Homework for Our Sun Times Watch Dogs - Connect the Dots Between Cop-Hating Policy and Jamie Kalven's Real Estate Ventures

“We'll go wherever the conversation takes us, but our point of departure will be an exchange about the stories our lives become in the world — the narratives we construct with our actions, the narratives others impose on us, strategies of narrative self-defense (including silence), and questions of narrative stewardship and responsibility.These issues, which are present for anyone who intervenes and acts in the world, are boldly dramatized by the lives of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.” Jamie Kalven

You just gotta say, 'Dude' when Jamie Kalven appears. You just gotta.



Here's some weekend fun!  I tried to make homework fun when I was an English teacher.  Well, unless I wasn't pissed off, or feeling sorry for myself because Catholic high school's paid such crumby salaries. . .sorry. . . .and I attempted to give the kids a chance to make some intellectual inquiries that were of some use to them. Make up a Canterbury Tale of your own that makes fun of your English teacher, or the guy working at Belscott's who never seems to bathe.  Go fishing on the mighty Kankakee River and do a Nick Adams Story like Old Ernie. Stuff like that.

I have one for the very best investigative journalists in Chicago - the Sun Times Watchdogs  a changing band of brother reporters.   The Watchdogs of the Sun Times, far too often confused by the editors with the always hapless Andy Shaw, presented the fruits of Jamie Kalven's labors - the long list of beefs against cops going back to 1967 - and never once mention Jamie Kalven.

Just wondering.  The CRs listed are the ones that came after Kalven's Citizens Police Data Project and the subsequent Justice Department inquiries, but shucks it's Jamie Kalven!

Now, how about some extra-credit!

Do a fun piece on Jamie Kalven, because this week he is all the rage!

I would like the Watchdogs to connect some dots for us - here is the clue - Real Estate!

Task: Find out how many real estate ventures Jamie Kalven had connected to Allison Davis and Altegeld Gardens and offer a commentary.  Was it interesting?  Was it lucrative> Does it have impact on Policing?  Bet it does.

Jamie Kalven is not only an activist but he is a well -insulated Progressive real estate player! He used to present himself as a real estate novelist a la Billy Joel, but has Google washed that past.

Yesterday DNAinfo informed all of us that Jamie Kalven - the hard-hitting Real Estate Novelist, Venture Marxist and founder of the Invisible Institute ( leading the way for a Shakman-like Empire in Cook County) - papered the City of Chicago with more than 40,000 copies of his findings

HYDE PARK — If you haven’t read Hyde Park journalist Jamie Kalven’s four-year-long reporting project on corruption in the Chicago Police Department, it’s about to become almost unavoidable.
Starting this weekend, Kalven will distribute to 400 locations across the city 40,000 free copies of his 20,000-word, four-part series on an alleged criminal gang of drug dealers operating within the police department for nearly 10 years with the knowledge of police leadership.
Kalven has become the leading voice on problems within Chicago’s police ranks. He has released documents showing officers subject to frequent complaints from the public go unpunished and was an early voice pointing out problems with the shooting of Laquan McDonald by officer Jason Van Dyke.

Not only that, but also - there is a Jamie Kalven Mythology roll-out Nationwide! It's sensational - in the real meaning of the word!

James Warren of Vanity Fair and formerly Chicago Tribune calls it a hit that only needs a great musical score!

Imagine “The Wire,” “Serpico,” “Prince of the City” and “The Shield” rolled into one. It's why Hollywood producers should read “The Code of Silence” and give Chicago freelance journalist Jamie Kalven a call. . . .It's also a tale both of how mainstream media often blows law enforcement coverage and how potentially important stories run smack into journalistic conventions and just get lost. . . .His expose is like the grittiest fictionalized drama: dirty cops, abject poverty in crime-ridden projects, people wearing wires, murders to silence informants, the good guys being demonized and put in real peril, and ultimately a department hierarchy looking the other way.

Set it to music, Chief Keef!

 Can you say Hamilton?  How about Kalven?  Too, close to that other Calvin - the Klein guy?  Maybe.  How about Jamie!  Jamie, Lad! Right out of Master of Ballintrae. Sen-SAYSHUNAL!

Every left leaning magazine, broadcast outlet, talk-hub, podcast, website, newspaper and cop hating rag in the nation, Huffington Post, Slate, Jet, Vanity Fair, Al Jazeera, and, of course, NPR, are picking up James Warren's Poynter Piece - Meet Jamie Kalven.

James Warren not only wrote the Vanity Fair fallation, but seems to be the media's go-to narrative, which can only mean legal and cultural policy to follow close on the act - root and branch.

Jamie Kalven is talking up a plenty his own bad self! Kalven lays out the coordination orchestrated over decades of Burge Bashing and honed sharply during the Richie Daley Final Days.  A tiny Polish bartender female was horribly beaten by drunken monster, taking the day off as a cop, and that was caught on camera.  Kalven lays out just how quickly two leading Lawsuit Lotto Lawyers welded up the off-duty heroics of Abbate to the Burge Mythology = Futterman and Bowman.

The joint motion created a situation in which the public interest was unrepresented. Two law professors who specialize in police abuse cases — Craig Futterman of the University of Chicago and Locke Bowman of Northwestern University — intervened on behalf of the public. They argued that if the city was allowed to “buy its way out of” the judgment, it would have no incentive to make the necessary reforms. Judge St. Eve ruled against the city, holding that the jury verdict regarding the code of silence “has a social value to the judicial system and public at large.”
In their effort to have the code of silence verdict set aside, city lawyers argued that the CPD had enacted significant reforms since the 2007 bar incident. And they emphasized that the department was now led by a new superintendent who would not permit such behavior to go unpunished.

Did it?  Seems to me things dragged not at all.

Kalven leaves out the looong Koschman Case championed by Carol Marin.  Why is that?

The Sun Times played code of silence with louder frequency than a Packey Webb Ford's jingle and the masterpiece of a Locke Bowman return to fray with the Batman of Burge Bashing and Jon Burge Mythology Author horry old G. Flint Taylor and together they fronted for the Carol Marin aggrieved and the completed welding job on Systemic Racist Code of Silence Culture of Corruption  that was G. Flint Taylor-made for a spot at Penny Pritzker Park.

I sure would like to see some real investigation by our Watchdogs.

I would like to be brought fully up to speed on Jamie Kalven and all of his works.

This is extra credit.  You are not being paid to do this.   Have fun!  I hope.