Mental Health in a Sorry State: Henry Horner Children’s Center, opened with such enthusiasm 16 years ago, stands today as a case study on the devastating impact politics can have on the ability of state-run institutions to operate therapeutically.
Tag: Vol. 20 No. 3
Issue of Nov. 1 – 7, 1990
Posted inArts & Culture
Life Is Cheap . . . but Toilet Paper Is Expensive
The wildest and liveliest effort to date of Chinese American filmmaker Wayne Wang (Chan Is Missing, Dim Sum, Slamdance) might have been called Two or Three Things I Know About Hong Kong. Like Godard’s films in the late 60s, this beautifully shot essayistic poem–putatively a thriller and full of scatological gags as well as macabre […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Truth in Political Advertising!/Sending in the Reserves
Truth in Political Advertising! Lynn Sweet took a fall at the Sun-Times, but now she’s back. While Basil Talbott was the paper’s political editor, Sweet became number two. But in 1987 publisher Robert Page hired Steve Neal away from the Tribune and gave him Talbott’s job. Neal’s star gleamed doubly, his column on the op-ed […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Rock ‘n’ Roll: getty really serious with Trip Shakespeare
We live in America, where all sorts of miscreants and rapscallions run free. Religious mountebanks walk unchallenged on the streets of our major cities; newspaper editors are unlicensed and in some cases allowed to raise children; and it’s possible for publicists, many lawyers, and Paula Abdul to go through life and never be gifted with […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Friend of Israel
BITTER FRIENDS National Jewish Theater Some dared call it treason. For Jonathan Jay Pollard, it was one way to deal with the anti-Semitism he had experienced in the Navy. For 17 months–before he was caught, on November 21, 1985–this naval intelligence analyst was a spy for a small Israeli intelligence operation in Washington, D.C., to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dummy Love
JUST THE THOUGHT OF YOU Industrial Theater at Chicago Filmmakers Justin Hayford’s Just the Thought of You is a performance/theater piece filled with good intentions–it wants to be clever, deep, meaningful, and touching. But I’m not sure that Hayford, a regular contributor to the Reader, is sure of his own message. As a result, while […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I was perversely flipping through the Parade section of my Sunday newspaper when I stumbled upon Marilyn vos Savant’s “Ask Marilyn” column. Even more perversely, I read it. It wasn’t a total loss, though, because it appears she made another mistake, even worse than the one you pointed out in a very entertaining column a […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Clean Sweep: New and Improved
To the editors: As one of the attorneys representing Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) residents in a recent federal civil rights class action lawsuit challenging the CHA’s “Operation Clean Sweep,” I read with great interest your October 5 cover story. There are, however, several matters about the litigation concerning Operation Clean Sweep that were not mentioned […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Please don’t slam-dunk my eyeball. According to UIC’s Eye Facts (September/October 1990), basketball and baseball resulted in nearly one-third of the 31,000 sports-related eye injuries in the U.S. during 1988. It’s not clear, however, whether these two sports cause more eye injuries because they are actually more dangerous, or simply because more people play them […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Wild About Walter
To the editors: If Bryan Miller is the Reader’s token right-winger, at least she’s a better writer than her New Yorker counterpart Bill Buckley. But when Don Rose used to profile his candidates in the weeks before an election, he’d explain his campaign connections. Why is Miller so passionate about Dudycz? In particular, why doesn’t […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cloud 9
CLOUD 9 Barto Productions at the Project Caryl Churchill, I have concluded, is a playwright one either loves or hates. Many theater scholars declare her to be an unmitigated genius; just as many dismiss her as a gimmick-stringing hack. What is apparent from Michael Barto’s production of Cloud 9, currently playing at the Project, is […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Where Dudycz Went Wrong
To the editors: Like Mr. Dudycz I have an ethnic background. Like Mr. Dudycz I am the son of immigrant parents and was raised in poverty (I apologize for not having a rat scar on my face). Like Mr. Dudycz I was in public service (35 years) and like Mr. Dudycz I served in the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Detective Story
DETECTIVE STORY Mary-Arrchie Theatre Sidney Kingsley’s 41-year-old melodrama about life in a detective squad room seems an odd choice for a company as daring as the Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company. These are the same folks, after all, who sponsored last summer’s second annual Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Sins Festival, the same folks who keep reviving […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Why Hartigan Won’t Do
To the editors: Neil Hartigan and his campaign staff must be delighted with Florence Hamlish Levinsohn’s article (“What’s the Deal With Neil Hartigan,” 10/26/90). Laboring mightily to paper over the many significant flaws in Hartigan’s record, Levinsohn’s piece seems intended to convince “left/liberal” voters that there are valid reasons for supporting the Democratic ticket in […]