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Sunday Morning Reading

The lazy days of Summer

We’re technically out of the Dog Days of Summer, but it doesn’t feel much like it. It’s the kind of hot Summer I remember as a kid when the dogs would spend the hot part of the day lazing under the porch. I’m spending mine traveling (too much traveling) and sharing what I can here and there. Find some shade and check out this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

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Peter Wehner thinks the only way out of the wreckage we’re in is to rewrite the cultural script. Tall task. He spells it out in The Virtue of Integrity.

Knowing is half the battle. What you do with knowledge is an altogether different story as knowing and knowledge are two different things. Check out Jim Stewartson’s piece The War on Knowing.

Somehow in all of the wreckage we’re sorting through, empathy became a bad thing for those doing the wrecking. NatashaMH thinks this crazy Artificial Intelligence race we’re in is taking the human out of being human. If you ask me it’s all a bit too human as we look to foist off responsibility for the choices we make. The Risks of Synthetic Empathy is a great piece. Give it a read.

Then take a look at Mathew Ingram’s piece, People Fall In Love With All Kinds of Things Including AI Chatbots. When chatbots start filing for divorce I think we might have created Artificial Generative Intelligence.

Kyle Chayka is exploring The Revenge of Millennial Cringe. Home may be where the heart is, but it was a terrible song.

Stephen Marche is talking about Profound and Abiding Rage: Canada’s Answer to America’s Abandonment. Abandonment is a good way to describe what we’re all feeling these days.

Apple’s about to unleash new operating systems for its devices in a few weeks and the one that has my interest is for iPads. From what I’ve seen (I don’t run the betas) the changes to the multi-tasking capabilities will be a positive step forward. Craig Grannell takes a look at how long it took for Apple to finally make these changes in Apple Finally Destroyed Steve Jobs’ Vision of the iPad. Good.

Chicago’s Uptown Theatre celebrated 100 years this week. Robert Loerzel takes a look in Uptown Theatre: 100 Years of Glory and Decay.

When you think you’re the center of the universe it can rock your world when you find out you’re not. Kids learn this. Republicans in the current administration have not. Eric Berger writes about NASA’s Acting Chief Calls For the End of Earth Science at the Space Agency.

(Image from Machekhin Evgenii on Shutterstock.)

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.

Chicago’s Uptown Theatre Hits 100 and is Still On The Skids

Decaying majesty

They certainly don’t make movie theatres like they used to. That’s not surprising or new, and long ago signaled a passing of a time when building special places for people to gather became less of a priority than so many other concerns. Chicago’s Uptown Theatre was one of those special places back in the day. It’s been decaying and shuttered since 1981 and every now and then efforts surface to try and bring it back to life.

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The Uptown celebrates its 100th birthday on August 18. Built as a grand show palace by Balaban & Katz and the architectural firm Rapp & Rapp, it was hailed as spectacular, and a “splendiferous palace of a place.” The Uptown sat 4,320 in what was called “an acre of seats.”

Offering movies and live entertainment it was billed as a “shrine to democracy where there are no privileged patrons. The wealthy rub elbows with the poor — and are better for this contact.” It also had air conditioning.

Obviously a lot changed throughout the years, talkies took over from silent films, the Great Depression, and the advent of TV changed the dynamic. The Uptown part of town itself fell on hard times and saw big changes, and during much of my time in Chicago was the last section of the lakefront resisting redevelopment. The final act on the Uptown stage was a concert by the J. Geils Band in 1981.

Robert Loerzel has a terrific piece looking back at the Uptown Theatre in the Chicago Tribune that’s more than worth a read as we approach the show palace’s centennial. There’s also an excellent gallery of photos, which the photo above is from. The link should be a gift link, although I don’t know how long that lasts. Loerzel has also authored a new book, The Uptown: Chicago’s Endangered Movie Palace

When I first moved to Chicago in 1999 there were still a few of these show palaces in operation around the city, but the Uptown had long since shuttered. I got to take a tour of the place in the early 1990’s and the scale of what it once offered was impressive to see, only dwarfed by the decay and disrepair.

There are still efforts to try and find funding to restore the Uptown, but I’m sad to say I think priorities have shifted in such a way that we won’t see that happen.

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

Back home from travels. Still sharing stuff that warrants attention.

Back home after a couple of weeks on the road. Good times. Crazy times. Nevertheless, it’s Sunday and there’s Sunday Morning Reading to share.

“Life isn’t just about knowing what you should do, or having the resources to do it, it’s about following through.” So says, John Burn-Murdoch in his piece The Troubling Decline In Conscientiousness. I agree there’s a decline. I’m not so sure the remedy is as simple as it sounds.

The AI race is continuing whether we want it to or not. Apparently there’s now a way to create your own TV show if you want to keep diving deeper into your own delusions. Nina Metz has a great piece on this intrusion into the entertainment industry saying After A Long Day, The Last Thing I Want Is To Tell GenAI To Create a TV Show For Me To Watch.

In Notes From The Circus, Mike Brock takes a look at The Faux Intellectuals of Silicon Valley. “When oligarchs treat human civilization as thought experiments while sophisticated courtiers provide intellectual cover, democratic discourse itself becomes impossible.” Nailed it.

I don’t know about you, but my handwriting went downhill mere minutes after I was no longer graded on it. So it has always sucked. So, I’m not sure if NatashaMH’s latest applies in my case, but she is taking a look at what happens When The Handwriting Changes, suggesting that the body keeps score and so does the pen. Damn, if I’d know there was score keeping…

Mathew Ingram takes a look at age gating, the move afoot to protect kids from the perils of the Internet in The UK’s Well-Meaning Online Safety Law Is A Dumpster Fire. American dumpsters won’t be far behind, because we like to hide from the things we think are bad, pretending we’ve solved the problem, instead of addressing the problem.

Matthew Wolfe tells a great story about Chicago and America’s first black detective, who had a few secrets of his own in The Talented Mr. Bruseaux.

The turmoil among Apple users continues to roil for lots of reasons. Certainly this week’s obsequious bending of the knee by Tim Cook has added more to it. I wrote a bit about that here. I like John Gruber’s take on the issue in Gold, Frankincense, and Silicon.

(Image from OlegRi on Shutterstock)

Rest in Peace, Ryne Sandberg

Chicago Cubs legend passes away.

Watcing the Chicago Cubs lose to the Brewers last night when word came over the broadcast that Ryne Sandberg, the Cubs superstar second baseman had died, succumbing to cancer.

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Hit me harder than I would have thought imaginable. Not sure exactly why, but guessing it’s because Sandberg represented an era in my life when life itself seemed simpler, more sane, and as true as a line drive cleanly smacked to the outfiled.

I’m probably deluding myself with those thoughts, but that’s how it struck me last night.

Sandberg played baseball. He was a great at what he did. By all accounts he was genuinely kind to others. That’s all we should ever aspire to because in the end that’s all that matters.

And it is more than enough.

You can 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.

Summer’s Coming

Summer’s almost here and at least in my neck of the woods we got a brief breather this morning before temperatures in the 90’s hit Chicago this weekend and into next week.

I say a brief breather because in the early morning hours the sky was crystal blue and the air was clean and fresh thanks to a wave of storms that finally blew all of the wildfire smoke out of our atmosphere. Of course that changed once the Sun got a little higher and you can feel the temps rising, high clouds and humidity beginning to creep in.

Those storms knocked many of the blossoms off of the surrounding Catalpa trees, making it almost appear like a Summer snowfall.

These days, you take your moments when you can.

You can 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.

Checking Out The Windy City Hot Dog Fest

Choosing between reptile sausage creations can be tough

Beautiful day, yet chillier than I’d like, so I thought I’d take a hike through the neighborhood to check out the Windy City Hot Dog Fest in Portage Park.

PXL 20250531 174832619.MP. Chicago’s neighborhood festivals are always a good time. Obviously there’s food, but there’s also music and the usual vendors selling all sorts of crafts and the occasional artwork. Of course there’s also just the fun of people watching.

But today was about hot dogs. To kick it off I had a traditional Chicago hot dog as an appetizer before strolling down the street. But then I decided to check out the gourmet sausage creations from Chicago’s Dog House. It was a tough choice between the rattlesnake and rabbit sausage and the smoked alligator sausage but I chose the rattlesnake and rabbit.

Good choice as it turns out. Since I had eaten my fill and didn’t want to mix reptiles on the same day, I strolled away satisfied. Given that the weather looks similar for tomorrow I’ll probably head back to try out the smoked alligator version.

As you can see from the gallery, there’s plenty of different varieties of hot dogs and sausages available, although I’m not sure how successful the selections from L.A. Style Hot Dogs will go over.

I also didn’t see too much ketchup around, though I can’t say I looked that closely.

You can 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.

We’re Losing The Battle Over What’s Real and What’s Not

The Chicago Sun-Times publishes AI generated fiction as fact

The Chicago Sun-Times is going to go through some things. Is AI the culprit? Business model? Lack of editorial oversight? The answer doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things when it comes to the struggle to understand what’s real and what’s not.

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The paper published a summer activities guide called the Chicago Sun-Times Heat Index that contained a reading list of books that included real authors, but some of the titles were entirely fictional. As in not real titles at all. Just made up. Five of the titles actually exist. Ten do not.

This episode lead most to immediately speculate that the article was generated by Artificial Intelligence and that there was no editorial oversight of what actually made it into print. I don’t know about you, but I’d call those assumptions more than an early warning sign.

According to 404 Media the Heat Index was published by King Features which is owned by Hearst Newspapers. The guide was licensed by the Sun-Times apparently for the Sunday print and online editions.

The Sun-Times issued an early statement saying they are looking into the matter as referenced below, promising more info to be released soon.

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To their credit they did. VP of marketing and communications for Chicago Public Media, which owns the Sun-Times stated to 404 Media that no one at Chicago Public Media reviewed the section, which follows a pattern used with similar such inserts saying that “historically, we don’t have editorial review…because it comes from a newspaper.” That statement of course includes the promise of a change in policy going forward and an investigation to see if there is other inaccurate information. You can read the full Chicago Sun-Times statement released later here.

The Sun-Times was not the only paper to license and publish the paper according to NPR.

That NPR report also says that writer Marco Buscaglia claimed responsibility for the guide and did acknowledge that it was partly generated by Artificial Intelligence.

Ah, well. All of those worst case assumptions were not a mass hallucination, I guess.

There were years that I bought both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune every morning and got to work early enough to read them both. Those days are long gone, mostly thanks to the Internet and the changes that wrought on the newspaper publishing industry. We’ve all seen this next chapter coming. I guess it’s here.

Here’s the thing. The cold hard fact that most leapt to the assumption that this is some form of AI generated content proves the battle, and perhaps the war has already been lost, regardless of how this did or didn’t happen. It will happen again.

We’ve been heading into the land of make believe where facts don’t matter for some time now. It’s sad that what once were venerated media sources have been helping to lead the charge, especially in an era when governments feel free to make up things as they go along.

You can 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.

Dye Me A River

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

My favorite version of Arthur Hamilton’s song, Cry Me A River, was covered by Joe Cocker. I especially like the live version. While others pump up the bagpipes or crank out The Pogues to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I cue up Cocker’s version today.

One of the things you can still count on in Chicago beyond crazy politics and potholes is that every St. Patrick’s Day they still dye the river green. For some reason the first time I heard about that tradition Hamilton’s song title morphed in my brain to Dye Me A River.

Well, it’s St. Patrick’s Day again, and yes both traditions will continue. They’ll dye the river green and I’ll play the song. I’ll also down a pint and have some corned beef and cabbage, a family tradition, though none of us are Irish.

But I’ll be staying away from any of the large number of parades honoring the day. It’s one thing when the river runs green, but I prefer my beer downed once, and not tossed back up into the streets.

You can 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

It’s a cold late Fall morning, with some crisp and cold writing for you in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Sunday, it’s a Sunday. The Sunday after Thanksgiving and Black Friday, although every Sunday these days feels like it’s the Sunday after yet another Black Friday. Even so, it’s time for some Sunday Morning Reading. This week’s edition contains some somber writing, fitting for the onset of a winter of discontent and reflection, along with some thinking on the tech scene and vaccines. For good measure, there’s a history of dive bars at the end. Enjoy.

Leading off, David Todd McCarty’s piece I Was F*cking Wendy Under The Stars, The Night Elvis Died, reflects on the risks we take, and perhaps don’t take, in building a life.

Promises and Scars by Kelly Gawitt is an excellent piece of writing on second chances. We all need them.

Joan Westenberg says We’re Dying. Here’s How to Make Better Decisions. Joan’s Mortality Matrix is something to see.

Sam Roberts gives us a look back at a real heroine in Madeline Riffaud, ‘The Girl Who Saved Paris,’ Dies at 100. I’m thinking we might need some Madeline’s going forward.

Patrick Fealey offers a harrowing and personal inside look at homelessness in America in The Invisible Man.

Tim Berners-Lee, who conceived the World Wide Web is taking a crack at a new way our digital lives are stored online with a new venture called Solid. Harry McCracken takes a crack at explaining it all in The Man Who Gave Us The Web Is Building A Better Digital Wallet. Hope it works.

Christopher Mims says that Googling Is For Old People. That’s A Problem For Google. The lede is fantastic:

If Google were a ship, it would be the Titanic in the hours before it struck an iceberg—riding high, supposedly unsinkable, and about to encounter a force of nature that could make its name synonymous with catastrophe.

Vaccines. Who in their right mind thought we’d ever be debating anything about the miracle of vaccines? Donald G. McNeil Jr. says that Vaccines Will Have To Prove Themselves Again. The Hard Way. Warning: the “hard way” isn’t a pretty way.

And after all of that if you need a drink or two or three, check out Linze Rice’s piece on The History of Chicago’s Dive Bars, Once Called ‘The Vilest Holes In The City.’ Bottoms up.

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. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

Chicago Bar Association Judicial Voters Guide 2024

A Voters Guide for Chicago Judicial Races

If you live in Chicago you know one of the almost overwhelming burdens of voting is the large number of judges that are always on the ballot. Some (very few) races are contested and many (too many) races you just get to decide to retain the judge or not.

Shutterstock 1731787453. Each election the Chicago Bar Association puts out the CBA Judicial Voter’s Guide which offers voters some guidance in the form of what the CBA is recommending in each race. The recommendations are based on independent screenings from CBA membership.

Ratings are listed as Highly Qualified, Qualified, or Not Recommended for some races, and just Qualified or Not Recommended for retentions. If you’re from Chicago you know that many of the contested races are not really contested at all.

You can visit the website at this link, and if you’re voting in person you can print out a Pocket Guide of the recommendations at the same link.

You can 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.