Chi Trib uses both “illegal” and “undocumented” for immigrants without portfolio who live in suburban Carpentersville — six to four in favor of the latter, depending on point of view. 

When referring to the three newly elected or re-elected aldermen who favor the ordinance called the Illegal Alien Immigration Relief Act and its supporters, “illegal” wins.  When people apparently of Mexican origin are discussed, it’s “undocumented.”

I’d like to see a brief explanation why one and not the other.  As it is, we have Trib as split personality.

We also have wooden rhetoric such as one frequently does not find in blogs, for instance, which usually employ a more direct expression. 

Flippancy is there too, of course (as in newspapers), but that’s hardly the goal.  Rather a simple directness.  A copy editor could supply it if a reporter, pulling many things together for a story and in this case two of them, does not.

As for the reporting, I would have liked a response by Carpentersville authorities to a question, not asked, about long-time residents, presumably with clearance from our government, feeling unwelcome.

The response would have fit nicely after this, high up in the story:

“This was pretty bad,” Hilario Savedra, 62, said of Tuesday’s vote, pausing amid a flow of pedestrian traffic at a popular grocery store in the Meadowdale Shopping Center.

“I’ve been in this community for more than 20 years, and I hate to think someone will tell me I’m no longer wanted here. This is my community, too.”

At almost the end of the story, we have this:

Some longtime residents such as Mike Connolly search for middle ground. Carpentersville has plenty of legal Hispanics, and it would be unfair to lump them with the undocumented, he said.

This implies that somebody in Carpentersville is ignoring legality.  But legality is at the heart of the problem.  I think the story could have made that point more clearly, again in no more than a sentence, if that.  And again we look to the copy desk.

Just sat and read with pleasure two Chi Trib stories, one about Sam Zell, new owner of the company, the other about people moving out west where there’s land, lots of land under starry skies above, at half the price.  It’s goodbye, Naperville, this family of five, hello, Yorkville, where the local farmers are courteous but not full of welcome. 

Sam Zell, on the other hand, finds a welcome mat out for him at Chi Trib, to judge by this account of how as self-described “grave dancer” he is really a skilled physician for ailing enterprises.  Read them and decide with me that Trib can do a very nice thing when it wants: the stories grind no axe, are clear and interesting.  Readibility, yes.

Patrick T. Reardon and Charles Leroux did the moving-west story, Michael Oneal and David Greising did the Zell story.

Open letter to Charles Madigan @ Chi Trib: Dear Charlie, I am simultaneously shocked and depressed (not a good situation) at your distancing yourself from genteel people today in re: divorce, Newt Gingrich, the Clintons, etc.:

I’m seeing lots of marriages marked by some pretty embarrassing divorces, behaviors the genteel would call “scandalous” and a bushel basket of unvarnished chutzpah.

“The genteel would call ‘scandalous,’” you say? But aren’t you among them? Depression followed shock at this revelation, as I say above. Fie!

In a lesser matter, confession is best a private matter, Charlie. You are right about that.  But what’s this giving the Battling Clintons a pass? Momentarily putting yourself beyond the pale of the genteel is one thing, but naivete? Inexcusable in a hardboiled newsman.

“We don’t really know, do we?” you say about their marriage being for show. Right.

We do really know, however, that Bill got his forgiveness, or at least “counselling,” from a certain Rev. Jackson as stuff was hitting the fan, as has many another Democrat.

My apologies, Charlie. Can’t do this thing justice. Am running off to confession. In the unlikely event that I announce my sins, you will be the first to hear.

Sincerely,

Jim

* Surprise firestorm over morality statement by Gen. Pace, chairman of chiefs of staff?

[W]hat was striking was the awkward thud [Pace’s] words made as they hit the floor in the broader court of public opinion

Writer Rex W. Huppke is surprised here or plays dumb. This broader court?

Politicians, including several high-profile Republicans, spoke up, . . . . . Many Americans found Pace’s words as dated as they were inappropriate, a sad echo from an unenlightened past.

How many? We do not know. But H. welcomes the “backlash” and turns to – guess whom? – Rick Garcia,

political director of the gay rights group Equality Illinois, who says, “I think we are at that tipping point where, increasingly, you can’t use anti-gay slurs. Anti-gay slurs are being put in the same category as racial and ethnic epithets.”

Slurs?

a) most papers wouldn’t even run “faggot” when reporting Ozzie Guillen’s attack on a columnist. At tipping point, hardly. We have tipped.

b) The general said gay sex is immoral: that’s a slur? To Garcia, of course, but also to Huppke, apparently.

People will believe what they want and justify it, as Pace did, by saying it’s how they were raised or pinning their feelings on religious tenets.

Beware religious tenets.

The general is a public figure, though, and when he spoke last week, he was not asked to share his personal view.

Way at the end, H. gets to the point, admitted by Pace afterward: his purview is policy, not morality.

But in today’s climate, it was refreshing to hear him address the morality part. And it’s not a good sign when a Chi Trib reporter betrays his own bias in this fashion. Doesn’t suprise us, but we’d like a really real surprise now and then, would we not?

* Semi-full description of knifer is good enough for Chi Trib as i-d in all points bulletin in case of Edgewater stabbings:

a man in his early 20s, standing 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8, weighing 140 to 150 pounds, with a light complexion and dark-brown eyes.

But Sun-Times breaks the news. The guy is “Hispanic.”

* Driver missing, SUV to blame for death, injuries:

[A man] was killed and eight others were injured when an SUV plowed through the Subway’s picture window . . .

No alcohol was found in the vehicle and an investigation is under way . . .

That’s it, except info about the victims.  So the SUV had not been drinking.  Did it have a driver?