In the Loop

In the age of smart gadgets, are people compromising privacy for convenience?

For a long time, the only time the public has been able to comment was during committee meetings when a much smaller group of aldermen are in attendance. The longstanding tradition was an affront to activists calling for government transparency and so-called open meetings. Morning Shift talks to two aldermen on either side of the debate about what public comment should look like in the future. Alderman Joe Moore has represented Rogers Park since 1991. He thinks the committee model has worked and that opening full council meetings to public comment has its drawbacks. Alderwoman Sue Sadlowski Garza, who represents Chicago's 10th ward, believes allowing the public to speak during full council meetings is vital and important.

What’s driving the increase in Chicago homicides? A recent report from the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab eliminated some of the more popular theories and concluded there was no definitive reason. Experts at the violence-reduction program Ceasefire took issue with the report and said they knew exactly why homicides are on the rise in Chicago: insufficient state funding for their program. According to Dr. Gary Slutkin, founder of Ceasefire, the state’s budget crisis has crippled Ceasefire’s operations in Chicago, making them unable to intervene and prevent violence in communities before it starts.  Morning Shift spoke Dr. Slutkin about his take on the root of violence in Chicago and the path forward. 

Why do men have nipples? Why do we sleep? And can contact lenses get lost in our brains? Those are just some of the burning questions Dr. James Hamblin takes on in his book, If Our Bodies Could Talk: A Guide to Operating and Maintaining a Human Body. Hamblin spoke with Morning Shift host Tony Sarabia to answer a few body and health questions and explain why he thinks his book is timely.

One of the biggest rallies took place right here in Chicago. Although organizers expected and planned for a potential 50,000 attendees, an estimated 250,000 people showed up, rallying in and around the Loop. Outside of the anchor march in Washington, Chicago’s rally is reported to have been the largest sister march. WBEZ’s Lauren Chooljian and Miles Bryan talk about what happened on the ground in both Chicago and D.C.

Harlem Avenue between Cermak and North raked in more than $26.5 million in red light camera citations in less than three years. Brett McNeil, a former reporter with the Chicago Tribune, has been investigating the numbers and following the money. He joined Morning Shift Monday to discuss his findings.

In a new hour-long documentary from WBEZ, education reporter Linda Lutton spends the 2014-2015 school year in a fourth-grade class at William Penn Elementary in North Lawndale, a poor, predominantly African-American neighborhood where the schoolchildren face a myriad of obstacles to success inside and outside of the classroom. The big question at the center of her reporting is whether a school in a community like North Lawndale can truly make the American dream possible by letting kids who work hard pull themselves up by their own boot straps.

On Friday, the country will swear in a new commander-in-chief. On Saturday, women march. Put off by the divisive rhetoric of the recent campaign, organizers say their mission is to show the incoming Trump administration that their “presence in numbers is too great to ignore.” There are more than 600 solidarity events, or "sister marches" comprising of more than 1.3 million participants around the country. One of those will be right here in Chicago this Saturday morning, at Jackson and Lake Shore, just south of the Petrillo Bandshell. Morning Shift talks to Liz Radford, co-organizer of the Chicago event, and march emcee Fawzia Mirza.

Lil Hardin was already an accomplished, in-demand musician here in Chicago when she met young cornet phenom Louis Armstrong, who had just moved here from New Orleans. It was at the home she owned on East 44th St. that she taught this “country boy” (in her words) how to dress, how to talk, and how to conduct his affairs in the big city. The small band they formed together, The Hot Five, practiced at that greystone, and those practices soon turned into some of the most important recordings in the history of music, and the blueprint for almost all the jazz that was to follow. Crain’s reporter Dennis Rodkin joins us to talk about the home, and the remarkable woman who owned it from the early 20’s until her death in 1971.

For decades, certain Chicagoans have been using a strange--even offensive--piece of slang that often involves the question: “Who’s Your Chinaman?” So where did this term come from? Why do we use it? And is it actually racist? WBEZ’s Monica Eng dug into these questions for our Curious City podcast. She’s here to talk about the funky theories and most likely origin of the word. But she also wrestles with its racial implications.