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Friday Topinka blogging

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Last week’s photo of JBT was so horrendous that I felt compelled to balance it out this week with a couple of good pics.

These photos were taken for a 2002 article in Today’s Chicago Woman. They’re the best I could find, and they’re pretty darned good.

From the article:

As a senator she gave a talk to a medical group on health care issues. Afterward, a female doctor asked her how she kept her house clean. “She would never have asked a man,” Topinka thought, so she replied, “‘Ma’am, I open the front door and the back door, and I let the wind blow the tumbleweed out.” Even today she gets comments about her hair or other appearance issues that male politicians rarely confront.

As a child, she saw the criticism her mother received because she ran a real estate business. Later, as a single mother in late 1970s, Topinka took her son to an amusement park but wasn’t permitted to ride on the kiddy car with him because she was a woman—she had to find a man to accompany the boy for the ride. […]

Topinka likes to read, especially newspapers and newsmagazines, a “disease,” she jokes, shared by many former journalists. For years she’s played the accordion and even has a musician’s union card. Plagued with a bad back, she plays less often now because of the weight of the instrument. She likes movies, especially science fiction, and also loves history and watches the History Channel.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Feb 11, 05 @ 2:17 pm

Comments

  1. You da man!

    Thanks

    Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 11, 05 @ 2:59 pm

  2. OK, this has nothing to do with Topinka — but has anyone noticed that one Mr. Ward Churchill is apparently an alum of none other that Sangamon State U.

    Comment by BuckTurgidson Friday, Feb 11, 05 @ 3:31 pm

  3. The right wing bitched and moaned about university speech codes, and now it wants to enforce its own.

    Churchill is an idiot, and nobody will defend his comments, but, jeez, what’s with this national campaign? How very Orwellian of you.

    Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 11, 05 @ 3:44 pm

  4. I am not a fan of Ward Churchill by any means — I find him to be very counterproductive to the left, but I am not sicking the speech police on him either.

    Free speech is a two way street — no one is forcing anyone to listen.

    As Lisa Simpson and Paul Anka sing when giant corporate mascots attacked Springfield, “Just don’t look.”

    Comment by BuckTurgidson Friday, Feb 11, 05 @ 4:16 pm

  5. Maybe I’ve missed something, but I don’t think the Left claims him. He’s a lone, piddly little radical who is the subject of a national attempt by the Right to create an Orwellian enemy and get him fired from his teaching job.

    Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 11, 05 @ 4:32 pm

  6. This post has been removed by the author.

    Comment by BuckTurgidson Friday, Feb 11, 05 @ 4:46 pm

  7. I go to University of Illinois at Springfield, the former Sangamon State University. One of my professors has been there since the 70s and said he knew Ward Churchill when he attended here. My professor also said that Ward likes to stir up controversy, but stirring this much controversy up was probably an unintended side effect.

    Comment by Drew Hibbard Saturday, Feb 12, 05 @ 10:02 am

  8. Saw Churchill giving a talk on C-Span and he made a lot of sense. Not the flaming radical he is painted to be. All he does is forcefully state some unpleasant facts about the global slaughter the US has been responsible for.

    Of course, the messenger will always be shot at.

    He’s a bit over the top, in my opinion, but certainly nothing to get out the pitchforks and torches about.

    And… re: Topinka, anyone that plays accordion can’t be all bad. heehee

    Comment by Anonymous Saturday, Feb 12, 05 @ 12:37 pm

  9. Saw Churchill giving a talk on C-Span and he made a lot of sense. Not the flaming radical he is painted to be. All he does is forcefully state some unpleasant facts about the global slaughter the US has been responsible for.

    Of course, the messenger will always be shot at.

    He’s a bit over the top, in my opinion, but certainly nothing to get out the pitchforks and torches about.

    And… re: Topinka, anyone that plays accordion can’t be all bad. heehee

    Comment by Anonymous Saturday, Feb 12, 05 @ 12:38 pm

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