EXTRA: ‘Chiraq’ will only become lasting image if we let it become one

Learning that an alderman wants to penalize filmmaker Spike Lee if he persists with plans of making a movie about violence and action in inner-city Chicago to be called “Chiraq” makes me wonder why he has nothing better to do with his time.

The alderman in question is Will Burns of the 4^th Ward, who introduced a resolution this week that says if Lee really makes such a movie depicting black Chicago as overly violent and grotesque, then he should not qualify for the film production tax credits the city usually gives to movie productions.

BURNS IS CLAIMING he’s taking the moral high road by saying Lee can make any kind of film he wants and call it whatever name he chooses – even if the name he is considering is the derogatory label used by many black people to imply that Chicago has become the equivalent of an Iraqi war zone.

But all this is going to wind up doing is feeding into Lee’s self-righteous ego and personality and probably make him think he’s on some sort of crusade to expose the gritty and grotesque nature of some parts of our city.

Burns told reporter-types that such a film should lose tax credits because it would be derogatory to the city’s public image.

Nonsense! Not everything that makes it onto a movie screen (or in today’s way of viewing movies, onto whatever kind of screen one prefers to download their video entertainment) is “Up with People” positive.

HECK, MOST OF it is just downright stupid. Yet we don’t care.

I can think of a couple of Chicago-set films off the top of my head with images that are less than praiseworthy, but which no one in their right mind would complain about.

How about “Only the Lonely,” which starred John Candy and Jim Belushi as a couple of cops (although the CPD logos were conspicuously absent) who in one scene of the 1991 film decide to try to lower a dead body with a fire hose out of a window – rather than carry it down several flights of stairs (the elevator was broken).

But when the hose tears halfway through the effort, the body comes plummeting down to earth; with many dozens of spectators nearby.

THEN THERE’S “RUNNING Scared” from 1986, with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines as a pair of undercover Chicago cops who wind up chasing a notorious drug dealer (played by Jimmy Smits) to the Thompson Center state government building, where they wind up thwarting his efforts by dumping his cocaine stash all over the state government building’s floor.

I can’t envision the Chicago Police Department thinking much of either image. At least I want to think they’re both over the top to where we can’t take them seriously.

Which ultimately is the problem with what Lee may wind up doing with his attempt to make a film set in Chicago, but which he says has violence conditions similar to places such as inner-city Philadelphia, Baltimore and his own home of New York.

Is the real problem that some political people just don’t want to have to address the reality of modern-day Chicago? It certainly is obvious enough that some people think we can get away with ignoring certain neighborhoods and focusing all attention on the tourist sites.

AS THOUGH THE people who actually live in Chicago and are native to the area are of lesser importance.

But trying to address those problems is complex, and bound to address certain people who are still offended by Lee’s 1989 production, “Do the Right Thing” and how the character “Mookie” could possibly turn on his boss, Sal, near the film’s end.

I guess ranting and raging about tax credits is a less complex issue to complain about.

Which, in the end, may be the real problem – our willingness to try to pretend that no one who isn’t exactly like ourselves even exists – that faces our society.

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How ugly with eCig war become?

I’m wondering these days if we’re destined to have a “war” of sorts between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Jenny McCarthy.

The latter, of course, is the Playboy centerfold from the Southwest Side turned actress/model/activist /talk show host (for now) who seems to have found herself a new cause.

SMOKING, PARTICULARLY THAT of so-called Electronic Cigarettes. They’re a device that allow people to get their nicotine fix without generating the smoke that causes the stink that makes cigarette smoking so repulsive to anyone who has to be near an actual smoker.

During the past week, I have seen a commercial keep cropping up on television in which McCarthy touts the “blu” brand of e-Cigarettes. She claims she can now smoke without causing everybody about her to give her the “stinkeye.”

Her ad ends with her using a variation on what appears to be blu’s tag line; she’s, “taking back my freedom” to smoke in public.

As though the people who don’t want to have to cope with the health hazard of being exposed to smoking are the oppressive tyrants for trying to deny her some unalienable right to rot her lungs out with tobacco products.

I’M KIND OF offended at her perception of the issue in that fashion. But I know she’s not alone – there are too many people who think they have the right to force themselves on us – as though a bully thinks it is the “American Way” for them to bully other people.

Now what does any of this have to do with our less-than-beloved mayor?

Will he get into a brawl w/ McCarthy?

McCarthy’s commercial was what first popped into my mind when I read the news reports about the City Council’s latest cause – Aldermen Edward Burke and Will Burns will be pushing for an ordinance that will more strictly regulate the eCigs.

Based on the perception that young people are able to purchase them legally, and are using them as a way of developing a tobacco habit. As though this is the entryway to cigarette smoking.

UNDER THE ORDINANCE, e-Cigs would be regarded as identical to “tobacco products.” That would make them the same as cigarettes, and anybody using them to inhale nicotine would have to behave in the same way they do when the light up a traditional cigarette.

That means having to take the ugly habit outside – even though proponents of e-Cigs argue that their devices only generate a vapor that is odorless; rather than the smoke of a cigarette.

There’d also be regulations against selling eCigs anywhere within a 500-foot radius of a school building. That compares to current ordinances that prohibit traditional cigarettes from being sold within 100 feet of a school.

The measure, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, is to be introduced this week before the City Council, which also is considering a significant increase in the taxes assessed by city government on tobacco products.

ALL IN ALL, it is not a mindset sympathetic to people who have developed a nicotine addiction.

Seeing as though Chicago-area celebrity McCarthy (I’m really not sure how to accurately describe what the star of the “Santa Baby” films that we’ll get to see in upcoming weeks has become professionally) is now the public face of e-Cigs, will we get the sight of McCarthy at City Hall – prepared to tell off Emanuel (who has said he supports the proposed ordinance)?

Will she use the same vehemence that she has turned to in her claims that certain vaccines cause kids to become autistic to say that Emanuel should take his ordinance and stuff it?

Soon to make annual TV reappearance

Will Emanuel turn to his blunt-spoken way with words that he often used on political opponents of Barack Obama back when he was White House chief of staff to try to put McCarthy in her place?

I CAN’T ENVISION McCarthy butting out of a fight in her own home town. Nor could I dream of a situation where Emanuel would show some tact – even if he did manage to avoid offending the French when they spoke of what parts of Chicago (including McCarthy’s old Sout’ Side neighborhood) are best avoided.

All I know is that the fight, if and when it does occur, has the potential to get even uglier than a “Sox vs. Cubs” brawl.

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Springfield-based political people should follow the lead of “Mr. Burns”

Will the entrenched (and sometimes juvenile) culture of the Statehouse Scene be able to accept that one of their "freshmen" members has a good idea?

To fans of the long-running animated television series “The Simpsons,” the idea that Mr. Burns is a force for good would be an absurd idea. But as it turns out, the Illinois version of Springfield has a “Mr. Burns” who may have a truly worthwhile idea with regards to the picking of a successor to Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.

Of course, we’re talking about Will Burns, not C. Montgomery. Burns is a newcomer to the Illinois House of Representatives (he takes his seat as a freshman legislator come next month) who says he wants to make one of his first actions in the General Assembly to sponsor a bill changing the way that Illinois picks replacements for the state’s senate seat.

UNDER HIS PROPOSAL, Burns would have the Illinois governor continue to make his selection for who he thinks should represent Illinois in the Senate.

But instead of having the authority to make the pick all by himself, the governor’s selection would then have to be submitted to both the Illinois House and the state Senate for confirmation.

In short, every single one of the 177 members of the General Assembly would have a say, and would get to represent the interests of their constituents (some of whom are clamoring for partisan reasons that Illinois should conduct a special election in order to pick a replacement for Obama – who resigned the post more than a month ago.

Variations on this idea had been suggested by political observers, although Burns is the first person of any authority to publicly take the idea seriously.

I LIKE THE idea because it would allow Illinois to move forward with the selection of an Obama replacement, regardless of what happens to Gov. Rod Blagojevich or how long his legal travails stretch out.

Should it turn out that Blagojevich has a say, he would have to make concessions to come up with a candidate who would truly be acceptable to a majority of the General Assembly. Because in the political climate that exists now, I have no doubt that the Illinois Legislature would veto any proposed senator whose candidacy would do nothing more than serve Blagojevich’s personal interests.

So much for the idea that Blagojevich would pick retiring Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, for a seat in the U.S. Senate so as to create the concept of a political ally amidst a sea of political people across Illinois who can’t stand the man.

I will always be convinced that Jones would have been the recipient of Blagojevich’s “Christmas present” to finish the remaining two years of Obama’s term in the Senate.

TREATING THE ISSUE of an Obama replacement similar to how the federal government allows a president to pick Supreme Court justices who still need the confirmation of the U.S. Senate is good. In fact, it might be worthwhile to make the change permanent – instead of just a one-time measure for an Obama replacement, which is the way Burns says he would structure his bill.

If it turns out that Illinois gets stuck with a political hack for the next two years, all of the Statehouse crew would have to share in the blame. Blagojevich would not be in the position of using the Senate appointment process for his own benefit – which is what caused the U.S. attorney’s office to rush their criminal case and seek a criminal complaint against him earlier this month.

For what it is worth, Burns is not just another rookie in the General Assembly.

Burns is the new state representative from Obama’s home Hyde Park neighborhood, and he also served as a campaign manager during one of Obama’s bids for the state Senate and also was chief of staff to Jones and the Illinois Senate as a whole.

THIS IS A newcomer who understands the political process in Springfield and also has a feel for the man whom any new Illinois senator would replace in Washington.

Despite that background, people should not get too hung up on Will Burns himself. Because if by chance the General Assembly does go so far as to adopt this idea for picking an Obama replacement, there’s no way Burns will be the bill’s sponsor.

The mindset surrounding the Statehouse Scene would never allow a new legislator to sponsor a bill of such magnitude. Freshmen legislators are the ones who get heckled and harassed during debate on their first bill, and have every single one of their colleagues vote against it – only to have that 0-117 vote turn suddenly into a vote of support at the last possible second.

If it sounds like the General Assembly reeks of a high school mentality at times, it does. The only thing that’s missing is a prom queen.

THE PROBLEM WITH that attitude is that some legislators will refuse to take the Burns proposal seriously, just because he’s a freshman.

Others will only go along if someone of higher stature were to sponsor the bill. In fact, it often happens that when a newcomer comes up with a worthwhile idea, someone else will copy his proposal onto their own bill, and the General Assembly will then consider dueling measures on the same idea.

Personally, I don’t care who gets credit. All I know is that Burns has latched onto a good idea. It would be nice if someone in the General Assembly were to follow up on the idea and guide it through the legislative process to become law – the sooner the better.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: A newcomer to the Illinois Legislature would like to come up with a method for the state (http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=31125) to progress beyond the current political stalemate.

Is Will Burns truly a political intellectual, or (http://www.friendsofwillburns.com/) is he merely an opportunist who realizes that this measure will make him stand out amidst the other newcomers to the General Assembly?

A University of Chicago education apparently has not knocked all common sense out of (http://www.chicagomaroon.com/2008/10/24/uncommon-interview-with-will-burns) Burns’ mind.