Day: April 1, 2019

Veterans day or heavyweight prize fight? Longevity vs. change in 5th, 30th, 40th ward races

Not two heavyweights, says challenger Vasquez, who

. . . sees his race against O’Connor as . . . a championship fight. In one corner, is “somebody who’s like fully trained, a multi-black belt, with all the amount of funding — and then there’s us.”

“Our campaign manager likes to call it the island of misfit toys,” Vasquez said. “It’s a reflection of Chicago. It’s kind of piecemeal put together but we made sure to have one common goal and work towards it.”

Not so his opponent, he said.

“Ald. O’Connor’s got these precinct captains that owe him favors for jobs he’s gotten them, they’re very disciplined. What they have is an operation, what we have is a movement.”

Well, O’Connor grew up in the ward, and his five children live in it, he explained in a forum.

Then the homophobic lyrics:

O’Connor says that Vasquez’s record [as a rapper] is fair game. Vasquez has apologized for the comments, old rap lyrics that O’Connor has highlighted on a web site. “I see this as an opportunity to have a conversation about what kind of society and environment creates that kind of behavior,” Vasquez said. “At the doors, I provide the context for who I was then and apologize for the language and that it hurt people and I think neighbors see the person I am.”

Out of the ‘hood he has come. Come a long way, he says.

Ah, but is the ward ready for his socialism?

The Christian World of Agatha Christie | Nick Baldock | First Things

Her bedside reading:

Christie was baptized into the Church of England, although her peripatetic mother dabbled in other religions, including Catholicism, and introduced Agatha to the possibilities of occult spirituality, a theme that recurs in her stories outside the classic detective genre. Nonetheless, it was her mother’s copy of the Imitation of Christ that Christie kept by her bedside, an inspiration she passed onto her detective Jane Marple, a character A. N. Wilson called “a more impressive creation than those old women such as Mrs. Moore in the novels of E. M. Forster, who are somehow meant to carry quasi-mythic weight and hidden wisdom.”

Inscribed on the flyleaf of the Imitation was a quotation from Romans, beginning “who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” At Christie’s memorial service in 1976, her publisher William Collins shared this as “a reflection of the gentle Christian spirit that resided within her.” “Agatha,” Sir William concluded, “knew what true religion meant.”

Not quite, perhaps, says the writer. But it’s a clue to her detective stories, he also says.

Look to Ward 40, says urban studies specialist

The 2nd-most important election to watch?

“Of all the wards, the 40th will serve as a bellwether,” says Connie Mixon, director of urban studies at Elmhurst College and co-author of the book “Twenty-First Century Chicago.”

She’s referring to the seat held by veteran Ald. Pat O’Connor, who’s hanging on for his political life in a race against socialist Andre Vasquez, an AT&T manager who once pursued a career as a rapper. But, even if O’Connor holds on to his seat, “there is a movement for change.”

I would put it this way: If a ward doing as well as the 40th does when it comes to ward services — schools, safety, urbanity without the violence, amenities including green space galore, your choice of coffee shops and restaurants, and regular, timely communications from the ward office — falls to the socialist wave, any ward can.

God save us.