Lewis’ secrecy over hospitalization not a good character trait for public official

It’s always intriguing whenever a public official winds up becoming ill and needing the services of a hospital.

Not only does it show us how vulnerable they are, it also puts them into positions where they have to take orders – rather than bark them out to their minions.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of the fact that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis (also the hopeful mayoral candidate for many who despise the thought of “four more years” of Rahm Emanuel) is at an undisclosed hospital somewhere in Chicago.

Or, for all we know, it could be out in the suburbs somewhere. Maybe she thought she could do a hospital stay somewhere isolated and no one would ever know?

Now before anyone gets all worked up, I must disclose that I don’t know where she is, or what exactly she is being treated for. Which, if you’re relying on the various news media accounts that began popping up on the Internet Monday night and updated in the Tuesday newspapers, is the same level of knowledge you don’t have.

The teachers union initially tried saying nothing, even though the rumor mill out there was saying that Lewis, who is 61, suffered a stroke. That tidbit got reported in several places.

ALTHOUGH A STATEMENT by union officials that reads like it was coerced flatly denied that she suffered a stroke.

“Karen is being evaluated in a local hospital after experiencing discomfort Sunday evening,” the union said, while going on to cite her “privacy” as a reason for offering up so little detail.

The only problem with that line of logic is that one gives up a certain amount of privacy when they throw themselves into the public policy eye – or even contemplate doing so.

Perhaps this is a reason why those people who want to replace Rahm so badly (we hate Emanuel more than we despise Eisenhower Expressway morning rush hour traffic, according to a poll by yet another mayoral challenger, Robert Fioretti) that they’re practically begging Lewis to run for mayor ought to get a grip and focus their attention elsewhere.

BECAUSE IF SHE were mayor, there’d be no way she’d be able to get away with this kind of non-talk. We literally would have reporter-types staking out every single hospital in Chicago and nearby suburbs in hopes of trying to catch a glimpse of her (we literally didn’t know where she was, so we’d have to hit them all).

Watching this play out brings back memories from just over two decades ago when then-Gov. Jim Edgar wound up requiring quadruple bypass surgery to remove a blockage that was preventing sufficient blood from getting to his heart.

I remember the level of briefings being so detailed to the point where one of my editors commented that my stories were rather graphic about referring to the condition of the governor’s groin – something he claimed to have never read before.

While Lewis is giving us something we have all read way too often – absolutely nothing. Unless you want to read the platitudes about how Lewis is a “freedom fighter” who will be “back on her feet in no time.”

I’LL GIVE THE union the benefit of the doubt that the little bits of information they have provided about their boss is all truthful. For all I know, she may well be out of the hospital by the time you get about to reading this commentary.

There are those of us who will go on about concocting tacky jokes about how it probably was Rahm himself who plotted out a scheme to make Lewis ill so as to knock her out of the election cycle before she could get in.

But what I do know for sure is that Lewis is showing us she has at least one characteristic of a political person – a sense of secrecy. Unfortunately, that’s not one of the reasons some people are wishing, praying, hoping for a “Mayor Lewis” come next May.

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Gee, she produced trivial, meaningless content that’s now on the Internet. Is that really a fire-able offense?

Let me state up front that I do not know Susannah Collins. I have never met her, and for all I know I never will.

COLLINS: Looking for work

And since I don’t pay much attention to professional hockey, I have to confess that I never saw the now-former Comcast SportsNet Chicago reporter-type person at work.

AT LEAST NOT until she had the on-air flub earlier this week (letting the word “sex” instead of “success” slip into her report) that caused people to start paying more attention to her; thereby digging up her work from past broadcast jobs that showed a body of work that was downright trivial.

Some might even call it stupid.

So stupid that the Comcast sports people felt compelled to let her go from her current job – which strikes me as being hypocritical. Because I suspect the “content” that some are now claiming to push the boundaries of sports journalism and good taste (that’s how the Chicago Tribune phrased it) was completely in line with what her former employers expected.

And which is oh so similar to much of what appears on so many Internet sites – the ones that supposedly are providing people what they’re really interested in and why newspapers and other organizations (the alleged “legacy media” that some like to dump on every chance they get) are supposedly on our way out of business.

FOR THE RECORD, Collins used to work for an entity called Middlebrow Media, and was co-host (with another attractive female) of a program called SportzNuts – some of which still exists in video clips posted on YouTube.

As far as I can tell, she did a lot of interviews with “fans” that devolved into double entendres, although the Tribune dug up the video of a parody of a dramatic reading of the sex stories included in former pro basketball player Darryl Dawkin’s ghost-written biography “Chocolate Thunder.”

Quite frankly, I just can’t get outraged – except at the thought of Comcast SportsNet Chicago now thinking it can play all high and mighty and claim it is shocked, shocked to learn that trivialities and nonsense were uttered during a broadcast report.

I have just seen and heard way too much non-news committed by people who want to think they’re journalists to think there’s anything at all unique about this!

HECK, THE SAME kind of people who thought it was so titillating to hear Collins say “sex” instead of “success” that the Comcast video went “viral” are the same types who motivate alleged news outlets to produce the trivialities that Collins (and many others) are producing.

If that is what some people want to fill their minds with, it may well be their choice. Just don’t expect me (or anyone else with sense) to take them seriously.

Because I’m sure these are the individuals who think there’s something legitimate about that study last month by CareerCast.com that claims being a newspaper reporter is the “worst job” in the United States.

Although the report that got to me was one published by Yahoo! That pointed out five “dying” careers – and labeled “reporters” (all, not just newspaper types) who ought to look into an alternative career of “public relations specialist.”

WHAT ABOUT THE fact that if reporters really do die off as an occupation there wouldn’t be any need for corporate types to hire PR spokesmen to deal with reporters? I suspect the kind of people who think that the stuff Collins was doing was fully legitimate are the ones who think there is something logical about this thought.

They’re probably the ones who think that the problem with “the media” all these years is that they have focused attention on “boring” stuff like “news!” They’re the ones who think that Collins’ work was legitimate, and are only dumping on her now even though she produced what her bosses wanted.

Which is why a part of me is hoping that Collins manages to become something other than the “sex reporter” from Chicago and manages to find work elsewhere, other than as someone's public relations spokeswoman.

Does the world really need another PR hack?

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Everybody thinks they need their very own website – even Governor Milorod

Rod Blagojevich, who has morphed himself into a radio talk show host who makes shameless television appearances and will soon come out with a self-serving book, is now trying to spin how wonderful he is on the Internet.

Perhaps it was just a matter of time.

TOO MANY PEOPLE, including many who really have nothing worthwhile to say, feel the need to have an Internet presence. Now, the former governor does as well.

The website came into existence on Sunday (21 years to the date after Blagojevich’s beloved Chicago Cubs played their first regulation home game at night). It would seem that http://www.governorrod.com/ is meant to promote the media appearances that the former governor is making in an attempt to rehabilitate his public image.

In fact, the website is an offshoot of the Internet presence maintained by The PublicityAgency, the Tampa, Fla.-based PR firm that is getting paid significant sums of money to make Milorod look good.

Now I know this website should not be taken too seriously. It has the look of a site whose content will be written by somebody on Rod’s behalf.

IN FACT, MUCH of the content is literally a listing of Rod’s radio programs on WLS-AM, along with an accounting of his TV snippets and self-promotion for his book – which is scheduled to hit the bookstores in September.

It’s not like Rod is going to be personally sitting in his living room/home office giving us his deepest thoughts on issues of public significance.

In fact, the part of the site that amuses me the most is at the top of the right-hand column. It is a link to a list of e-mail addresses that one can use theoretically to contact Blagojevich.

It runs under the subhead of “Tell Rod what’s bugging you…”

HOW MANY PEOPLE are going to use this website solely for the purpose of sending Milorod an e-mail message something along the lines of “You Are, you &$$#@!*” as an answer to that particular question?

If you think I’m exaggerating, take into account the numbers of people who felt the need to respond to Amazon.com’s attempts to take early orders for Blagojevich’s upcoming book by attaching special tags such as “moron” or “hairbrush” to the site.

There’s just something about the Internet that inspires anonymous halfwits to show they have no higher an IQ than the governor whom they have come to despise.

So what should we do about this website? I say the best thing to do would be to ignore it.

BY NOT GIVING it a lot of eyeballs, we reduce the chance that the PR types who are behind the site’s existence will get any ideas that they can make any money off of an Internet presence tied to Blagojevich.

I’d hate to see them make even penny one off of someone actually clicking on the link in the right-hand column to learn how to advertise on Blagojevich’s site.

Beyond that, there’s nothing here that I’d want to see. I don’t need Blagojevich’s website in order to listen to his radio appearances (and no, I haven’t been in the practice of listening to his radio program on the actual radio).

In fact, about as far as I’m willing to go with promoting Blagojevich’s self-attempts at boosting his public image is to admit I probably will read his book.

I’M NOT SURE I feel the need to buy it (even if I can get it at something resembling the discount price of $16.47 that Amazon is offering it for these days), even though I did buy a copy of Elizabeth Brackett’s “Pay to Play” book about Blagojevich.

This may be one book that inspires me to make a trip to the public library to borrow a copy.

And no, I don’t mean borrow as in taking ‘60’s radical Abbie Hoffman’s advice to “steal” the book, or vandalize it. I’m not that petty.

If anything, the book will give us a better handle on how delusional the one-time governor is, since those who have had early readings of the manuscript contend he does a lot of quoting of people with “deep” thoughts so as to make it appear that he is more intellectually inspired than he truly is.

AFTER THAT, I can wait for the Blagojevich trial to come to fruition before I give the former governor much more thought.

So even though I try to maintain a respectable “link list” of websites related to Chicago and our local cultural and political scenes, I didn’t feel a need Sunday to add Blagojevich’s website to the “… & politics” portion of this site.

It’s bad enough that a link to the site is contained within this commentary for those of you who want to see it for yourself.

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Food “desert” or low-paying jobs – which is the bigger problem facing Chicago?

One of the tasks of working public relations is concocting stunts to illustrate whatever particular cause one is trying to promote (a.k.a., being paid to tout on behalf of some corporate interest).

Which means that listening to public relations pitches to write about some issue often involves hearing about absurd act taking place.

YET I GOT my chuckle when I received a press release recently (via the e-mail address provided in the right-hand column of this weblog) informing me that Serafin & Associates took it upon themselves to conduct an informal poll on behalf of Wal-mart.

As described in the release, the Chicago-based PR firm literally called every single residence listed in the Chicago “white pages” to ask whoever picked up the telephone what they thought of the idea of Wal-mart locating their stores within the city limits.

Their “survey” came up with a 74.4 percent favorable rating. In short, three-quarters of Chicagoans do not share the objections of the City Council and other political people when it comes to the company that has long viewed labor unions as a problem that stands in their way of achieving maximum profitability.

Wal-mart is using public relations executives as part of its strategy to get approval from the City Council for a new store they want to build at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue. They’re pushing the angle of the food “desert,” which points out the fact that supermarket chains have long been reluctant to locate their stores in urban areas that do not have a sufficient Anglo population to make the neighborhood economics comply with their preferences.

THIS WOULD BE a case of Wal-mart, which in their newer stores include extensive supermarket sections, being willing to buck the trend by putting one of their stores in a location that most definitely would never be mistaken for one of the suburban or rural communities where one traditionally expects to find a Wal-mart.

By coughing up that statistic of three-quarters support from Chicagoans, it tries to show our political people as being ridiculously out-of-touch with the masses who live here. That is about the biggest sin a political person could ever commit.

But why do I have my problems accepting this statistic? First off, the idea that someone had to pull out the “white pages” and call everybody strikes me as an unenviable task. My own copy of the Chicago white pages is 1,204 pages long (and the Chicago yellow pages is twice as thick).

I don’t envy the thought of whoever had to make those calls.

BUT THIS IS one of those cases where one must really be specific about what question is being asked of those people who are being called and asked their opinion.

For if all one is asking is, “do you support fresh food being available,” then of course the answer is “yes.” I don’t think this telephone survey was that simplistic, but any attempt to portray the Chicago City Council’s past problems with Wal-mart as being that simple is a mistake.

What this really comes down to is the idea that Wal-mart sees Chicago’s inner city and doesn’t see “black” or “white.” They see “green,” as in the color of the money that would be spent by people who would shop at a Wal-mart store bearing a Chicago address.

The problem is that Wal-mart has its history of being rather proud about itself when it comes to engaging in tactics that are meant to undermine the interests of labor unions that would represent the interests of the employees at their stores.

LIKEWISE, CHICAGO POLITICAL people are of a breed that sees the labor unions as an interest that needs to at least be tolerated, if not cooperated with.

So city officials have always been reluctant to have Wal-mart, which has countered by setting up stores in the suburban communities adjacent to Chicago (in some cases, right across the street from the city limits).

If it sounds like I think the hassles Wal-mart is getting is part of the price they need to pay for their past actions with regard to organized labor, then perhaps I’m just too urban in my perspective on life and society to ever be accepted by those who think Wal-mart is a part of what makes this country’s culture so great.

When I see a Wal-mart worker, I see someone who is probably working his (or her) butt off for a low-paying job because circumstances are such that they probably don’t have much in the way of alternatives. Most of these jobs are definitely not paying the kind of salaries that anyone could seriously support a family with.

THIS IS A fact that Wal-mart is trying to obscure by bringing up the food “desert” issue, which is a legitimate one. I have seen the older neighborhoods where going grocery shopping is a significant ordeal because it entails a trip.

It is also an issue that I feel fortunate not to suffer from these days (living all of one block from Jewel Foods supermarket, and within a five-minute car drive from at least four other supermarkets).

But the idea that this problem somehow ought to be used to ignore the serious concerns of Wal-mart employment is ridiculous.

The bottom line is that if Wal-mart were really so disgusted with Chicago politicians that they couldn’t bear the thought of dealing with City Hall, they’d have gone away a long time ago.

INSTEAD, THEY KEEP coming back with proposals because they see the city’s shoppers and they want our money.

If in the process Wal-mart has to make some concessions to the way they usually conduct business in order to get their foot in the Chicago door to sell us goods and get our money, then that is a good thing.

It might very well be that for once, City Hall is looking out for the public’s interests.

We’d better not get too used to it, however. Because it will be just a matter of moments before our aldermen figure out some other issue on which they can benefit themselves.

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