By Steve Rhodes
“Like his team, Cutler gets the job done even if he hardly looks pretty doing it,” our very own Jim Coffman writes this morning.
And even as – Coffman points out – the media obsesses over Cutler’s image. Can we deal with reality instead?
A Man And A Lesson Plan
“While many students across the country will be out of school on Monday celebrating the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the nearly 550 young men and women of Providence St. Mel will be in class,” Dawn Turner Trice writes for the Tribune.
“Paul J. Adams III, the school’s founder and president, said Providence St. Mel has never closed its doors on King Day. Instead, the entire day always is dedicated to lessons about King.”
A Segregated City Is No City At All
“In 2000, 83 percent of African Americans [in Chicago] would have had to move to be evenly distributed across the city,” Megan Cottrell wrote for the Chicago Reporter last month. “In 2009, that number was 81 percent. Progress, for sure, but if we continue at this rate, we’ll claim victory about halfway through year 2347.”
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Also from the Reporter:
“Chicago ranks fourth in black-white segregation among the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, according to a recent analysis. Chicago ranks 10th in Hispanic-white segregation. Click here to see racial segregation measures for large metro areas and states.”
And:
“Chicago’s racial segregation patterns are quite stark when you view a map of the city using the Mapping America: Every City, Every Block feature from The New York Times. Click here to view a map of the Chicago area.”
Daley’s Chicago
“From 2004 through 2008 alone, $1.2 billion in property tax dollars has been siphoned from the city’s budget, parks, schools and other local taxing bodies to exclusively prime the Loop and the Near South Side community to which it abuts,” the Reporter found this month. “The small piece of land comprises only two of Chicago’s 77 community areas but accounted for 55 percent of all TIF money spent in those five years.”
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“12,296: The number of jobs lost in the Loop between 2002 and 2008. The bulk of those losses were felt by people living in predominately African-American communities.”
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But by all means, let’s not drag race into the mayoral campaign.
Commemorative Food Stamps
“Even as the economy grew and the unemployment rate began to shrink, the number of Illinois households getting food stamps hit record levels in December, showing no signs of an economic recovery, and area food pantries say they’ve continued to see more people asking for help,” the Sun-Times reports.
“There were 857,282 households enrolled last month in what is now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly called food stamps. That was up 12.7 percent from a year earlier.”
Maybe Groupon can organize a deal.
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“We live in an international city, a world-class city, and yet we have neighborhoods that are described as food deserts,” Miguel del Valle tells the Sun-Times. “That’s Third World country talk.”
Health Care Repealed On South Side
“As Provident Hospital postponed its decision to stop accepting ambulance runs, protesters called on the nearby University of Chicago Hospitals to restore its adult emergency room to trauma center status,” WBBM reports.
“A group of 25 pressed their demand by staging a mock funeral outside of Rockefeller Chapel as a Martin Luther King Day celebration let out.”
Michelle Obama could not be reached for comment.
Gary Woman Got King His Day
After committing mail fraud.
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“She is famous for having introduced the bill to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday,” according to The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed. “Representative John Conyers Jr. had first introduced legislation for the holiday days after Dr. King’s assassination in 1968. However it was Hall’s final version of the bill which was passed into law in 1983.
“Despite her striking victory in the 1983 special election, Hall did not win her bid for re-nomination in 1984 Democratic primary. Mrs. Hall blamed her failure on racism; however the 1984 campaign was weakly organized, and despite the symbolism of the King bill success, voters saw little economic progress during Hall’s term. She failed to win the support of the black community, losing by over 4,800 votes in the eight neighborhoods with majority black populations. Democrat Peter J. Visclosky was elected instead.”
Visclosky, who is white, remains in that office, though the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named him one of the nation’s most corrupt members of Congress in 2009.
The Weirdness of Walter Jacobson
As told through his Perspectives.
Bill & Rahm’s Vision of Johanna
You bet I was a different lad when I left old Arkansas.
Boiling Mad
Inside Tea Party America.
Ode To The Nice Cashier
We assumed the Nice Cashier had served her time. Subsequent events proved us wrong.
The Weekend in Chicago Rock
You shoulda been there.
Room at the Beachwood Inn
Stop by tonight as we fire up the jukebox, shoot some stick and enjoy refreshing adult beverages.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Of age.
Posted on January 17, 2011