Has Mother Nature developed a multi-color hue for Chicago's namesake river

There’s one thing that anybody who’s native to Chicago knows for sure – our namesake river ain’t blue in color.

The natural muddy green of Chicago River. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

You might be able to look out to the east from downtown high rises and see a Lake Michigan that is a luscious blue in color and appears to extend off so far into the distance that you might mistake it for an ocean, rather than just a lake – albeit one of the Great Lakes that make the Midwestern U.S. so unique.

BUT EVERYBODY WHO’S ever spent time here knows the Chicago River, which the lake flows into so as to avoid having our sewage and waste wind up in our drinking water supply, knows our river water is different.

It has taken on a green hue. In fact, it has taken on different shades of green, and not just because of St. Patrick’s Day.

For on that March day, city officials go out of their way to add dyes to the river water (or at least the portion of the river that separates Downtown from the Near North Side) so that it becomes a bright Kelly green.

As opposed to the sickly, dingy green with a touch of brown to it that is the usual color of our namesake river.

Still some industry in downtown portions of Chicago River

IT’S ACTUALLY ONE of the local gags, the quality of our river. So tainted with sludge that it might almost be possible to walk across the water, even if you don’t happen to be Jesus Christ.

Or that one accidental tumble off a downtown bridge into the water and the biggest threat may not be that you’d drown, but that you’d become poisoned just by coming into contact with the water.

By comparison, salt piles along Chicago's 'other' river -- the Calumet

My own gag acknowledges the fact that the river water quality actually has improved in recent years – to where our river is no longer toxic, but is now merely polluted.

Despite all of these noxious comments (about as tainted as the river itself), I have to say I always considered the Chicago River – particularly the part of it that goes through downtown from Lake Michigan to the split between the south and north branches – to be a significant part of our city’s personality.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think about the fact our city’s river is now taking on distinct shades? Is it a split personality? A physical manifestation of Chicago’s character?

For what it’s worth, WLS-TV on Monday reported that since Friday and through the weekend, the river has taken on distinct shades of green. The south branch being the usual muddy green color that we usually associate with the river while the north branch has a brighter shade almost like that fake green trotted out every St. Patrick’s Day.

Is this Mother Nature’s way of saying we ought to celebrate St. Patty’s Day every day in Chicago?

Is the muddy green color appropriate as river passes Trump tower?

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the Chicago Department of Water Management both told the television station that this multi-shade of green is actually natural, and not something we need to concern ourselves with. Not yet, anyway.

RECENT STORMS AND seasonal vegetation changes allegedly are responsible for the varying hues. Although further tests are supposedly still being taken to see if there’s going to be any lasting effect to Chicago River water.

Personally, I find this quirky – almost something to laugh about. Considering that Chicagoans of any sense know better than to drink directly from the river, and that we know it is still decades far in the future that one-time Mayor Richard J. Daley’s decades-old dream of people being able to fish in the Chicago River will become reality.

So as for our river, we’ll have to adapt to multi-shades of green, and let’s hope it doesn’t turn fiery red.

The Cleveland Indians baseball team may be closer to a World Series appearance than our Chicago White Sox, but we’re more than willing to let Cleveland and its Cuyahoga River (which caught fire due to the waste in the water back in 1969) be unique.

  -30-

Impeachment just more blowhard chat

Excuse me for not getting all excited at the concept of our very own Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., saying he’s going to lead an effort seeking the impeachment and removal from office of President Donald J. Trump.

GUTIERREZ: Wants Trump Out! of office

Gutierrez isn’t the first member of Congress to engage in chat threatening the political livelihood of Trump – whom my own guess has gotten used to people talking trash about him, and usually responds by engaging in his own trash talk about them.

IN SHORT, IT has been a lively year since the date a year ago Wednesday that 46 percent of the people who bothered to cast ballots decided they wanted nothing to do with Hillary Clinton and enjoyed the possibility of a “President Trump” – in large part because of the way they see it offends the sensibilities of a majority of our society.

So I have no doubt that the Trump backers will be more than willing to talk trash about el Gallito himself – and may even offer up their own countermeasure to threaten to remove Gutierrez from his post representing the Latino-oriented neighborhoods of Chicago in Congress.

In short, Gutierrez says he’ll have articles of impeachment by the upcoming Thanksgiving Day holiday, specifying why Trump should be removed from office.

But I don’t think he, or anyone else in Congress of a partisan leaning inclined to want to impeach Trump will be able to come up with a reason that the political partisans who would actually decide on impeachment and conviction would accept as legitimate.

MY POINT BEING that Gutierrez and others in Congress can threaten all they want. But the fact remains we have a Republican leaning Congress that still sees Trump as being the guy who gave them the authority to ignore the concerns of people who aren’t like them.

Admittedly, Trump’s presidency has shown him to be politically unstable enough that he’ll turn on them. But it is going to take some act that Republicans perceive as political treachery before they think of his removal from office.

In short, it probably would take some action against Republican interests that the majority of our society would actually approve of!

TRUMP: Likely crafting a smug retort already

So when Gutierrez brings up the impeachment talk, it’s mostly about gaining attention for himself and his own partisan causes. Which isn’t unusual. All government officials have some sort of agenda whenever they speak publicly.

WHEN GUTIERREZ CALLS Trump a “bigot” and “bully” for his conduct on immigration-related issues, keep in mind there are those people for whom that’s the exact reason they’ll stand behind Trump until the very end.

The Trump election of a year ago has been all about that segment of our society wanting to resist the changes for the better that have come in so many areas. A part of me has always compared it to being the equivalent of that old school-yard bully who became irrelevant as everybody grew up wanting to assert himself to regain that sense of control he used to have.

As though he thinks that was the natural order of things to reign terror over the schoolyard populace.

Personally, I see the concept of “impeachment” as a last resort in that I think when the people vote stupidly (as can easily be argued the 46 percent did back on Nov. 8, 2016 – perhaps it was something in the air caused by the Chicago Cubs winning a World Series?), they ought to have to live with the results.

ENDURE THE SHAME of having everybody else look upon them with wonderment at just how they could sink to that level of vacuous and stupidity.

On Thanksgiving, we'll want to eat -- not ponder politics

And perhaps the majority of us (the 49 percent who wanted Hillary and the other 5 percent who were so appalled by both that they went for a Libertarian or some other third-party presidential candidate) also need to live with a level of shame that we could be so careless in our system that a 46 percent minority was capable of legitimately winning an election.

So for those who are looking to Thanksgiving to see what formal reasons Gutierrez comes up with for wanting to impeach Trump, it won’t matter much.

In all likelihood, we’re stuck with Trump through at least 2020 when the next presidential election cycle occurs. And if we manage to stupidly let him win another term, it will be no one’s fault but our own.

  -30-

DNAinfo.com ‘death’ in Chgo, NY shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone

As a reporter-type person who has experienced unemployment on several occasions, I sympathize with the DNAInfo.com website in Chicago and the individuals who earlier this week abruptly learned they were out of work.

RICKETTS: Owned Cubs/media pair less than Tribune Co.

Although there’s nothing at all surprising about the fact that the company operating websites in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington – along with Chicago – decided to suddenly ‘pack it in’ after eight years of trying to cover news in those cities.

JOE RICKETTS, THE head of the wealthy family that owns the no-longer-defending World Champion Chicago Cubs and also was a significant financial backer of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential bid (the family nearly got a member appointed to a Cabinet post), let it be known he was giving up because the business end was failing.

The company wasn’t generating enough revenue to cover the expenses of actually having people on the payroll to cover the news – which is an essential expense if one is going to cover the news properly.

Various reports have pointed out the fact that the employees connected to the websites in New York voted last week to organize themselves as a labor union. Some would have us believe that Ricketts’ decision to shut down was purely a response to not wanting to deal with organized labor.

Which may be true. But the idea that management would rather not have their employees sticking together to negotiate benefits for all is nothing new. The idea of an owner hating organized labor shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody!

Two local websites that are now ...

SO I’M NOT about to join the parade of Ricketts bashers, some of whom are even insisting that we boycott Chicago Cubs games in response to his anti-labor actions. I would never expect him to be sympathetic, and I personally certainly don’t need this as a reason to ignore the Cubs – a ballclub I have never much cared for.

What I take personally from the DNAInfo.com closings is evidence of how costly it can be to professionally report the news. And how those people who are eager to see newspapers and their centuries of experience in doing so (the Chicago Sun-Times is a baby, tracing its origins back to the days just before Pearl Harbor) wither away are truly ridiculous in their attitudes.

There are those people deluded enough to believe there is no loss to society from fewer newspapers because the Internet and websites are capable of replacing them.

... a part of Chicago's media history

Yet most websites I have seen that are news-oriented are way too reliant on having newspapers to generate stories and content in general that they can appropriate for their own use.

A SITE LIKE DNAInfo.com, which actually had reporters looking for stories in the neighborhoods of Chicago (some neighborhoods were covered more thoroughly than others) that was generating its own content is running into the same problems as those who historically were disseminating their content on printed pages of pulp.

Which means most of these sites wind up becoming the medium of choice for benefactors with the finances to not care about their financial bottom line.

Even then, there comes a point when many of them have to cut off the funding and shut down. Remember the ProgressIllinois.com website, which had reporter-type people out-and-about covering stories – with the bills being paid by the Service Employees International Union?

Even they had to give in – with the website remaining in place, but un-updated since that final date. AP: Donald Trump Wins Presidential Election (UPDATED) is the final headline, as though determined to perpetually remind us all of the annoyance our society brought upon itself just over a year ago.

Sun-Times still reporting news, despite death predictions.

THERE IS ONE significant difference between the two closings – DNAInfo.com and its sister websites suddenly found all their content erased from the Internet. A letter from Ricketts explaining his decision to suddenly shut down (and make the four months of vacation pay and severance his reporters will receive seem overly generous) is all that remains of the sites.

There is some speculation Ricketts may try to archive some of the content – for those who care to see what once was of this particular attempt at covering the news.

Although as anyone who follows the “news” is fully aware, yesterday’s stories are ancient history. It’s the ongoing developments that provide for an overall report that has relevance to people’s lives.

And without it, we as a society may have to get used to a condition in which our attempts at public “education” may wind up being fulfilled with cutesy pictures of kitty cats, quirky pictures of people doing something stupid, and all the porn, porn, porn we could ever desire.

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EXTRA: Another ‘foreign guy’ vs. ‘Miss America’ for Ill. atty general?

The campaign in next year’s election cycle for Illinois attorney general is already shaping up as one to see who will be capable of out-trivializing the other.

Kwame Raoul likely to get as many insults ...

For the Cook County Democratic Party on Friday officially picked state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, as its preference amongst the seven other political people expressing a desire to be the party’s slated candidate to replace Lisa Madigan – who is giving up the post following four terms in office.

MEANWHILE, REPUBLICAN PREFERENCE Erika Harold was able to issue a statement earlier this week indicating that Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon decided not to run for office.

Meaning that the woman who once served as Miss America and later went to law school likely will run in the Republican primary unopposed.

And since the Democratic primary usually is dominated by the Cook County vote, we ought to start thinking of the state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood as the favorite.

So when it comes to picking a replacement for Lisa Madigan, it could likely be Raoul versus Harold. Which has so much potential for ignorant thoughts and trivial expressions to be concocted. It truly could become a campaign of which candidate can sink to the lower level of intellectual thought.

... as will Erika Harold

FOR THOSE OF you to whom the name Kwame Raoul is alien, he’s a state senator who has served for over a decade. When Barack Obama made the move up from representing Hyde Park and Kenwood in the state Legislature to the state of Illinois in the U.S. Senate, Raoul was the guy who replaced him.

Amongst the rank-and-file of the Illinois General Assembly he has shown himself to be a competent legislator. Although there are those who dismiss him as just another funny-sounding name like Obama.

But while Obama was Hawaii-born and Ivy League-educated, Raoul is a Chicago native with a DePaul University education and Chicago-Kent School of Law background. Something that theoretically ought to sound like many of the masses.

QUINN: Not the Cook Co. preference

Except that some won’t be able to get past the non-Anglo name and will want to presume that because they come out of the same neighborhood that they’ll want to tag him in the same way they still try to do with Obama.

ALTHOUGH I DON’T doubt that Harold will have to deal with her own share of attacks during the upcoming election cycle. She is an Urbana native with a University of Illinois bachelor’s degree, to go along with the Harvard Law School degree she has (paid for in large part through the scholarship funds the Miss America organization provided to her after she won the top title in 2003 and did her year of wearing the tiara as an example of American femininity.

She is a licensed attorney and has served on various legal commissions. But you just know it’s a matter of time before she gets dismissed as the airhead beauty queen. Heck, Raoul himself has already had to issue some apologies for the way he has dismissed her as merely “Miss America.”

The trash talk will be spewed for several months. Who’s to say how ugly this campaign will get – or how ridiculous?

I actually wonder if the fight for attorney general will wind up being even more stupid and ridiculous than the brawl for governor – the one with the multi-millionaires capable of self-funding their own attacks on each other.

 

McMAHON: Dropped out of GOP running

IT ALMOST MAKES me wonder if things would turn out to be more sane if former Gov. Pat Quinn’s desire for a political comeback would lead to a better outcome if it were to occur.

Not that it is likely to happen. The Cook County Democratic Party, in its slating effort, specifically rejected Quinn’s pleas for support, or for even an effort to remain neutral so that any of the eight would-be Dems could have a chance of winning the March 20 primary.

All of which makes me wonder if it is just me approaching advancing age, or if our level of political intellect is just taking a ? I fear it’s the latter.

  -30-

Can we misconstrue the Klan? Or is racism on the rise amongst our teens?

I’ll be curious to see how the courts wind up addressing a case out of a high school in suburban Barrington, where some people are insisting on discipline for several students they believe were supportive of the Ku Klux Klan.

The ultimate arbiter?

For this incident reminds me of something potentially equally stupid back when I was in high school more than three decades ago – one Halloween when a student managed to concoct an overly elaborate costume for himself that wound up offending certain students of an African-American persuasion.

HIS COSTUME, AS I remember it, was essentially a white sheet – albeit one that had been decorated with elaborate, ghoulish-looking drawings. As I recall, the costume was intended to be symbolic of the rock band Black Sabbath (remember Ozzy Osbourne back when he really bit the heads off of bats and before he became a reality television star?).

But the black students who saw this white sheet walking down the hall presumed that someone had the nerve to wear a crude-looking Klan robe to school, and I remember seeing them chasing this student down the hall.

Teachers ultimately intervened, and the incident didn’t become anything lasting – although I wonder if somewhere out there is a one-time school mate (one whom I haven’t seen or heard from since those days) of mine who’s convinced he saw the Klan, and wishes he could have kicked its derriere.

Or, if some heavy metal rock fan realizes how close he came to getting a beat down because of his absurd choice of a Halloween costume?

IT SEEMS THERE is an incident at Barrington High School that has elevated to higher intensity levels – one that the courts ultimately will have to resolve.

It seems the Internet, amongst its many stupid and trivial images and tidbits, includes a photograph of white girls at a party, wearing white t-shirts and holding their arms over their heads in a gesture that some are choosing to be the equivalent of Klan hoods.

One of the girls, whose party the photo was supposedly taken at, is identified by initials. Which happen to be a string of “K’s.” How unfortunate for her.

For it means the photograph has been spread around the Internet to people who are insisting that the high school district take some sort of disciplinary action against these budding white racist princesses who likely view their purpose in life as the propagation of the white race by creating multiple white supremacist babies. A statement as over-the-top, ridiculous and absurd as this case has the potential to be.

THE FACT THAT this activity was not part of any school activity and took place on property not connected to the school doesn’t seem to sway any of these activist-types. They want action!

And when Barrington Community School District 220 didn’t provide it, they went to court, where assorted documents have been filed in recent months, and a hearing on the issue is scheduled for Monday.

Now I don’t know any of the people involved in any side of this particular case. So I don’t know if any of these girls involved at what was a “white out” party (everybody, including the black people who were invited, wore white clothes) has racist tendencies in their personalities.

Or if the activist types are just looking for a fight that some of my black classmates were willing to carry out many years ago.

BUT YET I don’t want to automatically dismiss the chance of racist perceptions being seen in our society. For they are there. They are real. We do have people with irrational hang-ups amongst us who largely count on the fact that they can couch them in such vague ways so as to make them unnoticeable to the masses.

Who would just as soon believe that such things, if they ever really existed, are a part of our societal past.

Ultimately, it’s going to be the courts that will have to decide what constitutes improper and racist behavior, and whether this incident rises to that level.

Although there’s a part of me that suspects the only real crime here is the parents of a certain teenage girl who gave their daughter a name resulting in multiple K’s for initials.

  -30-

Pritzker wants your vote – puts self in middle of political brawl over insurance

For those people who actually rely upon the Affordable Care Act (myself included) in order to have something resembling health insurance, Illinois Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker is making what some might try to claim is a self-serving attempt to gain our votes.

PRITZKER: Buying our votes? Or taking interest?

Then again, those of us who are in need of the federal assistance in order to be able to afford health insurance may well be willing to give our votes to Pritzker because he seems to be one of the few officials willing to take an interest in the issue.

THE REALITY THESE days is that Republicans have always hated the idea of the Affordable Care Act, and not just because it was an accomplishment of former President Barack Obama.

They seriously want to believe that people make a conscious choice to go without health insurance. They want to believe that people who don’t have some sort of health plan are somehow too lazy to work a decent job or are otherwise incapable of providing for themselves.

In which case, it’s their own fault. It shouldn’t be a task of the government to help individuals come up with a medical plan.

I know in my case, I haven’t held a full-time job in 12 years. I have managed to earn income through assorted freelance work, which some people claim has the advantage of me being able to set my own work hours, get personal business taken care of during the weekdays and can also work from home.

TRUMP: Could care less about issue

I DON’T HAVE to show up at anyone’s office. Personally, I miss the newsroom atmosphere of past news outfits I’ve worked for. But also, it means nobody is providing me with a health insurance policy as a perk for my work.

Trust me, the cost of just about every health policy I ever looked into was above my freelance pay grade – particularly since one of the disadvantages of freelance work is that the pay can be irregular. The occasional week with a significant check, followed up by many weeks of piddling amounts of money – and the periodic time period for which my check resembles a strong resemblance to the kind of money I used to bring in when I was a kid reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago (grossing just under $10,000 per year back in those days).

IVES: Can she be viable Rauner option?

So yes, the stipends from Affordable Care are the reason I have been able to afford health insurance the past three years. It’s nice to know that the occasional doctor’s visit won’t put me further in debt.

Which is an issue the Republican partisans don’t want to be concerned with. They are the ones who have created so many bureaucratic messes that the financial stability of the Affordable Care Act is threatened. Considering they would just as soon see it go away, I don’t doubt they wouldn’t mind seeing it fail – they’ll refuse to take responsibility for the failure, so what do they care! Particularly our current president – who probably figures it won’t impact him at all.

THAT IS WHERE Pritzker is trying to gain himself some support, putting aside roughly $1 million to buy airtime across Illinois to remind people using the Affordable Care Act that we’re at that time of year (deadline is Dec. 15) in which we have to renew our participation.

I know in my case, I’ve been informed by the insurance company that has provided me insurance that the specific health plan I have used will no longer be offered. I have to find something new to cover me beginning in 2018.

I’m curious to see how much confusion the Republican partisans will try to create amongst those who actually have to make changes in our plans, and I’ll admit I’m dreading the process.

RAUNER: Wishes insurance issue would go away

So to learn there’s an official in the form of Pritzker who isn’t eager to see the whole process detonate is a bit of a relief.

IT’S ALMOST ENOUGH to sway me to cast a vote for J.B. come the March 20 Democratic primary. Sorry, but I’m not the type disgusted by Gov. Bruce Rauner that I’d actually consider a vote for Jeanne Ives – the woman who messed up her nominating petitions and now has to start over if she wants to get on the ballot for the ’18 election cycle.

Although I’m not deluded enough to think J.B. Pritzker has any personal interest in my case. With all the money he has in personal wealth he’s willing to spend on trying to become Illinois’ new governor, this $1 million for Affordable Care Act advertising may well be pocket change to him.

But his “pocket change” could wind up impacting the livelihoods of many of the rest of us across Illinois.

  -30-

Mexican ethnic holiday takes on greater meaning for me these days

I am of Mexican ethnic origins (three of my four grandparents were born there, along with one set of great-grandparents) and always have found my background to be of personal interest.

My brother on a baseball-themed trip to Pittsburgh

Yet I have to confess, the concept of the Day of the Dead isn’t one that ever caught on with me. Until now, that is.

FOR THOSE WHO are uninformed, the holiday being celebrated Wednesday night into the early hours of Thursday is a Mexican one whose serious point is that we pay homage to those of our loved ones who are no longer with us – as in they have died.

There are those Mexicans who go so far as to build elaborate tributes to their loved ones. There are others who literally will spend the night tonight at the cemetery, visiting with their loved ones in gravesite picnics that turn into semi-festive celebrations.

I don’t plan to go that far, largely because both of the loved ones who are popping into my memory these days were cremated. I don’t have cemetery plots to visit, and in fact I have my mother’s remains with me.

In my case, my loved ones to remember are my mother, Jenny, and my brother, Christopher.

My brother and mother, in a happy moment

AS IT TURNS out, the anniversary dates of both of their deaths come up around this time of year. In the case of my brother, Sunday was the second anniversary of the aneurism he suffered that almost instantly killed his brain activity, and Monday was the anniversary of the date upon which he was pronounced dead.

As for my mother, it will have been seven years on Nov. 10 since the day she suffered a complication related to her diabetes treatments that caused her to bleed to death.

Meaning this early autumn time period that I otherwise would think of as the conclusion of the World Series and the end of the baseball season in this part of the globe (it’s just kicking into gear in professional leagues that play across the Caribbean) is one in which I find myself remembering my brother and our mother.

One of my mother's favorite family photographs

In that sense, the Day of the Dead takes on a certain convenience factor in that I can remember both of them at once – and know I’m not alone in thinking about death. Although I’d prefer to think of it as remembering the lives that used to exist – and not the piles of ash that they have been reduced to these days.

MY BROTHER (HE was younger than me) only made it to age 45. His was a case of his blood pressure reaching such high levels that he was on medication that doctors were fiddling around with at the time we lost him.

If anything, my brother’s experience has been an educational one for me, since I have developed blood pressure issues and doctors have described my own condition in ways that make it seem I’m at an earlier stage of what ultimately took down my brother.

His life may well be the warning of what could happen to me if I slack off on my own medical routine.

My mother as a child, long before I ever existed. She's with her Uncle Aurelio "Spinx" Salas, and a part of me likes to think he's keeping an eye on her these days

Although I actually feel the need to keep living in part to not embarrass the memory of those before me. Yes, a part of me feels like my mother’s spirit is watching over me, and is prepared to give me a smack or two upside the head should I ever encounter her again for everything stupid I may do with what remains in my life.

MY MOTHER ONLY made it to 66 at the time of her death, and the final decade of her life was a not-so-pleasant experience of constant medical treatment. Being that I’ve barely past the half-century mark of life, I know it won’t be all that much longer before I can say I’ve lived longer than she did.

Unless I’m amongst the ones unfortunate enough to suffer an early ending. One thing I learned a long time ago from my reporter-type person work is that there are no guarantees about life. One can go at any time, and perhaps I should view myself lucky to have survived this long.

These are thoughts passing through my head on this Day of the Dead, and perhaps this essay is my remembrance of family whose absence still leaves me longing – even though I’m fortunate enough that my father remains and is in a place where he can continue to be a pain in the behind. Although I’d give just about anything if my mother could be around in an equally annoying way these days.

But I also suspect my mother would be bothered by this commentary, particularly since I recall she used to get all creeped out at Day of the Dead imagery and thoughts – she’d probably want her memory to be the last thing possible to be associated with Wednesday in any way.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: On a not-quite-so-related point, I’m still amused by this use of Day of the Dead imagery in this animated sequence from the 2002 film “Frida” that explains just how badly bashed the body of Frida Kahlo was from a bus crash she suffered as a teenager that left her crippled through much of her life.