At the pumpkin patch

From Oct 2008

Sweet home Chicago

Some miscellany on Chicago.

This could be fun...Election Night In Grant Park--Construction Begins:

Election Day is less than two weeks away, and Chicago could be home to the biggest political party in the country. Construction is underway for a massive stage in Grant Park where Barack Obama could declare victory on election night.

...[T]ens of thousands are expected to gather before the stage on election night. One way or another, that huge crowd will witness history.

In a recent interview, John Hodgman explains why he was inspired to write the chapter “Four Dubious Fables Of Chicago” in his new book The Areas Of My Expertise:

I live in New York City, but all around me are people talking all the time about Chicago. Some of these people even claim to have lived there, and I feel terrible for them. It was actually inspired by a raft of exiles who arrived in New York City not long after I did. They were clearly happy to be here, but all they could talk about was how great Chicago was, how affordable—until it started getting gentrified, and now it’s all shit, and so they had to move to New York. Talk about your age-old stories, like the hipster diaspora of people who leave one place because it got gentrified and turned to shit—how you used to be able to get a thousand whiskies for a cent, and all the bands were awesome, and people were nicer.

The arrest of retired Chicago police Chief Jon Burge has received a lot ink in the local press. He has been charged in a police brutality scandal that contributed to the emptying of Illinois’ death row and, according to the NY Times, "continues to resonate as one of the most racially charged chapters in the city’s history."



And an aerial view of Chicagoland. If you follow the Chicago river north, Skokie is somewhere up there towards the top, to the west of the river. Evanston is to the east...(click on the image to see the much larger original)

Academic Salaries

Its Obama by a landslide

People around the world are pinning their hopes on Barack Obama in next month's presidential election, according to an international survey published today. It shows that America can no longer count on the friendship even of its closest neighbours and allies after eight years of the Bush presidency. Only a minority in the countries surveyed describe relations with the US as friendly.

Has Michigan Sold Out?

Eric Zorn, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, and UM football fan, sums up the difficulty with being a true-blue Michigan fan:

Has the team ever sunk lower than it did on Saturday?

Yes, the Appalachian State defeat at the beginning of last season was a bigger upset and threw a bigger shock into a team that was supposed to be contenders for the national title.

But Saturday's loss -- 13-10 at home to Toledo, a 1-4 Mid American Conference team -- marked a low-water point for the Wolverines.
...
And I have to say that there's part of me that's pleased. The program has become increasingly unseemly in recent years.

In 2003 our student fans behaved contemptibly in victory over Notre Dame...In 2005 the athletic department began charging annual seat-license fees of up to $500 a seat that caused my parents to relinquish the season tickets they'd held onto since 1971. This year the program raided West Virginia University and hired away their coach at an obscene salary and began presumptuously constructing luxury skyboxes along the formerly low, formerly graceful rim of Michigan Stadium.

Sub-mediocrity serves them right.

Ouch, that hurts. I agree the seat-license fee is BS, and get this: its labelled a mandatory "donation." The addition of luxury skyboxes is also very hard to stomach.