Quest for the Office of Attorney General

It's primaries season, with all those down-ballot offices and names you've never heard of and don't have time to research.  You probably know--more or less--who's running for governor.  But what about those other state-wide offices that usually fly under the radar but are, nonetheless, pretty powerful? 

Enter the Attorney General!

And no, the attorney general is not a warrior lawyer.  Though that would be pretty cool.

Chicago Tribune Forum: full outline

The Chicago Tribune's Editorial Board endorsement session: 

Democratic candidates for Attorney General (AG)
Jan. 24, 2018

The following is an outline of the candidate forum.  It is broken down into the main questions and the time at which they were asked.   Candidate responses are mostly in bullet points except for a few sections that were more coherently summarized in a paragraph. I have inserted important background information into the discussion by putting it in parentheses with the word "NOTE."

Race for Governor of Illinois

March 20, 2018 is our date for primary elections!  Illinoisans will be selecting their party candidates for governor, attorney general, Congress, the Illinois General Assembly, and others.  Perhaps the biggest question, though, is "Which Democrat will be running against Bruce Rauner for governor of Illinois?"  

You might think it's too early to be worrying about this, but first impressions are everything, as they say, and the inevitable hoary, smeary, weary campaign advertisement blitz is now imminent.  Why not get informed first (in a single article!) so you know what those silly, biased ads are actually talking about.  

So!  To spare you the trouble of wading through a morass of news articles and campaign websites, I've made this handy-dandy comparison chart of where the major candidates stand on various issues.  It is coded as follows:

• Italics – a goal that all three candidates have in common
• Bold – a goal that is unique to that candidate
• Regular font – some overlap between candidates on this goal

If the chart looks too daunting, you can just skip down to my analysis of the race.  Or if you're not in the mood for analysis, you can just skip to the end where I tell you which candidate I like best. :) 

Seriously, though, I hope everyone will find this article helpful and informative, no matter who you vote for!

Men, Women, and Success...5 years later

I started this blog five years ago with a post about gender roles and what I thought were my "unconventional" views on them.  Looking back at it now, it makes me cringe.  Not because I disagree with everything I said in that post, but because I was making the argument that part of the reason that women don't have as many high-powered jobs as men is because women tend to prioritize their personal lives (friends, family, doing things they enjoy) more highly than men do.  I argued that men are more likely to want power and wealth, and so it's okay if there are never quite as many women in positions of power as men.  Five years later, having learned quite a bit more about the world and about the history of feminism, I feel appalled that I wrote this because it so closely resembles the arguments that anti-feminists have made for centuries.  The New York Times recently quoted an article that they published in 1882: 

“‘Literal people may ask, Why, then, does not woman have the right of suffrage?’ it stated. ‘The answer is easy. She does not want it. Of course, it must be admitted that women, or some women, think they want the ballot. But they do not really want it.’”

5 Reasons Why Fruits Basket is (Still) Amazing

Natsuki Takaya's Fruits Basket, published as a series of mangas from 1998-2006 and turned into a one-season anime in 2001, was one of the first anime series that I really fell in love with.  A friend lent it to me my senior year of high school and, though it took me a few episodes to get into it, I quickly went from entertained to hooked.  I watched it every year all through college, sharing it with different friends.  Recently, after a long hiatus, I decided to watch it again and see if the magic is still there.  It is.  

In my upper twenties now, I'm looking at it a little differently and more critically than I did before.  The dialog isn't always super well-written (especially the translation for the English subtitles--read my note at the bottom of the post!), and, yes, it tends to lean towards the melodramatic, but there are still so many things that the show gets right.  

Here are five major things that make Fruits Basket really remarkable. (*There are some vague spoilers, but I don't give away any significant plot points.)