History Maker Mondays-01

[Thus begins a new weekly feature here at Words Matter. Each Monday, for the next year, you’ll be greeted by History Maker Mondays. We’ll start with the letter A, and cycle through the alphabet once, and make another pass through before the end of 2009.--JB]


History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
--David McCullough

Adler, Felix (1851-1933)

Adler was born in Alzey, Germany. His father Samuel, a rabbi, brought the family to the U.S. in 1857, where a rabbinate at Temple Emanu-El, in New York City awaited him.

Adler would attend Columbia University and graduate in 1870. He went back to Germany where he received his doctorate from Heidelberg University. Returning to the states, he began a professorship in 1874, at Cornell, in Oriental Languages and Hebrew. Two years later, he was asked to leave for what was considered his “dangerous attitude.”

In 1876, Adler would found the Society for Ethical Culture, in New York. The aim of his new religious movement was the advancement of social justice for all. He suggested that the movement should further the principles of ethics among adults and children through education and that members of the Society should express their religious consciences in moral and humane actions. Adler’s founding ideas remain the cornerstones of the philosophy of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, which was incorporated on February 21, 1877.

For Adler, on of the keys to his nascent movement was his observation that too often disputes over religious or philosophical doctrines have distracted people from actually living ethically and doing good. Consequently, "Deed before creed" has remained a motto of the movement.

Adler was passionate about education and developed schools centered around a progressive pedagogy that combined liberal arts education with specialized vocational training programs for students who opted for them. In fact, his model was an early incarnation of what has become our own vocational training/CTE model today.

While his blueprint was never fully realized in his various Ethical Culture Schools, it was picked up later by the New York City public schools in the creation of schools Bronx High School of Science, and similarly by what are now called “magnet” schools.

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.