Metering is ON

steinberg

Neil Steinberg biography

Neil Steinberg began writing for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1984, and joined the staff in 1987 as a feature writer.

He became a columnist in …

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Protest: Easy to mock, harder to take part in

Protest is an unpopular habit. Few do it. Which makes it like voting. Americans are big on defending our freedoms; on actually exercising them, not so much. Think about it — given all the woe in the world, the crimes committed, the ongoing wrongs, at …

Studs at 100; more than a guy in red socks

Studs Terkel was such a colorful character, with the red socks and the checkered shirt, the crumpled hat and the stogie, it’s easy to overlook what he actually did and why he did it. In the tributes leading up to the centennial of his birth …

Gay marriage bans are faith flexing its muscles

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than be good. Good can get crushed under the grindwheel of fate, while luck stumbles along, whistling through the earthquake. Last Wednesday President Barack Obama announced, after years of soul searching, that he finally decided gays are human …

  • A mother’s work is never done (especially with 4 kids under 3)

    Shhh. They’re sleeping. In four cribs nearly filling the small dark back bedroom of a modest, two-bedroom brick home on a quiet street in Skokie. Four little daughters: Malynn, the oldest, who turns three next month, plus triplets Annette, Samantha and Cecilia. It’s 5:50 a.m. …Read More

  • At the top of the world, but climbing higher

    When you’ve played piano all over the world to wild acclaim since you were a teenager, including a gig viewed by several billion people at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when Steinway & Sons names a special piano after you and you’re …Read More

  • The Tea Party’s man reaches out to the left

    Rep. Joe Walsh is a charming man. Big, handsome smile, generous (at least to me), Walsh (R-8th) insists on paying for our drinks at the Starbucks on Delaware. And he has moxie ­— after I wrote a column about breakfast with Sen. Dick Durbin, Walsh …Read More

    • Illinois faces its moment of pension reform truth

    Sit for a few minutes in the waiting area outside the governor’s office on the 16th floor of the Thompson Center and the decaying financial condition of the state of Illinois is illustrated in clear, dismal fashion. From the disreputable acoustical tiles to the stained, …

  • Museum’s trains are no small deal

    William Davidson Jr. did not see the train derail. He heard it. “An emergency!” he said, with complete earnestness, snapping into action, hurrying to where a John Deere tractor had tumbled off a flatbed car, onto an adjacent track, where it knocked aside an oncoming …Read More

  • Mexican culture about more than beer commercials

    Last summer, the family and I found ourselves in Durango, Colo., in the southwest corner of the state. Thinking to take in a bit of the local pageantry, we headed to the Bar D Chuckwagon for dinner. It was exactly what you’d expect — outdoor …Read More

  • Israel vs. Iran war off, for the moment, maybe

    Everybody says the press never reports any good news. But maybe the press does report good news, but when it does, the public simply ignores it. For instance. This week, the New York Times reported some very good news: that the war Israel and Iran …Read More

  • Few options for homeless young people in Chicago

    It’s 9 p.m., and 26 young men and women have shown up at the Crib, a shelter for homeless youth in the Lake View Lutheran Church at Addison and Halsted. Which is a problem, since there is space for only 20 foam mattresses on the …Read More

  • Latest developments in paper towel industry!

    For people obsessed with technology, certain changes can still blow by us. Consider paper towel dispensers. Over the past year, I’ve noticed the dispensers in public washrooms have increasingly gone from the kind you crank or push or grab to the kind you wave your …Read More

  • See, there’s a ball, that goes through a hoop...

    The NBA playoffs begin Saturday, a start that has never before been noted in this column because, to be honest, I never cared about it before now. Years ago, my attention might grudgingly turn to basketball, in late May, when the city came to a …Read More

    • Let’s appreciate the big art show that isn’t there

    Art isn’t just oil paint slapped on a canvas in the shape of a flower, or a block of marble chipped into the form of a nekkid lady, or a textile wall hanging that looks like a yarn blob, or any of the range of …

    Durbin: Election best hope for reviving government

    Andersonville is a hip, young part of town, supposedly. It’s hard to tell at 8 a.m. on a Friday, because nobody is on the street. Maybe they are all indoors, still waking up from being hip and young until the wee hours the night before. …

  • Wilmette celebration honors centennial of Baha’i temple cornerstone dedication

    This year marks the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the Baha’i House of Worship’s cornerstone.

  • Celebration honors centennial of Baha’i temple cornerstone dedication

    Ask most Chicagoans what they know about the Baha’i faith, and they might mention the House of Worship, a magnificent domed edifice of delicately latticed concrete on the lakefront in Wilmette. The temple is hard to miss — at 191 feet high, you could easily …Read More

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