Your Second Amendment at Work...Chicago Edition

[piece-itpete]

I think Royko is irreplaceable.

There's been talk of selling the Ohio Turnpike too, my gut says no to that kind of thing.

Is the Skyway actually paved? For decades it was a truly awful thing Been a while since I've been over it though.

Your downtown is beautiful and I think that goes a lot way towards making the city feel vibrant. I didn't know it cost so much though!

Pete

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

I think Royko is irreplaceable.

There's been talk of selling the Ohio Turnpike too, my gut says no to that kind of thing.

Is the Skyway actually paved? For decades it was a truly awful thing Been a while since I've been over it though.

Your downtown is beautiful and I think that goes a lot way towards making the city feel vibrant. I didn't know it cost so much though!

Pete

You're right. You can't replace a Mike Royko. But they guy the Tribune Company decided to put on page 2??? It's a disgrace to the legacy of what we got on page 2 of the Trib for years and on page 2 of the old Chicago Daily News for decades before that. People think the Chicago Tribune is a midwestern version of the liberal NY Times, and it ain't. It's rock solid Republican...in 2008 Barack Obama was the first Democrat candidate the Trib endorsed for President since...ready for this? Since it's inception in 1847. And it was the first endorsement of anybody considered to be a "liberal" candidate since Horace Greeley in 1872. In the Presidential elections of '52 and '56 the Trib endorsed Ike, not Adlai Stevenson, the guy who was pretty much the definition of Illinois politics, and perhaps Democratic politics all across the fruited plain in those days. In "Democrat" families when we were kids, most of our parents, and not just in Illinois, called themselves "Stevenson Democrats."

For decades the Skyway was a cash cow and the infrastructure was virtually ignored. It was like driving on the Burma Road in a typhoon. To their credit, the French conglomerate that purchased it has done a lot of work on the Skyway and it's in fine shape these days. We occasionally use it on our weekly drives back and forth from our place in DuPage County to our other place over in the Indiana Dunes. But only at non-rush hour times. And when we're down in the Dunes and want to go into the Loop, we always use the Skyway. The toll is up to 4 bucks now, but it's handy.

Downtown looks great. Getting Grant Park back in shape cost an enormous amount of money. And the lakefront, which is pretty much all park land until you get way down on the south side where the steel mills used to be, has had tons of money put into it. I don't know a big city anywhere that has a better shoreline than Chicago's.

But the city is deep in debt for most of what Richie did. And Emanuel is getting all the grief for it. Which is pretty much bullshit. Particularly out of the festering piehole of John Kass.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Fourth of July weekend numbers...

Over 70 shot.
10 dead.
(5 shot by police...2 dead including a 16 year old)

Happy Independence Day.
From my cold dead hands.

Hate to say it, but...

Maybe you dumb Yankee bastards shouldn't be allowed to own firearms.

Chas