Added 5.22.18. From not-so-distant decades when aldermen and committeemen had the Real Juice, to the present day where power is more concentrated in the Mayor’s Office, novelist Mark M. Quinn in this 2009 conversation with Milt explores the fascinating and dismaying ins and outs of Chicago political corruption. It’s a somewhat fluid and nuanced thing, and will likely remain so. Quinn had just authored a roman-a-clef titled, “The Chairman – A Novel Of Big City Politics.”

Added 5.7.18. Milt opens up the line to callers to talk about an epidemic of street violence including 11 fatal shootings and the wounding of 43 others over Chicago’s 2012 Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately, the storyline gained impetus in the years to follow. Hear what Chicagoans calling in to the show, and public officials, had to say then.

Over 800 people died in the middle of the Chicago River on an early morning at dockside one sunny day in July of 1915. Matching the tragedy of the Titanic, it is now lost in memory except for the tales still told in Chicago. Here is a striking account by Jay Bonansinga. He did the definitive history and discussed it with us one night in 2004. Of equal interest are the phone calls from descendants of some of the survivors.

What goes on in and around Chicago? We talk edwith one of the finest feature writers in the business, the Chicago Tribune’s Ron Grossman. Topics included the quality of undergraduate education, the overrun of the academy by political correctness (including a story about one academic’s quest to question the sexuality of Sherlock Holmes), and the political history of Chicago.

TV reporter John “Bulldog” Drummond tells of the characters of ill repute that he has gotten to know over his extensive career.