Where were you when the Wall fell? People a generation older than I am will tell you where they were when Kennedy was shot. Me? The first major “where were you?” event was probably the assassination attempt on President Reagan, and, after that, the Space Shuttle Challenger’s explosion. But the one that left the greatest emotional impact was certainly the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 25th anniversary of which is coming up soon. Why was I thinking about this? ... Read more
The asterisk above is because, of course, I wasn’t actually in Detroit. Don’t be silly. But it struck me, even though we didn’t venture into the city, or even much of anywhere outside the neighborhood, that Michigan is, well, different. I’ve lived in Indiana for grad school and Illinois since then, and Chicagoans may identify as Chicagoans, but to live in Illinois doesn’t really mean much to anyone. Michiganders, on the other hand, do seem to have more of an... Read more
So we were at mom and dad’s over Labor Day weekend, and I thought I’d start with a brief update on Dad, for regular readers. A month ago, when we last visited, Dad was still at the rehab facility. He’s been home for a week and a half now. The good news: physically, he’s far from top form, but a lot better than could have been the case. He’s got his walker, in fact, two walkers, one for upstairs and... Read more
So a facebook friend shared an article about a plan to build microhouses for the homeless in Portland, Oregon, from the Huffington Post, of course. The article quotes a homeless woman: “It’s exciting. I’ve never owned my own house” — but in reality, the 12 x 16, 192-square foot houses would be built on city-owned land, managed by a non-profit, and rented out for $250 – $350 per month. What would the houses be like? According to the article that... Read more
That’s the statistic cited in a post on a blog called “Muslim Statistics” which I happened onto today. There are no links within the article, so it would be a bit of a project to verify this number, along with the additional claim that they’re killing the goose that laid the golden egg by popping out babies so fast that, by 2050, projections are that the majority of those living in Germany will be of Turkish descent, and that they... Read more
I’ve been updating you on my parents periodically (another update coming soon), and we’ve been trying to convince them to relocate near us. We’re headed over there for Labor Day weekend, so I spent some time looking at the real estate market. Here’s what shocked me: there’s virtually nothing on the market. In the northwest suburbs of Chicago, very few condos of the sort that we’d try to get them interested in. There’s a senior housing development, Luther Village, that... Read more
As my regular readers know, I am not the source for up-to-the-minute news, and don’t claim to be. But here’s a stunner, from National Review online: Justice Department attorneys have now acknowledged that the supposedly-lost Lois Lerner e-mails are indeed available via government back-up systems, but the government simply is unwilling to use this system to retrieve the e-mails. What next? Read more
Around us, there are fast food restaurant chains, and then there are the local family-owned “carry out” places. I’m sure it’s the same elsewhere (Detroit, for instance, has Coney Islands), but in my immediate neck of the woods, well, things aren’t going so well. Our old favorite, Smiley’s, around, as far as I know, for decades, closed down 5 years or so ago, and several new owners have tried to make a go of it in that location, with the... Read more
Around us, there are fast food restaurant chains, and then there are the local family-owned “carry out” places. I’m sure it’s the same elsewhere (Detroit, for instance, has Coney Islands), but in my immediate neck of the woods, well, things aren’t going so well. Our old favorite, Smiley’s, around, as far as I know, for decades, closed down 5 years or so ago, and several new owners have tried to make a go of it in that location, with the... Read more
First of all, let me say that I hope everyone’s having a great vacation — at least, I’m going to assume that the reason why, for the last few days, my blogger-counted page views have been pretty low, is that everyone’s on vacation. In any event, here’s the news from today’s business section: “Illinois’ would-be farmers learn from the ground up” (this seems to be under a paywall that’s strict enough that even when following a link from a google... Read more
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