[VIDEO] Today is a huge day for wrestling. WWE's NXT UK brand will have their 2nd NXT UK TakeOver event from Cardiff in Wales to be streamed live this afternoon on the WWE Network. On the same night All Elite Wrestling will have their PPV All Out event from the Sears Centre in Chicago (actually Hoffman Estates, Illinois). AEW is often expected to be the new competitor to WWE.
Over 20 years ago the competitor to WWE (or actually back then the World Wrestling Federation) was an organization out of Atlanta, Georgia known as World Championship Wrestling. In this vignette we see wrestler 2 Cold Scorpio introduce new blood on the block.
It was quite a corny segment, however, I did wish that Scorpio could continue to use this theme. It was more memorable unfortunately that his run in WCW back in the early 1990s. What I can say for him is that back then there weren't too many black wrestlers performing the high flying style.
Aside from this segment where he stepped with these children to school, he did go on and have runs in such prominent promotions as Extreme Championship Wrestling and WWE. However for this segment he deserved more than what he got from this during his career.
I hope as the young people return to school next week that they also step to school.
[VIDEO] This is a rare moment a videoblog for the Shedd School blog termed a Badger City presentation, a Sixth Ward production. It records my commute from the south side to downtown. As it turns out there was a problem.
From what I heard from our operator the whole State Street subway was closed due to police activity. As a result our train and all other red line trains would have to be rerouted through the loop elevated making all brown line stops before returning to their regular routes.
When I started recording at the Garfield stop our operator started snapping over the PA system telling us that the emergency buttons aren't to be used for asking directions. Even suggested if anyone wanted directions everyone should have a cell phone, especially a smartphone. Use your phones to figure out where you need to go he would state.
After we leave Garfield, another voice comes onto the PA system. I don't know if he was from a control center somewhere or from our train but he tries to offer directions for those passengers trying to get where they need to go. Of course our operator also chimes in saying there are those customers who still don't get it. I'm sure he was still getting people pressing the emergency button even after this other voice starts speaking on the train.
The rest of the video after Cermak-Chinatown shows my train going over the top the way trains from 95th used to go through downtown Chicago. We go on tracks along 18th Street and then we turn north on a right of way between State Street and Wabash Avenue. Before arriving at the elevation Roosevelt stop our operator announces that the State Street subway has been reopened. The other voice chimes in again to let us know of the next stops after Roosevelt.
Well I want to update you. May have a possible video blog to share, will work on it today and then hopefully post it to The Sixth Ward YouTube channel tomorrow.
It basically documents my commute on the Red Line today. Unfortunately it's a common occurence - it's happened often enough on my commute - to hear about either police activity or some unauthorized person on the right-of-way. So what I documented is what you can expect when this happens.
[VIDEO] On this blog a few times I noted C-Span which basically is our national public affairs cable channel. You will see gavel to gavel coverage of the federal government especially the sessions of the US Congress both House & Senate.
The Illinois Channel serves the same purpose though in this case it primarily covers Illinois' public affairs. If you live in Chicago you mostly will see IL Channel programming on Chicago Access Network channels 19 & 21 - and these are for those of you who has Comcast cable.
Today I want to share the honor flight of Black World War Two veteran William Walker. Honor Flight is dedicated to sending World War Two vets to Washington, DC to be able to see the memorial on the National Mall dedicated to them. Walker's story is a great one and he rose to a leadership role in the Navy which was unusual at the time.
You might see this over the weekend if you tune in on CAN-TV if it's available to you.
ALSO, I remember a student teacher who had a couple of guests in our class during the 7th grade. Two Black men who had themselves served during WW2. They told us about the shells they had to endure during combat which were designed to effect the air around them. I'm sure they could've told us worse stories about war than that. Easily relatable to those you people who were interested and certainly good to see other Blacks who experienced that war tell their stories.
[VIDEO] I've been reading the headlines about this for a while, we just elected a new mayor back in April and we might get a strike just before students go back to school. This even caught the attention of Rich Miller at Capitol Fax who posted about this on his blog. Obviously while this is mostly local this is an important situation developing in the state.
What you see above is a video from CBS 2 which shows CTU's response to an independent fact-finder report. It appears they're not happy with the report and are unhappy with what's not mentioned. It make sense to talk about social workers or even the special education teachers also.
Also we see Mayor Lightfoot's response from the Sun-Times [VIDEO]
Until just on Friday I never really paid attention to whether or not attendance at the Illinois State Fair is up or down. Most of the comments at CapFax noted that it helps to attract people to the state fair if this state's leadership doesn't spend a lot of time bad-mouthing Illinois. Good point.
How many really appreciate that Illinois is truly a large state with a number of regions including the Chicago area. It's so large there are some people who are in the General Assembly - and mostly Republican sadly - who want to make Chicago the 51st state.
A smaller percentage of Chicago high school students dropped out last year than ever before, the city announced Thursday.
The all-time low 6% dropout rate touted by Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice Jackson happened during the 2018-19 school year, under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration. Students last year dropped out of school at almost half the rate they did in 2011.
“Through expanding access to rigorous academic programs, increasing staffing to support student needs and magnifying our focus on equity, social and emotional learning and restorative justice, CPS is keeping more students in the classroom year after year and creating strong, student-centered schools in every neighborhood across the city,” Jackson said in a press release.
Lightfoot attributed the lower rates — down .4% from last year’s 6.4% — to teachers and staff members “transforming the lives of our young people.”
I think the public would like to hear the examples of the exemplary work of CPS teachers and staff with regards to the young people at CPS.
But a WBEZ analysis found some troubling trends behind those improved numbers. Significantly fewer black boys — 2,600 fewer — are starting as freshmen now than five years ago. And an increasing number of graduates are getting their degrees from alternative second-chance schools, which are less demanding than traditional schools, but count toward the graduation rate.
Finally, there is an increase in the number of black boys who transfer out or die after starting as freshman in CPS. Black male high school students die at a higher rate than any other student racial and gender demographic group, according to CPS data.
After accounting for all these factors, just 48 percent boys at CPS ultimately earned a diploma from a traditional or charter Chicago high school in 2018. That’s only a six percentage point improvement from five years ago.
Experts say school district officials should be paying attention to trends behind the numbers.
Keisha Davis-Johnson is executive director of the Greater West Town Community Development Project, which runs an alternative school and a jobs training program that mostly serves men. She sees no reason to celebrate.
“We have a lot of work to do with our young people,” Davis-Johnson said.
She said she still sees many young men who have gone to under-resourced elementary schools, who struggle with the basics and feel disconnected from school.
So as far as the lower dropout rate, how many of them are Black males?
[VIDEO] Last year at The Sixth Ward I posted this above video from a YouTube channel that refers to itself as Fuzzy Memories - which mostly posts old footage from Chicago TV stations. This documentary is 57 years old and illustrates the racial change that took place in the city during the 1960s.
On this blog and at The Sixth Ward I've showed a number of old pics of how various neighborhoods on the south side used to look like. As happens over time buildings are torn down, schools or churches close down, a streetscape looks vastly different from what it was decades ago. Or indeed looking at aspects of our transportation infrastructure which is vastly different from what we know about today.
Marynook on a map
In this case, WBBM-TV (or we can call them CBS 2 today) took a look at the racial change taking place in the Marynook area (which is the area between 87th and 83rd Streets north to south and the IC railroad tracks to Dorchester west to east. At issue here is the implications of the integration taking place and we hear a lot about things we associate with "white flight". We hear about "block busting" where unscrupulous real estate agents urge white homeowners to sell before the racial change of the neighborhood causes the value of their homes to depreciate.
These days Marynook is mostly Black, however, the character of that area is still basically middle class. It's often gotten attention for its mid-century architecture and could often be describes as a neighborhood that could resemble a suburban area.
BTW, as a side note I'm glad Fuzzy Memories is back. They were down for a while since YouTube
tends to take down channels that are found to be uploading copyrighted
materials. I've gotten away from following their channel in recent
years, however, it's time to start back. It's fascinating what people
saw on their TV years before I was even born.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice Jackson heralded the new mayor’s first proposed budget for the school district earlier this month with great fanfare. But a WBEZ analysis shows the good news comes with some caveats, and it includes some bad news.
The public can weigh in on the $7.7 billion budget at two hearings — one at 4 p.m. and the other at 6:30 p.m. — on Tuesday at CPS headquarters, 42 W. Madison St.
Then, on Thursday, there will be three simultaneous hearings at 6 p.m. on the money CPS wants to use to repair schools and invest in early childhood programs. The hearings are at Morgan Park High School, 1744 W. Pryor Ave; Whitney Young High School, 211 S. Laflin St; and Amundsen High School, 5110 N. Damen Ave.
[VIDEO] This clip combines two TV legends. On February 17, 1982 on Late Night with David Letterman had as his guest a PBS personality Fred Rogers of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. On this program Rogers had brought with him not only a t-shirt featuring the neighborhood trolley, also his sweater and casual sneakers.
Some aspects of this interview I found very funny, especially the part where Rogers thought it wasn't funny that some radio DJ as a joke thought it was funny to teach children to use aerosol cans and lighters. As Rogers said incredulously that could cause a lot of fires. Even I had to laugh at that!
I just have to say it's hard not to like Mr. Rogers who died in 2003 and who's legendary program ended production in 2001. I got the sense from this interview and even the often comical late night show that he was truly a decent man. It's really hard not to like someone who is genuinely very nice although we don't really know how he is behind the scenes. I do think his personality is genuinely nice and his appearance on Late Night probably was a mismatch.
I have to admit that watching Letterman when he was host of this program and before he moved on to CBS to host The Late Show with David Letterman was something of a guilty pleasure before even getting out of grammar school. It's amazing that he only retired from hosting a late night talk show in May 2015. I used to love his viewer mail segments or even his man on the street segments or even those sketches he might have. Another highlight are certainly his sketches with Larry "Bud" Melman. I can't believe I even got away with watching his program realizing only years later that it was probably not something a child should be able to watch.
As it turns out while Letterman continued with Late Night from 1982 to 1994 this would be the only time Rogers and Letterman would share the stage. You might be able to see him on other late night programs. Would you believe he was even on The Arsenio Hall Show at one point... [VIDEO]
I will post later tonight at approximately 11:35 PM tonight and I will give you at least one spoiler as to why I'm posting that late. As stated in another post normally if I post anything it would be either at 9 AM or 2:30 AM but post this later just felt more appropriate considering the TV program from which this clip is derived.
I wanted an excuse to talk about the Illinois State Fair and possibly visiting our state capitol in Springfield, Illinois.
Having followed Illinois politics since at least my college years I've always been curious about our political leaders doing state business down there in Springfield. While my interest tends to wax and wane over the years one of the things I would like to do is witness a session of the Illinois General Assembly (both house and Senate).
Another thing worth doing is talking a trip to Springfield to check out the Illinois state fair. Of course while the purpose of the fair is mainly agricultural, it has a very political importance as it's often covered by Rich Miller of the Capitol Fax. Here's a recent article on his blog regarding the spelling issues when the state fair is being promoted.
If you want to follow the official twitter account of the Illinois State Fair here you go.
BTW, it's necessary to show what a south side YouTuber showed when he - artistmac - arrived at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield back in 2016 [VIDEO]
And now it's time to prepare for the 2020 state fair which is an election year and this even is of great political importance. And hopefully I can see something worth sharing on The Sixth Ward's YouTube channel.
Back in 2014, I took a quick trip during the holiday season to Memphis, Tennessee aboard Amtrak's City of New Orleans train and shot video on my iPhone. Luckily I got footage during the morning hours as we rolled through the south side back to Union Station downtown.
I had uploaded these videos to my YouTube channel and granted it's not the most exciting footage, however, how many people have seen the Roseland and Rosemoor area from this perspective. As we head into the heat of the summer, perhaps some winter scenery will help cool you down.
Here's footage of the train rolling through Roseland starting at 115th Street. [VIDEO]
Here's another shot from going through Rosemoor going past 103rd Street and we see the campus of Chicago State University [VIDEO]
[VIDEO] I should've been out in West Chicago, Illinois with Artistmac to check out this history Union Pacific No. 4014 The Big Boy. It's an old steam locomotive delivered to the Union Pacific railroad in 1941 and retired in 1961 and restored to operation beginning in 2013. It has been on tour around the nation especially the midwest and made it's presence known in the Chicago area.
It's of interest to myself because it's not often you see a steam locomotive on the tracks anywhere. A fascinating piece of railroad history that's worth seeing when the opportunity presents itself. Who knows when it will be put into operation by Union Pacific.
Here is another video of Big Boy in the Chicago area from another of my favorite YouTubers - YouTuuba who was in Roselle, Illinois to catch a glimpse of the locomotive and consists [VIDEO]
This is the stark reality in Chicago Public Schools. Last school year, almost a third of 520 district-run schools — 152 — had at least one regular education or special education teacher position open all year long, a WBEZ analysis shows.
The problem is most acute at schools serving low-income and black students. They are twice as likely as all other schools to have a yearlong teacher vacancy. Chicago’s 28 schools with majority white student populations had no yearlong vacancies.
And making matters worse CPS also has a severe substitute teacher shortage, a WBEZ analysis shows. At 62 schools, half the time a teacher was absent no substitute showed up.
Really?
Chicago Public School officials acknowledge the problems filling substitute requests and teacher vacancies. They also note that just because there’s a vacancy doesn’t mean students miss instruction. Principals will usually make sure students get some work and they will do their best to work with the teachers they have, officials say.
But students, parents, teachers and community organizers tell stories of students not having math, English, gym, Spanish or special education support for months at a time, if not an entire year.
One parent, who wanted to remain anonymous, said when her child’s school couldn’t fill one of two sixth-grade teacher positions, the one teacher took on all 57 students in that grade.
Often, when there is a long-term vacancy, students get a parade of substitutes who might give them worksheets or worse — spend time sitting in an auditorium without any school work to do.
What's going on with this?
School district leaders constantly say they want to make the school district more equitable. And nothing gets to the heart of the district’s inequities more than the reality that some schools struggle securing teachers while others are fully staffed, said Matt Lyons, CPS' chief talent officer.
But he said this is an outgrowth of systemic and societal issues that can’t be fixed quickly. Over the past few years, the school district has started one program that helps 60 struggling schools hire teachers and another that pays extra money to subs willing to work in 75 hard-to-staff schools. It also plans to expand a program that offers alternative teaching degrees in areas like special education.
Lyons said these programs are starting to work, but acknowledges there is a long way to go.
This is an article that is worth your time. What can be done about this teacher shortage?
I feel this is on track with what you might have seen last month in another post, even if indirectly. Or if you want to talk about a so-called "war on boys". Does public education ruin Black males?
My history is a mixed bag. My time in public education could be view as could've been better. I don't think I ever found my groove. Perhaps it wasn't up to any of the teachers I had, perhaps it was more up to me. Then again as a child having an education provided for you is something you could take for granted while you have it.
I won't say it ruined me, but in the long run perhaps there was more that could've been gained by the experience. Perhaps for the day I finally have children something to think about for them.
Sorry to have not warned you of a couple of instances of profanity in advance. I've seen this video numerous times and it would've been more thoughtful of me to state that before you watch.
[VIDEO] Today's message from Casey Neistat. As important a message over two years later as it is today. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something. If you have a dream hold onto it and make it happen. If you get sidetracked recover and don't let anyone "hate" on you for following your dream.
You might have seen this at The Sixth Ward with the flyer below from a friend of the blog Zack Issacs. If you want to know how to start on finishing your education this is it...
We want to announce a back to school event -- but not for the kids.
Rather, it is for adults who need to finish their education, whether for
high school, associate's or bachelor's degree.
Meet at the Greater Grand Crossing Library, 1000 E. 73rd Street (73rd and South Chicago).
The tme and date is Saturday August 3, from2:30pm to 4:30pm.
Contact Zack with questions or to RSVP at 708-629-1933 .
