The ChicagoBears have the NFL’s best linebacker group going into training camp.
The Chicago Bears have a lousy offense and everybody knows it. They have two quarterbacks who would make great backups on most teams but have no business being starters on an NFL team in 2020. Neither of them, Mitchell Trubisky or Nick Foles, is giving any fans much confidence that they can get it done in 2020. Moving the ball was a big problem for this football team last year and that led to them going 8-8 in a year that some believed could see them in the Super Bowl.
As bad as that offense is, the exact opposite can be said about their defense. They have one of the best groups in the National Football League. This team can make it very difficult for the opposition to make any plays at all and keep the points allowed to a bare minimum. A lot of that has to do with the fact that they have one of the best groups of linebackers in the whole league.
Everything on this team starts and ends with Khalil Mack. He is the best player on this team and it isn’t much of a debate. When he is on his game, he is one of the best players in the entire NFL. He had a bit of a down year in 2019 but was still pretty good. There is also the fact that he is triple-teamed or held on every single play.
If Mack can get back to where he was in 2018, this defense will be even better. He will also now have Robert Quinn on the other side ready to help him attack. This is a player that was outstanding for the Dallas Cowboys in 2019. If they both have incredible years, this could be the best pair of linebackers in the NFL and help them maintain their status as one of the best defenses in the NFL.
Danny Trevathan is also there and he is an outstanding linebacker. He is in the shadows of some of the other elite players on the defense sometimes but there is no doubt that he is an impact player a lot of the time. Then there is Roquan Smith who has some more development to go after being the 8th overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. He is a freak of an athlete which could help him develop into that next great linebacker for this team.
If the linebackers maintain this greatness in 2020, they will be in the middle of an outstanding defensive unit. Their defensive backs and lineman are also very good which should help them win some football games. As long as their offense is able to get better at moving the ball and scoring some points, this should be a pretty good football team. The linebackers have so much to do with it and it is a lot of fun to watch.
Chicago White Sox pitcher Dylan Cease enters his second year in the big leagues looking to make a big jump from a disappointing rookie season.
Dylan Cease was like a lot of talented pitchers when they first get to the big leagues- not very good. Cease was brutally honest this week when assessing his 2019 season.
“I felt like last year I pretty much performed as poorly as I could,” Cease said. “Most disappointing was not having good command. I pitched a little bit in September, it got better. For most of the year it was just one of those years it was like a grind and a fight where I felt like I was trying to find it everyday and searching for it.”
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2020 looks like it could be the year both Cease and the White Sox find it. Cease looks to improve significantly on his 5.79 ERA in 14 starts last year, while the White Sox eye the playoffs and finishing over .500 for the first time since 2012. Cease has been filthy in summer camp scrimmages, his ball darting all over the strike zone.
“Right now I feel like I don’t even have to think about it I’m just throwing and trying to be as nasty as I can be,” Cease said. “This year has got to be a step up.”
As for his team’s chances, Cease believes this could be a special season.
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“I feel really optimistic,” Cease said. “This lineup has more depth than any team I have ever been on. The pitching staff has a ton of potential, it’s just, do we play up to our potential or not? We’ve got playoff talent that’s for sure. Right now, I feel really optimistic.”
It won’t be easy. Minnesota won the division last year with 101 wins, 28.5 games better than the White Sox. The Twins then added Josh Donaldson. The White Sox have had their own remake as well with Luis Robert, Edwin Encarnacion, Yasmani Grandal, Nomar Mazara all entering the everyday line-up along with veteran Dallas Keuchel joining the rotation.
“There are a lot of factors, it’s a 60-game sprint, there are things we can’t control but if we play to our ability we have to be close at the very least,” Cease said.
Time will tell, quickly. The sprint begins this Friday night through September 27.
Eastern Illinois receiver Isiah Hill has been named to the All-Ohio Valley Conference preseason team along with teammate Dytarious Johnson. The question reamins whether the Panthers will play this fall. (photo courtesy of eiupanthers.com)
On a day when Eastern Illinois had two players honored by the Ohio Valley Conference, the league’s commissioner addressed growing concerns that the fall season may be altered or even outright cancelled.
EIU redshirt junior wide receiver Isaiah Hill and senior linebacker Dytarious Johnson were named to the All-Ohio Valley Conference preseason team.
As of now, the OVC is scheduled to begin its 73rd season of conference football. However, a decision may well be announced next week by the OVC that would directly affect EIU.
While a handful of Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) conferences have announced that there will be no fall season, the OVC has yet to reach its decision.
In a media conference Monday, OVC commissioner Beth DeBauche said that the league’s board of presidents is scheduled to meet virtually the next two Wednesdays and indicated that a decision could possibly be forthcoming.
Back in June the OVC presidents stated it was their intention to play sports in the fall should the medical and scientific evidence support such a move.
“That certainly is our plan. Nothing has changed,” DeBauche said.
What has changed, however, is the spike in positive cases across the country and with it the strong possibilities that fall football could go by the wayside.
Ohio Valley Conference football covers five states — Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.
“Any of our decisions need to make sense with what’s going on from a local health standpoint,” DeBauche said.
In addition to being the OVC commissioner, DeBauche serves as the President of the Division I Collegiate Commissioner’s Association (CCA). Thus, she organizes and leads regular meetings with all 32 Division I conference commissioners at an irregular time in history. Those meetings are being held virtually.
“(Conference) decisions will be independent, but certainly we have a sense of what other leagues are thinking and planning on doing,” DeBauche said.
As for the OVC, the commissioner said that the OVC presidents and chancellors desire a fall sports season.
“If there is a way to let (schools) compete, then try to find a way to let them compete,” DeBauche said of the administrators’ viewpoint.
Conference games only?
Some nonconference games have already been eliminated. For example, the Big Ten announced it would only play league games this fall, wiping out FBS-FCS matchups such as those for Missouri Valley Football Conference members Illinois State and Southern Illinois.
Thus, ISU at Illinois and SIU at Minnesota have been cancelled. Meanwhile, EIU is still scheduled to play SEC member Kentucky in October.
It’s certainly possible that FCS conferences could also pursue league-only schedules.
“We haven’t had a vote on that issue,” DeBauche said. “Right now, most of the focus would be on how to structure to play games safely and appropriately and when we would be able to start.
“Most of the models we’ve looked at focus on shortened schedules, making sure that we could complete a season.”
However, that season could look different for each school. It’s possible that teams could play an unbalanced number of games.
“We need to be nimble . . . we may have to adapt midcourse and change focus as we go,” DeBauche said. “It’s important to have models in our back pocket.”
Spring season?
There has also been national discussion and speculation that football could be moved to the spring.
However, a spring model would create a mosh pit of what have been traditionally fall, spring and to some extent, winter sports. DeBauche noted that would also put added strain on medical and training staffs as well as facilities and event personnel.
Thus, DeBauche has advised schools to be “thoughtful to fall first and make sure we have exhausted all possibilities.”
National FCS writer Craig Haley asked if the OVC would allow its member schools play independent schedules if there’s no fall season across the conference as the Colonial Athletic Association has done; DeBauche noted that while it “makes a great deal of sense” for CAA Football, that may not work for the Ohio Valley Conference.
“It hasn’t been an area of focus at all to date, and I don’t anticipate that will be the direction that we will go,” DeBauche said.
Final thought
Monday’s media conference ended with a question asking DeBauche if she had a message for any OVC players and coaches who are anxious or antsy for a decision to be made.
“Please know that we understand living in uncertainty is very difficult and we’ll try to provide as much certainty as we can as soon as we are able, but that the primary focus is on the student-athlete and making sure that each student-athlete feels comfortable coming back to school and they’re put in an environment where they feel that it’s safe and healthy to be able to compete,” she said. “These decisions are hard, and they’re hard because we want to do the right things for the student-athletes. And we know that they want play, but we need to ensure that they’re playing in a safe environment before any final decisions can be made.”
Blog co-authors Barry Bottino and Dan Verdun bring years of experience covering collegiate athletics. Barry has covered college athletes for more than two decades in his “On Campus” column, which is published weekly by Shaw Media. Dan has written four books about the state’s football programs–“NIU Huskies Football” (released in 2013), “EIU Panthers Football (2014), “ISU Redbirds” (2016) and “SIU Salukis Football” (2017).
Show Me Chicago previews, reviews and expresses opinions on what’s happening in Chicago from Blockbuster Theater, to what’s new in dining, arts, and the neighborhoods.
This was a post I wrote for our CTU teachers Facebook page. I was encouraged to start a blog and post my ideas, so here I am. I will add some of my older posts, too. I have edited the original post to allow for a wider audience but that doesn’t amount to a change of ten words.
History teachers are notorious at digression. That’s because we’re storytellers, and to tell a good story we must first give some background context. Herodotus, called the father of Western History, begins the first of his forty-two books with a digression on why digressions are important to the writing of history. And yes, all that was a digression to what I wanted to write about today. My second digression goes back over 45 years, when I was in the Boy Scouts. I know I was in 7th grade, so I must have been either 12 or 13 years old. We were on a survival hike, called the Kentucky-Lincoln Trail. It was a two-day hike over 32 miles of the hills in Western Kentucky, coal mine country. The first day is a grueling 20 miles while the second is an easier 12 miles. Of course, this was back in the day of canvas tents and steel cook gear, and the only lightweight food was powdered milk and eggs, so every kid on that hike was carrying at least 45 pounds of supplies and equipment. If I recall correctly, I weighed in at about 90 pounds.
My memory of that hike is legendary, epic, and I still carry the scars. Our Boy Scout troop split into numerous groups, each with a dozen or so boys, a couple adult chaperones, and a local guide. The group I was in got lost. I knew we were lost well before the other kids started complaining. The adults huddling around and whispering to each other while making sure we kids didn’t hear them was a dead giveaway, especially when it always happened at a fork in the trail. And their whispering didn’t cover up all the finger-pointing down the alternate paths. It was supposed to be a 20-mile day. One of the chaperones was wearing a pedometer that read 26 miles. We were low on water. Some boys, myself included, were filling their canteens in roadside puddles and dropping giardia pills into their canteens. That’s what you use to combat the giardia bacteria prevalent in deer piss.
And then it rained. I’m not talking about some summer shower, either. Now, to be fair, it probably didn’t drop a deluge on us like the one in my memory, but it was a downpour, and it was relentless. We were all demoralized. The adults were beginning to argue openly and loudly. A revolt was imminent.
I had brought a map. Alone of the boys in my group, I had the frame of mind to bring along one of the topographical maps of the trail. I hadn’t looked at it much during the hike because, like the other boys, I’d put my trust in the adults on the hike. But as we took a break, sitting ourselves down in inches of water that we couldn’t escape, I broke out that map and looked at it very carefully.
I might mention that becoming a geography teacher was no accident, nor was it unexpected. Did you catch that? I just digressed on a digression. Anyway, my dad taught me to read a map very early. I knew every symbol, every number, and what it meant, and not just on road maps. I could read a topographic map, too. Just the year before, I scored a 12th grade learning level on the Iowa Test of Basic Aptitudes in map reading. Yes, back then the Iowa Test tested map reading. Did you catch that? I digressed on a digression of a digression. Anyway, it took me some time to figure out where we were on that map. It also took some time to figure out where we were going and the route we needed to take in order to get there. But that was okay because the adults were having a hard time getting the boys up and moving.
But a problem surfaced in my mind. The way the guide suggested, and the way I was reading the map, did not agree. I didn’t know what to do. I was raised to obey the adults in charge, and the Boy Scouts was, and probably still is, a somewhat paramilitary organization, and you do not buck the chain of command. And yet, I knew right then that is exactly what I was preparing to do. I didn’t want to make a scene. I hate drama. I avoid drama. I let all the other boys get up first and start down the path suggested by the guide. When it was my turn to stand I walked the other direction. Remember the chaperone I mentioned, the one with the pedometer? He was bringing up the rear and asked what I was doing. I pointed down another path and told him, “That’s where I’m going.” He yelled at the column for a halt and called the other adults back there. I was told in no uncertain terms that the column was not breaking up and I was staying with the group. I told them that in that case, they’d have to carry me because I wasn’t walking that other way. They weren’t going to carry me. I showed them my map. I showed them the landmarks that made me believe that my reading of the map was more accurate than our guide’s. They weren’t having any of it. I was, however, an immovable object. I ignored their arguments and started back on my path. Another kid said, “I trust Myers. These guys are fools.” And he ran after me. Then another, and then in two and threes. Pretty soon we were all walking down my path. And that was never my intent.
I don’t like leadership. I’ve studied it my entire adult life, and a good chunk of my childhood, too, though mostly from a military perspective. I’ve read Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Caesar, you name it. I got my masters degree in military history. I understand leadership. I know its theories and applications. But I don’t like to lead. I don’t mind paying the consequences of my own bad decisions, but I feel a tremendous weight of guilt when other people have to pay the consequences of my bad decisions. So I don’t like to lead. And here I was, aged 12 or 13, leading a group through the hills and the woods of Western Kentucky. Long story short, we made it.
I mentioned earlier that I still bear the scars of that journey. Let me tell you how gruelling it was. When we got to camp, of course all the other groups were already there. Most of the boys immediately fell out and just laid down on the grass in inches of water. I knew I had a problem, though. In fact, it was that problem that motivated my earlier rebellion. There was a cold mountain stream that ran through the middle of the camp and I sat down on the bank and carefully removed my hiking boots. My socks were encrusted in blood. I couldn’t pull them off without pulling off the scabs, too, and probably a few layers of skin. So I soaked my feet in that cold stream. I’ll never forget how cold that water was. I still remember it clearly. It numbed my feet. Once I couldn’t feel any more, I carefully peeled off those socks and bandaged my feet. I hobbled through dinner barefoot and went to sleep like everyone else. That night, the blisters formed on top of the blisters that had already burst and bled. New blisters formed underneath my toenails. When I woke up the next morning, all my toenails had popped off except for the two big toes. They’ve all grown back since, mostly, except the two pinky toes. Anyway, I soaked my feet in the cold water again, bandaged my feet, ate breakfast, and walked another 12 miles to the end of the Kentucky-Lincoln Trail. And I’ve never again let other people make decisions for me, or at least not when those decisions regarded my health and well-being. I don’t make a fuss. I don’t like drama. So I just quietly go my own way. I’ll listen to the advice of experts, but it’s my future and I will decide which direction it is going.
So here I am 40-something years later. We are living through the plague. People are telling me how this school year is going to go down. Other people are saying the union has to stick together, whatever our decision. I already know which way I’m going and there isn’t a power on Earth or under Heaven that can move me from my chosen path. I’m leaving out that school-house door. I’ll burn sick days, PB days, grandfathered days, evoke the Family Medical Leave Act, or take a Sabbatical and write a book or earn another degree. I’m going to try to keep my job, but I’m not coming to work in a CPS building full of students. Will that leave a hole in the faculty? I hope so. I hope it’s a hole that’s not easily filled, too, and not because of some ego thing. I hope that if enough holes appear, and the CPS can’t find enough substitutes to fill those holes, that this whole artificial construct will come tumbling down. That’s what I’m going to do. But I’m not going to ask anybody to follow. Because I don’t like to lead. I don’t like to make decisions for other people. I didn’t feel good when writing these words. In fact, I don’t feel comfortable posting these words, because that’s exactly what it sounds like, that I’m asking everyone to walk out. Every teacher will have to search their conscience, assess their and their family’s needs, and make that decision for themselves. I’m near the end of my career. This isn’t a hard call for me. I can retire now and start collecting my pension in February. I’ll turn 60 then. I wasn’t planning on retiring for a few more years, but I can. And I know that many teachers aren’t in that financial situation. But my mind is resolved and I won’t be moved. Sure, things could change between now and then, but given what I know now, and assuming little or no change, except for the worse, I am not going back to work, not inside a school building.
Show Me Chicago previews, reviews and expresses opinions on what’s happening in Chicago from Blockbuster Theater, to what’s new in dining, arts, and the neighborhoods.
This is also post from our CTU Facebook page. I originally posted this on May 7, 2020, 7 weeks into the Covid-19 break from school. I was irritated by the number of teachers who had managed to make a global pandemic about themselves. “Well that child didn’t do work for me the whole year.” “They haven’t shown up to a single online class.” So this was the scolding I wrote.
In the past several weeks I’ve heard enough about grade integrity to last me a lifetime. We are living through an epidemic, a pandemic. The PLAGUE is on the streets of Chicago. If we went back to school now, we’d be sucking a murky miasma of invisible killer goo into our lungs. We aren’t, and that’s not only a good thing, it’s proper, prudent, and responsible. We should all be thankful that we have intelligent enough leaders to see that social distancing is the right thing to do. And we’re getting paid. We aren’t the ones putting our lives on the line. We can’t say that about all our students’ parents, grandparents, siblings, and extended family.
Raising a child’s grade isn’t going to cause you physical pain, and any ethical pain you think it will cause you is d-r-a-m-a. Raising a child’s grade isn’t going to make them eligible for a better job than the one you think they deserve. Raising a child’s grade isn’t going to make college available to those who weren’t going to go to college. Raising a grade might, however, brighten a child’s day and make them want to try a bit harder when they do get back to school. It probably won’t, but it might, and we are in the profession of what might be. We are investors in the future. We have many failures, but many more successes.
Lowering a child’s grade might sap their spirit. It might be the final straw of any given day that wrecks that day, or that week, or month. Lowering a child’s grade might mean the difference of which college accepts them. And you’re going to stand there and complain that this child isn’t doing the work for you that you came to expect of them? Well you aren’t there, pushing and cajoling and supporting them like you usually are. You’re actually going to stand there and complain because they aren’t doing any work at all? Who is there to drive them? If online college program graduation rates are an accurate indicator, then adults don’t do too well with remote learning, either. Also, consider that your work might not be that important. It might be that there are other pressing concerns in that child’s life. It might not be, but you’re going to stand there in judgment when you might not have all the pertinent information?
Have you run the numbers? Have you? The infection rate, the morbidity rate, the mortality rate, not to mention the merely maimed? When we do get back to school, it’s likely that one of those students’ chairs will be empty. How will that make you feel to know that your last act towards them was to maintain your grade integrity? Will that help you sleep better? It may be that your student was busy caring for the next door neighbor’s kids while that adult was working. It may be that your student was thrust into the role of an adult. It may be that they were burying a parent. It’s likely that your school is going to be hiring new faculty, or staff, or both. I can guarantee that position will be filled, even if it was yours. And if so, soon enough, you will be largely forgotten. If the last thing you do in your life is to give a student a better grade than the one they earned or the one they deserved, then that might be the one generous act of your life that is remembered by some.
I’ve been speaking as a high school teacher, but I have not spent my entire career in the high schools. My first ten years were spent in elementary and middle schools. I know my concerns there were different than my concerns now. The role of an elementary school teacher during a pandemic should not be that of an educator, though that is what they trained for, signed on for, and desire more than anything to get back to. But I can recall wanting more time to connect with home and caring less about a specific assignment. Grades being more representative and less specific, I always assigned more work than I could possibly enter into a grade book. I know I’d want more time to call home, check to see if my child (that’s right, MY child) was safe, healthy, well-fed, and feeling secure and loved. I know some of them would be scared right now. The world is telling them to be afraid. Their parents are acting differently, odd. And some of them are alone. I remember a young man, aged 11, who got up every morning and prepared breakfast for two younger siblings, before the three of them walked to school. And that without a plague. How much more difficult would that be now? But grade integrity, right?
Show Me Chicago previews, reviews and expresses opinions on what’s happening in Chicago from Blockbuster Theater, to what’s new in dining, arts, and the neighborhoods.
Jeff Berkowitz: So, the cop gets out of his car, shoots sixteen times in six seconds a 16 year old black teen who is …walking away from the cop…
Berkowitz: …Mayor Emanuel keeps the Laquan McDonald video from the public, Emanuel is re-elected…a War on Cops or War on Blacks?
*********************
Now it’s BLM, Looting, Riots & George Floyd; Is the Laquan Mac Donald murderby a Chicago cop & a Sep. 2016 discussion relevant to our World of July 13, 2020? Of course, As the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
*************************
Public Affairs, featuring Heather Mac Donald, a senior fellow at the free market oriented Manhattan Institute, airs:
—Tonight at 8:30 pm and midnight on Cable Ch. 21 [CAN TV] throughout the City of Chicago
You can also watch, 24/7, Heather Mac Donald, author of the still extremely topical, NYT best selling book, “The War on Cops,” interviewed on September 28, 2016 by “Public Affairs,” show host Jeff Berkowitz, by clicking here:
Heather Mac Donald: …You could remove all police shootings in Chicago… stop them entirely, and you would have an entirely negligible effect on the “Black death by homicide,” rate… because blacks are being killed overwhelmingly by other blacks.
Mac Donald: Police need better tactical training [to avoid] the appalling tactical decisions that resulted in Laquan McDonald’s shooting but…
*******************
Taped in the Gold Coast’s Nico Osteria, with an intriguing, Mona Lisa type smiling counselor in the background, the show is just as relevant today as it was in 2016
The on screen, mysterious & omnicient Modern American Woman who counseled the host prior to the show.
This episode of Public Affairs featuring Heather Mac Donald also airs:
–Tomorrow, Tuesdayat 8:30 pm in 24 Chicago Metro North and Northwest suburbs, Ch. 19 or 35, See below, for more details on the airing schedule
Society, more than ever, continues to grapple with balancing the use of proceduresthat allow police to make the public safer by employing pro-active policing with the passage of laws that protect constitutional civil liberties for all of its citizens.
*********
A partial transcript of tonight’s show is included, below:
Jeff Berkowitz:We have as our guest, Heather Mac Donald … who wrote, “The War on Cops.” We are taping this show in Nico Osteria, Chicago, on September 28, 2016… and just about 2 years ago [now 6 yrs] Laquan McDonald– you know that name?
Heather Mac Donald: Sure.
Heather Mac Donald, yet another Modern American Woman & best selling author whose range of research interests and written subject matter includes, but is not limited to, higher education, policing and race relations.
Berkowitz: So, the cop [Jason Van Dyke] gets out, six cops are already there and they are doing nothing, so the cop… shoots sixteen times in six seconds a kid (Laquan McDonald) who appears to have been harmless and walking away from the cop [Van Dyke] when the cop gets out of his car.
Berkowitz: McDonald is doing nothing, African-American, he has a [3 inch] knife, harming nobody, and then the kid is dead… there is a cover-up by the State’s Attorney of Cook County, Anita Alvarez. Ok- not a cover up, but a year later, Alvarez still hasn’t indicted [the shooter– the cop, but Alvarez did indict Van Dyke 2 months after the taping of this show. Van Dyke was convicted of murder in a Cook County trial and sentenced to six years, and he served about 3 yrs.
Berkowitz: There is a video of the incident… you have to know this is a murder after a month or two of an investigation. A year goes by, nothing from the State’s Attorney, Mayor Emanuel keeps the video [from the the public], the Mayor is re-elected….War on Cops or War on Blacks? Come on…
Heather Mac Donald: Jeff, Laquan McDonald was an appalling shooting by the [Chicago] Police Department. The false narrative that was put out by those cops and not blocked by Police Supt. Garry McCarthy [now a failed 2019 Candidate for Chicago Mayor] or the Detectives Bureau was a complete betrayal of the public trust. But that is one police shooting.
Mac Donald: This year in Chicago 3000 people [as of Sep. 28, 2016] have been shot. If the Black Lives Matter narrative is correct, since almost all those victims have been black, you would assume that cops are responsible for a considerable part of those shootings.
Mac Donald: In fact, the cops have shot 18 people, six of them lethally, virtually all armed and dangerous, that’s 0.6 % of all people who have been shot in Chicago.
Heather Mac Donald: Absolutely, the police need better tactical training, not to make the appalling tactical decisions that resulted in the Laquan McDonald shooting. But, you could remove all police shootings, in Chicago or as a whole, stop them entirely, and you would have an entirely negligible effect on the black death by homicide rate because blacks are being killed overwhelming by other blacks [who are not police].
***********
Jeff Berkowitz: So, the cop gets out of his car, shoots sixteen times in six seconds a 16 year old black teen who is …walking away from the cop…
Berkowitz: …Mayor Emanuel keeps the Laquan McDonald video from the public, Emanuel is re-elected…a War on Cops or War on Blacks?
*********************
Heather Mac Donald: …You could remove all police shootings in Chicago… stop them entirely, and you would have an entirely negligible effect on the “Black death by homicide,” rate… because blacks are being killed overwhelmingly by other blacks.
Mac Donald: Police need better tactical training [to avoid] the appalling tactical decisions that resulted in Laquan McDonald’s shooting but…
*******************
You can watch, 24/7, Heather Mac Donald, author of the still extremely topical, NYT best selling book, “The War on Cops,” interviewed on September 28, 2016 by clicking here:
Taped in the Gold Coast’s Nico Osteria, with an intriguing, Mona Lisa type smiling counselor in the background, the show is just as relevant today as it was in 2016
The on screen, mysterious & omnicient Modern American Woman who counseled the host prior to the show.
Society, more than ever, continues to grapple with balancing the use of proceduresthat allow police to make the public safer by employing pro-active policing with the passage of laws that protect constitutional civil liberties for all of its citizens.
*********
A partial transcript of tonight’s show is included, below:
Jeff Berkowitz:We have as our guest, Heather Mac Donald … who wrote, “The War on Cops.” We are taping this show in Nico Osteria, Chicago, on September 28, 2016… and just about 2 years ago [now 6 yrs] Laquan McDonald– you know that name?
Heather Mac Donald: Sure.
Heather Mac Donald, yet another Modern American Woman & best selling author whose range of research interests and written subject matter includes, but is not limited to, higher education, policing and race relations.
Berkowitz: So, the cop [Jason Van Dyke] gets out, six cops are already there and they are doing nothing, so the cop… shoots sixteen times in six seconds a kid (Laquan McDonald) who appears to have been harmless and walking away from the cop [Van Dyke] when the cop gets out of his car.
Berkowitz: McDonald is doing nothing, African-American, he has a [3 inch] knife, harming nobody, and then the kid is dead… there is a cover-up by the State’s Attorney of Cook County, Anita Alvarez. Ok- not a cover up, but a year later, Alvarez still hasn’t indicted [the shooter– the cop, but Alvarez did indict Van Dyke 2 months after the taping of this show. Van Dyke was convicted of murder in a Cook County trial and sentenced to six years, which meant he served about 3 yrs.
Berkowitz: There is a video of the incident… you have to know this is a murder after a month or two of an investigation. A year goes by, nothing from the State’s Attorney, Mayor Emanuel keeps the video [from the the public], the Mayor is re-elected….War on Cops or War on Blacks? Come on…
Heather Mac Donald: Jeff, Laquan McDonald was an appalling shooting by the [Chicago] Police Department. The false narrative that was put out by those cops and not blocked by Police Supt. Garry McCarthy [now a failed 2019 Candidate for Chicago Mayor] or the Detectives Bureau was a complete betrayal of the public trust. But that is one police shooting.
Mac Donald: This year in Chicago 3000 people [as of Sep. 28, 2016] have been shot. If the Black Lives Matter narrative is correct, since almost all those victims have been black, you would assume that cops are responsible for a considerable part of those shootings.
Mac Donald: In fact, the cops have shot 18 people, six of them lethally, virtually all armed and dangerous, that’s 0.6 % of all people who have been shot in Chicago.
Heather Mac Donald: Absolutely, the police need better tactical training, not to make the appalling tactical decisions that resulted in the Laquan McDonald shooting. But, you could remove all police shootings, in Chicago or as a whole, stop them entirely, and you would have an entirely negligible effect on the black death by homicide rate because blacks are being killed overwhelming by other blacks [who are not police].
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This episode of Public Affairs featuring Heather Mac Donald also airs:
–Tomorrow, Tuesdayat 8:30 pm in 24 Chicago Metro North and Northwest suburbs,as indicated, below:
—Comcast Cable Ch. 19 in Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove Village, Hoffman Estates, parts of Inverness, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles, Northfield, Palatine, Rolling Meadows and Wilmette and on
—Comcast Cable Ch. 35 in Arlington Heights, Bartlett, Glenview, Golf, Des Plaines, Hanover Park, Mt. Prospect, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Prospect Heights, Schaumburg, Skokie, Streamwood and Wheeling.
Show Me Chicago previews, reviews and expresses opinions on what’s happening in Chicago from Blockbuster Theater, to what’s new in dining, arts, and the neighborhoods.
It might seem backhanded or cute to say that a Grammy-winning string quartet’s 16th record has the feel of a second act. But that more or less describes the Pacifica Quartet’s new release, Contemporary Voices. The album is the ensemble’s second since they changed up their ranks; violinist Austin Hartman and violist Mark Holloway replace longtime members Sibbi Bernhardsson and Masumi Per Rostad, both of whom left the group in 2017. The album also feels like a sequel because the three pieces it collects are both too new to be widely recorded and too old to be completely unfamiliar. Only Shulamit Ran’s Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory (2012-2013)–her third string quartet–is a world-premiere recording. The Pacifica Quartet join it with Jennifer Higdon’s satisfyingly contrasting Voices triptych (1993) and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s cosmopolitan Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet (2007), featuring dulcet-toned saxophonist Otis Murphy. Pacifica play like fencers–all reflexes and restraint, ceremony and choreography. So it was in the Bernhardsson-Rostad era; so it remains with Hartman and Holloway, though each set of players sounds a touch different in their inner-voice roles. Pacifica’s interpretation of Ran’s quartet foretells beautiful alchemies to come: Glitter is inspired by artist Felix Nussbaum, whose paintings became increasingly bleak and surrealistic as the Holocaust forced him out of Germany and eventually into hiding. (He was executed at Auschwitz in 1944.) At times the piece sounds like an aesthetic heir to the string quartets of Schoenberg and Bartok–nostalgic, sardonic, paroxysmal. That’s apt enough: they too crawled from the rubble of a dying world and grasped for what was still living. v
In May 2020, the Quimby’s Bookstore Instagram started going live with a New Stuff This Week video. Store manager Liz Mason sits next to a stack of zines, comics, and graphic novels. The colorful Quimby’s shelves spread behind her. As she holds new titles towards the camera, comments start rolling in: “Miss you,” and “Love Quimby’s,” and heart-eye emojis.
“It fills the void that is left by not being able to look at zines in the store,” Mason says. “Not just drumming up sales, but continuing to create the community that we love with zines.”
No thanks to COVID-19, all Chicago zine fests and events are canceled. Quimby’s Bookstore–a hub of zine culture in the city–is open for limited hours, online orders, and curbside pickup. From hand-stapling bindings to trading minicomics across festival tables, zine culture exists in physical ephemera and thrives in real-world interactions. Zines provide a space to explore outsider art, counterculture, niche fandoms, and pretty much any obscure subject under the sun. And as the simplest human interactions go online, zines also provide a way to spread information off the grid. So how are zinemakers existing in the pandemic world of Zoom meetings, delivery apps, Facetime calls, and endless scrolling? In Chicago, they’re adapting new ways to create, teach, connect, and share their art and writing.
Andrea Pearson self-publishes the autobiographical comics series No Pants Revolution, and she had a busy summer of midwest zine and comics fests scheduled. When those plans derailed, she started interacting with digital zine fests through hashtags–posting her work, leaving comments, and trading and selling zines through the mail.
Chicago Zine Fest usually takes place at Plumbers Union Hall, but this year the fest went digital on May 15 and 16. That weekend, Pearson left minizines in Little Free Libraries all over town and posted their locations to the #czf2020 hashtag. “I hope people find them and get a good chuckle out of ’em,” she says.
Still, a lack of zine fests was a hit to Pearson’s productivity. “The first two months of this were so paralyzing,” she says. “My normal way of making zines is, ‘Oh, I have to get this done by Chicago Zine Fest.’ Without that motivator, it’s been a little tougher.” She plans to release No Pants Revolution 5 in August.
Since March, more zine events have turned to a digital existence. Zine Club Chicago, which is hosted by Cynthia Hanifin and usually meets at Quimby’s, has been meeting over Zoom to discuss zines on themes like “Fun-Sized” and “Power to the People.” Saturday Night Drink ‘n’ Draw, hosted by Alex Nall, had several digital drawing events–including a figure drawing session where a model posed over webcam.
Local comics artist, teacher, and activist Bianca Xunise put on a Comics as Resistance workshop for Believer. The digital format drew a huge audience–around 500 people tuned in–but it also allowed for white supremacists to crash the event.
When Believer asked Xunise if she wanted to pause or end the event, she said she wanted to keep going. “I know for non-Black people it may be shocking to experience [racism] when it’s not part of your everyday,” she says. “But, at this point in my life, I’ve learned to not give it power and just keep going.”
After the workshop, participants posted their work with Xunise tagged. As for her own work, Xunise is glad for the chance to slow down. Staying home means she saves money and has more time to consider which jobs she really wants to take. “Between COVID and the Black Lives Matter protests, it’s forced a lot of Black creatives to ask: What do I really want to be saying?” she says.
And for shoppers who miss zine browsing in person, Quimby’s has a creative solution. For $25, online shoppers can buy a “Qustomized” Quarantine Zine Pack curated and mailed out by Mason herself. At checkout, customers can list their interests to guide her selection. The most requested subjects? Cats, pizza, and “witchy stuff.” One request shared anonymously on the Quimby’s Instagram included “old horror movies, vaporwave, history, VHS, […] The Velvet Underground, uhhh I also eat a lot of pierogis.”
Zine packs provide some counterculture reading materials, of course, but they also help a small business and keep the community alive. “People post their zine packs and say, ‘I feel so seen,'” says Mason. “It was this really therapeutic moment for them, and for me. It feels like the pinnacle of my almost 20 years of zine training.” v
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