The 2012 presidential election, incredibly, already is in full swing.

Those of us who don’t buy the Mayan end-of-the-world scenario are actually making plans for the future.

Image From Krishna.org -- Even The Krishnas Think This Is Weird

Space

I fully anticipate being around for the nex… Read full post »

Chris Hedges could have been on top of the world if only he’d learned to keep his mouth shut.

Hedges

Space

He’d been a reporter for the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, and the Dallas Morning News. He’d been a foreign corre/… Read full post »

Belief, as always, has been in the news.

Many economists and government officials believe that if the debt ceiling is not raised, the American economy will be profoundly damaged.

Bye Bye, Nest Egg

Space

Many Me Party-ists believe that’s an exaggeration.

That’s only the latest… Read full post »

Hoo, man! Lot’s of prep for this post, baby.

Just spent the last hour talking myself into it. Got my high octane cup of joe next to me. Thinking about maybe fortifying myself with a hefty belt of vodka — even though it is my practice never to drink before sundown.… Read full post »

Now, I’m not universally recognized as the smartest human being in the world, which is a shame.

I mean, really, if everybody on Earth just did what I told them to do, we’d all be in far better shape.

The Smartest Man In The World Ponders

Space

I guarantee you,… Read full post »

One of the problems with being a self-appointed social/cultural/political critic with my own designated spot on a daily blog read by millions is that many, many, many of my posts seem, well, negative.

Longtime aficionados of this communications colossus have endured my diatribes against the… Read full post »

So, Fourth of July weekend. You have to figure I have a screed about this holy land in me.

First, a story.

The Loved One and I took Steve the Dog out for a big, long walk through the woods in Brown County State Park. Beautiful place, for all you Chicagoans who’ve/… Read full post »

Last week I urged Benny Jay to get to work as quickly as he could on the definitive history of the Daley Dynasty that ran Chicago from the years 1955 through…, well, through May.

I figured he would be flattered to tears by my suggestion that he, alone among Chicagoans, Americans, or… Read full post »

Berenice Abbot, photographer. Jane Addams, Nobel Prize winner. Alvin Ailey, choreographer. Edward Albee, playwright. Pedro Almodovar, filmmaker. W.H. Auden, poet. Joan Baez, musician. James Baldwin, author.

James Baldwin

Space

Patricia Barber, musician. Billy Bean, baseball player. James Bear… Read full post »

Funny headline to write in the middle of this most demoralizing season, no?

Funny thing to write, too, about an historic organization in a sport that has never had an out-player.

There’ve been acknowledged, out-and-proud racists, wife-beaters, degenerate gamblers, tax cheats, KKK members, and c… Read full post »

When we think about myth in this holy land, we think about, oh, the ancient Greeks.

You know, Zeus coming down as a swan and nailing Leda. Jason and the Argonauts. Those hot Muses and all the rest.

A Feathery Zeus Gets Down With Leda

Space

But the Greeks had… Read full post »

When we think about myth in this holy land, we think about, oh, the ancient Greeks.

You know, Zeus coming down as a swan and nailing Leda. Jason and the Argonauts. Those hot Muses and all the rest.

A Feathery Zeus Gets Down With Leda

Space

But the Greeks had… Read full post »

So, it’s 6:30 in the morning. The weak, gray light is just starting to come into the living room where Steve the Dog and I are asleep.

Oooh, delicious sleep. I had been half-sitting, half-laying on the sofa next to the big front room windows late last night, reading some PG… Read full post »

A helicopter hovers over Courthouse Square. News trucks from Indy are staging in an empty lot at a respectful remove from Smallwood Plaza.

Bloomington police investigators have canvassed every home and business in the area. The police are joined by volunteers from the community three times a day, at… Read full post »

 This post originally ran in The Third City Tuesday, June 7th, 2011.

You don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

Longtime readers may recall that I quit running my serial novel, “Black Comedy,” in these precincts back in N/… Read full post »

We dig war.

Young Girl Signs Artillery Shell

Space

Want it. Enjoy it. Love it. It gets us off.

Let's cut the bullshit about war being hell. Yeah, General Sherman said it and he's right.

But he's wrong, too.

The most horrible human undertaking in the history of our crazy,… Read full post »

The Bloomington area got the crap kicked out of it twice last week by severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Hell, even the Sam’s Club lost its roof.

If the force of the Walton clan can’t stem the rage of nature, nothing can.

Outside Sam’s Club After The Wednesday Storm (photo… Read full post »

So, by the time I was 15, I was certain that the world was about to be remade.

The year was 1971. Dick Nixon was in office. The Vietnam War was dragging on. We were fouling our air and our water. Another Dick, Daley, was sitting smug and Buddha-like in his… Read full post »

The terrifyingly mixed up kid who knifed Don Belton to death a year and a half ago was sentenced to 50 years in prison yesterday.

Belton

Space

The Don Belton murder was the first big local news story I heard after I’d moved to Bloomington, Indiana. The stabbing death… Read full post »

So, my pals are gonna hate me for this.

No, really — hate.

My pals, by and large, are left of center. Way left. That’s good. The more left they become, the closer they get to me. It’s a good group.

I have to admit, though, I get a tad uncomfortable being… Read full post »

So, I get to weigh in on the end of the second Daley era, too.

I've been gone from the big town for more than three years now. In fact, I'm on my second post-Chi city already, having ditched Louisville -- thankfully -- the year before last.

I… Read full post »

I’d known something was missing for a good three years — maybe four.

See, I grew up in an era when music meant everything. The songs I listened to on the radio and the LPs I bought defined me.

This dopey kid growing up in the Galewood neighborhood on Chicago’s Northwest… Read full post »

Every morning, Monday through Friday, The Loved One and I get into the car for the drive toward downtown Bloomington, Indiana. We’re headed to work.

Every goddamned morning.

The Loved One takes her customary position behind the wheel, presses the start button, and away we go.

Every goddamned mo… Read full post »

Silly Season has come early to these shores.

Most authorities peg Silly Season around August, when people are on vacation, Congress and various Parliaments around the Northern Hemisphere are in recess, and newspapers and 24-hour headline shows offer a bottomless bucket of shark sight/… Read full post »

Krista Detor just may be one of the coolest people on this hunk of iron, oxygen, and silicon we call home. She’s a respected musician who calls the Bloomington area home.

In an earlier day, she’d be called a showman. She tickles the ivories, cracks wise, juggles when called upon/… Read full post »