Oil Prices Rise On OPEC News -- What A Bunch Of Earthenware Shards; Quick! Name The Most Significant Statistic Regarding Chicago Homicides -- November 1, 2016

Reuters: "oil prices rise from one-month lows after OPEC approves strategy." This was the lead story over at Yahoo!Finance.

• rises from one-month lows
• OPEC
• strategy

Before reading the story, I checked the "Futures." WTI is up a whopping ten cents, up to $46.96. Give me a break: "oil prices rise from one-month lows after OPEC approves strategy."

I don't even have the energy to write any more following that headline.  What a bunch of crock. Up ten cents, well below $50, and Reuters attributes this to "OPEC strategy." LOL. Why do I even bother.

Quick. YouTube. Put me out of this misery. It's been awhile since I've heard this one:

Twist In My Sobriety, Tanita Tikaram

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Chicago Homicides: 614 So Far This Year

At A Level Unseen In More Than A Decade

Updates

November 7, 2016: in the original post, homicides were noted to be 45% higher yoy. Now, just one week later, the homicide rate is up an astounding 55% yoy.

For the second weekend in a row, more than 50 people were shot in Chicago as the number of homicides this year rose to more than 50 percent above the same period last year. [55% according to the headline.]

More than 660 people have been killed in the city so far this year. The number of people shot in Chicago this year is more than a thousand above what it was this time last year, from 2,620 to 3,795.

From Friday afternoon to late Sunday, 10 people were killed and 41 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago, in addition to a man shot to death by police on Saturday.

Among the wounded was a 78-year-old man who was dragged out of a car in Englewood on Sunday and shot in the head. He was listed in serious condition.

Being reported nowhere except in local Chicago newspapers. 

Original Post

Wall Street Journal. Of all the data points, this is the one that really, really stood out. I can't put my arms around 600 homicides in ten months; is that good, bad, indifferent. But this puts it in perspective: homicides in Chicago are up 45% from the same period one year ago. Up 45%.

If "anything" else resulted in a 45% increase in deaths in one city the CDC, the NIH, the WHO, would all be called in to determine the cause, and find a cure. 

I don't think this has even been mentioned by the presidential candidates this past year, even in the primaries. But we sure heard about the fracking that caused the lead problem in Detroit (Hillary). Homicides, whether it was 50 or 100 or 1,000 may or may not mean something, but when it is a 45% increase over the previous year and the federal government seems unconcerned ... wow.

And as one reads the article, it gets worse. The rate in Chicago is "driving" the national homicide rate which is projected to rise over 30% from 2014. Again, if this was due to something the oil and gas industry was doing, the Feds would be all over it. The UN seems uninterested. I haven't seen any NIH study that explains it. The CDC, the World Health Organization, where are they?

The mayor helps us put it in perspective (thank goodness). Back in the 1990s more than 900 people were murdered each year -- so, apparently things aren't as bad as they seem. As the mayor has said: the 1990s trend has been reversed.

It looks like one cause for the increase: the police cracked down on gangs, broke them up, and now with more fragmentation, more chaos. There are now more than 600 gangs in Chicago and more than 100,000 members. Somehow I kind of knew this would get back to blaming police or police activity or past police strategy and/or practices. If the police had just ignored the gangs, I guess, the homicide rate would be way down. Wait, didn't we just hear that there were 900 homicides back in the 1990s?

If the murder rate has increased 45%, one wonders what else is occurring where these murders are taking place.

The article comes up with a lot of suggestions why the murder rate has increased, but the obvious question is why does Chicago seem to be the outlier among American cities when it comes to homicides. Why is it Chicago, not New York? Why is it Chicago, and not Los Angeles? Why is it Chicago, and not Detroit? Why is it Chicago, and not Baltimore, or Washington (DC), or Miami? One would think the NIH, the CDC, the WHO, someone would be interested.

The article is worth a read; lots of things to ponder. 

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Notes to the Granddaughters

I missed the Monday night football game tonight -- neighborhood Halloween party. But not to worry: ESPN has something that in less than five (5) minutes of video recaps the entire game, not just the MNF game but every NFL football game played the most recent weekend. No wonder NFL ratings are in the tank. NFL football is no longer "must-see" football. One can find re-caps / highlights 24/7.

It is quite amazing how far we have come. They say NFL ratings are down. Perhaps for any given game in "real time," but overall, my hunch is more eyeballs than ever on NFL football if one aggregates all the venues and all the minutes devoted to NFL. In fact, I understand there's something called the NFL Network. For all I know it's in my Spectrum (formerly known as Timer Warner) package. I haven't bothered going through the list of channels in my package. The only network I'm ever looking for seems to be the one airing the NASCAR race. For the past two weekends, I think NASCAR has been on NBCSN, but the championship race will be on NBC?