Time to take down the decorations

Perhaps my nephew, Tyler, has the right idea – all of those Christmas holiday decorations that are still up on houses in communities all across the metropolitan area are merely evidence of people getting a head start on celebrating the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

There go the holiday horns. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

And here I was merely thinking those people were just being too lazy to take down their often garish displays that were supposed to be a part of celebrating the baby Jesus’ birth (even though they probably view the holiday as a gauche gift-giving spree).

IT AMAZES ME the number of homes I come across that are all still brightly lit up and will remain so because people think the sight pollution they cause justifies their laziness to take down those decorations. Be real; even Kwanzaa is over by now.

I think that out of respect for the holiday, such laziness is downright wrong!

So I must admit when I was out at Midway Airport in the early hours of Tuesday, I actually got my joy by seeing a city crew hard at work taking down a set of golden horns that were part of the airport’s holiday decorations.

I also got to see an airport worker struggle to walk through the terminal with a giant wreath (probably about 8 feet around, by my guess) that had just been removed.
 

Airport crews working hard shortly after Midnight, believe it or not

THE HOLIDAY IS over at Midway, and it’s time to get on with the brand new year of 2016. Not that the holiday wasn’t enjoyable in its own ways. But all things must come to an end so we can move on to new good things.

Return this tree to nature

That’s what I can’t help but think whenever I see such gaudy displays. That, and the fact that someone’s too lazy to pull out the ladder to help remove the bright, bordering on obnoxious, displays they erected a couple of months ago in some cases.



Now I know it’s January. It’s not like these are the tacky people whose decorations remain in place in early April (baseball Opening Day should never bear little reindeer displays as part of the atmosphere).

It’s just that I wonder at what point does laziness become something we ought to lambast? Such as a business I saw recently with a nativity scene out front that looked as though neighborhood kids had taken baseball bats to the figures -- just for kicks!
 

If only all houses were this subdued, there'd be no problem

SPEAKING OF AIRPORTS, I actually had occasion to be at the Gary/Chicago International Airport on Tuesday – where the administrative offices still had a holiday tree with wrapped presents underneath.

Although I suspect the “presents” were merely empty boxes wrapped in colorful paper to provide the proper appearance for the holidaze.

I know I already have complained about those people who tried celebrating Christmas way back when it was still the Halloween season. Would it have been appropriate for little kids to go trick-or-treating dressed as Santa Claus?

Or perhaps as a batch of Santa’s elves – demanding treats instead of giving them as they made their round of the home neighborhood.

SO PERHAPS YOU should figure on spending a bit of time taking down those decorations – which cost you money and likely are sustaining damage due to the excess cold weather we felt Tuesday following Monday night’s sloppy snowfall.

How to bolster King Day interest

Which made for an interesting drive to Midway Airport, but that’s a story for another time.

Take down the decorations and put them away for use next year. Or else we’re going to have to presume you feel very strongly about the slain civil rights leader’s birth.

And somehow, I suspect many of these lazy people could care less about King or any holiday that doesn’t include an element of “gimme” in its description.

  -30-

We see terrorist attacks everywhere, particularly where they don't exist

It was just the other day I was sitting in the waiting area of an auto repair shop when the television broke away from the ladies of the View to tell us of a crucial breaking news story.

 

An incident at O’Hare International Airport. Security was beefed up significantly. Terminal One (the United Airlines terminal, a very significant part of the airport that once again believes it is the world’s busiest) had parts of it completely shut down.

 

THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY no detail given out by police about what exactly was going on. But news anchor Alan Krashesky gave us some information, purely on background, that implied something may have happened that could be construed as an attempt at a terrorist-motivated incident.

 

In the end, it turned out that a piece of luggage went unclaimed. Somebody took it to be suspicious. All the authorities were called in.

 

All for a bag that ultimately had nothing in it that could have been considered threatening!

 

A great big “Whew!” We can relax. No terrorist threat there.

 

NOR WAS THERE one on Friday, when a fire broke out at an FAA radar center in suburban Aurora. That center is an integral part of the communications that allow officials at O’Hare and Midway airports to keep track of which airplanes are coming and going from their respective facilities.

 

In this incident, officials knew right away about the fire.

 

But there were those who were convinced early on that this had to be some sort of terrorist-motivated attack on the United States (which makes sense since anything that impacts O’Hare and Midway has a backlash affect to airports across the country).

 

That fire managed to disrupt more than 1,800 flights into or out of Chicago, and Southwest Airlines wound up cancelling all its flights on Friday out of Midway. Which is a big deal because Southwest is the airline that essentially props up Midway. All those cheap, no-frills, flights wound up being cancelled.

 

MY FAVORITE ANECDOTE was to learn that the Valparaiso University football team over in Indiana had to scramble to get a charter flight out of South Bend, Ind., so that they could be in North Carolina on Saturday for their scheduled game.

 

They were already on the way to Midway when they learned of the chaos that passengers were being confronted with. Meanwhile, activist Gloria Steinem couldn't get a flight from New York to Chicago to appear at a campaign event on behalf of Gov. Pat Quinn's re-election desires.

 

For purposes of this commentary, it should be noted that FAA officials found out the fire was caused by a now-former 36-year-old employee of the facility who was upset about a job transfer to Honolulu. Nobody with ISIS or Al Qaeda or anyone else along those lines had anything to do with the incident.

 

Although I’m sure some people over there would love to be able to take credit for causing such havoc. It would play into their agendas.

 

WHICH IS WHY I’m bothered by all the paranoia that crops up whenever there is some sort of incident that people with certain ideological hang-ups will want to blame on people of Arab ethnic backgrounds.

 

It gets those of us who ought to know better all freaked out. We should be more rational, particularly in a moment of crisis. It is the people who panic and over-react and make misjudgments who wind up making mistakes that cause lasting problems.

 

It makes me suspect that the people who are quick to assume “Muslims” did it every time something bad happens are inadvertently giving aid and comfort to the terrorist-types who they think they’re attacking.

 

A moment of rationality every now and then would help us to put these incidents into a proper perspective – particularly the Aurora fire; which makes me think the offender is going to get the real punishment by being forced to endure future Midwestern winters instead of the balmier climate of Hawaii.

 

  -30-

O’Hare still a focal point for nation, and the lessons we learn as a society

O'Hare International Airport has experienced physical changes since this 1960's postcard image. Yet it remains a place with an impact on the soul of the nation -- even when things occur at other airports.

It always seems to be about Chicago whenever airports get involved, even if it happens in some other city.

Chicago has always been a focal point for the nation’s aviation system, regardless of the mode of transportation. To this day, there are many of those hundreds of thousands of flights each year at O’Hare International Airport that involve people headed from one place to another – who make their connection here.

SO SHOULD IT be any shock that when controversial incidents occur involving airplanes, somehow Chicago will be involved.

One such incident took place at Reagan Airport near Washington, D.C. (I’ll bet the ideologues are wishing today that it were still known as National Airport), where it seems that an air traffic controller fell asleep on the job.

At least two flights headed for Reagan Airport wound up having to land without the assistance of someone in the control tower.

On the one hand, it means those were incredibly skilled pilots who managed to bring down their airplanes without causing commotion, a collision with another flight, or some other form of catastrophe.

BUT IT ALSO means that the people whose job it is to keep the various incoming flights under control were literally “asleep” at the wheel. And yes, one of those flights was one that originated from Chicago and was carrying 63 passengers to the nation’s capital.

I’m sure those people are now feeling a bit queasy to learn the lone control tower staffer wasn’t alert at the moment they were trying to land, and wound up having to contact Federal Aviation Administration officials at a facility about 40 miles from the airport, in order to receive any assistance whatsoever in trying to land.

That facility usually exists to keep small aircraft from getting anywhere near close to Reagan Airport, so as to make it easier for the control tower to guide aircraft in and out of the major airport for our nation’s capital.

For the record, the FAA is acting very offended by all this behavior. At least one person has been suspended, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has ordered at least two people to work at all times in the Reagan Airport control tower – including the overnight shfit.

NOW I’M NOT one who flies very often. Not that I have a fear of flying (I actually see it as being safer than riding in a car, since it is a lot easier for some seriously incompetent people to get driver’s licenses than to get a pilot’s license).

But I have to admit this moment makes me wary of the whole process. It’s like driving an automobile and not being sure if the traffic signals are going to be working properly. All it would have taken was one seriously incompetent pilot and this whole situation would have become a mess.

It would have been one that would have entangled our own city’s flights. Because just as much as the Internet makes us all one big world and shows how arbitrary our local boundaries are, aviation has just as much of an effect.

Another aviation story cropped up into the news on Thursday, and it too had a Chicago angle – even though the dateline for this particular incident was “DETROIT –.”

A MAN WITH sympathies to al-Qaida had a desire to make his political/religious/social statement by causing an explosion on board an airplane – specifically a commercial flight.

Yes, he considered pulling his devastating and deadly action on a flight out of Chicago – perhaps envisioning us getting all emotional over the sight of an airplane exploding in the skies just moments after leaving O’Hare. It sounds too similar to the explosion some 25 years ago of the Challenger space shuttle – the one that caused schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe’s name to be placed on school buildings across the country as a tribute in the years since.

But this particular activist/radical/terrorist (personally, a prefer the word “nutcase”) ran into a very real practicality in trying to pull off this scam. Flights involving Chicago were just too expensive.

He couldn’t’ afford the tickets that would have gained him access to the aircraft. So, he shifted his attention to Detroit, according to the Associated Press newswire service.

NOT THAT THE people of Michigan should be expecting to see this happen any time soon. The plot got thwarted. The individuals involved are now trying to figure out how to cope with federal criminal charges, while also achieving their ultimate goal of spiritual perfection over a nation of “infidels.”

And we are left trying to figure out where the next batch of nutcases who use religion as a disguise for the reactionary thought against western world society will try to strike next.

So perhaps we in Chicago should not relax too much. Maybe the next batch of people seeking to make a statement with violence will have a little bit more money to afford an airline ticket originating at O’Hare International or Midway airports.

  -30-

Lipinski vote isn’t that shocking. It just means he’s ‘representing’ his district

It seems that Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., is part of an “exclusive” group – he is one of five members of Congress who last year voted in support of health care reform, only to turn on it and vote “no” on the measure that came up for a vote on Sunday.

The self-absorbed website Politico has union types talking about how they’re going to make all five of these politicians pay come future election days, talking about how they will have to make significant gestures of reconciliation if they ever want organized labor support again.

IN THE CASE of Lipinski, he is described as “hailing from (a) Democratic, big-city district,” implying there is no “logic” to his opposition to the president.

But anybody who truly knows anything about Chicago-area political conditions should not be surprised that Lipinski would be the one Chicago-area Democrat who would not go along with the desires of the man from Hyde Park who presides in the White House.

The reality is that Lipinski comes from a congressional district representing the outer part (think the area around Midway Airport) of the city’s Southwest Side, along with its surrounding suburbs.

We’re talking a part of the city populated by people who are there because, in many ways, they want to be isolated from what they perceive as the decay of the bulk of Chicago. It is a part of Chicago with a mindset that is more than willing to be different from the urban mainstream.

IT IS AN area more ideologically conservative on those social issues, and is a place where the locals are Democrats largely because their jobs require them to have membership in labor unions. It is not a place where people who come in talking about gay rights or abortion are going to gain any traction.

So when I heard Lipinski say that his reason for opposing the president on health care reform was that he wanted to make a firm statement in opposition to abortion, and that the fact that Obama signed an Executive Order into force on Wednesday to ensure that federal funds cannot be used for anything that even remotely promotes abortion (not even as part of health care) wasn’t strong enough for him, all I can say is that I believe him.

For Lipinski has always been one of those politicians who cites his Catholicism when it comes to the abortion issue.

That kind of attitude plays well in his congressional district. It is also why I believe Lipinski when he says he doesn’t fear political retribution for opposing health care, or Obama in general.

POLITICO, IN ITS recent story about the five “vote-switchers,” went so far as to say that Dan Lipinski cast his vote the way he did because his father told him to.

His father, of course, is retired Rep. Bill Lipinski, who engineered his retirement a few years ago in such a way that Dan didn’t have to face a serious political fight to succeed him.

The elder Lipinski was known for showing the same opposition to the Democratic Party platform when it came to abortion, and Politico reported that Bill merely thought it would be good politics to vote “no” on health care reform.

In short, Dan Lipinski figures he already gets enough grief from those people who are still bitter over the fact that his father was able to hand over a political post to him. The last thing he wants to deal with are the Tea Party types sending him harassing telephone calls, telling the diabetic member of Congress to “drop dead.”

THINK I’M EXAGGERATING? Some members of Congress who voted “yes” for health care have been receiving threats or acts of vandalism at their home district offices. Some of these incidents have gone so far that the FBI is officially investigating them.

I’m not saying that people of the Southwest Side condone such behavior. But I can see where Dan Lipinski would take father Bill’s advice and decide that a little bit of distance this year between himself and Barack Obama could have a payoff come the elections of Nov. 2.

Which is why I don’t think Lipinski will suffer serious retribution, other than the fact that he likely will never move up into the Democratic Party’s higher ranks of leadership – which isn’t something I believe Lipinski ever aspired to.

For I suspect that for Lipinski to join the ranks of nationally prominent Democrats, he’d have to change so much about himself that he would run the risk of offending enough of his congressional constituents that they’d seriously consider replacing him with someone more like themselves.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: This is far from the first time that Dan Lipinski has disagreed with his Democratic Party (http://www.ontheissues.org/il/dan_lipinski.htm) colleagues on an issue. Not that I think Lipinski is living in fear of the threat of a political independent running (http://www.texasinsider.org/?p=24369) against him on an issue.

Tea Party officials aren’t claiming responsibility for some of the vicious actions being directed against (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011432285_healthreat25.html) members of Congress who supported Barack Obama on health care reform. Those acts have included bricks through office windows and cut gas lines.

Chicago’s “Elite Eight” for ‘08

I enjoy this old postcard image of downtown Chicago, from before the days when the Sears Tower and Hancock Center dominated the skyline. Image provided by Chicago Postcard Museum (http://www.chicagopostcardmuseum.org/).

In the history of Chicago, 2008 won’t go down quite as adventurous a news year as, say 1968, 1929 or 1871.

But the year that will be complete in just a dozen more days did have its share of stories worth remembering. Considering this weblog began its existence one year ago today with a promise to “help people better understand what is happening on the shores of Lake Michigan between Evanston and East Chicago, Ind.,” today is as good a day as any to review the year’s top stories.

8 – MILOROD GETS BUSTED: Some people are going to disagree with me and claim I’m downplaying the legal predicament now faced by Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

I will be the first to admit that moving forward with impeachment of an Illinois governor is unprecedented. So is the degree to which a Chicago public official is accused of such crass (how else do you describe trying to “sell” the former post held by the biggest-name goo goo in politics today?) public behavior.

But I rank it at the bottom of this list for one reason – the real saga is going to come when the legal process progresses to the point where a trial takes place in U.S. District Court (or when Blagojevich enters a “guilty” plea to some sort of lesser charge).

In all likelihood, that will take place some time in 2010 (or 2011, or some year thereafter, if attorney Ed Genson gums up the legal works with enough procedural motions like he did with the criminal case of rapper R. Kelly, whose case took five years to go to trial).

When that happens, I will gladly proclaim the Blagojevich trial the Number One story of the year. Until then, I’ll have to agree that Genson’s characterization earlier this week of the Illinois House committee’s impeachment hearings as “stupid” has an element of truth to it.

7 – SKY-HIGH PRICES GIVE ME GAS: The times I have pumped gasoline in my car this week, I have paid somewhere in the area of $1.60 per gallon It wasn’t all that long ago that the only Chicago-area motorists who paid that much for gas were those stupid enough to use those overly-taxed pumps at filling stations in and near the Loop.

But it comes off as sounding like a bargain basement rate when compared to the more than $4 per gallon we were paying back in the summer months. At one point, Chicago-area motorists were paying an average of $4.24 per gallon (with those downtown pumps charging rates dangerously close to $5 per gallon). We had the highest average in the United States – even higher than isolated places like Alaska and Hawaii.

The end result of this gas price fiasco is that we are now used to paying ridiculous rates for petrol, and are inclined to think of the current price as some sort of bargain for which we should feel grateful. It also has many of us wondering how high gas will go come the summer of 2009.

If it weren’t for the steadily increasing rates (combined with service cuts) for mass transit, I’d be inclined to junk my automobile once and for all.

6 – BASEBALL IS MORE THAN A GAME: It’s a nerve-wracking ordeal.

In one sense, Chicago baseball in 2008 was historic. For the first time in 102 years, both of the major league teams representing the city made it through their six-month regular season ordeal to finish the season in First Place.

Both ball clubs will hold rituals in April to raise banners over their respective ballparks declaring themselves to be “Central Division Champs” of their respective leagues. And the way the White Sox managed to win that division title by winning a string of end-of-season games (with a loss in any one of them bringing their season to a Second Place conclusion) is something that ought to be remembered for decades to come.

Yet what is going to be remembered is the way both the White Sox and Cubs managed to lose the first round of their playoffs (I still see merchandise for sale touting the idea that the Cubs were destined to win the World Series this year). While the Sox managed to be competitive and win a game, the Cubs got swept in such humiliating fashion (for the second year in a row) that many of us wonder what was it about this team that made anyone take it seriously to begin with?

5 – AUCTIONING OFF THE ASSETS: Much has been made of the idea that Rod Blagojevich was selling off a U.S. Senate seat to the highest political bidder. But in a sense, Richard M. Daley did the exact same thing with some of the city’s assets that (if managed properly) can bring in revenue.

I’m talking about the deals made to turn control of Midway Airport from the Chicago Aviation Department to a private company, and another deal to let a private company oversee the parking meters on city streets.

Much has been made of the fact that parking along downtown streets could someday (by 2013) reach a rate of $6.50 per hour.

But what gets to me is why city officials think such income-producing resources are better off in the hands of private companies. While I appreciate the short-term benefit of millions of dollars being pumped into the city coffers, the long-term harm is that there will be nothing left for city government to oversee.

If that’s the case, why don’t we just auction off control of the City Council and Mayor’s office to a private management firm that could do all the actual work of government management? Then, Daley & Co. could sit back and do nothing, which some smart-aleck observers might think is an improvement.

4 – LANE BRYANT BANDIT REMAINS AT-LARGE: It was back in early February that a would-be robber at a Lane Bryant store in southwest suburban Tinley Park got carried away and killed five women (including some who were nothing more than customers).

The senselessness of the slayings caught the national mindset, and people across the country were paying attention to us for a time. It also inspired some of the craziest conspiracy theories (such as the idea that the robber/killer was some sort of homophobe who picked a Lane Bryant store because of the perception that transvestites shop there).

I even remember a few religious fanatics trying to turn the funerals of at least one of the women killed at the store into an excuse to protest against gay people.

But when one puts the mindless nonsense aside, the fact is we still don’t have a clue as to whodunit, or what the motivation for the slayings was (even though we’re pretty sure it will turn out to be something trivial).

3 – SCOTUS BANS FIREARMS BANS, CHICAGO SAYS “NO”: It was earlier this year that the Supreme Court of the United States gave gun nuts their jollies by issuing a ruling that struck down the stringent bans on firearm ownership in the District of Columbia.

The activists who can’t envision life without their high-powered rifles (and view ownership of an AK-47 or an M-16 as the equivalent of the car collector who likes to drive fine sports cars) immediately started filing lawsuits against other cities that try to restrict firearms ownership – including Chicago.

Many of those towns (such as Morton Grove, Ill., the suburb that enacted the original firearms ban) decided to avoid litigation by eliminating their bans, or amending them so as to make them pointless.

But Chicago stood firm, refused to make any changes, and recently got a federal judge to rule that the city’s ban is constitutional. That ruling is now susceptible to challenge in appeals courts, and it is possible that a higher court will try to overturn the local judge’s ruling.

But in my mind, that merely confirms that the high court’s action was a politically partisan move on behalf of a conservative constituency – rather than any serious reservation about the legitimacy of gun bans.

2 – I CAN HEAR THE OLYMPIC MARCH ALREADY: The next summer Olympiad is to be held in 2012 in London, with the next one after that in 2016 still in search of a site.

And there’s a chance that Chicago will become that site, bringing the eyes of the world to our city similar to how the presidential campaign of Barack Obama kept showing off aspects of Chicago life to the nation.

The U.S. Olympic Committee made it official when they officially chose Chicago to be the focus of their efforts to get the Olympics in the United States, rejecting a proposal by Los Angeles.

Now I suppose it’s possible that the International Olympic Committee could be delusional enough to think Madrid, Tokyo or Rio de Janiero is a nicer city than Chicago. Of course, that would mean they’re the same kind of people who think Britney Spears has legitimate musical talent.

The Olympics in our city would have the opportunity to give our city a grand new image, while also pressuring city officials to finally get off their duffs and fix some of those problems (ie., mass transit) that confront our daily lives.

As for those people who claim the headaches of staging the Olympics are not worth it, all I have to say is, “pipe down.” You probably think the Illinois State Fair is a grand old time, instead of the most overrated excuse for a corn-dog fest ever derived.

1 – YES, WE DID: The rise of Barack Obama from the obscurity of Illinois politics to being able to work in the Oval Office without causing the Secret Service to arrest him could very well turn out to be the “Chicago Story of the Decade.”

I can remember after his loss to Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., for a seat in Congress that political people were wondering if the Obama intellect was destined to fizzle out before it ever rose to new levels.

Even at the beginning of ’08, people figured Hillary R. Clinton (the suburban Park Ridge native-turned-Arkansan-turned New Yorker) was the shoo-in for the Democratic Party’s nomination, and Obama was just a pretty face who could give good oratory.

But he gained an advantage with an early win in the Iowa caucuses (where participants don’t view Chicago and Illinois as some alien land), and he ran up a string of primary victories despite the aspects of Chicago culture (Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Antoin Rezko, etc.) that may seem alien to those people not fortunate enough to live in the Second City.

Insofar as the general election, Obama won because a majority of the people decided they liked political newcomer Barack and didn’t care much for the other newcomer – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

In the end, Honolulu-native Obama (who like many others adopted Chicago as his home when he started his adult life) caused people from across the country to converge Election Night on Grant Park to celebrate the fact that he will become the first U.S. president with significant Chicago ties (Abraham Lincoln was a Springpatcher, while Ronald Reagan ditched Illinois for California, and Ulysses Grant didn’t live in our state long enough to qualify, in my mind).

And come Jan. 20, when Obama takes the oath of office to become the 44th U.S. president, this country will have a chief executive with an innate knowledge of all things Chicago, including why it is totally absurd to think one can root for both Sox and Cubs come the Cross-town Classic.

-30-

Why privatize a public airport?

When Gov. Rod Blagojevich talked of selling off the Thompson Center state government building in downtown Chicago a few years ago, the idea was treated as a joke and legal action ultimately prevented him from following through.

Similar suggestions to “sell off” the Illinois State Lottery earlier this year also are failing to be taken seriously by many people, even though some have suggested the state could make some money by turning over the modern-day equivalent of the numbers racket to a private entity.

SUCH ACTIONS EVEN remind me of the dreadful attempt at a sequel to the film, “The Blues Brothers,” where one of the gags is that the Illinois state prison in which Elwood Blues is incarcerated had been turned over to a private company.

So why is it that municipal officials are taking seriously the punch line to these real life and cinematic jokes – when it comes to Midway Airport?

That appears to be the case for the one-time Chicago Municipal Airport that was later renamed after the site of a famed battle in the Pacific during the Second World War.

City Council officials next week are expected to vote on whether to accept an offer for $2.52 billion from an investment company that would then take over the daily management of the airport near the Clearing neighborhood.

WHO’S TO SAY exactly what they would get from such a deal, other than to suggest that the kind of people who get involved in such deals do so because they expect to make money. Midway Airport would go from a place that helps supplement O’Hare International Airport in serving the Chicago area’s aviation needs, to a place that will be run as cheaply as possible so that someone can maximize a profit margin.

And if that means some of the routes or services provided by Midway that serve the public, but do not do so in a way that creates enough profit, then the services have to go – regardless of the needs of the public.

Now I’m not an aviation expert, other than to note I have covered the plight of Chicago-area airports during the past two decades – particularly the way in which those two airports are packed to capacity and a third airport would help alleviate air traffic needs.

So I’m not about to guess as what cuts the Midway Investment and Development Co. would consider making in order to ensure they don’t lose money on their purchase.

MY CONCERN IS more with the concept of facilities that benefit the public being run by private entities. It is not a concept of which I am particularly fond. There are certain types of programs or facilities that are best run by the government (whether local or federal or state or whatever).

If airports were truly meant to be private places, then we’d literally have every single airline that desires to have flights in and out of Chicago building their own facilities. Airports in every single corner of Chicago would be chaos, particularly since Chicago remains a place where many airlines have flights to various parts of the country intersect.

Much of the passenger traffic that passes through O’Hare airport in particular never sees Chicago. We’re a stopover, and the airports manage to make some money for Chicago by accommodating those passengers during their brief hours within our boundaries.

In short, government entities that run the airports wind up providing a sense of balance so that competing airlines do not interfere with each other, which would cause chaos for those of us who live here. In the same way, the federal government (through the Federal Aviation Administration) keeps the various airports from interfering with each other for the protection of those of us who live in the continental United States.

SO NATURALLY, OUR city officials are considering a short-term move that would bring some cash in (alright, it would bring a lot of cash in, there’s that “b” in billion to consider).

Admittedly, this privatization of Midway Airport would be permitted under a decade-old program created by Congress – one that theoretically allows up to five airports to convert themselves to privately-run enterprises.

In theory, the governments could take the money they receive and use it to improve the facilities, while the private companies could run the places in “more efficient” ways.

Yet the problem is that an airport, like other public facilities, often has to provide access to some places that might not be the most efficient-minded destinations.

PARTICULARLY IN THE case of Chicago, which likes to think it still is the transportation hub of the nation, such destinations are needed to ensure that someone in Chicago could catch a flight to just about anywhere in the nation or the world at a moment’s notice.

Anything less, and our city’s airports might as well be Mitchell Field in Milwaukee or Indianapolis International.

A private company can cut whatever it wants, but a so-called public facility has to maintain certain levels of service – or else it’s reason for existence comes into question.

Now I am not under any delusion that Mayor Richard M. Daley, who announced the potential deal earlier this week, is going to read this commentary and suddenly see the error of his ways.

FOR ALL I know, this deal will get the rubber stamp of approval when it comes before the City Council on Wednesday of next week.

But there’s just one thing to keep in mind, even when considering that anything involving airports takes years to complete. The federal laws allowing for privatization of major airports has been in place since 1996, and has been open to any airport across the nation.

Yet none have taken advantage of it, meaning Midway would become the first private airport for commercial flights. If the action were really that wise, why didn’t other cities jump at the chance to get out of the airport management business?

Why is it that I feel that our Midway Airport, which dates back to the 1920s and was once the “world’s busiest” until O’Hare came along is being used by people with an interest in aviation as a guinea pig for the rest of the nation?

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Are certain inefficiencies in operations a part of running a useful airport (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/us/01midway.html?em), or could private business do better?

The lease agreement awaiting approval by the Chicago City Council would give control (http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2008/10/01/Chicago_leases_Midway_for_25_billion/UPI-80881222891668/) of Midway Airport to a private company for 99 years.
A Vancouver-based airport management company is among the officials included in the (http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iE1ZPxvWElKC1x1F16uU2O80aynw) proposed Midway management group.