UNINDEXED

Here is a story from the Hyde Park Herald from earlier this summer about some of the less obvious problems surrounding medical research.

U. of C. Eating Disorder Clinic for Youth Seeking Patients

8.31.2011

Daniel Le Grange has a problem: He has more free health care to offer than patients.

Le Grange is director of the Eating Disorders Clinic at the University of Chicago Medical Center and has funding from the National Institutes of Health to treat 248 anorexic and bulimic teens free of charge. The problem is finding the patients, which shouldn’t be hard since the disorder affects more than one in 16 Americans teens age 13 to 18.

The British- and South African-trained psychologist has tried a bevy of options to promote his services. He took out newspaper ads. He put fliers on

windshields. Maybe you saw him in a polo shirt and khakis or one of his two assistants passing out promotional fans at the Air and Water Show.

Le Grange seems like an agreeable person to receive treatment from. He is a leader in the field of the psychological

treatment of eating disorder. He wears dark-rimmed glasses and speaks with a calm and dignified South African accent. But for every seven people he can convince to call the clinic, only two will show up for their appointment.

Once, he gets patients in the door, most stay for the duration of the treatment. Better than 90 percent of anorexic teens will see out the full six months of treatment. More than 80 percent of bulimic teens ride it out.

Le Grange attributes his difficulties partially to common misperceptions of the disorders.

“These are not self-afflicted fads - there are serious consequences,” Le Grange said in his cool dim office at the medical center on Aug. 24.

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Chicago’s police superintendent plans to shut down the local district house in Hyde Park and hand over control to the neighboring 2nd District commander. At the superintendent’s last visit to the neighborhood, he talked about how much control he plans to put in the hands of local commanders.

The local alderman down here, Will Burns, is not happy with this arrangement and is hosting a community meeting with the police superintendent at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, at St. Paul The Redeemer Church, 4945 S. Dorchester Ave.

The following is my Oct. 5 story, in which Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy outlines his current conception of the department.

McCarthy vows to improve police business

10.5.2011

Chicago Police Department Superintendent Garry McCarthy stopped by the Sept. 29 3rd Ward meeting to explain how to solve the city’s crime problems: More cops on the beat and more accountability in the local districts.

“We know how to reduces crime,” McCarthy said, outlining a plan that called for less centralized authority and more cooperation with community stakeholders. “I don’t think we’ve ever done this in an organized fashion to affect the big picture of the crime on the street.”

McCarthy said he would put the organizational authority for such a plan in the hands of the neighborhood’s police district commanders.

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A lot of my job is tracking people down. I use all the obvious tools, public records phone books, etc. But I thought I would share one that is a little less obvious.

In 2008, then-candidate Toni Preckwinkle had her campaign website content replaced with a message from a group advocating for prayer in schools. The campaign staff had no idea how it got there and there was no contact information on the site at the time to track down the advocacy group.

Here’s where the Internet gets fun. All domains are registered. Using a WHOIS search, I tracked down the home phone number, address and name of one of the group’s leaders. My calls were not returned, but I use this all the time to track down sources. If they have a website — if they have almost any online footprint — I can find them.

The following is my unpublished story from August 2008.

Preckwinkle site taken over by prayer group

8.11.2008

Ald. Toni Preckwinkle’s office confirmed that they are not associated with content on the website citizensforpreckwinkle.com.

The alderman’s staff said they noticed the site had been “hacked” several months ago and are looking into who is behind it.

The alderman’s campaign website was replaced with the content of Operation “Put it Back,” a group advocating for prayer in public schools.

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The University of Chicago is opening up its planned development for revision. To be frank, this happens a lot. But it’s not often that a big meeting is called to discuss the changes.

Zoning is a big concept to get one’s head around. It’s even more difficult when you don’t have the documents to reference.

What I’ve included here:

• A primer on planned developments and the specifics of the University of Chicago’s plans as they’re currently known.
• An interactive map of the properties to be included in the amendment.
• A report from the university’s first public meeting on the planned development.
• The original planned development document from the city, unamended.

I’ll be the first to admit this can be confusing for most people. For those who want to be involved in the process or just want to be aware of what’s happening, this should begin to answer your questions.

If you have questions I haven’t answered, please leave them in the comments.

I’ll be updating as the process goes forward.

University to alter planning documents, invites neighbors

June 22, 2011

About 1,000 Hyde Park homeowners have received a letter in light legalese from the University of Chicago asking them to attend a meeting to “update a formal document called a planned development.

“Whenever we request a change in our PD, you, as a nearby landowner, receive legal notification, and we want to let you know that you will be receiving such a letter later this summer,” says the letter from Civic Engagement Director Ellen Sahli.

The letter has confounded some the homeowners around the campus’ perimeter.

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Ever since the Chicago Reader recently redesigned, I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly an alternative newspaper is. All I’ve been able to come up with is a division of the audience into two vague sections, figuring the audience for the alternative press are intellectual risk takers. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I tried to get at it in a recent e-mail to a colleague.

The following are my early thoughts on how to edit for intellectual risk takers:

I think you can break the audience down into two segments: The invested and the dis-invested. I mean that kind of literally. Papers like the Chicago Tribune (and nearly every other publication) cater to the invested, readers who have a vested interest in long-term stability. So, if I had kids, I’d care about schools. If I had a house, I’d care about property values and all the things that drive them up and down. If I had a 401K or a pension, I’d care about all the various things that cause tremors in the market. And I would be strongly biased towards low-risk proposals to change any of those.

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Less than a week until the election and I just wanted to make sure my recent story in the Hyde Park Herald on the 4th Ward aldermanic campaigns’ fund raising was online.

State Rep. Will Burns (D-26) is way ahead — I mean like looking down on the other candidates from atop his mountain of cash ahead. In a race where other candidates are largely bankrolling their own campaigns, it’s surprising how much of that money Burns is spending. I would venture to say that Norman Bolden and George Rumsey are the only other candidates with any real name recognition in the ward, and they’re both relegated to little pockets they don’t venture out of too often. Still, Burns spent $22,500 on polling from Anzalone Liszt Research, a firm that seems to have a solid hold in Illinois despite its Alabama Zip Code.

Burns has the right wallets open to afford it though. Fred Eychaner, the reclusive president of Newsweb, downtown parking lot king and Dem booster, pitched in $10,000 to the campaign.

With the huge Michael Reese Hospital parcel opening up for development in the near future, a lot of donors may be getting in early with the new gatekeeper. I mention the pharmaceutical industry’s donations in the article, but there are a fair number of retail-connected firms throwing in a few bucks too.

• McLaurin Development Partners and owner Zebedee McLaurin, $2,500 total. A large real estate developer with ties to national retail chains. Brought strip malls to Chatham and other South Side neighborhoods.
• Target Corporation, $500.
• Sears Holdings Management Corp., $500.
• Meijer, $1,000.
• McLane Company of Temple, Texas, $1,000. Supplier to fast food chains like KFC, Arby’s and others.
• Knight Partners, $1,000. An engineering and architectural firm with contracts with the Chicago Department of Transportation, Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Park District and others.

You can see a little of the back-and-forth in the releases too. The Government Navigation Group, $1,000. Lobbying firm. Burns paid $1,000 for an event ticket for one of their clients, the antigun group Brady PAC Illinos.

There’s plenty more to dig through. Everything seems above board. I questioned a $5,000 donation from Medley’s Self Storage, a company owned by Howard C. Medley, a former CTA board member convicted in 1993 of taking a $25,000 bribe from a contractor. Another contribution came in recently from Medley’s, pushing it up to $10,000 total for Burns.

The late money is always interesting. David Weinberg, the artist associated with the Weinberg Gallery and also a charter school booster on the board of Illinois Network of Charter Schools, donated $2,500. ASGK Public Strategies, where Burns is a managing director, also pledged $1,500.

What does all this say? That Burns is a politician, just like he’s been saying the whole time on the campaign trail.

Toni Preckwinkle set the precedent here. She always said, you can take money from whoever you want as long as you and they both know they’re not buying anything with their donation.

I’m just surprised none of the other candidates have tried to use Burns’ money against him. Hasn’t happened yet.

Burns ahead in cash

4.9.2010

During the last six months of 2010, many 4^th Ward candidates got their campaigns rolling with an infusion from their own wallets, according to disclosures posted by the state late last month.

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I didn’t spend much time on photos over the last year, choosing to focus on writing instead. Of the ones I did take, I think this one from the Chicago Blackhawks’ victory parade is my favorite — probably just because I come from a family that still spends Thanksgiving arguing about college hockey over pickled herring.

I’m pretty happy with this one I took on one of my few forays out of the city to the Wisconsin Dells, but it doesn’t say much about the last year. The same trip produced my favorite portrait of the year.

There is still one roll on my desk from this year — this could all be moot.

Not that it changes anything, but these are all shot on film with a Contax TVS.

My portrait of then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-14) during an October 2006 meeting of the Daily Chronicle editorial board.

photo Marc Monaghan Feb. 1, 2010

I spent Sunday riding with Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), who’s running for president of the Cook County Board. I spent a lot of time thinking about the cultural differences between the South and West sides of Chicago as our columnist Timuel Black describes them, though I don’t know if I’m confident enough in my own assessment to write heavily on it.

The title of this post is a reference to a quote that didn’t make it into the story. Giannoulias is the “surer bet” to get elected, according to Preckwinkle. If that’s the case, Preckwinkle is the surest bet.

There are very subtle tones of how class is discussed in these communities that I still want to ruminate on for a while. The way Preckwinkle describes herself in relation to Obama is telling, particularly considering her audience.

The following story ran on the front of the Lakefront Outlook and buried in the middle of the calendar in the Hyde Park Herald this week.

Preckwinkle pushing for Quinn on West Side in final days

10.26.2010

Rev. Steve Greer reflexively leaned back as Toni Preckwinkle leaned in to give the kiss on the cheek that is the ingrained symbol of esteem in the South Side wards. But this was the West Side, where Preckwinkle was out campaigning in the last days before the Nov. 2 election.

On Sunday, Ald. Preckwinkle (4th) spent the morning urging parishioners to vote at West Side churches with her guide Bobbie Steele, the first Black woman to sit in the Cook County Board president seat Preckwinkle is now seeking.

At Rev. Greer’s Greater St. John Baptist Church, Preckwinkle began warming up a joke that she would retell four times at churches in Austin, Garfield Park and Lawndale.

“The president lives in my ward,” Preckwinkle said. “He lives on the north side of 51st Street where the mansions are. I live on the south side of 51st Street where the condos are.”

As a former history teacher, she plays stern better than jocular, but earned her laughs, before making her pitch that, though he’s not on the ticket, the upcoming election is about President Barack Obama.

The Republicans want to win big in Illinois so they can use it to embarrass Obama — rub it in that his home state doesn’t support him, Preckwinkle forewarned. “That’s what is at stake here, the president’s prestige,” she intoned.

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I wrote this piece about University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer over a year ago now. It was one of the few occasions I’ve had to hear him clearly outline the underlying philosophy guiding the large expansion of the university. For some reason I always think this story was never published, but it apparently did. Figured some Hyde Parkers might like having this around to reference as I have been unsuccessful since to land a one-on-one interview with him.

My style has matured in the last year-and-a-half, so forgive the looseness of some of the syntax.

Zimmer’s philosophy allows no room for stasis

4.23.2008

University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer lifted the veil April 17 during a brown bag forum “What Matters to Me and Why” revealing a worldview that is guiding new initiatives at the university.

“When I look out into the world, what do I see?” Zimmer said. “I am constantly struck by two things: what a physicist would capture as entropy and structure.”

In terms of the university, Zimmer said, he sees it as a structure that requires an enormous input of energy — focused, imaginative energy — without which it succumbs to the omnipresent tendency towards entropy.

Zimmer said he sees no lack of energy or imagination at the university, but that energy lacks focus.

“I can get interested in any problem,” he said. “But to allow oneself to do that is a perfect example of how one allows themselves to dissipate.”

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