[This is taken from a talk that I delivered on May 22, 2013 at my installation as a Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University]
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
The lesson of stories gone untold
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Steve Goodman is a doorway to my life and heart
[Adapted from Storied Stuff, published originally on March 16, 2022]
I bought this album used for $2.
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Steve Goodman album cover, 1971 |
I didn’t own a stereo until freshman year in college, when some of my high school buddies hitchhiked from Chicago to Grinnell to present me with one. My family had no stereo or record player, so growing up, I played no albums or 45s. I spent most of my time at home, watching TV with my parents. Otherwise, I listened to music on AM radio.
The stereo gift and the weekend sojourn to Grinnell were surprises rendered insignificant by the happenstance delivery method that accompanied the gift and my friends. The guy who picked up my hitchhiking buddies was Steve Goodman, for us one of the most exhilarating performers we hitched our wagons to. I'm told my buddies got into the car and Goodman asked where they were headed. They said Grinnell and he said, “What a coincidence, I'm playing at Grinnell tonight.”
The gig was in an intimate setting. At one point, Goodman said, “Apparently somebody here has a birthday. Why don't we give that person a chance for a request.” I asked for I'm My Own Grandpaw, a goofball song from the’40s that Goodman sang with relish.
The Goodman connection doesn't end there. When I met Margie--who would become my wife--our first date was to go to Milwaukee Summerfest because they were featuring Steve. We fell in love that day, of course.
At the time, I was working at WBBM Newsradio and was responsible a few months later for writing a year-ender about Goodman.
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Original script for WBBM Newsradio year ender |
If you play, and we hope you will, we’re providing the readers of Storied Stuff an exclusive hint and two teases. You’ll find I'm My Own Grandpaw in the country edition.
You can find five Goodman tunes buried in various editions. You might want to play to unearth them. It’s worth it. Where else would you find, “Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car, penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.” ?
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Jack Doppelt is an emeritus journalism prof who’s created a music lyrics game with his son.
Friday, May 2, 2025
Chicago's global immigrants: Beyond the American dream
At a time when Trump and his Hestafo agents are publicly reveling in rounding up and deporting immigrants and refugees with ruthless, indiscriminate "shock and awe" and taunting the courts to do something about it, according to Politico, it might help to recall the countless ways America's immigrants bring the US and the world profound benefits.
This story from 15 years ago reminds us of how the American dream can serve us all.
[Aired on WBEZ in Dec. 2009. Transcript published here]![]() |
Official portrait, 1998 |
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Historical national flag of Lithuania |
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Pitroda at the India Economic Summit 2009 |
[Update as of May 2, 2025:
Valdas Adamkus is 98 years old and lives in Vilnius. He served as Lithuania’s president for two terms: 1998–2003 and 2004–2009.Sam Pitroda's book, The Idea of Democracy, was published in April 2024. He lives in Villa Park, outside Chicago, is considered one of the leading advocates of bridging the digital divide, is currently chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, and is a regular contributor on social media.Zelalem Gebre now lives in Atlanta, is a cybersecurity engineer and runs his own cybersecurity company Tech Shield Solutions.Maricela Garcia is CEO of Gads Hill Center, former Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and founding Executive Director of the Latino Policy Forum.
Saturday, April 12, 2025
Haggadah Reflections on Resistance
The Biblical saga of Passover tends to gloss over the resistance to which the Israelites must have resorted to endure slavery. We tell of Aaron being dispatched to demand of Pharoah that he let the people go. Pharoah refuses and doubles down on his reign of terror against the Israelites. The Israelites resist, we’re told, and are not released from bondage until a series of ten plagues befalls the Egyptians.
Were the Israelites the only slaves? What did the Israelites do to resist? Did resistance intensify Pharoah’s reign of terror? Was the terror targeted or did it indiscriminately punish all Israelites?
We learn of Jochebed, Moses’ mother, who places her infant in a basket in the Nile River to evade Pharaoh's decree to kill Israelite baby boys. Moses is found by Pharaoh's daughter and raised as her own. She knows he’s an Israelite and even lets Jochebed nurse him. Is she knowingly providing him sanctuary?
As Moses grows up, we’re told that one day on a stroll from Pharaoh’s palace, Moses sees an Egyptian striking a slave. He rescues the slave and kills the Egyptian. Was Moses immune from punishment because he was family, or had he taken a huge risk?
As we know, the world has not seen the end of slaves and oppressors. More than a thousand years later, during the Roman empire, there was a slave revolt. Spartacus was a gladiator and an escaped slave. In the movie Spartacus, there’s a memorable scene. The slaves are captured. They’re sitting en masse on a hill. The emperor sends word, “Your lives will be spared. Slaves you were and slaves you remain. The penalty of crucifixion has been set aside on the single condition that you identify the body or the living person named Spartacus. As Spartacus begins to rise and turn himself in, the two fellow slaves chained to him notice, rise with him, and announce together, “I’m Spartacus.” One by one, all the slaves confess. “I’m Spartacus" resonates throughout the valley.
Are they all slaughtered? ________________________________
Pesach Has Come to the Ghetto Again
(by Binem Heller, Warsaw, April 19, 1943)
Pesach has come to the Ghetto again.
The wine has no grape, the matzah no grain,
But the people anew sing the wonders of old,
The flight from the Pharoahs, so often retold.
How ancient the story, how old the refrain!
The windows are shuttered. The doors are concealed.
The Seder goes on. And fiction and fact
Are confused into one. Which is myth? Which is real?
"Come all who are hungry!" invites the Haggadah.
The helpless, the aged, lie starving in fear.
"Come all who are hungry!
And children sleep, famished.
"Come all who are hungry!" and tables are bare.
Pesach has come to the Ghetto again,
And shuffling shadows shift stealthily through,
Like convert-marranos in rack-ridden Spain
Seeking retreat with the God of the Jews.
But these are the shards, the shattered remains
Of the "sixty ten-thousands" whom Moses led out
Of their bondage…driven to ghettos again…
Where dying's permitted but protest is not.
From Holland, from Poland, from all Europe's soil,
Becrippled and beaten the remnant has come.
And there they sit weeping, plundered, despoiled,
And each fifty families has dwindled to one.
Pesach has come to the Ghetto again.
The lore-laden words of the Seder are said,
And the cup of the Prophet Elijah awaits,
But the Angel of Death has intruded instead.
As always -- the German snarls his command.
As always -- the words sharpened-up and precise.
As always -- the fate of more Jews in his hands:
Who shall live, who shall die, this Passover night.
But no more will the Jews to the slaughter be led.
The truculent jibes of the Nazis are past.
And the lintels and doorposts tonight will be red
With the blood of free Jews who will fight to the last.
Pesach has come to the Ghetto again.
And neighbor to neighbor the battle-pledge gives
The blood of the German will flow in the Ghetto
So long as one Jew in the Ghetto still lives!
In the face of the Nazi -- no fear, no subjection!
In the face of the Nazi -- no weeping, no wincing!
Only the hatred, the wild satisfaction
Of standing against him and madly resisting.
Listen! How Death walks abroad in the fury!
Listen! How bullets lament in the flight!
See how our History writes END to the story,
With death heroic, this Passover night!
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Saturday, March 29, 2025
At Trump’s Zoo
Someone tweets that it's all happening at his zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it's true
It's a dark and trembling journey
From Mara Lago to DC
Just a firm and fascist ramble
To Trump’s zoo
People disappear from street to bus
If it's raining or it's cold
And ICE will love it when they do
As they do, now
Somethin' tells me it's all happening at Trump’s zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it's true
His monkeys have no honesty
Lawmakers insincere
GOP elephants are cowards and they're dumb
Orange guy acts sadistically
With changes from his rages
And the defense guy is very fond of rum
The zealots are reactionary
All hell bent as missionaries
War hawks plot with no secrecy
And Musk turns out workers mercilessly
What a mess, can’t believe what you see
At Trump’s zoo
At the zoo
At Trump’s zoo
At the zoo
At Trump’s zoo
At the zoo
At Trump’s zoo
At the zoo
https://www.doppeltlines.com/simon-answer-8.html
Song parodist: Jack Doppelt with enduring thanks to Paul Simon
Friday, February 28, 2025
Read their lips, tweets and releases: If you’re not a U.S. citizen, you’re probably an illegal immigrant and deportable
The other day, on Feb. 25, Kristi Noem, Trump’s head of the Hestafo (Homeland Security Task Forces), tried to make things as clear as possible.
If you’re not a citizen, you’re probably an illegal immigrant and deportable.
Don’t take my words for it, though I tried to make that known a month ago after 12 Senate Democrats collaborated with the Republican consensus to enact the Laken Riley Act, which along with Trump’s Executive Order Protecting the American People from Invasion signed nine days earlier meant that almost all aliens, including green card holders (lawful permanent residents), asylum seekers, refugees, even some students on F1 visas are illegal, according to Trump and Hestafo.
I wrote then that it “can matter in nefarious and intended ways.”
Time to notice now and read Noem’s words. Warning: Watch out for slick double speak. Here’s her announcement:
Please take the time to note that the release opens with the familiar undesirables - “illegal aliens,” who go hand in hand with criminals, like those spelled out in the Laken Riley Act, “who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting” or those now called out on ICE’s official X account as “THE WORST FIRST.”Saturday, February 1, 2025
ICE and Hestafo arrest tracker here [updated as of April 25, 2025]
Resistance to deliberate dehumanization
ICE frees mother and three kids after protests in US ‘border czar’s’ home town: About a thousand people marched outside of Tom Homan’s home in village of less than 1,500 after family was detained-April 5, 2025-The Guardian
Federal immigration authorities have a history of wrongfully detaining U.S. citizens. Advocates warn that the Trump administration’s immigration policies mean that more citizens will get caught up in raids and sweeps-March 18, 2025-ProPublica
ICE, and Hestafo should stick with deporting criminals. Stop making immigrants we all know into illegals by including lawful permanent residents, asylum seekers, refugees, even some students on F1 visas if they’ve failed to register as aliens or failed to carry registration cards.
Stop running the country like a junta, ignoring judicial orders and dehumanizing people to stoke anger.
'We’re not stopping': Trump border czar vows deportations to continue despite court orders-USA Today-March 17, 2025
If people are arrested and disappear into a system and detention centers without notice or hearings, mixed in with dangerous “worst, first” criminals and dispatched to who knows where (not the families), that’s the price of demagoguery. It comes in the following forms in the following locations. This is only two days worth and Trump is apoplectic that the roundups aren’t going faster:
New Hampshire-German man with green card ‘violently interrogated’ by US border officials: Berlin checking if US immigration policy has changed after Fabian Schmidt becomes third German to be detained-March 18, 2025-The Guardian.
New Mexico-Lawyers and advocates say 48 people are unaccounted for after ICE raid in New Mexico-March 17, 2025-NBC Real Change News
Midwest-Families impacted by ICE raids denounce Trump administration’s arrests, file emergency motion-March 18, 2025-Chicago Tribune
Going, going, gone. Not a criminal among them.
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Trump administration deports hundreds of immigrants
even as a judge orders their removals be stopped
Georgetown University researcher detained by immigration authorities, lawyer says…:
Indian national Badar Khan Suri was detained outside his Virginia home for spreading “Hamas propaganda,” DHS said. His lawyer said he was innocent-March 19-Washington Post
German man with green card ‘violently interrogated’ by US border officials: Berlin checking if US immigration policy has changed after Fabian Schmidt becomes third German to be detained-March 18, 2025-The Guardian
Families impacted by ICE raids denounce Trump administration’s arrests, file emergency motion-March 18, 2025-Chicago Tribune
White House pressures ICE to pick up pace of migrant arrests, sources say, according to CNN, Feb. 7, 2025
Some migrants arrested in Trump's immigration crackdown have been released back into the U.S.: Space constraints and court orders have led ICE to release migrants on monitoring programs after they’re arrested, according to NBC News, Feb. 3, 2025
-April 5-WWNY
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