As I said yesterday, Chicagoans didn’t realize right away what had just happened, and the news hosts were running pre-planned programming, but today, the streams of excitement flooded the city! In the news, in the conversation at the workplace, and all the jokes I anticipated, and the ones I would never think about! And of course, the most important battle: is Pope Leo the Sox fan or the Cubs fan?!
Tag: news
Asylum-seekers and racial tensions in Chicago’s Black neighborhoods
Over the past few months, Chicago has been dealing with waves of migrants from Central and South American countries, many of them bused in by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. The African-American backlash to the proposal to set up shelters in majority-Black Woodlawn and, more recently, majority-Black South Shore has been covered extensively on the news, but the migrants have been arriving in the Austin community area as well.
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There is propaganda, and then there is this
Today, Russian State Duma changed the penal code to increase penalties for conscripts dodging draft, put in penalties for willingly surrendering to the enemy and reviving Soviet-era penalties against “marauding” (while also adding what would count as extenuating circumstances, which includes participating in the armed conflicts). And there are also supposed to be referenda on joining the Russian Federation in separatist-controlled parts of Donesk and Luhansk oblasti (the self-proclaimed People’s Republics), as well as the Ukrainian territories Russia occupied since the start of the war. The logic seems to be that, if Ukraine continues its advance, they would be attacking Russian territories, which would justify putting the country on war footing and partial mobilization. (As many people, including some pro-war commentators, have pointed out, the Russian Federation simply doesn’t have the infrastructure and the personal for the full-scale, World War II style national mobilization – then again, I can’t entirely rule out the Russian government trying it anyway).
The whole thing is flimsy as hell – but again, so is a lot of the spin coming out of Russian state media.
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Thursday’s Plane Crush
For those who were asking – it was, indeed very close to my house. Not at the intersection as it was initially reported, but pretty close. I heard the news helicopters, but could not figure out what’s the deal, and then my neighbor rang my door. I even walked to the intersection, but there was only police over there, plus the traffic closure. So the picture is from the news, not mine.
Funny story – another plane of similar size crushed almost at the same place ten years ago, but back then it literally landed on the car driving along Quentin 🙂
Hettie's Reflections 