Chicagoland
Goose Island: The Beginning of the Next American Revolution?
Mon, 12/15/2008 - 03:17 — Bobbo
Goose Island is the only island located on the Chicago River. I suspect most Chicagoans would need MapQuest to even find Goose Island. Once a center for manufacturing, the neighborhoods surrounding it have been quietly gentrified over the years. Until quite recently, the island was most famous for the beer that is brewed at its local Goose Island Brewery.
But that was before the December 2008 sit-in by the employees of the Republic Windows and Doors plant located on Goose Island. When their plant suddenly and illegally shut down, the workers demanded a fair severance package and the payment of accrued and unused leave.They occupied the plant in an effort to win their demands.
Grant Park USA
Wed, 11/05/2008 - 14:02 — Bobbo
This was written about 2 am Central Time after we got back from the rally in Grant Park for Barack Obama on election night. It's been edited a bit since that time.
Just got back from Grant Park. We left for downtown around 8:30 pm and stepped off of the CTA Blue Line at around 9 pm. The Loop was pretty much closed off to traffic with lots of people in the street yelling, dancing and singing. Vendors were doing a brisk business in T-shirts and buttons. Best T-shirt slogan of the night: "Yes We Did!"
A Better Class of Criminal
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 12:22 — Bobbo
What is left of the Brachs' Candy factory lies crumbling along Cicero Avenue, frequented only by the homeless, the professional junk scavengers, the graffiti artists and the urban adventurers who love to risk life and limb clambering around abandoned buildings. Brachs is only one example. Today most of Chicago's former industrial glory is a Machu Picchu of weedy rusting ruins or has been plowed under to grow a crop of yuppie condo buildings.
Twas not always thus.
Now Repeat After Me...We're Electing a President, Not a Messiah
Sun, 07/06/2008 - 18:59 — Bobbo
So Barack Obama is tacking to starboard. That's steering to the right for you landlubbers. But as a politician who lives next to those inland seas we call the Great Lakes, he must have seen sailors do this hundreds of times. He's already tacked to the port or the left side. Now it's time to tack to the right or the starboard side. Paradoxically, that's how you sail in a "straight" line and end up arriving at your destination.
Let's remember that Barack Obama is a South Side Chicago politician. Veering to the right after starting out on the left is a time honored Windy City tradition.
Why the Scottish Highland Games and Festival is Starting to Bore Me
Sun, 06/29/2008 - 02:31 — Bobbo
My dad's parents were both Scottish immigrants and my mom's Scottish ancestors go back to before the American Revolution.
I think Scotland is one of the most beautiful places in the world, though it is not a warm cuddly beauty. The Highlands will take your breath away, but the weather can be dangerous and when the mists come down, it's all to easy to take a misstep and fall off a cliff.
Who's Afraid of Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.?
Tue, 03/25/2008 - 19:36 — BobboSince Reverend Wright is not running for office or a place on the Sunday morning gab fests, he can speak truth to power in a way that is forbidden to mainstream political candidates and pundits. Speaking truth to power does not mean that one is always right. Some of his pronouncements are off-base, but he does appear to be speaking from his heart.
Of course one's heart is not where most public political pronouncements come from. Most of these come from the word processors of fresh-faced communications graduates filtered through the mesh of endless focus groups. That way all genuine substance can carefully strained out before being released to the public.
"Early evening, April 4— A shot rings out in the Memphis sky..." 1968 and beyond
Mon, 01/07/2008 - 16:26 — Bobbo
I originally wrote this a couple of years ago to help me remember Dr. King's dream. It was revised a couple of times since. January 15 and April 4 are still sacred dates in my calendar.
I heard the loud thumping of footsteps coming up the basement stairs of my parents' home in Silver Spring, Md. Something was very wrong. My girlfriend Marie appeared at the kitchen entrance, distraught and out of breath. Martin Luther King has just been shot dead in Memphis. It's all over the news. Come downstairs. Now. A terrible primal rage boiled up from somewhere deep in my consciousness. Not Martin Luther King. Not King. For God's sake, not him.
I stood for a moment overcome by a terrible anger then said," They're going to burn America to the ground tonight. And I'm glad."
I wasn't kidding.
Visiting Chicago? Read This First.
Wed, 09/05/2007 - 04:06 — Bobbo
Chicago is famous for its architecture, its storied political crime and corruption and its hapless but loveable Chicago Cubs. Tourists come from around the world to snap pictures from the top of the Sears Tower, marvel at the Impressionists housed in the Art Institute and tremble before Sue the Tyrannosaur at the Field Museum.
Some even ride the Green Line out to Oak Park to enjoy the work of Frank Lloyd Wright (you know, the guy who designed all those leaky roofs).
Not to put down these tourist attractions, which after all do pump some money into Chicago's 21st century de-industrialized economy, but one of my favorite spots in Chicago is---- a feminist bookstore.
Newspapers............The Long Goodbye
Sat, 08/04/2007 - 01:19 — Bobbo
After nearly a lifetime of being a newspaper junkie, I'm close to finally kicking the habit. I recently canceled our daily subscription to the Chicago Tribune. At the last minute, my determination to go cold turkey faltered and I'll be tapering off by reading the Sunday edition for a while longer.
It's the troubles that cause the rebels.
