Chicago: Become Familiar with its Distinctive Neighborhoods

Ah, well. My morning nothing-to-do bliss is coming to an abrupt end. :(

See you guys in a month or so!

Didn't you say you went to Montreal once?

I am saving to go to Mexico.

Amanda has convinced me that if a lady of her thrift can do it, so can I.

Yeah, Montreal was cheap! Direct flight from Chicago. This time I have to go Chicago-->Miami-->Lima-->Arequipa. And then on the way back Cuzco-->Lima-->Miami-->Charlotte-->Chicago.

I think I need to make a conscious effort to save up in the next couple months. Not go out as often.

Wow.
When I looked into going to Montreal for the honeymoon, the flights alone were going to be as much as going to Europe.

Guys, I'm spending like $1000+.

seems about right

Yeah, actually kind of a good deal for that many hops and not leaving from where you entered.

Is that just air fare or does it include hotel or maybe one of those all-inclusive deals with food or a tour...?

I will maybe be going to Peru sometime in the next couple of years, since that's where my sister & her bf are talking about getting hitched (he has family there).

Just airfare. Luckily, Peru is a pretty cheap country to travel around in, so that will be the bulk of my travel expenses.

Ha! I better start saving for her wedding. Never mind the fact they aren't engaged yet...

So remind me how long you will be there?

A week. March 30-April 6.

"The right to do ______ with my own body" has always struck me as the kind of pre-emptive lingo that makes people hate liberals. Cuz if other people didn't think there was an other's body involved, there would be no abortion furor. It's a way of trying to make the opposition just go POOF with self-righteous verbiage.

Also I said strident lesbian activists, cuz that's what the Citizen Ruth guerillas are, and if you don't see why such people making abortion their #1 issue is funny...

I never "hated on a movie I didn't see," mukluks, I just speculated that a guy who had made a rep only for a couple short-lived teen-centric TV series suddenly being hailed as A GREAT FILMMAKER (usually by folx who tut-tut that movies and TV are now basically the same)seemed real unlikely.

John- that sounds like sounds arduous.

xpost do keep up

I don't think that Apatow is a great filmmaker, although I do think his stuff is, on the whole, fairly entertaining, and I will say that Freaks and Geeks is a great TV show.

What sounds arduous, Jesse?

Listening to you guys talk about abortion and movies?

;D

Pitting the interests of a lump of cells versus the body of a sentient human being whose body plays host to those cells is a real matter for you? Really?

xxxxpsost

The flying sounds arduous. Are those all layovers on the way to the one destination? Unless you were spending a few days at each place--actually no--even if you were spending time at each place it sounds tiring. Though fun!

looks like we're all murdered out:

Chicago logs fewest murders in 40 years, unofficial tally finds

By Angela Rozas | Tribune staff reporter
12:50 PM CST, January 2, 2008

Chicago recorded its fewest murders last year in more than four decades, an unofficial tally shows.

Chicago had 442 homicides in 2007, 25 fewer than in 2006, Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department, said today. In 2004, Chicago had 448 homicides, then the lowest since 1965, when there were 395.

The official tally of homicides will take two weeks, and even then the number can be somewhat fluid. Sometimes deaths are reclassified as police continue to investigate a case.

Police credited a number of initiatives, including the targeting of gangs, guns and drugs and improved technology, for the more than 40-year low in homicides.

Plus there is no more reason for it to be mock-worthy for someone to make abortion their #1 issue than it is for someone to make (again) child abuse their #1 issue. Or immigrant rights, or wife-beating, or whatever matters to a person.

How it's possible to be a "strident" lesbian....I just don't know.

"Police credited a number of initiatives, including the targeting of gangs, guns and drugs and improved technology, for the more than 40-year low in homicides. "

Texting & Myspace!

Yeah, the longest layover is 4 hours, though, which isn't nearly as bad as some of the other routes I looked at, even if they were $100-$200 cheaper.

Maybe jet blue will start some direct Chicago/Lima flights by 2009...

xp

Jesse, please tell me exactly on what day of a pregnancy that "lump of cells" becomes a sentient human being, and I will stop finding absolutism re abortion absurd.

Remind me why you're going to Peru. Ms. K has some conference there?

Dr. Ackbarbius

Yes. Basically she goes on 2-3 business trips a year, all of which are training sessions for R0t@r1@ns. Her division is responsible for the Southern U.S. and northern Latin America, but so far she's only gone to cities in the U.S.

I'm sure it will be an amazing trip, John!

I'm guessing that Morbs means that lesbians are unlikely to get accidentally pregnant. But that 1) assumes lesbians cannot bet pregnant as the result of rape; and 2) forgets that reproductive justice is about much, much more than just being able to terminate a pregnancy. It's also about the right of women, including lesbians, to access ART and adoption services, and to keep their children that they bore prior to coming out as a lesbian (which is how the majority children of lesbian mother's originated). So abortion is just but one element of a larger tapestry of reproductive rights in which lesbians have as much, if not more, legitimate interest.

I never got my cookie, so fuck all ya'll.

I would have given you one, but I prefer having you come back and pwn some n00bs.

Bah. I will still give you a cookie.

"Police credited a number of initiatives, including the targeting of gangs, guns and drugs and improved technology, for the more than 40-year low in homicides. "

Texting & Myspace!

improved train service to gary?

Also, Morbs, if your opposition to abortion is that aborting a fetus is equivalent to killing a living thing, I must ask what punishment you think is appropriate for a woman who gets an abortion.

In IL, the penalty for first degree murder ranges from 20 years to death.

Jenny, I recognize those issues re lesbians exist. Also, I think you meant "equivalent to killing a human," because an ant is a living thing and there is no penalty.

And I am not discussing my views on that issue on the Internet. It's like arguing about the sunrise.

...But that you immediately leapt to the conclusion that I am an abortion abolitionist is kinda significant in this context. See Citizen Ruth.

Having considered it and swept aside knee-jerk reactions, I would have to say that the decision of when when a pregnancy should or should not be kept (because of the fetus being a human or not) is a decision that the pregnant person has a right to decide far more than a legislator or *any other* party involved.

kill 'em all

new thread time y/n

This all reminds me--in the wake of the slew of Right-wing homos I've had the great luck to meet recently, I was chatting with a really nice 22 year old at the bar recently who told me that his greatest goal in moving to Chicago was to work at Planned Parenthood. I wanted to hug him and set up a fund for grad school for him.

xp- yes.

This thread should be aborted before it takes on a life of its own hahahhahaah.

Chicago: A Lovely So Real

So, legally speaking, we've got until February 27th.