EXTRA: Somebody wasn’t paying close enough attention to film

I’m not going to get all worked up over the nonsense being spewed down in Urbana-Champaign by those people purporting to be the White Student Union, who are ensuring that the views of white people are not overpowered by those of black people.

It’s too stupid to take seriously, for one thing. For another, I find one of their supporting arguments to be total nonsense.

THIS UNION ISN’T an actual group. It’s a Facebook page that was put up this week, then taken down, then restored and is now the subject of a fight over University of Illinois officials.

For it seems that one of the items that got posted on the page in support of their arguments that black people ought to just shut up and quit their whining was a video snippet from the 1998 film “American History X.”

In that film, actor Edward Norton’s “Derek Vinyard” character goes on a rant about how black people have no right to think of themselves as being hurt by slavery.

“Lincoln freed the slaves some 130 years ago. How long does it take you to get your act together,” his character said.

YET THAT IS such a weak argument because the film doesn’t support it. Actually, that film has Norton playing a character just released from prison following a two-year stretch for killing a black man.

During his time, he came to see the hypocrisy of his racial rhetoric and the people who espoused it, and upon prison was desperately trying to get himself and his brother – played by actor Edward Furlong – out of the white supremacy movement.

That particular scene was meant to be a flashback showing just how far gone and stupid the Derek Vinyard character was. It seems someone with this alleged group has no sense of context.

Either that, or they ought to be forced to write the paper about race relations that Furlong’s character was assigned to write at the film’s beginning. Perhaps they’d learn something and realize how nitwit-ish their White Student Union truly is!

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What gives; Jeb Bush and Ben Carson think they’re too good for Chicago?

The presidential dreamers will gather once again on Tuesday in Milwaukee for yet another presidential debate and a chance to convince the voting public that their dreams deserve a chance to become reality.

KASICH: A Billy Goat burger?

Yet for two of the candidates, the warm-up act on Monday was in Illinois. Ohio Gov. John Kasich literally was in Chicago, trying to persuade voters within the media market (those within the city proper are going overwhelmingly for whoever wins the Democratic nomination) to take him seriously.

CONSIDERING THE MEDIA market accounts for about three-quarters of Illinois’ population, it is a significant (and long-overdue) campaign stop.

While New York real estate developer Donald Trump made his visit to Springfield – which, for what it’s worth, was the same place where Barack Obama began his serious presidential campaigning in the ’08 election cycle.

But while Obama used the old state capitol building that Abraham Lincoln would have known and walked the halls of (the current capitol building dates to the 1870s), Trump wanted a differing image.

The local political bigwigs arranged for the Prairie Capital Convention Center, which is an arena that has been used for inauguration ceremonies in the past – in addition to other sports (the Urbana and Springfield campuses of the University of Illinois played basketball there against each other Sunday) and large-scale events.

TRUMP WANTED THE sight and sound of stands packed to capacity chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump” as he walked across a stage and made his usual vapid remarks with regards to why his personal wealth somehow qualified him to be president of the United States.

Yes, I wrote this copy prior to the event, because the actual happenings of the event were so predictable. Tickets for the Springfield, Ill.-based rally were given away free, first-come, first-served. They went quick.

TRUMP: Trying a horseshoe?

The spectacle was destined to be packed with true believers – or at the very least a crowd lacking of individuals who’d have been inclined to say anything negative about the man who’d likely look at the Springfield skyline and have as his initial reaction how lame it looks without some gaudy tower bearing his name.

Considering that Springfield’s only significant tall structures are the current Capitol and the tower-like Hilton Hotel, it might be one place where he wouldn’t be blatantly wrong.

THEN, WE CAME to Chicago, where Kasich spent the day in the city with awe-inspiring architecture and a definitely-mediocre building named for Trump.

BUSH: Beat Kasich to Billy Goat

Kasich’s campaign activity centered around an afternoon rally held in the shadow of tower Trump – Chicago-style. Below ground, actually.

For the Kasich people, who in Illinois include a significant segment of the Republican political establishment, were at the Billy Goat Tavern for a send-off rally to make the governor feel more peppy about doing verbal battle with the just over a dozen presidential dreamers that the GOP side has given us.

No word on whether Kasich actually consumed one of those cheeseburgers the bar cooks up to try to absorb all the alcohol that is otherwise consumed by customers on the premises.

ALTHOUGH IT REMINDS me of an event some decades ago when then-President George Bush (the elder) decided to try to appear to be a regular-guy Chicagoan by making a Billy Goat appearance – one that legendary newspaper columnist Mike Royko mocked by saying he didn’t go because he’d rather watch the cable TV news (one of those ‘90s ‘Crime of the Century’-type trials was taking place).

I doubt that Kasich’s play-acting at being a regular guy was any more legit than that of Bush.

RAUNER: Not taking sides?

It also intrigued me to see Gov. Bruce Rauner’s public schedule for Monday – no events whatsoever. What does it say for the GOP candidates that the Republican governor felt no need to advertise his presence at their events?

And when will the other Republican presidential dreamers feel compelled to visit us in Chicago to make the long-shot attempt at courting our votes?

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