Slamming with faint damns: “O’Brien ad slams Stroger,” says Sun-Times head — hard copy, not online.
[Terry] O’Brien, president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, says “we’re running strictly a positive campaign here,” but his veiled references to Cook County Board President Todd Stroger in the ad aren’t exactly happy talk. [Cute]
Well he can’t do that. Won’t get away with it. He’s acting as if Stroger’s sales-tax hike were a major issue (as if Chi Trib were counting the days from hike to primary: Geez), as if Stroger’s hiring relatives and others from his ward to big-bux jobs without apparent overriding reference to qualifications were a major issue too.
Listen: O’Brien won’t get away with calling voters’ attention to these things, even without mentioning Stroger’s name. We, at least the Sun-Times, are up to this dirty pool. NOTHING DOING. [And leave Lisa Donavan’s cute stuff alone, you S-T copy editors, wherever you are.]
Blaming and doing: Meanwhile, in Chi Trib, a shot at perfectionism:
[S]ome Americans are hopelessly naïve in their expectations of what “the system,” much less a single person, can accomplish within an institution as complex as the federal government.
They are practitioners of the Blame Someone Syndrome that requires that someone be nailed for every conceivable misfortune under the sun. It’s as useless and adolescent as the Do Something Syndrome.
When something bad happens, the calls go out: “Do something!” Doesn’t matter what it is, something’s got to be done. And when that something doesn’t work, in kicks the Blame Someone Syndrome.
Thus spake Dennis Byrne. Yes. It’s a neurotic crankiness, of which if you promise not to tell anyone, I partake sometimes myself, expecting copy editors to see things my (far better) way. It’s not gonna happen, I tell myself, but then I forget.
As for doing something, “Don’t just do something; stand there” is often the best solution.
Saying “I do”: Finally, “South Africa’s Zuma takes his bride, again,” LA times and Chi Trib have.
“There are plenty of politicians who have mistresses and children that they hide so as to pretend they are monogamous. I prefer to be open. I love my wives and I am proud of my children,” Zuma has said, defending polygamy in a television interview.
I find this disturbing not because I oppose polygamy, which I do, but because by being open about it, this president makes light of the tribute to virtue offered by hypocrisy. Is nothing sacred?
Of course, we Americans should talk. Our president has a father he dreamed about who had three wives. So? You have a problem with that?
Blithe Spirit 