No better account of neighborhood tribalism in the big city is readily available than this in Chi Trib about the Bridgeport Squealer who talked to Feds and even wore a wire when meeting with another Bridgeporter, both in City Hall employ.

There were harassing phone calls and slashed car tires, [his lawyer] said. There was also graffiti on [his] house. And finally, last Easter morning, there was a large bottle tossed through the glass front door of the home he shares with his wife and three young children . . .

. . . .

[His] wife, Christine, who also grew up in the neighborhood . . . wrote of the couple’s loss of friends and said that most of the harassment was kept from their twin 6-year-old boys and their 4-year-old until the bottle was thrown through their door and the noise was so loud that one of the twins awoke crying.

Christine Katalinic wrote that she was infuriated. She said she ran to his room to find “a frightened young boy sweating under his covers in fear.” Even now, they are sometimes afraid to be downstairs alone, she wrote.

AP in Sun-Times:

Katalinic and his wife and children became the target of community harassment that ranged from phone calls in the middle of the night to slashed tires and graffiti.

[Judge] Coar said he could understand if Katalinic lost friends because he had violated the law.

”But for people to turn against him or any other person because they owned up to a crime and breached this unwritten code of silence is shameful — absolutely shameful,” Coar said.

Not what we usually mean by grassroots democracy.

“Internet chatters posing as journalists” is Harry Jaffe’s phrase in a 11/16/06 Washingtonian piece about how MainStream Media won the election and bloggers et al. lost.  “Major news organizations and experienced journalists” had the stories that persuaded voters.  He goes on to cite anti-admin (& other GOP) stories — Abramoff corruption, secret prisons, phone call monitoring and others.

In time, journalists freelancing as bloggers on the Internet might have greater impact on American elections, but if last week’s voting is any indication, the political landscape is still being painted by the reporters working for major media outlets.

He rejoices in mainstream dominance because it’s under credible attack by web-based independents who never went to journalism school and do not submit to gatekeeping by people such as Dan Rather.  But crowing over such a victory would have been unseemly indeed a few years ago.  Jaffe would not have bothered. 

That’s one thing.  Another is that he rejoices in Mainstreamers’ victory for what party?  Why, their party, what else?  Go MSM Dems!

Scripturally illiterate copy desk alert:  If Andrew Greeley attributed the Christmas narrative to St. Jude, as here in Sun-Times, he deserved protection from sounding like an idiot.  If he didn’t, as is much more likely, the reporters Shamus Toomey and/or his editors deserve excommunication or worse from the Society of Newspaper Copy Editors, which if it does not exist, should.

One kick-ass reputation, severely damaged:

“Even though we have these kids with disabilities, we’re not restricted,” said Adrienne Watkins, the assistant principal. “Everyone takes part. It’s hard to understand if you don’t see it.”

I thought I understood, gazing around the room. Not only understood, but felt a moment of joy. Is this not the best of what we are? Our society — dominant, money-crazed, steamrolling Western culture — nurturing the most afflicted among us, enfolding them in care, encouraging them to enjoy life to the fullest that they can? And the Ignatius students — on a school vacation day — about as far from the cliche of the indulged teen imaginable, not only giving of themselves but grateful for the chance. It seemed a glimpse of heaven.

Just one thing: Eastern cultures do better at this?

Reader G. asks my position on Einstein Bagels’ remaining in OP. Well he might. I was the Northeast River Forest correspondent from Einstein’s, at Harlem & North, the OP corner, for several years in the late 90s, sharply and keenly observing cops on break and other fauna — always sympathetically, to be sure, as when they were gearing up for an uproarious Fourth in North Austin.

Alas, I have not developed my position on Einstein’s, which is preparing to evacuate. For that I must consult my Filthy Capitalist Mindset, neatly balancing my deep love for community values with my Filthy Capitalist desire for maximized profits or at least enough to allow one even to stay in business (and lots of bad guys, including Great American Bagels, to name one, would like to see E. Bagels get out of their darn way), in OP or anywhere else. It’s a bagel jungle out there, you better believe it. 

Rev. Jack Wall is leaving Old St. Pat’s after 24 years.  He found four people when he arrived, now there are 3,000.  It hosts the famed “ass mass,” attended by spouse-seeking young Catholics.  It’s solvent and thriving, which is no small thing in our time.  Wall is off to the Extension (bishops’ missionary) Society, where his exquisite marketing skills should find an outlet.

Yes, marketing.  Wall has not let his light remain under a bushel, to adapt his Leader’s phrase.  Not only has he worked hard, beginning by hands-and-knees scrubbing of an encrusted rectory-kitchen floor.  He has demonstrated entrepreneurial shrewdness of the first order, finding a niche and filling it.

A, he has ridden the Irish-heritage pony hard.  The place reeks of Celtic ambience and draws disaffected or wandering Irish people from far and wide.  B, he has made it a hot gathering place for the young, whom he dispatched sometimes to various help-neighbor works such as tutoring kids at nearby, historically all-black St. Malachy’s parish on the West Side — historically not since its start, which was as Irish as St. Pat’s but declared black in the wake of black migration.  C, he has raised money and made important political connections, such as with the incumbent Mayor Daley and family.

None of it would matter if he and the other staff did not preach and teach and work hard for their own people, inspiring them to work for others.  But neither would this preaching etc. have mattered without the marketing.

His is the first of the Chicago Triumvirate of niche-marketed parishes which have been immensely successful in the last 30 years.  St. Sabina on the South Side is a black cathedral.  Rev. Michael Pfleger has made of that once-Irish bastion a gathering place for the well-heeled but race-conscious black community.  Al Sharpton has “preached” there (scare quotes by me).  So has “Minister” Farrakhan, who we presume did not make his crack about what’s under the Pope’s cassock.  But believe me, apart from these distractions from The Message, that St. Sabina jumps with Christian-related noise and joy.  Solomon in all his glory had not an orchestra like Sabina’s.

The other of the Three is St. John Cantius, whose modern founder and pastor, Rev. Frank Philips, who had been sent there by his Resurrectionist superiors to close the place — farsighted and idealistic they were, indeed — went to Wall for advice.  About niche marketing of The Word, to be sure, though Fr. Frank did not use the phrase when he told me about seeing Wall.  St. John C. is traditionalist, has had Latin masses (in addition to English) from its renovation by Fr. F.  It has become a mecca for Catholics enamored of old-time Catholicism who also like splendid music.

All three churches are grand and old and sparklingly renovated.  All three parishes are busting with Catholics.  God hath wrought this in part through marketing skills of his ministers.

Dick Morris on Barack O. as potential non-Hillary who wins the Dem ‘08 nomination:

His book is filled with feature-story fluff about his background, eloquent philosophizing on the state of our nation and its history, and freshly scrubbed naiveté about the political process.

But it lacks any substantive ideas, policy innovations or even any insightful analysis of public issues. Unless he can step beyond such Oprah-level content, the national press corps will have him for breakfast.

Wish I’d said that.