Where I'm From and Where I am Now

Where I'm from? Well, that didn't take long.

A secretly funded political group aligned with Rahm Emanuel has donated more than $445,000 to aldermanic candidates to help the mayor-elect in a high-stakes battle over control of City Hall.

Whatever. Just fix the CTA, Mr. Mayor, if you please.

Where I am now? Just another version of Crazypantsland. It's getting to the point that daily updates are clearly needed to keep track of the insane shit spewing out of Maricopa County. Let's see, so far this we we have had:

* State Senate President Russell Pearce (R-White Power) decreed that the public will be barred from media briefings in the senate building because, as four people were arrested for disruptive behavior, allowing the public in clearly creates a safety hazard. I'm not sure why he's so worried, since he decided last month to let legislators carry guns into the building and onto the floor, because, as he said, "Guns save lives."

* In fact, guns save so many lives in Arizona that the senate decided people should be able to carry them into any government building they want. No more "no weapons allowed' stickers on the DMV door! The only way for agencies to prohibit people from carrying guns into their facilities now will be to install metal detectors and hire armed security, and the state sure has money to burn on that. What could possibly go wrong?

Interestingly, the Arizona House and Senate buildings do not currently have metal detectors. Which probably explains why Pearce doesn't want the newly armed rabble to be able to come in.

* On the culture war front, the House passed a bill eliminating public funding for abortion. That's swell enough on its face, but, as with so many other bits of legislative dumbfuckery in this state, it comes with extra consequences.

HB 2384, which gained preliminary House approval earlier this week, would make it illegal to use public funds to train medical professionals to perform abortions.

But the language goes beyond direct tax dollars. It also forbids the use of any federal funds that pass through the state treasury or even through other levels of government.

And even tuition or fees paid to a state university of community college would be off limits for the costs of the training.

See the super awesome part at the end there? The University of Arizona has a decent medical school, or had one, anyway. HB 2384 means that students in the OB/GYN department may no longer be able to get training on how to perform an abortion, even the only kind that's sometimes moral, you know, depending on who you ask (perhaps the ethics department can start teaching that woman = incubator, which should clear that little problem right up).

* I posted some time ago about a proposed bill that would prioritize married people over singles and unmarried couples for adoption, and that's now steaming right on forward. "The best interest of the child" had been the previous guiding principle in placement for adoption. Under the new law, that would still be a consideration, but the state has essentially made the decision a priori that a married couple is always in the best interest of the child. Whee. I report, you decide.

* Is there any good news? Yes. Red Bulls and Sporting Kansas City are coming this weekend for an MLS preseason tournament with two eminently shreddable Arizona semi-pro teams. I'll be the one in the Sounders jersey and Red Stars (*sob*) scarf.

America's Pastime Is Ripping My Heart Out

Goddamn baseball. Goddamn Cubs.

The Cubs ended a bad road trip that saw Ted Lilly and Ryan Theriot traded, the bullpen setting a major-league record by giving up 11 straight hits in a 12-run inning, Carlos Gonzalez becoming the fourth player in history to complete a cycle with a walk-off home run and Silva's heart episode Sunday.

Garblarghphawhargle. [/random unintelligible noises] This season can't end soon enough.

Another Kind of Migrant

I can't tell you how many times I've heard anti-immigrant (read: anti-Mexican) people in Arizona complain about the immigrants' refusal to assimilate into mainstream (read: white) America. These people, they come into our country and still speak Spanish and wave their Mexican flags and eat at taco trucks and play their goddamn mariachi music full blast and have fucking picnics in graveyards and this is AMERICA goddammit so why don't they act like Americans?

I'm not from here either. Well, I am from the US, but I'm not from Arizona. I'm from the midwest, Illinois and Indiana, mostly the greater Chicago area. I spent my middle school and high school years in South Bend, Indiana, and grew up with the grandkids of Polish immigrants. When the Poles came over, they built their own parish church a block away from the existing church so they wouldn't have to go to mass with all those annoying Irish people, lived in their own neighborhood, and ran their own grocery stores and butchers, some of which were still operational enough in 1984 that if you went in and asked the butcher in Polish, you could get the quart of duck blood you wanted for soup. Now those folks have retired to Phoenix and brought as much of the midwest with them as they could cram into their Winnebagos, but since they're saying ya hey dere and flying a Packers windsock instead of si se puede and El Tricolor, no one notices a thing.

My midwestern grandparents spend the winters in one of these Phoenix-area giant senior citizens' communities, surrounded by fellow snowbirds from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin. They frequent the Hoosier Cafe, decorated with Indiana University and Purdue memorabilia, and another cafe that is named Red Mountain but might was well be U.P Michigan Central, this one plastered with Packers, Vikings, and Proud to Be a Yooper flags, and order coffee from waitresses with unmistakable upper midwest accents and look at the Michigan license plates on the wall and wonder why the Mexicans won't just try to fit in.

Meanwhile, fifteen years and counting in the desert and my wardrobe still consists mostly of t-shirts proclaiming my allegiance to various Chicago sports teams and Notre Dame. My license plate and the Cubs magnet on the back of my car scream Chicago. When I go hiking here I seek out running streamcourses that are lined with trees, and in the springtime long to hit the higher elevations of the Catalinas just so I can see some familiar wild geraniums and smell damp rock and feel, for a moment, that I'm back home. The pens on my office desk sit in an ancient beer cup from the Taste of Chicago. Steve Goodman, rest his soul, headlines my iPod; WGN News at Nine is not an infrequent visitor to my living room; about once a week you can find me clutching an Old Style at Rocco's Little Chicago in the booth under the CTA centennial poster.

For good measure, Boltgirl's office ceiling decoration.

In short, I in many ways--unconscious, conscious, sometimes downright gleeful--have stayed within the cultural milieu I grew up in instead of completely assimilating into my new home. My right-wing fellow Arizonans probably just haven't really noticed, or, if they have, haven't taken offense at my Loop-centric tastes because they aren't terribly far afield from their own. I'm allowed my trappings of home because home's on the right side of the Rio Grande. The Mexicans who want to do the same? My stars, what a terrible affront to Arizona sensibilities.

Whatchoo Talkin'....

Yeah, yeah. No. I'm sorry, but just no. No no no.

It will always be Sears Tower. Suck it, Willis.

Swell.

My beloved Chicago Red Stars signed one of the big-name international players they called dibs on in the international draft. Unfortunately, it's Cristiane, the whiniest, diving-est, most annoying-est player on Brazil's national team.

When last we saw Cristiane, she was flailing around on the turf after the final whistle ended the US' 1-0 victory over Brazil in the World Cup Final, weeping and wailing after her many artistic and intricate flips to the ground after being bumped, breathed on, looked at, or merely thought about by US players failed to result in free kicks or penalties that might have put the ball in the net for Brazil.

So sad.

For the record, I didn't like Dennis Rodman either when he played for the Bulls. Hopefully her histrionics will die down a little once she hits Toyota Park. She is crazy fast and can do remarkable things with the ball. Let your game be enough, sweet cheeks, and leave the theatrics at home.

And Now, a Soccer Note

Were I the general manager of the Chicago Red Stars, Chicago's entry in the upcoming Women's Professional Soccer League, I might be a tad bit tweaked at Kate Markgraf. Markgraf has been an anchor in the central defense for the national team for the past few years, compensating for sub-par speed and more physical geekiness than you might expect from a national-level player with excellent positioning and reading of the game. The Red Stars tabbed her as one of their three picks in the national team allocation, which was designed with the dual purposes of acquiring the players with the top skills and best potential for being a fan draw, particularly for season-ticket buyers. Markgraf fit the bill because of her value as a mentor for up-and-coming defenders, even if her own field impact is waning with age, but mostly because of her engaging if geeky personality and Notre Dame pedigree, which was calculated to pull dozens, and possibly legions, of loyal Chicago-area Domers into the stands at Toyota Park.

What could go wrong with that? Oh, this. The Stars announced on Saturday that Markgraf will miss the entire 2009 season because she's pregnant. Wait. Let's reword that for maximum impact. Markgraf will miss the entire inaugural, make-or-break, chip-on-the-shoulder, put-up-or-shut-up season of pro futbol feminino's last realistic shot at existence. Were I Emma Hayes, I would not be so distressed at losing the increasingly lead-footed Markgraf in the back--she's not going to make or break either the team or the league, and they do have US Player of the Year Carli Lloyd on the roster--but I would be mighty annoyed that I pissed away my second pick on a player who wasn't committed enough to the team or new league to, I don't know, ensure she'd be able to play.

Maybe the pending baby was unplanned. That part's nobody's business, but still, a second-chance league that hasn't even gotten out of the gates yet should write a no-pregnancy clause into every big-name player's contract. At least for the first year. NuvaRings all round!

Here's to Ya, Studs

Aw. Studs Terkel passed this afternoon, turning a final page on a legendary literary career. I don't like to mourn people who make it that far in the game--Terkel managed to hit 96--but rather to celebrate. Go root out a copy of Chicago or Division Street-America and soak in a little of a great voice telling the story of a great city. Good on ya, Studs.









"My epitaph? My epitaph will be 'Curiosity did not kill this cat.'"

100 and Counting

So the baseball gods sat down before the division series began and said what can we do to rip Cubs fans' hearts out this time around? The animal curses had been done to death, what with the billy goat in '45 and the black cat in '69, and the strokes of individual bizarreness had run their course after Leon Durham's classic ball-between-the-legs stunt of '84 and the epic for the ages that was Steve Bartman vs. Moises Alou in '03. What to do? They were stumped.

What about this, came a querulous voice from the back of the room. What about a stupefying total team meltdown for the guys who ran up the best record and best offense in the National League? Ooh, this one had merit. The mood around the table grew giddy as they considered the possibilities. First we put the bats to sleep! Yes... Then we make sure the Cubs' number one starter has less control than a Depends convention! Yes, I like it... and then, when the fans have convinced themselves that Game 2 can't possibly be worse? I know! How about the infield backing up Zambrano with an E-3-4-5-6 on the way to giving up ten runs? And after that they just curl up and die in Game 3, right? Right! Awesome!

Hey, guys? One more thing? Whazzat, kid? How about having the Sox come back and win the whole thing? I like the way you think, kid. And they clinked their glasses and drank.

So put away your dreams of a pair of championships on the eights to bookend a century of futility. The baseball gods are sadistic bastards. And they will not be denied.

Historical Chicago History Post

Getting back to my summer vacation before it hits the month-ago mark... I spent the July 4 weekend in the city doing a few things I'd done before and seeing a whole lot more I'd managed to miss during the nine years I lived there.

First stop: the site of the Haymarket Riot of 1886. From the plaques at the base of the memorial, which depicts labor activists speaking from a wagon before the meeting turned ugly:

On the evening of May 4th, 1886, a tragedy of international significance unfolded on this site in Chicago's Haymarket produce district. An outdoor meeting had been hastily organized by anarchist activists to protest the violent death of workers during a labor lockout the previous day in another area of the city. Spectators gathered in the street as speakers addressed political, social, and labor issues from atop a wagon that stood at the location of this monument. When approximately 175 policemen approached with an order to disperse the meeting, a dynamite bomb was thrown into their ranks.

The Haymarket Memorial, 151 N. Desplaines St.

The short version of the aftermath is that 7 cops and 4 civilians were killed by the bomb, thrown from Crane's Alley, here:

Crane's Alley, east side of Desplaines.

The slightly longer version is that, despite the failure to identify the bomber by either name or affiliation, the organizers of the meeting and several other people with unpopular pro-labor political beliefs were arrested and imprisoned after sham trials. Two organizers and two speakers were executed; another was murdered in prison while awaiting trial. The Haymarket Affair ultimately became a rallying point for the modern labor movement.

From the memorial at Desplaines and Randolph, it was a decent walk down to the ultimate Chicago historical site: the origin point of the Great Fire. The O'Learys built their barn on DeKoven Street just east of Jefferson. October 8, 1871: cow, lantern, wind, history.

Poof.

The red brick building behind the monument? The one that says "Chicago Fire..."? Yeah, the full sign reads "Chicago Fire Academy." Too fittingly, the original fire site was taken over by the fire department to build their training academy; the back of the brick building is lit up at regular intervals to teach cadet firefighters how to ameliorate the effects of modern day O'Learys.

Boltgirl demonstrates callous disregard. It wasn't me, honest!

From there, a stroll up to the south Loop, where Dearborn Station overlooks the south end of Printer's Row.

Dearborn Station's tower, somewhat shortened after a fire--what else?--destroyed its original high peaked roof.

Next time: fun architectural details from historic Loop buildings. For now, the Cubs won in Milwaukee and are sitting in first by four.

4th of July Frippery

Because you can just never have enough Peeps. I'm off to the big city, although the Adler isn't on my list for the day. In the immortal words of the late Mayor Washington: Chicago, 150 years old! America, older'n that! Happy 4th.