Sunday, June 29, 2014

That Banshee Scream You Hear is Ann Coulter's Reaction to Reading This News Article

World Cup viewing party moved to Soldier Field.  (Chicago Tribune, 6/29/2014)

61,500 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation Americans expected*.  The change of venue should offer some much-needed breathing room for the city’s growing soccer fan base. When the U.S. tied Portugal last weekend, 20,000 people crowded into a block-long stretch of Balbo Drive to watch the match on a single screen. As the street filled up before kickoff, police blocked entry, prompting some frustrated fans to hop the chain-link fence or climb a tree in Grant Park to find a view. Large crowds also turned out in Grant Park for group stage matches against Ghana and Germany.

Crowds like these are clogging the streets of U.S. cities.



*And Ann Coulter is very upset.

Or maybe she's just yanking our chain.

I sometimes suspect that Coulter doesn't believe any of the stuff she writes or says, that her punditry is nothing more than shtick, puerile and simple. 

But very lucrative shtick.

Her calculated blathering keeps her in the spotlight and, sadly, increases demand for speaking engagements and TV bookings.  Hard as it is to believe, she commands a fee of as much as $75,000 in the U.S.  (The Daily Beast reported that she made "about $25,000 per speech" in 2010.  It is indeed a P. T. Barnum world.) 

Expect her to keep upping the ante.

The Warren Public Library on YouTube and a Postcard



The Warren Library Association, its official name, has been at its current location for 98 years.  The library was expanded in the early 1980s.


The above postcard was sent to Mrs. McMichael in Conneaut, Ohio, on July 12, 1917.



Is This a Backdrop That Will Get Most People Excited About Their Library?

It gets me excited, but then I'm not your average library user.


Here's the full video.



The Woburn Public Library, also known as the Winn Memorial Library, was designed by one of the United States' most renowned architects, Henry Hobson Richardson.

And what a beautiful library it is.


Richardson is best-known for these buildings:

Constructed during the years 1872-1877, Trinity Church no longer dominates the Copley Square skyline as it did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
     
 
Photo by Retiring Guy (September 2013)