"Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday he had an 'honest, frank conversation' with Spike Lee to let the movie director know..."

"... that he doesn�t like, 'Chiraq,' the working title of Lee's coming movie on black-on-black violence based in Chicago�s crime-ridden Englewood community."

Emanuel didn�t say whether he asked Lee to change the name.... But the mayor made it clear that he had used the Hollywood pipeline provided by his brother, super-agent Ari Emanuel, to make his feelings known directly to Spike Lee. The face-to-face meeting took place in the mayor�s office prior to Wednesday�s City Council meeting....

In an apparent attempt to soften the blow of the title, "Chiraq," Lee... noted that gun violence is �not limited� to Chicago. It�s happening in Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York, where he�s from. He even talked about the derogatory name used to describe a part of Brooklyn where he�s from. He talked about how similarly insulting names applied to Philadelphia and Baltimore.

Well, apparently "Chiraq" is a great title. It's getting such high level attention. You can't buy that kind of PR. Obviously, it's also negative PR for the city, but Rahm is trying to squeeze good PR out of the bad (on the theory that Chicago isn't really that bad and even if it is, other cities are also bad... or worse).



ADDED: From a year ago: "How Chicago Became 'Chiraq'":

President Obama may have gotten our troops out of Iraq, but the gunfire in his hometown of Chicago is still earning it a searing nickname coined by young people who live there.

Chiraq.