Statues of Chicago.

Photographed by my son Chris:

Those are "Bibi on the Ball" and "Brooke with Beach Ball" by Carole Feuerman. I like these a lot! A closer view: here. 

That's "Reclining Liberty" by Zaq Landsberg. Seems to allude to a reclining Buddha. 

Bonus: a view of Chicago, with the President's imprint.

"The center’s mixed messaging is incarnated in the Janus-faced facade of the tower whose eccentric cuts and grooves from some angles..."

"... can bring to mind the heroic architecture of Louis Kahn or a Noguchi sculpture. When sunlight after a rain turns the gray stone pink, the building can look like a beacon. But from other angles, it’s cold and forbidding. That’s a jarring vibe for a project whose most groundbreaking ambition is to reimagine the presidential library as a warm, welcoming community hub.... From the street the carved granite words from Selma are illegible, the lettering bunched together like Cheerios in a box. Standing just below it in Jackson Park, the tower looms like a castle keep, its mass and height in tension with the park’s pastoral beauty and origins...."

Writes the NYT architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, in "Obama Center’s Two Sides: A Lovely Park and a Forbidding Tower/In Chicago, the $850 million Obama Presidential Center aims to remake a neighborhood with a 19.3-acre community hub and a brooding 225-foot museum." (NYT).

"Untethered from reality."

I'm reading "Live Updates: Ninth Circuit Questions Why President Can’t Send National Guard Into Portland/A judge in Chicago is still hearing arguments on the Trump administration’s plans to send troops there. Both cases center on the legal limits of a president’s power to order troops into American cities against the will of state and local authorities" (NYT):

The federal case in Oregon turns, in part, on the amount of deference the courts must give to the president’s decisions about when and where to deploy the National Guard. The federal government is arguing that the courts cannot review those deployment decisions at all. Stacy Chaffin, who is representing Oregon before the appeals court, the Ninth Circuit, told the panel of judges on Thursday that the usual policy of deference did not apply if the president’s assessment of the situation in Portland was “untethered from reality.”

ADDED: It might seem crazy to have a legal test premised on connection to reality, but I think we are that crazy. The "rational basis" test is used all the time. It's important to see that the President is asking for even less scrutiny than that. He's arguing that his decision is unreviewable.

"I’m aware that the president of the United States likes to go on television and beg me to call and ask him for troops."

"I find this extraordinarily strange as Chicago does not want troops on our streets … I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump."

Said JB Pritzker, quoted in "JB Pritzker: is the Illinois governor the Democrats’ best hope?/Clashes with Trump have boosted his profile, and while a third Illinois term looks assured, a tilt at the White House could see old scandals return to haunt him" (London Times).

We're told that Trump "continues to mock Pritzker’s bulk, posting an AI video showing him as a sumo wrestler grappling with Chris Christie, a large former Republican governor." In case you're having trouble picturing that:

pic.twitter.com/KBZz0iosQX

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2025

Isn't it amazing that the President of the United States is fooling around — and fat shaming — like that? Trump is fat too, of course. I think he fairly cheerfully admits it.

There's also this quote from Frank Luntz: "If you’re the California governor, you have to defend San Francisco. If you’re the Illinois governor, you have to defend Chicago. Democrats do not know how to talk about crime and they do not know how to lead about it, because, quite frankly, they’re seen as being in bed with the criminal and being too distant from the victim.... I actually think that Rahm Emanuel is a better representative because Chicago was better off when he was mayor.”

"It takes one to know one, on the weight question. And the president, of course, himself, is not in good shape. So, he ought to respond to that from me."

"I would say also that his personal attacks on me are just evidence of a guy who’s still living in fifth grade. He’s the kind of bully that throws invectives at people, because he knows that what he’s saying is actually commentary on himself."

Said the rotund Illinois Governor Jay Pritzker, quoted in "Pritzker responds to Trump’s weight comments: 'It takes one to know one'" (The Hill).

This forces me to look up what Trump said, which would otherwise have been erased from my brain (if it was ever there). Let's see... here:  "We will solve Chicago within one week — maybe less.... Chicago's a disaster and the governor of Illinois should say, 'President, will you do us the honor of cleaning up our city? We need help.' They need help. They need help... We may wait -- we may or we may not. We may just go in and do it, which is probably what we should do.... I hate to barge in on a city and then be treated horribly by corrupt politicians. The bad politicians, like a guy like Pritzker. He ought to spend more time in the gym actually, the guy is a disaster."

Criticizing the mayor's "All Chicagoans" mode: How do you decide when to dispense with specificity.

Why not mention WHY the victim was shot (because he was Jewish)? Why not mention WHERE the victim was shot (en route to a synagogue)?

Any Mayor who cannot be bothered to acknowledge the antisemitism of a hate crime against a Jewish man heading to a synagogue is unworthy of the… pic.twitter.com/HMP64Ra3oO

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) October 30, 2024

I was sent that by someone who said, "Something that looked this much like a hate crime against a black person would not be answered with a statement that is equivalent to saying all lives matter."

Background: "Jewish leaders demand hate crime charges after man shot on way to synagogue" (Fox 32 Chicago)("Police returned fire and wounded 22-year old Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, now charged with multiple counts of attempted murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm, and aggravated battery but not a hate crime. The victim, an Orthodox Jew, wore traditional Jewish clothing at the time of the shooting").

And the shooter yelled something — something the police don't want to say:

An undocumented individual from Africa opened fire on an Orthodox Jew and police officers in Chicago, while shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

When asked the police what did he shout, “um um, we can’t get into it um nothing we can bring as evidence as a motive at this point…” pic.twitter.com/YMe1zzTvOW

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 29, 2024

"We were also puzzled by the way American waiters routinely congratulate you on your menu choice, rewarding you with 'Good choice,' 'Excellent' or even 'Awesome.' "

"You want fries with that? 'Awesome!'...  [O]n our way to Houston, we passed a roadside church whose huge hoarding exhorted us to 'Give Up Lust — Take Up Jesus.' I thought that sign might be my most abiding memory, until I’d spent a few hours at the Space Center Houston. I never guessed I’d be so riveted by topics like the geology of the moon and how NASA astronauts train underwater. But the cafeteria! It is astonishing, the best I’ve ever seen anywhere in a public building: brioche or sourdough sandwiches, homemade soups, hot roasts and grills, fresh tortillas, a salad bar to tempt the most die-hard carnivore, and no junk food in sight. It was a long way from the usual NASA fare of freeze-dried food in pouches and tubes...."

From "Prue Leith’s Great American Road Trip/The 'Great British Baking Show' judge steps out of the tent to sample the flavors of the U.S. on a 2,200-mile drive" (NYT).

"... Lightfoot may be a harbinger, or at least a warning, for the other big-city Black mayors..."

"... will their mostly non-Black citizens feel that their safety is being prioritized and secured under Black leadership?"

Concludes Charles Blow, in "The Spectacular Fall of Lori Lightfoot" (NYT).

"[A man] had visited the Tiffany & Co. jewelry store on Michigan Avenue and made a modest purchase, in part so his granddaughter could enjoy the cachet of the signature turquoise gift bag."

"But before the reader left the store, the clerk discreetly placed the bag in a more anonymous sack. The implication? It’s not safe to walk down Michigan Avenue with a Tiffany bag anymore. That anecdote focuses the mind on the perception of high crime bedeviling what long has been known as the Midwest’s most prestigious shopping destination.... According to the Urban Land Institute, the vacancy rate on Michigan Avenue stands close to a troubling 25%.... The Urban Land Institute report has... good ideas, including an upgrade in dining options. Michigan Avenue never has been hospitable to restaurants, especially on the ground floor, a function of high rents and canyon-like ambience. That’s also true on New York’s Fifth Avenue but was never the case on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, where you can sip and watch people promenade...."

From "Editorial: The Michigan Avenue crisis is getting worse" (Chicago Tribune).

"Mr. O’Conor did not know how long he would keep jumping, or even particularly why he kept jumping, morning after morning."

"But there was something about the whole endeavor that appealed to his big, obsessive personality and his appreciation for routines.... During the winter, there were days he could not really jump at all: When Lake Michigan was covered with snow and ice, he had to break through with a shovel to find a place to carefully drop into the lake, then climb out again. A woman interrupted him at the water’s edge once, concerned about his mental health. 'Are you trying to kill yourself?' she asked. 'No, I’m just jumping in and getting out,' he replied.... There is nothing elegant or artful about his technique. He does not swan dive or cleanly disappear into the water. He plunges, messily. Sometimes he executes a solid, and fairly impressive, back flip."

From "This Is the Story of a Man Who Jumped Into Lake Michigan Every Day for Nearly a Year/He started one Saturday as the pandemic was raging. Then he just kept going, never mind Chicago’s winter" (NYT).

In case you were wondering what you need to do to get a big article about you in The New York Times. Plenty of photographs too.

Well, whatever, nearly all the news is manufactured. At least some of the manufactured news is feel-good. Most of it is the opposite.

And I'm a big proponent of morning rituals. Just keep it light. Don't get too ritualistic. And don't kill yourself.

Chicago.

Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores and clashing with police for hours https://t.co/oUd3diKaDm

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) August 10, 2020

"The looting began shortly after midnight as people darted through broken store windows and doors along Michigan Avenue carrying shopping bags full of merchandise. Cars dropped off more people as the crowd grew. At least one U-Haul van was seen pulling up.... Crowds repeatedly tried to bash in the windows of the Omega watch store at Delaware Place and Michigan Avenue. 'The watch store,' one officer said. 'They’re gonna get it eventually.' A group of people went in and out through a broken window of the Louis Vuitton store along Walton Place across the street from the Drake Hotel. A squad car drove by and the group ran away. But as the car rode off, at least one person tried to go into the shop. The police returned. 'Go home!' One cop shouted. 'You go home!' Someone shouted, apparently back at the officer."

ADDED: At the Washington Post, the headline is "Looters smash business windows along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile," and somebody in the comments says:

This must be a first for the Washington Post. They actually refer to those who smashed windows as "looters." Yesterday, they referred to those who intended to set fire to the Police Union's building in Portland as "protesters."

Is the Post finally waking up to smell the accelerant?

Trump was asked if his sending federal agents into cities run by Democrats is "just a political stunt... to divert attention from your failures on coronavirus."

At his coronavirus press conference yesterday. From the transcript:

Yeah. The cities, unfortunately, that are in trouble are all run by Democrats. You have radical left Democrats running cities like Chicago, and so many others that we just had a news conference. And unfortunately that’s the way it is. I mean, that’s the facts. When you look at Chicago and you look at the job, Mayor Lightfoot sent me a letter yesterday and I think in their own way, they want us to go in. There’ll be a time when they’re going to want us to go in full blast. But right now, we’re sending extra people to help. We’re arresting a lot of people that have been very bad. As far as the coronavirus, as you say, I think we’ve done some amazing things. And I think you’ll probably see that if you compare our statistics to other countries. And if you look at death rates, et cetera, you’re going to see. And especially into the future with what’s happening, you’re going to see some very, very impressive numbers for the United States.

And a bit later, responding to a similar question:

"People who have lost trust in the police are more prone to settle scores on their own, experts said."

"'The lack of trust, the lack of confidence in police and the lack of willingness to use police, I think is going to have a broader effect,' said [said Thomas Abt, a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice and one author of the nationwide homicide study by Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy focused on criminal justice].... [Chicago’s new police superintendent, David O. Brown] called the open air drug markets on street corners 'the precursors' to much of the violence.... Asked about how they are addressing the gun violence, he said that the police are confiscating guns — 4,629 so far this year, over 10,000 last year. He repeatedly appealed to the public for help, saying that residents knew something about the perpetrators in most cases. A low rate in solving murders — it hovers around 20 percent — and the lack of protection for witnesses both play into the continued high murder rate, said criminologists. Murderers don’t expect to get caught and witnesses feel intimidated, they said.... The city needs to do more to protect witnesses, said Rev. Ira Acree of the Greater St. John Bible Church. 'People want to tell, but they are afraid,' Rev. Acree told a community meeting that he organized to discuss the shootings, adding that people approach him repeatedly about doing the right thing. They tell him, he said, 'I want to go to heaven, but I do not want to go this week.'... Chicago’s toll has mounted steadily since Memorial Day weekend.... Some experts attribute the high numbers of children being killed to collateral damage from gunmen leaving their fingers on the triggers of automatic weapons that they have never been trained to shoot...."

From "Chicago Gun Violence Spikes and Increasingly Finds the Youngest Victims/Nine children under the age of 18 have been shot dead in Chicago since June 20" (NYT).

I want to see how this looks....

I knew after last night, they were a half game out, but I wanted to gaze on the graphic depiction.

ADDED: The season could end in a tie, and we'd have to play the Cubs to see who wins the division. Then the loser will be the first wild card in the National League, and if Cubs/Brewers win the wild card game, the Cubs and Brewers will play again (because the winner of the wild card game will play the winner of the Central Division).

ALSO: It was a rough night last night for the Cubs: "Racial slurs hurled in bleacher brawl at Wrigley on Hispanic Heritage Night" (Chicago Sun Times):

The incident began following the Cubs’ 5-1 loss to the Pirates. The game featured specially priced tickets, which included t-shirts saying “Los Cubs.”

Danny Rockett — who hosts a Cubs podcast called The Son Ranto Show — began videotaping.... In a second video posted by Rockett, the same man from the first video can be more clearly heard yelling slurs at other fans.

“You threw the first punch,” he yells. “You threw the first punch! You threw the first punch.” He then cups his hands around his mouth and hurls two racial slurs for hispanics.

The man who used the slur immediately saw Rockett videotaping and says, “Don’t record me!” and comes toward him. Security can be seen pressuring Rockett to put his phone away: “You’re on private property. You don’t have permission to videotape anyone.” The video then ends....

When asked on Twitter what started the fight, Rockett responded with one word: “Racism.” However, after being contacted by the Sun-Times, Rockett said, “I really don’t know. Probably just drunks going back and forth. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary really until it was a melee.”

Cubs spokesman Julian Green said... denied a claim made by a woman in the video in which she accused security of taking the “white people’s side,” saying everyone involved was removed. Green did say the security guard was “incorrect” about fans filming — there’s no policy against recording video at Wrigley. “People film every time they come to games,” he said. “We will brief our staff about that.”

Part of bleacher fighting. pic.twitter.com/5i0p8PwhsN

— Danny Rockett (@SonRanto) September 25, 2018

PLUS: Another tweet from Rockett: "To all the people who followed me because of that fight I hope you like the #Cubs. Cause that’s all I tweet about. #Nofightinginthebleachers"

"Make sure that if blood is going to flow, let it flow all over the city. If gas is going to be used -- let that gas come down all over Chicago..."

"... and not just over us in this park. That if the police are going to run wild let them run wild all over the city of Chicago and not over us in this park. That if we are going to be disrupted, and violated, let this whole stinking city be disrupted and violated, let this whole military machine which is aimed at us... around the city, don't get trapped in some kind of large organized march which can be surrounded. Begin to find your way out of here. I'll see you in the streets."

50 years ago today, Tom Hayden exhorted the crowd.

For context:

"You all know who these individuals are, they come into your homes every day, sleep with you every night. Grandparents, parents, siblings, significant others — you know who they are."

Said Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, quoted in "Why Chicago PD can't get more residents to identify gun violence suspects" (USA Today).

"I believe karma is (vengeful), you feel me? One day you’re going to reap what you sow," said Romell Young, explaining why he wouldn't name the person who shot him in the leg. USA Today says that his "no-snitching outlook sheds light on the complicated dynamic" in Chicago, where, "[o]ver the weekend, at least 72 people were shot in the city, including 12 fatally, but police did not record a single arrest in any of the incidents."

At the Chicago Beach Café...

... take the plunge.

And go through the Althouse Portal to Amazon.

At the Hold True Café...

... you can handle the truth.

This is an open thread, but the photo makes me want to link to this book excerpt I read earlier today: "The death of truth: how we gave up on facts and ended up with Trump/From post-modernism to filter bubbles, ‘truth decay’ has been spreading for decades. How can we stop alternative facts from bringing down democracy, asks Michiko Kakutani" (The Guardian).

At the Big Face Fountain...

... cool off!



It's the 4th of July!

At the Screen Time Café...

... is this how you want to live?

Get out there... into the world...



... before it's too late.