Ever since I started writing about the killing of Jeremiah Sterling, my friend Brendan Shiller has been pushing back, telling me that my because I focus so much on the actual violence and loss, I’m contributing to the impression that violence is greater now, when in fact the murder rate in Chi

By the time this goes up on the site, I’ll be speeding from Iowa back to Chicago, where we’ll take the briefest breather and then fly south to Miami. It is what my wife is calling our new holiday arrangement: Christmas with her family, New Year’s with mine.

Sometime tonight, Jeremiah Sterling’s mother, sister and a group of close friends will get together to celebrate what would have been his 17th birthday.A young man with a beautiful smile and, by all accounts, a joker, a charmer and something of a star in the world of footworking, Jeremiah was

On Saturday, Congress got rid of the odious Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy which banned queer folks from serving in the military.

Lordy, anything could happen with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the bill with nine lives.Right now, the damn thing depends entirely on Dem majority leader Harry Reid in the Senate, who has not yet committed to take an actual vote.Yes, Reid’s for repeal; yes, he forced an imp

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, as I suggested on Nov.10, is unlikely to pass this session.

The senate cloture vote on the defense authorization bill went down this afternoon, 57 to 40, largely along party lines, most likely killing any hope of passing repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in this session, and probably for years, given the incoming Republican majority in the House of