We Embrace Old-School Holdouts
We lost Bozo’s Circus and Ray Rayner. Comiskey Park is now just souvenir rock fragments on basement shelves, and Marshall Field’s and the Magikist signs are singing with the commercial...
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Chicago’s Bike Network Is Strong, and Getting Stronger
It’s far from perfect — there aren’t enough protected lanes, and there are way too many crashes. But speaking as someone who’s been commuting on a beat-up hybrid for 22 years, I...
Op-ed: Let’s honor DuSable by getting rid of the high-speed highway on the lake
Next week, the City Council could vote to rename Lake Shore Drive in honor of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the Haitian-born trader known as the founder of Chicago. Though the...
Op-ed: Where young asylum-seekers find safe refuge
The young people at Viator House and Bethany House, two Chicago-area group homes for immigrants seeking political asylum, seem like typical college-age kids — full of fun, ambition and energy....
Op-ed: The case against dibs — a lousy ‘tradition’
As a protest against dibs, a guy in my neighborhood has deposited his dog's poop on people's dibs markers — their chairs and coolers and traffic cones. It's gross and...
Op-ed: Pandemic traffic: It’s not your imagination — it’s bad out there
Like a lot of us trying to stay sane during the pandemic, I take daily walks. And I've noticed that while more people are on the sidewalks getting their exercise,...
Commentary: Facebook has become ghoulish, so I’m taking a break
Bored with the pandemic, my neighbors are going all out for Halloween. One yard is covered with skeletons — pushing their way out of the ground, walking skeleton dogs, driving...
Commentary: Another change during the pandemic — I’m using the good china
I'm using Ma and Dad's wedding china. I'll sometimes have tea in a gold-rimmed cup with a matching saucer, or put my peanut butter-and jelly sandwich on a fancy dessert...
Commentary: Back to church: The weird, comforting feeling of being together again in the COVID-19 era
I've been going to church again, and it's weird. Not bad weird, or good weird. Just surreal weird, like a banana with a mustache. It's like a lot of things...
Illinois Tollway slashes late fees on unpaid tolls to $3 from $20
The Illinois Tollway board voted Thursday on reforms that will slash the penalty for an unpaid toll to $3 from $20 for passenger cars, and substantially cut existing debts for...