1. The Zen Guide: A Handbook for the Age of Anxiety
Day spas, batting cages, yoga studios, massage schools, acupuncture clinics, and more. Chicago has a list of the best places to escape your urban angst.
2. Forgotten: The Things We Lost in Kanye’s Gospel Year
Are Kanye West’s Sunday Services a celebration of African-American worship — or just a celebration of Kanye? At NPR, a religious studies professor asks that question.
3. Why Illinois’s Goverment Has Become Predatory and Unjust
Illinois’s pension obligations have put the state into a death spiral of higher taxes, falling population and lower property values. The only way is to “reset” pensions, Illinois’s Republican National Committeeman argues at Real Clear Politics.
4. Chicago’s New Interim Top Cop Charlie Beck Comes With a Black Lives Matter Warning
Mayor Lori Lightfoot considers former LA police chief Charlie Beck a reformer, but the city’s Black Lives Matter chapter says he “embodies everything a White supremacist would bring to Chicago.” Read about BLM’s concerns at the Chicago Reporter.
5. Arroyo’s Arrest, Resignation Create Preckwinkle Payback Opportunity
Need another argument for eliminating the office of committeeperson? The chair of the meeting to replace disgraced state Rep. Luis Arroyo will be…36th Ward committeeperson Luis Arroyo. Russ Stewart of Nadig Newspapers explains the political machinations.
6. In Striking, Chicago Teachers Went on the Offense for Public Schools
By ignoring a law limiting their bargaining to wages, benefits and length of school day and year, the Chicago Teachers Union won needed resources for students. Jacobin called the settlement “a clear-cut triumph” for the union.
7. Would Paid College Athletes Be Better Citizens?
As Illinois considers a law allowing athletes to profit from their endorsements, a columnists asks whether that will give them an incentive to not crime. Read the argument in Cook County Journal.
8. The November Witches of the Great Lakes
Due to cold air from Canada colliding with warm air from the Gulf of Mexico, November is the #1 month for storms and shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. WeatherBug explains why.
9. The Legend of A-N-N-A: Revisiting an Illinois Town Where Black People Weren’t Welcome After Dark
Anna, Illinois, was a “Sundown Town,” where blacks were expected to leave the city limits before sunset. ProPublica’s Logan Jaffe finds that Anna has changed enough to take pride in a black high school wrestler.
10. Ode to the Shrimp Tease
Since moving back to Chicago, AV Benford has been to Dock’s on 87th Street 20 times. Here’s her South Side Weekly review of the fish restaurant, especially the $2.69 shrimp special.
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