A society of ‘dishwashers’ sees El Tri victories as a drop-dead to xenophobes

It’s a question I often hear – how can anybody who lives in this country possibly root for Mexico in the world of international soccer? Particularly since the Mexican national squad is considered to be an archrival of the U.S. national team.

This restaurant snub, ...

Yet then, all I need to see are little tidbits like the sign I saw Sunday outside a restaurant seeking workers to be reminded that every time we see an Equipo Mexico win, it upsets the sensibilities of so many in our society.

PARTICULARLY THOSE WHO think they’re offending us when they go out in public wearing their ridiculous red “Make America Great Again” caps.

The fact that Mexico pulled off a shocking 1-0 victory over the German national team on Sunday (Germany is actually the defending World Cup champion, and so many Anglo pundits were determined to believe that Mexico was unworthy of a spot on the same pitch with Die Manschaft) was my ethnic brethren’s way of saying “Drop Dead!” to the nitwits who probably see nothing wrong with The Sign.

Which, I must admit, my father was the first to notice. We went out for a Father’s Day dinner (we all wanted a hearty meal, but nobody wanted to cook in Sunday’s excessive heat), and as we left, he pointed out what he termed a racist sign.

For the restaurant in question had two signs on their window – one in English and the other in Spanish. The English sign was a properly printed poster seeking a need for people to work in jobs as cashiers and counter-help.

… does goal make up for it?

THE SIGN EN Español was a makeshift thing that expressed a need for trabajador para lavaplatos. As in dishwashers. As in back-in-the-kitchen and out of sight of paying customers. Implying that such people wouldn’t be bright enough to speak English.

Although I’d wonder if there’s really an intelligence level between up-front and behind-the-scenes workers when it comes to a restaurant employee pulling minimum wage-or-less (and counting on a share of tips to make up the difference).

In the overall scheme of things, this is a lesser snub. It is almost laughable that anybody who thinks in such a way would be capable of running a business that doesn’t immediately delve into bankruptcy.

TRUMP: Another 'Drop Dead' target?

But then again, I still had the after-glow of watching the Mexico victory over Germany just a few hours earlier on Sunday. And in seeing that moment when television cameras panned over to the faces of German fans in shock that they had actually lost to “Me-xi-co! Me-xi-co!”

ONE THAT I watched largely on the Spanish-language Telemundo network broadcasts. I tried watching the Fox Sports 1 English-language broadcast, but quickly found it annoying to hear announcers complaining that the Mexican fans who made the trip to Moscow to watch their team in the World Cup managed to sing their national anthem in a louder, more boisterous manner than the German fans.

Almost implying that Mexican fans should be meek and accept their eventual defeat. Which didn’t happen, and which gave many people of Mexican ethnic origins a moment of joy.

Particularly in Mexico City, where seismic sensors detected a small earthquake – albeit of man-made causes, in the federal district. Which, coincidentally, matched up with the exact minute when Hirving “Chucky” Lozano scored the Sunday match’s lone goal in the 35^th minute.

Chicago Cubs fans love to think the whole world was all worked up when they had their post-World Series victory parade to Millennium Park. Yet not even they managed to create a seismic disturbance of the likes we saw Sunday.

A cinematic moment when Mexico prevailed over Germany

I DO HAVE to admit one thing – I wasn’t alone on Sunday. I noticed while trying to order food a family – of whom the mother and three sons were all clad in various jerseys of the Mexican national team.

It has me thinking I’m going to have to go out and get myself an El Tri jersey – although I’m still trying to figure out which design I like the most.

Although I also have to confess it wasn’t a complete picture; the father/husband figure of the family?

He apparently is still living in the past of 2016 – he was wearing a Chicago Cubs jersey! I’d like to think the rest of his family was ashamed to be seen in public with him.

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EXTRA: June 12 is back on, for now

So it seems that June 12, in Singapore is back on. President Donald J. Trump said Friday following an hour-long-plus meeting with aides to Kim Jong Un of North Korea that he's once again willing to meet with that nation's leader in hopes of reaching some sense of agreement with that rogue nation.

What will actually come out of such a gathering? We'll have to wait and see. Actually, we'll have to wait and see if the gathering actually takes place. Trump could easily have another hissy fit in the next week-and-a-half and cancel the session once again.

I DO HAVE one thought bopping through my mind; do the ideologues who perpetually rant against the United States trying to reach a sense of peace with Cuba now ease up their rhetoric since they're so eager to see Trump get his "Nobel Prize" for bringing peace with North Korea -- a nation we technically remain at war with some seven-decades after the shooting stopped.

Not likely. Ideologues rarely care about fact or logic when making their arguments.

So does this mean the ideologues now resurrect their talk that Trump is worthy of the Nobel Prize (which they think he's entitled to because former President Barack Obama managed to win one for his efforts related to the Middle East)?

And how peeved would they become if it turns out the Nobel types think Kim's actions are more worthy of the prize? Not that I'm saying they will be -- having two irrational leaders trying to achieve peace always has the potential to create chaos. And I don't mean the humorous kind that the International Organization of Evil of "Get Smart" used to engage in.

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Cards Against Humanity has right smart-aleck attitude toward border wall

I must confess that until Thursday, I had never heard of Cards Against Humanity – a game put together by a company that seems to have a smart-alecked approach to viewing life.

 

Trump's border wall the target of Chgo co.

Which is also why the company likes to engage in attention-seeking gags to promote itself. Their latest gag is one whose spirit I totally approve of, makes me totally pleased to be able to say this company is based out of our very own home city of Chicago.

WHICH IS PROBABLY all the more reason that President Donald J. Trump will denigrate the Second City’s reputation, but may be the ultimate proof that our president is a poo-head when it comes to so many issues.

Specifically, the company is taking a stance against one of the issues that Trump made a priority during his election cycle. Immigration reform, or the refusal to do anything with it.

More specifically, instead of trying to eradicate the bureaucratic entanglements of our current immigration policy, he’s touting construction of that wall along the more-than-1,900 miles of border that separate the United States from Mexico.

Most of which is fairly uncrossable desert. But hey, Trump wants to say he built something that’s going to keep those friggin’ foreigners out of this country. Even though construction of a wall is likely the most inefficient thing one could do to keep people from entering this country at its southwest border

WHICH IS WHERE Cards Against Humanity comes in. The company says it wants to purchase a plot of land right on the U.S./Mexico border – and will refuse to cooperate with plans to use its land to let the border wall be built.

Admittedly, there are ways the government can seize land if it can argue that a project is of sufficient merit that one’s personal property rights should not be allowed to stand in the way!

But that does involve the courts and having to work one’s way through the legal process. The company, which won’t say where exactly out in the deserts of the southwest it is buying a plot of land, does say it will retain attorneys who are used to fighting such cases.

Trump's border wall bears too much resemblance to Berlin Wall of old

They’re prepared to drag this out in the courts so as to make the entire process a miserable ordeal for all involved.

WHO KNOWS? THEORETICALLY, the case could drag on so long that Trump won’t even be president any longer when it finally is resolved. Which means a future president of significantly more common sense (be honest, ANYBODY who gets elected will have more sense than Trump) will wind up trashing the border wall project.

The company, if it follows through with its threats to become a pain in the behind on this issue, will wind up performing a significant public service.

Since there is no such thing as a physical barricade that cannot be circumvented. This wall is literally a waste of money, and could wind up becoming an even more significant embarrassment than the Berlin Wall ever was!

It will be nice to know that such a project thwarting the embarrassment from becoming reality will have its very own Chicago tie.

Trump more a Frankenstein ...

I ALSO HAVE to admit to enjoying the company’s comment justifying their action, saying, “Donald Trump is a preposterous golem who is afraid of Mexicans.”

Those of us who remember “The Sopranos” will remember that episode where Shlomo Teittleman, owner of the Fly Away Motel, winds up denouncing Tony Soprano as such when Tony extorts him for a large share of the motel’s control.

... or a Gossamer?

For those who don’t remember, a “golem” is a “Frankenstein-type monster.”

Although that brings up the issue of whether Trump, with the puffy hairdo and orange tint his skin has taken on in recent years, is too ridiculous-looking to be a Frankenstein and is more like a Gossamer – the old Looney Toons character.

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Wishing we, the people, could pick up a history book every now and then

I don’t doubt that North Korea leader Kim Jong-un has a screw or two loose in his

Wishing this were just a debate ...

mindset – he may very well believe his place in history is to be the guy who gives the “go” order that unleashes a nuclear weapon on a city or two within the United States.

Although when I hear our nation’s president, Donald J. Trump, spew out rhetoric about “fire and fury” being unleashed against North Korea, it makes me wonder which world leader’s instability is more likely to cause the problem?

 

... over who has the sillier haircut?

AND I DON’T particularly care if such rhetoric plays well with the 46 percent of the U.S electorate that actually voted for Trump to be president. That only proves our overall ignorance of history and world events.

For all I know, Trump may well want to give the order to unleash an attack on some part of the world so as to enhance his credentials as a world leader in the same way that Kim thinks he’s appeasing the rest of the world by saying he’d only consider use of nuclear weapons on the United States.

I also don’t doubt that Trump’s rhetoric is being played in such a way that Kim is making sure everybody currently trapped into living within North Korea thinks that Trump is the ultimate demon who is threatening to annihilate their country.

Similar to how Fidel Castro had a generation of Cubans thinking the reason their nation had become so impoverished was because of generations of U.S. presidents imposing imperialist policies through the trade embargo that in the end wound up depriving our nation of economic opportunities more than it hurt Cuba.

Kim trying to top Fidel on crazy scale? Image provided by Library of Congress collection

YES, I’M VIEWING this whole situation developing between the United States and the nation with which we technically have been at war with for nearly seven decades with some trepidation. Although the broadcast pundits who now are spewing cheap talk that we’re approaching a sequel to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 may be overstating it.

We’re not there, yet. Although I’m wondering if the cooler heads who need to prevail for such a situation to never develop will wind up being drowned out by the nonsense talk of Trump and Kim.

I heard one such pundit make a comment Wednesday about how it is possible that U.S. military interests could “take” North Korea in a fight. It’s just a matter of how much carnage we’re willing to put up with, and how much we’re willing to sacrifice South Korea (our ally and a nation in which we have a military presence) in the process.

I think too many people are willing to ignore that last aspect, even though they shouldn’t.

BECAUSE IF WE want to be realistic, we would have “taken” North Korea a long time ago if it were at all practical. But the fact that China would not want to see a reunified Korea if it means that the part of it historically allied with itself were seen as the “loser.”

And I definitely don’t want to see a situation where we have a U.S./China conflict provoked by a long-forgotten military conflict of the early 1950s. Cold War politicking has the potential to create too many headaches.

Yes, I use the phrase “long-forgotten” to describe the Korean conflict because I really don’t believe most people have a clue about it. They either get it confused with the later actions in Vietnam, or they think it’s something about hospitals and “M*A*S*H” on television.

NOT what Korea was about!

Which means they’re dredging up comical images of actor Jamie Farr in his Scarlet O’Hara dress or swinging a purse while carrying a rifle on guard duty.

CERTAINLY NOT AN image with any bearing in reality. And certainly not one that should be taken into account by anybody with a hand in setting our public policy.

Which is why I do take some comfort in the comments of people like Defense Secretary Jim Mattis who says North Korea needs to “stand down” in its desire to get a usable nuclear weapon. We can only hope that such sensibilities prevail, and that fantasies of South Korean military troops marching in to Pyongyang to occupy the capital of the North do not.

It reminds me of a professor I had in college who liked to say of Harry Truman’s use of atomic weapons to end the Second World War that it was “Harry Truman 2, Rest of the World 0.”

I’d hate to think that we’re headed for a day when his line will have to be amended to read “Truman 2, Kim 1 and Trump 1.”

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EXTRA: Castro step-down a let-down

EDITOR’S NOTE: This commentary was originally published Feb. 19, 2008 by The South Chicagoan, a sister weblog to this site that focuses on issues of concern to the growing Latin American population in this country. The fact that long-time Cuba dictator Fidel Castro finally departed this realm of existence Friday at age 90 and is likely to have his remains cremated later Saturday makes it semi-relevant again, particularly since a part of me wishes I were in Havana now to report the reaction.

  -0-

Fidel Castro, from back in the days when we'd let him openly enter this country. Photograph from Library of Congress collection

Every news reporter who is worth anything has a “dream story,” a realistic event that would be of historic proportions that they would like to be present at, so as to take a crack at writing news copy for posterity.

For me, any chance I ever had at covering my “dream” died early Tuesday when Fidel Castro officially stepped down as leader of the communist government in Cuba – bringing to an end a 49-year reign that had frustrated the will of so many U.S. presidents.

MY DREAM WOULD have been to be in Havana at the moment that the Cuban people learned that Fidel was no longer in control. I would have settled for being anyplace where people would have a special interest in the passing of Castro.

But now that Fidel Castro is officially no longer in charge for the record on the Caribbean island nation, I have to admit the reality turned out to be so far removed from any dream story I could have wanted.

Castro played his resignation to make it sound as uneventful as possible. The departure last year of Alberto Gonzales as U.S. attorney general occurred with more political drama than the departure of Fidel.

Making the announcement on the website of the Cuban government newspaper “Granma” in the early hours of the day ensured that most Cuban people knew little of the event, since Internet access in Cuba is so heavily restricted.

BUT THE SIMPLE fact is that Castro still looms over the government. His brother, Raul, who has been Fidel’s number two man since the days of the revolution against the Batista regime, is now officially in charge.

Raul Castro is not the dominant personality that his older brother, Fidel, is. A Raul Castro-led revolution back in the late 1950s likely would have ended with some hard-core, long-forgotten Communists rotting away in a Cuban prison, instead of being swayed by the cult of personality that is Fidel Castro.

That personality is going to ensure that the Castro ideals will remain in place. Nothing of significance has changed.

In fact, all this really means is that Fidel Castro is finally conceding he’s not a young man and his intestinal problems are so severe that he can’t even pretend to be in charge of the day-to-day operations of Cuba’s financially-strapped government.

HE WILL GET to spend his final years of life (although I understand that genetics indicate Castro could still have several more years to live – there are a few centenarians in his family tree) living in as much luxury as Cuba can offer.

He won’t be living out the wildest fantasy of many a hard-core exile in the U.S. Cuban community that uses Miami as its spiritual capital – those people wanted him overthrown, put on trial and dangling from the end of a rope (just like Saddam Hussein).

Castro, when he finally dies, will get the ceremonial funeral and will be forever remembered as a hero to official Cuba, while exiles will have to suffer with the knowledge that there’s no way they can spin history – Castro’s revolution won control.

They lost.

THAT IS PROBABLY why the initial reaction out of Miami was subdued.

Aside from a few Cuban flags dangling from Florida palm trees, there isn’t much in the way of celebration. Cuban exiles realize significant change has not occurred.

It was even good to hear President Bush NOT gloat. Castro has had control of his country since the days of President Dwight Eisenhower, and eight other men oversaw the U.S. government and had to “deal” with Fidel.

Bush the younger will be the president who will get credit, so to speak, of presiding over the downfall of Fidel in the same way his father gets credit for "bringing down" the Soviet Union. He will be the Leader of the Free World who will have to set policies that try to sway the Cuban people to think of the United States as a potential ally (instead of the source of all their country’s financial problems, as the Castro government spins it).

AN EASING OF the trade embargo that has hurt the Cuban economy while also cutting off U.S. businesses from what could be a desirable market for U.S.-manufactured and –produced goods would be a step in the right direction.

It might be the incentive that gets Castro the younger (Fidel’s kid brother is 76 Now 84) to seriously think about improvements to his country – instead of early signs that say he views Cuba as a potential China (easing the economic restraints of Communism while maintaining the rigid social controls of a totalitarian state).

How should we remember Fidel Castro?

The Cuban government is pushing the notion that the revolution against the Batista government resulted in free public education and health care for all the Cuban people.

THAT IS TRUE, to a point. The reality is that the quality of health care in Cuba is so poor and so scarce. Many Cubans can’t get needed health care – because it’s not available to anybody, not because of its cost.

And as far as education is concerned, yes, minimal literacy is higher in Cuba than in many other poor nations. There are statistics that can be twisted to make it appear to be better than impoverished neighborhoods in the United States.

But in today’s world, bare literacy is not going to get anyone ahead in life. Advanced education is needed, and for many Cubans, that is a dream often discouraged by a government that still wants to talk about the nobility of the “workers of the world” over all else.

And when it comes to Castro’s human rights record, it stinks just as much as many other third-rate dictators around the world. The sad fact of the Castro regime is that it overthrew one totalitarian dictatorship run by Fulgencio Batista and replaced it with one run by “los Hermanos Castro” (not the Mexican singing group).

BUT I HAVE a hard time singling out Castro as some sort of tyrannical demon (as the Cuban exile community of Miami is quick to do), because I know full well there are many other government “leaders” who run their countries with as much of a strong-arm demeanor as Fidel.

But since they are willing to denounce the label of Communism, the United States has been willing to look the other way. Heck, if Castro hadn’t declared himself to be a Communist after one year in power, the U.S. would never have dreamed of embargoing the Cuban economy. We’d be willing to make excuses for Castro’s overcrowded jails.

The past 49 years of U.S. policy toward Cuba have not accomplished much of anything. The United States did NOT drive Fidel Castro from power. He got to leave on his own terms, and name his successor.

PEOPLE WHO ARE insistent on having history record the Castro regime as illegitimate are going to have to accept failure, and move on for the best.

It’s not that I ever expect a sudden rush of exiles seeking to return to Cuba – so many decades in the United States have caused them to change permanently, and in the process become an important part of the larger Latino community in this country.

  -30-

Can you libel North Korea? Is it all a film industry plot for attention?

It is one of the old gags of being a reporter-type person who covers a lot of crime activity – “You can’t libel the mob!”


No matter how critical one is in the details they write about organized crime, what are the gangsters going to do – file a lawsuit and testify under oath that you’re wrong?

I COULDN’T HELP but remember that thought when I read an Associated Press dispatch from Seoul, South Korea, about how the North Korea government late Sunday accused the United States of spreading “reckless” rumors about its alleged involvement in a hacking of Sony Pictures computers.

The wire service reported that a National Defense Commission statement said officials planned “our toughest counteraction” against the United States, which it said is a “cesspool of terrorism.”

It also said the North Korean government has proof that it had no connection to the computer invasion that wound up disclosing sensitive information about Sony and stirred up enough attention and fear about the upcoming film “The Interview” that Sony officials decided not to release it at all.

Now I’m not going to claim to have any specific detail about U.S. foreign policy or North Korean affairs. Although it wouldn’t shock me to learn that the people who actually did break into the Sony computers are not actual government officials, but sympathizers of the Communist regime that we technically have been at war with since 1950 (although no shooting has taken place since 1953).

ALTHOUGH I DON’T expect anyone to seriously offer proof of that. Because that would involve people, possibly even Kim Jong Un, to have to “take the stand,” so to speak, and tell the truth.

It’s easier for them to spew trash talk. Just like much of our own government’s rhetoric that has blown a potentially third-rate film up into an international incident. We’re talking about putting North Korea back on the list of nations that engage in “state-sponsored terrorism.” Considering that we’re going to have to remove Cuba from that list because of the plans to restore diplomatic relations, it means there’s a vacancy to be filled.

For those of you who have been hiding away in a cave (perhaps the one that Osama bin Laden once used to hide from the U.S. military), this is the film meant to be a comedy about two men hired to assassinate Kim.

But it is a comedy because the two would-be killers are portrayed as a pair of bunglers and the film tells the story about all the things that go wrong during their escapade.

IT MAKES “GET Smart” sound downright intellectual. It sounds like something that should have starred Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels (the crew from “Dumb and Dumber”).

It’s a stupid laugh, and if the North Korean government had any sense, they’d use the film against us as evidence of just how far our society has declined. Instead, they took it seriously and are reacting like nitwits, which had enough people connected to the film industry in this country concerned that the release of the film on Thursday was cancelled.

Which gave us that “Saturday Night Live” sketch this weekend where Michael Myers’ “Dr. Evil” character lambasted Kim as a buffoon and a disgrace to evil leaders the world over.

It also has Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., talking about trying to get a print of the film somehow (I’m not sure if he has that kind of connections) so he can show it during the fundraisers he will have to have in coming months if he is to have enough campaign cash to get re-elected in 2016.

HOW MANY PEOPLE are now going to pay $2,000 or so per ticket to watch an allegedly verboten film? How much unwarranted attention is “The Interview” going to get?

Then again, perhaps Myers’ involvement was appropriate. Because this whole saga has taken on the inane character of a storyline from one of the Austin Powers series of parodies about James Bond-type films.

Which actually makes the conspiracy-theory portion of my intellectual makeup wonder if Sony is eternally grateful for the attention that caused them to stop the film’s distribution.

When it does finally get out, people will think they’re making a political statement by going to see it. Instead of just watching what could have turned out to be a corny story that would have been out of the movie theaters shortly after the coming of the New Year.

  -30-

Our friends, the Mexico drug cartels? Or will ISIS soon be at O’Hare?

I got my laugh Friday from The Inquisitr, a website that I suspect likes to think it’s giving us serious news but seems to have a sense of the garish in terms of how things get reported.

What I found humorous was their story headlined, ISIS Plans to Invade United States through Mexico, But Drug Cartels Could Fight Back.

THEY’RE CLAIMING THAT the militant Islamic State organization that is the newest troublemaker in the news is slowly, but surely, building up their forces by getting people into Mexico.

One day, those people will be large enough to be a military-like force who will then move north into the southwestern United States – then beyond.

First, Truth or Consequences. Then Phoenix and Albuquerque. Pretty soon, they’ll be marching down Michigan Avenue and desecrating the lions out front of the Art Institute of Chicago and camping in Millennium Park – while pondering the “decadent Western” mind who created the concept of “the Bean.”

Of course, the web site threw the potential oddball factor into the equation. To get to the United States, they’d have to go through those northern regions where drug cartels have been fighting for control with the Mexican military for many years.

WOULD THOSE DRUG dealers object so much to anyone trying to come through their “turf” that they’d wind up providing resistance? It almost reminds me of that 1990 film “The Rocketeer,” which had a scene where gangsters suddenly found themselves fighting alongside FBI agents against a common enemy – Nazis.

Would the future security of the United States wind up being supplemented by the same people who are spreading so much of the illicit drugs that are causing so many social problems in our society?

Writing these past few paragraphs has been unusual, because what I have basically spewed is a nonsense theory – albeit one that I’m sure the conservative ideologues of our society are way too eager to believe. Just look at the way Texas Gov. Rick Perry has made claims that some Islamic State agents already have entered the United States through Texas!

They have been spreading for years the idea that these subversive elements of our world would use Mexico to try to get at the United States. Usually as part of their cockamamie idea to fortify, and militarize, the U.S./Mexico border – while also deporting everyone who doesn’t fit their image of who ought to be allowed to consider themselves an “American.”

IF ANYTHING, THIS ought to be evidence enough of why we ought to be encouraging of friendly relations with Mexico, so that our interests and theirs remain as one. Unless we want to have to count on a real-life scenario like the 1942 film “Soy Puro Mexicano” (where a man at his local bar overhears talk at another table, realizes the people are Nazi agents with plans to enter the United States, then spends the rest of the film fighting them off – because no self-respecting Mexican would want to be a Nazi!).

On a more serious note, it is encouraging to learn that a Department of Homeland Security official testified this week before a Senate committee that the current intelligence level and capability along the border is capable of handling a threat – should it occur.

Many news organizations (including the New York Daily News, CNN and the Daily Mail, to name a few) have reported that this is more the latest topic for the kind of people who take Twitter too seriously! It also should be noted that federal officials are more concerned about those people with ties to the Islamic State organization who manage to get passports, then catch airplane flights into a U.S. airport – just like any other international tourist.

Does this mean that if there is an “invasion,” it’s more likely to be with a group of these people flying into O’Hare International Airport?

I CAN JUST see it now. They get off their flight, seize control of the food court (where they declare the concept of stuffed “Chicago-style” pizza to be “decadent”) and work their way to taxicabs that they commandeer.

Where they then proceed to get stuck in rush hour traffic on the Kennedy Expressway.

Be honest; that scenario is about as legitimate as the notion that an ISIS “army” is going to be wading through the Rio Grande any time soon!

  -30-

He’s in hiding because he knows too much, or so Mel Reynolds says

I don’t doubt that there’s a stink surrounding the story of Mel Reynolds, the one-time member of Congress who recently got deported from Zimbabwe after managing to offend the government of that African nation.

REYNOLDS: The man who knows too much?

Then again, being on the bad side of Robert Mugabe doesn’t take much to achieve. That man seems to have a problem with anyone who won’t kowtow to him.

NOT THAT THIS fact makes me feel much in the way of sympathy, since he seems determined to continue his current saga in life.

For it seems that when Zimbabwe officials transported him from the jail where he had spent six days to their airport to get him out of the country, he didn’t return to his native United States.

He went to nearby South Africa – a nation that decades ago wouldn’t have let him come anywhere nearby. But now, is the place where he claims to be in hiding because he fears that a “secret Zimbabwean death squad” is trying to hunt him down. He’s marked for assassination, or so he says.

Although I wonder just how deep in hiding could he be if both WLS-TV AND the Associated Press managed to track him down by telephone for interviews in which he told us his life’s latest sob story.

REYNOLDS, WHOSE CRIMINAL record in this country involves both state charges related to being sexually involved with underage girls and federal charges related to his tax returns, has turned himself into a self-described consultant who was helping U.S. business interests to make connections in African nations.

Which is why he supposedly was in Zimbabwe since back in November.

He now says that his experiences have caused him to learn of U.S. officials, including some from our very own Chicago, who are skirting their way around the law – particularly since Mugabe doesn’t have the best record on international issues.

Reynolds now wants us to believe that the reason he got hit with criminal charges of pornography possession in Zimbabwe is because he was threatening to expose those people.

WHICH COULD COST business and government officials serious money!

Hence, the “death squads” that would turn Mel into a corpse. It all sounds so far over the top – almost like something out of a James Bond film (at least one from the Sean Connery era, the rest get just a bit too lame to pay much attention to).

Or maybe it’s more like something from a “Get Smart” episode – it sounds more like a Maxwell Smart caper than anything else, on account of all its inanity.

In fact, about the only reason I give it any credence is the fact that the pornography possession charge seemed too trumped up – and officials in Zimbabwe were way too eager to dismiss it.

REYNOLDS WAS CHARGED with a visa violation (it had expired) that was the reason he ultimately got deported. The pornography charge supposedly was dismissed because police did not get the consent of higher-ranking authorities before making the arrest.

Which may sound reasonable to someone whose legal sensibilities are U.S.-oriented. Although since when Zimbabwe officials care about such sensibilities is the real question.

A pornography arrest was just the way to draw attention to a U.S. political official whose lingering reputation was of getting aroused by the 16-year-old in peach-colored panties.

Reynolds isn’t wrong when he says that they used the most effective weapon they could come up with to discredit anything he might have to say about business interests in African nations. He may even be truthful in his statement to WLS-TV that he essentially “bribed” Zimbabwe officials to deport – rather than incarcerate – him.

ALTHOUGH EVEN TAKING that into account, it just seems like Mel Reynolds has a knack for walking into gaffes. And why his threats to expose what he knows about corruption (a press conference to be done while in hiding, he says) likely won’t be taken seriously.

Which may well be why the Rhodes Scholar-turned-Congressman-turned-inmate never was able to live up to the promise he showed early in life.

  -30-

EXTRA: Gov. Quinn's Mexico venture

Roughly one of every six Chicago residents is of Mexican ethnic origin.

QUINN: Busy for the week

So perhaps it shouldn’t be the least bit surprising that Gov. Pat Quinn will leave Wednesday for a four-day journey to Mexico. It will be the fifth trade mission – the others were to Brazil and Canada, along with China and Japan – taken by the Mighty Quinn since the day he succeeded the now-impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

IF ANYTHING, IT might be worth saying, “It’s about time,” since an Illinois governor hasn’t gone to Mexico since 2000 – although I remember both George Ryan and Jim Edgar before him making the trip.

Admittedly, this will be a ritual whose purpose is to give Illinois-based companies a chance to make more contacts so that they can do more business with Mexican-based business interests.

If it works properly, it can bolster our local economy. Such as when Quinn meets with officials of Bimbo bakeries, whose U.S. subsidiary, Grupo Bimbo USA owns such product brands found often in our supermarkets such as Entenmann’s donuts and cakes and may well wind up buying a portion of the Hostess product names (even if they didn’t get the “Twinkie” brand).

Illinois exports to Mexico totaled $6.4 million in 2012 – making it the second-largest largest trading partner for our home state.

IF IT DOESN’T, then Quinn will get to say he escaped the 30-degree-type temperatures we’re going to face this week. Since the weather is expected to warm up to more spring-like temperatures by Saturday (the day he’s scheduled to return).

Of course, Quinn will try to make his trip seem like more of a cultural event. Hence, there will be the rituals paying tribute to one-time Mexico President Benito Juarez, along with his political contemporary Abraham Lincoln.

Both men are amongst the most honored leaders of their respective countries – even if height-wise, they were about as far apart as one could envision.

MONARCHS: Regular visitors to Mexico

Reading through the material released by Quinn’s staff, I also couldn’t help but notice an event meant to promote Monarch butterflies, which migrate between the Midwestern U.S. and Michoacãn in Mexico.

THE MONARCH BUTTERFLY is, of course, the official insect of Illinois. Although I’m now wondering if we’ll get some nitwit ideologues who will call for the butterfly’s deportation and removal from such an honor because of its Mexican ties.

But as already stated, the purpose of this trip is meant to be to promote joint business efforts – which is why a lot of CEOs will be accompanying the governor.

Although in looking over the list of corporations making the trip, I couldn’t help but be amused by the inclusion of Geno’s East on the list.

Maybe it is in everybody’s interests to promote the idea of a decent pan pizza in Mexico. I’m just wondering how much of an outburst will we hear from officials with Lou Malnati’s – ranting and raging that they were dissed even though they offer up a superior pizza pie!

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‘Friendly futbol’ at Friendly Confines?

Just one week remains before people can start trying to buy tickets to what could be the most bizarre sports event staged in Chicago this summer – an exhibition match of soccer between professional teams from Italy and Poland.

That event is going to take place come July 22 at Wrigley Field, and is being billed by some as a quasi-historic event. Real football (not that nonsense game played by the Chicago Bears) being played at Wrigley Field.

THE LAST TIME an elite Italian professional footballer took to the Wrigley Field turf was probably the late Giorgio Chinaglia of the old New York Cosmos.

Excuse me for not being all that impressed. Even though I enjoy soccer, and particularly find the matches of international leagues to be rather entertaining. I once made the mistake of attending a Chicago Fire match in the midst of the last World Cup tourney – and the obvious disparity in the level of play was just too much for me to take Major League Soccer that seriously.

But I can’t say that I’m going to get all that excited about either AS Roma or Zaglebie Lubin. Or the idea of any two international squads playing a “friendly” match – which has led to the event being billed as a “Friendly at the Confines.”

To me, the event is going to come across as a phony sporting event, similar to how I view professional wrestling. It will be a stunt with little meaning.

I’M SURE THE players themselves will enjoy a chance to see Chicago, or any other place in the United States. But we have a lot of international tourists who come to Chicago each year. What is a couple dozen more?

Recognize the brick and the worn turf?

Also, the idea of international squads playing abroad is not unique. Every year, we have the top teams from around the Americas and Europe playing matches in the United States to try to bolster enthusiasm for the sport.

We even get those matches in Soldier Field from time to time. Even the goofy configuration of those seating sections inside the historic outer walls of the stadium can’t detract from the sport.

But I’m wondering if the configuration of seats at Wrigley Field will take from the game being played out on its field.

THE SIMPLE FACT is that baseball parks have unique configurations and are really incompatible with just about any other event.

There is a reason why Wrigley Field was never the full-time home of the old Chicago Sting. They played some matches there on dates when other stadiums (such as pre-renovation Soldier Field and Comiskey Park) were unavailable.

The playing field that is tiny for baseball is really too small to fit a regulation pitch into it. We’re bound to see a soccer match similar to that Big Ten football game played back in 2010 – where Northwestern and Illinois gridders were only allowed to use half the field and the other half was just for show. It seems some people think every sport ought to feel fortunate to take the field at Clark and Addison. Will we someday get pro wrestling staged there?

I can’t envision any way serious soccer could be played under a similar handicap. Which means that whatever match is played by the two teams is going to turn out to be a freakishly bad game.

THEN AGAIN, I’M sure the Chicago Cubs are probably figuring that they’re just interested in showing off their building. So they’ll probably get some fans who want too “ooh” and “aah” at the ivy on the brick walls, while a batch of knobby-kneed guys run around a “pitch” that has nothing to do with Carlos Marmol.

Then again, I’m sure it also will detract from the fact that the match will fall on the same weekend that Ron Santo’s memory gets inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

It’s not like baseball will be played at Wrigley Field that day (the Cubs will be in St. Louis playing the Cardinals), and it seems that the match will be tied into Wrigley ceremonies paying tribute to Santo.

Who’d have thought the one-time frozen pizza guy would have soccer played on the ground above which he used to click his heels on the day he finally gets that Hall of Fame induction he spent his whole life waiting for?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Maybe part of my gripe is that when the idea of playing serious soccer at Wrigley Field was first studied, the thought was that it would involve bringing high-ranking Latin American squads to the North Side of Chicago – something I would have found more intriguing, even if equally cheap in terms of the quality of play on the pitch.

’68 or ’96 – Did Chicago learn lesson?

We will get scenes similar to this protest at the G8/NATO summit from 2008. Photograph provided by Muji Tra.

It is with some amusement that I watch city officials get all worked up over the prospect of riots occurring as a result of protests connected to the upcoming G8/NATO summit that will be held in Chicago this spring.

I’ll be the first to concede that this event is going to bring a certain element of people wishing to make a statement in whatever visual manner is necessary, and who have little to no interest in Chicago itself.

THEY WOULDN’T EVEN think of coming here if not for the event being held here.

Yet when I say I’m amused, it means that Rahm Emanuel makes me laugh with the degree to which he seems determined to implement security measures that will give Chicago the feel for a few days of a police state.

To paraphrase the “Tommy DeVito” character played by Joe Pesci in “Goodfellas,” Rahm Emanuel is behaving like a clown, he makes me laugh.

Maybe that means Emanuel’s goons will now single me out for abuse similar to what the DeVito character did to that waiter who had the unmitigated gall to question him about a $7,000 bar tab.

MY SERIOUS POINT is that it just seems like overkill. Considering how one of the seminal events of Chicago history is the Police Department reaction to the anti-war protesters who converged on the city in 1968 when the Democratic National Convention was held here, it makes it seem as though we have learned nothing.

Which is a shame, because 1996 was supposed to be the year that we put that image to rest and showed we had learned from our mistakes. Although I have to admit that, at the time, I was never convinced of the truth of that statement.

I recall the ’96 Democratic National Convention as such an uneventful event. Democrats gathered in our city to make it official that Bill Clinton would be allowed to run for a second term as U.S. president.

It was an over-glorified pep rally for the Democrats – getting them excited about the prospect of beating up on Republican nominee Bob Dole that November. It wasn’t any real “news” made at that event.

IN FACT, MY most vivid memory was the speech given by actor Edward James Olmos. Not because of anything he said, but because he kept making this shrill whistling sound to try to get the attention of the convention delegates – who were ignoring him because many were more concerned about planning which party they were going to that night.

But that event came off without a hitch. The protester-types who insisted on coming to Chicago in 1996 were easily controlled. We didn’t have any riots. We didn’t have any of the mass arrests that would have created broadcast images similar to ’68.

We certainly didn’t have a “Chicago Seven” going on trial in U.S. District Court some time around 1998 for what they did at the Democratic National Convention similar to what happened back in the late 1960s.

Yet it seems like we’re determined to think we’ll have a conspiracy trial of sorts maybe in 2013 to punish the people who are anticipated to engage in a plot to overthrow Chicago.

WHICH IS WHY we’ve gotten the sentiment of overkill – such as the talk of police from across all the suburbs being lent to Chicago during the summit, along with cops from across the country. All we need now is the sight of a Naperville cop swinging his nightstick into someone’s skull, with perhaps a Chicago cop then swinging his club into the camera that would dare to record that image.

It’s overkill that will go a long way toward provoking certain elements to want to start up some trouble that they wouldn’t have been inclined to do had the police presence not been so intense. In short, police states generally create the mood that instigates people to want to use their own overkill in response to the police overkill.

I’m hoping we’re not on the verge of another “police riot” like we had 44 years ago – no matter how much some people will dispute the use of that phrase to describe the activity.

I couldn’t help but notice one other similarity – the concept that ridiculous rumors that are so absurd get believability.

BACK IN ’68, it was the idea that the “radicals” were going to taint the city’s drinking water supply (a.k.a., Lake Michigan) by dumping LSD in it. The whole city would wind up taking an acid trip – despite the fact that a large-enough quantity of the drug needed to really achieve such a goal would be impossible to “sneak” into Chicago.

Here's hoping we don't get an encore



To me, the same absurdity is at stake when people talk of the need to “shut down” Facebook – because all these “radicals” will use it to send secret messages to each other as far as plotting out their “takeover” of the city – as though they are really nothing more than a large-scale flash-mob.

Some aldermen are going so far as to get all outraged at the very thought of a “social media” shutdown. Although I don’t see the point. After all, I thought the whole thing about Facebook was that it was all out in the open and made obsolete the concepts of “privacy” and “secrecy.”

How secretive can a conspiracy be if anybody (including the police themselves) can “read all about it” on Facebook?

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