13 Replies to “Chicago”

1. McGehee says:

   October 4, 2008 at 7:13 pm

   That toddlin’ town, that toddlin’ town — somebody get it a walker!

2. The Sanity Inspector says:

   October 4, 2008 at 7:30 pm

   This is a great uninteresting place.
   — Matthew Arnold, letter to Miss Arnold, 23 January 1884

   I like it in spite of lake-wind sharpness and prairie
   flatness, damp tunnels, swinging bridges, hard water, and easy
   divorces…A lady from the East lately said of it, very charmingly,
   “It is New York with the heart left in.’
   — Grace Greenwood, _New Life in New Lands_, 1873

   Nelson Algren says living there is like being married to a
   woman with a broken nose: there may be lovelier lovelies, but never a
   lovely so real.
   — Stephen Fay, _Sunday Times_, 13 January 1980

   Satan: (impatiently), to new-comer: The trouble with you
   Chicago people is, that you think you are the best people down here;
   whereas you are merely the most numerous.
   — Mark Twain, “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar”, in _More
   Tramps Abroad_, 1897

   Chicago is as full of crooks as a saw with teeth.
   — John Gunther, _Inside U.S.A._, 1947

   Chicago is stupefying…an Olympian freak, a fable, an
   allegory, an incomprehensible phenomenon…monstrous, multifarous,
   unnatural, indomitable, puissant, preposterous, transcendent…throw
   the dictionary at it!
   — Julian Street, _Abroad at Home_, 1914

   So it goes on mile after mile–Chicago…It was like a
   prolonged, enlarded mingling of the south side of London with all that
   is bleak and ugly in the Black Country. It is the most perfect
   presentation of nineteenth century individualistic industrialism I
   have ever seen–in its vast, its magnificent squalor; it is pure
   nineteenth century; it had no past at all before that; in 1800 it was
   empty prairie, and one marvels for its future.
   — H. G. Wells, _The Future in America_, 1906

3. The Sanity Inspector says:

   October 4, 2008 at 7:39 pm

   A façade of skyscrapers facing a lake, and behind the façade every
   type of dubiousness.
   — E. M. Forster, in Mary Lago and P N Furbank eds _Selected Letters
   of E M Forster 1921-70_, 1984

4. Dread Cthulhu says:

   October 4, 2008 at 7:40 pm

   All these years and still not ready for reform.

5. TmjUtah says:

   October 4, 2008 at 8:09 pm

   If Obama doesn’t answer questions, he can’they called on contradictions, politically inpalatable realities, or the odd bald faced lie.

   It’s better for him all the way around to be more…well, he’s shooting for discrete but the truth is he’s got a media pass to run on platitudes and it has worked quite well for him so far.

   Kind of like voting “present”, dig?

   Think about it. The only media tension apparent in this entire campaign comes when Team McCain manages to get past the media, or when Obama/Biden blunder from behind it (the media)

   Today’s NYT asscover story for Ayers is remarkable only in its clumsiness. The insult implicit in the attempt fails to even register on the vast majority of the people targeted by the effort.

   The only class of professional that holds the American public in less esteem than even a third string Times writer is that of the professional politico.
   And those people, in spite of their arrogance, know their fortunes hang on the thread of people continuing to be oblivious… And most of the time, it’s been a safe bet.

   Obama’s not coming out. He’ll invoke the Fifth, on Joe’s advice.

   Damn I hate being so cynical. And right.

6. Jeffersonian says:

   October 4, 2008 at 9:46 pm

   And what he’s done for Chicago, he’s gonna do for America.

7. proudvastrightwingconspirator says:

   October 4, 2008 at 10:44 pm

   Chicago
   Corruption capital of the nation
   debased, putrid, handler of graft.
   Famous for patronage and the Nations sick city
   Broke, depraved, sordid,
   City of Barack Obama

   They tell me you are wicked, and the media ignores this, but we have seen the decades of failing schools and poor souls condemned to generations of poverty.
   And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: yes, what do you expect from a city controlled by an unchallenged one-party political machine for 70 years, free to abuse the public trust again and again?
   And they tell me you are brutal, and my reply is: on the faces our your children I see desperation and resignation and despair.
   And having answered so I turn once more to those who perpetuate a cycle of corruption and venality and I say to them:
   Come bring me a leader who will challenge the Daley machine, who will bring prosperity and private sector jobs back to this once great city.
   One who will displace the crushing hopelesness of toiling masses who’s constant request is for schools that teach and public servants that provide service to those in need, not just those that are connected. Here is a place for a true and just “community organizer” to work for reform, rather than drink deep from the cup of unscupulousness.

   Chicago, my hometown, city of Barack Obama. If you are truly a bringer of change, why have you turned your back on the very place that brought you to acclaim? So much to do, so many to help. But, instead, you milk the carcass of this once proud, now dying city and offer the entire nation false hope that shall lead us all to the path of Chicago’s fate.

8. Sarge6 says:

   October 4, 2008 at 11:37 pm

   Goddamn. I’ve lived in Chicago all my life and they’d have to double my salary to get me to think about relocating from here. But that was about a dozen quick body blows about what’s happening here. Which is a function of one thing the article left out. A supine, boosterist local media.

9. TmjUtah says:

   October 5, 2008 at 12:31 am

   Sarge6, do they still have ChicagoFest on Navy Pier? I was there in 1979 and loved every minute of it.

   And the Museum of Science and Industry; ran a surface attack mission from the U-505 conning tower, using the attack periscope and analog TBD, which was operated by an Hassidic Jewish guy on the tour. He could read the German legend on the whizz wheel. I guess they lowered that boat into a hole a few years ago. I understand that the wartime design spec was for five year’s service, so good on the museum for keeping it in good shape for as long as they have.

   Got slugged by a nervous black gentleman, right there on Rush (?) Street, in the shadow of the Sears Tower. “Don’t you LOOK at people, man!” was all he said. In Texas, we always look in the eye…

   I have since found that not to be the case in many places.

10. JBean says:

    October 5, 2008 at 5:17 am

    Chicago’s always on the cutting edge of political profiteering, though.

    Take, for instance, the potentially lucrative Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), designed with seed money from the Joyce Foundation in 2000 (when Obama was on the board), brought to fruition by Richard Sandor, and looking forward to a rosy future now that both nominees are on board with “some kind of future government mandated” carbon credit program.

    And by crazy coincidence, a president of the Joyce Foundation during Obama’s time there was named Executive VP to the CCX in 2005.

    Obama was doing their cheerleading in 2006, before he had to shed the appearance of undue influence, of course — can’t have any of that.

     

11. Christopher Taylor says:

    October 5, 2008 at 9:30 am

    Shouldn’t that be Ryne Sandberg?

12. Rusty says:

    October 5, 2008 at 11:52 am

    #8
    Sarge. You complain about city hall. You lose access to city hall.

    It’s a great city , if you live in the suburbs.

13. Whos Yer Terrist? says:

    October 6, 2008 at 11:28 pm

    ACCEPTING CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ASSOCIATES OF KNOWN TERRORISTS?

    The Ayers-Weber-McCain connection. Truth? Guilt by Association? We report. YOU Decide!

    Arnold R. “Arnie” Weber is a Chicago Annenberg Board Member and Chicago “insider”. He was a part of the Nixon White House. Arnie Weber has held other Washington “insider” jobs too. He is a LONGTIME REPUBLICAN DONOR. But get this: Arnie Weber was a BOARD MEMBER of the infamous **CHICAGO ANNNENBERG CHALLENGE** organization, which was founded by known “TERRORIST” Bill Ayers!

    Sarah Palin was using “guilt by association”. This, however, is a two way street but Gov. Palin may not understand this.

    NEW INFORMATION SHOWS THAT JOHN MCCAIN HAS ACCEPTED “TAINTED” CAMPAIGN MONEY FROM ARNIE WEBER, AN ASSOCIATE OF BILL AYERS.

    Arnie Weber has given the maximum legal amount of $1,500 to the McCain campaign in 2008. He probably would have given more if allowed by law. In 2008, Arnie Weber made two separate donations of $1,000 and $500 to McCain’s presidential campaign run by EX-LOBBYIST AND WASHINGTON INSIDER RICK DAVIS.

    I demand that Senator McCain denounce this man, Arnie Weber, and his associations to “terrorists” (as defined by his vice-president, Sarah Palin). I call on Senator McCain to reject these tainted donations. John McCain should then investigate how such a thing could possibly happen inside HIS OWN CAMPAIGN before seeking to cast stones at Senator Obama. McCain’s campaign CEO, RICK DAVIS, needs to explain to the AMERICAN VOTERS his reasons for accepting this dirty money. Are they really that desperate to win this election? Doesn’t John McCain still believe in the honor that he felt when defending this country against the enemy in Vietnam where he served as a prisoner of war for years?

    THE “LIBERAL MEDIA” SHOULD ASK JOHN MCCAIN WHY HE ACCEPTED THIS TAINTED CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THIS “TERRORIST” ASSOCIATE. Incredible as it may sound, Arnie Weber doesn’t even DENY that he ASSOCIATED FOR YEARS with a “KNOWN TERRORIST”.

    This is probably because he hasn’t been asked.

    Now for the reality check: It turns out that these types of “facts” are simply BASELESS SMEAR ATTACKS WITH NO MERIT! Yes. It is true. Attacks like this are meant to distract the uninformed voters near the end of an election. We don’t hear about them very often because most candidates have too much integrity to run them. They know that winning an election based on lies is unacceptable. Besides, people want to talk about REAL issues affecting REAL lives, not play a game of “6 degrees of Kevin Bacon”.

    Random associations are EASY to find. For instance, it turns out that you can trace Obama’s FAMILY TREE to both George W. Bush (10th cousins once removed) and Dick Cheney (eighth cousins). Yep! They are legally RELATIVES. This is yet another useless “fact” for Trivial Pursuit lovers, but it is not worthy of any media time in this national election for the greatest country on God’s green earth.

    If you want some more guilt by association, here is something to find out for yourself. Who said this? Who supports this guy and his political party? “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. And I won’t be buried under their damn flag.”

    Guilt by association is an attack on voters and on the electoral process. Voters need to learn about the issues. Governor Palin should apologize for raising this STUPID guilt by association tactic against Senator Obama. And if she REALLY believes what she is saying, she REALLY should demand that they return “Arnie” Weber’s campaign donations. Seriously. To do anything short of that would be blatant hypocrisy.

    “Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don’t have much of a vision for the future or you’re not ready to articulate it.” [John McCain – The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer – 2/21/2000]

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