The New First Ladies

When Mary Todd Lincoln was in the White House she used to hold seances.  Everyone thought she was a nut case.  Well, here's a better one.  Miyuki Hatoyama, the wife of the new Prime Minister of Japan, has been to Venus.  She says it is very green there.  She also says that Tom Cruise was Japanese in another life and they know each other.  She is waiting to go to Hollywood to meet him, at which point he will greet her with the nonchalant "Hi, it's been a long time"! and then they will make a movie together.  Could I make this up?  It's all true!.

Miyuki Hatoyama

There was a time when being First Lady of anything meant posessing a certain sense of decorum and poise. 
Bess Truman, Bernadette Pompidou, Mamie Eisenhower?  Talk about staying in the background.  Practically invisible.  Now we have a guitar strutting model in the Elysee Palace who used to sleep with Mick Jagger, and a hot, smart, hula hooping mom in the White House.

I tell you - what's this world coming to?  Well I'll tell you - smart women are no longer listening to men.  They are doing their own thing and loving it.  Why didn't we learn this years ago?  When I was young we had to take Home Economics classes.  That's where you learned to make whoopie pies and sew a straight seam.  What they didn't tell you was that you were going to subjugate yourself and become someone else's slave for a good thirty or forty years.  Now that's Home Economics.  I wish I could have gone to Shop class.  At least that way I would know how to run a band saw.  No one had ever washed my socks, or folded my towels.  My sister makes her husband do his own laundry. Brilliant!  And he does it!  I always said my brother-in-law was a saint.

But cooking and sewing aren't enough.   We burden ourselves with pets, other people's children, car pools, baking cookies, hosting the perfect birthday parties, ridding ourselves of fat stomachs, making a fabulous tarte tatin, and bringing home the bacon.

And then they expect us to look good too.  And if we don't they will just go and grab another gullible woman.  Gird your loins ladies.  Grab your swords, put it on the line and say NO!  You'll be amazed at how good it feels.

City of Glittering Lights

Wouldn't this be a fantastic use of some of the less hospitable parts of the Chicago River. Only in Paris would they build these two glowing orbs, each with their own mutiplexes, cafes and outdoor terraces. Daley Lite has never been shy about stealing ideas from other cities, especially when they are prominent Sister Cities. You remember the hanging baskets of flowers, his beloved wrought iron fences, and now our very own Promenade Plantee (already given the much less romantic name Bloomington Trail). Can the public bikes be far behind?

I love creative urban architecture. Rem Koolhaus' tunnel that encases the elevated train tracks that bisect IIT is brilliant. Yes, they cost a little more money but they are crowd pleasers. That's why I really hope that Calatrava gets his spire built. Anyone can put up an ugly Trump Tower - but a spire curving up touch the clouds and even break through them would truly please all of the ground and air travelers.

The just completed Olympic bid was wildly expensive to pull off. I know that there were millions of corporate dollars already committed, should we have won. Why not use some of it to give us more Jaume Plensa - like fountains, and another Cloudgate. The the European IOC members who thought that Chicago wasn't "romantic" enough would have to be quiet. Or instead, just make sure that every child living in this ridiculouly sloganed - city of neighborhoods - has food to eat. Now that would make headlines!!!