In search of a progressive voice

I like Thomas Frank. I read Whats The Matter With Kansas, a well-written book about why working class, middle-Americans consistently vote against their own interests, when they chooose Republicans, most notably, neocons, like George Bush.

I knew of Frank pre-WTMWK, from his days, editing The Baffler, a journal devoted to cultural criticism, liberally sprinkled with a progressive political bent. The Baffler is no more, but I recommend Commodify Your Dissent: Salvos from The Baffler, a representative sampling of the publication's best writing.

These days, between working on another book (I imagine), Frank writes The Tilting Yard column for the Wall Street Journal, serving as the pro-market, pro-business publication's token progressive. He's a good choice.

Like today's column. Frank let's readers know that not every pol from Chicago is a Blagojevich (or an Obama). In fact, Frank makes a strong case for Thomas Geoghegan, running to assume Rahm Emanuel's vacated House seat (the one that Blago didn't fuck with), representing the city's North Side. He calls Geoghegan, "an unrepentent New Dealer," something that's rarer than an honest Chicago politician and/or lawyer--Geoghegan happens to be the latter, vying to also be the former. Granted, he practices labor law and advocacy for the poor, which if you know anything about the legal profession, is the bargain basement when it comes to getting rich from the practice of law.

This about Geoghegan, from Frank's column today, recounting how he first became aware of a man that he makes it to Washington, might dispel the cynicism that so many of us feel towards national politics:

I first encountered Mr. Geoghegan in the early 1990s, when he was a frequent guest on a Chicago TV show. And I still remember how shocking it was to hear someone defend organized labor in those days when everyone else was coming to accept the post-industrial order.

Maybe that's just what you're supposed to hear when you turn on the TV in a place like Chicago. To me, though, it was new and astonishing, a sort of revelation. Mr. Geoghegan's 1991 book, "Which Side Are You On?" -- the best book on labor to appear in the past 50 years -- continued my education about the blue-collar world. An "anti-world," Mr. Geoghegan called it, a "secret world." And so it was: the silent, suffering antithesis to the great choir then starting its hymn to omniscient markets and the ever-ascending Dow.

Now that conservative orthodoxy has collapsed in a heap of complex derivatives, I can't help but think what a refreshing dose of plain-spoken Midwestern reality Mr. Geoghegan could bring to the nation as a whole.

According to Frank, Geoghegan is a "big thinker," something that DC and just about every other seat of government is experiencing a dearth of.

Apparently Geoghegan is also a writer, and wrote a book, Which Side Are You On? that Frank says is "the best book on labor book to appear in the past 50 years." (Added to my ever-growing list of books for 2009)

Check out Frank's column, and keep your eyes on the crowded field of candidates vying for Emanuel's vacated seat. I'm hoping that Geoghegan gets the nod and heads to DC.

Getting my (generation) jones on

I feel like a heavy weight’s been lifted off my shoulders—the weight of carrying around the “Boomer” label for one minute more.

From a post at GenerationXpert (copped from Marian Salzman), I gleaned something new about the generational divide that’s all the rage in HR circles, and in various publications germane to work culture. Apparently those of us born in the 1960s, while claimed by Boomers, are actually “Generation Jones.” (the term was coined by Jonathan Pontell)

Apparently those of us born between 1954 and 1965 are in fact “Jonesers,” demographically attached to the baby boom that ended in the early 1960s. However, this has always been my own point of contention (and argument) with being lumped in with Wall Street brokers with pony tails, Al Gore, and Volvo drivers, is that “the events stereotypically associated with generational discussion of Boomers, including protests over civil rights and the Vietnam war and the emergence of rock music took place while the members of Generation Jones were still children or early teenagers.” (from Wikipedia)

Basically, I never identified with the whole Boomer mystique, feeling much more atuned to GenX, and the inherent cynicism attributed to that demographic grouping. In fact, it turns out, according to Salzman that Jonesers like me “value traditional notions of family but see men and women as equals in parenting.” Additionally, we long to go back to older American values like civility, community, responsibility, while at the same time, are comfortable embracing technology and we use the Internet naturally.

My two books, and many of my blog posts hearken back to what I consider a better, and less harried time. The flip of this is the need that I feel (as well as many others, apparently), to stay current on the technology front, even if it probably creates a tension for many of us in this demographic “tweener” category.

Generation Jones is feeling like a well-tailored suit.

Boatrockers that didn't Twitter

[I often wonder what made those that came before us (and provided us with the relative ease we currently possess) so much more heroic, and capable of enacting real change, not this watered down reformism of today.

Studs Terkel talked about the lack of a historical perspective today, which I posit has much to do with our fixation on technology, and lack of understanding about the importance of understanding our past.--JB]

Winter Classic 2009 (Old-time hockey, Part II)

Pro hockey fans in the U.S. know we’re part of a small, but hardy minority. Given our minority status, you’ll forgive us if New Year’s Day has taken on a whole new context, as the National Hockey League stages its second consecutive Winter Classic, taking its high-octane and spectator-friendly sport back outdoors.

This year the setting is Chicago, and one of baseball’s most hallowed shrines, Wrigley Field. The opponents, the hometown Blackhawks and the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Red Wings from Detroit, are two of the leagues original six teams. What adds intrigue to what I think is a great marketing move by a league not known for its ability to promote its sport, is Chicago’s return to NHL prominence, after a decade of futility for the once proud hockey franchise.

[Readying the ice surface, outdoors at Wrigley]

Last year’s outdoor maiden voyage drew the NHL’s best television ratings in over a decade, something that mustn’t be ignored for a league that has a paltry television revenue cache compared to rival leagues in football, baseball and basketball.

I stumbled upon last year’s game by accident. This year, my interest in pro hockey has been heightened by the revival of another original six franchise, the “hometown” Boston Bruins.

Come this afternoon, I’ll be one of hockey’s faithful, along with the curiosity seekers, perched in front of our televisions, watching hockey played au naturel, the way many of us remember the sport from our own days of pond hockey prowess.

For a local's up-close-and-personal take, I leave you with Wrigley Wrants.

Cheered by the holidays

I hope that your holiday was a festive one. For me, the best part of the past three days (including today) was having some time for myself that didn’t involve work. I love my job, but regardless of my fondness for work, it’s still nine to 10 hours of my day that is spoken for, not given to rare multiple choices of things to do.

For instance, having the leisure to prepare dinner Christmas night, with my wife, without time constraints, or feeling the usual crush that accompanies typical work nights was refreshing. We whipped up a wonderful meal of Farmer’s Pasta, a recipe courtesy of Food Network star, Giada DeLaurentis. This combination of four cheeses, pancetta, and creaminess, made it the perfect kind of Christmas comfort food. In addition to this great dish, I threw together killer Caesar Salad, another DeLaurentis contribution to our Christmas. The key here was the dressing, flavored by anchovies, fresh squeezed lemon juice, and Dijon mustard, superior to any supermarket concoction.

In addition to some wonderful food, which included this morning’s breakfast of locally-produced sausage from Maurice Bonneau’s Sausage Kitchen, now relocated to lovely downtown Lisbon Falls, along with some awesome Mimosa’s, and my own version of the traditional omelette, Miss Mary and I have enjoyed the luxury of time together, which might be one of the best parts of the holiday season—spending it with those you love.

This was our first Christmas in 25 years that our son, Mark, couldn’t be with us. That was tough because Mark possesses a larger-than-life presence that is particularly noticeable when not around. We managed to satisfy ourselves with two phone calls, one where he and I talked Celtics’ basketball like we would if he and I were sitting across the table from one another. This completed another circle in our lives, as the year he was born, a quarter century ago, was Mary and my first Christmas away from family. Mark was just six days old at the time, and we spent Christmas 1,500 miles from our extended families.

One of my favorite activities associated with having no constraints on my time, is the luxury of being able to devote hours to reading. As a lover of books, reading time is always hard to come by most times during the year. Despite demands on my time, I always have two or more books going at once, managing to plow through 40 to 50 books per year. Yesterday, I was able to finish Diane Roberts’ Dream State: Eight Generations of Swamp Lawyers, Conquistadors, Confederate Daughters, Banana Republicans, and Other Florida Wildlife. The Roberts book is one I meant to read back in 2006, during our final spring baseball trip, following Mark and his Wheaton teammates as they spent another 10 days in the Florida sun, prepping for what would be a season of magic.

The four springs that Mary and I spent in Florida, along with two prior forays—a Disney trip when Mark was 12, and one extended weekend in November 2005, unwinding after the completion and launch of When Towns Had Teams—helped formulate some understanding of the Sunshine State that extended beyond the typical Fodor’s, or AAA tourist propaganda. Roberts’ book brought an even more complete tearing away of the false façade that creates the accepted mythology of tourists, and even residents that has become Florida, dating back a century, or even further.

Speaking of books and publishing, Sara Nelson, who is Editor-in-Chief at Publishers Weekly, was on C-Span2’s Book TV, talking about book and the nature of bookselling. Nelson said that book sales, like all retail, were down this holiday retail season. However, while publishing as we all know it will inevitable not stay the same, she writes on her blog “…that in the long run, …when the dust settles – and it will settle– there have always been stories, people to read them, and people to produce and disseminate them. Whether those stories (and people) will be part of large corporations, whether the stories will be measured in pages or bytes, and whether there will be hundreds of thousands of them produced every year—well, that we’ll have to see.”

For me, the single most telling trait about someone’s intellectual acuity is whether they read, or not. In my way of seeing the world, reading is essential to being able to sort and sift information in the midst of the snowstorm of white noise buffeting all of us in society. Those who haven’t developed the skills that are only acquired through reading, aren’t capable of critically conducting the required sorting of scarce pearls from the mass of swinish faux factuality.