Chicagoania
Faith Under Fire: The Global Threat to Religious Freedom, March 10, 2012
This Chicago area event — Faith Under Fire — looks like it will be excellent.
This Conference is designed to address the plight of persecuted religious minorities in Muslim countries. Join us to learn the real nature of their hardships and what each of us can do to advance religious liberty for suffering indigenous communities.
Leaders of the indigenous communities describe their plight.
Eyewitnesses offer riveting testimony about this harsh reality.
Key members of U.S. Congress discuss action to prevent genocide.
Global experts offer critical analysis of the international threats.
Panelists discuss policy issues and opportunities for action.
We hear about a mythical Arab Spring.
But for many non-Muslims in the region, it is a Winter of persecution and the destruction of ancient communities.
These atrocities should be getting more attention.
WBEZ: Chicago-area firms looking to veterans to help with NATO, G-8 security
Some private security firms around Chicago are looking to beef up their ranks with Iraq and Afghanistan war vets ahead of two world summits that are expected to bring multitudes of protesters to the city this spring.
The article states that the security firms are interested in hiring veterans because they are likely to show “better restraint” if the protests turn violent. Interesting.
And I really hope any protests don’t turn violent.
Update: Thanks to Carl Prine’s Line of Departure for highlighting the above article/ad and mentioning this blog-within-a-blog. Second City Cop has a post on the topic and lots on the upcoming summit, too. Just keep scrolling.
Butch McGuire’s Has Christmas Spirit!
The sports bar Butch McGuire’s on division street (famous for bars like “Mothers” and where the movie “About Last Night” was supposedly set) is known for their Christmas decorations. I went there recently to check them out (and have a beer) and was mightily impressed.
This is a view of the front bar from the doorway and you can clearly see the two levels of train tracks as well. There are also dual level trains in one of the other dining rooms off the bar.
Here is a close up of the trains.
Wonders in Glass
We have made several interesting discoveries while walking the dogs and exploring the Salado Creek Greenway (which is eventually intended to provide a long, green pocket wilderness park all across suburban San Antonio) but I think the very most interesting was nothing to do with the park at all. A particular stretch of the greenway parallels Holbrook Road; just where the road crosses over Salado Creek, there is a low hill with an enormous Southern mansion sitting on the top, white pillars, galleries, ancient oak trees and all. The mansion is called Victoria’s Black Swan Inn; now it’s a wedding and event venue, but originally it was a private home, built just after the Civil War, and on the site of the 1842 Salado Creek Fight. They say it is one of the most haunted places in the United States which it might very well be but that’s not the discovery that my daughter and I made.
That would be what is around in back of the Black Swan; when we noticed a long graveled driveway at the side of the property, and a little sign that said “Glass Studio.”
My mother has tinkered with making stained glass for years, even attempting to teach my daughter some skills in that direction, so we both have an appreciation for it. My daughter said, “Let’s go and see?” so we wandered up the hill, past some extremely eccentric and enormous wind chimes hanging from trees … which seemed to lead nowhere but into a tangle of sheds, aging automobiles and assorted intriguing junk pretty much your basic funky rural collection on stereoids.
At the top of the hill, the driveway curved around, underneath a tall pecan tree and a huge old wooden water-tank elevated on tall posts and there was the glass studio, housed in a tidy little shed about the size of a suburban bedroom and spilling over onto a couple of tables and an outside wall, in the back-forty of the Black Swan. Mr. Howard Redman the glass artist was there, as he usually is on weekends, and was happy enough to show us his glass creations, his workspace, and his scrapbooks of previous commissions and projects, allowing us to tromp through it all with the dogs and poke into just about everything.
It’s a darned odd place to find a glass gallery, let me tell you: his work is substantial, beautifully done, colorful everything from fused ‘jewels’ made of four separate layers of glass, to bowls on metal stands, platters, replica Tiffany and Frank Lloyd Wright style lamp-shades, hanging window panels and odd little tschockes sun-catchers, votive candle holders and paperweights. But Howard Redmond is in his eighties, and this is semi-retirement and he can do as he damn well pleases, after a whole career working in specialty glass. I looked at some of the panels in his scrapbooks and oh, my; original installations eight feet square, with four of five thousand individual pieces; that is some serious window-glazing, let me tell you.
Much of his professional work was done in Chicago, over the last thirty or forty years; I think his output now is more for fun, although he had many of his pieces in local galleries, and he does the occasional craft show. And nope, doesn’t even have a website, or an email address. Either catch him at a one of those shows, or come to San Antonio and search out the Black Swan Inn. Up to the top of the graveled drive, and around past the 1940s ambulance, the rusting restaurant stove, and the fallen-down bottle tree; next to a tall pecan tree and an old wooden water-tank on stilts: He’ll be at work in the little shed under the tree, with two rows of glass platters adorning the side.
