Tragedy on Devon

Business owners on the 2500 block of W. Devon Ave. had little to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Last Thursday there was a fire that burned the entire block, which consisted of three two-story buildings sharing a white, stone facade. According to a Chicago Tribune article from Sunday's paper (link -- may require registration), at least 25 businesses and 13 apartments sustained damage. I'd guess many of them are a total loss.

Fifty years ago, Devon Avenue was a major commercial strip serving the then-predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Rogers Park. By the mid 1980s, large numbers of Indians and Pakistanis had moved in, and parts of Devon began to look like a South Asian marketplace. I remember it at that time as a vibrant and entrepreneurial place.

I had dinner on Sunday at Indian Garden, across the street from where the fire was, so I was able to see the ruined block first hand. Out on the street, a smell like a sooty fireplace permeated the air. It was sad to think of the people who lost so much of what they had obviously worked so hard for -- losses that were often uninsured. From the Tribune article:

Some of the business owners said they planned to rent other space quickly. Mir Minhaj, an accountant whose Amtech Accounting office was on the second floor of the center building, had already made calls to lease a different space.

[Abdul Wahid] Butt, [owner of Sabri Nehari Restaurant] who estimated his losses at more than $1 million, said his restaurant's fame would make it easier for him to rebuild, but the fire still left him heartbroken.

"We are in shock right now," Butt said. "It's the memories. What can you do? You have to cry."

Latke vs. hamantash

Tuesday night I made a journey to the South Side to attend the 60th Annual Latke-Hamantash Debate at the University of Chicago. I went with a pro-latke bias, but I must admit I found the defender of the hamantash to be the more persuasive of the panelists.

Philosophy Professor Yitzhak Melamed argued that it was pointless to argue whether the latke was superior to the hamantash, since he could prove that the hamantash does not even exist. (According to him, the hamantash is an item in an exhaustive list of things that don't exist.) His argument went as follows... There is nothing to distinguish one side of an equilateral triangle from the others; therefore all sides of an equilateral triangle are actually the same side, and the equilateral triangle can have at most one side. It follows that a three-sided equilateral triangle is an impossibility. Further, Spinoza asserted that the more perfect something is, the more reality it has. If isosceles and scalene triangles have less reality than the more perfect (but still impossible) equilateral triangle, then they cannot exist either. So no triangles exist, and no triangular objects, such as the hamantash, can exist. As far as I can tell, the chain of logic was properly constructed, but I had nagging doubts as to whether all the premises were true.

Rev. Alison Boden, Dean of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, then stepped bravely up to the lectern to defend the hamantash, which we had just been led to believe could not exist in nature. My expectations were not high. After all, what does a UCC minister know about latkes and hamantashen? Rev. Boden gave a sermon-like lecture that, like many sermons, went on too long. But in the end, she had me convinced that if there is an all-powerful being that takes interest in my affairs, it would want me to vote for the hamantash.

Election post mortem

Sen. Joe Lieberman in CT:

I supported Ned Lamont, winner of the Democratic primary election. Initially, I felt that Lieberman would have trouble competing as an independent against two major-party candidates and that Lamont would win in the general election. My friend Antonio posted an opposing view in the comments, and he turned out to be correct. Lieberman did lose some support, only getting about half the vote, by far his lowest percentage since he edged out Lowell Weicker in 1988. But in a three-way race, half the vote was easily enough to win. Lamont staffer David Sirota wrote a nice article for In These Times about his experiences in the campaign (link to article).

Cook County Board President:

I had endorsed Commissioner Forrest Claypool in the Democratic primary. He lost to a guy in a coma, so it just shows the value of my endorsements. Then, behind closed doors, Alderman Todd Stroger, son of the guy in a coma, was anointed as the Democratic candidate. As far as I can tell, his main qualification is that he's the son of his predecessor. The general election was decided on the following factors: loyalty to the Democratic machine, support of values espoused by one's favored party, and good governance. The north side of Chicago (Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and points northwest) is usually very reliable for the Democrats, but the above factors gave them little reason to vote for Stroger; these wards voted for Peraica, the Republican. This same area falls within the Cook County Board's 10th District, with Democrat Mike Quigley as its commissioner. Quigley ran unopposed and got over 45,000 votes, more than any other commissioner.

Illinois 10th Congressional District:

I was hoping that Dan Seals would unseat Mark Kirk. He came within 6 percentage points of doing so, a reasonably good showing in a district that has recently been gerrymandered to make it safer for the Republican incumbent.

Other races:

Another closely watched race in the Chicago area was Duckworth vs. Roskam in the 6th District (left vacant by the retiring Henry Hyde). This has long been a Republican stronghold, but it has been trending Democratic. In 2004, Democrat Christine Cegelis ran a good race against Hyde without much support from the Democratic Party, and I was disappointed that Cegelis' strong showing failed to earn her the support of Rahm Emanuel and the party establishment. This election cycle, there had been some disagreement between the DNC's Howard Dean and the DCCC's Emanuel in terms of strategy. Probably both strategies had some merit and complemented one another. Neither of Emanuel's big gambles in Illinois (in the 6th and 10th Districts) paid off, but Dean's "50-state strategy" helped some candidates win in other parts of the country where there may not have been a strong Democratic organization before.

Although no additional Democrats will be heading to Washington from Illinois, the gains made by the Democratic party could be seen at a more local level. Democrats swept the statewide offices and maintained solid control over the General Assembly. And Democrats did well in county races in the traditionally Republican Chicago suburbs. In McHenry County, Democrat James P. Kennedy became the first Democrat to be elected to the County Board since 1976. In Lake County, Democrat Mark Curran defeated incumbent Sheriff Gary Del Re. And in Will County, Democrats Pat McGuire and Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant won their races for County Treasurer and Superintendent of Schools, respectively.

Twelve on the twelfth

A while back, one of my coworkers told me about this thing she heard about where, on the twelfth of the month, people take twelve pictures and put them up on the internet. I can't find any reference to this anywhere, so maybe it's an internet meme that has long ago fizzled out, and I'm behind the curve. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to do, so here is my day in photographs...


... (1) I wake up. My cat Jazzy is sitting on the bed next to me.


...(2) Grendel, the temporary cat, has his breakfast.


...(3) And I have my breakfast. Note the Bob Chinn's cup, the National Geographic, and the book Bowling Alone.


...(4) After breakfast, I found Grendel taking a nap on my office chair.


...(5) Taking a shower. There's a glass block window on the wall opposite the shower head. I like how the light that comes in through the window gets distorted by the glass blocks, and then gets distorted again when it reflects off the water in the tub.


...(6) I took the Red Line downtown.


...(7) Walking east on Grand Avenue, it gets a little desolate between Michigan Ave. and Navy Pier. The banners are for the Sculpture Objects and Functional Art Expo (SOFA), which is where I was headed.


...(8) The entrance to Navy Pier.


...(9) Outside Navy Pier, there is a statue of Bob Newhart in his TV series role as a psychiatrist. That's my girlfriend on the sofa.


...(10) Me discussing my neuroses with a statue of Bob Newhart.


...(11) We got out of the SOFA show around 4:45, and it was already getting dark.


...(12) The CTA Red Line at night.

The other mysterious person

The front page is looking a little boring these days. Here's a picture of my niece Ella (the other mysterious person):

A mysterious person

A mysterious person has entered my life; unlike the last time, she doesn't require a Pack and Play.

I usually avoid writing about my personal life on this site. You can have my opinions, but I like to maintain a little privacy. When I write about centipedes in my bathroom, I'm really opening up to my readers. But I'll go ahead and say that I have somehow gotten myself into a relationship. Let's see how this sounds... Mark M has a girlfriend. Hmmm... It just doesn't roll off the tongue. It'll take some practice.

She is a nice Jewish girl, dark-haired, a little shorter than me, and a little older than me. She's been involved in theatre, she shares a lot of my political views, she lives on Kenmore, and her name isn't Mimi. Sorry, Mimi -- you know I love you, but you're not the one, even if the description fits.

A memorable day

I had quite a range of experiences yesterday. I started by fulfilling my civic duty at the voting booth. At my precinct, there were five or six paper ballot booths but just a single, lonesome electronic voting booth. I asked to use the electronic machine, but I grew impatient waiting for it to free up and exchanged the "smart card" they had given me for a paper ballot.

In the middle of the day, I left work to attend the funeral of one of my cousins. Even though she was not a very close relation, there is still a sense of loss. My parents, sister, aunt, and other cousins were there, and it was good to be with them.

I was invited to an election day party after work and spent the evening watching TV coverage of the election. We were all rooting for the Democrats, which for the last dozen years has been like rooting for the Cubs. But this year the Democrats won big. It was well worth staying up way too late on a week night.