Recent Comments
Re: “My vote—public knowledge”
It wasn't that simple. They scattered the two precincts that used to vote at Courtenay. One was sent north to Ravenswood Elementary. The other was sent south, across Irving Park Road, to Resurrection Covenant. Mea culpa would have made a fine title for my blog. I've voted at Courtenay for probably the last 20 years and didn't give a thought to the possibility it might not be that way forever. I did think, however, as I was traipsing around looking for my precinct, that if this were a swing state I'd have had volunteers ringing my doorbell for the previous week exclaiming the change, offering to walk the new route with me so I'd get the hang of it, and promising to send a car around Tuesday if I thought I needed it.
Re: “My vote—public knowledge”
Henry,
I need to be clear about this. Churches pay real estate taxes on their basements though not their sanctuaries?
Re: “A statement by Rahm means high noon for Prentice”
What was Louis Sullivan's *truly* iconic building -- the Auditorium? The Wainwright Building in St. Louis? There was a time when Chicago thought it was OK to tear down everything else by Sullivan, and woke up to the fact that possibly it wasn't after tearing down one noniconic building too many (the Old Stock Exchange building). Should no Mies building feel safe but the Seagram's in New York? Prentice is neither *truly* iconic nor a crappy copy. It's problematic and unlike any other building in Chicago. It functioned fine for years. Only Northwestern says it has no present function, but Northwestern was looking for something it didn't want to find.
Re: “On criminalizing a failure to communicate”
Something's comment is off-point but accurate. A 6.3 quake should not have caused so much damage.
Re: “Obama versus the GOP—why isn't it on the fight card?”
My last thought on the question I raised in the blog post is that Obama and his strategists fear that running against the GOP crazies would galvanize those crazies, many of whom at the moment are barely lifting a finger for Romney because they're so sure he isn't one of them. Haters want to feel hated, and if Obama started ripping them they'd come alive. It might be for analogous reasons progressives are tempted not to vote for Obama. Why settle for a president who disappoints you when you can help elect one who despises you, thinks of you as Satan's spawn, and will inspire you to the holy war you yearn to wage against somebody?
Re: “Obama versus the GOP—why isn't it on the fight card?”
I'm not so sure I'm mixing up anything. The rapist's sperm was the rapist's accomplice. Nothing innocent about the sperm. Then the sperm invaded the innocent host egg and took it over, much as alien spores enter and occupy unknowing humans in the best B scifi movies. At what point did it become innocent?
Re: “You Were Never in Chicago: Neil Steinberg comes of age”
To Neil Elliott. I wouldn't show it to you. That would be up to Steinberg. I'd show it to him. That said, I apparently do not have the email. It was on an old company computer now stored in our basement, in a format later abandoned by the Reader. Your comment prompted me to do now what I could have done before writing about Steinberg's book--bring the computer upstairs and turn it on. It turns out that thousands of emails in the old format can still be read on that computer--dozens of them from Steinberg--and I couldn't find the one the above column refers to. On the one hand, there are lots of nooks and crannies where it still might be hidden. On the other hand, I can't reassure you (or me) that I remember it correctly. Under the circumstances, trust Steinberg's memory ahead of mine. He's not likely to have forgotten what he was writing editorials about eight and nine years ago. Possibly I'm remembering a phone call. Possibly he referred to editorials I hadn't liked that were on subjects other than the war and I jumped to the wrong conclusion.