WE'RE ALL LIVING IN A GOTHIC NOVEL

Gothic novels are always dark, foreboding, and crammed with sinister characters. Like our morning newspaper....!

Recently, though, they're adding new characters to the plot. Hussein? Kim Jong? Ahmadinejad? Been there, done that. According to the New York Times, now it's the future threats our government agencies are predicting for the next 10-20 years. Sounds like a cruel twist to the old Al Jolson promise to his audience: "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

One of these predictions has to do with the effects of the global recession on certain populations. The experts have spent thousands of pages to explain what any cop in any big city can do over just one donut. Tight times trigger unrest, protest and crimes against the Have's. Other government agencies project civil strife, riots and wars wherever mass climate changes disrupt the the regular rhythms of social life. Not to minimize this second report, but anyone whose community has been devastated by a flood or hurricane can predict the same thing.

In each of these dire projections, the agencies are postulating the need for US intervention. Economic, military or both. As a non-expert Gothic novel reader, I suspect this is another way of saying those-who-want will always find any target of opportunity to grab from those-who-have. Which is why Have-governments like the US and its allies are always the candy store against whose windows are pressed the dangerously hungry faces of the Have-not world.

It started with the first tribe with the most cattle, n constant alert about the less fortunate tribes around them. Exhausting to be primo uno! Sometimes it seems it would be a hell of lot easier just being, oh say the Czech Republic.

Predictably, members of our primo uno tribe seem to be following historical patterns. First, the warrior class imagined by Humphrey Bogart in the "Caine Mutiny" and Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men" always supported by the industrial-military-congressional complex. Second, the who-cares class as found in selected campuses, communes and coffee salons.

Neither extreme is the ideal, which is why the current administration seems to be trying for the middle ground. It all got me thinking this week as I watch a member of each class dying. The first, a dear friend who survived 25 incredible B-17 missions over Germany in WWII; the second, a Wall Street vagabond who seems to survive every market crash or company court trial to dance another day in another place.

The warrior will die with the dignity of having fought what he believed was the good fight. The who-cares is already dead. An unreported spiritual suicide in which the cadaver never met a prospect he couldn't hustle and call it capitalism.

You wonder. And yearn for the middle ground....

EPIPHANIES ARE WHERE YOU FIND THEM

Everyone knows what an epiphany is. It's what happens to atheists in foxholes. When the rookie learns how to hit the high inside ones. When you realize the person you've been sleeping with is also the person you love...!

I had my own epiphany while reading the newspaper and listening to some music. The paper was reporting the latest threats to our security and dangers to our economy. You know -- that quicksand feeling you have as you are relentlessly sucked into more and more disasters about which you have absolutely no control. And yet just as my mouth began choking on the sand, my ears caught the cadence of an old torch song.

Quite suddenly I was buoyed. Caught up from the depths of my despair and being lifted into a -- dare I presume? -- a transcendental state of serenity. The song was one of those sentimental classics about lost young love. The operative word is "young." It was from that lacy time when your young heart was, as another song put it: "Glad just to be sad thinking of you."

All of a funny sudden, the grim gluttony of bad news seemed somehow far away and apart from me. All that was out there; what I was feeling was inside here. Here, the last refuge of the sinking. You see, I told myself, the whole world may be going to hell, and yet it can still be heaven within. The heaven in which you become one with the truth of the ages -- my peace is the peace beyond all understanding.

OK, I paraphrase. But as I remember it, these were something like the words of Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and oh yes John Lennon. The point to my little epiphany was this. That which is of time passes away. But the peace which is within you and me may someday die, but it never actually passes away. It's like the many different tributaries of a mighty river which eventually all reach their delta. Then flow out into the same
ocean.

Oceans like eternity never pass away. Well, if you're an oceanographer you won't quite agree. But then that's probably because you're studying the wrong ocean....

THE HEALTHCARE QUESTION NO ONE ASKS

Today's outlandish fears and fantasies over health care reform raise a peripheral question. Since everyone seems to bestow live-forever talents upon our medical professionals, how exactly should we look upon these talented people in our midst? Are their talents largely a gift (as in "he has this gift for healing"). Or largely a matter of genes (as in "she was always destined to be a doctor")? Or maybe largely where they got their degree?

Well, the most likely answer is a combination of gift, genetics, and good training. And yet. that conveniently sidesteps the full implication of "gift." Is there such a thing among people? In other words, are some of us more than simply our genetic makeup and training?

To answer Yes is to open the doors to a larger question: Is there some ultimate gift-giver? To put that in a way that may annoy critics and defenders alike: Are we evolved planetary life each reaching our own best biological heights or are we created beings each endowed with certain gifts?

This isn't to suggest these questions belong in the current medical debates. (Did I say debates? I meant to say reign of terrors). But it is to say that talented people themselves are sometimes inclined to ask the question: "Now, where did that come from....?" A question a surgeon may ask himself when he surprises his OR team -- and himself -- by suddenly cutting and clamping in such a unique way the patient survives against all odds. Or when an artist suddenly envisions or a composer suddenly hears a first-of-its-kind experience they capture in sight and sound. Or when a writer or a salesman suddenly experiences a symphony of words not found in any thesaurus or marketing report.

Granted, such questions don't belong in today's rational debates. Two reasons are usually given. First, human reason is neither equipped nor comfortable with such non-rational matters. (Note they are non-rational not ir-rational). Second, human reason cannot comprehend the non-rational which usually refers to the supernatural.

However, these reasons don't hold up well under reasonable cross-examination. First, rational experts like health care givers surely use their talents in ways that often exceed the rational. For instance their instincts, intuitions and yes inspirations! Second, although human reason alone cannot carry us to the peak of the supernatural, it certainly can bring us to the foot of the mountain!

True, there's no mention in the legislation of "gifts," "genes," or even "training." But here's the thing, my fellow patients. All legislative reform can propose is Where and How we can be treated. Not Who. Those extraordinary Who's out their with the best combination of gifts, genes and good training are always a matter of splendid serendipity. Degrees and titles and rates and facilities are never the whole story.

The whole story to whatever health care we end up with, will almost always depend upon who we end up with in the office, ER, OR, or hospital night shift. With all due respect to the President and the AMA, praying to your God may be more important than yelling at your Legislator.....

TIME TRAVEL POSSIBLE AT LAST

Everyone talks about time travel. But do you know something -- it's already happening right here in Chicago. Every night. Sometimes under the stars at Grant Park. Other times on your favorite cable movie channels...!

I understand perfectly well which summer blockbusters sell the best with the kids. Big, splashy, raunchy. But I also understand how the young adult audiences are traveling back in time to watch many of the old movie classics. Why are long-dead Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis attracting so many young audiences? Maybe because the young are looking for something old. As in the old values that filled those black&white screens of the 30's and 40's.

This is not to enter the arena of cinematic critique. We can leave that to others. Instead, this is to try taking the pulse of today's young adults as they get caught up in the dramas and delights of enduring classics like "Chain Gang," "Dark Victory," "Goodbye Mr Chips," "Random Harvest," "Mr Smith Goes to Washington," "Casablanca," "Mrs. Miniver," "Wake Island," "It's A Wonderful Life," and "Battleground".

What makes anything -- from movies to music -- a classic is if it houses values that last. That connect with anyone in any age. This is not the old man's blather about they-don't-make-'em-like-in-my-day! Rather, an invitation to wonder about those human values which were indomitable enough to help a hurting population get through the world's greatest depression followed by the world's greatest war.

Guy gets girl...? OK, that still works today. The clinch in the last reel is the sine qua non of Hollywood. However, there was more at work back then with which today's audiences are connecting, like they do when coming home for the holidays. Rock-solid, old-fashioned stuff rarely portrayed in our more frenetic age of fast money and even faster love.

Let me put this out...

Fast, rich living can dull the appetites for more traditional values. Until, that is, we re-experience them. Such deliciously corny (yet intensely admired) ideas like: The end doesn't justify the means...honest effort yields honest results...right eventually wins over wrong...love does conquer all...good guys finish first.... honor counts...heroes exist...parents matter.

It's true -- today's culture is more informed and less gullible. And yet watch them tear up at the National Anthem on the Fourth, cheer the underdog, admire the good guy, bring flowers to Mom. There's something still ticking inside the hearts of our cynical times that ticks louder whenever it's surprised by one of those supposedly dated old values. Reports of the death of a moral America may be premature. One of the first, faint signs of life can be detected in the way young audiences respond to these old movies.

This is not to say America's young adults are ready to re-live the frothy innocence of the old Mickey-and-Judy movies. And yet you catch the happy gleam in their watching eyes, and you kinda wonder....

WERE YOU BAD AT MATH TOO?

I was lousy at math. Like almost everyone I knew. Except straight-A Stanley who could somehow juggle all those numbers and logarithms in his head to come up with startlingly correct answers every time...!

I hated Stanley, and now his spirit is back to haunt me. Hal Varian, chief economist for Google, predicts, "The sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians." A liberal arts major, I ask myself why has my world betrayed me like this? To live forever in an age of Stanleys?

The nation's statisticians are crunching numbers faster than ever. Among their latest totals:
* By 2050 Whites here will be 46%, Blacks 12%, Hispanics 30%, Asian 8%
* By 2050 over 30% of American Whites and Blacks will be living alone
* By 2050 33% of the rich country's populations will be over 60
* By 2050 Muslims will be emerging as a majority in many regions of Europe

Being statisticians, these experts always seem to leave it to others to draw conclusions. They tell us they're not into making value judgments. Just the facts, mam, just the facts. Which leaves their numbers hanging out there to be celebrated and/or feared according to one's personal attitudes (for those who demand defining your terms, I define attitudes as emotions that have hardened).

One of the more prominent attitudes by White-Christians like Patrick Buchanan is that these statistics spell the decline of White Christian supremacy in the western world. You're a pretty smart guy, Pat, so you may be right. On the other hand, I always try to remember that a good scare always seems worth more to people than good advice.

So here's some advice from some other statisticians. [One needs to remember that, like medical reports, statisticians come in all different types; so all you have to do is pick the one whose numbers you prefer!]. There are statisticians who (1) insist that White birth rates have begun to rise again ever since 2005, as reported by statistician Hans-Peter Kohler in the journal "Nature" (2) insist Christianity is really on the numerical rise in most parts of the world, as reported by the Vatican (3) insist most Muslims are eventually integrated into their new societies, as reported in the New York Times.

But for anyone who's confused by such conflicting statistics, there's always world-renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to the rescue. Sayeth he and fellow biologists, essentially we are mostly what our genes say we are. I take that to mean that if we wait long enough, evolution will settle most things for the best. Or to put that another way -- everything works out in the end, and if it doesn't, then it's not the end!

Ahhh, exactly the way Stanley might have put it.

HIDDEN HEARTS

There are about six billion hearts beating among us on this whirling spaceship earth. Naturally, we can only know a very few of them. But even among those few, how many do we really fathom....?

Everyone protects their hearts because just as the Tin Man learned, hearts can be broken. And yet, in protecting them, we all too often hide their light from those around us who could benefit from the glow. I'm thinking here of the delicate young woman who bags my groceries at the local supermarket. Obviously challenged in some way, she is shy to the point of total silence. My smiles and efforts to engage her never quite make it.

In guarding herself this way, she's remained a mystery, and I've respected that. Then the other day Natalie finally spoke. She wanted me to notice the bagger-of-the-month ribbon she had won. "God love you, Natalie, I've known all along you were the best one here!"

It was clear now why she never talked. It was her inability to speak clearly. And yet, her few struggled sentences of pride that day made it worth the wait. It struck me how much she communicated in those few words, in sharp contrast to how little most politicians communicate in their endless words. Honesty versus hubris!

Sadder still are the hidden hearts of those who have died before we really fathomed them. How many of us have had the experience of excavating the secrets of these hearts only years later? A mother whose childhood years of frontier poverty were never shared, a father whose early years of struggle during the Depression were never talked about. A sheen of pride and dignity kept those tattered years hidden so as to protect their children from these awful struggles.

Today you can appreciate their good intentions, yet regret how hiding their hearts this way denied you the honor of fully realizing their goodness. How many hearts are still hidden from you today...? Many for many different reasons. Perhaps, though, you can keep sharing yours, and in so doing woo theirs. Like with Natalie.

I'm glad I kept trying. I only wish I had worked as hard with those gentle hearts no longer beating....

THE 64-YEAR-OLD QUESTION

Most have heard of the $64 Question and later the $64,000 Question. But how many have heard of the 64-year-old Question? Only if you lived 64 Augusts ago when Chicago and America were as different from today as today's Millennium Park is from the Egyptian Pyramids....!

In that hot, sticky August of 1945, Chicago and America celebrated the stunning climax of World War II. After almost six horrific years and 60 million lives, the whole bloody thing came to a sudden mushroom- cloud ending over Japan. On the night of August 15, almost a million Chicagoans crushed into the Loop to scream their hearts out. It was finally over over there.

My father, just back from service, tried to drive us into the epicenter of the jubilation -- State and Madison. A Walgreen's was still on one corner and Marshall Field's on the other. Both gone now, but even more important, so is the thundering sense of pride and unity that screamed itself hoarse until after 3AM. It was a pride and unity we've seen only rarely since.

Today's national struggles are often just as crucial as those of Pearl Harbor, Midway, Iwo Jima and Normandy. Trouble is, a half-century of sophisticated power and prestige has ironically sucked much of this innocent pride and unity out of our city and our country. History reports that if nothing succeeds like success, so also nothing recedes like success!

For those who weren't there that triumphant August night 64 years ago, maybe the handiest comparison for you might be another cheering crowd at nearby Grant Park for a new president's election last fall. There was a similar whiff of victory, pride and unity that night too. Instead of young sailors and marines exhausted from an ugly war, there were young voters exhilarated by a surprise win.

I was there for both; but if on the face of it there are striking parallels, at the heart of it, there are none. Far too much national anger and contentiousness has grown over these 64 years. Back then, we were too proud to later grow angry; too united to later grow contentious. In the August of 1945 there was apparently just enough national innocence to still believe a victory night could last longer than the dawn.

Maybe the burden of 64 years of sophisticated power and prestige has made such exuberant innocence seem too sentimental to still believe in. Something like today's player at the plate too busy with sophisticated mechanics, that belting that sentimental homer in the bottom of the ninth seems too sentimental to still count on.

Takes more than national innocence to make a nation great. But 64 years ago this August, it sure helped!