Happy New Year, Thanks

So we’ve done the wake up early for Dunreith to wait two hours for the dentist to fix the bad crown for third time and the go to sit shiva for a dear friend’s brother thing that somehow felt like an oddly appropriate end to a year that had more than its share of struggles.

Now we’re hammering away at some domestic tasks before heading to a friend’s Hootenanny to bring in the new year.

According to the Evite, their interpretation of a hootenanny, which originally started in Appalachia, involves people bringing whatever leftovers are hanging around their fridge or basement over and cooking, drinking or doing whatever else is the right thing to do with them.

Should be fun.

In addition to having sickness and death, this year had a lot of light.

For me, this space was full of it.

In the past week alone, we’ve talked about topics ranging from black history to high school basketball to memories of childhood blizzards to investigative journalism to the inequities of America’s school system.

My focus in the blog has shifted slightly, from straight out book reviews to reflections on subjects that weave in outside information I’ve gained from sources like books.

Sitting down to write for me has been a balm in tough times and a source of pleasure and joy throughout the year.

You, the readers, have been, too.

An average of nearly 1,000 of you came to the site daily this year-a number that is far higher than I ever expected.

Beyond the sheer numbers, I’ve been humbled, informed, moved and inspired by the comments that so many of you have offered.

This year was the second full year that I’ve done the blog, and I’m grateful to all of you for helping to make it such a vibrant space and thriving community.

I wish all of you a happy, healthy and joyful New Year Eve’s celebration tonight. I look forward to resuming the conversation next year.

As in tomorrow.

Thanks again, and see you then.

 

 

 

Has youth basketball gone too far?

UPDATE: Another typically passionate and articulate comment from friend and frequent poster Jack Crane:

Ok, let me look out my window this morning to help a year end comment from the South Side: there are lots of young African-American boys running around the streets, dodging bullets from gang bangers while they are looking for….their Dads? And how was Middle School this last semester Jamal? Oh, you’re dropping out of school, like 50% of your classmates. And are you laughing at your cousin who is staying in school because when she graduates from High School she will be so far behind the White, affluent suburban peers in “basic” education that getting into a decent college will be nearly impossible? As I walk down the street a bit, I see a Dad playing basketball with his 10 year old kid, for hours, laughing and joking and challenging… he even put together a few video clips so potential college recruits might see his kid amongst thousands of other hoopsters dreaming to play in the Final Four. Did I hear the Dad say “Son, it’s now time to go home and finish reading that essay on Martin Luther King, Jr.” Did I hear that, did I?

A son, a Dad, a book and a basketball…. sounds like “happy” new year to me.

ORIGINAL POST:

After seeing Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot earlier this month, I  wrote about how professionalized high school basketball had become.

A 2006 series of articles by Boston Globe reporter Bob Hohler leads me to conclude that I was wrong about the age at which the professionalization starts.

It’s much earlier than high school.

Hohler’s series, which was part of The Best American Sports Writing 2007, yet another gift from dear friend Evan Kaplan, focuses on Thomas “TJ” Gassnolla. The convicted felon is an Adidas sneakers rep and the general manager of the Northeast Playaz, a team of basketball players that runs on the AAU circuit previously dominated in my native region by Leo Papile.

Some of the people interviewed in the story, particularly the mothers of some players, praise Gassnolla’s unstinting efforts on their son’s behalf.  Hohler does show the success he has had getting raw and undisciplined youth into better life options, and, in some cases, a college scholarship.  He also has many detractors, who claim his methods are unethical, pointing in just one example to his driving young people in a number of states while his license was suspended.

Hohler also uses Gassnolla to bring out the ever deepening ties between sneaker companies and younger and younger players, many, many of whom are hell bent on chasing dreams of becoming the next LeBron James, Allen Iverson or Tracy McGrady.

We are talking fifth grade, people.

Check out this picture and excerpt from the Middle School Elite:

1. Marquise Walker5’0″ (Chicago, IL) – He’s a tough physically built point guard in the mold of Isiah Thomas. He’s very mature for his age having always played with older kids. He has the total package: size, speed, court vision, scoring, and the ability to make others better. A dazzling ball-handler who’s nearly impossible to keep out of the lane where he usually finishes, draws fouls, or makes pinpoint feeds to his big men. Walker is a play-maker in the open floor with an array of moves. Example- spin dribbles, hesitation moves, no-look passes, euro steps, and reverse pivots. He has a smooth stroke to land 3 pointers and the ability to finish easily with both hands. What separates Walker from the pack is his poise and ability to elevate his play on command. Its not uncommon for him to take over games during the 4th quarter and lead his team to victory. As a game changing prospect, he plays his best when the stakes are the highest.

Really?

Hohler writes about  the many costs this industry has wrought.  He cites young players who become giddy with praise and wounded when they are booed after the quality of their play declines. More broadly, he explores the consequences for kids who are separated from their peers at such a young because of their perceived talent.

Sonny Vaccaro, the legendary sneaker guru who helped in many of these developments during his days as a Nike marketing executive-he signed Michael Jordan to his first Nike contract-makes a guest appearance in typically unrepentant fashion.

Hohler is not the first to plumb these depths, nor is  basketball the only sport in which this kind of behavior is rampant.

Still, the portrait he paints is an unsavory one.

Some may dismiss calls to turn back the proverbial clock to a time when basketball was played for love and was not the multi-billion dollar enterprise that relentlessly feeds children and their families’ near impossible dreams of glory as naive and misguided.

I’m not saying they’re wrong, but I do hope some people agree with me that middle school rating systems are indicative of a system that is out-of-hand.

How long will before there are national ranking for first grade players, and  what will we say then?  Do we support the system by following, watching and talking about the NBA and college games?

As always, questions, comments and disagreements are welcome.

Fire away.

Another Tradition Under The Belt, Starting Martin Duberman’s “Stonewall”

Mike, Jon, Justin, Harv and I are preparing to head back to Boston after our 21st or 22nd-we never can quite decide when it started-rendition of heading to Wellfleet for what we call “Tradition.” 

I am not at liberty to reveal much of what happens, and I can say that we have a series of activities that we do each year.

One of them involves checking out the shops in Provincetown, many of which have massive sales before shutting down for the winter.

In a men’s clothing store, I picked up and started to read Martin Duberman’s Stonewall, his account of one of the seminal events in the modern gay rights movement. 

Framed by a quote by Clifford Geertz, the book tells the story from the perspective of six major characters.  

I only got about 20 pages into the work, and I already found it informative and intriguing.  I very much enjoyed Duberman’s biography of Paul Robeseon, so do think I will make the time and effort to find and read the rest of this one. 

For now, though, I’m off with the others to retrieve Jon and return to Boston to have dinner with Mom, Dunreith and Aidan.

Aidan’s College Essays and The Lottery.

Students' quest for a spot in the Harlem Success Academies is the basis for The Lottery.

We’re relaxing here at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, courtesy of yet another fabulous deal that Dunreith, aka wifey, wifey, identified for us.

As even occasional readers of this blog know, I am prone to revisit place and reflect on the memories that rise from within.

This hotel has a number of them, for it was here that our senior prom was held.

Going to the room where the event took place, though, far from bringing up images of that evening, left me instead with a hazy uncertainty about whether I was in the right place.   This feeling did not leave me even after I determined logically that I was indeed in the correct room.

As a result, rather than going in what sometimes is a standard direction of thinking about then, now and what has transpired in between, I found myself instead with a different kind of unsettled feeling.

My mid-life ruminations notwithstanding, today Mike, Jon, Eric Harvey, Justin and I are heading down to Wellfleet for our annual Tradition evening and ensuing morning of drinking gin and tonics, playing Scrabble and many other prescribed activities in way that approaches, but does not quite rival, the precision involved in caring for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

While I am there, Aidan will be working on his final college application essays.

In a little more than five short months, Aidan will be graduating from Evanston Township High School with hundreds of other students.  Our sister-in-law Cathy has already pledged to counter her fear of flying to make it to the big day.

While Aidan’s elementary and secondary career is winding down, with his plans to attend college firmly in place.

But far too many young people in America face a different, less certain and less positive future.  Growing up in far less affluent circumstances than Aidan, they face serious barriers to graduating from eighth grade, let alone attending a university.

The Lottery is a documentary film that follow four families in Harlem as they attempt to help their children have access to a better education.

Their goal: to have their student win a coveted spot in the public lottery at one of the Harlem Success Academies.

Blizzard of 2010, 1978 memories.

Dunreith, Aidan and I are waiting out Blizzard 2010 in the Westwood home of Dunreith’s childhood friend Susan and her husband Evan, the source of many books I have written about in this blog.

As a lawyer for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Evan has access to lots of high-quality books, a number of which he has sent my way.

Sitting here in his study, I can see Hunting Eichmann, Neal Bascomb’s riveting account of the band of Israelis who located, captured and transported the genocide impelementer and secretary at the notorious Wannsee Conference.

Last night, Evan gave me a copy of The Best American Sports Writing 2007, edited ably as always by Glenn Stout, with guest assistance in that year by David Maraniss, author of Clemente.  Stout presented to my Sports Writing Class at Brown Middle School in the mid-90s: we saw each other again last year when he was in town for a television bit with Dick Johnson, his co-author on a book about Fenway Park. 

On the bus and in the middle of life

We are on a Peter Pan bus steaming toward South Station, where Dad will pick us up before we meet the parents of Annie, Mike’s fiancee.

It’s a familiar ride.

When Dunreith and I were dating from 1998 t0 2000, and particularly during the second year of our courtship, I’d hop in my white Honda Civic and drive out the Mass Turnpike to Easthampton, where she and Aidan were living at the time.

We used to joke that you’d blink once at be at Worcester, and blink again and be at Springfield.

I’m thinking of that comment as we approach Worcester.

While blink may more popularly be known as the subject of Malcolm Gladwell’s second book, I am feeling a deeper resonance with the instantaneous closure of an eye and large chunks of distance and time passing.

Somehow, during the past three days in Western Massachusetts, I felt more acutely aware of being, like Dante in the beginning of the Inferno, midway through my life’s journey.

Part of it came from the physical growth and increased emotional maturity of Aidan and his six cousins.   The younger generation’s pushing up on us reminds me of our place in the generations having shifted-a transition that is reinforced by its being Aidan’s last December break while still in high school.  As the oldest cousin, he’ll be the first to head off to college and continue to move toward adulthood.

Another part of it is from my father-in-law Marty’s absence for the first time at a family Christmas gathering. I of course do not celebrate Christmas, and I do remember when he broke from his customary reserve about singing and offered an impressive bass rendition of Silent Night.   I remember how much he relished sitting at the head of the table, looking out at his family and shared the meal Helen, his wife and companion of more than half a century, prepared for him.

Part of it is reflecting on how our parents have passed or started to falter this year more than in the past.  Dunreith and I make daily calls to those parents who are left, trying to care remotely for them and in person for Aidan, who is more and more independent.

At the same time that time almost seems to evaporate, I am also aware of the value and gift inherent in each moment.  The losses, decline and growth of the past year all reinforce how time’s inexorable and irretrievably forward march. Now, more than before, I understand that nothing is inevitable in life but our deaths, and thus each experience and source of joy is to be savored.

Now, even more than before, I feel myself pushed both to live with purpose and focus and to be open to people, connection and shared experiences.

We are about to arrive, so I will sign off for now, in the front of the bus and in the middle of life, and grateful for both.

 

 

Gratitude in Western Massachusetts.

As readers of this blog know, this has been a tough year for our family.

In late March, my father-in-law Martin Kelly died after a years long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Two nights before the funeral, while going to pick me up the Greyhound bus station in downtown Springfield, Dunreith was hit in a head on collision by a car driving the wrong way on a one-way street.

In early July, the day after our nation celebrated the anniversary of its independence, my stepmother Diane Lowenstein died.

And in the earlier part of 2010, Mom had such extensive heart problems that she eventually had to have a pacemaker installed.  Two weeks ago, she also had a total right hip replacement.

This of course is to say nothing of the difficulties associated with a grueling junior year and the vicissitudes of the college application process for our son, Aidan Kelly Lowenstein.

Yet, as we approach the day in which people the world over celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, I also am filled with gratitude.

In some ways, the gratitude is leavened by the mere fact of having weathered the storms and started to sail in calmer waters.  In other ways, the adversity we experienced has only added to the appreciation of the many gifts we receive.

Above all, for me the hardships of the past nearly 12 months have led me to  be more present in my life and to be aware of life’s richness, wherever we are at that moment.

For yesterday, today and tomorrow, we are in Western Massachusetts, staying with my mother-in-law as Dunreith’s family observes the first Christmas without Marty being there in person.

Aidan and his cousin Dylan re-enacted a childhood family tradition by cutting down a Christmas tree for their Babci, the Polish word for grandmother.  In this case, they actually cut down a pair of trees, Shaun helped bind them together and then decorate the trees with ornaments, lights and candy canes.

Last night, we gathered with Dunreith’s family for a tasty Italian meal before going with her cousin Megan and her partner Kristin for a couple of drinks and some dessert at Adolfo’s in downtown Springfield.   Aidan spent the night with his cousins, sleeping over at Shaun’s house, while on the way home last night we drove around the MacDuffie campus where Dunreith attended eighth through twelfth grade.

This morning we walked with Dunreith’s Aunt Ginna and now are heading out to buy presents.

In each of these experiences, we experienced many gifts-of family, of health, of memory, of connection, of love.

For all these, and so many more, I am grateful.

Carol Anderson on taking eyes off the prize.

One of my favorite documentary series ever, Eyes on the Prize begins each of its episodes with a rousing rendition of the civil rights anthem:

You know the one thing I did right

was the day I started to fight

Keep your eyes on the prize

Hold on, hold on.

Keep your eyes on the prize,

Hold on.

The prize, according to the men and women marching in silhouette and singing with courageous gusto: full social equality.  The realization of that long-held and vigorously pursued goal was often thwarted by law and practice in the officially segregated South and actually segregated North. Nevertheless, during the period chronicled in Henry Hampton’s films, the modern civil rights movement vanquished legal apartheid.

According to many historians and movement members, the period from 1954 to 1965 or so represents a high point in the push for social justice in American history.  The beginning of the era is marked by the unanimous ruling in May 1954 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated facilities are inherently unequal.

That victory was the product of more than 20 years of ceaseless struggle by Thurgood Marshall, Jack Greenberg, Charles Hamilton Houston, Robert Carter and other members of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund-a history Richard Kluger writes about vividly in Simple Justice.

According to Carol Anderson, a professor at Emory University, the legal victory, as important as it was, came at the end of a decade in which the NAACP and others in the struggle for justice had taken their eyes off the prize, rather than beginning a time in which eyes were on the prize.

The difference in part is of definition. 

Anderson says the prize is human rights and social equality, not just the former. In her provocative and insightful book, Eyes Off the Prize, she details the fascinating and painful ways in which Cold War developments, determined opposition,  tepid behavior by allies and organizational rivalries interacted to have the NAACP give up the focus on international rights and issues, and instead retreat to a domestic emphasis.

Anderson opens her book at the end of World War II, and traces with intelligence and insight the interrelated rise of the Cold War and growth of efforts to establish international human rights.   On the one hand,  the attempt to codify the latter seemed inarguable, especially given the horrors of the Holocaust and other wartime atrocities. 

Yet Anderson shows effectively how the Soviet Union used that concept to attempt to score propaganda points against the United States because of its treatment of black people.  Unfortunately, they had plenty to point to, as Anderson explains in gruesome detail how many black veterans who had put their lives on the line to keep democracy safe were murdered when they returned to the country for which they had fought.

In an ironic twist, then, anti Communism became a vehicle to oppose the extension of the burgeoning concept of human rights to black people.

Some of the anti-Communists were people like Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, while others were some of the same implacable opponents to black equality in the United States like James F. Brynes.  He was Truman’s Secretary of State who had a lengthy pro-segregationist career in South Carolina, one of the states in which the legal fight that culminated in Brown v. Board began.

Yet, as bad as things were under Truman, they got far worse under Eisenhower.  Anderson has a gripping analysis of Truman’s ambivalent and pragmatic moves toward greater social equality for black people.  NAACP chief Walter White applauded Truman’s announcement that he planned to establish the Fair Employment Practices Commission, yet Truman did very little after his initial statement to advance the plan.  On the other hand,  NAACP founder W.E.B. DuBois supported Henry Wallace’s third-party bid for the presidency.

This disagreement was only one in an increasingly bitter series of interactions between DuBois and White: their internecine squabbling was another element in the retreat from international human rights that Anderson describes.

Even had White and DuBois been united, though, it’s not clear that the effort would have succeeded, in part because of the lukewarm support by human rights stalwarts like Eleanor Roosevelt and Universal Declaration of Human Rights architect Rene Cassin.   In some ways, Roosevelt’s actions, coming as a contrast to her previous support of black people in many significant and public ways, was even more difficult for people in the movement to accept than the expected and received opposition of people like Byrnes and other of his ilk.

In the end, through this stew of unhappy ingredients, the NAACP, despite serious and somewhat sustained attempts, did not succeed in reaching the prize under Anderson’s definition, instead taking their eyes off it to focus almost exclusively on the domestic front.

Her straightforward and extraordinarily well-documented work makes a for a quick and highly informative read.  I would say that she understates the significance of Brown v. Board. In my reading, it was far more than a domestic consolation prize, but the culmination of a 25-year struggle that provided the legal underpinnings under which so many other marched and sang and protested during the period Hampton depicts.  She of course might respond that I have bought into the hype around the modern civil rights movement.

In either case, this potential area of disagreement is a minor point when held against the broad scope and detail of the work, which is impressive indeed.   I don’t believe that Hampton’s series should be renamed, but I do think that Anderson’s work deserves as wide an audience as possible.

Investigative Journalists Who Tell No Lies

John Pilger's collection of investigative journalism makes for inspiring reading.

I am just about to finish my fifth year working at The Chicago Reporter, where we do investigative work around race and poverty issues in Chicago, Illinois and the nation as a whole.

As with most of adult life, the years seem to whiz by with increasing rapidity, and I can say that it’s been an honor and a privilege to participate in the Reporter’s tradition of deep, computer-assisted, data-rich reporting.

Our projects almost invariably feature a heavy emphasis on data, and some of them have had widespread impact.

Longtime British journalist John Pilger has edited Tell Me No Lies, a collection of writings by investigative journalists who have conducted different types of investigations.

Dan Rasmussen on New Orleans’ slave revolt.

Even before the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina seared itself into American consciousness,  New Orleans had a fabled place in the nation’s history.

From the battle that marked the end of the War of 1812 and the beginning of Andrew Jackson’s ascent in public life to the cauldron in which Louis Armstrong was forged to the annual Mardi Gras festivities,  the Crescent City has been associated with high living, pleasure in the moment and a stew of cultures.

It has not, however, been associated with slave revolts.

Until now.

Thanks to Dan Rasmussen, who completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard in 2009 with a slew of academic honors and prizes, we have American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt.