“The latest provocative, ill-considered foray by the Oak Park Village Board of Trustees into downtown Oak Park has now crept into the bright sunlight,” says Anthony Shaker in a Wed. Jnl op-ed opposing historical-district status for Downtown OP.
Crept out from under a rock, Shaker might have said. It’s an assault on property rights, he says, touching on a very tender nerve.
Chi Trib, page one today, heart-tugging if not -breaking story of Marine who can’t get out of corps to donate a kidney to his desperately ailing father:
“He gave me life,” Drish said of his father.
As God’s instrument, some would say. Never mind. This is a war story after a pacifist’s heart.
Turning to page one of Metro section, you find another, Wheaton soldier killed in blast 26-year-old died hours after talking with his family. It’s the horrors of war, never talk of gains against the enemy or heroism for love of country, as you find in work of embedded bloggers, even a cartoonist, today’s Mauldin.
A reader notes [to Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds] that while big-media journalists are thin on the ground in Iraq, the blogosphere has sent so many people that it’s worked its way around to cartoonists . . . .
Elsewhere, we have Bill Ardolino, whose “citizen journalism” is on display here, in his “In Iraq Journal” story, “Insh’allah: A Nighttime Raid with the Iraqi Army.” This is awesome stuff, as any Young Person would say, complete with pix of jubilant Iraqi soldiers after successful mission. Why don’t we get stuff this good, on the spot, vivid, concrete, from our MainStreamers?
(One reason is their anti-warrior mindset. They dread glorifying combat, as they would put it, are deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions and performance, and THEY are calling the shots as to what we read and watch.)
Later: Sun-Times, more alert than Trib to blogosphere, has story about ex-GI who has a book out based on his blogging soldiers’ comments from and about Iraq.
Today’s by Rick Telander in S-T is quite good. It’s about how Peyton Manning outsmarted the Bears, thinking all the way, changing plays as he called them, based on how Bears defenders were lined up. He analyzed what happened on that 2nd-quarter (ck) pass that I could have caught and scored on, so wildly had Bears pass defense lost its way:
‘They were in two different defenses on that,” he said. ”No question. They were in cover-2, and one safety was in man.”
Certain?
”No question.”
Excellent interview and overall column. Question persists: are Bears smart? Is Bears management imaginative enough to move them all the way? Smart enough to get to 2nd-best, which is smarter than all but one. But can you imagine Rex G. running things the way Manning did? He’s not that smart, for starters.
Look here for lineup of films set for the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival March 9 – 17 in Austin, Texas, They include “Election Day,” directed by Katy Chevigny,
a verite examination, following a dozen voters (including an ex-felon, a poll worker, and more) over the course of November 2, 2004 – from dawn until long past midnight. (World Premiere)
of which Maggie Bowman is producer.
Obama, riding an astonishing wave of glowing publicity for a candidate 21 months from an election, already has a bubble around him that is tighter than the one that surrounded Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who spent long hours of the fledgling days of his candidacy in bull sessions with reporters.
Oh boy. This is Mike Allen’s perspective in The Politico, where he tells of catching up with Obama, who is running for president, for gosh sakes, after a hotel reception from which reporters were barred:
I introduced myself and said, “Good evening, Senator, may I walk with you?” He replied, “You can walk with me. That doesn’t mean you can ask questions.” I chuckled, thinking he was kidding. “But you can certainly walk with me,” he added. The Senator then underscored, “I’m sorry. I’m not answering questions.”
Even an innocuous “[W]hat [do] you want to accomplish this weekend”? got the brush-off. No “press avail” this time, said O. Allen concluded:
[A]s Hillary tries to pierce her bubble, however tentatively, Obama appears to be building one.
The Politico is an apparently hot new online publication whose political editor is former Sun-Timesman Roger Simon. Allen’s experience and commentary are worth keeping in mind in this Obama instance.
Michael Yon from Iraq:
When I arrived in Mosul a few weeks ago, they were getting about 1 car bomb per week. Now it’s up to about 1 per day. The fighting is intensifying here, and that’s the bad news. There is some good news, however: Iraqi Security Forces, though taking losses, are thoroughly punishing the enemy here. Just a few days ago, the enemy launched a large and well-planned attack on a police station. In late 2004 or 2005, such an attack would have been devastating – and was. But this time, when the enemy demanded the Iraq Police surrender, the police responded with gunfire. Lots of it. After several hours of fighting, the enemy fled in front of their blood trails.
Yon will be writing more about this. For now he suggests a new dispatch “The Hands of God.” with audio file of a conversation between American soldiers and Iraqi villagers after a homicide bomber attack. For context he recommends Gates of Fire and Battle for Mosul IV.
My name is Jim and I am a compulsive reader of the daily newspaper.
I read my ChiTrib. I find on page one that the not-guilty finding in trial of Bridgeview Hamas supporters is “setback for Bush administration.” (subhead). I find that a report’s forecast for Iraq is “grim,” according to “sources” who read a “classified intelligence document [that] points to further strife.” (That’s a Wash Post story, by the way.) And I find a big Chi Bears story (fancy that), with color pic, and on left a neither gloomy nor anti-Bush story (fancy that) about Chief Justice Roberts pushing for a “more private and less divisive” Supreme Court. (Does the writer mean “divided”?)
I read my Sun-Times, mostly view it, that is: Great color pic on page one, “We are not terrorists” in big type, “Victory declared for former Chicago grocer as jury rejects major charges in Hamas terror trial” beneath it, a fifth its size at most. (Page 3 AP story here, but pix are S-T’s) What, no setback for Bush admin? Pic is of men praying outside courthouse after grocer was acquitted of racketeering charges. Mostly viewing it, because this is a TABLOID, brothers and sisters, and I am addicted also to tabloids. Will anyone help me?
more more more
Shortt approaches the Gospels as a work of art, or at least finely honed craft. I applaud this and understand expanding a text, as in Wangerin’s book, as spelling out its meaning. An expansion says more than the original, and obviously there’s room for that. Wangerin, a prolific writer on such matters, seems excellently qualified to do that. But it’s tricky nonetheless.
Blithe Spirit 