HINDSIGHT - WRITE SOMETHING WORTH READING ABOUT OR DO SOMETHING WORTH WRITING ABOUT
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Monday, November 28, 2016
Friday, November 25, 2016
Thursday, November 24, 2016
President Obama White House Remarks Honoring Bruce Springsteen with Medal of Freedom
He was sprung from a cage out on Highway 9. Quiet kid from Jersey.
Just trying to make sense of the temples of dreams and the mystery that dotted
his hometown. Pool halls. Bars. Girls and cars. Altars and assembly lines. And
for decades Bruce Springsteen has brought us all along on a journey consumed
with the bargains between ambition and injustice and pleasure and pain. The
simple glories and scattered heartbreak of everyday life in America. To create
one of his biggest hits, he once said “I wanted to craft a record that sounded
like the last record on Earth - the last one you’d ever need to hear - one
glorious noise - then the Apocalypse. Every restless kid in America was given a
story - Born to Run. He didn’t stop
there. Once he told us about himself, he told us about everybody else. Steelworker
in Youngstown. The Vietnam vet in Born in the USA. The sick and marginalized on
the Streets of Philadelphia. The firefighter carrying the weight of a reeling,
but resilient nation on The Rising. The young soldier reckoning with Devils and
Dust in Iraq. The communities knocked
down by recklessness and greed in The Wrecking Ball. All of us with our faults and
our failings - every color and class and creed - bound together by one defiant
restless train rolling toward the Land of Hope and Dreams. These are all anthems of our America - the
reality of who we are and the reverie of who we want to be. The hallmark of a
rock and roll band, Bruce Springsteen once said, is that the narrative you tell
together is bigger than anyone could have told on your own and, for decades,
alongside the Big Man, Little Steven, a Jersey girl named Patti and all the men
and women of The E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen has been carrying the rest of
us on his journey asking us all what is the work for us to do in our short time
here. I am the President - he is the Boss. And pushing 70, he’s still laying
down 4 hour live sets - if you have not been at them, he is working. Fire breathing
rock and roll. So I thought twice about giving him a medal named for freedom
because we hope he remains in his words a prisoner of rock and roll for years to
come.
BRUCE
BILL
BOB
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Candace Jordan Covers the Fur Ball
PAWS
Fur Ball: Tail-wagging good time for rescue animals
The
15th annual PAWS Chicago Fur Ball was held Nov. 18 at the Drake Hotel. More
than 700 guests, many with four-legged friends in tow, enjoyed a night of
fundraising for the Midwest's largest no-kill shelter. Longtime supporters and
board members Judy and Howard Tullman were the honorary co-chairs for the
evening that also featured adoptable PAWS rescue dogs and cats, a lavish
buffet, live and silent auctions, entertainment, dancing and a doggy spa.
The sold-out, black-tie event took place in
both the Grand Ballroom and the Gold Coast Room. KISS FM's Angi Taylor served
as the master of ceremonies for the Grand Ballroom audience with Lisa Dent hosting
the auction there. In the Gold Coast Room, emcee Sean Lewis (WGN) introduced
PAWS founder Paula Fasseas to a crowd of over 400.
She shared the nonprofit's current statistics.
"As the largest shelter in Chicago, we house more animals on a daily basis
than the city pound. We have over 500 animals at any one time in our program.
200 are in foster homes, several hundred are in our medical center and 150 are
in our adoption center."
Fasseas introduced the Tullmans calling them
"change-makers" for PAWS. They own three rescue dogs, Tramp, Gertie
and Molly Pecan. Judy Tullman has been a constant at the adoption center,
volunteering every Sunday with fellow board member Bonnie Spurlock. They
explain the adoption process to visitors. She also volunteers at Angels With
Tails events, Adopt-A-Thons and at the PAWS Medical Center.
Entrepreneur Howard Tullman is CEO of 1871, an
incubator for digital startup companies, as well as managing partner of venture
funds G2T3V. He and wife Judy have been involved with PAWS since its inception.
He said, "We love PAWS for the animals, of course, but mostly for the
people who make up the organization. Nothing is better than the opportunity to
work hard and be surrounded by passionate, enthusiastic people who are
committed to making the city a better and more animal-friendly place one dog or
cat at a time."
A live auction conducted by David Goodman
featured "A Day With Two Sharks," a package that included a
meet-and-greet, tour and lunch with Daymond John, co-star of ABC's reality
television series "Shark Tank," and Tullman. It sold for $10,000. A
"Live From New York" package included a weekend stay for two and
tickets to "Saturday Night Live" and "LIVE With Kelly" that
sold for $28,000. An opportunity to have your pet featured on the cover of the
2018 PAWS Chicago desktop calendar sold for $17,000.
Throughout the evening, volunteers strolled
through the venue introducing the 10 rescue dogs and nine cats that were
brought to the event with the hope of finding them forever homes. They included
Peppo, a 3-month-old kitten; Mimi, a 6-year-old dachshund who was rescued from
a Tennessee puppy mill; and Monty, a 6-year-old mixed breed who was rescued by
police from an abusive situation.
The event was co-chaired by Victoria Magnus,
and Corey and J.P. Marchetti, and netted approximately $1.3 million, which will
account for almost 14 percent of the annual funds required to operate PAWS
Chicago's adoption and subsidized spay/neuter programs. Since its founding in
1997, PAWS has helped to reduce the number of pets killed in the city by 80
percent.
Freelance writer Candace
Jordan is involved with many local organizations, including some whose events
she covers.
