Christmas remains the last holiday of the year where the majority of people will have the day off. It will also be the day that family members may see one another, sit down for dinner and catch up on what has been going on in their lives. If you’re sitting around and need some subjects for discussion, let me offer a few that everyone should address.
First, social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Facetime, Pinterest, Myspace (yeah it is still around), Foursquare and lots of others. Have you as a responsible adult checked the social media pages of the young people in your family? I took a look at the Facebook page of one of the young boys accused in the murder of DeMario Bailey. There the young thug stood, fingers bent in gang signs. Several pictures later, he and his crew all had guns. Had anyone who had an ounce of sense in his family seen his page before the murder, perhaps it could have been prevented. Our young people now more than ever are influenced by the stupidity of their cohorts and parents need to monitor what their children are doing. If you as an adult are paying for their smartphone bill, then take the time to know what dumb thing they are doing with those phones.
Next, everyone in the family needs to discuss that in a police versus civilian encounter, the police are right even if they are wrong. Tis’ better to live and complain about the encounter than to act like you can do whatever you want and not live to tell about it.
The murders of Mike Brown and Eric Gardner by the police and the murder of police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos in New York, and Charles “Charlie K” Kondek in Florida by criminals have put both sides on edge.
Here’s a topic that I personally found extremely insulting. Genuine racism is a topic that should be discussed. The recent examples, however, given by the first family about the president being handed car keys and having been mistaken for the valet parker (that had to be years before he became president) and the first lady saying that she was mistaken for the help in Target are two trite and silly examples that I would expect to hear out of “B-List” celebrities trying to make a name for themselves and not out of the First family.
The upcoming municipal election for mayor, city clerk, treasurer and alderman should be on everyone’s list of things to discuss.
First, everyone should check their registration status online at the Chicago Board of Election website (www.chicagoelections.com). If you have moved, changed your name or registered at the Secretary of State and it didn’t get forwarded, then it’s time to re-register. I don’t want to see a repeat of the hours people spent at locations trying to register and vote like they did for the midterm elections in November. The current mayor is doing all he can to pretend that he cares about the average city residents.
Got a coal plant that employs people and was there before the houses, just let the mayor know and like Superman he will be there to take credit for closing it down even if he didn’t have anything to do with it. He now loves the city colleges while forgetting all the harm he has done to the Chicago Public Schools that educate and send the folks on for a college education. And the latest commercial with the young lady unable to support her two children on minimum wage begs to me to ask her if she has checked out the city taxes on those bills she is barely able to pay? And a reminder that in this country, every new dollar you make is taxed. So being paid more also means being taxed more.
Merry Christmas!
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