I had a late lunch with my friend Stuart, as seen in the photograph above, at the Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom in Lakewood, Colorado, winner of this year's ugliest suburb contest. Stuart, as regular blog readers know, is originally from the North Side of Chicago and a Cubs fan, but does not hold out too much hope for the team making the playoffs. They are leading the wildcard race by one game, but have gone 3-7 over their last 10 games. Not a good sign for a contender. I myself am originally from the South Side Brainerd neighborhood of Chicago, and a White Sox fan. Interestingly, the Sox are also 3-7 over the past 10 games, but are only 5 games away from a 100 loss season, and probably years away from being a contender. As for the Colorado Rockies, they are only 4 games away from 100 losses, which would be a first for the team, but since they draw almost 3 million fans a year no matter how bad they play, thanks to the popularity of their ballpark, management doesn't care. We then went on to the topic of political correctness, which we both agree is just plain stupid. I mentioned to Stuart that I read an opinion piece on the CNN website about the new Agatha Christie movie, A Haunting in Venice, and the upshot was that Hercule Poirot, as well as other fictional detectives in both movies and books, do not have enough empathy for the victims, and only care about solving the crime. So does this mean mystery novels are now politically incorrect, too? Is this why Ian Rankin has put Inspector Rebus on trial for murder, and why John Straley has put his private detective hero Cecil Younger in prison? The World Turned Upside Down is no longer just an English ballad.
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