Over the past few months, Chicago has been dealing with waves of migrants from Central and South American countries, many of them bused in by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. The African-American backlash to the  proposal to set up shelters in majority-Black Woodlawn and, more recently, majority-Black South Shore has been covered extensively on the news, ( Read more... )

My mom recently wrote a post on her English-language blog that was mostly about the state of Russian society and Russian opposition to Putin’s rule, and… Those are some of the issues I’ve been thinking about, and this post just compelled me to finally put it to digital paper.

First of all, a bit of context that I’m not sure comes through in the ( Read more... )

Once again, I must start a post with a sentence that includes words "so it as come to this ( Read more... )

The day after the jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty of all charges related to him killing two people and wounding a third, I took the 12:51 PM train to Kenosha, not sure what to expect.

I wasn’t expecting the kind of rioting and looting that rocked Kenosha in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake, which inspired Rittenhouse to drive to the ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago, my sister posted an Instagram story touching on atrocities against Native Americans/First Nations and saying something to the effect of "I used to think that this doesn't affect me because I'm an immigrant, but I don't anymore."

Which got me thinking why I don't feel that way, at all.

( I am still not sure - but here are some of my thoughts on the subject )

Loretto Hospital has been part of the Austin community area since 1923. Even as the population of Austin and the surrounding neighborhoods/suburbs, it continued to act as a "safety met" hospital, with the lion's share of the patients having no insurance or some kind of Medicare/Medicaid coverage. Suffice to say, a large number of patients are ( Read more... )

For the most part, Illinois is till currently in Phase 1B of the vaccination program. In order to get inoculated, you have to be 65 or older, or (with a few exceptions) an essential worker, or a teacher, or (in most parts of the state) be an adult with some kind of a long-term health issue. This means that most adults and none of the kids still can ( Read more... )

As I’ve commented before, we journalists have a tendency to swoop in when there’s a crisis/controversy, and then forget about it once the heat dies down. And that is something I’ve personally been trying to avoid, even when I don’t get paid for it.

Kenosha has been on my radar long before the shooting of Jacob Blake. I visited it several times - ( Read more... )

Last week, over at her WordPress blog, hettie_lz wrote about the seeming contradiction she’s seen with her Russian friends, who’ve seen even peaceful protests as somehow innately bad, while not minding violating laws on the sly.

I definitely get where she’s coming from. Growing up in Russia, I’ve often seen grown-ups express the attitude that it’s almost ( Read more... )

As a journalist, I’m always fascinated by what happens after a controversy dies down. What happens when the reporters leave and the society moves on to something else? The people involved may disappear from the public conscience, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually gone.

The rise of Amazon Kindle and other e-readers, coupled with Createspace, ( Read more... )