Her pronunciation of “Bare-Rack Obama” reminds me though that one of the local newsfolks calls him “Brock O’Bama” which almost sounds like a Southside Irish name.
In other news, Kay Brooks uncovers the little-known fact that Barack Obama lives in Hyde Park. My grandma grew up in Hyde Park; I guess that makes me an Obama operative, too.
Edited to add:
I’m just laughing so hard still at Kay Brooks being all “I’ve discovered who Obama lives near,” that I just had to go see who else lives or has lived in Hyde Park so that we might also paint him with the brushes of their bad acts:
Muhammad Ali, Steve Allen, Blue Balliet, Saul Bellow, Gwendolyn Brooks, Clarence Darrow, Kurt Elling, Enrico Fermi, Milton Friedman, James Heckman, Sue Miller, Barack Obama, Sara Paretsky, Carl Sandburg, Harold Washington, and Mahalia Jackson
Ha, you know, I would pay good money to go to a cocktail party where these folks, Ayers, and Farrakhan were all present. You’re going to tell me that wouldn’t be a good time.
Oh, and my grandma, and her parents. I forgot them.
Tiny Cat Pants 
Awesome.
He lives in the same neighborhood as Milton Friedman? Scary! Now I’m definitely rethinking my vote (not).
On the edge of Hyde Park, there used to be this fierce raging homeless woman who alternated between spitting, cursing, and flashing the college kids who walked by. She was a real ball of fire. So, employing Brooks’ logic (if we can strain the word’s meaning to apply it in this case), can we anticipate the first full-frontal Presidential press conference, complete with hissing and a big hocker on Sam Donaldson’s toupee? That would be worth the price of admission.
I actually saw an “Irish for O’Bama” bumper sticker the other day.
I used to live in Hyde Park. My aunt and uncle live down the street from the Obama house.
you left out Farrakhan
Keep reading. I include Farrakhan at the end. I do find it deeply suspicious, though, that you and my grandma lived in the same large neighborhood decades apart. I’m sure it indicates some kind of conspiracy; I’m just not sure what yet.
I love that video. Priceless.
I’m a thinker and your a dipstick.!!
Ooooh, is that crazy woman the inspiration for Paretsky’s Ghost Country?
Milton Friedman’s deceased already, so presumably he doesn’t live there any longer.
nor is Fermi likely to, although i’d definitely attend any cocktail party that featured him on the guest list. get Feynman as well and wild horses couldn’t drag me away.
nm, I have always thought so. She’s a very memorable woman. I did research at the Newberry Library on and off throughout the 1990s and had a residency there in the summer of 1998, so I know Crazy Fierce Lady was very much a part of daily neighborhood life in Hyde Park when Paretsky was writing Ghost Country.
Bridgett, (1) that’s fascinating. (2) now I am going nuts trying to remember the name of the Hispanist I know who worked at the Newberry in the ’90s. You must have run into him there, but my mind is a blank.