JUST SAYIN
What’s In a Name? Chicago/”SHIKAAKWA Striped SKUNK/OR SMELLY ONION/ JEAN BAPTISTE POINT du SABLE/ This Too Shall Pass/
![](https://www.chicagonow.com/avatar/user-84383-32.png)
![What's In a Name? Chicago/"SHIKAAKWA Striped SKUNK/OR SMELLY ONION/ JEAN BAPTISTE POINT du SABLE/ This Too Shall Pass/](https://www.chicagonow.com/just-sayin/files/2021/06/IMG_5485-scaled.jpg)
While Chicago’s Mayor and the Crack City Council were watering their Jockeys over the renaming of Lake Shore Drive, one could not help to think of the Roman Emperor Nero, who legend has it, played the fiddle while Rome burned. Chicago is not burning but one could not help but think of OUR POLITICIANS’ PRIORITIES. Skyrocketing violence, including 54 mass shootings, 340 murders, and 1872 people shot this year alone, and not one City Council meeting to maybe discuss it. In keeping with removing statues from around Chicago’s parks and public places, some Alderman in the City Council decided that Lake Shore Drive should be renamed after its first settler, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable.
![](https://www.chicagonow.com/just-sayin/files/2021/06/IMG_5767-1024x768.jpg)
It took 12 meetings and about 3 million speeches and Lord knows how many hours before a compromise was finally settled on. We now will have record-size street signs that will read like a novel. In a month or so folks will be cruising down “JEAN BAPTISTE POINT du SABLE LAKE SHORE DRIVE. The Importance of Being Earnest indeed. NOTHING AGAINST OLD JEAN BAPTISTE, just wondering about the priorities of that Ship of Fools in the City Council and their sense of what’s important. It’s as if somebody decided we needed a circus act to distract from reality, and of course Mayor Lightfoot never one to pass up a chance at a good snarling verbal brawl was knee-deep into the shouting and vitriol that followed. But hey the Venerable Drive has a new name -PHEEEEWWWW- Below Jean Baptiste Point du Sable Circa 1770—
![](https://www.chicagonow.com/just-sayin/files/2021/06/IMG_5768-768x1024.jpg)
The polls that were taken in Chicago clearly showed that the majority of people living in the City were not in favor of the name change but hey who the hell are they to have a say in what the City Politicians do. In the end, it might have served its purpose. For days on end, it became the focus of the media, and mass shootings be damn, cover the circus and the clowns and ignore the ugly reality.
![](https://www.chicagonow.com/just-sayin/files/2021/06/IMG_5770-1024x768.jpg)
A hundred years from now nobody will blink an eye at the name JEAN BAPTISTE POINT du SABLE LAKE SHORE DRIVE. CHICAGO itself is proof of that. Can you imagine today a City or almost anything for that matter, being named after a “STRIPED SKUNK” OR A STINKING ONION?” Well, the name CHICAGO ITSELF happens to come from the Algonquin word SHIKAAKWA meaning striped skunk or smelly onion. Even our current crack City Council would not have the CHOPS TO SUGGEST THAT NAME. Yet here we are since 1833, 188 years later, named after a striped skunk and a smelly onion. YIKES.
![](https://www.chicagonow.com/just-sayin/files/2021/06/IMG_5765-1024x768.jpg)
![](https://www.chicagonow.com/just-sayin/files/2021/06/IMG_5764-1024x768.jpg)
I sincerely hope this doesn’t give the fiddlers in Chicago’s City Council any ideas, but you know what? I would not be a bit surprised. They are going to need another monster distraction very soon. The Chicago Gangs are just warming up for the summer. That Striped Skunk might just be what Chicago’s City Council needs, I can just hear the outrage”WHAT! WE NAMED AFTER A STRIPED SKUNK.” ANOTHER DIVERSION under the Big Top. Let’s see! how about “DODGE CITY”? At least it’s not a smelly Skunk and it seems to fit these days.******** FOLKS WHO GET IN OVER THEIR HEADS HAVE A TENDENCY TO DROWN.
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BOB ANGONE
Bob Angone is a Marine VETERAN and a retired Chicago Police Lieutenant. He worked his entire Career covering the streets of Chicago as a Tactical Officer, Tactical Sergeant, and Tactical Lieutenant. His last assignments were in special Functions, he was the C/O of the CPD Swat teams his last five years and was an HBT (Hostage Barricade Terrorist) Sergeant for 10 years.
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