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CHA plan needs more working-class housing
BY PROCO JOE MORENO. Since the year 2000, the Chicago Housing Authority has worked to implement its Plan for Transformation, an ambitious effort to rehabilitate or redevelop the city’s entire stock of public housing. It is a thoughtful plan, but more can be done to provide more affordable housing for working-class families.
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‘Workaholism’ becomes a clinical malady
Although there is no agreed-upon definition of “workaholism,” it is slowly gaining as much acceptance as such better-studied addictions as alcoholism and drug abuse. Some of us were unaware of this because of such natural defenses as high levels of sloth and indolence. Some people …Read More
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Crime unearths memories of ’89 shooting
BY DAVID MCGRATH: I read about shootings every day, [but] it wasn’t until I came upon a murder victim that I felt the enormous blow against humanity. The indignity. The evil. The lonely end.
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College kids start off behind, need ‘grit’ to succeed
BY TIM KING. Many students are behind before they even arrive at college because of money, academic hurdles or other reasons. But feeling or falling behind doesn’t have to mean failing.
Why do two-thirds of corporations fail to pay state taxes?
We pay our taxes. As a matter of fact, we feel proud when we pay them. When our families and businesses pay their taxes and when members of our churches and unions pay them, we view it as an investment in the schools that educate …
Where we stand one year after teachers strike
BY DAVID VITALE. For the better part of the last decade, I’ve served as President of the School Board and on the management side both of which have afforded me a unique perspective on the challenges facing the District. Just looking at the challenges from the last year give me every indication, that a fresh start is possible.
About that bogus ‘battle of the sexes’
You can tell who the keepers of American culture are by, among other things, the anniversaries they mark. We’re currently being invited to revel in memories of the “iconic” tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, the so-called “Battle of the Sexes.” Robin …
Why Bill Daley really quit gov’s race
Bill Daley’s sudden and surprisingly ungracious exit from the Illinois gubernatorial race has been pretty well chewed over, but many analysts seem to have gone along with his claim that he thinks he would have won. I beg to differ. Without exactly calling him a …
‘Lord of the Flies’ bullies take to cyberspace
BY DANIEL RUTH. If William Golding was writing his classic dystopian novel “Lord of the Flies” today, it might well be titled “Lord of the Mousepad.” For as we’ve learned from the suicide of Lakeland, Fla., preteen Rebecca Ann Sedwick, who succumbed to the relentless onslaught of online bullying, indifferent children armed with a keyboard and fueled by immaturity can inflict deadly cyber cruelty.
Ted Cruz is normal, Washington is not
BY STAR PARKER. According to a new Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans say they have little to no confidence that they can rely on mass media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.” Forty-six percent say the media is too liberal and just 13 percent think it’s too conservative.
French ban on child beauty pageants? Merci
BY THOMAS HARGROVE. Fanned by fears that their sex-obsessed society is producing “hypersexual” young girls, the French Senate has voted to ban adults from entering a child under age 16 into a beauty pageant. The measure, approved in Paris Wednesday on a 197-146 vote, would set criminal penalties of two years in prison and 30,000 euros — roughly $40,500 — in fines in an effort to protect girls from becoming sexualized too early.
Cutting lanes on Ashland a really bad idea
BY HERB GOULD. I can’t believe we’re even having a discussion about reducing the traffic lanes on Ashland Avenue by 50 percent because it’s too crowded for buses. The idea of cutting Ashland down to one lane for cars is crazy on a bunch of levels.
Mass shootings and our betrayal of the mentally ill
MONA CHAREN: A significant portion of the political and journalistic worlds pretends that the solution to mass shootings is gun control. This is doctrinaire, barren thinking. The real solution is to start recognizing and treating mental illness.
Another round of CPS winners and losers
BY JACKSON POTTER. Recently the mayor has gone on a Tax Increment Financing spending spree and secured money for selective enrollment and magnet schools, Wildwood and Payton. Researcher Stephanie Farmer, from Roosevelt University, has found that 33 percent of TIF dollars returned to CPS go to selective enrollment schools, where approximately one percent of the students in Chicago attend. So much for equity.
Israel a steady rock amid Middle East upheaval
AMY STOKEN: The current intense focus on the Syrian situation misses the proverbial forest for the trees. The war in Syria and its implications for U.S. foreign policy constitute just one part of a much broader problem.
Miss America bigots a special breed of stupid
BY MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS. There’s only one thing dumber than a bigmouthed racist — a bigmouthed racist who can’t even get his racism straight. And Sunday night, that particular brand of stupid was on abundant display after 24-year-old Miss New York, Nina Davuluri, won the Miss America pageant.
What Obama’s iPod playlist really says
By MONA CHAREN. Mitt Romney’s iPod playlist featured Johnny Cash, Frankie Valli, the Beach Boys and the Soggy Bottom Boys. Barack Obama’s iPod had, the president assured his fans, something for everyone — “Stevie Wonder, James Brown. I’ve got Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan,” Obama said. “And then I’ve got everything from Jay-Z to Eminem to the Fugees, to — you name it.”
So long to action-hero presidents
BY GENE LYONS. It’s not necessary to think that President Obama has performed brilliantly throughout the Syria debacle to suspect that next time around it’s going to be much harder for an action-hero president to stampede the country into war. As a corollary, hawkish politicians will find it more difficult to intimidate skeptics by questioning their patriotism.
Americans clueless on ObamaCare
Poor President Barack Obama. Days before a key element of “ObamaCare” takes effect, only 39 percent of Americans say they approve of it. Despite the president’s many burdens, notably the mess in Syria, the Affordable Care Act is his signature act in office — his …
A bad lesson in democracy from Board of Education
BY CURTIS LAWRENCE AND SUZANNE MCBRIDE. Our students learned a couple of weeks ago about the basic right they as members of the public have to attend government meetings and to witness their taxpayer dollars at work.
