The fluorescent lights of Chicago City Hall buzzed overhead like angry wasps as I adjusted my sunglasses for the third time in five minutes. Even with the UV-blocking lenses, the artificial lighting made my skin crawl—literally. At 247 years old, I'd survived the Great Chicago Fire, Prohibition, and the Cubs winning the World Series, but … Continue reading The Chicago Covenant
Politics
More Than Yellow Brick Roads
When L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, readers saw a delightful children's fantasy about a Kansas farm girl who finds herself in a magical land. What they didn't realize was that Baum had created one of the most sophisticated commentaries on American society ever disguised as a fairy tale. Through … Continue reading More Than Yellow Brick Roads
Good Bye Yellow Brick Road
When L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, he could hardly have imagined that his "modernized fairy tale" would become one of the most analyzed works of American literature. While Baum consistently maintained that he wrote simply "to please children," the rich tapestry of symbolism and allegory woven throughout his narrative … Continue reading Good Bye Yellow Brick Road
Question of the Week #379
From Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions: If you worked for the government and found that the president was committing serious crimes to bring about positive things you both believed in, would you try to expose those crimes? If so, what if you knew your reputation would be destroyed in the process? Personally, as much as … Continue reading Question of the Week #379
Question of the Week #372
This week is something of a follow-up from last week's question and also comes from Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions: What kind of people would be attracted to politics given a loss of privacy? How do you think such openness would affect lobbying? What would be your biggest concern about such transparency? Well for starters, … Continue reading Question of the Week #372
Question of the Week #371
From Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions: A movement to reduce political corruption maintains that the only way to keep politicians even close to honest is to require them to always wear tiny video bugs that record their every interaction and to post them all online. Would you support such monitoring of key elected officials? I … Continue reading Question of the Week #371
Political Therapy
I've been given permission to discuss politics and social issues in my counseling sessions. This opens up an entire can of worms that I did not think was possible to open. My therapist may regret granting this permission...
Movie Trailers and Campaign Ads
What do these things have in common? Probably not that much and I'm sure I'm reading into things and just formulating my opinions based on sheer annoyance. But I'm annoyed. So that annoyance is giving birth to this blog post. Next Tuesday is an election day in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It's not a huge … Continue reading Movie Trailers and Campaign Ads
Nobody in Authority Is Actually Helping
That post title is probably hyperbole. I hope it is, anyway. But this is where the super polarization that we're experiencing between political ideologies is completely to our detriment as a society. On the one hand, you have conservative leaders underplaying the coronavirus pandemic, warning that the media is feeding into an unnecessary panic. On … Continue reading Nobody in Authority Is Actually Helping
Question of the Week #215
Would you like to be elected president of this country? Why? If so, would you still choose to be president if it meant that your sleep would always be very fitful and disturbed, punctuated by frequent nightmares? Heck no. I deal with enough drama, I don't need to be the center of attention for every … Continue reading Question of the Week #215
The Confusing Middle 