Immigration ain’t a river in Egypt, that’s denial.Immigration has been a timely topic for a while now. Everyone seems upset. Everyone seems polarized. As usual, there is little entertainment value in a moderate, reasoned approach. Thus, we appear doomed to a media circus pitting the “Free-them-all-ers” against the “Off-with-their-heads-ers.” The polarization, this time, seems to have swung…
The Handicap Principle in social posturing.There is nothing like earning a spot on the endangered species list to elevate a trash fish to haute cuisine. For centuries, the codfish was the protein of peasants: the salted baccalà of the Mediterranean and its immigrants, the pennies per pound, frozen bricks of cod fillets, broiled while still…
Tyrants to the right of them…tyrants to the left of themIn 1854, Crimea was contested by the British and the Russians, and maybe the only bit of beauty that arose from that conflict was the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade. I memorized it in 8th grade for a class…
Any “dibsers” on your block?“Dibs” is a newly applied name for the practice of marking a snow shoveled parking space for personal use, usually with old furniture or jetsam from a basement. The more blatant scofflaws use stolen traffic cones. (It’s technically a misuse of the term dibs, because any self respecting native speaker of Chicago-ese…
