The People Issue’s class of 2022 showcases folks from many walks of life. As subjects, their common thread is an incessant need to create welcoming spaces for other individuals like them, enact change, further their craft, do good, and in one instance, amplify the representation of stoner lesbians in graphic novels. Read profiles of 21 people by and as told to 15 Chicago Reader writers.
Author Archives: Ben Joravsky
Posted inOn Politics
It worked!
It was a connect-the-dots moment in Chicago as the following news stories recently broke in rapid succession. Chicago Public School enrollment fell again. It’s now down more than 115,000 students over the last 20 years. There are homeless camps in many parks and under viaducts, including Touhy Park on the far north side. That’s where […]
Posted inOn Politics
MAGA flip-flops
Over the past few weeks, it’s becoming obvious that not all of MAGA actually believes the poison they’ve been peddling. Not that it makes that poison any less toxic, or harder to clean up. Plenty of examples—with new ones popping up every day as we get closer to the midterms—but let’s start with a case […]
Posted inOn Politics
Just like we told you
We’ve reached an “I told you so” moment, dear readers, where I get to say . . . I told you so! It was roughly one year ago that I predicted the Bears would probably call upon the good citizens of Arlington Heights to fork over a TIF handout to build their new football stadium […]
Posted inOn Politics
The choice is yours, voters
Content warning: This column contains a reference to sexual violence. As I write, it’s Labor Day—traditionally, the start of the election season. That means “normal” people start to sorta pay attention to what’s going on in politics, as opposed to political junkies, like myself, who never stop paying attention. As such, it’s my pleasure to […]
Posted inOn Politics
Hocus-pocus
As the years roll by, mayors and aldermen come and go but the great Tax Increment Financing scam stays forever. Oh, TIFs, TIFs, TIFs. Haven’t written about them in awhile. But they’re always on my mind, to paraphrase the great Willie Nelson. They’re particularly on my mind as I follow the falsehoods advanced by both […]
Posted inOn Politics
State of anxiety
With each passing day, I get more anxious about the Democratic strategy of promoting MAGA candidates like Darren Bailey in Republican primaries. Oh, I understand the logic—it’s an attempt to make sure they’re facing an opponent the polls show is easier to beat. In this case, internal Democratic polls apparently showed Bailey, an extremist, was […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
MAGA enablers
For over twenty years, my centrist friends have been giving me grief for presidential losses the Democrats have suffered. For example . . . Gore’s defeat in 2000, allegedly caused by lefties voting for Ralph Nader. Or Hillary Clinton’s in 2016, allegedly caused by lefties not voting at all. The centrist message to me went […]
Posted inOn Politics
Biased driving
It was a mixed-message week on the homefront. Mayor Lightfoot rolled out the red carpet for NASCAR the day before she arm-twisted the alderpeople into cracking down on speeders to make our streets safer. So one day the mayor is cheering on stock car racers to go faster. And the next she’s sternly demanding motorists […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Beware, Illinois
Content warning: This story contains references to sexual violence. I think we can all agree that MAGA’s unprecedented obsession with truth in regard to the rape of a ten-year-old girl in Ohio was really a sneaky attempt to divert attention from this rather unsettling fact. It’s illegal for a ten-year-old girl to get an abortion […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
More madness from Mary
I suppose it’s somewhat reassuring to know people still get outraged by the MAGA madness Mary Miller spews. That we all haven’t gone numb to her lunacy—even though she seems to be saying crazy things all the time. In case you forgot, Mary Miller is the downstate congresswoman who made her name last year by […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Trigger’s back
As you know by now, the MAGA Six on the Supreme Court eviscerated abortion rights with their recent anti-Roe ruling, thus triggering local laws that instantaneously made abortion illegal in a dozen or so states. None of which were Illinois. And for that we must at least partially thank former Governor Bruce Rauner. Words I […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
A flexible position on free speech
In the category of things that I didn’t see coming . . . My preliminary favorite for this year’s biggest “do as I say, not as I do” hypocrite is Elon Musk. Yes, the world’s richest man and self-proclaimed champion of free speech. It turns out the dude with the “I don’t give a shit, […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Not a dream
As I lay in bed drenched in sweat, battling COVID, it came to me as in a fevered dream . . . The city council had overwhelmingly approved Mayor Lightfoot’s idea to spend untold millions on a casino. Even as Alderperson Brendan Reilly warned them that it may wind up being as bad as the […]
Posted inOn Politics
False equivalence
So there I am at my kitchen table, drinking my morning coffee and reading the latest column in the New York Times by Tom Friedman, who I disagree with more often than not. I read pretty much every column by Friedman, Bret Stephens, David Brooks, and other writers with whom I disagree, on the outside […]