The Chicago Athenaeum: Fill & Download for Free

The Estadio Municipal de Braga, in Portugal. It was built for Euro 2004 and is the home of Sporting Clube de Braga. What makes the stadium unusual is that it was carved from a quarry. There are only stands along both sides of the pitch, with the rock face of the quarry behind one goal and a view of the city behind the other.Owing to its unique nature the stadium has received two architectural awards;the Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award in 2006 for best new global design and the architect Eduardo Souto de Moura won the Pritzker Prize for his design in 2011.https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Estádio+Municipal+de+Braga&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=HN_WUNS5IcWgigfFsIGwCw&ved=0CHUQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=672#

Because the purpose of Confederate monuments was never to honor people for the contributions they have made to the Southern states. The purpose of Confederate monuments has always been to glorify white supremacy.As I discuss in this article about Confederate monuments I published in November 2019, white supremacy was the whole basis for the Confederacy from the very beginning. If you don’t believe me, just ask Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederate States of America, who proclaimed the following words in his infamous “Cornerstone Speech,” delivered on March 21, 1861 at the Athenaeum in Savannah Georgia:“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”“This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind—from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity.”After the Confederates lost the Civil War, they and their ideological successors began setting up monuments with the explicit purpose to glorify the racist ideology on which the Confederacy was based. They did not want to set up monuments to enslaved people because such monuments would be contrary to their ideological purpose.ABOVE: Photograph of a Confederate statue in front of a courthouse in LouisianaOn the other hand, some non-Confederates did try to set up monuments to enslaved people. While I would like to think that such monuments were well-intentioned, in practice, in many cases, they did more to promote racist and demeaning caricatures of Black people than they did to commemorate the real people who were enslaved.The Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park in Washington D.C. has created a great deal of controversy, because it shows a Black man who is in shackles and almost completely naked kneeling low on the ground in front of Abraham Lincoln, who is stretching out his left hand in a gesture of emancipation.Whatever the intentions behind this monument may have been, the way that it portrays the Black man ultimately only serves to reinforce the racist idea that Black people should be submissive and obedient to white people.ABOVE: The Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln ParkThere are even more disturbing memorials to enslaved Black people that were planned but never built. For instance, in 1910, The Chicago Tribune published an article seeking to raise money to build a monument to “Ol’ Black Mammy” in Washington D.C. The monument would have literally been dedicated to a racial stereotype so demeaning that it is no longer even printed on syrup bottles, let alone carved in stone or cast in bronze. Thankfully, the campaign failed and the monument was never built.ABOVE: Clipping from The Chicago Tribune from 1910 about the proposed monument to “Ol’ Black Mammy” that some people were trying to raise money to build

I saw both of these comedians in Chicago performing at the same venue (separately) in the past year and reviewed them for the Chicago Tribune (links below). Both of their shows were excellent (in very different ways).Maria Bamford is a comedic legend and seems like one of the truly kindest people in show business (I gather this mainly from interviews where others have said this but I saw her briefly backstage as I was interviewing one of her openers and she smiled as we passed and when I was leaving the theater after a 45 minute interview she was still in the lobby taking pictures and talking to fans). The material I reviewed is (mostly) the same as the set in the brilliantly recorded Netflix special “Old Baby.”Maria Bamford review: Maria Bamford on edge and on point at the Athenaeum TheatrePatton Oswalt struck me - until recently - as a bit too self-satisfied, morally superior and geekily pretentious. I admired his joke structure and cleverness but we just didn't have the same sense of humor. This June in Chicago I saw him perform his latest set as it was being recorded for Netflix (release date October 17, 2017), with Bobcat Goldthwait directing. The first half was what I would consider classic Oswalt, then he transitioned with some truly expert crowdwork that was both unrelenting and friendly. From there he went into material about his late wife that was impeccable, moving, hilarious and captivating. I have a whole new respect for him now. Patton Oswalt is the rare comedian who is both a comedian’s comedian and a pop culture success. He deserves the acclaim he's earned.Patton Oswalt review: Review: Laughing and crying in a devastating set from Patton Oswalt