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| Palazzo Zuccari in Rome, built 1592 |
Then Monday, when my back was turned, the mayor sticks the knife in. While kissing up to the latest crop of police officers, he announced:
“And let me make this emphatically clear: If you don’t live in Chicago, you don’t have a right to talk about the city of Chicago.”
Sez who? The brand-spanking-new, wet-from-the-womb mayor of America’s (for now) third-largest city? Bzzzzt. Oh, I’m sorry: Wrong. We do have the right. But no need to trust an auslander, with the shameful stain of suburbia upon him. Flip open my U.S. Constitution to the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”
Yes, the mayor of Chicago is not Congress. He’s far less. A local official. Don’t we have enough local officials who feel entitled to score cheap political points by telling others what they have the right to say, read, think? Is Chicago’s new mayor really springing out of the blocks to join that race? Govs. Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, meet your new teammate, Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The sad thing is, I know what Johnson was trying to say. He’s sick of Chicago getting kicked from all directions by those whose closest connection to the city is watching “The Bear.” But the answer isn’t covering your ears and shouting “Stop it!” It’s called, “not caring.” My inbox fills every day with rage-addicted Floridians trying to lord the weekend shooting stats over me.
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Yes , very true. Mayor Johnson and all the others who've said this before him ,who he was echoing, are mistaken.
ReplyDeleteMany people, including myself, comment on many topics regarding Chicago because we deeply care for it.
ReplyDeleteAS IF, Mayor Brandon, what happens in Chicago stays within the city limits...
ReplyDeleteMayor Johnson, I suspended delivery of my print Sunday NYT because thebtheme for the Magazine was all about California. I'm pretty sick, too, of everyone ignoring flyover country, when they're not crapping on it. But, as Mr. Steinberg recommends, best to stick our fingers in our ears and yell, "Lalala..."
ReplyDeleteRecent events in Fascist Florida make me less likely to go there. I’d like to see change but without sacrificing myself.
ReplyDeleteGreat column as always. I think this is just part of the growing pains of the new mayor. He'll get better.
ReplyDeleteI have lived in Chicago for 40 years and worked in the suburbs all that time. Neil has lived in the suburbs and worked in Chicago for a great many years. His knowledge of Chicago I think is greater than mine based on all the places and people he had to see every day in regards to his work.
And as Mr. McGrath says "We care".
"Before you earn the right to rap any sort of joint, you have to love it a little while..."--(Nelson Algren)
ReplyDeleteI think I've earned that right--and paid my dues. Sure, I've been gone for almost 31 years now (so I can finally knock Cleveland all I like). But I spent almost half my life in Chicago...a combined 36 years in the city and the northern suburbs..Okay, okay, so only a third of that stretch was actually within the city limits. A mere technicality. Sue me.
Hell, I listened to Chicago radio, watched Chicago TV, read Chicago print journalism, and rode the CTA to work for decades. I tell the people here that I was a Chicagoan, not an Evanstonian. And like all true Chicagoans, I have always had a love-hate relationship with my birthplace.
"Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real." (Another famous Algren quote)
Glassbowls like Orange Julius, and others of that ilk, continually bash Chicago in the same manner that they malign San Francisco and Portland and all the other liberal Democratic cities. They love to use my hometown as a dog-whistle for all the many things that Rethugs and fascists (sorry for the redundancy) despise. BFD. Anyone who grew up hearing "Al Capone!' and "rat-tat-tat-tat" machine-gun noises won't readily give a rat's posterior. Hey, I'm a Chicagoan. I've bled Cubbie Blue for six decades.
"Cub fans are 90% scar tissue." (George Will)
So if a newbie (and neophyte mayor) wants to posture and pontificate and sound like yet another ignorant jamoke who says stupid [stuff]...let him. What does he know? Yeah, I called him a newbie. Because he is one. Damn betcha.. If J-school and a quarter-century online have taught me anything at all, it's this: Verify, and then verify some more.
"If your mother says she loves you, check it out!." (A.A. Dornfeld, City News Bureau)
Hmmm...just as I thought. For the record, Brandon Johnson was born and raised in Elgin, and went to college in Aurora. Just another satchel-mouthed carpetbagger like Paul Vallas. Who at least grew up in Roseland.