As I’ve often written on this blog and on social media, situation on the ground is often more complicated than what any activist may say. There is always more than one perspective, and nuances within any given perspective. The controversy over the Chicago Public Safety Training Center was the perfect illustration of this - supporters and opponents ( Read more... )

Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about Petya lately. Amid the discussions of school reopenings, it has not escaped me that my cousin, his younger sister, is one of those teachers ( Read more... )

In Chicago, as in many parts of United States, the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death drew renewed attention to police misconduct, and some of the more controversial aspects of Chicago Police Department operations. One of those is the School Resource Officers program. Basically, police officers are assigned to schools to provide security ( Read more... )

Back in April 13, I covered a panel that tackled how the COVID-19 pandemic affected majority-black communities. This was around the time that the broader Chicago was starting to catch on to the fact that African-Americans were getting sick and dying at larger rates. As someone who’s written at length about issues with access to healthcare on ( Read more... )

When I get sensational headlines like this coming across social media, I always like to check the source and, unfortunately, it looks like it wasn't an exaggeration.

According to Wikipedia, Watkins College of Art is a private Nashville art school has been around since 1885. According to ArtNet article I linked to above, it has been struggling ( Read more... )

When, back on Tuesday, Chicago Public Library system announced that it was doing away with late fees, I admit I was a little dubious ( Read more... )

For the past few months, I've seen plenty of social media ads, bus shelter ads and articles talking up the Chalk Howard Street festival. Professional artists and regular folks would have a chance to use chalk to draw whatever they can on the block of Howard Street east of the eponymous 'L' station, at the heart of the Juneway Terrace - the ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago, a journalist I know told me something that disappointed me.

Since she told this to me in implicit confidence, I'm going to avoid a lot of details, so bear with me.

( Here is the long and short of it )

The Hiawatha Amtrak route occupies an interesting niche in Midwestern public transit. It's the only Amtrak route that runs several times a day. It connects Chicago and Milwaukee, providing a reasonably quick, convenient connection between the two downtowns. But even with two tracks for its entire length, the route can only handle so many trains at ( Read more... )

Every once in a while, I get some really odd advertisements on Youtube. This.. is certainly one of them. To say the least

Click to view

I get that the whole thing is targeted toward doomsday preppers/Second Amendment zealots, but all i could think was "are you trying to help domestic terrorists?" And yeah, I know - the not-so-small number of domestic terrorists ( Read more... )