House Speaker Michael Madigan, center, Senate President John Cullerton, left, and other Illinois Democrats largly got their way with new legislative redistricting map. (Keri Wiginton, Chicago Tribune phptp / June 8, 2011)
It's time to revive the idea of a constitutional amendment that will defang House Speaker Michael (The Real Governor) Madigan and his flunkies in Springfield, who have turned Illinois into a national laughingstock.
The latest joke to be cracked by Madigan is his congressional redistricting map, passed by the Legislature as required every decade by the U.S. Constitution to reflect population changes. The new map violates constitutional requirements that the districts be compact and laws that demand that the districts group together shared community interests. In viewing Madigan's maps, one might ask what shared interests the neighborhood around U.S. Cellular Field on the South Side has with Crest Hill, a Joliet suburb of 20,000 some 35 miles away. According to Madigan's thinking, their community interests are so closely aligned that he put them in the same serpentine district.
A group of young men who say they were attacked Tuesday evening stand with police at Chicago and Wabash avenues. (Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune)
Chicago media must identify the race of the aggressors and victims in "flash mob" attacks.
There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
You'd think it was from all the handwringing within and without the media about whether the public should be told whether these are cases of black youth randomly attacking whites. Or of whites attacking blacks. Or of racially mixed gangs attacking racially mixed victims.
If the attacks are not racially motived, then describing the race of the attackers and victim will clear up the matter. The factual reporting will put to rest any suspicion that random, racially motivated crimes are breaking out. Or feed false stereotypes.
But if these are hate crimes, then the public has an equal right to know. Because an outbreak of racial hatred by any group is a serious problem that must be addressed.
It's being flown right under the flag of the United States as an "example of [the Federal Reserve Bank's'] commitment to the values of acceptance and inclusion."
Now that everyone has exhausted (I hope) all the handwringing over Joakim Noah's slur, we have yet to see what will happen to that jerk of a Miami Heat fan who set off the episode.
Reports indicate that the insufferable, drunken fan had been on Noah for much of the game with a lot of loud, vulgar insults. Will there be a repeat performance tonight? Will anyone suggest that he shut up? Or has subjecting everyone to your potty mouth now become a part of our culture, if not a right, not to be challenged.
Commentators from all corners tsk tsked Noah and suggested that a fan has a right to sit there, spewing all kinds of vileness because he bought a ticket.
Bullshit.
The guy's a pantywaist, which is probably what Noah meant. Anyone who knows that he can get away with safely challenging a big guy without facing the consequences is a pansy. A chicken, coward, cry-baby, fraidy-cat, milksop, momma's boy, namby-pamby, wimp, wuss, wussy.
And if any group of pantywaists is offended, man up.
It did it by appointing to its board of trustees Roxanne M. Martino, a campaign contributor to political candidates who are strongly opposed to the Church's teachings on life.
A review of Martino's contribution history on City-Data.com (see here and here) revealed that she gave a total of $16,150 to the pro-abortion group EMILY's List between 2005 and 2008. On its website, EMILY's List states that it is "dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to office."
I've been of two minds about Fox TV's "Chicago Code. and the last-ditch effort by its Chicago fans to save the now-cancelled series.
Jennifer Beals--NO
The female Chicago police superintendent (Teresa Colvin, played by Jennifer Beals) is ludicrous, and the singular importance of her side-kick, Dectective Jerek Wysocki, played by Jason Clarke, is goofy. So is the idea that an alderman, not the mayor, runs things. That goes for the idea that the Chicago police department--or for that matter, the Cook County state's attorney (i.e. the Good Wife's husband) or even the Illinois Attorney General--would go after corruption in Chicago is as untenable as Saturday's Apocalypse. And the idea of an Irish Mafia was such a desperate creation to not offend politically correct sensibilities makes it laughable.
But the cancelled series rose to great heights with the creation of Ald. Ronin Gibbons, beautifully played by Delroy Lindo. This character accurately and uniquely captured the moral ambiguity of the Chicago Way. No other portrayal or series that comes to mind so flawlessly describes the mixture of good and evil of the Chicago Way. Do for others so that you can take care of yourself.
Yes! This happened on an Amtrak train out west, but I'm sure that riders in Metra's quiet cars would love to see this happen too.
Maybe on the CTA too. Looking at the video, I'd say that this woman looks exactly like the yacker that my wife and I encountered last year on the CTA's red line. The entire car of riders could figure out that she was mad, really mad, at someone on the other end. Every oath, every foul word, every curse, every obsencenity I had ever heard in the shipboard Navy was expelled from this woman's mouth.
On and on she went, louder and louider, until the man in the seat in front of her could take it no more. He first asked politely to tone it down. She responded with an obscenity. He asked again, and she responded with another obscenity, even louder.
The whole thing escalated until f-yous were echoing off the walls. The guy finally fell quiet, but she kept it up. He rejoined the discourse, and it went on from about Clybourn all the way to Howard Street.
Her reasoning: She had a right to talk anyway she wanted. Anyone asking her to respect the other passsengers she accused of "disrespecting" her. Whatever happened to the idea of earning respect? How did this happen to us?
( Michael Tercha, Chicago Tribune / May 17, 2011 ) Oprah Winfrey hugs Tyler Perry while taping the second of two "Surprise Oprah! A Farewell Spectacular" episodes of the Oprah Winfrey Show at the United Center.
Maybe, I thought, I was the only one turned off by the self-adulating excesses surrounding Oprah Winfrey's departure from Chicago. (Where's she going again? Oh, yeah, somewhere out west, to live with all the stars that came to say goodbye to her at her United Center extravagent amour-propre. How's that for irony?)
Naturally, the media had no other choice--struggling for survival as they are in this digitally transformed world--but to cover the immensely popular Winfrey. But, c'mon guys, when is enough, enough? Every time I see someone popping up with an "exclusive" interview with Winfrey, I blanch in embarrassment for my profession--at least that's what journalism was once called. Get used much?
I'm so sick of the ardor that is stinking up the place, I couldn't read any more about it, which is not the way to research a column or a post. So, when I came across someone who did more than think about it, I was delighted. Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper did a terrific job, and I highly recommend it.
He concluded:
From the footage I have seen of the event, the most memorable moment came when Jada Pinkett Smith said to Oprah, "You have enlightened us, you have empowered us, you have taught us how to 'be' . . . I know you don't have children of your own, but you have mothered millions . . ."
Wow. That's just about the perfect combo platter of a load of New Age baloney coupled with a backhanded compliment.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing to eliminate the "white potato"--defined as any variety but the sweet potato--from federally subsidized school breakfasts and to limit them sharply at lunch
Seems that some schools have been dipping the potatoes in things that make the vegetable more appealing, like (gag) chocolate.
First junk food, now potatoes. What's next, broccoli?