Ron Grossman – Page 41

In light of standoff in Syria, a history lesson: Don’t trust Ares, god of war

May 23, 2019 at 4:03 a.m.

With our president and North Korea's dictator swapping threats, I had a flashback to my yellowing lecture notes on Greek mythology. There is an asterisk alongside one sentence, a reminder...

President Franklin D. Roosevelt talks to the nation in a Fireside Chat from the White House in November 1937. Roosevelt introduced his radio talks to explain administration policies and to appeal to the people for support during the diffcult 1930s.

It was a wonderful life — thanks to the New Deal

May 23, 2019 at 4:03 a.m.

Like it or not, you and I are witnesses to a turning point in history destined to be remembered as a textbook chapter title. Previous examples include "The Battle of...

Chicago River’s best friend: Captain James Dunham

May 11, 2019 at 3:59 a.m.

The bridges along the Chicago River will soon swing open as flotillas of pleasure craft make their annual voyage from dry docks to Lake Michigan harbors. The river, that broad...

Ekaterina Gubanova, center, (Carmen), and a large cast perform in Act One of Lyric Opera of Chicago's "Carmen." Anthony Freud, general director, president and CEO of Lyric Opera, also noted the trickle-down effect of NEA funding and the serious consequences to small-to-midsized performing arts groups if federal arts subsidy were eliminated or hobbled.

Cuts to Arts money could prove smart for true art

May 23, 2019 at 4:02 a.m.

As a culture-vulture, my instinct is to regard Donald Trump as a boorish philistine. But I had an atypical reaction to his plan to scrap the National Endowment for the...

Is Trump’s mental health a fit topic for discussion?

May 11, 2019 at 3:57 a.m.

I thought of my Uncle Jerry when I read President Trump's recent tweet: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory."...

Writer Nelson Algren at the YMCA at Milwaukee Avenue and Division Street on May 24, 1956, in Chicago. (Arnold Tolchin/Chicago American)

Nelson Algren’s Chicago: ‘A lovely so real’

May 6, 2025 at 11:25 a.m.

In life, Nelson Algren and Chicago were star-crossed lovers. He wooed the city with a lyrical intensity that made comfortable Chicagoans uncomfortable. In death, however, Algren has been embraced by...

Frank Collin, third from left, leader of the National Socialist Party of America, is placed under arrest by a Triton Junior College police officer Nov. 14, 1977, in River Grove. Collin and two other men were arrested after a fight that left one of Collin's aides bloodied. The neo-Nazis were picketing a speech at the college by Simon Wiesenthal, a "hunter" of Nazis from World War II, when a brawl erupted with an anti-Nazi group.

‘Swastika war’: When the neo-Nazis fought in court to march in Skokie

August 21, 2019 at 10:31 p.m.

Four decades ago, a neo-Nazi group announced plans to march in Skokie, home to thousands of Holocaust survivors. The news set off a rhetorical firestorm that the baiduhai dubbed...

The anti-Semitism of writer’s youth comes back to haunt him

May 23, 2019 at 4:02 a.m.

Had Jewish cemeteries been vandalized during my youth, I wouldn't have been caught off guard. My world was permeated by anti-Semitism, omnipresent even when unseen. It was like the invisible...

A group of undocumented immigrants waits to board a U.S. Border Patrol plane at Midway Airport in 1954 in the midst of what, at the time, was called "a drive to clear Chicago of 'wetbacks.'" The group was to fly to Brownsville, Texas, and then board a boat for Veracruz, Mexico. (baiduhai historical photo)

The 1954 deportation of Mexican migrants and the ‘wetback airlift’ in Chicago

February 28, 2024 at 10:36 a.m.

In 1954, after U.S. Border Patrol agents in Chicago rounded up dozens of Mexican immigrants living in the country illegally, a photographer snapped a striking image of deportees lined up...

Trump’s anti-press rhetoric brings flashbacks to encounters with dictatorship

May 11, 2019 at 3:56 a.m.

Maybe I'm taking it too personally, but with President Donald Trump calling the press "the enemy of the American people" I'm having flashbacks to my personal encounters with a dictatorship....

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