Author Archive

More friends gone too soon!

Posted: August 30, 2021 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

I never really understood why my father turned first to the obituary page in his later years.

Now I get it.

I have seen many friends die in the past few months, including four remarkable women who played significant roles in my youth. It’s worth noting that none died from COVID-19. Although I don’t have any proof, it’s conceivable that they couldn’t get the proper treatments because so much of the medical community focused on the pandemic and not other illnesses.

Lynn Langway served as my teacher at Northwestern University and helped me get a job at Newsweek. She worked Newsweek for more than a decade, rising to the level of senior editor. Later, she became executive editor of Ladies’ Home Journal. Although we kept in touch over the years, we parted company over the 2016 election. I’m sorry that politics stood between us upon her death. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnlangway/

Ann Bartsch, the wife of the best man at my wedding, was among the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University—an honor I also held from a far less competitive university. Ann attended law school at the University of Chicago, where he met Doug Blomgren, my roommate in Chicago. 

Ann worked mainly with low-income and elderly clients in Oregon, her home and where Doug also practiced law. She served as the chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Legal Services for the Poor. See her obituary here.

I wrote about two others who died recently in my 2011 book, Flyover Country, which chronicled the lives of my high school class, which graduated in 1969 from Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Barbara Sidlo Hughes was my first girlfriend. We dated in our sophomore year, but she tired of my endless weekends on the road with my rock ‘n’ roll band. 

Upon graduation from Drake University, Barbara became a flight attendant for TWA, where she met her husband, Don. Eventually, the couple and their children moved to California, where she cared for her daughter, whose health issues kept her in a wheelchair much of the time. When her daughter was able to attend college, Barbara started teaching elementary school, where she helped students—many the sons and daughters of immigrants–for more than 20 years. See her obituary here.

Mary Hrdy Kaczmarek was my second girlfriend. We dated in our senior year and later at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. We broke up after two years—a parting that angered Mary for many years. Alas, that divide never narrowed, and I blame myself that we never reconciled. 

She met her husband Norman, a physician, in Danville, Pennsylvania, which ironically is about a 30-minute drive from where I now live. 

Mary first worked as a medical social worker, then helped establish and manage her husband’s medical practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico. See her obituary here.

All of these talented women are gone far too soon! 

The ‘time tax’ of Social Security

Posted: August 24, 2021 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Over the past few months, I have tried and failed to get a check from Social Security, a system I’ve paid into for 52 years.

It’s rare that I agree with The Atlantic, but a story in the magazine caught my attention. In a recent edition, writer Annie Lowrey described the “time tax” of the federal bureaucracy that angers and exhausts many Americans. See https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/07/how-government-learned-waste-your-time-tax/619568/

“Government programs exist. People have to navigate those programs. That is how it goes. But at some point, I started thinking about these kinds of administrative burdens as the ‘time tax’—a levy of paperwork, aggravation, and mental effort imposed on citizens in exchange for benefits that putatively exist to help them. This time tax is a public-policy cancer, mediating every American’s relationship with the government and wasting countless precious hours of people’s time.

“The issue is not that modern life comes with paperwork hassles. The issue is that American benefit programs are, as a whole, difficult and sometimes impossible for everyday citizens to use. Our public policy is crafted from red tape, entangling millions of people.”

I’m one of those entangled in that red tape. 

As I neared 70, I decided it was time to ask for my check. I tried to fill out the lengthy questionnaire on the website at ssa.gov. The questionnaire refused to accept my wife’s birthdate.

Therefore, I had to schedule a telephone appointment. The next available one was in two months. 

I spoke with a friendly fellow in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and I felt good about the conversation except that he told me I had to provide a marriage certificate.

Couldn’t he check with the IRS, where my wife and I had filed a joint tax return since 1979?

Nope, he told me. I had to get one from Chicago, where we were married. Knowing that Chicago is far from the most efficient city government these days, I momentarily wished for the days of Richard J. Daley.

The Cook County office, where Chicago is situated, told me it would take as long as 90 days and cost about $50. Fortunately, it took only about a month. 

I sent the document to my Social Security adviser, and all seemed to be going well until I didn’t get my check in mid-August as expected.

After several messages, I finally got a return call from my adviser. No one else could help me.

Alas, he told me, there was a problem with my application. I would have to start the process again. That process is expected to take two to four months. 

I guess I am a prime example of the “time tax” in inaction.  

-30-

Posted: August 17, 2021 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths
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By Christopher Harper

When I joined the Associated Press in Chicago, “-30-“ signaled the end of a story. Depending on the source, the designation apparently began in the Civil War as a typesetter’s code. In recent years, it has been the name of a movie starring Jack Webb and even the title of the final episode of The Wire.

After 50 years as a reporter and a journalism educator, I have decided to place a -30- on my career and hang up my green eyeshade, pica pole, and glue pot. I’ll retire on July 1, 2022.

I joined the academy after more than years in journalism at the AP; Newsweek in Chicago, Washington, and Beirut; and ABC News in Cairo, Rome, and New York.

A couple of years after I started in journalism at the Idaho Statesman in Boise, Watergate was reaching its crescendo, and I had an opportunity to do some reporting on the events that led to the resignation of Richard Nixon. After that, I covered the deaths at Jonestown, Guyana, the Iran hostage crisis, three wars, numerous terrorist attacks, and several investigations into major corporations, such as Federal Express.

When I started in the academy in 1994 at New York University, the internet played virtually no role in journalism. The internet had virtually no penetration until AOL marketed its service. People reached the internet via what was called a “handshake,” a ka-chunk-chunk sound that screeched through telephone lines.

A few years later, I wrote a book that looked at the future of online journalism. Few journalism educators and working editors paid much attention to the implications of the internet, although I was able to teach some of the first classes in multimedia design and journalism at New York University, Ithaca College, and Temple University. At the latter, I helped start a journalism website in 2007, www.philadelphianeighborhoods.com, which reported on low-income and minority locales that got little positive attention in the mainstream media.

Today, however, the state of journalism and journalism education are far less rosy than in my days as a reporter and my days as a teacher.

First, most people don’t trust journalists anymore. Reporters have always been nosy sorts and not well-loved. But many people saw a role for journalists to keep tabs on government actions.

The reappearance of the partisan press, particularly during the Trump years, has left many with a negative view of what the media do.

I don’t see much journalism can do about the lack of trust. I think the only possibility is to emphasize accuracy above all else—as well as to incorporate as many voices as possible into the debate about the country’s future. Even so, the media are so badly broken that I’m not sure that any new bridges can be built between journalism and its public.

Second, the media failed to respond to the massive intrusion of the tech companies—Google, Facebook, and others—into the news business. Again, it may be too late to force these companies to pay for the news and information that should be a violation of copyright. But the media companies have failed to press their case in the courts.

Third, although some of my students have gone on to excellent careers in places like ESPN, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and various local news organizations, the number of people interested in journalism has plummeted.

When I started at Temple in 2005, more than 800 students majored in journalism. Today, that number is roughly half. I can’t say I blame students who face limited job prospects and mediocre salaries. But no one ever went into journalism to become wealthy.

Moreover, the number of educators who practiced journalism for more than a few years has been declining dramatically over the past decade or so. As a result, students learn more about social issues than storytelling.

I’m thankful of all the opportunities I’ve had to travel the world on the bank accounts of news organizations and universities and the ability to witness important events throughout the world. But as I mosey off into the sunset, I wish I could be more optimistic about the craft I plied for more than 50 years. Alas, I cannot.

A proud slice of Americana

Posted: August 10, 2021 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Vietnam veteran Bill Poulton stood on the bandstand erected on his farm in Muncy, Pennsylvania, and asked the several hundred spectators to stand.  

With almost military precision, the assembled crowd rose, placed their hands over their hearts, looked upward to the American flag nearby, and said the pledge of allegiance. 

I hadn’t seen such a display of unity and patriotism in many years. It was a striking reminder that my wife and I had chosen well when we decided to leave the woke environment of Philadelphia and move to Muncy, a town of 2,500 people in central Pennsylvania. 

After the pledge, the crowd settled back into their lawn chairs to listen to The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra perform a collection of old American tunes from around the turn of the 20th century.  

Nearby, Boy Scouts sold hot dogs to raise money for their troop, and the Muncy High School band and choir offered burgers at another stand. The Muncy Historical Society provided free popcorn. 

“It was a slice of Americana,” one of the organizers told us. Norman Rockwell couldn’t have put it any better, and the scene just a few blocks away from our home was reminiscent of a Rockwell drawing.  

Rick Benjamin, the orchestra leader, provided background about each of the songs, including tunes from Scott Joplin, John Philip Sousa, and some lesser-known composers. Our neighbor, talented soprano Bernadette Boerckel, sang some of the selections, such as “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” by Gus Edwards. She led the crowd in a rendition of The Pan Alley Song Medley, which included “The Sidewalks of New York,” “Sweet Rosie O’Grady,” “A Bicycle Built for Two,” and “The Band Played On.” Muncy Ragtime Band 

As twilight merged into nighttime, the orchestra erupted into an encore by John Philip Sousa, “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”  

On a cloudy, summer evening, this verse seemed particularly appropriate: 

“Let eagle shriek from lofty peak 
The never-ending watchword of our land; 
Let summer breeze waft through the trees 
The echo of the chorus grand. 
Sing out for liberty and light, 
Sing out for freedom and the right. 
Sing out for Union and its might, 
O patriotic sons.” 

And I didn’t see anyone wearing a bleeping mask! 

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