How Low is Home Inventory in Winnetka & the North Shore, Really?on June 15, 2021 at 7:44 pm

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How Low is Home Inventory in Winnetka & the North Shore, Really?

How Low is Home Inventory in Winnetka & the North Shore, Really?on June 15, 2021 at 7:44 pm Read More »

Illegal abortion leads to circle of tragedyon June 15, 2021 at 5:49 pm

An abortion cost $50 in Chicago in 1941.

Kinda cheap — $800 in today’s dollars — considering it was an illegal procedure, performed in secret, condemned by the church at a time when organized religion had even more of a stranglehold on American society than it does now, which is really saying something.

Chicago women back then had abortions anyway, for the same reasons they do now, ranging from medical to financial to emotional necessity. It was a fairly routine procedure in 1941. Your doctor would jot down an address — 190 N. State St. — and you’d hurry to the Gabler Clinic on the 6th floor.

The Gabler clinic had been open since the early 1930s, mostly. It would be periodically raided, only to open again. Leading to the question of how this criminal procedure was performed an average of five times a day in the heart of the Loop for almost a decade.

Therein lies the tale.

One reason religious zealots have such success restricting abortion is that it is seen as affecting only women. So they marshal their zombie army of imaginary babies and send them off to do battle against actual living people — mostly young, poor women — and thus approach the New Jerusalem, in their own minds.

While it is true that women are the primary beneficiaries of abortions, and suffer most when abortion is restricted, they are not the only victims of criminalizing a highly popular medical procedure. With the U.S. Supreme Court taking a case arising from Mississippi’s draconian abortion laws, and Texas’ “Heartbeat Law” criminalizing abortion after six weeks, now seems an apt moment to remember a case that rocked Chicago 80 years ago. A taste of what’s in store for us should the faith-addled fanatics Donald Trump placed on the high court overturn Roe v. Wade.

They called it “The Million Dollar Abortion Ring,” for the nearly 20,000 abortions, at $50 a pop, performed at the Gabler Clinic. The clinic went from open secret to front page news after Detective Daniel Moriarity, a 15-year veteran of the state’s attorney police force, went to 4367 N. Lake Park, pushed past a maid, and fired five shots into what he thought was the sleeping form of Ada Martin, who ran the clinic.

It wasn’t Martin. It was her daughter, Jennie, 24.

Martin had been paying Moriarity $100 a month, part of the network of corruption required to provide an illegal public service. He could deflect local heat, but the federal authorities were interested in collecting tax on that million dollars. Hoping to further motivate him, Martin threatened to take Moriarity down with her, and the shooting had been his attempt to avoid that.

The death of the sleeping young woman was just one ripple in an ever-widening circle of human wreckage. Moriarity’s wife had a nervous breakdown when he was arrested. One doctor involved in the clinic, Dr. Henry J. Millstone, took poison after being indicted. As he died he wrote letters exposing the ring. Millstone also wrote one to his wife, Emily, urging her to “keep her chin up.” She drank ammonia instead, and died too. A pair of assistant state’s attorneys were also found to be on the Gabler payroll and fired. Moriarity was sentenced to life and died in Joliet in 1946.

The dream of eliminating abortion is a fantasy from the same folks who’d eliminate sex, too, if only they could, or at least appoint themselves guardians to dictate to you how, when, why and with whom you do it. That door being closed, mostly, fighting abortion is what they’ve got left, not realizing that abortion has been a reality since ancient times and isn’t going away. The only choice is whether abortion is legal, safe and available, or illegal, dangerous and hard-to-get.

I was wondering how the $50 in 1941 compares to the cost of abortion now. My guess is an average of $1,600 to $2,400, between double and triple in current dollars what it cost in 1941, the difference made up by increases in complexity and cost of medical technology. Hoping to do better than guesswork, I contacted Planned Parenthood of Illinois. Either they don’t know or won’t say — apparently it’s complicated. I pressed, but they wouldn’t even whisper a range or ballpark figure. No wonder the good guys are losing, when they can’t cough up a simple statistic like that.

Illegal abortion leads to circle of tragedyon June 15, 2021 at 5:49 pm Read More »

US COVID-19 deaths hit 600,000on June 15, 2021 at 5:52 pm

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 topped 600,000 on Tuesday, even as the vaccination drive has drastically brought down daily cases and fatalities and allowed the country to emerge from the gloom and look forward to summer.

The number of lives lost, as recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is greater than the population of Baltimore or Milwaukee. It is about equal to the number of Americans who died of cancer in 2019. Worldwide, the death toll stands at about 3.8 million.

The milestone came the same day that California and New York lifted most of their remaining restrictions, joining other states in opening the way, step by step, for what could be a fun and close to normal summer for many Americans.

“Deep down I want to rejoice,” said Rita Torres, a retired university administrator in Oakland, California. But she plans to take it slow: “Because it’s kind of like, is it too soon? Will we be sorry?”

With the arrival of the vaccine in mid-December, COVID-19 deaths per day in the U.S. have plummeted to an average of around 340, from a high of over 3,400 in mid-January. Cases are running at about 14,000 a day on average, down from a quarter-million per day over the winter.

The real death tolls in the U.S. and around the globe are thought to be significantly higher, with many cases overlooked or possibly concealed by some countries.

President Joe Biden acknowledged the approaching milestone Monday during his visit to Europe, saying that while new cases and deaths are dropping dramatically in the U.S., “there’s still too many lives being lost,” and “now is not the time to let our guard down.”

The most recent deaths are seen in some ways as especially tragic now that the vaccine has become available practically for the asking.

More than 52% of all Americans have had at least one dose, while almost 44% are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But demand for shots in the U.S. has dropped off dramatically, leaving many places with a surplus of doses and casting doubt on whether the country will meet Biden’s target of having 70% of all adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4. The figure stands at just under 65%.

As of a week ago, the U.S. was averaging about 1 million injections per day, down from a high of about 3.3 million a day on average in mid-April, according to the CDC.

At nearly every turn in the outbreak, the virus has exploited and worsened inequalities in the United States. CDC figures, adjusted for age and population, show that Black, Latino and Native American people are two to three times more likely than whites to die of COVID-19.

Also, an Associated Press analysis found that Latinos are dying at much younger ages than other groups. Hispanic people between 30 and 39 have died at five times the rate of white people in the same age group.

Overall, Black and Hispanic Americans have less access to medical care and are in poorer health, with higher rates of conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. They are also more likely to have jobs deemed essential, less able to work from home and more likely to live in crowded, multigenerational households.

With the overall picture improving rapidly, California, the most populous state and the first to impose a coronavirus lockdown, dropped its rules on social distancing and limits on capacity at restaurants, bars, supermarkets, gyms, stadiums and other places, ushering in what has been billed as its “Grand Reopening” just in time for summer.

Disneyland is throwing open its gates to all tourists after allowing just California residents. Fans will be able to sit elbow-to-elbow and cheer without masks at Dodgers and Giants games

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that 70% of adults in the state have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and he announced that the immediate easing of many of the restrictions will be celebrated with fireworks.

“What does 70% mean? It means that we can now return to life as we know it,” he said.

He said the state is lifting rules that had limited the size of gatherings and required some types of businesses to follow cleaning protocols, take people’s temperature or screen them for COVID-19 symptoms. Businesses will no longer have to restrict how many people they can allow inside based on the 6-foot rule.

For the time being, though, New Yorkers will have to keep wearing masks in schools, subways and certain other places.

Massachusetts officially lifted its state of emergency Tuesday, though many restrictions had already been eased, including mask requirements and limits on gatherings.

The first known deaths from the virus in the U.S. were in early February 2020. It took four months to reach the first 100,000 dead. During the most lethal phase of the disaster, in the winter of 2020-21, it took just over a month to go from 300,000 to 400,000 deaths.

With the crisis now easing, it took close to four months for the U.S. death toll to go from a half-million to 600,000.

US COVID-19 deaths hit 600,000on June 15, 2021 at 5:52 pm Read More »

Brian Wilson documentary tells his survival storyon June 15, 2021 at 5:52 pm

NEW YORK — The tragedies of Brian Wilson’s life is a rock ‘n’ roll story well told.

The postscript — that he’s a survivor nearing age 80 who appears to be supported personally and professionally in a way he never really had before — is less familiar.

Despite some uncomfortable moments in “Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road,” that important update is the point of the documentary that premieres Tuesday at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

The film’s heart is a series of drives around southern California, where Wilson and Rolling Stone magazine editor Jason Fine talk, listen to music and occasionally stop at restaurants. There’s a comfort level between the two; Fine is a journalist who has become a friend.

Wilson, the creative force behind the Beach Boys, has dealt with an abusive, hard-driving father, the mental illness Schizoaffective disorder where he’d hear voices berating and belittling him, and band members often resistant to where he was going musically. Add in years of drug abuse, a quack psychologist who effectively held him prisoner for a decade and the younger brothers who died early, and it’s a lot to endure.

“He doesn’t deserve the accolades about his music,” Elton John says in the film. “He deserves the accolades about his personal life.”

John, along with Bruce Springsteen, Don Was and Linda Perry, are eloquent in describing what made Wilson’s work unique and enduring, crucial to making the film appeal to more than just his fans.

Film director Brent Wilson (no relation) contacted Fine after his own attempts to interview Wilson bore little fruit. Fine said his own experiences with the musician have taught him that “being there when he’s ready to talk has always been a big thing with Brian.”

So they hit the road, eventually filming some 70 hours.

Wilson’s importance to southern California is evident at some of the stops along their drive. A sign now marks the spot where a Beach Boys album cover was shot. While the boyhood home of Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson in Hawthorne no longer stands, a plaque marks that location, too.

“I didn’t feel that Brian’s story, Brian’s third act now, had been done properly,” Fine said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I think that Brian is often seen as a recluse, as a victim, as someone who burned out (and)… lost his way,” he said. “That’s not how I see Brian at all. Ever since I’ve known him I see him as a hero, a courageous person, who gives everybody who goes to his shows strength and inspiration.”

The original Beach Boys (shown in this undated photo) included Carl Wilson (from left), Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine and Brian Wilson.

Fine said that “I wanted to show people Brian’s humanity, his decency, his kindness, his humor, his curiosity.”

In the film, Fine stops the car outside of the former home of Wilson’s brother Carl, who died of lung cancer at 51 in 1998. Fine gets out; Wilson wants to stay in the passenger seat. The camera catches Wilson wiping away a tear.

At another point, as they passed a spot where he once owned a health food store, Wilson says that “I haven’t had a friend to talk to in three years.”

They are moments that are deeply discomforting, bordering on exploitive. Wilson is clearly a damaged soul and, for his sake, you wonder at times in “Long Promised Road” if he would have been been better served by the dignity of privacy.

Fine doesn’t see it that way.

“All of it is done on Brian’s terms and on Brian’s comfort level, so I don’t see it as exploitive,” he said.

Wilson himself, in a Zoom call with reporters, said little. Asked why he agreed to participate in the film, he said, “I don’t know. I just made up my mind.”

Fine said it appears that the level of fandom that Wilson inspires is sometimes intimidating. He was struck once, following a show where Wilson and his band performed the “Pet Sounds” album, when Wilson told him that he’d always doubted it, but that now he thought that people loved his music and that he was doing what he was supposed to be doing.

“You’d think that was something he would felt over the last 60 years or so, being onstage with people singing and screaming for his music,” he said. “But what you feel inside is different than what comes from the external sources. I think that he feels the love and I think that’s huge.”

After all the years where his life was dominated by negativity, Wilson now has a positive, supportive personal life with wife Melinda and their family. He’s also surrounded by musicians who clearly revere him and are devoted to bringing what Elton John called the orchestra in Wilson’s head to life.

Nerves drove Wilson off the concert circuit at the height of the Beach Boys’ success. Now he loves performing, Fine said.

Perhaps, within himself, Wilson has accepted that he’s done things that mean so much to others, he said.

“That sort of simple message he really wanted to give people through his music going back to the ’60s — a sense of warmth, a sense that it’s going be OK in the same way that music lifted him up from his darkness, he’d try to do for other people,” he said. “I think now, more than earlier in his career, he accepts that he does that and that’s a great comfort to him.”

Brian Wilson documentary tells his survival storyon June 15, 2021 at 5:52 pm Read More »

Israelis march in east Jerusalem in test for new governmenton June 15, 2021 at 5:54 pm

JERUSALEM — Hundreds of Israeli ultranationalists, some chanting “Death to Arabs,” paraded through east Jerusalem on Tuesday in a show of force that threatened to spark renewed violence just weeks after a war with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians in Gaza responded by launching incendiary balloons that caused at least 10 fires in southern Israel.

The march posed a test for Israel’s fragile new government as well as the tenuous truce that ended last month’s 11-day war between Israel and Hamas.

Palestinians consider the march, meant to celebrate Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in 1967, to be a provocation. Hamas called on Palestinians to “resist” the parade, a version of which helped ignite last month’s 11-day Gaza war.

With music blaring, hundreds of Jewish nationalists gathered and moved in front of Damascus Gate. Most appeared to be young men, and many held blue-and-white Israeli flags as they danced and sang religious songs.

At one point, several dozen youths, jumping and waving their hands in their air, chanted: “Death to Arabs!” In another anti-Arab chant, they yelled: “May your village burn.”

The crowd, while boisterous, appeared to be much smaller than during last month’s parade.

Ahead of the march, Israeli police cleared the area in front of Damascus Gate, shut down roads to traffic, ordered shops to close and sent away young Palestinian protesters. Palestinians said six people were arrested, and at five people were hurt in clashes with police.

The parade provided an early challenge for Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, a hardline Israeli nationalist who has promised a pragmatic approach as he presides over a delicate, diverse coalition government.

Though there were concerns the march would raise tensions, canceling it would have opened Bennett and other right-wing members of the coalition to intense criticism from those who would view it as a capitulation to Hamas. The coalition was sworn in on Sunday and includes parties from across the political spectrum, including a small Arab party.

Mansour Abbas, whose Raam party is the first Arab faction to join an Israeli coalition, said the march was “an attempt to set the region on fire for political aims,” with the intention of undermining the new government.

Abbas said the police and public security minister should have canceled the event. “I call on all sides not to be dragged into an escalation and maintain maximum restraint,” he said.

In past years, the march passed through Damascus Gate and into the heart of the Muslim Quarter, a crowded Palestinian neighborhood with narrow streets and alleys. But police changed the route Tuesday to avoid the Muslim Quarter.

Instead, marchers were to walk around the ancient walls of the Old City and enter through Jaffa Gate, a main thoroughfare for tourists, and head toward the Jewish Quarter and Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray.

Damascus Gate is a focal point of Palestinian life in east Jerusalem. Palestinian protesters repeatedly clashed with Israeli police over restrictions on public gatherings during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in April and May.

Those clashes eventually spread to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint site sacred to Jews and Muslims. Tensions at the time were further fueled by protests over the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers, also in Jerusalem.

At the height of those tensions, on May 10, Israeli ultranationalists held their annual flag parade. While it was diverted from the Damascus Gate at the last minute, it was seen by Palestinians as an unwelcome celebration of Israeli control over what they view as their capital.

In the name of defending the holy city, Hamas fired long-range rockets at Jerusalem, disrupting the march and sparking the Gaza war, which claimed more than 250 Palestinian lives and killed 13 people in Israel.

After capturing east Jerusalem in 1967, Israel annexed the in a move not recognized by most of the international community. It considers the entire city its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state. The competing claims over east Jerusalem, home to sensitive Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites, lie at the heart of the conflict and have sparked many rounds of violence.

Ahead of the march, Hamas called on Palestinians to show “valiant resistance” to the march. It urged people to gather in the Old City and at the Al-Aqsa Mosque to “rise up in the face of the occupier and resist it by all means to stop its crimes and arrogance.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Hamas-linked Palestinians launched a number of incendiary balloons from Gaza, setting off at least 10 blazes in southern Israel, according to Israel’s national fire department.

Abu Malek, one of the young men launching the balloons, said called the move “an initial response” to the march.

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, of the internationally backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, called the march an “aggression against our people.”

Israeli media reported the military was on heightened alert in the occupied West Bank and along the Gaza frontier in case of violence. Batteries of Israel’s Iron Dome rocket-defense system were seen deployed near the southern town of Netivot, near the Gaza border, as a precaution. Hundreds of police will also be deployed.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with the military chief of staff, the police commissioner and other senior security officials on Tuesday. He “underscored the need to avoid friction and protect the personal safety of … Jews and Arabs alike.”

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said U.N. officials have urged all sides to avoid “provocations” in order to solidify the informal cease-fire that halted the Gaza war.

___

Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss contributed

Israelis march in east Jerusalem in test for new governmenton June 15, 2021 at 5:54 pm Read More »

NY lifts more COVID-19 rules as it hits vaccination markon June 15, 2021 at 5:58 pm

NEW YORK — Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that 70% of adults in New York have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, a threshold he said the state would celebrate by easing many of its remaining social distancing rules and shooting off fireworks.

“What does 70% mean? It means that we can now return to life as we know it,” Cuomo told an invitation-only crowd at the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

Effective immediately, he said, the state is lifting rules that had limited the size of gatherings and required some types of businesses to follow cleaning protocols or take people’s temperatures or screen them for recent COVID-19 symptoms.

Businesses will no longer have to follow social distancing rules, or limit how many people they can allow inside based on keeping people 6 feet apart.

Some rules will remain: New Yorkers, for now, will continue to have to wear masks in schools, subways, large venues, homeless shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, jails and prisons.

Cuomo, a Democrat, said there would be fireworks displays around the state Tuesday. He said in previous days that the fireworks would commemorate the 70% threshold, but said Tuesday the fireworks are to honor essential workers.

It’s unclear how many more people have to get vaccinated to reach herd immunity, which is when enough people have immunity that the virus has trouble spreading.

It’s unclear what that threshold is for the coronavirus, though many experts say it’s 70% or higher. Just half of all 20 million residents in New York are fully vaccinated, according to federal data as of Monday. About 58% of residents of all ages have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Over the past seven days, New York has been averaging around 450 new coronavirus cases a day, the lowest level since the pandemic began.

Vaccination rates are particularly low in parts of the state that were hit hard by the winter COVID-19 surge, including parts of New York City and rural counties in western and central New York.

About 30% of the population is vaccinated in Allegany County, compared with 37% in nearby Wyoming County.

In New York City, 38% and 40.6% of residents are fully vaccinated in the Bronx and Brooklyn, respectively. That contrasts with 58% of Manhattan residents and 51% in Queens.

Also Tuesday, health officials announced that nearly 900 people received expired COVID-19 vaccine doses at a vaccination site in Times Square earlier this month. The 899 people who received doses of the Pfizer vaccine at the former NFL Experience building in Times Square between June 5 and June 10 should schedule another Pfizer shot as soon as possible, the New York City Health Department said.

NY lifts more COVID-19 rules as it hits vaccination markon June 15, 2021 at 5:58 pm Read More »

Negro Leagues stats officially incorporated into Baseball Reference’s databaseon June 15, 2021 at 6:01 pm

At its core, baseball is a game of numbers, typified by the familiar phrase: “You are what the back of your baseball card says you are.”

For the better part of three decades, Black baseball players competed on identical fields under the same rules as their white counterparts, but were considered inferior — even if their style of play and level of competition said otherwise.

Last December, Major League Baseball took a giant step toward correcting that by officially elevating the Negro Leagues to major league status.

The transformation takes another step forward Tuesday with Negro League statistics now listed alongside those of the American League and National League on Baseball-Reference.com.

“This is an opportunity for America to learn about some of the greatest ballplayers who’ve ever played the game. They just happened to be of a darker complexion,” says Larry Lester, co-founder of Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

While the website has displayed the statistics of Negro League players for at least a decade, the most visible changes can be seen among the official single-season and career record leaderboards — with great Negro Leaguers such as Josh Gibson (who hit .466 in 1943) and Satchel Paige (who had a 0.72 ERA in 1944) featured prominently.

With assistance from the Society for American Baseball Research, Seamheads.com and the families of the former Negro League players, the project has now become a reality — even if it’s far from complete.

“Much remains to be done,” says Sports Reference president Sean Forman. “Statistics on our site will change as new information is discovered.”

With charismatic players and an exciting style of play, Negro Leagues history has long been celebrated in baseball lore. But the actual statistics have been hard to track down.

“For many years, we’ve heard those great stories. Some of it’s folklore and some of it’s embellished truth. Those truths have long been a staple of Negro League stats and narrative,” Lester says. “While these stories can be entertaining, now a dialogue can include quantified and qualified stats to support the authentic greatness of these great athletes like Josh Gibson.

“The beauty of the stats is that they now humanize these folk heroes. These stats legitimize their accomplishments.”

However, numbers can’t tell the whole story. For starters, the Negro Leagues played far fewer games in a season than the major leagues did. But by using stats that adjust for league averages and ballparks, it’s easier to compare players from different eras.

For example, the career OPS+ (adjusted on-base plus slugging percentage) leaderboard looks like this:

1. Babe Ruth 206

2. Ted Williams 191

3. Oscar Charleston 184

4. Barry Bonds 182

5. Lou Gehrig 179

Yes, that’s Negro Leagues star Charleston (1920-41) behind only the Sultan of Swat and the Splendid Splinter. Fellow Negro Leaguers Turkey Stearnes (177) and Mule Suttles (172) also rank among the top 10.

Lester says there’s even more information about the great Negro Leaguers just waiting to be verified by official records.

“I am so frustrated that we have not been able to find a box score in 1938 when Josh Gibson hit four home runs,” Lester says. “We have three newspaper accounts of him hitting four home runs in Zanesville, Ohio, but those four home runs are not included in the final stats because we had to have a full box score so that the data can be balanced.”

That’s partly why Gibson won’t be found on the career home run list. His official total of 165 is far fewer than the “almost 800 home runs” that’s listed on his Hall of Fame plaque. But his rate of one homer every 13 at-bats compares favorably with legendary sluggers Ruth and Bonds.

And that’s the point.

“There were several conversations I used to always have about black and white. It was like Josh Gibson was one of the greatest Black baseball players,” Gibson’s great-grandson Sean Gibson says. “Now we can say Josh Gibson is considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time.”

Read more at usatoday.com

Negro Leagues stats officially incorporated into Baseball Reference’s databaseon June 15, 2021 at 6:01 pm Read More »

Legal cannabis sellers versus illegal weed dealerson June 15, 2021 at 5:00 pm

Tom Schuba wrote a nice news report in Tuesday’s paper about legal and illegal weed, but it did not address one very large and real consideration. When legal weed is purchased and taxes are paid, customers know what they are getting — and they can depend on getting the same product, along with dependable advice about the product, the next time they go back to the store.

But when weed is purchased illegally from, in Schuba’s description, a “dealer operating in Chicago,” there are at least two nefarious issues:

SEND LETTERS TO: [email protected]. Please include your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes. Letters should be approximately 350 words or less.

1) There is no quality control for the “dork” (the dealer’s word) who is getting ripped off price-wise.

2) And how many times has a dealer told a customer that he’s out of weed, but just happens to have some really nice cocaine, available at an amazing discount for first-timers. Several months later, that cocaine supply might “dry up,” but then the dealer would “just happen” to have some nice heroin.

The illegal trade is in this for the immediate return, while legal dispensers of cannabis are looking to build a list of long-term customers. It is a distinction that deserves some consideration.

Gerald King, Merrionette Park

Dangers of nuclear energy

As Illinois legislators get ready to vote on an energy bill this week, which includes another huge bailout for Exelon’s nuclear power plants, I see that a nuclear accident with a release of radiation appears to be unfolding in China, that the 35-year-old Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine is presenting renewed concerns about the melted fuel’s potential to react and create another form of disaster, and that Japan is preparing to dump radioactive water into the ocean from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

To top it off, we in Illinois are all watching the plume from a chemical plant fire work its way south from Rockton to Rockford. The evacuations and concerns people have about being exposed to the plume of burnt chemicals pales in comparison to what a nuclear accident would look like in Illinois. The plume from a nuclear accident is invisible and leaves behind a permanent evacuation zone.

But even with all this, legislators and others cross their fingers and hope that such accidents won’t happen in Illinois with old nuclear power plants. What could possible go wrong?

Gail Snyder, Homer Glen

Get rid of the Drive

After the 1987 earthquake, San Franciscans woke up and realized that the expressway they had built in earlier “car is king” days, the Embarcadero, was a big mistake. There was no reason to have an expressway separating their beautiful city from their beautiful bay.

So too Chicago. One day, hopefully soon, we will cancel the expressway, Lake Shore Drive, that separates us from our lakefront. We will replace it with “fun” public transportation that can move great masses of people from one world-class attraction to the next. They will ride shoulder-to-shoulder with daily commuters. There will be east/west feeders that bring folks to the lakefront from every neighborhood.

We will create the world’s greatest bike path (“bike the drive” every day) and create more green space. We will build a great public plaza that stretches for miles and attracts visitors from all corners of the globe.

And when we do all this, I will be delighted if we decide to call it the DuSable.

But — and here is my fear — renaming the existing Lake Shore Drive for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable could make it that much harder to reimagine, repurpose and replace the Drive. The folks leading the renaming campaign should “make no little plans” and work toward presenting a “DuSable of the future” that stirs the imagination for the next 100 years.

Carmen D. Caruso, the Loop

Manchin reflects West Virginia

I read Jesse Jackson’s Tuesday column about Sen. Joe Manchin with great amusement. Jackson claims Manchin is “under immense pressure” from the Koch Brothers and other right wing groups to stand up against the Biden administration.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Manchin is beholden to only one group — the voters of West Virginia. The state is generally conservative, but voters there keep re-electing the Democratic senator precisely because they believe he thinks in a bipartisan and fair way.

Tony LaMantia, Logan Square

Legal cannabis sellers versus illegal weed dealerson June 15, 2021 at 5:00 pm Read More »

NY lifts more COVID-19 rules as it hits vaccination markon June 15, 2021 at 5:08 pm

“What does 70% mean? It means that we can now return to life as we know it,” Cuomo told an invitation-only crowd at the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

Businesses will no longer have to follow social distancing rules, or limit how many people they can allow inside based on keeping people 6 feet (2 meters) apart.

Some rules will remain: New Yorkers, for now, will continue to have to wear masks in schools, subways, large venues, homeless shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, jails and prisons.

Cuomo, a Democrat, said there would be fireworks displays around the state to celebrate.

It’s unclear how many more people have to get vaccinated to reach herd immunity, which is when enough people have immunity that the virus has trouble spreading.

Over the past seven days, New York has been averaging around 450 new coronavirus cases a day, the lowest level since the pandemic began.

NY lifts more COVID-19 rules as it hits vaccination markon June 15, 2021 at 5:08 pm Read More »

‘Gone Girl’ actress Lisa Banes dead at 65 after hit-and-run accidenton June 15, 2021 at 5:30 pm

NEW YORK — “Gone Girl” actor Lisa Banes died 10 days after being injured by a hit-and-run driver in New York City, police said.

The 65-year-old Banes, who was struck by a scooter or motorcycle while crossing a street on June 4, died Monday at Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, a police department spokesperson said. The driver did not stop, police said.

Banes appeared in numerous television shows and movies, including “Gone Girl” in 2014 and “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise in 1988. On television, she had roles on “Nashville,” “Madam Secretary,” “Masters of Sex” and “NCIS.”

She acted on stage regularly, including Broadway appearances in the Neil Simon play “Rumors” in 1988, in the musical “High Society” in 1998 and in the Noel Coward play “Present Laughter” in 2010.

Her manager, David Williams, said Banes was hit as she was crossing Amsterdam Avenue on the way to visit the Juilliard School, her alma mater.

Banes lived in Los Angeles and was married to Kathryn Kranhold, a contributing reporter for the Center for Public Integrity.

Friends and colleagues mourned Banes on Tuesday on Twitter.

“Just busted,” singer Jill Sobule tweeted. “Lisa Banes was magnificent, hilarious, and big-hearted – always helped me though the hard times. She was so beloved by so many.”

Actor Seth McFarlane said he was deeply saddened at the death of Banes, whom he worked with on his TV series “The Orville.”

“Her stage presence, magnetism, skill and talent were matched only by her unwavering kindness and graciousness toward all of us,” McFarlane tweeted.

Police have made no arrests.

‘Gone Girl’ actress Lisa Banes dead at 65 after hit-and-run accidenton June 15, 2021 at 5:30 pm Read More »

How Low is Home Inventory in Winnetka & the North Shore, Really?

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