Back in the Day

The other day while looking at a Facebook site devoted to Chicago, I came across a post accompanied by this picture. The post's author asked if anyone recognized the building on the left of the frame. "Ooh, ooh..." I said to myself "...I do I do". I scrolled down the responses to see if anyone else recognized the building with the distinctive tower. One person suggested it was the iconic Wrigley Building on the north bank of the Chicago River at Michigan Avenue. Another suggested the London Guarantee Building directly across the river. Still another thought it was the Jewelers Building one block to the west. The wisenheimer in me was ecstatic as I would get to tell everyone they were wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I don't always take delight in correcting people, but truth be told, sometimes I do. However many years ago I learned from a close associate that that behavior is unbecoming, especially when it is accompanied by smug overconfidence, which apparently I exhibited when I corrected him one too many times. These days whenever I'm with friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues or perfect strangers, I usually keep my cards close to the vest, not interrupting all but the most egregious factual errors, and sometimes I even let those go. But online is different. While I appreciate my friend's advice, there is still satisfaction every once in a while to come out and say that someone is, pardon the expression, full of shit. That's probably why social media has become so damn popular, the anonymity it provides gives us the opportunity to act like a jackass without being publicly outed as such. If you don't believe me, just check out the comment section of any YouTube post.

Anyway, the confusion about the building is understandable, given that it, like the three Facebook suggestions was built in the Beaux Arts style which was popular in the first decades of the 20th Century when these buildings were created. What threw everybody off no doubt was the assumption that the building is in Chicago. It is not. It is the Municipal Building in Lower Manhattan. I know that to be true because I know the building well, as it was from the cupola at the pimmacle of the Municipal Building where I made the original cover photogaph for the book, The Architectural Guidebook to New York City, written by Francis Morrone.

Here is the picture I made from the top of the Municipal Building, you can see the shadow of the cupola where I was standing at the lower right of the frame:

You don't have to know anything about New York City architecture to realize this picture was made before September 11, 2001. It was in fact made in September, 1992, one year before the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center via a bomb placed in a rented truck parked underneath the North Tower (in this picture, the tower on the right) in 1993. That attack took the lives of six people. Engineers at the time speculated that had the truck been parked in a more strategic spot when the bomb was detonated, there was a chance the blast might have weakened the structure to the point where it could have brought the building down. My photograph took on a new meaning after that. The truth is, before that first bombing, I never much cared for the World Trade Center; in fact for the sake of the picture at the time I shot it, I would have preferred if the two towers had not been there at all, leaving the frame dominated by that great work of early 20th Century architecture, the Woothworth Building, and New York's glorious City Hall, built in the first half of the 19th Century, seen at the bottom of the frame.

But the thought that one of the towers could have collapsed, taking with it the lives of tens of thousands of people, rocked me to the core and I never looked at that complex the same way again. I'll never forget the last time I laid eyes on the WTC. I was in a taxi en route to Newark Airport. We had just emerged from the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel, the sun was setting and its bright rays reflected off the towers making them glow like two enormous golden beacons. For the first time I saw those buildings as beautiful and I resolved to photograph them from across the Hudson in exactly the same light when I returned to New York. Needless to say, that never happened.

Life for everyone, everywhere changed in both enormous, and infinitisimally small ways after that dreadful late summer day in 2001. I was reminded of one of the small ways when I decided to respond to that Facebook thread.

I didn't have a readily available picture of my own of the Municipal Building to provethat I had the right building, so I asked Google to come up with one for me. It brought up a site that not only showed the building, but described the remarkable privilege of being able to set foot in the "off limits" Municipal Building cupola and view what is certainly one of the most spectacular vistas in the city.

Here is a link to that site.

I did feel incredibly privileged to experience that amazing view, but it certainly was not off limits 28 years ago. In fact I was flabbergasted at how easy it was to get up there. Here's how I did it: I walked into the building, hopped aboard an elevator and took it as far as it would go. I got off and found another elevator that said, "tower elevator" and rode to its  top floor. Then I walked up a few flights of stairs, saw a door, opened it and there I was. There were plenty of people around, but no one said boo to me. Once outside, making sure I had something in place to prop the door open, (as didn't want to be trapped out there),  I had Manhattan, Jersey City, and part of Brooklyn all to myself, or so it seemed. It was one of the most exhilerating experiences of my life.

I knew immediately that I wanted a photograph of the view toward the the WTC and Woolworth Building, just one of many amazing views from that spot, to be the cover of our book. So I returned on a subsequent trip with a large format camera and holders filled with color film. The rig necessary for the cover photograph included a tripod, a camera bag, and a large box containing the camera. This I was sure would draw stares but once again I walked into the building and boarded the elevator with no one paying the least attention to me. Like most photographers in the days before 9/11, I felt that in order to get the picture, it was usually better to ask forgiveness rather than permission. Today that cavalier attitude can get you into serious trouble. But even then, the ease with which I was able to access this amazing place, left me feeling a little uneasy. So I told a building engineer what I planned to do and asked if was OK. He couldn't have been nicer and told me that workers in the building go out there for lunch all the time, just make sure the door didn't lock behind me. I didn't let on that I already knew that, and went about my business.

I don't know exactly when the cupola of the Municiapl Building became "off limits" to regular folks. I'm guessing that after the first WTC attack just a half mile away, at the very least my closed bag and big box would have drawn the attention of security.

After the 9/11 attacks all bets were off, everywhere. Here in Chicago, buildings that had always opened their doors to the public, ceased to do so. Even the magnificent lobbies of architectural gems such as the Rookery Building, hands down the highlight of any tour of Chicago's Loop, were inaccessible to all but officially sanctioned tour groups.

Things have loosened up a bit 18 years since the attacks, but I'm guessing we'll never have the same access to buildings, even ones considered public, that we once did.

I'm not going to trivialize the memory of the lives of people lost to terrorist attacks by complaining about not being able to wander around buildings the way we used to back in the day. It is a small price to pay to help keep people and our cities safe. But along with the hightened security, something significant has been lost. I'll give one specific example.

The US Capitol Building in Washington DC is probably the most important physical symbol of American Democracy. It's no coincidence that Pierre L'Infant placed this house of the people, not the house of the Chief Executive, precisely at the center of his design for the nation's capital city. Thomas Walter's magnificent dome was constructed during the Civil War as a symbol of the continuity of the republic, despite the great cost and grave situation that was taking place at the time. And despite a number of violent incidents that took place in and about the building over the years, from its original construction in the late eighteenth century until quite recently, this people's house used to be open to the general public to wander about for the most part, as they pleased.

I have fond memories of visiting the Capitol, walking up the same steps where presidents traditionally were sworn into office*. Once at the top of those stairs the public could walk through the doors of the East Front (in later years through metal detectors) directly into the Great Rotunda where the bodies of presidents from Abraham Lincoln to George H.W. Bush have lain in state, as well as a very small handful of significant Americans such as Rosa Parks who have lain there in honor. From the Rotunda you could wander into National Statuary Hall where each state contributed two likenesses of its favorite sons or daughters. There you could stand upon a marker on the floor and if you listened closely, hear conversations taking place on the opposite side of the great hall. That unintentional echo chamber was an architectural feature that early 19th Century congressmen took advantage of, listening in to the private conversations of their unsuspecting rivals on the other side of the hall, back when the room severed as the chamber for the House of Representatives.  

If you kept moving south, you could enter the current House Chamber even when that legislative body was in session. That chamber is one of the most recognizable interiors in the United States as it is the setting for all joint sessions of Congress including the president's annual State of the Union address. 

When I first visited the Capitol over thirty years ago, it was a little more complicated to get into the Senate Chamber on the other side of the building as you needed to obtain a pass from one of your senators. But that was hardly a problem as you could descend into the basement and hop aboard the Capitol subway which would shuttle you to and from the Senate office Building a few blocks away.

Granted it is still possible for the general public to visit the US Capitol Building, but access is greatly limited. Not only can you no longer enter the building from the East Front, but if you so much as attempt to climb the stairs leading up to it, you will be stopped by security personnel. To gain access to the building, ordinary folks have to enter the US Capitol Visitors Center a half block away. 

Here is a link to a video produced by the CVC as an orientation to what you can expect, and what you cannot expect when you visit the Capitol Building. 

As you can see, the CVC is a user friendly place that educates as well as serves as an entrance portal to the House of the People. Today, it is much like a museum with a plethora of exhibits, a cafeteria, and of course a gift shop. Naturally you can also visit the Capitol Building, but only under the watchful eye of a tour guide, no more wandering about on your own.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that access to the Capitol has been restricted, albeit in a palatable, even enjoyable fashion. After all, the building was likely the target of hijackers who commandeered the fourth airliner during the September 11th attacks, and was spared only by the quick thinking, selfless and heroic actions of the passengers of United Flight 93 who took out the hijackers, crashing the plane in the process just outside of Shanksburg, PA.  One shudders to think of the profound psychological damage the loss of that building would have been to the American psyche, especially on top of the carnage that already took place in New York, and just across the Potomac in Arlington, VA. No greater monument to the victim/heroes of Flight 93 could possibly exist than the Capitol Building itself. 

But constructon of the CVC (which had been on the drawing board for years) was put into action in response to another attack, one that took place at the Capitol in 1998, when a gunman stormed through the metal detectors and shot and killed two Capitol police officers. The bodies of the two men, Officer Jacob Chestnut and Detective John Gibson were themselves laid in honor inside the Capitol Rotunda.

Clearly the creation of the CVC was a prudent move to control crowds and provide security to the Capitol Building and the people inside it. From all appearances (I have never set foot inside), the Visitor Center seems to be a tremendous success from a design standpoint, as well as a crowd pleasing tourist attraction.

However I wonder how well it truly serves the Capitol and its role as the symbolic house of the people. My most memorable visit was in the mid-nineties when I had the opportunity to show a friend from Germany around. As I had already taken the official tour, I played guide and showed him the Rotunda, the hall of statues with its echo chamber, and the House Chamber which he recognized from internationally televised speeches. What truly impressed him was that despite this building being the center of government of a great nation, anyone, young or old, rich or poor, black or white, powerful or meek, could walk right in and make themselves at home, and if they so chose, rub elbows with a law maker and offer him or her a piece of their mind. 

Which come to think about it, is what participatory government is all about and what made our Capitol unique.

That part has been lost.

It's true that the CVC provides convenience, creature comforts and a meaningful visitor experience. As the orientation video points out, visitors to the Capitol no longer have to wait in long lines braving the elements just to get in, and have plenty of ammeneties to entertain themselves while they wait to get inside the Capitol. When they finallly make to the great building, they don't have to worry about figuring where to go, their guide will take care of all that for them.

As as attraction, the US Capitol has become another item on the bucket list of Washington attractions to check off.

What we no longer experience there, is the feeling of ownership. While the building belongs to the people of the United States, limiting its access to officially sanctioned tours means the public has been relegated to the role of casual observer, rather than active participant. In that sense, the US Capitol might just as well be another museum, the Kremlin, or a brewery,

More concerning is that limited access means legislators get to do their work in more seclusion than than ever before. It's no secret that our particpatory government has always been subverted by money, special interests, and less than scrupulous politicians. But by constantly bumping into everyday Americans at their place of business, be it in the hallways, eating places or the Capitol subway, lawmakers at least would be reminded to whom they ultimately have to answer. Well, not so much today.

They say that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. There are always tradeoffs, and in our world we are faced with the constant choice between freedom and safety, two ideals which are mutually exclusive. We can have a perfectly safe world but not without giving up our liberty. Likewise a perfectly free world would be impossible without unacceptable risks. Therefore a balance must be struck.

As I said, the growth of terrorism, both foreign and home grown, has affected us in big and small ways. Limiting access to our government by restricting public access to the Capitol may seem like a small price to pay for helping keep us safe. On the other hand, if we keep whittling away our liberties in small inperceptable pieces, bit by bit, everntually there will be none left.

Just something to think about.

*Presidential inaugurations (not including intra-term ceremonies following the death or resignation of a president)  took place on the East Steps of the Capitol Building from the swearing-in of Andrew Jackson in 1829 until the 1980 inauguration of Ronald Reagan when they were moved to the West Front which faces the National Mall. 

Wrong Place, Right Time

The photographer Arthur Fellig who is known for his brutal depictions of big city life, is said to have gotten his nickname, Weegee (the phonetic spelling of Ouija) from police officers who marvelled at his ability to arrive at crime scenes often before they did. While his uncanny talent for being in the right place at the right time, so to speak, Speed Graphic camera and bare bulb flash in hand, was more the result of sheer determination and the help of a police radio rather than any supernatural power, today the photographer, whose work resides in the collections of art museums all over the world, is officially known by his psychically inspired pseudonym.

Just blocks away, something newsworthy happened
exactly at the same time
these photographs were taken...

Needless to say, I am no Weegee, especially in regards to being in the right place and the right time. Sometimes I feel if I have any remarkable talent at all, it is for always, and I mean always, picking the wrong checkout line in a supermarket. So great is this talent, I've often thought of hiring myself out to grocery stores who could use me to inform other customers, suggesting they observe me to determine which checkout line NOT to enter.

Never has my un-Weegieness been more apparent than the other day when as I was making these rather mundane photographs of an L station. Unbeknownst to me, at the exact same moment one station away, a newsworthy incident was taking place aboard a train. Now I did notice that southbound trains were backed up and I saw the train where the incident was taking place, stopped at the station, but train backups such as these are hardly unusual occurrences. So I went about taking these pictures for my picture-of-the-day series, more out of a sense of obligation than anything else.

...Do you think I can sell them?

Then as I headed to my car, one police vehicle after another, sirens and flashing lights ablaze, headed south toward the station. Hmmm, I thought, something must be going on, I wonder what it is. Rather than following the trail of the sirens, as Weegie would have, I headed straight to my car, as I had a much more important task at hand, I had to pick up my daughter from school. You see my wife is out of town and this job was by far my most important one, in filling in for her. As is common with school children these days, my daughter is involved in different after school activities, and each day her schedule varies. To help me out, my wife prepared a very detailed calendar describing each day's events and what time to be there to collect her. She then read me the riot act about what would happen if I were to arrive late, and the fines we would accrue compounded upon each minute of tardiness. To me, the fear of fines is almost as dire as the fear of God, and getting to school on time took on an almost religious significance.

But I still was curious as to what was going on such a short distance away, so when I got in the car, I turned on the radio to the all news station. Like most of these urban incidents, the first mention of them usually occurs during a traffic report. Sure enough the traffic reporter said trains were backed up on that line due to police activity at that particular station. Obviously, nothing I didn't know already.

News of what had actually happened didn't make the airwaves until after I had picked up my daughter. It turned out that a man had set himself on fire while riding on the train, not at all a common occurrence, even in a big city like Chicago.

Naturally my daughter was dumbstruck. "Why would somebody do that?" she said. "And especially on a train?" I had no answer. Then she added rather comically: "Why wouldn't he do it in the snow?"
"Good point" I thought.

It turned out the man who ignited himself survived the ordeal. A police officer was slightly injured during the melee to put out the fire, as was a transit worker, the real hero of the story, who actually extinguished the fire.

And yes there were bystanders present who recorded the incident on their cellphones, although at least from what I saw, none of them got anything close to as compelling an image as Weegee would have captured.

Had I been there, I certainly would have done no better. My typical response in bad situations (never been in one this bad) is to see if I can be of assistance, or get out of the way if other people are handling the problem. Even though I'm a photographer, typically the last thing on my mind at a time like that would be to take a picture of someone else's misery.

But by far and away the most chilling thought on my mind as the incident unfolded behind me was what would have happened had that day I left work just slightly later. I most certainly would have stuck on a train for maybe an hour, and had been late to pick up my daughter.

That evening for one of the few times of my life, I kept thanking my lucky stars for having been at the wrong place at the right time.

Our Turn

Add Laquan McDonald to the tragic list of young men whose violent deaths over the past year have caused a public outcry over police brutality and the perception that men of color are targeted by law enforcement authorities in cities all over the United States. Beyond the race of the decedents and the occupation of their killers, there are few similarities in the number of deaths at the hands of the police, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, a suburb of St. Louis, Eric Garner in New York City, Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Jamar Clark in Minneapolis and now McDonald in Chicago. All were involved in petty criminal activity at the time of their deaths, all resisted arrest during confrontations with the police, and all but McDonald were un-armed.

Of all the cases, the one of McDonald, a 17 year old who was killed on the southwest side of Chicago in October of 2014, stands out in starkest contrast. For starters, his story did not become a full blown media event until last week, more than a year after his death. The attention came after a lawsuit was filed that forced the City of Chicago and the Chicago  Police Department to release a video made from a camera mounted aboard a police vehicle which recorded the shooting of the teenager.

It's understandable why the CPD and the city didn't want that video released. In the soundless video, we see McDonald surrounded by police vehicles. He walks away from the camera in the direction of the two cops pointing their guns at him but veering away from them to the right. At no time is he any closer than 15 feet from the officers. Then he suddenly drops to the ground and you can see puffs of gun smoke as the young man twists and turns on the pavement. You then see an officer kick an object (the knife) away from the motionless form of McDonald.

In the end, CPD officer Jason Van Dyke emptied his gun into McDonald, shooting him 16 times, most the the shots striking him after he was on the ground. When Van Dyke went to reload his gun with another cartridge, his partner, the cop who kicked the knife away from McDonald, apparently told him to hold his fire.

But that's only the beginning...

Shortly after the shooting, officers entered a Burger King that was close to the scene and asked to view surveillance video shot by a number of cameras mounted in and around the restaurant. The manager obliged and the officers spent about three hours alone with the video equipment. The next day when investigators returned to inspect the video, they found that about an hour of footage from the evening of the shooting had been deleted. Ironically what did survive were images of the cops inspecting and presumably, erasing video.

The police department continues to claim there is no "credible" evidence to prove that members of the CPD intentionally deleted the files that contained video that may have been pertinent to the death of Laquan McDonald, yet offer no plausible explanation for the missing video.

Furthermore, according to Craig Futterman, founder of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project at the University of Chicago and one of the plaintiffs responsible for the lawsuit forcing the release of the video, an eyewitness who screamed at the officer to stop shooting at McDonald after he had fallen to the ground, refused to leave the scene despite the insistence of police. She was taken into custody for a brief period of time and claims to have been "intimidated" and told that she "did not see what she saw."

This past Tuesday on the eve of the public release of the video, Officer Van Dyke was indicted on first degree murder charges in the death of Laquan McDonald. Why it took so long to press charges against the officer and release the video is complicated and the cause of much anguish about town in the wake of the events of this week.

The case of the death of Laquan McDonald could have fallen through the cracks and been forgotten had it not been for a confidential tip from an insider in the police department that brought Futterman's attention to the the police dashcam video which showed that the officer's contention that his life was threatened by McDonald was nonsense. On April 13, the Corporation Council of the City of Chicago, Stephen Patton announced to a panel of aldermen that an FBI probe, (joined by the Independent Police Review Authority and the States Attorney's office), on the shooting was underway. Given the severity of the case and the public climate relating to police vis a vis the African American Community, Patton recommended that the city settle out of court with McDonald's family to the tune of five million dollars. The city's finance committee and the full City Council agreed to the settlement.  Still, Mayor Emanuel and police commissioner Garry McCarthy objected to the public release of the video on the grounds of the FBI investigation into the case was still underway. In can also be assumed that part of their logic was to avoid the unrest that occurred in other cities around the US. For the record, Laquan's family also objected to the public release of the video of the murder of their loved one.

The public's response to the video was swift and predictable; the rage, understandable.

McDonald was behaving erratically, having been high on PCP at the time of his death. The young man threatened a person with his knife, which prompted the original 911 call to the police. He allegedly attempted to break into several parked vehicles and took police on a half mile journey through streets and alleys before Van Dyke shot him. Up until that point the police strategy was to corral McDonald using their vehicles to prevent him from coming in contact with passersby, while waiting for other cops to arrive with tasers which could have non-lethally subdued him. The video shows the police to have McDonald cornered when Van Dyke and his partner got out of their vehicle, guns drawn. Within seconds, Van Dyke opened fire.

While some police officers contend that the dashcam video does not tell the complete story of the tragic event, it is clear that it was unnecessary for Van Dyke to shoot McDonald once, let alone 16 times.

Since the release of the video there have been numerous peaceful demonstrations in the city. At this writing, the day after Thanksgiving, marchers are organizing on north Michigan Avenue, Chicago's prominent shopping district, on this, traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. Clearly this is an attempt to gain as much visibility as possible, drawing attention to an abominable injustice that took place and arguably continues. That is the inalienable right of free people in a free society.

How it all plays out is anybody's guess; hopefully the demonstrations will be peaceful, and the police will to keep their cool. The best thing that can happen out of all this is reform and a real dialog between the police and the communities they have been entrusted to protect. I think the last thing anybody wants, with the exception of some people who might hope to gain personal advantage from the situation, is to bring back the turmoil of the disastrous events of  Chicago, 1968.

Once again, the whole world is watching.


POST SCRIPT: The March up Michigan Avenue protesting the death of Laquan McDonald took place on (Black) Friday, November 27th. It came off without much incident from either side, the demonstrators or the police, and life has returned pretty much to normal on the Magnificent Mile. The protesters did manage to prevent shoppers from entering the stores on that street for much of the day which no doubt cost businesses a great deal in lost revenue on their busiest day of the year. The Reverend Michael Pfleger, one of the leaders of the march stated that shutting down the economy was the one thing that would get the attention of the powers that be. That may be true but one of the things overlooked by the good reverend and the marchers was the fact that the folks who were hurt most by the store closings were not the business owners who have plenty of resources to keep them going, but store workers, restaurant staffs and other working stiffs who depend on commissions and tips for their livelihoods. If poverty is indeed one of the core causes for much of the trouble experienced in our cities today, the shutting down of one of this city's biggest economic engines on its most important day seems to me at least, foolish and self-defeating.

A Hollow Victory

Last Saturday, Halloween night no less, an incident took place on the southwest side of Chicago that would serve as a bullet point for the gun crowd, (no pun intended). As trick-or-treaters prowled the streets of Gage Park, a masked, armed robber was shot and killed by a customer in a local business. The shooter who was packing heat had a conceal-carry permit, and will not face charges. Sure enough, conservative web sites jumped all over the incident, claiming it as yet another example of how allowing private citizens to carry concealed weapons in public, saves lives and property.

Well it turns out in this case, that was only partially true as the would-be robber was armed with a toy gun. With a name sounding like he stepped out of a Dickens novel, 55 year old Reginald Gildersleeve once worked in the store where he lost his life, and it has been speculated that the attempted robbery was actually a Halloween prank gone horribly wrong. To the people in the business and especially the man who shot him, Gildersleeve was dead serious (sorry), and a real threat as he pointed a very real looking gun at the heads of the store's employees. 

Since his death, Gildersleeve's story has been well documented by the press. Leading something of a double life, he had a long history of criminal activity, mostly petty stuff like narcotics violations with a few robberies thrown in. He also was a devoted husband, step father and grandfather who portrayed himself on his Facebook page as someone looking to turn his life around. 

Hailed by some as a "good guy with a gun", the man who shot Gildersleeve has not been identified in the press and to my knowledge, has not given any interviews. His brother did acknowledge the fact that this has understandably been a very traumatic experience for him and his family.

I bring this up because so often we view incidents like this as cut and dried examples of the brutality of life in the big city that pit good guys against bad guys, forgetting that the people involved in these horrible situations are complicated human beings, not one dimensional characters ripped out of the pages of a comic book. Perhaps he needed to pay off a debt, maybe he wanted to buy a present for his wife, or maybe he was just drawn to a part of his past that he couldn't let go. We'll never know because Reginald Gildersleeve will take whatever compelled him to rob a store where people recognized him (despite the mask), to his grave. 

As for the man who shot him, justified as his actions may have been, he will have to live with the fact that he killed a man it turned out, was not much of a threat to anyone, except himself.

In the end, this incident will be recorded as just another of the 2,579 (and counting) shootings in Chicago so far this year. Since Reginald Gildersleeve died four days ago, at least five other people have been shot and killed in Chicago, including a young woman from Evanston who was visiting her grandmother in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood, and a nine year old boy who was ambushed and executed in broad daylight, only a few hours and blocks away.

If only they had been packing heat, maybe they'd be alive today.

Yeah right.

#BLM

The other day I listened to an NPR interview with the woman who first put the hashtag in front of the slogan "Black Lives Matter", making those three words a public call to arms against the assault on the lives of African American people (mostly men) at the hands of the police and other individuals or groups entrusted with law enforcement. She expressed her discontent with the fact that the slogan has been appropriated by other groups who have replaced the word "Black" with whatever particular group they care to call out injustice against. The most recent controversy around the slogan has been the replacement of "Black" with the word "All". Several presidential candidates have made the mistake of proclaiming something so obvious that it doesn't need to be said at all. Those candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, have been put in the peculiar situation of having to retract their claim that all lives matter.

This may sound like political correctness taken to its most ridiculous extreme but the funny thing is this, I get it. This country has a sad history of proclaiming that black lives do not matter, and there continues to be to this day, a divide between the treatment of black people in this society, and everybody else.

The righteous indignation over far too many deaths of individuals, most of them black, at the hands of the police, is justified in my opinion, The slogan, black lives matter rings loud and clear, standing on its own.

What I don't get is this. If black lives matter, why is the discussion of black people killed by other black people considered irrelevant to this conversation?

As an example, last year, 2014, Chicago had a total of 459 homicides. 353 of the victims, or 78.1 percent, were black. This in a city whose black population is around 32 percent. Of those murders that resulted in an individual being charged, 68.8 percent of the suspects were black.

In the same year, 17 people were killed by the police in Chicago. (I don't have the racial breakdown of the individuals involved or the circumstances of those killings). 17 deaths at the hands of the police in one city is certainly not a number to be discounted, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of homicides in Chicago last year.

To me anyway, these numbers suggest an epidemic of violence particular to the African American, and to a lesser extent the Hispanic communities of Chicago, which is a microcosm of the United States. We've been through this before, the causes of this epidemic are deeply rooted in history, racism, poverty, drugs, lack of opportunity, poor education, the dissolution of the family, lack of self-respect, and self-responsibility, the list goes on and on, depending upon the ideologies of the people you talk to.

The killing of black people by the police speaks to a brutal past, traces of which tragically exist to this day. But the grim reality of the present is that black people are dying at the hands of other black people at a staggering rate. All the indignation in the world directed at the police is not going to change that. Addressing one issue without addressing the other is either naive of intellectually dishonest.

But what do I know, I'm just an old white guy who should probably keep my mouth shut on this topic.

Here's what a black man has to say.

OK maybe this sports commentator doesn't have any more right to spout off on the issue than I do but I think his concern is valid: many seem to believe that the only black lives that matter are the ones that are taken by non-black people.

I'll add a new twist to the slogan. Saying that all black lives matter does not let anyone off the hook, not the police, the criminals or the politicians, not the community, its leaders, or the clergy, and not you or me. We don't live in a vacuum and that goes for our problems too. Pointing fingers or arguing about slogans won't solve anything. Only when we're able to honestly look at ourselves and talk to each other, especially those with whom we disagree, will we be able to start to address the issues that shape our community.

So far we're failing.

Over-criminalization

The money line from this provocative George Will commentary on the death of Eric Garner is this:

(Garner) lived and died in a country with about 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its prisoners. 

Eric Garner, is case you've been living under a rock for the past month, was arrested in New York City for the freelance selling of individual cigarettes which is a crime in the City and State of New York, because it deprives the local and state governments of tax revenue derived from the sale of cancer sticks.

Garner resisted arrest and was subdued by a police officer who used an illegal strangle hold, the results of which contributed to Garner's death.

This tragedy, like the one involving St. Louis teenager Michael Brown, has demonstrated in no uncertain terms, the polarization of this country. Folks on the left claim both were instances of police brutality inflicted on black people. On the right they're saying that Brown and Garner, both engaged in criminal activity, defied police and were very much responsible for their own deaths.

Will who is solidly right of center most of the time, here takes a decidedly different tack, specifically with the Garner case, by laying part of the blame on what he calls, "United States’ metastasizing body of criminal laws."

As a result, an untenable number of individuals who commit what any logical person would consider petty crimes are jailed each year. Prisons are filled well beyond capacity, and most tragically, people are released from imprisonment with diminished prospects for themselves and their families. And oh yes, people are killed by the police for stupid things like selling cigarettes illegally.

As the Volstead Act proved in the 1920's, laws that criminalize undesirable behavior, often backfire. It could be argued that we are still recovering from the unmitigated disaster popularly known as Prohibition.

Will in his article takes pains to point out the differences between the wisdom of "broken window" policing, that is to say, dealing with small problems in small ways, and the foolishness of assuming that the way you deal with objectionable behavior is to throw all the misfits and troublemakers in jail.

Case in point, today a huge portion of the prison population in the United States is made up of inmates who are incarcerated for drug offenses. Now I don't for one second intend to trivialize the terrible cost that illicit drugs inflict on individuals and society. But even with our draconian approach to the problem, we are losing the war on drugs on all fronts. Demand for the stuff is as great as ever. Our over-zealous prosecution of the drug trade means the supply can't keep up. It's simple supply and demand economics, you do the math, our relentless pursuit of illegal drugs makes the trade that provides them, an amazingly profitable, if risky business. More than enough folks are willing to take the risk and have absolutely no druthers about doing unmentionable things to anyone who might stand in their way. On the other side, it's impossible to price people out of the market, folks who want drugs are usually more than willing to pay any price to get them. And how do they get the money? Again, it's not too hard to figure it out.

The way I see it, laws are on the books to protect individuals and society. The current drug laws on the books in this country protect no one, and more than likely create more problems than they solve.

I'm not suggesting we make all drugs legal, but de-criminalization may be a logical first step.

Chicago, 1928

Courtesy of a fellow subscriber to a Facebook group devoted to "Forgotten Chicago", the fascinating book, Chicago in 7 Days was just brought to my attention. The book, published in 1928, was written by John Drury, a poet, writer, and later a radio host, much of whose work was based upon the Chicago scene. In the twenties and thirties he had an article in the old Chicago Daily News specializing in restaurant reviews, which becomes readily apparent when you read this little book. He was not related to the famous local TV news anchor of the same name.

Chicago in 7 Days is written as an account of a day by day tour given to a Miss Anne Morley, a self described "wide eyed visiting yokel from the Corn Belt." (We later learn that she hailed from Springfield). Day after day, the author takes Miss Morley on an exhaustive bus, streetcar, and elevated tour of the city, from the top to the very bottom. Miss Morley is shown neighborhoods where many life-long residents today wouldn't dare venture.

For example, stopping at an establishment for something to eat in the vicinity of Sacramento Avenue and Madison Street in East Garfield Park, Mr. Drury writes the following:

Because of its good food and pleasant appointments"  I explained to Miss Morley, "this place is popular with the beau monde of the far west side.

Today this area would be off limits to all but the hardiest urban pioneers and adventurers. The "beau monde" of the west or any other side for that matter, haven't been found in that part of town for years. In truth, many of the places our tour guide takes his intrepid guest would have been far off the beaten path for the average 1928 visitor as well. Hardly a stone is left unturned in their exploration of the city.

The ground rules are expressed at the outset: "We won't visit the stockyards." To our 21st Century ears, that might sound like an ironic remark, as if a gentleman would ever think of showing a young lady the brutal, mechanized killing industry that put our city on the map. On the contrary, Miss Morley is a bit put off that Chicago's number one tourist attraction at the time, might not be on her tour guide's agenda. The author puts her mind to rest, she would indeed get to visit the stockyards including its most gruesome features, but not before she saw the "fruits of our famous pioneer industries", that is to say the architecture, public works projects, and great cultural institutions that were all made possible by those industries.

There is an unabashed pride and optimism in Mr. Drury's words about this city. One can easily see the Chicago swagger and braggadoccio that is so off--putting to critics such as Rachel Shteir whose lambasting of Chicago in the guise of a book review was published in the New York Times earlier this year. That's not to say this little guidebook is a mouthpiece for the Chamber of Commerce. Far from it, Drury doesn't pull any punches, he takes Miss Morley through some of the most unflattering parts of the city, places with colorful names like Floptown, Bum Park, the Slave Market, and a place he calls simply, the "Underworld District". They visit the Western Undertaking Company which is:

particularly interesting because practically all persons who meet a sudden death in the north end of the Loop are brought here-that is, until such a time as the relatives of the deceased are located of notified by the police.

The couple visit the "Noose" Coffee Shop across from the Criminal Courts building and County Jail where the proprietor, Joe Stein:

provides meals gratis to condemned prisoners on the eve of their hanging.

Drury takes the lovely lady to Little Sicily on the near northwest side where:

at Milton and Oak Streets, we stood at Chicago's notorious "Death Corner"... where Sicilians are mysteriously shot to death every two or three weeks. And a shrug of the Sicilian shoulder is as far as the police ever get in their investigations.

And to the famous neighborhood on the south side, just west of the stockyards where in Drury's words:

in recent years, Back O' the Yards has been the scene of many gang murders and shootings, arising from the territorial disputes in distribution of illicit beer and alcohol.

In 1928 of course, the country was still under the grips of that noble experiment, Prohibition. Substitute the word "drugs" for "beer and alcohol", and he could have written those words today.

Despite the desperate conditions, Drury takes pains to point out that things were much worse in the past, that great strides were continuously being made to rectify the evils of poverty and its effcts. While walking through Floptown past the:

gnarled old men with yellow teeth, shabby young men with dirty wrinkled clothes, middle-aged men with doughy complexions, laborers, Mexicans, lumber- jacks, and drunks, 

he shows Miss Morley, Hobo College, an institution :

founded and conducted by Dr. Ben Reitman... for the betterment of the down-and-outer.

And they visited Chicago's legendary institution devoted to helping the needy of this city, the Hull House. Founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr as a settlement house and a place for social reform, the Hull House provided housing, educational opportunities and cultural activities for tens of thousands of individuals, mostly newly arrived immigrants on Chicago's west side. Unfortunately Miss Addams, who was still very much alive at the time of the writing, was not available  for a visit.

Of course not all of the seven day journey through Chicago ivolved visiting as Miss Morley called it: "how the other half lives." Starting from her base camp at the late, great downtown hotel the Sherman House, our travelers' urban excursions typically began mid-morning, and didn't end much before midnight. The first day is a whirlwind overview of the city, north, south, and west. Even the much overlooked east side is explored as the two find their all the way down to the residential neighborhood still known as "The Bush", adjacent to the now defunct United States Steel South Works plant.

Day two was devoted to Michigan Avenue (mostly south of the river), and the lakefront. It's interesting to note the contemporary sensibilities about architecture and other matters of the day. Drury singles out two specific buildings on that day's tour as "two of the world's greatest structures." His choice might come as a surprise given the number of notable Chicago buildings that were built before 1928. The first stop on the Michigan Avenue tour, number one on Mr. Drury's list of great buildings of the world, is Tribune Tower. The tower, the work of the New York architects Raymond Hood, and John Mead Howells, was selected the winner of a 1922 contest sponsored by the newspaper to build "the most beautiful office building in the world." The stiff competition included submissions from all over the world; many of them were, as was the winning entry, designed in the popular at the time, neo-Gothic style.  Drury spends several pages on the building, waxing poetically about its magnificence: the breathtaking design that makes the building appear to be reaching toward the sky yet remaining firmly planted on the ground, its cathedral-like entrance, the masterful stonework, the unforgetable view of the Chicago skyline between its flying buttresses thirty stories above the ground, and yes, he even goes on and on about the building's occupant, richly deserving in his opinion, of its self-proclaimed title: "World's Greatest Newspaper."

Surprisingly, for all the words Drury devotes to the Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Building, directly across the street, is mentioned only in passing.

The "second burst of glory" in John Drury's collection of great buildings of the world found in Chicago, conveniently comes at the end of this particular tour sitting as it does at the other end of Michigan Avenue. My guess is that unlike Tribune Tower, this one would not rank highly on most lists of Chicago best buildings today. It's the Stevens Hotel, today known as the Hilton Chicago but best known to most long time Chicagoans as the Conrad Hilton Hotel. Its ornate Beaux Arts style,  Louis XV appointments, and especially its enormity overwhelms the visitor. These days, those of us who care about such things, marvel over the originality of the great architects of Chicago, John Root and Louis Sullivan for example. Back in the twenties, those architects' work already three decades old, was seen as "old fashioned." It was the architecture that looked back to the past for its inspiration, that was the current vogue. Another building that Mr. Drury lavishes praise upon, is the Classical Revival Elks Memorial at Lakeview and Diversey, a building well off the radar of most contemporary Chicago Architecture buffs.

Interestingly, under the heading of Architecture, the book's index lists, Classical, Colonial, Moorish, Reproduction of Parisian churches, Romanesque and Renaissance. However, the couple does explore a number of buildings that do not fit into any of those categories. These styles are described by the author as "modernistic" or "futuristic." Inside the long lost Union Station concourse, Miss Morley makes the observation:

I would say it looks unfinished...

Drury continues:

What aroused this thought in her was the appearance of square pillars of exposed fabricated steel, forming criss-crosses along the walls and lofty ceiling. "This exposed steel work," I asserted, "is an original innovation in terminal design. In fact, many of the more advanced modernistic artists claim that this is the first appearance of a typical American architecture. Because of its simplicity and directness, these artists believe that such an interior fulfills the purpose of art. They hold that art, particularly in the field of architecture, should reflect the present and not the past."

OK so Mr. Drury may have gotten his timeline a little mixed up; the appearance of a "simple", direct" and "typical" American architecture did not begin with Chicago's Union Station, not by a long shot.

Here's another passage from the couple's tour of the South Side:

Our walk then led north on Woodlawn Avenue to 58th Street.  

"What an odd-looking house," sang out Miss Morley, indicating a long, low, rambling house on the northeast corner.

"That," I replied, "is known as 'The Houseboat House because of its similarity to a boat, and is one of the show- places of the south side. It is easy to see that it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the foremost of American architects of to-day.

In case you haven't guessed it already, the house he's referring to is Robie House, one of FLW's most iconic designs. While Drury's writing on the subject may not shed much light on architectural history from a scholarly point of view, he does give us great insight into the way the average person looks at buildings, back then and today.

Miss Morley and her guide do eventually make it down to the stockyards where the visitor is at the same time repulsed and exhilarated by the goings on. "Gracious..." she says:

...the experience has a weird thrill with so much killing going on. I shall never forget it in all my life.

No sooner than the thought of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle came into my head, Miss Morley brought up the muckracking novel. Always quick with the reply, her tour guide said:

"Yes," I said. "That novel caused as much of a stir when it appeared years ago as Uncle Tom's Cabin did earlier. Its expose of conditions in 'Packingtown' did much to bring about improvements in the meat-packing industry in Chicago. The deplorable conditions pictured in the novel are of course a thing of the past.

Of course.

In many parts of the book, Drury brings up Chicago's literary scene, even taking his guest to some of the hangouts of the famous writers of the time. He drops names of the likes of Theodore Dreisser, Ben Hecht, Carl Sandburg, Sherwood Anderson and others. Unfortunately, our wanderers never seem to meet up with any of these literary giants. No one would ever confuse this book with the works of the great writers whose paths crossed at some point with this town. What Drury's book lacks compared to the works of his literary idols is a critical edge and a sense of irony. Superlatives abound in desribing the assets of this city, and its problems are reported as matter-of-fact, they're little more serious than smashed bugs on a windshield. Drury even finds something positive written from perhaps the greatest cynic of all, H.L. Mencken, who wrote this on Chicago's literary scene:

In Chicago there is the mysterious something that makes for individuality, personality, charm; in Chicago a spirit broods upon the face of the waters. Find a writer who is indubitably an American in every pulse- beat, an American who has something new and pecul- iarly American to say and who says it in an unmistak- ably American way, and nine times out of ten you will find that he has some sort of connection with the gargantuan abattoir by Lake Michigan— that he was bred there, or got his start there, or passed through there in the days when he was young and tender.

No, you will not find within its pages of this book, an insightful critique of this town. That's part of its charm. It would be almost inconceivable to find such a book, even a visitor's guide, written in our own cynical age.

If you were to break open a compenprary guidebook to Chicago, you will notice the book more than likely covers only a sliver of a section of the entire city. The large swaths of "unworthy" areas are deemed so because authors and editors consider them to be short on interest and/or high in danger. Not so with Chicago in 7 Days. The greatest joy for me in reading this book was Drury's portrayal of a city of tremendous life and potential. He and his guest embark on a magnificent seven day journey exploring practically every nook and cranny of Chicago, discovering treasures in even the most banal of places. Those banal places are are woven in seamlessly with the landmarks, the places considered "worthy" of note as tourist destinations go. That in a nutshell, is the essence of what the eperience of any real city is all about.

Unfortunately, tourists in our day it would seem, are not by and large interested in exploring real cities.

Again that term, "Disneyfication" rears its ugly head. Chicago's North Michigan Avenue is a good example. In the book, Drury writes about the neighborhood then known as "Towertown", after the Water Tower. In the twenties, this was the heart of Chicago's "Bohemia" as Drury called it, referring not to ethnicity but its lifestyle. The neighborhood once abounded with cafes, nightclubs, bookshops, and art galleries, much like New York's Greenwich Village and San Franciso's North Beach back in their heydays. As its counterparts in other cities, there was a certain edge to Towertown, which only added to its appeal:

Anne saw a long, low, dimly lit room filled with swaying couples - long-haired men and short-haired women. A jazz orchestra in one corner at least provided time for the dancers. On the walls of the room my companion noted weird futuristic and impressionistic drawings and cartoons, as well as newspaper clippings and art pictures.

"This," I said, "is Bohemia in all its glory !"

This milieu would over the years combine with upscale shops making for an interesting mix. Towertown as it was, became history in the late sixties and early seventies as major projects like the John Hancock Building and Water Tower Place anchored a wave of commercial development that continues to this day. North Michigan Avenue now is Chicago's major shopping street and any trace of its "bohemian" past is long gone. As a result, the neighborhood is both perfectly safe, and perfectly bland. It's also highly successful, economically at least. It may have gained the world at the cost of losing its soul.

Chicago of the Twenties was anything but Disneyfied; it was real to the core. Its lifeblood as John Drury pointed out, was found in its steel mills, factories and stockyards. In them, and in all their "fruits", progress and the hope for a better future seemed to writers like John Drury to be boundless. Today that industrial lifeblood is all but gone, but the great institutions that were made possible because of the industries still hang on. That is testimony perhaps, to the greatest quality of this city, its willingness to re-invent itself. Chicago has been doing just that since its inception. Simply put, no city can re-invent itself without people believing in it.

The term "world class city" had not yet been coined in 1928 but I have no doubt it would have been used unsparingly in Drury's text if it had. Perhaps taking their cue from Chicago in 7 Days, more recent unabashedly overbearing accounts of Chicago testify to the fact that there are people who still believe in this city. Whatever your opinion of the grandiose rhetoric, I'd be inclined to put this city's future in their hands, rather than in the hands of the apologists and cynics who can come up with nothing better than: "well at least we're better off than Detroit."

It's a charming book, a fun read, and a fascinating insight into the spirit of a city in the midst of one of its golden ages.

If you have any interest in Chicago, its past, and how that past relates to the current city, Chicago in 7 Days is a must read. Pick up a copy if you can find one. Short of that, you can find a PDF version here.

The solution

Last Friday the unthinkable happened. While mass killings in public places are nothing new, the massacre in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and its victims, mostly children in their first grade class and teachers, have taken this horrific trend to a new low. The question of what kind of sickness would lead a person to commit such an atrocity has been first and foremost on my mind since Friday. And yes I question the wisdom of easy access of weapons capable of deadly precision on such a scale. Anger and rage over our inability to keep these weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of dangerous private citizens have dominated the airwaves and social media.

Predictably, people who advocate gun rights have been chastising the other side for their rants. How dare they take advantage of tragedy to lobby for their agenda.  The possession of guns they say is our constitutional right, and if we start banning assault weapons intended solely for the purpose of quickly disposing large numbers of human beings, they're afraid that in the words of one gun advocate this weekend: "Once you draw the line, where do you stop?"

Now admittedly I don't have much of a desire or need to own a gun. Even though I live in a big city with a murder rate to match, even though its not unusual to hear gunshots outside our window, AND even though I've been the victim of more crimes than I care to remember, I still don't feel that I or my family would be safer if we owned a gun. On the contrary, I think a gun inside our home would be asking for trouble. But what do I know? People on the other side are clamoring to get more guns in the hands of people, not fewer. Proving I'm open minded, here is something I stumbled across the other day, written by someone whose opinions are diametrically opposed to mine:

Like clockwork, before the gun smoke had dissipated from the elementary school in Connecticut, all the gun control people posted, tweeted and blathered on and on about how we need to change this country's gun laws to prevent crazies from going on rampages. Don't they realize that guns don't kill people, people kill people? Don't they know that taking guns away from honest, law abiding citzens means the only people who'll have guns will be the criminals?

No, the solution to the problem of all the shootings isn 't to take our guns away from us. On the contrary it's to make sure that all honest, law abiding citizens have at least one gun, to protect themselves, other honest, law abiding citizens, and our way of life.

Just think about it, why did that guy up in Connecticut walk into a school to do his shooting? Because he knew no one was packing heat at the school. It was easy pickings. If I were in charge, I'd pass a law requiring all teachers in the classroom to carry on their person, a loaded firearm. That way the teachers instead of huddling in the corner trying to protect their students, could stand with their heads held high, and when the perp walks into the classroom, pop him right between the eyes.

Now you might think it would be dangerous to have a loaded gun in the classroom. Well I'd give teachers classes on how to handle firearms. But what about the children you might say; what if the teacher was having a bad day, something snapped, and he or she used it on one of the students? Well all I'll say is this: have you seen kids today? They have no respect, they don't listen to their elders, they misbehave, they do things that kids in my day would never have dreamt of doing. I'll tell you one thing, you'll find a whole lot more respect coming from those little hooligans after you point your piece at them and say: "I'd like you to meet my little friend." Now eventually some of the little thugs might catch on that you don't mean business after all, you wouldn't dream in a million years to actually use the gun on them. That's why my plan would have the teachers learn how to shoot to maim, not to kill. Better to inflict a leg wound than have a kid who doesn't take you seriously.

It turned out that the Connecticut shooter lived with his mother who was a gun collector, and all the guns he used on his killing spree were registered in her name. She was in fact his first victim. That was her first, and I guess last mistake. All those guns in the house aren't going to amount to a hill of beans if you don't have one loaded and ready. If that poor woman had been on the ball, she'd have had a gun loaded, cocked and at hand. That way when her son came into the room to kill her, she'd have been ready for him, and plugged him before he had the chance to take her life and the life of all those kids.

After all, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Well at least I agree with the last sentence. The rest of that piece was clearly written by a disturbed individual. I should know, I wrote it last Saturday, the day after the massacre. Yes the irony was intended, but not at all with tongue in cheek. It was written out of unchecked anger over the direction this country is going. It's true I made it up but with the exception of the part about the woman shooting her son, those words reflect actual words I've heard over the past few months from people in the gun crowd. Allow me to go over them one by one.

It's true that guns don't kill by themselves, but it's a heck of a lot easier to kill twenty seven people in a few minutes with an assault rifle than a knife, or a bow and arrow. Saying only criminals would have guns if guns were illegal implies that guns are only dangerous in the hands of criminals. That's a huge leap of faith blown to pieces by the events of last Friday. All the guns used in the massacre were legally obtained; the mother who owned the arsenal, and her son the mass murderer, were at least until Friday morning, both law abiding citizens. There is simply a clear and present danger to the public in the manufacture and distribution of firearms, especially high powered, assault weapons, intended solely for the purpose of killing lots of people in a short period of time.

To answer the question of where do you draw the line if you ban the sale of these weapons, I have a simple answer: common sense.

The reasons most people bring up for private ownership of guns are hunting and self protection. Now I've known lots of hunters but never met one who used an assault rifle to bag a deer or whatever. As for protection, well a hand gun, conventional rifle or shot gun should be quite sufficient for most personal protection needs, unless of course an entire division of the Waffen-SS, al Qaida, the bogeymen or any other enemy that we can conjure up in our imagination comes knocking at the door.

Common sense allows us to limit certain forms of speech without anyone objecting. You cannot write harmful lies, defaming someone's character legally. You cannot lie while under oath in a courtroom. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater. If common sense can limit certain forms of speech, our most basic and sacred right, why can't common sense limit the kind of deadly firearms we're able to obtain?

Certainly with all the bright legal minds in this country, a clear distinction can be made between weapons one can reasonably use for hunting and self protection, and weapons of mass destruction. The Second Amendment is not going anywhere, we will always have the right to bear arms as guaranteed by our Constitution, even though the Founding Fathers' true intent, as stated explicitly in the first clause of the amendment, is conveniently overlooked by the vast majority of gun advocates.

I'm not blind to the inexorable fact that banning assault weapons alone will not prevent such tragedies. A person who wants to do something badly enough will always find a way. But the very least we can do as a society is to not make it painfully easy for a person with such an intent to procure the weapons to wipe out dozens of innocent men, women and children in a matter of minutes.

At the exact moment of the massacre in Connecticut, I was sitting in my children's school attending a holiday assembly. Ever since the tragedy in Newtown, the faces and voices of those little children keep going through my head. I can't stop hearing them singing their hearts out, and seeing the determined faces of their teachers who work so diligently, day in, day out, giving so much of their lives to those kids, our future. Then in a perpetual nightmare, I see a deranged killer shooting his way into their school, silencing all those voices forever.

Children should feel safe at school. Human shield should not be part of a teacher's job description. Unfortunately those days are gone for good. I heard one legislator say this morning that mass killings such as the one in Newtown, once rare occurrences, are quickly becoming the "new normal." We are more than likely to see more and more of these attrocities taking place in the not too distant future. Both of my children, including a kindergartner, have gone through the terrifying experience of a lockdown drill at school. I grew up during the sixties through some pretty heady times, but I saw nothing as terrifying as some of the things my children have seen in their young lives.

I don't pretend to have the solution to this rash of mass murders. We live in a society that is continually turning inward; we prefer texting to face to face contact, our children are playing video games, usually violent ones, rather than going outside to play with their friends. We've lost respect in all our institutions and become a society of self centered, cynical individuals, losing much sense of hope or community. The list goes on and on, and unfortunately they're mostly problems we cannot solve through legislation. Then we have the issue of mental illness, its stigma, and the difficulties of dealing with it, let alone treating it, again issues that are very difficult if not impossible to solve through legislation.

Then there are the guns, the one piece of the puzzle than can be legislated. If only rational minds on both sides could come together and work out a reasonable compromise. A law aimed at keeping weapons out of the hands of sociopathic individuals by banning assault rifles will not be the solution to these devastating tragedies, but it will be the start.

Liberty does not come without a price. What the gun advocates who oppose a ban on assault rifles are saying in not so many words is this: our freedom to possess these weapons of mass destruction is worth the cost of the lives of the children and teachers lost Friday in Connecticut, as well as the lives of those most certainly to come including possibly, God forbid, my own children, or even yours.

And you wonder why so many people are sick and tired and mad as hell?

One man's lunatic...

Colin Friedersdorf wrote this article with the provocative title "Why the Reaction Is Different When the Terrorist Is White" which appeared in the Atlantic a couple of weeks ago. It was inspired by news media's response, or lack of one, after the tragedy that occurred in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. It was there a white supremacist entered a Sikh house of worship, murdered six people, and injured several more before he took his own life. Since he's dead we'll never know exactly why he committed the atrocious crime; did he have a bone to pick with Sikhs, did he confuse Sikh people with Muslims, or was he simply an equal opportunity hater of everyone who was not like him?

Friedersdorf begins his article by comparing the crime to one that happened just weeks earlier in Aurora, Colorado, where a man shot and killed twelve people and injured nearly one hundred more in a theater showing the new Batman movie. The author claims the Colorado tragedy received far more coverage than the Wisconsin one, and speculates with the help of another Atlantic journalist, that the reason is more Americans can relate to the victims in the movie theater than those in the Sikh temple.

Here is another article from the New Yorker, written by Professor Naunihal Singh, himself a member of the Sikh community, who also feels the Oak Creek tragedy got the short shrift.

I'm not much of a follower of TV news. I get most of my news from other people, from the radio, newspapers and select internet sources. Consequently I'm spared the 24 hour cycle of TV news babble with their constant "breaking news" headlines and hyperventilating, live, on the scene reporters. Since I don't have cable, unlike many of my peers I get zero news from the late night comedy/news shows. So I can't honestly say which story got more press. My own experience of those two events was of the airwaves being filled with incessant information, much of it unnecessary, about both tragedies. Many times during the past month I found myself turning off the radio or TV to spare my children the grizzly details. Personally, the Oak Creek tragedy affected me more as A) It took place closer to where I live, B) the victims were targeted for their ethnicity and religion and C) you'd be way more likely to find me attending a Sikh religious ceremony than a midnight screening of Batman.

I recall another article from right after the Colorado shooting, but not the source, that asked the question: why in the media, when a Muslim commits a crime he is labelled terrorist, when a black man commits a crime he's labelled a thug, and when a white man commits a crime he's labelled sick.

Granted I'm not a psychologist, but the Colorado killer who is white, armed with an arsenal of assault weapons, shot dozens of random strangers in a dark theater while dressed up as the Joker, is clearly a lunatic. Of that I have no doubt. A terrorist by contrast is not insane; a terrorist, whatever the color of his skin, does harm to innocent people in the name of a cause. As has been said countless times before, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, it all depends which side you're on. While he may or not have been insane or acted on his own, given his background of racial and ethnic hatred, the Oak Creek murderer targeted a specific community and consequently was a terrorist. And he was white. So much for that theory. As screwed up as the news media is, to the best of my knowledge, no reasonable journalist has attempted to portray him in a sympathetic light or tried to find excuses for his actions based on his mental health.

Timothy McVeigh who destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and with it the lives of 168 people and their families was a white terrorist, as was his accomplice,Terry Nichols. At the time, that bombing was the worst act of terrorism in the United States and the Feds went after extremist groups such as Nichols's and McVeigh's with a vengeance. The indelible image of a dying child in the arms of a rescuer galvanized the public's opinion of those two men and their despicable act. For their part, McVeigh was executed and Nichols got life behind bars without a hint of regret or sorrow from the press or the general public.

Appalling as the loss of life in Oklahoma City was, it paled in comparison to the horrific events of September 11, 2001. Beyond that, the methods, organization, determination, self sacrifice, and resourcefulness of the al-Queda terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks, made McVeigh and Nichols in comparison look like a pair of ten year old delinquents. The loss of life during the September 11 attacks was comparable to the number of American deaths resulting from the Japanese attacks on December 7th, 1941. Like those attacks, the al-Queda attacks plunged the United States into multi-front wars, one of which continues to this day with no end in sight. It must be remembered that unlike the Japanese attacks which concentrated on strategic military targets, al-Queda targeted innocent civilians. And while the September 11 attacks were by far their most audacious and deadly, al-Queda carried out many other sucessful attacks all over the world for the past twenty years.

Draconian tactics were employed by this country and others in an attempt to stem the tide of international terrorism. Innocent people suffered. That was a shame. Unfortunately during times of war there are always innocent victims. Americans of Japanese descent know this all too well. Fortunately the atrocities committed by the US government against Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, were not repeated after 9/11.

That's not to trivialize the suffering of Muslim people after 9/11 one bit. Civil liberties were suspended in some cases. There are still prisoners in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp who have yet to receive due process. What's more, in this country and for that matter much of the world, a whole shroud of suspicion over Islam has arisen. Muslims, and others confused for Muslims, have been victims of hate crimes and unjust persecution. That is a tragedy.

After 9/11 many Muslims, men especially, were singled out or "profiled" as suspicious individuals, simply because of their appearance, especially when they were trying to board airliners. The response by civil libertarians in this country was swift and effective. I used to fly a lot more back then and I distinctly remember the folks I saw singled out for extra security screening were more often than not old, female, and often in wheelchairs. In other words precisely the opposite of what any known terrorist looked like. One could argue this case of reverse profiling was just as immoral and illegal as the profiling it was intended to counteract.

Here is Professor Singh from his New Yorker piece:

... it is hard to escape the conclusion that Oak Creek would have similarly dominated the news cycle (as the Colorado shooting did) if the shooter had been Muslim and the victims had been white churchgoers.

Singh is correct about the theoretical reaction to such an attack, but he is doing a disservice to his readers by singling out "white churchgoers." The September 11th attacks were not an attack on white America. The victims of that day faithfully represented this country and its diversity. They came from all colors and creeds, including many devoted followers of Islam.

You bet a Muslim attack on a house of worship filled with Americans of any race or creed would cause a stir.

The incontrovertible fact is that al-Queda is an organization made up of Muslim men. So too is the Taliban who were in control of Afghanistan in 2001, provided a safe haven for al-Queda to do their evil work, AND to this day are waiting in the wings to take over control of Afghanistan if given half the chance. All of the 9/11 terrorists were Muslim, as were the four men who blew themselves up along with fifty two innocent people riding London's public transportation system on July 7, 2005 As were the people who carried out well over thirty al-Queda operations throughout the world over the past twenty years.

What's more, al-Queda and the Taliban used their faith to justify their crimes against humanity. If the bigots of the world ever needed fodder to justify their hatred of the Muslim people, al-Queda served it up to them on a silver platter. No one group of people suffered more at the hands of al-Queda than the Muslim people. Not only did they see their faith perverted by a band of murderous zealots, not only have they been the targets of suspicion, hatred, and worse, but not counting the September 11 attacks, most of the VICTIMS of al-Queda attacks were Muslim.

As an international terrorist organization, there is no comparison between the threat al-Queda presents to the civilized world, and the threat white extremists present, no matter how appalling the latter's ideology, motives or tactics may be. That doesn't of course provide an ounce of comfort to the people who lost loved ones to those yahoos.

Whether it be in a movie theater outside of Denver, a house of worship in a Milwaukee suburb, or in the streets of Chicago, every life lost to senseless, unprovoked violence is an unspeakable tragedy. Each victim was some poor mother's child, someone's sister or brother, perhaps a husband or wife, father, mother or dear friend. Unrestrained news coverage brought to us by the blathering talking heads at FOX, MSNBC or even Comedy Central cannot bring their loved ones back. Nor can it prevent the killing, in fact quite the opposite seems to be the case.

The one thing we keep learning in our culture of hatred, violence, and ready access to weapons of death is this: given the will, it's extremely easy to kill another human being. We don't need to be bombarded over and over again with that message, it's pretty obvious. I simply don't believe it makes much sense to take the pulse of the country by counting the number of words devoted to one tragedy versus another.

As for the survivors (that includes all of us), the sensible ones try to carry on living the best lives they can, try to be fair minded, understanding that an entire group of people cannot be held responsible for the actions of a few, and try their best to keep themselves and their families reasonably healthy and alive.

That seems to be getting more and more difficult on all counts.

Well at least they didn't kill you

Those were my mother's words to me several years ago after she learned that I had been robbed. Although her words were far from comforting, I'm always reminded of them whenever things look really bad. No matter how bad things get, they can always be worse.

Spring is upon us and after a long hard winter, people like to get out of the confinement of their homes to seek a much needed outlet from months of sedentary existence. For some it means getting out into the garden, for others it might be baseball, tennis or soccer. Spring is the time for new beginnings, it's the time of the ritual of spring cleaning, of getting rid of the old and starting anew.

In the effort to recharge one's life, some people turn to romance.
Others turn to violent crime.

It has become a rite of spring of sorts in Chicago. Every year, it seems a new form of mayhem previously unheard of around these parts, rears its ugly head. Not that mobs of teenagers attacking, beating up and robbing unsuspecting victims is anything new. The twist is that this year, the attacks have become more brazen. We now have copycat incidents inspired by similar, but far larger events in Philadelphia that began a few years ago, centered around the most popular parts of the city.

Despite the efforts of the police and the Emanuel administration to downplay these "flash mob" attacks, the news media have had a field day with them. Given the instantaneous nature of news gathering these days, getting to the bottom of this has been difficult. It began with rumors of bicyclists on the lakefront being attacked by mobs who removed them from their bikes, then threw the hapless victims into the lake. These reports are unsubstantiated as far as I know. Then on Memorial Day weekend, North Avenue Beach was closed for mysterious reasons. The authorities say it was the severe heat, while others claim it was gang activity. On my own I have noticed much higher police presence in that area than normal. One thing is certain, within the last few weeks there have been a number of reported incidents where mobs of youths attacked people, many of them tourists, in the Streeterville neighborhood, grabbing whatever valuables they could, beating the victims along the way.

Some arrests have been made but the attacks continue.

The undercurrent to this story is something that almost everyone has difficulty addressing, at least in public. It is the race issue. The victims of these crimes have all been white or Asian. The alleged perpetrators have all been African American. It is difficult to address because so much hard work by so many to foster understanding if not exactly love between people of different colors, has been undermined by the acts of a handful of individuals.

I don't have the answer for why people commit senseless crimes. Some would say that the cause is desperate poverty and racism. Since I grew up neither poor nor black, I have no idea. Also, unlike many of these young criminals I suspect, I had two parents who were devoted to me, let me know every day that I was important, blessed me with an enthusiastic faith in education and in the future, and taught me right from wrong, They preached against prejudice, in my father's simple but powerful words that I will take with me to my grave: "people are people." My parents came down on me as hard on the little things as the big ones, teaching me that it was just as wrong to steal a newspaper, (as I once had a penchant for doing), as it was to steal a Mercedes Benz. In short, they taught me that my integrity was the most valuable thing I had. Given my parents' scrupulous sense of values and ethics, the idea of intentionally causing harm to another human being never crossed my mind. My wife and I have tried hard to pass along those same values to our children.

Yet there are countless individuals who come from less than ideal family circumstances who do not become criminals.

There are many socio--economic and psychological reasons for criminal behavior, yet I do believe that a moral-ethical compass in one's life, handed down, not by clergy, councilors, teachers, or society, but by PARENTS, has a tremendous effect upon a child's life.

So do I think that parents are to blame for their children beating up and robbing perfect strangers? Well in a word, yes. I believe that parents (two people, a biological mother AND a father) who bring a child into this world, whether by plan or accident, have the responsibility and obligation to do everything in their power to teach that child how to become a decent human being. If they cannot, it is imperative that they find parents for their children who can. Rich or poor, anything less is simply unacceptable.

In the previous paragraph I mentioned two words that are no longer in vogue in our society. It seems as though today we center our values around personal freedom and expression, on financial success, on self (and instant) gratification, and on doing whatever it takes to make ourselves feel good. So much is focused on the self that we forget there is no such thing as personal freedom without personal responsibility. And how can we possibly feel good about ourselves if we don't fulfill our obligation to be good to our bothers and sisters.

So does society share some of the blame? Again, yes.

Hillary Clinton wrote a book and based one of her campaigns on an old African adage that "it takes a village to raise a child." There is certainly credence to that statement. We live in a global village and all of us fall short when children turn to crime. But the truth is that the immediate village surrounding these children needs to step up to the plate and take charge. Kids aren't going to listen to old white men like me blather on about right and wrong. It has to come from someone they know and respect.

I tried to find commentary on the recent flash mob attacks from some familiar voices in the African American community, but they have chosen to remain uncharacteristically silent. Had the tables been turned, had mobs of white teens sought out and beat up black people on Michigan Avenue, there would have been universal indignation and outrage that would have rightfully been trumpeted around the world.

Which brings me back to my mother's words at the top of this post. Saying that there are worse things than being attacked by a mob of hoodlums of course, is setting the bar ridiculously low for our expectations of life in the city. However the truth is that as bad as getting beat up and robbed is, the real victims in this flash mob nonsense are not the people getting mugged.

I can say this with some authority because I was the target of one of these attacks about six years ago. Terrible as the experience was, I moved on with my life the next day. I was forced to deal with my faith's obligation (there's that word again) to forgive. And that's what I did. Sometimes I think about where the five young men who mugged me are today. For their sake I hope they got past the incident, went on to broaden their horizons, and are leading happy and productive lives. But the odds unfortunately are not in their favor. If they chose to continue robbing and beating up people, or worse, chances are they have or are currently doing time, which will make their prospects for the future extremely difficult at best.

In a broader sense, the city government and the Chicago Police Department will certainly do everything in their power to stop these attacks. In the near future I'm afraid, a trip downtown won't very pleasant for many young African Americans who simply want nothing more than to enjoy the city with their friends. And if these attacks do continue, they will wreak havoc with Chicago's economy as, like it or not, tourism is a huge engine that drives our city. Tourists will view Chicago as a dangerous place and decide to spend their hard earned money elsewhere. As we've seen in the past few years, when the economy takes a hit, the African American community is one of the first to feel it, and one of the last to recover.

Several years ago, Bill Cosby in an address to the NAACP, spoke very candidly about the problems facing the African American community and how many of those problems come from within. Although he was expressing views that are commonly held within the community, by "airing out the dirty laundry", so to speak, he was excoriated by many African American intellectuals. Michael Eric Dyson devoted an entire book, Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? to the subject. I have not read the book but it's interesting to note that in this one excerpt, Professor Dyson spends a great deal of time criticizing the messenger, but in the end, at least tacitly acknowledges the message.

In my search to find African American commentary about the flash mobs, I found this article by Chicago Sun Times columnist Mary Mitchell about an infinitely more troubling subject, the utter lack of hope for the future among much of African American youth. Mitchell writes about her grandson who is being raised in the virtually all white North Shore suburbs because her daughter feels that is the only place where he has a good chance for the future. Mitchell's summation at the end of the piece is heartbreaking. She says this:

When keeping a black boy away from his own community increases his chance of surviving, there is no black pride.

Of course tragedies like the ones Mitchell describes in her piece are not limited to the African American community. This article describes first hand a horrifying event that took place just yesterday.

The fact is, we are facing the prospect of a lost generation of children.

My mother's words notwithstanding, nothing could possibly be worse than that.