Dr. X's Free Associations

Ghost Ad

The Chicago Daily News (1876-1978). One of the old afternoon daily newspapers that slowly succumbed to the rise of television.

Sunday AM

11:45am, November 30 and 53F. Woohoo!

Update: The temperature dropped like a rock in the hour after I posted this.

A Shooting in Nordstrom's On Michigan Avenue Tonight

Signs prohibiting guns on the premises have been turning up on buildings all over the Chicago area since the beginning of 2014 when the Illinois concealed carry law went into effect. It just happens that last February I photographed and posted this sign outside the Nordstrom's department store on Michigan Avenue.

Tonight, the Chicago Tribune is reporting on a shooting in the store. A woman working part-time at a cosmetics counter was shot before the gunman turned the gun on himself.

Story here.

Update, Saturday:

Passing by the Grand and Wabash entrance to Nordstrom's this afternoon, I noticed this sign in the lobby.

Black Friday's Eve

Finally

I updated my iPad 4 from IOS6 to 8.1. Glad I skipped all the in between because it was mostly unnecessary. Lately, though, I was losing some functionality and unable to add apps I really wanted because they require update to 8.

For the update itself, I was concerned about download time, dropped connection and the like, but once I understood how to go about it using PC laptop and iTunes, it was pretty easy. The entire process took about 45 minutes.

One problem: Blogsy, my blog app, crashes when I try to post directly from my iPad. I've got a work-around until I figure it out. Maybe I'll just delete and reload the app, assuming I can do that.

Haven't discovered any other problems... yet.

Who Will Rebuild Ferguson?

The NY Times has an article about a neighborhood in Ferguson that was so ravaged by rioting, it may never recover. Even a local psychotherapist's office was destroyed:

Marvin Miller, a therapist in Ferguson for years, said he was searching online for a new location. His small office was among those that was burned Monday night. “It probably won’t be in Ferguson,” Mr. Miller, who lives in St. Louis, said. “With everything that has gone on over there, I really don’t think I want to have an office over there anymore.”

This is far from the only local service that might be permanently lost, but this caught my attention because a friend and I have been working on a plan to provide psychological services in a Chicago neighborhood where badly needed access to psychologists is nonexistent. We want to offer services on a par with what we provide in private practice, as opposed to take-a-number hospital and clinic based social work services. We've got the financial backing and we're pretty sure we can secure a safe, suitable location.

So back to the situation in Ferguson. I understand the wish to help by protesting, but, unfortunately, the protests predictably gave cover to criminals and to those who get swept away by the mood and the anonymity of crowds.

Will civil rights advocates and idealistic out-of-towners who swarmed Ferguson return to rebuild this devastated neighborhood? Are they comfortable leaving innocent locals materially worse off than they were before they showed up to help?

Tuesday

PM Uptown

Grand Jury Trasncript In The Ferguson Case

I've read a few confident assertions of fact from both sides that turned out to be false. Now we have the grand jury transcript. Since I have a few days off, I might read it. If I do, I'll share some of my thoughts.

Hmmm... that link describes the 285 page document linked above as the full transcript, which strikes me as quite short. The NY Times links to a 4800 page transcript. I will not read that.

Without Bounds

An interesting documentary about people who live in vehicles.