It took nearly six more months, but Libya’s Gadhafi (appears to be) dead

Back in May when Osama bin Laden was killed by a Navy Seals team that attacked his compound, I made the sarcastic crack that now Republican partisans would have to resort to using Moammar Gadhafi to hang around President Barack Obama’s neck.

OBAMA: Who's next?

After all, just a few days before bin Laden was killed, a U.S. attempt to kill Gadhafi had failed. So the ideologues would rant and rage about Obama’s incompetence in dealing with this threat to our national security.

WELL, NOW THEY can’t even make that argument.

For it seems that Gadhafi is dead – killed early Thursday by the forces that rose up in opposition in his country (with limited U.S. support), had taken control of much of the country and on Thursday gained control of Gadhafi’s hometown of Surt.

In the process, they captured him. Then, they shot him. Pictures of a Gadhafi-resembling man that supposedly were shot by one of his executioners using his cellular telephone, and those images are going to become as common as the ones from a five years ago that showed Saddam Hussein dangling from the end of a rope.

Personally, I’m not about to get all excited; particularly since I always thought of as Gadhafi as a third-rate leader whom our ideologues were eager to explode into a major threat. You can’t live your life in fear if there’s no one to demonize.

ALTHOUGH IN THIS guy’s case, we could never agree on whether his name in English should be spelled “Gadhafi,” “Quadafi” or “Khadafy” – just to name a few.

So who do we demonize now? I suppose we can now single out Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for abuse. That is, for those people who don’t want to go after Obama as the “anti-Christ.”

Because I’m sure they’re going to resent the fact that history will record that both bin Laden and Gadhafi were taken down in the same year – a year that falls within the Obama presidency.

Which means he will get credit for any efforts to build new nations in Afghanistan and Libya – when his ideological opposition wants him to get credit for nothing (and blame for all).

EVEN THOUGH THERE really is little reason to credit the United States for much of Thursday’s activity.

It makes me glad to know this particular killing didn’t take place under circumstances that would require the United States to take some sort of direct credit for it.

It will be much less likely to stir up resentment in other parts of the world – although I’m sure there are those who will find a way to blame our nation for it. There’s rarely any logic involved in instances such as this.

Maybe it’s because the world leaders in opposition to our nation are on the demise (Hussein, bin Laden, Gadhafi. Who’s next?). But I just can’t get too thrilled by Thursday’s events. I suspect many people will feel the same.

GADHAFI’S DEAD? THAT’S nice. Now change the channel to the World Series. Or perhaps they’d rather watch the Kardashian family reality show.

Which for all I know may become the new way of showing spite to Obama (on account of the fact that first lady Michelle recently said that the president does not approve of his daughters watching the show). Former Olympian-turned-stepfather Bruce Jenner may become more famed for making nasty cracks about Obama than anything he did in the Summer of ’76 in Montreal.

Personally, I’d say that thinking the Kardashians are tacky is a bonus point in Obama’s favor – moreso than anything that happened to Gadhafi.

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Political brawl over gambling has no end in sight, and maybe that’s good

I must confess to being interested in seeing what, if anything will happen Friday at the Statehouse in Springfield.

QUINN: A pair of twos?



For that is the day that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has implied we will see a revised bill for the expansion of gambling across Illinois.

FOR THERE NOW has to be a revised bill, and the process must start all over again. Unless we want to believe that Gov. Pat Quinn is bluffing big time, and the political powers-that-be decide they want to call him on his bluff – thinking he has nothing more than the political equivalent of a pair of twos in his hand.

For Quinn managed to shake up the political debate over gambling expansion earlier this week when he came out and said he will veto the bill that was approved during the spring months by the General Assembly to add five new casinos – along with a lot of expanded slot machines at race tracks and Chicago airports.

The only reason he hasn’t already vetoed it is because Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, did the political equivalent of sticking the approved bill in a drawer.

After all, if it’s not on Quinn’s desk, he can’t reject it. And the legislators who are particularly eager to have more legal gambling opportunities in this state had hopes that they could twist Quinn’s arm this summer into going along with the pack. Giving his approval.

BEING ONE OF the boys, for a change.

It didn’t quite work out that way. Quinn this week said he’s not willing to approve this bill, even if there is some sort of follow-up measure that makes some changes in the more egregious portions of the main bill.

EMANUEL: Will Rahm-bo go after Quinn?



So it looks like we’re going to have to start the process all over again, particularly since Quinn made it clear that he hates all the portions of the bill that don’t specifically relate to the creation of casinos proper.

He doesn’t want slot machines at the race tracks – even though for some rural Illinois legislators, that was the only reason they supported the thing in the first place. The last thing they want is a Chicago-based casino that likely would suck the life out of all the other Illinois casinos AND those in surrounding states.

I COULDN’T HELP but notice one Springfield radio announcer say that Quinn had sold out the capital city, throwing it under the bus, so to speak, because one of the places that would have been permitted to install slot machines would have been the racetrack that is part of the Illinois State Fairgrounds.

Even though Quinn made it clear from the beginning that his priority on this issue was letting Chicago have some sort of casino.

Which is why I don’t see Quinn’s rhetoric from earlier this week as being contradictory. He said all along he didn’t like the bill and was inclined to reject it. Now he says he will reject it.

In fact, I find his statement that “It cannot be some kind of bill that passes to appease every single lobbyist in Springfield,” to be a noble one.

SOME PEOPLE ARE incapable of distinguishing political distinctions from practical ones, and automatically assume that the slimy parts of deals that are done to gain political support somehow benefit the public good.

If it truly takes the presence of legislators voting their self-interest for slot machines at racetracks (which are necessary these days because few people care about the “sport of Kings” rhetoric and are just interested in placing a bet, any bet, on anything), then perhaps it is best that we acknowledge that there just isn’t enough political support for casino expansions.

Not for a Chicago facility, or for casinos near the state borders in Rock City or the south suburbs, or in Rockford or Danville.

Perhaps we need to start over. Dismiss this current bill, and just come up with a new one. It means the process will drag on for another few years, if not decades. But when one considers how many decades this issue has already existed, what difference does another day make?

THAT IS, OF course, unless Quinn decides to flop about a bit more.

For there have been points during the summer months when I heard that Quinn approved of a Chicago casino, but hated the idea of a south suburban one as being too close to the city. I had also heard that the governor might allow for slot machines at a racetrack in the south suburbs, so as to compensate those local political people for not getting a full-fledged casino in a place like Country Club Hills or Ford Heights.

So is this latest Quinn pronouncement another change? Is it possible that political people could still wind up pressuring him into going along? Is Quinn going to have to face the Emanuel persona that helped turn Congress Democrat back in 2006, or was put to use during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama?

At the very least, the rhetoric will be entertaining.

AND ONE FINAL thought. Reports are coming out that some legislators think they have enough support to override Quinn’s veto of a bill that would have allowed for “Smart Grid” technology to be implemented by Commonwealth Edison – with consumers getting hit with near-automatic rate hikes to pay for it.

How many legislators will be motivated to override Quinn on this issue, as punishment for the governor killing the casino or slot machines they had hoped would be built near their homes?

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EXTRA: Can they get rid of the Fox network plugs in the World Series?

I’m not fully sure what to think of the Occupy Wall Street-type activists, who are spreading throughout the nation (and on Tuesday managed to give me a serious headache with their protesters who banged on drums incessantly at Jackson and LaSalle streets).

But they might actually have something worthwhile to contribute to our society, if their St. Louis counterparts are at all representative of them.

LIKE MANY OTHER groups, the Occupy St. Louis people are camping out in public parks these days. On Wednesday night, they planned to erect a large video screen tuned to Game One of the World Series.

Only instead of commercial breaks, the Reuters wire service reported that those will be blocked out so the group could run their own streaming messages, promoting their cause.

And as for those of you who want to rant about people needing “expressed written consent of Major League Baseball,” it would seem that since they’re not charging anyone any money to watch the game with them, it is acceptable.

Part of what makes the World Series games these days drag on for so long is that the broadcast networks are so determined to draw them out to create more time for commercial breaks. A pitcher like Mark Buehrle, who is capable of getting through a complete game in just over 2 hours, is anathema to them.

ANYBODY WHO’S CAPABLE of giving us baseball without all the inane advertising spots can’t be all bad.

Now if only they could do something to block out all the plugs that the Fox Sports Network announcers will be giving during the game to all the new shows that will air this autumn on the Fox network. Those can be truly invasive!

My memory goes back to the 2000 World Series (the all-New York affair won by the Yankees in five games) when the network arranged for the cast of the television show “Boston Public” to attend the game, and the cameras kept focusing on them while announcers told us how we needed to watch this new enticing drama.

I swear I remember those moments more than I do the actual show. And I still wonder at times what bit of useful information got erased from my brain because of this memory?

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Who knew Chicago’s off-field activity would be more interesting than Series?

I am a fan of professional baseball, and by all rights the high point of the sport in the United States should be beginning on Wednesday.

Does once having to endure Bump mean it's their turn?



The World Series – by which the champions of the American and National leagues take each other on in a best-of-seven series; with the winner gaining the bragging rights to call themselves the best ballclub on Planet Earth.

SO WHY IS it that what baseball talk there is these days seems to center around everything except the World Series itself. Are the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals really that boring a match-up?

It would seem so. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the off-field activity coming from Chicago is much more intriguing than anything we’re going to see in the next week to 10 days.

First we had the departure of White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen to the Miami Marlins, quitting before anybody could get around to terminating him with one year left on his contract. The fact that the White Sox replaced him with a managerial rookie in the form of one-time third baseman Robin Ventura only increases the sense of drama.

What are they thinking on the Sout’ Side? (They’re not.) Are the next few seasons doomed to be mediocre ones? (Most likely) Will the White Sox be repeating the Detroit Tigers’ mistake when they made former popular player Alan Trammell their manager?

LET’S HOPE WE don’t see a 119-loss season in Chicago (unless it’s on the North Side) anytime soon!

Is Ventura the Trammell manager sequel?

But the Chicago Cubs seem to be escalating the picture with the drama we’re enduring over when Theo Epstein gets to become the team’s general manager. For it seems his current employer, the Boston Red Sox, isn’t eager to let him go.

It’s not that they want to retain him. They gladly want him out. It’s just that Red Sox ownership seems determined to prove how little class they have – and how unworthy they were of those two championships the team won in the past decade.

They want history to record that Theo Epstein was tossed out on his keister for gross incompetence in his management of the team. They’re already trying to hang that same tag on the now-former field manager, Terry Francona.

HAVING THEO GET a better paying job with the Cubs would result in history recording that he dumped on the Boston faithful. Perhaps just like Ozzie, in leaving before he could be fired.

But he would leave, nonetheless, on his own terms.

So what will it take for the Cubs to “buy off” Boston to get them to release Epstein from the final year of his own contract? It’s not like the Chicago Cubs minor league system has top-notch ballplayers who could be sent to Boston (although I would presume that any Cubs minor leaguer would be glad to be a part of the Red Sox system).

Will the Red Sox be petty enough to refuse to release Epstein? Which leads to the conspiracy theories about the Cubs picking an “interim” general manager for one season while they wait for their dream executive.

WILL ALL THIS negativity come back to bite Boston on the tushy? Will there be a bad karma created? Will we someday be talking of the “Curse of Theo” as the reason why the Red Sox don’t win anything?

Insofar as the latter question is concerned, I’m more inclined to think that the reason the Red Sox won’t win anything in the near future is because the New York Yankees are just a better ballclub overall.

The off-field action isn’t even limited to the Chicago ballclubs. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., (a St. Louis Cardinals fan) was one of several political people who this week made a point of asking Major League Baseball to officially ban chewing tobacco from the game.

It already is against the rules for ballplayers with minor league affiliates to try to imitate Nellie Fox. Now, they want all ballplayers to set an example and give up tobacco. “Unfortunately, as these young fans root for their favorite team and players, they also will watch their on-field heroes use smokeless tobacco products,” Durbin and three other senators wrote in a letter to baseball Executive Director Michael Weiner.

PERSONALLY, I THINK Fox (the one-time star second baseman for the White Sox) is the perfect lesson, since his death from skin cancer was aggravated by his tobacco use. He is an example of what can be bad about tobacco products.

Check out Nellie's left cheek



Then again, I couldn’t help but notice that Fox’ last job in baseball was as a coach with the Texas Rangers. I doubt that team remembers that it once had Nellie on their staff. But it is a tie to the two unglamorous ballclubs that managed to win their league championships (that dream of a New York Yankees versus Philadelphia Phillies World Series died weeks ago).

So what do I think of the 2011 take on the World Series? I suppose I’m rooting for the Rangers, since I’m an American League fan and usually back their champion to win the whole thing.

Besides, I have a step-brother who is a hard-core Cardinals fan. And if I have to listen to him all winter going on and on about a Cardinals’ victory, that will make the next few months absolutely unbearable.

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Restroom break ban for high schoolers?

It has been some three decades since I navigated the halls of a high school on a regular basis, yet I couldn’t help but chuckle when I read the reports in the Tinley Park-based Southtown Star newspaper that are making southwest suburban Evergreen Park High School a place worthy of national news attention.

For officials there are implementing a new policy that they say will increase the amount of time that students spend in the classroom. They’re putting restrictions on restroom breaks.

UNDER THE NEW policy, teachers are to keep track of how many times their students ask for permission to go to the restroom during class. Any student who takes more than three breaks per semester from any one class will be required to stay after school to make up the time they used to release potentially-deadly toxins from their bodies.

It’s not quite detention for using the potty. But it has the same feel.

Now I will be the first to admit that I fully believe some students are abusing the idea of restroom breaks – using them as an excuse to leave classes they find particularly dull (or teachers whom they find to be particularly obnoxious in personality).

I’m sure there are some students who would spend as much of their time as possible in the restroom – when they couldn’t be in the cafeteria (particularly since schools these days seem to be watching those lunchrooms much more closely than they did when I was a high school student).

YET THE IDEA makes me laugh a lot because I can remember back to when I was a high school student and I used to go out of my way to avoid using the restrooms at school.

I also remember that I was not alone among the student body. There were many of us who weren’t enthused about the school restrooms.

Now I’m not about to share horror stories of aging facilities that stank from decades of urine and other foul odors. I actually attended a high school that was less than a decade old when I was there. Everything about the building reeked of cleanliness and sterility.

It was a cleanliness freak’s dream.

BUT NOW WE can cue in our minds that old song by Brownsville Station. “Smokin’ in the Boys Room.” There were those students (probably the parents of the current restroom malcontents) who tried to spend their time in the “facilities” rather than try to learn something in class.

Which means that one of the unofficial things that a student tried to keep in mind was which of the restrooms was going to stink not of human waste, but of cigarette smoke. Which ones were likely to be filled with students who might not be too concerned about breaking rules, and might try harassment just for kicks.

Then again, they may want to harass, but might have been so stoned that they wouldn’t have been physically capable of doing too much.

With that in mind, it just became more practical to think of restroom functions as something to be avoided unless necessary.

HOW STRONG WAS this sentiment in my mind?

I recently had to go back to my old high school as a reporter-type person to cover a news event. During the event, I felt that urge that couldn’t be withheld.

So I went and found a “boy’s room” and did my business – when it suddenly occurred to me that I was in one of the restrooms that I would have tried to avoid as a student.

So some 28 years after graduation, I finally “did my business” in one of those rooms (which I must admit stunk from decades of tobacco fumes – even though the whole building now is officially a “no smoking” zone).

I AS A student would have fought to avoid the restroom, while it seems officials at Evergreen Park High School are determined to spend their academic careers in “the loo.”

Have teenagers really changed that much in three decades’ time? I doubt it. Somehow, it seems to me that school administrators have come up with an over-reaction to a problem – one that will do nothing to resolve the situation.

For I don’t see how “after school” sessions will do anything to truly make up for class time lost due to a restroom break. Is someone clocking students to see how long they were on “the potty?”

Does this mean teachers will have to stay after school to try to re-teach what was already taught? Or will students merely sit pointlessly in a quiet room after school?

WHAT A WASTE of time!

But it does show that at least one thing hasn’t changed about high school throughout the years – there are always bound to be some school administrators whose reaction to a situation will be a layer of bureaucratic nonsense.

It’s no wonder that, for me, high school was something to be endured before I could go off to college – which is where life truly became enjoyable.

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Holding a finger into the wind before taking that ‘bold’ stance on an issue

Political people are inherently similar, regardless of what level of government they happen to work in.

MORENO: Backing the marchers



Whether urban or rural, progressive or conservative, ethnic or as boringly Anglo as one can get, it seems that any public official who happens to take a stance on an issue usually winds up siding with the types of people who he thinks will vote for him.

POLITICIANS HAVE A knack for “boldly going” wherever their desired constituents lead them.

At least that’s what I can’t help but perceive from watching the recent actions of Kyle McCarter and Proco “Joe” Moreno.

The latter is a Chicago alderman – the boss of the no-longer-mob-influenced First Ward, while the former is a state Senator from a rural town that views Decatur, Ill., as its “big” city. One is a Democrat from the Wicker Park neighborhood that isn’t as trendy anymore as it likes to think it is, while the other is a Republican who likely has no use for any of those “trendy” types from select Chicago neighborhoods.

Yet both of them are inherently animals of the political species. (Homo politicus?) Which is why I get my chuckles from their “bold” stands that are about as predictable as one can get.

IN THE CASE of Moreno, he came out on Friday and told WBEZ-FM during an interview that he is supportive of all these protesters who have been marching in cities across the nation, including Chicago (going so far as to get arrested Saturday night when they wouldn’t leave Grant Park at its official closing time).

Which is a bit of a shock, since he may be the first government official to say much of anything about these people. Other officials who have been asked have managed to come up with solid streams of gobbledygook on the subject.



McCARTER: Backing the church

But Moreno says nice things about the people, even saying that he thinks their message will become sharper and more to the point as they continue to march and picket.

“It just shows the rage and the inequity where you’ve got our population going,  spreading out more towards the bottom and fewer towards the top and the middle is shrinking,” Moreno told Chicago's NPR affiliate radio station. “That’s what you’re seeing that rage and that disgust.”

THEN AGAIN, MORENO is a product of Wicker Park, which isn’t the youthful trendsetter neighborhood any longer, but still has certain types of people living there.

It may well be Moreno’s neighbors comprising a large share of the protest marchers in the events in Chicago.

Which means that Moreno is simply trying to tell his constituents he’s not going to bad-mouth them for their actions, because he wants their votes come the next citywide election cycle in 2015.

The last thing he needs to do is say something silly that could escalate, linger around for a few years and bite him in the nalgas when he runs for re-election just over three years from now.

THAT ALSO IS what likely motivates McCarter of the Illinois state Senate, which is likely what caused him to sponsor a bill that will be considered during the spring of 2012.

His issue is adoption, particularly the fact that changes in state law that respect gay people as individuals have had the effect of cutting out of the process religious-based groups that used to be used by the state to actually place orphaned and abused children into adoptive and foster homes respectively.

Catholic Charities still has a legal battle pending on behalf of rural Illinois dioceses, although the courts thus far have ruled that the church doesn’t have a right to state contracts – and must follow the state’s rules if they want to receive them.

So McCarter’s bill, according to the State Journal-Register newspaper of Springfield, Ill., essentially would create an exception to the rules for religious-based organizations that want to be in the child-welfare basis. They can still be involved, even if they don't want to acknowledge gay couples as legitimate possibilities for children in need of a home.

IN SHORT, McCARTER wants to change the rules – which will be perceived well by those people who have a hang-up about the fact that the state is not siding with them on this issue.

It’s very likely that this bill will get killed off somewhere in the process. McCarter’s introduction of it may well be its highlight. It probably will NOT become law.

But I doubt that McCarter cares. Because what something like this is about is appealing to certain potential voters and trying to get them to be, if not supportive, then not openly hostile towards his political existence.

This is about McCarter trying to get himself re-elected by claiming he’s standing up to “those” people. And as for the gay rights activists who are calling this particular bill “homophobic,” he probably figures those people would never have voted for him anyway.

SO HE DOESN’T lose much of anything. In fact, it might even bolster his profile just enough that he gets a bit more statewide support from the organizations that have their pet issues and are willing to dole out some campaign cash to their potential allies.

Which may also be Moreno’s reasoning. Being one of the few to publicly back the Wall Street protests makes him stand out. At the very least, McCarter and Moreno aren’t just anonymous political schmoes.

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Whether water or transit, ‘city v. suburb’ always (sarcasm intended) a treat

Looking over the news emanating from Chicago, I can’t help but see two new fronts in the perpetual battle of ‘city vs. suburb.’

Metra commuter railroad officials are boosting the rates they charge for the trains that take people from points ranging from Kenosha, Wis., and Joliet into downtown Chicago. But those people who live in the city proper will not have to pay as much of an increase.

MEANWHILE, MAYOR RAHM Emanuel talked of how he wants to raise the rates people pay to the city for fresh water from Lake Michigan. And one of his justifications is that it won’t just be city residents who get stuck with larger water bills.

The various suburbs that rely on Chicago’s infrastructure to get water from the Great Lakes will also have to pay more, with Emanuel going so far as to say that the city increase will justify the big increase he’s going to demand of suburbs that don’t want to resort to the days of old – when their residents had to drink well water that had a funky taste to it, compared to what comes from Lake Michigan.

You can just tell that we’re going to hear a lot of griping between the residents of Chicago and the roughly two-thirds majority of metropolitan area residents who prefer to live in one of the city’s nearly 260 suburbs.

How many local suburban government officials in coming months are going to have to jerk up their own water rates, and will tell their taxpayers, “It’s Rahm’s fault.”

THEY WOULDN’T HAVE even dreamed of boosting the water bill, had it not been for the city feeling greed and trying to resolve their own financial problems by squeezing a few more dimes from the suburbs.

That last paragraph leaves me feeling dizzy, what with all the political spin it contains. Then again, it probably won’t be any more ridiculous than the rhetoric we’re going to get from city officials.

We’ve already got some earlier this month in the form of Emanuel implying that it’s the fault of the suburbs for not paying their water bills in a timely fashion that the city is lacking in revenue. Seriously, part of the Chicago efforts will be turning up the collection efforts against those suburbs that are behind on paying the city for access to water.

This is going to get ugly before it gets resolved. Perhaps we should get into some serious sort of debate over just who “owns” the water supply from Lake Michigan.

WHICH IS WHY Chicago is the focal point of the metropolitan area, and why it is the pre-eminent city of the Midwestern United States. Having a reliable fresh water supply is such an advantage, and those inland municipalities that have to rely on the city to get their water are paying for their locations.

Which is also why whenever the Asian Carp debate comes up, it is scary that some people seriously want to undo the late 19^th Century effort that reversed the flow of the Chicago River toward the south (and away from Lake Michigan).

I always wonder if they really want to taint the fresh water supply of a major city with the garbage from the rest of Illinois. Or have they just not thought this issue out far enough to realize the potential for a real mess?

As one who was born in Chicago and has lived both city and suburban (as well as downstate Illinois and even a little stint in the District of Columbia), it always amuses me the degree to which these ‘city vs. suburb’ fights can escalate. Because in the end, they always come across as trivial.

JUST LIKE THE debate we’re hearing over Metra rates. The commuter railroad’s officials on Friday reviewed a $0.75 increase in the price of tickets for people who catch the trains in the suburbs, but only a $0.50 increase for those who catch Metra trains at city-based stations. Final approval could come next month, with new rates taking effect in February 2012.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the lower rate was justified on the grounds that charging the same amount for both city and suburbs would have meant a larger percentage increase for city-based riders – since Metra charges people for their tickets based on how long a ride they take on one of their trains. Meaning that the person who catches a Metra Electric train at 57^th Street in the Hyde Park neighborhood pays far less ($2.50, one-way) than the person who rides a Southwest Line train from Manhattan, Ill. ($6.50).

Of course, that has suburban residents now claiming they’re getting hit with the bulk of Metra’s attempts to balance its budget, while some city residents claim that getting an increase for what they see as limited transit opportunities amounts to communities with significant racial minority populations getting slighted.

And both sides are more than willing to say the other side is spewing trash talk – regardless of whether the issue is commuter train fares or water rates.

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