PEOPLE of the DECADE

In the Worlds of Culture, Religion, and Science

POPULAR CULTURE
Entertainer of the Decade. Dominated by child-centric cinema, repurposed music, and the oxymoronic reality television, the decade in pop culture was characterized by style in search of substance, drama in search of meaning, talk in search of real dialogue.

No, wait—there was no searching going on. So the natural choice for Entertainer of the Decade is the person who embodies everything about the decade, meaning nothing at all: Ryan Seacrest. Don’t know who Ryan Seacrest is? No one truly knows who, or what he is. He is a “personality.” He is everywhere and nowhere, and has no physical body.

Athlete of the Decade. He’s a baseball player. And check out these average yearly numbers for the ten seasons this decade:

28 HR, 68 RBI, .268 Batting Average

If you’re not impressed, consider the circumstances. He was part of a generation of stars who emerged in baseball in the late 1980’s that included names like Clemens, Bonds, and Sosa. He was considered the best in baseball in the 1990’s, but his stature diminished in the past decade, eclipsed by those names. Age and injuries slowed him, and while the others used steroids to artificially counteract those forces, he chose to deal with them naturally (as far as we can tell). In a hypercompetitive sport obsessed with statistical records, Ken Griffey Jr. accepted being good, not great, in the last half of his career. And that’s what made him great.

RELIGION
Christian of the Decade (tie). This is based, of course, on which public figure most embodies the principles of Jesus. I choose a man who devoted most of adult life to prizing the least among us: the late, Judeo-atheist Studs Terkel. True, his was a life of words, while countless unnamed people acted Christ-like in deed. But at some point, Studs’ work became deeds themselves—the act of listening, the act of sharing the words of common people. He published five such books in this decade, all acts of love.
Shared with:
Osama bin Laden, for best carrying on the more ruthless traditions of Christianity, and for his uncanny resemblance to Jesus.

Muslim of the Decade. Islam means devotion to God in accordance with the teachings of the holy Koran. Therein we will find some recurring themes, like equality and restraint. A few quick quotes:

“An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action."

“You may fight in the cause of God against those who attack you, but do not aggress.”

“You may kill those who wage war against you, and you may evict them whence they evicted you.”

After giving the first-ever Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech advocating war, under the same conditions described above, Barack Obama sweeps in late to grab another honor, Muslim of the Decade.

SCIENCE
Environmentalist of the Decade. Being an environmentalist has nothing to do with beliefs or personal commitments to saving the earth. Supporting green causes no more makes you an environmentalist than joining PETA makes you a vegan. So this award goes a person you have seen often, a most public of public figures: the homeless man in your city. He doesn’t drive. He uses minimal gas & electricity. He recycles. He drinks domestic beverages. Us homed people better give a hell of a lot of money to Greenpeace if we want to make up the difference in carbon footprints between us and him.

Technologist of the Decade. I type these words on an antiquated system. It’s a computer, of course, but the interface of keyboard, mouse and screen already seem dated in the presence of a video game system called the Wii. The Wii is not just a translator of bodily motion into data, like a computer or other game console; rather, it integrates the body with the machine. Games have made the big leap forward. Sex and porn will follow, and then finally all communication and expression will occur with electronic devices completing the social circuitry of movements and vibrations of the body. This award could go to Ken'ichiro Ashida, a principal designer of the Wii. But I’m giving it to the Russian inventor Leon Theremin, whose musical instrument of the same last name is the technological godfather of the Wii. Death silenced Leon in 1997, but his lovely sounds reverberated through the decade.



What’s missing here? A sense of fairness led me to search for a Jew of the Decade, but I was stumped, and welcome nominations. The absence of women among the winners led me to try to shoehorn one in, but the best I could do was Hillary Clinton as Loser of the Decade. Again, I welcome suggestions.

Or just wait till 2020 rolls around. Have a great decade!

LIVING in PITTSBURGH: Christmas Tree Lot, Bloomfield

Each December in Pittsburgh we would buy a Christmas tree on a street corner in the neighborhood of Bloomfield. This time the guy didn’t have much of a selection, but he sent me to his boss’ lot, deep in another part of Bloomfield. I travel that evening down the main avenue, Liberty Ave., and look for ‘Xmas Trees’ signs to get there. There was one such sign on Liberty, and then you’re on your own, traveling down a narrow residential street till it ends at a ‘T’. To the left is darkness; to the right, a full block away, were a few lights. I headed that way, and on the edge of a steep valley was a fenced lot and abandoned garage that served as the Christmas tree store.

I picked out what-I-thought-was-a-gorgeous tree, at the very reasonable price of $25, and brought it home. Licia (Licia is my wife) hated it—the spaces between the branches, which I see as inviting depths to adorn with decorations, she saw as ugly gaping holes. Had her parents not been driving 1,000 miles from Kansas to spend the holiday with us, then maybe I would have been more stubborn, but I agreed to try to exchange the tree.

I stopped by the lot the next evening, without the tree, and asked The Guy about trading the tree. He said sure. So the following night, Licia, the kids and I strapped the tree back atop the station wagon, and headed down to the lot. The Guy was helping another couple at the time, but when they went off browsing for a tree, I greeted him, reminding him of our deal, and asked where I should unload the tree. Then it got weird.

“I’m with a customer. Come back later,” he said.
“But we just want to exchange the tree.”
“No, no, look, you want your money back? Here’s your money back.”
“No, we want a tree. In fact we’ll pay you extra for a bigger tree.”
“You want a tree? Go to Home Depot. They sell trees. What was it, twenty dollars? Here’s twenty dollars.”
I think I stopped arguing with him at that point, and took the money that we didn’t want. We figured that he didn’t want the other customer seeing him exchange a tree, as they would think it’s policy. Perhaps he thought other families were as contentious as ours.

We did end up going to Home Depot, the national mega-store, and spending our money there instead of at the Little Tree Store That Wouldn’t.

LIVING in PITTSBURGH: Giant Eagle, Lawrenceville

On Tuesday, having left a party in the ever-up-and-coming neighborhood of Lawrenceville, Will stopped at the Giant Eagle (aka Giant Beagle, aka Giant Ego) store there. This particular store is noteworthy for the vast, pocked blacktop parking lot preceding the building as well as its clientele and staff, many of whom rotate between those two groups and all of whom hail from “Old Lawrenceville”—not the self-proclaimed “urban pioneers” or artistic colonists, but those who grew up in the Ninth or even the Tenth Ward.

When Will finds himself in Lawrenceville, he often stops in at this store to buy some Stauffer’s brand Ginger Snap cookies. They’re the only store-bought cookies necessary, Will believes. On this evening he brought three bags of the cookies—priced at the same $1.99 that they were three years before, when the Household was located in Lawrenceville—to the checkout counter. The young female caucasian cashier scanned one bag three times—but only after she had already scanned the other two. Will isn’t sure about that, but thinks that is what happened. The young lady almost instantly detected her error, and after a short pause, went about to rescind the overcharge by pressing a key on the register and scanning the item again. And again, and again, and again. This resulted in a total of $3.98, which she verbalized to Will.

Will is neither the most honest, nor the most dishonest of people. When he is undercharged in everyday commerce, he often detects it, thinks “It’s my lucky day!” and walks away with the extra cash. A countervailing impulse, however, sometimes wins the day, and he will at those times coolly but proudly point out the error. Simple decency and a vague belief in karma is behind that impulse. This evening was one of the honest ones for Will, and he informed the cashier that he should be charged more.

The cashier paused, her static eyes betraying a calculating mind. Then without a word she grabbed one of the bags and scanned its bar code again. Struck with resentment that I pointed out the error, she completed the transaction wordlessly, and moves on to the next customer.

LIVING in PITTSBURGH: Shur Save, Bloomfield

(by L, my wife) I need corndogs. I thought I would zip in and out of Shur Save in Bloomfield. But, no, the corndogs are nowhere to be found. Neither are any employees, so I find myself standing in line at the deli counter, waiting to ask the only employee in sight, the face-tattooed deli worker. The customer ahead of me orders a slab of unsliced ham. Deli worker hands it to him and remarks, “Makin’ a salad, are ya?”