Gillespie opens by recounting a trip to Chicago of twenty years past and his viewing at the Sears Tower a promotional film with the memorable line: "Chicago ain't no sissy town!"
"But," continues Gillespie,
"it turns out that Chicago is a sissy town because that 'stormy, husky, brawling--- City of the Big Shoulders,' in Carl Sandburg's evocative 1916 poem, seems hellbent on putting a chokehold on just about everything that makes a city a city. Namely, fun."
"...Over the last year, the Associated Press recently reported, Chicago snuffed out smoking "in nearly all public places" and pulled the plug on using cellphones while driving. This April, the 'Hog Butcher for the World' (Sandburg again) became the first city in the country to ban the sale of foie gras, on grounds that force-feeding geese to make the tasty treat is more cruelty than Al Capone's adopted hometown can bear. "
Steve wonders how Gillespie could forget the Chicago handgun ban and the fact that it's now illegal to own pigeons there! He does mention the city's moves to make microchipping dogs a mandatory practice, and to outlaw pitbulls altogether. Gillespie concludes with this, depressingly true, observation:
"The worst part about Chicago's clampdown on seemingly every urban excess is that it's not even original. One need look only to America's two biggest cities, New York and Los Angeles, to see similar buzz-killing rules firmly in place, with more in the pipeline.
"In years gone by, people poured into cities to escape the conformity and monotony of life on the farm or in the small town. Now they go there to frown at aberrant behavior and pick up after their dog. In this, alas, Chicago is truly America's third city--- and sadly, not the last. "
I was tempted to desecrate Sandburg with a retelling of CHICAGO. I succumbed to that temptation, but thankfully not very far:
"CHICAGO"
DOG Catcher for the World
Rule Maker, Tracker of Fat,
Banner of handguns and the Nation's Pigeon Police;
Whiny, spying, fining,
City of the Big Brothers:
Maybe someone else should finish this dirge...?
5 comments:
Dog catcher for the world......
Very good, Matt!!
HI guys...I've got a review of Jonathan Strange today!
Well it fits the mold. :-) Although our dog catcher here in B.R. is pretty a level-headed fellow.
The Carl Sandberg stuff is perfect. Chicago is gelding itself -- cutting off its own future and its own past all at the same time. No pigeons? No fois gras?
When you pair this up with the "no dogs can be bred that are not show dog" legislation, you can see that something wicked this way walks.
The question is: Where are we going, and where will we be when they get there? Is there a larger archicture or driver to all these seemingly unrelated stories?
I am getting convinced there is, and that someone needs to put a point on it. What's going on here seem to me to be more than simple nannyism and "keep cows out of the street" stuff. And if the other side is winning (who is on that side?) then the question is why? How has the landscape changed that allows their brand of interventionist nonsense to put down roots?
Patrick
I guess I'm not alone, then, to imagine this (the varied "anti" movement) is part of some larger whole. Maybe one in which the players are not exactly working in concert---just sort of taking advantage of each others' gains, like a cast of hawks.
The best (most generous and least paranoid) of my theories holds that "prohibitionism" is a sort of natural human impulse, and virtually garaunteed to emerge at various times.
It tends to begin more rationally and even benignly: A group of like-minded souls finds the actions of another group to be distasteful or even sinful. Torches and pitchforks are not lifted at this point; merely the distinction is made between Our Kind of Person who does A and Their Kind who does B.
Ideally, were you to find fault with my actions, you should try to pursuade me to abandon them by argument. Tell me, how exactly, I debase myself or endanger others or sin against God, etc., by the things I do. If you're Christian, you might even pray for me.
Given a little momentum and a little money, you might try to sway public opinion against me and My Kind, by taking your argument to the media: Show the public what it is we do and why we should stop. Shame us if you have to.
For things like foie gras, this should be enough! If an expose would run sufficiently graphic video of duck-stuffing, or whathaveyou, I suspect the majority of people "on the fence" would refrain from supporting the fat liver industry. It might then collapse for lack of market and a victory be won. The few remaining Neanderthals (sorry, Reid, for the inaccuracy) could be deemed worthy of Hell and perhaps dismissed.
But no. The logical argument against vice seems rarely effective----to say nothing of the logical arguments against activities (like hunting) that are not necessarily vices but lifestyle choices. And besides, it is difficult to argue fairly and to give the other his due.
Much easier and better to bribe some key officials with campaign money or simply lie to them about the nature of the thing. Decapitate it from the top. This seems to be the current thinking, as it finally was with public drinking, and it may lead us to the same conclusion.
Which gives me strange hope for the back-swing of this pendulum. Again, this is the least paranoid and most hopeful of the theories I've got...
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