Monday, June 6, 2022

Chicago ‘not a hellhole’

     Email is pretty useless, right? A firehose of poorly written press releases, hyperpartisan money grabs and weaponized malice.
     Yet I try to scan the sewage and pluck out the occasional actual reader comment. You never know where they lead. Friday’s column mentioned the Democratic primary race for Illinois secretary of state between former Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and City Clerk Anna Valencia, drawing this.
Ald. David Moore
     “Thanks for a good laugh first thing,” wrote Chuck Bernardini. “As for Democrat Secretary of State, take a look at the third candidate David Moore. Alderman 17th ward (St Sabina). Earnest young man universally respected, no controversy, no money, no chance, no sleaze like the other two.”
     No sleaze? What fun is that? The name David Moore didn’t ring a bell, which is usually a good sign with City Council members, since they tend to distinguish themselves only by scaling the heights or corruption or folly. No Lori Lightfoot he, Moore deigned to respond to a media inquiry and talk about why he should be elected.
     He already has a safe City Council seat; why push for another job?
     “First and foremost, this is a servant seat,” Moore replied. “Similar to my aldermanic seat, it allows you to serve everybody regardless of party, regardless of race, regardless of gender.”
     Unlike the top two candidates, with their circus calliope of TV commercials, Moore is running a more understated campaign. Secretary of state represents the limits of his ambition.

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7 comments:

  1. Moore doesn't have a chance, what with Giannoulias & Valencia running ads with millions to spend.

    As for Darren bailey, I finally saw the Re Thug Licon debate & what a clown show that was.
    Not one of them had even single rational idea on how to fix Illinois, just pie in the sky bullshit from all of them.

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  2. In a more perfect world, Giannoulias and Valencia would knock each other off and Moore would slip in unnoticed and unashamed.

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  3. I can't say that I care all that much about the secretary-of-state race, but I will futilely rise to the defense of email, which is casually slandered in the first sentence.

    For certain stodgy losers such as myself, there was a brief period of time where email reigned as a highlight among modes of communication. In olden times, typing was actually a skill that seemed worthwhile to obtain. Email offered an unanticipated benefit to possessing that skill and was embraced by some as a wonderful technology. The beauty was, it offered the immediacy of a telegram, with certain crucial advantages: free, regardless of word count; no need for Morse code; available anywhere; one's audience could be targeted however one wanted -- a single person, everybody in the family, a select group of associates, etc.; it could be treated as urgent or not, answered immediately or 2 days later.

    Yes, it's largely been ruined by spam and the multiplicity of mailing lists. It was essentially destroyed as the best form of communication by its near-abandonment by so many for the siren-song of Facebook and now the insidious hegemony of texting.

    But personally, I appreciated its many fine features, and still do. Does that mean this tedious comment is warranted? Of course not! ; )

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    Replies
    1. It's unusual to be argued with by someone who agrees with you. I think the trouble is, you're speaking in the past tense, and I'm discussing the present.

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    2. If one is argumentative by nature, the fact that somebody may agree with you is not necessarily a deterrent! ; )

      But while I refer to the past, the basic facts about email remain the same, so I'm discussing the present, as well. It's not the fault of "Big Email" that it's been largely abandoned by many, abused by others and weaponized by trolls...

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    3. My father was an early adapter. He had the first LPs by 1948-49 ("South" Pacific" and "Kiss Me Kate"...I still have them) and we had a huge console TV with a tiny screen by 1950. I was three.He had a reel-to-reel-tape recorder by 1956 (I was making and editing tapes by 11 or 12) and a color TV by the late 60s.

      Me? I'm just the opposite. I get dragged kicking and screaming into the latest advances in technology.I still record VHS tapes, and have a landline (with six extensions).Our Sunbeam toaster is almost 70 years old. So is it a surprise to anyone that I still rely on e-mail, had a flip phone until 2020, don't tweet, and rarely text at all?

      I get about a hundred e-mails a day, and spend way too much time deleting them and sorting through the rest.. Endless spam, too much scam, and far too many requests for money from liberal and progressive causes and candidates.

      E-mail is used and abused by a lot of the wrong people, especially the flim-flammers and the kid charlatans.But just as I have no plans to give up my landline, I have no plans to give-up my e-mail. It's for the people like me, who still like words, sentences, and paragraphs...not the characters who are content with a limited amount of...characters.

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  4. when you come down to visit the 17th ward stop over by 71st and woodlawn . meet the goats. see that im not the asshole you think I am.

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