What’s New

Moon Alert

Caution: Avoid shopping or making important decisions from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Chicago time. The moon moves from Scorpio into Sagittarius.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

You will enjoy upbeat discussions with friends and members of groups. In fact, you’re ready to entertain big goals and make big plans! However, do be aware of the restrictions of the moon alert. Don’t make important decisions during that window of time.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Discussions with parents, bosses and authority figures will go well because everyone is upbeat and full of positive ideas! However, to make sure that things stay on track in a realistic way, do not agree to anything during the moon alert. Timing is everything.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

You will enjoy learning or studying anything because you’re keen to expand your world through gaining knowledge. New ideologies, methodologies, belief systems will appeal to you along with chances to travel (for some) and explorations into medicine and the law. (Check moon alert.)

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Discussions about shared property, banking, taxes and debt look positive and optimistic today. Nevertheless, because of the restrictions of the moon alert, be careful. Do not agree to important financial decisions during the moon alert.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

A conversation with a partner or close friend will be upbeat and enthusiastic. One or both of you are entertaining big ideas! Note: All the more reason to be aware of the limitations of the moon alert. Do not launch an important decision during a bad time.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Work-related travel plans or dealing with people from other cultures and different countries plus working with groups today will be positive on the whole. However, due to the moon alert, avoid making important decisions during that time.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

You’re full of creative ideas today! These ideas could pertain to sports or dealing with children or creative projects. Write down your creative ideas during the moon alert today because they might be original and worthwhile.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

This is a positive day for family discussions or a group meeting at your home; and possibly, discussions about real estate opportunities? Nevertheless, whatever you are discussing, make sure you do not decide anything important during the interval of the moon alert. Be smart.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

You have strong energy today because you feel optimistic about your future. This enthusiasm will create upbeat conversations with neighbors, siblings and daily contacts. Nevertheless, check the time of the moon alert and avoid shopping or important decisions during that window.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

You’ve got big money ideas today! You might see ways to boost your income or you might have ambitious financial plans. This is all well and good; however, do not initiate anything or spend money (professionally or personally) during the moon alert.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Today Mercury is lined up with lucky Jupiter in your sign. This makes you tolerant of other viewpoints. It also increases your ability to see the big picture. It certainly favors business and commerce. However, at the same time, there is a moon alert. Don’t do business during this moon alert window. Be smart.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

You will attract favorable situations to you now with both the sun and fair Venus in your sign. (Admittedly, increased chaos on the home front might be demanding.) However, no matter how favorable something looks today, especially behind the scenes, be aware of the limitations of the moon alert.

If Your Birthday Is Today

Actress Catherine O”Hara (1954) shares your birthday. You are mindful and aware. Because of this, you are careful and work slowly and carefully for your success. Lucky you! You have a fun-loving year ahead! Expect increased popularity and warm friendships. Gratitude will be a theme because you will appreciate the everyday joys and beauty around you. This year is the time for an important choice. Choose wisely.

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The strangest thing about pandemic football for Phillips isn’t the spring season or the five-game schedule.

For coach Troy McAllister and the Wildcats, it’s moving forward without one of the faces of the program.

Phillips started practice Wednesday afternoon without longtime defensive coordinator Mike Larson, who died unexpectedly in January.

“I can’t lie,” said senior defensive back Deavion Pierce, a Miami (Ohio) recruit. “Not just me, the whole team is still dealing with it right now.

“It’s still early. But we’ve just got to push through it because he wouldn’t want us moping around.”

Willie Jones is another senior defensive back heading off to play in the Mid-American Conference this fall, at Bowling Green. He’s also trying to adjust to the loss of a charismatic coach who cast a long shadow on the Public League’s most successful program.

“He made the game fun,” Jones said of Larson. “The energy, he just made everything exciting.”

Larson also held his defensive players to high standards, which Jones appreciated as he prepares for the next level.

“No (college) coach is going to be nice to you,” Jones said. “They’re going to be hard on you. Him being so hard on us, we got used to it. He kept us motivated.”

Like the players, McAllister is feeling his way forward.

“It definitely was an emotional day,” McAllister said. “You wake up and you’re excited. It’s the first day of football practice. My first response would be calling or texting coach Larson. …

“We have to find a way to push through and lean on each other to get through it.”

The season won’t last long. especially for Phillips and other Public League teams. While opening night for the rest of the state is March 19, CPS teams won’t start till the following weekend.

McAllister said Public League coaches were hoping to play five conference games followed by crossovers based on regular-season standings, kind of like a one-round CPS playoff.

“But we’re going to take anything we can possibly get,” he said. “For us to get these five games, it’s a different type of season and yeah, we want to win.

“But there’s also a development piece for the younger guys. We’ve got a really good junior class, but a lot of them haven’t played varsity before.”

And with state powers Batavia and Mount Carmel looming in the first two weeks of the fall season, it’s critical to get those younger players some game experience.

But for Pierce and Jones, it’s all about the here and now, and having the chance to play a little more football with their buddies after months of waiting and uncertainty.

“At some point in time, it felt like we (weren’t) going to have a season,” Pierce said. “But I never lost hope though. I never lost hope.”

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The boys, both 16, opened fire at each other about 5:10 p.m. from different vehicles traveling in the 300 block of West 83rd Street, Chicago police said.

Two teenage boys were wounded, one critically, Wednesday in a shootout in Chatham on the South Side.

The boys, both 16, opened fire at each other about 5:10 p.m. from different vehicles traveling in the 300 block of West 83rd Street, Chicago police said.

One was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center with gunshot wounds to the leg and head, police said, while the other was taken to the same hospital with a gunshot wound to the back.

Chicago fire officials said one of the boys was in critical condition. The condition of the other was not immediately known.

Area Two detectives are investigating.

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What happened at Smith College in 2018 caught my eye partly because I’d had an experience somewhat like it, albeit on a purely personal scale.

Had I not once spent a semester living adjacent to the Smith College campus in Massachusetts years ago, I’d probably never have read Michael Powell’s extraordinary New York Times account of a tragi-comic racial debacle there.

Ho-hum. Isn’t this what they do at these fancy private colleges now: turn themselves inside out in furious arguments about race and sexuality?

Back then, I was teaching at a nearby state university. Our home in the woods had burned down, and a colleague on sabbatical generously offered his Northampton house rent-free.

I don’t believe I ever set foot on the Smith campus, although our beagle, Joan, cleverly turned herself into a campus dog and gained several pounds. It took months to work her back into shape after we moved back to the country.

Nevertheless, what happened at Smith College in 2018 caught my eye partly because I’d had an experience somewhat like it, albeit on a purely personal scale. At Smith, a young Black student was approached by a (white) campus security officer who asked why she was eating all by herself in a dormitory closed for the summer, and was she OK.

Definitely not. The student took to Facebook to complain that the experience had left her near “meltdown.” “All I did was be Black,” Oumou Kanoute wrote. “It’s outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College, and my existence overall as a woman of color.” She mentioned the security guard’s “lethal weapon.”

She accused several college employees of bigotry, publishing their photos and email addresses.

The campus erupted into an episode of moral panic like those that have periodically swept New England since the 17th century. Smith president Kathleen McCartney offered a fulsome, some would say groveling, apology and suspended several employees. The Washington Post, New York Times and CNN reported the outrage at face value. Militant students made denunciations and threats against the suspended employees.

”Racist” was the least of it.

Smith College announced “anti-bias” training for staff and faculty, complete with intrusive psychological queries. The ACLU demanded separate dormitories for “students of color” (a practice formerly known as “racial segregation,” but who’s keeping score?).

Eventually, the college got around to investigating the offended student’s complaints, hiring a law firm experienced in such probes. Uh-oh. Pretty much none of her allegations checked out. The security guard, like all campus cops, was unarmed. The employees she pilloried had been off duty that day.

One falsely accused janitor quit his job. “I don’t know if I believe in white privilege,” he told a reporter. “I believe in money privilege.”

Tuition and fees at Smith College come to $78,000 a year.

The college released the report exonerating its employees, but they got no apologies. They were pretty much all laid off due to COVID anyway. Kanoute seems no longer available for comment, probably best for all concerned.

My own experience at the large state university up the road was comparatively benign, although it could easily have wrecked my academic career. It definitely helped me decide I didn’t want one.

As a graduate of a Southern university (University of Virginia), it took me a while to understand that I’d arrived on campus under suspicion. Granted, I’d met people in Charlottesville who hadn’t gotten over the Civil War, but they were regarded as cranks. And true, certain Massachusetts colleagues openly patronized the person described as my “pretty little wife” due to her Arkansas accent, but ordinary New Englanders asked her questions just to hear her talk. No harm, no foul.

Then I assigned a failing grade to a Black student, basically to be sure she was alive. Mildred had done poorly on the midterm, and then vanished. She submitted no term paper and was a no-show for the final. I figured an “F” would smoke her out if she hadn’t left school. Indeed, she did turn up with a preposterous alibi about cutting her foot on a discarded light bulb.

I agreed to let her make up the work. The paper she turned in was derisory. Her exam revealed no familiarity with the course work. I gave her a minimal passing grade and figured we were done.

The good news is that the subsequent formal investigation was conducted by a senior faculty member not associated with my department’s “radical” faction. After conducting interviews and scrutinizing Mildred’s written work — what little there was of it — he ruled that I’d treated her as strictly as I treated all my students, finding no evidence of racial bias.

That was a joke. I was a pushover.

Mildred, however, was a pioneer. In basketball, it’s called “working the refs.” In academia, it’s known as “critical race theory.”

A few days after my exoneration, a colleague commiserated that an “aristocratic Southerner” like me must find State U’s diverse student population challenging. Ethnically, I am an Irish Catholic from Elizabeth, New Jersey.

I figured I needed to quit before I got fired.

Gene Lyons is a columnist for the Arkansas.

Send letters to [email protected].

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There’s much to check out online and in person in Chicago in the week ahead.

Pioneering women

Chicago Detours reboots its “Badass Women of History” tour as a live, interactive virtual event, which highlights diverse women who forged groundbreaking paths in science, business, culture and social justice. Each of the women has a Chicago connection, and their stories are told through videos, photos and artwork: aviator Bessie Coleman; dancer Maria Tallchief; sculptor Enid Yandell; Iva Toguri D’Aquino, who gained notoriety as Tokyo Rose during World War II, and Naomi Weisstein, founder of American Women in Psychology. Streams at 6 p.m. March 8 and 12, and 1 p.m. March 20 and 27. Tickets: $20, $35. Visit chicagodetours.com/virtual-tours/.

Royal rules

Lowell Thomas

The Steppenwolf Theatre NOW Series continues with Vivian J.O. Barnes’ “Duchess! Duchess! Duchess!” Soon there will be a royal wedding and rules must be taught and absorbed as a duchess (Sydney Charles) meets and tutors the young soon-to-be duchess (Celeste M. Cooper) in the ways of her future family. Loosely inspired by Meghan Markle’s experience with the British royals, Barnes investigates how society’s institutions of power affect Black women. Directed by Weyni Mengesha, the drama begins streaming March 10. Tickets: $75 includes access to all six Steppenwolf NOW productions. Visit steppenwolf.org/now.

MCA reopens

Provided

It’s time to catch up with exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art, several of which opened just as another shutdown began this past December. One of these, “Carolina Caycedo: From the Bottom of the River” (to Sept. 12), surveys the past 10 years of the artist’s practice, which addresses humanity’s relationship with nature via an array of video, drawing, sculpture and photography. Featured in the exhibit is “Be Damned,” an ongoing multimedia project that examines the impact of hydroelectric dams and other infrastructure projects on communities and the environment. Admission: $15. Visit mcachicago.org.

South Asian traditions

Provided

The annual Mandala Makers Festival features a series of streaming performances at 7 p.m. every Friday in March. Each evening showcases musical artists rooted in South Asian traditions both classic and contemporary. The March 5 edition includes Uma Balachandran performing konnakol (the art of performing percussion syllables vocally) accompanied by her father, Murali Balachandran, on mridangam; Pavitra Ramachandran, a Carnatic singer accompanied by her father Prasod Ramachandran on violin, and Rini, featuring Indian electronica and art rock drawing from Carnatic traditions. The festival running through March 26 is free but donations to Mandala South Asian Performing Arts’are appreciated. Visit makersfestival.mandalaarts.org.

Controversial film

Kino Lorber

In 1971, during the Vietnam War, actors Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland along with other performers took their controversial musical comedy tour “F.T.A.” to Southeast Asia. (The title comes from the original Army recruitment slogan “Fun, Travel, Adventure” and redubbed “Free the Army” or “F— the Army.”) The tour, which was popular with enlisted men and women, was filmed by director Francine Parker for a documentary that was released in 1972 but quickly pulled from theaters due to Fonda’s infamous visit to Hanoi. Now the rarely seen film, with an added introduction by Fonda, has been restored and is available for streaming via Facets through March 25. Tickets: $10. For more information, visit facets.org.

Mind-bending experience

Julie Dietz

The Museum of Illusions (25 E. Washington), where nothing is quite as it seems. is a one-of-a-kind adventure that reveals a lot about how the brain interprets reality. There are more than 80 visual and educational exhibits featuring holograms, stereograms, optical illusions and immersive rooms that are designed to tease the senses and trick the mind. Plus you can learn the mechanics behind each illusion. Admission is $15-$21, children under 5 free. Visit chicago.museumofillusions.us.

Dracula drag

Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus

The Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus ends its season dedicated to famous novels with “Lipstick & Lyrics: Diva Dracula,” featuring 15 drag performers on a journey through the macabre which runs from “scary to hysterical,” according to artistic director James Morehead. The concert streams at 8 p.m. March 6, 12 and 13. Tickets: $15-$40. Visit cgmc.org/lnl.

Virtual stage

PlayMakers Laboratory

Playmakers Laboratory’s online revue “That’s Weird, Grandma: House Par-Tay” continues with adaptations of stories written by students from Chicago elementary schools that celebrate Women’s History Month, St. Patrick’s day and more. Streams through March 29 Tickets: $2-$4. Visit playmakerslab.org. … Actress Betsey Means performs “Democracy in America: A Social Gathering with Jane Addams,” her solo show based on the social justice crusader’s life and writings. Streams at noon March 8. Tickets: $15. Visit driehausmuseum.org. … Vicki Quade’s comedy “Easter Bunny Bingo: Jesus, Resurrection & Peeps” streams through April 4. Tickets: $15. Visit nuns4fun.com.

Mary Houlihan is a Chicago freelance writer.

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Ross named Ian Happ as the Cubs’ lead-off hitter, but the rest of the lineup is still a work in progress

MESA, Ariz. – Most of the names in the lineup are going to be the same, but the Cubs are hoping this season will bring different results. 2020 wasn’t kind to the Cubs’ offense and with several players suffering down seasons, it put added pressure on the team’s pitching staff to help make up the difference.

A common theme during Cubs camp has been position players getting back to being who they are and by doing that, getting back to the things that made them a successful offensive team. One of the things the Cubs did at their best was drive the ball out of the ballpark.

Left fielder Joc Pederson and first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who both homered in Wednesday’s 8-8 tie with the Mariners, are going to be a big part of that offense and their power surge gives a glimpse into the depth the Cubs’ lineup could have at full strength.

“It’s pretty special,” Pedersen said. “A lot of hard hit balls. It’s really anyone one through nine can click you at any second. I think it puts the pitchers under a little bit more stress. [Anthony] Rizzo hit two missiles today.

“One day it could be J-Hey, one day it could be Javy, me, Kris, Contreras, you know. One through nine, it’s special.”

Manager David Ross has used the Cubs’ spring training games to tinker with his lineup. The Cubs’ skipper has already named center fielder Ian Happ his everyday lead-off hitter following Happ’s success in the spot last season.

However, the rest of the lineup remains in flux with Ross using a variety of lineups to find the best mix. Ross will have a lot of options with names like Rizzo, Pederson, Kris Bryant, Willson Contreras, Jason Heyward and Javy Baez to plug into the middle of the order.

“We got people here to trust me,” Baez said. “We got the talent, we got the pitching, we got the hitting, we got everything.”

“I think we I think we have the pieces here to have a really good offense,” president Jed Hoyer said. “Now we need to put it together.”

Ross went with the traditional left-right-left variation when coming up with lineups last season, but with a year of lineups under his belt and a better idea of what he wants to do strategically, don’t be surprised if there’s some new wrinkles this season.

“I definitely learned a lot about that last year and such being my first year managing,” Ross said. “There were some on the fly learning experiences that happened. You definitely want to stay away from just setting the other team up to have an easy inning, especially late having a dominant reliever.

“That’s why I tried a lot of the time to keep it right, left, right or vice versa. And split those guys up. But I don’t know that I’ll still follow that formula moving forward. I think there is some power in splitting that up. There’s also some strategy that I learned about last year that I feel can help me moving forward.”

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Schools chief Janice Jackson said this week she “definitely won’t be satisfied” if high schools don’t reopen this spring.

Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said Wednesday that he’s confident an agreement can be reached with Chicago Public Schools officials to reopen the city’s high schools.

The union leader warned of more complexities with older grades that could take time to sort out, and he stressed high schools won’t look nearly the same as pre-pandemic times. But he sees a path to a deal in bargaining that started Wednesday.

“I am confident that we can be delivering in-person education for folks in high school,” Sharkey said in an interview. “I do not know exactly what that will look like. I know that we have to keep safety in mind.

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t look like what high school looked like before the pandemic,” he said. “There’s a bunch of things about high school that make it more challenging than elementary schools. Which is a reason why across the country so few high schools have actually reopened. Even places that ran school all fall, like New York, haven’t reopened high schools.”

For one, high schools typically have hundreds more students than elementary schools and higher classroom-to-classroom mobility with different subjects in separate classrooms — both factors making it harder to develop hybrid schedules and the 15-student pods used in the K-8 plan. Older students also are used to a greater level of independence.

“You’re three-quarters of the way through a school year, and so it’s very hard to then reprogram a school,” he said. “You’ve already gotten three-quarters of a class under your belt, you’ve got to keep your same schedule.”

Asked if there’s enough time to sort out all those issues with only three months left in the school year, Sharkey said, “I don’t know. That’s a good question.”

“I think we’ve got time to make a pretty good stab at some of it, a bunch of it,” he said.

“Am I confident we can do something? Yes. Am I confident that it’s going to be perfect, or that it’s going to look exactly like school did before the pandemic? No, in fact I’m pretty sure that it won’t.”

Schools chief Janice Jackson said at a news conference on the first day of K-5 reopening Monday she “definitely won’t be satisfied” if high schools don’t reopen this spring. She said both CPS and CTU “learned a lot” in their hostile negotiations the past few months, and the conversation has moved past whether schools should reopen.

“Now it really is about what does it take in order to have in-person instruction in high schools, which is more complicated than an elementary school,” Jackson said. “Our goal is to see our kids back this year, and that’s how we’re going to start the conversation with CTU this week.”

Responding to criticism that parent and student voices weren’t heard in the last round of negotiations, Jackson vowed more engagement in high school talks. She said principals and teachers will be at the table, and CPS will send a survey to parents and students to hear their suggestions and concerns.

Sharkey said he’s been saddened to see high school students miss out on activities and rights of passage like prom, graduation and sports, but he’s not sure if big in-person events will be possible this spring. As far as schooling goes, “we need to … make plans that are going to do right by some of those students,” he said.

“I think we’d like to figure out a way to provide services to people in high school, especially to the students who are being most poorly served by the way we’re doing it now,” Sharkey said.

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ABC7 is working on a separation agreement with the longtime sports anchor after he jokingly referred to news anchor Cheryl Burton as “ditzy” on a newscast Jan. 28, according to sources.

ABC7 is working on a separation agreement with longtime sports anchor Mark Giangreco after he jokingly referred to news anchor Cheryl Burton as “ditzy” on a newscast Jan. 28, according to sources. Burton complained to station management, which has kept Giangreco off the air and prevented him from making his regular appearances on ESPN 1000. Giangreco isn’t expected to return to either outlet.

At the end of his last sports segment, Giangreco, 68, showed a video of a hockey player on roller blades sanding drywall with the butt end of a hockey stick and shooting a puck into a garbage can with the blade end. Said Giangreco: “Gotta get him a show on DIY Network. We’ll call it ‘House Fix with Sticks,’ and Cheryl can play the ditzy, combative interior decorator. I got it all worked out.”

Giangreco has been the most prominent sportscaster in Chicago for decades. He arrived at NBC5 in 1982 and moved to ABC7 in ’94. He always has shown a quick wit and sarcastic sense of humor on the air, and it endeared him to many viewers. But there has been tension between Giangreco and Burton for years, according to sources, and this appears to have been her breaking point.

Others who have worked with Giangreco have brushed off similar remarks as playful. Considering Burton complained to management, it’s fair to question whether management would have done anything had she not, knowing Giangreco’s persona.

That isn’t to defend him for the remark, especially in a time when many media types have paid the price for their words on the air or on social media. Sensitivities have been heightened everywhere. But if the station allowed issues to fester between the two, even the slightest derision could have been received in the worst way.

Plus, Giangreco and Burton have become so big at the station that perhaps both have felt invincible. But times have changed dramatically since the heyday of local news. The money, ratings and star power aren’t what they used to be, and Giangreco’s expected ouster will send shockwaves through the local industry and serve as a warning: If Giangreco can be let go, anyone can.

If some of Giangreco’s previous transgressions occurred today, he wouldn’t have survived them. His most notable one came in 1999, when he said former Bears running back Walter Payton looked like Gandhi, not knowing Payton had a liver disease that would kill him that year. Giangreco apologized profusely for the mistake, and Payton called to forgive him.

In 2004, after the Pistons won the NBA title, he aired a black-and-white video of fires and joked that it was “a typical night in Detroit.” The station suspended him for week. Most recently, in 2017, Giangreco reportedly was suspended for multiple weeks without pay for calling former President Donald Trump a “cartoon lunatic” and the United States a “country full if simpletons” in a tweet.

ABC7 president and general manager John Idler and Giangreco’s agent, Joel Weisman, did not respond to requests for comment.

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March tends to be a wild card when it comes to weather in Chicago－ you can bet it’s not going to be warm, but will it at least be bearable? This year, there’s a sense of growing optimism as both the temperature and vaccination rate rises. We’re not out of the woods yet, but now that the sun is shining and COVID positivity rates are down, Chicagoans are more than ready to get out of the house. Here are five things to do in Chicago in March. 

Garfield Park Conservatory is now accepting visitors to its impressive and varied indoor gardens. The conservatory is creating a safer environment by requiring reservations in advance, mask-wearing, physical distancing, and other precautionary measures. The reopening includes the Spring Flower Show: Saturation exhibit.

The home of Wellington and his tuxedoed friends is welcoming back aquatic animal enthusiasts, and is implementing a timed-ticket reservation system for individuals that are looking for things to do in Chicago this March. People are committed to viewing their water-dwelling friends at Shedd Aquarium. Don’t forget to also say hello to Nickel, the green sea turtle and “star of the Caribbean Reef habitat.”

Reserve a ticket at the Art Institute of Chicago ahead of time to check out all of the amazing works on display right now. The current events and exhibitions available in March include Monet and Chicago, Bisa Butler: Portraits, and Jo Ractliffe: DRIVES.

Andersonville usually celebrates its restaurants for only a week, but this year the neighborhood is turning the event into a month-long celebration of food! During each week of March, diners can order prix-fixe meals-to-go from a different group of restaurants in Chicago.

Lakefront Hangouts

The Lakefront Trail has been open to exercising Chicagoans for several months, but recently the city announced that it would be reopening more of the lakefront－ including playgrounds and other “nature play spaces.” It may be a little brisk right now, but has that ever really stopped Chicagoans that are looking for things to do in the springtime?

Chicago March Featured Image Credit: Shedd Aquarium on Facebook

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