Baby Daley Needs a Nap

Politics, ,

Those who don’t live in Chicago may have a hard time appreciating how unhinged Mayor Daley really is. A recent local controversy over moving the Chicago Children’s Museum helps to illustrate the point perfectly.

The Museum, a private, non-profit institution, is currently at Navy Pier, but it’s looking to change sites (some believe this is because Daley wants to build a casino on the site). The Museum’s Board President (and connected megamillionaire), Gigi Pritker, wants to move the Museum to Grant Park, right on the lakeshore. She has the mayor’s support on this move.

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The Past Remains Present

Humor, Politics, , , , ,

Sports Illustrated has a timely article in the April 7 issue about Lee Elder, the first African-American man to play in the Master’s golf tournament. When did this groundbreaking event occur? It took place in 1975, fourteen years before the PGA’s “Caucasian clause” came off the books and fifteen years before Augusta National, the course that hosts the tournament, accepted its first black member.

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Even More Taser Trauma

Well Worth Reading

Every week more horrible Taser stories surface (see earlier posts on the subject here and here). The victims this time were an 11-year-old girl and a 59-year-old man suffering from an obvious medical condition. The latter died.

Orlando’s WFTV.com reports:

An Orange County deputy said she had no choice but to shock an 11-year-old girl with a Taser on Thursday morning in an elementary school classroom. Deputies said it was to stop a violent temper tantrum.

The girl at Moss Park Elementary punched the deputy in the nose so hard the deputy went to the hospital. While an 11-year-old shocked by a Taser sounds extreme to some parents, other parents told Eyewitness News the girl deserved it.

Jesus.

As for the man who was murdered, the Topeka Capita-Journal reports:

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. employee Marc Luetje said he watched Saturday as a female Shawnee County sheriff’s deputy tased his co-worker Walter E. Haake Jr. three times.

“They had his keys, where was he going to go?” asked Luetje, who had worked with Haake for about 10 years.

Haake, 59, of Lawrence, who goes by “Ed,” was pronounced dead at 12:37 a.m. Sunday.

…

Luetje was one of the employees [that witnessed the scene]. In a phone interview Wednesday, Luetje said Haake had fallen down some steps at home earlier Saturday and sustained a head injury. He arrived for work at 11 a.m.

Luetje said he saw Haake at about 10:45 p.m in the break room surrounded by Goodyear first-responders. Luetje later saw Haake walking along a hallway.

“I said, ‘Come on Ed, let’s get some help,’ ” Luetje said, who added that Haake refused his offer. “He barely said anything. He was sweating a lot and walking funny. He was hunched over to the right and was taking labored steps.”

So they shocked him in his car and killed him.

Al Jaffee Profile in the New York Times

Humor, ,

Old fans of Mad magazine will be happy to see a profile of long-time artist Al Jaffee in the New York Times. Jaffee is best known for the fold-ins that have graced the inner back page of every issue of Mad since 1964; his long-running “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” feature is also a Mad staple.

At 87, Jaffee still draws each of the fold-ins by hand, using careful planning to account for the transformation in the eventual crease. As the article states,

Mr. Jaffee does have a computer, but its main benefit, he said, has been to make the typographic tricks in the fold-in easier to create. He doesn’t draw with it, which leads to another surprise: the master of the fold-in never actually folds.

“I’m working on a hard, flat board,” he said. “I cannot fold it. That’s why my planning has to be so correct.”

“The computer would make it so much simpler,” he added. “But I think I’m going to remain a dinosaur.”

His fans are numerous, and they include Steven Colbert, who is quoted. “‘I have a vast Mad collection, but they’re not collector-worthy,’ Mr. Colbert said in a telephone interview — too heavily folded. ‘Perhaps I should have bought two.'”

I still have a later-vintage collection sitting at my mom’s house, but they should be in better shape than Colbert’s. I could never bring myself to fold them.

Immigrant Song

Comics, , ,

Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese is a compelling tale of mixed identity and outsiderism. This graphic novel mingles three stories: the identity struggles of an Asian-American boy as he passes through middle school, a recounting of the Chinese myth of the Monkey King, and a sitcom-style farce highlighting the misadventures of all-American boy Tommy and his Chinese-stereotype-personified cousin Chin-Kee.

Exclusion is a common theme in all of the stories. The Monkey King is excluded from a heavenly fete because of his primate status; vowing to reject his background, he loses himself to denial (well, and being stuck under a mountain for 500 years). Jin Wang, the middle-school student, struggles with the prejudices of his classmates, taking out his frustration on his less-Americanized friend Wei-Chen. Meanwhile, Tommy feels defined by the embarrassment of his cousin’s annual visits, to the point where Chin-Kee is blamed for all of Tommy’s troubles, from girl problems to difficulties fitting in at his new school.

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