Chicago – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

Boulder bustling

The world prepares to begin a new year and wakes up to an entirely new world. Or does it?

You go to bed on a Friday night with the holiday season inching to a close and wake up on Saturday morning and your country is running Venezuela after invading it and kidnapping its president and his wife. Or so the narrative on Sunday morning goes. I’m sure it will change by the time we get to midweek. Yeah, it was that kind of weekend and that will be reflected in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading along with a host of other topics.

Main-9 24-Nov-2.

I’ll lead off with a few in the moment takes on what happened in Venezuela yesterday. Note that in the moment takes often fade once the moment has its moment.

First up, David Frum says that Trump’s Critics Are Falling Into An Obvious Trap. Frankly, whether you’re a critic or a MAGA hat wearing supporter we’ve all fallen for so many obvious traps, what’s one more?

Thinking bigger picture, Tom Nichols thinks Maybe Russia and China Should Sit This One Out. They need to stop laughing first.

In the wake of the news, Carole Cadwalladr sees “a mass propaganda event” about to engulf the US in her piece, The Threat From America. She’s correct.

Written before the events of this weekend, Mathew Walther’s The Strange Death of Make America Great Again may seem out of place and time as it focuses on the MAGA culture wars within itself. I would venture that it is not, so stay tuned.

Turning to more local concerns that resonate alongside the global news, the folks at Block Club Chicago including Francia Garcia Hernádez and Madison Savedra have an excellent look at How Operation Midway Blitz Changed Our City in Chicago Under Siege.

As if not to be left out of the making bad news moment, Elon Musk’s back in the swing of things with his AI tool Grok allowing users to essentially turn X into a porn machine using photos of real folks to wreak havoc. Just note that X is still the social media platform of choice for far too many. Matteo Wong has the story in Elon Musk’s Pornography Machine.

Cory Doctorow published the text of a recent speech called A Post-American, Enshittification-Resistant Internet. He continues fighting the good fight like Sisyphus with that boulder.

JA Westenberg makes The Case For Blogging In The Ruins.

And to close out the week when holiday close out sales come to an end, Jake Lundberg takes a look at The Cult of Costco. Great piece whether you shop there or not.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Sharing thoughts about big ideas and little things

Sunday Morning Reading is back from a two-week hiatus in which we watched the grandkids while their parents began moving into what will be their new house after the first of the year. It was a big deal featuring lots of little things with the little ones. As usual the column this week presents some interesting reading and writing that I think worth sharing. Big topics side by side with little things.

As the Christmas season I knew growing up begins to wind down and everyone begins gearing up for the New Year, I ran across Matthew Cooper’s Why We Need A New Dickens. He makes a good argument, but in my experience everyone loves reading what Dickens chronicled, but somehow it never really catches on.

Keeping somewhat in the Christmas vein The Guardian View On Far-Right Perversions Of The Christmas Message: Promoting A Gospel Of Hate by the Guardian’s editorial department hits its target, but in a glancing blow that proves my point from the link above.

NatashaMH takes on The Great Wall Of Honesty with blunt truths, bear hugs, and a bit of resilience.

JA Westenberg points out that we never pay much attention to the tech folks who do the grunt work behind the scenes to keep things running in The Rime Of The Ancient Maintainer. That’s the little story behind most of the big things we take for granted.

Illustrator Lauren Martin writes On The Pitfalls Of Saying Yes To Everything. Hat tip to Stan Stewart for this one.

I don’t usually link to book reviews in this column, but this one by Dorian Lynskey of Sven Beckert’s book Capitalism: A Global History made me buy the book. Check out Capitalism by Sven Beckert Review — An Extraordinary History Of The Economic System That Control Our Lives. (FWIW there are no affiliate links on this site.)

Speaking of the little things, David Todd McCarty enjoys The Casual Comfort Of Champagne And French Fries.

This piece by Josh Marshall has been sitting in my Sunday Morning Reading queue during the aforementioned hiatus and it’s certainly lost none of its luster with time. Check out Will The 21st Century Nabobs Win Their War On Public Accountabilty?

I’ve followed and linked to a number of Denny Henke’s posts about how he’s changing his personal computing habits this year. His 2025 End Of Year Personal Computing Check-In is worth a read even if you haven’t been paying attention up until now.

Neil Steinberg notices things big and small and occasionally writes about those he hasn’t seen in a while. Check out his observations on seeing an Armored Car.

And to close out this week and this year’s Sunday Morning Reading, here’s a piece that good friend Sumocat linked to that is indeed an obituary. One worth a look even if you never noticed or took for granted what the deceased created, The Moylan Arrow. Take a look at The Inventor Of The Little Arrow That Tells You What Side The Fuel Filler Is On Has Died by Daniel Golson.

It’s the little things that make a difference in this big world. Have a happy turn of the New Year.

The Before Times

Family circles

The Before Times. Today begins the round of family and friend holiday gatherings that follow Christmas. In Chicago basements and dining rooms. In the occasional pizza parlor on the Northwest Side. I call it The Before Times because it was before Trump. Before COVID. Before Trump again. Before some of the folks in this picture from 2014 succumbed to illness, divorced, or on the flip side gotten married and had kids, or seen their kids finish college and move on.

Like I said, before so much.

These gatherings were and are always fun. Always a bit tedious. Always full of laughter. Always with an air of tension. Always always.

While they still happen, so much has changed. Families have separated and merged into new families with new family traditions. The younger ones have scattered across the country and don’t always come back for the holidays as they build their own. As a matter of fact, we’re in the midst of building a new one with my daughter and our grandkids. One family grouping continues the bi-weekly Zoom call that began during COVID.

But that’s life and the part of life that holidays always remind us of. Regardless of what’s happening within our family circles or outside of them, life goes on. It is just always changing.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Hands on with playwrights, movies, smart toilets, and a discomforting rooster

Another Sunday. More snow overnight. More shoveling later. The holidays creep closer or perhaps they’re already here, given that grandpa mode has kicked into high gear. Started writing a new play out of the blue yesterday. I have no idea why, but it just tumbled out of my brain on to the screen via the keyboard. Time to share some Sunday Morning Reading. Read as you will, even if it’s on a smart toilet.

I often save the softer pieces for later in this column, but I’ll lead today with David Todd McCarty’s Christmas Means Comfort. Tell that to the rooster.

The world lost a treasure this week with the passing of architect Frank Gehry. Lee Bray writes a nice obituary and tribute. Check out Architect Frank Gehry Who Designed Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavillion and Foot Bridge Dies at 96.

Samuel Beckett’s Hands is a terrific piece by Rob Tomlinson about, well it’s about Samuel Beckett’s hands and how Dupuytren’s contracture may have influenced not just how, but what he wrote, given that Beckett always begin his writing with pen and paper.

While I’m sharing stories about playwrights, the movie Hamnet is garnering lots of attention and accolades. (I haven’t seen it yet.) Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s excellent novel of the same name, Hamnet mostly follows accepted scholarship that William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet while grieving the death of his son, Hamnet. (At the time, the two names were practically interchangeable.) As with most things Shakespeare, there’s generally accepted knowledge and there are always those who challenge it. James Shapiro takes a look at The Long History of the Hamnet Myth.

And while I’m sharing stories about movies, take a look at Susan Morrison’s piece on How Noah Baumbach Fell (Back) In Love With The Movies.

I linked earlier this week to a piece by Phillip Bump called There Are Limits to the Hitler-Trump Comparison. Just Ask These Historians. I don’t disagree with the thesis. I just think it stops short in the way most history usually does.

Rory Rowan and Tristan Sturm write that Peter Thiel’s Apocalyptic Worldview Is A Dangerous Fantasy. Here’s hoping this first draft of our current history proves lasting.

There’s been much talk about all things military recently given how the current administration is tossing away most of what we believe the military stands for as easy as my grandson tosses away toy soldiers. Carrie Lee says The Soldier In The Illiberal State Is A Professional Dead End. I concur. Sadly.

In the wake of the cataclysm that was Twitter, social media is essentially a messy muddle these days with users continuing to migrate from one platform to another seeking some sort of place that feels comfortable enough to share and often discomfort others. Ian Dunt writes what he calls a love letter to one platform with Thank God for Bluesky.

Smart toilets were in the news this week. I actually got to see and use one at a Christmas party last night. All I could think about while doing my business was this piece by Victoria Song called Welcome To The Wellness Surveillance State.

And to conclude this week, Amogh Dimri informs us that the Oxford University Press has chosen Rage Bait as 2025’s Word of the Year. Dimiri thinks it’s a brilliant choice. I guess it begs the question, if we’re angry enough to rage, is it really baiting?

The Colors of Bears Packers Weekend

Mother Nature and football rivalries

Chicago is a football crazy town at the moment getting ready for the first meeting this season of the Chicago Bears and the enemy to the north, the Green Bay Packers. Typically that first meeting comes along earlier in the season, but not this year.

Chicago football fans and teams are used to games played in snow, ice and frigid temperatures in December. Quite frankly, I find memories of some of those games to be some of my most cherished. That’s the scene for this year, with everything still covered under blankets of the white stuff. Apparently more is on the way over night.

That said, I’ve often found it a sort of odd, cruel joke of nature that the colors of the Chicago Bears’ biggest rivals, green and gold, are the most prominent colors we see in our streetscapes once the leaves begin turning in the fall. When the Bears play the Packers earlier in a football season under canopies of green and gold something just doesn’t quite feel right watching two teams from the Black and Blue division fight it out. It almost feels like Mother Nature has chosen sides.

That’s not the case this year. Perhaps it heralds a change in the football forecast as Green Bay has had the Bears’ number for quite sometime in this rivalry, regardless of the season’s colors.

The Stillness of A Snowy Night

Last night, after a day of shoveling snow, we headed out to a friend’s house for a Christmas tree decorating party we attend most years. Given that most of Chicago was still digging out and our friend lives on a very narrow street, we decided we’d bundle up to walk there and take an Uber home rather than fighting icy streets and trying to park if our friend’s street hadn’t been plowed yet.

Our path took us through Portage Park. We were largely alone through that part of the 45 minute hike, save for one man and his dog. Given the snowfall and the absence of others there was a quiet eerie, yet comforting stillness. Always fascinating that the park was plowed, yet several of the streets we walked along were not, but that’s Chicago.

Here are a few photos I took along the way through the park and before we got there. Even the alleys felt a bit magical under the moonlight.

Chicago Bears Coach Rips His Shirt Off In Hot Dog Challenge After Bears Win

Free Hot Dogs!

Chicago is one crazy town. Especially when it comes to sports. Multiply that by a very large number when it comes to the Chicago Bears. After today’s win over last year’s Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles the crazy is out of this world.

So much so that new Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, who has become famous for his post game chant of Good, Better, Best after the Bears have been on what once seemed like an improbable winning streak, took up a challenge today and ripped his shirt off in the locker room to lead his now famous chant.

The challenge came from another wonderfully crazy Chicago favorite, The Wieners Circle, famous not only for its Chicago hot dogs, but also it’s wonderfully witty and irreverent statements on its sign, challenged the coach to take off his shirt during one of his post-game rallying cries. And Coach Johnson did so today after a thrilling victory.

Johnson’s acceptance of the challenge means the Wieners Circle is serving up free hot dogs this week.

Meanwhile the Chicago Bears keep serving up wins to a hungry sports town heading into the stretch run before the playoffs. There’s no question Johnson has changed the culture of the Bears. It’s a far cry from a year ago on Black Friday when the Bears fired head coach Matt Eberflus the day after a huge Thanksgiving day loss at Detroit. Perhaps equally important, Johnson is also rallying the entire Chicago Metro area after all we’ve been through this late summer and fall.

Put it another way that Chicagoans understand. He’s on his way to owning this town and certainly giving new meaning to the slogan, Bear Down!

Edit: Added the photo below from The Wieners Circle later in the evening.

Fall Leavings

Just a quick share of a quick shot I grabbed that captures the season, and I dare say, my mood.

Sunday Morning Reading

Small acts

It’s only business they say. Nothing personal. That’s the way the world works. Well, what I share each week in Sunday Morning Reading always comes from a place of personal interest. That may not be how the world works, but it works for me and I hope it does for you. Call it a small act.

In the wake of the continuing and confounding ICE occupation of Chicago comes a terrific piece by Kyle Kingsbury called I Want You To Understand Chicago.

Follow that up with a ProPublica piece by Melissa Sanches, Jodi S. Cohen, T. Christian Miller, Sebastian Rotella and Mariam Elba about the nighttime raid on a Chicago apartment building that featured men rappelling from Black Hawk helicopters, and all of the residents emptied on to the streets with many of their belongings. The punchline is in the article’s title, “I Lost Everything”; Venezuelans Were Rounded Up In A Dramatic Midnight Raid But Never Charged With A Crime.

A Nation of Heroes, A Senate Of Cowards by Will Bunch calls it like it is and much the way I see things after last weekend’s actions in the U.S. Senate.

Growing up, I never understood the cliché, “it’s nothing personal, it’s only business.” Frankly I still don’t. It excuses too much that I find wrong about the way the world works. Charles Broskoski examines the personal side in Personal Business.

And speaking of the way the world works (or doesn’t) in the midst of the Epstein fever I don’t think we’ll ever shake, Sarah Lyons points out that the violence in his and others’ actions is something we all live with in This Is How The World Works. It shouldn’t be.

Corbin Trent says We Didn’t Kill American Manufacturing—We Let It Die. He’s spot on.

Mark Jacob tells us How News Coverage Eases Us Into Tyranny. However this saga we’re living through ends up, one thing is for certain. The media has killed any chance of returning to what it once was.

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t read of some nefarious business practice spilling out of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. Turns out Meta is knowingly leeching off of scammers to the tune of about 10 percent of its revenue. I guess that makes Meta and Zuckerberg a scammer too. Cath Virginia has the writeup with Meta Must Rein In Scammers — Or Face Consequences. I doubt they will.

The Internet Archive is under attack in the same way libraries, media organizations, and text book publishing is. It shouldn’t be. Mathew Ingram has the lowdown in The Internet Archive Should Be Protected Not Attacked.

On a more positive note, Jeff Veen tells us how Small Acts Build Great Cultures. Boy, do we need lots of small acts these days.

To close out, did you ever wonder where collective nouns like “a watch of nightingales” or “an ostentation of peacocks” come from? For many years it was assumed that the anonymous author of this collection of collective nouns was the work of a “gentleman of excellent gifts” written down in one of the first books printed after the invention of The Gutenberg Press, The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blazing of Arms. Turns out the author was a woman named Juliana Barnes. Maria Popova has the story in A Parliament of Owls And A Murder Of Crows: How Groups Of Birds Got Their Names, With Wondrous Vintage Illustrations By Brian Wordsmith.

(Image form Ganesh Narahanan on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

Politics, the arts, a little snow, and the end of an era

It’s a Sunday and Fall is homing in on Winter as the first snow of the season hits Chicago this morning. Perfect time for a little Sunday Morning Reading featuring some interesting stories about the arts, AI, and home.

As the first flakes of this winter of discontent fall, two interesting reads highlight some of the chaos the art-less U.S administration is inflicting on the American arts scene, specifically The Kennedy Center. Shawn McCreesh takes a look at the damage being done in The Kennedy Center Crackup.

Meanwhile, Charlotte Higgins reports that the Washington National Opera May Move Out Of The Kennedy Center Due to Trump ‘Takeover.’ I’m here to tell you that while what’s happening on the banks of the Potomac may feel very inside the beltway, the repercussions are being felt in the boardrooms of arts organizations across the country.

The above, like most of our news of late, is certainly not something to laugh at. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find ways to laugh at the incompetent, ignorant and dangerous players wreaking havoc in their wake. Laughter gets under their all too thin skins, no matter how made up or stretched too tight by surgery. Mike Monteiro offers up How To Point At Fascists And Laugh.

NatashaMH, far too young to worry about being old, takes a look at creating art as she nears the mid-century mark in I Don’t Paint For Your Sofa. Youngsters these days.

Art and politics might be an unholy mix in dangerous times like these, but there’s another foul concoction brewing. Adam Willems points to An ex-Intel CEO’s Mission To Build A Christian AI: ‘Hasten The Coming of Christ’s Return.’ If you ask me these folks wishing for these kind of end times have really missed the points. All of them.

Continuing on the AI front there seems to be a bit of weakening in the walls of what most concede is an economic bubble. The cliché is that bubbles pop. Those that don’t, just disappear as they float away. Ben Thompson takes a look at what happens in either case in The Benefits of Bubbles.

Home is where hearts are and often places you can’t return back to. I’ve lived both. Chris Andrei is Searching For The Elusive Feeling Of Home.

With the weather changing and snowflakes falling out my window, there’s a passage of time marker about to be set. The Farmers’ Almanac is about to shut down. Growing up in rural America there were only two publications that everyone I knew received in the mail. It was always a big deal in our house when my dad, who was the postmaster, brought those home. The Sears Catalog and The Farmer’s Almanac. The Sears Catalog is long gone. The 2026 edition of the latter will be its last. Grace Snelling takes a look back and ahead in After More Than 200 Years, The Farmers’ Almanac Is Shutting Down For Good.

Returning to where this week’s column began, the arts, Jack Rodolico’s The Blue Book Burglar examines how New York’s once vaunted Social Register, was not only a destination that social climbers desired to be included in, but was also a hit list for the country’s hardest working art thief. I just don’t understand how the current thieves doing today’s pillaging have it so damn easy.