We all knew Roger was really having a hard time of it these last few years. The dead give-away was when he had the lower half of his face amputated as part of his fight with cancer.
Fight with cancer.
Yeah.
In the words of the late, great Warren Zevon, Roger' shit was fucked up.
Salivary glands.
Shit's fucked up.
Thyroid shit.
Shit's fucked up.
Shit shit shit.
Roger hung in there and enjoyed the last part of his life, against unbelievable hardship...how do enjoy swallowing?...Roger couldn't.... and contributed some great insights for people who were paying attention.
Like Hitchens before him, Roger Ebert's cancer was public. He wrote about it. He wondered aloud about it. He made some of us think about it. He made me think about it.
He was a Chicago Titan. Like Algren, Brooks, Studs, Royko, Kup,.... Roger Ebert is to Chicago what so many, almost countless others, have tried, and failed, to be.
He was ours.
There has been so much written today about Roger that anything I'd say is just more of the same.
Roger was an original. Along with Gene, another original, they created something from nothing. And that something has grown into an industry. That something has fed and watered so many Siskel & Ebert knock-offs it would take a month to list them.
Two guys sitting in the front row of the balcony, on the aisle, watching movies. And then arguing about them.
The greatest thing about "At The Movies" was Roger & Gene's astonishing ability to shake off an insult from 5 seconds ago and move on to the next movie. Laughing.
Roger's classes at Chicago and Champaign are the stuff of legend. Like taking a class on astrophysics with Neil Armstrong as your prof.
His movie reviews in the paper, online, and on TV have been the deciding vote for tens of millions of moviegoers.
A thumbs-up from Roger....was like the OK sign from Johnny.
The dude will be missed in these parts especially, but everywhere really.
When I started my WhiteHouse.gov petition on
Saturday evening, I told a few friends on Twitter about it. Being a gun
owner, I figured there must be some middle ground between people who
want a total ban on guns, and people who want unfettered access to any and all weapons.
So I picked assault rifles (which I've been told was the wrong choice
of words...assault weapons would have been proper) and high capacity
magazines.
"The goal of this petition is to make illegal the
sale of assault rifles and high capacity magazines. While not an
indictment of the 2nd Amendment, we feel the time has come to address
the ambiguous language allowing citizens the right to bear arms. There
can be no practical reason for non-military personnel to own these sorts
of armaments."
That's the petition.
A WhiteHouse.gov
needs petition needs 150 signatures to make the list on the WH website.
It remains hidden up to that point, I guess so that they don't have a
rolling list of stupid petitions bumping legitimate ones from the front
page. We passed the 150 threshold around 9PM on Saturday, thanks to my
friends from WSCR radio, and my fellow Scoreheads.
We wondered
if we had a shot at 25,000 signatures within the 30 day window allowed
by the White House, after which a petition is removed and must be
restarted. If a petition does reach 25,000 signatures, the White House
issues a reply.
I checked the petition on Sunday morning, about
12 hours after it first started, and we were up to 1500 signatures.
That sort of startled me, although in hindsight I guess it shouldn't
have.
We passed the 10,000 signature mark yesterday morning,
and the 20,000 signature mark today at about 9AM...and we just passed
the 21,000 about 10 seconds ago. A thousand signatures in 90 minutes.
Jesus. There are signatures from every state in the union, Washington
DC, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and numerous military bases around the
world. Worth noting, the last 4 states to be represented were Montana,
Alaska, Wyoming, and South Dakota....the last of which didn't sign in
until Sunday night. WTF South Dakota?
Anyway, after crunching
some numbers, I came up with this....In 64 1/2 hours we've collected
21,000 signatures. That's 3870 minutes since the petition was first
posted. That works out to be 5.4 signatures per minute, every minute,
since it went up. That works out to be one signature every 11 seconds.
At this rate, we should pass the 25,000 threshold sometime this afternoon.
Official White House Response toUrge Congress to advance federal legislation banning the sale of assault rifles & high capacity magazines.
A Message from President Obama about Your Petition on Reducing Gun Violence
By Bruce Reed
In the days since the tragedy in Newtown, Americans from all over the
country have called for action to deter mass shootings and reduce gun
violence. Hundreds of thousands of you have signed petitions on the
White House's We the People petitions platform.
I'm writing you today to thank you for speaking up, to update you on
an important development, and to encourage you to continue engaging with
the White House on this critical issue.
First, you should know that President Obama is paying close to
attention to the public response to this tragedy. In fact, he sat down
to record a message specifically for those of you who have joined the
conversation using We the People. Watch it now:
On Wednesday, the President outlined a series of first steps we can
take to begin the work of ending this cycle of violence. This is what he
said:
We
know this is a complex issue that stirs deeply held passions and
political divides. And as I said on Sunday night, there's no law or set
of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.
We're going to need to work on making access to mental health care at
least as easy as access to a gun. We're going to need to look more
closely at a culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence. And
any actions we must take must begin inside the home and inside our
hearts.
But
the fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for
doing nothing. The fact that we can't prevent every act of violence
doesn't mean we can't steadily reduce the violence, and prevent the very
worst violence.
Vice President Biden has been asked to work with members of the
Administration, Congress, and the general public to come up with a set
of concrete policy proposals by next month -- proposals the President
intends to push swiftly. The President asked the Vice President to lead
this effort in part because he wrote and passed the 1994 Crime Bill that
helped law enforcement bring down the rate of violent crime in America.
That bill included the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.
As the Vice President's Chief of Staff, I'm going to do everything I
can to ensure we run a process that includes perspectives from all sides
of the issue, which is why I wanted to respond to your petition myself.
Two decades ago, as domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House,
I first worked with Joe Biden as he fought to enact the Crime Bill, the
assault weapons ban, and the Brady Bill. I will never forget what a key
role the voices of concerned citizens like you played in that vital
process.
The President called on Congress to pass important legislation
"banning the sale of military-style assault weapons," "banning the sale
of high-capacity ammunition clips," and "requiring background checks
before all gun purchases, so that criminals can’t take advantage of
legal loopholes to buy a gun from somebody who won’t take the
responsibility of doing a background check at all."
An issue this serious and complex isn't going to be resolved with a
single legislative proposal or policy prescription. And let's be clear,
any action we take will respect the Second Amendment. As the President
said:
Look,
like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment
guarantees an individual right to bear arms. This country has a strong
tradition of gun ownership that's been handed down from generation to
generation. Obviously across the country there are regional differences.
There are differences between how people feel in urban areas and rural
areas. And the fact is the vast majority of gun owners in America are
responsible -- they buy their guns legally and they use them safely,
whether for hunting or sport shooting, collection or protection.
But
you know what, I am also betting that the majority -- the vast majority
-- of responsible, law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to
say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few
from buying a weapon of war. I'm willing to bet that they don't think
that using a gun and using common sense are incompatible ideas -- that
an unbalanced man shouldn't be able to get his hands on a military-style
assault rifle so easily; that in this age of technology, we should be
able to check someone's criminal records before he or she can check out
at a gun show; that if we work harder to keep guns out of the hands of
dangerous people, there would be fewer atrocities like the one in
Newtown -- or any of the lesser-known tragedies that visit small towns
and big cities all across America every day.
The President said it best: "Ultimately if this effort is to succeed
it's going to require the help of the American people -- it's going to
require all of you. If we're going to change things, it's going to take a
wave of Americans -- mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, pastors,
law enforcement, mental health professionals -- and, yes, gun owners --
standing up and saying 'enough' on behalf of our kids."
So let's continue this conversation and get something meaningful
done.
