Who will try to make bigger political hash of weekend incidents of violence?

One might try arguing that the protest march of last week to Wrigley Field was an over-blown event that didn’t live up to its hype. But then, we get weekends such as this past one that help underscore the serious problem that exists in parts of Chicago.

EMANUEL: Is it all his fault?

For this past weekend was one of many petty incidents that left people dead (12 in all) or wounded (71 gunshot victims). There was one six-hour period on Sunday when five of the fatalities occurred and 30 more were shot.

THE OVERALL TOTAL for the period from 5 p.m. Friday through 5 a.m. Monday is the 71 people shot – with 48 of those shootings occurring on Sunday. The so-called day of holiness, when we’re all supposed to rest (unless you’re Jewish, in which case it’s Saturday until sundown).

I’ve noticed that in recent stories, the emphasis is placed on the number of people who got shot – even though when I was a police reporter-type person, I usually focused on the number dead.

Which back then (the late 1980s) was an era when the homicide tally in Chicago usually came close to 1,000 per year. Trying to tally every person who got wounded would balloon the figure up to a ridiculous tally.

Although I suspect that’s what the people trying to use this issue for political purposes want to do. They probably want us to hear the number of people wounded, then make the assumption that it’s really the number dead. Former New York Mayor (and current Donald Trump apologist) Rudy Giuliani did just that in a series of Twitter tweets he sent out this weekend.

McCARTHY: Trying to bolster his campaign?

WHICH IF THEY were true would make this city a ridiculously violent place – instead of one that doesn’t even come close to leading the nation in a homicide rate.

Not that I’m trying to understate the problem. We do have parts of Chicago that are ridiculously violent, and the people whom life’s circumstances give them no other choice but to live in those neighborhoods, are enduring ridiculous conditions that no one ought to have to put up with.

But listening to the political people trying to use these figures to justify their own partisan rants strikes me as being even more vulgar than the fatalities themselves.

Garry McCarthy, the one-time Chicago Police superintendent who now is amongst the many running for mayor against Rahm Emanuel come next year’s election cycle, took his own pot shots.

GIULIANI: Bringing N.Y. to Chi?

HE CLAIMS EMANUEL’S efforts to improve urban life are ignoring the parts of the city where violence is the problem. Although I can’t help but think no one is going to take seriously this claim coming from McCarthy.

It may be true that those Black Lives Matter activists concerned about police brutality want Emanuel out! But those same activists also blame McCarthy’s police department for escalating their concerns. They’re certainly not about to want him to replace Rahm at City Hall.

McCarthy’s rants come off as trying to shift blame for a problem that escalated during the time he was police superintendent.

The fact that Giuliani (who was New York mayor back in the days when McCarthy was a New York Police Department official) is throwing in his own two cents merely makes the whole issue entirely partisan.

IT MAKES US wonder why Trump himself didn’t jump into the rants, since the man usually isn’t the least bit bashful about using his Twitter account to spew whatever nonsense happens to motivate him on any given day.

TRUMP: How long until he jumps into mix?

It also has us wondering how much any of these officials are really concerned about urban violence in Chicago.

Are they, on a certain level, thankful for weekends such as this past one; because it gives them something to complain about publicly with regards to Chicago? For McCarthy told the Chicago Sun-Times that he accused Emanuel of “mak(ing) everything a diversion” to avoid talking about crime. Listening to such rants makes me wonder if he’s just as guilty of diversionary tactics to focus entirely on this issue.

Although the sad part may be that, to a certain segment of Chicago, the most tragic death of the weekend is none of the above -- but instead that of the suburban Mundelein teenager who died Sunday night due to a seizure suffered while attending Lollapalooza.

  -30-

EXTRA: Now 56 shot, 11 dead, but I still say the 10-year-old most tragic

The Chicago Tribune felt compelled up update the story they published for Sunday with a Monday report telling us of more dead in the city this weekend. One of the deceased is an activist-type who had dedicated her life to trying to combat the problem of urban violence.

Although I still say the most tragic of the deaths is that of 10-year-old Gustavo Garcia, who was merely sitting in the back seat of an automobile when another car pulled up alongside and gunfire occurred.

  -30-

El vs. subway, rather than Sox vs. Yanks. What next? Pizza wars!

The New York Yankees made their annual trip to Chicago’s South Side last week, where they wound up splitting their four-game series against the White Sox. When combined with the two of three games the Yankees won earlier this season in New York, it makes for a 3-4 record the White Sox have for 2017.
 

Rahm smirk sell more papers than Christie carcass?

Not exactly an overpowering by the Bronx Bombers over our Sout’ Side Hit Men.

SO PERHAPS THAT was a factor that caused Noo Yawk types to get all worked up this week in their desire to take pot shots at Chicago; specifically, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the mass transit system we affectionately refer to as the “el.”

For it seems that on Monday, the New York Times published a commentary written by our mayor that took the attitude there were things that mass transit officials in New York could learn from Chicago.

It ran under the headline, In Chicago, the Trains Actually Run on Time and offered up a statistic that claimed 85 percent of us are satisfied with the way our trains and buses operate. Keep your Mussolini gag to yourself; Chicago trains and buses are fairly reliable and that is important for a mayor.

It also had Rahm saying the reason Chicago’s system isn’t confronted with the problems New York faces (Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week declared a state of emergency for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority) is because our officials emphasize “reliability ahead of expansion.”

IMPLYING THAT NEW York, which has the largest mass transit system in the nation (Chicago is second) has grown wild and out-of-control.

Yanks didn't administer Chgo beat-down, so other issues must occur

Of course, there were those greatly offended that a rube from outside of New York (actually, outside of Manhattan) would dare to know better about anything, That provoked the New York Daily News on Tuesday (a.k.a., Independence Day) to put Rahm on the front page of the paper.

A quarter century later, and CTA still going strong

The Daily News could have gone with front page photos of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s carcass sitting on a lawn chair on the public beach he had ordered closed to the public. But they thought Emanuel would sell more papers, running under the headline Dumb Track Mind and also reminding people, “AT LEAST our riders don’t get SHOT on the way home!”

Which means if there’s really a sense of cosmic justice or bad karma, there will be a shooting incident on board a subway car somewhere in the Bronx.

NOT THAT I’M hoping for such an incident. But for a newspaper that contends its provocative front page layouts are intended to sell papers for people who make an impulse purchase while walking by a newsstand or news box, I just can’t see where Rahm’s goofy smirk really does much to inspire New York news interest.

Besides, for all the things that people can complain about Chicago, one has to admit that our mass transit system does work fairly well – particularly when one considers how old it is.

Some 125 years, with parts of it dating back a century. The basic concept in moving large numbers of people around various parts of Chicago isn’t that radically different than the days when Al Capone was a living, breathing human being in these parts.

It also is one of the things I miss about life in the city proper, and why on those occasions when I return to Chicago proper I make a point of relying upon mass transit to move about.

ANYBODY WHO SERIOUSLY pays $35-40 to park their car for an hour or so in downtown Chicago is a fool. Our mass transit is one of the things our beloved Second City is doing right!

For what it’s worth, my guess is that this outburst (which Emanuel himself is managing to laugh off) is just the usual New York vs. Chicago rivalry; a holdover from when they really were the two largest cities in the country and where Chicago maintains a significance regardless of how much larger Los Angeles may ever become.

A hefty meal, and not junk food

Perhaps if the Yankees could have swept the four-game series against the White Sox, the need to dump on Chicago over mass transit might have been reduced.

Then again, we’ll always have pizza to quarrel over – particularly with those individuals who seriously look at those flimsy slices sold in Brooklyn and can’t see the superiority of something from Uno’s or Lou Malnati’s.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: As for the Daily News claim that Chicago is the "murder capital," these days St. Louis has the highest homicide rate in the nation, with some 60.37 slayings per 100,000 people compared to 18.6 for Chicago (and 7 for New York).

How will Michigan Avenue crowd respond to so visual homicide protest?

I remember a time some three decades ago when I covered a protest march in the District of Columbia – one that passed through the upscale Georgetown neighborhood.

PFLEGER: Leading 100s on 'invasion' of Mich. Ave.

To be honest, I don’t even remember what the “cause” was. But what stuck in my mind was the reaction of people who thought they were out for a good time Saturday night, only to find the sight of all these great unwashed peoples ruining their time.

I REMEMBER BECAUSE I tried to interview several people who were spectators; none of whom wanted to talk, all of whom seemed confused about the point and probably felt like their night out was spoiled.

This comes to my mind because I won’t be surprised if there’s a similar reaction to a protest march being planned for Saturday night – also known as New Year’s Eve.

For Rev. Michael Pfleger of the St. Sabina Catholic parish in the Auburn/Gresham neighborhood plans to come downtown Saturday. Although he’s not headed here in anticipation of consuming too much alcohol and doing a countdown early Sunday to the beginning of 2017.

If anything, his count will be up – and one that I’m sure he feels is going up too high. Although I suspect many of us are going to try to downplay its significance.

HIS ‘CAUSE’ RELATES to the homicide rate for Chicago during 2016. We won’t know until early next week what the final tally will be, but it would seem we’re going to have a higher rate than any year since 1997. We’re likely to have something like 760 to 770 people killed during this year due to urban violence.

Now I know in the past that I have mocked the people who are getting worked up over the homicide rate increase, primarily because I remember back some three decades ago (the late 1980s, to be exact) when the homicide rate for Chicago would fall just short of 1,000 people per year.

Although I have to concede that getting into the 700s (and having some naysayers way too eager to point out how close to 800 we are) is a problem we ought to be concerned about.

One death attributable to violence by another human being is a tragedy for the family impacted. Having so many hundreds of families having to endure these circumstances is truly embarrassing for our city.

PFLEGER PLANS TO try to illustrate the number with his protest march, which is to have people bearing two-foot-high crosses with the names of each victim – marching in a parade along Michigan Avenue. It’s going to be a visual sight – one that I’m sure will make many of the New Year’s partygoers feel a bit squeamish.

And probably will cause some to try to dismiss Pfleger in the way they usually do – just another loudmouthed troublemaker, and when is Cardinal Blasé Cupich going to get around to giving him the boot!?!

As though Pfleger is the problem because he points out what we ought to regard as the problem – but which too many of us ignore because there are large swaths of the city where urban violence isn’t a problem.

It becomes way too easy for people to think of the violence as something that doesn’t impact them, and most likely is something that only affects “those people” who just can’t learn to live like civilized human beings.

YET BEFORE ONE gets the impression that this is a diatribe, consider that many of the people who are eager to highlight the city’s homicide rate have their own political agenda – in many cases to make “those people” look bad in their own minds. Which makes it easier for them mentally to commit all kinds of impersonal actions against them.

Particularly when it comes to political activity – the oncoming era of the Trump presidency is going to be particularly harsh and the people most eager to see it happen are those of a certain racial perspective.

There are so many statistics and mathematical formulas that can make many other places appear to be more violent than Chicago – even though some will want to cite the lower tallies for New York and Los Angeles this year as some sort of be-all and end-all on the issue.

Which means the sight of all those crosses Saturday night are going to be something of a reality check – even though many of those who see them will probably try to convince themselves that it really didn’t happen. They just had too much to drink!

  -30-

A race ‘war’ by the cops? Or nonsense to attract attention to broadcaster?

WALSH: From back in his Congress days

Remember Joe Walsh? You ‘member.

He’s not the guitar player from the Eagles; he’s the guy whom the people of the northwest suburbs of Chicago got stuck with as their representation in Congress.

THE GUY WHO managed to get himself elected by Tea Party-type goofs in 2010 – only to be dumped two years later when Barack Obama’s re-election bid created momentum for his opponent?

Since then, Walsh has sort of been able to keep up his persona as a public person by hosting a radio talk show that would allow him to spout out whatever nonsense he could get people to listen to.

But it seems that Walsh is always in need of more attention – perhaps he doesn’t gain enough listeners to attract advertisers who’d make his programs actually worth paying attention to.

In that context, Walsh’s behavior this week makes sense. He’s talking trash because he needs the attention. He certainly isn’t making any sense.

WALSH, WHO LIKES to think he speaks on behalf of those conservative ideologues who can’t stand that anybody pays attention to anyone who isn’t exactly like them, took up the issue of the shootings Thursday night in Dallas – the one that seems to have resulted in the deaths of five city police officers.

Now is it bad that he’s decided to take up the cause of the cops? Not particularly.

 

OBAMA: Didn't praise police enough to appease Walsh

Although it is his choice of rhetoric he used while posting his thoughts on Twitter (whose outrageous-ness have since caused them to be removed) that make us wonder how desperate Walsh must be these days to gain attention for himself.

“This is now war. Watch out Obama,” wrote Walsh, in implying that the president’s comments of support for the Dallas police weren’t supportive enough.

“WATCH OUT BLACK lives matters punks. Real America is coming after you,” he wrote.

For it seems that Walsh is one of those people who thinks all the incidents of recent years where police committed racially-inspired violence against black people was somehow justified.

 

Would Walsh have found this image subversive

But one act where a law enforcement type wound up getting hurt – that was the moment of outrage. The one that will justify turning the police loose to defend themselves against the barbarians who threaten to overrun our society unless we deal with them first.

Just writing that rant gave me a headache. It is so nonsensical. And from the perspective of those people inclined to want to think of war, it is one that was declared many generations ago by law enforcement itself. When it behaves in ways that make us think they view themselves as our government’s thugs; the muscle it uses to keep people in line.

WALSH’S RANT MAKES me think he’s just the descendant of those kind of people whom some 50 years ago would have been complaining about the racist Black Panther Party types who talked of the need for black people to defend themselves against law enforcement types who occasionally turned out to be Klan members or other white supremacists hiding behind the shields of the badges they wore.

If one thinks about what it is that Walsh is saying, they’d have to realize he’s speaking on behalf of the people who ARE the problem – particularly if they think the solution somehow entails themselves “coming after” the people they disagree with.

Which is why it makes more sense to think of this rant as nothing more than a cheap stunt meant to gain some attention to the aspiring radio host who perhaps hopes his thoughts will attract more listeners.

Although to tell you the truth, I think I have more respect for broadcasters like Mancow Muller or Howard Stern and the nonsensical stunts they have engaged in throughout the years to gain listener attention.

PARTICULARLY THE TIME when Muller tried to claim that “waterboarding” as a form of torture wasn’t really so bad. It kind of makes me wish we could do something similar to Walsh.

Although I suspect the biggest harm we could do to him would be to simply ignore his broadcasts altogether.

  -30-

Chicago homicides at a low in my life; so much for cheap partisan rhetoric

I’ve made it clear before that I’m not among those all hyped up about the rising homicide rate in Chicago – which in 2012 did experience a jolt upward but was far from being anywhere close to a record for urban violence.

So the fact that things seem to have returned to the norm in the now-completed year of 2013 ought to be seen as a plus. The New York Times on Wednesday reported there were 417 homicides in Chicago through Monday.

THERE WERE A couple more on Tuesday, with the final incident in 2013 resulting in a human death being a shooting outside of a store in the Englewood neighborhood. Although the rule of thumb for putting together a homicide tally for the year is that it matters when an incident occurs – not when the person is pronounced dead.

Which means by the end of the week, there could be a few more people added onto the list About 420 slayings for 2013 is the most accurate figure that we can give now. It's an educated guess.

Which, according to the Chicago Tribune means this year will probably go down in the books as being the lowest homicide total since 1965 – the year of my birth.

I’m pushing close to 50 (another year and a half) and this could turn out to be the safest the city has ever been.

ALL THAT MAY well be true. But I’m also realistic enough to know that none of this statistical spin means anything if you’re of the parts of Chicago that are getting hit with the bulk of this violent activity.

And if you’re of a family whose members included one of the approximately 420 deceased, I’m sure it doesn’t matter at all that this is a low – or that 2012 with its 503 homicides was an aberration!

Or that we used to have 900-plus homicides per year in the city back in the late 1980s-early 1990s. It is an era I particularly remember because it is when I regularly wrote about cop-shop stuff for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago. There are still intersections across the city that, in my mind, jolt memories of 26-year-old slayings that too many others have long forgotten.

Englewood ought to warrant our attention

It may well be appropriate that the final violent incident of 2013 occurred around 71^st Street and Vincennes Avenue outside of one of those neighborhood markets that no one outside of Englewood would ever think of shopping at.

MANY OF US wouldn’t even pay attention to this particular incident because of the neighborhood it occurred in.

And those with Englewood ties have probably become so immune to the violence that the masses don’t give a thought to that the only reason the death of 26-year-old Vincent Rogers will be noted was because it occurred with about three-and-a-half hours before Janet Davies could mark the end of 2013 along State Street.

It should also be noted that the urban violence continues even though ’13 is through. The Chicago Tribune reported about shootings in the Fernwood and Park Manor neighborhoods on the South Side.

Four were wounded – although in those cases, the gunmen were Chicago Police patrolmen responding to incidents of shots fired in the neighborhoods.

SO AS WE move forward into ’14 (the holiday’s over – even though I realize there are those who think they’re entitled to do nothing on the job until Monday), we should give a thought about the degree to which we accept violent crimes as part of the status quo.

We as a whole have to take a harsher attitude toward the situation, and not ignore it just because it might not impact our specific home neighborhood.

But more important, going on and on about violence in Chicago just to score cheap political points for someone’s “cause” is even more reprehensible.

Particularly because it tries to make a point that is just factually inaccurate!

  -30-

French don’t think much of non-touristy areas. Do Chicagoans think any higher?

Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined the ranks of those people who want to tell the French government to “stuff it” with their objections to large swaths of our wonderful home city.


Oh, be quiet!

Yet a part of me can’t help but think there are people amongst us who ought to stifle themselves with their own objections. Because the French official stance toward Chicago isn’t really any different than what is often expressed by our own residents.

THE WHOLE MATTER became public when the Washington Post reported about the guidelines the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues to French citizens who travel abroad.

When it comes to Chicago, it advises French tourists that they should avoid everything about the West Side, or anything south of 59^th Street on the South Side.

If you must know the truth, the only part of that assessment that surprises me is that the French didn’t advise their citizens to avoid everything south of Roosevelt Road!

The French ministry didn’t give specific reasons for avoiding those areas. Although I’d suspect the overabundance of African-American people who live in those neighborhoods to the west and to the south make them think there just isn’t much for tourists to see.

BECAUSE THE PLACES in Chicago that promote themselves as attractions people from around the world ought to go to tend to be congregated along the northern stretch of the city’s Lake Michigan border.

It can be very easy to think that nothing of interest exists to the south or west (even if the reality is that those are the oldest neighborhoods of Chicago, they’re where the heart of the city lies).

It certainly is an attitude that gets expressed all too often by people promoting our own city. And if you think I’m exaggerating, just check out some of the Internet commentary on this issue where countless numbers of people (anonymous, of course) are saying they agree with the French.

EMANUEL: Weak defense against French attack

They’re the same types who point out that the United States has its own travel guidelines advising – amongst other things – that people don’t travel to Ciudad Juarez along the U.S./Mexico border while MISINTERPRETING it to mean that they shouldn’t travel to anywhere in Mexico!

BE HONEST. THERE are those north lakefront neighborhoods filled with younger people who came to Chicago so they could claim to be “urban” who never venture outside of their particular neighborhoods – and who then insist on moving OUT of Chicago once their kids hit the age of 5 (because they don’t want to be involved with the Chicago Public Schools).

Personally, I’m by birth from the land where the eastern boundary isn’t Lake Michigan, but State Line Road. Down in the 10^th Ward, the locals are used to having the rest of Chicago forget we exist.

Or perhaps we’re just buried under all those mounds of petcoke that are accumulating along the Calumet River – and having their dust blown about to make mess of the environment.

Regardless, we’re talking about some areas that have done little to tout their perks and bits of interest that ought to attract the curious from amongst us around the world. And not just the sights in the South Chicago neighborhood that served as background scenes (the 95^th Street Bridge, anybody?) in “The Blues Brothers” film.

HOW MANY TIMES can we check out the Water Tower? Or venture to the top of the Willis Tower – and claim we saw the whole of the South and West sides from that glass ledge that allows one to look straight down from more than 100 stories in the sky?

A cinematic moment 1/3 century ago

So listening to Emanuel say, “Don’t get me started on what I think of the French,” it comes out as outrage reeking from a touch of phoniness. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many of the people who voted for him two years ago are the same people who never venture to the South or West within Chicago.

And as for the French, I’d tell them to stuff it! Because they won’t have a clue about Chicago if they merely go to Wrigley Field and don’t check out the one-time Pullman Rail Car Co. remains – the site that Emanuel himself touted.

After they check it out, they can venture over to the South Deering neighborhood for a lunch at Hienie’s – which has one of the most intriguing hot sauces for its fried food that one will ever experience.

  -30-

 

EXTRA: If we have to have a piece of New York, couldn’t it be the Yankees?

I don’t hate New York. It is an intriguing city unlike any other place in this country, and I think people who have hang-ups about the city are being ridiculously provincial.

BLOOMBERG: Wants a Daley

But I have to confess to finding it annoying that a couple of New York personas feel the need to get involved in the local affairs of Chicago.

NEW YORK MAYOR Michael Bloomberg is getting involved in our state’s election for governor in 2014. It seems he’s offering up support for the gubernatorial aspirations of William Daley.

As though a Daley didn’t have enough advantages, he may also wind up getting financial support from the campaign committee controlled by Bloomberg – whose help was a significant factor in allowing former state legislator Robin Kelly to emerge from a crowded pack of candidates to become the new Congresswoman from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs.

If that isn’t enough to try to put us in a New York frame of mind, long-time activist Al Sharpton says he plans to move to Chicago later this year. Not permanently, just a few months.

Similar to how civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., lived on the West Side for a few months in 1966 to try to draw attention to the racial tensions that existed in Chicago.

ODDLY ENOUGH, BOTH Sharpton and Bloomberg are motivated by the same issue – the level of violence that has arisen in Chicago.

I’ll be the first to say (and in fact have written several times) that I believe many people are letting their paranoia get the best of them. Or else they’re willing to exaggerate what is really happening in Chicago to suit their own ideological beliefs.

Which, when you come down to it, is what both Bloomberg and Sharpton are doing as well.

SHARPTON: Rev. King, the sequel?

The Rev. Al says he will rent an apartment come September, and work with the Greater St. John Bible Church. He wants to get into the neighborhoods and try to make change.

WHICH IS A noble goal. But not one that I think can be accomplished by someone moving in for a few weeks come autumn. Because we should be honest. By the time we get our first snowfall of 2013-14 winter, he’ll be back in the Bronx.

By comparison, Bloomberg wants to get in on the urban violence level from the top!

He gave Daley a video to be released that says the brother and son of former Chicago mayors is best for supporting restrictions on firearms and their use.

Although that aspect sounds more like Daley trying to undermine Gov. Pat Quinn – who on Tuesday was to make changes to the law permitting people to carry firearms concealed on their person for self-defense.

PURE POLITICKING. THEN again, Daley is as aspiring politician – even though his resume holds no elective offices; just appointed positions.

More interesting than Chgo baseball

All of this has me wondering what New York persona will next feel the need to come to Chicago. Not that I mind them visiting our wonderful city – so long as they don’t try to view us as some sort of battleground for their own New York aspirations with our interests and concerns coming in second to those of the five boroughs.

Which is what the case appears to be here – Bloomberg and Sharpton are trying to bolster their strength back home while on our turf. Whether our situation improves is only secondary.

If New York really has to give us something, why couldn’t it be the Yankees? Or at least the spirit that the Yankees have shown this season in managing a winning record despite suffering so many injuries that you’d have expected them to play as poorly this season as either of our city’s ball clubs.

  -30-

Which “trend” is the truth?

It was just last week that the New York Times felt compelled to put above the fold on its front page a detailed story about how the murder rate for Chicago was on the decline.

What a difference a week makes

“Chicago Tactics Put Major Dent in Killing Trend,” was among All the News that was Fit to Print; as The Times reported how murder was down by 34 percent compared to a year earlier.

AS OF JUNE 9, there had been 146 people killed in Chicago – 76 fewer than in 2012 and 16 fewer than in 2011.

So what should we now think after this past weekend; when nearly four dozen people were killed or wounded in various incidents around the city. Of course, two of those incidents (three, if you want to extend the “weekend” back to Friday morning) involved people who were shot to death by police officers. It may be possible to excuse those.

Particularly in the case of one 15-year-old, who allegedly was carrying two pistols when police perceived him as enough of a threat to take his life.

But that’s still a lot of bloodshed to take place during a two-day period – particularly since the temperatures didn’t exactly skyrocket to record-high levels.

IT CAN’T BE blamed on the excessive heat that people were losing their tempers and reaching for those weapons they had access to and did something stupid before they could think twice!

But it literally just becomes one of those “realities” about urban life that too many of us become immune to.

Because while the Chicago Sun-Times proclaimed this past weekend to be the “… city’s most violent weekend in 2013,” it is far from any kind of Chicago record for violence.

I have a tough time taking seriously much of the rhetoric about how violent Chicago has become in recent years – mainly because I remember back to my own days of being a full-time crime reporter for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago.

THOSE WERE THE days when the number of murders each year would average out to about two-and-a-half per day.

It didn’t mean that we literally had that number each day. Some days would go by without killing. But then, you’d get the crazed weekends of summer or whenever something else odd occurred to tick people off that that lost control of themselves. That would inspire the stories in the Monday newspapers about how some two dozen people were dead from various incidents of stupidity that occurred in the inner-city neighborhoods.

By comparison, the number of slayings taking place this year (at the rate we’re going now) will probably come to somewhere around 400. Just over one per day, on average. With the occasional stupid weekend ballooning the number of incidents.

I’m not trying to downplay the personal tragedy of the losses of life of those roughly 400 people. For their survivors, it will be a loss that they likely will never recover from.

BUT LET’S BE honest. Most of the people who are ranting and raging the loudest about all of this could care less about those individuals.

I’ve read and heard too much political punditry about how this “skyrocketing” crime problem is going to be what “takes down” Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It’s going to be the evidence that shows just how far he has lost control of his city.

Nonsense!!!

EMANUEL: Blame Rahm! That's what this is about

Too many of us are immune to feeling anything about this, because we want to believe it doesn’t happen in our particular neighborhood.

OR PERHAPS THEY’LL take that 15-year-old who was packing a pair of pistols and will try to claim he brought it on himself. And also try to claim that those wacky New Yorkers were somehow premature and clueless when they wrote what they did -- which was more truthful than any quickie image we got on Monday.

The point being that these people are more interested in having something to gripe and grouse about; rather than doing anything to seriously try to solve the problems that lead to certain neighborhoods being more susceptible to violence than others.

  -30-

Those random moments of life

I read stories such as the Sunday morning account of a shooting incident in the Marquette Park neighborhood caused by a driver who double-parked his car and left other vehicles trapped and I wonder when it will be my turn to be impacted by one of life’s random moments.

A stupid incident nearby results in gunfire

Because it is at times like this that I feel lucky in life. None of the stupid, trivial incidents that could have encountered me turned into anyone’s overly-violent temper tantrum!

IT IS THESE moments that ought to remind us how much we should enjoy our lives while we have them. Because something absurd could always happen.

There doesn’t have to be a legitimate reason why someone gets hurt. It literally can be “just because.”

Take the incident that occurred around 71^st Street and Maplewood Avenue early Sunday. According to the Chicago Tribune, the incident involved a car with two men inside who were upset that another car had parked alongside it.

Witnesses told the newspaper that there was some room and the driver who felt trapped probably could have driven alongside it, then out into the street. Words were exchanged, and after the car managed to get by, the driver felt the need to get out of the car and walk back a few feet.

AT WHICH POINT the handgun came out and the shot was fired.

The man who was shot was “walking, talking, breathing, living,” police told the Tribune. He was eventually taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in suburban Oak Lawn.

As for the person who was shot, he was from DeKalb, and was in the Marquette Park neighborhood to attend a birthday celebration of a relative who lived on the block.

Now if I wanted, I could turn this into a diatribe about concealed carry. The problem I have with the idea of more people packing pistols on their person is the potential for someone with a temper (particularly someone who thinks they need that weapon to defend themselves at all times) to get stupid amongst the rest of us.

BUT THAT’S ACTUALLY a lesser point.

I’m more bothered by the randomness of the event – since I suspect no one who was in the neighborhood was “out to get” anyone. This really was a matter of tempers flaring, and someone getting hurt as a result.

Any one variance in this event, and perhaps that pistol wouldn’t have been reached for at all.

It reminds me of an incident a quarter of a century ago, back when I worked at the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago. There was a year when I was on the overnight shift (you should see the Medical Examiner’s office at 5 a.m.), and on this particular day I was finishing my shift.

IT WAS ABOUT 9 a.m., and I had my car parked on lower Wacker Drive near the old City News offices at Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue.

I got into my car, started the ignition and wanted to back out of the space I was parked in. At that moment, another car had just passed me. The driver saw I was pulling out, and she decided she wanted to back up a bit so she could take the parking spot once I vacated it.

The problem was that another car was right behind her, and THAT driver saw me wanting to leave. He decided (rightfully so, as far as I’m concerned) that the spot would be his.

Soon enough, I had these two people shouting at each other. Verbal violence being spewed all over the place. And I was potentially right in the crossfire.

BECAUSE OF THE way their vehicles were positioned, I was trapped. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t leave.

It wound up taking a couple of officers in a squad car that just happened to pass by to get these people calm enough for one of them (I don’t remember which one) to move their car just enough so that I could get out.

It could have ended not far from here!

What would have happened if one of them had lost their temper? I would hate to think my life would have ended on lower Wacker Drive at age 22 with a tiny, long-forgotten story on the City News “wire.”

Then again, my fellow reporters probably would have seen how stupid the incident inherently was, and would have “cheaped” me out – as in not worth writing much about.

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Obama vs Dart – who’s the focal point as Chicago copes w/ urban violence

First Lady Michelle Obama was in Chicago this past weekend; partaking in the public mourning for Hadiya Pendleton – the teenager who has become the symbol for innocent victims getting caught in the crossfire of urban violence.

OBAMA: The "big" gun, so to speak

She met with the family, and tried to create the impression that the president himself hasn’t forgotten his home city of the past three decades. He cares!

THAT’S PROBABLY WHY Obama himself plans to be in Chicago on Friday. Just three days after he gives the State of the Union address (with Hadiya’s mother, Cleopatra, expected to be present in Washington), Obama will be present in Chicago to give a State of the City, so to speak.

It will be interesting to see if Obama merely reiterates his recent rhetoric of the need for stricter laws concerning firearms – particularly when it comes to weapons with magazines that hold dozens of rounds of ammunition at a time.

Or will he come up with something genuinely relevant to Chicago? While the firearms restrictions might be a legitimate point, the fact is that they are a divisive issue. Keeping the focus there might solely turn Hadiya Pendleton’s smiling face into some sort of symbol that the conservative ideologues will demonize.

They’ll probably argue that if Pendleton could have had some sort of weapon, she could have shot at her attacker (even though that attacker likely wasn’t within clear sight of the girl).

BUT THIS IS a case where I’m not sure Obama is the official who needs to be most active. I realize that the South Side activist types have been crying and whining for days that Obama needs to be a physical presence in Chicago to counter the violent images, and that this visit on Friday will go a long way toward appeasing them.

But when Obama is in Chicago that day, I’m wondering if more significant activity will be taking place in Gary, Ind.

DART: Getting overshadowed?

That is where Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says he plans to be on that day. What he says he hopes to accomplish is some sort of meeting with law enforcement officials.

Because while many Indiana residents like to denigrate Chicago and Illinois by claiming we’re a violent cesspool, Illinois people like to think that all the firearms being used for this violence are coming from Indiana.

SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE THE Hoosier state has lesser restrictions on actually purchasing a weapon – making it possible for people to legally buy a weapon there, then surreptitiously allow them to “fall into” the hands of people who could not legally get a weapon.

Dart’s office uses the statistic from the University of Chicago Crime Lab that 20 percent of all firearms seized by Chicago Police since 2008 could be traced back specifically to Indiana.

I’m not saying that’s true or false. There probably is an element of legitimacy to it – yet I also realize that a statistic can be found to verify the legitimacy of just about anything that someone wants to believe.

The idea that law enforcement officials in both states are ignoring the tendency to blame each other, and are actually getting together to possibly work on the problem is something of significance.

PERHAPS MORE SIGNIFICANT than the idea of the president making an address that will get public attention for a few seconds – until the news cycle spins on and we become more concerned about whether or not the Chicago Bulls will actually matter this season!

Personally, I’m interested to see the public reaction to the dueling events.

For the Associated Press reported that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy were invited by Dart to join him in Gary in meeting with that city’s police chief, Wade Ingram, and Lake County Sheriff John Buncich.

Why do I have a hard time envisioning Obama’s former chief of staff venturing to Gary to be with Dart when the president himself is in town? And why do I suspect he won’t be alone – in that a lot of people will be lured into the pomp and circumstance of the president rather than substance?

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