Chicago's Olympics knockout is a good thing because now, after we get over the shock of ignominious rejection, we're back to the reality of massive budget deficits, a school system in crisis and neighborhoods besieged with the deadly gunfire of gang wars.
The city will be abuzz with language and records of now from people who are normally never heard from, the youth. Seen and now heard. And safe.
Chicago is an Olympian city when it comes to literature and the arts. And what better time than now to remind us? Here's a sampling of some of those triumphs of the sedentary.
Routine police interrogation methods have elicited an outrageously high proportion of false confessions -- coerced confessions given by innocent suspects, especially children, who quickly recant.
The Supreme Court has agreed to review McDonald vs. City of Chicago, a case that challenges whether or not our local handgun ban is legal. It is a development that deeply concerns me.
Chicago does not deserve the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. What the people of Chicago deserve is a domestic Marshall Plan -- an action agenda that will, once and for all, deal with the city's problems.
I've seen police lie to children in all manner of ways, telling one child that his dead sister's blood was found in his bedroom and a different boy that his father had awakened from a coma and told police the boy was his assailant.
This is a victory for the people of Chicago, and the grassroots organizations who spoke out against the Olympic storm of gentrification, tax hikes, and police misconduct. Now it's time to stand tall with Rio.
Rio should be a tremendous source of pride for the millions of U.S.-born Hispanics whose familial roots stretch not only south of the border, but south of the hemisphere.
Ironically, the city most known for its hardball politics couldn't overcome the internal politics of the Olympic Committee to make it past the first round of voting for the 2016 Games.
In the past year more than 40 young persons have been murdered in Chicago, many within a stone's throw of the president's home.
The purpose of No Games Chicago's trip is to take a simple message to the members of the IOC -- the people of Chicago do not want the 2016 Olympics.
Great jazz players like Dan Tabion and Jarrad Harris remind you of how exciting understatement can be.
|
||
