Peter Nickeas

Busy - I finished “Ghosts of Afghanistan” and meant to post again about some interesting points / observations the author made but Erin and I are facing an unexpected move on a tight schedule, so it’s been difficult carving out an hour to bang out a blog post.

I am reading “We Don’t Want Nobody Nobody Sent,” though. On the train to and from work, mostly, since I’ve been packing the apartment while trying to keep up with working out / other household stuff.

Hopefully back to it in a couple days.

I liked the book, basically. I didn’t like the organization, and I was taken off guard by how forcefully he advocated a policy position (U.S. should negotiate with all interested parties to settle the fighting in Afghanistan) instead of just reporting on the poor results of the policy (exhibit: Afghanistan).

So … initial thoughts:

–The book doesn’t advance the “Graveyard of Empires” theory but does draw parallels between the Soviet Union’s experience in Afghanistan and America’s just more than a decade later.

–The author spelled out a thesis early on and went to work supporting it, and that’s not something I expected. I suppose I should have, since a lot of investigative and explanatory work spells out the main points early on. Maybe I was taken off guard because he was arguing that the war is a failure, and I haven’t heard that argued by many other reporters. And, it shouldn’t be that shocking an idea to argue. But other books about Afghanistan haven’t been as forceful in advocating that or other points.

–It’s nice to hear from someone who covered the country on-and-off for the past couple decades. Forever War had some context because the author was there a few years before 9/11, but this author’s coverage reached back into the late 70s.

–This guy didn’t like the book as much as I did. I share his disdain for the organization - trying to dispel myths - but mostly because at the end of a longer set of arguments, it wasn’t clear exactly which myth he was trying to argue against. I thought some of the arguments were more compelling than others, especially when the effort was focused.

–On focus - the book was more of a meandering history early on and narrowed toward the end when it came to human rights, especially the plight of women in the region, and his argument in favor of a negotiated settlement instead of whatever it is U.S. Foreign Policy is (propping up the sitting government it helped install against all other forces?).

–I thought more could have been said with less words/pages. It’s not that the book was poorly written, but it almost dragged on toward the end as he emphasized some points previously made throughout the book. Maybe it’s a reflection of how much he believes in what he’s arguing, but I thought the argument in favor of a negotiated settlement would have been better advanced by ending a little earlier.

I expected a biography of Richard J. Daley, and I got that … but the book probably could have been half as long and accomplished that.

The book was so much more, though, reflecting the reality that you can’t explain modern Chicago without explaining Daley. I liked the book for what it was, not what I thought it would be.

Pleasantly surprised.

Daley’s governing style was essentially this: reward loyalists with patronage jobs hoping that people operate by the age-old rule that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you … and co-opt opposition before they can gain momentum. He wasn’t just a chapter in the city’s history … for better or worse, he’s part of the reason Chicago has a bustling downtown and segregated neighborhoods.

I don’t think I’d call him a smooth operator but he clearly knew what he was doing.

It’s interesting as a case study of boss-style machine politics but for those with an interest in urban development, politics, or Chicago, the book is basically a modern history of the city. Picks up steam in the 30s and (spoiler alert!) ends with Daley’s death 1976.

Just as interesting was the public housing battles, the history of the high-rise projects, how the city’s expressways and downtown came to be, etc.

Just a couple interesting passages that jumped out:

“Concentrating poverty concentrates things that correlate with poverty,” notes sociologist Douglas Massey. “People adapt to a hostile and violent environment by becoming hostile and violent.” (Page 190)

If you agree with that passage, it’s an astute observation that explains some of the problems in the city’s poor neighborhoods. I suppose I never stepped back and looked at violence from that far away.

“Daley put the city’s 11,900 police on twelve-hour shifts, with battle plans, command posts, and mobile tactical forces all carefully plotted out on charts. Five schools were readied to house the thousands of Illinois National Guard who were waiting in reserve. A thousand FBI and Secret Service agents were deployed from Washington, and 7,500 army troops trained in riot control were airlifted from Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado.” (Page 462)

This paragraph explained some of the preparations Daley and the city made before the Democratic National Convention (that one). They were also expecting protesters. It jumped out because I think the city is expecting about 5,000 NATO delegates next month for a NATO summit (I can’t remember exactly where I saw that number), about the same amount of delegates expected in town for the convention in 1968. But best I can tell … haven’t heard of anything nearing that type of security mobilization.

So a reporter is working a second job as a stripper, and it sounds like she banks hard (based on Richard Connelly’s holier-than-thou screed).

Romenesko blew up the story, “Sarah Tressler: Houston Chronicle Society Writer By Day, Stripper By Night (UPDATED)” with two blog posts.

Maybe more appropriately, it sounds like (from the money she’s making) that reporting is the side job.

(This topic, her excerpted blog post, and moral outrage made me think of Weezy singing “Gotta hand fulla stacks better grab an umbrella, I make it rain, I make it rain, I make it rain on them hoes!”)

Some thoughts:
-The author of the story, not sure what he was getting at … I got the sense he looks down at the world through wire frame spectacles perched at the end of his nose. And who says “roman a clef,” why couldn’t he just say book?

-Is there some moral outrage to this? From other reporters? Please. This is laughable. People in this industry can be an incestuous bunch who fear change (ahem, the Internet), play petty bullshit office politics, and drink like fish. (And, they occasionally loot the companies they run.) (I’m talking about news, not stripping.) I have had the pleasure to work in a handful of other non-news settings and I’ve never, ever seen drinking so much apart of any other culture (and this doesn’t bother me one bit - but I’m not hating on strippers).

-Knocking her for maybe using her experience to get onto better things? Again, this hate from journalists? Where the only consistent way to get to a metro is by being a bulldog in some small town, then again in a medium city and maybe one more 2-3 year stint? How many people got their careers started at major metros? I think most put in their 2-10 years elsewhere. Up or out, is how it works, for many folk toward the top of the food chain.

-Good for her. I know how long it takes me to make $750 and it’s a lot more than 10 hours. In high school, it would have taken me 125 hours at my cash-paying baseball card shop job, which went out of business for lack of demand (perhaps like newspapers, unlike strippers).

-About those reporters mad that she flashes the loot she earns - they’re mad at some Gucci bags? - maybe they could stop bitching about her nice clothes and money should be thinking of new ways to generate revenue or make their work matter more. Last I checked, people are still losing jobs on a quarterly basis while company execs cash out and rank/file folks continue losing their freedom of movement and ability to work careers they love.

For reference:
Strip club songs (hope you’re not offended by drugs, stripping, drinking, etc)
Eminem f. Nate Dogg - Shake that Ass (NSFW)
Fat Joe f. Weezy - Make it Rain (NSFW)
Links
The original article
Gawker
Romenesko I and II

Lately, I’ve switched up my reading to try and diversify. So instead of reading about Afghanistan, Pakistan and the occasional general-military-interest book, I tried a few memoirs and now, books about Chicago. I’m not ready for fiction yet.

I haven’t lived in Chicago until a couple months ago. I lived in five suburbs, Milwaukee, Springfield and Casper and worked in many more. And I haven’t been one of (either) Mayor Daley’s constituents.

I also haven’t covered either of the two mayors as a professional, so my knowledge of the family dynasty is limited to what I’ve read in newspapers and magazines as an interested observer, which I’ve been since before I wanted to be a reporter.

In college, I decided to pursue journalism. Since then, I’ve wanted to work in Chicago because it feels like home.

So reading books about things in and around Chicago is both preparation for work and something I enjoy as an individual curious about my surroundings. I feel the same about military books, since I’d like to one day cover defense.

I’m lucky that I can do something I enjoy and legitimately say I’ll be better at work for it. Right now, I’m about 100 pages into “American Pharaoh,” and Daley isn’t mayor yet.

I had to read “Boss” in grad school and it was probably the single most influential piece of required reading I touched in five years of school. I wouldn’t compare American Pharaoh to Boss, because the first reads more academic, but the two combine for a colorful portrait of the city’s history.

I would think that with those two and perhaps “There Are No Children Here” would encompass two of the things the city is internationally known for - violence and politics. I haven’t read enough about the city to say that with any certainty though - only a theory at this point.

We’ll see how it turns out - there’s a lot of book left. Up next - either “The Deal from Hell” or “Soldier Field: A Stadium and Its City.” I probably never would have heard of the Soldier Field book except I work with the dude who wrote it. Seems solid, so why not?

I wonder if I’ll hear him when I read it. That would be weird. I heard Pete Hamill talk at a Tribune-sponsored event before I started working there last summer and through all of “A Drinking Life,” I heard his voice.

I added this book to my “I should probably read this” list after hearing about it on NPR, I think. I can’t find the interview.

The author is former South Asia Bureau Chief for the Chicago Tribune and spent some years in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries in the neighborhood.

I now work for the Tribune and thought, “I wonder what she has to say about the place.” (Not much good, more later).

This book is as more about the author and her experiences than a grand look at war and foreign policy. I didn’t get the impression from the interview, back-of-the-book blurbs, or tone of a few random paragraphs that the book would be a serious look at American foreign policy or local politics in places the U.S. is at war.

And if that’s what you’re seeking, you’ll be disappointed.

So I didn’t learn much by reading this, about war, foreign policy, or anything else, but I didn’t expect to. I still thought the book was fascinating.

I also didn’t find it “funny” like the back-cover blurbs or some of the reviews. It’s not funny in a laughing kind of way. Absurd, yea, definitely that. Obnoxious even. I only know that part of the world from what I’ve read, and some of it is mind-boggling.

There were insights here and there about why things are the way they are but not enough to build a book around - if you peeled back the wit, narrative, and everything else that makes this book awesome you’d be left with a couple chapters of serious chapters.

Her stories make the book, and I don’t think a serious examination of foreign policy or American interests in the region would have worked with the same voice she used throughout.

Aside from the odd anecdotes, she wrote about the difficulty of working for the Chicago Tribune as the newspaper industry shriveled up and as the paper changed owners.

These notes here and there were almost more enlightening than some of the political observations, which have been reported for awhile.

For me, the book was made interesting because she brought  war, foreign policy and journalism together and told her story against that backdrop. I found her story and that combination intriguing.

It was more than a book about Afghanistan and Pakistan. It made the read almost effortless.

I’m glad to see lots of reporting on Iran. Comparisons to pre-Iraq reporting do not fit.

I don’t see a way to judge whether the media is making the same mistakes now as with pre-Iraq reporting - we only found out how bad the New York Times and other papers goofed after the invasion. Newspapers are often called the first draft of history, and the first draft on Iraq was wrong.

People are right to fear getting duped into another war (though maybe the question of whether we should be at war with Iran is moot), and it’s (too) easy to see Iran and Iraq reporting through the same lens.

But the U.S. government isn’t pushing for all-out war like it did in Iraq. (It’s the candidates giving more oomph to those arguments in the U.S. right now). Israel is far more open about the possibility and has more of a reason for war than the U.S.  — there was no comparable third-party in Iraq.

This article - Iran nuclear coverage echoes Iraq War Frenzy - is a thorough article that doesn’t just compare Iraq and Iran,  but also the media’s failure with Iraq.  But the text doesn’t support the assertion in the headline (it’s still an extremely valuable article - lots of context).

He leads with Dick Cheney’s daughter (??) talking about Iran. He also gives anonymity to “one national security reporter, who has covered the intelligence community and Iran,” who says the media runs the risk of repeating its mistakes in Iraq.

Glenn Greenwald takes a whack, using many more examples than Calderone to support to his theory of the war-mongering media leading us to war:   a hyperbolic TV report on the Navy’s possible response, an op-ed piece by a professor, a critique of Rick Santorum talking, another op-ed piece.

He notes that the media, not the government, is leading the charge. Late in the article he wonders how the country can collectively forget Iraq.

Greenwald’s argument is poorly-sourced. He lacks good examples. I get that some in the media are war-war-war but to blame “the media” for the entire push (it’s the media’s fault presidential candidates want to bomb Iran? no.) is not accurate.

Both authors criticize TV news reports.

And yea, the TV report Greenwald cited was absurd and worthy of criticism - but not indicative of a trend. (I don’t get how people are still surprised by sensational and vague language, and sweeping claims lacking attribution.)

To discuss the possibility of another war does not make you pro-war, which is the impression I got from both authors.

So if you run a website or a publication, what are your options - deny space to pro-war contributors? Don’t have reporters explore possibilities? Wait until someone decides the U.S.  should go to war and begin reporting?

Maybe that was not each author’s intentions but their arguments suggested any discussion or coverage - whether op-ed, sensational TV, talking heads, politicians, beat reporters - signaled an attempt to make war more palatable to a war-weary public (itself a fuzzy concept).

Calderone’s piece, I think, buried the lede. He asked,

“To what extent is this community of foreign policy background sources spinning the media on Iran? And does the media really have any way of meaningfully assessing the merits of what those sources are saying?”

Brings to mind this, quoted in The Longest War:

“How are nations ruled and led into war? Politicians lie to journalists and then believe those lies when they see them in print.” —Austrian journalist Karl Kraus

If there’s a conclusion to be drawn, it’s that we should learn from the lack of dialogue and conversation before Iraq. The media should report more. News orgs can’t (and shouldn’t) operate as if any Iran mention means war is a good idea.

With Iraq, American leaders wrapped themselves in the flag and images of 9/11 and said non-believers were not patriotic. Much of the reporting reflected that.

That is not happening right now.

Critics are judging the general fire hose of news on the subject and not the content. It’s weak to lump “the media” together as pro-war when the actual news reporting - particularly by people on national security or foreign beats - doesn’t reflect that.

The New York Times cast doubt on the assertion that Iran was working with a drug cartel to off a Saudi ambassador. And they’ve reported on the difficulty of a possible air strike. And what about this or this made it seem like war would be a great idea?

Three articles from the same (but major) outlet isn’t a trend, I get that.

But tying together the media’s Iran and Iraq coverage doesn’t account for the differences between the two situations.

I finished this book a couple days ago. I’ve read it before but I wanted to re-read it for a few reasons.

The short of the book: the author follows a family for a couple years living in some west-side projects before they were demolished.

For one, it’s a long-term look at poverty, urban blight and violence in the city where I work and live. I guessed it would give me some inspiration and perspective about covering crime in the city (which it has). It isn’t a text book, it’s not a manifesto, it doesn’t offer solutions. It’s a sad tale told with clarity and a sympathetic eye.

I’m also more familiar with the terrain now than I was when I first read the book, in high school. I sometimes have to make stops throughout the west side for work, and had my car towed to a lot off Lake and Kedzie once (long story).  Flower deliveries there too a couple times.

I wanted to read long-form narrative journalism set in the city, but as a working reporter and not a lost high-school kid with no idea of what to do with my life. Beat preparation, sorta.

What I’ve learned is … not a lot has changed. Chicago had almost half as many murders last year as it did in 1990 (when the book was set) and that’s a strong reduction over 20 years.  (Even adjusting for the population loss since then, the murder rate has dropped substantially). I don’t know what to attribute the drop to - better medicine? Good police work? A citizenry in revolt against gangs and thugs? I don’t know.

But Chicago still had … 435 (!!) murders last year. Most of them gunshot wounds, most of them in bad neighborhoods.

Really, the only thing that’s changed since the 1990s, best I can tell, is the destruction of most of the projects and the dispersal of people from high rises to other parts of the city and suburbs.

People are still getting shot, the west and south sides are still poor. If someone has the answers, they’ve kept it quiet.

I’m reading There Are No Children Here for the third or fourth time. I had to read it in high school, and I read it at least once more in college, and once in Wyoming I think.

As far as journalism goes, this book has been kind of a North Star for me. I read it before I knew I wanted to report. I’ve revisited the book for inspiration and if when I’ve been asked to identify a piece of journalism that best represents urban reporting, I mention this book.

There are more books. Always more books. But this one, even about two decades old, resonates.

The text is accessible to kids in middle and high school and brings to life a world foreign to many.

The details are not overbearing, and the author doesn’t preach.

So I’m rereading it because I cover crime overnights for my (day?) job. It’s not my job specifically, but just what it happens to often entail. (There are a couple other books I plan on reading in the near future to see if I can draw something from them for work - even if only a better understanding of the city’s history).

What gets me now is how little seems to have changed in the two decades since its release. What dogged this family — poverty, bad schools, proximity to drugs and gun violence, and gangs — are all major issues in Chicago.

(You could argue gangs aren’t quite as influential as they used to be, especially since a lot of the projects were demolished, but that’s another story).

Eight people shot and killed since Feb. 17. 18 this month. Seven people got shot in a single drive-by and an 15-year-old was shot a few minutes later in an unrelated shooting a few blocks away.

It’s not July, and the excuse of “it’s getting warm” is starting to get old. People are still wearing winter jackets.

So, what strikes me as new this time? Chicago is still plagued by the same problems, decades after someone exposed a decades old problem.

“How Wars End” should be required reading for high school students studying U.S. History, particularly the last century or so (which is a huge chunk, but I remember classes glossing over everything after the industrial revolution).

When I was in high school (a few years ago, it feels like), history was one of the few classes where students who didn’t otherwise engage in daily academic exchanges discussed current events, with zeal and passion.

This book could help start that conversation, I think. (It’s not a wonk-ish book - so it would work for anyone looking for a relatively quick primer on the last 100 years of American war).

In less than 300 pages the book does what school should: encourages critical thinking, examines major policies and defining moments from various angles, and wonderfully balances the often-competing goals of brevity and context. Someone could build a course around this.

The book’s premise is simple - a chapter for each major war that explains the reasons for getting in, what followed, and how (if at all) the lessons from the last war affected the conduct of the next one.

There are too many quotables to blog about. Many times I stopped to email myself a note - “blog about such and such.”

But two passages jumped out, both regarding Iraq (the first time - but both relevant to the second):

In Washington, the Bush administration was watching the situation with one eye. The United States had tilted toward Iraq in its war with Iran and then tried to entice Baghdad into better relations afterward. Saddam was seen as a ruler one could deal with. Sure, he invaded other countries, gassed thousands of his own citizens, and ran a totalitarian police state. But this was the Middle East, and one could not be picky. He kept the oil flowing, balanced Iran, bought American arms and grain, and was not a religious fanatic. Compared to the other Sunni strongmen throughout the region, he did not seem exceptional. “We had no illusions about the character of this man at all,” National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft would say later, “but we did not see him as necessarily having serious unrequited aggressive aims.” (Page 203)

And quoting Scowcroft why “taking out” Saddam wasn’t a goal in Iraq pt. 1:

“We would be committing ourselves - alone - to removing one regime and installing another, and, if the Iraqis themselves did not take matters into their own hands, we would be facing an indefinite occupation of a hostile state and some dubious “nation-building.” Realistically, if Saddam fell, it would not be a democracy emerging but another, perhaps less problematic, strongman.” (Page 218)