Funny papers

If I had a dog named Zero, I’d say “Gloryosky” to him, having discovered that yesterday’s Chi Trib made not ‘arf bad reading, though I’ll be darned if I can come up with anything astonishing.  In fact, the only part I saved for my next-day story is the former Metro section, now “Chicagoland,” with the Fry’s electronics display ad telling us about ACER NETBOOK Aspire One 8.9″ Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz 1GB RAM 120GB Hard Drive Webcam 802.11G Wireless 2.19lbs Windows XP HOME.  For a lousy $349.99, sans rebate! (But nothing about wi-fi capacities.  Hmm.) 

[Later: Wrong-o.  Was thinking of something else.  As Andy K. says in the comment, “802.11G Wireless” means wi-fi.  As the (white) kid said to me the other day on the sidewalk, “My bad.”  (In Oak Park you pick up the lingo.)]

So what did Boy Genius do?  The one you’re talkin’ to right here?  He frittered away the day walking around and (not kidding) doing some work for pay until it was bedtime, and then what?  Next day called up www.frys.com and found the beautiful item was Sold Out!  So back he is to Square One in re: buying self a nice XP-fitted laptop — with wi-fi.  More later on this incredible adventure.

Editorially speaking, Trib’s Chicagoland had a revelatory piece by Dan Mihalopoulos, “A multiplicity of mouthpieces,” i.e. spokespeople, with lots about Marilyn Katz, fingered by Kass in his column as a “former ’60s radical” who

during the violent protests of the 1968 Democratic National Convention here . . . was the security chief for the radical Students for a Democratic Society. She once advocated throwing studded nails in front of police cars, back in the SDS days when the group was alleged to have thrown cellophane bags full of human excrement at cops and cans of urine and golf balls impaled with nails.

Ah Marilyn, we hardly know you from those palmy days, now you’ve come so far up the occupational tree as to flack for Mayordaley II, not to mention The One (“that one,” said McCain, not dismissively enough, in the last debate, and howls went up ‘round the world from various apparatchiks), for whom she dishes sweet nothings for the unsuspecting (in any case compliant) medium performers.

“What Bill Ayers and [former Black Panther, now U.S. Rep.] Bobby Rush . . . did 40 years ago has nothing to do with [the presidential campaign],” Katz was quoted as saying in the Chicago Sun-Times in April. “[Ayers] has a national reputation. He lectures at Harvard [University] and Vassar [College].”

Now wait a minute, as The One says, setting a questioner straight.  Vassar had Commie scum (make that dingbat) Angela Davis as baccalaureate speaker for the 1993 graduation, so don’t give us that stuff, Marilyn dear.  I vass dere and heard her tell the mush-brained graduates and the non-mush-brained among them that Marxism was not dead (to applause).  And the school had a lecture series named after her in the early 70s, part of its Black Studies program, yes!

The whole M-Katz business — her radical, violence-connected past stemming from, we presume, her all-around impatience and self-absorption now morphed into highly viable political strategy aimed at achieving the same social-control things as before — shows how those creepy people can gain acceptance and traction in the world as it works.

Do we think Mayordaley II worries about radicalism of people who support him?  Do we think Obama, cut of the same cloth, worries about it?  No.  These people know how to get things done, and that’s the issue for them.  The rest is nonsense.

My newly found pro-tem grudging respect for the new Chi Trib can be summed up: you get used to the format.  I knew I would, assuming it’s not wildly mixed up.  The content is another story, but what else is new?

However: There was the page-one reefer on Friday (10 Oct), over the top, to a Kass column “on the end of the Pool Boy probe,” supposed to be on page 2.  It wasn’t.  Not in my hard copy.  It’s here but wasn’t there.  Odd, to say the least.

Pool boy is “a top political operative for Mayor Richard Daley who ran a patronage army for the mayor and was the city airports operation boss.”  Pool Boy because a few years back he dug one in his back yard that flooded neighbors’ yards.  He made a call and got ComEd to hook up a special power source for his house when power was out for the neighbors.  Or many of us presume that.

“Stupid,” the mayor called it at the time, shrinking from “venal” or “disgusting.”  He saves “disgusting” or its synonyms for federal conviction of his lieutenant, a good family man from Nativity BVM in Bridgeport — for running a job scam at the Hall.  [Later: Andy K again.  Nativity of Our Lord.  Sorry.]

Still, that was quite an admission by Daley, that his airports executive did something stupid, and Kass was clearly impressed.  He notes that the airports boss got fired immediately, before the inspector general could knock on his door, going with a company that sells a lot of stuff to the airports.  Close one there.  Is he a good family man?

Many of us think Pool Boy put in a call.  No, the true version, passed on by Kass, is that the whole thing was coincidental.  We know because ComEd began a 63–day investigation into the matter, which like the Hundred Year’s War could not be called that until it was over, which it was when Kass got an email from a Com Ed v.p., who explained that in this matter

allegations of preferential treatment are simply not true. [She underlined “not true.”] A crew was not [she underlined “not”] directed to the home of David Ochal, former deputy director of aviation, on Wednesday, Aug. 6, to deliver or install a generator or restore power to his home. However, in light of the investigation, the company is using the opportunity to reinforce with employees its storm restoration protocols and implement some process improvements to close some gaps in our reporting and tracking procedures.”

Kass, of course, was delighted. 

You skeptics must be ashamed of yourselves. It wasn’t political clout that got Generator X to Pool Boy’s home. What were you thinking?

He gave the v.p. a jingle, as she had suggested, and got a long, detailed explanation at the close of which Kass, seeking to sum it all up, said, So it’s a coincidence?

Davis [the v.p.] paused on the phone. It was a long pause, at least four seconds.

Was this a coincidence?

“You can call it that if you want to,” said Davis from ComEd.

Why then did Ochal resign? Kass asked, incorrigibly.

Well this woman’s portfolio did not extend that far, like Obama’s as to when you’re old enough to have rights.  “That’s a question you’d have to ask Mr. Ochal. I can’t speak for him,” she said.

Get that long pause on “coincidence.”  This v.p. was not born yesterday.  She could spout nonsense with the rest of them, but she would not fall for that one.  No sirree.

Davis is Tabrina Davis,

former acting director of public affairs at Cook County Hospital, [who was] appointed public information officer [for the Chi Board of Ed in November, 1995]. Salary: $65,000.

So.  She’s political, just the one to catch flak for Com Ed in these troubled times.

One of the late John “Stroger’s soldiers”?  Maybe then, but now she consorts with high social rollers, fellow and sister members of the board of Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center.  She’s an urbane, for all I know lovely person, a joy to know, and ready to tell it like it is when delivering results of a 63–day (!) investigation. 

Congratulations, Tabrina!  But what the heck happened to the hard-copy-Trib version of your investigation as explained by John Kass?  I’ve got another “Gloryosky” in me if you have any ideas to share.