plague of the 14^th, which experts now believe may have killed 60 percent of Europe’s population.

So, you can see why I might struggle to find many laughs in 20^th Century history. On the other hand, it gave us Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Ring Lardner, James Thurber, Ogden Nash, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Garrison Keillor, Lenny Bruce, Johnny Carson, Jack Lemmon, Myron Cohen – well, you can add your own favorites. They all found something to laugh about. Who knows, maybe I will too.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Repairing the Past

By Patrick F. Cannon

I’ve been rereading Barbara Tuchman’s wonderful book about the opening battles of World War I, The Guns of August. In this classic litany of mischance and human folly, the activities of the German government and army stand out above the other combatants for their sheer brutality and arrogance.

Here’s an example. By treaty among neighboring nations, including Germany, Belgium was guaranteed her neutrality. Nevertheless, the German plan of battle in August, 1914 included invading France through Belgium. When that small country refused to permit the German army to transit Belgium without a fight, the German were so incensed at their resistance that they demanded they pay reparations for the inconvenience they had caused them! The arrogance of this was breathtaking, so it is no wonder that when they ultimately lost the war, they were required to pay substantial reparations to the victors.

In essence, reparations are payments to “repair” damages to individuals or property. Recent Congressional hearings have again raised the question of reparations for the descendants of Africans sold into slavery and brought to this country to be sold again as laborers, primarily in the South. Even after they were freed in 1863, Jim Crow laws in Southern states drastically curtailed their rights, including their right to vote. The insult was compounded when the Supreme Court upheld separation of the races in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which established the “separate but equal” concept.

Beginning in 1948 when President Truman signed an order desegregating the armed services, African-Americans have slowly regained their civil rights. While there is now no statutory limit on their freedoms, it would be naïve to think that racism and discrimination is a thing of the past in America. But it is primarily to redress past wrongs that many African-Americans and others believe that financial reparations are due to the descendants of Africans brought to this country against their will.

Not everyone remembers or is even aware that in 1988 Congress passed and President Reagan signed a bill that paid $20,000 in reparations to each surviving Japanese-American who had been interned during World War II.  It was finally done after more than 40 years because the blame for interning American citizens (it was common for enemy aliens to be interned) was easy to place – it was done by the US Government through executive order.

The blame for enslaving Africans is more complicated. In our case, it was Great Britain who largely delivered slaves to Southern ports. But they were the traders, not the original enslavers. That distinction goes to their fellow Africans, who either captured them during battles, or rounded them up during raids, before shipping them to West African ports. Slave trading was part of the triangular system: Britain shipped manufactured goods to Africa, exchanged them for slaves, who were then sent to ports in America – New Orleans, Charleston, etc. – and exchanged for commodities like tobacco and cotton destined for Great Britain. Then the commodities were – well, you get the idea.

Great Britain didn’t abolish the slave trade until 1807 or abolish slavery until 1833, only 30 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Our Founders, mostly Englishmen after all, wrestled with the question when drafting the Constitution, but failed to abolish slavery, many believing wrongly that it would die out naturally. They obviously share the blame for the persistence of slavery, along with the approximately 25-percent of Southerners who held slaves, and the perpetrators of the Jim Crow laws that replaced it.

But what of the majority of Americans, who neither trace to the Founders nor whose ancestors owned slaves? What of the people whose family were abolitionists? Or arrived here after 1863? The promoters of reparations argue that there is a kind of collective guilt or the stain of original sin that we all share regardless of these mitigating factors. It is the same theory of collective guilt that persuaded the Germans to massacre Belgium civilians in August, 1914.

While it’s unlikely that reparations will ever be paid, that doesn’t mean that white Americans must not continue to try to redress the pattern of discrimination that our African-American citizens have and continue to suffer. After acknowledging our past sins, isn’t it better by far to concentrate on the future? What good did obsessing about the past do in Northern Ireland or the former Yugoslavia?

For the many Americans who feel guilty about our past, I would suggest they consider investing in the future by donating to organizations that invest in education, like the United Negro College Fund (www.uncf.com), or any of the many other organizations that focus on what can happen rather than a past that can’t be changed. Why do so many instead insist on resurrecting the likes of Richard Russell and James O. Eastland and throwing them in poor Joe Biden’s face?  Is it because they’ve made a living at it so long they can’t afford to stop?

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Our Living Language

By Patrick F. Cannon

According to a joint study by Harvard University and Google, there are 1,020,000 words in the English language. Just how they came up with that number is a mystery to me, but must have involved computers and millions of chimps.

The study did concede that many of the words they counted are now archaic, i.e., they are no longer used or have lost their original meaning. As so often happens, when I stopped reading the study after the first few paragraphs, I began to think of words that have been lost to us during my own lifetime. Here are but a few.

• Modest/Modesty. Like most English words, modest had several meanings. When I was a lad, for example, most women and young girls dressed so that their female charms were mostly covered by their clothing. It was said that they dressed “modestly.” As I recall, even a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Now, of course, anything goes. What once caused arrest at the beach, now largely goes unnoticed (except by the beastlier of men). Another meaning described someone of minimal ability or talent – they were said to be “modestly” talented. It is to be lamented that this usage is now obsolete, since it would be useful in describing entertainers like Justin Beiber and artists like Jeff Koons. Finally, one was said to be modest if he or she didn’t call attention to their achievements. I don’t recall Joe DiMaggio or Stan Musial ever flipping their bats or taking bows; or Jim Brown dancing the hoochie koochie in the end zone. Nowadays, it’s difficult to know whether you’re at a ball game or a circus. So, as you can see, modest, modesty and modestly are archaic.
• Discretion. According to one dictionary, the primary meaning of this now-dead word was: a determination not to cause offence or reveal private information. The opposite was, of course, indiscretion. Although everyone is now indiscrete, they don’t know they are because “letting it all hang out” is a national pastime. We live in an age when everyone seems to be taking pictures of their every activity, even their naked selves, and happily sharing the images with their Facebook and Instagram followers. There was a time when gentlemen “did not kiss and tell.” Now, particularly if they’re celebrities like Justin Beiber (again) or Taylor Twit (or is it Swift?), they can’t wait to get even with their rivals and ex-lovers (sometimes the same person). To do it properly, they hire specially-trained publicists, who were once called flaks, but have gone up market and are now called tit for tattlers.
• Probity. A person is known for his or her “probity” if they have strong moral principles, honesty, decency and uprightness of character. You are unlikely to have ever come across this word, since so few people now possess these qualities; and no politician has been known to have them for several generations.
• Civility. The base word “civil” is still used. Civil rights are still widely praised, if little understood; and civil government is understood to include governments at all levels. The study of all this, Civics, was once widely taught in schools, but has largely been replaced by something called “social studies” at the lower grades, and Marxism at our universities. To be “civil,” meant to treat one’s fellow citizens with the kindness and respect one would hope that they would return to you – really, just the Golden Rule. It seems clear that this meaning has been lost. Anyone who drives an automobile will know that there is a war raging on our streets and byways. Shots are fired more often than someone courteously yielding to another driver. If a man offers to give up his seat on the bus to a younger woman, he is likely to be arrested and branded a sexual predator. And removing your hat in the presence of a lady only means your head itches. Some men now never take off their caps, even in the finest restaurants. When dining out, it’s difficult to know whether you’re at Alinea or Joe’s Diner. Well, maybe they don’t take photos of the hamburger and fries at Joe’s, or jabber at their phone instead of their dinner companion.

Now, it’s certainly possible that these, and many other archaic words, will someday make a comeback. For example, codpiece became obsolete hundreds of years ago; now, one sees it on the menus of many fashionable restaurants. Wait, I may even have a photo here on my phone.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

(The following post first ran in early April. I’m running it again, because the two buildings mentioned, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and Unity Temple, have just been designated as World Heritage Sites, along with six other Wright buildings: Falling Water in Pennsylvania, the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, Jacobs House in Wisconsin, and Wright’s own homes, the Taliesin’s in Spring Green, Wisconsin and Scottsdale, Arizona. Other Heritage sites in the US include Yosemite, the Statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon, Independence Hall, etc. The only other sites listed partially for architectural reasons include Jefferson’s Monticello and University of Virginia, and the Taos Pueblo. If you live in the Chicago area and haven’t visited Robie (above photo by Jim Caulfield) and Unity, why not? If you don’t live here, why not visit Chicago? There’s plenty of other great stuff to see here too!)

Busman’s Holiday

By Patrick F. Cannon 

Photographer Jim Caulfield – one of the premier architectural photographers in Chicago – and I have collaborated on five books on Chicago architecture and architects (and are working on a sixth). This has taken up a good deal of my time for the last 15 years or so. Because I spend much of my time reading, researching and writing about Chicago architecture, I decided that this blog would be a vacation from those concerns. I’m breaking that rule today, to encourage you to visit two great works of art.

Last Thursday, my wife Jeanette and I attended a reception and viewing in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood of Frank Lloyd Wright’s newly-restored Robie House, his 1910 masterpiece of the Prairie style, this country’s first truly American architectural style. Its reopening for tours came less than two years after restoration was completed at Wright’s other Chicago-area masterpiece, Unity Temple in Oak Park.

Harboe Architects was responsible for both restorations. Its client for the Robie House was the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust; and at Unity, the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation. Tours for both, however, can be booked at the Trust’s web site, www.flwright.org. or by calling 312.994.4000.

While there are literally dozens of Wright designs in the Chicago area – Oak Park and River Forest alone have 27 – these two are the most important. The cost of their restoration, approximately $11 million for Robie and $25 million for Unity, is a bargain considering what far lesser works of contemporary art are fetching at public auction.

Chicago is justly famous around the world as a living museum of modern architecture. None of our great buildings is superior to Wright’s masterpieces. Other great works of art can of course be seen at the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art and other museums. But architecture is unique among the arts in that you can actually walk into a building and experience its form and space firsthand.

I have given many tours of both buildings and, even in unrestored state, visitors from literally around the world have been awestruck by these spaces. Now, restored as Wright would have wished them to be, they are simply breathtaking.

In 1957, the then owner of the Robie House, the Chicago Theological Seminary, planned to demolish it to make way for a new building. Wright, then 90, came to its defense, as did many others. On a visit, he was quoted as saying (and I paraphrase) that you wouldn’t think of destroying the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, so why the Robie House, which was a greater work of art than any painting could ever be! Typical Wright.

Ultimately, New York real estate developer William Zeckendorf bought the Robie House in 1958 to use as a temporary office while doing work in the area, then donated it to the University of Chicago, which still owns it, although the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust was and is responsible for restoring and operating it.

If you live in the Chicago area, or plan to visit, Robie and Unity should be on your “must see” list. So should the Mona Lisa, but that will cost you more and even then you’ll be lucky to get close enough for a good look. Here, you can not only see great works of art, but walk around in them, and even – in the case of Unity – take a seat.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon