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Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • CPS Gets Help From Discovery Channel

    With tales of cannibalistic giant squids and endangered leatherback turtles that travel thousands of miles to lay eggs on the beaches where they were born, Philippe Cousteau, grandson of famed oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, tried to capture the imaginations of children at a North Side school Friday. … “It’s not about textbooks anymore,” said Cousteau, TV’s…

  • One Great School, Not Part of CPS

    [Providence St. Mel] The lauded West Side high school — profiled in “The Providence Effect,” a documentary that hit the big screen last year — has long been considered a national model for urban education, sending 100 percent of its low- to very low-income students to college for 30 years. Its uniformed students each morning…

  • Daley, Chico Squable on Education

    In a back-n-forth through the press: “This is not a personal attack on Mayor Daley,” Chico said. Daley has done a “tremendous job in this city,” Chico said, but added he would continue to “call it the way I see it.” (Full story here.) What?!  A “tremendous job?”  The city has sold off revenue sources…

  • Girls Getting Cheated at Sports at CPS

    The National Women’s Law Center filed complaints against 12 U.S. school districts where district data showed a double-digit gap between the percentage of female students and the percentage of female athletes. According to the complaint, that gap is 33 percentage points in Chicago high schools, the highest among the cited schools. According to the center,…

  • October 8, 2008

    By a 49-0 vote, the Chicago City Council approved a $2.5 billion, 99-year lease of Midway Airport to a private operator. … The Daley administration has not yet announced how it would spend the $1 billion the lease would yield after airport debt is repaid. (Full story here.) Second Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti votes with…

  • How Can the Park District be Broke?

    Park visitors may soon see advertisements on Chicago Park District property such as lifeguard stands, garbage cans and tennis courts, as officials look for ways to plug a $22 million hole in next year’s budget. (Full story here.) The Chicago Park District owns Solider Field; that big ugly thing many Second Ward residents can see…

  • You Owe $11,647, & That’s Just for Pensions

    Part 1 of 2 on just how completely broken the City’s pension system has become. Chicago’s public pension funds are teetering on the brink of insolvency in large part because city officials and union leaders repeatedly exploited the system, draining away billions of dollars in the last decade to serve short-term political needs…. As a…

  • City Pension Funds Poorly Managed

    Part 2 of 2 on just how completely broken the City’s pension system has become. Trustees of Chicago’s failing public pension funds have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into highly speculative investments that not only have failed to realize outsize returns but also saddled them with underperforming, long-term assets that can’t be sold off,…

  • They Don’t Want You to Know

    I bet you have no idea how many shootings there have been in Chicago this year. Me either. And it’s not because I haven’t tried to find out. About two months ago, I started reporting on crime and public safety. In light of the on-again, off-again handgun ban and Supt. Jody Weis’ insistence that there…

  • People flee high-taxes

    Americans are fleeing high tax, union-dominated states and settling in states with lower taxes, right-to-work laws and lower government spending. (Full story here.) Chicago is burdened with not only high taxes but outrageous debt (more stories to follow on that issue shortly.)  We have to understand that we are not going to be able to…

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