There's an old saying in the African-American community, passed down from generation to generation, that goes a long way toward explaining some of what transpired here last week after the death of Chicago School Board President Michael Scott.
Mark Brown: When Burr Oak Cemetery opens partially to the public today for the first time since all hell broke loose in July, visitors may notice a number of changes, from a repaired main entrance gate to filled potholes to improved drainage.
On the way in to work Tuesday morning, I heard an alderman on the radio saying she couldn't believe Chicago School Board President Michael Scott committed suicide because suicide is for weak people and Michael Scott wasn't weak.
They say you can count on there always being somebody who will come along and screw things up for everybody else.
Gilbert asked me if I could help him get one of those free cell phones I wrote about the other day.
About three and a half years ago, a trio of students at John Marshall Law School got it into their heads that what they really ought to do was start a legal clinic specializing in helping veterans get their benefits from the VA.
When Katie Sharp called last week looking for help in tracking down her "free cell phone from the government," it took every liberal bone in my body to keep from responding: "just as soon as I get MY free cell phone from the government."
A Skokie lawyer's challenge of a speeding ticket that also led to his client being charged with DUI may finally provide the test case that will restore some sanity to how accused speeders are treated in Chicago's Traffic Court.
For at least the past year, speeding tickets produced by Chicago police officers using high-tech LIDAR speed detectors have been routinely dismissed in Cook County Traffic Court for any defendant bothering to show up to contest the case. When challenged, the tickets are being voluntarily waived by the city's Law Department because of legal challenges to the laser technology underlying the LIDAR (light detection and ranging) equipment.
Michael Chambers' family long ago gave him up for dead, believing he'd been killed in a street fight.
The provocateurs who made economics cool with the best-selling book Freakonomics are back with a sequel, Super-Freakonomics, that is causing quite a stir in global warming circles for its flip handling of a serious subject.
If we accomplished nothing else with Tuesday's column about the once common practice of naked swimming in Chicago area high schools, we at least helped a whole bunch of parents creep out their children.
A couple of old classmates from Thornton High School bumped into each other over the weekend, and as is often the case with male alums of their era, the subject quickly turned to what both consider one of the stranger aspects of their high school experience: swimming naked in gym class.
