 |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
Some possible sense about Katrina
. . . that takes us beyond the standard blame-Bush, blame-city and/or state officials position:
L’Affaire Stroger, Part CDXXXVII
The saga marches on, you might say. Bobbie Steele, veteran county board commissioner named temporary replacement for the incapacitated president, John Stroger, is “uncomfortable,” she said — make it all past tense when reporting this business — with the hiring-freeze hiring of 1,300 employees, as we presume she was uncomfortable with the Stroger patronage chief, whom she bumped laterally. But not uncomfortable in either case to fire anyone. It is encouraging, however, that a few weeks in the job has gotten the party grin off her puss in newsp pix.
In addition, she’s knocking John Stroger now: his administration was “insulated.” But she didn’t fire the patronage man, who is able to sing or hum the old favorite:
I’m bidin’ my time/“Cause that’s the kinda guy I’m
Actually ’cause Baby Stroger has all that patronage army working the precincts for him. It’s the confidence that led Ald. Beavers tell reporters when the stricken Stroger was still president, “We can do anything we want.”
Steve Patterson is all over this story in Sun-Times, offering us nothing cute and keeping stories down to 500 or so well chosen words, which is how they all should be written for daily newspapers.
Wal-Mart coverage
Sandra Guy story, Sun-Times 8/28/06 says Wal-Mart is big in ‘burbs, where it’s considered to do great things. Good Jobs First man in Wash DC, however, wants govt to decide the issue, not believing in The Power of the People, and I’m only half kidding here. Rather, let them vote — with their pocketbooks — on what’s good for The Community. Note especially the Forest Park info, where the Wal-Mart on Roosevelt Rd. has contributed to improvements galore by its taxes, which are contributed by The People when they buy things that They Want. Give the lady (and gentleman) what she wants, as Marshall Field used to say.
He’s baaaack!
The Return of Stroger will be celebrated tonight on Channel 11. As of 3:16 pm today, he was expected on Chicago Tonight when he and challenger Peraica will “square off.” Also on hand with be Commissioner Mike Quigley. That’s 7–8 pm, if you can tear yourself away from Cubs v. Pirates, which is 6–8 on cable 37.
Wecome back, Barack
Good question if you’re looking for one: To what extent is Sun-Times woman Lynn Sweet and her editors aware of the foto-ops and all-around glowing top-of-line coverage they are providing free of charge to Sen. Barack Obama as he makes his l-o-n-g African junket. The thing (series) is still going strong today, its — what? 8th day? 9th? It’s been a long time.
Thing (point) is, who’s reading it? It doesn’t matter. The PICTURES, my friend, are the thing (point). They are blowin’ in the wind. Another question: What if one of the crowd stood up and yelled, “Yankee, go home!” Now that would take this out of the category of a 17th-century “masque” of the sort characterized by the Beaumont and Fletcher character in “The Maid’s Tragedy,” where Lysippus, the king’s brother asks Strato about one being planned.
Lys. Strato, thou hast some skill in poetry: What think’st thou of the masque? Will it be well?
Strat. As well as masque can be.
Lys. As masque can be?
Strat. Yes; they must commend their king, and speak in praise
Of the assembly; bless the bride and bridegroom
In person of some god. They are tied to rules
Of flattery.
Anybody here seen Stroger?
County board presidency candidate Peraica is worried enough about his opponent Todd (Baby) Stroger after the latter’s absence from public view for nine days that he has authorized an all-points bulletin to find him and says he may have to put Baby’s picture on milk cartons if he is not found soon.
That’s his position. I think young Stroger is dropping out, with his father’s payrollers preparing a massive write-in campaign for someone else. This is not as foolish as it seems, because his father had about 100,000 payrollers if you count their families and friends, and if each gets five others, there you have it, a landslide.
Zeroing in
Sun-Times has a bead on Baby Stroger, with (a) this on the 1,300 hires since Daddy got sick and (b) Mark Brown’s column on being Republican in Chicago:
Everybody knows Chicago is a Democratic town, but you forget sometimes just how bleak the landscape can be for Republicans.
My most recent Wednesday Journal column addresses the matter of deciding to vote Republican even if your daddy and other forebears were “Dimmycrats,” to use the Mr. Dooley pronunciation, where I ask:
[H]ow are all you Oak Park and River Forest Democrats doing today, as you face the Ides of November, when Todd Stroger turns up on your ballot? You went big for supposed reformer Claypool in April. What now? There’s this guy from Riverside, a supposed reformer, which Todd ain’t. You went for supposed reform in April, now you face a stark choice: non-reform or, God save us, a Republican.
“It’s not easy,” I say.
Counselling may be in order. “How could you?” a former Democrat was asked by someone near and dear when he said he had become a Republican. If he had said he’d become a Methodist, she would have understood, because we are all ecumenical these days. The best people are.
Oh, the trials of democracy.
Sleepyhead?
Egad, the New Orleans city council president, Oliver Thomas, did not show up for his Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, nor did he show for a briefing on Hurricane Ernesto, which is headed for his city. “He apparently overslept,” said Wallace at 10:20 or so Eastern time.
A bad day indeed for one who is thus described officially:
Caring for others is a way of life for Councilmember Oliver M. Thomas, Jr. Whether working with youth in our community, or working to advance economic development and neighborhood revitalization, Mr. Thomas strives to enhance the quality of life for citizens of all ages of the City he calls home.
That’s not the half of it. He “ founded the Boys-To-Men Program for youth ages 8 to 18, who primarily reside in single parent households.”
He recruited role models, who tutored, counseled, and accompanied these young men to ball games and other activities, leading them on a positive, hope-filled path toward adulthood.
For this and more, he
has received numerous honors, including the Legislator of the Year Award from the Alliance for Good Government, and the Jefferson Award for Community Service from WDSU-TV.
and
is a Fellow of the Loyola University Institute of Politics.
Busy guy, all tuckered out, apparently.
Later: Not so, apparently, per this from Mr. T, whom I asked if he’d overslept:
No was at there studio and he wouldn’t let me go on because he had [Jefferson conty
] sheriff [Harry] Lee on , so I went to WDSU and did my report there .
————————–
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Device
Danny and the Tigers
Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL, i.e. Chi & points west, including OP) made Chi Trib editorials today, lede item, “Davis’ marvelous adventure”, which follows on AP and Trib (also here) and other stories about his taking moola for a seven-day trip to Sri Lanka, once Ceylon, from the terroristic Tamil Tigers, who use suicide bombers and child soldiers, according to our govt. He says he has seen no evidence that says they put up the money — for him and an “aide.”
Given . . . incriminating disclosures [involving Tom DeLay, R.-Texas] about congressional junketeering, you’d think experienced hands such as Davis, a Chicago Democrat, wouldn’t take tickets from strangers
says Trib today. But junkets are important to Davis, who “has accepted 47 trips paid by private groups since 2000 [and] ranks 15th among the 535 members of Congress in accepting” them. 15th out of 535, wow! He likes to travel.
Trib wants a rules change, requiring Congressmen to hit up taxpayers for such trips if such are needed.
Another question has to do with Davis’ knowing what the heck is going on, period, if he isn’t up to speed on Tigers’ doings in and out of Sri Lanka, including paying off U.S. officials, as 11 of their supporters have been recently arrested for doing. And he was the good-govt. non-Stroger candidate for county board presidency slating! Wow again!
(On the other hand, give Davis a hand for his work on alleviating the plight of nonviolent drug offenders, as explained here. He’s making a push this fall for the so-called Second Chance Act, of which he is lead sponsor. It’s considered a wedge into this matter, though it does not specify the nonviolent part. In any case, he got favorable mention from the Drug War Chronicle, published by StoptheDrugWar.org.)
Later: Danny Davis update was supplied by Chi Trib 8/28 by John Biemer, whose account is very straightforward, and appreciated for that. It’s a summary of what’s been done, with a nice pulling of it together. Davis
said he went to [Sri Lanka] to see how reconstruction and aid money was being distributed after the 2004 tsunami at the behest of his constituents. But the community that prompted that weeklong trip appears to be a small one.
Forty-four people in his district, in fact, per the 2000 census. But not they but the Tamil Tigers paid $13,150 in laundered funds, say law enforcers. Davis said he didn’t know that, saving his thanks for a Tamil cultural organization, the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America, based in south suburban Hickory Hills.
In yet another district, the 6th, in Glendale, FBI found information that led to 11 arrests for helping to aid the Tigers illegally. A Davis aide claimed many Tamils in his district but named none for Chi Trib. Most of the Chicago-area Tamils are from India anyhow, according to various sources whom Biemer names. When Davis got back from Sri Lanka, he got a $500 donation from his Hickory Hills Tamil contact.
Looks fishy. Davis was roaming outside his district even before he roamed all the way to Sri Lanka. Why?
Here comes the judge again
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor again, again at PowerLine, this time as “judge-shopper” in the 1998 U. of Michigan law school affirmative action case, from which she recused herself because married to a U Mich regent. The lady is incorrigible, though U Chi Law’s Geoffrey R. Stone praised her “courage” for holding “unlawful a program that the president of the United States asserts is essential to national security.”
He offers his own arguments why the NSA listening is unconstitutional without quoting her opinion, which has been picked apart by PowerLine lawyers and others. He is vastly impressed, again, by the “courage” she showed in Mississippi in 1964, when as a young lawyer she confronted white-seg cops. He is not impressed by the conflict of interest argument — she’s an ACLU supporter, ACLU brought the case. But, again, he has nothing to say about her argument as legally respectable, which PowerLine’s people say it isn’t.
