The lobby of Chicago’s City Hall features an ofendra, or altar to departed loved ones, set up to celebrate Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a holiday that originated in Mexico and begins Monday. | Photo by Neil Steinberg

Dia de los Muertos, a time to honor departed loved ones, is extra relevant in 2021.

On Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, the barrier between the world of the living and the world of those who have left it is thought to be thinner than usual. On the holiday, which begins Monday, we who still savor the frequent joys of life, for the moment, can reach across the chasm to embrace our deceased love ones, at least in memory.

Originated in Mexico, a blend of Spanish and Aztec cultures, at first in the United States it was glimpsed as a kind of exotic after-echo of Halloween, the way we vaguely notice that Boxing Day follows Christmas in England, without worrying about details.

But as the influence of Hispanic culture in the United States grows, despite furious attempts to thwart it, the holiday is being more generally felt. This year the city set up an ofrenda, an altar to the dead, in the middle of the lobby at City Hall, complete with food offerings, photos of the departednand friendly calaveras, or skulls, that represent the holiday the way decorated eggs embody Easter.

If Halloween is a ritualistic thumbing of society’s nose at death, transforming morbidity into a happy occasion for children to dress as monsters and collect candy, the Day of the Dead is a more family-oriented plunge into all that is good in life — food, drink, music, flowers, color, companionship — and the warm presence of those we loved, undiluted by the unfortunate detail that they are no longer here. Families visit graves, create shrines, throw parties.

Photograph by Caren Jeskey
Two servers at Canton Regio, 1510 W. 18th Street, dressed as calacas — skeletons — get a jump Saturday on celebrating Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, outside the Mexican restaurant in Pilsen. The holiday begins Monday.

Two reasons why is is a bigger deal this year. First, the ever growing Hispanic presence — in the 2020 Census, Chicago’s growing Latino population nosed ahead of its shrinking Black population for the first time. Chicago is now 31.4% white, 29.9% Latino, 28.7% Black and 6.9% Asian, according to the latest census.

Not that political power has followed. Chicago still has 18 black majority wards and only 13 Latino wards. Though that is about to change, after the requisite political free-for-all.

The second reason Day of the Dead is more important this year: the million plus people, 743,000 in the United States and 288,000 in Mexico, who died of COVID-19 over the past 22 months.

In this country, where ignoring deaths from COVID has become a political act, Dia de los Muertos is an appeal to our better natures, an invitation to remember, to summon the vanished and honor their lives.

I’m not alone in this idea. The National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St., has dedicated its current exhibit, “A Time to Grieve and Remember,” to the plague.

“During the pandemic, many of us were heartbroken to be unable to spend time with our loved ones,” the museum declares on its web site. “As we are now able to gather, we join together to grieve and remember the ones we lost during these two years. The collective act of mourning is a fundamental aspect of annual Day of the Dead commemorations and offers a healing way to acknowledge, accept and bear the inevitable.”

Myself, I’m heading to Taco Diablo in Evanston on Monday to have lunch with a pal. Taco Diablo has a cheery Dia de los Muertos vibe year round, with its skulls and devils. Which is fitting. Because the dead are always with us, whether we remember them or not. Their hard work is why we aren’t naked apes gobbling berries and fleeing tigers.

At the very least, let’s not forget the debt we owe them. At the very least, let’s not push aside the good things they left for us: food, music, art, medicine. Enjoy sweet life while you have it. And certainly don’t ignore the perils that would rob you of life prematurely.

There is an old Mexican saying, “Ahogado el nino, tapando el pozo,” which literally means, “After the child drowns, they plug the well.” Don’t wait to be on a ventilator before you take COVID seriously.

It hasn’t gone away, and our nation will without any doubt reach its millionth victim in early 2022. The only thing worse than 1 million of our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters dying of a preventable disease is for us to sit on our hands and do nothing to save ourselves. We will join them too soon as it is.

Read More

A longtime theater instructor has been removed from Jones College Prep, located in the Loop, while officials investigate misconduct allegations made by drama students. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Jones College Prep theater teacher Brad Lyons is on leave while the school district investigates.

A longtime theater instructor has been removed from one of Chicago’s top high schools while officials investigate misconduct allegations made by drama students who were upset over the teacher’s handling of a play they found to be offensive.

The controversy at Jones College Preparatory High School boiled over with the cancellation of the drama club’s fall show. Students complained of a script they felt made light of sexual assault victims and contained inappropriate language and stereotypes that made cast members uncomfortable. Their concerns, they said, led their teacher to angrily cancel the play rather than consider changes they suggested.

From there, students made public several additional allegations unrelated to the play they believed showed their teacher’s inappropriate behavior beyond this single incident. Those accusations include repeated offensive comments by the teacher; sending a student to buy him cigarettes, and texting students, which since 2018 has been against district rules save a few exceptions.

A Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman wouldn’t say which specific complaint led to the instructor’s suspension with pay, only that the district “has opened an investigation into allegations of misconduct” at the school.

“Whenever students express concerns, we work to create individualized plans to support them, and we will continue to work closely with parents and students to ensure the school is a safe and welcoming environment for all students,” the district said.

Reached by phone, the teacher, Brad Lyons, said on the advice of the teachers union he was declining to comment. Lyons has worked at Jones since 2010 and makes $88,031 a year.

A Chicago Teachers Union spokeswoman said in a statement, “Our highest responsibility as educators is to protect students’ safety and well-being. …We are in the process of reviewing the circumstances at Jones, and we are committed as a union to providing a welcoming and nurturing environment, free of racism and discrimination.”

The play in question, “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised],” is a satirical show that has been frequently performed around the world as a comical, fast-paced interpretation of all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays.

Written in the 1980s, however, its script includes material the students at Jones believed was inappropriate for them to act out. One scene features a girl who had been sexually assaulted, and her tongue cut out and hands chopped off. She joined her father to “cook the rapist and serve him to his mother at a dinner party,” speaking with a lisp and holding a bowl with her “two stumps” to represent not having a tongue or hands.

“The show and its content has some very, very outdated themes and material,” said Mila Mussatt, the drama club president and a senior at Jones. “A lot of jokes and comments around rape victims and a lot of very racist comments, as well. A lot of stereotypes that just made our cast very uncomfortable.”

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Mila Mussatt, 17, a senior at Jones College Prep stands in front of her school on Oct. 21.

Mussatt said the cast and crew didn’t want to cancel the play — they preferred to suggest script revisions that could keep the comedic value while removing questionable elements.

“He got very upset, and he basically said, ‘Nothing’s funny, everything’s offensive, the play is canceled,'” Mussatt said. “He stormed out of the meeting . . . The environment that’s been created does not make it feel safe for people to bring forward their concerns.

“I don’t think censoring the material is the solution,” she said. “I think having discussions about issues with the material and acknowledging the problems is the best way to move forward. We should be able to take what we can from scripts and add onto them and realize, ‘Hey, this is a problematic thing . . . This is not acceptable today, but we can still enjoy it as a piece of art.'”

A CPS spokesman said the district offers theater guidelines as it does with all subject matters, but each school is left to choose the material it feels suits it best.

Principal: ‘Creative differences’ derailed play

After news of the incident spread around the school, Jones Principal Joseph Powers told families in an email the play was “cancelled due to what could be described as creative differences around changes to the script and its content. The cancellation came in an abrupt manner that left many confused and hurt.”

Powers wrote he met with staff and students, and “we collectively came to a resolution.” But he added “everything is not perfect,” and the administration was “still looking into some concerns that were expressed.”

Four days later, a statement from the about 30 students in the play made clear the situation had not been resolved and said Powers’ email “deeply sanitized the events.”

“Jones students have not felt safe in the drama program for a long time,” the statement read.

Mussatt, the drama club president, said Lyons has called her and other students some of the inappropriate words and slurs mentioned in the group’s statement, such as “whores,” “c—-,” “b——.”

Mussatt said Lyons seemed to believe he could say those words in a sort of friendly, joking manner with students, not as a harsh insult. But the effect was the same, she said.

“All the time,” she said when asked how often he used that language. “It has gotten so normalized.”

Another student, a 2019 graduate who asked not to be named, described a time when Lyons was reading a script that repeatedly used a slur against people with intellectual disabilities.

When students would skip the word, he questioned why nobody was saying it. But when the alum, who was in his class at the time, asked him to stop because she had a disabled family member and took offense to the slur, Lyons kept saying the word “to instigate me,” the former student alleged.

When it came time for auditions for the school’s 2018 fall play, Lyons wrote into the script a caricature where an Asian American student had to speak in a stereotypical accent, four people said.

One student, who asked to remain anonymous, said they were one of two Asian American students Lyons directed to speak in the mock accent.

“I was like, ‘I don’t really think I can do that,'” the student said. “And he said, ‘Just try your best.’ . . . I wasn’t the most comfortable, but I did it anyway.”

The other person ended up getting the part and performed the accent all through rehearsals and eventually in front of sold-out crowds.

The student didn’t know of anybody from the school administration questioning the accent until this past April, two years after the play, when assistant principal Eric Mitchell emailed the student asking for details.

“I was reaching out because I was wondering if you’d be willing to share some information about Mr. Lyons,” Mitchell wrote. “It was brought to my attention that during your time with the production of ‘Metamorphosis’ you may have witnessed Mr. Lyons using Asian accents or maybe some other inappropriate actions. I was hoping you might be able to share with me what you recall.”

Another time in 2018, the student was cleaning up the theater shop when Lyons walked up.

“He comes up to me, and he’s like, ‘Aren’t you supposed to be good at cleaning? You’re Asian,'” the student claimed. “And I was just like, ‘I don’t know how to respond to that.'”

That school year, during rehearsals for the musical “Spamalot,” Lyons regularly referred to “CPT” or “colored people time,” according to a person who was in the room when he allegedly made the comments and requested anonymity.

“He’d be like, ‘OK kids, we’re going to take a 15 minute break. Be back, but this isn’t CPT. You know what CPT is, right? Colored people time,'” the witness said.

Mussatt and two other people also alleged Lyons frequently texted students and interacted with them on Facebook, methods of communication that in recent years have been banned by CPS as it attempts to cut down on the potential for inappropriate connections between staff and children.

And Mussatt said she witnessed Lyons send a student to buy him cigarettes using a fake I.D. card and bring them back through a back door without going through the school’s security.

Four people at the school said administrators were at minimum generally aware of inappropriate behavior by Lyons for at least two years, including some specific allegations. But other than the one student being asked about the Asian accent, none knew of any investigations or discipline.

“It’s really disappointing to me that the kids are the ones that had to bear this emotional weight and do so much carrying and work when administrators possibly could have stopped this before,” said a staff member who requested anonymity out of fear of backlash from the school.

Asked about concerns with the administration’s handling of student complaints, Powers wrote in an email to the Sun-Times that school leadership “maintains an ‘open door’ policy,” and “personnel matters are addressed promptly and in keeping with the policies and procedures required by the” district.

A CPS spokesman declined to comment, citing a pending investigation, when asked if the district was looking into the Jones administration’s handling of complaints or whether officials have previously been forwarded allegations from the school.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Jones College Prep located at 700 South State Street, in The Loop neighborhood.

Local School Council raises concerns

Cassie Creswell, a Jones mother and the chair of the Local School Council, read excerpts from the student group’s statement at the public October LSC meeting, a recording of which was posted online.

In an interview, Creswell said she wouldn’t discuss personnel issues but she believed it was the LSC’s role to determine whether the concerns raised by the drama students were part of a larger problem at the school.

“This is a really distressing incident to hear about as a parent and an LSC member, but it’s even more concerning that I think it’s part of a pattern of systemic discrimination at the school and that we have an issue with fulfilling our students’ civil rights,” said Creswell, who has been a frequent critic of the district on issues of equity and digital privacy.

Creswell said she wasn’t pleased with the Jones administration’s handling of the situation, particularly Powers’s email describing “creative differences.” She noted the school has spent about $65,000 on anti-racist professional development in the past year and wondered whether that has made an impact.

“I have a lot of questions about whether the administration is sufficiently responding to biased-based behavior at the school,” Creswell said. “Given the continuous reports from students that they don’t feel like harm is being dealt with at the school . . . I think there’s a big issue. We need answers as an LSC, for sure.”

Read More

A 22-year-old woman was fatally shot Oct. 31, 2021, in Gresham. | File photo

About 10:30 a.m., she was in the 7600 block of South Morgan Street, when a woman walked up to her and fired shots.

A 22-year-old woman was fatally shot Sunday in Gresham on the South Side.

About 10:30 a.m., she was in the 7600 block of South Morgan Street, when a woman walked up to her and fired shots, Chicago police said.

The woman was stuck in the face and rushed to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead, police said. Her name has not yet been released.

Area Two detectives are investigating.

Read More

Read More

Marc-Andre Fleury has lost his first five starts with the Blackhawks. | Patrick McDermott/Getty Images

The veteran goalie, 0-5-0 in his first five starts with his new team, hasn’t experienced a stretch like this since the very beginning of his career.

When Marc-Andre Fleury arrived in Chicago for training camp, the first thing his new Blackhawks teammates noticed was his positivity.

But after a brutal month of awful news constantly arriving on every front, the resilience of Fleury’s positivity is being tested. One sentence from his press conference Saturday, after the Hawks’ 1-0 loss to the Blues extended their season-opening winless streak to nine games, spoke volumes about that.

“It’s been tough to keep smiling,” Fleury said.

Fleury’s beaming smile — the ultimate outward indicator of his jovial yet calm personality — made him a fan favorite during his glory days with the Penguins, then an immediate face of the new Golden Knights franchise.

So it’s a truly dire sign if it’s difficult for Fleury, of all people, to pull up that happy face each day.

“[This is] very frustrating, embarrassing,” Fleury added. “We had some hype with our team, with the new acquisitions this summer, and younger guys having a little more experience this season. We all expected more out of our team. And it’s been tough…[to] keep staying positive through it.”

For a fleeting 40 minutes Saturday, the 36-year-old goalie was at least enjoying hockey again.

He made some crucial saves at big times, helping mask the Hawks’ typical array of defensive breakdowns, and even bailed himself out of a few puck-handling mistakes. He didn’t exactly look in control — there was plenty of flailing around the crease involved in many of his stops — but he did look effective.

“Honestly, it’s the most fun I had — those first two periods — in a long time,” he said. “Just making some saves and having a 0-0 game, still having a chance to win all the way ’til the end…”

Torey Krug’s third-period goal and the Hawks’ first offensive shutout since Apr. 3 rendered Fleury’s 36 saves useless, however, and his discouragement was readily evident afterward. Not only was Fleury not smiling, but he looked genuinely pained when reflecting on his first month with the Hawks.

Hawks coach Jeremy Colliton noticed, too, how emotionally taxing this stretch has been for Fleury.

“He’s a really good pro,” Colliton said. “[He has] a ton of pride and puts a lot of pressure on himself to play at a high level. He’s done a lot of winning in his career, so he wants to win. Like everyone else, he’s frustrated, wants more, feels we’re capable of more.”

Through his first five Hawks starts, Fleury is 0-5-0 with an .872 save percentage, which actually increased from .839 on Saturday.

And in terms of Goals Saved Above Average, a holistic stat that measures goalie performance versus expected values, Fleury ranks 53rd out of 54 eligible goalies NHL-wide at minus-6.16 goals saved. His Hawks partner, Kevin Lankinen, sits 52nd at minus-4.59. Only the Coyotes’ Carter Hutton, with his absurd minus-10.0 mark entering Sunday, prevents the Hawks’ duo from singlehandedly occupying the league basement.

Fleury needed to think all the way back to his first two NHL seasons to recall another stretch as difficult as this. The 2003-04 Penguins lost 18 straight, and the 2005-06 Penguins lost 17 of 18 during one stretch. Fleury remembered a veteran player urging those teams to just keep forging ahead.

Now, Fleury is trying to drum up similar advice to pass on to the 2021-22 Hawks.

“Every time you go through such a tough time, the confidence gets a little lower, guys take mistakes a little harder, guys want to do a little more, myself included,” he said. “Sometimes we get a couple goals, and then maybe it’s a bad bounce or something, and I feel like we get down a bit.

“We have to find ways to stay upbeat and keep pushing for 60 minutes and still believe we can come back and win.”

Read More

Read More

Read More

Every night man wakes up girlfriend to grouse about the snoring or the machine she’s using to control it.

DEAR ABBY: I’m divorced and dating a man who is 10 years younger. We live together and pretty much have a great relationship. About a year ago, he told me he was losing sleep because of my heavy snoring. I was put on CPAP and use the machine several nights a week. Well, sometimes the air hose may leak and cause a sound, or the mask makes my face sore. I’ve switched several styles, but nothing helped, so I don’t always use it.

Anyway, my nightly torture is him fussing and carrying on about my snoring and/or the CPAP. He is constantly waking me up, shouting at me because it isn’t covering my face properly or, God forbid, I fall asleep before putting it on.

Abby, this has me so frustrated that it’s affecting my entire day, as he says I am affecting his. We have talked about separating because of it. I suggested he get earplugs. He refuses, but continues to torture me almost nightly about the snoring or even during the day if I fall asleep watching TV. I’m beginning to take all this very personally. I feel like I’m too old and sickly for him. He simply can’t accept that I can’t help it. What should I do? — NOISY IN GEORGIA

DEAR NOISY: The first thing you should do is talk to the doctor who prescribed the CPAP because there may be an alternative device that will work for you. The second thing you need to accept is that sleep apnea (which you call snoring) could KILL you if you continue refusing to do something about your very real problem. When people are sleep deprived, they are not at their best, to put it mildly, which may be why your partner is losing his temper.

If you use the CPAP, separate bedrooms may be a solution for HIM. But please check with your physician — and possibly a sleep disorder specialist — about other devices or therapies that might be a better option for you.

DEAR ABBY: I met a senior gentleman (my age) on a dating site. I thought our first date was pretty successful. After dinner, he asked me if I wanted to go and watch some fireworks, so I saw some potential in that. We laughed, communicated well and agreed we had lots to share.

I assumed a text or phone call would be forthcoming. Am I too old school in thinking the man makes the first move? Well, he finally called — four days later — but only to say he isn’t looking for a serious relationship, but would like to see me occasionally. Does that mean I must sit around and wait for the occasion? I am not sure what “occasionally” means these days. — OCCASIONALLY IN MASSACHUSETTS

DEAR OCCASIONALLY: “Occasionally” means when this senior gentleman feels like it. Do NOT sit around waiting! Proceed with your social life. If you feel like accepting his invitation when he calls, go ahead and enjoy his company. But do not count on him for anything.

DEAR READERS: Tonight is Halloween. I hope that any celebrating you do is creative, fun and safe for everyone involved. Happy Halloween! — LOVE, ABBY

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

For an excellent guide to becoming a better conversationalist and a more sociable person, order “How to Be Popular.” Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $8 (U.S. funds), to: Dear Abby, Popularity Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)

Read More

Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton’s future security is unclear. | AP Photos

With his biggest supporter having resigned and his team struggling on the ice, Colliton’s future as the Hawks’ coach is uncertain.

ST. LOUIS — Until last week, Jeremy Colliton was all but a singular unit with general manager Stan Bowman for the entirety of his Blackhawks coaching tenure.

Bowman handpicked Colliton to replace Joel Quenneville in 2018, conferred with him closely on most of his personnel decisions and stood loyally behind him through every low point.

But after Bowman’s resignation last week — following the Jenner & Block investigation’s confirmation that he helped cover up the 2010 sexual assault of Kyle Beach — Colliton has been left in limbo.

The young coach was playing in Sweden in 2010, nowhere near Chicago and the tragic decisions that occurred at the time, so he’s clear on the moral front. But even as that dark cloud hangs over — and largely renders irrelevant — the Hawks’ on-ice struggles, Colliton at least must be held accountable for his team’s awful performance so far.

It’s unclear, given the enormous turnover in the Hawks’ front office in recent years, whether anyone is currently in position to do that. But if anyone is, it’s interim GM Kyle Davidson.

Colliton’s relationship with Davidson isn’t anywhere nearly as developed as it was with Bowman, but they do have some familiarity to build on. Colliton insists they’re on the ”same page” about the Hawks’ plan.

”Just like working with Stan, Kyle and I are talking multiple times a day about the team and how we’re going to get better,” Colliton said Saturday. ”That’s an ongoing thing. Kyle was involved in a lot of those conversations before. No one’s happy with where we’re at, and we have to turn this around.”

In the long run, the Hawks’ GM shift from Bowman to Davidson to a potential permanent replacement will leave Colliton’s job security on thin ice.

Bowman, after all, was as faithful and devoted to Colliton as anyone could be. The same can’t be said for Davidson, whose viewpoints are complete mysteries right now, or a hypothetical future GM. One could argue many GMs already would have fired Colliton after three losing seasons and a disastrous start to his fourth, and there’s a very real chance Davidson and/or the future GM would agree with that.

In the short term, however, the Hawks’ GM shift probably buys Colliton a little more time.

The Jenner & Block investigation represented a tornado roaring through and decimating the front office. The Hawks likely will make cleaning up that mess, rather than creating an hole to fill behind the bench, their first priority.

In the meantime, Colliton has continued harping on some of his common emphases this season — defensemen pinching less aggressively, one forward staying high in the zone to limit counterattacks, etc. — and hoping they eventually start clicking.

”We all have to be better,” he said before the game Saturday against the Blues. ”We have to have the mindset we’re prepared to win 1-0. . . . Make it hard on them to create chances. Make it hard on them to create offense.”

He also is using his head-coaching role to reflect on improving hockey culture in the wake of the sexual-assault fallout. By doing that alone, he’s proving himself at least more deserving of his position than Bowman was.

”What I’ve been thinking about is the victims — Kyle [Beach], in particular — and his courage coming forward and what he’s been through,” Colliton said Friday.

”And as far as my own situation . . . those of us in leadership positions, we have to do a better job of taking responsibility to the people we’re serving and creating an environment where they feel like they can come to us with things and that they know we have their best interest at heart.

”That’s what we have to do. That’s what we have to learn from. And we’ve got to deliver.”

Read More

The Chicago Bears aren’t a good football team. Every now and again, they fool us into thinking they are doing something good but it never lasts long. A large reason for that is because they have Matt Nagy as their head coach and he is not good at his job. He isn’t going to be […] Chicago Bears: Playing without Matt Nagy shouldn’t be to spooky – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & MoreRead More