Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

Deja vu. Have we talked about this before or is this just part of my constant wish that people engage in all major life events while wearing medieval dress?

i thought he mentioned that he wanted to have a medieval themed wedding or maybe i'm just dreaming?

also -- KENAN -- if you have not listened to the new twilight singers record, you should. it's *extremely* whigsy!

I think I mentioned on FB that I wanted to have a classical greek themed wedding. which would have been aweseome. but it was nixed. (this would probably not have included any greek costumes, more just a lot of hymns to aprhodite, etc). Anyway, it will largely be a standard wedding, though we had considered getting this guy as a jp: http://findajp.com/gallery/mack.htm. that too was nixed

http://images.wikia.com/startrek/images/3/39/Worf_and_Jadzia_wedding.jpg

I told our photog to not use those for her personal site, damnit.

sorry
my xls is not properly calibrated

still, would you consider swapping out normal wedding garb for one of these? i think you guys could totally swing it

http://www.mistythicket.com/ebay/celtic_irish_leine_shirt_01.jpg

and one of these

http://www.historyshop.piratemerch.com/images/renaissance_cloak_C1055_LRG.jpg

You guys.

John I think you and the bride would look fine in this too.

i actually think sara would look totally hottt in that druidy cloak costume.

I have no comment about how I would look in that tunic thing.

Girl, please. Totally hot.

haha, well my chest hair would totally be sticking out all over the place, which is always a good look

always!

Every once in a while I think it would be nice to have chest hair. It would go nicely with my gut b/c then I could just be like, What? I'm a bear.

http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/tdomf/30701/222963707anteaterjpgnosoo1.jpg

J, will keep an eye out for chest-hair-addition Groupons and will forward them your way.

http://img2.moonbuggy.org/imgstore/fuck-you-im-an-anteater.jpg

That's better.

Haha, thanks, Eric. I read that Rogaine works on chests, but even when used as directed, it has cardiac side-effects, which are far worse when applied right over the heart.

Jenny, whatever you were trying to do failed, but all joking aside, I hope you'll try again.

Fucking Cubs. Make me sit for 45 minutes waiting for them to make up their minds about tonight's game, then they cancel it and reschedule it for a day I can't possibly go. Second time this has happened to me this season. I'm through with rooting for them.

Jenny, I figured out what you were trying to post, and it is what I thought it was

http://i.imgur.com/Jun8C.jpg

Haha thats fantastic.

I know this is just one shooting out of 450 so far this year, but WTF at this happening how, where, and when it did. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-police-still-searching-for-gunman-in-shooting-on-state-street-bridge-20110809,0,5217660.story

And I can't believe he was shot in the head at close range but his skull was not pierced!

Yeah, that story is a little frightening given the randomness of the whole thing (meaning more time and place than anything else).

xp - Yeah, the "chrome gun" must not have been very powerful.

Must have been made by Google.

I love the common reaction at the end of the article, "what is going on in the world today?" Uh, people get shot. Just like they have since guns were invented. And at a lessor rate, than say in the early 90s in Chicago, when there were twice as many murders.

So cheer up dude, the outlook is good.

Yeh, that sort of "the world is going to hell" kind of talk is a trigger for me. Global climate change and the threat of destruction by unfathomably destructive nuclear weapons are good, solid examples of ways in which things are worse or potentially worse, but spouting generalizations on how political corruption, violence, earthquakes, and famine are, in the long term, trending for the worse is usually bullshit.

I crossed the river today and nobody shot me in the head, FYI.

I hated that quote at the end of the article bc the guy was like "IT DOES NOT HAPPEN HERE" and then he sort of half references a shooting in Englewood where that kind of shit happens all the time but doesn't get any press. I mean, shootings happen a lot in Chicago. They just don't always interfere with your dinner so you get to ignore them.

450-odd murders last year iirc

that's a lot of murders

spouting generalizations on how political corruption, violence, earthquakes, and famine are, in the long term, trending for the worse is usually bullshit.

Historical myopia exacerbated by growing pervasiveness of news media, IMO.

Per Wikipedia, there were 927 murders in 1991. Yay?

Well things are clearly super great now, then right?

They just don't always interfere with your dinner so you get to ignore them.

But on the other hand should we all just be so calloused to shrug and say, "nbd, just someone shot in the head, hey, what am I gonna order for dinner"?

Its like, yes, these do happen all the time in certain neighborhoods, but its not really the general public's fault they are ignored, for the most part, by the media. I mean, this is how people wake up and realize these things do actually happen. My only hope would be that the media uses incidents like these to point and say, "LOOK! this IS happening all the time", but in a productive kinda way (which, tbh, will never happen).

And, no, I don't know what a productive way looks like. I wish I did.

I listened to some of the NPR series on gun violence and one of the things they talked about was how media can pay attention to the seriousness of hundreds of murders when they are a regular occurrence, and it's hard. I can't retell the story, so you should just listen to it. I'll post it later.

Anyway, MY point (and Jeff's, I think) was that suggesting some kind of continuous decline in society since the good old days is bullshit.

Oh, that I agree with, for the most part.

Also, I read what Jenny said not to say that the guy should treat the shooting in front of Smith & Wollenskey with the same apathy as he does for the ones in Englewood, etc.

I heard about this shooting on State St. this morning on NPR right after a story about the 450 shootings. During the piece about the 450 shootings I put on my deodorant and did my hair, but when they said "shooting on the State St. bridge" I stopped and said aloud "WHAT THE FUCK?" And of course I was pretty ashamed about the contrast in reactions!

What? No all I'm saying is that guy getting all shocked and offended because this doesn't happen here when it does, a lot, is some irritatingly privileged bullshit. Get mad, yes, but not because the violence made it to Smith and Wollensky's doorstep. Get mad because this is just one of many (and in my utopia ONE murder is too many) and the vast majority don't get press or major police details or upper class outrage because they are out of hearing range of Loop steak houses. I am not advocating a casual response to gun violence. I'm mocking this man's sheltered understanding of crime in Chicago.

Well things are clearly super great now, then right?

No, but they are legitimately better. Although I think a heat map of where the murders are concentrated might be instructive but still - cutting the murder rate in half is a step in the right direction and I will take any optimism I can get.

Right, I hear you, I'm just saying that I think the media plays a huge part of why men like that have a sheltered understanding of crime in Chicago. Personally I find it hard to blame Joe Average when it takes stories like the one NPR to make quite a few people even aware of whats going on. Yes, its partially people walking around with blinders on to the parts of the city they'd prefer to ignore, but its also partially about how these things are portrayed on a larger scale.

(xpost)

As Jane Average, I don't care to cut that guy any slack. It's just a matter of critical thinking and a willingness to acknowledge uncomfortable truths. Staying ignorant of reality bc you don't have to worry about it is privilege in a nutshell.

I wouldn't exactly consider you Jane Average wrt to this stuff though. You'd be surprised how many people out there are blissfully unaware of just how violent some of those neighborhoods can be. Maybe its important here to draw the distinction between people who are aware and choose to stay ignorant and those who really are completely ignorant of JUST how bad it is (I mean, yeah, you always have those people that are "lol the southside is ghetto", but some of them have no clue). I think there are more people in the latter category than you think.

I consider you "Jane Opinions."

Anyway I think we're both operating under assumptions based on a quote taken from a guy that we aren't given any context beyond where he was eating dinner.

People who eat at Smith and Wolesnky are the worst people.

Smith and Wolesnky was Idi Amin's favorite restaurant in Chicago.