Armistice Day

100 YEARS AGO TODAY

Things I'm going to miss about Chicago

The Nicest Guy in politics

This guy representing me in the Illinois state senate

Getting things done

The Parade

Best Bar on Western Ave

Best Fire Department in the world

Midway Disaster (United Airlines Flight 553)

Trump could wind up being the greatest

trump-could-be-one-of-the-greatest-presidents-in-history

Peggy Boyle R.I.P.

Peggy Roche Boyle, who taught Irish dance for over 40 years, has died at 73

Peggy Roche Boyle was a heel-clicking, tapping, leaping link to the line of teachers who kept Irish dance steps alive. | Provided photo

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Maureen O'Donnell

 

@suntimesobits | email

 

The Garden of Daisies. Shoe the Donkey. The Stack of Barley. The Blackbird. The Piper in the Meadow Straying.

Traditional Irish dances have lyrical names that conjure up an agrarian past when

Germany getting ready to march again?

merkel-says-europe-must-step-up-in-world-being-reorganized

A labor of love

gold-star-mother-community-restore-wwi-era-monument-found-woods

History re-writers

Community organizers want rewrite history and get Confederate monument removed from Oak Woods Cemetery

Civil War cannons stand near a 40-foot monument topped by a statue of a soldier, marking a mass grave of Confederate soldiers in Oak Woods Cemetery. | File photo 

Community organizers are coming together Saturday to call for the removal of a 46-foot-tall Confederate statue that looms over the final resting places of prominent African-American figures, including journalist and organizer Ida B. Wells, Jesse Owens and Mayor Harold Washington.

The statue commemorates over 4,000 Confederate prisoners who were initially interred

Stephen Hawking dead at 76

media darling and crazy as a chilled cricket

a man with too much time on his hands

An interesting explanation of the origin of our term “gang-way”. Familiar to Chicagoans.

"Gang-way"(for you youngsters..the side of homes that came between 2 houses was called a gang-way, as when coal was delivered, it was taken to the side of the house that had a wrought iron trap-like door that opened to the coal bin...so when coal was being delivered, the delivery man hollered "gang-way" to warn anyone walking on the sidewalk, to get out of the way, so he could deliver the coal.

Millennials

millennial-move-cities-real-estate

Rev. Martin Luther King

Had he lived he would be 89 years old today.

Swear words, OMG

• Trump.........
  Abraham Lincoln: "There is nothing to make an Englishman shit quicker than the sight of General George Washington."
• Barack Obama: “Obama really drew the ire of the pious, calling opponent Mitt Romney a ‘bullshitter.’ Sometimes the dirty word is the most precise.”

• Joe Biden: "This is a big f**king deal."
• Dick Cheney: “Cheney reportedly told Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy to ‘go f**k [himself]’”
• George W. Bush: “Commented on the presence of New York Times reporter Adam Clymer. Believing he had an audience of one, Bush called Clymer a ‘major-league asshole.’”
• Barack Obama: "I don't think I should take any sh*t from anybody on that, do you?"
• Richard Nixon: “The Watergate tapes put the phrase ‘expletive deleted’ on the map.”
• Lyndon Johnson: "I do know the difference between chicken sh*t and chicken salad,"
• John F. Kennedy: "This is obviously a f**k-up."
• Harry Truman: “In Truman's eyes, General Douglas MacArthur was a "dumb son of a bitch," and Nixon was ‘a shifty-eyed goddamned liar.’”

George Washington

KADNER: Greatest day in U.S. history is all but forgotten

COLUMNISTS 12/19/2017, 12:32pm

George Washington 

Phil Kadner

It is probably the most important date in United States history, but to most people Dec. 23 signifies only that there are two shopping days left until Christmas.

On that date in 1783, however, a remarkable event occurred.

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OPINION

After victoriously leading an army for more than eight years against the mightiest military force on the planet, Gen. George Washington walked before the Continental Congress and announced, “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theater of action …”

He had commanded an army clothed in rags, its soldiers so hungry they ate tree bark to fill their stomachs. They died from dysentery and starvation.

Here’s how author Ron Chernow describes it in his biography of the general: “There was scarcely a time during the war when Washington didn’t grapple with a crisis that threatened to disband the army and abort the Revolution. The extraordinary, wearisome, nerve-racking frustration he put up with for nearly nine years is hard to express. He repeatedly had to exhort Congress and the 13 states to remedy desperate shortages of men, shoes, shirts, blankets and gunpowder.”

Each year his army would simply disappear as their enlistments expired meaning Washington had to start training them from scratch.

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After the fighting had ended and before the peace was signed, King George III of England asked an acquaintance whether Washington would remain in charge of the army or become the new nation’s monarch. When told Washington’s aim was to simply give up his power and return to his farm, the king replied, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

He resigned in Philadelphia and immediately set out for home. For the first time in eight years Washington returned to Mount Vernon for Christmas. It would be six years before he was elected the nation’s first president and once again called away from home.

In the history of the world there are a multitude of heroic military leaders who have led successful revolts against oppressors only to seize power themselves, becoming dictators and despots.

Put simply, this government of the people and by the people exists only because George Washington voluntarily gave up his power, first as the military leader and later as its chief of state.

Yet, there is no national holiday marking the occasion. No fireworks light the skies. The calendar does not even designate Dec. 23 as a day to fly the flag.

Chernow, who also wrote the biography of Alexander Hamilton that inspired the popular musical, penned a terrific biography of Washington that reminded me once again why he was so unique.

No, he was not perfect. He was a slave owner, and while some make excuses for his behavior, the fact is that a man who was willing to risk everything for freedom was unwilling to share it with others.

From my observations, I have found that people who arduously defend freedom of religion and speech for themselves, who have enjoyed the bounty of its fruit, are quick to deny it to others they deem less worthy.

Americans have a tendency to celebrate both power and its abuse.

That’s why I believe Dec. 23 needs to be recognized, remembered and cherished as the day a man walked away from absolute power.

On his last day in uniform, Washington did not proclaim himself the greatest military commander in history or trumpet his victories. Instead, he recalled how inadequate he felt when he was named to lead the troops.

He tied this prize in a red, white and blue ribbon and presented it as a Christmas gift to all who would live in this nation for centuries to come. And then he mounted his horse and rode home.

9/11 Budweiser Commercial

Back then, Budweiser was an American beer made by an American company. Now, not so much American. 

One Hundred Years Ago

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Architectural Exhibit.......very cool

Exhibit honors Beverly’s architecture

‘Elevation’ show also explores 

city’s highest hill

Rebecca Healy’s photo of architect William G. Carnegie’s 1954 Magdalen H. Phillips house is in the “Elevation” exhibit. (Rebecca Healy photos)

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By Donna Vickroy

Daily Southtown

When Jim Gorski was growing up on Chicago’s Southeast Side, he admired the beautiful homes that lined Longwood Drive in Beverly. 

Now, as a Chicago architect and Beverly resident, Gorski has helped pull together an exhibit that celebrates what he calls “arguably, the most significant architectural neighborhood in the city of Chicago.” 

Beverly’s diverse and distinct building designs, as well as its history and plans for the future, will be celebrated during “Elevation: The Rise of Beverly/Morgan Park,” an exhibition that opens Sunday and continues through December at the Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St.

The exhibit aims to tell the story of how the impressive elevation of the highest hill in Chicago came to be, and how it continues to inspire the architecture and culture of

People care about the memory of Emmett Till

http://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/editorial-history-demands-the-full-story-of-the-death-of-emmett-till/

What is Macron's point, that they are not wimps?

2017-09-18/macron-wants-to-remind-the-world-france-is-a-nuclear-power-too

I think they are wimps. This is country that is too afraid to round up the muslims that have made much of France unfit for habitation by Frenchmen. Their greatest fear is not a bomb or terrorist attack but being labeled intolerant. That is wimpy.

16 years ago

 9/11