Rain in Chicago. Sometimes it looks as if it’s falling up, marching skyward and vanishing into the heavens. It fuses with cabbage colored tides of the Great Lakes, a venal cocktail of Heaven and earth. Falling up, falling down, it tells no secrets but those we allow.

I didn’t bring an umbrella to the conference today so I stood beneath the glass canopy overlooking the foyer and waited for the rain to stop. I waited as throngs of my Jewish compatriots strolled, umbrellas raised, through the streets towards whatever awaited them on the other side of the night. I breathed the scent of G-d against the masses; it smelled like sweat. It’s a tough business this feeling good all over, a red herring, a key to the Necropolis, but we can’t endure without it. The rain took me home this afternoon, wherever that may be.

It's not often, but sometimes when at a party or at a club or something, I'll look around, take deep breath and say, "I'll bet I'm the only one in the room who voted for Bush."

Most of the time my companion, whoever it might be, will agree, call me a right-wing fascist whack-job and then mug me, but every now again I'll be shocked by an admission that in fact they too voted for the president. Well, perhaps "admit" isn't the right word because that implies some kind of ethical malfeasance and no Republican I know regrets voting for the man who heads the party. Although more than a few of us lament at the obscene amount of pork-barrel spending and I know I rolled my eyes over the whole Teri Schiavo thing, but for the most part we Republicans are proud of the choices the President has made. So when I said "admit" perhaps I should have said "reveal." Because even in a town as Democratic as Chicago, no one really knows who anyone votes for. Presumably.

Nevertheless, of America's five largest cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) Chicago voted most overwhelmingly for Kerry in the last election. And with many of those voters still fuming over Florida or Ohio or Lewis Libby or whatever, the odds don't bode well for Republicans seeking to make friends at off Loop wine and cheese parties. Such was the case last Sunday when I joined a friend of mine at a little get together at her boss's condo on west Randolph St.  A Republican knows he's in trouble when there are no less than three ATM machines inside any building's lobby. The two Ira Glass wannabes congregating in the elevator didn't bode well either. I think one of them may have been drinking a latte.  

The condo was as expected. Bloated, Lichtenstein knock-offs, black and pistachio colored walls painted just sloppily enough to look ambivalently mod. Hard wood floors covered with plaid carpeting, exposed ductwork and two laptop computers completed the gentrification chic look they were no doubt going for. Okay, maybe that's a bit judgmental and harsh but whatever. I might care if it looked as if these so-called "progressives" (to take from Byron York) actually respected independence of thought and political recalcitrance. They don't though, and they quickly let me know it.

Things devolved in the usual way: a comment here, a rebuttal there a slightly raised voice somewhere in the middle. Actually, I'd like it known that I was very good for the bulk of the conversation and tried desperately to steer things towards things we can all agree to hate, like "Daisy Does America."

You're all going to have to forgive me on this one, because you see, I had very little choice in the matter. Something kind of snaps in my brain when I hear people exploiting tragedy for political gain—it seems so positively inimical to everything intellectual discourse is supposed to represent.  How anyone can feel justified blaming the recent mine tragedies on the President or the Republican parties is certainly beyond my grasp. I'm not going to go into what was said, I'm sure most of you can take a pretty educated guess.  The conversation ended abruptly when the host's wife, a skinny girl from Portland, threw down her fork and declared that all Republicans "are monsters," and that should all just move to Mississippi and secede. Oh, and I think she also said something about "misogynist, war-mongers," but that may have just been the brie talking.

After about half an hour of awkward chewing and few feeble attempts at interpretive dance (the kind of which Rufus Wainright so aptly lends), we eventually started talking about more import things like finding out how much everybody makes and then feeling the appropriate level of superiority/inferiority.  (Kidding! If anyone of them read that they'd start waxing dyspeptic about capitalism or globalization or something like that. All while wearing Abercrombie & Fitch's newest, I might add.) I think we all realized how cartoony we'd become and how easily we fell into the Bill Maher/Rush Limbaugh claptraps that keep the blogosphere in business. Although there were no "hey, I like John McCain too," moments, it's a pretty safe bet that most of us understood the faux pas we made; in tact, if nothing else.  

As I've mentioned on this site before, I'm moderate, even left-leaning on most social issues and I know that most people at that party wouldn't want to live in some Scandinavian-esque welfare state. One of them even gripped about her property taxes.

I know it's a cliché by now, but seriously, don't talk politics at social functions. Nothing good will ever come of it. Except in this case when the host's wife gave me a bottle of Shiraz as a token of good will. I'm saving it for Molly Ivins.

Some men are preceded by their reputations when they walk into a room, my dad is trailed by his. Not that this makes his command of a crowd any lesser a commodity but it does remove the luxury of time. Still, once the air of authority finally anchors, its spell is all but intractable.  That's how he kept thirty years of listless west-side teenagers engaged in high school biology and managed to promote and cultivate one of the most progressive IT departments the Chicago Public Schools has ever seen. My dad is a force of nature, a silent, powerful maelstrom against the peaks.

As is usually the case when I cross him unexpectedly, my dad was in the process of debating a band of strangers. Unknowns flock to him, slowly at first, doe-like, but eventually, after convincing themselves that he's safe they'll jaunt forward and engage him in whatever was on their minds. This evening it was the Super Bowl, a topic my dad knows precious little about. Nevertheless, when I foundearlier this evening he was leaning against an iron banister in one of the airport's less opulent vestibules. Waxing dyspeptic over the Bears loss to the Panthers last week, he looked like a softer Geraldo Rivera.

"The defense just wasn't its usual self," he said, repeating the refrain  every sports analyst north of St. Louis had been parroting ad neasueum.

But despite being out of his element he still looked comfortable. Reclining, he had unfastened the top button of his shirt and both his tie and long black overcoat stretched weakly towards the floor. The men around him couldn't have been much younger than he, yet they peered at him with a reverence usually withheld for tribal elders of some kind. Not this is not unusual, my dad has always had way of imposing veneration even when it was least warranted. Especially then. He bid his acolytes adieu as soon as he saw me coming.

I guess I should say here that my visit wasn't wholly unexpected; I was picking him up at the airport. Still, the plan was that I was to call once I'd arrived so that he could dart out and I wouldn't have to pay for parking. And I was going to do that but one of the policemen patrolling the ramps that truncate O'Hare's metallic façade  told me I could illegally park for a moment and the idea of surprising my dad was too tempting to ignore. My dad, in lockstep with most former high school teachers, deals with surprise the way most of us deal with a fly in our soup: clumsily. He's a constant planner but for some reason feels a strong rush of vindication when things don't go according to plan—another trait I believe unique unto high school biology teachers.

"What's wrong," he said after a quick handshake. "Is there a problem with the car?"

I hoisted his luggage over my shoulder and assured him there wasn't. He nodded sharply, saying nothing. Nodding is my dad's way of saying "I trust you," and I had brief impulse to follow suit. Nonverbal communication has always been the easiest mode of communication between men but it obfuscates as often as it clarifies and I wasn't willing to risk being misconstrued in a crowded airport terminal. Instead, I murmured a vague, "let's go," and trudged through the crowds like sap through bark.

Still, the declaration, wobbly as it was, helped ease us into a state of connectivity rare amongst the normally taciturn. It was if I'd eked out secrets of a discreet communicatory code that instantly turned Mandarin letters into solid Roman numerals. We chatted casually from the moment we got in the car until the directly after the Nagel exit on the expressway.

The night had grown thick by then. Furry. It was well after nine and temperatures had dipped into the very low thirties. Driving slow enough to crack the window, my dad gazed fixedly though the wind stream. His tie hung lower against this chest and his rings were removed yet it made him look even more distinguished. At a red light, I studied myself in the rearview. One of the women at Supercuts asked me if I was still high school the other day. Maybe one day I'll take that as a compliment, but right now all it does it make me wonder if a reputation for authority will ever follow me. Skinny me. Squeaky voiced, baby-faced me. We drove for a while contemplating where our reputations have found us.

"They offered me a position in Philly," my dad said finally. He works as a consultant for the Philadelphia Public Schools. "But I'm not going to take it."

I could tell this was something he'd considered thoroughly because his voice was harsh and raspy with sharp, midwestern overtones drowning sounds in pools of serenity.  I knew he would never accept anything full time out there so his announcement was more a matter of fact than anything else.  I asked him why, though, out of courtesy. He rolled the window down further an explained the things I already knew. After that all was silent.

He rolled the window down further. Neither of us was cold. 

I congratulated him and he thanked me. Then we spoke of world events. Alito, the Canadian elections, Iran. Nothing earthshaking. Everything earthshaking. Talk fed the power rushing through us, propelling us forward like a comedian with brand new material. My dad even took out the Philadelphia Inquirer he purchased at the hotel. I wanted to compare it to our Chicago papers, so he brought it back on my account.

He outlined a few articles, and went on irrelevantly, "they pile these papers on the floor at the hotel. Makes the lobby look unseemly."

And that's when my dad's reputation emerged from somewhere in the back seat. Suddenly, he was an authority. I had to know what he had to say and I had to know then. A man in control. A man who understands. Rational. Reasonable. An independent voter. The specter of his reputation followed us home. It lingered long after we trudged through the heavy Chicago snowfall and placed his luggage on the floor beside his bed.

It lingered as I read the paper, heavy over coffee and toast at the Golden Nugget. It lingered at the bar where I met a friend for scotch and a few games of pool. It lingers still, a giant amongst the elves. Even as I type this I wonder when it will eventually press on. I glare at the empty page and ask for my reputation.

But the page can't give it, it doesn't have a clue. Tt might find out some day, though. And when it does it'll bring atoms from both perception and reality and allay them with the things about myself I know exist. It might be all wrong; a cheaters chance at consequence perhaps, but it would still mean something real against the crushing waves of anonymity. It probably will be all wrong but such is the price we pay for seeking ourselves. Because while the search may be unlimited, recognition is finite to the extreme. 

"Are you cold?" My dad asked after pulling away from one oppressively long red light.

"No, I'm fine," I said. Satisfied, he turned away.

Maps fascinate me. They take the place of porn-star pin ups in the back of my glove compartment.

I keep an array of maps with me at all times. Maps of the Chicago-land area poke from beneath my car seat and trunk. Sometimes, when eating breakfast I trae the boudries between counties with my back of my spoon. I try to memorize each of the Cook County suburbs. I imagine myself in Elk Grove Village or Arlington Heights or Wadsworth or Blue Island.

Would this bowl of Cap'n Crunch taste the same in Alsip? How about on the corner of Elston and Belmont? What about these blue berries or this coffee? You can be anywhere on a map, you can inhabit the world.

I stare at maps constantly. After the London bombings last July I covered every inch of the London metropolitan area. Paris met the same fate (at least by me) last October, and New Orleans the month before. Maybe I'm more of a bad news geography junky than anything else. Who knows, maybe I'm just amused by colors.

That Marilyn Monroe was much smarter than she’s regularly given credit for is old hat by now. As if “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” wasn’t proof enough, people tout her MENSA membership (er…wait….Was that Jane Mansfield? Whatever.), erudite diary entries and winsome encomiums from her ex-husband, the late Aurthur Miller as evidence of her unrecognized brilliance. She’s a genius we’re told and it’s not hard to see why. The buxom Midwesterner made presidents beg, executives weep and the world stand up and take notice. Rags, to riches, the power of resolve over destiny, and all that good stuff. Someone once told me that Marilyn was an answered prayer: a stretch of light against a crushing darkness.  I like that description. It’s universal and simplest to understand. If Marilyn Monroe was a living prayer, than couldn’t we reasonably assume that we are too? If she could make it, shouldn’t we all? If she was unappreciated than can we rest easy?

But if Marilyn Monroe was the essence of prayer then she was also its bete noir. Parroting her way from farmhand to A-list during cinema’s “golden age” is something one only achieves through indomitably, or, in other words, by praying to oneself. Prayer is entirely dependent on the will of a greater being, i.e. G-d’s for all it can obtain. But achieving success in any field, let alone the entertainment biz, requires a brand autonomy that virtually negates any sort of codependence. Like most stars, Monroe’s successes hinged, at least peripherally, on the affirmation of certain individuals in power, but it was her ability to transcend that reliance that supercedes liturgical comparisons. Marilyn Monroe may very well have been a prayer, but the G-d who answered it existed primarily within her own heart.

We al need prayer. We all need G-d. But what so few of us are willing to accept is that I many ways G-d needs us too. Just look at the L-rd within yourself for proof of that. Just watch ‘The Misfits.”

It was as if someone in my family had suddenly gotten sick and died. That was the reaction of most of my coworkers over the past 48 hours. Everywhere I went people glanced at me as if I was a devastated soldier's wife sleepwalking my way through the day. People I'd never seen before would peek over the top of my cubicle, look down at me softly and whisper, "I'm so sorry to hear about Sharon. What's his condition?"

Not that these statements were all that inappropriate, on the contrary, I've always been a vocal supporter of Israel and—for very proud reasons--keep an Israeli flag next to an American one in a small pot above my computer. I'm also not shy about discussing my faith any who ask. At my office, Jews are something of an anomaly, so naturally people are interested in the way we see the world. In a way I've become both the rabbinic authority as well as the Israeli emissary for my little splotch of northern Chicago. (I am woefully unqualified for either charge.) Nevertheless, I've never met the premier, and am not a member of the Sharon family. I may wax ecstatic from time to time, expressing how wonderful a leader I believe him to be (I've often said I wished he could run for American President, although I'm just being hyperbolic there. He'd be a horrible fit for this country) but I was more than capable of getting through my day. Still, it was touching to see how many of my colleagues took the time to seek me out and let me know they were praying for the Israeli Prime Minister.

And I am too.

You see, I've come to regard Israel's prime minister, whoever he or she may be, as something of a steward for security of the Jewish people. If we are oppressed in Russia or Venezuela it is the prime minister of Israel who can phone that world leader, convene the United Nations Security Council and who can fight for us when no one else can. There is no Pope in Judaism, no single figure to rally the rank and file and get our needs onto the national stage; that's why Israel's Prime Minister is so important and why so many of us, even those who disliked him should pray and lament his fall from power. Tony Kushner, who I mentioned in my last post, is simply wrong when he asserts that Israel is as far removed from his life as a county like Italy. Zionism has long since become the Jewish national project, and whether you agree with it or not, represents the national aspirations of our people as a whole. It symbolizes our commitment to endure. Almost half the world's Jews live in Israel and its influence over our lives is palpable. I haven't been there in years, but I can feel the excitement of a night in Tel Aviv as vividly as I can any Chicago meet-and-greet.

I am Jew. Noam Chomksy is a Jew. Tony Kushner is a Jew. Israel is the Jewish state. It may not speak for us, but it most certainly speaks to us. We owe it to ourselves and to the memory of our ancestors to support it. To criticize and judge it too, but most certainly to support it.

Going through the world's editorials today, I notice that virtually all them expressed disappointment and loss at Mr. Sharon's departure form politics, proclaiming that his eventual demise would most certianly hamper the peace process.  This includes periodicals like The Guardian, the New York Times and even the Saudi-based Arab News—papers that normally take a very critical view of Sharon's policies.  And it is no greater testament to the man's poltical acument to note, as some have, that when Sharon first came to power his very election was seen as an impediment to peace.

How ironic is it that the only moving scene in a film created to "make a statement" appears as the film is about to end? The Manhattan skyline dominates the final scene of Steven Speilberg's new film "Munich", with the girded frames of the World Trade Center overwhelming much of the scene's final moments. As the movie draws to close, the camera zooms slightly inward and the twin towers grow in doomed prominence. Though never quite taking center stage, they assert a gravitational force over the audience beckoning us forward, while they linger in the back. A case of life shadowing art shadowing life or just a clumsy belief statement? In the end it doesn't really matter because the image is too haunting to suffer the same ideological pratfalls that stymie other movies of the "statement" variety. Nevertheless, this fictional retelling of Israel's retaliation for the murder of it's 1972 Olympic team by Palestinian terrorists is not without the trappings of a strained political parity that undermines the divisions between the criminal and the judge. Rumors that the film somehow slams Israel are not entirely unfounded, though they are exaggerated. The film does makes subtle distinctions between terrorists and who seek to punish them, but they are dubious at best and lost beneath a sea of moral equivocation.

By now it's unlikely that many filmgoers will interpret "Munich"  as much more than a grim-faced Indiana Jones flick and Spielberg is careful to underscore that it is merely "inspired" by actual events and not a thoughtful reconstruction of a verifiable story. The book it's based on, Vengeance by George Jonas has been largely dismissed as a fabrication (Jonas himself played no role in the Israeli actions, and his sources were shady at best) and no one involved in actions on either side were consulted for the purpose of accuracy. It's amusing to note that that both Israeli Mossad agents as well as the Black September mastermind have come out and denounced the film, providing further proof that nothing unites like bad PR.

"Munich" chronicles the exploits of covert Israeli operatives as they hunt, shoot and blow up members of the Palestinian Terror outfit that slaughtered the Israeli Olympic team.  With the help of a dapper French informant, the team, led by the resolute Avner, played by Eric Bana, trek across Europe assassinating Arab terrorists and making it known to other would-be assassins that "killing Jews would now be a very expensive enterprise." That's all there is to it. With the exception of a stultifying exchange between Avner and a terrorist meant to voice the grievances of the Palestinian population, the film gets no deeper than the average attack and revenge thriller. Heck, even the aforementioned gripe-fest is wrought with a stupid, violent intent. "We will make it safe for Jews nowhere in the world," the terrorist beams. Spielberg gushed over that scene to a reporter for Time magazine, but it has anti-Israeli playwright Tony Kushner's fingerprints all over it.

Which brings me to why the "pro-Israel" crowd is so put-off by the film. Let's start with Kushner himself, a great writer no doubt, his play Homebody/Kabul kept me enthralled me a few years ago, but why did Spielberg feel it necessary to elicit the help of a man who has made no secret of his disdain for Israel? It's like getting Harold Pinter to write Tony Blair's biography, absurd to the point of farce. There is no shortage of talented screenwriters who's ideological leanings are somewhat less volatile. I think Spielberg diluted the veracity of his film by choosing so polemical and individual as Mr., Kushner to help write the screenplay.

Another complaint: how come every terrorist the Mossad agents kill is made to look like the old man at the grocery store who let you take the gum for free when you were a few pennies short? They're all avuncular, well-dressed, elderly gentleman who dote on their children and translate ancient literature. It's perfectly fine, even necessary to show people as people but these men were cold-hearted killers and taking that aspect away makes them as hallow and wooden as it would have been to depict them as bile-spewing, thugs shouting "Allah Akbar" and shooting haphazardly into the air.  One should also note that none of the men the Mossad agents assassinate are seen in the sequences where the athletes are killed making it much harder to identify them as they terrorists they are. 

As Bret Stephens noted in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, the film works under the premise that retribution is somehow not a Jewish thing. Hardly. Christianity is the religion that espouses turning the other cheek, the Torah is replete with Jews taking vengeance upon those who would do them harm.  In fact, Hanukkah, the holiday that ends tonight is, at least peripherally, a tale of Jewish revenge. Striking back is very Jewish, if only we would have done it earlier.

At the end of the film, a morally awakened Avner flees Israel to make his home in New York, ostensibly too righteous to continue living in a country that would ask him to kill so many people—terrorists or not. I found his unwillingness to return to Israel one of the most disturbing  elements of the film and one tainted by a complete ignorance of Jewish thought and tradition. If anything, Avner's ethical renaissance should have reinforced his concept of right of over might, but then again, Kushner's "progressive" hand stymies the essential morality, opting instead for a pseudo-progressive, anti-anything framework. After killing so many, Avner wonders whether the whole "eye for an eye" thing is really what the world needs to stimulate peace. What we as Jews understand is that yes, an eye for an eye is exactly what the world needs to end violence because if someone attacks you and you let it pass you are condoning the wrong and authorize them to do it again your behalf.  That's inexcusable, wrong and utterly and completely not Jewish. When you're attacked you strike back. Then, if your attacker is amenable, you can begin negotiations. Never before.

There are other complaints, but enough of those for now. Spielberg should be complimented for a few things.  Well actually one thing: as slight a difference as he makes, he makes a clear distinction between terrorist and retributioner. This point is brought home in a scene where the agents plant a bomb in a phone and plan to detonate it when the perpetrator answers. When the man's daughter answers it, the agents run through the street in a mad, and successful attempt to alert those operating the remote-controlled explosive and aborting the mission. Compared to the wanton slaughter of the Palestinian terrorists the difference becomes clear.

There's a funny scene when an old Israeli tells Avner he wants receipts for all his activities. Some have said this reinforces the stereotype that Jews are cheap. To them I say, "get a hobby." We need to be able to laugh at ourselves and it was a funny scene. Even my grandmother, who has seen the horrors of ant-Semitism first hand, laughed at what felt more like an inside joke than anything else. It was a far cry from Spike Lee's cheap Jews in "Mo Better Blues." Chill, folks.

The movie did not live up to the hype and I wouldn't recommend anyone rush out to see it. At best it was a pretentious thriller at worst it was a bad pretentious thriller. See the documentary "One Day in September" for a more accurate description of what occurred during and after the Munich massacre.

Oh, and happy New Year everyone! I wish you all a wonderful 2006!