Different Answers

A relative of mine once confided that he voted for Ronald Reagan barely more than a decade after he asked that copies of The Daily Worker be mailed to him in Vietnam. I asked him why he did so, and his answer was that he “was tired of feeling ashamed of being an American.” 28 […]

The Last Debate

Some random thoughts from the debate: I’ve twittered about this before, but I honestly am glad that Obama got a new projector for the Adler Planetarium. The planetarium is a monument in it’s own right, alongside the Museum of Science and Industry, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Field Museum; the longer it operates the better. […]

Pick A Side

Compare: In the years of its rise, the movement little by little brought the community’s attitude toward the teacher around from respect and envy to resentment, from trust to fear and suspicion. […] By 1933 at least five of my ten [Nazi] friends (and I think six or seven) looked upon “intellectuals” as unreliable, and […]

Notes on the Debate

[Disclosure: I live in Chicago, and have financially supported Obama already.] The first note is about the organization that McCain cited at the beginning of his speech, Citizens Against Government Waste. The one he was using as his citation for the 900-million-dollar figure he was hanging around Obama’s neck. They’ve are a lobbying organization, which […]

Elections

[Disclosure: I dropped a day’s pay on Obama’s campaign about a week before the pastor thing happened, and hope I never feel compelled to write about this election again.] Matt Taibbi is (as usual, and in spite of his ridiculous humping of Hunter Thompson’s legacy) repeatedly correct in his assessment of American politics as a […]