Election after election, Illinois Democrats vote for, instal and re-install the kinds of politicians who make Chicago and Illinois the most corrupt city and state in America.

So, why should we expect that American Democrats will care a fig about the stories that reveal that Hunter Biden and possibly his father, Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden, may have benefited to the tune of millions of dollars in their dealings with China and Ukraine?

The the Biden acolytes in the press either ignore the stories published in the New York Post and reported elsewhere or call the stories fake news. Apparently none bother to investigate corruption like the Chicago newspapers have done.

Despite the corruption that the Chicago press and the U.S. Attorney in the Chicago district repeatedly uncover in Chicago and Illinois remain overwhelming Democratic returning the same corrupt politicians to office election after election.

Apparently, the disease is catching.

It was early on the morning of November 9, 2016. I was too distraught to go to sleep. The sun was still a few hours from rising. Even in that dark time, I knew who I would be voting for, or actually against, in the presidential election of 2020. I had no idea who would be the Democratic nominee. It could have been Bernie, Elizabeth, Kamala, Joe, maybe Hillary again, or possibly one of ten or more other choices. It didn’t matter. I was voting for whoever and really it was against the man who just became the President-elect of the United States….Donald Trump.

You’re probably thinking, ‘way to give the man a fair chance’ and under normal circumstances, you’d be right. But, there was nothing normal about Trump back then. He showed us who he was during the year-long campaign he ran to win the presidency. You think it’s normal to ridicule a handicapped journalist? You think it’s normal to trash a Gold Star family. You think it’s normal to talk about dick size with a sitting U.S. Senator during a debate? You think it’s normal to call another Senator’s wife ugly and accuse his father of being a participant in the JFK assassination?

You think this is normal:

 “I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married. I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look. 
Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Nothing normal about any of this, we knew all about it before election day and he still won.

They say that when someone shows you who they really are, believe them. Donald Trump showed us then and I believed him. I still do. That’s why I made my voting decision early. Extremely early!!

With Donald Trump, it’s an either/or thing. You either love him or you hate him. There’s nothing subtle about him. There’s no nuance with him. He doesn’t have layers that you have to unfold to figure out who he really is. Who he is is right in your face.

So, how is it possible there are undecided voters at this stage of the campaign? Two weeks left to go and people are still making up their minds? REALLY?! Is there anything that can possibly change your mind about either candidate? If it turned out that everything about Hunter Biden is true, would that change your mind about voting for his father? If you heard that Donald Trump was leaving all his money to a children’s health organization, would that change your mind? Do any of the candidate’s rallies have any effect on the voters? Will anything you hear at Thursday’s final presidential debate make any difference at all, or will it be a two hour waste of everyone’s time?

At this time, almost forty states have begun the early voting period. Almost twenty-million voters have made their choice. It’s a record breaking number of early ballots being cast. People are waiting in hours long lines to vote. Some of it is because of the pandemic, but much of it is because most of us have already made our voting decision. But there are apparently some undecided voters. You see them on cable news channel focus groups.  I can’t figure them out. The choice is clear….on both sides.

So, if you’re really undecided, what are you waiting to hear? What is going to help you make that ultimate decision? You better make your mind up soon. Two weeks is a short amount of time. It’s just going to feel like it’s two years.

Related Post: Would you have a doctor who is a Donald Trump supporter?

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I had a hard-boiled egg for breakfast like I usually do, but this particular morning, the lights in the kitchen were not on when I seasoned the egg with salt and pepper. There was just enough light from the dinning room for me to see the pepper on the egg in the dark kitchen. However, I could not see the salt. I knew I put it on the egg, and I could taste it, yet in the darkness, I could not see this key ingredient.

Even in your darkest moments, your salt, whether it be strength, talent, or something else that makes you win, is there. You may not be able to see it, but if you dare try it, you will find it’s there. You have to trust yourself knowing that it’s in you. It preserves you, gives you flavor, and it will not expire. No matter when the salt was sprinkled or when you were endowed, it’s still there; in good, in bad, in light and in dark, it hasn’t left or lost its ability. Just know that it’s still there.

How the mob handled a newspaper it didn’t like in 1837.

Because real American history is no longer taught in woke schools, return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when journalism was so partisan that mobs killed publishers they loathed.

Cable news, social media and much of the press following the lead of the Washington Post and New York Times have become so partisan that it resembles the early days of the Republic when newspapers were overtly partisan. Passionately so. Readers knew what they were getting when they shelled out their pennies to buy a sheet, pro or con.

They were so partisan that some publishers were killed by mobs.

Elijah Parish Lovejoy was an abolitionist newspaper editor  who was shot and killed by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois.  As Tim O’Neil described it in the  St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

ALTON • Besieged but defiant, the editor and his friends guarded the new printing press inside a riverfront warehouse. A mob surged toward them. Everybody had weapons.

Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a free press martyr/

“Burn ’em out,” someone outside shouted. “Shoot every damned abolitionist as he leaves.”

When men with torches climbed onto the roof, defenders of the press opened fire, killing one rioter and forcing others to retreat. In the eerie quiet, editor Elijah P. Lovejoy stepped outside for a look.

Five shots riddled him. “Oh God, I am shot,” he said as he fell.

Lovejoy, known for righteous and unforgiving prose against slavery, was almost 35 when he was killed Nov. 7, 1837. The mob tossed his press into the Mississippi River.

It was the fourth press that Lovejoy had lost to people who hated his words. He soon became a martyr to the nation’s small but rising wave of abolitionism. In Illinois, a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln decried the mob violence.

It hasn’t come to that today (I hope). Newspapers in those days established partisan reputations; their “news” stories reflected those biases so clearly that no one could have mistaken it for something else.

Most readers here aren’t old enough to remember the Chicago Tribune under the hard-right, isolationist hand of Col. Robert McCormick. News stories were selected, written and played that supported his political, economic and social views. In case no one noticed the bias, an editorial cartoon ran prominently in the middle of the Tribune’s front page. In response to the overt bias, Marshall Field III created an opposing voice that eventually emerged as the Chicago Sun-Times.

Today,  Twitter and Facebook’s liberal bent is so well established that only a fool could expect them to be balanced. For that reason, I hope efforts to make Twitter, Facebook and other social media responsible to the government fail.

More on that later.

Chicago Architecture Center announces complete slate of 50+
Open House Chicago 2020 offerings, outdoors and online

(Quiz at bottom of post)

Open House Chicago is turning 10 this year. This annual showcase of Chicago architecture by Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) is part of the worldwide family of 46 Open House events, inaugurated by Open House London in 1992.

The 2020 OHC festival has been expanded to 10 days this year (October 16−25, 2020.) in celebration of its 10th anniversary.

This year’s event has been reconfigured due to the pandemic. Although people will not be able to go inside the buildings that are on the Open House sites, they will be treated to more than 50 online programs and trails for self-guided, outdoor exploration, highlighting more than 100 unique sites.

This reimagined OHC framework—designed for individuals, families and small groups that have isolated together—will highlight and promote visitation of specific areas, encouraging foot traffic and participants to patronize local businesses while learning more about the unique histories and stories of these featured areas.

The Neighborhoods

OHC 2020 sites, trails and online programs are concentrated in 22 focus areas: Auburn Gresham, Austin, Back of the Yards and New City, Beverly, Bronzeville, the Loop, Chinatown, Englewood, Evanston and Rogers Park, Humboldt Park, Hyde Park and Kenwood, Lincoln Park, Logan Square, Chicago’s Near North Side and Near West Side, North Lawndale, Oak Park, Pilsen, Pullman and Roseland, South Shore, Wicker Park and Woodlawn.

Recent additions to OHC 2020 offerings include a Neighborhood Trail through Logan Square curated and narrated by Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot and First Lady Amy Eshleman, a Neighborhood Trail outlining the Phase II development of Englewood Square through the City of Chicago’s INVEST South/West initiative, a Virtual Family Trail featuring seven sites that engage children through architecture and design.

There is so much to learn and see at the 2020 OHC whether you visit in person or online.

The comprehensive OHC website and state-of-the-art OHC app offer photos, seminars, history and more.

A Chicago Quiz

Before you leave: See how many of the sites below that you recognize without reading the captions:

The Howard Theatre in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg. OHC 2020

Historic row houses in Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg. OHC 2020 –

Central Park Theater in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg. OHC 2020

Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Creative Commons photo

The Flat Iron Arts Building in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg. OHC 2020

The Humboldt Building in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg. OHC 2020

Mural in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg. OHC 2020

Bronzeville Renaissance Mural Project in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Photo courtesy of ComEd. OHC 2020

Plant Chicago in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. Photo by Eric Allix Rogers. Open House Chicago 2020

The Den Theatre in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. Photo by Eric Allix Rogers. Open House Chicago 2020

The Forum in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg. OHC 2020

The historic John Raap residence on Beer Baron Row in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg. OHC 2020

St. Basil Greek Orthodox Church on Chicago’s Near West Side. Photo by Eric Allix Rogers. OHC 2020

The Kehilath Anshe Ma’arav (KAM) Isaiah Israel synagogue in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood. Photo by Eric Allix Rogers. OHC 2020

Stone Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago’s Homan Square neighborhood. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg. OHC 2020

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Even in the best of times, I’m a curmudgeon, bristling with pet peeves. Want to annoy me? Slaughter the English language. In fact, that category is so broad that I’ll have to save it for a multi-part post. Today I’ll focus on a tiny nit: advertising in the time of the coronavirus.

At the start of the pandemic, I gasped at television commercials suddenly rendered tone deaf by the virus: scenes of unmasked partygoers hugging and chugging. Advertisers hustled to reinvent TV spots with contactless everything, but a larger force was at work. At the end of May, the New York Times reported that “the economic fallout of the pandemic has caused companies to slash TV ad budgets by more than 40 percent.” As digital platforms lapped up those leaner budgets, television networks began to offer commercial time at double-digit discounts.

Cheaper ad time opened the doors to sponsors who had skulked on the sidelines of late-night TV. Their pockets deeper with a newly favorable exchange rate, they can now afford prime time or, better yet, a barrage of commercials all day long. And those bargain hunters aren’t about to squander their budgets on high production values.

Chief among the nouveau riche advertisers are charities. Some are legitimate, but their ads irritate me nonetheless. At the top of my change-the-channel list is an ASPCA ad called “Somewhere in America.” You know the one. A slide show of shivering, abused dogs, a nasal narrator: “Right now, somewhere in America, there’s an animal being beaten, and another being locked in a cage — alone and left to die.”

It’s not that I don’t care. I dote on my two rescue dogs. I contribute to animal welfare organizations. The ASPCA devotes 74.6 percent of its funds to its programs, which have helped animals since 1866. But “Somewhere in America” is a full two minutes long, and that, to me, is inhumane. I’ll make a donation when they stop airing that ad.

Kars4Kids is positively zippy by comparison. Its earworm jingle debuted in 1999, followed in 2014 by a TV commercial with kids — or are they cids? — clad in hot pink and black. Is Kars4Kids another good cause raising my hackles? Charity Navigator awards Kars4Kids only two less-than-shiny stars out of four and notes that merely 53.3 percent of its budget goes toward program expenses. In 2009, Pennsylvania and Oregon fined the charity for failing to disclose a religious affiliation — most of the money supports summer camps for Orthodox Jewish youth. In a 2017 compliance review, Minnesota’s attorney general reported that Kars4Kids had been misreporting its car donation proceeds and understating its fundraising costs on tax filings. Bottom line: Kars4Kids is misleading and annoying.

Certainly, charitable organizations aren’t the worst offenders. A woman named Deanna, seated on a suspiciously lumpy outdoor bench cloaked in a fuzzy throw, testifies that Optima Tax Relief saved her life. Maybe it did, but I don’t want to hear about it. Drug pushers pharmaceutical companies kick up their heels with colorful antics to distract from risk disclaimers that include side effects such as death. A leotard-clad woman on a Peloton drenches her elegant living room in sweat.

But the worst should be over soon. No matter what the outcome of the election, I hope never again to hear these words: “I’m Donald J. Trump, and I approve this message.”

In May of 2014 my beautiful daughter came out to me. That story was chronicled in a blog that you can read here. It was titled “My Daughter is gay, so what?” The support that we received after the post was astounding as it was heartwarming. When you come out openly to the public about your family business, you of course hope it is met with kindness. It was.

Now, fast forward 6 years. Yes, my daughter is still gay! And guess what? She is getting married: we hope. We hope because we are in great fear that the right to same sex marriage could be taken away. Thanks to the current nominee for appointment to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barett who would love to overturn this law, they are in fear. As are many other gay couples who are hoping to marry without an issue.

Right now the world/country couldn’t be in a worse place mentally. There is severe division; serious hatred flowing through the veins of many. LGTBQ rights have always been in question but amidst everything else happening, can’t we just celebrate the fact that a gay relationship should be just as accepted as a straight one? That people, no matter what their sexual orientation should be able to enjoy the happiness of being in love with another human being?

Going through the past six years with my daughter finding herself and her life partner has been a joyous education. I’ve never been more proud of her and her no fear attitude of saying “THIS IS WHO I AM, LIKE IT OR NOT”. She is strong; she is proud. She has met a match in a partner that we consider as our own daughter. They are building a beautiful life together and can’t wait to get married. Will that right come under attack?

Many parents of gay children have turned their backs. A married couple I know (females) do not speak to their parents as they have both been disowned. They just had a child – what a sad loss for their parents to not enjoy the fruits of grandparenting.

During my daughter’s engagement celebration (with masks on of course), it was so evident how much they are embraced by family and friends as a couple, not a GAY couple. They are seen as a unit of two that love each other deeply and that is so gratifying as a parent! All we want is our children to be happy! There are those that will say this is not normal – snd you know what? It’s not normal for people to turn their backs on people for loving each other. Of course there are exceptions to every rule! Would you rather have your daughter marry a male who treats her horribly or a woman who loves her unconditionally?

While we await the decision for her Barrett’s confirmation (which is radically unfair based on the timing and the hypocrisy of it), we wonder if they will have to get married quickly or be able to enjoy the luxury of wedding planning and sharing their day. They hope to wait until the pandemic is over and can move ahead “normally” if and when that time comes.

Right now in my opinion, which is what this blog has always been about, Love is love is love. In any shape; any form. It’s what is keeping many of us going through these dark days and if there were more of it, perhaps the world would be a much brighter place.

Sounds quite cliche but the world does need love, sweet love. Straight, gay or otherwise.