EXTRA: Judgely?

SIMS: Judgely?

I’m sure she meant well, but listening to Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims, D-Chicago, pay tribute Wednesday to one-time county Sheriff and Judge Richard Elrod couldn’t help but give me the quip of the day from a politico.

How else to explain, “I don’t know how you define a judge, but he was as judgely as a judge could be.”

ELROD, WHO SERVED four four-year terms as sheriff before moving up the ranks to serve as a judge for a quarter of a century, died last month. He was 80, and suffered from complications due to cancer of the liver.

ELROD: Long career after injury

Elrod, whose father, Arthur, was once a Cook County commissioner himself, had an incident in his life that would have traumatized many – a broken neck during a 1969 altercation during the “Days of Rage” Vietnam-era anti-war protests that left him with limited mobility.

Yet other commissioners who paid tribute to Elrod on Wednesday during the county board’s meeting made mention of how he did not let that injury get the best of him – and was literally still on the Cook County bench at the time of his death April 19.

And as for Sims, her quip is notable, although not quite on the level with the elder Richard Daley once telling us the police were there to "preserve" disorder.

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“Star Wars” and da Bearz?

Perhaps it’s all too appropriate that city officials are contemplating offering up a site for a proposed museum paying tribute to the films and special effects of George Lucas on land that now serves as parking lots for Soldier Field.

Soldier Field's true character -- prior to becoming a 'Death Star' clone

 

There are those who believe the remodeled stadium used primarily by the Chicago Bears looks like some sort of giant spaceship landed within the old structure.

HAVING A MUSEUM nearby honoring the man who gave us “Star Wars” and all those sequels just a few hundred yards away is just too perfect a joke. It couldn’t have been planned better.

It makes me wonder if Luke Skywalker and his X-wing fighter can somehow find the vulnerable spot, fire his shot, and reduce the renovation (which has the character of the Death Star) to rubble – thereby allowing the Chicago Bears to build a new stadium that would actually respect the character and integrity of the stadium that was built as a war memorial (along with Navy Pier) to those who served in our national military.

Of course, there’s also the fact that the parking lots on Bears’ game days now serve as a pit of humanity digging out their barbecue grills to serve up all sorts of concoctions – prior to entering the stadium to see the Bears pretend they’re still the mighty Monsters of the Midway of old.

And not all of those people are the most pristine in appearance.

WANDERING THROUGH THE parking lot on a game day, you will see so many varied characters (some of whom are downright scary, particularly if its prior to a game against the Green Bay Packers) that you’ll feel like you’re in that cantina from the original Star Wars film.

Who's more all-powerful; ...

Only instead of hearing some funky, intergalactic-style jazz band, you’ll hear several semi-drunken serenades of people trying to work their way through, “Bear Down, Chicago Bears.”

All of this is something to be considered as George Lucas figures out where he wants his museum to be built. He’s a San Francisco type and had dreams of a museum built on the waterfront with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

But that city has snubbed his efforts thus far.

CHICAGO GETS TO be in the running because his wife, Mellody Hobson, is a native. And there’s always the chance of a museum on the waterfront. There’s also the likelihood that parking spaces lost by the museum structure’s presence could be replaced with an underground structure.

Da coach, or the Master of 'the force'

It would be a zero-sum game, as those underground spots could be used by Bears fans. Although I can already envision the anger they will feel when they learn tailgating is prohibited.

It will be such a strong sentiment that they can’t cook a weenie or a polish sausage or two that it will feel like an all-powerful force that can overcome anything the fans put their minds to.

It’s also not like there aren’t other comparisons that could be made between Bears’ culture and the whole world of Star Wars.

DARTH VADER REPRESENTED by the Green Bay Packers? Carrie Fisher’s “Princess Leia” character could have taken on the Honey Bears of old all by herself. Harrison Ford’s “Han Solo” more powerful a force than Walter Payton?

And the ultimate – Yoda equals Ditka!

You could also compare the Bears football team to the Ewoks – those cutesy, cuddly creatures from the third film (the one that the Star Wars geeks call number 6) who inspired the sale of many toy dolls and action figures.

Although there are times when I suspect that a pack of Ewoks could take to the gridiron and whomp all over da Bears. They did manage to help beat Imperial storm troopers, after all!

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Hanging on to hang-ups regarding pot

I still recall a moment I observed nearly three decades ago in Grant Park while attending the annual Blues Festival.

Some images just won't wither away

I saw a pair of police officers grab a shaggy guy, pull him aside and take something out of his jacket pocket that appeared to be a plastic bag with some marijuana.

THEY TOOK HIM away. But a few minutes later, I saw him, with an angry look on his face and muttering some choice obscenities. It appears that what the officers did to him was took his pot, threw it into the sewer, then let him go.

That approach violates the sensibilities of many law-and-order types, some of whom have refused to believe this story when I have told it throughout the years.

They want that dreaded “hippie drug” as an excuse for a crackdown – even though many of the people I have known throughout the years who have tried marijuana are far removed in mentality from “hippies” or liberal in any form. It truly is a bi-partisan drug.

Yet the old image lives on, even in these times when official policy is trying to knock down the stigma of marijuana.

MANY MUNICIPALITIES HAVE passed measures making marijuana an offense for which the police issue tickets to people, rather than any kind of criminal charge. It means fines, and not jail time, for the people who get caught in possession of a joint or two.

We also have the fact that the Illinois Legislature and Gov. Pat Quinn altered state law to create the impression that marijuana has a legitimate medical use – mainly in reducing the amount of pain some people suffer from long-running (and incurable) illnesses.

Using marijuana does not cure the illness, but offers some relief in coping with it.

But many just don’t want to accept it.

CONSIDER THAT THE state laws that took effect Jan. 1 are so rigid in how far away from people these cannabis cultivation and distribution facilities have to be from people that many communities are finding that they have very few sites where such a business could exist.

Some are finding that they can’t have these facilities anywhere!

Not that many municipalities are complaining. Some of them are reacting by passing their own ordinances to impose even further restrictions on the way these companies are operating.

We’re certainly not treating this issue as one involving a legitimate medication. We have our old hang-ups.

THEN, THERE’S THE study released Monday by Roosevelt University, whose consortium on drug policy found that Chicago police are sticking by the old idea of arresting people for possession – even in instances where a ticket (and fine) are called for.

Some 93 percent of incidents involving marijuana possession result in arrest, rather than ticket.

The study found that from 2012 (when pot possession was decriminalized in Chicago) to 2013, the number of possession arrests fell only 21 percent.

Chicago Police Department officials say that, in itself, is progress. But the Chicago Sun-Times reported how suburban Evanston (which has a similar ordinance concerning decriminalization of possession) has seen its arrests fall nearly 50 percent.

THE REACTION TO marijuana seems to remain to see a criminal act. It makes me wonder if, in the years following the repeal of Prohibition, there were some police still wishing they could make an arrest for those drinking alcoholic beverages.

Actually, there were those individual patches of the nation that voted themselves dry and kept the concept of prohibition alive for decades to come.

Is that the era we’re in now? Because there is a part of me that believes the approach I saw police take all those years ago might have been the most effective in terms of actually taking marijuana out of distribution.

By putting it into the sewer, however, we run the risk of it getting into the Lake Michigan water supply. Would pot in the water wind up causing our political people to act even more goofy than usual?

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What will we do without Shakman?

From Richard J. Daley ...

I became aware of City Hall as a little kid (Who could possibly ignore the persona of Richard J. Daley? Whom I saw live once when they dedicated the then-brand new Sears Tower), but started paying attention to the details (Jane Byrne moving into the Cabrini Green public housing complex) back when I was in high school.

I had a summer stint on a government payroll (the other side of the building, in county government) while in college during the Harold Washington era, and wrote my first stories about city government back when the name “Eugene Sawyer” (not the son) was relevant.

... through the Jane Byrne era, ...

OF COURSE, IT means I saw the whole era of Richard M. Daley in detail, and see the concept of Rahm Emanuel in its true context – a piece of an overall story, rather than an epic in and of itself.

Through all this, there has been one constant – city government officials have had to deal with (and I’m sure they thought it was an ordeal) the Shakman Decree.

As in the federal court order that has lasted through the decades that provides for outside oversight to ensure that the old ways of City Hall hiring people for political reasons withered away.

It was a 1969 lawsuit that resulted three years later in the court order that came to be known by the name of the attorney – Michael Shakman – who led the effort to try to make government hiring more honest and open.

... running through H.W., to ...

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE (and those of many other political observers), Shakman (the ruling) has been around for so long that it just seems like a part of the atmosphere around “the Hall.”

It seems hard to believe that soon, Shakman will be a bit of history. And maybe the day will come when people will wonder how we could have ever needed such oversight of the way government picked people for jobs?

... Eugene Sawyer; through the ...

It is such a regular part of the way things go that I’m still trying to comprehend how government will operate without it. Or, that the oversight for city government will now be merely the Inspector General’s office – just like many other government entities.

But it is reality.

... 'second coming' of Daley, ...

LAST WEEK, A federal judge started the clock on a 30-day period of review in which, if it works out the way things are expected, the Shakman decree will be allowed to lapse for city government.

Because the city was found to be “in substantial compliance” with the concept that people should be hired to work for city government because they are qualified for the job – and not because they knew somebody.

We should be pleased that our city government has reached such a level. It means that, despite all the rants we hear from certain elements of our society about how rotten and corrupt the officials are, it basically works. Besides, those people are mostly upset because government isn’t upholding their ideological hang-ups.

... to the modern-era of Rahm, ...

What I found interesting about last week’s actions was that officials acknowledged that “substantial compliance” isn’t the same as “perfect compliance.”

IT IS THE notion that there invariably will be something that violates the sensibilities of the goo-goos. That you can’t completely get away from political people hiring those they feel they can trust – particularly since we don’t seem to get offended when other companies hire people for similar reasons.

... Michael Shakman was THE constant

Check out the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday, which reported how one-time Cook County Board President Todd Stroger was hired by 21^st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins on a string of monthly contracts.

He may not be on the city payroll proper, but he’s getting city funds to basically serve as an advisor to Brookins. Who probably figures that the day will come when someone will allow him to hang around “the Hall” with a similar contract? But this is the exception; or so we’re told.

It took 45 years for the need for “Shakman” to wither away. The real test of how honest our city government has become will be how long we can go before a federal judge decides it needs to be resurrected.

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Seeing reality? State budget is going to be a mess, no matter what happens

Is Illinois House Minority Leader James Durkin, R-Western Springs, experiencing a moment of clarity? Seeing what is bound to happen?

Or just accepting that he’s not going to be able to stop the budgetary process in any way that his Republican colleagues will be able to play partisan politics with?

MUCH WAS MADE of the fact that the Illinois House of Representatives this week approved several measures that are part of the state’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year (beginning July 1).

They’re passing them at levels that indicate there is going to be more money on hand – as in the state income tax that was raised temporarily for a few years will continue to remain at the higher level.

Rather than revert back to the lower levels of the past.

The theory is that by creating a budget that counts on the additional funds and by starting off the state government on a path of operations that uses the additional funding, it would then be pretty reckless for those ideologues who are absolutely determined to let the income tax increase wither away.

THEY WOULD SUDDENLY have to find billions of dollars of needed services to cut. Yes, it would be necessary stuff. There’s no fat to trim (not that much!).

Not only would bone be cut, entire limbs would likely have to be amputated.

There likely will be (particularly among non-Chicago-area Democratic legislators who are saying these days they want to vote “no” to keeping the income tax increase) much gnashing of teeth and ill-will created by some of the “aye” votes that will be cast.

DURKIN: Helping his GOP colleagues?

But as I always suspected (and accepted as an ugly fact) that the income tax hike was going to have to be maintained, so be it.

EVEN DURKIN SEEMS to realize that. Based off the newsletter he likes to send out, he says, “The 73 bills passed by Democrats (as part of the state budget process) all but guarantee the permanency of the income tax.”

Now I’m sure that Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Rauner is watching all this with a certain level of drool dripping from his lips. There are so many ways things can get bungled to his political advantage.

I’m already trying to figure out the next lame “Quinnochio” reference he will make that refers to this process – implying that Gov. Pat Quinn has been less-than-honest with the electorate about his intentions.

Although I’m inclined to think that Quinn has been so unwilling to speak, as though he’s trying to avoid saying something that would later turn out to be a lie.

LIE OR NOT, the situation isn’t going to be a pretty one. Which is why I'm amongst those who found humor in the rant of state Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Belleville, who suggested that the reason Republicans are complaining -- without offering concrete alternatives -- is because their dog "ate" their plan to balance the budget.

The problem is that Illinois government, in addition to having to figure out a way to resolve its pension program funding shortfalls, has many serious obligations.

The educators alone are more than willing to take down anyone who dare suggests that levels of state funding will have to be hurt. These are educators who believe they’re already only getting 89 percent of what they’re supposed to get.



HOFFMAN: Comic relief for budget?

Anything lower, and we will have educators gathered up in anger to take down people who would suggest that they’re somehow the problem!

THAT’S WHAT THIS whole situation about funding winds up coming down to. Certain people are going to feel like they’re having the blame for everything that is wrong dumped all over themselves.

Whereas maybe if we’d accept the need to address issues seriously (instead of looking for ways to ideologize them), we’d be able to come up with a solution.

Which is why I wonder if all those people who are eager to believe Quinn is finished politically because a lot of people don’t much like him are missing the point.

They may not care about Quinn, but playing hardball with trying to eliminate funds that are needed to allow government to meet its obligations could wind up making the voters decide they absolutely detest those people by comparison!

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Ugly tidbit tips a part of the job when trying to figure out what is “news”

I found a Chicago Tribune story amusing – one in which they admitted burning anoperative to Mayor Rahm Emanuel who was trying to feed them dirt on potential opponent Toni Preckwinkle.

Tip beneficiaries?

No matter how many times the Cook County Board president has said she’s seeking re-election this year, rather than running for mayor next year, there are those who want to believe there will be an Emanuel/Preckwinkle matchup in the 2015 election cycle.

IT WOULD SEEM there are those within Emanuel’s camp who are taking such speculation seriously. For the Tribune reported about how one of Emanuel’s people sent them an e-mail message filled with story suggestions.

All of which – if written in the same tone suggested by the aide – would have made Preckwinkle look ridiculous or inept in the way she has managed the Cook County Board president’s post.

Which would go against the conventional wisdom of Preckwinkle being one of the few competent people within our local government – a view held by many county government people themselves, who find her absolutely wonderful by comparison to her predecessor; Todd Stroger.

It’s humorous to me that the Tribune would feel the need to so quickly reveal this e-mail – which caused the aide in question to have to issue a public apology (and privately to add a pair of Tribune reporters to his “enemies” list).

ALTHOUGH I’M SURE those reporters will be able to sleep at night. This might be one of those instances where revealing the tactic was newsworthy in itself – it shows the degree to which Emanuel takes Preckwinkle seriously. I’d have thought less of them if they had just eagerly lapped it up – the way some people want to believe CNN did with their recent “Chicagoland” documentary series.

Even though publicly, the two say they “work together” (with many people still getting their chuckles from a recent Preckwinkle appearance on the WTTW-TV program “My Chicago” in which Preckwinkle abruptly said she and Emanuel “work together,” then refused to elaborate).

In my own time, I have received my share of tips and tidbits and suggestions about the way I should cover things. Usually from people who want to ensure that I don’t think much of their political foes.

For that matter, the campaign of Bruce Rauner for governor sends me nearly daily e-messages informing me of their latest spin about how despicable we should think Pat Quinn is. Although that effort differs from the Emanuel attempt – in that they send their messages to everybody they can think of, and don’t try to be secretive about it.

THERE ARE TIMES when they do get secretive, and they usually go through such covert efforts to cover up their tracks. Which is what makes this direct e-mail message so unique.

Not like the telephone call I got just the other day telling me about a suburban police chief who supposedly is trying to get other village officials to turn against the local mayor. Not sure yet how truthful the tip is – hence the lack of details.

I recall one person who tried to feed me a nasty tip once about a would-be political candidate. He wouldn’t say anything over the telephone. He insisted on meeting me face-to-face in a neighboring town.

Then, when we were standing at an obscure intersection in a residential neighborhood and he was convinced no one was watching, he fed me the dirt – which as I recall offended my editor (it involved an act of oral sex performed on the candidate while on government time) so much we didn’t rush to write it up.

WHEN IT TURNED out that the candidate in question ran into troubles and couldn’t even get on the ballot for the upcoming election, the tip died with the candidate.

Although I suppose if this candidate ever tries a political comeback, the tip could be resurrected – and written up if it actually checks out.

Because one thing about such tips. They’re usually somebody’s wishful thinking about what they’d like the story to be. Reality doesn’t always turn out that way.

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EXTRA: Smith made mark 73 yrs ago

SMITH: Made his mark all those yrs ago

Eddie Smith was a major league pitcher back in the 1930s into the 1940s, mostly for the Chicago White Sox.

It was in that capacity that Smith achieved the high-point of his baseball career, his mark on history, 73 years ago Thursday, on the Yankee Stadium playing field that now lies within site of the new structure bearing that name.

OF COURSE, NOBODY had a clue that night that what they saw at the ballpark was anything special.

 

Nobody ever did a pop song about Smith

Smith pitched to Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees and gave up one hit in four at-bats. It drove in the only Yankees run in a 3-1 victory by the White Sox. But it was hit Number One in what became DiMaggio’s 56-game consecutive hitting streak – in which he managed at least one hit per game every game through July 16.

It was July 17 against the Cleveland Indians before anyone could keep DiMaggio hitless again. And then, he began another 17-game hitting streak.
 

Where it began all those years ago

As for Smith, 1941 may well have been his best season – winning 13 games, but losing 17, with a 3.18 earned run average for a third place ball club that finished 77-77. An even .500 season, just like this season is shaping up to be.

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