A New Year is upon us. It is a time of reflection for most of us. I often use this time to reflect on my deeds in the past year. What did I do that served the people in the right way? Were my intentions, however good they may be, the right ones? Or did they hurt? What can I do to improve myself and those around me? How can I continue to strengthen my relationship with my Lord?

But this time of reflection always comes with a slap to the face if you’re a Chicagoan and work to serve the people like I do: the release of the murder statistics for the past year. These tragic numbers make national news to our shame and remind us of our shortcomings as humans and neighbors. Every one of the murdered were not abstractions but individual souls worth saving and could have been saved. But we didn’t.

In this past year, until December 18, 564 Chicagoans lost their lives to murder. This is 43 fewer victims when compared with 2023 and it is significantly less than in 2021 when 797 lost their lives. There are those like Mayor Brandon Johnson who might try to sell this as progress, but how is going from 797 murders to 564 progress? Especially when most of it was self-inflicted?

THE REAL REASON CHICAGO MAYOR BRANDON JOHNSON IS WORKING SO HARD TO RESIST TRUMP

When I first began my work in Chicago in the early 2000s, the murder rate was tracking in the 600s. After me and others began serious outreach efforts to youths and gang members, we got the murder rates to track mostly in the 400s for a good run of several years.

Then we had the rise of Black Lives Matter in the 2010s and the years after the death of Michael Brown saw a tremendous rise in the murder rate. It jumped from 425 murders in 2014 to 778 murders by 2016 — largely to the police pulling back due to the anti-police sentiment of activists and politicians.

Then came the death of George Floyd and the Defund the Police movement. In 2019, before the world had even heard of Floyd’s name there were 498 murders. Then 772 in 2020, the year he died, and 779 in 2021. We lost hundreds of Black lives to the Defund the Police movement that was formed in the name of saving Black lives but, in reality, only put more power into the hands of self-serving politicians. The tragedy here is that not one politician or activist will face justice for their recklessness with Black lives.

CHICAGO CRIME CRISIS: FIRST HOMICIDE OF 2024 HAPPENS MERE MOMENTS INTO NEW YEAR’S DAY

Previous Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot supported this movement. Current Mayor Johnson supported this movement. Both claim to know the interests and lives of Blacks and they claim to believe that Black lives matter. If that is true, then why did none of the Blacks, who lost their lives as the lawlessness increased during the George Floyd aftermath, matter?

It matters to me and so many people in my community on the South Side and also the West Side, where most of the 564 murders took place. It matters because so many of those murdered were young and in the prime of their lives. Ninety-one of the deceased were between the ages of 0 and 19. One hundred and seventy-seven were between the ages of 20 and 29. One hundred forty-five were between ages 30 and 39. Four hundred and twenty of them were Black and 110 were Latinos. Four hundred ninety-four were males. Five hundred and five of them died by gunfire.

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The one good thing about George Floyd was that it exposed the immorality of politicians and activists who exploit Black lives for cheap power. Though we were foolish enough as Chicagoans to elect the worst mayor of my life, Johnson, into office, there are many of us from community leaders to concerned citizens that realize it’s all-hands-on-the-deck time now. 

We know that Black Lives Matter is a lie. We know that our politicians will not fix our failing schools — after all, what do you expect from a Mayor who refuses to return a $150,000 donation given to him by a rapper facing murder chargers? We know that the harm from Defund the Police movement still lingers.  We know that our youth grow up believing more in the U.S. government than Jesus.

Aside from that, we are battling the disastrous effects caused by 60 years of liberalism. We are fighting the culture of dependency that has been ingrained into so many families generation after generation. We are fighting a culture of hopelessness.

We are fighting on so many fronts in this war, but we are making progress. We are saving lives. What we’re doing here is not magic. We use old-fashioned American principles: responsibility, accountability, merit, etc. We preach belief in Jesus and, if they are of another belief, we still encourage them. Most of all, we stress that one must have belief in themselves.

These are the values that I always return to every year after I hear the demoralizing final tally of murders for the past year. I say my prayer for all those victims’ families and I say a prayer for the strength that we will need for the coming New Year to continue our work to reverse the political, cultural, and educational negatives in our culture and bring that murder rate down to zero. 

Call me a fool if you want, and if you do, answer me this: who deserves to lose their lives to senseless violence that is preventable?

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DETROIT – As the Detroit Lions celebrate another win, Ford Field will take center stage Sunday when the team hosts the Minnesota Vikings.

Monday night’s game at Levi’s Stadium against the San Francisco 49ers highlighted a showdown made in revenge paradise. The Lions defeated the Niners 40-34.

Lions’ fans chant of quarterback Jared Goff’s name rivaled the atmosphere of a home game.

An emotional coach Dan Campbell gave his players praise while admitting he couldn’t even put it into words what he saw on the field.

Campbell rattled off new records including the team’s first 14-win season with the Lions remaining undefeated on the road during the regular season.

“Which tells you at its worst – we can go anywhere and win gentleman,” he said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Wherever the team has gone, through the wins and loses so have the fans. The Lions are not just a team. The team has become embedded in the lives of its fans like Elese Stubbs and her fiancé Keith Butler.

“When the Lions are playing, we watch that together on Sundays,” she said.

Monday game felt epic and bittersweet.

Butler, 69, died of Stage 4 colon cancer Nov. 19, five days after his birthday.

The last win he watched was when the Lions annihilated the Jaguars.

“Oh, he was telling everybody, ‘They’re going to the Super Bowl.’ That’s all we would tell everybody. Anybody said, ‘Oh, they’re the same Lions” – No, they’re not,” Stubbs said.

They’re not. Now, Sundays feel different.

But the Lions remind her of a love she still holds close to her heart.

“It still feels like he’s there hollering at his TV like I’m hollering at mine,” she said.

MILWAUKEE — I’ve done stories on tons of different artists—abstract painters, wood artists, musicians. You name it, I’ve done it. But one day, I was in the depths of the internet, and something caught my eye. I found a person who sews images of dive bar bathrooms, and I just had to learn more.

It started with the Roman Coin bathroom in Milwaukee. Then she did a Summerfest bathroom, Paddy’s Pub, High Dive, and a few others. The next thing Ella Clemons knew, her dive bar images were being featured at the Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee.

“I feel like everyone was kind of rocking with it here in Milwaukee,” Clemons, a fiber artist, said.

The 23-year-old, who is also a bartender, works out of a Bay View studio. It’s an old cream city brick building that has turned into artist’s workspaces.

“I couldn’t imagine myself doing a 9-to-5 or something like that. I just don’t think I’m built that way. I don’t know. I want to create,” she said.

It takes Clemons about 10 hours to sew a bathroom. She does commissions. Prices start around $200. That got me thinking – what bathroom would I want? I’m thinking of Hosed on Brady or the bathrooms at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan which are super artistic.

So you may be thinking: dive bar bathrooms? It’s a little strange. It’s a little dirty. But there’s a beauty in the mundane. Clemons is forcing us to look at something we’ve seen before but in a new way.

James Groh

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“I like people to see something and be like, ‘I definitely know what that is.’ And I think people think it’s kind of funny to see it in fabric form, and I like it too. And it brings—I don’t know—it brings a whimsy to it, I guess,” she said.

She also made a series on highway billboards—you know, personal injury lawyers, religious billboards, fireworks advertisements, and adult store signs. Clemons is inspired by, “mundane day-to-day things that I feel I want to create.”

Ella Clemons

The UW-Milwaukee graduate has been featured in two galleries. She has a good idea for her next series too – sewing strange Facebook Marketplace listings. Beyond that, she has big dreams.

“I would love to make art full-time. That’s a huge goal of mine.”

That is why in 2025, you can find her at her studio sewing dive bar bathrooms, highway signs, Facebook Marketplace listings, or something else just as fun and weird.

“It’s something I could be happy doing, like, forever. I could keep doing it. There’s always going to be more stuff to create,” Clemons said.

To see more of her work or request a commission, send her a message on Instagram.

Watch Ella Clemons’ story here…

Milwaukee fiber artist turns dive bar bathrooms into art

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