To listen to the “Bard” named Berra, “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over”

So is it over?

Did the 99 percent win, or will it be undone?

I’m referring to the fact that a Cook County judge this week made a ruling that I’m sure has Mayor Rahm Emanuel tearing his hair out, has the Police Department perplexed, and has people talking about legal appeals.

AND ALSO LIKELY has the conservative ideologues of the world ranting and raging about “activist courts” and “damn liberals in Chicago.”

Even though when one looks at the ruling and the circumstances, it actually makes a lot of sense. Almost too much sense for me to believe that an official came to this conclusion all by himself. But will some future judicial panel decide to undo what happened on Thursday? Is it over now, or will it be over later?

For what it’s worth, the ruling is going to cause criminal charges against 92 protesters to be tossed out of court. These particular protesters were of the “Occupy Chicago” breed – those activists who go about complaining that 1 percent of the populace is pocketing all the wealth for themselves; leaving the remaining 99 percent with nothing.

Remember last year when those protesters were taking to camping out in public locations all over the country to try to force the masses to pay attention to them?

WELL, IN CHICAGO, they were setting up in Grant Park – the same place where the Chicago Police of ’68 were beating up protesters against the Vietnam War who came to the Second City because it was hosting the Democratic National Convention.

The beatings and other use of force last year wasn’t anything as intense as what happened all those decades ago.

But there were mass arrests. Emanuel would have preferred to not have these people screeching and screaming in the public park that Chicago likes to think of as its front lawn. After all, they made the neighborhood look so gross!

The “excuse” used by Emanuel to have police go into the park were the curfew laws that exist on the books. Technically, people aren’t supposed to be in the park after 11 p.m.

EMANUEL CLAIMED PUBLICLY at the time the fact that the activists were told in advance that they couldn’t stay after 11 p.m. was evidence of a new, humane approach to the Chicago Police Department – harassing the “hippie freaks” without appearing to be harassing them.

Except that Associate Judge Thomas More Donnelly didn’t quite see it that way. He ruled that the way the city handled the situation amounted to violations of a person’s right to assemble freely.

Or, as Donnelly put it, the city’s enforcement of the curfew is way too erratic. Too many other people get to hang around the park in the late hour of the day (and wee hours of the following day) without having to fear they’re going to be picked up by the police and tossed into a jail cell.

They may face a fair chance of getting mugged, but that’s a different issue altogether.

DONNELLY EVEN WENT so far as to point out that night in early November of 2008 when all those people packed Grant Park to hear Barack Obama give what turned out to be his victory speech upon learning he had, in fact, been elected as U.S. president.

His advice, even if never said, often works



That wonderous night when Chicagoans got to regale in the mood of knowing that “one of ours” (even if he really is a Hawaii native) had managed to achieve the goal that local people like Sen. Paul Simon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson had strived for – but failed to achieve.

But technically, when they didn’t all go home before 11 p.m., they were curfew violators. Should the Chicago Police Department have tried to bust some skulls open in order to chase people out of the park?

Maybe the ideologues would enjoy that image in their wildest fantasies. The rest of us, including the judge, see the folly in such thoughts

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Does Rahm like Jingle Bells?

I’m going to repeat my traditional holiday message in hoping that all of you (whether celebrating Christmas, the fifth and sixth days of Hanukkah, making preparations for Kwanzaa, or doing something else) have a pleasant weekend.

EMANUEL: What would he sing to Occupy-types?



Log off your computer, or whatever kind of device you happen to be using to read this weblog or anything else on the Internet. Enjoy a weekend away from all the nonsense that pollutes the alleged information superhighway (does anyone even use that phrase anymore?).

GET OUT INTO the real world with other people. It will definitely be a more rewarding experience for you. Serious commentary will return to this weblog on Monday.

But if you absolutely feel compelled to check out something, view this video of a most unique take on “Jingle Bells.” I promise that I’m wishing you a happier holiday than the “Occupy Wall Street” types based in Chicago wish Mayor Rahm Emanuel to have.

Because singing Christmas carol parodies for Chicago’s first Jewish mayor (even if you agree with the sentiment expressed in song) almost sounds like a twisted parody, in and of itself!

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Ideologues are doing a good, enough job of shooting themselves in the foot

Sometimes, I think the way to go about opposing that segment of our society that is determined to keep us socially in the 19^th Century is to do nothing.

Because at times, the conservative ideologues among us do a good enough job of making themselves look ridiculous.

PART OF IT is because political people in general have a tendency to figure out how to say something stupid – no matter how much they try to avoid it.

But even those who don’t aspire to hold government positions manage to find a way to step in it and make something relatively harmless into a MAJOR CRISIS ISSUE!!!!!!!

It seems like we have learned nothing from the late 1960s, where many of those Chicagoans who eagerly opposed Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies being in the city in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention held in ’68 sound so stupid in retrospect.

Did anyone seriously believe that the city’s drinking water supply was going to be contaminated with LSD?

PROBABLY ONLY THE same kind of people who seriously think mayhem is going to occur at next year’s Gay Pride Parade in the north lakefront neighborhoods – on account that the new route is going to take it right past a Catholic church.

That will be Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Belmont Avenue, where church officials are trying to avoid sounding bigoted in their complaints about the new parade route – which actually was designed to reduce the amount of foot traffic in the Lakeview neighborhood come the 2012 version of the parade.

But now, we’re going to have little children attending church while the parade goes marching by. Parents will have to squirm as they come up with an explanation for much of the gaudy behavior that takes place during the Pride Parade every summer in Chicago.

The reality of this particular event is that it is harmless. It usually polices itself rather well – despite the crowds in the hundreds of thousands of people who turn out to either watch the event or participate in it.

BUT WE HAVE church officials insisting that there will be traffic and public safety problems created by having a parade pass by Belmont Avenue.

The fact that this church is going out of its way to say that its’ stand is not against homosexuality in and of itself is just too reminiscent of that old Seinfeld line (“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” while going on and on about heterosexuality).

It seems to me that the people who really expect some sort of orgy to come marching right by the church during Sunday services are the children of those who couldn’t figure out that tainting Lake Michigan with LSD would take such a large quantity of the drug that there’d be no way to “sneak” it into the city.

A “pinch” of LSD isn’t about to turn a 9-million-person metropolis into a batch of drug addicts.

YET THERE IS another reality. The people of Our Lady of Mount Carmel are NOT the most ridiculous sounding individuals this week.

That title goes to the people of the Illinois House of Representatives who dumped all over state Rep. LaShawn Ford, D-Chicago, for his purely-symbolic resolution in support of the Occupy Wall Street activist movement – particularly those people who have taken to gathering around LaSalle and Jackson streets in Chicago.

Ford, in his resolution, says he sees the effort as “continued peaceful exercise of First Amendment rights.”

Legislators usually grant each other votes of support for these resolutions – which have no power as law but allow for statements. This time, they turned on him – giving it a 37-58 vote (far short of the 60 votes of support any bill needs for approval).

STATE REP. ROSEMARY Mulligan, R-Park Ridge, who usually shows some sense of having common sense, claims she has heard of people who are afraid to go to downtown Chicago because of these activists – although I suspect these people are just scared of going anywhere where there would be large numbers of people unlike themselves.

For the only truly scary aspect of downtown Chicago is the ridiculously-high price of legally parking one’s car.

Then, there’s state Rep. Ed Sullivan, Jr., R-Mundelein, who harps on an issue I have seen many ideologues rant on when it comes to the Occupy Wall Street protests – they’re criminals, and some are rapists.

Not that we’ve had any of that among the Chicago versions of these activists. But who wants to let the facts get in the way of a rant (particularly since the few cases of sexual assault have involved participants in the protests).

IT’S CERTAINLY NOWHERE near the image of Occupy protesters raping and pillaging every woman they encounter on the street, or breaking downtown store windows for massive looting.

It there were, we’d probably have police activity similar to what occurred in ’68 – the activity that ultimately got labeled a “police riot” just over four decades ago and would be even-more over-the-top if applied in ’11.

Not that this commentary is totally fair. Because it makes it appear that Sullivan and Mulligan are somehow the most outrageous of the batch of legislators who felt compelled to speak out against this issue. Anybody who wants to get the true sense should check out the Capitol Fax website.

Perhaps it is because these activists are speaking a little too close to the truth with regards to the allegiances some political people have when it comes to balancing business and social concerns?

FOR SULLIVAN USED the word “un-American” to describe these protesters. Which is way too similar to the rhetoric used all those years ago to describe the Yippies – all too many of whom grew up into respectable citizens in our society.

Is that what we’re destined to repeat – these protesters maturing into proper people while they oppose grouchy grandpa-types who truly seem to want to live in the past?

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Would we in Illinois regard the meme-d pepper-spray cop as the victim?

It’s the Chicagoan in me that caused a certain reaction to a CNN report I saw Sunday morning – one about how people are taking the image of  a police officer using pepper spray on students at a University of California campus and spreading it all across the Internet.

Who thinks cop is the victim? Image provided by Smosh.com



How many people here believe that the police officer (since identified as Lt. John Pike) is the victim in all of this, and that the people who are creating such images are somehow doing him wrong?

BECAUSE THAT CERTAINLY is the attitude that is spawned by Illinois law. I’m referring to the law that says that people who take video of police officers in action without their advance knowledge and consent are committing a crime.

If this had happened in Illinois, I’m fairly sure that someone would want to believe that the person who took the original images that are now being doctored-up into everything from a police officer spraying Bambi to Jesus Christ himself at the Last Supper would be worthy of prosecution.

Personally, I have always thought the Illinois law against such images was some sort of gross overreaction by conservative ideologues who don’t want anything done by their police to be used against him.

Even, and perhaps in particular, images of a police lieutenant using pepper spray to knock the sense out of Occupy Wall Street-type protesters who were peacefully sitting.

MY REACTION TO the Sunday morning news report was to wonder how quickly the state’s attorney’s office in Cook County would have sought to prosecute somebody for taking the image – had it involved the Chicago versions of the “Occupy” protesters and had it occurred in our fair city?

Which to me is such a gross over-reaction. Yet it is in character with the way that similar cases have been handled by police in Chicago. And I’m wondering how many people will want to believe that this is somehow disrespectful toward law enforcement personnel in general.

I know that some people are going to claim that this type of commentary is, in and of itself, somehow disrespectful or anti-law enforcement. Even though I do not believe it to be.

It is just that I have always thought that law enforcement personnel of all types should be held to a higher standard than the masses of our society. We do, after all, give these people considerable power to make judgment calls in cases that can result in the arrest and detention of individuals.

IF ANYTHING, A part of me wishes that it were possible for every single moment of a police officer’s on-duty activity to be video-taped. Perhaps if police realized that we were watching and that their professional conduct would be assessed in a blow-by-blow nature, there would be fewer incidents of official misconduct.

Actually, such an attitude could go to the benefit of the police, since if we could see them in action we might well gain respect for those incidents where they manage to show professional restraint in the handling of an individual whose own conduct crosses the line into “despicable.”

It also would serve as further evidence in their own cases – since I have seen in court proceedings how much credibility video gets from people where they can see what, and how, something actually happened.

But for that credibility to be maintained, we really can’t have a situation where police control the cameras and can keep us from seeing the screw-ups that occur all too often.

SO WHAT DO I think of the CNN report that was one of the first images I woke up to on Sunday morning?

I thought it was a bit trivial – and little more than an excuse to put on the air some image of Spongebob Squarepants getting blasted in the face with pepper spray.

But sometimes, it is the trivial details that, when put together, can illustrate a larger point of some seriousness. And the idea that our laws somehow would elevate triviality to criminal status makes me wonder how long it will be until the people put pressure on such laws to change.

Because the current law on such videotaping (particularly at a time when our society has become one where real people have less and less privacy) is one that only the 1 percent of society could truly support because they think it will be unleashed on the other 99 percent of us.

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EXTRA: Who’s evicting whom?

Pat Quinn, in his days before becoming governor, was the master of the Sunday press conference. He’d make some sort of announcement at the end of the weekend, knowing that unless there was some massive murder there would be nothing else for news outlets to cover.

So perhaps that is what the Occupy Wall Street types were thinking when they decided to make their latest statement against Illinois state government. They’re going to the Statehouse in Springfield on Saturday for a massive afternoon rally outside the capitol – using the same Lincoln statue as a background that Quinn used to use.

THEY’RE EVEN DESCRIBING their event as a symbolic “eviction notice” to the politicians who currently work at the Statehouse.

It’s a nice image that I’m sure many people, regardless of political party affiliation, would be sympathetic to. Kick all the bums out.

But seriously. A Saturday?

It’s hard to take the image of an eviction seriously on a day when the capitol will have no one inside it – except for the Secretary of State police officers on duty, and perhaps a few tourists.

I THINK I’D take this protest a little more seriously if they would have had the nerve to do it during the week – particularly since this week is the one in which legislators are back in Springfield for the first week of the fall veto session. Just envision the grimace on Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's face if someone tried waiving a mock eviction notice in his face? Or the sight of rank-and-file legislators trying to sneak into the building without being detected by the activists?

Instead, I can already hear the ideologues who are determined to denounce this movement complaining that these activists don’t even have the nerve to confront the people they are complaining about. It may well be the only thing that the Tea Party types and I would agree upon. Because it’s true.

So to the hundreds, if not thousands, who take the time this weekend to have a Statehouse rally (not far from the spot where I once saw the Ku Klux Klan have a capitol building rally, just to show that they could), have fun. Perhaps they'll exorcise the "stink" the Klan left on the Statehouse grounds all those years ago.

Just don’t be too surprised if few people bother to pay attention. Which may be the reason why the Gallup Organization has a poll showing that while more people sympathize with the Occupy types than oppose it, most don’t have a clue as to what they’re all about.

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How many people are playing “1968” in their minds? Will we ever live it down?

It almost felt like false advertising.

I’m talking of television coverage of these Occupy Wall Street/Chicago/Washington/wherever protests where one can clearly hear the participants chant, “The whole world is watching.”

One month, and counting


AS IN THE chant that was used by the anti-war activists who protested in Chicago back in 1968 – the year that Chicago police engaged in overkill (that’s why it ultimately got labeled a “police riot”) to try to maintain order in Grant Park.

The idea that anything that is happening these days is comparable to the chaos of our society in the summer that I was 3 years old is just an exaggeration; which is what makes the lengthier-than-usual incarceration for some protesters seem all-the-more like overkill. To compare these protests to the activities of the ‘60s seems way too much like people in desperate need of validation.

Perhaps they even think they’re being “60s-ish” by managing to get arrested. The most recent activities of these activists who want government to quit being so lovey-dovey with big business (as compared to Tea Party types, who think government is too hostile towards such interests) have resulted in arrests.

Just this weekend, Chicago police spent their late Saturday into early Sunday in Grant Park, taking into custody 130 people who camped out (which in and of itself was not the problem) and wouldn’t leave at curfew.

IN SHORT, THE park closed for the evening, and these people didn’t want to leave.

Activists are issuing statements saying they plan to continue such activities on weekends. Which means that every weekend, we’re going to get the sight of Chicago police hauling people off in the wagons so they can spend some time in a holding cell – all so that charges can be filed that likely will be dismissed in the future so that prosecutors can focus their attention on “real” crime.

Which makes the whole thing seem like a game. We’re playing “60s.” Will someone lose control and clobber someone just a bit too hard with that police club? Although it is nice to see evidence that not everybody is a Tea Party-type (which is what those people would have you believe).

Not everybody thinks '68 was cute

Don’t think that thought of this being a game hasn’t run through the minds of some, particularly when egged on by the same chants that echoed through Grant Park some 43 years ago while the unaware Democratic Party operatives nominated Hubert Humphrey to take a fall to Richard Nixon in the presidential election cycle that year.

JUST A COUPLE of weeks ago, I covered that big downtown protest march for one of the suburban daily newspapers – the march that had a few thousand people converge on the Art Institute of Chicago (and which resulted in only one person being arrested – for pushing a police officer).

While there, I ran into a former reporter-type colleague of mine who now works for one of the wire services, and who told me that her editors in New York were all hot and bothered for the Chicago version of the “Occupy (fill in the blank)” protests.

It is the history. Everybody was eager to see if the 21^st Century version of the Chicago police (on horseback, bicycle and foot) would snap and start swatting at people with their clubs.

Would we get current college kids getting their heads smashed in before getting hauled off to a holding cell and having the mug shots taken that will haunt them if any of them ever try running for public office sometime around the year 2030.

WOULD THEY GET beaten upon like their activist grandparents (while their Reagan-era children shrugged in disgust that “Junior” was turning out to be just like “Pop”)?

Of course, it didn’t happen. And it is unlikely to happen in Chicago, or anywhere else. While I can’t testify to every single “Occupy (fill in the blank)” protest, the activity I have seen has included these people with vest-clad “marshals” who are their own members.

Those “marshals” literally guide protesters through the activity, and inform them if they’re about to do something that could be construed as a criminal violation that could get themselves arrested. In short, these people are policing themselves to a large degree.

Even the Associated Press is describing the most recent arrests in Chicago as “noisy, but peaceful, defiance of police orders.” Not exactly the activity of 1968 – where you can still find aging “hawks” who will tell you the Chicago police were justified in their forceful behavior because the protesters were throwing bags of excrement at them.

AS FOR THE current protests, the worst thing I saw happen to a protester by police was one point where a mounted police officer’s horse literally felt the “call of nature” and urinated on the street – which also was covered in so much manure.

That urine dribbled down the street and right into a group of protesters sitting on the pavement – who suddenly realized just what that puddle developing around them truly was.

That’s a far cry from ’68. It’s actually almost amusing.

If the “whole world” truly is watching now, I can’t help but think they’re getting bored and are ready (63 percent of people surveyed by the Gallup Organization say they don’t comprehend what these protesters are about) to flip the channel.

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