What stinks in Chicago? You twerps at the Reader do. The attitude of most Reader writers is that they are radical, progressive, and at the cutting edge of truth. Yeah, the Reader is so radical that it can be picked up at any yuppie hangout or shopping center. The Reader is so progressive that it features advertising of every multi-million-dollar corporation or real estate company in Chicago and the blond suburbs. It’s so much in favor of truth that one of its main targets is . . . Bob Greene. Wow, I’m impressed by the courage to go after such titanic establishment figures. Gee, by golly, when I open up the Reader I don’t get the conventional wisdom. Instead, I get fresh doses of worn-out political correctness and what amounts to self-righteous dweeby liberal upmanship (excuse me for not mentioning upwomynship).
Don’t get me wrong. The Reader is to be appreciated for its wide coverage of cultural events, its first-rate arts and entertainment critics, and in-depth articles on issues and people too often ignored by the mainstream. But the overriding attitude of Reader staff members is that they are unafraid, adventurous, and proudly radical. So the best you guys can do is waste the feature article space on stupid hyperbole? When yuppies read that Mayor Daley is our Kim Il Sung, I don’t think they’ll be infuriated or inspired. They’ll merely smile or smirk in their utmost smugness. But, then, smugness is something the Reader dorks have plenty of. Only smug people could fool themselves into thinking that cutesiness and Bart Simpson obnoxiousness are the equivalents of radicalism.
So all you heroic dudes and gals, march on. Waste your stupid days in the cafe reading the umpteenth radical literature, which is probably some watered down or perverted nonsense cooked up by pompous ass French thinkers.
If indeed Daley is our Kim Il Sung and Jordan is our Jesus, then the Reader is our Pravda, or at the very least our Sun-Times.
Yoon Min Cho
Arlington Heights