If we can retain the poetry and community of baseball maybe we can rediscover it elsewhere, too, and begin the work of re-knitting the social fabric that keeps this country and its people from dividing and breaking apart.
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“A Representative who displays the Confederate flag on his desk—a flag many Iowa boys died to take down forever—can represent us no longer,” guest contributors and native Iowans Joe Carroll and Jim Kirkwood write. “The next person to represent Iowa’s fine 4th district must embody the spirit of neighborly charity in which Iowans take pride.”
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Chicago is not an “oasis of interest in a Midwestern desert,” contributor Jacob Bruggeman writes, “but an epicenter of regional activity that shares in the rich environments, diverse cultures, and a revival of the heartland on the national stage.”
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The Final Table offers a new way to confer culinary recognition: great chefs recognizing another as their own. With some adjustments, season two will be essential food television.
One hundred years after the armistice of 1918, are we finally in a post-war period? What does that mean? And what does the war mean a century after the fighting stopped?
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People say that Chicagoans have more in common with people in Milwaukee than those in Springfield, and the states are relics of the past. But a look at Nevada’s history tells us otherwise. Without the worry over Lincoln’s re-election, Nevada would never have become a state. Without Lincoln, there is no Las Vegas Strip, no Oceans 11, and, indeed, no Nevada.
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Suicide of the West offers one of the most robust defenses of the West in recent memory.
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Should you ever find yourself motoring down I-80, or any middle American interstate, try not to dismiss what is around you as nothing but endless corn and soy. Pull off onto one of the country roads, find a little stream or stretch of wildflowers, sit at its feet, and see if can’t teach you something.
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White Sox manager Rick Renteria speaks about his faith life. “I don't believe that I'm above anybody else,” he said in an interview. “I mean, I'm from very humble beginnings. And I think that we all have a place alongside of each other.”
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It is good for the country to hear the Midwest’s voice, and good for for the Midwest to exercise it. This is because in hearing it, the nation has a better shot at being more integrated and balanced, and in speaking it, the Midwest might become more truly itself.
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If you are big into politics, the odds are you've heard of RealClearPolitics. Around election years they come up in the news about their polling aggregation method, which usually turns out to be a more accurate predictor of an election's outcome than any one poll would be individually. But RealClear is also well known for it's homepage, which collections news and opinion from a variety of sources, regardless of partisan bent.
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Part of my goal in rebooting The Monthly Memo has always been to launch an interview series. On the website I put up a brief article laying out what this series will entail: interviews with prominent Chicagoans about Chicago. I have noticed over time that a lot of very famous and well known people get their starts here, even if they move out eventually. My goal with this series is to shine the spotlight on Chicago by talking to the people the city has put out into the world.
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I realize that it is now April and I am sending out March's Memo. When Loyola made the NCAA tournament earlier in March I figured I would send this out once they lost and March's Memo would be a good recap of things. But then they won. And they won again, and again, and again. They made the Final Four for the first time since 1963, where they finally, heartbreakingly, lost to Michigan.
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Chicago is losing it's civic language, and when words disappear they don't come back.
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The Monthly Memo is changing! Read more here about what you can expect in the near future.
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