What is Art, Actually?

By Patrick F. Cannon

In his opinion in a case involving the definition of pornography, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote (in part): “I shall not…attempt…to define…hard-core pornography…but I know it when I see it…”

I wonder if he would have said the same about art, that most subjective of human endeavors?  I can imagine a prehistoric man looking at cave paintings and exclaiming to the struggling artist: “You call that a deer? Looks more like a cow!” And the critics have been at it ever since. I’m old enough to remember the reception Jackson Pollock got for his abstract expressionist drip paintings in the 1950s. “Why, a monkey could do that,” the average Joe said, whereupon some enterprising person got some chimps together with cans of paint and canvasses and, lo and behold, they produced their own brand of Abstract Expressionism.

You could check out the chimps paintings on the evening television news or in the movie newsreels (this was the 50s, after all), and chuckle along with the rest of us. But the folks who bought Pollock’s tortured musings eventually sold them for millions, while all the chimps got was some bananas.

Now, I’m not a fan of Pollock or the other Abstract Expressionists like Rothko and DeKooning, but I can appreciate there is a great difference between their paintings and the efforts of those who thought they could do the same thing by flinging paint against a canvas. While we may not like the results, we can see the skill and hard work involved in producing it. If, for example, you look carefully at one of Rothko’s apparently simple color-field paintings, you’ll see how carefully the paint is applied and how the different colors are related one to another. All of these artists were academically trained. They knew how to paint realistically before they chose another path.

So, my first rule for fine art (as opposed to “outsider” art, primitive art, or the art of spray painting squiggles on other people’s property) is that it is not done by amateurs. Fine art is intended, and is done by trained professionals.

In the 400 years or so since he wrote it, thousands of actors have played Shakespeare’s Hamlet, many admirably, but in the end it is the play that is really the thing. Thus, my second rule: art must be produced by an individual, not a factory.

Although he is not alone, Jeff Koons is perhaps the best living example of the factory approach to art (he owes a great debt to Andy Warhol). He has been unabashed in saying that he is the “idea” man who leaves the actual creation of the work to his employees. Thus, he decided it would be amusing to have balloon animals blown up to giant size and executed in colorful metal instead of latex. Sounds ridiculous, and is to me, but Koons sells this stuff for millions of real dollars, while the clown at the birthday party probably is lucky to get a hundred bucks for amusing the kiddies with balloon animals.

Contrast this with Rembrandt laboring over a sheet of copper to produce an etching. In some cases, we have various stages showing how he worked and reworked the plate until he finally got the effect he wanted. The end result – let’s say of his series on the Crucifixion – is both complex and emotionally powerful. And let us not forget that he had to do it all in reverse so that the print would present a positive image on the paper.

Many of Rembrandts etching plates were never destroyed; so impressions continued to be made after his death. But even an impression from his own hand might be bought for tens of thousands of dollars instead of tens of millions. A better bargain in every way, it seems to me.

And yes, I have heard the argument that many Renaissance artists had assistants who did some of the work. True enough, but what they mainly did was prepare the canvas or board, mix paints and sometimes paint in backgrounds, and then only for large-scale commissions. And I suspect no one helped Velasquez paint his famous portrait of Aesop, whose model is thought to have been an entirely human local beggar.

(I should mention that images of the Aesop painting and others mentioned here are easily found on the internet.)

About Koons, I could eventually be proved wrong. In 400 years, he may be as revered as Rembrandt is today.  Fashion in art is a funny thing. We now revere the somewhat overexposed Impressionists, and have largely forgotten their far more successful French contemporaries, much of whose work has been consigned to storage or the walls of small provincial museums.

I thought about those once famous artists when I recently visited the Art Institute of Chicago to view the new galleries of contemporary art, including many works recently donated by Stephan Edlis and Gael Neesson. It occurred to me that they were wise to donate these works at the height of their value, thus maximizing their tax benefits. I think it would be a safe bet that in 50 years some of them will have found their way to the Institute’s storage rooms.

I visited between Christmas and New Years, and it was interesting to see the reactions of the larger than usual crowd. Many were families with children, and it was amusing to see parents trying to explain abstract paintings to their confused children. The reality: the paintings usually have no meaning beyond the viewer’s personal reaction. What possible deep meaning could there be in an Ellsworth Kelly triptych of three squares of color?

Looking at it reminded me of the Pantone color system, which includes numbered color swatches of seemingly every possible shade of every possible color. Graphic artists and designers use the system to specify to a printer, for example, the exact color they want. Each has a number, and I suspect you could find a Pantone color to match each color that Kelly has chosen.

Which leads me to my final rule: the more human the art, the finer it will be. I have already mentioned Velasquez’s Aesop, whose subject convinces us that we are looking at a man whose experiences could indeed have resulted in the wisdom revealed in his fables. A late Rembrandt self portrait will also reveal a man who has suffered but nevertheless prevailed. Something of the same humanity has been revealed in the contemporary works of artists like David Hockney and Lucien Freud.

I mentioned the Impressionists. Their landscapes represent a human response to what they saw in the natural environment, as did the paintings of predecessors like Turner and Constable.  Now, if we didn’t know that Jackson Pollack was a tortured, neurotic alcoholic – and see his paintings as a reflection of his struggles – what we would think of them?  And what would we think of Rothko and Kelly if we knew nothing about them? But does it matter what we know of Velasquez when we look at his masterpiece, Las Meninas?

If you have seen this painting at the Prado in Madrid, you will have seen the work of a committed professional, who has stamped it with his particular vision. The human subjects are revealed to us as Velasquez saw them, with all of their qualities exposed. How different it is from Pollack, Rothko and Kelly. And in every way, it seems to me, finer.

While this essay has discussed painting, the qualities of professionalism, individuality and humanity are equally relevant to the other arts. You may not agree with me that these are the most important qualities of any work of art, but if you value the arts – and not everybody does – than you should at least have a set of standards by which you can judge them.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Bad News from Local Television 

By Patrick F. Cannon

Some of you may remember Floyd Kalber and Len O’Conner, the long ago anchor and commentator respectively on Chicago’s Channel 5 News. I remember both with fondness as entirely professional, no nonsense newsmen. Kalber was a particular hero of mine, as he once talked the folks at Channel 5 into letting him just read the weather report, rather than having a dedicated weather person stand in front of a map and parse the forecast for valuable minutes that could have been devoted to real news.

Predictably, his good sense approach to the weather forecast was doomed. Eventually, Kalber decamped for New York and the Today show, where he did the news every morning and reported occasional stories for NBC News. He later returned to Chicago and ended his career at the local birthplace of “Happy Talk” news, WLS-TV, Channel 7. It must have been bittersweet.

While the local ABC affiliate was the groundbreaker in softening and cheering up the news, all of the local Chicago stations now follow its lead. In a 30-minute newscast, with approximately 22 minutes devoted to content, there will be two weather forecasts. The first one will give the basics, but if there are any rain, snow or temperature extremes within 1,000 miles of the city, it will end with “the teaser of doom.”  In the later forecast, always longer and more detailed, the impending winter storm will turn out to be flurries. This is not to say that the weather folks don’t do a good job when there is an actual weather event; they do. But is there any excuse for devoting so much time to the weather when it’s just normal for the season? And for the seeming competition among female meteorologists to see who can wear the tightest dress?

While the overemphasis on weather is annoying, the flagrant promotion of network entertainment programming as part of the newscast is infuriating.  If ABC wants to promote “Dancing With the Stars,” it should do so in a commercial, not have its news anchors, presumably professional journalists, debase themselves by pretending that what fading actor is attempting to rejuvenate his or her career by dancing the tango with some hard body, is actually just as worthy of coverage as the latest failure of the political class to solve the state’s fiscal mess.

Thank God for newspapers, even though declining circulation and ad revenues make them a dubious investment for their corporate owners. What would television news directors do if they couldn’t depend on their local newspaper to uncover the stories that they piggy back on for their own content? Their own “investigative” teams are largely a joke.

Thirty years ago, newspapers were a hot investment item. Family owned papers began to sell out for the exorbitant amounts corporations were willing to pay for what were then considered cash cows. Then appeared the internet and a new generation that seemed unwilling to tear themselves away from their computer and phone screens, and who seem increasingly unable to tell the difference between unbiased reporting and opinion.

If great newspapers were still privately owned, they might be better able to weather revenue decline without having to worry about panicked stockholders.  I wish someone would buy the Chicago Tribune as a civic duty, just as Jeff Bezos of Amazon has bought the Washington Post. In the meantime, everyone who cares about unbiased reporting should subscribe to their local paper for the real news, and then depend on their local TV news for entertainment and the weather forecast.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Poor Little Rich Girl 

By Patrick F. Cannon

The recent divorce saga of Illinois billionaire Ken Griffin and his wife Anne reminded me of a similar story a few years ago. Another billionaire, who died last year and shall remain nameless, was in the news because his ex-wife had asked the courts to increase his child support payments for their daughter to $320,000 a month from $50,000.

We were told that the tycoon had the child out of wedlock in 1999. The gallant fellow agreed to make an honest woman out of her, but only upon the understanding that she would then file for divorce, receiving $50,000 per month for the child, but nothing for herself.

Now, the last time I looked, $50,000 a month only adds up to $600,000 a year. As we know, grown men make far more money playing children’s games like baseball and basketball, so it hardly seems fair that an actual child should have received so little, particularly a child who was both the daughter of a billionaire and lived in Southern California.

Although it hardly seems relevant, I should mention that the child was then three, the mother 36 and Mr. Moneybags 84.

If we examine the reasons for needing $320,000 a month (or $3,840,000 a year), all might become clear. Travel, for example, was projected at $144,000 per month. Surely, you might say, one would have to be on the road continuously to spend that kind of dough.   But this is to completely misunderstand the requirements of the rich, particularly the rich in any way associated with Hollywood (the father owned one of its major studios).

Travel broadens one, even a three-year-old. Let’s say a trip to Paris seems desirable. No child of that age can travel alone. She’ll need mommy, nanny and a security guard. Four first-class tickets from LA to Paris would be about $40,000. Upon arrival, mom and the kid would likely share a suite, say at the Ritz or the George V. A week could run another $30,000. Nanny and the security person would rate only single rooms, but two could add another $10,000. At Paris prices, meals could easily add another $10,000. I think that totals $90,000 for a week in Paris, leaving a mere $54,000 to last the rest of the month. It might well be even less, as a prudent mother of a billionaire’s daughter might well opt for a private jet to avoid any possibility of a kidnapping enroute.

“Parties and play dates” were estimated at $14,000 a month. For a child whose first birthday party cost $70,000, this does not seem excessive. As a child, I simply went next door and knocked on the back door to see if Jimmy could come outside and play. But of course I didn’t live in Bel Air or Beverly Hills. Can we reasonably ask a child to scale an electric fence with razor wire at the top to play with the kid next door?

An additional $2,500 a month was set aside for movies and outings. While movies may only be $15 a ticket, the usual entourage increases the tab to $60, not including popcorn. Because she lived in the film capital of the world, and her father was deeply involved in the business, we would naturally expect her to keep up with the latest releases and trends. And all parents know that Disneyland, Universal Studios and Knotts Berry Farm don’t come cheap.

Other expenses listed by the Associated Press seemed equally reasonable: $1,400 for laundry and cleaning, $1,000 for toys and books, and $436 “for care of Kira’s bunny and other pets.” Actually, Ms. Kerkorian might want to revisit the pet care costs. My own experience with a poodle of delicate health and constantly growing coat suggests it might not be enough.

You may have noticed that the expenses listed only totaled $163,336 per month. But of course that doesn’t include the costs of housing, food and staff, which could quite easily eat up the remaining $156,664.

Many of you will recall F. Scott Fitzgerald’s comment that the rich are different than us, and Ernest Hemingway’s famous rejoinder, “yes, they have more money.” Well, as you can see, they actually need it.

Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

What’s in a Name?

By Patrick F. Cannon

Some years ago, I was driving from Munich to Vienna. The day was fine and the road splendid. After traveling for some time, I thought I should soon see a sign heralding my imminent arrival. Nothing of the kind. Thinking perhaps that I had somehow gone astray, I pulled into a rest stop and sought information from the Information kiosk. I explained my dilemma to the attendant, who laughed heartily, as Austrians often do. When he caught his breath, he told me that Vienna was actually Wien in German. Why then do English speakers call it Vienna I asked? Warming to the subject, he said that the Italians called the city Vienna and that since the English seemed to prefer the Italians to the Austrians, they had taken to using the Italian word.

I was on the point of asking why the Italians thought it necessary to come up with their own name, but decided I might never actually get to Wien, so I decided to leave well enough alone. I heartily enjoyed my visit to Wien, but it has caused me problems ever since. When extolling the virtues of Wien to my friends, I am often greeted with blank stares. Wien? Never heard of it! After patiently explaining that it’s often called Vienna by English speakers, I often have the feeling that they think that perhaps I had too much wine in Wien.

What to call things is a serious problem for travelers. The French call London “Londre”, the Italians “Londini.” On the other hand, the English spell Paris just like the French do, although they pronounce it with an “iss” instead of an “eee.” A Spaniard thinks he’s going to Nueva York instead of New York, but generally manages to get there anyway. One often wonders, of course, why there’s no Spanish word for “York.” Nueva Yorka has a music that Nueva York lacks.

Germany also presents problems. If you go there, you’ll discover that the locals call it Deutschland, which must mean “land of the Dutch.” I had always supposed that the Dutch lived in Holland, but perhaps I’m mistaken. It may just be that the Germans grabbed the name first, leaving the Dutch to settle for Holland, which must be a made up word. By the way, the French call Germany, Allemane, which makes no sense to anyone.

What one should name people is also a problem. Italians persist in calling Julius Caesar “Giulio Cesare.” But the English seem perfectly content to leave Benito Mussolini as it is instead of changing it to “Benny Muscles.” I wondered if the Italians call Alfred the Great “Alfredo il Magnifico,” but didn’t bother to check.

To give another illustration, we call the saint who could charm the birds out of the trees, Francis. The Italians call him Santa Francesco and the Spanish San Fernando. You would think that we would call the famous valley in California the Saint Francis Valley instead of the San Fernando Valley, but we don’t.

And I’m sure many of your friends have told you that “I’m off to England for a vacation.” But aren’t they really going to the United Kingdom, or is it really Great Britain? If you’re planning a trip to Ireland, is it the Republic of Ireland, or Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, but not Great Britain?

Of course, I haven’t even gotten to place names in the Orient. For these and other distant climes, let me refer to the standard reference work: The Thomas Cook and Company Guide to Curious Foreign Place Names, From Aachen to Zanzibar. Any respectable bookseller should be able to hunt down a copy. It may explain to you why the city is called Beijing and the duck, Peking.

Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Stuff I’ve Never Worn 

By Patrick F. Cannon

I’m not too quick to adopt new styles of dress or grooming. In fact, quite a few trends have come and gone while I decided whether or not to catch the wave. Here are just a few.

I never wore a Nehru jacket. While they looked good on him, I was never convinced that the look was appropriate in America’s heartland. Besides, I owned dozens of ties and worked for a company that preferred its executives to look more like the man in the gray flannel suit. Since Nehru wasn’t hiring in Chicago at the time, I took a pass.

I’m afraid I did buy a double-knit suit and sports coat when they were in vogue in the 60s. The suit wasn’t so bad, but I remember looking in the mirror one morning and asking myself why on earth I hadn’t noticed that the sports coat was orange – maybe the lighting at Marshall Fields was deceptive. I never wore it again. As for the suit, it started pilling after a few cleanings, so I donated it to the Salvation Army, that sad repository of failed fashion. Ever after, I’ve worn only all-wool or all-cotton suits.

Apropos of plastic, I never owned either a white belt or white patent leather shoes. I rather regret this, since it’s obvious that they would have lasted forever (based on what one sees in places where senior citizens gather).

This may seem perverse, but once I grew up, I never wore jeans again. In my mind, they’re associated with cowboys, laborers and kids. Isn’t there something vaguely silly about a sixty-year-old man (or woman) wandering around in blue jeans? (I know. Wandering around in anything but jeans seems silly to the majority.)

I have never worn a tie shaped like a fish, nor one that advertises a product, or celebrates a holiday like Christmas. I am guilty of wearing a tie with shamrocks (small, discrete ones) on St. Patrick’s Day. I owned a similar pair of socks, but even my Irish heritage wouldn’t get them on my feet.

I was drafted into the Army, thank God, so I never had to wear bell-bottomed trousers. Why so many non-sailors chose to wear them in the 60s and 70s is still a mystery to me. Ditto for the tie-dyed shirts that seemed to go with them and the horrendously clunky shoes that completed the look.

Those, of course, were the days of “flower power,” a definite insult to flowers everywhere. Men took to long hair, a fashion that persists in some quarters, along with biblical beards. Aging hippies can still be spotted on the streets, their graying, thinning hair gathered by a rubber band into a lank and ancient ponytail. The parents they were rebelling against are either dead or too old to care.

The rebellious young people of today seem inclined to basic black, bare flesh and mutilation. The earrings that sprouted on young men in the 70s have been augmented (in both sexes) by more ambitious piercings. Today, one sees rings and other hardware in eyebrows, lips, navels and tongues (and, I’m told, in more naughty places). And tattoos, of course, are epidemic.

These aren’t the tattoos that sailors have sported for generations. A well-bred young lady might have a charming butterfly on her shoulder or lower back or next to her navel, all areas in plain view these days. My son, for reasons known only to him, has a smiley face on his shoulder. I rejoice in this, for some parents see lurid skulls (or worse) on the fronts and/or backs of their sons and, increasingly, daughters.

I’ve never been even faintly tempted to get a tattoo. Frankly, I’m stuck in a time warp. When I was in high school, the so-called “Ivy League” look was au courant. For me, it has never quite left. Most of my dress and casual shirts still have button-down collars. My suits have natural shoulders and I have always owned a blazer. Stripes dominate my tie rack. My dress shoes could have been made anytime in the last 50 years. You won’t be surprised to discover that I wear no jewelry.   Even my watches had leather bands until I developed an allergy. And the thought of wearing one of those “skinny” suits with the short trousers and sleeves gives me the horrors

I find all this very comforting. Everything I’ve always worn is still being sold (although I have to concede that ties do seem to expand and contract a bit in width from decade to decade). So, if you see a gentleman of a certain age wearing powder blue linen slacks and a green silk shirt, with a pink sweater casually tied over his shoulders (along with Italian loafers but no socks), you can be confident it ‘s not me.

Copyright 2015, Patrick F. Cannon

Music for Kids? 

By Patrick F. Cannon 

I have written previously about the importance of exposing students to the widest possible variety of musical styles and periods as part of an ongoing education in the arts. The necessity for this was driven home to me once again recently when I read an article in the Chicago Tribune about how parents should introduce their children to good music.

The author, who was clearly in his late 20s or early 30s, was generally dismissive of much of the music written especially for young children, particularly toddlers and pre-schoolers.  His list of appropriate music for kids included a few familiar names, but many I had never heard of. But every one of them could be lumped under the heading “Rock and Roll.”

Now, my own children had several albums of music written for children, which they seemed to enjoy. One, which I remember fondly, was from the then-popular kid’s show, Captain Kangaroo. One of the Captain’s sidekicks, Mr, Green Jeans, sang a song which began “My Uncle Terwiliger waltzes with bears, what a terrible, terrible state of affairs.” What rock song could compare with that?

But they were also exposed to albums of classical, folk, and popular music from what has become known as the Great American Songbook (the work of Gershwin, Berlin, Porter, Rodgers, Kern, etc.). We also had Beatles recordings, which is exactly as far back in musical history as the Tribune author was now willing to go with his children. I feel sorry for them for having a clueless father. Imagine dismissing all painting before Andy Warhol, or all architecture before Robert Venturi, or all movies before Lawrence of Arabia?  Too bad for you, Van Gogh, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Citizen Cain.

Now, my children are now in their 40s. My daughter retains very eclectic musical tastes. My son, who was a classically-trained flutist, abandoned it for the guitar and rock and roll. That’s fine with me, since he didn’t make his choice out of ignorance.

I thought about all of this as I was watching Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago. Felder, an accomplished pianist, has done several shows wherein he channels famous composers, including Beethoven, Gershwin and Chopin. Berlin, perhaps America’s greatest popular songwriter, wrote over 1,500 songs during his long career, a career that was mostly over by the time the Beatles appeared on the scene, But sorry kids, you’re never going to hear Blue Skies, What’ll I Do, Always, God Bless America, White Christmas, It’s a Lovely Day Today, or The Song is Ended (because it ended for you in 1962).

And Berlin was only one of our great American popular music composers. So, kiddies, your also never going to hear Embraceable You, Ol’ Man River, You’re the Top, Oklahoma, On the Street Where She Lives, The Way You Look Tonight, So In Love, Night and Day, My Funny Valentine, Maria, Just One of Those Things, Lady Be Good, Some Enchanted Evening, Baby, It’s Cold Outside, etc., etc., etc.

Felder (as Berlin) said he never wrote a song without a reason. They were written for revues, musicals, both stage and screen, or some special occasion, such as the birth of one of his children. Contrast this with the current practice of songwriter/performers who want to tell us all about their own love lives, both current and past. I can think of no reason why I should care about Taylor Swifts’ reasons for breaking up with another performer, who is likely to write his own song in rebuttal. Ms. Swift is now all of 25, and has been writing such songs since she was 14. Ah, the wisdom of the ages!

Good songs, of course, are still being written, many for the Broadway stage. In the past, the best ones would have been heard on the radio and would even climb to the top of the pop music charts. No more. Now we have separate lists for R&B/Hip Hop, Country, Hot Dance/Electronic, and (presumably for everything else) Pop. Artists rarely stray from their niche, although we occasionally find one crossing over from Country to Pop. Some of them are extraordinarily talented, but like so many actors, don’t feel they have to test themselves against the great music or drama of the past.

Regardless of the genre, the lyrics are too much about me instead of you. Once we had “you are the breathless touch of springtime.” Now, more often than not it’s “you are the S.O.B. who broke my heart.” The increasing vulgarization of lyrics is also noteworthy, but that’s a subject for another day.

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Copyright 2015 by Patrick F. Cannon

Trumpaphobia

By Patrick F. Cannon

The country appears to be gripped by the fear that Donald Trump might actually get the Republican nomination for President, and even be elected. The fear, of course, is most intense among the left, but is shared by moderate Republicans, and haters of combovers everywhere.

Let me start to dampen the flames a bit by looking at some numbers from sources other than the political parties. First, the largest number of voters now consider themselves Independent, as follows:

Independent                           39 percent

                                    Democratic                             32 percent

                                    Republican                             23 percent

Of the Republicans, the consensus of national polls shows that approximately 29 percent of voters likely to vote in primaries favor Trump as of today. Even with my feeble mathematical ability, it seems to suggest that 71 percent favor someone else. So, Trump has 29 percent of 23 percent, hardly cause for immediate alarm.

Let me suggest that about 10 percent of Americans actually would love to have him as President, just as another 10 percent still believe Marxism will win out in the end. Another group would rather have anybody but Hillary Clinton as President.  It’s interesting to me that Clinton’s lead over her likely challengers is largest against Trump, and she is actually running behind Marco Rubio. Sensible Republicans and Independents will take notice. By the way, Trump even trails Bernie Sanders in the same polls.

Now, I do realize that in the real world things are a bit more complicated. Even though fewer voters than ever consider themselves Republican, the party now controls both houses of Congress and has the majority among governors and state legislatures. Obviously, many Independent voters prefer more conservative candidates locally and statewide. And – it’s been suggested — prefer a divided Federal government as a way to prevent a single party from imposing something like the increasingly unaffordable Affordable Care Act without a nationwide consensus.

Anyway, if you’re having nightmares or losing sleep worrying about Donald Trump, consider some of the actual numbers before you turn out the lights. It’s bad enough we have to put up with him during our waking hours.

But it’s good to have a backup plan. Mine is to claim my Irish citizenship and watch the Sun go down on Galway Bay.

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Copyright 2015, by Patrick F. Cannon

Before I die…. 

By Patrick F. Cannon 

My darling wife hates it when I say something like: “before I die, I’d like to see Berlin, or travel to Amsterdam to see the Rembrandts…” or any number of travel destinations on my wish list (for the record, I did just that a couple of months ago).  Hates it, I suppose, because I’m in my 70s and “before I die” seems a bit more ominous at my age.

Even though I might be careful not to say “before I die” aloud to my wife, my health is good enough that I have some expectation of actually accomplishing some of the items on my wish list. For example, a few years ago I also saw Las Meninas, the great 16^th century painting of the Spanish royal family by Diego Velázquez at the Prado in Madrid. Strike another one from the list. I’ve also seen the Bears win the Super Bowl, but the memory is fading. And, to be honest, I haven’t seen the dawn come up like thunder outer China ‘cross the bay.

I am not as sanguine about two of the items on my wish list, but of course we must live in hope. They are:

*Direct election of the president, and

*Eliminating gerrymandered voting districts at all levels.

I have been voting in presidential elections since 1960, always in Illinois, although I’ve lived for short periods in other states and countries. I’ve voted both for winners and losers. I voted for President Obama in 2008, so I picked a winner, but if I had wanted to vote for John McCain, it would have been meaningless, because my vote would have had little effect in a state that would inevitably be counted in the president’s column when the appalling Electoral College met to cast their votes.

Appalling because it disenfranchises me.  I voted for George W. Bush in 2000. But, as we know, Al Gore actually received more votes and, in my way of thinking, should have been president. I could have lived with that, because it would have been fair, just as it (mostly!) is in every other election we participate in.

The only feasible way this can change is with a constitutional amendment (although I understand that some people believe it can be done on a state by state basis). Why, since fairness demands it, haven’t we had one? The answer is obvious – the political parties don’t want to change the status quo; they don’t want to be forced to fight for every vote, no matter whether it’s in Democratic Illinois or Republican Utah. Did you notice the dearth of ads for the 2012 presidential race in Illinois? What if the 40 percent of the votes that went to Romney would actually count? Ads would flood the airwaves (admittedly a dubious pleasure). Don’t you want your vote to count, whether you’re a Republican in Illinois or a Democrat in Utah?

And isn’t it time to put a stop to the racial politics that has raised gerrymandering to a high art? Why should an African-American only feel comfortable when he or she can vote for another African-American? Ditto Hispanics. Or white folks, for that matter. If we had computer-generated contiguous voting districts of roughly equal population, then candidates would be forced to seek votes and support from whoever ended up in their district. I might well end up in a district evenly split between white, black and Hispanic voters.

What in God’s name is actually wrong with that? The concept that we have to arrange voting districts to cater to voting blocs, thus ensuring that “one man, one vote” is some kind of alternative reality, is both absurd and insulting to all voters.

Again, politicians like to arrange voting districts to suit themselves. In Illinois, after the 2010 Census, the Democrats blatantly redistricted to insure safe seats for as many of their brethren as possible (alas, the Republicans likely would have done the same if they had been in the majority).  Predictably, the cowardly Federal courts refused to even look at this outrage.

My congressional district has been designed so that only a Democrat can win. If there’s a Republican even on the ballot, I don’t remember hearing about it. Is this “one man, one vote?” And I won’t even talk about my lack of choice at the state level. In Illinois, a fellow named Mike Madigan has taken care of that too.

So, here are two obvious failures in our system that can only be remedied with constitutional amendments. Who will take up the cudgels? It won’t be the politicians. How about our great newspapers? How about the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune? Aren’t they meant to serve the public interest? And mine? “Before I die,” I mean.

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Copyright, 2015, by Patrick F. Cannon (who retains his optimism despite all evidence to the contrary)

(This is the last of a series. I promise that future posts will be a bit shorter!)                                              

Tolerance

By Patrick F. Cannon

Intolerance begins with difference, and is abetted by ignorance.  That difference could be of color, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, politics, or any of a number of things that set people apart. Like most people, I found it difficult at times to tolerate some of these differences.  Although the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church have changed since I was educated in its schools, I was most certainly taught by the nuns that only Catholics could go to Heaven, and that Protestants and Jews were at the very least misguided, and maybe even willfully evil.  Needless to say, sex education was not part of the curriculum.

Since many of the kids in our building and neighborhood were Jews and some Protestants, it began to dawn on me at an early age that either both my brother and I were playing with a posse of the damned, or perhaps the nuns were overdoing it just a bit – thus, the beginnings of tolerance.  Tolerance of sexual orientation came later, since I’m sure I wasn’t even aware that such people as homosexuals even existed until I graduated from high school in 1956 and moved to Chicago. In those days, homosexuals were forced to live in a shadowy world, moving in very limited circles, including so-called “gay” bars. I’m sure I shared the general distaste with a sexual orientation I didn’t understand.

But, again, once I began to actually know, socialize, and work with gay people, I realized they were pretty much just like me, except for what they got up to in the privacy of their bedrooms. Since this didn’t affect me, why should I care? Yet, many people do, mainly on religious grounds. While the biblical evidence against homosexuality they are so fond of quoting is ambivalent, particularly in the New Testament, their real problem is that they confuse the Bible with the Constitution. The Constitution permits them to rail against homosexuals all they want on religious grounds, but it doesn’t permit them to also discriminate against them in the civic arena.

But people seem to struggle most of all with race. Although young people are notably more tolerant, their parents may have grown up in families with a history of casual or even overt racism. My own parents never (at least to me) expressed any racist sentiments. My father was a politician for a time and no doubt valued any vote he could get.

My mother would often take us to the drugstore at the bottom of our street in a Pittsburgh-area mill town for a soda or sundae, or to buy some candy. The druggist was known to us as “Doc.” It was only later in life that I came to realize that he was an African-American. Later, in high school, my best friend was an African-American (sorry for the cliché).

It was only when I moved back to the Chicago when I was 18 that I discovered overt racism. Chicagoans of a certain age will remember that many restaurants and other establishments refused service to African-Americans even into the 1960s. Discrimination in housing and employment were commonplace (and you could argue, still are). While middle- and upper-middle class African Americans are finding it easier to find housing in better Chicago and suburban neighborhoods, their poorer brethren are still stuck in highly segregated neighborhoods, where black on black crime is epidemic.

One often hears the argument that anti-discrimination laws and racial preferences have now leveled the playing field, so the African-American community has no one to blame but itself for any lingering problems. But ask yourself this: can we really pat ourselves on the back for waiting until the 1960s to take the first steps in making things right for a people who had been enslaved in British America from the early 17^th Century until the Civil War finally freed them in 1863? And even after they were freed, in much of the country they continued to be discriminated against for the next 100 years, with some of the discrimination even sanctioned by law.

At its source, racism is personal. Common sense suggests that each of us must acknowledge its long history in the United States, then pay more than lip service  to the idea that each person must be judged “by the content of  his character,” not his race. To the extent that it’s within our power, we must be sure that decisions we make on hiring, housing, education and especially friendship are never based on race.

Finally, we need to take a common sense approach to immigration reform. Where is the common sense hidden in the proposal that we can deport 11 million illegal immigrants?  Or that we should simply let anyone in who fly, walk or swim to our shores? The zealots who espouse these extremes are in the minority. The majority who support compromise must be made to realize they can find common ground that might not be perfect (compromise rarely pleases everybody) but that would represent real progress in providing some kind of legal status and dignity to those who are working hard to support their families.

It’s only common sense, isn’t it?

(Patrick F. Cannon has written five books on architectural subjects. He isn’t always so serious.)

More Common Sense

Education

Let’s leave the question of educational testing aside, and instead talk about education. What should every student learn, first in primary and high schools, and then at colleges and universities? What is the minimum that one should learn in order to be a contributing member of society?

First, every student should learn how to read, write and speak the English language.  Instruction should take place every year, and it should be rigorous. Age appropriate English and American literature must be included, both to show examples of how the language has and is been used, but also how literature has reflected the lives and culture of Americans. By the time a young person has graduated from high school, he or she should have read at least some of the classics written in English by writers of both sexes and all races that have contributed to the diverse culture of the United States. This means Shakespeare and Dickens, Twain and Hemingway, Emily Dickenson and T.S. Elliot, but also Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Sandra Cisneros. It also means the theatre and, yes, the movies.

Related to this is the ability to write clear English prose. Not English prose as the student wishes it to be, but as it actually is. Over the course of my working life, I reviewed literally hundreds of resumes from people who wished to be hired for writing jobs, but couldn’t in fact write grammatical English. How could this be, I wondered? How had they managed to graduate from respected universities without mastering this basic skill?  I could only conclude that none of their teachers had either bothered or cared. Permitting a student to be “creative” should only come after demonstrated competence.

Much more emphasis needs to be placed on history and civics.  No child should graduate from high school without passing a test on the Federal and state constitutions. And not only on the documents themselves; specific examples must be given to demonstrate how the various articles and amendments actually affect their lives.

History should not be taught until a child can reasonably be expected to understand concepts and connections, perhaps as late as the fifth grade. Then it should be taught in increasing levels of sophistication until a high school graduate should know the history of his country, with both its triumphs and tragedies. And no university graduate should enter the real world with a view of history and politics tainted by the ideology of professors who are more advocates than scholars. Not exposing students to all sides of an issue is a betrayal of the very idea of the university.  And that means that the study of history must be a requirement for graduation, not merely an elective.

The Arts

Literature is only one of the arts. At a minimum, a high school graduate should be exposed to the major composers of the past as a way of giving context to what is currently popular. The history of music in all its periods and styles is far too complex for most high school students, but exposure to the main strains is not. That means both Bach and Ellington. It means raising questions like: what influence did African rhythms have on the development of Jazz? In what ways did the blues influence rock? Just what is the great American Songbook?

Most high schools will have opportunities for musical performance – band, orchestra, chorus, etc. But even students who don’t have the talent or inclination for performance should be exposed to their musical heritage. And it’s important that such courses not be tested in the usual way. It should be enough to occasionally ask the student to write down what they think about a particular piece of music. No grades. If you show up and listen, you pass. The arts should be treated as enrichment, not burden.

I’m a great believer in the power of exposure. For example, my love for classical music began quite by accident. My first real job was setting pins at an Elks Club bowling alley. One of my extra tasks was to clean and buff the alleys on Saturday morning. After doing so one day, I was leaving the club when I heard music coming from a sitting room that contained the club’s television set. I stopped in the doorway, and what I heard and saw was Arturo Toscanini conducting Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. While a similar experience might have happened later in life, I can say with certainty that that experience changed my life.

Although perhaps much more complicated, an introduction to the visual arts is also important at every level.  While one could reasonably argue that actual courses in the history of art should best be left to the university level, works of art could well be used to illuminate other subjects, history and geography for example. Visual artists have and continue to respond to the events around them, particularly those that affect society most, like war and injustice. Instead of simply using their images as passive illustrations, why not discuss the artist and his or her reasons for creating the work in question.

Math and Science

Not every child will have an aptitude and passion for mathematics and the sciences, but just like the arts, every child should be exposed to them. The study of the various branches of mathematics teaches a child that there is indeed an actual answer to a specific problem. One and one will always equal two, not only when we want it to. There is also a scientific method, and every child should be taught how it works and what it means. I cannot stress this point too much in an era when the internet continuously exposes one to all manner of bogus scientific nonsense.

Alas, there are many private schools that permit parents to insulate their children from reality. Religious schools should, of course, be able to teach religion, but not as a substitute for accepted scientific fact. When I was in Catholic schools from 1944 to 1952, I was taught that God created the heavens and earth in seven days. Imagine my surprise when I later learned that the solar system was billions of years old. Religious schools must not be able to get away with this kind of stuff, but be required as a matter of state interest to have the same basic scientific curriculum as public schools.

While there may be some limited justification for home schooling, most parents do so through a fear that their children will be tainted by exposure to the school environment – fully 90 percent of those surveyed gave this reason. 75 percent said they home schooled their children so they could provide moral instruction, with 65 percent specifying religion as the primary reason. And while most states require these children to take the usual standardized tests to prove competency, they cannot test what else their parents teach them. I would suggest that home schooling be permitted only in cases of extreme physical or mental disability. Religion (or some quasi religious or mystical mumbo jumbo) can be taught at other times, but at least children will know that there is a fact-based world as well.

Despite the best efforts of the courts to put a stop to it, we even have some public school districts who believe that religion has a place in their curricula. Aside from the Pledge of Allegiance (the addition to which of the phrase “under God” was to me a great mistake), Gods or religion have no place in public education, nor does the teaching of anti-scientific courses in so-called “creation science.”  Let the preachers spew this nonsense from their pulpits all they want, but students must be made to face the reality of natural selection and the geologic record.

Of course, religion and its texts do have a place in the study of history and literature. How could they not, considering the effect – for both good and ill – that they have had, and continue to have, on the human experience?

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Copyright 2015, Patrick F. Cannon, all rights reserved.

(Patrick F. Cannon is the author of five books on architecture. He also has an opinion on just about everything, hence this blog.)