Wrigley’s week of infamy?

The image of Wrigley Field as “the Friendly Confines” took a hit this week, what with the sexual assault that occurred during a concert held at the stadium, and the fact that the Cubs feel compelled to re-assure people they’ll be safe if they try to come out to Thursday’s game.

How long until Wrigley Scene becomes just about baseball again?

Not that there’s anything about the game against the San Diego Padres that is interesting or threatening.

BUT THAT’S THE day protesters upset about the amount of urban violence in Chicago say they’re going to do some serious disruption.

As in they’re going to march along Lake Shore Drive north to the Lake View neighborhood – hoping to disrupt traffic. Then, they say they’ll march to the ball park.

Whether they plan to picket outside in the hours prior to the ball game’s 7:20 p.m. starting time, or plan to try to force their way past ballpark security to get into the game? We’ll have to wait and see just how raucous the scene will be.

And whether a group of people claiming to be high-minded and concerned about violence devolves into a group of gate crashers – we’ll have to see how ugly the scene becomes on Thursday.

WHICH WILL BE just four days following the sexual assault – which involved a woman who got groped while waiting in line for concessions. Then, when she went to a portable toilet to try to get away from the guy, he followed her into the port-a-potty and before she could lock the door, he grabbed her by the neck and made his “moves,” so to speak.

Personally, what I find most repulsive about this incident is that there’s a guy out there (police on Tuesday made public a picture of the suspect taken by ballpark security cameras) who thinks that a portable toilet is a place to have thoughts of intimacy with another human being.

Eww!

Suspect being sought by Chgo police in Sunday Wrigley incident

I suppose something like that could happen anywhere there’s a public event that requires mass amounts of toilets being added on to accommodate crowds.

IN THE OVERALL scheme of things, these incidents don’t really make Wrigley Field some sort of hell hole that ought to be avoided at all costs.

But you just know some people are going to feel irrational enough to want to connect them, and most likely will have horrid thoughts in their heads about going anywhere near Clark and Addison streets as a result.

My own thoughts are the only reason people should feel a negative aura about Wrigley is the generations of bad baseball that were played there. The past few seasons of sort-of-respectable ball don’t erase memories of guys like Karl Pagel taking to the field all those years ago.

But on a serious note, one can’t help but wonder about the timing of this week’s activity, and how long people will remember what occurred this week. Similar to the way some want to think Chicago White Sox games are risky because of that night some 39 years ago when the rock ‘n’ rollers took over the ballpark to blow up the disco records.

OR MORE INTERESTING, to speculate on how well the Cubs’ security can handle the situation around the ballpark come Thursday.

Because I don’t doubt the protesting types want to make a scene – thinking that too many people who go to Cubs games are inclined to ignore the portions of the city where violent outbursts are likely to occur.

What the Cubbie talent pool was once like

They will want to spin anything that happens is that irrational Cubbie fans are showing disrespect to the protesters. While I also expect Cubs fans will claim the protest’s point is irrelevant at the ballpark and that the protesters are merely trying to cause trouble.

I’d like to think that Thursday ultimately will be a forgettable moment in our city’s history. A large part of that is going to be determined by just how rational the Wrigley Scene is capable of being in the face of people who could care less about Cubs baseball.

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Is most obnoxious tactic also the most effective when it comes to protest?

It has not yet been a full month since that day when Rev. Michael Pfleger led a band of protesters to march for a mile-and-a-half right on the Dan Ryan Expressway – with the stunt meant to call attention to problems of urban violence.

HARDIMAN: Wants to 'redistribute' pain

Now, another activist group (this one including political dreamer Tio Hardiman) wants to do a similar stunt – although for what it’s worth, they have said they resent anyone who tries comparing their event to that of Father Pfleger.

THIS GROUP WANTS to march in the middle of Lake Shore Drive, and not just any old portion of the road.

They want to cause traffic congestion from Diversey to Belmont avenues, then walk over to Wrigley Field. Which on the day they plan to do their event is one in which the Chicago Cubs will be playing, and it also is the first day of the Lollapalooza music festival.

Meaning it’s likely there will be many white people out trying to enjoy their lives but will find their recreational plans interfered with by these activists – who by the way are also claiming they want to see Rahm Emanuel resign his mayoral post in shame.

Who’d have thought that Michael Pfleger, with his decades of history of outlandish tactics, would come across as the calm, rational guy.

PFLEGER: Tried drawing attention to So. Side

NOW I DON’T mean to try to undermine the problems Chicago has with regards to urban violence. There are parts of this city where it is risky to venture into. For the people who, by circumstance, wind up having to live their lives in those communities, life can be fairly miserable.

And for the rest of us, it is shallow to think we can ignore those people and those communities just because we don’t live there.

So in that sense, I comprehend the intent of what Hardiman and his allies are trying to accomplish. We, the masses, do need to be made more aware of what is happening. And perhaps we do, occasionally, need to have our noses rubbed in reality because we don’t pay sufficient attention.

But I can’t help but think this proposed event could turn out much worse.

Will these kinds of people want to bother with problem/

BECAUSE WHAT WAS key to the event that Pfleger staged was that he focused on a stretch of the Dan Ryan Expressway right in the heart of one of the neighborhoods where the urban violence is at its worse.

A segment where many people merely pass by as they drive along the Dan Ryan and never even think of stopping for anything. Their attention, however briefly, was forced to focus on the South Side.

Whereas this proposed protest is such that it is focusing on a portion of the North Side where it is possible for people to think that talk of a violent Chicago is just another one of those lies spewed by President Donald Trump to appease the whack jobs who still think highly of the man. They, after all, will believe anything – no matter how absurd it sounds!

As the Chicago Tribune points out, the police district for that area has one of the lowest totals (11) of people being shot this year, with 36 shootings all of last year. And some of those were people who were shot by police for causing trouble.

THE IDEA OF activists come next Thursday is to get in the way – to make sure that some concern-goers get there late and perhaps some of the Cubs fans be massively inconvenienced.

EMANUEL: He's not going anywhere anytime soon

In fact, some of the activists organizing this event say they think Pfleger’s event was flawed because it did nothing to “redistribute the pain” they say is felt by black Chicago residents.

Personally, I thought Pfleger’s event succeeded because it managed to tie up traffic without anyone getting killed by a motorist trying to get through. It made its point without getting distracted by fatalities.

I could easily see this one failing because someone driving along (and not on) LSD strikes a protester – and the masses of Chicago will think that protester got what he (or she) deserved for trying to walk in the middle of a major thoroughfare!

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Does anyone seriously think people are better off living under Lake Shore Dr.?

I’m not kidding with that question. Because when it comes to the matter of people opposing city officials who want to do repairs to the drive in the Uptown neighborhood because it forced homeless people to relocate, I just don’t get it.

Homeless not just in Uptown, also downtown

The issue came to a head earlier this week when Chicago police had to use force to get people who had developed a “tent city” of sorts near Wilson and Lawrence avenues to leave the area.

CITY OFFICIALS HAD made arrangements for homeless shelters to accommodate those residents, but many of the homeless did not want to go. Which I almost understand – when one has little in life, they tend to cling too tightly to what little they do have.

No matter how cruddy it might be.

But there were activist groups who were fighting the city, trying to get measures approved in court that would interfere with the efforts to do the repair work to the bridges that are some 85 years old and are considered to be structurally deficient, due to age.

To those activists, the right of a person to take shelter under the bridges was more important than the public safety at large.

THERE ALSO ARE some people who think that plans to include bicycle paths are less about making public improvements for the surrounding neighborhood and more about making the area unsuitable for the return of homeless people once the bridge repairs are complete spring of next year.

Now throughout my years as a reporter-type person, I have heard countless arguments about gentrification and community repairs being made that do not take into account the existing residents and are meant more to turn a community into a place suitable for someone of a higher economic bracket.

I actually can sympathize with those arguments on the grounds that you’re trying to chase existing residents from their homes.

But in this case, we’re talking about people without homes. Personally, I find it shameful to think that anyone can find homelessness to be acceptable, and think that those people forced to seek shelter in public places isn’t an embarrassment to our society as a whole.

I’D SAY IT’S wrong that it took a road repair project to get city officials concerned enough to want to find proper shelter for those individuals in our society who, often through no fault of their own, have no other place to stay.

I’d say it’s long overdue that city officials made an effort to find alternate sites for those people who in some cases were pitching tents (and in some cases might not have even had that much shelter) to provide themselves something resembling housing.

And I’d say city officials ought to be concerned about the existence of conditions that cause many of those homeless officials to resist the idea of staying in a homeless shelter.

Seriously, anyone who reads the news reports of recent days about this issue can hear from those homeless who think a tent is a better shelter because of the sanitary conditions or overcrowded conditions of some of the homeless shelters.

IT TRULY IS sad to think our society in Chicago has reached a point where some people think they’re safer and more secure living out in the open of the Uptown neighborhood (which may not be the impoverished turf along the north lakefront that it used to be, but is still far from luxurious) rather than in a place with electricity and running water.

Perhaps those activists who were fighting in court until recently to thwart the road repair projects should have focused their efforts to improve the shelter options for those people whose life circumstances have caused them to resort to such conditions.

And I don’t want to hear from anyone who wants to believe that some people don’t know better and want to live like that. They’re probably the same nitwits who think that some women choose to be in prostitution.

We all have an obligation to try to help those at the bottom rungs of our society, if for the only reason being that our society as a whole is no longer than its lowest members.

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Did we set a record for snow?

This weather soon history. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

I despise the slop of snowfall as much as anyone else does.

Yet I can’t get myself all excited about the fact that we likely broke a record for the most days in the Chicago area without any measurable snowfall.

IT SEEMS THAT when we went without snow on Sunday, it was the 280^th consecutive day without any of Suzy Snowflake’s friends paying us a visit. That tied the old mark set back in 1994.

When Monday turned out to be nothing more than a foggy, overcast day with only limited flakes (less than 1/10^th of an inch of snow), 2012 went into the record books.

Yet what does it really mean?

Think about it; 280 days is just barely over nine months. Which means we made it through the spring, summer and autumn months without any snowfall. Isn’t that the way things are supposed to be?

I CAN’T GET all excited, particularly since it seems it’s just a matter of days before we get the first snowfall of this winter season (even if winter proper doesn’t begin until Dec. 21).

I also see those weather reports from the weekend that show how Minneapolis got whomped this weekend (almost as bad as the Chicago Bears got beat), and how heavy snowfall is moving through Wisconsin and Michigan.

How long until it dips down and pays Illinois a visit?

I just don’t see that we have really accomplished much of anything. The “record” for the longest time period without a snowfall in Chicago strikes me as being the equivalent of those sports broadcasters who tell us a hitter’s batting average against left-handed pitchers during Tuesdays in August.

THE SIMPLE FACT is that we’re in December, and it’s going to snow soon. Hopefully, it won’t be one of those heavy storms that shuts the city down – although it is inevitable that we’re going to get hit with one of those in coming months.

We’re in the Midwestern U.S. It snows here. That’s just fact.

There’s also another reason why I can’t get into the spirit of us having had a record-length period of time without any snowfall – it wasn’t that long ago that we had that storm of historic proportions.

You remember February of 2011. You remember Lake Shore Drive being totally covered and shut down for a time. I remember feeling fortunate that I do much of my income-earning work from home, because I wouldn’t have been able to make it to any traditional workplace for a couple of days.

IN FACT, THE memories are still vivid of having to go outside with a shovel and dig my brother’s car out, because he was trying to drive back home and it got stuck in a snowdrift about a half-block from his residence.

It helped that a pair of our neighbors saw our plight and came out with their own shovels. My brother eventually was able to drive to the residence and park his car – at which point he then came inside and passed out in his bed from exhaustion (he had just finished working a shift).

That storm feels so recent that I have a hard time accepting that we had a lengthy stint without any snow! Record my tushy.

I honestly feel like we ought to be entitled to much more time before we get the first snowfall of this winter season. It hasn’t been long enough since we had to worry about shoveling snow and keeping our walkways clear enough so that we don’t slip and fall on our collective heinies!

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What’s worse, Lake Shore Drive or death?

There are some people who are going to remember this week’s heavy snowfall as the storm that shut down Lake Shore Drive.

Already, there are those who are moaning and complaining about the city’s handling of the situation – claiming that somehow it is the fault of municipal government that hundreds of automobiles became stuck in the snow, and people had to be rescued from their abandoned vehicles.

ONE GROUP, THE Illinois Policy Institute, went so far Thursday as to release an analysis of the city’s handling of this snowstorm – which at just over 20 inches of the fluffy, then slushy, stuff is considered the third-heaviest snowfall ever in recorded Chicago history.

That analysis gave the city an overall grade of “B” for the efforts to keep streets clean and help people in need. Yet a sub-grade of “F” was given to the city for anything related to Lake Shore Drive.

Now I’m sure the people who actually got stuck, and who are now desperately trying to figure out where the city towed their cars to in order to clear the road for traffic on Thursday, feel like it was a traumatic ordeal.

It will be the basis of the stories they tell the rest of their lives, usually to show how tough and industrious they truly are.

BUT WHILE MORE than 130 firefighters, about 100 police officers and 30 medics on snowmobiles were sent to Lake Shore Drive to help the hundreds of motorists – some of whom were stuck in their cars for up to 12 hours, to me, the Chicago Sun-Times nailed the essence of the Lake Shore Drive situation with the final sentence of a story they published about the situation.

“City officials reported no serious injuries,” the newspaper wrote.



Lake Shore Drive was nowhere near this pristine earlier this week when hundreds of cars got stranded in heavy snowfall. Perhaps that could inspire a new song to be written about the reknowned street that is much of Chicago's far eastern edge.



It is kind of hard for me to take seriously that the worst part of the city’s handling of this week’s snowstorm of historic proportions was Lake Shore Drive when there isn’t anyone lingering in a hospital as a result, or (worse yet) lying at the Cook County medical examiner’s offices.

And yes, there are deaths being attributed to the winter weather. People did die, just not on Lake Shore Drive. As for how many, it depends how extensively one wants to count. The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday there were 12. But they were counting deaths in Cook, DuPage and Lake counties.

AS THOUGH KANE, McHenry and Will counties, along with Lake and Porter counties in Indiana (which also are part of the Chicago area) don’t count. For what it’s worth, the Times of Northwest Indiana newspaper reported at least three weather-related deaths in the Indiana portion of the Chicago area.

Then again, I suppose rooting out details of those deaths (which actually aren’t that many considering this is a metropolitan area of 8 million-plus individuals) would be too complex. Easier to focus attention on Lake Shore Drive (or the fact that Wrigley Field sustained some damage from the storm) for those who feel compelled to complain about something.

Perhaps part of the reason I’m having trouble taking the Lake Shore Drive situation as being a crisis is that I have to seriously wonder about anyone who was silly enough to be trying to drive on that particular street on Tuesday night at the height of the storm.

I’m not about to go as far as the conservative ideologues who like to preach about personal responsibility who would say it’s their own fault for being out there. But there does reach a point when I have to wonder about someone who thinks they can ignore the weather – because such hostile conditions don’t apply to them.

IF I HAD been in an area of the city where Lake Shore Drive was nearby and an option, I likely would have tried to figure out ANY other possible route to use instead. Personally, I was thankful for a last-minute change in my own schedule Tuesday that likely kept me from becoming stuck on Interstate 80/94.

Which is why I got a kick out of the answer Richard M. Daley (who still has three more months on the job before he goes into electoral retirement) gave when asked about Lake Shore Drive, which he says was a “crisis” situation.

But he says he thinks city officials did well, far better than the “F” grade some people would want to give them. Daley thinks the fact that no one died on Lake Shore Drive Tuesday or early Wednesday is a plus.

I agree with him (for once). But what amused me the most was the flippant tone he had in his voice Thursday when he acknowledged that some people were going to blame him, and the city, no matter what happened.

“SURE THEY CAN blame me,” he quipped. “That’s life.”

So what should we think of this situation? I suspect for many people, Wednesday (and Thursday) will go down as a couple of days they got off from work. In my case, because I do some work from home and never lost electricity, my telephone or Internet connection, I still earned money.

But I also had quite a bit of free time during the day Wednesday that I was trapped inside. It was the day I had enough time to watch an entire season of “The Sopranos” on DVD (the death of actor David Proval’s “Richie Aprile” character still manages to catch me off-guard, no matter how many times I see it).

Be honest. There were many more Chicagoans in my situation than there were those who were stuck on Lake Shore Drive.

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