Hettie’s Reflections – Blog Posts

What I Was Saying…

From Chicago Sun-Times:

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration spent $814,000 on a giant fence as part of an effort to shut down one of the city’s largest and most visible homeless encampments ahead of the Democratic National Convention, City Hall records show.

The massive barrier was part of an “emergency” effort to permanently lock out unhoused people from the location near the United Center, where the convention was held, the records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.

The Johnson administration had refused to say how much taxpayer money went toward blocking off the green strip of land between the 1100 block of South Desplaines Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway just north of Roosevelt Road, until after the nationally televised gathering was over. The Sun-Times has been asking for those records, which should be public under state law, since July, when that tent city was cleared of its residents, the tents and the items they left behind.

Just A Note…

Time Magazine about the danger of caffeine: the side effect of caffeine is that it’s harder to fall and stay asleep. Isn’t it why we drink caffeinated beverages? Isn’t it an effect, not a side effect???

The article. I still don’t understand why one should quit it!

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“Never Better” Musical

Theo Ubique Cabaret just opened the season with the new musical Never Better by Preston Max Allen. Today was a preview and only the second run of the show. I am so impressed! It’s different from anything I saw at Theo before. It’s a very tragic story, not even pretending to be funny, and the acting is just stunning! Each character is so true to life, and for all of the two hours, it’s so real that you forget you’re in the theater, and you worry about the characters and what will happen next.

The show runs for five more weeks, so if you are around, come and watch it!

My Summer Recap

Summer is over. It was still very warm during the week: I spent some time at the beach on Thursday evening, and it was 82F, and the lake was warm. And today was the first fall-like day: it was only 55F in the morning and very windy. I still went for a semi-log bike ride, but even though I switched to the warmer biking jacket and put on the gloves, it was not exactly enjoyable.

The Labor Day weekend went great. I didn’t go on any trip; instead, everything I’ve done during these three and a half days was a good combination of picking up loose ends, finishing things I didn’t have time to finish before, and doing many things I love doing.

On Friday, I went to a Howard -Evanston CC End-of-Summer event (being on a Community Board there is a new thing I started in 2024 to make a difference close to home). It was a lunchtime event; I worked from home for a change and took a half-day off. Then I returned home and spent time with a friend who lives on the other side of the world in Oak Park. We planned her visit for months, and then had to reschedule because she was afraid to travel during the DNC.

On Saturday, I went escorting for the early morning shift, and I had a private yoga class with my teacher and made a plum cake

Sunday was Bike the Drive, and I had coffee with my mom, and on Monday, I went to Fort Sheridan.

I talked to Boris for about an hour every day of this long weekend. Every day, I visited my mom. Every day, I was at the beach. I watched three movies that required some concentration: Atlantis, Nuremberg, and Filmmakers for Prosecution. I finally changed the light bulbs in both bathrooms (it was not like I was sitting in the dark, in both cases, one of two bulbs was burned, but it is the whole project to change them). I won two battles on the phone with two customer services (more details to come – maybe!), and I finalized my conference presentation.

I feel like all these activities represent an accurate wrap-up of what I was doing this whole summer. Summer was very busy, but not like I was too busy to enjoy life. I had life and a lot of it!

Filmmakers For Prosecution

I finally finished watching both movies: Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today and Filmmakers for the Prosecution. The first one is a 2009 digital restoration of the film produced in 1948 by brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg. In this film, they collected the evidence that would be used to convict the Nazy criminals at the Nuremberg Trail. The footage they collected was only partially included in the impressive documentary, and the second film included some footage that had never been seen before. However, a more disturbing fact is that even the original movie (without these extras) was intentionally hidden from the public by the US government.

Jean-Christophe Klotz, who directed the second movie, interviewed many of the creators of the original “Nuremberg” film or their surviving relatives and friends. He also talks about the Russian documentary by Roman Carmen and about the race between the filmmakers on which country will be the first one to tell the world about Nazi atrocities. Apparently, the main reason for the “Nuremberg” movie to disappear from the public view was that Russians were portrayed as US allies (actually, the film does not include the secret pact and Russian annexation of parts of Poland). That being said, by 1948, the US government didn’t want any mention of being allies with the Soviet Union during WWII, which shelved the movie for seventy-five years.

But that was not it. In addition, it was presumed that the wide release of a film indicting Germany on war crimes might impede political and public acceptance of the plan to rebuild Germany’s economy, a vital plank in the Marshall Plan’s approach to European recovery. So apparently, the film was viewed as anti-German, at least to the same degree as anti-Nazi.

More valuable information is available on the project website, which also reveals the search for evidence in the propaganda films made by the Nazis themselves. If any of my readers are interested, I encourage them to explore this website.

It Was A Good Summer

Possibly the last Riverwalk gelato of the season

Ninotchka

Siskel Center started a new lecture series, “Propaganda and Counterculture.” The program is incredibly interesting. However, I can hardly attend any because most of my Tuesdays are already scheduled. Because of that, I made a point to see “Nonotchka” last Tuesday.

The auditorium was packed with students who stayed for a class after the screening. I am curious to know their impressions! The movie is funny. Even with the obligatory dose of “cranberry trees,” it still captures some utterly funny details that are pretty close to reality.

Now that I think about it, maybe “funny” is exactly what feels slightly disturbing. One may say that we are not afraid of things we can laugh about, but at the same time, that exact feeling that “things are not too scary” prompts the viewers to believe that the communist regime was not so bad…

Why I Stand With Alicja

Why I Stand with Alicja

TIME Magazine: Busyness As A Status Symbol

I am asking the same question as this article: why has busyness become a status symbol? Or maybe not? Is it the objective thing these days? I agree with every word they say: in the past, not having to work was a status symbol. What happened with that? See the article below.

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Fort Sheridan: Late Summer

Yesterday was Labor Day, the official end of the summer season. I spent this long weekend balancing matching up on one million in-flight projects, both personal and professional, and making sure this summer had a proper final accord. It was a very busy one, but I took as much of it as I could.

Since the beginning of summer, Igor and I have been planning to go to the Dunes on Labor Day, but then the weather forecast showed dropping temperatures. First, we decided to give up. Then, there were signs of hope, and we decided to go in the afternoon when it should have warmed up. And then, in the morning, it was so cold and windy that I texted Igor to call it off. Besides, I remembered that there was one more thing I hadn’t had time for since May, and I won’t have time till mid-October: going to Fort Sheridan. So I decided to go there in the afternoon.

Since I was going North and close to the Lake, I was sure it would be colder there (as it usually is), so I even put an extra layer in my backpack. Forgot about the lake effect :). To my surprise, it was much warmer than in Rogers Park, and it was even less windy.

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