Month: March 2006

Case of the buried lead and other mysteries

Even columns have leads, and I am pleased to report I found Mark Brown’s today in Sun-Times.  It took some digging, but there it was, at the very end: ” . . . the citizens of Cook County deserve to be kept completely informed about [county board president Stroger’s] health in the coming days.”  (Nice going, Jim! For finding it)  There it was, ‘way at the bottom, coated in vanilla, and nicely stated as to “completely informed,” not partially.  Brown was lied to by relatives, and the rest is blah blah blah spelling it out in no certain terms the people’s right to know the health of elected officials
 
Meanwhile, the long arm of Middle East terrorism reached Urbana yesterday when the Daily Illini editor was fired for running anti-Muslim cartoons.  Not 3,000 New Yorkers in a tall building the victims this time, just the First Amendment.  No problem, U. of I. trustees or publisher’s board.  We feel your pain, you stinking cowards.
 
And Atty Genl Lisa Madigan, who may or may not still belong to the gov’s love-hate commission, wants no part of controlling a public-complaint mechanism she devised.  She’s worried about AG’s to come who might screw up how complaints are registered or questions asked about open meetings and using freedom of info.  She gets lots of complaints as things stand, and wants to keep it that way.  Does she mean the boxed form on her web site that I used two days ago to ask if she’s on the love-hate commission?  Nothing yet from her, by the way, and I have some Jewish voters waiting to hear.  Maybe even some non-Jews, who knows?
 
Finally, it’s quite interesting that in the wake of recent fatal South Side shootings, there’s no outcry (screaming headlines) about (a) gun control — though “delusional” Mayordaley II apparently made some customary noises about it — and (b) root causes of gang criminality.  Sun-Times did have “Instant Messages” emailed from readers that touched on the former but also had the two items that in this blog’s opinion matter most in these matters: 1. Decriminalization of recreational drug use and 2. draconian law enforcement. 
 
The former would require a change of heart mostly of white libs, the latter of them and the affected, afflicted community, which would have to permit cops to get tough.  Since this would mean jailing neighbors’ sons, among other things (deport gang-bangers, said one letter writer!) , I bet on decriminalization happening before any unleashing of cops.  Oh, another — yes, better — idea was for parents etc. to take back the sidewalks by standing on the corners watching all the drug customers drive by.  Is this affected, afflicted community up to such unanimity?  Not so far.

Catholic unionism

This from National Catholic Reporter on Chi area’s Resurrection Health Care, which took over Oak Park’s West Suburban Hospital a few years ago and has lots of other venues:
From the pope on down to local clergy and parishioners, the Catholic church has defended the rights of workers for decades, and in a 1999 document the U.S. bishops specified that hospital workers in Catholic facilities “have the right to organize themselves for collective bargaining and to be recognized by management for such purposes.” Citing these teachings, many in the Catholic community of Chicago have sided with the workers trying to unionize Resurrection Health Care.
It’s a story on attempts to get Cardinal George to pressure Resurrection H.C.  But as hospitals fall and users complain — consider black West Siders protesting Advocate Health Care’s partial closing of Bethany — is C. George going to guarantee health care to users of West Sub, which turned in desperation to a buyer, and to other hospitals squeezed by costs?  (His man says he’s staying out of it.)  And is there a connection between being non-unionized and surviving?  Ask U.S. automakers, whose market share has eroded while they pay exorbitant amounts to the select few who belong to the UAW.
 
As for Catholic teaching, it was hijacked by the Jesuit ghost writer Nell-Breuning 80 years ago, with popes going along sans any more authority in the matter than a tenured radical on a U.S. or Euro campus.  This is true Catholic leftism, and there’s no better sample of it than NCR, which gives 1,479 words to this story, done by a writer from Toledo.  From Toledo?
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Posted by Blithe Spirit to Oak Park, Home of Edgar Rice Burroughs at 3/14/2006 11:13:15 AM

Boo-hoo the boo-boo

Chi Trib’s Colleen Mastony has a page one Metro Near West story about Elmwood Park, its Italian immigrants of two generations past vs. Latin Americans of today, with dollop about Poles also of today — Poles are second only to Italians now, reports Trib, which would not surprise someone who shops at Caputo’s on Harlem near Diversey.  The story jumps off from recent put-down of Elmwood Park (EP) schools for not taking an Ecuadorean kid on immigrant-status grounds.  It was the last straw, apparently, for tightly knit, stranger-shy EP, but higher-ups put them down and they had to take the kid.
 
Point is, older immigrants resent new ones. 
Second-generation immigrant families, mindful of how their parents and grandparents once struggled to gain a foothold in the U.S., now find themselves arguing about the rights of new immigrants,
OK, but the next sentence stops the careful reader, who hasn’t got all the time in the world to read what Trib has to say, even if he lives near EP and wrote about it recently and used to eat bagels there:
Among recent arrivals, some wonder if it is right to extend social services to those who subverted laws to come to this country. Others think basics such as education should be available to all, especially to children, who are not responsible for their immigration status.
Which thanks to dangling phrase means that some recent arrivals question social services for recent arrivals.  The reader trying to take Trib seriously — Mastony and her apparently MIA copy editors — wonders what’s going on here?  A wrinkle he hadn’t realized?  Nope.  Another irritating boo-boo by the once world’s greatest newspaper.

Stand-up guys & gals

FYI, here are the non-Jews who have not resigned from Gov Blag’s hate-crimes commission over the Farrakhan-man flap, having apparently decided they can work with the top aide of a Jew-basher who won’t distance herself from his [if not his, whose?] contumelious remarks.  If any are Jewish, I stand corrected:
 
Rev. Willie T. Barrow, Commission Chair
Chair of the Board, Emeritus, Rainbow PUSH Coalition
 
Kimberly M. White, Executive Director
Governor’s Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes [staff]
 
Lisa Madigan
Attorney General, State of Illinois [oh?]
 
Honorable [sic] Robin Kelly
State Rep., District 38
 
Honorable [sic] Larry McKeon
State Rep., District 13
 
Honorable [sic] Carol Ronen
State Sen., District 7
 
Rev. H. Douglas Bankhead
Second Baptist Church
 
Ertharin Cousin
America’s Second Harvest
 
Rick Garcia
Equality Illinois
 
Denise Gordon
PCI Inc.
 
Sgt. Kelly Henby
Illinois State Police
 
Ernestine Jackson
City of Bloomington
 
Ann Lata P. Kalayil
South Asian American and Policy Research Institute
 
Shannon Sullivan
Coalition for Education on Sexual Orientation
 
Karen Lennon
Entreprenour
 
Laura McAlpine
The Coalition for Education on Sexual Orientation
 
[Sister Claudette Marie Muhammad
Nation of Islam {top aide of Jew-basher}]
 
Gail Purkey
Illinois Federation of Teachers [!]
 
Gilberto, Romero Jr.
League of United Latin American Citizens
 
Sgt. Anthony J. Scalise
Chicago Police Department, Civil Rights Section [!]
 
Laura Thrall
YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago
 
Rev. Ronald Webb
Shiloah Baptist Church

A moving experience

Just moved but have been reading the noosepapers. 
 
Have wondered where the non-Jews disappeared to in the wake of the Farrakhan man’s latest spew and subsequent resignations of Jews from Gov Blago’s love-hate commission.  Are Jews the only ones who object to Nation of Islam contumely? 
 
Have also wondered what went on in the mind of Cub manager Dusty Baker, if anything, when his player Barry Bonds showed up beefed up — steroid use is strongly suspected — when Dusty managed the San Fran Giants. 
 
Will have to consult notes on various receipts for services rendered by rug cleaners and telephone installers before offering further comments disguised as wonderings.  For now, however, the body is tired and th-th-th-that’s all, folks.

Off the Yids?

Such a day for Jews and cops in Chicago.  The former, excoriated by Minister [sic] Farrakhan, a.k.a. Calypso Louie, had to put up with one scheming governor and a condoning black state rep [wrong: senator] from Maywood who also represents part of Oak Park. 
 
The one cried the 1950s anti-anti-communist “guilt by association” as what motivates Jewish members of an anti-discrimination commission who resigned because another member is aide-de-camp to Minister [sic] F. and not only invited commission members to hear Louie excoriate Jews but did not denounce him, the gov talking as if she and Louie merely attended the same lodge or hung out together at the same barbershop.
 
“What I really enjoyed about the commission [when she was a member] is that it was unique, in that we were all different–different backgrounds, different religions, different geographical areas,” Lightford said. “If all were alike, or the majority were alike, and you were evaluating an issue that took place, it would be all like minds.”
Like all agreeing that you don’t excoriate Jews at the United Center?  That would sure be a drag.  What a ditz.  Her Jewish constituents, not to mention Catholics, Protestants, and secular humanists who presumably object to Louie’s tirades, have to love her.  She a stand-up girl.
 
Cops, meanwhile, find Alderwoman Madeline Haithcock still seeking to name a block or two after Fred Hampton, whose “off the pigs” comic books were a big seller among young bloods, one of whom lay in wait for two of them in 1969 and shotgunned them to death before being shot and killed by cops.  Yes, he was one of Fred’s Black Panthers, Fred had to admit.  Two weeks later Fred was shot and killed by cops who may have been a bit leery of asking questions before shooting.
 
Minister Louie drew a full house to the United Center for his most recent excoriation of Jews.  It was “Saviour’s Day” for his Nation of Islam.  He has a record of such effusions.  But Gov. Blago says so what?  Louie’s “minister of protocol” belongs on his commission anyhow.  What, me worry?  He’s not excoriating governors, is he?

Verbal

Never let it be said that Mayor Daley is lost for words.  Chi Trib’s Kass put a microphone in his face and asked him if Forrest Claypool, candidate in this month’s primary for Cook County board president, seeking to replace John Stroger, is a reformer, as he is being greeted by lib Dems in Oak Park and elsewhere.  The mayor said:
“He worked very hard as [Daley’s] chief of staff. He worked very hard at the Park District [where he was superintendent]. I am supporting John Stroger. I am not negative about anyone.”
 
Mayor, is Claypool a reformer?
 
“That would be up to him. I mean, everybody is a reformer. I think everybody is a reformer. I mean everybody is. Regardless of every life, you reform, you change. Some people don’t drink anymore. Some do. Some smoke. Some don’t smoke. We are all reformers. Everybody is a reformer.”
Does this mean Chicago is ready for reform, as Alderman Bauler famously denied in 1955, the night Mayordaley I was elected mayor?

Page one headlines!

Sun-Times: “Where are all the naked men?”  Vanity Fair has naked women.  Why no naked men?  Seriously, we want naked men!  We want naked men!  This an AP story out of New York exploring an important social phenomenon.  No thanks.
 
Chi Trib: “Wisconsin’s lonely crusader fights on,” about Sen. Feingold (who has his name on an anti-free-speech act that forbids buying air time at what he and McCain say is the wrong time) as arguer against Patriot Act is left-wing puffery.  Can you imagine a lonely-crusader story about Joe Scheidler, who’s made a career out of opposing abortion?
 
Next to it is “Pro-war ads take aim at swing state,” about 527 ads in Minnesota that feature war widows and other bereaved saying it’s worth it.  Power Line, which has been all over this story, notes, ” The story omits almost entirely any discussion of the wild local reaction to the airing of the ads in Minnesota.”  It also spells out GOP strategy in running the ads here with a view to going national with them or something like them, but that’s standard, isn’t it? 
 
The funding group, Progress for America, not to be confused with Howard Dean’s Dem party group Democracy for America, is mentioned in the same breath with Moveon.org but without mention of George Soros’ role in the latter.  I would have expected something more chewy, shall we say, from our home-grown nationally aspiring newspaper.  For a fairly neat rundown on 527s, have a look at a Wash Post piece of 10/17/04, “After Late Start, Republican Groups Jump Into the Lead: Since August, 527s Raised Six Times as Much as Democrats.”  Yes. ’04.
 
Finally, consider Sun-Times Controversy essay Sunday by Don Rose, “THE POWER OF ART MAKES GOOFS OF US ALL: WE WATCH WITH ASTONISHMENT AS MUSLIMS RIOT IN PROTEST OF A CARTOON, BUT PROVOCATIVE ART HAS TRIGGERED VIOLENCE FOR CENTURIES, EVEN IN CHICAGO,” which does not appear on-line.  It’s admittedly a thumb-sucker for a Sunday opinion section, but annoying because it shows what runs through writer’s and editor’s mind, as in such a bother, all this Islamo-fascism talk, we’ve seen it all (and done it, for that matter) before. 
 
Bad cess to thinkers of that ilk.  This is how MSM writers have their way, far more than slant and omission and exaggeration, but by deciding what’s worth discussing.  They frame the argument.  But the power of art to inflame (and inspire) is not what comes to mind for most people in these days of fatwa and beheading.  No, no.  Sorry, Don Rose.
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Update:
From Reader Nancy:  Regarding the lonely crusade story about Feingold that appeared in the Tribune today, there was also one about Joseph Scheidler which began on the front page and ended on page 16.  It sounded like a lonely crusade story to me.  The title of the quite lenghty article was:  “Defiance pays off for abortion foe:  Justices rule protests weren’t racketeering” by Judy Peres and Mary Ann Fergus, Tribune staff reporters.  The headline on page 16 read:  “Roe vs. Wade led him from PR to activism.”  The article, at least in the way I interpreted it, highlighted Scheidler’s struggles throughout the years.  NJT
 
She’s right.
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Update again:
From Reader Bob: I note that Feingold was treated even-handedly, with a section well  back in the story on what critics and admirers say about him.  On the other hand, Scheidler is called a “tireless zealot” in the  first graph, not by named critics but by the Trib writers.  And everbody knows that lonely crusaders are the good guys and  zealots are the baddies.

Oak Park village board speaks out

JIM BOWMAN

Wednesday Journal of OP&RF, March 1, 2006

Watching the Oak Park village board on TV, you see people walking on eggs with each other, except when Martha Brock has to take a breather, and then there’s nothing to do but watch Robert Milstein’s hair grow. Isn’t it time to translate for them and help them tell it straight?

Take the Board Majority (please) in the matter of buying the Baltimore Colt building for us at the low, low price of $5 million, plus maybe another building for $2.5 mill. Wouldn’t it be a relief for all concerned to let it all hang out, as they say in therapy? Let’s do it, citing nay-sayers and then reporting what the Board Majority-Milstein, Elizabeth Brady, Brock, and Geoff Baker-can’t say.

The Baltimore Colt decision-the building really was named after the Colts a long time ago-gives a “blank check” for historic preservation, says down-with-Colt Trustee Ray Johnson. “When I heard ‘History Matters,’ I didn’t realize they meant ‘at all costs.’”

Board Majority: You weren’t listening!

“I don’t know where this is going,” said Johnson. “I’ve asked the question, and you don’t get an answer; you get blank stares.”

BM: We’re tired!

Pro-Colt trustees listened only to “the few extremists” in their New Leadership Party, said Ed Baehrend, owner of a Wright-designed house.

BM: Hey. If it’s not moving, preserve it!

“Why anyone would bother to participate in another lengthy process,” when consultant, steering committee, and developer have all struck out, escapes Jon Hale, of Forum Oak Park.

BM: Hey. We’re Oak Park and they’re not! Do they want our business or don’t they?

“Rebuilding the Colt building would represent … a dogmatic, single-minded focus on historical preservation at any cost,” said the Business and Civic Council.

BM: We don’t care!

A new 10-step process for issuing the Colt-rehab and other requests for proposal (RFP) “need not be burdensome or consume an inordinate amount of time,” said President David Pope, pouring oil on troubled waters.

BM: You have a problem with burdensome and inordinate?

The BM kissed off the superblock citizen committee months ago, tipping their hand, says Jon Hale, of Forum Oak Park.

BM: You don’t get it. We don’t want no stinking committee advice! Let them put their stinking advice where the sun don’t shine!

The citizen committee’s plan was delivered after months of listening to citizens, developer Taxman’s architect, and village-hired experts on traffic, development and historic preservation, reported Wednesday Journal.

BM: How many times do we have to say we don’t want no stinking committee advice?!

Meanwhile, the BM has a trick or two up its sleeve in the contest being enacted before our very eyes on TV sets and at village hall. Consider recent public remarks and letter to the editor by BM member Milstein-and, if you don’t mind, piquant responses by my friend Jake (not his real name), who has been pestering for recognition.

 Milstein urges us “to rescue [by use of eminent domain power] areas of Oak Park [held] hostage for multiple decades.”

“I’ve got just the bozos for you,” says Jake. “As soon as you’re ready, let me know. I want to help.”

 He would like “an architectural contest.”

“No, no, no, no,” says Jake. “Let’s have a musical. One of us can be Judy, I’ll be Mickey, the other kids can be lots of other people. Somewhere there’s an old barn and …” (I shut him up.)

 He wants a definitive idea of what’s best for Marion Street.

“This one I like,” says Jake, who adds that he has spent his entire life looking for a definitive idea of something and is willing to pursue this goal “or at least watch others pursue it.”

That’s it, then. Pretty good day for me. I liberated village trustees from cramped board-meeting style. I got Jake off my back. Where Jake goes next is anybody’s guess. Same goes for the trustees, I suppose.