A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Maybe Thompson Center here to stay

Gov. Bruce Rauner made a big stink about wanting to unload the Thompson Center state government building in downtown Chicago, although it seems the deal is less of an inevitability than he’d like us to think.

Will it last to 50? Photo provided by State of Illinois

Because within a day of his announcement, Crain’s Chicago Business reported about the deal the state worked out a year ago with a company that handles the first two floors of the building – the ones with all those little stores.

IT SEEMS THAT deal has another 19 years to go, and buying those retail outlets out of their deal with the state would wind up being so excessively expensive. They alone may be reason to believe the building will make it to the half-century mark come the year 2035.

Now, the Capitol Fax newsletter reports that the General Assembly’s leaders – who would have to sign off on any deal to sell the structure – are rather noncommittal.

The legislative leaders say they’ll study it, in a tone that implies they want the questioner to go away and quit bringing up the issue. Not that such an attitude is a surprise; considering that the relations between Rauner and Democrats is so poor these days it wouldn’t surprise me if Dems rejected a sale just to spite him.

All of this goes counter to the notion that Rauner tried to imply when he made his announcement – that the deal was just a formality and we could see the demolition of the Thompson Center some time during 2016.

FAT CHANCE!!!

It seems like our governor still carries about the notion that government exists to follow his orders. Rather than realizing his executive branch is merely one-third of government, with the Legislature being another branch and the courts existing to rectify things when the Executive and Legislative manage to screw things up.

It won’t shock me if I’m still alive when the day comes that the Thompson Center does disappear – the city is constantly evolving. But perhaps by the time it does, the Rauner administration will be a long-forgotten memory of a time when things didn’t get done.

What else is notable these days on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan?

DO CUBS REALLY WANT TO BE ‘ROCKY?’: The Chicago Cubs lost the first two games in the round of playoffs against the New York Mets, but there are those who are convinced that the Tuesday, Wednesday and maybe Thursday games will change things drastically.

Will they wind up getting it right?

They’re expecting a return to Wrigley Field will result in victories for the Cubs. It goes so far that Cubs manager Joe Maddon had the theme from the film “Rocky” played following Sunday’s loss. Let’s not forget that Rocky Balboa lost the fight in the first film, but went on to win so many times in all those sequels.

Then again, the whole “Rocky” franchise became such a tacky joke by the end, devolving to the point where the final fight was a street brawl. Is that really what people want to see of the Cubs’ 2015 season?

Besides, such a scenario would remind me of the 2001 World Series – when the New York Yankees won games three, four and five at home after losing the first two games on the road. Except that the Arizona Diamondbacks rebounded by winning the final two games when they returned home. So the Cubs would still lose. “Let’s go, Mets?”

OOPS!: It seems there’s a Humboldt Park man who is trying to get out of the gang lifestyle. But a souvenir, so to speak, of those days wound up resulting in the death of his three-year-old son.

The Chicago Tribune reported that bond was set at $75,000 Sunday for Michael Santiago, whose six-year-old son used Santiago’s pistol to shoot and kill his other son – age 3.

Santiago told police he kept the pistol for self-protection from his former gang allies, and that his son saw the pistol atop the refrigerator Saturday night and fired it at the younger brother.

That resulted in the child endangerment charge being filed against the father – for keeping a loaded firearm in the home. Although it seems the grandfather says the surviving boy isn’t even aware of what he did, he thinks his brother is sick in the hospital.

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Lewis’ ‘scholarship’ talk the kind of feisty rhetoric mayoral campaign needs

When you come right down to it, this year’s electoral cycle for mayor has become deadly dull. There are people who get all worked up about wanting to depose Rahm Emanuel, but no one opponent seems capable of uniting those people into a viable opposition.

We’re likely to get Rahm II (along with III, IV, V and however many other terms Emanuel wants to seek) at the rate we’re going. There just isn’t any of the feistiness required to truly get the public all worked up enough to care about who wins on Election Day.

WHICH IS WHY I personally got my kick out of the statement issued by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. She, of course, is the woman who wanted an Emanuel opponent, but developed enough health concerns to prevent her from running a campaign.

Lewis didn’t issue any kind of Emanuel criticism on Wednesday. In fact, she didn’t even address the mayoral campaign.

Her issue of concern was the fact that Little League International said it was giving in to the concerns of those people who want to view as a fraud the Chicago-based Jackie Robinson West team that became U.S. champions in last year’s Little League World Series.

That team is no longer recognized as national champions. Instead, the record books that are supposed to preserve what really happened will say that a team from Las Vegas, Nev., was the best in the U.S.

A TEAM FROM West Dundee will now be recognized as the Illinois state champions, while a team from suburban Lansing will be recognized as a regional champ instead of the kids who represented the Roseland and Morgan Park neighborhoods – even though some of them openly admitted they were from suburban places such as South Holland, Dolton, Lansing and Lynwood.

If it comes across that I think this is a stupid action by Little League officials being done on behalf of sore losers who couldn’t beat the Jackie Robinson kids on the playing field, you’d be correct.

It also seems that Lewis has a similar sentiment. She said she “do(es) not respect” the decision, and she said she will continue to think of the Chicago-area kids as the real champions of 2014.

She went so far as to say she thinks the team ought to retain its championship, ber issued an apology and that the dozen kids who played baseball and captured the hearts and minds of some of our society (perhaps others couldn’t get past the notion of an all-black team being the best) ought to be compensated with college scholarships.

“EVERY PLAYER SHOULD receive full-ride scholarships for college sponsored by the people who have humiliated these boys, their families and their community,” Lewis wrote.

Which is a concept that I’m sure would infuriate those people who brought about the investigation, even though Little League International officials initially said they did not have concerns about the residency requirements for the Jackie Robinson West kids.

Yet I can’t help but think that’s exactly the kind of in-your-face rhetoric the Chicago mayoral campaign needs in order to give a jolt of excitement, some interest so to speak, into this election cycle. Maybe require Emanuel to build new schools to replace the 50 facilities that were closed in primarily black neighborhoods?

Something that would make people care enough to want to vote and feel like there is a legitimate reason to care about who has the leadership of our municipal government.

IF KAREN LEWIS could get so worked up over the Jackie Robinson West kids, just think how hard she’d be hammering away at Emanuel. Certainly more than Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, the politico who has Lewis’ endorsement and is trying to fill the organized labor niche in this election cycle.

Certainly enough to help us avoid the possibility of so many Emanuel sequels!

Just a pair of thoughts to trigger your minds for the day – would Rahm IV and V be as incredibly bloated, pompous and vapid as Rocky IV and V?

And who is the political opponent of actor Carl Wethers' Apollo Creed character in the Rahm series of stories?

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