Since I was not able to attend synagogue this Rosh Hashanah I thought I might take the opportunity to reflect on an aspect of the High Holiday liturgy that I find especially relevant in these times. In nine days I will be observing Yom Kippur, the “Day of Attonement.” On that day, observant Jews recite what is known as the “al Cheyt.”  

Ve-al kulam Eloha selachol, selach lanu, mechal lanu, kuper lanu.
For all our sins, may the Force that makes forgiveness possible forgive us, pardon us, and make atonement possible.

The sins in this prayer are not individual sins, but rather the collective sins of the community. It is a group confession because, though you may not have personally committed the offense, you are a part of the whole, and bear some measure of responsibility.

In recent years the traditional list of transgressions (sins) has been adapted for various social causes like this environmental confession. Today I came across the “High Holiday Confessional by George W. Bush.”

For the sin I have committed before you by promising to be a compassionate conservative, but showing no compassion.

For the sin I have committed before you by waging an unjust war in Iraq in the false name of fighting terrorism.

For the sin I have committed before you by waging a political campaign built on fear, not hope.

For the sin I have committed before you by cynically exploiting the horrors of 9/11 for political gain.

For the sin I have committed before you by ignoring the plight of the poorest and weakest among our citizens.

For the sin I have committed before you by the unnecessary deaths of 1,000 young Americans, the injuries to thousands more, and the deaths and injuries to untold numbers of Iraqis.

For the sin I have committed before you by lying about my record of service in the National Guard.

For these sins, oh forgiving God, forgive me, pardon me, grant me atonement.

For the sin I have committed before you by dividing rather than uniting our people.

No doubt the author of this modern, satirical prayer intended it to place heaps of blame squarely on President Bush. It is in the nature of this prayer and this High Holiday season however to spread the blame … and the responsibility. No matter if we voted for Bush or Gore, it is our unjust war, it is our exploitation of 9/11, they are our lies … and it is our duty to take on the responsibility to ameliorate our collective wrongs.          

For the sin I have committed before you by ignoring the loss of over one million jobs in the U.S.

For the sin I have committed before you by doing nothing to provide health insurance to millions of Americans, and to stem rapidly rising prescription medicine and other health care costs.

For the sin I have committed before you by systematically weakening environmental and pollution regulations, thereby endangering public health and destroying precious wilderness resources.

For the sin I have committed before you by promising to leave no child behind, and then failing to adequately fund educational programs.

For the sin I have committed before you by allowing the assault weapons ban to die, allowing these grotesque weapons to return to our streets.

For the sin I have committed before you by bearing false witness about the reasons for going to war in Iraq.

For the sin I have committed before you by perpetuating the falsehood that increasing homeland security requires a weakening of civil rights.

For the sin I have committed before you by imposing a veil of secrecy on government decision making processes.

For these sins, oh forgiving God, forgive me, pardon me, grant me atonement.

–

For the sin I have committed before you by allowing the ends to justify any means.

For the sin I have committed before you by lowering taxes for only the very wealthiest Americans, enriching the few at the expense of the many.

For the sin I have committed before you by running a cynical and destructive presidential campaign, designed to destroy rather than just defeat my opponent.

For the sin I have committed before you by fighting a war in Iraq to divert attention from failures in the just war on terrorists, and from failing to act against the looming nuclear threat from Iran and North Korea.

For the sin I have committed before you by failing to make any progress in achieving a just peace between Israel and the Arabs.

For the sin I have committed before you by turning a massive government surplus into a massive deficit in less than four years, thereby burdening future generations with untold debt.

For the sin I have committed before you by unnecessarily damaging relations with American friends and allies throughout the world.

For these sins, oh forgiving God, forgive me, pardon me, grant me atonement.

–

For the sin I have committed before you by promoting a personal ideology rather than the interests of the people.

For the sin I have committed before you by arrogance and swagger, speaking with a forked tongue, and for the haughty exercise of power.

For the sin I have committed before you by appointing arch-conservative judges to the federal judiciary.

For the sin I have committed before you by irresponsibly damaging the reputation of the United States throughout the world.

For the sin I have committed before you by enriching my friends in the conduct of government and military affairs.

For the sin I have committed before you by encouraging xenophobia on the part of the American people.

For the sin I have committed before you by attempting to impose my extreme religious and moralistic values on the entire nation, and weakening the separation between church and state.

For the sin I have committed before you by characterizing all who oppose me as evil, and all who agree with me as good.

And for the sin I have committed before you by failing to acknowledge my responsibility for all these sins, for attempting to blame others for them, and for all the injury and damage they have caused to individuals, the Nation, and the future.

For these sins, oh forgiving God, forgive me, pardon me, grant me atonement.

AMEN

May 5765 be a year of peace, happiness and regime change!

Benjamin Helphand

The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states: red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.

We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states…

These were the words of Illinois Senate Candidate Barack Obama as he addressed the Democratic National Convention. In the wake of the speech, he has been widely celebrated as one of the party’s rising stars. One of the reasons he’s been embraced I think is encapsulated by the above quote. In it he resists, at least rhetorically, the facile divisions that separate the country and which pundits love to embrace. With a simple red state/blue state mix-and-match, Obama turns these shorthand stereotypes on their head, reminding us that while a state may be red, it could still be more that 40 percent blue and vice versa. And beyond the political geography, he reminds us that neither god, nor gay, nor patriotism are the sole domain of either party.  

And now the “Red State/Blue State Mix Up Game” can be enjoyed by the whole family! Here’s how you play. Simply pick a stereotype associated with each colored state and then mix ‘em up. I’ll show you how:

“They listen to NPR in the red states and I know some people who TiVo The 700 Club in the blue states; they eat at Cracker Barrel in the blue states and some folks play frisbee golf in the red states; we donate to Save the Children in the blue states and they pay their dues to the Sierra Club in the red states.”

Ok, now you try.    

Benjamin Helphand

Late July, a rumor spread on my neighborhood’s listserv that a methadone clinic was to replace our local Walgreens. Before the local Alderman could set the rumor straight, a debate ensued, in which the listerv regulars (I tend to just listen in) staked out the full spectrum of emotional and ideological responses to the supposed clinic opening. Though in the end a false alarm, I feel that having to go through the motions of the social responsibility vs. nimby/neighborhood safety debate was a useful exercise for my community. We know ourselves, our fears, and our hopes a little bit better as a result.    

Here’s the message that started the debate…      

Dear Neighbors,

I was told … that the Walgreens on Armitage, near Kedzie, is due to close the end of Sept. and a methodone (sp) center will replace it … We have been trying to ‘lift up’ our neighborhood for awhile and I feel that this is not a good addition.

Over the next two days, my inbox was flooded with responses from neighobors and strangers struggling to come to terms with the idea of a methadone clinic in the community.  

Is there any way we can stop the methodone clinic from coming in to our neighborhood? In 1997, a similar clinic was slated to go into … and my understanding was that the community ‘voted’ it out…

I’m not sure I understand all the concerns here, though I probably share some of them … Methadone is an important way of keeping heroin-addicted people from obtaining their drug in dangerous and sometimes violent ways. I think that most of us see this as preferable to crime … I’ll be sorry if the Walgreen’s on … closes, since I am frequently a customer there, as are many patients to whom I’ve prescribed…

The issue in my opinion, having lived in this community for 12 years, is in bringing in or keeping a potentially harmful element. With Methodone, many believe that is simply trading one addiction for another and the ‘fail’ rate is extraordinarily high. Those addicted to drugs tend to foster and perpetuate crime to support their lifestyles and habits. This isn’t passing judgment but rather identifying time-honored facts. I would much prefer to live in a community that did not invite drug addicts, sex offenders and others similarly situated into my community. Providing them help is a worthwhile community goal but one that perhaps can be better served by spreading out such services throughout the city. Thanks for your thoughts…

I can understand how a methadone clinic encourages drug addicts to be in our neighborhood. I can also see how a methadone clinic encourages the many drug addled people who live in our neighborhood to get clean and therefore not need to break into our homes,cars, or sell their bodies on our corners … I guess what I would like to know before I join onto a campaign of stopping some sort of health care system that I know nothing about is who is managing it? And what is this particular program’s success rate? Just from checking other websites, it seems some programs are more holistic and have much better results than others. Some actually even involve the community. I also understand the need to spread services like this out. But I would like to know if having on[e] in the area would encourage the numerous prostitutes who line up on … to get help? Or what is the proportion of people from outside of our neighborhood who will use this clinic as opposed to the people who live in the neighborhood who will. Personally I don’t know these things and am loathed to make assumptions on complicated social/community issues with out first checking into it … Personally I feel that alcohol abuse is a far more problematic in our community…

Dear Friends,

Here’s the actual fact, and I say this as someone who has owned a home in this neighborhood for 28 years, since 1976. We moved here from Evanston and I believe we were among the first ‘urban pioneers’ on our block. (‘Pioneer’ used with reservation since it has really repugnant overtones, of white Europeans moving westward and displacing Native Americans…) The actual fact is that there are already drug addicts living in the neighborhood, and some of them have been here a very long time. It’s not a question of keeping them out, but rather of addressing the question: how can we best address the needs of all our community residents? I am distressed at the NIMBY-fication of the discussion — not in my back yard — since historically this has been a very diverse neighborhood. We can’t build an island of tranquility in a sea of pain … Those of us who moved here from the suburbs for more of that ‘urban grit’ or because we couldn’t afford the rising cost of East Side neighborhoods need to learn to embrace those things that brought us here in the first place. This is a wonderful, diverse community and I surely want to keep it that way: new homeowners and old retired homeowners and apartment dwellers and junkies and gangbangers and artists and musicians and charismatics and just generally nice people who fall into none of the above categories. I’m not romanticizing the more negative elements: I just want us to deal with what’s here, with who we are, and make that our starting point…

I find it very confusing that many people are both against having ‘drug addicts’ in the neighborhood and also against methodone programs in the neighborhood. That strikes me as similar to saying you don’t want gangs in the neighborhood and also don’t want gang intervention, caps, or undercover police in the neighborhood. Methodone programs and needle exchange programs are proven ways to address the problems of drug addiction and related diseases. Not wanting them in the residential area where the people needing them live is somewhat unrealistic. Are the drug addicts going to take shuttle buses or the CTA out to some suburb for treatment? I understand peoples desire for a safe neighborhood. However, I would like to suggest that when you move into a neighborhood with these existing problems, even though the property values have risen so drastically in such a short period of time, they do not go away over night.  They have been here long before condos started selling for $200k. Addressing the needs of the whole community, those that have been here for many years as well as new members, is a much more positive way to change…

I’m not sure how I feel about this clinic going in. It seems like it might help a lot of people. What I’m concerned about it losing a Walgreen’s for it. Why can’t this clinic go in one of the many vacant buildings in the neighborhood? There are too few businesses on … — why lose another?

Finally in this conversation, a note of sanity. Thank you …

I respectfully disagree with you … While I disagree with some points in a few of the conversation in this overall dialogue, I have found all points not only sane, but highly conducive to communal understanding; to  building a stronger, more vibrant and enlightened community. As … relatively new home owner in Logan Square. I enjoy (thank you) learning more about my community through this important form and would be sorry if people felt that they could not participate for fear of ridicule…

And then the Alderman steps in…

This is a rumor.

Here’s a direct quote as of 7/26/04 from the Director of Real Estate from Walgreen’s:

“We are still planning to keep that store open when Kimball/Fullerton opens in October/November and see if it can continue to do enough business to be profitable. I would think it would remain until at least sometime next year while we evaluate. It will be our operations people that make the final call. Even if we did close it someday, don’t expect a methadone clinic to be our subtenant.”

Thanks,

Benjamin Helphand

I grew up in a place called Salmon Nation. It stretches from the Yukon Territory in the North all the way to Southern California. On the West, it hugs the Pacific and its fingers reach East into Idaho. But Salmon Nation’s boundaries are not best defined using our political ones. It is a nation defined by watersheds and streams. EcoTrust, the Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit, which launched the Salmon Nation project in 2003, defines its boundaries rather elegantly as “anywhere Pacific salmon have ever run.”

Salmon are an indicator species. Because their circuitous lifecycle takes them from quiet mountain headwaters, to the ocean, and back again, they are a litmus test of sorts for the overall health of the region. When they are healthy, so is our soil, our water, and our food supply. The idea behind Salmon Nation is for people to stand up and take upon themselves the duties associated with living in such a nation. By declaring one’s citizenship in Salmon Nation, one is pledging to build a world in which the salmon will once again thrive.

I declared my citizenship a year ago, but truth be told, I’m a Salmon Nation expatriate living in Chicago. So, rather than living out my days dreaming of the West, I’d like to suggest another nation, built upon another equally endangered, indicator species. Let us consider the Pedestrian Nation, a sprawling empire whose boundaries were once limitless.              

In Wanderlust: A History of Walking author Rebecca Solnit suggests, “Perhaps walking is best imagined as an ‘indicator species,’ to use an ecologist’s term. An indictor species signifies the health of an ecosystem, and its endangerment or diminishment can be an early warning sign of systemic trouble. Walking as an indicator species for various kinds of freedoms and pleasures: free time, free and alluring space, and unhindered bodies.”

Like the salmon, the pedestrian has seen its ecosystem crumble. Feeble attempts have been made to recreate their habitat in captivity, but just as farm-raised salmon is injected with pink dye to make it look wild, so too the artificial pedestrian habitat is hard pressed to mask the urban sprawl peeking out from behind the commercial facades and parking structures. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, all resident of both Salmon and Pedestrian Nation will stand up and declare their citizenship?    

Benjamin Helphand

It is alleged that in the months leading up to the 1980 election between Ronald Reagan and incumbent Jimmy Carter that representatives of the Reagan campaign conspired to postpone the release of the hostages held by Iran until after the October election. This “October Surprise,” it is said, helped propel the so-called “Great Communicator” into the White House. Could it be that we’re in for another surprise this October?

The thought of our foreign policy being reduced to mere props in a domestic electoral play is deeply disturbing. But if an article in The New Republic holds water, that’s exactly what we’re looking at. It alleges that Pakistani security officials have been instructed by U.S. officials to deliver HVTs [high value targets] such as Osama bin Laden on specific days timed to coincide with the October election.          

The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs [high value targets] by the election. According to one source in Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), “The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections.” Introducing target dates for Al Qaeda captures is a new twist in U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism relations — according to a recently departed intelligence official, “no timetable[s]” were discussed in 2002 or 2003 — but the November election is apparently bringing a new deadline pressure to the hunt. Another official, this one from the Pakistani Interior Ministry, which is responsible for internal security, explains, “The Musharraf government has a history of rescuing the Bush administration. They now want Musharraf to bail them out when they are facing hard times in the coming elections.” (These sources insisted on remaining anonymous. Under Pakistan’s Official Secrets Act, an official leaking information to the press can be imprisoned for up to 10 years.)

A third source, an official who works under ISI’s director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed TNR that the Pakistanis “have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must.” What’s more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: “The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq’s] meetings in Washington.” Says McCormack: “I’m aware of no such comment.” But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that “it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July” — the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Benjamin Helphand

The time has come for you as well to open your hearts and receive the secrets that Heaven is disclosing in this age through me. In one sense, I am a human being living with a physical body like each of you. But in the context of Heaven’s providence, I am God’s ambassador, sent to earth with His full authority. I am sent to accomplish His command to save the world’s six billion people, restoring them to Heaven with the original goodness in which they were created.

These are the words of Rev. Sun Myung Moon from a March ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington D.C., which honored the reverend and businessman and was attended by more than a dozen lawmakers. Paul Smith describes a video of the ceremony in the Chicago-based blog Polis, focusing in on the actions of Illinois Democrat Danny K. Davis:

It’s a longish video, but you need only watch the first few minutes which focus on the March 23rd event at the Senate Office Building. In it, we see Rep. Davis reading from a poem written by Moon, some treacle about a “crown of glory.” Moments later, during the “highlight” of the evening — the “Crown Peace Ceremony” in which Moon and his wife are enrobed and various figures come before them and bow [a pang in my heart as I hear the name of the Congressman of my home district in Maryland, Roscoe Bartlett, announced] — Rep. Davis, wearing a set of white gloves, brings Moon a crown on a velvet pillow. (House Speaker Denny Hastert (IL 14, R) is also named in the video as having sent congratulations to Moon.)

“Does Congressman Danny Davis (IL 7, D) have some explaining to do?” asks Smith.  

I think I can state without hyperbole that this video is truly one of the most unsettling things I have seen: to see members of Congress participating in a cult-like ceremony in which a right-wing media tycoon and leader of a controversial church is proclaimed the messiah is nauseating. I’m not a Christian or even religious for that matter, so it’s not as if I’m offended by Moon’s claims (except on an intellectual level, of course). Is it really necessary to state that I am disturbed to see our elected representatives credulously and subserviently going along with it?

Davis, while not a powerful Congressman, has been a reliable liberal and advocate for the poor, as he was during his time as 29th Ward alderman in the Harold Washington [Chicago’s first Black Mayor] era. What’s he doing not just allowing himself to be seen cavorting with Moon, but actively participating in a cult-like ceremony? Should Illinois democrats … be concerned? And how do South and West Side black ministers — a large base of political clout for Davis, a Baptist — feel about it?

While other politicians who were present at the ceremony have distanced themselves from Rev. Moon, Davis has been less apologetic. Speaking to Christopher Hayes of the Chicago Reader, he offered, “You know the Boy Scouts have rituals that they go through and they make individuals Eagle Scouts and they give awards and presentations.”

Davis has a point. We do have rituals left and right in our society — religious ones, secular ones and many that hover somewhere in between. But very few of them have our senators and representatives listening to, let alone crowning, keynote speakers that go on like this:      

The five great saints and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons. Emperors, kings and presidents who enjoyed opulence and power on earth, and even journalists who had worldwide fame, have now placed themselves at the forefront of the column of the true love revolution. Together they have sent to earth a resolution expressing their determination in the light of my teaching of the true family ideal. They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent. This resolution has been announced on every corner of the globe.

But I’ll let Smith have the final thought. After all, this is one of a growing number of important news stories that marinates in the blogs before being cherry-picked by the big print boys. Tune into Polis for Smith’s ongoing Moon-Davis Watch.  

Davis dismisses the event as “symbolic” and yet fails to grasp that it’s precisely the symbology of this religious ceremony taking place on government grounds with governmental countenance that’s set this whole thing in motion. Davis comes across as a dupe or a low-rent flak for Moon, and I don’t know which is worse. In any case, Davis is clearly willing to risk being seen as a loony cultist rather than running afoul of Moon, for what reason, we still do not know.

Benjamin Helphand

When I first visited Graceland back in the spring of ’94 it was one of those tourists’ treks that became pilgrimage. A friend and I were camping in the Great Smoky Mountains when a fear of flash flooding cut our trip short. Defeated by the elements, we began to traverse Tennessee, sticking to the back-roads and narrating the journey with truck-stop compilations. By the time we rode into Memphis, I was humming “It’s now or never,” and in the words of the singer Paul Simon, I started to believe that “we all will be received in Graceland.”      

The gaudy mansion more than delivered. My favorite rooms were the Jungle room (Priscilla’s too) and the TV room, which has something like nine old sets mounted to the walls. The joy of the Graceland experience, however, cannot be reduced to bad interior design. The thrill was not in the house itself, but rather the experience of the house — the goofy guide telling canned jokes, waiting cramped in Elvis’ hallway for the previous tour to move on, the camaraderie with the other pilgrims.

When I returned to the mansion in 2002, Graceland had transformed. The millennial visitor did not get to commune with his comrades or ask questions of a guide. All this had been removed and replaced with the audio tour. Included in the price of admission, each tourist was equipped with earphones and a little digital player that narrated details of the house and Elvis’ life.

The new tour was a solitary adventure, each visitor in control of his or her own pace. In the midst of this solo tour, I tried an experiment; I took off my earphones. The result was an eerie silence, like lifting your head and looking around a room during silent prayers. These people didn’t look like pilgrims; they looked like bored middle-schoolers.

In my 1994 pilgrimage to Graceland, the narrative emerged in the experience of the place. By 2002, that narrative, though arguably more accurate and exhaustive, was locked in an audio textbook and teacher wouldn’t let us pass notes.

Mike Hale’s recent New York Times article, “A Concert You Could Read Like a Book,” on the introduction of digital playbills to the New York Philharmonic, makes a similar complaint, albeit in regards to a different medium. “The Concert Companion was entertaining,” he concedes, “but I was there to listen, not to read, and after a while it was just a hand-held distraction from the pure, focused experience that a meaningful concert — or play or movie or exhibit — needs to be.”

I think “pure, focused experience” is a bit of an exaggeration. Don’t we all enjoy browsing a playbill before a performance or during intermission? The new technology is not a distraction from some pristine audience experience. Rather it’s a distraction from other distractions— free association, memory, milling about. What we loose then, through this type of technology-mediated over programming, is unstructured time and space, a cognitive free swim. In the end, the more museums and performance spaces transform themselves, albeit through good intentions, into lap swim, the more diligent we’ll have to become at seeking out unstructured places were we can all join in the performance.  

Benjamin Helphand

She had on one of those ironic, hipster t-shirts, whose invocation to “D.A.R.E to Keep Your Kids off Drugs” vied with her breasts for attention. I pressed my lips against hers and inhaled deeply, too deeply for my virgin lungs. I turned red from equal parts coughing and embarrassment. It wasn’t my idea to build a water pipe out of a mannequin clad in an anti-drug slogan, but it seemed funny at the time. And though I never became and don’t plan on becoming a pothead, I still find it funny.

In this month’s issue of In These Times, Ana Marie Cox (editor of the blog Wonkette!) turns her inventive prose towards a series of similarly misguided efforts to market civic virtue. In “Pimping the Vote”, she examines the recent brouhaha over the Urban Outfitters t-shirt that declared, “Voting is for old people.” “It’s funny,” she explains, “because it’s true. If anything, the mere existence of the shirt — to say nothing of its sales — suggests a level of acknowledgement of the democratic process one wouldn’t expect from a demographic more likely to vote for an American Idol than an American president.” Where most see alienated youth culture, Cox sees a new brand of civic engagement. She then contrasts this with the myriad get out the youth vote efforts, which have emerged this election cycle. After a series of cheap, though entertaining, shots at Smackdow Your Vote, Declare Yourself, Hip-Hop Action Summit Network and Rock the Vote, she cuts to the chase and asks, “Is there a way to make voting appeal to 18-year-olds that doesn’t depend on making voting seem cool?” Must we endure perrenial visits from Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No” ghost?    

While I’m with her for every step of her diagnostic, she loses me with her remedy. “Maybe we should stop trying to make voting cool,” argues Cox. “We should just show kids what happens when they don’t. In other words, we need to get them to watch the news.” I agree that it’s important for us to do a better job showing young people the opportunity costs of not voting. But increased news watching is a vague solution to say the least. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that more news watching would not help. What’s the vision here? A society of bloggers? A world where “Meet the Press” has higher ratings than 10-year-old “Friends” reruns?

Watching the news is not enough; we need to make the news. Rather than focusing on voting every four years, which panders as much as any stump speech, we need to focus on civic participation in the non-election years and at all levels of government, not just the White House. Its not just about whether the medium is cool or not, its a question of targeting the problem at a scale to which young citizens can relate. Perhaps this sounds counterintuitive, but the most direct route to the voting booth may be miles from the polling station. I’m right there with Cox, yearning for civic marketing that doesn’t feel the need to be cool, but her lack of solutions makes me empathize with all the less-than-perfect GOTV efforts. Though misguided, at least they’re trying.    

Benjamin Helphand

“i am sick and tired of cooking food for the homeless with witless frickin yuppies and watching suburbanite housewives bring salmon and lattes for only their favorite seniors during monday night bingo. oh the humanity! if i have to peel potatoes with one more marketing assistant or bag clothing with one more real estate developer in search of a tax break, well i don’t even want to imagine the consequences.”

“not that i want these people to go away, every lil bit helps. heck, i’m even ok with ralph lauren pimping volunteerism to denim-clad youth. but it would be nice to meet up with interesting people i might actually want to hang out with through volunteer work. people who don’t think they will be raped and pillaged every time they step into my neighborhood, people who respect that all old people — regardless of race, creed, or personal affection — deserve a latte or prune juice, whatever their preference and digestional ability.”

These are the musings of a 27-year-old Chicago woman from the bulletin board on the social networking web site Friendster. I kept the lower case to try and preserve the spirit of her original post. ITF’s blog postings tend to err on the side of well-thought-out cultural observations. Not such a horrible pit to fall into, I suppose, unless the lingua franca of the land is an off-the-cuff dialect shot through with socio-economic preconceptions.

Sometimes it pays to give an ear to some good old-fashioned ranting in its raw form. Instead of quarantining speech for perpetuating stereotypes or sketching an insightful history of power imbalance, what happens when we bite our tongues, strap ourselves to the mast and do our best to take something on its own terms?

Now, if I wanted to critique the above musings I’d go right for the jugular. The post’s basic fallacy is that while it chastises yuppies, suburbanite housewives, marketing assistants and real estate developers for being less than magnanimous in their volunteerism, our poster reveals a desire to use volunteering as a means towards socializing; surely not the classless, raceless, ageless, geographyless realm of pure volunteerism she seems to imagine.

Ok, that’s my knee-jerk reaction to idealistic, suburb-hating, 20-something hipsters. But what happens when I keep the knee under control and try not to be a jerk? When I listen to the hypocrisy embedded in her post, it says something rather clearly; as a result of its contradiction, not in spite of it. “I need no reward for my acts of goodness,” it seems to say, “but why does everybody else need to incentivize their volunteerism?” Perhaps the moral of the story is that we are blind to our own ideological structures and have 20/20 vision when it comes to the motivations of other groups? Perhaps there’s value, especially in the philanthropic community, of preserving that untarnished sense of benevolence.  

Benjamin Helphand

Sometimes I feel like I’m licking at the crumbs of American regionalism. That instead of New Orleans, I get Bourbon St. gone wild; and in place of Seattle, I’m thrown a fish at Pikes Place Market. Beads round my neck and smoked trout on my toast, I resign myself to the fact that the Eisenhower Interstate System killed the back-roads and that sitcoms have reduced dialects to parodies. Every once in a while, however, I’m shaken from this nostalgia pandemic. I realize, yes, the geography of 19th-century America isn’t quite intact, and that’s OK because new regions have emerged and it’s our job to learn how to read them.

I arrived at this realization last night after seeing the second run of the play “Proof” — an introspective drama revolving around a recently deceased mathematician and his long-time daughter/caretaker — which in 2001 won both the Pulitzer and the Tony. The play is considered a quintessentially Chicago play because it captures something of the culture of the University of Chicago, which the playwright, David Auburn, attended and in which the play is set.

I was struck by the way the audience roared with applause whenever the actors hit on little Chicagoisms and how they hissed whenever the one character in town from New York City for the funeral championed the Big Apple over the Windy City. I found myself nodding and smiling, satisfied at these collective outbursts. It felt like an assertion of some new regional identity.

Often Chicago is given the honor of hosting a test run for future Broadway plays. They do a dry run in the Loop, tweak the production, and head East for the main event. The same thing happens with comedians, who learn their craft on the Second City stages and then head west, to the L.A. Studios. I don’t think that was the case with “Proof,” but even so, the play reminds me of the practice and brings to mind what I think of as one of the defining qualities of Chicago. There’s a certain advantage to being in the place where things are test-run. There’s a freedom in it, denied to those on the center stage. When I think of the so-called Chicagoland region, this is what comes to mind.                        

Benjamin Helphand

If I knew I couldn’t win an argument on the merits of my case, what would I do? First, I’d be careful to avoid any unscripted Q&A sessions. Second, I’d align my “brand” with some more inspiring image like an aircraft carrier or the scene of a terrorist attack. Finally, I’d push the FEC to change their rules so that community groups would not be allowed to criticize my arguments. Or as MoveOn.org explains it:  

The Republican National Committee is pressing the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to issue new rules that would cripple groups that dare to communicate with the public in any way critical of President Bush or members of Congress. Incredibly, the FEC has just issued — for public comment — proposed rules that would do just that. Any kind of non-profit — conservative, progressive, labor, religious, secular, social service, charitable, educational, civic participation, issue-oriented, large, and small — could be affected by these rules. Operatives in Washington are displaying a terrifying disregard for the values of free speech and openness, which underlie our democracy. Essentially, they are willing to pay any price to stop criticism of Bush administration policy.

To make a public comment to the FEC (before the comment period ends on April 9th), email politicalcommitteestatus@fec.gov. Comments should be addressed to Ms. Mai T. Dinh, Acting Assistant General Counsel. For more information on how to comment, visit: http://www.fec.gov/press/press2004/20040312rulemaking.html

Benjamin Helphand

After Senator Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash just before the election in 2002, myself and a carload of co-workers trekked from Chicago to Saint Paul, Minnesota, to campaign for former Vice President Walter Mondale, who was being run in Wellstone’s place. We lost the election and the Senate.

Even so, campaigning in the Twin Cities was a watershed moment in my own political awakening. First, the trip introduced me to friends who became my partners in crime in various civic projects back in Chicago (most recently, the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate). Second, the trip taught me something of what is wrong with the Democratic Party. The party’s decision to run Mondale, largely because of his name recognition, showed a spinelessness and an unwillingness to invest in future leadership, which in retrospect is a bit embarrassing.

Finally, early one morning in a St. Paul union hall, I had the pleasure of seeing Al Franken perform a short, uplifting routine to a grieving audience. That morning I knew the Democrats had begun to find their voice. I knew we’d begun to stand up to the White House’s monosyllabic spin. This is why I’m happy today to recommend to everyone that they tune into Al Franken’s new radio program, The O’Franken Factor: 12-3 p.m., beginning March 31.    

Benjamin Helphand