If all but one or two of the Democrat candidates who spoke at the library today were to look hard at their names for an “s” and immediately place a line through it top to bottom, that would be just fine. It would be better if they would write “public” or “your and my” in brackets before the “s”  That way we would understand each other and be off to a rousing primary in March and an even more rousing general election in November. As it was, they were very interesting to a free-market Republican like me.

State Rep. Deborah Graham, unopposed in March, said she’s for “affordable” housing and low-cost (cheap) health care. Chris Welch, state rep candidate opposing incumbent Karen Yarbrough, analyzed public-education problems as lack of “resources.” (Wait. I want to draw two vertical lines in that word.) You say, “Money is not the answer”? Welch does not buy that. In addition, he’s against high ATM fees and two kinds of loan, “predatory” and “payday.” That is to say, he wants a ceiling on rates. (Bankers for Welch are meeting in the phone booth across the street.)

Rep. Karen Yarbrough, now in her third term, wants “housing” for the “homeless” by way of “subsidies.” She is against smoking in public space but is for Gov. Blago’s “AllKids” health care plan. (And be sure to add that vertical line to the “s” in Kids. Thank you.) She is also opposed to the high prices of things but is sadly realizing that her constituents don’t know how to tap into “the state,” which is why she tries and will keep trying to “bring Springfield to the people.” (This calls for a mountain-to-Muhammad comment, but people are edgy lately about such references.)

Michael Nardello, who lives a few blocks north of North Avenue, where he is a precinct captain, opposes Sen. Don Harmon in March sans organizational endorsement. He’s director of finance for the City of Chicago’s Dept. on Aging, whose budget dropped from $35 million to $28 million in recent years (he said how many years, but I did not catch it), with neither reduction in services nor layoffs! Lacking support from “party leaders” to whom others must report, he will report only to those who elect him, he said. (This, though not original, is a good line. Harmon right after him simply stated the opposite: he reports to the people too.) Nardello took a shot at the state’s “taxing system,” said it imposes “unfair burdens,” a position which should appeal to all taxpayers.

Harmon, who is OP’s Dem committeeman, put in a word for national Dem chairman Howard Dean, saying he is “pleased with the results” of Dean’s party chairmanship (putting himself at odds with those national Dems who are not pleased, especially with what Dean has done with their money). Harmon praised the $180 million he got for early childhood ed, a job-training center in Austin, his work to raise the minimum wage (the apple of most Dems’ eyes), and four or five other achievements which he rattled off with aplomb, ending with something called “open-source council” which I will look up some day but not now. Harmon also favors “programs,” a Dem staple, to solve housing problems and lower the price of “gas and gasoline,” with attention to “gouging.”

Rep. Calvin Giles said it would be hard to tell his 12 years’ achievements in the two minutes given each candidate. (Not and still have time to recount his problems with the state election board, which had him off the ballot until he ponied up a batch of fines.) He too rejoiced in the $180 million for early childhood. (What would early childhood do without it?) And he emphasized his access to (once smoke-filled) “rooms” as a “senior legislator,” where he performed as “a champion for education.” He looked ahead to the jobs that would develop from expansion of O’Hare Airport and the Eisenhower Expressway — $300 million in projects. He wants to “get people pre-qualified for these jobs.”

LaShawn Ford, his opponent in the primary, is actually a businessman, whose real estate offices are in four locations, he said. As such, he “knows what it means to get things done.” He noted the closing of Austin High school, wondering how “this person” Calvin Giles can claim to be a leader in education problems in view of this closing. He emphasized providing “all taxpayers” with “the services they need.”

Sen. Kimberly Lightford has four years in office and chairs the senate education committee. She’s for more “construction dollars” for public schools but opposes the No Child Left Behind act as “unfair and underfunded.” She objects to putting schools on a watch list from which it takes two years to get removed and opposes giving “the same test” to students “less proficient” in language as is given to the more proficient. She’s for raising the minimum wage and wants to “index” businesses that don’t pay it.

Her opponent in March, James T. Smith, began by reciting the preamble to the state constitution, “We, the people,” etc., to what purpose it was not clear. In any case, it set Calvin Giles and Kimberly Lightford trading sotto voce comments in plain view of all — candidates sat in chairs facing the audience — and chuckling during much of Smith’s two minutes. To make matters worse, as Smith asked us to “believe in the power of one,” the Democracy for Illinois sign taped to a free-standing chalk board behind him began to slip. The more he talked, the happier Lightford looked, in fact. Smith soldiered through, oblivious to the distractions, until at almost the very end of his time, he uttered the words no man or woman would be expected to utter in this gathering: “Don’t throw money at the problem.” (I was so shocked to hear this and was so distracted that I can’t say what problem he was addressing. However, I did make a point of telling him later how brave he was to say it.)

With that the formal session was over. Candidates were expected to “plunge into” the crowd, which they did. I remained seated in the front row except for one foray in direction of Eric Davis, who had chaired the meeting superbly, to ask about him and his organization, Democracy for Illinois. It’s part of Democracy for America, which Howard Dean founded. These, in short, were Deaniacs who held this very informative session. Davis is an architect, he told me when I asked. The local DFI people draw 20 or so per informal session on first Wednesdays at Buzz Cafe on Lombard Avenue, he further told me.

Him I wanted to talk to, in part to commend his performance, and so identified myself as a Wednesday Journal columnist. To someone I did not want to talk to, he identified me as from the Journal, which made me a target for publicity-seekers. I hate that and showed it to two women, consecutively, one of them Mila Tellez, a library trustee elected last time around with support from Davis’s group, he said. Meanwhile, Calvin Giles had spotted me taking notes and come for me, still seated, to shake hands and inquire as to my affiliation. I said I take notes wherever I go — I sure did not feel like explaining Blithe Spirit to him — and finally revealed myself as a WJ columnist. That satisfied him, and he was gone.

It was not that easy getting rid of Tellez, who came at me wanting to know if I was a Democrat or (mere) citizen. From a newspaper? A citizen, I told her, smiling wanly and turning away to look at space. She invited me aggressively to the Democracy for Illinois sessions at the cafe. I remained looking at space until she retreated, muttering “You’re welcome” when I hadn’t said thanks for her invitation. Why did she say that?

DEFENSE … Crime rate is down in Oak Park, except for assaults, thanks in part to increased locking of doors. Is there an equivalent for anti-head-knocking? Probably not, but wouldn’t it be cool? There could be village-sponsored classes in use of the blackjack, for instance, widely publicized for deterrence’s sake.

Classes would teach how to pick the right size and heft, where to conceal it, how to wield it: A quick swipe here (think credit card at Dominick’s), a roundhouse swing there (think Paul Konerko), or a mere brandishing, showing it to the head-knocker (think tank parade in Red Square).

It’s legal if you can prove self-defense—you’d need witnesses—because it’s not illegal. Look it up.

TWO GAPS THERE ARE … The Gap I like is the one where I get dashing $8 pullover shirts that are warm and cozy, long-lasting, and in my view stylish. The one I don’t like is the one between black and white kids in schools, which by the way is being approached the wrong way, as if white’s all right and blacks are stepping back.

The black parent with a sixth-grader reading at first-grade level has a problem—whether whites have the same problem or not—is my point. Better to concentrate on the thing to be done, whatever it takes. It’s not a race but a quest, to be pursued even if it’s you by yourself on a desert island.

Comparisons are odious, as Sir John Fortescue said so well 600-plus years ago, and as did many after him, including Marlowe, Donne, Cervantes in translation, Goldsmith, Burke, and Shakespeare, who played with the expression, having Dogberry in “Much Ado about Nothing” observe that comparisons are “odorous.”

The thing to do is go all Martin Luther Kingly color-blind and save race-discussion therapy sessions for village hall or the library. School is for solving learning problems, not social problems.

GO TEAM GO … My lucrative Wednesday Journal contract forbids me to name the Other Paper in this column, much less to praise it. But it recently offered a gem which I cannot ignore, in an article about That Building on Lake Street. Said building got its name when it changed hands some time back and went to the owner of the Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts, who called it the Colt Building!

I am amazed that this hasn’t come up in debate about restoring or destroying it. Preservationists should consider jettisoning that name in favor of Charger or Forty-Niner or—that’s it, Bear! Would developers be so cavalier about the matter if it were the Bear building they were condemning to the wrecking ball? I don’t think so.

One family has to be glad of the name change, however. It was once the Goldberg Building, for leaseholder Sol H. Goldberg, whose descendants are spared the indignity of the present discussion, not least of them “The Goldbergs,” of radio and television fame. And don’t tell me they are fictional. I heard them on radio when I was home sick from school, with my own two ears.

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS … All I did was say nice going about his recent column on gay games, and Oak Park writer Byron Lanning told me a lot about his working methods in an e-mail. In fact, he pretty much spilled the beans:

“I couldn’t have done it without my research staff of learned pigs, my prose coach of several hundred chimpanzees randomly banging on Hermes 3000 typewriters in my basement, and my copy editor Edward, a white labratory rat with a genetically altered brain,” he said.

I’m getting me one of them rats.

— Jim Bowman in Wednesday Journal of OP&RF, 2/1/06

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Update, from Inside Report, 2/7/06:

It’s the infamous ‘seniority memory gap’

Viewpoints columnist Jim Bowman alluded to the $8 shirts he buys at The Gap (as in the clothing store) last week in his column as an intro to comments on The Gap (as in the minority student achievement gap). Worked very nicely only [he remembered] (post-deadline) that he buys his $8 shirts next door at Old Navy, which may be more accurate, but doesn’t work nearly so well in a column. “I swear I didn’t fudge for the sake of phrasing,” Bowman said in an e-mail last week, blowing the whistle on himself. He even signed off “Abashed on Ontario.” Well, we believe him, mostly because we’ve been victimized by a Gap (as in the “senior moment” variety) or two ourselves lately.

The upshot is, don’t go to The Gap looking for cheap shirts.

[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.

“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.

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.

For all the talk of freedom of speech, only the New York Sun locally and two other papers nationally have mustered the minimal courage needed to print simple and not especially offensive editorial cartoons that have been used as a pretext for great and greatly menacing violence directed against journalists, cartoonists, humanitarian aid workers, diplomats and others who represent the basic values and obligations of Western civilization. Having been ordered at the 11th hour to pull the now-infamous Danish cartoons from an issue dedicated to them, the editorial group—consisting of myself, managing editor Tim Marchman, arts editor Jonathan Leaf and one-man city hall bureau Azi Paybarah, chose instead to resign our positions.