Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: That toddlin' town...

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: That toddlin' town...:

That toddlin' town...

by Mike Klonsky

Yesterday at 61st & Cottage Grove

Students 'die-in" to save their schools

Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, an organizer with Southside Together Organizing for Power, and others called the event — in which students blocked traffic in the intersection of 61st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue — a "die-in." Students wore mock-bloody clothes in an effort to show the effect they believe school closings will have: more violence and death for the young students forced to cross new gang territories.

"The message is that school closings are killing people," Ginsberg-Jaeckle said. "Everyone knows what will happen when these kids start crossing these gang lines."  The students laid down in the intersection, blocking traffic for several minutes before being taken away by police after refusing to leave, witnesses said.  -- DNAInfo Chicago

 High school student Pilar Castro was one of those who was arrested moments after she told fellow demonstrators, “All my great teachers taught me that if you believe in something, you can make 

Byrd-Bennett under wraps? Rahm supports the 'thrust..."

by Mike Klonsky

“I support the thrust of what Barbara said. We’re 100 percent hand-in-glove ...

The glove metaphor is an appropriate one. Barbara Byrd-Bennett is under wraps again, like she was a year ago. We've hardly heard a peep from her since her comical and embarrassing comments which followed months of school closing hearings. You may remember, 20,000 Chicagoans spoke in one voice at those hearings---"Fix