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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Ever-changing scene that is Chicago

This is most definitely a scene from Chicago’s past.

Chicago's appearance is ever-changing. Photograph by Chuckman's Chicago Nostalgia

This particular photograph depicts what used to be in terms of the proximity of our city’s newspapers being published so close to each other.

THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS the old Field Enterprises building that housed the Chicago Sun-Times until they sold it off about a decade ago to Donald Trump – who erected that ugly tower that looms over downtown Chicago in an ominous fashion.

Which is particularly notable because people used to become amateur architectural critics in bashing about the old Sun-Times building (it looked like a barge or garbage scowl, they’d say).

It seems Trump has come up with something even more despised in appearance than the old Sun-Times building.

To the right, just the other side of the Wrigley Building that Frank Sinatra made reference to in his unofficial city anthem, “My Kind of Town, Chicago Is,” is the Tribune Tower.

THAT EDIFICE ERECTED back in the mid-1920s from which Col. Robert R. McCormick ruled his newspaper empire and his vision that “Chicagoland” (stretching from Detroit to Kansas City) was a unique version of our nation that made far more sense than anything occurring on any coastal point of the United States.

Tribune's new home come '18. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

It used to be from these points about one block apart along the Chicago River that our city’s two major newspapers (and as you can see from this particular photograph, the Chicago Daily News was part of the mix as well) did their part to help create the character of our city – for better or for worse.

Soon, it’s only going to be a memory that either newspaper was ever in such a prominent place along the riverfront.

The Sun-Times, of course, moved a few blocks west along the river several years ago to the building that was the annex to the Merchandise Mart. Even that building is becoming history.

THIS WEEKEND IS when the newspaper is leaving the location for a site in the West Loop. At 30. N. Racine Ave., they’ll be out of downtown altogether.

What will become of Alamo, Comiskey Park bricks?

While the Chicago Tribune reported Friday that they, too, are leaving a riverfront site. As part of the many actions of corporate restructuring, they sold their nearly century-old building to a Los Angeles developer who envisions turning the tower on Michigan Avenue into retail and luxury residences.

The newspaper confirmed they’ll be moving sometime early in 2018.

They will be relocating to the Prudential Building – which may be just a few blocks south of the Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue. Which could give their newsroom a prime site overlooking the Millennium Park.

BUT I CAN’T help but think that the Chicago River is going to be a little less active with two such prominent residents moving away from their riverfront locations. Even though I understand that riverfront land is so precious and valued from a real estate standing that it probably makes more sense to sell it off and take the money – rather than use it for newsroom space.

One other thing does amuse me about this particular photograph. Notice off in the background that the Hancock Center building is under construction. Which means if one had turned around and looked to the south, the Sears Tower would be non-existent. Chicago’s “twin” towers (only Trump thinks Chicago has three towers, with his building completing the trio) were not yet to be.

Lake St. location won't be the same as Lower Michigan Ave.

I do have one question, though. That is the main site of the famed Billy Goat Tavern, which used to draw a significant share of its business from reporter-type people (I myself have had too many drinks there throughout the years, although it has been a couple since I last ventured to Lower Michigan Avenue) for a “cheezbugga” and a beer) from its proximity between the two newspaper buildings.

Now, that clientele will be gone. Where will they move to, to ensure their future in 21^st Century Chicago?

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EXTRA: Degrees of boorish behavior? or, Are we still acting like high school?

Let’s be honest. When now-Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., groped that broadcaster by her breasts (and had someone take a picture of the moment), he was being a boor.

FRANKEN: A first-class boor?

That was just tacky, acting as though he were in a frat house with a girl who passed out from too much liquor consumption. LeeAnn Tweeden, the woman who didn’t realize at the time what was being done to her, is justifiably p-o’ed.

SHE’D BE JUSTIFIED if she were to walk up to Franken and give him a smack across the jaw. Or maybe a knee to the groin!

But for those people who are trying to use this incident as a way of downplaying the significance of the Senate candidate from Alabama, that’s just disgusting. The fact that President Donald J. Trump himself is going out of his way to bash Franken while saying as little as possible against Roy Moore merely shows just how ridiculous such a stance is.

The fact is that they’re two separate issues. LeeAnn Tweeden has every right to be upset about her encounter with Franken just over a decade ago when both were participants on a USO tour in Afghanistan and the now-senator (then former Saturday Night Live entertainer) used the moment to get kisses she otherwise wouldn’t have given him – and that moment later when she was asleep and got “felt up” by Franken.

I’m inclined to believe Franken’s claim that he thought it was a “funny” thing to do. Although in retrospect, it was more tacky than humorous.

MOORE: Should have known better

BUT MOORE’S BEHAVIOR with teenage girls, particularly the one who was only 14 at the time of the incident nearly 40 years ago, is much more despicable. And the fact that Alabama state law thinks there are circumstances in which girls as young as 12 can consent to sexual behavior doesn’t make it any less creepy.

By comparison, Tweeden is now 44, which would have put her in her early 30s at the time of the incident. She has a right to be upset. But she was capable of defending herself in a way the 14-year-old wasn't.

Moore, who at the time was a criminal prosecutor and most definitely should have known better, did something more repulsive – even though some of those of Republican partisan leanings seem to want to believe that Moore is somehow forgivable whereas Franken needs to have the long arm of the law sicc’ed on him.

Is title why some think Franken worse?

Seriously, some want Al prosecuted (at the very least, Sens. Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Illinois Democrats, are getting calls by GOPers to give away any campaign money Franken ever helped them raise), whereas they make excuses as to why talking about "statutory rape" with regards to Moore is wrong!

PERHAPS IT IS because they have read the reports of Moore’s actual actions with the 14-year-old girl. One such report indicates he undressed her to her underwear, then groped her. Almost like a stumbling teenage boy who doesn’t really have a clue what he’s doing when with a real-live girl!

Does that make him the equivalent of a teenager at heart? Which ought to bring up the question of whether he’s mature enough to be a public official.

Then again, Franken’s behavior is reminiscent of those moments when I was in junior high school when we thought the most awesome thing to do to a girl is pull through her blouse on her bra straps.

Which may be the ultimate problem – too many people behaving in boorish ways that you’d have thought they’d have given up on after leaving the halls of high school. For those of us with sense, we realize that was the moment real life began.

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Cards Against Humanity has right smart-aleck attitude toward border wall

I must confess that until Thursday, I had never heard of Cards Against Humanity – a game put together by a company that seems to have a smart-alecked approach to viewing life.

 

Trump's border wall the target of Chgo co.

Which is also why the company likes to engage in attention-seeking gags to promote itself. Their latest gag is one whose spirit I totally approve of, makes me totally pleased to be able to say this company is based out of our very own home city of Chicago.

WHICH IS PROBABLY all the more reason that President Donald J. Trump will denigrate the Second City’s reputation, but may be the ultimate proof that our president is a poo-head when it comes to so many issues.

Specifically, the company is taking a stance against one of the issues that Trump made a priority during his election cycle. Immigration reform, or the refusal to do anything with it.

More specifically, instead of trying to eradicate the bureaucratic entanglements of our current immigration policy, he’s touting construction of that wall along the more-than-1,900 miles of border that separate the United States from Mexico.

Most of which is fairly uncrossable desert. But hey, Trump wants to say he built something that’s going to keep those friggin’ foreigners out of this country. Even though construction of a wall is likely the most inefficient thing one could do to keep people from entering this country at its southwest border

WHICH IS WHERE Cards Against Humanity comes in. The company says it wants to purchase a plot of land right on the U.S./Mexico border – and will refuse to cooperate with plans to use its land to let the border wall be built.

Admittedly, there are ways the government can seize land if it can argue that a project is of sufficient merit that one’s personal property rights should not be allowed to stand in the way!

But that does involve the courts and having to work one’s way through the legal process. The company, which won’t say where exactly out in the deserts of the southwest it is buying a plot of land, does say it will retain attorneys who are used to fighting such cases.

Trump's border wall bears too much resemblance to Berlin Wall of old

They’re prepared to drag this out in the courts so as to make the entire process a miserable ordeal for all involved.

WHO KNOWS? THEORETICALLY, the case could drag on so long that Trump won’t even be president any longer when it finally is resolved. Which means a future president of significantly more common sense (be honest, ANYBODY who gets elected will have more sense than Trump) will wind up trashing the border wall project.

The company, if it follows through with its threats to become a pain in the behind on this issue, will wind up performing a significant public service.

Since there is no such thing as a physical barricade that cannot be circumvented. This wall is literally a waste of money, and could wind up becoming an even more significant embarrassment than the Berlin Wall ever was!

It will be nice to know that such a project thwarting the embarrassment from becoming reality will have its very own Chicago tie.

Trump more a Frankenstein ...

I ALSO HAVE to admit to enjoying the company’s comment justifying their action, saying, “Donald Trump is a preposterous golem who is afraid of Mexicans.”

Those of us who remember “The Sopranos” will remember that episode where Shlomo Teittleman, owner of the Fly Away Motel, winds up denouncing Tony Soprano as such when Tony extorts him for a large share of the motel’s control.

... or a Gossamer?

For those who don’t remember, a “golem” is a “Frankenstein-type monster.”

Although that brings up the issue of whether Trump, with the puffy hairdo and orange tint his skin has taken on in recent years, is too ridiculous-looking to be a Frankenstein and is more like a Gossamer – the old Looney Toons character.

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When Pritzker finally releases tax returns, will many comprehend them?

It has become the issue that won’t die, even though I wonder how many people truly care.

PRITZKER: Will we comprehend his wealth?

That is, the public disclosure of one’s income tax returns – as in candidates for government office releasing for public disclosure copies of the tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service and Illinois Department of Revenue.

MANY POLITICAL OFFICIALS make a point of letting their returns become public right around Tax Day. It’s usually an attempt by government officials to show some sense of normality about their lives – something they have in common with those of us who comprise the electorate and decide who we want in office.

But in this era of excessively (or is that obscenely?) wealthy people running for office, the very issue of making details of one’s finances public has become the equivalent of classified information.

Donald Trump is most famous for this – what with the way he went through the 2016 election cycle without ever letting the public know just how wealthy he is (he says his returns are “too confusing” for us mere mortals to comprehend).

But I can’t help but be amused by the way the Illinois Republican Party has repeatedly pointed out the degree to which Democratic gubernatorial hopeful J.B. Pritzker has yet to release his tax returns.

TRUMP: He started non-disclosure issue

THE PEOPLE WHO likely would be the first to defend Trump’s “right” to privacy are claiming that Pritzker is hiding something from us. Heck, even Democrat Daniel Biss’ long-shot gubernatorial campaign is starting to try to use the issue against Pritzker.

Personally, what I take from that behavior is that Biss isn’t a loyal team player, insofar as the Democratic Party is concerned.

But the way some people are determined to keep this issue alive truly makes me wonder if they just don’t have anything else they can complain about.

RAUNER: Will he trash J.B. after saying little on Trump?

Seriously, it amuses me the way Illinois Republican operatives seem capable of working this tax return issue against Pritzker on just about every issue. Somehow, they always seem to find a way to bring the talk back around to that.

EVEN IN CASES where it is completely irrelevant and the fact they bring it up reflects more poorly upon them than it ever could on Pritzker.

For what it’s worth, Pritzker campaign aides tell the Chicago Tribune they plan to make the disclosure later this year when they file his financial disclosure forms along with nominating petitions to formally get him on the ballot for the March 20 primary elections.

That means some time about Dec. 4, we could finally get to see just how wealthy Pritzker is – and how much of the Pritzker family fortune he has a piece of. The sad thing is that a part of me wonders if Trump is correct when he talks about “too confusing.”

I wonder how many those of us whose own finances don’t come anywhere near the complexity of trying to legally hide income in obscure places so as to reduce one’s tax burden so significantly will be truly capable of appreciating the Pritzker info?

PERSONALLY, I THINK that what we’d learn about Trump if we ever get public disclosure is just how little in taxes he pays, relative to his overall income. While complaining that the wealthy are being overtaxed, and in need of even more relief.

BISS: Dem willing to use issue against J.B.

Who knows what we’d learn about J.B. Or even care much. Most of us would probably need a "Cliff's Notes"-type version in order to comprehend exactly what Pritzker is worth.

If anything, this is an issue where prompt disclosure probably is best. Dump the raw info that many won’t comprehend, and you erase the issue of non-disclosure. Most won’t care enough to study the details.

And as for those who get obsessive over studying the details, it’s more than likely that the masses will dismiss them as being geeky. It’s like political people draw more attention to the issue with non-disclosure than the masses would give it otherwise.

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N.Y. vs. Chgo – Pizza Wars?

It was earlier this summer that we got a dose of good ol’ fashioned Chicago vs. New York brawling when Mayor Rahm Emanuel dared to suggest that Noo Yawkers could learn a lesson or two about mass transit from our very own elevated train system.

A real pizza cut

 

Now, we’re getting another dose of the alleged Big Apple getting all touchy about the Second City – for someone suggesting that Chicago-area variations on pizza are superior to any of those overly greasy slices you buy in New York and that the locals think it’s a big deal that you fold them in half before eating them.

THE LATEST HISSY fit came about when New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press secretary insisted on using his Twitter account to post missives proclaiming the superiority of Chicago takes on pizza – specifically the pepperoni pies served at Pequod’s Pizza.

“This is the best pizza in the United States and it’s not close,” the press secretary said this weekend.

Now personally, I’ve never had pizza from Pequod’s. I don’t have a clue whether it’s any good. This may be an instance of a press flack telling the truth (or exaggerating its merits).

The latter being something that political press people often have to do.

BUT THE NEW York Post – the newspaper that once famously felt the need to report that Donald Trump gave his mistress “the best sex (she) ever had – got itself all up-in-arms about this claim, saying of Pequod’s that it was “an amorphous pile of pepperoni and sauce that is purportedly a pie.”

 

1932 may have had a historic baseball moment ...

So now, Chicago and New York and quibble over where one finds the best pizza.

My own opinion is that the concepts of stuffed pizza or deep dish pizza (which aren’t technically the same thing, even though many people erroneously believe they are) are a completely different dish from various types of thin-crust pizza.

Trying to compare them and say which is best is like trying to compare a plate of lasagna with corned beef and cabbage. Differing concepts altogether.

A ‘PAN’ PIZZA is a meal. Yes, you eat it with a knife and fork (only uncivilized types would think otherwise). Thin-crust is junk food. It can be a snack. But thinking of it as a meal is like someone thinking they’re getting significant nutritional value from McDonald’s.

...but 1917 had better Chicago outcome

It just ain’t so.

Now if we want to compare differing types of thin pizza, that’s a whole ‘nuther issue. Although when it comes to comparing thin-crust pizza, the real question is whether it should be cut into triangular slices, or the so-called “party style” cut of squares that supposedly is a Chicago creation from its origins as bar food you eat while the tavern owner sells you as many over-priced beers or other alcoholic beverages as he can before your wallet is cleared out of cash.

On that ground, I argue for the squares.

IT’S JUST SO much easier to handle, and I’ll admit to always finding it somewhat amusing to get one of those dinky corner pieces that is all crust. I usually snatch one up before getting into the more substantive pieces.

And yes, it is a total violation of pizza-eating etiquette to be one of those piggish people who refuses to take any slices with crust and eat up all the middle pieces with toppings.

Is the fold really more appetizing?

Those people who insist on triangular slices and claim there’s a knack to folding your slice properly to avoid it turning into a dripping mess strike me as people more interested in playing with their food, than eating it! For that reason alone, we ought to claim Chicago superiority when it comes to pizza.

Although I have to admit one bit of hesitation to supporting de Blasio’s press secretary on this issue – he’s a Wisconsin native and a Green Bay Packers fan. Which means he took pleasure in their beating the Bears this weekend. Could this be an effort by an adopted New Yorker to sabotage the Chicago image from within?

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Fioretti may be longer-shot political comeback than that of Pat Quinn

Robert Fioretti is ambitious, we’ll have to give him that much.

FIORETTI: Wants to be county boss

The one-time alderman of Chicago’s 2^nd Ward was among the people who tried challenging Rahm Emanuel for his mayoral post in the 2015 election cycle – finishing fourth with just over 7 percent of the non-partisan election that year.

NOW, HIS DESIRE to be able to call himself a prominent political person is being resurrected with his talk that he’ll run for the Democratic nomination for Cook County Board president.

In short, he’s willing to challenge Toni Preckwinkle – gambling on the fact that people so upset over the pop tax that will cease to exist in a couple of weeks will remain so peeved that they’ll vote for Anybody But Toni.

Maybe even Bob.

It’s obvious that Fioretti has no intention of letting this issue go. He kicked off his active campaigning for county board president with an appearance Monday at the Lansing Municipal Airport.

THE AIR STRIP in that south suburb literally has as its eastern boundary the Illinois/Indiana state line. Making it possible for Fioretti to engage in a lot of political trash talk about how the people of neighboring Dyer, Ind., have lesser tax rates than those who live in Lansing and Cook County proper.

PRECKWINKLE: Won't be unopposed

Ignoring the fact that Indiana-based municipal governments usually offer far less in the way of services to their residents than the ones in Cook County do. Which basically means you get what you pay for – and I view that as one of Illinois’ and the Chicago-area’s strengths.

But back to the voter choice coming up March 20 in Cook County as to who should be our county board president (the Republican Party structure is too weak to come up with a credible challenger, meaning the primary likely will be the election).

Maybe it’s because I remember Fioretti’s time as an alderman as being one where he was one of the most-outspoken of the aldermanic creatures in the City Council. It meant he got quoted in the news reports far more often than many of his colleagues – and it gave him a prominent name on the political scene.

EMANUEL: Beat Bob badly in 2015

BUT TO BE honest, a lot of his talk just came across as cheap. As though it was someone talking just for the sake of hearing himself speak. Not because he necessarily had much of anything worth saying.

Reporter-type people who cover government bodies at all levels learn to deal with such people. You learn to tell the difference between the people who actually have some comprehension of what government does and which ones are merely good for a quote that helps fill out space in the many stories that get written about government activity.

So was I shocked that Fioretti would be the type with the bloated-enough ego to think that all of Chicago (and not just the residents of the Second Ward) was ready for his feisty rhetoric about how fouled up Emanuel and everybody else was?

Let’s remember that when the City Council district boundaries were redrawn the last time, Fioretti was the one whose home suddenly wound up in a new district. He lost his supporters. He has to try to run for something different – or else face irrelevance.

SO WHEN HE couldn’t become mayor or even make it into a runoff election (the Anybody But Rahm voters preferred Jesus “Chuy” Garcia instead), he needs to pick another post so as to avoid irrelevance.

 

GARCIA: Rahm critics preferred Chuy to Bob

So now, he’s going for the county board, where without him it seems that Preckwinkle would be unopposed for the post she has held since 2010. Not that I think Toni is entitled to run unchallenged – competition is always good.

But it’s best if it is a serious challenger who has a vision for why we should vote for them – and not just “Dump Toni!” because she tried to plug a hole in the county financial picture that Fioretti himself might wind up having to concoct some sort of tax hike to fill if he were somehow capable of getting himself elected.

We’ll get to see for ourselves just how petty our electorate is capable of being come the 2018 election cycle – and whether Fioretti gets to become the Chicago version of Pat Quinn; the former governor who has run for so many offices throughout the years and will be making his own political comeback bid next year for state Attorney General.

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