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“The Second-Rate City?” [bh]

One of my favorite fiction techniques is the inclusion of a symbolic short story in a novel that offers a different way to look at the larger narrative.

This isn’t that though.  It’s too on the nose.  There’s no symbolism.

What ails Chicago ails the United States.

41 Replies to ““The Second-Rate City?” [bh]”

  1. sdferr says:

    The lack of a calling-card industry . . .

    Shoot. And here I thought the city specialized in creating corrupt politicians.

  2. BigBangHunter says:

    – Ahhh Chicago, what do I remeber about the windy city….

    – Attending an Eisenhower election party, scoring some good booze, and nailing a canpaign groupie from Forest park.

    – Owning a small interest in a cathouse on State street.

    – Playing in a band in a small club in Cicero.

    – Long boring rides to Waukeegan on the L and freezing my ass off doing guard duty on the base.

    – Good times.

  3. bh says:

    I declare all comments not about cathouse ownership to be off topic.

  4. sdferr says:

    So we can own to an interest in cathouse ownership without owning a cathouse, whether in small part or large, and still remain on topic?

  5. bh says:

    Correct.

    I’d say anything that you might find in a cathouse prospectus would also be on topic.

  6. BigBangHunter says:

    – And before you ask, no I wasn’t one of those business owners that sample the donuts.

  7. sdferr says:

    I think they have backhoes in cathouses, don’t they? Or was that just Ho-hos? Surely someone has established a cathouse Olympics by now, yes?

  8. motionview says:

    I’m from Cicero; the Cindy Lynn, an infamous hourly hotel, was named after the step-mother of an acquaintance of mine.

  9. bh says:

    Good stuff.

  10. happyfeet says:

    I thought they were the world leader in pork belly futures or something

    plus chewing gums

  11. BigBangHunter says:

    = feets, cover your eyes, the adults are talking.

  12. McGehee says:

    I think there may be some cathouse equities in my mutual fund. I’ll have to check.

  13. BigBangHunter says:

    – I remember I had to cash out my investment after awhile. it kept going down.

  14. sdferr says:

    Whitehouse as cathouse. Phew.

  15. McGehee says:

    One thing about cathouses: don’t buy bonds. Unless you’re into that.

  16. BigBangHunter says:

    – Whoa, thats some hot stuff sdferr….

    – I was just kidding half heartedly when I reffered to it as LeakyGate, by damn sam. This could be Bummblefuck’s spook by the door.

    – Pat has always been pretty credible over the years.

  17. BigBangHunter says:

    …..One thing about cathouses: don’t buy bonds.

    – Especially if you’re strapped for cash.

  18. geoffb says:

    Whitehouse as cathouse.

    POTUS, the “P” stands for…

  19. cranky-d says:

    The wheels on the bus go round and round, all over the town.

    That last bump you felt was Tom Donilon.

  20. geoffb says:

    So top slot it is, no more just place or show.

    Way to go O!

  21. BigBangHunter says:

    – So if O’bama does a Nixon, who do the Proggocats have as a candidate. Hillery has already taken a pass.

  22. BigBangHunter says:

    – If this breaks early today, Darleens going to be bummed if she misses the start of the party. Hopefully she’ll look in here early.

  23. motionview says:

    Hey, it looks like someone really liked the Bill Clinton approach and is going to work it for himself. Drum him out! And his whole family. And his little dog too.

  24. happyfeet says:

    Bush also repeated criticism of the “tone” of the discussion of immigration issues.

    Bush said that Mitt Romney’s move to channel Republicans’ anger over immigration in the primary has put him “in somewhat of a box” in the general election. He advised Romney to offer a “broader and more intense” approach to the issue. He suggested Romney continue to campaign in Hispanic communities, that he recast immigration as an economic issue, and that he focus on the question of education.

    this makes more sense as a strategy than just picking a magic quasi-latino as veep I think

  25. sdferr says:

    Jeb seems to be attempting to have his non-divisive cake and to promote division, simultaneously, since he promotes as models Paul Ryan and Gov Daniels, both of whom, in apparent agreement with one another, have painted the coming election as a stark binary choice of opposites: in the simplest terms, a choice of either the natural right theory of the Declaration or the Socialist theory of the German Idealists. These two theories of government are mutually incompatible, by their own terms.

    Choose, Jeb.

  26. happyfeet says:

    Susana Martinez on the other hand might coulda helped but the whole let’s pick a female governor what’s only served half-a-term well has been kinda poisoned for the nonce.

    Mr. sdferr I think most of these Bush-type people see a sign what says RAPIDS AHEAD and are more immediately worried about the mechanics of governance than the principles of government.

    Hence Mr. Mitch’s truce talk, no?

    And hence of course Romney, no?

    It doesn’t have to be either/or of course but I think Mr. Jeb and Mr. Mitt and their tribe heart America and are gravely concerned. Which is different than our economy-raping America-hating president.

  27. McGehee says:

    Jeb secretly wants to save America from the mistake of electing another Bush anytime soon.

  28. motionview says:

    From your lips McGehee

  29. sdferr says:

    I think I can still distinguish between Ryan and Jeb, or Daniels and Jeb, to the extent that Jeb never appears to me to speak of the underlying assumptions or principles (as we call them) in the manner in which both Ryan and Daniels do. Both Ryan and Daniels on occasion make “political” moves or prudential suggestions on practical grounds as they see those practical grounds, yet they both return again and again to the principal questions which must animate our political choices at the root (lest we end up as here, at meltdown, where we are after a century of ignoring the “assumptions” of the grounds of our politics when we reason about our politics). Jeb doesn’t demonstrate to me at least, any grasp of this necessity.

  30. sdferr says:

    What was it Jeb’s daddy called it? “That ‘vision’ thing”, I think. The thing Jeb’s daddy said he didn’t have. Yeah, that.

  31. happyfeet says:

    yes but the mechanics thing is a sine qua non if you want to return our failshit corrupted coward whore government to the underlying assumptions or principles what originally animated it is all I mean

  32. sdferr says:

    I think I disagree about that (the sine qua non) hf, since I think I believe any such “return” has to begin with the constant thinking practice of examining the assumptions or principles as against the “mechanical” proposals one would make to implementation as policy. If, say, one discovers in such an examination a contradiction of interests like the contradiction of interests articulated yesterday by Gov Daniels regarding the “public workers” union, one would disallow the implementation of such a monster from the get-go, as contradictory of the principles of American government. Voila.

  33. McGehee says:

    Mechanics without vision just gets us more of the same. Being good at politics is at best a necessary evil, but it’s only the sine qua non for evil people.

  34. Pablo says:

    Speaking of Chicago: Obama’s early Chicago rise brought African-Americans foreclosures, bankruptcies

    Yes, let’s talk about economics and business experience, shall we?

  35. geoffb says:

    To follow on to bh’s post.

    The Obama administration in miniature, or progressive-ism as medical disorder.

  36. McGehee says:

    The federal agency my wife works for is part of the Commerce Department.

  37. sdferr says:

    Radio news is suggesting the Secretary was suffering a seizure of some sort during — causing — the event. They dunno yet, in other words.

  38. Pablo says:

    I’m guessing brain tumor. If drugs and booze are off the table, that’s the next most likely thing.

  39. McGehee says:

    Any bets on whether they trot out California’s former governor to deny that, Pablo?

  40. sdferr says:

    What happens when the President turns out to have made himself up out of whole cloth?

    He loses.

    Along with everybody else he takes down with him.

  41. Swen says:

    Confucius say: “Man who spend time in cat house, wind up in dog house.”

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