Who Cares?

Another view of Michigan Avenune features the Carbon and Carbide buiding, now the Hard Rock Cafe, as well as the Wrigley building and a giant lakeshore parking lot. I believe the cars are parked where the Illinois Center is now, home of the Amoco (now Aon) and Prudential buildings. Click to expand.

A view down Michigan Ave. Featured prominently is the Conrad Hilton, now known as the Chicago Hilton and Towers. Printed in "true color." Amazing. Click to expand. It's worth it. You can also find a downloadable version by clicking on my Flickr photostream at the side.

Another shot from a 1931 National Geographic. Click to make it larger. Note the downtown area in the top left corner. I imagine there's warehouses on the old riverbed now.

From an old National Geographic. Note old, old Soldier Field and how the Field Museum constitutes its northern wall. This is one of my favorite historic shots of Chicago. Click to make it big.

Found excellent pics of Chicago (and other parts of Illinois) in a 1931 National Geographic I picked up for a dime at a library booksale. Right now, I have to switch to Mac "classic" OS 9 to use my scanner, and I don't really feel like all that effort, so you'll have to make do with my digital photos, rather than scans. Still, these are quite cool. Click on the pic to get a larger version.
First in the series: University of Chicago/Hyde Park

Copied from the Daily Southtown, posted without comment:

An animal-rights group is asking that the Will County man charged last week with having sex with a cockapoo be banned from further contact with animals.

Dwayne D. Page, 27, was charged with two felonies after repeatedly having sex with an 18-year-old female cockapoo named Pepper.

He is on probation after pleading guilty in April to indecent solicitation of a child. Page was living with his mother near Elwood in Jackson Township when the alleged abuse of Pepper, a poodle and cocker spaniel mix, occurred.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has asked that if Page is convicted, he be banned from owning or having contact with animals.

PETA made the request Wednesday in a letter sent to Will County State's Attorney Jim Glasgow.

A state's attorney spokesman said that, generally speaking, animal offense convicts are prohibited from owning pets during their probation or parole.

But a judge does not have the power to ban a person from all contact with animals, he said.

Even before last week's charges, Page apparently was having trouble with the terms of his probation.

Page was cited for violating his probation by viewing "Web sites relating to diapers for sexual arousal" at his aunt's house in July, according to a Sept. 13 report by Page's probation officer.

Page is being held at the Will County Adult Detention Facility on $2,000 bail.

Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" was an engrossing book, albeit much larger than necessary. On thing I like: It defies description. It's simultaniously a book about World War II, startup tech business ventures in the 1990s and a familial epic that spans generations.
Stephenson's prose helps the reader make it through the more than 1,000 pages of this tome, but there are areas, such as two or three pages devoted to a description of a character's love for Cap'n Crunch, that go a bit too far in depth. There are also pages and pages of cryptology lessons, which will improve the reader's understanding of that art, but sometimes get in the way of the story.
I'm moving on now to a lighter work- by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (the team that brought us "Footfall" and "Lucifer's Hammer." But I find myself missing Stephenson's style, and will probably dive into that author's gigantic "Baroque Cycle" trilogy next.