Can Lori Lightfoot really make Chicago a less violent place this Memorial Day?

Lori Lightfoot hasn’t even been mayor of Chicago for one full week, and she’s already promising what may be an overly ambitious goal – eliminating the urban violence that is a Chicago embarrassment every Memorial Day holiday weekend. 

New mayor hopes to put her mark on city's Memorial Day safety

Which sounds nice. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Lori Lightfoot could really make Chicago a nicer, less violent place to be. Of course, this opens her up to criticism from every single smart-aleck (many harsher than myself) who will now try to hang every single violent crime that takes place this weekend on Lightfoot herself.

SO WHAT IS it Lightfoot has in mind?

Basically, it’s a marketing campaign. “Our City, Our Safety,” it’s being called. What it means is that the mayor wants us to get off our fat behinds and DO something,

In the form of attending one of the many events being held in neighborhoods across the city. Which almost reminds me of that old English proverb that says, “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.”

Does this make Lightfoot the equivalent of Chicago’s granny, spewing out sayings that basically mean we ought to make ourselves useful for a change instead of sitting around doing nothing?

Could events such as Mole de Mayo festival play a role in reducing … 

SERIOUSLY, THE CITY has a list of hundreds of events taking place from Friday through Monday. The theory being that if we’re doing something and perhaps even enjoying ourselves, we’re less likely to get ourselves involved in something stupid that will cause tempers to flare and lead to the potential for someone to pull out a weapon and use it.

… Memorial Day violence?

Is it our civic duty, then, to attend the Mole de Mayo festival in the Pilsen neighborhood, or any one of the many other events taking place in Chicago this weekend.

Maybe you’d rather check out the Lane Tech (as in high school) Carnival, or one of the many places that are doing film screenings (Lilo and Stitch will be showing Saturday at 6800 N. Western Ave., as an example).

What it basically sounds like is that Lightfoot wants to use what I’ve always considered to be one of Chicago’s biggest pluses to her advantage (the mass of activities taking place at any given time).

ANYBODY WHO’S SERIOUSLY bored in Chicago isn’t trying hard enough to find something interesting or enlightening to do.

Now I don’t know if I feel compelled to check out the Mole de Mayo festival in Pilsen, although I’ll admit I went last year and it was an interesting experience stuffing my face with a dish I consider my personal favorite.

Although I feel compelled to try to find something new to do to occupy my time this holiday weekend. And part of that time may well be in some sort of serious contemplation of those people who served in our nation’s military and wound up losing their lives as a result.

That’s enough bloodshed to have to think about, without having to contemplate the number of people killed or wounded (it could wind up being several dozen) in incidents that usually compete with each other in terms of just how insipid they are.

ALMOST AS THOUGH some people are eager to see a life lost in the most pathetic and wasteful manner possible. My own reporter-type days saw me write many a story about someone who happened to be sitting on their porch when they got struck by stray gunfire.

Various types of police will be in force this weekend. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

To try to cope with the incidents that are inevitable this weekend, the Chicago Police say they plan to have an extra 1,200 patrol officers on duty – with some 50 of them riding the Chicago Transit Authority buses and “L” trains to try to reduce the number of moments where someone merely trying to get themselves somewhere wind up being hurt or killed.

While a summer mobile patrol of about 100 officers will be working the parks and Lake Michigan shoreline. The last thing we need is someone killed during a quarrel breaking out at a traditional holiday “cookout” gone awry.

Which may sound like quite a force being put to the streets to deal with potential violence. The reality, though, is that it will only take one child getting caught in someone’s crossfire to taint the holiday weekend – no matter how much Lightfoot tries to reduce it.

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No Dems rally at state fair – Is that really much of a surprise these days?

A lot of people are going to try to make an issue out of the fact that this year’s Illinois State Fair will not include a political rally by the Democrats to try to tout their candidates seeking nomination in the primary elections to be held come March.

They'll claim it is evidence that the Democratic Party in this state is chaotic and unorganized. They can't get their act together to hold a simple rally.

I doubt anybody'd cry about no politicos

 

HOW CAN THEY possibly be trusted to govern the state of Illinois any longer? So vote Republican!

They’ll probably cite the Republican Day rally scheduled for Thursday and all the excitement that will be on display and try to claim that it is evidence that The People!!!! are ready for a change.

Excuse me for being skeptical. But I don’t buy it. I don’t think it is any big surprise that Democrats aren’t going to do much with their traditional rally on the fairgrounds. I’m actually surprised they didn’t do this years ago.

Now for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, the tradition for the state fair (held at the State Fairgrounds on the far northeast corner of Springfield) is that one day is designated as “Governor’s Day.”

IT IS A day meant for the governor himself to show up on the fairgrounds, take part in many events and appear as though he’s one of the people. By tradition, the governor’s political party uses the fairgrounds to hold a rally to let us all know how wonderful they are.

Then, in a sense of fairness and equality, the opposition party gets its own “day” at the fairgrounds, in which their officials try to make it seem as though they’re more in tune with the public.

It’s all a lot of trivial nonsense. Although in a year before the elections, it can be an unofficial start to campaign activity for the prospective campaigns.

This year, Governor’s Day is Wednesday, and Pat Quinn will show up and do his thing (although he’s already spent a lot of time at the fairgrounds since the event began Friday). Republican Day is Thursday.

I doubt many would come even if there was a Wed. rally

BUT QUINN SAID last week that the Democrats who in theory are his allies won’t be doing anything at the fair on Wednesday. They will have a breakfast meeting in Springfield, but that’s it.

Some people are pointing out the fact that at last year’s Democratic Party rally at the state fair, organized labor officials showed up and heckled the governor. Perhaps the reason for no partisan rally is that Quinn is some sort of coward who can’t take a little bit of criticism.

Actually, I think it is just a realization that the state fair has become a less-important political event for the Democratic Party that represents the interests of the urban portion of Illinois.

There are Democrats in the rest of Illinois, but their numbers are dwarfed in most cases by the Republican Party organizations. Which is evidence of just how much the Chicago area can dwarf the rest of the state that it has become the dominant political party in Illinois as a whole.

MY POINT BEING that the Illinois State Fair largely draws its crowds from people who live in Sangamon County and the rural counties that are directly adjacent to it.

Much of Southern Illinois takes the DuQuoin State Fair (this year, it’s Aug. 23-Sept. 2) more seriously. While in the Chicago area, even the scaled-back Taste of Chicago and all the summer festivals are more significant than what happens at the state fair.

With the Chicago dominance of the Democratic Party, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that most of the power-brokers are pleased they don’t have to make the four-hour drive to Springfield to pretend they care about what is happening at the fairgrounds.

QUINN: Gets the fair all to himself

In fact, what I recall of the state fair during the seven years (1993-99) I was a Statehouse reporter was that the political rallies were held in a portion of the fairgrounds that was isolated from the rest of the event.

MOST PEOPLE ATTENDING the state fair weren’t even aware of the blather being spewed by political people of all partisanships. I really doubt anybody at the fairgrounds on Wednesday will miss the presence of politicians in the least.

Perhaps people at the fair on Thursday will wish that Republicans would follow the same lead and spare us their blather. You really want to get the people who attend the Illinois State Fair all angry? Take away the Husband Calling Contest.

Somehow, I suspect the loss of the sight of middle-aged women trying to come up with loud, obnoxious screeches meant to attract their husbands’ attention (which took place Sunday) would upset fairgoers more than the loss of politicians.

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