Top Comments: Off The Grid

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Today, I spent “off the grid,” for the most part with one overriding mission: I decided to get an alumni card from my alma mater, Loyola University-Chicago.

I live much closer to the campus of the Big Ten school just to the north and I have to give Northwestern University some credit: for a private school, they really do have a relatively liberal policy regarding the use of their library facilities and equipment and I will continue to use Northwestern because of that proximity. But...NU does have its limitations...for example, no one not affiliated with NU is allowed to use those facilities later than 5pm (6pm?).

The primary library stacks that I usually use at Northwestern are voluminous but somewhat byzantine and while people are extremely helpful and welcoming (and I have gotten to know some of the library staff at NU)...well...there not quite that “home” feeling that I feel on Loyola’s Lake Shore campus.

So...I trekked on down into the city and onto the Loyola campus and a LOT has changed on the Loyola campus since I graduated from there in 2006. For one, the offices now have a beautiful lakefront location that had just been completed, I believe, the year that I graduated but was not in use at that time.

Today, that same place was bustling, mostly with freshmen getting all set up for the year with ID’s, meal plans, and what not.

I did get my alumni card and I decided to cut across campus to continue my day of being “off the grid”: to see what was old and what was new.

And...well, some things have changed...and some things haven’t.

Everyone knows me to be a Maize and Blue, University of Michigan fan and Michigan will always be THE school of my heart (just imagine how I felt in March 2018).

But the fact is: I did not graduate from Michigan.

And in ways that I won’t get into now, Loyola took a little bit of a risk on me: someone that graduated from the school in their mid-30’s.

It was at Loyola where I learned something of of the Jesuit tradition in education and especially education in urban areas of the country (Loyola Universities also exist in New Orleans and Dallas, Fordham University, Georgetown University, Boston College, Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles etc….then again there’s Gonzaga).

I’m not religious at all but still...I am proud to be a card-carrying member and beneficiary of that education aspect of the Jesuit tradition again and I always will be.

I hadn’t physically been on the Loyola campus in years and it was good to be back. 

Emotional, even.

Comments below the fold.

Now, on to Top Comments:

From indyada:

I have an unusual double-header (in ONE thread) TC recommendations from today's Abbreviated Pundit Roundup from ONE thread. The opening thread was started by the incredible Denise Oliver Velez.

TC #1 — Captain Frogbert discusses the enormous hypocrisy of Christianists.

TC #2 — by Jjc2006, responds to the Captain and adds spot-on commentary about the state of and history of the Conservative Supreme Court.

Highlighted by JoanMar:

In the Black Kos Week in Review— this comment made by mohistory2.

Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful (and now eternal) *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment featuring that photo.

TOP PHOTOS

September 1st, 2021

(NOTE: Any missing images in the Quilt were removed because (a) they were from an unapproved source that somehow snuck through in the comments, or (b) it was an image from the DailyKos Image Library which didn't have permissions set to allow others to use it.)

And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:

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