chicago

What is it with the national media and Alaska these days? Were reporters infected with a case of Palin-steria after the national elections? Ever since, every Alaska-connected story has had them scurrying around the state like a bunch of crazed lemmings that stumbled into a patch of really good Matanuska weed, and I’m not talking about invasive dandelions.

Gulf Coast!?! To think I had to waste an afternoon (cut my workout short and everything) to make those Tea Baggers along the Gulf Coast think we give a damn. It’s one thing to go down to Diddy’s or Kanye’s house on Star Island in Miami, but Panama City is a disaster. This place is known for one thing: endless strip malls. Do I look like I shop at Payless Shoes? This is supposed to be our vacation time and I’m blowing half my day in a hell hole like Panama City!! But what could I do?

The Tea Party got a big boost this week when LeBron James announced (to comic effect ) his plan to leave Cleveland and head for the greener pastures of Miami. This wasn’t just a slap in the face of our Socialist-in-Chief , Barack Obama, who had hoped that James would go to Chicago, but also to Joe Biden, who had confidently predicted that James would stay in Cleveland. In other words, it was a big fucking deal .

CASPER, Wyo. — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the University of Wyoming must allow 1960s radical William Ayers to speak on the school’s campus in Laramie. The university had cited threats of violence in not allowing Ayers to speak at a campus event planned for Wednesday. U.S. District Judge William Downes said Tuesday that violent threats can’t be used as a reason to deny Ayers’ right to speak on campus. Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, now plans to speak at UW on Wednesday at the invitation of a student.

God is a busy guy. I know He’s omnipotent and all that, but still, it’s gotta be exhausting to have a to-do list like His. On any given day, you can Google God under the news tab and find all sorts of claims about what the Almighty is up to. Athletes keep God especially busy. He has to make touchdowns for them, score buzzer-beaters, and win all of the mercurial Serena Williams’ matches for her. Sometimes, as we just learned from Mark McGwire, God’s work gets really tricky.

There was no shortage of drama at the nation’s Capitol Saturday as House Democrats narrowly passed their final version of the health care reform bill — and the Illinois delegation was right in the thick of it. While every Illinois Democrat supported the bill, Reps. Dan Lipinski and Jerry Costello were key backers of the controversial amendment that secured its passage but has since deeply divided the party.

When word broke that self-described moderate Republican Mark Kirk was angling for kind words from Sarah Palin for his U.S. Senate bid, the response from his rivals was savage and uniform. All three leading Democrats, as well as Kirk’s Republican challenger, accused him of inconsistency, a criticism that has nagged Kirk ever since he backed away from his vote in favor of climate change legislation in June. Kirk said he voted for the Democratic climate change bill because the constituents of his North Shore Congressional District wanted him to.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Still Life at the Lucille Lortel Theater, speaks volumes. An extraordinarily sensitive piece, it focuses on a tender love story. A talented photographer (Sarah Paulson) is suffering the equivalent of stage fright: She can’t take pictures anymore. She falls for a futurist (Frederick Weller) who is emotionally stymied. Together, they carve out, in stops and starts, a union. But he, like she, has dark demons that must be confronted. Still Life , which details the various, and often troubled relationships between men and women, rings true.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently expressed concern about the level of violent discourse aimed toward President Barack Obama. Friedman likened it to the atmosphere in which Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995. Friedman’s column caused Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele to ask the question for which I’ve been dying to find an answer. “Where do these nut jobs come from?” Steele asked. I think it is a very important question at time such as this.

In the 15 years I have been working as a doctor, I have probably not treated too many white supremacists. I have worked in community health centers in Boston and in the Chicago area, and most of my patients, who are mostly uninsured, are either African American or Latino/a. But if a white guy who harbored a lot of racist sentiments came to my clinic with chest pain, I’d evaluate him and give him urgent care, without asking his political beliefs. So why are white racists so opposed to health care reform?