Why Bother With The Trib - The Real Reporting Can Be Found at Chicago News Co-Op

I read quite a bit. Even at this hoary-age of the dark-side of 58, I tend to remember what I read. Reading like plumbing, carpentry, and painting is an art. I do not plumb, carpent or paint, unless there is a very good reason to do so, like black water gushing up out of every household orifice, timbers a'cracking and chips of paint getting mixed in with the Lime and Salt flavored tortilla chips.

I read because I must. I have taught generations of high school kids not only to engage in reading, but introduced them to the very best in writing, in order to become discerning readers.

While a student at Loyola, I worked with a Stationary Engineer who was a 'big reader' - Mack Bolan, Nick Carter, Mickey Spillane, various and sundry crotch novels with titles like "Trailer Park Pam and the Big-Top Snake Wranglers at Play." While appreciative of the cover art that packages such tomes, I, none the less, found the lurid prose to be just that and came away from their sentences with the feelings of shame that must accompany young Ezra when Mom comes down into the basement with basketful of the twenty-something's laundry and catches Young E with his mitts around more than a pretzel stick, while watching the Kardasian hi-jinks on the wide-screen Hi Def.

Chicago's two remaining big newspapers and their web-sites have become little more than Condensed Lite Nick Carter dailies.

The Chicago Tribune, to be fair, has made some modest gains toward substance in recent months, but any paper with a disc jockey as managing editor and editorial board propagandist is rather sad. The Sun Times, likewise has improved from its laughable days when Cheryl Redd called the shots, and has excellent journalistic foot-soldiers like Mark Konkol, Natasha Korecki, Maureen O'Donnell, Tim Novack and Abdon Pallasch and Southtown's Star's Steve Metsch.

However, you can not find a better source for reporting, opinion and insight than the Medill Castaways of the Chicago News Cooperative ( New York Times).

One of my favorite, Metro and City Hall beat journalists is Dan Mihalopoulos. Today, this gritty and exacting reporter cuts through fatuous opinions of the Aldermen and City Hall flacks and presents the realities of Chicago Police Manpower shortages.

The ACLU and the usual suspects of political loudmouths and phonies are providing cover form Rahm Emanuel's dodgy deployments. Dan Mihalopoulos offers the facts - reminding readers of what newspapers used to do. While the Emanuel 'Smart Sizing" of the Chicago Police Department might provide cover for aldermen and the Administration, saturating high crime areas with Officers will not necessarily solve the problem.

Only Dan Mihalopulos cuts to the chase -

The Chicago News Cooperative recently obtained a list of the unit assignments for the 10,300 sworn Chicago police department employees from a police source who requested anonymity because the department leaders have declined to release it.

The records described the unit assignments as of early October and appeared to reflect the vast majority of the recent personnel moves ordered by the Emanuel administration.

Most of the detectives were assigned to one of the department’s five area headquarters, while about 2,400 of the police officers were either assigned directly or detailed to specialized units, including the narcotics section and the internal affairs division.

It was impossible to deduce from the data exactly where the officers in specialized units were working. The list also did not include supervisors.

The other 7,000 police officers, representing a majority of the department’s sworn members, were each assigned to patrol beats in one of the 25 districts. The number of officers in each district ranged from a low of 191 in the 23rd district to 386 in the 7th district.

A comparison of the beat deployment figures with department statistics for property crimes and violent crimes in each district this year shows:

¶Four districts — the 25th, 8th, 6th and 4th — had higher ratios of both property crimes and violent crimes per officer than the citywide average.

¶The highest ratios of property crimes to beat officer counts were in the 14th, 8th and 25th districts, each of which reported at least 15 property crimes per patrol officer in the year’s first eight months.

¶The lowest proportion of violent crimes to officers was in the 1st district, which covers downtown Chicago, followed by the 19th district on the North Side.

¶The 4th district, in the city’s southeast corner, had the largest gap between staffing level and violence, with 4.05 violent crimes per officer.

The 4th district covers most of the 7th Ward, whose alderman, Sandi Jackson, praised Emanuel for adding officers to areas of greater need, despite tight budget constraints. But asked about the Chicago News Cooperative findings, Jackson replied: “There is absolutely a disparity. We are not where we would want to be ideally.”

Some experts say the reaction of aldermen in apparently underserved districts, though politically astute, would not lead to the wisest policies for fighting crime.

“It is reasonable and rational to expect that there should be more officers in areas with more crime,” said Arthur Lurigio, a professor of psychology and criminology at Loyola University. “But there is no evidence that would necessarily be the case.”

Lurigio said saturating areas with officers often merely pushed criminals to other places that then witnessed a spike in violence.

Imagine if high crime areas were saturated with beat officers, prowler cars and paddy wagons?

Imagine what Harvey Grossman and the ACLU say and how quickly they would shop for Federal Judges to sue over racist invasions and forces of occupation in Englewood, or Roseland?

Fourteen people were wounded and one killed last night, blares the Tribune in anticipation of a full explanation to people by Eric "The Water Boy" Zorn, or a thunderingly hilarious cop-slamming J'accuse from Bruce Dold.

Read The Tribune for laughs, read the Chicago Sun Times for the great reporters and skip the columnists, and read the Chicago News Cooperative in order to be fully informed.

To Well-Heeled Chicagoans

It is a shame that Chicago's 1%ers can meet at Smith and Wolinsky's and pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars and invest in a bar or a restaurant, but take a pass on helping to fund the only real news source in Chicago - The Chicago News Cooperative. I mean aside from a guy who moved to Chicago and already pumps millions into schools, the great John Canning, where are all of the Oxen Gore-ing PlumpCats and Kittens? Support Chicago News Cooperative. Us Helots are already pumped dry, by Rahm, Boss Preckwinkle, Governor Easter Bunny, and Boss Claypool -not to mention Boss Shakman.

This great source of news should be supported by the people who have the most treasure in their kicks. If you have a couple of hundred thousand dollars laying around your Gold Coast condo, Lakeview gray stone, or Hyde Park mansion, give Jim Warren a call, or write a huge check to

Chicago News Cooperative Contact Info:
70 East Lake Street, #810
Chicago, IL 60601


www.chicagonewscoop.org

Chicago needs real news and good writing.



The two journalistic and editorial equivalents of "Trailer Park Pam and the Big-Top Snake Wranglers at Play" just aren't cutting it. Buck up, Buckaneers!

Chicago Tribune's Seeker Manya Brachear - Tossing Gasoline on a Catholic Votive Candles - Thanks for your Help Seeker

Manya Brachear is the earnest imported Chicago Religion Talent for the "Not to Be Out-Stupided by the Chicago Sun Times" Chicago Tribune. With all of the remarkable Catholic, Jewish and Protestant local talent the Medill Nativists needed to go out of town to get someone to kick at people's faith. Manya is good'un.

Manya likes her religion ( 'spiritual but not really anything too confining')you know -really Richard Gere-ishly Bono-magnifico! Hip.

Kid, this is Chicago. Look around you. Every Block the big buildings with pointy towers and crosses -those are Churches - mostly Catholic. Lot's of Catholics in Chicago, Manya. There are parishes of every ethnic niche - hence the celebration of diversity is the work of our local nitwits. We enjoy Polish, Italian, Czech, Croatian, Ukranian as visitors usually. I go to Mass - on Sundays and Holy Days at Scared Heart an old French Mission with 1,2, 3rd Genration Catholic Americans. I also go to Latin Mass at St. John Cantius on Chicago & Sangamon for devotional giggles.

Polish Masses are rich and wonderful; Lithuanian the same; Italian you bet. Hit Father Gene Smith's Gaelic Mass at St. Barnabas. Attend a real old timey Tridentine Mass at St. John Cantius - pure dignity and majesty, but alas. No condoms will be distributed in keeping with the Planned Parenthood Celebration of National Condom Week.

Manya Brachear belongs to the American Culture that banishes Nativity Scenes and Celebrates the distribution of rubbers. True to her faith, doctrine and paycheck, Manya takes a story that celebrates the return of fallen faithful to the Catholic Church and saddles it with the woe and a litany of wrongs.

In order to return to the pews, Cindy Colman first must grapple with the Roman Catholic Church's failure to forgive, alienating her and her mother from the institution that generations of their family have called home.

"I think I'm still in the process," said Colman, 35 of Naperville. "I'm at that point where I'm coming back to learn more and understand the whole faith … It's true. At my core, I know that."

After fleeing an abusive husband more than 30 years ago, Colman's mother chose to raise her daughter Lutheran. Though she agreed to annul her previous marriage, the Catholic Church insisted on denying her the sacraments when her new husband declined to annul his marriage.

Colman has since agonized about the way her mother has been treated. Still, she yearns to reconcile with the church where she was baptized. She also longs to give her children the foundation she missed.

Agony goes with living. Life is tough. If it is too tough to go Home. Too bad.

Catholics welcome everyone. Every Sunday. No locks, or guards on the doors. I am sure Mrs. Colman regrets chatting with Manya. I always seem to have those regrets with some journalists. Manya is easy to spot however. Manya Brachear is a well scrubbed, wide-eyed unblinking dead-on agendanista. Her prose is the same and almost as flat and one -dimensional.

The Sun Times already listed the rant of some jerk from Riverside. Not to be outdown, Joe Medill's anti-Catholic Editorial Board pushed Manya on the Campaign Catholics Come Home .

Anyone with any brains at the Archdiocese would put Manya's calls on the long hold. You know the one -"Your Call is very important to us, Please wait on the line; your call will be answered in the order it was received; please hold on. . . ." - (bass ostinato)

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

Drum Solo -

{Lunch Break}

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

Please wait your call . . .
Give the Tribune and Manya Brachear nothing. They have done plenty. Manya, try burning down a church. It would be so Progressively Activist!

Catalyst Leftist/Progress SEIU/We Got Jitu/How About You? - Tha Soviet Jugganot on Rev. Sen. Meeks by Coalitions Against School Reform!

Progress Illinois Illinois SEIU's Nepotism Workshop for Children of Radicals jumped on Rev./Sen. Meeks.

Senator James Meeks wants Chicago Public Schools to Reform - that means breaking up the power of soviets - LSCs - developed by 1960's radicals Billy Ayers, Linda Lenz, Marilyn Katz, and Mike Klonsky.

SEIU is lead by radical Marxists Andy Stern and Anna Burger. Here in Illinois, SEIU established Progress Illinois for radical Jaimie Kalven's son Josh. It is a clearing house/comic book for radical leftists and spoon feeds Rich Miller's Capital Fax Blog.

Catalyst was published and edited by Linda Lenz, but she took some heat during Obama Campaign for President due to his long association with Billy Ayers, whose career in education was padded by his Daddy Thomas Ayers who ran ComEd.

And you thought Old Timey Ward politics had Nepotism? Hold the phone Gertrude no one packs the job like a Commie!

Well, Catalyst, WBEZ and Progress Illinois are heaping the hate on Senator James Meeks and trotted ot Jitu Brown!

The Medill Radicals heaped praise on this fine gentleman-community activist-educational operative last year.

He was told he was a “giant among men.”

Jitu Brown takes that title very seriously.

“My understanding of it is that it’s the type of man I struggle to be,” he explained of his Swahili first name.

The 42-year-old education outreach coordinator for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization in Chicago received that name over 10 years ago. He was being recognized at an assembly of social activists at Malcolm X College during Kwanzaa. He may have been Aaron before, but he has been Jitu ever since.

“Having a name and trying to be a community change agent, I’m always reflecting on how I carried out my business today,” he said. “I’m much better than I would have been.”

Jitu Brown, ‘giant’ in the community, emissary of change.

Influential Chicago rapper, Jitu tha Jugganot.

“It was hip-hop that was the bridge to bring me here,” he said from a table at the organization on East 43rd Street. “It was this place that helped me develop the perspective to see what music can do.”

What it does, he said, is “connect people that have historically been disconnected.” It gives a sense of place and purpose. It creates awareness.

“Most of all,” he said, “I want to see a wave of young people that really believe in controlling what they produce.”

Brown, an affable, goateed man of substantial stature, learned that at an early age. He and a high school buddy formed the rap group in their South Side neighborhood of Rosemoor that would later become known as Ten Tray. It was the 80s and a teenage Brown had been waffling about what direction he wanted to take his life. There was the Nation of Islam, he said. There was following Fred Hampton, Jr. There was the church.

And then there was rapping.

“We were getting politicized by this music that society expects to be just entertainment,” he said of his early influences, such as KRS-One and Public Enemy. “For me, I just wanted to do something.”

That something started out as rhyme battles in his high school cafeteria, then to competitions drawing larger crowds. In 1991 Ten Tray signed a deal with Smash Polygram Records, which Brown contends was one of the first major label deals coming out of Chicago.

For a short while, Ten Tray lived the dream. They had a video that was on a decent rotation on Yo! MTV Raps and BET, they sold nearly 90,000 units, and they established a solid fan base here in Chicago and on the West Coast.

Yet they barely made any money.

“Our attorney said it was a good deal for a first time artist,” he remembered. “Looking at it in retrospect, we were just a couple of young cats getting taken advantage of.”

Brown had become jaded by the industry but not the message. After Ten Tray’s first album came and went, he took some time off from music and decided to volunteer. A couple of chance encounters led him to the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. He was with the outreach group for five years before signing on as an employee. Twelve years later, as the education organizer, he visits schools, meetings and events, teaching families to use their voices to have a say in how their children are educated.

His work has galvanized groups to prevent school closings, take control of underperforming curriculums and, as he puts it, beat the system.

“People who are trained to lose are saying, ‘we can do this,’” he said.

Music evolved into a vehicle for Brown to further his work. In the song “Stand Up” from his 2007 self-released album “Necessary Ingredients,” Brown blasts systemic problems in his community through his clever baritone bombast:

“Here’s a remedy /

Don’t run from the ‘hood /

Develop the institutions ‘til they doing some good.”

The difference is that Brown is not only saying, he’s doing.

“He’s really an inspiration to people in the neighborhood,” said Jay Travis, the executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. “His message has always been one of empowerment and positivity.”

This is what Brown hopes the kids he encounters at work and through his youth music education program, Independents Day, understand – be different, be creative and own your craft.

“Since I met him, he was a positive brother,” said D.A. Smart, an emcee, friend and co-host of the Independents Day workshops. “He loves his people. He always wants to see them be better and do better.”

“He’s such a force in Chicago,” he added.

Brown, a force, a giant, a leader in the community, says he still struggles to live up to his name.

“I’m doing the right thing,” he said before settling into his office cubicle and gearing up for a day of work. “Plant the seeds, and they’ll sprout

Hokey Smokes! "Plant Seeds . . .Hmmmmmm . . . and they'll Sprout?" Now, that is some radical poetry! Honor Bright? They'll sprout. How about get rid of radical leftist nonsense and Schools will Reform with Vouchers and Real Choice? Jitu? Come on Big Guy! You know!

Well, Kids, Jitu don't like Rev. Meeks or his plan to kill LSCs. Next Jitu and WBEZ and Progress Illinois and Catalyst and WTTW will whip out the Uncle James Card! Click my post title Jaimie Kalven's boy Josh is really tuning up the Red Chorus!
They have JITU/Medill/WBEZ/WTTW/SEIU//Chicago Tribune Editorial Board/Sun Times Editorial Board and Every dim-bulb in Birkenstocks and Socks

And all we have are the facts that Chicago Public Schools stink on ice and suck millions of dollars out of the middle classes and kids do not learn and kids are dying by the score every couple of weeks!

Medill's Mike Madigan Fishing Expedition - Asian Carp Not Good Enough?

The Tribune expends time, talent and treasure on targets.

They had four full-time 'investigators' on Mike Sheahan for years and coughed up a twenty minute toss of their work by a jury empanelled to make hay for the MacArthur Center for Justice in a BS - lawyer incited brutality beef at Cook County Jail.

Mike Madigan is "the target for Tonight!" Nice try, Cupcakes.

Mike Madigan sends more brain cells into the waters treated
by the Metro Water Reclamation District every day than the collective Intelligence of the entire Medill Scam Co-op can ever hope to Dream of possessing. ( Trib & etc.).

Mike Madigan is smart and smart requires a close attention to details - ethical, moral and legal.

As to the Tribune's latest BS Investigation - does not seem to be any There -there.

The Trib should toss the Cliff's Notes and read some books.

John McCain: John Murtagh - One of Bill Ayers' Victims Speaks Out

The fact that Bill Ayers continues to trod the terra with liberal palms before him in Hyde Park, speaks volumes about societal hypocrisy, elitism, and academic pusillanimity. The Medill Journalism octopus wraps up Ayers and his odious wife Bernadine Dohrn and keeps them from scrutiny and a long overdue public ridicule.

Here is an account of Bill Ayers's activities as leader of the Weatherman Underground, which killed police officers in New York, crippled Richard Elrod, bombed scores of buildings and got glossed over by journalists.

John Murtagh, a victim of Weatherman bombing terror, speaks out.

In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night.

I still recall, as though it were a dream, thinking that someone was lifting and dropping my bed as the explosions jolted me awake, and I remember my mother’s pulling me from the tangle of sheets and running to the kitchen where my father stood. Through the large windows overlooking the yard, all we could see was the bright glow of flames below. We didn’t leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside. The same night, bombs were thrown at a police car in Manhattan and two military recruiting stations in Brooklyn. Sunlight, the next morning, revealed three sentences of blood-red graffiti on our sidewalk: FREE THE PANTHER 21; THE VIET CONG HAVE WON; KILL THE PIGS.

For the next 18 months, I went to school in an unmarked police car. My mother, a schoolteacher, had plainclothes detectives waiting in the faculty lounge all day. My brother saved a few bucks because he didn’t have to rent a limo for the senior prom: the NYPD did the driving. We all made the best of the odd new life that had been thrust upon us, but for years, the sound of a fire truck’s siren made my stomach knot and my heart race. In many ways, the enormity of the attempt to kill my entire family didn’t fully hit me until years later, when, a father myself, I was tucking my own nine-year-old John Murtagh into bed.

John M. Murtagh is a practicing attorney, an adjunct professor of public policy at the Fordham University College of Liberal Studies, and a member of the city council in Yonkers, New York, where he resides with his wife and two sons.

Click my post title to read more.

Chicago Tribune Insulates Bomber Ayers

What a contemptible piece of hack work.

Today's piece on Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist is absolutely the most gutless of mewings and as thin as the moral tissue of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board that no doubt issued the order to the writer and perfumed the adjectives and nouns according to the influence Ayers and his extended wealth bears on Tribune Editorial Thought.

Bill Ayers, a former radical leader turned academic and school reformer, has never been hesitant to speak his mind.

Although there has been no public response from him since his ties to Barack Obama — the two neighbors served on a charity board together for three years — were brought up during last week's Democratic debate, Ayers said Wednesday that he has a good reason for his silence.

Former Radical Leader - 100% False use of nouns and adjectives. What vomit!

Chicago Medill Media Mousepieces - linked to Ayers wealth at Northwestern and University of Illinois - have insulated these enemies of America and propped up their places as citizens of Chicago.

Readers deserve respect. The Chicago Sun Times is reaping the reward for its Editorial idiocies over the last few years and The Chicago Tribune now stands at the edge as well.

Stay friends with Ayers and Dohrn. Their wealth and influence is more important than truthful reporting.