Day: February 9, 2006

How much for that bottle in the window?

A wild story comes out of Franklin Park, where lives Oak Parker Democrat, State Sen. Don Harmon’s Republican opponent in the fall election, Jim Rowe.  Rowe called police the other night after a window in his house caught a bottle or decanter with threatening note at 1:30 a.m. and gave way to the bottle. 
 
If you go here, you can view ABC-7’s report of two days ago which has Rowe, an asst. state’s attorney who appeared at the Republican candidates’ forum at the Oak Park library Saturday 2/28, saying he had no trouble on his block until he ran for Harmon’s senate seat. 
 
Earlier, his SUV’s tires were slashed and Harmon campaign literature left on the windshield.  Harmon denies everything and says his people would never do it but wants police to investigate, which they are apparently doing, having taken with them the message-carrying, window-breaking decanter to check for prints.

Political funeral

They came not to bury politics but to practice it, says Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell of the Coretta Scott King obsequies in Atlanta.  “No one says a mean word at a funeral. Even gang-bangers hold their anger until the casket is removed from the sanctuary.”  But it didn’t work that way this time. 
[I]t was selfish and embarrassing to see so many . . . dignitaries use her funeral as their bully pulpits.
 
At a political gathering, it’s fair game to criticize the president.
 
But it was tacky and disrespectful for anyone to launch into a political attack at a funeral.
Rev. Joseph Lowery, for instance:
“We know there were no weapons of mass destruction [in Iraq],” he said. “We know there are weapons of misdirection right down here,” Lowery taunted.
And Jimmy Carter, who “also got in his jabs, criticizing the Bush administration’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina victims.  ‘We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi to know that inequality existed,’ he said.”
 
Neither was Mitchell impressed with him who has been acclaimed the first black president: “As often occurs when Former President Bill Clinton shows up, black folks acted as if he had emancipated the slaves.”
 
“You used to know what to expect at a funeral,” she says.  People “are not there to gawk. They have some connection to the family and they are there to help the relatives bear their grief.”
 
“If politicians and civil rights leaders wanted to call Bush out,” she concludes, “they should have called him at the White House.”
 
Amen, sister.

Political funeral

They came not to bury politics but to practice it, says Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell of the Coretta Scott King obsequies in Atlanta.  “No one says a mean word at a funeral. Even gang-bangers hold their anger until the casket is removed from the sanctuary.”  But it didn’t work that way this time. 
[I]t was selfish and embarrassing to see so many . . . dignitaries use her funeral as their bully pulpits.
 
At a political gathering, it’s fair game to criticize the president.
 
But it was tacky and disrespectful for anyone to launch into a political attack at a funeral.
Rev. Joseph Lowery, for instance:
“We know there were no weapons of mass destruction [in Iraq],” he said. “We know there are weapons of misdirection right down here,” Lowery taunted.
And Jimmy Carter, who “also got in his jabs, criticizing the Bush administration’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina victims.  ‘We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi to know that inequality existed,’ he said.”
 
Neither was Mitchell impressed with him who has been acclaimed the first black president: “As often occurs when Former President Bill Clinton shows up, black folks acted as if he had emancipated the slaves.”
 
“You used to know what to expect at a funeral,” she says.  People “are not there to gawk. They have some connection to the family and they are there to help the relatives bear their grief.”
 
“If politicians and civil rights leaders wanted to call Bush out,” she concludes, “they should have called him at the White House.”
 
Amen, sister.

Zorn today

If I had written Chi Trib’s Eric Zorn’s column today, “Standing up for message behind cartoons,” and just before key-clicking it home did a final check, I would have re-cast the part about inking one’s thumb after voting — which does not do justice to the life-and-death Iraq voting climate and the vote’s historic significance — but would have changed nothing else.  I don’t want to overdo this, but it’s as if Zorn’s newspaper career has led to this column, which oh so neatly presents the situation, or state of the question, as we philosophy students used to say, argues it and concludes:
I’m on the side that says if your good ideas can’t peacefully win out over my bad ideas, maybe your ideas aren’t so good.
 
I’m on the side that says that any belief worth having-be it love of a country, of a deity, of an ideology or of a person –must be strong enough to absorb criticism and be impervious to mockery.
The column is also posted on his blog site, “Change of Subject,” where you can post your own comments.

Zorn today

If I had written Chi Trib’s Eric Zorn’s column today, “Standing up for message behind cartoons,” and just before key-clicking it home did a final check, I would have re-cast the part about inking one’s thumb after voting — which does not do justice to the life-and-death Iraq voting climate and the vote’s historic significance — but would have changed nothing else.  I don’t want to overdo this, but it’s as if Zorn’s newspaper career has led to this column, which oh so neatly presents the situation, or state of the question, as we philosophy students used to say, argues it and concludes:
I’m on the side that says if your good ideas can’t peacefully win out over my bad ideas, maybe your ideas aren’t so good.
 
I’m on the side that says that any belief worth having-be it love of a country, of a deity, of an ideology or of a person –must be strong enough to absorb criticism and be impervious to mockery.
The column is also posted on his blog site, “Change of Subject,” where you can post your own comments.