Lori Lightfoot Elected First Black Lesbian Mayor of Chicago

Lori Lightfoot is a 56-year-old former federal prosecutor and private attorney who just became the first Black lesbian to be elected mayor of Chicago. Lightfoot will become the highest ranking openly LGBT mayor in the country when she takes office and mayor of the largest city to be run by a Black woman, although not the only one. San Francisco (London Breed), Atlanta (Keisha Lance Bottoms), and Washington, D.C. (Muriel Bowser) are just a few.

Congratulations, Mayor Lightfoot!

TENNIS TUESDAY: Laver Cup Goes To Europe Again; Osaka Impresses In Japan; Thiem Wins On 3rd Surface; Nadal Out Until London

LAVER CUP PART DEUX: EUROPE BEATS THE WORLD AGAIN
The second edition of the Laver Cup took place in Chicago last weekend and the result was the same as the first year in Prague. Led by Roger Federer (who has an ownership stake in the event), Team Europe defeated Team World. This time Team Europe featured two of the BIg 4: Federer and Novak Djokovic, who played doubles together (but lost) to the inspired team of Jack Sock and John Isner. Sock showed why he is considered the best doubles player in the world by winning all 3 doubles matches he played for Team World.

OSAKA IMPRESSES BY CONTINUING WIN STREAK  AFTER MAJOR WIN
2018 US Open champion Naomi Osaka continued her win streak to 10 matches, getting to the final of the Toray Pan Pacific Open before losing to Karolina Pliskova 6-4 6-4.

DOMINIC THIEM WINS INDOOR HARDCOURT TITLE
World #8 Dominic Thiem of Austria won his first indoor hardcourt title in St. Petersburg over the weekend, by defeating Martin Klizan 6-3 6-1. It was Thiem's third title of 2018, in a year in which he reached his first major final in Paris (losing to Rafael Nadal).

NADAL PULLS THE CORD ON THE ASIAN SWING
World #1 Nadal put his top ranking in jeopardy by announcing he would miss the fall indoor swing through Asia, presumably nursing his body to try and make a run at the World Tour Finals in London

GRAPHIC: The racial/ethnic demographics of U.S. Top 10 metro areas

Information on race in America, especially in metropolitan areas in the United States. This is from a recent deep dive into race, politics and demographics by the Boston Globe's award-winning Spotlight team as the paper tried to examine why Boston is perceived as "more racist" than other big cities.

GRAPHIC: 50% Of All Economic Activity Is In Urban Centers

Via Kevin Drum is this interesting picture demonstrating the outsized impact of urban centers on America's economic activity.

Male Escort Listings By U.S. City

Which city do you think has more male escorts than others? Not surprisingly, it seems pretty closely correlated with population and wealth. According to a long and well-researched (well-hung?) article at Buzzfeed, the Top 5 are Manhattan, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and Washington, DC. The article goes onto discuss how the new world of social media and geo-location apps has impacted the business of male prostitution.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Where In The World Is MadProfessah? Houghton, MI

I was on a business trip to Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI (population: 7,708) when Sandy hit the Eastern Seaboard. Unfortunately, due to the air travel disruptions caused by the largest Atlantic storm to ever make landfall in the United States, I am not back in my usual location of Arlington, VA but will be staying an extra 48 hours in the Upper Peninsula (the U.P.) of Michigan.

It's actually a very beautiful location, if a bit remote as you can see from the graphic above. There's effectively only one flight a day out of here and it only goes to Chicago O'Hare (ORD) one of my least favorite airports in the world. I'm much happer spending my time in Houghton (where the people are lovely) than trying to find an overpriced hotel room in Chicago or worse yet sleeping on cots (or benches!) in O'Hare. (Trust me, that has happened to me before, one reason ORD is an airport I generally try to avoid if at all possible!)

Wish me luck to get back to the DC metropolitan area sooner rather than later!

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Black Atheist Public Awareness Campaign

This is great news! African Americans for Humanism has announced a new publicity campaign to raise awareness about the presence of religious skepticism in the Black community. It is not as rare as one might think, a point a recent New York Times article raised that I promoted here on Godless Wednesday a few months ago.

Friendly Atheist alerted me to the ads and supports the campaign, as do I. Apparently they will be running in various major metropolitan areas like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas. Each ad shows a prominent historical African American (it is Black History Month after all!) along with a local Black freethinker.

What do you think?