Chicago

A joke for our friends in Chicago!

Posted on by Mike
chicago bears joke

The coach had put together the perfect team for the Chicago Bears. The only thing missing was a good quarterback  He scouted and scouted but couldn’t find a quarterback who could give the Bears a shot at a Super Bowl win.

Then one night while watching the news he saw a war-zone scene in the West Bank.  In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Israeli soldier with a truly incredible arm.  He threw a hand grenade straight into a 15th story window 100 yards away. KABOOM!

He threw another hand grenade 75 yards away, right into a chimney. KA-BLOOEY! Then he threw another at a passing car going 90 mph. BULLS-EYE!

“I’ve got to get this guy!” the coach said to himself.  “He has the perfect arm!” 

So, he brings him to the States and teaches him the great game of football.  And the Bears go on to win the Super Bowl.

The young man is hailed as a great hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants is to call his mother.

“Mom,” he says into the phone, “I just won the Super Bowl!”

“I don’t want to talk to you”, the old woman says.  “You are not my son!”

“I don’t think you understand, Mom,” the young man pleads. “I’ve won the greatest sporting event in the world.  I’m here among thousands of my adoring fans.”

“No!  Let me tell you!”  his mother retorts.  “At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us.  The neighborhood is a pile of rubble.  Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn’t get raped!”

The old lady pauses, and then tearfully says,……….”I’ll never forgive you for making us move to Chicago!”

The young man is hailed as a great hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants is to call his mother.

“Mom,” he says into the phone, “I just won the Super Bowl!”

“I don’t want to talk to you”, the old woman says.  “You are not my son!”

“I don’t think you understand, Mom,” the young man pleads. “I’ve won the greatest sporting event in the world.  I’m here among thousands of my adoring fans.”

“No!  Let me tell you!”  his mother retorts.  “At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us.  The neighborhood is a pile of rubble.  Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn’t get raped!”

The old lady pauses, and then tearfully says,……….”I’ll never forgive you for making us move to Chicago!”

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ER workers on gang violence: ‘We’re in a war zone, too’

Posted on by Mike
emergency room we're in a war zone too

When two women were shot standing outside Chicago’s Mount Sinai Hospital the other night — waiting for news of a relative who’d himself been shot earlier — a witness asked a Tribune reporter: “What kind of city do we live in?”

The next day the hospital was locked down because of a virtual riot in the lobby.

Chicago is heading toward a mayoral election year so City Hall insists that crime is down. But ER workers — the nurses and doctors who deal with threats and angry families and friends of gang members — know different.

It’s only May. The violence is ramping up.

“We see so much sadness, we work with good people, our Sinai family, and we have many patients who are, well, patient,” a Mount Sinai nurse told me. “But there’s the other side. Every night nurses are verbally abused, physically threatened, spit on. It’s a constant barrage. It can get scary. They say, ˜I’ll get you after work.’

“And this shooting that happened just the other night outside the hospital? It happened right where I get picked up after work,” the nurse said. “It’s the law of averages. It’s a roll of the dice with gangs out of control. That’s my life, man.”

As Chicago is again forced to confront the facts of a depleted police force and the gang wars heating up, I put out the question on social media: What about the hospital workers?

“Mount Sinai is the worst because the ER is right off the street,” said a Chicago paramedic. “You’ve got the families angry when their kid is killed, they’re angry, pushing, some threaten the health care workers. It’s insane man. There’s so much anger out there. It’s chaos.”

I’m not identifying those I interviewed by name. I wanted them to speak freely, without a corporate suit in the room to intimidate them while taking notes.

But I also spoke with Jeff Solheim, president of the Emergency Nurses Association, which represents 43,000 ER nurses internationally.

Solheim was in Washington on Tuesday pushing for legislation that would require hospitals to report workplace violence and determine security protocols. He said studies show that most if not all ER nurses have been subject to some kind of verbal or physical abuse, from being spat on to being seriously injured.

“Look what happened in Chicago,” Solheim said. “We need a safe environment for us and our patients. People shouldn’t have to fear for their lives when they go to work.”

From the Chicago Tribune

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