When I taught at the college level I enjoyed provoking students, even making them mad. Challenging their assertions and beliefs brightened my day. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. My apologies (not really). My intention in working on a Ph.D. (which, for complicated reasons, I didn’t complete) was Continue Reading
The Charm of the Grift: River City and Prof. Harold Hill
“The Music Man.” It opened on Broadway in 1957 and closed three years later after 1,375 performances. It won 5 Tony awards, including Best Musical, beating out “West Side Story” and “Most Happy Fella.” Its original cast album “won the first Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and spent Continue Reading
Reverse Racism? Really?
Reverse Racism. What a concept. It’s become a standard trope on the right. Were I to have coined such a phrase, it would have been “obverse racism,” since the idea of “reverse racism” resides in the idea that everything is a coin flip and has a single opposite. It derives Continue Reading
There Is Hope – Just Not Today
It bears repeating: the current occupant blathers on incessantly because he deeply needs attention. It doesn’t matter to him that he’s lying almost all the time. He does not have a belief system, just a visceral need to be noticed. He does have very efficient antennae for detecting what his Continue Reading
Facts? Logic? Irrelevant. They Foul Agendas.
One of my peeves is the use in public discourse of absurd logic. It’s made worse by confident, forceful presentation, as if that can cover it up. Last night I watched Christopher Rufo, a “conservative activist,” on the PBS NewsHour. He is, as was described, a key actor in the Continue Reading
Spring Bird Migration 2025 – Cook County
For local birding friends: On the Friday night/Saturday morning preceding our Saturday 4/26 Migration Bird Walk Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s BirdCast service (https://dashboard.birdcast.info) recorded a total of 100 birds flying over Cook County, Illinois, where I live. Despite that low total, we had a very good birding day at a Continue Reading
Chicago And Its Art: Just How Dumb Can A City Be?
I read with morbid interest this article from one of Philadelphia’s TV stations, thumping its city on the back for its public art collection: https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/entertainment/the-scene/philadelphia-best-street-art-usa-today/4120492/ It says, “The City of Brotherly Love has reclaimed its title as the nation’s Best City for Street Art in the USA TODAY 10 Best Continue Reading
Chicago’s Public Art: A Paean and a Lament
About 20 years ago I got interested in Chicago’s public art. There seemed to be a lot of it downtown. I wondered both about the art itself and the quantity of it. The sequence of events in my evolving interest in the topic is murky now. I looked for good Continue Reading
Assessing Cook County Judicial Candidates – A Brief History
Cook County Courthouse, Daley Center We lived in DuPage County in Illinois for twenty years. I was relatively active in politics during that time, I served as an election reconciliation judge in the county for years. In our time there, I don’t recall having especially noticed or much cared about Continue Reading
Cook County Judicial Candidates – November 2024 – Injustice Watch Information
I’ve waited extra time this cycle for authoritative assessments of Cook County judges running for retention, Our usual source, the Alliance of Bar Associations, has been very slow to publish their findings. I’m still waiting. That’s the source that “Vote for Judges” (https://www.voteforjudges.org/) uses, so they, too, have been hamstrung Continue Reading