Nice going for newspeak, doublespeak, and no-speak to Sun-Times for editorial today on “protected” Chicago public school teachers, “Get bad teachers out of school,” with no mention of teachers’ union.  They said it couldn’t be done, but they were wrong.

Consider then, two pages later in hard copy — which still has far more readers than cyber, or I say so until the web site posts hit numbers — the ongoing free ad for the Jacksons, Reverend Shakedown himself, spouting old, old, line, “Invest in U.S. instead of sacrificing in Iraq.”  Tell ‘em, Reverend.

Then go to p. 46, 17 pp later, for an odd angle on screwing wine instead of corking it, “Wine switch threatens cork forests.”  An environmentalist wacko headline if there ever was one, accurate, however.  It’s an AP story out of nowhere that we can see.  Citation is to World Wildlife Fund, which comes in for a terminal roughing up by Bjorn Lomborg, former Green Peace member, the Danish Debunker of World Panic, in his book The Skeptical Environmentalist. 

It’s been clear for some time that it’s too much to ask of mainstreamers even to know about Lomborg and his ilk, much less cite them.  S-T archives, for instance, has no reference in its archives for Lomborg.

Accused by his fellow poly scientists at DePaul U. of engaging in “ad hominem attacks [and] invective” in his otherwise well-argued books, Norman Finkelstein said,

“It is rather regrettable that DePaul is carrying on the spirit of Chicago’s Al Capone rather than St. Vincent de Paul.”

The poly sci faculty supported him in his recently lost battle for tenure.  Do they think their professionalism is a suicide pact, that it can countenance bad manners?

This is a Ron Grossman Chi Trib article today, “DePaul memos tell of run-ins with professor,” which shows what someone who knows the territory can discover about faculty in-fighting.  Saturday’s Sun-Times piece, on the other hand, had none of this.

Today’s generic headline from Chi Trib: “Justice delayed, perhaps not denied.”  The copy eds have a list.  This one comes in the j’s.

When is a coup not a coup? . . . Liz Sly has a Baghdad “coup” looming as “Iraq’s best hope”:

an assortment of Iraqi politicians has been spending the summer vacation plotting a new Iraqi coup — a non-violent, parliamentary coup to be sure, but a coup nonetheless, that would oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, declare a state of emergency and install a new government.

But how a coup when parliamentary? 

According to [prospective new head of govt.] Allawi’s published program, the parliamentarians would not only appoint a new government but also suspend the new constitution, declare a state of emergency and make the restoration of security its priority.

A Sunni politico is cited as saying incumbent prime minister

al-Maliki’s failure thus far to deliver on almost all the key measures of progress set forth by the Bush administration and evidence that his coalition is falling apart suggest Washington may soon have to explore alternatives,

He’s the source of the “coup” desegnation, apparently:

“The Americans finally will support us because they don’t have another solution,” he said . . . .  If all these things don’t work out, it is the people who will make a coup. They will rise up, and there will be a coup all over Iraq.”

So the story repaid reading, but no thanks to those early ‘graphs.  I say the foreign correspondent can use help from the home desk, from editors.

Where are the yea-sayers? . . . . Could not Dave Newbart have asked for some defense of the tenure-deniers in the DePaul-Finkelstein case beyond the official spokesman (oops, spokeswoman), whose hands are officially tied in such cases.  There ought to be some cool head on (or off) campus who can be trusted for at least a paragraph.

A teacher is quoted — dissidents always are available — calling the tenure denial “outrageous,” which by now has lost its sting, except she added “absolutely.” 

He does have sources saying DePaul

cited alleged [sic: why not simply “alleged” as verb?] confrontations between Finkelstein and an administrator and some faculty members who opposed his tenure bid as reasons not to allow him back.

That’s back for a final year of teaching sans tenure, not about tenure denial in itself.  In fact, searching discovers no Sun-Times article or column detailing the case against Finkelstein.  A June 12 letter is all there is.  The rest is protest and the anti-Israel accusation, which tenure-deniers would argue is beside the point. 

The letter mentions a letter to Finkelstein by the tenure reviewers:

have long found your reporting and editorial page reliable and fair. I was surprised that your [June 9] news article on the denial of tenure at DePaul University to Norm Finkelstein was lacking in context. Denial of tenure is a very rare occurrence. In this case, DePaul had a range of reasons (outlined in their letter to Finkelstein) to issue such a denial.

His faulty scholarship was the prime reason for DePaul’s rejection, since reputable scholarship is one of the prime reasons universities exist. Finkelstein‘s failures in this regard are well-known (and notorious); however, the article seemed to depict him as the victim of a vendetta from forces outside the university angered by his anti-Israel positions and the notoriety he has generated for his revisionism regarding the Holocaust. The letter from DePaul to him expressly rejected these as reasons behind denial of tenure.

He is not a victim of his politics; he victimized himself by failing to abide by the precepts of his profession.

Ed Lasky,

Northbrook

If this letter is quoted anywhere in S-T, it’s not clear from headlines, whose stories seem geared to the protestors’ viewpoint.  Do S-T and Newbart lean that way?

Today’s generic headline from Chi Trib: “Justice delayed, perhaps not denied.”  The copy eds have a list.  This one comes in the j’s.

Three reasons why Chicago Bears player Lance Briggs walked away from his crumpled $350G auto at 3 a.m. Aug. 27 on the Edens:

1. He had to go to the bathroom real bad.

2. He had to call his mother to say he was not hurt.

3. He had to call Coach Lovie Smith to say he was not hurt.

These are things Lovie Smith might have said at the news conference where he said Briggs had broken no team rule by having this one accident and rejected any notion of alcohol-related impairment — that which tore it finally for the fired Tank Johnson.

But look, forgiveness abounds. If God forgives in a split second, so can everyone else, because God is perfect and we can do no better than He.

Atlanta football player Michael Vick is sorry for making dogs kill each other and killing dogs himself. He knows how to talk:

“I’m upset with myself, and, you know, through this situation I found Jesus and asked him for forgiveness and turned my life over to God. And I think that’s the right thing to do as of right now.”

We know, Michael. We know. And Internet commentators have hopped on this in an unseemly manner:

* Beth at Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: Michael Vick gave a brief statement to the press following a hearing this morning in which he plead guilty to all the crimes he has adamantly denied and claimed were upsetting his mother. . . . . He added at the end of his statement that one good thing had come from this. He had found Jesus [and please don’t take all his money away.]

* Holy Juan has a cartoon, “Michael Vick finds Jesus.”  He’s in the end zone with both hands raised.

* The Brushback.Com has this to say: ATLANTA–In a press conference held yesterday at the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan, Jesus Christ, savior of mankind, announced he is conceding his throne to the Atlanta Falcons star QB Michael Vick. The ceremonial torch-passing signified the end of Christ’s two thousand-year run and the long-awaited appointment of Vick as the Son of God.

And there is lots more. The question, however, is what would Dietrich Bonhoeffer say?

“Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. [It] means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. . . . ”

This is hard talk. Who can believe it?

More to come on the fascination with Jesus at key moments by indicted celebrities. . . .

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Furthermore . . .

Look at Chicago Daily Observer for thoughts on Father McGuire, the Jesuits, and the latest accuser.