Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“If hard seltzer is a ridiculous passing fad, Chicago is heading toward peak ridiculousness: the city’s first hard seltzer festival,” Josh Noel writes for the Tribune.


“And even if hard seltzer isn’t a ridiculous passing fad, Chicago is heading toward peak ridiculousness: the city’s first hard seltzer festival.”
Nicely done.
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Last weekend I lived a bit of the Truly life, but it was no match for the simple fact that there ain’t no laws when you’re drinking Claws.
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Sixteen Candles In The Wind
“To no surprise, the 1984 John Hughes classic Sixteen Candles tops the list as Illinois’ favorite romantic comedy, according to Comparitech,” the Sun-Times reports.
Well, I’m surprised, perhaps because I’ve never been a fan of that movie. Eww.
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I could give you all kinds of reasons why I don’t like that movie, but for today I’ll just leave you with this.
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P.S.: A better take for an article on this would have been, “Illinois’ Favorite Rom-Com? A Racist, Rapey Disgrace.”
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Reality TV
“According to a new report, cop shows, legal dramas and other crime-oriented series are loaded with concerning misrepresentations. Unjust actions by police are portrayed not only as routine and harmless, but acceptable and necessary. More to the point: ‘These series make heroes out of people who violate our rights,'” the Tribune reports.

Rashad Robinson is president of the racial justice organization Color of Change, which conducted the study and assessed 26 TV series (across broadcast network, cable and streaming) in collaboration with the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California. Among the shows examined: Blue Bloods and NCIS on CBS; BoschNarcos on Netflix; and Law & Order: SVU and Chicago P.D. on NBC.
“For the past 20 years in this country violent crime has steadily gone down,” he said, “but if you ask most Americans, in Pew polls and others, they believe violent crime is going up. So we know there is a gap between perception and reality. And we know that what people think about the system – in terms of whether it’s working or not – plays into what type of reforms they believe are viable.”
The report found that crime shows imply “justice gets done because the rules get broken, that abuse and harm are rare, that racial bias and systemic racism do not exist and that current police methods keep people safe and are necessary for solving crime.”

I just took a break from writing this item to go to the bathroom and I was standing at the urinal (I’m at a bar) trying to think of a clever line of commentary when I came up with “librocrisy.” Liberal hypocrisy. ‘Cause Hollywood is supposed to be liberal (ha).
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More to the point, though: It’s not about conservative or liberal, it’s about reality. When Hollywood doesn’t represent reality well, it perverts public perceptions and that in turn perverts our public – and yes, political – discourse. So it matters.
As the article states. Go read the rest, it’s good stuff.
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P.S.: Those who think cops get a raw deal from media representations – including straight reporting – aren’t truly paying attention.
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CPD Short List
“A shortlist of candidates vying to be Chicago’s next top cop includes a woman who leads a suburban department and a former police chief from Texas, both of whom had officers injured or killed in mass shootings in the last few years, the Tribune has learned.
“[S]ources familiar with the applicants said the board’s roster of candidates has been whittled down to a handful of names, a list that includes, among others, Sean Malinowski, a former Los Angeles police official who has worked as a top consultant for the Chicago Police Department for the past few years; Kristen Ziman, chief of police in west suburban Aurora; Ernest Cato, a deputy chief for the department; and David Brown, a former Dallas police chief.”
Journalists, law enforcement folks and those who would be classified as “observers” have long seen Malinowski as the frontrunner, given his ongoing work with CPD and close relationship with interim chief Charlie Beck. That seems right to me, and frankly unless there’s something I’m not getting, Ziman has zero chance of making such a huge jump (I mean, the police chief of Aurora even applying for the job seems like such a stretch, though at 200,000, Aurora’s population is twice that of South Bend, and that town’s mayor is running for president) and Brown sounds like just a guy.

Feb. 17 UPDATE: Aargh, I shouldn’t have written that retired Dallas police chief David Brown, who is reportedly on the short list of candidates vying for the top job here, “sounds like just a guy.”
I knew better and somehow spaced it out. Brown actually led the Dallas department through a series of relatively progressive reforms – which also means, given a couple of the other names on the list, that Lori Lightfoot is going to arguably get a better set of names to choose from than the one she presented to her old boss, Rahm Emanuel, when he dumped the recommendations she and her police board sent him and instead elevated Eddie Johnson, who hadn’t even applied, to chief. Then again, maybe fewer good folk wanted to work for Rahm.

But Cato could be an intriguing candidate, though he’d be jumping over a bunch of others in the CPD organizational chart.
The Trib:
“Cato, 54, is a Chicago police deputy chief in charge of nine patrol districts that cover the North Side, Northwest Side and West Side. He has been viewed as a rising star in the department, in part due to his willingness to work side by side with community organizations that offer mediation on gang conflicts and help with social services and jobs.
“Cato was among more than 30 of Beck’s top police officials to get new posts in CPD’s reorganization, set to begin in April. Cato was assigned as deputy chief of the new Area 4, overseeing patrol officers, as well as some detective and specialized gang and drug units, in the Austin, Harrison and Ogden Districts on the West Side.”
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Also, the Chicago chapter of the National Alliance of Mental Illness just named Cato its CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) Officer of the Year. Just landing in my inbox:
“It is our privilege to honor Deputy Chief Cato III at Light the Darkness for his enduring commitment to healing communities touched by violence and trauma with innovation, bravery, and partnership.
“In his 29 years of service to Chicago, Deputy Chief Cato III’s road to impact includes working with community-based organizations, instituting ground-breaking programs, and implementing new technologies to respond to urgent mental health needs in Chicago.
“Cato currently serves as the Deputy Chief of Area North-Bureau of Patrol, overseeing nine districts and two units, and has worked in many capacities including assisting in the development of the Gang Violence Reduction Strategy, serving as a Tactical Sergeant, and working as a Homicide Detective. Deputy Chief Cato III’s honors include the Superintendent Award of Merit and the Chicago Police Leadership award.”
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ChicagoReddit

Can anyone tell me why Northwestern’s downtown campus has a big wild flower field? from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram


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ChicagoTube
Cubs Spring Training.

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A sampling of the delight and disgust you can find @BeachwoodReport.


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Posted on February 13, 2020