Gay marriage “statement” to be made (maybe) this weekend in SW suburbs

It will be intriguing to see how intense the ideological rhetoric will be Saturday when the state’s Republican Party is supposed to meet to consider whether to dump party Chairman Pat Brady.

BRADY: Fate on the line?

For there are those of a certain conservative bent who are disgusted not only with the fact that they are being pressured into consider a measure to make marriage amongst gay couples legitimate, but that their own party chairman isn’t backing them.

THESE ARE THE same people who liked it when, nearly two decades ago, the Illinois General Assembly and then-Gov. Jim Edgar made their own statement to change state laws to clarify that marriage in Illinois could never be legal between same-gender couples.

Now that such a thought is blatantly offensive (although honestly, it was just as tacky in 1996), they want to complain.

The party delegates are scheduled to meet Saturday at the convention center in southwest suburban Tinley Park located just off Interstate 80 – which makes it fairly easy for all to get to.

Although I’m wondering how many people who are party delegates are going to be reluctant enough to want to get involved in this issue that they will decide to skip this session.

I’M SURE SOME delegates will show up and will get all vehement in their talk. They are the hard-core who are prepared to go on a crusade for their “cause” – which has less to do with the sanctity of the family and our society and more about their “need” to demonize anyone who isn’t exactly like themselves.

I can’t help but notice that the person who seems to be at the forefront of leading this effort to dump Pat Brady is none other than James Oberweis – whose family business may make high-quality dairy products (the ice cream in particular is outstanding) but has become something of a political joke.

OBERWEIS: Trying to "make" his bones?

He finally got elected last year to a seat in the Illinois state Senate, and is amongst the rank-and-file of the legislators now in Springfield. But considering this was a man with aspirations to run for the U.S. Senate or Illinois governor, being nothing more than a freshman senator from Sugar Grove (out near Aurora) must be demeaning to his ego.

He probably envisions that deposing Brady will make him a party leader – or at least leader of the conservative ideologue faction that is probably the only group of people he wants to have to pay any attention to.

WHICH IS WHY I think that people of sense ought to just skip the event! Particularly since I noticed the Capitol Fax newsletter is reporting that it is very possible that no binding vote could be taken on Saturday -- so it wouldn't matter what happens.

Let them leave Oberweis with a movement that goes nowhere due to a lack of a quorum. Or with so few people on hand that it becomes blatantly clear how limited the opposition to the whole gay marriage issue has become.

If anything, it would go a long way toward showing that Brady wasn’t wrong when he said the Republican opposition on this issue puts Illinois GOPers on the “wrong side of history.”

Just that certain people don’t want to accept it – making them as pathetic as those people who in the late 1970s and early 1980s were still ranting and raging about segregation and the fact that it was no longer written into the law!

ALTHOUGH I’M ALSO aware that there are many people who are going to disagree with Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka – who this week offered her praise for Brady and went so far as to say that gay marriage is actually a conservative concept. No wonder why some GOPers think of her as the "crazy aunt" whom they try to hide in their figurative closet!

TOPINKA: What will she say next?

After all, these couples want to be married and in monogamous relationships just like any other heterosexual couple, is what Topinka says.

True enough, but I suspect many more agree with a person who wrote a recent letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune – claiming that bans on gay marriage are NOT discrimination because gay people are permitted to marry anyone of the other gender whom they might wish?!?

Maybe, just maybe, those members of the Illinois House who are wavering on the issue will see the Republican event this weekend and finally realize how isolated they’re going to make themselves if they don’t get with the program on this particular issue.

  -30-

 

City split caused by Chicago baseball gains national attention this holiday

The Chicago Bears are now officially a disaster, and the hopes of many a local sports fan is banked on the idea that the Chicago Bulls might be worth something.

Yet to the nation at-large, the attention seems to be going to the split between our city’s professional baseball clubs that has become a part of the very character of Chicago.

ALL BECAUSE OF a twisted, little video snippet less than two minutes long that was shot Sunday morning when children all across the country were ripping open Christmas presents.

One mother made a point of putting her daughter’s shock, awe and disgust upon receiving a present of a pillow designed to look like a bear cub in Chicago Cubs uniform.

For that girl, it seems, is a fan of the Chicago White Sox. She reacted like the six-year-old that she is in expressing the fact that this was a horrible present (while we can see her slightly-older brother off to the side dancing around in joy, and mocking the fact that she wanted a White Sox pillow).

In the end, the mother admits the pillow is a present for her brother, and that her REAL present is in another package – which turns out to be a White Sox mascot pillow.

THE GIRL WAS pleased. All was right with the world. Even with the Bears as awful as they are, and nobody really sure if the Bulls are for real.

This video has been copied over onto many different sites on the Internet, and I saw it over and over Wednesday on CNN Headline News. I even got to hear sports anchor Carlos Diaz take a “dig” at the White Sox by mocking team mascot Southpaw.

For in his view, the Cubs’ pillow depicts a cutesy bear cub. Whereas what exactly is Southpaw – other than a green, fuzzy blob wearing the black and white (with silver trim) of the White Sox?

He may have a point. There are many White Sox fans who will bash Southpaw’s existence on the grounds that they don’t know what he’s supposed to be.

ALTHOUGH I COULDN’T help but notice in the video that is drawing so many laughs and guffaws these days that the White Sox pillow’s depiction of Southpaw makes him bear a strong resemblance to Oscar the Grouch. (Does that make the Cookie Monster a potential Cubs fan?)

Which if a resemblance to a Sesame Street character were true would give Southpaw the most distinct appearance of any major league mascot (a distinction that probably goes to Friar – the bald-headed and robed Catholic padre who dances at San Diego Padres games).

But I honestly can’t say that anything about the girl’s reaction shocked me. It only means that the baseball “bug” has infected a younger generation. It may well be the reason why professional baseball lives on generation after generation – despite the best efforts of baseball people to take down the game with their greed.

There have been some jokes floating around the Internet about the state Department of Children and Family Services being called in on account of a parent allowing their children to be split between White Sox fandom and Cubs backing.

ALTHOUGH I PERSONALLY found it to be more cruel to try such a prank on the girl – making her think that she was getting one of those cutesy-poo teddy bears for a holiday present.

Then again, I’m sure this will be the hilarious home movie that the family will show year after year – and that the girl will have to live down for as long as it comes up on the Internet.

But the idea that a Chicago baseball fan of any age would react so negatively to a “gift” depicting an image of the “other” ball club? It’s not the least bit surprising. And I would expect a Cubs fan (in all their misguided sentiment) to react just the same.

For I know some White Sox fans who, upon seeing the girl being given a Cubs pillow, were probably chanting for her to feed it to that dog that was sniffing around her while opening the “present.”

  -30-

EXTRA: A lucky guess

Rod Blagojevich got 14 years as a prison sentence, and I got extremely lucky in that I predicted the sentence correctly. I wish I could claim to have some sort of special legal knowledge.

BLAGOJEVICH: Soon to be just a number


It just struck me that U.S. District Judge James Zagel would see something like 14 or 15 years as a gesture of compassion – considering that the sentence could have been (in his mind) as much as 20 years.

SO NOW, THE former governor gets 90 days to get his affairs in order. He will get to be with spouse Patti on Valentine’s Day, but he’ll be gone from our presence by March 20 – the date of the next primary election in Illinois.

And yes, I will feel some sympathy for his family. Because they are going to be hurt by this. Regardless of whether or not you believe that Blagojevich’s actions truly are criminal in nature (I honestly am not sure), you’d have to be pretty callous to rejoice in that latter fact.

Then again, after reading and hearing much of the rhetoric directed toward former Gov. George Ryan after he went away to prison (and still has just over 1 ½ years to serve) , I am aware that some individuals in our society who like to think they’re decent people are truly cold fish.

  -30-

How many people will turn out for Maggie Daley’s Sunday service?

I offer my condolences to the Daley family. And I don’t mean just the former mayor himself.

For while we all knew that Maggie Daley’s health was in decline and newsrooms everywhere were aware that it was time to get their pre-written obituaries of Chicago’s former first lady prepared for publication, it still was a blow for her to die on Thursday.

WHICH FOR THE rest of us was the day that we all stuffed our faces with too much heavy food and sat on our duffs watching too much out-of-town football for anyone’s benefit.

It was Thanksgiving. A holiday we’re supposed to celebrate.

Yet for the Daleys, Thanksgiving will now forevermore be the day they lost their wife/mother/aunt/etc.

That applies even though Thanksgiving does not fall on the same date each year.

SO NEXT YEAR’S Thanksgiving will not literally be the one-year marking point of the date of her death. But I’m sure the holiday itself will forevermore carry a bit of a taint that will make it just that much harder for the family to think of celebration.

I know in my case, it felt just a bit like that – even though I didn’t have anyone die on a past Thanksgiving.

In my case, my mother died last year about a week-and-a-half prior to Thanksgiving. I remember this time last year celebration was about the last thing I cared about. Actually, I don’t really remember much about one year ago – it is just a haze.

This year on Thanksgiving, my mother maintained a place in the back of my mind. In large part, it is because I have been told that among her final thoughts before she suddenly lost consciousness and died within an hour was to think aloud to herself about all the last-minute preparations she would have to do in coming days to prepare herself for Thanksgiving.

FOR SHE HAD it in her mind that my brother and I would spend that holiday with her and she wanted to be prepared for it.

Those preparations, of course, never came to be.

This was, and likely will always be, the one holiday that carries a bit of a taint for me in that I will notice my mother’s absence (periodically, I find myself blurting out to no one in particular, “I miss you, Mom”) moreso than usual.

Which is what I expect will be the same reaction that the Daley family will also experience – although I will be the first to admit that I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of what the Daleys actually did on Thursday or what they are feeling right now.

THIS IS MY attempt at an intelligent guess. Although I don’t think it is much of a stretch of logic to come to this conclusion.

One thing I will state right now is that I was pleased to learn of a public service to be held Sunday at the Chicago Cultural Center for those who feel compelled to turn out in public to pay their respects.

It will be separate from any funeral services held for Maggie Daley, which actually is something I think is admirable. A part of me always thinks it is gaudy for people who weren’t personally connected to the deceased to be showing up for the funeral and turning it into a virtual circus production.

This way lets the family pay their respects in some degree of privacy. And a big overblown funeral service is probably the last thing that the subdued first lady (until May, that is) would have wanted for herself.

I’M CURIOUS TO see just how many people turn out to show their respects for the Daley legacy (even though the Washington Post thinks the “big” story in Chicago on Friday is the Obama presidential re-election campaign locating here). It has me wondering if it will come close to the thousands who felt compelled to be a part of the atmosphere when former-Mayor Harold Washington died back in 1987.

And, oddly enough, he died on the day BEFORE Thanksgiving that year – which meant those holiday ad-stuffed newspapers we bought on Thanksgiving that year had word of Harold’s demise all over their front pages. Not exactly the most festive of events.

Maybe it’s just that the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is not a good time in general for people with Chicago political ties.

  -30-

Political “kids” keep breaking into news

It has been four full decades since Mike Royko, in his book “Boss,” included an aside about nepotism in the Chicago political scene.

MELL: The newlywed



You know, all those political people who “begat” even more political people for the next generation.

WELL, NOTHING HAS changed. That trend has continued well into the 21^st Century. In fact, one of Royko’s examples (how “Joe Burke, ward boss and alderman, begat Edward Burke, ward boss and alderman”) can literally be extended yet another generation, since Eddie Burke – along with spouse and Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke – have now “begat” Jennifer Burke of the state Pollution Control Board.

But I’m not about to complain about Jennifer Burke – who has legal credentials and may well be totally qualified for her new political post (and its $117,000 annual salary).

It’s just that in going through the news reports of recent days, it just strikes me as humorous how many of these “stories” involve the kids of Chicago-area politicos.

They’re doing good and bad. They’re making national news. And on some level, they may be causing their elder politico “parents’ to think to themselves, “You’re not too big for me to smack you upside the head.”

THE POLITICAL “KID” who is likely to draw the national attention is the daughter of 33^rd Ward Alderman Dick Mell. Not Patti Blagojevich – she’s had her day in the public eye.

Political parents Mell ...



It’s other daughter Deborah, who got herself elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, has always made it publicly known that she is a lesbian in a committed relationship, and recently took advantage of the fact that neighboring state Iowa is one of the few in the country that permits gay couples to marry.



So at the age of 43, Deborah finally is “settling” down and putting aside her single gal days. She has a spouse, Christin Baker, who works for the YMCA. The couple has known each other for seven years.

Their relationship seems as legitimate as that of any married couple and certainly nothing that was rushed into – a fact that some ideologues are going to refuse to accept as they are now trying to push for legal measures that would allow their states to ignore the validity of marriages performed in other states.

... Philip ...



WHICH MEANS THE Mell/Baker coupling is likely to be an example often cited in public debate when it comes to the “gay marriage” debate and trying to get other states – including Illinois – to get with the program.



For Illinois only has the “civil union” concept, which allows the ideologues to claim that “real” marriage is only meant for them. Which is absurd.

Considering that this marriage took place in Davenport, Iowa, it was right across the Mississippi River from Illinois. It is a shame that ideology prevented the couple from making their union legal on our side of the river.

To his credit, Mell the alderman has long accepted his daughter’s orientation and isn’t one of those parents who lets hang-ups cause him to do something stupid.

NOT AS PLEASED these days (I’d bet) is one-time Illinois Senate President James “Pate” Philip, who has a step-son by wife Nancy. After Philip retired from the Legislature in 2003, step-son Randy Ramey rose to the ranks of the Legislature himself.

He also serves as head of the DuPage County Republican Party. Which is why it drew public attention when, on Sunday, he got caught driving his car while under the influence of alcohol.

To his credit, he’s not trying to deny what happened, or use his political influence to pressure people to go easy on him. Ramey went so far as to issue a public statement admitting he had been drinking.

“I am prepared to face the consequences,” he said, in that statement. “I am deeply sorry to disappoint my family and my constituents.”

THEN AGAIN, WHEN the police have him with a .179 blood/alcohol level (.08 is the legal standard for intoxication), being noble and accepting guilt is the only way to go.

Either that, or his step-father likely would have led the parade in giving him a tongue-lashing for his behavior. And those of us old enough to remember Pate know that man’s rhetoric can be downright blunt and chilling – when he wants to be.

Then, there’s the saga of Allyson Reboyras, whose father is 30^th Ward Alderman Ariel Reboyras – which I’m sure has some political watchers saying is the most important of these tales because it involves the City Council.

Anyway, Allyson now has gainful employment. She is a secretary (annual salary, $37,570) for the state’s Liquor Control Commission.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS reported this story as being merely the latest in a line of politically-motivated hires made in recent months by Gov. Pat Quinn – giving jobs on the state payroll to several people of political influence, although commission officials (including its chairman) claim there was no political pressure to hire her.

... and Reboyras



For the record, Allyson has been out of college for three years (a B.A. in political science). So this position could well be her introduction to government. Will she someday follow the route (a stint in the state Legislature, followed by a move up to a city or Cook County post) of many local aspiring politicos?

If so, we may well have to add the line, “Ariel Reboyras, alderman, begat Allyson Reboyras, yet to be determined” to that list of all the begatting that is a part of our local political scene.

  -30-

Will the court intervene in Catholic desire to keep handling foster children?

Are we going to be in a long-running political fight between Illinois state government and the Catholic Church’s structure across the state?

It will be interesting to see what a Sangamon County judge (that’s the Springfield area, for those whose knowledge of the state ends at 119^th Street) does on Tuesday, because a blatantly-partisan act by that court could set the stage for a political war between the governor and the Cardinal.

EVEN THOUGH TECHNICALLY, the Chicago Archdiocese isn’t involved in this latest action. I’m sure there are Catholic officials in Chicago who are more than eager to see their religious brethren across Illinois to prevail.

At stake is the fact that the Catholic church is upset that the state government earlier this year went ahead and approved the law that permits gay couples to engage in civil unions – which provide many of the legal benefits that traditionally-married couples already get.

The church has said it does not plan to recognize such couples as having any special legal union, which would mean that it would refuse to consider them if they were interested in becoming adoptive, or foster, parents.

That led to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services late last week to inform Catholic Charities that it will no longer permit the Catholic-affiliated to have anything to do with children,.

THE NEARLY 2,000 kids now being cared for by programs affiliated with Catholic dioceses across the state will be transferred to other organizations – most of which will be secular in nature.

Catholic officials have responded to civil unions by filing a lawsuit in Sangamon County Circuit Court that seeks to force the state to keep using Catholic-affiliated adoption programs to help place children in homes.

A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. There’s no guarantee as to what will happen at that time. But officials sympathetic to the church side of this legal fight are hoping that some sort of injunction is issued by a judge to force the status quo to be maintained until the larger legal issue is resolved.

Then again, perhaps the court will do nothing of substance, and state officials will get a second legal victory this week (following the unanimous Illinois Supreme Court decision Monday that kept video poker legal to fund a massive construction program for the state).

NOT THAT THE Catholic Church has any chance of striking down the civil unions law that took effect last month, and has resulted in some 1,600 gay couples being issued licenses by counties across the state for civil unions during the law's first full month in effect.

This is about people trying to use organized religion to reject portions of our society that they don’t want to agree with. They want to be able to behave as though Illinois doesn’t recognize anything legitimate about a gay couple because it offends their sensibilities.

For those people who claim that their religious beliefs are somehow being compromised, I’d say that’s nonsense. This is about nothing more than partisan politics and ideology.

The fact that the proponents of this Catholic challenge are filing their court case in Springfield confirms that – in my mind.

FOR THIS LEGAL action was filed on behalf of the Catholic dioceses of Joliet (which covers the suburbs in Will and DuPage counties down south to Kankakee), Peoria and Belleville, along with the Illinois capital city.

The court (and political) systems in those first three cities have Democrat ideological leanings. While I realize that courts don’t knee-jerk (in most cases) rule in cases based on what the local political people desire, the fact is that it does have an influence.

Those courts might very well have tossed out the legal action to ensure that the state political powers-that-be in Springfield remain sympathetic.

But Springfield remains locally a solidly Republican establishment, including its court system. If any of those dioceses has a chance of getting the court to issue a quickie ruling in its favor while the greater legal issues are pending, it is Sangamon County.

I SUPPOSE THE Joliet Diocese could have taken the lead, but chosen to file the lawsuit in DuPage County court (located in Wheaton) – which still leans Republican, although not as intensely as it used to. But I could just as easily see the counter-measure to transfer the case to Joliet and Will County court.

Personally, I detest the idea that partisan politics and religion get co-mingled so closely. What comes next? Catholic-affiliated hospitals refusing treatment to those who don’t fit some church bureaucrat’s vision of an “ideal” person?

Which is why I wouldn’t mind it in the least if the church got out of the adoption business, if it has such a hang-up in complying with Illinois law.

It wouldn’t be the biggest stretch. The reason this isn’t a Chicago case is that the Archdiocese (which covers Cook and Lake counties) gave up on dealing with foster children and adoptions back in 2007 for reasons that had nothing to do with gay people or civil unions.

THE DIOCESE BASED in Rockford also got out of the child business earlier this year – with an Ottawa-based agency taking over such programs for northern Illinois.

Perhaps that is the lead the other dioceses should take. That is, if they can’t see their way to accept the fact that civil unions are here to stay in Illinois (until the day comes that Illinois follows the lead of New York and gives in to gay marriage proper).

  -30-

Father’s Day more significant to me this year on account of my mother’s passing

It was a surprising turn of events for me. But Father’s Day this year came and went with a bit more personal significance – particularly after having it come but one week after a memorial service for my mother.



My father and step-mother, along with my brother and I, at our mother's memorial service that made me appreciate  all the more the fact that I could celebrate this year's Father's Day with him. Below is the container with my mother's cremated remains, along with a photograph of herself that she always particularly liked. Photographs provided by Christine Yates, a Minnesota-based aunt who is a favorite -- even though there are times I don't tell her that.



Perhaps I am fortunate. I’m 45 years old, and I still have my father alive and well. I can chat with him any time I want by picking up a telephone. A short 10-minute drive by car, and I can visit him.

SO IT WASN’T that difficult for my brother and I to spend Sunday with our father and step-mother, along with other assorted relatives. It was a low-key holiday celebration befitting what is one of the lesser holidays (a new study says we value Mother’s Day more).

Yet I will have to plead guilty to not fully appreciating these facts until just a couple of months ago. Because until about one week before Thanksgiving of last year, I was a 45-year-old man who still had both of my biological parents alive.

It was then that I lost my mother, and I still find myself at odd moments thinking of her and saying aloud “I miss you, mom.”

Now my mother came from a family of eight kids, and she was only the second of them to pass away. Because most of her sisters and brother now live in other states, we didn’t do much of a formal funeral service.

WE WAITED UNTIL her what would have been her birthday anniversary earlier this month to have a memorial service in her honor. Which is why last Sunday, my brother and I were nervous wrecks (although I think my brother was hit harder) as our aunts and uncle, along with assorted cousins and friends of my mother and some of the more distant relatives of the family, all convened to pay tribute to my mother’s memory.

As I tried to tell people in as optimistic a manner as possible, my brother, Chris, and I were not mourning our mother’s memory. We were celebrating her birthday one last time, with her family and friends on hand to join us.

Anyway, that memorial service went well. Thus far, we have heard from many relatives who were pleased with the way we handled the event – which fell just one day short of the seven-month “anniversary” of the date of her death.

The most intensive grieving was already past. We were able to look upon her life more optimistically and think of the good times we had with her.

I’M CERTAINLY NOT engaging in any outbursts such as one that occurred four days after my mother died, when I nearly burst into tears at the sight of a young woman who was doting over her young son (maybe about 3 years old) in a way that I remember my mother fawning over me at that age.

All of this means that I have come to appreciate the fragility of life in a way that I understood intellectually before, but didn’t really sense until now.

It also means I approached this year’s Father’s Day as being more a reason to try to spend some time with “Dear Ol’ Dad” and not just view the family get-together as an ordeal that would take up some time on my Sunday afternoon.

Although in all honesty, the only thing I HAD to do on that particular day was write this commentary, along with a piece for this site’s sister weblog – The South Chicagoan.

I ONLY HOPE I didn’t have my father thinking I was being all morbid during our time together. Although if I had, I’m fairly sure he would have told me so, and added some sort of admonition to, “knock it off.”

For I suppose the reality of life is that I am now counting down the days that I will have my father with me – although his health, while not ideal, is far better than that of my mother. She spent the last decade of her life dealing with all kinds of ailments related to diabetes.

Lupus and Parkinson’s Disease were just some of the issues she dealt with that often left her physically weakened.

I only hope I adequately let my father know how much I appreciate still having him around – even when his nit-picky temperament turns him into an overbearing crank. I’m sure in later years I will remember his fits as aspects that made him a colorful character.

AND I’M ALSO hoping that I’ll be able to wish him a “Happy Birthday” (the end of July) and a happy Father’s Day for several years to come – although one of the things that has been beaten into my brain from years of being a reporter-type person is that death can come for anyone at any time. There’s nothing “fair” about it.

There is one humorous aspect to these two weekends. My brother and I arranged for catered food for our mother’s memorial service, and we had a freezer filled with leftovers – so much so that my brother defrosted them Sunday and took them with us for a Father’s Day feast that the family seemed to appreciate.

Two celebratory “feasts” for the cost of one. Although it means I don’t want to see a piece of fried chicken, a plate of mostaccioli or an Italian sausage sandwich anywhere near me for a very long time.

  -30-

Has Memorial Day holiday become more about the burgers than the soldiers?

I went and got myself a haircut Sunday, and while making sure to trim my sideburns evenly, the hair-stylist hit me with the question about my holiday plans.

“Are you going to barbecue?”

NOW THE STRAIGHTFORWARD answer to that question is, “I don’t know.” It will depend on the weather (if it is as bad Monday as it was Sunday, then I doubt it), and also the mood of my father – I’m likely to spend the bulk of the day checking up to make sure he and my step-mother are okay.

But there’s something about the question that annoyed me somewhat; and not just because it was a part of the mindless chit-chat that barbers feel the need to engage in.

It’s the idea that the reason we’re getting a holiday (one of the six major ones that results in an extra day off from work for many people, no mail delivery and a waiver of the rules requiring that we feed the parking meters) is so that we can drag out the coals and slap a few patties of ground beef (or some meat-like substance) over the heat.

We might as well re-name the holiday “Weber Grill Day.” The all-American vision of a charred hot dog or a bratwurst being stuffed into a bun for our consumption.

BE HONEST. THAT vision will be in more people’s heads than any vision involving military personnel.

Now I’m not about to preach for the military. I never served, and feel fortunate that I was never in a position where I felt forced to serve (which is what I honestly think of those young people now who use the military to come up with the money to pay for a college education in the future).

But I do have cousins and uncles who did stints in the military at various points of time during the past few decades – including some who served in Vietnam and during the first incarnation of an Iraq War (remember 1990?).

So while I happen to think that many military veterans organizations lay it on a little thick with the public ceremonies they conducted both during the weekend and on Monday (I understand Mayor Rahm Emanuel became a bit teary-eyed while attending such a ceremony in Chicago, while my relatives who served don’t go around telling ‘war’ stories), I find the apathetic viewpoint to be even more reprehensible.

INSOFAR AS MY own family, I am fortunate enough to be able to say that all of those members who served came back home and were able to have a life after their military service. We won’t tell tales on Monday of a lost brother or cousin and wonder ‘what might have been’ had he not been lost in combat. We’re fortunate in that regard, and I feel for those who can’t say the same.

But for those people whose biggest concern on Monday is making sure they get the right brand of barbecue sauce for whatever it is they try to cook, I hope I don’t run into many of those people.

Because my level of contempt may well just cause me to have an outburst that I likely will regret in the future. If anything, I believe that Monday shouldn’t be much of a holiday celebration at all.

It ought to be a day of quiet, introspective thought. We should have to contemplate, even if for just a few, brief moments, what our life and our society would be like if certain aspects had gone differently in the past. How much better off are we because of the sacrifices of past military action.

THERE HAVE BEEN times in our history when brute force has had to be used to uphold an ideal. The problem becomes when people think we’re celebrating the acts of brute force, rather than the ideals that our United States is based upon.

Of course, looking around me while I stopped off at a supermarket later in the afternoon on Sunday, it would seem to me that few people had any of this in mind. Finding the best price on pop, or deciding how thin to chop the onions so they don’t dissolve on the grill was the biggest concern.

Me, I’m hoping to have a moment to think about my cousins or uncles (whom I most likely will NOT actually see on Monday) who weren’t as fortunate as I was to have options besides the military. Today’s the day they deserve a moment of my attention.

That is, when I’m not munching on a burger.

  -30-

What does neighborhood resurgence mean? Or, remembering grandpa at work

Wisconsin Steel, in its "glory" days

Mayor Richard M. Daley was on his Neighborhood Appreciation Tour Wednesday and ventured to the far Southeast Side 10^th Ward – where he chose to show up at a construction site once occupied by the Wisconsin Steel mill.

That’s the one that shuttered suddenly in 1980, leaving thousands of neighborhood folk out of work and jolting the South Deering neighborhood and its surrounding communities into a decline from which it has a long way to rebound even now, some three decades later.

I TOOK MY personal interest in this on account of the fact that my maternal grandfather, Michael Vargas, worked his entire adult life at that steel mill – raising a family of eight kids (my mother was number four) on that salary.

Which is why when I covered Daley’s appearance for one of the area newspapers at the former mill (the land of which is now being converted into a liquid asphalt storage facility), I couldn’t help but wonder as I got out of my car and walked on the muddy grounds where the mayor’s people erected a podium and a tent (it was windy) if I was literally following in the footsteps of my grandfather.

Daley, in showing up at the construction site for this facility, was trying to take credit for the project – for which the city provided $45 million through a bond sale.

Perhaps he should get some. Because my lingering memory of the South Deering neighborhood will always be that of the sight of the rusty, decaying former steel mill now sitting vacant and depressing – dragging down its surrounding neighborhoods.

WHEN COMBINED WITH the fact that Wisconsin Steel was not the only area factory to close when economic conditions changed in recent decades, it really did create a depressing atmosphere in which to live – which was a large part of why my own family felt the need to “go suburban” when my brother and I were young children.

My grandfather



A part of me stood out there in the middle of what was once a steel mill (I’m not sure of what was once where, so I don’t know for sure what part of the immense plant he would have worked in) and I couldn’t help but think of my grandfather – who also was one of my three grandparents who were born in Mexico, then came to this country as a young man.

When he came, it was with the understanding that his labor was needed at a steel mill in Chicago. Which is how he got the job, and why his route to U.S. citizenship was cleared.

I couldn’t help but wonder what he would have thought of the site on Wednesday of all the old steel mill torn down and the environmental waste being cleared away, all so that a new plant that from a distance looks like a few oil refineries could be built.

HE’D PROBABLY LIKE the idea of people being able to work again. Although I’m not sure he’d think much of anyone trying to sentimentalize what he once did – it was work, and he did it for the money to support himself and a family.

Now in one sense, my grandfather was fortunate. Wisconsin Steel was the plant that literally closed down overnight – leaving its people out-of-work and (in many cases) unemployable. People who were capable of doing so moved away. Those who were left were there because they were stuck.

By the time that happened in 1980, my grandfather had already been dead for two years. Neither he nor my grandmother had to endure the economic hardships of other 10^th Ward residents whose lives were tied up in working in those steel mills. But I have no doubt that many of the people who did suffer knew my grandfather, and probably well.

I also don’t think he would have clung to the neighborhood all that tightly. As it was, he lived the final years of his life in a house in suburban Lansing, where he enjoyed being able to get away from the urban grime.

I CAN’T HELP but wonder if he would view the fact that his last house now has a Mexican ethnic grocery located about one block away as some sort of evidence that the grime he was trying to flee was somehow following him.

Which probably means that Daley was correct on Wednesday when he said that people should focus on the future and how to improve the neighborhood, which he says will happen by creating jobs in the area that can pay something resembling a livable salary.

“The future is always brighter than the past,” Daley said, while also giving us a perfect line that could be typed up and stuffed into fortune cookies of the future.

If my grandfather were here today, I doubt he’d be looking to move back to the old neighborhood. He’d also be looking to the future, and how our family needs to continue to strive forward in society – rather than being willing to settle for what we already have.

ALTHOUGH I DO have to admit one thing about modern-day South Deering – there’s a tiny restaurant at 108^th Street across from the old mill site that makes the best tamales I know of, and is the place where my brother and I go to buy a few dozen from time to time when we get the taste for them.

Because we haven’t really had a good home-made tamale since our grandfather’s death when I was 13.

But more importantly, if it hadn’t been for my grandfather’s work during his life (more stressful work than anything I have ever had to do), we likely wouldn’t be where we are now.

  -30-

Political spouses have unique bond

One is sick and most likely dying, and would like to have her husband at her side.

While this plea failed, ...

The other died with her husband at her side, but apparently wanted to show the world she was severing her tie to her spouse.

WE’RE TALKING ABOUT Lura Lynn Ryan and Elizabeth Edwards, whose one thing in common is that they met in their lives a very young man and married him, then went along for the career ride as that man’s political aspirations powered the engine.

In the case of Ryan, we’re talking about how she became the first lady of Illinois, while Edwards was the spouse of a U.S. senator whom, had a couple of factors gone differently, would have been first lady of the United States.

Edwards, as those of us following the news reports know, died recently from cancer. Her last years of life were spent fighting her condition, while showing signs of dignity in the process.

Ryan is now undergoing her own illness, suffering from cancer throughout her body and lung problems and is now in an intensive care unit at a hospital in her hometown of Kankakee. Depending on whom one wants to listen to, Ryan has anywhere from “weeks” to “days” to live.

THE 76-YEAR-old woman is approaching the end of her life, and her wish is that she could have her husband at her side to provide a mental jolt.

Of course, her husband, former Gov. George Ryan, can’t just show up at the hospital after work, or take a few days off. He remains an inmate at the work camp that is part of the maximum-security federal correctional center in Terre Haute, Ind. He still has just under 2 ½ years to serve on his prison sentence before he can be released.

... will this plea succeed?

In short, it would take a true miracle for Lura Lynn Ryan to live long enough to be at her husband’s side when he is released from prison.

An appeal is now working its way through the Court of Appeals to get some of the convictions dismissed – enough that his time already served would be considered sufficient and he could be released now. But criminal appeals tend to work at their own pace. Nobody is going to speed things up because of anyone’s health – no matter how mortal.

WHICH IS WHY Ryan’s attorneys (including former Gov. James R. Thompson) are now trying to get Ryan a temporary release from prison so he can be at his wife’s side at the moment she passes away. One motion literally calls for him to be transferred to the Kankakee County Jail, where he would spend his time while not at the hospital with his wife.

No word on whether he’d be allowed to remain for the funeral, or whether he’d be whisked back to Terre Haute once his wife passes. Ultimately, it is up to the warden in Terre Haute whether or not George Ryan is permitted this move, and that warden does not have to give any public explanation for his decision – whichever way it turns out.

Of course, the hard-core Ryan critics are showing their callousness by insisting that he be deprived of even this moment. Which makes me think some people have a twisted sense of criminal punishment and rehabilitation.

Personally, I would think that Ryan being an inmate in Kankakee County’s jail would be the most humiliating experience for him – since he was once THE local political big shot. It would be the ultimate evidence of how far he’s fallen, and people who have known him their entire lives would get to see his decline.

EDWARDS: Supportive, until after the end

THEN, THERE IS the case of Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband, John, rose to the ranks of U.S. senator from North Carolina and was the vice presidential running mate in 2004 with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. He tried running his own presidential bids in ’04 and 2008.

But ultimately, his undoing was infidelity with a campaign worker. He got caught when the worker had his child. Elizabeth stood by John’s side publicly in life. Even after they formally separated last year, she kept the criticism to a minimum.

But when her will was made public this week, we learned that she made last-minute changes less than a week before death. She cut her husband out.

Her property and wealth (including some real estate holdings and a trust whose contents cannot be disclosed) go to the surviving children.

THE RYANS AND Edwardses have some things in common. Lura Lynn met George when the two were in high school, and their married life together is more than a half-century. Which makes it all the more logical that she would want him nearby at the end.

After all, the Edwardses met while  the two were in law school and their marriage lasted a third of a century. Despite the problems and the split, even John Edwards saw to it that he was by his wife’s side in her final days of life.

All it really means is that George Ryan would like to have the same final perk as did John Edwards. It’s not the most unreasonable request to make.

  -30-