You may or may not be aware of it but columnist John Kass is no longer with the Chicago Tribune. Not to put too fine a point on it but the Trib made him an offer he could not refuse and he “retired”. Ever since he’s been posting at his own site. Today he’s featured a “guest column” from long-time Trib editor John P. McCormick on the status and fate of Michigan Avenue I thought I would share with you. Here’s a sample:
For those of us who walked this street as children, Michigan Avenue spoke of possibility, of opportunity. South of the Chicago River, this had been the original lake shore drive — before landfills of debris from the Great Fire of 1871 moved the lakefront a quarter-mile east. North of the river this had been drab Pine Street, until completion of the bascule DuSable Bridge in 1920 created today’s Michigan Avenue.
My family came here each summer from a county seat town in Iowa. Between ballgames and evening strolls, my father found gentle ways to say that I could be more than a big-eyed visitor in this capital of the Midwest. Lucky for me, he was right. The last time he and I walked these sidewalks together, I was halfway through four decades of working on and near Michigan Avenue.
Back then thieves and muggers made cameo appearances on Michigan Avenue. But this wasn’t yet a playpen for robbery crews or daylight gunmen or looters stuffing merchandise into stolen getaway cars. Raise your hand if, in the past year or so, you haven’t heard a dozen discussions about the perils on Michigan Avenue. And more broadly, about fearless outlaws who’ve changed the perception, and the reality, of downtown Chicago.
Read the whole thing. In addition to the insightful text it includes pictures which tell a story all their own.
Between sites like John Kass’s and the refugees on Substack I strongly suspect this reflects the future of long form journalism. Although maybe with attention spans shrinking as they have over the last 30 years there is no future for long form journalism.
America, and the West in general, is in a slow motion cultural collapse. The barbarians are not only at the gates, they control significant portions of all Western cities. Paris, the City of Lights, is a cesspool. London has no English residents to speak of. Washington, DC, is a city in central Africa.
Consider that the US military left behind in Kabul all of its service dogs, in crates. Does that not speak of rank terror in the commanders and troops?
PS. Lots of airplanes left Kabul mostly empty.
That was true when my wife and I visited London more than 20 years ago.
Those military dogs were in crates waiting to be loaded on a departing aircraft. The state dept, however, intervened disallowing the dogs passage. So, instead, the crate doors were opened and the dogs ran free, into what kind of future is unknown. Like the poster said, the planes were running light on human cargo – room enough for people to string up hammocks.
There were also independent pilots and aircraft who had made arrangements to fly people out of Kabul. The state dept stepped in again, calling airports, agreeing to have these planes land, telling them to refuse these planes from landing.
I actually feel the real enemy is the Biden administration and it’s bureaucrats who make such inane, thoughtless judgment calls.
Jan:
They are the same people who brought us the Benghazi Arab Spring.