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A Salmon Story

From the archives:

Oct 5, 2017

In an attempt to break myself of my Whole Foods habits and start living like the I’m-not-working-a-corporate-job-anymore filmmaker I actually am, I walked into ALDI the other day. I have experienced this in the past: if you set your expectations of ALDI very low, you are going to be really pleasantly surprised.

The first aisle is the best. Delicious dark chocolate, organic gluten-free crackers, chia seeds at a really good price. This is not the depressed-looking ALDI you remember from your youth. So, emboldened by all this “organic” goodness, you make your way into the next aisle. Organic plain yogurt for $2.99. Yes, it's a brand you've never heard of, but that's ok, it's organic. Next aisle: it's more than just groceries. If you are in the market for a super sturdy, cleverly-designed, padded stadium chair, you can get it for $9.99. You skip the meat aisle because...hey, let's not get carried away in this not-Whole-Foods wilderness area.

But somehow frozen fish makes the cut of items whose origin you are willing to feign ignorance about. You stop to peruse the frozen salmon. There are two that look identical. 16 oz. of wild caught pink salmon with the word "sustainable" splashed all over it. One costs $9.99 and the other, a handsomely-designed brand called "Sea Queen," only $3.80. You investigate SQ, thinking "this is too good to be true." A voice in your head reminds you that with no other evidence to weigh, there's still probably a good reason to pay the $9.99. You get what you pay for. But hey, broke-ass filmmaker, think about that credit card bill. It gets paid off one salmon fillet at a time. So you go for it and grab Sea Queen. You walk out of the store with a skip in your step. You send a text to your bff, who is much better at price-conscious grocery shopping than you, to crow about your success. You rave about ALDI to your sister-in-law later in the day.

Next day: Parents are coming over for dinner. You think about what they might enjoy, think about running out to store to get some interesting items, but then think: if there's a way to make this meal with what you already have at home, it'll save you $15. The menu is on the adventurous side for them, but they’ll be up for it. Coconut rice, kale sauteed with ginger and garlic, and your Sea Queen salmon, slathered in a mustard/brown sugar/ginger glaze and broiled. As the P's sit at your kitchen table, chatting with you while you finish cooking, you open the Sea Queen and have a moment of panic as these fillets start to look like the $3.80 fillets they are. They're not super-gorgeous, plump, and pink, like the ones you might have spent four times as much on at Whole Foods. So, you confess to the mater and pater that you're not so sure about this salmon. Mom goes to her worry place, assuming you mean it's out of date. How old is it?! No, that's not the problem, you reassure her. It's just that...it didn't cost very much. They kind of shrug, probably wishing you hadn't said anything, but they take it in stride. Now you're all in it together.

You're pleasantly surprised. Once cooked, this salmon tastes fine. Dad's only hesitation before he eventually announces that he likes the meal has more to do with the gingery-kale-coconut themes, which are a bit outside of his comfort zone. Salmon consumed, embarrassment averted, stomachs satiated. A handful of laughs and stories later, you bid them farewell.

And then, you sit down on your couch and open Facebook. A journalist friend has posted an article that jumps off the screen at you.

NKorean workers prep seafood going to US stores, restaurants

Forced labor

North Koreans work in horrible conditions in China

Package fish

Send wages back to Supreme Leader

Sold in ALDI and Walmart

 

SEA QUEEN

Nooooooo!!!!!!!!! The picture of the packaging confirms it. The Associated Press has called you out on your short-cut consumerism, while that salmon is still in the second stage of digestion in your own stomach. What once tasted “fine” now tastes like despotism and slavery. You alert the parents. They are horrified. You are all complicit.

[Some good jokes do come out it. Dad: Does this mean North Korea now has my social security number? No, you say, probably just your DNA. Mom: See, that's why I'm never getting my DNA tested by ancestry.com—you never know who will get their hands on it.]

But this is not a joking matter!

 

Damn you, ALDI and your evil temptations!

Damn you, Whole Foods. Look what you drove a working girl to do!

Damn you, Jeff Bezos, you cause me so many mixed feelings! How is it possible to be responsible for the 8th wonder of the world, David Fahrenthold, and the amazing Washington Post, and also have every city in the country by the balls with the prospect of your big deal HQ2 which is probably just going to cause further income inequality wherever it lands?

It's your fault!

It's Trump's fault!

IT’S. NOT. MY. FAULT!

 

You breathe. You thank the Facebook poster of the AP article for alerting you to this injustice. You go to sleep and wake up the next morning and realize that you had the wisdom inside of you all along. You chose not to listen to it. You get what you pay for. When you don’t pay for your salmon, someone else does. Next time, broke-ass filmmaker, get yourself a can of black beans.

Adios Facebook!

This is coming--not sure how soon--but it's a matter of days. Just ironing out a few details of the divorce agreement. Hard to believe it's been over 3 years since I blogged here (especially given last post, a broken promise to self), but I'm going to try to come here instead of the FB. Stay tuned...there may be a new URL.

Chi-lympics 2016: let's discuss

A few facts before beginning this discussion:

I am a big Olympics fan. I watched almost every Michael Phelps race. I still get chills when I think about Apolo Anton Ohno's short-track prowess. And when my bank asked for the name of my favorite athlete in a long list of security questions for online access, my answer was Mary Lou Retton.

I work in an industry (tv and film) that theoretically stands to benefit from the Olympics coming to Chicago. Friends and family members who work in architecture, retail, and real estate also stand to benefit.

I admit that I tend to default to a moderately anti-establishment and anti-Daley position when I am too lazy to research the facts. That means I'm probably pre-disposed to be opposed to government-subsidized mega-sporting-events and stadiums. I might like the Olympics, but I'm not really booster-club material (my great love and affection for Buddy Garrity notwithstanding).

So despite my love for the Olympics and the potential personal financial gain, and in part owing to the aforementioned bias, I read Tom Tresser's recent article on the Chi-lympics in the Huffington Post with great interest. I was leaning anti-Olympics, but needed more facts. 

Moving beyond 140 characters

Facebook and, more recently, Twitter have been satisfying modes of self-expression for me for a little while. 140 characters is a very low-commitment writing exercise and the built-in audience (far bigger than I’ve ever enjoyed here) is sure appealing. But, it has it limits and I’m going to try to devote some time to blogging again. (A blog! seems almost archaic in these days of social-networking-gluttony.)

Possible topics to be written on here:

• Olympics 2016 in Chicago: pretty sure this is a B-A-D idea.
• Detox 2009 in mi casa: how and why certain items have gotten the boot from my diet...for now
• Full Frame Doc Fest in Durham, NC: films I plan to see, do see, have seen and what i think and thought of them
• The bike ride I plan to take while in Durham
• Searching for the next icon of political hope in Illinois: is there salvation out there?
• A post-mortem on Season 3 of the FNL gang: Riggins, Lyla, Coach, Saracen et al. Can I figure out how to express why this crew makes me so happy?

Chime in if you’d like to hear more about any of these in particular. See you around...

Eight hours on a summer Friday

My three-year-old niece kicks before she falls asleep. She kicks her way into her relaxed sleepy state. And then she's gone. And happy. I've been kicking my way into a relaxed summer state. Resisting it in some way. Not finding anything familiar or recognizable about it. This Friday,I finally recognized it and fell...into it.

3:07 pm--A sweaty bike ride downtown was marked by:

Lincoln Avenue driving civility

a kind of wobbly bottom bracket

a glance at a bank thermometer: 85 degrees

a bike rack with my name on it the STATE OF ILLINOIS BUILDING*

Falafel shop signage

Wilson and Magnolia, Uptown, Chicago

Also in the excellent signage category, but with no photo to illustrate: A block club sign on the West Side that had a list of don'ts. "No drugs. No Loitering. No Littering." And then there were a few items that had sub-points to further explain.

No gang activity
--no cussing
--no threatening behavior

The design and grammar of the sign would have you believe that gang activity consists primarily of cussing and threatening behavior. I think Lester Freamon would disagree.

Reunion: feet and pavement

I never thought I'd be so happy as to just feel pavement directly under my feet. Ice has been keeping us apart—me and pavement. And after last week's big melt, the soles of my shoes and the cold concrete are enjoying a beautiful reunion. They get along quite well. I remembered this last week in Minnesota, where the snow removal team on the campus of Carleton College gets an A+++. Though Minnesota is a cold and snowy place, pedestrians there rarely have to deal with ice as an intermediary for very long. It makes for a totally different winter experience. That is, until one tries to walk down the hill on First Street, past Love House and Crack House.* Nothing has changed there in the last ten years, as the ice on the sidewalk makes for a treacherous ascent or descent. You're better off walking over to Second Street to get to Blue Mondays.

Getting out of the cab back in Chicago, both the cabbie and I nearly took a spill on some black ice on the sidewalk. But two days later the sun did us all a favor. I suppose this is the blessing of winter, to make us appreciate these little relationships that we take for granted in warmer weather. Now, each day my rubber hits the concrete, I will try to say, "Hello, my friend, nice to see you again."

*Update for ex-Northfielders: The St. Olaf German professor/slumlord that owns our beloved Love House and Crack House has apparently given up the battle of the names. After objecting in the mid-90s to the fact that the houses were commonly referred to by names that he thought to be evocative of a brothel and a drug den, he posted signs on the houses with new official names—those of a couple legendary German professors from St. Olaf. I was delighted to see that these have been replaced with prominent LOVE HOUSE and CRACK HOUSE signs. It's like the song from the Fantasticks: "Why did the kids pour jam on the cat?/Raspberry jam all over the cat?/Why should the kids do something like that,/When all that we said was no?"

Indy-media and election coverage

Now that I've brought up Election Day, I'll go ahead and point you to a little article I wrote about the experience of covering the 2004 election as part of the independent media. It's part of a week-long forum on the Free Press Action Network, "Media Coverage and the 2008 Elections." You can join the forum and post any thoughts you might have on this topic yourself.

Best post-Super Tuesday quote

From Andrea Bernstein on WNYC—New York Public Radio, in regards to the the big Latino vote for Hill in Cali:

"Hillary Clinton should really be saying muchas gracias today."

It's all in the (invisible) pen: tales from a Chicago precinct

I have long been an advocate of optical-scan ballots. They've got a good track record and hold up well in both the transparency and mechanical function categories. However, yesterday was actually my first time voting on an optical scan ballot. The most notable part of the experience was the fancy, expensive-looking pen they gave me to vote with. I am kicking myself that I didn't get a picture, but found this close cousin online. It's what I would call an "artist's pen," at least that's what Faber-Castell names the pen pictured here. I venture that on the open market they cost at least a $1.50 a piece. I presume that the Chicago Board of Elections gets a deal on them.

The ballot is filled in by connecting the gaps in a black bar to the right of the candidate of your choice. Then you take your ballot to the counter, where you feed it in and make sure that it works. I almost walked off with my fancy pen, but realized on my way out the door and backtracked to return it. The election judges were most grateful for my honesty. I have to imagine they lost quite a few pens over the course of the day, either by accident or theft.

So I was starting to wonder how important it was to vote with this particular type of expensive pen, when I came across the following incredible tale of one voter's crazy adventures in election-pen land. This Chicago voter's fancy pen didn't work and she and others were told by the election judge that it was actually an INVISIBLE PEN and that the machine would be able to read it. The Tribune had this report:

Apparently, said city election board spokesman James Allen, the poll workers told incredulous voters—including one spouse of an election judge—that the stylus used for touch-screen voting was actually an inkless pen to fill out paper ballots.

"You spend months trying to prepare for every contingency," Allen said. "Trying to anticipate every possible way people might be confused . . . then this? Incredible."

Even the ballot scanning machine knew better, he said, rejecting all 20 ballots as blank.

"Each time, the judges overrode the scanner and recorded the vote," he said.

By 3 p.m., only five of the 20 voters had been contacted to return to recast their votes.

As Chicago blogger Brad Flora points out:

This incident demonstrates a more fundamental problem facing proponents of electronic voting, one that no engineer or computer science wiz can solve: poorly trained polling officials.

And as with many problems at the polls, the devil is in the details and one is never certain of the exact combination of incompetence and malintent at play in any given situation. Here, I cannot resist the shamless plug for Election Day, the documentary I produced about a dozen voters and pollworkers around the country on November 2, 2004. Our footage highlighted the human element in the voting process, which can do much good (passionate individuals whose committed actions make our democracy tick) and much harm (ala invisible pen, mischievous political machinery, overwhelmed bureaucracies, etc.).

At the end of the day, at least one voter at said precinct voted successfully with a ballpoint pen, begging the question of whether or not the fancy felt-tips were necessary and whether the money might have been better spent on an extra hour of pollworker training. I'll leave you with this picture of me, happy as a clam to be casting my vote, with my very fancy pen.