Signs are such a non-issue

I must confess. I get my kick out of seeing out-of-date signs remaining in place – giving us some physical evidence of what once was, but is no longer.

Seeing Rod Blagojevich’s name remain as “Illinois governor” painted in giant letters on the side of the Illinois International Port District building down near Lake Calumet gives me a chuckle, while I have always smiled a bit throughout the years at the site of the sign atop the old Allerton Hotel.

YOU KNOW THE one I’m referring to – the one that promotes their luxury lounge, the “Tip Top Tap” that closed for business way back in 1961.

Which is why it might very well be in character for all those signs that tout “Richard M. Daley” as Chicago mayor to remain in place. Yet I can’t help but think this is an incident where pure pettiness is prevailing.

I want to see all those “Daley” signs go.

What is at stake is the fact that on the very day that Rahm Emanuel became mayor, crews were out removing some of the signs that identified Daley as the city’s chief executive and replaced them with signs letting people entering Chicago know that there’s a new “sheriff” in these parts.

ALTOUGH IF CIRCUMSTANCES had gone just a bit differently, there is a chance that our new “sheriff” could literally have been the old sheriff – we could have had Mayor Tom Dart!

I suppose some people wish THIS sign were still in place.

Back to the signs, which managed to tick off certain elements of our society who wanted to proclaim that installing such new signs was a waste of taxpayer funds. Figures as high as $500,000 have been touted as the dollar amount that could have gone to some other worthwhile expense – had certain people not felt the need to assuage Emanuel’s ego.

Emanuel himself, seeing the chance for negative publicity on his first day as mayor, went ahead and signed an order that put a halt to the sign replacement.

I don’t know how far along those crews got in terms of sign replacement. But it is likely that some signs remain (although I haven’t seen any yet) that tell us we still have a “Mayor Daley.”

WHO’S TO SAY how long it will take us to realize that this is a petty non-issue, and that the people who were complaining ought to have been ignored. So we may have evidence of “Mayor Daley” remaining for some time.

I’d hope that the “Mayor Daley” signs don’t last for so long that they wind up competing with the “Tip Top Tap” and those faded signs near State and Randolph streets that still promote the Boston Store (which closed in Chicago back in 1948).

But when it comes to giving in to political whiners, anything is possible.

What bothers me is that I really think this is a non-issue because the kind of people who get all worked up over a new government official making the small gestures that let the public know of his (or her) presence are usually the ones who backed an opponent in the last election cycle.

WHICH MEANS I see this issue as one of sore losers who are complaining because they don’t want physical evidence of the fact that their preferred candidate lost.

Maybe they think that if there are no signs touting “Mayor Emanuel,” then it really didn’t happen. Which makes me think these people are living in some sort of fantasy land. I’d rather not be having our government give in to people who can’t accept the “real” world.

It’s bad enough that we have many people who let their refusal to accept the last presidential election cycle dictate their rhetoric and actions toward the federal government these days.

I’d rather not see some local version of  nasty Rahm-bo rhetoric taking hold in our home city.

FOR THOSE WHO are going to respond to me with messages that try to tell me this is an economic issue, I’d say that’s nonsense.

I really think the amount of money being used for this gesture is miniscule. The idea that some worthy program will take a major financial hit because there is now a “Mayor Emanuel welcomes you to Chicago” sign (or some variation of that phrase) is absurd.

Saving less than $1 million in order to please somebody who can’t handle the fact that Emanuel won the mayoral election without having to endure a run-off election seems to me to be silly.

And as for those people who like the idea of Gov. Pat Quinn using his business cards that identify him as “lieutenant governor” with the former portion crossed out, I’d say that merely makes Pat look like a cheapskate.

YOU PROBABLY LIKE the idea of Quinn staying at “Motel 6” hotels and think that his special club card is somehow still legitimate (apparently, it’s a long-expired savings program).

Actually, I can only think of one possible benefit to keeping the “Mayor Daley” signs – and then only if you are of the type who anxiously await the day a decade or two from now when a third-generation Daley family member decides he (or she) wants to run for public office.

Perhaps we could follow Quinn’s lead and merely cross out the first name, with “Mayor ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________ Daley" being turned into a fill-in-the-blank.

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End of World as we knew it? Not likely

Let me state up front that I fully expect to awake on Sunday with little or nothing around me having changed.

So yes, I’m skeptical of all this talk of “the Rapture,” which is the moment when the faithful will be carried off this Earth to a better place (Heaven?) while the rest of us are left here to suffer the End of the World.

A RELIGIOUS BROADCASTER has said that this event is destined to happen on Saturday. Sometime today, those of us who have been faithful to the Christian religion (or more likely, certain sects of it) will be rewarded for their piety while the masses are punished for our wickedness.

Not that any of this is new. There always is someone predicting the End of the World, trying to scare us all into repenting our “sins” and making amends so we can be among the few who do not suffer and can relax for all eternity.

So the idea that May 21 is a significant date? I take it about as seriously as I do those people who seriously believe that the Aztecs (or was it the Mayans?!?) predicted we’re all going to die on Dec. 21, 2012.

Of course, most of these “doomsday” dates don’t get the international fanfare that this particular date does. I haven’t seen Garry Trudeau doing a series of his “Doonesbury” comic strips that this particular date is getting.

I ALSO HAVEN’T experienced anyone making a generous gift of their worldly possessions to me because they won’t need them after Saturday (unlike Doonesbury’s “Zonker” character, who was given a luxury automobile that he thinks will make his experience on the “Hell on Earth” that this planet will become all the more comfortable).

Yes, I find the people who are taking this kind of talk seriously to be scary.

Should we feel adequately warned? Or is this much adieu about nothing? Images provided by The American Jesus (above) and The Practice Room.

It bothers me whenever I hear these religious-types talk of how we’re going to suffer. Because it seems like what they really enjoy is NOT the idea that they have a chance at an eternal life of peace and harmony.

Instead, they want the idea that everybody around them is going to suffer. As though they can’t be happy unless everybody else is miserable.

ANYBODY WHO SERIOUSLY needs THAT factor in their life ought to quit hanging around a clergyman so often and ought to spend some time with a psychiatrist.

Because they’d all be seriously happier in life if they could learn to quit taking pleasure in others’ misfortune.

But then again, those people are all going to be gone from our lives after Saturday – if the prediction is true. For it also says that this planet is going to become a miserable place to exist; making us wish we were dead.

Of course, that will happen on Oct. 21 – which is the date that the Universe as we know it will cease to exist. No more Earth. No more us. Somewhere, all these holier-than-thou types will be snickering at our misery.

THE SCARY THING is that it is true. This planet we call Earth will come to an end some day. Mere science says it is so.

Because the star we think of as “the Sun,” which provides the heat in just the right proportion that allows our planet to support life (all types, not just human) is NOT a ball of gas that will last forever.

The day will come when the Sun becomes a dried-out wad of nothingness. Before that, it will expand to a size so big that it likely will engulf our planet, incinerating it into ashes.

Now I’m sure some people are going to want to think that it is a “God” who is determining when this happens, and that it will happen for a purpose of punishment of the wicked – instead of just being the natural cycle that every star goes through.

NOW HAVING SAID that, I’m also aware that this is a process that takes millions of years to go through. Scientific-types will be able to provide us ample warning for when this planet becomes uninhabitable.

The Sun isn’t about to explode in the next few months.

Not that there’s anything we’d be able to do about it – unless space travel has significantly developed to the point where we can evacuate the masses and go somewhere else (to a place that could support life, which means we don’t know yet of its existence).

So like I wrote earlier, I don’t expect life to be significantly different when I awake on Sunday. I don’t expect the holier-than-thou among us to suddenly disappear from our midst. I fully expect to see Tim Pawlenty begin his presidential campaign come Monday.

WHICH MIGHT ACTUALLY be the ultimate punishment for the rest of us. We’re stuck with these self-righteous types amongst us who try to disguise their arrogance under the cover of religion.

If there really is a God, he’d spare us these miserable people – allowing us to live our lives in peace.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: It seems The Simpsons gave us a vision of Saturday some 18 years ago. I still get my kick out of the thought of a picnic in Hell including German potato salad.

EXTRA: He’s back!!!!!!

It already is starting on the Internet. Cardinal Francis George of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese blinked.

He caved in. He surrendered to the priest they were hoping to dump – the Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Parish in the Gresham neighborhood.

THE CARDINAL ON Friday said  he was reinstating Pfleger as pastor of the parish that Pfleger has led for three decades, and has made it clear he doesn’t want to leave. Pfleger will be back behind the pulpit and delivering a sermon come Sunday services, and I’m sure his gregarious personality will run amok on that day.

Such stability at a Catholic parish officially is regarded as a bad thing. The church likes to have its priests move about from church to church throughout their pastoral careers, believing they can effectively influence many more people through the church if they don’t become too attached to any one parish.

A priest lasting more than a decade at any one church is a rarity. For Pfleger to have remained in the same parish since the early 1980s is a miracle nearly as significant as the good works done by former Pope John Paul II that may make him an official Catholic saint someday.

What has enabled Pfleger to remain at St. Sabiina is that he is that rare breed of white person who is not uncomfortable among black people. And St. Sabina is a parish in a neighborhood that most definitely has changed to a heavy African-American character.

THE PEOPLE WHO are most offended by Pfleger’s conduct throughout the years are those who have their own racial hang-ups to work through, and who wish that the Catholic church could somehow reinforce those hang-ups.

The reason that St. Sabina is a thriving parish on the South Side is because it has adapted in character to its neighborhood. Critics would say it has been tainted. I would say it has adapted to its parishioners – which is what a church ought to do.

What good is a church if the people who live in its parish don’t find it relevant?

That is why I am pleased to learn that Pfleger will continue to have a role at St. Sabina. I know full-well that if Cardinal George’s suspension of the priest had evolved into a permanent removal, it would have been taken as a sign by the people with the hang-ups that the Catholic church was taking up their cause.

THAT WOULD NOT have been a good thing – even though I fully appreciate from my contact with Pfleger as a reporter-type person throughout the years that the man does have an ego. He’s not a bashful type.

His personality can be overbearing.

Yet that would not justify his removal – particularly since I don’t think the Catholic archdiocese would be able to find a replacement who could continue to keep that parish intact.

In short, there are lessons that the Catholic church could learn from people like Pfleger when it comes to appealing to the masses and remaining relevant as we work our way deeper into the 21^st Century.

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This version of Blagojevich – the Trial seems so repetitive. Will it end soon?

BLAGOJEVICH: The sequel speeds along

I haven’t paid daily attention to the courthouse ramblings of recent weeks that comprise the U.S. government’s criminal case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. So I can’t tell you just how buried in legal dog-doo he truly is.

In fact, every time I have tried to hone in on what happened in court on any given day, it seems like it is the same story every day.

ATTORNEYS FOR BLAGOJEVICH were thwarted yet again by U.S. District Judge James Zagel in their attempt to question witnesses for the federal government, or were somehow prevented from bringing up points that might make their client look somewhat favorable.

The image that sticks in my mind thus far about this trial is the sight of our former first lady, Patti Blagojevich, on the verge of tears after a particularly harsh day of Zagel-imposed restrictions in court.

“A deliberate attempt to hide the truth,” was how Patti popped off that particular day while trying to control her rage.

Now I don’t doubt she was sincere in feeling that way. In fact, such a complaint is heard all too often in courthouses – regardless of what the case is.

JUST THE OTHER day, I was at a courthouse where I listened to the uncle of a man found guilty and awaiting sentencing tell me how “the truth didn’t come out” during his nephew’s trial.

It all comes down to how narrow a view of any story a judge decides he wants a jury exposed to. Because in restricting information from being expressed in courtrooms, a judge is supposed to be ensuring that they are not given information that would confuse them.

The criminal case itself is usually confusing enough. Why let irrelevant points get involved?

The problem becomes if a judge decides to get so heavy-handed that he limits information too much. Which is the point that Blagojevich’s attorneys want to make now, and likely will argue in the very possible scenario by which they have to appeal a Milorod conviction to a Court of Appeals.

SO IN THE same way that I don’t know the blow-by-blow details of what happened to Blagojevich in court, I can’t say definitively if Zagel is going “over the top” in his attempt to restrict irrelevant testimony OR if Blagojevich’s  attorneys REALLY ARE going way too far in their attempts to put on a defense-before-the-defense and need to have Zagel use the legal equivalent of a sledge hammer to keep things in order.

The one thing I do know is that Zagel is fortunate in that Blagojevich’s general image among political people is fairly low. Very few people are going to be offended by the thought of Milorod getting smacked about.

Even if you could get them to agree that Blagojevich should have been allowed to make some of his points, they probably think he deserves to be cheated.

Which is a shame. Because the whole point of our legal system is that even the incredibly scummy are entitled to the right to defend themselves in full.

THIS PORTION OF the trial is now at an end. Prosecutors finished putting on their case against Blagojevich on Thursday – following three weeks worth of testimony. Which is much quicker than the nearly two months of testimony that took place during the former governor’s first criminal trial – the one that resulted in one lone “guilty” verdict on a minor criminal charge.

Prosecutors seem to think that by paring down their legal arguments, they will make it easier for a jury to decide to vote to convict on the 20 criminal charges Blagojevich now faces.

As opposed to what seems to be the usual legal strategy by which prosecutors throw out so much technical evidence that a jury votes to convict out of the belief that the accused must have done something wrong.

So now, the emphasis of Blagojevich, the Sequel will be on Blagojevich himself. Although there will be some hearings on Friday, the former governor’s attorneys are expected to begin their “defense” when the trial resumes on Monday.

UNLIKE THE FIRST trial, observers seem to think that Blagojevich will have to put up something resembling a defense. Perhaps he even will take the witness stand on his own behalf.

Zagel has repeatedly said that for defense attorneys to make the legal points they tried to do during the prosecution’s case, they need to do it during their portion of the trial.

So are we now going to get the sight in coming days of attorneys meticulously knocking down the prosecution’s case? Point-by-point, will it all come tumbling down?

Or is it very possible that the next few days are going to be filled with objection after objection from the prosecution – doing their best to thwart people from being able to testify in any way that resembles support for Rod Blagojevich.

THIS COMMENTARY SHOULDN’T come across as too much of a bashing of prosecutors. I fully comprehend that they’re in this to make their case and try to win. They’re going to be aggressive, believing that they’re serving the public interest.

It’s just that I fully realize this “issue” of improperly restricting Blagojevich’s defense is one that we’re going to re-hash for years to come. We’re watching right now the activities that will be the basis of the legal appeals-to-come.

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It’s a wonder there aren’t more auto accidents in the construction zones

Technically, I might be confessing to an act that is not quite legal. Although it is one that would have gotten me killed had I not done it.

What I’m talking about was a trip I made Wednesday morning to Joliet (to handle a reporter-type person assignment that paid a few bucks). From where I was early in the day, the route I used was a trip along Interstate 80 west to that city at the far southwest corner of the metropolitan area.

ONCE I CROSSED over the county line into Will County, the road became a mess of construction zones. It was so congested at points that I literally got off the road around New Lenox and used U.S. Route 30 (the Lincoln Highway) to get there.

Of course, a packed interstate highway with fewer-than-usual lanes didn’t mean that people didn’t drive like crazy.

There literally was one point when “80” was narrowed to two lanes with special signs re-setting the speed limit to 45 miles per hour. Yet I was doing 55 just to keep up with the vehicles ahead of me, and I had a mini-van bearing down on me from behind.

I also got to see one moment ahead of me where a car transferred lanes to get just ahead of the van that was ahead of me. The driver of that van immediately shifted lanes, sped ahead of that car, then shifted back ahead of him.

I’M PRETTY SURE I also saw an obscene gesture or two flung about.

Considering that it was raining Wednesday morning in the Chicago metro area – which made the roads slicker than usual – I can’t help but think that this was a particularly silly time for too-fast driving and people getting arrogant.

Particularly since construction work was taking place around us. My car sped along the interstate, at points coming within three feet (my guess) of construction workers.

Now I realize that so long as drivers don’t do anything unexpected, the construction workers are knowledgeable enough to know where they can stand and where they can’t while cars whiz by.

BUT THERE LITERALLY are too many people who seem too anxious to pull the unexpected. Which is why I wasn’t the least bit surprised when, later on Wednesday, I saw a story on the Internet about a fatal auto accident on Interstate 80.

Actually, right where that interstate meets up with Interstate 355 (a point that I passed by earlier in the day and where traffic seemed particularly messy). We probably should be surprised only by the fact that there was only one auto fatality on Wednesday – at least as far as I know.

Although this one was particularly grisly – a car was hit from behind by a semi-truck, causing it to spin out of control into the other lane, where it was then run over by another semi-truck.

Ouch!!! It makes me glad that I took the entirety of the Lincoln Highway from Joliet back into Cook County when I returned home.

I DON’T KNOW who is to blame for this particular incident. I just wonder how many more incidents we’re going to see this summer.

Then again, maybe I’m just being a little overly sensitive on account of the fact I had to do a “traffic safety school” session a few weeks ago to work off a traffic ticket and prevent it from becoming a part of my (drumroll, please) permanent record.

But we’re in that time of year when government entities hire contractors to do serious road repairs, including along the Interstate highways. I wish more motorists would be mindful of that fact.

Not that danger can be avoided by not getting behind the wheel of a car. I also noticed the police beat piece of reporting out of north suburban Evanston, where a cab driver died Wednesday. He had been shot in the head, and his taxi rolled into a parked vehicle earlier this week. A double ouch!!!

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Will the Bulls “satisfy” the nation? Or show themselves to be a Chicago team?

The talk going about the sports fans is that the REAL championship of the National Basketball Association is being played out this week and next, what with the Chicago Bulls taking on the Miami Heat.



Rooting for Bulls/against LeBron?



The winner of that best-of-seven series gets to take on the winner of Memphis/Oklahoma City in the NBA Finals. Which has basketball fans saying the real two top teams are Miami and our very own Bulls.

I’M SURE THE fans of whichever team prevails in the eastern conference finals will wind up remembering this series more than whatever they do against Memphis. Or Oklahoma City. Both of which sound to me like they ought to be playing minor league baseball against each other in a southern-based league.

That will be particularly true if the Bulls do manage to beat Miami and advance to the finals.

Being able to say that our city’s professional basketball team managed to make it to the NBA Finals (or perhaps even win a league championship) WITHOUT the presence of LeBron James or the other two of the unholy trio (including Chicago-born and and one-time suburban Richards High School star Dwyane Wade) that used free agency last year to suddenly turn Miami from a nondescript franchise to a serious contender will be one of those talking points that gets used for years to come – if it happens.

Remember how it was the Bulls that seriously thought they were going to be the team that got James when he decided that his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers were no longer worthy of his esteemed talent?

BEATING ON THE Heat would help ease the pain that Bulls fans felt when James had the gall to think that Chicago wasn’t worthy of his esteemed talent either.

Looking at the television ratings, it seems that the eastern conference finals are the ones that are drawing the viewers. Crain’s Chicago Business reports that television executives think seriously that people are tuning in – hoping that Miami and James get taken down a notch in their esteem for themselves.

So that literally puts the Chicago Bulls in the position of being “America’s Team” – at least for a week.

And it also means the Bulls made the nation happy, so to speak, when they managed to win the first game of this round of the playoffs by a 103-82 score.

SO THE QUESTION becomes, Can the Bulls make America happy? Will this karmic energy create a mood that enables the team to think itself worthy of its first NBA title since the days of Michael Jordan?

Or will the karmic energy of being a Chicago team ultimately impose itself, leading the Bulls to a defeat in the best-of-seven playoff series (Game Two of which is Wednesday at the United Center)?

To a younger generation that sees a White Sox World Series title in ’05, a Black Hawks’ Stanley Cup victory in ’10 and a Bears Super Bowl appearance in ’07, this may seem odd.

But I came of age back in the 1970s when it was completely conceivable that in any given season, every single Chicago sports team could finish in last place.

THERE’S A REASON why in the year of the Bicentennial I was watching the New York Yankees (including former Cubs manager Lou Piniella) win their first league pennant in over a decade; the Chicago teams were unwatchable – even with future Hall of Fame ballplayers like Rich Gossage and Bruce Sutter on the rosters that year.

That run in the 1990s of two sets of three NBA titles each for the Chicago Bulls was so un-Chicago-like. Thinking back to that era when one of our local teams was a renowned power that was feared, respected, and possibly even hated by some fans similar to how Miami is thought of these days seems like a fantasy.

Did it really happen? Or is that Michael Jordan statue outside the United Center somebody’s idea of a joke to play with our minds?

All of this means that a part of me is fully braced to accept the idea that the Bulls are about to blow this series. Heck, they’ll probably win again tonight to give them a two games to nothing lead in the series – only then to start blowing ballgames worse than the 1919 White Sox.

OR ANY CUBS team ever in existence in the past two-thirds of a century.

Will nation wear hair like Noah?



Personally, I’d like it if about a week from now, somebody sends me a sarcastic e-mail or two reminding me of this commentary and telling me how ridiculous I was for doubting the Chicago Bulls’ ability to move forward.

Perhaps this is the year that people stop thinking of the Bulls as a team that could only win with Michael Jordan, and hasn’t been able to do a thing since.

It could be interesting to see Derrick Rose and crew gain the love of a sports nation eager to see Miami gain nothing this season, instead of being just a losing ballclub that only a Chicago sports fan could possibly love.

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How different will things be under Rahm?

“Chicago ain’t ready for reform” – Matthias “Paddy” Bauler, April 1955.

“Today, more than any other time in our history, more than any other place in our history, the city of Chicago is ready for change” – Rahm Emanuel, May 16, 2011.

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EMANUEL: Agent of change? I think not

Why do I have a funny feeling in the pit of my gut that former Alderman Paddy Bauler’s 56-year-old assessment remains more accurate than Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s official pronouncement Monday in the moments after he officially became the 46^th person to serve in that position.

And yes, I count people like David Orr when I come up with that mayoral total.

BUT BACK TO the concept of “change.” Is the election of a one-time White House chief of staff and member of Congress to run our city government the factor that will bring about change (dare I think, "reform") in the way things are done in Chicago?

I suppose it depends solely on how one defines “change.” Because I’m not sure I see anything terribly significant being altered. If anything, I’d say the people who gave Emanuel that 54 percent majority WITHOUT having to endure a runoff did so because they want things to stay more or less the same as they were under Richard M. Daley.

There will be some things done differently, although I’d argue those will be superficial changes.

The Chicago White Sox won’t be able to count Hizzoner among their season-ticket holders. That Opening Day appearance Emanuel made at U.S. Cellular Field wearing a White Sox warmup jacket will probably be his last at the ballpark this season – unless the Sox seriously get their act together and make it all the way to the World Series. Even then, he might only grudgingly attend; with President Barack Obama nudging him along.

EVEN THEN, EMANUEL (who has been quoted as saying, “I hate baseball”) isn’t going to be that guy who plays at cheering for sports. A fairly decent write-up by the Associated Press that was published in many newspapers this weekend shows just how “into” the arts – particularly music and dance – our new mayor is.

It also does not shock me to hear from the activists who are screaming that this mayor is “too North Side” in his focus, and that much of his mayor-elect activities ignored the majority of the city south of Roosevelt Road.

This is a North Side guy in actuality. For the next four years (barring some sort of tragedy), there won’t be someone with the Sout’ Side in his veins working on the fifth floor. Anybody who didn’t realize that when they voted earlier this year deserves whatever aggravation they now feel.

If you wanted a hard-core South Side guy, you should have listened to Alderman Ed Burke and voted for Gery Chico.

BUT LIKE I said, these are trivial aspects.

The reason I don’t see serious change is because Emanuel was the candidate preferred by the business community. He also is the guy who ran Obama’s White House for nearly two years – the same two that has many progressive types thinking that Obama might not have been what they had hoped for when they voted for him in 2008.

Because Emanuel’s strategy, both in overseeing the effort in 2006 that saw Democrats take back control of the House of Representatives and in running the White House staff for Obama, was to search for those more conservative people who would be willing to wear the “Democrat” label – even though many of their ideological beliefs might make them a better fit for the opposition.

This was the guy who was instrumental in giving us candidate Tammy Duckworth for Congress over primary opponent Christine Cegelis because she was the type who wouldn’t attract Republican voters, and also kept Obama from even thinking of touching immigration reform because he didn’t want to upset those same voters.

HECK, THAT WILLINGNESS to put aside the ideological issues that bring many to the Democratic Party to begin with is the reason he gets the business community backing. If anything, it might very well be that relationship between government and business interests that most needs to be studied and considered for change.

If you view “change” as accepting defeat on certain issues and feeling the need to concede, then Emanuel is change. To me, it seems more like accepting the status quo on certain issues that need to be changed.

Not that I’m complaining (too much) about how the municipal elections turned out this year. I accept that Emanuel has certain administrative qualities from his past political posts that will come in handy.

I also like the fact that the people most offended by the concept of “Mayor Rahm Emanuel” are conservative ideologues who desire Rahm to wither away into nothingness so they can brand his Democratic Party political career a failure. There may well be times when Emanuel will turn that hot-head temperament of his against someone who has the city’s worst fears at heart. That will be something to see.

THEN AGAIN, WASN’T an ability to be stubborn and think that he was always correct when it came to urban issues one of Richard M. Daley’s traits (along with that of his father, Richard Joseph)? Where’s the change?

As for those who would argue the fact that a Jewish person is now mayor of Chicago, I'd argue that the reason many in this city voted for him so eagerly was because he was the closest resemblance to a traditional white guy candidate they could find in this particular election.

In short, I don’t see some radical shift in the way our city government does business. A part of me seriously wonders if Emanuel is merely the Fifth Floor seat warmer until the day that the next generation of the Daley family is ready to run a campaign for Chicago mayor.

BAULER: A "true" Chicagoan still?



It makes me wonder if Paddy Bauler hit on the very nature of Chicago on that date many decades ago when he reacted to the coming of the original “Mayor Daley.” His words still resonate, even though he has been gone from this Earth nearly as long as Daley, the elder.

INSOFAR AS WHICH North Side official you’d rather deal with (Emanuel or Bauler), consider this. Rahm may have once aspired to be a dancer. Yet Paddy used to brew his own brand of beer at his tavern at North Avenue and Sedgwick Street.

Take your pick.

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