With more than 1.3 million people in Chicago having already gotten vaccinated against COVID-19, we asked readers what’s changed for them since getting their shots. Some answers have been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
“I’m a registered nurse and have had a couple of dozen patients who had COVID. I worry a lot less since getting my two Pfizer doses in February. I’m looking forward to visiting my parents, who are 78 and 82 and had both of their shots, and giving them big hugs.” — Brian Peterlinz
“It has reduced my anxiety a lot. But I still wear a mask and practice social distancing.” — Charlotte Deutsch Meyer
“I attended a delicious Easter dinner at a friend’s home on Sunday, and there were eight of us. All of us were fully vaccinated. It was a glimpse of life before COVID-19, and it was wonderful.” — Carson Bording
“I’ve gathered indoors with a pod of my fully vaccinated, over-65-year-old friends. I feel safer around my grandchildren. I always wear a mask around people I don’t know. I’m sleeping better and have less anxiety.” — Colleen Green
“Having lost someone dear to me — my dad, 62 — I’m relieved that I’m less likely to spread this virus. I’m most relieved that my loved ones are getting the vaccine.” — Alexis Marie
“I got my shots back in December and January. I still follow COVID restrictions such as social distancing and wearing a mask. But, since I’ve been vaccinated, I feel safer.” — Nadine Harper Rosier
“Nothing. I’m vaccinated but still wear a mask and social distance.” — Catherine Jo Downing-King
“I’m four weeks past my second shot. Won’t change my safety protocol — masks, distancing, sanitation. But did feel comfortable enough to go to the mall briefly to pick up something, where before I would have had it delivered. We’re not out of the woods yet, by any means.” — Ayani Good
“So relieved. Still wear masks and social distance. Do all this, and we will beat this COVID together.” — Judy Laubscher
“My husband and I have been fully vaccinated. We’re still careful around others but are feeling much safer. We’ve even started planning our vacation!!” — Sandy Champion
“I am a teacher and have been fully vaccinated. Nothing has changed for myself or my family. Being vaccinated does not mean I am immune. I can still get sick. I’m grateful for the added layer of protection. But I won’t be rushing out to movie theaters or restaurants anytime soon.” — Tanya Carver
NEW YORK — DMX, the raspy-voiced hip-hop artist who produced the songs “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” and “Party Up (Up in Here)” and who rapped with a trademark delivery that was often paired with growls, barks and “What!” as an ad-lib, has died, according to a statement from his family. He was 50.
The Grammy-nominated performer died after suffering “catastrophic cardiac arrest,” according to the hospital in White Plains, New York, where he died. He was rushed there from his home April 2.
A statement from relatives said he died “with his family by his side after being placed on life support for the past few days.”
The rapper, whose real name is Earl Simmons, had struggled with drug addiction since his teenage years. His lawyer, Murray Richman, had earlier said he could not confirm reports that DMX overdosed.
DMX made a splash in rap music in 1998 with his first studio album, “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot,” which debuted No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The multiplatinum-selling album was anchored by several hits including “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem,” “Get At Me Dog,” “Stop Being Greedy” and “How It’s Goin’ Down.”
DMX followed up with four straight chart-topping albums including “… And Then There Was X,” “Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood,” “The Great Depression” and “Grand Champ.” He released seven albums, earned three Grammy nominations and was named favorite rap/hip-hop artist at the 2000 American Music Awards.
DMX arrived on the rap scene around the same time as Jay-Z, Ja Rule and others who dominated the charts and emerged as platinum-selling acts. They were all part of rap crews, too: DMX fronted the Ruff Ryders collective, which helped launch the careers of Grammy winners Eve and Swizz Beatz, and relaunch The Lox, formerly signed to Bad Boy Records. Ruff Ryders had success on the charts and on radio with its “Ryde or Die” compilation albums.
Along with his musical career, DMX paved his way as an actor. He starred in the 1998 film “Belly” and appeared in 2000?s “Romeo Must Die” with Jet Li and Aaliyah. DMX and Aaliyah teamed up for “Come Back in One Piece” on the film’s soundtrack.
The rapper would later open Aaliyah’s tribute music video, “Miss You,” alongside her other friends and collaborators, including Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim and Queen Latifah, after Aaliyah’s 2001 death in a plane crash at age 22.
The rapper also starred in 2001?s “Exit Wounds” with Steven Seagal and 2003?s “Cradle 2 the Grave” with Li.
But while DMX made his mark as one of hip-hop’s most recognizable names for his rap artistry and as an actor, the rapper was personally stifled by his legal battles — he was repeatedly arrested and jailed within a decade — and drug addiction. His addiction first took hold at age 14 when smoked a marijuana cigarette that was laced with cocaine.
DMX pleaded guilty in 2004 after he posed as an undercover federal agent and crashed his SUV through a security gate at New York’s Kennedy Airport. He was arrested in 2008 on drug and animal cruelty charges following an overnight raid on his house in Phoenix. He tried to barricade himself in his bedroom but emerged when a SWAT team entered his home.
In 2010, he was sentenced to a year in prison for violating terms of his probation. After he was admitted to rehab numerous times over the next year, he said he had finally beat his drug addiction.
First responders helped bring DMX back to life after he was found in a hotel parking lot in New York in 2016. The rapper said he suffered from asthma.
A couple years later, DMX was sentenced to a year in prison for tax fraud. Prosecutors said he concocted a multiyear scheme to hide millions of dollars in income from the IRS and get around nearly $2 million in tax liabilities.
After his release, DMX planned a 32-date tour to mark the 20th anniversary of “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot.” But the rapper canceled a series of shows to check himself into a rehab facility in 2019. In an Instagram post, his team said he apologized for the canceled shows and thanked his fans for the continued support.
Kaylee Cong, 32, whose Vietnamese father was attacked, poses for a portrait outside a nail spa she manages in the Logan Square neighborhood, Saturday afternoon, March 27, 2021. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
The coronavirus pandemic sparked a mental health crisis. For Asians and Asian Americans also facing a rise in hate incidents across the country, it’s been “trauma upon trauma,” says Anne Saw, a Chicago psychologist.
“A lot of our communities are experiencing so many pandemic stressors that are then compounded by a lot of anti-Asian discrimination that we’re also experiencing,” says Saw, who teaches at DePaul University and directs the Chicago Asian American Psychology Lab.
“It’s tough to, like, get your head above water and get some room to breathe when every day we’re confronted with new traumas,” she says.
We talked to seven Chicagoans about how anti-Asian violence coupled with the pandemic have affected their mental health and their everyday lives. Among them was Kaylee Cong, 32, of Uptown, who manages a nail spa.
On March 20, four days after the Atlanta shootings, Cong says, her 60-year-old Vietnamese father was punched in the head as he walked alone that night near Broadway and West Ainslee Street. He turned to run, saw a white man holding a baseball bat watching him and called 911.
“We’re really scared,” says Cong, who’d been talking with her father about the Georgia shootings the day before he was attacked. “What if the person come back and do revenge? My entire life living here, it was so peaceful. There was no violence like this.”
She says her father hasn’t wanted to leave the house since that happened.
Older Asian Americans “just want to keep quiet and don’t want to make waves,” Cong says. “I have really different mentality. We deserve to, you know, feel safe. And we shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for ourselves.”
9:56 a.m. CPS high school reopening agreement remains elusive
A final high school reopening agreement remains elusive between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union just days before high school teachers are due to return to classrooms — and the union president said Thursday the next few days of negotiations will determine whether workers show up on Monday.
Though the range of issues is smaller and disagreement over those items is not as severe as the hostile K-8 negotiations in February, there are still a few unresolved concerns the union is expressing as COVID-19 infections once again rise in the city.
CPS officials have directed 5,350 high school teachers to return to buildings Monday with or without a CTU agreement, and about 26,000 students in grades 9-12 are expected back the following week.
Whether or not that timeline sticks is dependent on “how outrageous the board’s positions are as we go ahead,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey told a few hundred members at a virtual meeting Thursday that was closed to the public.
“I’ve heard people say, ‘Sharkey, I want a really definitive answer, am I going in on Monday?'” he said. “And my really definitive answer is, it depends on where we’re at.”
8:08 a.m. Spike in COVID-19 cases causes University of Chicago to announce stay-at-home period for students
University of Chicago announced a stay-at-home period for students Wednesday evening following the largest COVID-19 outbreak at the university since the start of the academic year.
After more than 50 cases of the coronavirus were detected among undergraduates in recent days, the university announced that students living on-campus must observe a week-long stay-at-home period immediately.
“We expect this number to increase,” university officials said in an email sent to members of the university community Thursday.
All undergraduate classes will be fully remote for at least a week starting Thursday and students can only leave their residence halls for food, medical appointments and short walks for exercise.
Illinois’ infection rate is still less than a third of what it was during the worst days of the pandemic last fall — but it’s doubled in the last four weeks.
A person is wanted by police for starting four fires in Hegewisch on the Far South Side in April.
The person has started fires at garbage cans and garages, according to a community alert from Chicago police, which didn’t provide a description of the suspect.
On Monday, a fire in the 13500 block of South Buffalo Avenue left a garage completely burned, a car still parked inside. In the same alley, across from the charred garage, heat from the fire melted siding on three more garages.
On Saturday, a garbage bin fire spread to several garages in the 13300 block of South Buffalo Avenue. The fire engulfed a wooden fence and caused some damage to the garage next to it.
Police said the fires happened:
about 11:30 p.m. April 3 in the 13300 block of South Avenue N;
about 11:40 p.m. April 3 in the 13300 block of South Buffalo;
about 12:30 a.m. April 4 in the 13400 block of South Balimore; and
about 12:10 a.m. April 5 in the 13500 block of South Buffalo.
Police asked anyone with tips to call the Bureau of Detectives Arson Section at (312) 746-7618.
Aftermath of a garage that caught fire in the 13500 block of South Buffalo Avenue. Photographed on Monday, April 5, 2021.Manny Ramos/Sun-Times
My hands are gripping the steering wheel as if it is the only thing keeping my anchored to the ground. My knuckles are white. I can feel my eye balls bulge; my heart is palpitating in fear. My morning experiment has turned into a joy ride from hell.
I have described my drive down the tollway to the lab many times before, cruising in the left lane, at a speed I feel comfortable with, in control of my current ride. I will pass some cars, others will pass me–but it all feels balanced and I am relaxed and feel safe.
But construction season is in full bloom, and lane re-configurations are sprouting like dandelions. Suddenly this morning my left lane has split from the three right lanes and has become a single lane of speeding adrenaline.
The morning mist limits visibility and leaves the tarmac slick. The left shoulder widens and then narrows, pincering me between concrete barricades to my right and my left. There is no room for the slightest mistake, the slightest bit of over or understeering.
I feel like Tiger Woods barreling towards a crack-up. I want to slow down–hell, I want to stop. But a glance in my rear-view mirror confirms that the headlights of the car behind me are bearing down on my tail. I see the driver’s face, relentless. If I reduce speed, can she? Would she?
As if this is not enough of a horror show, my audiobook is rattling my nerves further as it describes a teen boy contemplating a swan dive into a quarry pond from a cliff 180 feet high. Will he risk his neck to impress the bikini-clad classmate below? Or will he wind up like a previous diver, with a smashed jaw and every tooth broken? Just what I need to hear.
I am reminded of my freezing in panic when I climbed the Mayan pyramids at Chichen Itza. This time if I freeze, there won’t be a friendly traveling companion to get me moving again. I am on my own. And I am scared.
At last, I see the “Merge Ahead” sign. I meld into the other traffic, moving to the right lane where I can slow down, loosen my grip in the wheel, and let my blood pressure drop into a normal range.
Three minutes later I am at the lab, in my office, putting on my mask. The day has begun.
Like what you read here? Add your name to our subscription list below. No spam, I promise!
___
Hi! I am Les, a practicing pathologist living in the North Suburbs and commuting every day to the Western ones. I have lived my entire life in the Chicago area, and have a pretty good feel for the place, its attractions, culture, restaurants and teams. My wife and I are empty-nesters with two adult children and a grandchild. We recently decided to downsize, but just a bit! I will be telling the story of the construction of our new home, but also writing about whatever gets me going on a particular day. Be sure to check out the “About” page to learn more about where we plan to go with this blog!
“As long as I’m alive, golfers will be white, and caddies will be black.”
Those words were spoken by Clifford Roberts. He was the chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club for forty-five years. He almost pulled it off. It was in Roberts last year as chairman when Lee Elder became the first Black golfer to play in the Masters. Roberts died two years later.
Golf has always been known for its lack of diversity. Augusta National and the Masters Tournament took that to a higher level. If you wanted to be a club member you needed to be a white male. No women members or people of color. If you were a professional golfer and wanted to play in the first major of the season, you needed to qualify for their tournament. Augusta National set the rules on who qualified.
The Masters was started by Roberts and legendary golfer Bobby Jones in 1934. For the first three decades, they didn’t have to worry about integrating the tournament. That changed in 1968 when Lee Elder joined the PGA Tour. No, he wasn’t the first Black professional golfer, but he was the first to play well enough to meet the requirements to play in the Masters. The problem was Roberts kept changing those requirements.
The main way to qualify for the tournament was to earn enough money to finish high enough on the tour’s money earning’s list. Elder did that starting in his early years on the tour. Roberts changed the rule to require that you needed to win a tournament to play in Augusta. The only reason for the rule change was to keep Lee Elder from playing in the Masters.
When called out about this Roberts said, “To make an exception would be practicing discrimination in reverse.”
It took seven years but Lee Elder won his first PGA Tour tournament at the Monsanto Open in April 1974. A year later, he broke the color barrier by becoming the first Black golfer to tee it up at Augusta National. He went on to play the Masters five more times. His final appearance there came four years after the death of Clifford Roberts.
Lee Elder had an excellent professional golf career. He won four times on the regular tour and went on to to win eight tournaments on the Senior Tour. In spite of his accolades, the first thing that will come up when his name is mentioned will be that first Masters appearance almost five decades ago.
Although Elder broke one barrier, not much changed at Augusta. The club didn’t admit their first Black member until 1990. It took until 2012 for them to admit their first two women members, one of them being former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In 1997, Tiger Woods won his first of five Masters’ championships. The occasion was marked by the racist words coming from former Masters winner Fuzzy Zoeller:
“That little boy is driving well and he’s putting well. He’s doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it. Or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve.”
The 2021 version of the Masters got underway yesterday. One of their traditions is having honorary starters hit the first drives to open play. In recent years the honor has gone to all-time greats Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. This year they added Lee Elder to the group. Elder is now eighty-six years old, wears an oxygen tank and is unable to hit a golf ball. He did stand and acknowledge the cheers from the Masters patrons, as the club likes to call the fans who watch the tournament.
It was a lovely and emotional moment. Even current players and former Masters champions Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson came out to watch. It’s always moving to see the past greats honored. The only problem is knowing the history of the golf club and its tournament, it seemed forced and fake.
Why now? Why did it take decades to honor a groundbreaking athlete?
If you’ve been following the news, you know that the state of Georgia and its politicians have been one of the lead stories for the last few weeks. Their new election law has made it harder to vote and will likely disenfranchise many of the state’s voters. Not surprisingly it will affect the African-American communities that came out in record numbers in the 2020 elections. Georgia isn’t the only state to come up with new restrictive voting laws, far from it, they were just the first to pull the trigger and make it official.
The backlash was immediate. Two of the state’s biggest employers, Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines came out against the law. Major League Baseball took it a step further by moving this year’s All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver. When Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley was asked about the law and if the tournament should be moved, he responded:
“I believe, as does everyone in our organization, that the right to vote is fundamental in our democratic society. No one should be disadvantaged in exercising that right, and it is critical that all citizens have confidence in the electoral process. This is fundamental to who we are as a people. We realize that views and opinions on this law differ, and there have been calls for boycotts and other punitive measures. Unfortunately, those actions often impose the greatest burdens on the most vulnerable in our society. And in this case, that includes our friends and neighbors here in Augusta, who are the very focus of the positive difference we are trying to make.’’
Basically what Ridley said was money to the community, the club and himself trumped everything else. There was no way the tournament was going anywhere, but we knew that all along.
So with all of the above history and the current political atmosphere, it just seems odd that this is the time to finally give Lee Elder his due at Augusta. Yes, I realize it’s cynical to go down this road, but it’s Augusta and the Masters and they’ve earned this because of their decades of behavior. I also realize that this honor was most likely set up long before the political controversy in Georgia, but again it’s Augusta and the Masters and there will always be a doubt behind their motives.
So to Lee Elder, congratulations on your groundbreaking career and this well-deserved honor. To the people running Augusta National and the Masters, let’s hope when you set this up that your hearts were in the right place because you’ve proven through your actions that they often are not. Keep trying to do better. Keep trying to be better.
My so called friends think it’s time to edit this section. After four years, they may be right, but don’t tell them that. I’ll deny it until they die!
I can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog for four years.
It started as a health/wellness thing and over the years has morphed to include so many things that I don’t know how to describe it anymore.
I really thought this was going to be the final year of the blog but then Donald Trump came along. It looks like we’re good for four more years..God help us all!
Oh yeah…the biographical stuff. I’m not 60 anymore. The rest you can read about in the blog.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22431992/merlin_96918674.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22422684/IMG_4512.jpg)
lesraff
January 17, 2020 at 12:00 am