Q Is Coming

I know what you're thinking.

Sony Pictures

No such luck. We're not getting a visit from the MI6 gadget genius. I'm talking about Winter Storm Q (they ran out of clever names like Draco and Gandolf, apparently).

The Weather Channel

It's rolling out of California like bad movies or Hell's Angels. According to the Weather Channel, it's going to leave a "swath of significant snowfall." They also assure us that "Sister Suzie sells seashells by the seashore" and "six sleek swans swam swiftly southwards."

Personally, I hope I don't soak my shoes in steaming snow seeping through the seams because the sun slowly shines on the sanguine Sangamon.

That's enough. These sardonic semantics are silly.

It started snowing at seven. Princess Jiggles and Duke Floppers Crankington are both very concerned.

Altgeld Hall

The Good Ole Days
In 1897, Bram Stoker published Dracula, Bayer invented Aspirin, beer drinkers got their first sip of Dos Equis, drillers discovered oil in Oklahoma, and Altgeld Hall opened its doors.

John Peter Altgeld, the building's namesake, was born in Germany in the town of Selters, a small hamlet dating back to the 1100s. Selters lay near the homeland of the Hessians, Britain's mercenary troops during the Revolutionary War.

Altgeld's parents moved him to America when he was a year old. That year, after an economic collapse stemming from crop failures, the German people broke into armed revolution against the ruling aristocratic class. The German princes stomped the revolution with military force and many of the middle class supporters fled to the United States. Altgeld's parents were likely part of that exodus.

The Altgeld family settled in Ohio and when the Civil War erupted, John Peter Altgeld ran away from home to join, lying about his age. He was only 16. His regiment, the 163rd Ohio attached to the Army of the James (the river in Virginia) and saw action at Petersburg.

This picture is everywhere, so I'm assuming it's Public Domain

After the war, Altgeld worked his way from lawyer to Governor and was sworn into office in 1893, just in time for the Panic of 1893, the worst depression in US history, up to that point. It was even worse than the Panic of 1873, known then as the Great Depression, but not as bad as Great Great Depression of the 1930s. Back then, people thought an unregulated, laissez-faire economy was a pretty good idea, so depressions were deep and often.

Altgeld is most known for his pardon of the Haymarket Bombers and his negotiation of the 1894 Pullman Strike. As you'll remember from a previous post, we celebrate the Pullman Strike every first Monday of September.

The Un-Castle
John Peter Altgeld, in the middle of the worst depression in history, managed to fund architectural projects across the state of Illinois. More specifically the five buildings known as Altgeld's Castles, Gothic Tudor mixes built on five different campuses in Illinois. Altgeld secured prominent Illinois architect Daniel Burnham to design the castle planned for the campus in Urbana. The University Big Wigs had other plans. They pretty much hated the Gothic Tudor style Altgeld had in mind. They said, it's Richardsonian Romanesque or nothing.

Burnham hit the road in disgust. Altgeld caved and brought in our old buddy Nathan Ricker, architect of Harker Hall, who designed the only Altgeld castle built in the Romanesque rather than Tudor style.

In case you need a quick refresher, here's what we look for in Richardsonian Romanesque:

• Belt Courses (prominent horizontal bands)
• Rounded (Roman) Arches
• Pyramidal Spires
• Asymmetrical Plan

Altgeld Hall served as the University library until the construction of the Georgian Revival Main Library across the quad in 1926. Then it housed the Law School until 1955. Since then, math nerds call the building home.

Inside
The central dome inside the building has four Classically-inspired murals representing the four schools within the University. When we went inside, the dome was dark and the murals faded, so I couldn't get decent pictures. I found these (public domain) on the University website.

The Sacred Wood of the Muses - College of Literature and Arts

Arcadia - College of Agriculture

The Laboratory of Minerva - College of Sciences

The Forge of Vulcan - College of Engineering

And Out
Altgeld may not have gotten the crenellated battlements and square windows he envisioned, but he did get his Gothic Gargoyle. Tucked in a hidden corner on the west side of the building, you can find this little guy, the only gargoyle on the U of I campus.

The other Altgeld Castles have more gargoyles and they play a larger role in campus life. At Northern Illinois, the most popular of eleven gargoyles is named Olive Goyle. Olive survived being struck by lightening three times only to be mysteriously decapitated in 1996. Students have since tried to find appropriate replacements, including the occasional Halloween pumpkin.

In 1920, the University installed the Official University Chimes, 15 bells which weigh almost 8 tons together. They sound every quarter hour and play a ten minute concert every day at 12:50 pm.

Parting Shot
Ok, I've got two. Several of our favorite cancer fighting tree, the Canadian Yew, are planted around Altgeld Hall. This time of year they still have their cones, which are itty bitty and adorable.

Also, if you're leaving Altgeld and get the feeling you're being watched, it's probably one of these guys. Satyrs. Part of a bizarre fountain installation across the courtyard from Altgeld.

Prawn of a New Era

Prawn Farming
When you think of Illinois, you probably think of corn, Abraham Lincoln, and seafood. No, you say, you don't think of Illinois Seafood? Me neither, come to think of it. However, Southern Illinois is the Galveston of the Great Plains.

Quoth the Enjoy Illinois Blog:

"Yes, there is Illinois Shrimp!"

To be more specific: there is prawns. What is the difference between a prawn and a shrimp, you ask? For the most part, you can use the terms interchangeably. Colloquially in the UK, people use the word prawns to mean big and the word shrimp to mean small. In the US, we usually use shrimp for the larger variety and prawn to mean small, freshwater species.

Apparently, subject-verb agreement isn't the only convention Southern Illinoyances throw out the window. Prawn farms down in the state tip grow Giant Malaysian Prawns (Macrobrachium rosenbergii). The species name comes from Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Because Malaysian Prawns turn red when you cook them, they are probably Communist Spies. Therefore we execute them and dine on their delicious carcasses.

The prawns grown in this questionable act, known as Alternative Agriculture, are, according to experts, quite tasty. Farm grown prawns have lower levels of fat, sodium, and iodine and they have higher percentages of protein. There's even a rumor floating around that people with shellfish allergies can gobble away at Illinois Prawns with impunity. The texture, I've read, is sweeter and denser than most shrimp and resembles lobster meat.

According to Prawn Monger Grover Webb (no relation... also not related to Socrates apologist Dan K. Webb), the trick lies in "control feeding." You don't feed the little bugs a few days before harvest, so they have smaller mud veins and a fresher, crispier taste. Farmer Webb produces around 3 thousand pounds of aquatic arthropods a year, most of which he sells every September at the nationally renowned Golconda Shrimp Festival.

If the name Golconda sounds familiar, that's because it's also the name of the diamond region in India where miners found the Hope Diamond.

The Shrimp Festival in question, located conveniently in Golconda on the Shawnee Wine Trail, started 11 years ago, brain child of the Shawnee Freshwater Prawn Growers Association to promote the Illinois Shrimp Industry. During the early 2000s, the Associate counted almost 70 member farmers. The number has since dwindled to around 20. The reason is more nefarious than one might imagine.

The Great Southern Illinois Prawn Boom owed its success to the nearby Illinois Fish Farmers Co-Op Processsing Center in Pinckneyville, which, when built, was the most technologically advanced fish processing plant in the United States. After devouring over $7 million in state grants and losing increasing amounts of money every year, the state sent auditors down south to snoop around. Despite abysmal book-keeping practices, auditors found that the Co-Op had frittered away exorbitant amounts of cash on donations to Shrimp Festivals and to bonus checks for executives even when the notion of a profit had long since become a joke. Basically everything that Goldman Sachs got away with in 2008. The Co-Op, however, was not too big to fail and the state put a padlock on the front door.

As you can imagine, this stuck a fork in the farmed fish industry in Illinois. Latest word on the grapevine says the Pinckneyville prison might take over operations and re-open the processing plant. I think this should be instructive for future economic crises. If prison labor works for Imperial Sugar and Illinois Shrimp, why not the banking industry?

Next Best Thing to the Horseshoe Sandwich
Despite being located thousands of miles from the nearest sea, Chicago has a signature seafood dish: Shrimp de Jonghe. Pronounced like feminist writer Erica Jong, not like sexiest man alive Kim Jong Un.

In the 1800s, Belgian brothers Henri, Pierre, and Charles immigrated to the Windy City and opened the De Jonghe Hotel. You probably see where this is going. In their restaurant, they began serving the shrimp dish which later took their name. It has been a Chicago Specialty, like Deep Dish Pizza, ever since.

Here's a recipe if you'd like to try it:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Shrimp-de-Jonghe-105510

River Weasels
Last fall, the state of Illinois opened hunting season on River Otters for first time in 90 years.

The River Otter is the one of the larger members of the weasel family, slightly larger than the average wolverine, but smaller than the average car salesman. Growing up to 5 feet long and weighing in at around 30 pounds, the River Otter has the voracious appetite of its car salesman and wolverine cousins. It will eat anything smaller than itself that moves.

By the 1980s, the River Otter found itself on the Endangered Species list, the population shrank to around 100 individuals. The state paid to have 346 critters trapped in Louisiana and transported to Southern Illinois. After that population exploded.

These hungry critters chomped their way across Illinois like a wave of Langoliers. Bob Bluett from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources says:

"A few years after we did our last release, the biologist from Cook County, where Chicago is, called me up. And he said, Bob, I just have to tell you. The first time I've seen this. I saw one endangered animal eating another. And it was a river otter eating an endangered species of a fresh water mussel."

The Otter population, now grown to more than 20 thousand, has decimated fish populations and has begun to travel inland to raid fish farms (and prawn farms). Illinois said enough is enough. From November 2012 through March 2013, you can bag your own River Otter. A trapping license costs $10.50 and the additional Otter Permit costs another $5. The state has set a 5 Otter limit per trapper, but they are offering $70 per pelt.

Hurry and get yours before it's too late.

Parting Shot
I have a quick seafood anecdote. The other night, we had a delicacy that we allow ourselves every once in a great while. Bacon Wrapped Scallops. I found some fat scallops at the seafood counter, bought some bacon, and served them with Brown Rice and a Florentine Vegetable Blend. Delicious. Aine was beside herself with joy. Until bed time.

Let me tell you something. I think it has to do with our floor vents and the fact that we keep the bedroom door closed. When it's bed time, the room is always thick with the smell of whatever we cooked for dinner that night, even though the kitchen is on the other end of the apartment. I don't mind so much when we have Mexican Food or anything made with Beef. But going to bed after cooking Seafood? Needless to say, we had to light a few candles.

Mathews You Can't Refuse

I never imagined I would miss the daily commute. Half the point of working from home is not having to get in your car and face weather and traffic and too many commercials on the radio. I stumble out of the shower, throw on some clothes, and sit down in front of my computer in the morning. I am at work. At the end of the day, I close the Remote Desktop Connection and stand up. I am home. I didn't realize I used the morning commute to mentally transition into my work day and the afternoon commute to decompress. My new transitions are unsatisfactory.

To make up for this, I pick Ainers up from school every day. She takes the bus in the morning around the same time I sit down at my computer and instead of coming home as soon as her last class ends, she waits for me to roll up in the Yaris. This benefits her because she maintains a nine to five day and gets the bulk of her work done before she comes home. She's not up all hours of the night translating.

This benefits me because I get my commute back. Every day around five I leave my place of employment, a tired, spastic Publishing Coordinator. When I pull back into our parking space, I am a relaxed husband, coming home from work.

I spend a portion of every day parked on the same block of Mathews Avenue, waiting for Aine to gather her things and hop in the elevator. Here's what I see.

Foreign Language Building
The University broke ground on the FLB in 1968 and finished the building in 1971. They built it on the site of the Old Entomology Building. That's the study of bugs. Aine thinks it's the ugliest building on campus, but I like it. It looks like an inverted step pyramid jammed into the ground.

The story goes, that the building housed a Super Computer in the basement called Plato and the architects designed it to fall outward if blown up by the Soviets. Meanwhile, the interior layout was supposed to confuse Soviet spies if they ever infiltrated the FLB.

Look at the basement. You can imagine some Top Secret Cold War stuff going on down here.

The truth is somewhat less romantic. The architectural style, known as the International Style, with its boxy, cantilevered construction, was popular in the late 60s/early 70s and, in fact, you can find a smaller building in the same style a few blocks over. Plato was the name of an e-learning system used by the language department and the actual mainframe sat in a building on the other side of campus.

See the inside. Each floor stair steps up to a clerestory that lights the entire interior space.

Despite what Aine says, I find the building very intriguing.

Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center
I couldn't find much information on the first of the three buildings across Mathews from the FLB. All I can say is the steeply pitched Gambrel roof with dormer windows and the Palladian-style window in the gable give away this Dutch Colonial Revival. I don't think the window units or security camera were originally part of this building. They were probably added later. Most Dutch Colonial Revivals only have two stories, making this one unique.

The Nesbitt Center provides support for African American culture and leadership in the campus community.

Alpha Omicron Pi House
Sorority girls live in this house next to Bruce Nesbitt. The very clearly Tudor Revival was built in 1927 specifically for the sorority and was enlarged in 1985.

The AOP has no national motto. Each chapter chooses its own submotto. The submotto of this, the Iota chapter, goes: "Alike and Nobleness of Mind." Whatever that means. Their official color is cardinal and their flower is the Jacqueminot Rose. Let me tell you why that's funny. Jessie Wallace Hughan, the founder of the sorority, was a renowned pacifist and outspoken opponent of both World Wars. The rose's namesake, General Jacqueminot, served under Napoleon and distinguished himself in the battle of Austerlitz where the French army slaughtered 40% of the Russian army in a single day.

Also, their unofficial mascot is the panda.

The most famous member of this sorority, Aneta Corsaut, played Andy Griffith's sweetheart Helen Crump.

Channing Murray Building
This building began its life in 1908 as a Unitarian Church. The Unitarians are a sort of unProtestant sect who don't believe original sin, eternal damnation, or the Trinity. They believe Jesus was a human prophet, not the Son of God, and that the Bible was written by humans and subject to error. Famous Unitarians include Founding Fathers and pen pals, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

If you see the half timbering, stucco cladding, square Palladian windows, and steeply pitched roof and guess that this building is a Tudor Revival, then you are correct. And smarter than I was.

The Channing Murray Foundation is a Unitarian organization that holds workshops, classes, and other community outreach programs. Downstairs you'll find a vegetarian restaurant and coffee shop called the Red Herring. This old Unitarian Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

Parting Shot

On campus, even the fire hydrants dress to impress.

Constitutional Violations in Chicago

The Double Jeopardy Clause of the US Constitution's 5th Amendment states that no "person [shall] be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb." This applied only to cases held in Federal courts for almost 200 years until Benton v. Maryland (1969). Thurgood Marshall, writing for the majority, declared that the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause incorporates the Double Jeopardy Clause, that is, no state can try someone twice for the same offense either.

Last week, the National Hellenic Museum of Chicago trampled our 5th Amendment protections when they retried Socrates. In 399 BC, the Athenian Assembly convicted a 70 year old Socrates of impiety and corrupting the youth and sentenced him to death. In a fundraising bid, the museum hosted not a reenactment, but a second hearing for the alleged offenses.

Socrates

Public Domain

Judge Richard Posner presided over the trial. Judge Posner, graduate of Harvard Law School, was appointed to the 7th Circuit by President Ronald Reagan. He recently handed down the verdict overturning the Illinois concealed carry ban in Moore v. Madigan. Also presiding were the semi-retired Judge William Bauer, educated at DePaul and appointed by President Ford, and Cook County Judge Anna Decamopoulos, who studied law at John Marshall Law School.

Judge Posner

chensiyuan

Representing the 5th century BC Athenian Assembly, was Harvard trained prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald has brought down his share of criminals, prosecuting Mafia boss John Gambino and Governors George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich. Patrick Collins, who assisted Fitzgerald in the prosecution of Governor Ryan, filled out the prosecution team.

Patrick Fitzgerald

Public Domain

Dan Webb (no relation), who defended Governor Ryan as well as General Electric and Microsoft in antitrust litigation and Philip Morris in tobacco-related litigation and prosecuted Admiral Poindexter in the Iran-Contra Affair, led Socrates' defense team. He was assisted by Robert Clifford, noted for securing damages for victims of major airline crashes.

Dan K. Webb

Charles Rex Arbogast

Fitzgerald pointed out Socrates' pro-Spartan sentiments, the equivalent of wearing a Gorbachev t-shirt during the 80s. He also noted how prominent students of Socrates' committed crimes against the state, Alcibiades defecting to Sparta and Critias repressing Athenian freedom. Fitzgerald claimed historians have been unfair to Athens and blamed Plato for distorting the facts of the case.

Webb cited the overwhelming lack of evidence in the case and pointed to Socrates' status as a veteran, having served with distinction in the Athenian military and saved the lives of fellow soldiers. He claimed that the speculation on the part of the prosecution endangered the liberties of us all.

A jury of 12 distinguished members of the Chicago community found Socrates guilty of impiety and corrupting the youth... again. Instead of sentencing him to death a second time, the jury opted for a fine of 3,000 5th century Greek Drachmas, an equivalent of $132,000 in 2013. There has been no word on whether or not the defense plans to appeal the ruling.

Public Domain

Champaign on Ice

Live Like There's Snow Tomorrow
So, it snowed last weekend, all weekend. In Austin, the entire metro area would have shut down. Here, they have mechanisms in place for dealing with winter weather. All the main streets are cleared and businesses clear their parking lots. Life goes on. You can go to Schnucks or Target or Dick's as though it weren't snowing. Only it is.

My apartments mount a scraper to their company vehicle and scrape the parking lots. Then a guy comes by with a leaf blower and blows the snow off of the sidewalks. Funny thing about snow: when you walk on it, it compresses. So when the leaf blower comes through, the loose snow takes flight and the packed footprints remain. When you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.

I've seen more snow in the past four months in Illinois than I saw in the last ten years in Austin. It never gets old. Aine's already been here through one winter and she agrees. Every time it snows is exciting.

The only problem with snow, is that with it comes cold. My hands feel chilled when I walk the dog, so I figured it was time to make myself a pair of the famous Broadstreet Mittens. Also known as glomits.

As you can probably tell, I let my wife pick the yarn.

If you want to make a pair of your own, look here:
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall02/PATTbroadstreet.html

When one wants to travel in inclement weather, one must prepare one's car. We had a hand held ice scraper and a small whisk broom for clearing ice and snow from the Yaris. One morning this weekend, the extreme temperatures caused a small crisis when the handle of the whisk broom shattered asunder. Also, when it comes to scraping ice, I mean, we both have short arms. So we purchased, at our local Schnucks, a Super Scraper 3000. This thing is pretty much the final word in ice and snow scraping.

Pterodactyls Coming in for a Landing
So we just started Phase 2 of P90X. It continues to be a very rewarding experience. If you consider pain a reward. Hoo-ah!

Last week we had our first Recovery Week, which amounted to seven days of Core, Yoga, and Stretching. At the end of the third week of Phase 1, we were feeling a might tuckered out. But after a down week, we came on like Gang Busters. Only not as loud. We have neighbors. Cue police whistle.

We brought it. We did our best and forgot the rest. We thought like a cat. We blammed like Pam.

Also, we felt it time to increase our weights, causing a significant shift in the visual dynamic of our living area. We are now those people.

This new phase features entirely new upper body workouts, ones which, one might assert, are quite difficult. After getting used to the previous set of workouts, we found ourselves alarmingly unprepared for these new ones. Yesterday, when I went to take a shower, I could barely lift my arms to wash my hair.

Dangers of Working from Home
Sometimes Piglet will sink her talons into my back for attention. Sometimes she sits on the table in front of me and tries to rub her face on mine. Sometimes she likes to knead the keyboard like bread dough.

Most of the time, though, she does her mid-morning stretches in front of my monitor.

The Way God Intended

I first heard about Heirloom Tomatoes a few months ago on the radio. I finally found some in the grocery store today and decided to try one. What is an Heirloom Tomato, you ask? Well, it's the same thing our great-grandparents called a Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). What we call tomato hadn't been invented in a lab yet.

Let's back up. Tomatoes, like most of our favorite fruits and vegetables, came from South America. The Spanish started shipping them back to Europe in the 1500s. The English weren't as impressed as the Spanish. The first mention of tomatoes in North America came from a 1710 book written by a kook named William Salmon. In southern plantations, tomatoes were grown as ornamental plants until the mid-1800s because most people assumed they were poisonous.

Germans, around this time, still believed in werewolves. A plant native to Europe, the Nightshade (Belladonna), supposedly attracted werewolves. When the humble tomato plant began to proliferate through Europe, Germans thought it looked suspiciously similar to Nightshade. It just grew bigger fruit. So, they called it a Wolf Peach, which rendered into Latin, gives us the species name lycopersicum.

It's not really a peach, though. It's actually a berry.

Before the Great Depression, tomatoes grew in a variety of sizes and colors. Commercial growers found them difficult to ship long distances because the size and shape varied from tomato to tomato and the soft flesh and skin damaged easily. Old school tomatoes also began ripening from the bottom, giving them green shoulders.

Sometime before the 1930s, a tomato grower noticed a random mutation in his tomatoes: they ripened uniformly, turning red all over at the same time. Scientists thought this was pretty nifty so they worked to isolate the mutant gene. In a Fargo, North Dakota experimental farm in 1930, scientists produced the first cultivar of tomatoes with this uniform ripening gene. By the 1940s, this gene had been bred into all commercial tomatoes. Commercial growers even began selling potted seedlings so the casual gardeners could grow them in their backyards.

The modern tomato has been genetically modified to produce all-red fruit that comes in a uniform size and shape and a tough skin to resist damage during shipment. Whether you buy tomatoes in the produce section of your local grocery store, in a seed packet at Lowes, or in a pot in the Wal-Mart Garden Center, you're buying a genetic mutant. An Aberration.

Here's how a tomato makes it to your supermarket. Are you ready? A migrant worker in Florida picks the berry while it's still green. The farm then sprays the tomatoes with Abscisic Acid, a plant hormone that inhibits ripening so they stay green all the way to the store. The tomatoes are kept in cold storage and trucked all over the US. When they arrive at their penultimate destination, they're sprayed with a different plant hormone called Ethylene which makes them rapidly ripen. Except they don't actually ripen, they just change color. So what you put in your grocery basket is a green tomato that looks red.

Recently, scientists, curious about this ubiquitous mutation, ran some experiments or whatever it is scientists do and discovered what we've all suspected for years. The genetic mutation that allowed tomatoes to uniformly ripen also affected the synthesis of sugar and other chemicals responsible for the taste and smell of tomatoes. That's why grocery store tomatoes taste like nothing.

Enter the Heirloom Tomato. Starting around the 70s, small tomato producers began collecting and preserving tomato lines that had been spared the mutation. These cultivars, since they had been handed down from generation to generation on family farms, were called Heirloom Tomatoes. Since they don't have the mutation, they begin ripening from the bottom up, so you can find them with green shoulders. Each cultivar has a distinct flavor and color determined by the soil and climate. (Consequently, the last climate and soil type in which you'd rationally want to grow a tomato is the climate and soil type found in Florida, where most of our tomatoes are grown.)

I found some at Schnuck's and bought one.

I believe I brought home a Cherokee Purple, known for irregular pockets of seeds, black flesh, and a smokey flavor.

It definitely tasted sweeter and more robust than any tomato I've had. It had what I would agree is a smokey flavor and this sort of peppery aftertaste. Aine doesn't like tomatoes. Since this tasted More Tomato than even Romas, she pretty much hated it. I, on the other hand, have been ruined. After this, aside from the canned tomatoes I buy to make salsa, I don't see the point in buying anything other than an Heirloom Tomato. It was super duper.