Finally reading Nickled and Dimed. The book feels universal and timeless, and I'm only in the beginning.

Rent seeking tech class looking to live off 1930s era suburbanism from what I have encountered. The dialectical return of the Midwest suburban millennial is another aspect that I've seen. I think they're all nuts as the correct answer is to move to Cleveland.

Most publicly funded sports and activities for all ages in the US didn't make it out of the 90s era funding cuts and privatization, particularly in cities with urban Black and brown youth. In suburbs, it exists through geographical means testing and increasingly only upper middle class areas.

Hundreds of Illinois railroad crossings have minimal protections — and upgrades may take years - CU-CitizenAccess.org Aaron Pittman-Teague died after being struck by a Canadian National train while plowing snow just north of Danforth, Illinois on Jan. 6, 2025.  There were no lights, no crossing arms and no bells to w...

Disappointed to not see in the Illinois budget a clear dedicated program to address railroad crossings and build flyovers. cu-citizenaccess.org/2025/12/hund...

Agricultural Land Reserve and enforcing grid building when?

Bad Bunny, the artist depicts the cross continent unity of workers from the Global South to Global North in America.

Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo depicting a moment during a labor strike when workers' representatives calmly and confidently stride out of a crowd to negotiate for the workers' rights. Its name refers to the working class as standing alongside the three traditional estates that divided power between the nobility, clergy, and commoners.

Bad Bunny, "Super Bowl LX Halftime Show," 2026 (left)
Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, "Il quarto stato" (The Fourth Estate), 1901 (right)

Who knows anymore. Most of the government bodies that planning/geography types follow under the Mayor's Office are unfilled at moment.

Full report for 2025 for a guideline that will define passenger rail possibilities in Illinois for decades. Worth a read: idot.illinois.gov/content/dam/...

There's your update, @starlinechicago.bsky.social. The Chicago seat has been vacant since Dec '24, after Gia Biagi left to head IDOT.

Only vacant seat on the commission is appointed by the mayor of Chicago

The routes that will be decided and proposed to the legislature in Springfield without the city of Chicago representative

The next step time lines is to decide a route and publish a report by mid 2026 without the official input from the City of Chicago

IL High Speed Rail Commission will finalize its final report to the legislature by July without the input from Chicago. The city is not officially involved in the commission because the appointed seat for the city on the board is vacant and can only be appointed by the Mayor's Office.

I remember the discussion there was a branch, which the cop out would be to not do the Champaign-Decatur line. In thinking through the Champaign route, Peoria does make sense as it could by 2075 connect to Springfield.

Any update on the il hsr commission? That might have something to do with it. But I haven't checked in to what they were up to in about a year.

No, unfortunately. I moved to the west coast in 2021.

Used to be my daily walk

I am probably the last person in the Midwest who hadn't seen Fargo, the original film until last night. What a film.

A young Eugene Debs took a job in that density and it was his political and social catalyst. This is referenced constantly in his papers and autobiographies.

Line stretches miles long as the Urban League gives out 3,000 Thanksgiving meals The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis gave out 3,000 Thanksgiving meals on Tuesday.

www.firstalert4.com/2025/11/25/l...

It happens! Did you get looks? I can understand this as I only really understood this until I experienced Canada, where the middle and uppers institutionally mix but are apart. But you sort of learn along the way your class position here.

Had a similar experience at Third Degree in February. My general feeling is that high public sector or other technocrat upper middle class spaces or industries lead to the colonization of the mind for clothing as an expectation. You wake up one day and you realize that’s all you have to wear.

You've done it again with a book pitch about architecture, urban history, and deindustrial landscapes. "Rubber Spokes."

An infographic reads: If you need assistance due to ICE detention, or to report any suspected ICE sightings, call 855-435-7693. Visit icirr.org/fsn for hotline and Know Your Rights info.

An infographic reads: Llame a la linea directa de apoyo familiar 855-435-7693. Obtener apoyo legal de deportacion, reportar cualquier actividad de ICE, obtener referidos para servicios legales y socialies. Ayuda disponsible en Ingles, Korean, Arabic, Chinese, Polish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Haitian, Creole, Quechua, Ukranian, Russian, and Hindi

With credible reports that there will soon be a major increase in federal immigration enforcement activity in Chicago, I want to once again highlight the Family Support Network - a rapid response resource run by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR). Use it if you spot ICE.

Sounds on brand for the Post.

A new Springfield, IL public statute just dropped.

Wild, thanks for looking that up. It has to be exhausting for sure.

Screenshot from TRNN doc report showing Max listening to immigrant day laborers outside a Home Depot. Captions read "We're not criminals, and we've been here for years now..."

"We’re not criminals, and we’ve been here for years now, some fifteen or twenty years, trying to make a living. We always pay our taxes, just to have them do these terrible things to us. I think that he [Narciso Barranco] was older, which is why they took him down. He wasn’t doing anything, he wasn’t stealing anything, he wasn’t doing anything wrong at all, he was just doing his job. So why do other people, those who commit greater offenses—the corrupt ones, some working for this very government—why aren’t they paying attention to what’s happening among themselves? They only focus on the poor, the people who are fighting to make a living, trying to earn enough to feed our families. Those of us living here aren’t criminals. Sometimes the police drive by when we’re waiting for work, and if we were criminals, they would’ve taken us away by now."

"Day Laborer 2: No somos criminales, nosotros ya tenemos tiempo aquí. Quince, veinte años, trabajando, siempre nosotros pagamos nuestros impuestos y para que nos hagan este tipo de agravios, yo pienso que el señor este ya era mayor y porque se le fueron a él si él no estaba haciendo nada, él no estaba robando, no estaba haciendo nada malo, solamente andaba trabajando, y porque otros, los que comenten más grandes errores, principalmente los corruptos, del gobierno mismo, entre ellos no se miran, miran a la gente pobre, los apenas andamos luchando para ganar algo para la familia, para la pan de cada día de la casa, aquí no somos criminales, aquí la policía a veces pasa aquí cuando estamos aquí esperando trabajo, si fuéramos criminales ya nos hubieran llevado a la cárcel"

"No somos criminales..." In our latest @therealnews.com report from Southern California, I spoke w/ immigrant day laborers outside a Home Depot right next to the IHOP where Narciso Barranco was beaten & abducted by masked agents. I just learned that ICE swarmed that same Home Depot on Friday.

I didn’t actually know the overlap occurred until this morning. I had always thought or remembered Osheaga to be later in the summer.

Wild to me, but probably normal to global touring musicians. This weekend is a double header for the Osheaga (Montreal) and Lollapalooza (Chicago) music acts. Browse both schedules, and a lot of bands will be at both. Solidarity to their tour staff in planning and operating this movement of sound.

Propaganda --hidden hand, the market, American way, that's the way it is, hard work, everyone gets a fair shot---anxiety "oh god, Sam Walton, if the people start getting this on the ground, we won't be needed."

I probably could find 19th-century examples, but these refrains are for me a 20th century propaganda and anxiety dialectic of material interests and the requirement to sustain the social order/hierarchy.

The White Sox are not a bad team this year. They are, instead, simply unlucky. About 10-12 games this year that they have lost were ones where a break didn't go their way. Second, their run differential is not obscenely bad--better than Baltimore, for example, a sub .500 team.