Could Kanye West be the clue to resolving Chicago violence? Or is it merely evidence of Trump’s inanity!

Anybody who has read me for any length of time likely realizes I don’t think much of the overall skills level of President Donald J. Trump.

WEST: An Oval Office session?

But learning of the fact that Trump intends to have a meeting Thursday with a Chicagoan of some popular renown to gain his input into urban violence, prison reform and street gang violence is nothing more than laughable.

FOR THAT MEETING will be with the entertainer Kanye West. Who is a Chicago native and may well have opinions on all the issues that confront the city where he was raised.

TRUMP: He'll listen to anyone with material

But somehow, I just can’t see that “Mr. Kim Kardashian” has much of anything relevant to say. In fact, I think I take more seriously the thoughts of Chance the Rapper when it comes to finding solutions to Chicago’s problems.

He, at least, has been willing to put money into finding solutions for problems confronting the Chicago school system – which may be more of a real solution than anything I’m sure West will have to say to Trump when the two of them meet at the White House later this week.

CHANCE: Puts some money where his mouth is

By comparison, I expect West will mouth out lots of platitudes that Trump will be able to riff off of in terms of taking pot shots at Chicago – whose real problem, as far as Trump is concerned, is that it prevents Illinois from being like other Great Lakes states that were deluded enough to support Trump’s 2016 presidential bid with their Electoral College votes.

THEREBY MAKING IT a place he will go out of his way to ridicule, no matter how illogical or impractical his thoughts would be to actually implement. Then again, Trump once met with Kid Rock and Ted Nugent at the White House.

Anybody who doubts me ought merely to listen to Trump’s rant from earlier this week, when he told a gathering of law enforcement officials in Orlando, Fla., that the solution to Chicago’s crime problems is to give our police more authority to “stop and frisk.”

CEDRIC: What would he tell Donald?

A policy that specifically is prohibited under an agreement that police department reached with the American Civil Liberties Union – which regards such police policies as giving our cops far too much authority to harass people for no real reason.

If anything, the fact that Trump would make such a suggestion for Chicago shows he doesn’t have a clue as to what our city’s situation is and our problems are!

FOR THE MINDSET of those people who applauded the verdict of a jury in Cook County court with regards to police officer Jason Van Dyke is that it was a step towards limiting police authority in dealing with the public.

If we were to really start giving police the power to pat people down for any little suspicion the cops might have, it would go counter to the mindset of those individuals who are hopeful that a jury finally put aside their prejudices and issued a just verdict.

The only people who will think that “stop and frisk” makes any sense are the kind who were hoping for a Van Dyke acquittal on all those criminal charges a jury found him guilty of.

I don’t doubt West will come up with outrageous things to say come Thursday, and Trump will find a way to come up with what he thinks is a comical riff off of it. Which some may find entertaining, but which contributes next to nothing toward finding a solution to the problems that confront so many of our nation’s large cities.

Trump's idea of presidential 'advisers' -- Nugent and Rock, w/ Sarah Palin in the mix

SO EXCUSE ME (envision Steve Martin with the arrow through his head of some four decades ago) for viewing the thoughts of West (or just about any other entertainment personality) as being not all that relevant toward coming up with the answers to the great questions confronting our public policy issues.

Either that, or perhaps we ought to turn to Cedric the Entertainer.

Somehow, I suspect I’d take more seriously the thoughts of the actor who has both said Trump has a skin tone the color of Cheetos, but also has said it is wrong to think we can “boycott” the incumbent president.

And anybody who ever saw the 2002 film “Barbershop” still remembers what his “Eddie the barber” character said about civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.

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Baseball taught me about differences between people’s skills, character

We’re at the point now where it seems we get nearly a daily addition to the list of people in prominent posts who think that women are supposed to swoon over the very thought of their sexuality.

Ultimate gap between skills, character?

Personally, I’ve lost track of who’s actually on the list – and tend to notice many people go out of their way to highlight those individuals whose politically partisan leanings are counter to their own.

AS THOUGH PEOPLE who agree with them on other issues can get caught up in what some have dubbed “perv-gate” and be forgiven.

But for those whom their real hang-up is something unrelated – a professional death to them, and perhaps a fantasy vision of castration as well.

We’re at the point where I’m giving up on trying to keep track as to who got a little too handsy with a female colleague, or who felt it absolutely essential to expose their genitalia out of some delusion that the lady would think of the sight as the highlight of her life.

And, in fact, I’m starting to think that it’s a good thing I’m a big fan of professional baseball.

BECAUSE IT HAS exposed me to the reality that these ballplayers who use their physical skills to play a boy’s game often have mental hang-ups that make it seem as though their emotional development was arrested at about age 13.

Still some humor in old Franken bits

I remember the way I behaved back when I was that age, and in retrospect I wonder how those fellow-13-year-old females managed to put up with us overly-horny (but mostly incapable of doing anything about it) slobs.

Although it’s not necessarily limited to sexual thought.

My point is that I realized a long time ago that the guys who were more than capable of making a diving stop of a hard-hit ground ball to prevent it from getting through the infield for a base hit often were equally unskilled at the subtleties of life itself.

PERHAPS THE ULTIMATE example of this is Pete Rose, the one-time Cincinnati Reds star from their championship days of the 1970s who was an addicted gambler and whose habit got to the point where he was taking in so much money; while not reporting the extent of his winnings to the Internal Revenue Service.

Perhaps a Curry/Lauer confrontation justified?

He’s a convicted tax cheat, so to speak, who did a few months in prison. He continues to be denied admission to Baseball’s Hall of Fame – usually the ultimate recognition of athletic greatness. And for that matter, I remember the stories from when he was a ballplayer about the adulterous behavior on his part.

Then again, a lot of ballplayers I have heard of play around on “the road.” As in they’re young men traveling about from city to city, and fill the void of loneliness with whichever young lady happens to be available (and often willing).

The ability to hit .333 or smack 40 or so home runs on a regular basis doesn’t automatically make one a quality human being. Keep that in mind, and it makes it possible to keep following baseball.

IT MAKES ME wonder if a similar attitude ought to be applied to other people. Comedian-turned-Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., has his humorous moments (although I’ll admit to always finding his “Stuart Smiley” character annoying). I can’t really think less of his performing because he gets handsy with women.

Judicial robes add layer of creepiness to Moore instances

I actually think it is an issue where the women who were offended by someone else’s character toward them ought to deal with the issue themselves. I semi-seriously say they would have been justified in administering a knee-to-the-groin at the time of the incident.

I’d say that also applies to the work of now-former Today Show host Matt Lauer, or even that of Lake Wobegon creator Garrison Keillor. Why should we have ever thought of them as superior at anything – other than their work? And as for our president’s boorish behavior with women throughout the years, we all know he’s deficient as a human being. It didn’t stop him from winning an election!

We’ve all got our strengths and all got our flaws. Unless we cross over the line into criminality (which is potentially what U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama did with those underage girls all those decades ago). But that’s a different issue.

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There’s no accounting for taste; why would people pay for political time?

I spend a lot of my work time associating with political-type people, what with trying to learn more about their ways so I can write more intelligently about them.

It doesn’t mean I necessarily want to associate with them on my free time. Which is why I find it confounding to think that certain people are willing to pay significant sums of their own money in order to be with them.

PERSONALLY, I’D JUST as soon keep my cash, or try to find some worthy charitable cause to donate to, rather than give it to a political person’s campaign fund.

Because that is what ultimately becomes of the money spent in ways such as reported on recently by the Washington Post. It seems that when singer Taylor Swift appears in concert in Washington in July, there are going to be several members of Congress in attendance.

Including Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., of our very own state’s delegation. Although she’s not a Chicago-area type, she’s from the Quad Cities along the Mississippi River.

What caught the Post’s attention, and later the Chicago Sun-Times’, is that those members of Congress have blocks of tickets that they’re selling to people who want to go to the concert with them.

I’M SURE CHERI Bustos is a nice person. But I can’t say that the idea of spending an evening with her at a concert with anyone is my idea of a thrilling experience.

Especially since the going rate seems to be $2,500 per ticket. That’s a lot of cash. There has to be more practical things the money could be used on.

Although the Post points out that Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, is offering tickets for $1,500 each, or $2,500 for a pair so you can bring a friend who can forevermore testify to the fact that you spent the night with Stivers while listening to Swift sing!

The very thought gives me some mental shivers. It’s not my idea of a good time. I just don’t comprehend the idea that we’re supposed to spend a lot of money so we can have a pretend personal experience with one of these political people.

WOULD THESE ELECTED officials even give us a second glance if we weren’t opening up our checkbooks (or offering up our credit card numbers) to make a donation to the funds that will pay for their re-election bids in the future?

I suppose they would if it were actually Election Day and they saw us within proximity of a polling place where we could go to actually cast a ballot on their behalf!

Otherwise, all of this just comes across to me as a phony attempt to create an experience.

If I were going to a Taylor Swift concert (and let it be known that I have never had any desire to do so), I think I’d rather go with people whom I really know and for whom a shared experience would mean something.

I JUST DON’T get the appeal of this event. It almost comes across as a bit too creepy, which is sort of how I remember a Chicago White Sox game I once attended more than a decade ago.

It was a mid-week day game on a day I had off from work, and I wound up discovering a large gathering of political people who had the same thought as I did. They were sitting one section away from me.

I still remember the site of a legislative chief of staff in a concessions stand line waiting to buy a round of beers for the group, and former Illinois Senate President Phil Rock wandering around the stands in mid-game. Then at game’s end while waiting in a restroom line to relieve myself, I happened to look up and see that I was sharing that experience with none other than the high-and-mighty powerful Speaker of the Illinois House himself.

If nothing else, I’d pay good money if I could forget that image!

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