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Friday, January 30, 2015

New Ald. Beale mailer #Aldertrack

We recently received this Beale flyer in the mail. It's similar to the last one, but makes slightly different points from the first one.

Also please don't forget about the DCP 9th ward forum at Progressive Church - 26 E. 127th St. - on Satuday at 2 PM.

Does the flyer below persuade you to give Beale one more term as 9th ward Alderman?

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Black World Cinema program for February


Every February Black World Cinema has a program commemorating Black History Month. Normally they screen a film the first Thursday every month. During Black History Month a film is screened every Thursday. We just received this email in time for next month's events:
Black World Cinema is now in it’s 10th year at SMG Chatham 14 Theaters and in February will present the BLACK FUTURE MONTH film series.

Black Future Month will explore AfroFuturism through real science documentary, the science of the imagination in drama, animation, comic books and the experimental ideas of Black Radical Imagination.

The 4 week series will take place at Chatham 14 Theaters, 210 W 87th St, every Thursday at 7pm. General dmission is $6 per ticket. Every week we will feature someone from the science or creative community to engage the audience with lively discussion about the exciting films being screened during February.

Please share this email with friends, educators, film fans and kids(not for the Feb 5 program). If you have marketing ideas for this program, places we should contact, please email floydwebb @ gmail.com with your suggestions. Thanks, hope to see you in February.
Every week I do plan to advertise the week's movies during Black History Month or for BWC Black Future Month. This looks very interesting and hopefully I can catch one of these films if not all of them.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

9th ward: Video on demand

[VIDEO] Recently Harold "Noonie" Ward was interviewed by Aldertrack's Mike Fourcher as he interviews the many candidates for Alderman around the city. He has also interviewed another candidate for 9th ward Alderman, Michael LaFargue.

BTW, I also found this "attack ad" from the LaFargue camp. It doesn't strike me as a good idea, but I'll let you be the judge of that. [VIDEO]

9th Ward: Bulletin newspaper photo page of Rosemoor forum

The recent candidates forum hosted by the Rosemoor Community Association held this last Tuesday. This page from the Bulletin has been distribuing in my e-mails so it's worth sharing on the blog. You will see leaders of Rosemoor along with 9th Ward Ald. Beale, and Ted Williams III, and Michael LaFargue on this page.
Click for larger resolution

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

DCP 9th ward candidates forum Saturday

The Developing Communities Project is hosting a candidates forum on January 31st, 2015 at 2 PM. It will be held at Progressive Church located at 26 E. 127th St. For more details refer to flyer below.



Monday, January 26, 2015

Mailer in the race for 9th ward Alderman

Received this mailer for 9th ward Alderman Anthony Beale recently. It touts his accomplishments and his future goals for the ward. There are pictures of himself during a groundbreaking for an athletic center and the opening of a new store. He mentions new grocery stores, however, Harold "Noonie" Ward has been hitting him on that fact. Although Walmart does sell groceries even if it's not considered a grocery store.

If you have any mailers to scan and share with us feel free to e-mail, Facebook, or Tweet us.


Sunday, January 25, 2015

Take the CTA Red Line from 95th to Howard street on YouTube

[VIDEO] Recently I discovered videos provided by CTA which provided real-time documentary footage of all routes of the L system. It's very interesting to see the trains on the various routes and the neighborhoods they roll through everyday during their daily services.

Also since we're in the middle of winter, it's nice to see Chicago during much warmer and sunnier weather as you will see here.

Anyway, since this is the "Shedd School" blog it was important to me to share this footage of the Red Line from 95th Street to Howard. During my time in elementary school often my weekends would consist of me following my mother downtown as she mostly went to the office to do some work. Even better these were the days when I could sit at the front of the train to watch the city roll by.

Of course as an aside the Red Line as we know it today didn't exist then as the train went up instead of into the subway near Cermak-Chinatown. You will see that when the train gets to that point where the train used to go upwards and at times they still do with reroutes.

This is a one-hour video as the train will move from the far south side to the far north side and will roll through the subway under State Street. And again it's really cool to see where the Red Line heads north from 95th Street. 

Even better when you get downtown, Fullerton, Belmont, and Howard you will have the opportunity to change/transfer trains and see where those other rail lines go after you reach those change/transfer points. So this is really cool and an adventure that worth taking, especially if you don't really leave the neighborhood.

BTW, for greater enjoyment you should put the video into theater mode or if you're on a PC full screen - those are the buttons you see in the play/time area. Also in that area is what looks like a gear set it to HD either 720 HD or 1080 HD. If you use a smartphone you can probably just turn your phone from vertical to horizontal and it will be on full screen.
Enjoy! And click here for a Red Line map to see which stops the train makes during this hour video.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Wards 9, 17, & 21 candidates forum Trinity Church


We may have known about this for a while now but tomorrow at Trinity United Church of Christ a candidates forum for wards 9, 17, and 21. This information was emailed to us today.
  • 9th, 17th and 21st Ward Candidates Forum
    Trinity United Church of Christ
    400 W. 95th Street - Sanctuary
    Chicago, IL 60628

    Sunday, January 25, 2015
    2:30pm to 4:45pm
If anyone has any candidate events we should know about feel free to e-mail us, tweet @thesixthward, or post to our Sixth Ward FB page.

Friday, January 23, 2015

VIDEO: Ted Williams for 9th ward Alderman

[VIDEO] If you subscribed the daily e-mail newsletter from Aldertrack you saw this video by candidate for Alderman Ted Williams. He discusses his background - especially as a professor in the City Colleges of Chicago - in addition to his future goals if elected Alderman of the 9th ward.

BTW, Aldertrack kind of opined on the video as apparently it was shot horizontally vertically. They even shared this hilarious video regarding "vertical video syndrome". You'll laugh, but if you - the reader - ever ran for Alderman in the future I do hope that you would produce a more professionally done video. Professor Williams seemed to barely have a enough space for himself in the frame.

ALSO, Gaper's Block years ago did a post about videos related to races for Alderman. I'm looking for it and when it's found will be posted here as an illustration.

Is anything that Williams said that would sway your vote for him in the 9th ward?

EDIT: I forgot to note that next Friday Williams will host a meet & greet also posted in this morning's Aldertrack daily e-mail
  • Ted Williams, III (9) will hold a meet and greet Friday, January 30 at 6:30p at his campaign office, 11625 S. Michigan Ave. 

Thursday, January 22, 2015

DNA Info: CPS Schedules Makeup Days for January Cancellations

Those two days earlier this month where CPS students had no class because of the cold weather well they have to make up those days somehow:
On Jan. 6 and Jan. 7, snow and frigid temperatures forced CPS to cancel classes. "To ensure students receive the valuable instructional time that was intended" for those days, CPS has scheduled the two makeup days, including one that will delay summer break for a day.

Jan. 30, which was scheduled to be a School Improvement Day without classes, will now be a regular attendance day for all CPS students, officials said.

June 17, which was supposed to be the first day of summer break, will also be a regular attendance day. Summer break will begin June 18 instead.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Russ Stewart on the race for 9th Ward Alderman


Russ Stewart analyzes the races for Alderman in the south side wards and says the Mayor is going to send resources to his favored candidates. So this is what he says for the races in the 9th ward.
9th Ward (Far South Side): After losing a 2013 bid for Jesse Jackson’s congressional seat, incumbent Anthony Beale’s stature nosedived. He faces seven opponents, the most credible being Michael LaFargue. It will be Rahm to the rescue in a Beale-LaFargue runoff.
I will refer you to The Sixth Ward blog for a list of candidates for the 9th Ward.

ALSO, I have read Stewart over the years for his perspective on local politics. Only real political junkies would know of him since he doesn't write for a major paper. He's primarily a columnist for a community paper on the northwest side of Chicago.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Today is the Martin Luther King holiday...

I wanted to do about post about Dr. Martin Luther King. Mostly the holiday which is named for him I always looked forward to as it was a day off from school. Of course there is much more to this holiday than that.

President's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years are all a lot more than days off from school. These holidays we got as students have meaning to someone.

So it's great that American's get a day off for the contributions of the famed civil rights leader Dr. King. I recently saw Selma at the show and perhaps if you don't do anything else on the King holiday go see that movie. Hopefully our young people would appreciate what he went through so that all American's would be created equal.

ALSO, I never had the chance to visit the King Memorial. Then again DC is always a good trip because there's lots to see there so that will just be one more place to visit in the near future.

BTW, below you will see the trailer for Selma [VIDEO]

Friday, January 16, 2015

VIDEO: Aldertrack interview of candidate for 9th ward Alderman

[VIDEO] Today Aldertrack's Mike Fourcher conducts an interview with candidate Michael LaFargue. LaFargue is running for Alderman who hopes to replace the current Alderman Anthony Beale.

LaFargue notes that he's very active in the community having memberships in different organizations throughout the community. He's especially a member and President of the West Chesterfield Community Association. He also noted that he's involved with a Developing Communities Project committee for the CTA Red Line extension.

In addition to discussing his background he also discusses his plans as Alderman of the 9th Ward in addition to his plans for the rest of the city. The duration of this video is about 10 minutes.

BTW, I do hope to discuss a lot more of the red line extension as I have discussed this a lot in the past over at The Sixth Ward. I think the communities south of 95th could benefit when ever this rail line is finally built.

ALSO, you should check out Aldertrack and sign up for their e-mail list to get regular updates on news in the 2015 city elections. In addition to purchasing the racing form to keep track of who's running where in Chicago.

Would anything Mr. LaFargue has stated in this video persuade you to cast a ballot for him next month?

Thursday, January 15, 2015

So what's in a name anyway?

Bennett School
I wrote a post wonder what should be the purpose of this blog. Is it an education or neighborhood blog?

At first this blog was about Bennett-Shedd School. Then it became about education and lately it's more of a neighborhood type blog. Is there an identity crisis here?

Well to be honest I haven't really paid too much attention to education issues. While our young people do deserve to get a good education, it doesn't help that I do not have children of my own. That probably keeps my focus more away from education issues and largely just follow the news on that anyway.

This blog has been more at time autobiographical than anything else. My experiences in the education system will remain important here. I've had some good moments and some bad moments - at that high school would be consider one of my bad moments in the education system.

All the same more and more I've been considering some neighborhood issues. Shedd School has been closed for over year and the neighborhood doesn't want the building to remain vacant. What should be it's future.

Indeed in the coming weeks I would like to explore further the future of our part of the south side. There are historic neighboods here that have been prosperous in the past, however, are struggling currently today. What should the future of these neighborhoods - such as Roseland & Pullman.

So in 2015, we're going to be developing some content that hopefully will be worth sharing here. Hopefully this could be a school blog and that's the greatest product Bennett-Shedd School could've ever provided.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Rate the video: Harold "Noonie" Ward for Alderman 9th Ward


[VIDEO] I'm sure we'll be posting a number of videos between now and election day next month from the many Aldermanic candidates in wards 6, 9, and 21. Last month we posted 9th Ward Ald. Beale's appearance on CAN-TV's Political Forum where he answers various questions affecting the 9th ward and the city.

Today we post about one of his challengers Harold "Noonie" Ward. This is essentially a campaign ad showing various shots around the 9th Ward. We see Altgeld Gardens, DuBois School, and even drive into Pullman with this video. This video is mainly taking shots at Ald. Beale.

Also, Mr. Ward notes that the 9th Ward is the only city ward without a major grocery store. So I suppose he doesn't count the Walmart in Pullman?

BTW, this video was noted by Chicagoist on Wednesday:
 This one is worth a look: it has high-production values, a moody tone and a damning indictment of an incumbent alderman that makes this a must-watch. That the rest of the city has a window into this race, via this video, makes it all that more interesting.

All the same what do you think of this video? Would you vote for Mr. Ward? Do you agree with some of the points of this video?

This video is via Aldertrack who in addition to a "racing form" which you can purchase from them you can also subscribe to daily email giving you various updates for election day 2015.

Crossposted from The Sixth Ward.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Follow-up to Dec. 15, 2014 Shedd School meeting

Closed Shedd School @ 200 E. 99th St.
Sharon Banks-Pincham is not only a resident of West Chesterfield, she is also an local school council member at Harlan Community Academy who I've had the chance to meet when I attended LSC meetings there. She sent me an e-mail regarding what happened at the Shedd School meeting with 9th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale on December 15, 2015. For additional context here is a link to the notice that I had recieved via e-mail not long before that meeting.

DNA Info did their own follow-up from that meeting we shared that here.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

CPS schools are also closed Thur. January 8, 2015


In addition to the info above you may also find this information embedded below via CPS' twitter page. Feel free to retweet if you have a twitter account. The information is primarily regarding city warming centers during the current cold snap. Of course as always there's 311 for any info. on city warming centers.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

CPS schools closed due to weather and other information

Graphic above is shared via CPS' FB page.

Also in light of the recent cold snap we're experiencing right now 9th Ward Ald. Anthony Beale also sent this information to his constituents today. Ald. Beale's information informs us of a wind chill warning and also city services or warming centers for those city residents who are seeking warm shelter during this winter weather.

Of course you can also call 311 for the location of any city warming center.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

2015: Happy New Year

Once again we usher in 2015 again with Charles Schulz' Peanuts crew. I hope we all have a prosperous new year and make 2015 one to remember!