So what are you calling Monday? For me, it’s primarily a mail holiday

Are you amongst the individuals who are persisting in thinking of Monday as Columbus Day, even though it is one you probably haven’t had off since you were back in elementary school?

Hero? Or Scoundrel?

Or are you going out of your way to think of this as Indigenous Peoples Day – out of some line of thought that you’re making a political statement in favor of the people who supposedly were “discovered” by the Italian (but Spanish-funded) explorer Christopher Columbus.

WHICH MEANS THAT for a day, we get to become entangled in a dispute over which ethnic group deserves to have a “holiday” recognizing it – and which one ought to be hanging its head in shame at the actions of its ethnic brethren.

Personally, the significance for me is in the fact that Monday is one of the federal holidays for which the U.S. Postal Service halts delivery for the day. Which matters to me because I receive paychecks in the mail that usually are mailed at such a time that I receive them on Monday.

But this being a mail holiday, it means I won’t get paid this week until Tuesday – or later, if it turns out that the Postal Service experiences other delays. But the ineptitude of the Postal Service is a separate issue – and perhaps one that I will choose to write about another time.

But for now, we’re going to have to contemplate just how much of a load of bull we were fed during those elementary school history lessons – which were filled with information that was usually vague or undetailed to the point where most of us have a pathetic sense of what really happened in our nation’s past.

A THOUGHT WE ought to keep in mind whenever the ideologues in this Age of Trump claim they’re “Making America Great Again.” Most of them have a twisted sense of what this country was!

But as for Columbus, many of us are going to rant and rage at the thought of any significance being paid to the four voyages he made across the Atlantic Ocean that were among the first contact Europeans had with the continents now known as the Americas.

Can we really erase Columbus?

Others will whine and scream about the fact that anybody would want to downplay those voyages. Personally, I’ve always found some sense of humor in the fact that Columbus’ purpose in making the voyages was to find a new route to India for trade purposes.

Columbus, in search of Indians, instead discovered Puerto Ricans (and Dominicans, although no one knew them as such at the time).

ALTHOUGH AS FAR as I know, Columbus himself wouldn’t have been ridiculous enough as to use the mocking pronunciations of Puerto Rico that Donald Trump used last week. Particularly since those indigenous people thought of themselves as being from Boricua – and called themselves Boricuans.

As one who is of Mexican ethnic origin, I can comprehend the sense of disgust some feel at the notion of European types wanting to have their cultural background dominate the story of this portion of the world – as though those who were already here had no significance until they were exposed to the Euro ways of doing things.

But then again, I also comprehend how much the Spaniards – who were Columbus’ financial sponsors – spread their ways. It’s not like the 23 nations of Latin America would have anything in common; if NOT for the Spanish language and Catholic religion that was imposed upon them. And the reality of history is that it wasn’t American explorers headed east to Europe – it was the European influence that caused the two to interact.

I won't be buying anything for $14.92

I also recently stumbled across a commentary saying that people should lighten up in their criticism of Columbus – based on the logic that the English settlers were actually far worse when it came to their mistreatment of native peoples to the American continents.

IT MAKES ME think that the reason some are so eager to dump on Columbus Day is because perhaps they perceive Italian culture and traditions in this country as being of lesser value – and therefore more open to criticism.

Perhaps we ought to think a little less of those history lessons about 1620 and Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims. Of course, our real history is the intermixing of peoples – and perhaps we ought to realize we can’t really “take sides” – we have to acknowledge both.

Unless we’re prepared to do away with Thanksgiving. Which is something I think many of us would dismiss as crazy talk.

One other drawback; for me at least. Because it’s a mail holiday, I’ll be paid late. Which means I can’t even think of taking advantage of all those Columbus Day holiday sales – no new mattress for me!

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): What makes “normal” Indian governor?

I have one thing to say about the Illinois gubernatorial Democratic primary coming up next year – Ameya Pawar has a sense of humor.

PAWAR: Our state's first Indian gov?

He’s going to need it; particularly since the common perception is that this primary is a battle between J.B. Pritzker (he of the Hyatt Hotels fortune) and Chris Kennedy – with the latter making up for a lesser personal wealth with the political glories of his father and two uncles.

YOU HAVE TO admit, even a Daley running for office in Chicago would have trouble rivaling the political star power of papa Bobby, Jack and Uncle Teddy.

HALEY: Now our nation's U.N. rep

For those of you who haven’t paid any attention to Pawar (and most people merely snicker when his name is brought up in political conversation), he’s the alderman for the 47^th Ward (Northwest Side) whose immigrant parents settled into this country from India.

He’d be the first Indian-American governor of Illinois, if he could win. He’d also be the third Indian-American to become a governor of any state – we’ve had Bobby Jindal from Louisiana and Nikki Haley from South Carolina; the latter now being the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Both of whom ran as Republicans in states that had negligible Asian racial populations (both estimated at about 1.8 percent, according to the Census Bureau’s 2015 updates). Which means both had to make themselves into something that the white majorities could identify with, rather than being themselves.

WHICH IS THE point Pawar tried to make with his appearance this week at the iO Theater when he quipped, “I’ll be the first normal Indian governor.”

JINDAL: 1st guv named for a Brady?

No tales like we get from Jindal, the guy who “Americanized” his name by taking the moniker from the snot-nosed youngest boy on “The Brady Bunch.”

Of course, we also get Pawar’s wife, Charna, who is Jewish, which leads to Pawar referring to himself as a “Hin-Jew.” Certainly a lot more color and life in this potential governor compared to some of the Executive Mansion occupants (Yes, I’m talking about you, Jim Edgar) we’ve had in the past.

What else is laughable, in an unfortunate manner, about the political scene these days?

AN ENCORE PERFORMANCE: Remember how miffed President Donald J. Trump got when a federal judge of Mexican ethnic ancestry wound up ruling against him in that lawsuit against his Trump University?

CURIEL: Will Trump target him again?

The same judge who is a native of East Chicago, Ind. (which has a slight majority of Latinos amongst its population) is now going to preside over a case in which a man says he was illegally deported to Mexico.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel (a federal judge in Southern California) will have to decide the fate of a man who says that federal Immigration officials provided no documentation to justify his removal from the United States. The Mexico native says he should have had protection from deportation due to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act.

You know, that measure enacted by President Barack Obama that Trump wanted to wipe away just as much as he wanted to do away with the Affordable Care Act? You just know if the courts prevent him from taking that action, we’ll get the ultimate load of obscenities – probably so many that even the late comedian Richard Pryor would blush.

WHO LET THE RABBLE IN THE OVAL OFFICE: We’ve all seen the photographs by now – Trump allowed former Alaska Gov. (and failed Vice Presidential candidate) Sarah Palin into the White House for dinner.

She brought along so-called musicians Ted Nugent and Kid Rock – both of whom think it enhances their “street cred” by being outspoken and crass toward Progressive causes and officials. Meaning they approve of the Trumpster way of thinking.

The 'deplorables' at work?

Much has even been made of the photograph of the group that was taken of them standing in front of a formal portrait of former first lady Hillary Clinton. It’s a wonder they didn’t blow their noses and wipe snot on it!

Although personally, I was more entranced by the trashy-looking women who accompanied Nugent and Rock to the White House. Because they’re exactly the kind of loose-looking “ladies” whom the conservative ideologues have spent years associating with former President Bill Clinton.

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Is Illinois ready for Pawar? Are Dems ready for ’18 governor campaign?

Chicago-area Democrats have one thing going for them when it comes to the 2018 election cycle when Illinois picks a new governor – incumbent Bruce Rauner who likes to let us know how much we’re supposed to hate Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is despised almost as much.
 

PAWAR: Illinois' first Indian-American gov?

Rauner may have a personal fortune from his time as a venture capitalist, but no one out there is really going to be enthused about wanting him back for another term in office.

IF THE ’16 presidential cycle devolved into the campaign about “Who Do We Hate the Most?,” the ’18 battle for Illinois governor will be even worse.

I don’t doubt that the other 96 counties of Illinois will lean against anything having to do with Chicago or the local Democratic organization. But the level of contempt that Rauner has aroused within the six-county Chicago area is strong, too.

And let’s not forget that those six counties do account for about two-thirds of the state’s population – with Cook County alone being nearly half the state’s people.

But whether that will be sufficient that people should think Rauner’s re-election bid has the stink of death over it similar to how soon-to-be former Sen. Mark Kirk’s campaign did this year has yet to be determined.

THE ONE THING that Rauner’s re-election bid has going for it is that we don’t have a clue who the Democrats will find to run for governor. Particularly since veteran Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., has decided he wants to remain as a part of the Illinois political establishment in D.C. – rather than be the so-called CEO of state government.

Will governor learn people like him less...

The lack of a credible challenger is to the point where the Politico newspaper took seriously the talk that 47^th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar wants to run for governor.

Pawar, the suburban Evanston-born son of immigrants from India, is now in his second term in the City Council, and apparently thinks he can replicate his initial electoral victory of 2011 – back when he beat long-time Alderman Eugene Schulter on a puny campaign fund.

In part, he had the appeal of being the first Asian (let alone Indian) elected to the City Council. He has been able to maintain a bit of a progressive image as he has served as alderman. He has been among the most interesting of public officials to serve in the council in recent years.

 

... than they do the Ill. House speaker?

YET I ALSO don’t doubt that all the things that are his strengths as a Chicago alderman will be turned into negatives if he tries to run an Illinois statewide campaign.

Particularly since I don’t doubt that the masses of Southern Illinois who helped remove most of the remaining rural Democrats serving in the General Assembly will be willing to hold Pawar’s ethnicity against him. After all, this is the new Era of Trump in which we no longer give much credence to such considerations!

I don’t think the “Little India” community along Devon Avenue is enough to propel a statewide campaign for public office. And if Pawar seriously thinks he can go knocking on doors all across Illinois to introduce himself, he’ll find out just how big (500 miles long, 350 miles wide) the state is.

There’s also the inevitable tie that Rauner will try to make (and that rural residents will be gullible enough to believe) that Pawar is nothing more than a political lackey to Mayor Rahm Emanuel (who lives in Pawar’s ward) and, by extension, Madigan.

THE REALITY IS that people in Chicago Democratic politics tolerate each other, at best. They don’t really know how to play nice. I remember back when Susana Mendoza was a state legislator whom Madigan thought of as a bit of an annoyance and he was glad to see her leave state government for the city clerk’s post.

 

KENNEDY: Will he ever campaign?

Yet Rauner spewed the nonsense that she was a Madigan puppet to the point where it was obvious Mendoza didn’t get the same Democratic coat-tails from Hillary Clinton’s presence on the ballot that Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth did.

Consider that if Pawar has his weaknesses, he gets taken seriously at this point because there’s no one else. Billionaire J.B. Pritzker (as in the Hyatt Hotels chain) has never run for office before. And as for Christopher Kennedy (nephew of JFK and son of Bobby), the one-time manager of the then-family-owned Merchandise Mart likes the idea of being thought of as a candidate for office – but has never shown the willingness to put in the work of an actual campaign.

All of which means that if Democrats are to put up a credible candidate for governor two years from now, it probably will be somebody whose name hasn’t cropped up yet. Let’s not forget that we didn’t hear of Rauner until March of the year before he managed to defeat Pat Quinn for the political post.

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Did we care about terrorism trial?

Chicago can be so parochial at times.

We are, after all, the city that initially greeted the idea of a genuine Picasso statue outside our civil courthouse by suggesting it be replaced with an image of Ernie Banks in all his Cubbie-ness.

WE’RE ALSO NOW the city that had a criminal trial related to an international terrorist conspiracy take place in our federal court district – only for us to get more worked up over Milorod, the Sequel.

Whether or not our former governor’s nonsense and stupidity rose to levels that are criminal was more important to us than whether terrorist plots were somehow coming out of our fair city.

For the record, Tahawwur Rana was found guilty of charges related to plans made to attack a newspaper in Denmark that puiblished cartoons that Islamic religious extremists took to be offensive to their religion.

Rana is a long-time Chicago resident, although he actually has Canadian citizenship.

HENCE, ANY ACTIVITIES he did were coming from Chicago, which is why the G-men of the Second City who usually spend their time going after mob bosses and third-rate political hacks were now involved with trying to prosecute a case.

The most serious charges against Rana were the ones for which he was acquitted – the ones that said he helped plan a series of bombings in 2008 in Mumbai, India, on behalf of Pakistanis who are eager to have the conflict between their two nations turn into a global conflict.

Those are the ones that would have ensured that the 50-year-old man would have spent the rest of his life locked away in a federal correctional center with so much attention drawn to him that the rest of his life would have been a hell-ish experience.

We once thought Ernie Banks more significant than Pablo Picasso. Do we now really believe Rod Blagojevich to be more ineresting than Tahawwur Rana? Illustration compiled with help of photograph from State of Illinois.

Not that it’s going to be that pleasant anyway. Because the charges for which he was convicted could get him up to 15 years each in prison, with some legal observers speculating that the judge will wind up giving him consecutive sentencing.

THIRTY YEARS. AT his age, that could be a life sentence too.

You know it is bizarre when some attorneys speculate that Rana “won” this legal battle by only getting the potential for 30 years in a federal prison. But that is the level of high stakes that were at play in this particular trial – which locally got little more public attention during the newscasts than the Chicago Sky typically do during the sports segment.

I’m sure a part of Rana is pleased that Blagojevich got all the public attention, and that he wasn’t immediately turned into Public Enemy Number One on the streets of Chicago. Chances are most people will move on after Friday and forget about this particular round of legal activity.

After all, that jury considering the fate of Blagojevich began its deliberations, which led to such detailed reports about how they would have to sort out their notebooks and pick a jury foreman before they could even begin to start discussing the 20 charges and voting on their verdicts for each.

IT’S OUR PAROCHIAL attitude, which is just as much a part of Chicago’s character as the summer heat and the bad baseball perennially played at Clark and Addison streets.

I suppose I am just as guilty, on account of the fact that I didn’t seriously contemplate writing anything about the trial while it was ongoing, while I wrote several commentaries about the mind-numbing testimony that emanated from el proceso Blagojevich.

For most of us are used to thinking of the Dirksen Building as the place where Outfit guys and aldermen wind up if/when they get caught in the act of whatever mischief they were trying to commit.

In fact, about the only other legal proceeding at the federal courts in Chicago I can recall as comparing to this in terms of international scope was the libel trial of journalist Sy Hersh – who offended former Indian Prime Minster Morarji Desai by writing in one of his books about Desai’s CIA ties.

THAT LAWSUIT GOT heard in the federal courts in Chicago because of an Indian custom that required Desai to try to “shame” Hersh – a suburban Evergreen Park native – in the place of his birth. That was the trial that saw former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former CIA Director Richard Helms (both of whom had their own distrust for Hersh) appear on the witness stand to testify that Hersh was wrong about Desai.

It means even that relatively-minor case had “bigger” names than did this particular case. Which is sad. Because it reinforces the idea that too many people in our society don’t seem to care about the problems associated with terrorism until it hits our back yard.

It almost seems like too many people who live in this country think that “terrorism” was invented on Sept. 11, 2001, and that any violent acts committed in other parts of the world just don’t matter as much.

The lesson we ought to learn from the Rana trial is that there may be actions in our own back yard that impact the greater world, and we really are all tied in together whether we want to admit it or not.

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Election Day was an ethnic collage

This election cycle is giving us so many “firsts” when it comes to ethnic politics that it is a perfect display of the mish-mash of ethnicities that comprise our city.

PAWAR: The 1st Asian-American alderman



Being “ethnic” in Chicago no longer is limited to identifying oneself as “Irish” or “Polish,” although I’m not saying those groups have withered away in the city.

SOME ARE MAKING much of the fact that Chicago has its first mayor of the Jewish religious persuasion, while we not only got the first female elected to be city clerk, she’s a Latina.

Among the aldermen, there are those political observers who are amazed that Ameya Pawar got himself elected to represent the 47^th Ward in the City Council. Many people seemed to think that the retirement of Eugene Schulter from the council would result in nobody getting a majority – and the top two guns going at it in an April 5 run-off election.

Yet Pawar, an Indian-American who is only 30 (and expects to complete work on a second master’s degree from the University of Chicago later this spring), managed to get 51 percent of the vote on Tuesday in that Northwest Side ward that includes the Ravenswood and Lincoln Square neighborhoods.

In short, he will be Rahm Emanuel’s alderman – presuming that the tenant who has leased Emanuel’s house for nearly a year actually leaves when the lease expires (he’s been throwing out some hints lately that he’d like to stay).

I’D SAY THE chances of that happening are extremely fat, except there probably are people who never would have expected a person with India ethnic origins (or anything Asian) to ever get elected to the City Council.

MENDOZA: The 1st city-wide Latina



So the City Council now has its first Asian-American, and he came from a neighborhood that doesn’t have a large ethnic enclave that would be expected to cater to him. But that is an area where many people who can’t quite afford Lincoln Park or Lakeview proper choose to live.

I’m sure for many, the thought of having an “Indian” alderman seemed exotic – although I also understand that some people living in that ward (in a moment of disclosure, I lived there for one summer of my life some 27 years ago) resented Schulter’s efforts to designate a successor to himself.

But if the end result is that the City Council will provide a greater diversity than it did in the days when political people thought ballot diversity consisted of nominating candidates from each of the “three I’s” (Ireland, Italy and Israel) and no one else, then we’re all better off. Although I couldn't help but notice that in the far Southeast corner 10th Ward that has the city's original Spanish-speaking enclave, non-Latino Alderman John Pope got a solid 59 percent of the vote; even though some activists had thought this might be the year that the ward would get a Latino as alderman.

THOSE PEOPLE WITH an interest in Latino political empowerment instead will have to get a kick out of seeing Susana Mendoza rise from the ranks of being a legislative aide to then-state Rep. (later Alderman) Ray Frias (which is what she was when I first met her while covering the Illinois Statehouse scene just over a decade ago) to the post of city Clerk.

I’m not sure what I think of her campaign idea to raise more money for the city by selling advertising space on city stickers to businesses. I can fully appreciate why people would not want to have their personal automobiles turned into billboards for a company that gave the city – and not themselves – some money.

But her youth (she’s not even 40 yet) and energy will make her a worthwhile public servant, while also providing proof that the city’s Latino population (officially, 29 percent, compared to 32 percent white and 33 percent black) does have the ability to provide significant numbers of votes. Her victory may even have been a factor in the resignation of state Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, from his post, as some have reported that Hendon (who backed Mendoza's African-American female opponent) was "embarrassed" by how much she won by.

It was her domination of the Latino voter bloc that gave Mendoza a base of votes that combined with other people to give her that 60 percent victory on Tuesday, and the chance to say that she is the highest-ranking Latina in city government.

FOR THE TIME being, that is.

For any serious look at the maps being published this week about which wards and precincts voted for whom would show that the few areas that did not get on board the Rahm Emanuel bandwagon were the areas that have predominant Latino populations. Many of those wards went for former Chicago Public Schools/City Colleges of Chicago/Chicago Park District boss Gery Chico.

Although when one looks at the Latino voter bloc, it seems the majority wanted either Chico or former city Clerk Miguel del Valle as mayor, with Emanuel taking the votes of the roughly one-third of Latinos who were more interested in having an “in” with the expected mayoral winner, rather than trying to elect “one of our own” on Election Day.

EMANUEL: NOT Illinois' 1st Jewish official



Not that I’m ranting about Rahm, even though I haven’t forgotten his apathy toward immigration reform during his two years as chief of staff to President Barack Obama and will be watching to see if he takes a similar apathetic attitude toward the Latino population. For his own sake, he’d better not.

AS FOR EMANUEL himself, we now have a mayor who is Jewish (although Chico, had he won, had an ex-wife and daughters who also are Jewish). That is a “first.”

But it is one I am less inclined to be impressed by, mainly because Illinois had its first Jewish governor during the 1930s – the honorable Henry Horner, who served until his death in 1940.

It’s about time Chicago caught up to the rest of the state in this regard. Here’s hoping that Emanuel gets a better-lasting legacy than Horner – whom I’d suspect is remembered (if at all) by most Chicagoans these days as being the namesake for the public housing development that used to exist near the United Center arena.

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