Chicago Daily Observer

Paul Krugman wrote in a New York Times piece “No Nothing Politics” (Thursday, August 7) that “Republicans, once hailed as the ‘party of ideas,’ have become the party of stupid.”

His use of the word, “stupid,” annoyed me a lot.

I hate the word, although I do allow myself to use it about myself and to describe any driver who puts my life in danger.

I especially do not like it used about “everybody,” the President of the United States, Republicans or Democrats.

Let us all rethink it.

“Stupid” is a rush-to-judgment word that tends to invalidate complaints about things that have gone wrong, are going wrong or will do so.

Krugman’s use of the word, I believe, does not invalidate the main thrust of his piece that there is a current tendency among Republicans “operatives” to push policies—especially in the area of energy and offshore drilling—that are not thought ... Read More...

I understand and respect passion in a person holding to a political position and supporting a candidate—especially in a Presidential contest.

Barack Obama, I believe, could possibly bring about the change he pledges, lead in giving this nation a new birth of freedom, help us restore our commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and get us to join in a national agreement consonant with the final words of the Declaration of Independence:

“We mutually pledge to one another our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

With so much at stake, why shouldn’t we be willing to fight fire with fire, to propagandize and to use the attack bite to do it?

The answer is we should not—because it would be horrible for us individually and as a nation if we waged a Civil War, even one on the Internet.

Propaganda, I believe, is no more justified ... Read More...

Vituperation, thy name is calumny: Let us work together to have a lot less of it.
A frightening number of Americans today take the position that they have the right and urgent obligation to be not just vocal advocates but also strident Internet propagandists. Using fear and unsubstantiated assertions and appeals to primitive fears, their spiked goal is to cause one candidate or the other to lose the coming Presidential election.
Some dismiss such individuals as annoying gnats; others would have us guard against them as though they were attack dogs. They can be either or both.

A man with whom I grew up is one of these. He collects snarling, biting attacks against Senator Barack Obama off the Internet and E-mails them to a long list of family members, friends and foes. The tenor of most of these verbal onslaughts indicates they had been fabricated by ... Read More...

Leon Despres is 100 and ½ years old.

Throughout his long political career as an independent in Chicago, he has served as a special role model for those who believed in positive change and in achieving it against all odds.

Now, he is deeply encouraged to see Senator Barack Obama on that same path of independence and idealism seeking to climb new and higher mountains.

In the Chicago City Council from 1955 to 1975 and speaking out whenever he could during the third of a century since then, Despres has shown that courage, perseverance, social concern and most especially integrity can ultimately conquer the sheerest and most challenging political faces.

It was a deep personal commitment to integrity that 53 years ago kept the new alderman from accepting the patronage and payoffs that gave so many of his fellow alderman control over hundreds of jobs and almost unlimited opportunity for ... Read More...

Whether your name is Barack Obama, David Mamet, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey or whatever, you are a Chicagoan—or from Chicago—and it marks you.

For better or worse, political candidates, entertainers and people in the public eye especially bear the mark of their neighborhood, suburb, city or state.

So do we all!

But how Chicago?

What is this metropolis of ours and what brand does it leave on people’s hearts and minds?

And why?

Is Chicago:
A. A city of rampant crime, political corruption and go-to-hell sin?
B. An over-populated and sprawling inland metropolis with an inferiority complex about its reputation and limitations?
C. A deeply original and creative American city that has disdained many of the blandishments of an East Coast culture that was borrowed from and is imitative of the upper classes of Europe?

Each person anywhere who holds to any one of these viewpoints feels ... Read More...

A note from Tom Roeser about a new addition, Kenan Heise.

Barack Obama is carrying some of Chicago, its image and its reality on stage with him; but what is the image and what is the reality of Chicago?

What is the image of Chicago and the reality, not just in terms of a Presidential candidate, but also ourselves and the world in which we live?

“What does Chicago mean, when we put it before such words as architecture, art, weather, politics, language, hot dog, sports, weather, culture, literature, theater or Presidential candidate?

The Chicago Daily Observer has decided to go to Kenan Heise not so much to answer as to probe that question…

…with your help.

We are initiating an interactive column that uses the question and answer approach to probe not only the who, what and when of Chicago’s past and present, but also the how and why.