To Chicago: Don’t make the same mistake Skokie made by allowing a Carvana installation in an area across from a Cook County Forest Preserve.
Just as Skokie’s action ignores bird safety and the character of an area, a lakeside casino would ignore bird safety (“A casino on Chicago’s lakefront? That’s a deadly gamble for birds.,” March 15) and the Lakefront Protection Ordinance.
And there are other locations for the casino, I understand. So please choose another.
Don’t follow the example we see in Rockford, where what remains of an 8,000-year-old prairie may yet be destroyed for an airport road while other options are available.
Chicago, you’re the biggest. Be bigger.
— Barbara A. Mendelsohn, Niles
The odds favor this outcome
An exclusive lakefront casino versus safe flyways for migratory birds and open lakefront access for all?
A roll of the dice plus Chicago’s three of clubs — cash, clout and corruption — comes up seven for an ecologically disastrous lakefront casino. Wanna bet?
— Joyce Keithley, Chicago
End-of-life care decisions
April 16 was National Healthcare Decisions Day. I’ve been making some decisions.
Recently I have had the privilege of offering respite care for Michael, someone who lives in my neighborhood. Michael has dementia. His spouse needed help while she pursued her own medical care.
Fortunately, Michael likes to sing as do I. I cannot describe the delight as the usually quiet Michael moved his lips forming the words of the song I was singing. We went on like that for three hours.
Since that time, I’ve been sending Michael 30-second iPhone snippets with my emoji singing a new song. His spouse says they both enjoy them.
It is easy to tell that the family has been devastated by Michael’s dementia. His illness is adding to his wife’s medical problems. The financial strain is evident. There are a lot of service providers. Coverage changes frequently. You need an answering service and pretty sophisticated scheduling software just to keep track of everything.
Unfortunately, the number of people with dementia is increasing. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that the number of people age 65 and older with Alzheimer’s is projected to reach 7.2 million by 2025 — an 11% increase from 6.5 million in 2022.
It is something we all may need to deal with, whether or not we want to. If you’ve not been around it, I encourage you to get outside your comfort zone and offer respite care or make a home visit to someone with dementia. Waiting until you are confronted with dementia in yourself or someone you care for is too late.
I urge you to be clear about what your values are and how those values affect what care you would want in the case of a dementia diagnosis. Resources such as the Dementia Values and Priorities Tool from the group Compassion & Choices can help you communicate your values and wishes to those who will care for you.
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught me anything, it is that it is never too early to let people know what you want and don’t want at the end of life.
Make some decisions. Start by clarifying your values with respect to end-of-life care, then start the conversation with your doctors and loved ones.
— Tom Dietvorst, Chicago
This anger is blind, misplaced
Angie Leventis Lourgos’ excellent piece on indiscriminate hostility (“Russian Tea Time owners: ‘It’s misguided anger,'” March 13) struck me for multiple reasons. First, this fine restaurant is one of my perennial favorites. More importantly, the tale brings back painful family history.
My grandfather came to the U.S. from Japan in 1919 for graduate work in architecture. He was a practicing architect with Buick in Flint, Michigan, for nearly two decades by 1941. Just after Pearl Harbor was attacked, he was let go as a security risk.
Most of the family made their way to Chicago with an intermediate stop in Potomac, Illinois, to stay at my grandmother’s sister’s farm. The farmland had been granted to my great-uncle’s family by Andrew Jackson in the early 19th century. Hopes for peaceful respite were dashed as the townspeople took up a petition to bar my aunt from high school because she was half-Japanese. Meanwhile, my dad was in France and Luxembourg fighting the Germans.
The present situation is yet another timely reminder about our nation of immigrants and the dangers of attributing loyalties based on countries of origin.
— Andrew S. Mine, Chicago
We’re seeing the destruction
Having read Steven H. Mora’s letter in Tuesday’s Voice of the People (“Show us the battles”), I take issue with his take on the media coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There have been plenty of depictions of the damage inflicted by Russia on Ukraine, but to show actual scenes of battle could just give intel on Ukrainian tactics, weapons and locations to Russian intelligence operatives.
Is he that naive to think that the Russians would not try to use this information? I suggest that if he wants to see battle scenes, he watch the first five minutes of “Saving Private Ryan.”
— John A. Magala, Chicago
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