What should we think of homicide tally – on the rise, decline or nonsense?

The partisanship of politics is going to be played with the violence tallies for Chicago – regardless of how many people are killed and whether that’s less or more than in the past.

Homicide tallies on decline in Englewood neighborhood this year -- will it last?

We’re going to hear tons of rants from all sides over the fact that some 600 people have been killed in Chicago this year. That total was reached last week, and some are more than eager to say that means Chicago remains as violent a place as ever.

ALTHOUGH I COULDN’T help but notice the official Chicago Police Department spin that was placed on the tally. They pointed out the fact that in the Englewood neighborhood, the number of murders during 2017 was only 45.

Which is far less than the 79 murders that took place in that neighborhood’s police district during the same time period last year – a year in which Chicago had 780 slayings, more than in any year during the 21^st Century.

The point being that the neighborhood often thought of as the most violent in Chicago (unless you want to hang on to old memories of the West Side’s North Lawndale neighborhood being the “American Millstone”) is experiencing a decline in urban violence.

A fact, I’m sure, that the conservative ideologues amongst us who want to believe that Chicago is all that is wrong with our society will not want to believe. They’ll want to emphasize that 600-plus tally. Then again, they’ll only want to believe the worst.

JUST AS I’M sure they’ll want to continue thinking of the city to the east, Gary, Ind., as the “murder capital” of the country – even though a raw reading of the numbers don’t back that up (there are more violent places than the one-time “City of the Century”).

Then again, in this era where the “fake news” label is thrown about, they’ll believe what they want.

The reason I bring up Gary is the fact that their homicide tally thus far in 2017 is also 45. As in Gary being as violent in a technical sense as the Englewood neighborhood.

New downtown Gary mural doesn't erase "murder capital" image. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

Should this mean we should disregard claims that Englewood is getting better because it has the same tally as Gary, Ind.? Could bringing that Whole Foods supermarket into the neighborhood be having a slight impact on making the South Side neighborhood a more livable place for its residents?

OR COULD IT mean that numbers can be used to make just about any claim one wants to do? That without context, no homicide tally really means much of anything!

Keep in mind that I’m not trying to downplay the level of violence we’re experiencing in Chicago. Any one death is a tragedy; it certainly isn’t something to be celebrated.

Yet I can’t help but think that many of the people who get obsessed about keeping track of the death tallies for Chicago are more interested in perpetuating the image of Chicago as an excessively violent place that no self-respecting person would want to live in.

Which in my mind is an attitude that discredits itself, and not just because I often view Chicago as being the Greatest City on Planet Earth. I sense that the people most eager to spew such talk are the ones who have no interest in actually resolving the problem of our violence level.

THEY CERTAINLY WOULD be disappointed if our incidents of violence actually declined. They want to keep the image of a “hellhole” alive, and it won’t really matter what the actual numbers are for the homicide rate.

TRUMP: Should we care what his fans think?

My point being that I’m not going to get obsessed with that “600” total that we surpassed last week – other than to admit it is sad to have so many incidents that resulted in families out there losing loved ones.

Nor am I going to over-exaggerate the significance of that 57 percent drop in slayings within the Englewood neighborhood; unless we can see it turn into a trend that lasts for several years.

The real story will be what occurs in 2018 and 2019 and the coming years in Chicago – a long-range view that I’m sure the ideologues amongst us will find to be “boring!” but is more relevant than any of the nonsense they prefer to spew.

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Same stuff; different label? Or are we destined to shop at Piggly Wiggly?

I find it amusing the degree to which corporate interests own varieties of a product that might have the public think their competing with themselves. 

Is the high-end image of Whole Foods ...

One such example was when the Chicago White Sox last month announced they were going to have an official import beer to be served at the ballpark – that being Modelo Especial.

THERE ARE THOSE people who think that Mexican brand is some sort of exotic, high-end label. Particularly when they start playing with the lime and salt.

Although it turns out the corporate interest that owns the company that produces Modelo also is the one that several years ago bought out Anheuser-Busch. As in Budweiser.

Which may be why Modelo is one brand of Mexican beer I don’t consume. Actually, I just think the taste is unexceptional. Not even particularly lousy. Just kind of pointless. Much like I’d describe Budweiser beer products.

But the money that gets spent on both winds up in the same corporate wallet. I find that to be funny, particularly if there’s someone out there who thinks that drinking Modelo-brand cerveza somehow makes them a more discriminate consumer than someone who quenches their thirst with Bud Light.

THIS SAME REACTION is what I’m feeling Monday upon reading the reports about Whole Foods quite possibly being for sale, and one potential buyer being Albertson’s.

The Boise, Idaho-based company owns supermarkets all over the country, and they operate them under various brand names meant to create the impression of locally-based companies.

In the Chicago-area, Albertson’s is the corporate entity that gives us Jewel and Osco.

,,, destined to become a part of 'da Jewels?'

As in “We’re goin’ to da Jewel’s,” that would like for us all to think of itself as the quintessential Chicago food shopping experience – particularly now that Dominick’s is ancient history.

ALTHOUGH I SUSPECT most of us merely rant and rage about our neighborhood Jewel’s store being dirty or depressing or poorly stocked or whatever complaint we feel like making. I shop there because it’s close by; I literally used to live one block from one of their stores.

To people, it won’t matter what the quality is; we’ll want to believe there has to be something better somewhere else. In fact, I think that’s a large part of why Whole Foods (and Trader Joe’s, as well) achieve some success in the Chicago area.

You go in there and see allegedly high-end foodstuffs – even though many of them are merely more expensive versions of what it is you can buy at “da Jewels.”

Will 'Krogering' become a national concept?

Now, it seems Albertson’s is considering placing a bid to buy out Whole Foods. Whole Foods and Jewel could become sister stores. For all those people who are willing to indulge themselves (and clean out their wallets) by spending more for organic produce and other pseudo-sophisticated products, I can’t help but wonder how they’ll react to having to consider themselves as shopping at a Jewel partnership.

BECAUSE I CERTAINLY doubt that this means Jewel would go “high-end.” Although I have noticed some Jewel stores in select communities have gone out of their way to remodel themselves and create the impression that they’re carrying fancier food products so as to compete with the high-end supermarkets such as Whole Foods.

Personally, I wonder what happens if the day comes when all supermarkets wind up finding themselves under one entity and we get generic grocery stories from which to buy our edible products.

 

Will we all someday experience Piggly Wiggly sensation?

We’ll all wind up eating the same thing – and probably wind up paying more for it. Maybe it would even turn out that we’d take interest in which conglomerate winds up winning out as the dominant supermarket. Are we all destined to “go Krogering” for our food – regardless of where we live?

If that’s the case, I vote for the Piggly-Wiggly to prevail. I think it would serve the culinary snobs right to have to shop in one of their stores.

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Rival states take their pot-shots at Illinois, Land of Lincoln fights back!!!

It’s not at all odd to see the states of the Great Lakes region compete amongst each other to gain some sort of edge in the public eye – I’m old enough to remember those “Gov. Thompson (as in Tommy, not Jim) Welcomes You to Wisconsin” signs that used to greet people driving north on Interstate 94 out of Illinois.

We don't always play nice w/ each other

Or all those “Illinoyed” billboards that Indiana used as part of a state campaign to try to encourage businesses to relocate to the Hoosier state.

IT WORKED IN terms of drawing some small companies across the border – to parts where they’d still be close to Illinois and the Chicago metro area, which was the source of their real business.

But it never managed to draw anything huge away from Illinois – after all, no matter what the lower tax rates would be, you’d still be in Indiana. “You get what you pay for” is the rule that ought to apply here.

The point of this recollection is that it’s not new for the Midwestern states bound together by their proximity to Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes to see each other as rivals.

So perhaps it shouldn’t be odd to learn that the Whole Foods chain of high-scale supermarkets is making a move of its distribution center that provides goods to their Chicago-area stores.

THAT DISTRIBUTION CENTER had been located in Munster, Ind. – a municipality located right on the Illinois/Indiana border across from suburban Lansing.

EMANUEL: A late Valentine's Day gift?

It’s now moving to the Pullman neighborhood in Chicago proper – a site that offers one major asset that Munster could never have competed with. The Pullman neighborhood is right on the Bishop Ford Freeway, which leads into the Dan Ryan Expressway.

In fact, the site of the new center to open in 2018 will be right on the freeway. It will be easy for Whole Foods trucks to hop right onto the highway, then go anywhere in the Chicago metro area to make deliveries of goods to be sold in their supermarkets. As opposed to now, where those trucks have to fight their way through the traffic mess that often is the Borman Expressway (we really do need the Illiana to be built) before they can get into Chicago.

There may have been some sort of tax break that Munster could have offered through the fact that Indiana does hit its businesses with lesser rates. But they also can’t offer the amenities that a Chicago or Illinois can. You pay more, but you also get more.

Strengthening Midwest presence with Chicago

I’LL ADMIT IT probably was a bit cold for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to be seen snickering and to refer to the move as a “late Valentine’s Day (gift) to Indiana,” but it certainly wasn’t any more colder than the trash talk that the surrounding states usually spew – often by trying to portray Chicago as some sort of hellhole that draws everything down.

Which, to me, often sounds like the petty whining of places that realize they can never match Chicago’s many amenities.

Now I don’t mean this as an Indiana-bashing session. Heck, I do work for one of the daily newspapers in Northwest Indiana and often spend time in Gary itself. Which for the record is a place that has so much potential, but can’t seem to get itself together for so many reasons – many of which are beyond its control.

There are times when I think Lake County and the surrounding areas of Northwest Indiana ought to just de-annex from the land of Hoosiers and become a part of Illinois. Maybe our people could make Gary succeed – rather than the Indiana officials who, at times, seem obsessed with the idea of holding that city down.

Could we do better with it?

BUT IT’S NOT likely there will be any shift any time soon of the Illinois/Indiana border from its current location between Chicago and Hammond to some place east of Valparaiso.

But our state may have accomplished something greater for the public image. For it seems the advertising professional who created that “Illinoyed” campaign for Indiana state government now works for Illinois.

Crain’s Chicago Business reported the newly-created Illinois Business and Development Corp. hired Kelly Nicholl – who as it turns out never gave up her condominium in downtown Chicago, even while working out of Indianapolis.

Illinoyed no more?

Perhaps even she couldn’t bear the thought of being too close to the rest of Indiana, which will now be the target of Illinois’ attacks!

 

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EDITORS NOTE: For those of you who'd like to read the Hoosier perspective, WBEZ-FM's Northwest Indiana correspondent provides a comprehensive report.

No loss. I wasn’t buying Tilapia or goat cheese from Whole Foods anyways

I must confess to being surprised by news reports about how the Whole Foods chain of upscale supermarkets said it would no longer stock items made by prison inmates.

No inmate-made goods, that they know of

Largely because I wasn’t aware they were making such goods available for sale.

YOU’D THINK THAT a business so concerned with putting up an image of hoity-toity, high-falutin’ products would think something made by prison inmates was too crude to include.

Then again, the whole point of prison-made products is that they’re so cheap to produce because the cost of labor is so minimal – it amounts to slave labor, which is the only circumstance under which it is legally permissible in this country.

Now I know I have never purchased such products because I’m not particularly fond of goat cheese or tilapia (It’s fish, for those who don’t know). Also, I rarely shop at the local Whole Foods except to occasionally buy a special item or two that aren’t readily available elsewhere.

Also, I’m not sure if I have ever seen the items in question that were produced by Colorado Corrections Industries, which officially exists to try to train prison inmates in skills that might be usable in their post-prison lives.

THE FISH AND cheese products they produce get sold to distributors, who then provide it to various stores – including some of the Whole Foods supermarkets – where it gets sold to the general public.

Although considering how much Whole Foods likes to boast that it includes locally-made products amongst its stock in the stores, I don’t know if any Colorado-made goods would make it to Chicago-area stores.

Tilapia and goat cheese ...

But I’d like to think this move is a beneficial one – because a part of me wasn’t exaggerating when I equated such inmate programs with slavery, even though I realize that the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution that outlawed slavery does permit such forced labor “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

While I understand the concept oft-spoken by corrections officials that such work programs provide inmates with something to do – rather than have them spend all that idle time coming up with ideas of their own that might not be so constructive – the idea that anybody gets to benefit financially from cheap inmate labor still strikes me as being offensive. As if companies can’t benefit if they have to pay legitimate wages for the labor to produce their products or services.

SO PERHAPS IT is a plus that Whole Foods officials in Texas were responsive to protests at their stores in the Houston area to the practice.

... will have to go upscale to remain at Whole Foods

Just as some people get all worked up if they find out that articles of clothing offered for sale may be tied in some way to slave labor (or child labor under extreme circumstances) in foreign countries.

It would seem that the idea of “buy American” is not a protection against products produced under duress. Perhaps we ought to play closer attention to just about anything we buy. No matter how much less it might cost in the long run.

Although that shouldn’t be seen as a blast against people who prefer to shop Wal-mart. For it seems even the upper-scale shopping outlets are capable of getting caught up in this scheme. We really don’t know much about where our goods are made – and probably think of such knowledge as being the equivalent of learning about the process of manufacturing sausages.

Training inmates? Or gaining cheap labor?

BESIDES, THE KIND of people who are inclined to want to buy significant shares of their groceries from Whole Foods are obviously willing to pay a premium for the image they think they’re acquiring. Even if it could be argued that the image itself is fake and not worth the higher price.

The idea that this inmate labor results in cheaper prices for food just doesn’t fly.

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More of those moments when logic seems (at first) to fly out the window

The cop who sent a text message to a 12-year-old asking her to send him “sexy” pictures of herself who will not face any additional discipline?

Or the mother who claims she got fired from her job at a grocery store because she chose to stay at home with her son on one of the days when Arctic-like weather caused the schools to be closed?

THOSE WERE A pair of stories that turned up in the news coverage on Wednesday; both of which are meant to arouse the reaction of us shaking our fists in anger and shouting out some epithet about damned fools who just can’t appreciate logic.

Although I’m sure there is a letter-of-the-law interpretation by which both actions are completely justifiable.

Personally, I’m more offended by the predicament facing Woodstock police Sergeant Chip Amati, who did get a 30-day suspension without pay after it was learned he sent the text message seeking salacious photographs.

The girl was the daughter of the woman Amati was dating at the time, and she was the one who objected to his conduct when she learned of it.

WOODSTOCK MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS penalized Amati back in October, particularly after it was learned that the sergeant also had used police computer databases to learn more about his girlfriend – even though police policies specifically prevented officers from using the databases for personal use.

The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday that village officials determined no additional punishment is possible because Amati cannot be disciplined more than once for the same offense.

So those people who want to view Amati as some sort of miscreant for his behavior toward the 12-year-old are going to have to accept the fact that nothing more will happen.

Even though the newspaper noted that he never really lost a month’s worth of pay – because the Police Department in Woodstock is choosing to split the time up into increments; thereby reducing its impact on his personal and professional life.

AARGH!!!!!!!

Some people are having that same reaction this week about Rhiannon Broschat, a 25-year-old from the Logan Square neighborhood who used to work at a Whole Foods grocery store in the Lake View neighborhood.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday that about 40 people picketed the company’s regional headquarters in the River North neighborhood on Broschat’s behalf.

She says that when the Chicago Public Schools were closed on Jan. 28 because of the wintry weather, she was unable to find someone who could stay with her “special needs” son. So, she says she called the store to tell them she could not show up at work – even though she had a shift scheduled for that day.

WHOLE FOODS OFFICIALS won’t comment on the incident, but Broschat says her store called her the next day, telling them she had abused the company’s attendance policy.

On the surface, it easily becomes a case of a callous company punishing a person for not putting corporate needs ahead of their personal ones. Although my gut reaction is to wonder how many other times had she been forced to call in absent because of personal needs.

I can comprehend how the job needs to get done, and that the company might want to find someone else who is capable of doing it. Yet I don’t know that this is the exact circumstance that led to this woman’s current “unemployed” status.

Who’s to say how this particular case turns out.

ULTIMATELY, IT COMES down to perspective, as Broschat herself told the Sun-Times she’s convinced she made the “right decision” when she chose to stay home with her son.

I’m sure that with all the cold weather and number of days the local schools have been closed in recent months, there are a slew of parents who suddenly found themselves in the same jam that Broschat made and will be totally sympathetic to her choice.

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Dominick’s task force put in public eye

I don’t envy the people who will be serving on a newly-created city government task force that will draw the public’s scrutiny – even though the issue it is dealing with is far from the most significant problem confronting Chicago these days.

Will Dominick's stores soon have no parked cars nearby?

That problem being, of course, Dominick’s.

AS IN THE chain of supermarkets that are about to cease to exist in Chicago and surrounding suburbs. Jewel early on said it would purchase a few of the Dominick’s locations and convert them to their brand.

While the new Mariano’s chain of supermarkets came in last week and said it would purchase a few more Dominick’s stores, while also building some new sites for their brand of upscale markets.

But those two deals account for about 15 supermarkets out of the 72 facilities that were part of the Dominick’s chain.

Come the end of 2013 (Dec. 28, to be exact), there are likely to be a whole lot of Dominick’s stores that suddenly become vacant storefronts – even if companies such as Whole Foods or Pete’s Fresh Market come in and buy out a few more Dominick’s locations.

IT’S ALSO NOT the same as if a little neighborhood market were to close its doors. We’re talking about the large stores that, with their parking lots, can easily take up an entire block.

Those are going to be gaping holes in the appearance of Chicago and the suburban communities. Just envision the kid whose teeth are falling out, giving him a smile with gaps.
 

Only in Chicago’s case, there’s no equivalent of the tooth fairy coming along to leave money to help us cope with the loss.




How many will live on like this former Dominick's store?

Instead, Mayor Rahm Emanuel created a task force to be chaired by Deputy Mayor Steve Koch whose purpose will be to figure out what to do with all those “gaps” – as in the stores that no other supermarket chain has interest in obtaining.

WHAT OTHER KINDS of businesses might be capable of using the structures for their purpose? Or, might be capable of coming in and using the land upon which those former Dominick’s stores are built?

The one thing that ought to be apparent is that we can’t just do nothing about the situation.

These kinds of gaps in a community can become a blot that spreads to a major hole going far beyond the lack of a supermarket nearby.

It’s also important because, while this task force is only concerned with the soon-to-be abandoned Dominick’s locations in Chicago, the way the city handles this issue will also impact the way surrounding suburbs will cope with their loss of a Dominick’s supermarket.

YOU’RE GOING TO have the public watching to see what becomes of their former Dominick’s, and you’re going to have suburban municipal officials taking their lead from this task force.

Which means this task force is going to face pressure. If it manages to screw things up, it is going to get ridicule on a level far above its mere dollar figures.

Because Dominick’s was a part of the Chicago character – one of the chains that for many decades dominated where we got our food from. What could be more important to some people than that?

There may be deals that would have a larger economic impact on Chicago than the replacement of supermarkets. But this is one of those deals that people will place undue attention to.

Will a vacant Dominick's be uglier than '13 baseball?

SO FOR THOSE city, organized labor and industry officials who will devote their coming weeks to figuring out how to replace the Dominick’s stores, they had better realize we, the public, will magnify the significance of their every screw up.

So they better not make any, or else they’ll become even more detested among Chicagoans than either the White Sox or Cubs are these days after the god-awful seasons they produced in ’13.

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Looking for a neighborhood market? Or is this just a political deal w/ payback?

By now, I’m sure anybody who cares has heard the “story” – the Whole Foods chain of supermarkets geared toward upscale items is planning to build a new store in the Englewood neighborhood (63^rd and Halsted streets, to be exact).

Will we soon see fliers like this on South Side?

Yes, the same Englewood that is one of the city’s lower-income neighborhoods – and often is the focal point of much of the urban violence that ideological idiots would have you think is taking place across all of Chicago.

THE PEOPLE WHO like the idea see the fact that people who live in that area have to go to some extremes in order to shop for groceries because of the fact that there really isn’t a full-scale supermarket in the area.

Those who hate the idea of Whole Foods say they don’t see the practicality of putting a food retailer whose image is centered around getting the business of upscale customers who want “elite” (allegedly) versions of products in a neighborhood where there would be higher percentages than usual of people relying on LINK cards.

Which, by the way, Whole Foods officials made a point of saying this week that they DO accept.

Personally, I find the latter attitude to be just a bit snotty – almost as though they’re saying certain people aren’t worthy of having a Whole Foods near them. These are the ones who’d rather have the Food4Less chain (an offshoot of the Kroger Co.), because it better fits their image of what Englewood “deserves.”

NONETHELESS, I’M SKEPTICAL over whether Whole Foods will gain much in the way of customer support when the store is finally built (right by the Kennedy-King College campus).

I actually live within a 10-minute drive of a Whole Foods store. Personally, it strikes me as the place where I might go occasionally to pick up a few specialty items if I’m planning to make a special dish or two.

They also do have some vegetable items in their produce section that aren’t readily stocked in the Jewel Foods store that is located one block from where I live.

But I can’t help but think that anybody who does all of their grocery shopping at a Whole Foods is someone so pretentious about themselves and wanting to buy into the store’s upscale image. They definitely have too much money to waste.

PERSONALLY, I WONDER what Whole Foods is getting out of the deal?

Although I couldn’t help but notice the Chicago Sun-Times story Thursday about the $10 million subsidy city government will provide Whole Foods to help prepare the site for store construction.

Municipal governments routinely offer up such deals to businesses of any size that want to locate within their boundaries. In and of itself, the subsidy isn’t unusual.

But it makes me wonder if the developers who are bringing Whole Foods to the Englewood neighborhood are counting on some sort of political good-will from city officials.

BRING THIS STORE to one of the city’s “food deserts” and help make it look as though the Emanuel Administration is doing something to benefit the inner-city to make it easier for its residents to shop for groceries (believe it or not, they eat too).

In return, it would seem that those developers can now call in a favor or two – perhaps some easier approval for a future project that they will want to build somewhere within Chicago.

So what do I really think about the concept of Whole Foods coming to Englewood? It would be nice if the store can help residents of that South Side neighborhood get access to better food. Maybe it could even help bolster the surrounding neighborhood.

But the political cynic in me can’t help but wonder about that payback. What future project will get greased through the system because of the Whole Foods willingness? And how much of a stinker will that future deal be?

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