I've been here since '98, and I can see how much it's grown too. But I don't really go downtown anymore. No reason to, and no time even if I wanted to go. The last time I went, a few years ago, I was just giving a driving tour to someone from out of town. My students keep pestering me to take them on a field trip down there, but I think they just want the day off from real work. And field trips are a hassle to coordinate.

Back when I did go downtown, I liked to lay between the Prudential building and the taller Aon building beside it. There is a plaza in between the two, where you can lay and look up and see both. It's an interesting feeling.

I know people that live near the beach that never go to it, and people who live near ski resorts who have never been on them. I suppose just knowing you're close to it, you think you can always go to it "another day".

My wife is a liberal and we learned by the second date that politics was something we couldn't discuss. Even when I'm listening to talk radio - Progressive or Conservative - I politely turn it off when she walks in the room. (I wish she would do the same when I walk in on her watching The Real Housewives...) She has one day every year when she says she is a Republican - Christmas bonus day. The amount of taxes that get taken out of that single check would pay for a family vacation to DisneyWorld for all five of us, and then some.

Apropos to #116 ~ And don't even think about blaming this travesty on federally funded public education. This is a direct result of 30 years of Reaganomics and the build up of a Corporate mercenary military industrial complex at the sacrifice of public education. Don't forget, many of my fellow bloggers including myself are products of the old public educational system. We are living proof that the system works and we won't mind reminding you of that fact.

AIW: That's right...careful...someone's wife, that makes all that money, could be a lawyer! ;-} By the way, I was wondering if certain people who have gotten pretty emotional didn't pull in someone they knew for support. But, I guess that is just my paranoia oozing out of the cracks! Since I have been accused of it...I may as well flaunt it! But who knows?

ChicagoMatt: You bring back pleasant memories of Chcago. But for me, that was when the Prudential building was the tallest structure in Chicago. I rode the Chicago and Northwestern from Great Lakes Training Center to both Chicago some weekends and to Milwaukee on other week ends. I still remember some of the mid 60s songs that I heard on the trip into the cities. I really liked going to the Science Museum (there was a Wilson Cloud Chamber and a German U-boat). I loved going to the Art Museum not too far from the Marina. I even marched in the Navy Band during half time at Soldiers field once. I had some really great times in Chicago back then. I had some scary times as well..walking from Old Town all the way back, past the Marina Towers, and somehow I managed to get into some sub-level of Chicago right around where the bridge went across that channel.

Since then, I have flown in and out of Chicago Ohare, to catch a connecting flight, a number of times and was able to see just how much Chicago had grown. I had a hard time finding the Prudential Building from the air because there were so many other buildings that dwarfed it. I remember that elevator to the top, where there was an observation tower and restaurant, and that was the fastest elevator I had ever rode on. I attended a lot of dinner/theater plays in Chicago...and I was even introduced to Catherine Crosby (Bing's wife) in her dressing room after her play that evening. What a nice lady!

Well, I'd better stop reminiscing!

Kend: We don't have a party in the middle because we don't have a party on the left. The Democrat party is right of the middle, and in some ways are even right of the Republicans.

And who do you think scammed all those people into mortgages they couldn't afford to keep for very long? It was criminal real estate and mortgage loan people making a killing off of the gullibility of people who didn't know any better....people who believed in the lies that they were told..."never a better time to buy", "buy now before it's too late", "yes, you too can own your own home"...just sign on the dotted line...."never mind those questions about your income and job history...we'll fill in the blanks for you".

Then those mortgages were sliced and diced and turned into tranches, with lies from the ratings agencies who rated those tranches at high ratings...then they were sold to retirement fund managers, who got their cut. And another layer of chicanery came when insurance companies, backed those mortgage casinos, who were wheeling and dealing in these mortgage packages in Wall Street, could not actually make good on the losses of those who got stuck with bad paper. So, their partners in crime...the bought off politicians...came up with a scheme to bail them out. They pushed the bail out onto the taxpayers. And did they make sufficient changes to the laws to prevent this from happening again? NO! They created a Moral Hazard situation where it is ensured to happen again...and again. The people who were suckered into mortgages and the retired people and some other countries, who invested in those tranches, lost big time while the real estate, mortgage, and insurance companies made a killing. I wouldn't buy another house in this country even if I didn't have one. People get burned!

I had a coworker who got a little inheritance and used it, before and during the 2008 bubble, to buy a few pieces of real estate as investments. He got lucky on some because he sold before the bubble popped. But, I think he was still buying houses and condos during the bubble. I don't know how he wound up on it..haven't seen him since I quit (I mean retired ;-} ) But I remember him talking about the real estate lady he had dealt with in Phoenix. He was trying to buy rental units and the lady would say things like all these renters were nothing but cockroaches and deserved to be taken for all they could take them for. Behind those welcoming smiles are a bunch of megalomaniacal capitalist psychopaths who will stop at nothing to get you to sign on the dotted line even if they thought you really could not afford what they were selling you.

It wasn't just my coworker. I had a friend who worked as a real-estate loan officer and he told me how these people, who he knew couldn't really afford the mortgage they were trying to get...but he would have been fired unless he did all he could to get them to sign up for the mortgage. And this was happening all the time...not just a few.

It almost always comes down from the top greedy psychopaths that put pressure on their employees to do the wrong thing. My friend had to quit...he just couldn't take the guilt feeling he had. He felt caught between his boss and the right thing to do (ie: save those poor people from themselves and the wolves ready to devour them).

And now, after the wolves feasted on the unwary...the wolves continue to blame their victims for being stupid or desperate.

I work on equipment in public schools all throughout the bay area and get the opportunity to talk to teachers from grade school to high school level and what I hear is that education had been sabotaged by a combination of standardized testing and budget cuts--all from right wing interest groups.

These are public school teachers (traditionally pro-union and liberal) from the San Fransico area (almost as blue as Chicago), and they blame the right wing? That'd be like me going to a gay bar and asking them what they thought about marriage equality.

But, even if the problem is right wing policies, which I am not conceding, what is the solution now, at this point? We're two generations into it. Is it even fixable now? And, if so, where should that fix come from?

Being the local government kind of guy I am, I say let San Francis worry about its kids, Chicago worry about its kids, and everyone one else worry about theirs. If San Francis wants to pay its teachers $200,000 a year, and raise property taxes to do it, then go for it. None of this should involve the federal government.

And, while politicians bicker over how to fix education, the students continue going to failing schools. Those same kids pass by my private school every day on their way to their overcrowded, failing public school. It's like watching people trapped in a burning car, and wondering what caused the accident, rather than trying to save the victims.

Ok, maybe I am being hyperbolic and a little heavy with the similes tonight. I'm an English teacher - it's in my blood. And, for what it's worth, I am doing my part by trying to convince the priest at my school to adopt the airplane mentality to the classroom. If the plane (class) is about to take off, try to fill the seats at any price you can get, since I'm teaching the same stuff anyway. Getting $50 a month for a desk that would otherwise be empty is better than nothing. We can't save all Chicago Public School students, but we can save a few.

Chuckle8: one man's insurgent is another man's freedom fighter!

There's a lot of them in Ukraine right now. Whose propaganda do we believe...the propaganda of the US backed Nazi regime who were insurgents fighting against the legitimate Ukraine government or the Russian backed Ukrainian insurgents now trying to separate from the US backed Nazi Kiev government? Are citizens supposed to just shut up and just take anything and everything that their corrupt government throws at them? The US would never have become a great nation if the colonial citizens had not had civilian insurgents fighting the well trained and armed British soldiers. If it were not for the citizen "insurgents" finally rebelling against their despot rulers we'd still be ruled by Kings.

By the way, did you notice how restrained the original Ukraine Police were when those Nazi's were throwing Molotov cocktails and everything else they could throw at the police? That's 180 degrees out from the way the US police conduct themselves against demonstrators who are demonstrating peacefully in the US.

In the US, the few police stand out there and crack heads or tear gas people. The people could rip them apart if they wanted to. In the US, you'd never see all of the police just trying to hold their own behind big shields while demonstrators hurl Molotov cocktails at them. And the very little gun fire in the original Ukraine Nazi revolution came from the Nazi demonstrators not the police.

Chicago Matt thanks it's usually me that gets picked on. I find it interesting that Americans have to be on the left or right maybe it's time for a party in the middle.

With all do respect no one took anyone's homes. They lost them. Americans are so over financed. Rules made it so easy to get a mortgage and with very little or nothing down it was just a matter of time Before it all fell apart.

If you want to get back at the super rich quit borrowing money from them that will hurt them the most.

Matt - There ya go again, reading more into my post than was actually there. I never claimed to know how to run a school. I simply stated that when I was growing up, schools were part of the commons, and people's property & state taxes are what funded them. Teachers and parents didn't have to dig into their pockets for supplies like textbooks, writing paper, writing utensils, etc.

I've mentioned this for two reasons: #1 to remind people that it hasn't always been this way, and #2 that if it hasn't always been this way, there's no reason it has to remain so. Since it serves only the interests of the privatizers and not the public, I believe it should go bye-bye, just like for-profit health insurance needs to go bye-bye. I couldn't care less about telling you or anyone how to run a school, nor do I fancy myself even qualified to do so. I just don't think parents and teachers should have to dig into their pockets for these kinds of things people's taxes once paid for, that' s all. I believe it is unfair, that privatizers are just ripping people off. As I've pointed out already, this phenomenon of the hostile corporate takeover extends well beyond education, into other areas like healthcare and our postal service.

I just love how you twist my paragraph to mean those with special needs should be admitted to your school at the sacrifice or expense of those without such needs. Excuse me, but I did not suggest that. Meanwhile I don't hear you flat-out denying those candidates are turned away, denied enrollment without viable alternatives offered them. Do correct me if I'm wrong.

When you can't present a good argument, Matt, it hardly adds credence to your position when you try twisting the meaning of what someone else has said.

As to whether disabled and/or handicapped pupils were kept separate from the rest of us, back when I was a kid in public school, I can't answer that question in depth or with confidence. Even growing up during that era, the fifties & sixties, I wasn't up on that, lacking the circumstances, motive or inclination to be aware of how that part of our school system functioned. I think it depends on the kind of disability we're talking about. I don't recall any of my classmates being blind or deaf. My guess is, they weren't rejected and turned away, even if taught separately. There could be practical and/or logistical reasons why certain students might need to be taught separately. But those my age or older who are handicapped themselves, or had a relative or close friend who was blind or deaf (for example), would be better qualified to answer such a question. - Aliceinwonderland

Pal -- You should read Article 1, section 8 of the constitution. In the 2nd amendent it does say the purpose for bearing arms is to have a militia. However, Art 1, Sec 8 says one of the functions of that militia is to put down insurgents.