2007/09/12
When to fly
September 11 is the best day of the year to fly. I flew from Midway to Logan yesterday at 9am, and the airports were deserted. My plane had maybe 25 people on it, total capacity around 150. No lines at check-in or security, boarding and deplaning were quick, everyone was happy.
2007/09/09
2007/09/05
Revive the beard tax!
In 1705 Tsar Pyotr I of Russia ("Peter the Great"), as part of his Westernizing reforms, decreed that all men except church clergy must shave their beards. However, if you wanted to keep your beard you just had to pay a tax, which was verified by the receipt of this coin:
Seems to me that a coin with a bizarre disembodied beard would alone be worth the cost of the tax. This policy would also be effective in cracking down on hipsters. I think the time for the beard tax has once again arrived.
Seems to me that a coin with a bizarre disembodied beard would alone be worth the cost of the tax. This policy would also be effective in cracking down on hipsters. I think the time for the beard tax has once again arrived.
2007/06/09
Quote of the day
Reading thru old copies of the Reader I never got to, I found this great quote from architecture critic and preservationist Lynn Becker, responding to people who leave comments on his blog like "The idea that a group of people can impose their will on the property rights of others' economic self-interest is a slap in the face to the modern business spirit."
When the market economy remains our one true religion, there's never a shortage of those who would destroy beauty with malice and replace it with shit for spite. (2006.11.24)
2007/06/08
Recycling drop-off spots
Chicago is inching toward a decent recycling program, and as part of that very slow process the city has opened a number of dropboxes that you can leave all your recyclables at. See the list here. This is good news since most of us live in apartments that are legally required to have recycling pickup, but which don't because the city doesn't enforce the law. I for one will be dropping off my last 9 months of bottles, cans, junk mail, and newspapers this weekend.
2007/06/04
Best Chicago websites
What do you think are the key websites for Chicagoans? Here's my nominations:
Chicago Reader. This is a no-brainer - decent articles (could be a lot better tho) and all the music, movie, and restaurant listings. Clout Street, the Reader's political blog, is also one of the best sources on city politics.
Chicago Menupages. Most of the restaurants in the city, all with online menus.
Beachwood Reporter. Digging thru all the fluff and crime reporting of mediocre papers like the Tribune to find out what's going on in your city - often to find that there isn't any decent local news in the first place - is a tiresome and disillusioning experience. The Beachwood Reporter pulls out the key articles and adds biting humor in a progressive critique of Chicago politics and media. Also featuring the Lou Piniella Alert Level.
Encyclopedia of Chicago History. Short articles on all the neighborhoods, personalities, and events of Chicago's past. Check out this historical map of the El, complete with all the lines - both operating and decommissioned - and when they opened.
Chicago Reader. This is a no-brainer - decent articles (could be a lot better tho) and all the music, movie, and restaurant listings. Clout Street, the Reader's political blog, is also one of the best sources on city politics.
Chicago Menupages. Most of the restaurants in the city, all with online menus.
Beachwood Reporter. Digging thru all the fluff and crime reporting of mediocre papers like the Tribune to find out what's going on in your city - often to find that there isn't any decent local news in the first place - is a tiresome and disillusioning experience. The Beachwood Reporter pulls out the key articles and adds biting humor in a progressive critique of Chicago politics and media. Also featuring the Lou Piniella Alert Level.
Encyclopedia of Chicago History. Short articles on all the neighborhoods, personalities, and events of Chicago's past. Check out this historical map of the El, complete with all the lines - both operating and decommissioned - and when they opened.
2007/05/30
Biking again
In the last week I made two expeditions to the outskirts of the city. Tho they are administratively part of Chicago, they have more in common with Wilmette or Skokie than with the city proper, so I apologize for how boring my descriptions will be.
Southwest on Vincennes thru Hamilton Park, Gresham, Brainerd, and Beverly, west on 111th thru Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood. Last Friday I did the 25-mile round trip to Veggie Bite, the vegetarian so-called fast food place in Mount Greenwood in the city's far far southwest. I didn't get a very good feel for the neighborhoods biking on Vincennes, which is a diagonal multilane road. No bike lanes (it used to have them part of the way, but they've been removed), but pretty good for biking with the exception of a few dicey intersections. When I got to 111th and Hoyne in Morgan Park, I encountered something I've never seen before in Chicago: a legitimate hill. Beverly, Morgan Park, and Mount Greenwood are all very suburban and middle class. Mount Greenwood is lily white and feels a lot like northwest Chicago - not exactly a friendly place for an all-vegetarian restaurant. I liked Veggie Bite, but I'm not sure they should market themselves as a fast food place. I got the "cheese steak", which was good but bore no resemblance to the real thing and took awhile to make.
On the way home I took the marked "Vincennes alternative" route, which involved less traffic and gave me a much better look at residential parts of Beverly and Brainerd. Beverly has a lot of suprisingly large homes with big yards, something I've never seen in the city. Northern Beverly and Brainerd had more conventional bungalows, but the neighborhood was completely black. Just like middle class white folks, these homeowners seemed to be spending most of their time on lawn care.
Northwest to Chinatown, southwest on Archer thru McKinley Park, Brighton Park, and Garfield Ridge, south to Clearing, east and south to Ford City Mall, back to Hyde Park thru Englewood. Chris and I tried a new place in Chinatown, House of Fortune (2407 S Wentworth) - pretty good, but the menu wasn't too interesting and looked pretty bland past the Sichuan stuff we got. Archer is another multilane road that mostly cuts you off from the neighborhoods but is pretty good to bike on. McKinley Park is mostly Latino with some Poles, a mix which continues down Archer but whose balance switches by the time you're west of Midway. The surroundings are like going west on Touhy around Chris's parents' place - lots of bungalows and a feeling of being transported back to the '50s.
I went south on Narragansett (6400W) just to include another of Chicago's main roads on my checklist, then east on 65th thru Clearing, so called because the farms that once stood there were cleared for factories. Taking 65th was probably a mistake - the drivers on this 4-lane road seem to have never encountered a biker before and roared past me within a foot. The traffic was light tho - the real hell started when I turned south on Cicero. Cicero is more like the Dan Ryan here than a city road - 8-10 lanes filled with cars moving very fast. In humiliation, I took to the sidewalk. Starting around 71st the mall district starts. It's hard to convey thru mere words how alien a cyclist is in this environment. Parking lots, huge retailers, broken sidewalks, and people talking on their cellphones while driving right at you: along with some of my trips to the malls of the north suburbs, this ranked as one of my least pleasant bike adventures.
Ford City Mall, the site of a long-planned extension of the Orange Line, looks like crap on the outside. Inside it's actually quite nice, except it's a mall so you want to get out as soon as possible. I think is was the only white person in the entire place - lots of Latinos and blacks and a few Asians.
I took the Marquette bike lane thru Marquette Park, West Englewood, and Englewood back to Hyde Park, which would be a very nice ride if not for the psychological strain of being very white riding thru the most violent neighborhoods in the city. Good thing Daley fixed that whole race problem.
Southwest on Vincennes thru Hamilton Park, Gresham, Brainerd, and Beverly, west on 111th thru Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood. Last Friday I did the 25-mile round trip to Veggie Bite, the vegetarian so-called fast food place in Mount Greenwood in the city's far far southwest. I didn't get a very good feel for the neighborhoods biking on Vincennes, which is a diagonal multilane road. No bike lanes (it used to have them part of the way, but they've been removed), but pretty good for biking with the exception of a few dicey intersections. When I got to 111th and Hoyne in Morgan Park, I encountered something I've never seen before in Chicago: a legitimate hill. Beverly, Morgan Park, and Mount Greenwood are all very suburban and middle class. Mount Greenwood is lily white and feels a lot like northwest Chicago - not exactly a friendly place for an all-vegetarian restaurant. I liked Veggie Bite, but I'm not sure they should market themselves as a fast food place. I got the "cheese steak", which was good but bore no resemblance to the real thing and took awhile to make.
On the way home I took the marked "Vincennes alternative" route, which involved less traffic and gave me a much better look at residential parts of Beverly and Brainerd. Beverly has a lot of suprisingly large homes with big yards, something I've never seen in the city. Northern Beverly and Brainerd had more conventional bungalows, but the neighborhood was completely black. Just like middle class white folks, these homeowners seemed to be spending most of their time on lawn care.
Northwest to Chinatown, southwest on Archer thru McKinley Park, Brighton Park, and Garfield Ridge, south to Clearing, east and south to Ford City Mall, back to Hyde Park thru Englewood. Chris and I tried a new place in Chinatown, House of Fortune (2407 S Wentworth) - pretty good, but the menu wasn't too interesting and looked pretty bland past the Sichuan stuff we got. Archer is another multilane road that mostly cuts you off from the neighborhoods but is pretty good to bike on. McKinley Park is mostly Latino with some Poles, a mix which continues down Archer but whose balance switches by the time you're west of Midway. The surroundings are like going west on Touhy around Chris's parents' place - lots of bungalows and a feeling of being transported back to the '50s.
I went south on Narragansett (6400W) just to include another of Chicago's main roads on my checklist, then east on 65th thru Clearing, so called because the farms that once stood there were cleared for factories. Taking 65th was probably a mistake - the drivers on this 4-lane road seem to have never encountered a biker before and roared past me within a foot. The traffic was light tho - the real hell started when I turned south on Cicero. Cicero is more like the Dan Ryan here than a city road - 8-10 lanes filled with cars moving very fast. In humiliation, I took to the sidewalk. Starting around 71st the mall district starts. It's hard to convey thru mere words how alien a cyclist is in this environment. Parking lots, huge retailers, broken sidewalks, and people talking on their cellphones while driving right at you: along with some of my trips to the malls of the north suburbs, this ranked as one of my least pleasant bike adventures.
Ford City Mall, the site of a long-planned extension of the Orange Line, looks like crap on the outside. Inside it's actually quite nice, except it's a mall so you want to get out as soon as possible. I think is was the only white person in the entire place - lots of Latinos and blacks and a few Asians.
I took the Marquette bike lane thru Marquette Park, West Englewood, and Englewood back to Hyde Park, which would be a very nice ride if not for the psychological strain of being very white riding thru the most violent neighborhoods in the city. Good thing Daley fixed that whole race problem.
2007/04/22
Baseball notes
I've watched a lot of baseball these last few weeks, and I've found that about three-quarters of the commercials are either for cars or lawn care products. So would we even have televised baseball if the suburbs didn't exist?
* * *
The best change that could be made in baseball - other than fully socializing revenues among the teams as the first step toward converting the majors to parecon relations of production - would be to change the name of the Cleveland Indians. It's bad enough they're called the Indians, but they insist on retaining their racist caricature logo too. I think they should rename themselves the Spiders. The Cleveland Spiders played from 1887 to 1899 in the old American Association. Cy Young, one of the greatest pitchers to ever play the game, started his career with them and led them to the championship in 1895. Then the owners of the team bought the St Louis Browns and moved all the Spiders' good players there. The 1899 Spiders team was the worst in baseball history, finishing 20-134 and 84 games out of first place (!!!!). The attendance at games was so low (averaging 179 per game) that other teams refused to come to Cleveland, so the Spiders had to play their last 36 games on the road. They lost 35 of those. That was the last season the Spiders played. The team that would eventually be called the Indians started playing in 1901.
Avenge the betrayal of the Spiders! End the racist Indians! Revive the Cleveland Spiders!
The best change that could be made in baseball - other than fully socializing revenues among the teams as the first step toward converting the majors to parecon relations of production - would be to change the name of the Cleveland Indians. It's bad enough they're called the Indians, but they insist on retaining their racist caricature logo too. I think they should rename themselves the Spiders. The Cleveland Spiders played from 1887 to 1899 in the old American Association. Cy Young, one of the greatest pitchers to ever play the game, started his career with them and led them to the championship in 1895. Then the owners of the team bought the St Louis Browns and moved all the Spiders' good players there. The 1899 Spiders team was the worst in baseball history, finishing 20-134 and 84 games out of first place (!!!!). The attendance at games was so low (averaging 179 per game) that other teams refused to come to Cleveland, so the Spiders had to play their last 36 games on the road. They lost 35 of those. That was the last season the Spiders played. The team that would eventually be called the Indians started playing in 1901.
Avenge the betrayal of the Spiders! End the racist Indians! Revive the Cleveland Spiders!
2007/04/14
Baseball '07
Starting with the playoffs last year, I've been getting back into baseball. I was a huge baseball fan from age 10 till my freshman year of college, but after that I stopped following it. I'm pretty committed to getting back into the game, and baseball games have now replaced Law & Order as my means of avoiding work. Today I've already watched parts of three different games, and spent no time on the research paper that I told my professor would be done last week.
My team has always been the Yankees, which I know is out of keeping with my politics. But I have two solid defenses: I inherited it, since the Yankees were my dad's team, and it's not right to forsake your team just because you become politically conscious. And second, for the years and years I rooted for the Yankees, they couldn't win a thing - 1996, the last year I followed baseball, was also the first year the Yankees went back to the Series. So I'm no fair weather fan.
In the old days, aside from the Yankees there were a number of other teams I pulled for based mainly on whether I liked their team colors and logos - the Mariners, Astros, Angels, and Indians (I now find that last one difficult to explain; the Angels have unfortunately switched back to their atrocious old logo). I absolutely despised the White Sox for complex reasons. Growing up in Iowa, the Sox were the only American League team I could regularly watch on tv (the Yankees are also in the American League and at the time there was no interleague play), and their play-by-play man Ken Harrelson was intolerably partisan. Their big superstar, Frank Thomas, had the ugliest swing in the majors. That doesn't seem like much, but for something so arbitrary as sports loyalties it was enough.
Now I've revised who to secondarily support: those teams that play in good cities (i.e. those low on sprawl), especially those in small media markets who can't afford to throw their money around like the Yankees can. So the Mariners, A's, Tigers, Twins, Indians, Blue Jays, Mets, Phillies, Cubs, Brewers, Cardinals, Nationals, and Giants are in, while I have to resolutely oppose the Braves, Astros, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Devil Rays, Dodgers, Rangers, and Angels. (As a Yankees fan, of course I can't publicly provide any support for the Red Sox, but I will say that Boston is pretty good city.) Altho Chicago is probably my favorite city in the country, I still can't bring myself to root for the White Sox.
My team has always been the Yankees, which I know is out of keeping with my politics. But I have two solid defenses: I inherited it, since the Yankees were my dad's team, and it's not right to forsake your team just because you become politically conscious. And second, for the years and years I rooted for the Yankees, they couldn't win a thing - 1996, the last year I followed baseball, was also the first year the Yankees went back to the Series. So I'm no fair weather fan.
In the old days, aside from the Yankees there were a number of other teams I pulled for based mainly on whether I liked their team colors and logos - the Mariners, Astros, Angels, and Indians (I now find that last one difficult to explain; the Angels have unfortunately switched back to their atrocious old logo). I absolutely despised the White Sox for complex reasons. Growing up in Iowa, the Sox were the only American League team I could regularly watch on tv (the Yankees are also in the American League and at the time there was no interleague play), and their play-by-play man Ken Harrelson was intolerably partisan. Their big superstar, Frank Thomas, had the ugliest swing in the majors. That doesn't seem like much, but for something so arbitrary as sports loyalties it was enough.
Now I've revised who to secondarily support: those teams that play in good cities (i.e. those low on sprawl), especially those in small media markets who can't afford to throw their money around like the Yankees can. So the Mariners, A's, Tigers, Twins, Indians, Blue Jays, Mets, Phillies, Cubs, Brewers, Cardinals, Nationals, and Giants are in, while I have to resolutely oppose the Braves, Astros, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Devil Rays, Dodgers, Rangers, and Angels. (As a Yankees fan, of course I can't publicly provide any support for the Red Sox, but I will say that Boston is pretty good city.) Altho Chicago is probably my favorite city in the country, I still can't bring myself to root for the White Sox.
2007/03/31
Capitalism giveth, and capitalism taketh away
Filter, one of the few reasons to still go to Wicker Park, is being evicted from the Flat Iron Building. The hot dog place Swank Frank is also being booted. Why? So a new Bank of America branch can move in.
2007/03/03
The Bolsheviks Hitler would love
I was intrigued when a news article about a protest in Russia mentioned a National Bolshevik Party that has allied with the liberal opposition to Putin. I expected the NBP to be a splinter from the Communist Party, but it turns out that National Bolsheviks are Bolshevik the same way National Socialists are socialist - as their flag indicates.
Even better, NBP leader Eduard Limonov was a Soviet exile who "arrived in New York City in 1974 as an émigré and began writing novels. He fell in with the New York punk and avante-garde scene, acquiring an admiration for Lou Reed, as well as such American writers as Charles Bukowski." Later he moved to Paris and joined literary society there. Later still he "join[ed] a sniper patrol in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Bosnian war" - in support of Serbia. He supported extreme nationalist Vladimir Zhironvsky before splitting with him. The NBP explained that "a Jew masquerading as a Russian nationalist is a sickness, a pathology." Finally, "Limonov has listed among his idols Joseph Stalin, Mikhail Bakunin, Julius Evola and Yukio Mishima."
The SS look is back in style among National Bolsheviks.
Even better, NBP leader Eduard Limonov was a Soviet exile who "arrived in New York City in 1974 as an émigré and began writing novels. He fell in with the New York punk and avante-garde scene, acquiring an admiration for Lou Reed, as well as such American writers as Charles Bukowski." Later he moved to Paris and joined literary society there. Later still he "join[ed] a sniper patrol in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Bosnian war" - in support of Serbia. He supported extreme nationalist Vladimir Zhironvsky before splitting with him. The NBP explained that "a Jew masquerading as a Russian nationalist is a sickness, a pathology." Finally, "Limonov has listed among his idols Joseph Stalin, Mikhail Bakunin, Julius Evola and Yukio Mishima."
2007/03/01
Shrines of the machine
I don't read John Kass very often, but this column is great. On election day he went around to Daley strongholds on the Irish Catholic southwest side and asked Democratic machine workers where the shrines to their saints are. The "saints" are corrupt machine members who have resigned in disgrace, but who Daley continues to treat as if they were beatified. We get this classic exchange:
we walked up to the Daley machine captains, including one man who ate two slices of sausage pizza but didn't offer me any, and I asked them about the political shrines.
"Shrines?" said one. "You kidding? We don't got no shrines in this neighborhood."
How dare you pretend not to know! My back hurts, and I was hoping to buy a relic at the Shrine of Robert the Mute, and drink from his fountain, and so be healed.
"What?" asked the captain.
Robert the Mute. Robert Sorich [a top Daley aid and patronage boss, convicted in federal court last year].
"That's ignorant," said another Daley captain and friend of Sorich. "That's in poor taste. It's ignorant."
2007/02/16
Never play with,scare and catch birds,crickets fish and cicada(unless business items)
This is the best sign I saw in China, at a Shanghai park.
2007/02/14
A Western holiday in Japan just wouldn't be complete without intensifying the gender inequality
from wikipedia:
Thanks to a concentrated marketing effort, Valentine's Day has emerged in Japan and Korea as a day on which women, and less commonly men, give candy, chocolate or flowers to people they like. This has become an obligation for many women. Those who work in offices end up giving chocolates to all their male co-workers, sometimes at significant personal expense. This chocolate is known as giri-choko (義理チョコ), in Japan, from the words giri ("obligation") and choko, a common short version of chokorēto (チョコレート), meaning "chocolate". This contrasts with honmei-choko, which is given to a person someone loves or has a strong relationship with. Friends, especially girls, exchange chocolate that is referred to as tomo-choko (友チョコ); tomo means "friend" in Japanese.
By a further marketing effort, a reciprocal day called White Day has emerged. On March 14, men are expected to return the favour to those who gave them chocolates on Valentine's Day. Many men, however, give only to their girlfriends. Originally, the return gift was supposed to be white chocolate or marshmallows; hence "White Day". However, men have interpreted the name differently and lingerie has become a common gift.
Thanks to a concentrated marketing effort, Valentine's Day has emerged in Japan and Korea as a day on which women, and less commonly men, give candy, chocolate or flowers to people they like. This has become an obligation for many women. Those who work in offices end up giving chocolates to all their male co-workers, sometimes at significant personal expense. This chocolate is known as giri-choko (義理チョコ), in Japan, from the words giri ("obligation") and choko, a common short version of chokorēto (チョコレート), meaning "chocolate". This contrasts with honmei-choko, which is given to a person someone loves or has a strong relationship with. Friends, especially girls, exchange chocolate that is referred to as tomo-choko (友チョコ); tomo means "friend" in Japanese.
By a further marketing effort, a reciprocal day called White Day has emerged. On March 14, men are expected to return the favour to those who gave them chocolates on Valentine's Day. Many men, however, give only to their girlfriends. Originally, the return gift was supposed to be white chocolate or marshmallows; hence "White Day". However, men have interpreted the name differently and lingerie has become a common gift.
2007/02/04
左宗棠鸡的奇怪来源
General Tso's chicken (also General Gau's, Tao's, Tsao's, Zhou's, Gao's, Chou's, Tzo's, To's, So's, Joe's, or Toso's) is named after 左宗棠/Zuo Zongtang, a famous Chinese general who crushed uprisings in 新疆/Xinjiang in the 1870s. (The difference in spelling is because "Tso" comes from the unacceptable Wade-Giles transliteration system.) General Tso's chicken is the most famous 湖南/Hunan dish outside China - except that it doesn't exist in Hunan. Here is the bizarre story of how General Tso's chicken was invented in 1950s 台北/Taibei and 1970s New York, how Henry Kissinger disseminated it to the world, and how latter-day Hunanese chefs are now adopting it as a "traditional" dish.
Wesley Crusher is on our side
The actor who played the intolerable Wesley Crusher character from Star Trek TNG - Wil Wheaton in real life - these days blogs about geek stuff. Lately he's been pretty upset about two things: global warming deniers and - far more heatedly - the reaction of politicians and the media in Boston's Aqua Teen Hunger Force guerrilla marketing debacle.
2007/01/13
Adorable Japanese warmongers
This is taken from a roundtable discussion sponsored by 朝日グラフ/Asahi gurafu in 1932, shortly after 日本/Japan had invaded 东北/Northeast China/Manchuria and established a puppet regime there. The participants were fifth- and sixth-graders from 東京/Tōkyō. You should remember to visualize the kids in their cute Prussian school uniforms.
Interviewer: What is the Manchurian Incident all about?
Katō: The Chinese insulted us and our soldiers are fighting them in Manchuria to avenge it.
Interviewer: The League of Nations has been making quite a fuss recently. What do you think of the League?
Katō: It's a place where the cowards of the world get together to talk.
Interviewer: If you were Foreign Minister, what would you do?
Nakajima: The League of Nations is biased, so I wouldn't have anything to do with it.
Hotta: If I became Foreign Minister, anybody that kept repeating that kind of nonsense would get a real punch in the nose. (laughter)
Interviewer: Do you think there will be a war between Japan and America?
Fukuzawa: Yes, I think so. Americans are so arrogant. I'd like to show them a thing or two.
Katō: They act so big all the time, they need a good beating. I'd annihilate them.
Fukutomi: Oh, I'd like to try that too.
Interviewer: If Japan becomes more and more isolated, what would you do?
Several students: We'll keep trying, we'll keep going, we'll stick at it till we die. (A forceful chorus of voices)
Fukutomi: The end is when you're dead, isn't it? (She meant "I'll keep on to the end," and said it in a steady voice.)
Interviewer: What's most annoying these days?
Fukuzawa: [Foreign Minister] Shidehara's weak-kneed foreign policy.
Fukunaga: The cowardice of the cabinet.
Interviewer: How about the opposite? What has been most delightful?
Nakajima: Our great victory at Machansan.
Katō: It's great to see Japan winning one battle after another.
Fukunaga: I really liked it when Ambassador Yoshizawa told Chairman Briand that the League was stupid and that it should do just what Japan wants.
(quoted in Saburō Ienaga, The Pacific War, 1931-1945, 1968)
Interviewer: What is the Manchurian Incident all about?
Katō: The Chinese insulted us and our soldiers are fighting them in Manchuria to avenge it.
Interviewer: The League of Nations has been making quite a fuss recently. What do you think of the League?
Katō: It's a place where the cowards of the world get together to talk.
Interviewer: If you were Foreign Minister, what would you do?
Nakajima: The League of Nations is biased, so I wouldn't have anything to do with it.
Hotta: If I became Foreign Minister, anybody that kept repeating that kind of nonsense would get a real punch in the nose. (laughter)
Interviewer: Do you think there will be a war between Japan and America?
Fukuzawa: Yes, I think so. Americans are so arrogant. I'd like to show them a thing or two.
Katō: They act so big all the time, they need a good beating. I'd annihilate them.
Fukutomi: Oh, I'd like to try that too.
Interviewer: If Japan becomes more and more isolated, what would you do?
Several students: We'll keep trying, we'll keep going, we'll stick at it till we die. (A forceful chorus of voices)
Fukutomi: The end is when you're dead, isn't it? (She meant "I'll keep on to the end," and said it in a steady voice.)
Interviewer: What's most annoying these days?
Fukuzawa: [Foreign Minister] Shidehara's weak-kneed foreign policy.
Fukunaga: The cowardice of the cabinet.
Interviewer: How about the opposite? What has been most delightful?
Nakajima: Our great victory at Machansan.
Katō: It's great to see Japan winning one battle after another.
Fukunaga: I really liked it when Ambassador Yoshizawa told Chairman Briand that the League was stupid and that it should do just what Japan wants.
(quoted in Saburō Ienaga, The Pacific War, 1931-1945, 1968)
2007/01/11
Requiem for Saddam Hussein
(courtesy of Metallica)
Guilty as charged
But damn it, it ain't right
There is someone else controlling me
Death in the air
Strapped in the electric chair
This can't be happening to me
Who made you God to say
"I'll take your life from you!!"
Flash before my eyes
Now it's time to die
Burning in my brain
I can feel the flame
Wait for the sign
To flick the switch of death
It's the beginning of the end
Sweat, chilling cold
As I watch death unfold
Consciousness is my only friend
My fingers grip with fear
What am I doing here?
Flash before my eyes
Now it's time to die
Burning in my brain
I can feel the flame
Someone help me
Oh please God help me
They are trying to take it all away
I don't want to die
Someone help me
Oh please God help me
They are trying to take it all away
I don't want to die
Time moving slow
The minutes seem like hours
The final curtain call I see
How true is this?
Just get, it over with
If this is true, just let it be
Flash before my eyes
Now it's time to die
Burning in my brain
I can't feel the flame
Guilty as charged
But damn it, it ain't right
There is someone else controlling me
Death in the air
Strapped in the electric chair
This can't be happening to me
Who made you God to say
"I'll take your life from you!!"
Flash before my eyes
Now it's time to die
Burning in my brain
I can feel the flame
Wait for the sign
To flick the switch of death
It's the beginning of the end
Sweat, chilling cold
As I watch death unfold
Consciousness is my only friend
My fingers grip with fear
What am I doing here?
Flash before my eyes
Now it's time to die
Burning in my brain
I can feel the flame
Someone help me
Oh please God help me
They are trying to take it all away
I don't want to die
Someone help me
Oh please God help me
They are trying to take it all away
I don't want to die
Time moving slow
The minutes seem like hours
The final curtain call I see
How true is this?
Just get, it over with
If this is true, just let it be
Flash before my eyes
Now it's time to die
Burning in my brain
I can't feel the flame
2006/12/03
Chicago tackleball fun facts
1) The mighty Chicago Bears started their career as a tackleball team in the humble town of Decatur, where they were know as the Decatur Staleys after the A. E. Staley company, which organized the team. (Many of the early teams were company teams playing in minor cities - the Green Bay Packers is the only surviving example.)
2) The Staleys moved to Chicago in 1921 and started playing at Wrigley Field. The next year the team name was changed to Bears because of the link with the Cubs. The Bears didn't start playing at Soldier Field till 1971. In 2002 a large alien spacecraft landed on Soldier Field and has occupied it ever since. But the Bears have made do, and actually found the new arrangement more profitable.
3) What's the oldest professional team in tackleball? Why, the Arizona Cardinals of course. But when the Cardinals were founded in 1898 the suburban sprawl of Phoenix, where the Cardinals now reside, was just an environmentally irrational dream in the hearts of the town's 5000 residents. The Cardinals were originally called the Racine Normals after Normal Park which stood at our very own Racine Avenue, between 61st and 63rd. The Chicago Cardinals played at Comiskey Park for most of the years before 1960, when they moved to St Louis.
4) In 1901 the owner of the Normals bought used uniforms from the University of Chicago tackleball team, the Maroons. With their spiffy new (well, newly acquired) red uniforms, the team was soon known as the Cardinals.
2) The Staleys moved to Chicago in 1921 and started playing at Wrigley Field. The next year the team name was changed to Bears because of the link with the Cubs. The Bears didn't start playing at Soldier Field till 1971. In 2002 a large alien spacecraft landed on Soldier Field and has occupied it ever since. But the Bears have made do, and actually found the new arrangement more profitable.
3) What's the oldest professional team in tackleball? Why, the Arizona Cardinals of course. But when the Cardinals were founded in 1898 the suburban sprawl of Phoenix, where the Cardinals now reside, was just an environmentally irrational dream in the hearts of the town's 5000 residents. The Cardinals were originally called the Racine Normals after Normal Park which stood at our very own Racine Avenue, between 61st and 63rd. The Chicago Cardinals played at Comiskey Park for most of the years before 1960, when they moved to St Louis.
4) In 1901 the owner of the Normals bought used uniforms from the University of Chicago tackleball team, the Maroons. With their spiffy new (well, newly acquired) red uniforms, the team was soon known as the Cardinals.
Latin fun facts
Following up discussion last night, and more importantly as a further means of procrastination, I offer the following:
1) In classical Latin (i.e. that written during the Roman empire), there were no lower-case letters.
2) In classical Latin there was no distinction between the consonant I ("y" as in "yes") and vowel I ("ee" as in "pee") or between the consonant V (the English "w") and the vowel V ("oo" as in "moo"). There was no consonant with the English "v" sound in classical Latin. The letters J (pronounced as the English consonant "y"), U, and W were added only in the Middle Ages, when lower case letters were also added.
3) The pronunciation of vowels, unlike the Anglicized pronunciation of Latin words, was consistent - O was always "o" as in "home", never "o" as in "hot".
4) The point of this is that BONO VOX should be pronounced "bo no wokes".
5) What about GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR? The Anglicized "Caesar" shares not a single sound with the original pronunciation: English "seezer" vs. Latin "kaisar" ("a" and "r" as in Spanish or Italian rather than English).
6) Latin still in use today is church Latin, which was only standardized in the late Middle Ages and has significant differences in pronunciation compared with classical Latin.
7) The Latin used in The Passion of the Christ is church Latin rather than classical Latin, making the entire exercise anachronistic.
1) In classical Latin (i.e. that written during the Roman empire), there were no lower-case letters.
2) In classical Latin there was no distinction between the consonant I ("y" as in "yes") and vowel I ("ee" as in "pee") or between the consonant V (the English "w") and the vowel V ("oo" as in "moo"). There was no consonant with the English "v" sound in classical Latin. The letters J (pronounced as the English consonant "y"), U, and W were added only in the Middle Ages, when lower case letters were also added.
3) The pronunciation of vowels, unlike the Anglicized pronunciation of Latin words, was consistent - O was always "o" as in "home", never "o" as in "hot".
4) The point of this is that BONO VOX should be pronounced "bo no wokes".
5) What about GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR? The Anglicized "Caesar" shares not a single sound with the original pronunciation: English "seezer" vs. Latin "kaisar" ("a" and "r" as in Spanish or Italian rather than English).
6) Latin still in use today is church Latin, which was only standardized in the late Middle Ages and has significant differences in pronunciation compared with classical Latin.
7) The Latin used in The Passion of the Christ is church Latin rather than classical Latin, making the entire exercise anachronistic.
2006/11/11
Love stories of the late Ming
Who says grad school is no fun? At least once every 1000 pages or so we come across passages like this:
In [馮夢龍/Feng Menglong's 《情史》/Anatomy of love (first half of the 1600s)], a young man surnamed Sun is accused by a neighbor woman of seducing her daughter; the daughter is so mortified that she hangs herself. The mother, determined to punish Sun, ties him to the corpse and goes off to fetch the magistrate. Left alone with the corpse, Sun is overcome by her beauty and does indeed make love to her - whereupon she comes back to life! The magistrate unites them in marriage.On the other hand, it may just be the history program that's like this. Ariel gets to read 17th century porn all day.
Happy Armistice Day!
Let's take a moment to remember that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, that World War I was the inevitable result of contradictions among the capitalist powers, and that our past is also our future.
Happy Armistice Day!
Happy Armistice Day!
2006/10/15
한국 요리 My guide to Korean food
Before going to 中国/China I never really ate Korean food, except of course the pibimbap at JK Sweets and going to the vegan Korean place Amitabul a few times. Then for a year and a half I lived in 东王庄/Dōngwángzhuāng and 五道口/Wǔdàokǒu, at the center of the Korean community in 北京/Běijīng, which represents the largest expat population in the city. So now that I've finally become familiar with the incredibly intense flavors and spiciness of Korean food, I've found that it's one of my favorites. The following rundown of vegetarian/vegan-friendly Korean dishes is based on standard menus found in Beijing, I'm assuming restaurants in the States have similar options.
Be careful! Almost all of these dishes could have meat added to them but are just fine without it. If there's any doubt, use the following:
저는 채식주의자입니다. 어패류도 먹지 않습니다.
(I'm a vegetarian and I don't eat seafood either.)
Egg is also a common ingredient.
계란도 먹지 않습니다.
(I also don't eat eggs.)
Transliteration and pronunciation: transliteration systems for Korean are a big mess, so you could run into one of the two transliterations I'm providing or some variation on them. The first transliteration follows the system the South Korean government (inconsistently) uses, and the second is McCune-Reischauer, which is standard in English-language scholarly works. If you have the Korean written down it should never be a problem. Pronunciation of Korean is pretty hard to master but you should be okay just sounding it out from the transliteration, except:
a is always as the o in hot,
o is always as the oa in boat,
u is always as the oo in fool,
ae and e are almost exactly the same, as the e in pet,
oe/ŏ is similar to the au in author,
when letters are doubled up (jj, dd, &c) it's the same sound pronounced more emphatically.
김치/gimchi/kimch'i
Americans are now pretty familiar with the most common gimchi, made with preserved bokchoy and chiles, but there are dozens of other kinds too, made of everything from daikon radish (called 깍두기, kkakdugi) to cucumber. Korean restaurants usually serve a couple kinds of gimchi as free side dishes. Gimchi varies in its flavor and how spicy it is, but as far as I'm concerned, the spicier the better.
비빔밥/pibimbap/bibimbap
Pibimbap is rice with various vegetables - usually carrots, spinach, bean sprouts, cucumbers - on top, with a fried egg and a spicy bean-based sauce, all mixed together after it's served. The best part about pibimbap is the sauce, called 고추장/gochujang/koch'ujang. It has a unique flavor and is gratifyingly hot. Vegans make sure to ask for no egg.
김밥/gimbap/kimbap
Gimbap are Korean sushi rolls. They're different from Japanese 寿司/sushi rolls in that they're usually bigger and have more than one ingredient in the middle. Instead of adding vinegar and sugar to the rice as in Japanese sushi rolls, gimbap has sesame oil added. Be careful that you're not getting fish cake or other meat in the rolls, since that's common, as is egg.
유부초밥/yubu chobap/yubu ch'obap
The Korean version of Japanese 稲荷寿司/inari zushi, an unusual form of sushi in which sushi rice is stuffed in a pocket made of sweet tofu skin. As far as I can tell yubu chobap isn't any different from inari zushi. Make sure they don't put bits of fish in it.
김치찌개/gimchi jjigae/kimch'i tchigae
Gimchi soup: bokchoy gimchi in a bright red broth, often with tofu. Gimchi jjigae is one of the more intensely spicy eating experiences I've ever had.
비빔냉면/pibim naengmyoen/bibim naengmyŏn
Mixed cold noodles. The flavor of good naengmyoen is incomparable. It's spicy, but the pleasure of the experience comes more from the incredibly intense taste. Vegans watch out for eggs.
물냉면/mul naengmyoen/mul naengmyŏn
Another kind of cold noodles, in cold soup with the same incredible flavors. Mul naengmyoen can be a little less intense because you can wash some of the spice off with the soup, but I wouldn't.
잡채/japchae/chapchae
Stir-fried noodles, using vegetables and glass noodles made from beans or potato. The flavors are duller than most of the other Korean foods I regularly eat, but it's still a good dish and can help balance the spicier ones.
떡볶이/ddoekbokki/ttŏkbokki
A common snack in Korea, you might find this on some restaurant menus. Thick rice noodles a couple inches long in a hot sauce with some vegetables and/or mushrooms.
김치전/gimchijoen/kimchijŏn or 김치바전/gimchibajoen/kimchibajŏn
A large bready pancake made with gimchi but not too hot. Satisfyingly greasy, and usually served with a tasty soy sauce-based sauce.
Be careful! Almost all of these dishes could have meat added to them but are just fine without it. If there's any doubt, use the following:
저는 채식주의자입니다. 어패류도 먹지 않습니다.
(I'm a vegetarian and I don't eat seafood either.)
Egg is also a common ingredient.
계란도 먹지 않습니다.
(I also don't eat eggs.)
Transliteration and pronunciation: transliteration systems for Korean are a big mess, so you could run into one of the two transliterations I'm providing or some variation on them. The first transliteration follows the system the South Korean government (inconsistently) uses, and the second is McCune-Reischauer, which is standard in English-language scholarly works. If you have the Korean written down it should never be a problem. Pronunciation of Korean is pretty hard to master but you should be okay just sounding it out from the transliteration, except:
a is always as the o in hot,
o is always as the oa in boat,
u is always as the oo in fool,
ae and e are almost exactly the same, as the e in pet,
oe/ŏ is similar to the au in author,
when letters are doubled up (jj, dd, &c) it's the same sound pronounced more emphatically.
김치/gimchi/kimch'i
Americans are now pretty familiar with the most common gimchi, made with preserved bokchoy and chiles, but there are dozens of other kinds too, made of everything from daikon radish (called 깍두기, kkakdugi) to cucumber. Korean restaurants usually serve a couple kinds of gimchi as free side dishes. Gimchi varies in its flavor and how spicy it is, but as far as I'm concerned, the spicier the better.
비빔밥/pibimbap/bibimbap
Pibimbap is rice with various vegetables - usually carrots, spinach, bean sprouts, cucumbers - on top, with a fried egg and a spicy bean-based sauce, all mixed together after it's served. The best part about pibimbap is the sauce, called 고추장/gochujang/koch'ujang. It has a unique flavor and is gratifyingly hot. Vegans make sure to ask for no egg.
김밥/gimbap/kimbap
Gimbap are Korean sushi rolls. They're different from Japanese 寿司/sushi rolls in that they're usually bigger and have more than one ingredient in the middle. Instead of adding vinegar and sugar to the rice as in Japanese sushi rolls, gimbap has sesame oil added. Be careful that you're not getting fish cake or other meat in the rolls, since that's common, as is egg.
유부초밥/yubu chobap/yubu ch'obap
The Korean version of Japanese 稲荷寿司/inari zushi, an unusual form of sushi in which sushi rice is stuffed in a pocket made of sweet tofu skin. As far as I can tell yubu chobap isn't any different from inari zushi. Make sure they don't put bits of fish in it.
김치찌개/gimchi jjigae/kimch'i tchigae
Gimchi soup: bokchoy gimchi in a bright red broth, often with tofu. Gimchi jjigae is one of the more intensely spicy eating experiences I've ever had.
비빔냉면/pibim naengmyoen/bibim naengmyŏn
Mixed cold noodles. The flavor of good naengmyoen is incomparable. It's spicy, but the pleasure of the experience comes more from the incredibly intense taste. Vegans watch out for eggs.
물냉면/mul naengmyoen/mul naengmyŏn
Another kind of cold noodles, in cold soup with the same incredible flavors. Mul naengmyoen can be a little less intense because you can wash some of the spice off with the soup, but I wouldn't.
잡채/japchae/chapchae
Stir-fried noodles, using vegetables and glass noodles made from beans or potato. The flavors are duller than most of the other Korean foods I regularly eat, but it's still a good dish and can help balance the spicier ones.
떡볶이/ddoekbokki/ttŏkbokki
A common snack in Korea, you might find this on some restaurant menus. Thick rice noodles a couple inches long in a hot sauce with some vegetables and/or mushrooms.
김치전/gimchijoen/kimchijŏn or 김치바전/gimchibajoen/kimchibajŏn
A large bready pancake made with gimchi but not too hot. Satisfyingly greasy, and usually served with a tasty soy sauce-based sauce.
2006/09/25
More of the South Side
Jackson Park, the second largest park in Chicago, has trails, woods, a golf course, and the Museum of Science and Industry. Jackson Park is primarily interesting to me as the site of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, which drew about 27 million people. The Exposition was a celebration of Chicago, America, progress, technology, and the Western imperialist project of bringing the whole world under its knowledge and control. It was a pioneering moment in the construction of consumer capitalism, and at the same time a symbolic rejection of the instability and social conflict caused by capitalism and urbanization. It was a magnificent feat of engineering and a model of state social control. It ended with the assassination of the mayor of Chicago, in the midst of the greatest depression the world had seen or would see until 1929, and its remaining physical structures were destroyed in the fires (both literal and figurative) of labor unrest, in the guise of the great Pullman strike. Is there any more perfect confluence of meaning in the experience of modernity?
The Robert Taylor Homes represent another experience of modernity, that of the black underclass. Taylor Homes, a 2-block wide, 2-mile long stretch of highrises along State between Pershing and 54th, was one of the worst housing projects in the country before being mostly demolished in the last 10 years, to be replaced someday with mixed-income units. Only one building still stands, the rest of the site is empty lots.
Douglas is a neighborhood along the lake bordered by Grand Boulevard and Oakland. I went there to see the tomb of Stephan Douglas and the 20-ft tall column with a statue of Douglas on top. Douglas's estate used to be there, and during the civil war it was turned into a huge POW camp whose squalid conditions killed many of the inmates by sickness. Here's some weird trivia: the explorer/imperialist Henry Morton Stanley, before his famous expeditions in Africa (including finding Dr Livingstone), fought for the Confederates, was imprisoned at Camp Douglas, then fought for the Union.
Illinois Institute of Technology. The campus was designed by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe but to be honest I wasn't too impressed.
Back of the Yards is where most of the stockyard workers lived and also where Saul Alinsky did his early organizing. Not much to see, just freight container lots and rundown houses.
Englewood is one of the most violent neighborhoods in the city, and (of course) one of the poorest. So poor that the best thing that's happened to it recently is that a non-unionized grocery store opened - the first grocery store in 10 years. 1200 people applied for the 217 jobs. Not much to see, but Marquette's bike lanes make for a nice ride.
Kenwood, the neighborhood immediately north of Hyde Park. Lots of old mansions, it's a nice place just to look around. The architecture of Louis Farrakhan's place at Woodlawn and 49th is particularly interesting.
South Chicago Av to the East Side and on to the great state of Indiana. Yes, Chicago does have an East Side, it's south of 95th and east of the Calumet River on the lettered avenues near the Indiana border. No, Indiana is not a great state. It's a wasteland of highways, factories, gas stations, liquor stores, and a casino - at least that's what's in the tiny part I ventured into.
Actually the East Side trip is one of the better rides I've had in awhile. South Chicago Av runs diagonal between Marquette (67th) and 95th. It's sort of an economically depressed version of Elston, with good bike lanes, warehouses and stores, and not too much traffic. So it wasn't a very interesting stretch, but it's about as good as bike riding qua riding gets in Chicago off the Lakeshore Trail. A short way south of 95th is the Burnham Greenway, a pleasant ride off the streets that runs all the way to 123rd (a proposed extension would take it into the suburbs).
Calumet Park is nice, and gives a good view of the industrial shore of Indiana. I kind of like looking at industry, there's this feeling of something more real there than in the image-saturated world of surfaces that typifies consumer capitalism. Of course the feeling is probably no more objectively valid than the romanticization of "nature" that developed following industrialization, once people were removed from nature.
The bike route north paralleling the lake from Calumet Park to where the Lakeshore Trail picks up again at 71st is pretty relaxed, even tho bike lanes don't start again till 83rd and South Shore. Traffic is pretty sparse since on your right is some of what's left of Chicago's industrial facilities. The fact that all of Chicago's factories are concentrated in the poorest parts of the city is pretty good evidence that actually living with industry is different from how nostalgia might imagine it to be.
The Robert Taylor Homes represent another experience of modernity, that of the black underclass. Taylor Homes, a 2-block wide, 2-mile long stretch of highrises along State between Pershing and 54th, was one of the worst housing projects in the country before being mostly demolished in the last 10 years, to be replaced someday with mixed-income units. Only one building still stands, the rest of the site is empty lots.
Douglas is a neighborhood along the lake bordered by Grand Boulevard and Oakland. I went there to see the tomb of Stephan Douglas and the 20-ft tall column with a statue of Douglas on top. Douglas's estate used to be there, and during the civil war it was turned into a huge POW camp whose squalid conditions killed many of the inmates by sickness. Here's some weird trivia: the explorer/imperialist Henry Morton Stanley, before his famous expeditions in Africa (including finding Dr Livingstone), fought for the Confederates, was imprisoned at Camp Douglas, then fought for the Union.
Illinois Institute of Technology. The campus was designed by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe but to be honest I wasn't too impressed.
Back of the Yards is where most of the stockyard workers lived and also where Saul Alinsky did his early organizing. Not much to see, just freight container lots and rundown houses.
Englewood is one of the most violent neighborhoods in the city, and (of course) one of the poorest. So poor that the best thing that's happened to it recently is that a non-unionized grocery store opened - the first grocery store in 10 years. 1200 people applied for the 217 jobs. Not much to see, but Marquette's bike lanes make for a nice ride.
Kenwood, the neighborhood immediately north of Hyde Park. Lots of old mansions, it's a nice place just to look around. The architecture of Louis Farrakhan's place at Woodlawn and 49th is particularly interesting.
South Chicago Av to the East Side and on to the great state of Indiana. Yes, Chicago does have an East Side, it's south of 95th and east of the Calumet River on the lettered avenues near the Indiana border. No, Indiana is not a great state. It's a wasteland of highways, factories, gas stations, liquor stores, and a casino - at least that's what's in the tiny part I ventured into.
Actually the East Side trip is one of the better rides I've had in awhile. South Chicago Av runs diagonal between Marquette (67th) and 95th. It's sort of an economically depressed version of Elston, with good bike lanes, warehouses and stores, and not too much traffic. So it wasn't a very interesting stretch, but it's about as good as bike riding qua riding gets in Chicago off the Lakeshore Trail. A short way south of 95th is the Burnham Greenway, a pleasant ride off the streets that runs all the way to 123rd (a proposed extension would take it into the suburbs).
Calumet Park is nice, and gives a good view of the industrial shore of Indiana. I kind of like looking at industry, there's this feeling of something more real there than in the image-saturated world of surfaces that typifies consumer capitalism. Of course the feeling is probably no more objectively valid than the romanticization of "nature" that developed following industrialization, once people were removed from nature.
The bike route north paralleling the lake from Calumet Park to where the Lakeshore Trail picks up again at 71st is pretty relaxed, even tho bike lanes don't start again till 83rd and South Shore. Traffic is pretty sparse since on your right is some of what's left of Chicago's industrial facilities. The fact that all of Chicago's factories are concentrated in the poorest parts of the city is pretty good evidence that actually living with industry is different from how nostalgia might imagine it to be.
2006/09/14
Initial South Side explorations
In the last two weeks I've put over 100 miles on the new bike in various trips thru the South Side. In my two years in Rogers Park I got to know the North Side pretty well, but aside from a handful of trips to Chinatown and Hyde Park, I never went south. Since the South Side amounts to half the city of Chicago, I guess I actually did get my wish of going to grad school in a new city. Of course, this city is characterized by poverty and violence and, because Chicago is one of the country's most segregated cities, racial tension whenever I venture out of mostly-white Hyde Park.
But as I'm finding out first-hand, the South Side is anything but the undifferentiated wasteland of despair that popular caricatures would have it be. Hyde Park, of course, is the most obvious complication. Bordered on three sides (the fourth being the lake) by four of Chicago's five poorest neighborhoods, which are all almost completely black, Hyde Park is fairly integrated, stable, and well-off.
That's not to set up an invidious comparison between Hyde Park and its poorer neighbors, or to impute deserved success for HP and deserved failure for the black parts of town. I've been doing some reading on the South Side, but Hyde Park's relationship with (responsibility for?) the segregation and poverty of most of the rest of the South Side remain unclear to me.
Here's some other places I've been thru:
Lakeshore Trail north to the Loop and south to 73rd. The lakeshore parks on the South Side are definitely not as nice as those on the North Side, but they're still well-maintained and get a lot of use, and the bike trail is outstanding until 71st, when it turns into sidewalk but is still pretty usable.
Garfield Blvd (55th) west to Western. As part of my ongoing war of attrition with Comcast, I biked out to their South Side store, waited in line for 40 minutes, then picked up some stuff that, once I started installing the modem, I realized I didn't actually need. The highlights of this trip were seeing the Fireball Faith church (Garfield 2 blocks west of Racine), whose sign features a large red fireball, and finding out that Western is exactly the same at Garfield as it is 5-15 miles north: auto dealers, gas stations, strip malls, and fast food places. Ah Western, my bitter enemy. I've often wondered if we'll preserve Western after the revolution as a reminder of the dark times we will have turned our backs on.
South Shore (the neighborhood south of Jackson Park). I biked down to the closest Jewel in the vain hope that I could pay less than $5 for a tiny container of spices. On a different trip I saw Mosque Maryam (Mosque No. 2), headquarters of the Nation of Islam. South Shore is certainly not prospering, but it does seem to be doing better than some other neighborhoods. Thru tireless efforts, 5th ward alderman Leslie Hairston has gotten a Starbucks to open, and - now that the living wage ordinance is overturned - has a promise from Target to open a new store. I've been thinking a lot lately about an alternative model for economically depressed urban areas to follow, rather than mindlessly pursuing chain stores and consumerism - a path that in addition to being undesirable on its own terms could also end up in gentrification. Any suggestions? I haven't come up with anything good.
King Dr between South Loop and Garfield. Beautiful old mansions and some of the remaining housing projects in the gentrifying Bronzeville neighborhood, center of the historic black community in Chicago. Good bike lanes but an alarming number of condos going up.
Chinatown. A good place to eat a meal and buy groceries. I went to back to 老四川/Lao Sichuan (Szechwan?) for the first time since getting back to the States, and I can now confirm that it has the best Chinese food in Chicago. On the issue of groceries, I'm finding that one of the biggest drawbacks about the South Side is the lack of ethnic grocery stores. Even in rather remote Rogers Park, I had Devon (Indian), Argyle (Vietnamese, Chinese), Albany Park (Middle Eastern), Chicago Food Corp. (Korean), and many Mexican groceries all within 7 miles. Hyde Park's Co-op Market is great and very convenient for me, but is way more expensive than the ethnic groceries and has fewer specialty products.
Halsted from 51st to Diversey. Halsted is pretty bike-friendly, and one of the most interesting streets in the city. I started out with a visit to where the Union Stockyards once operated, between 47th and 39th, Halsted and Ashland (one square mile). Only a gate that marked where the animal pens started is left of the operation that once killed and processed 80 percent of the animals eaten in America. The innovations in animal "disassembly" made at the Stockyards paved the way for such key manifestations of modernity as the Fordist assembly line and the Nazi death camps. Seeing the site of the stockyards is, indeed, like visiting Auschwitz, except no sign of the machines of torture and death remains and neither popular memory nor the official markers of Chicago History care to describe or remember what happened there.
Further north Halsted runs thru Bridgeport, home of the Daley family and maybe the most enduring ethnic enclave in the city. Irish immigrants first settled there in the 1830s to build the canal connecting the Mississippi basin and the Great Lakes system, which began Chicago's transition from swampy backwater to great metropolis. Their descendants still live there, they still root for the White Sox (who were founded and first achieved success as the team of South Side Irish), and they still fear black folks (see here and here for violent examples). The black population of Bridgeport in 2000 was 1.2 percent, even tho Bridgeport is separated from nearly 100 percent black neighborhoods only by the Dan Ryan Expressway - which was built there with the conscious intention of keeping the neighborhood white. As I biked into the commercial strip of Bridgeport along Halsted, it felt like nothing so much as downtown Wilmette, the rich white suburb north of Chicago.
Halsted stays pretty consistently interesting north of Bridgeport. First you go thru Pilsen, the gentrifying heart of Mexican Chicago, then on to "University Village", a dystopian vision of what the city would look like if real estate developers and yuppies were starting from a blank canvas. University Village is built on the ashes of the Maxwell Street neighborhood, once the center of Jewish life in Chicago and later the birthplace of the Chicago blues. The unholy trinity of UIC, the Daley administration, and developers weren't interested in that history but they were interested in the potential property values, so they razed the old buildings and erected über-bourgie condos, townhouses, and consumption opportunities.
And it doesn't get much better continuing north thru Greektown (now nothing but some restaurants), passing close to Cabrini-Green, then into the dark heart of yuppiedom - Lincoln Park, Depaul, Lakeview. There's only a hint of redemption when you finally reach Boystown. So I guess thinking about it, Halsted is pretty dispiriting. But when you're on a bike riding in perfect fall weather, nothing seems dispiriting.
But as I'm finding out first-hand, the South Side is anything but the undifferentiated wasteland of despair that popular caricatures would have it be. Hyde Park, of course, is the most obvious complication. Bordered on three sides (the fourth being the lake) by four of Chicago's five poorest neighborhoods, which are all almost completely black, Hyde Park is fairly integrated, stable, and well-off.
That's not to set up an invidious comparison between Hyde Park and its poorer neighbors, or to impute deserved success for HP and deserved failure for the black parts of town. I've been doing some reading on the South Side, but Hyde Park's relationship with (responsibility for?) the segregation and poverty of most of the rest of the South Side remain unclear to me.
Here's some other places I've been thru:
Lakeshore Trail north to the Loop and south to 73rd. The lakeshore parks on the South Side are definitely not as nice as those on the North Side, but they're still well-maintained and get a lot of use, and the bike trail is outstanding until 71st, when it turns into sidewalk but is still pretty usable.
Garfield Blvd (55th) west to Western. As part of my ongoing war of attrition with Comcast, I biked out to their South Side store, waited in line for 40 minutes, then picked up some stuff that, once I started installing the modem, I realized I didn't actually need. The highlights of this trip were seeing the Fireball Faith church (Garfield 2 blocks west of Racine), whose sign features a large red fireball, and finding out that Western is exactly the same at Garfield as it is 5-15 miles north: auto dealers, gas stations, strip malls, and fast food places. Ah Western, my bitter enemy. I've often wondered if we'll preserve Western after the revolution as a reminder of the dark times we will have turned our backs on.
South Shore (the neighborhood south of Jackson Park). I biked down to the closest Jewel in the vain hope that I could pay less than $5 for a tiny container of spices. On a different trip I saw Mosque Maryam (Mosque No. 2), headquarters of the Nation of Islam. South Shore is certainly not prospering, but it does seem to be doing better than some other neighborhoods. Thru tireless efforts, 5th ward alderman Leslie Hairston has gotten a Starbucks to open, and - now that the living wage ordinance is overturned - has a promise from Target to open a new store. I've been thinking a lot lately about an alternative model for economically depressed urban areas to follow, rather than mindlessly pursuing chain stores and consumerism - a path that in addition to being undesirable on its own terms could also end up in gentrification. Any suggestions? I haven't come up with anything good.
King Dr between South Loop and Garfield. Beautiful old mansions and some of the remaining housing projects in the gentrifying Bronzeville neighborhood, center of the historic black community in Chicago. Good bike lanes but an alarming number of condos going up.
Chinatown. A good place to eat a meal and buy groceries. I went to back to 老四川/Lao Sichuan (Szechwan?) for the first time since getting back to the States, and I can now confirm that it has the best Chinese food in Chicago. On the issue of groceries, I'm finding that one of the biggest drawbacks about the South Side is the lack of ethnic grocery stores. Even in rather remote Rogers Park, I had Devon (Indian), Argyle (Vietnamese, Chinese), Albany Park (Middle Eastern), Chicago Food Corp. (Korean), and many Mexican groceries all within 7 miles. Hyde Park's Co-op Market is great and very convenient for me, but is way more expensive than the ethnic groceries and has fewer specialty products.
Halsted from 51st to Diversey. Halsted is pretty bike-friendly, and one of the most interesting streets in the city. I started out with a visit to where the Union Stockyards once operated, between 47th and 39th, Halsted and Ashland (one square mile). Only a gate that marked where the animal pens started is left of the operation that once killed and processed 80 percent of the animals eaten in America. The innovations in animal "disassembly" made at the Stockyards paved the way for such key manifestations of modernity as the Fordist assembly line and the Nazi death camps. Seeing the site of the stockyards is, indeed, like visiting Auschwitz, except no sign of the machines of torture and death remains and neither popular memory nor the official markers of Chicago History care to describe or remember what happened there.
Further north Halsted runs thru Bridgeport, home of the Daley family and maybe the most enduring ethnic enclave in the city. Irish immigrants first settled there in the 1830s to build the canal connecting the Mississippi basin and the Great Lakes system, which began Chicago's transition from swampy backwater to great metropolis. Their descendants still live there, they still root for the White Sox (who were founded and first achieved success as the team of South Side Irish), and they still fear black folks (see here and here for violent examples). The black population of Bridgeport in 2000 was 1.2 percent, even tho Bridgeport is separated from nearly 100 percent black neighborhoods only by the Dan Ryan Expressway - which was built there with the conscious intention of keeping the neighborhood white. As I biked into the commercial strip of Bridgeport along Halsted, it felt like nothing so much as downtown Wilmette, the rich white suburb north of Chicago.
Halsted stays pretty consistently interesting north of Bridgeport. First you go thru Pilsen, the gentrifying heart of Mexican Chicago, then on to "University Village", a dystopian vision of what the city would look like if real estate developers and yuppies were starting from a blank canvas. University Village is built on the ashes of the Maxwell Street neighborhood, once the center of Jewish life in Chicago and later the birthplace of the Chicago blues. The unholy trinity of UIC, the Daley administration, and developers weren't interested in that history but they were interested in the potential property values, so they razed the old buildings and erected über-bourgie condos, townhouses, and consumption opportunities.
And it doesn't get much better continuing north thru Greektown (now nothing but some restaurants), passing close to Cabrini-Green, then into the dark heart of yuppiedom - Lincoln Park, Depaul, Lakeview. There's only a hint of redemption when you finally reach Boystown. So I guess thinking about it, Halsted is pretty dispiriting. But when you're on a bike riding in perfect fall weather, nothing seems dispiriting.
2006/09/09
Slandered by CSI
So I googled myself for the first time in ages today. Little did I know that last year I was featured as a character on CSI:
Grissom interviews the only witnesses they have – the patients themselves. ... J— W— is next. An anti-social with constant manic and psychotic breaks, J— was convicted of multiple ritual murders involving satanic cults and the White Aryan Resistance. He's one of the most lucid patients there, but he prefers to rant about the staff's ethnicities than answer Grissom's questions.
2006/09/08
The lightbulb revolution!!!!
(I'm cross-posting this, even tho it fits better in raze the ladder, because it's news you can use and I know there are those who avoid the political blog.)
Here's a breathless article ostensibly doing boosterism for the ultra-efficient compact flourescent lightbulb, altho doing at least as much boosterism for Wal-Mart. Even so, it does a good job driving home how amazing these lightbulbs are. They not only save electricity, reducing greenhouse gases and pollution, they also last for 5-10 years (10-40 times longer than conventional lightbulbs), saving huge amounts of energy and resources currently expended on the production, packaging, distribution, and disposal of conventional lightbulbs. And because they're more energy efficient and last so much longer, they also save the consumer quite a bit of money in reduced electricity bills and lightbulb replacement costs (GE's new packaging promises $38 in saved energy).
The main problem is that the efficient lightbulbs cost a lot more than conventional ones up-front ($3-$4 vs 30-50¢) and most people aren't aware that they'll not only help the environment but also save money by buying them. The author of the article sees Wal-Mart as the Lenin of the lightbulb revolution, both lowering prices and educating consumers thru a promotional blitz.
The writer is wide-eyed and enthusaistic in the face of Wal-Mart's attempts to portray itself as environmentally responsible. He passes on this touching story:
(Kerby, a vice president and divisional merchandise manager, is the same person who at another point refers offhandedly to "Our friend Oprah".)
The writer sees Wal-Mart's massive market power, its ability to decide the rise and fall of entire industries, as unproblematic - even beneficial, given Wal-Mart's efforts to protect the environment and "make a difference for their customers". Nor does he see anything wrong with the fact that Wal-Mart's patronage will give GE a stranglehold on the efficient lightbulb industry.
He also suffers from a bit too much enthusiasm about the potential of energy efficient lightbulbs. If every American family replaced a single convential bulb with an efficient one, he writes, the energy savings could power a city of 1.5 million people. So the potential really is huge, and Wal-Mart really could be a force for good - if we look at the issue in a highly circumscribed way. Yet to pretend that solving the environmental catastrophes that consumer capitalism is crafting for us will be as easy as changing your lightbulbs (and saving money in the process!) is a bit naive. We have to consume better, but what's more important is consuming less.
Here's a breathless article ostensibly doing boosterism for the ultra-efficient compact flourescent lightbulb, altho doing at least as much boosterism for Wal-Mart. Even so, it does a good job driving home how amazing these lightbulbs are. They not only save electricity, reducing greenhouse gases and pollution, they also last for 5-10 years (10-40 times longer than conventional lightbulbs), saving huge amounts of energy and resources currently expended on the production, packaging, distribution, and disposal of conventional lightbulbs. And because they're more energy efficient and last so much longer, they also save the consumer quite a bit of money in reduced electricity bills and lightbulb replacement costs (GE's new packaging promises $38 in saved energy).
The main problem is that the efficient lightbulbs cost a lot more than conventional ones up-front ($3-$4 vs 30-50¢) and most people aren't aware that they'll not only help the environment but also save money by buying them. The author of the article sees Wal-Mart as the Lenin of the lightbulb revolution, both lowering prices and educating consumers thru a promotional blitz.
The writer is wide-eyed and enthusaistic in the face of Wal-Mart's attempts to portray itself as environmentally responsible. He passes on this touching story:
"Last fall," says Kerby, "we had had two hurricanes"--Katrina and Rita--"we had oil production disrupted, we had millions of people displaced in the South, and at a Friday officer's meeting not long after Katrina, Lee Scott said, 'Our customers are hurting, our customers' dollar is not going as far as it could.' He challenged everyone in the room to find relevant rollbacks, to lower the price of living and make a difference for our customers." (Wal-Mart-ers really talk that way among themselves.)I guess the reporter knew this because Wal-Mart executives told him so?
(Kerby, a vice president and divisional merchandise manager, is the same person who at another point refers offhandedly to "Our friend Oprah".)
The writer sees Wal-Mart's massive market power, its ability to decide the rise and fall of entire industries, as unproblematic - even beneficial, given Wal-Mart's efforts to protect the environment and "make a difference for their customers". Nor does he see anything wrong with the fact that Wal-Mart's patronage will give GE a stranglehold on the efficient lightbulb industry.
He also suffers from a bit too much enthusiasm about the potential of energy efficient lightbulbs. If every American family replaced a single convential bulb with an efficient one, he writes, the energy savings could power a city of 1.5 million people. So the potential really is huge, and Wal-Mart really could be a force for good - if we look at the issue in a highly circumscribed way. Yet to pretend that solving the environmental catastrophes that consumer capitalism is crafting for us will be as easy as changing your lightbulbs (and saving money in the process!) is a bit naive. We have to consume better, but what's more important is consuming less.
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