Back to the Heartland

With my adopted state in financial collapse, what better time for a tour of the Midwest?!

It was a hell of a trip.  With an 8 AM departure, we decided to get a hotel at the airport last night.  You know, just take the hotel shuttle in the morning.  After two shuttles passed by all filled up, we flagged a taxi for the mile-long trip to the terminal … which had moved because Northwest has merged with Delta.  Then, safely through the curbside check-in we hiked to the end of the longest TSA security line I have ever seen.  So long, in fact, that we were diverted to the next terminal over.  Then after clearing security we had to run about a half a mile through an underground tunnel back to the right terminal.  All this before 8 AM, all this before two flights.  All the while cajoling two small children to alternatively hurry up, wait, and remain seated for extended periods.  I do believe that LAX is the worst airport I’ve ever used.

But that’s all behind us now and we find ourselves in the congenial environs of the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Well, actually a Holiday Inn, but I’ll take it.

A fair chunk of history has passed since I last posted on May Day.  Chrysler and GM went through bankrupcy in record time.  My kids turned five.  And the State of California virtually defaulted while its action-hero governor sat in his jacuzzi smoking stoggies. Now here we are again in the so-called Heartland.  What impressions after a few hours?  It’s nice to have *a little* humidity.  Things are very green here.  The beer selection is amazing.

One of my projects for this trip is to return to a sideline interest on the genealogy of “heartland” as a regional identifier for the Midwest.  I’ve taken my other blog “Global Heartland” down, so I won’t direct you there.  The original nugget of research was based on a review of electronic newspaper databases that found a huge jump in the use of the term “heartland” in the 1980s and 1990s.  In other words, the region only became the Heartland in the wake of the ravages of globalization.  I hope to post a few commentaries on the topic as we traverse the region, talk to people, and sit in archives.

More later…depending on internet access.

Fake news more informative than real news

In these days of newspaper bankruptcies, one frequently hears the complaint that the younger generation doesn’t read newspapers and is therefore less informed than their elders.  The other day I heard a laid-off journalist on NPR turning that last supposition on its head.  Far from uninformed, the youngsters are better informed because they take their news from many, many sources and understand that a writer’s political position influences content.  And he likened the Daily Show to high quality editorial page material.

Audiences’ turn away from “objective reporting” to partisan sources and fake news (i.e., Daily Show, Colbert, and the Onion), was a sign that they were aware that our media system had been captured (or if you prefer, manipulated) by and for fairly specific political and economic interests.  And even as the press shakes off the torpor of the Bush years, fake news remains one of the few places in which “journalists” can get across in plain words what is happening to our economy.

This clip from the humor paper/site The Onion, Autoworkers Compete to Keep Jobs, Livelihoods on New Reality Show, is a good example (for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to embed it, sorry).  In all the reporting about the auto bailout, the gnashing of teeth about “nationalization,” “socialism,” and the allegedly lush life led by autoworkers and their fat benefits, little ink is spilled (digitally or in analog) detailing the grim facts for hourly employees at the Big Three.  Best case scenario:  10s of thousands lose their jobs, those remaining work harder for lower wages and fewer benefits, and one generation of working people is pitted against another.  Not a pretty sight.  The only thing to add is that the worker-against-worker competition has also spread to the white collar workforce in the industry.

Thanks to Michael M. for sending the clip along.

This looks like fun

From the Newberry Library’s Bughouse Square Debates Blog:

THE DIL PICKLE CLUB TO BE REVIVED AT THE ZEBRA LOUGE

Radical “Chicago Renaissance” nightspot will be resurrected by editors of Lumpen and Stop Smiling, following the Newberry Library’s Bughouse Square Debates in Washington Square Park.

Chicago—The Dil Pickle Club is scheduled to resume activities on Saturday, July 26, 2008, at the Zebra Lounge in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. Editors from Lumpen and Stop Smiling magazines have programmed a night in tribute to the historic and Dil Pickle Club (Dil with one L!) featuring “short speaking” about the history of “hobohemia” and topics of controversy, new writing, piano cabaret, and performance art.

What:
The Dil Pickle Club

Where:
The Zebra Lounge
1220 N. State Pkwy
Chicago
[Clark/Division Redline or several CTA Bus Routes]

When:
Saturday, July 26, 5 PM to 8 PM

Features:
Free Admission, Live Music by Tom King Clear, Short Speaking by Gale Aherns, New Writing by Michael Marcinkowski, Picture Show by Robin Hustle, Performance Art by Matthew Nicholas and Eric Warner, and Surprises.

Created by local artists, musicians, writers, and organizers, the Dil Pickle Club invites interested parties to mingle and participate in a series of art parties without boundaries. The first happening will occur after the Newberry Library’s Bughouse Square Debates in Washington Square Park, down the street at the legendary Zebra Lounge piano bar.

Admission is free. For more information e-mail dilpickleclub@gmail.com.

Tradition is Not Always a Good Thing

chiefbumpersticker.JPG
Originally uploaded by Tobias Higbie.

Tim beat me to the punch on this one, so go check out his post on History and Education. I don’t want to spill too much virtual ink over this so-called debate. Yes, I’m speaking of “Chief Illiniwek” the sports mascot of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After years of protest, organizing, and reasoning by those opposed to the Chief, it appears that the U of I will finally retire the allegedly “honorable” tradition of sponsoring a white student to dress up as an “Indian” and dance around during sporting events.

I find it fascinating that two white students who have portrayed “The Chief” have filed a lawsuit to keep the university from retiring the Chief on the grounds that it violates their freedom of speech and undermines their future earnings (!). I’m not a lawyer, but I would point out that the retiring of the Chief as an official university symbol leaves the students free to practice their “tradition” on their own, without the backing of a state-funded institution.

The second charge in the lawsuit points to the self-serving aspect of all of this. According to the Chicago Tribune, the lawsuit claims:

“As has been the case for many former students who have portrayed Chief Illiniwek, many valuable employment and career opportunities and professional associations have been opened to those who have had the privilege and honor of portraying Chief Illiniwek.”

Okay, guys, is it an honorable tradition or a career opportunity? The problem is that these students cannot tell the difference. Perhaps it is so because there is nothing more American than making big money by “celebrating” the culture of others. At least Buffalo Bill Cody had the decency, if you can call it that, to cast actual Indian people in the role of themselves.

The students also assert that retiring the Chief will threaten their academic freedom because they get credit from the Music Department for portraying the Chief. Maybe they could pick up one of the excellent classes offered by American Indian Studies, the History Department, or better yet Anthropology?

And finally, I point to the pro-Chief bumper sticker at the head of this post. This, I submit, is the real tradition of the Chief. It is the nasty side of things that the University has refused to discuss. I know this will seem hurtful to those who sincerely love the Chief, but as a historian I cannot avoid the obvious connection.

The bumper sticker evokes, perhaps unconsciously but still quite clearly, George Wallace’s statements about segregation in his 1963 inauguration speech:

“Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever.”

Supporters of the Chief will say it is ridiculous to assert a connection between supporters of the Chief and supporters of Jim Crow. I reply simply: look in the mirror, and listen to your own words. History is not something you can wish away. Even George Wallace asked for forgiveness.

When the University finally ends its official endorsement of the Chief, the supporters will still be free to carry on their “tradition” in private. No doubt they will do so, and reap all the financial rewards they hope for. All we ask is that the university, as an educational institution, own up to the self-deception at the heart of the Chief worship cult.