Obama not as important in Rezko trial

Barack Obama's ability to get within a few feet of the Leader of the Free World is part of the reason Antoin Rezko wanted to be the senator's ally. Photograph provided by the White House.

In writing my perception of the upcoming federal court trial of politico Antoin Rezko, I deliberately downplayed the portions that will mention Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

It is true that Obama’s name will come up, although it is not likely to be a key figure in the criminal case. It will be people who want to make a political case against the adopted-Chicago Democrat who try to elevate the content of Obama-related testimony to the level of a national crime.

REZKO SAW THE rise of a political star in Obama and decided he wanted to have a personal connection. This was a man who tried to develop ties to all the top pols at City Hall and the Statehouse.

What he did to curry favor was to help Obama get a larger-than-usual lot for his home in the Hyde Park neighborhood. A slightly larger piece of property that the standard urban lot adds to the value, while also causing Rezko to take a financial hit on the adjacent property he bought.

But Rezko apparently figured the financial loss would be worth it because of all the favors he would be able to ask in the future from Illinois’ junior senator.

No evidence has come out thus far that Obama ever did anything to help Rezko, and he has since said he should never have gotten involved in the deal. He probably deserves to be the butt of a few political jokes because of his ties to Antoin.

BUT THE ONLY thing that will really come out of the trial concerning Obama is that political people will be able to spend the bulk of this year (and the next four if Obama actually becomes president) speculating just what he would have done to repay his friend Tony for the land deal.

Speculation is not fact. However, let’s speculate a bit on our own and envision what would happen if this case is carried out to the extreme. Suppose we someday get the combination of a Rezko conviction and prison sentence, and an Obama presidency.

Just imagine all the jokes that will be told about Barack being in a position to give Rezko either clemency or a presidential pardon.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Hillary R. Clinton is among the many political people who want to think of the Rezko trial as an event (http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=6292) loaded with dirt about presidential opponent Barack Obama.

Chicago can make cinema so special

I don’t get out to the movie theater as much as I used to, but I am still a fan of film. One of my favorite genres, so to speak, is Chicagoana.

Maybe that is just evidence of how much of a Chicago-geek I can be, but I have found that the presence of the Second City on the silver screen can add such character to a film that even a clunker becomes bearable.

WHEN A WELL-written screenplay is combined with competent acting and a Chicago setting, the result is a film that registers in my brain as unforgettable.

A Chicago connection is why I am actually looking forward to two upcoming films, and will try to get to the theater to see them. “Chicago 10,” which purports to be documentary-like but is really a dramatic retelling of the insanity that hit the United States in the summer of 1968, was released in Chicago on Friday.

The other is “Public Enemies,” which stars Johnny Depp, in the story of John Dillinger and will feature his jail break in Lake County, Ind., and his eventual slaughter by the feds outside the (still-standing) Biograph Theater. It will be made this spring at area locations (including the county jail in Crown Point, Ind.), and is to be released early next year.

WITH CHARACTERS LIKE Judge Julius Hoffman, Dillinger and Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman, these films have potential to be entertaining. With the presence of Chicago, they ought to be interesting. And if they wind up as clunkers, it will be director incompetence – not the setting.

The real question is how they will wind up comparing to some of the all-time great films that use Chicago. It will be interesting to see if either film can displace any of my own personal “top 5” Chicago films, which I am listing chronologically.

CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948): This dramatic re-telling of how Chicago Times reporters were able to clear a man wrongly convicted of a long-forgotten 1930s police slaying intrigues me because of how it uses Chicago scenery.

Back in an era when most films were shot in studios, this film actually sought out many of the sites associated with the real story. Seeing the courtrooms at the Criminal Courts building, the New City police district (now East Chicago Avenue station) and the reception areas and cellblocks at Stateville Penitentiary back when they all were new and clean is a shock.

Hearing the Back of the Yards neighborhood when Polish was the language that wafted through the air (rather than the current Spanish) gives me a sense of the ethnic feel that will always be a part of Chicago’s character – even if the actual ethnicities change over time.

And when James Stewart’s reporter character, McNeil, goes to the Illinois Parole Board to plead his “case,” he makes his argument in a room I am all too familiar with. What was once the Illinois Supreme Court chambers is now a legislative committee meeting room where politicos ram through public policies that put their interests ahead of the people.

MEDIUM COOL (1969): This film tried to tell a story that was still very contemporary – we get to see the Democratic National Convention of 1968 and the infamous riots that broke out between Chicago police and anti-war protesters who were upset that Democrats were not doing enough to get the army out of Vietnam.

In fact, filmmakers shot some of their footage during the actual protests in Grant Park, and one of their camera operators got hit with teargas along with the protesters.

Anybody who watches “Chicago 10” should go out of their way to see this film, which worked real footage with the actors. The new film, regardless of how true it tries to be to fact, is by definition a revisionist account.

Chicago in this film looks a little more like its contemporary counterpart, although watching scenes shot in the South Loop where protesters interact with police and the National Guard show just how decrepit that part of the city was becoming.

Then, there’s my own personal favorite scene, where Illinois State Police officers are rehearsing how to cope with anti-war demonstrators. What makes the scene so funny is that some police play the part of Hippies and allow themselves to be arrested – that is, if you can envision Hippies in crew cuts and Bermuda shorts going around saying, “peace” and “love.”

THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980): Let’s be honest. This is a stupid film.

The story is truncated and, in some parts, absurd. (Dropping a car with would-be Nazi stormtroopers from hundreds of feet in the air and expecting us to believe they would survive?) The blues music sung by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd is all wrong – it’s more Memphis soul and Detroit r&b than Chicago blues. This is a mediocre Saturday Night Live sketch dragged out to 2 ½ hours.

BUT WHAT MAKES the film bearable, in fact what makes it memorable, is Chicago.

Unlike “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” where the lead character plays hooky by going to the Art Institute and Wrigley Field, this film digs into the seedy underbelly that is the real Chicago.

Watching Elwood Blues show off the power of his one-time Mount Prospect police car by jumping the fully-erect 95th Street Bridge that separates the South Chicago neighborhood from the East Side is unique because no other film would even dream of using that site.

THE BLUES BROTHERS also lets us see the extinct seedy strip that used to exist along Van Buren Street in the South Loop, the real Maxwell Street market and the old Dixie Square Shopping Center in south suburban Harvey.

Even when The Blues Brothers goes to an upscale location like the Chez Paul (the long-defunct French restaurant), we get to see some of the most uncouth behavior ever envisioned on screen. Those snobs deserve to have to endure Jake and Elwood.

I have just one gripe. According to the story, Jake and Elwood are from Calumet City and visit the orphanage where they were raised. In reality, nothing in the film was shot there, and I know because I am a one-time Cal City resident who first saw this film at the River Oaks Theater.

UNTOUCHABLES (1988): From the Sean Connery character’s spiel about doing things “the Chicago Way,” to seeing scenes in the LaSalle Street financial district and realizing the buildings haven’t changed much since the 1920s, this film is Chicago.

Robert DeNiro as Alphonse Capone was interesting, even though DeNiro is only in a few scenes and is actually a minor character.

Now I realize that the film’s facts are totally skewed (Frank Nitti didn’t die from being thrown off the criminal courthouse roof). But the film gives a sense of Chicago as it existed 80-something years ago, and successfully uses the parts of the city that have changed little in appearance. Every time I have business at Union Station, I can envision the film’s climactic gun battle.

In my mind, the title “The Untouchables” has come to mean this film, rather than the 1960s-era television series based on the Oscar Fraley book of the same name that tells the tale of how Chicago-based G-man Eliot Ness led a team of agents in combating The Outfit.

ONLY THE LONELY (1991): John Candy and Jim Belushi make totally unrealistic Chicago police officers (what kind of cop gets transferred to a precinct in Florida?) in this film about a man (Candy) who remains a little too attached to his mother (played by Maureen O’Hara).

The film gets it right in understanding that in Chicago, even white people have a sense of their ethnic roots. It has its characters hanging around the neighborhoods, rather than at downtown tourist sites.

And it also contains my favorite Chicago film scene ever – Candy’s first-date picnic with Ally Sheedy with the exploding scoreboard at the old Comiskey Park looming in the background. This film was shot just months before the one-time “Baseball Palace of the World” was torn town.

OF COURSE, THE presence of Chicago cannot save all films. One of my least favorite films ever was “Switching Channels” (1987), which is all the worse because of the ridiculous way it portrays the city.

The film is an attempt to update “The Front Page” (1931 and 1974) and “His Girl Friday (1940) to the modern era. These reporters are not newspaper-people; they work in television. One character goes so far as to denigrate newspapers as, “19th Century journalism.”

KATHLEEN TURNER PLAYS Christy Colloran, an anchorwoman who supposedly covers all the big stories that take place in Chicago County.

Chicago County? We live in Cook.

About the closest I can come to saying anything nice about this film is to note that it also stars Burt Reynolds as Turner’s editor, and it isn’t any worse than any of the “Smokey and the Bandit” films.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Chicago municipal government has a separate agency devoted to (http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/portalEntityHomeAction.do?entityName=Film+Office&entityNameEnumValue=15) working with film crews wishing to use the city as a backdrop.

THE INK-STAINED WRETCH: CNN kept Waukegan explosion "humor" in check

Perhaps it is because I worked for two decades in the news business, but I could see the CNN anchor Thursday afternoon doing her best to suppress a laugh as she gave us the update on an explosion in Waukegan, Ill., that the network had reported live earlier in the day.

As it turns out, no one was killed in what officials say was a gas explosion that gutted several businesses and was felt by people as far as a block away. Eight people were taken to area hospitals for minor injuries.

THE POTENTIAL FOR humor came out of the fact that the initial image presented by the explosion was so incredibly disgusting. Firefighters and other emergency crews arriving at the scene found body parts strewn all about the street.

For a few seconds, officials surveying the scene saw the flesh-colored parts and feared they were going to be spending their next few hours picking through rubble while trying to resurrect the parts of people who just happened to be present at the wrong time.

But in what sounds like a bit from a “Marx Brothers” movie, the body parts turned out to be not quite what they appeared at first glance. Among the businesses gutted by the explosion were a hair salon and a clothing store – specifically, one that sold tuxedos.

Had the body parts not come from mannequins, Waukegan, Ill., would no longer be remembered primarily as the birthplace of Jack Benny. Photograph provided by City of Waukegan.

The body parts in question belonged to the mannequins used in the store to display the tuxedoes. At least those mannequins ended their time on this planet while being well dressed. Except for the mannequin clad in the light blue tuxedo with a ruffled shirt and dark blue cummerbund. That one gets the shame of dying in a tacky high school prom outfit.

SOME PEOPLE ARE going to be repulsed at the notion that anyone could find humor in an explosion. But actually, it is the way reporter-types (and many law enforcement officials I have known) deal with the potential tragedy once it turns out there is no real carnage.

It’s not like anybody is making quips about Tinley Park, where police continue to look for the man who earlier this month killed five women and seriously wounded a sixth during a robbery attempt at a Lane Bryant women’s clothing store.

Nonetheless, I can appreciate the differing viewpoint that non-reporters take toward incidents. After all, a reporter (particularly one who focuses attention on crime and disasters) usually pops into the lives of people at their absolute low point.

It is why I can understand why reporters approached Gov. Rod Blagojevich when he attended a ceremony at Northern Illinois University, and then proceeded to ask him questions about issues other than the 21st Century version of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre that left five students dead and several others shot.

SEVERAL STUDENTS BOO-ED and heckled reporter types, which probably fed into the governor’s ego and makes him think all the more that the people of the state of Illinois love him (they really love him) and will forgive him for anything he does.

The simple fact is that Blagojevich may be implicated in a federal investigation of political corruption. He gives people so few chances to talk to him, that this occasion had to be used.

Besides, the world does not revolve around DeKalb, Ill., even though some students may wish it did. Blagojevich said he would push for state funds to pay for demolition of the hall where the shootings took place and construction of a new memorial. That story got reported as well as Blagojevich’s lame response to being “Public Official A.”

What else was notable this week in the world of the Chicago-area reporter types who try to follow in the footsteps of “The Front Page?”

SUN-TIMES DINGS TRIBUNE, WHOOPIE!!!: The Chicago Sun-Times went a tad overboard with its coverage Thursday of how Tribune Co. chief Sam Zell seriously wants to find some corporation to pay him big bucks for the right to put their name on the stadium used by the Chicago Cubs.

With a screaming headline reading, “It’s Trib vs. Chicago,” the newspaper made a big splash with stories and columns denouncing Zell for even daring to think of changing the name of Wrigley Field (which is named for the Wrigley family that used to own the team and still owns the chewing gum manufacturing company).

The newspaper also devoted ample space on their website to the comments of Cubs fans (many of whom read as though they forgot to take their medication) who want to get all worked up over this.

THE ONLY REASON the Sun-Times cares about this is that it is an excuse to beat up on the opposition newspaper. If anybody other than Tribune Co. owned the Cubs, the Sun-Times would take a more rational viewpoint on this issue.

The truth is that modern sports economics make all of Zell’s proposed moves (including more night games and concerts at the stadium) the norm. He is not asking for anything out of line with other professional sports teams.

If our government officials are going to be forced to deal with this issue (the state may wind up buying the stadium and paying for a major overhaul of its infrastructure), they are going to have to get over this silly notion that the Chicago Cubs are “holier than thou.” They’re just a baseball team, and a lousy one at that.

BLACK’S BLACK DAY: He was done in by videotape.

An appeals court panel in Chicago rejected the request of former Chicago Sun-Times chief Conrad Black to remain free while his appeals take place. Black will have to report to prison on Monday, or risk being labeled a fugitive from justice.

The court ruled that his conviction on an obstruction of justice charge on claims that he removed boxes of documents from his office in Toronto after a court had said they were not to be touched is so air tight there is no chance it will be overturned. They cited the security video used during Black’s trial that shows him hauling box after box after box out of the office.

So that puts Black in the same category as one-time Chicago Cubs idol Sammy Sosa as someone whose Chicago rep was forever damaged by incriminating video (remember the security camera that caught Sosa leaving a game early at the end of the 2004 season?)

Unlike Sosa, Black now has a 6 ½ year prison term to serve (provided he behaves himself while in prison, he’ll have to serve about 5 ½ years before being eligible for early release).

AND ON A FINAL NOTE: I’m still trying to figure out just what officials with the “Today” show thought they were accomplishing by having former Bolingbrook police officer Drew Peterson on their program.

Peterson, whose third wife is now officially a homicide and whose fourth wife is still missing (it has been four months now), didn’t say anything of interest during his show, and the perception most viewers picked up is that NBC will put anything on the air if they think it will help bring in ratings.

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Activists scare people with abortion rhetoric

To some people, the extent to which they are interested in anything happening in Springfield is to know the latest about whether Public Official A (a.k.a., Gov. Rod Blagojevich) is on the verge of being indicted, tried and sent to prison.

The notion of two consecutive Illinois governors winding up their political careers in prison (George Ryan currently receives the benefits of an “Oxford education” – waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal while sitting in a prison cell at the federal facility in Oxford, Wis.) is titillating to those Chicago political observers who want to think that government begins and ends at City Hall.

BUT BELIEVE IT or not, those clowns in “Springpatch” are more than just a batch of youthful politicos in training combined with a few old hacks who don’t have what it takes to hold elective office in Chicago proper. The ladies and gentlemen of the General Assembly will be asked this spring to consider issues ranging from firearm possession to Wrigley Field ownership to abortion.

Yes, abortion.

It is the issue that will never go away, yet in some ways is one of the perennial issues of the Illinois political process. Every year, some measure comes up that gets the activists on both sides of the issue to act their most irrational.

This year, the anti-abortion activists have a head start on the silly season. The Glen Ellyn-based Illinois Family Institute is sending out Internet missives meant to stir up trouble aimed squarely at a bill sponsored this spring by state Reps. Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, and Rosemary Mulligan, R-Des Plaines.

THE BILL IN question is meant to ensure that women have access to the medical services that can end a pregnancy. Considering that availability of such services was the intent of the Supreme Court ruling of 1973 that wiped out state laws making abortion a crime, the bill is all too logical.

But to the institute, the measure is “draconian” in that it stands in the way of “conscience for moral reasons” and would go so far as to require sex education courses for Kindergarten children and condom training for 9-year-olds.

Basically, the Currie/Mulligan bill would prevent government from taking any action that would interfere with abortion being available to women who choose it. Such a law is necessary because the General Assembly throughout the years has passed measures designed by anti-abortion activists to make it as difficult as possible for women to actually gain access to abortion.

Some people might see their actions as political bullying of women. But to the institute, any attempt to stop them from stopping people is a “radical and unprecedented departure” from Illinois law.

“CLEARLY, THE ENACTMENT of (the bill) would codify all abortion procedures at any stage of pregnancy,” the institute writes, in a statement recently e-mailed to all of their followers across Illinois and select other political observers (somehow, I managed to get on the group’s e-mail list a few years ago).

When you think about it rationally (which is something that doesn’t often happen when it comes to abortion debate), the Currie/Mulligan bill is not a radical concept.

Abortion is a legal medical procedure (and don’t tell me that it is gross – if you look at it graphically, so is a gall bladder removal, but no one in their right mind would think of criminalizing that) that should not be made unavailable by the actions of political people who want to force their personal moral choice on others.

Admittedly, I favor allowing a woman the right to decide this issue herself. I have a problem with anti-abortion activists trying to impose their views on a woman’s choice, and I find it disgusting that they try to portray their position as moral.

AS I SEE it, they are using the potential of a future human life to try to tell an existing life (that of the mother) what she can do with her body. The idea of telling someone what she can’t do sounds so much like a personal infringement of her rights – the very notion is so anti-Republican, or at least anti- the concept of individual choice that conservatives always claim they stand for.

A particularly appalling part of the institute’s message to activists is the portion that pretends to address the concerns of doctors who do not want to be involved with the termination of a pregnancy.

Now I do not have a problem with a doctor being a bit squeamish about the process. The Currie/Mulligan bill says they should be required to refer women to another doctor, if they themselves do not want to provide the service.

Doctors provide referrals all the time. It is not a radical medical concept.

BUT THE INSTITUTE wants to believe that a doctor is being punished if he is required by law to refer a woman who wants an abortion to another doctor.

“Quite simply, the enactment… would drive anyone having a religious or moral belief against abortion or contraceptives from the Illinois health care community,” the institute writes, in its Internet missive.

Rationally, that might not be bad. Perhaps a doctor, pharmacist or medical technician who wants to impose his view of morals over sound medical practices should think seriously about whether they are in the right line of work, in the same way that a member of the clergy who suddenly had a loss of religious faith should think about doing something else with their lives.

WHAT IS MOST disgusting about the institute’s missive is that it is taking advantage of the ignorance of some people when it comes to the legislative process, as practiced in Illinois. This is a bill that is a long shot to become law.

Currie and Mulligan may be high-ranking members of the Illinois House of Representatives, but the Illinois House is run by Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago – who personally opposes abortion and thinks his political party’s vehement support for it is misguided.

Abortion opponents privately admit Madigan is their best ally. He allows their measures to get fair hearings and allows individual Democrats to vote their conscience – which lets Dem legislators from rural Illinois to break from the party platform position.

ALSO, WHEN ONE considers that Democratic legislators these days can’t play nice with each other, it is unlikely that a majority of people in both chambers of the General Assembly will manage to support the issue, and get Blagojevich to sign the measure into law.

So if you are considering getting all worked up by the Illinois Family Institute’s hysterical missive that tries to scare people into envisioning 13-year-old girls having abortions, take a deep breath.

Then, realize the bill is likely just another of the “perennial issue” bills that come up every year, create a lot of hysterical talk and wind up accomplishing nothing.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Abortion missives can sometimes be comical in their ridiculous use of rhetoric, but this one (http://www.illinoisfamily.org/news/contentview.asp?c=33775) is just absurd.

"Joliet, Ill." losing its rep as a prison town

There once was a time when the placement of a “Joliet, Ill.” dateline atop a news story was a sure-fire guarantee of prison violence or some other news related to the activity of a violent criminal.

The small city located at the far southwestern-most corner of what could be considered the Chicago area became internationally known for the facilities located in or near its borders that housed dangerous and violent criminals.

THE NAMES “STATEVILLE” and “Joliet” brought to mind the same dank, depressing images of criminal justice and retribution as do names like “Leavenworth” and “Alcatraz.”

Those days are receding into the past, and Joliet municipal officials are glad. While they enjoyed the tax benefits and jobs provided by having two maximum-security prisons nearby, the fact that their town was known more for its dangerous visiting residents than anything that happened in town had to be depressing.

Joliet’s days as a prison town are declining because the Joliet Correctional Center and the Stateville Correctional Center in neighboring Crest Hill (which many people mistake for the low-income section of Joliet) are old. The Joliet prison dates to the 19th Century, while Stateville is a modern (only by Illinois prison standards) facility that opened in 1925.

Age is the element that brought the Joliet Correctional Center to its demise as a viable maximum-security prison, and its sister Stateville Correctional Center could soon share the same fate. Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.

Trying to turn those old prisons that were meant to resemble imposing castles that would scare passersby into never wanting to have to spend any time there (while also intimidating the inmates who were there) into modern corrections facilities would be way too expensive.

IT IS EASIER to just build new facilities, which can be constructed up to modern standards of criminal incarceration – which, for those who fear inmates are being “coddled” are still extremely restrictive. No one in their right mind would volunteer to live under such conditions.

The old Joliet Correctional Center already has been shuttered, as far as housing maximum-security inmates. The facility is now a center for people convicted of a crime in northern Illinois. They start their prison term there, spend a few days while being evaluated by state corrections officials, then they are assigned to the prison where they will spend the bulk of their hard time.

That fate is to be shared by Stateville, if Gov. Rod Blagojevich gets his way.

When Blagojevich presented his state budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, it called for closing the oldest parts of Stateville (the ones that are most in violation of modern standards for housing inmates) and using other parts to perform the same functions now carried out on the other side of town at the former Joliet Correctional Center.

STATEVILLE CURRENTLY HAS about 3,500 inmates, and it is estimated that the move would cause about 1,500 of them to be relocated to prisons across the state. That sounds like an ambitious project – trying to shift that many potentially dangerous people around the state.

There’s a very good chance that the bulk of them would wind up in Thomson, Ill., where a modern facility has been sitting empty in the rural northwest Illinois county for nearly a decade. Officials would like to have transfers complete by 2011.

Corrections officials also say that some less-violent inmates could be placed at new prisons in Lawrenceville and Sheridan, although critics of the proposed shift say the three new prisons were meant to supplement existing facilities – not replace them.

The Thomson prison is actually one of the laughable tales of state government ineptitude. The problem is that Illinois Department of Corrections officials were never given adequate funding to maintain the new prison.

THE FACILITY BUILT back in the 1990s was meant to give Illinois a modern maximum-security prison. Its construction was completed in time to theoretically open the facility in 2001.

But the state built itself a new toy that it can’t afford to play with. Large portions of the modern prison have sat empty for six years now, and a recent report by the Illinois auditor general’s office said some parts of the prison are deteriorating due to non-use.

I’ll credit Blagojevich for realizing that it is past due for the state to start using its new prison. I also realize that Stateville is a place whose best days are in the past. I have been inside Stateville on a few occasions (as a reporter, not an inmate), and what always amazed me was seeing the same spots that were used in the late 1948 film “Call Northside 777.” What was once fresh and new had become rather decrepit by the time I saw it 50 years later.

A shift from Stateville is a move that should have taken place some time ago.

THAT, OF COURSE, will not stop political people from trying to get involved. State Sen. Debbie D. Halvorson, D-Crete, says she will oppose any shift of inmates away from Stateville because that also means Corrections Department jobs moving from Will County to Carroll County.

State officials concede that about 400 jobs will be shifted from the Joliet-area if the move takes place.

In the big picture (that of the entire state), the jobs factor is irrelevant – the actual payroll will remain the same. Some might even argue that in the small picture, it is not that important because another Illinois area would suddenly gain a batch of jobs. It all balances out.

But Halvorson is running a campaign to move up to the House of Representatives, and Stateville is in the territory encompassed by the congressional district she wants to represent in Washington.

SHE WANTS TO appear as though she will fight for local jobs, and figures Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., whose Quad Cities-area congressional district would gain from the Illinois Corrections Department change, can fight his own battle to support the shift.

This issue is not an easy one for most Chicagoans to understand because most of us are living here in part because we would never want to live in the kind of isolated community that usually attracts prison facilities.

About the only place in Chicago that has anything resembling a prison atmosphere is the Little Village neighborhood, which abuts the Cook County Jail complex. But that neighborhood’s historic character is one where newly arrived immigrants live for a bit before moving up in life. Even the current Mexican population that lives in “La Villita” will some day move on to better places. Nobody in Chicago stays long-term in a jail atmosphere.

In fact, the reason Joliet got to be the unofficial prison capital of Illinois is because it used to be fairly isolated. Officials a century ago never envisioned the suburban sprawl that would spread itself out from Chicago in all directions and turn Joliet and its surrounding communities into just more suburbs of the Second City.

BUT THERE ARE people who will vehemently fight on both sides of this issue. Joliet area officials, while they would enjoy cleansing their public image of the prison ties, also enjoy the economic benefits of a steady employer like Illinois government.

Most of the people who work at the prisons are not the kind of people who would be able, or willing, to make a sudden move across the state just to keep a job.

Likewise, Carroll County, Ill., is an isolated place. While on the Mississippi River, Carroll County is the rural space that falls between the Quad Cities and Galena, Ill. Getting this prison to finally hire people and open itself is likely the biggest economic opportunity the county of just over 16,000 people (by comparison, the typical ward in Chicago has about three times that many people) will ever see.

For Thomson itself, the prison will put the town of 559 people (it’s the self-proclaimed “Melon Capital of the World”) on the map, just like no one ever paid attention to Tamms, Ill., until they got to be the location of the state’s only “super maximum” security prison.

IN THE BIG picture, Carroll County will gain more than Will County will lose. After all, Joliet still has two of the biggest moneymaking riverboat casinos in Illinois, a racetrack that hosts major auto racing events and an independent league professional baseball team. A lot of Illinois communities (many across the Midwest, to be honest) would love to be in Joliet’s position.

Honestly, the most negative aspect I can think of for Joliet is that officials will have to figure out a way to explain to future generations who watch reruns of “The Blues Brothers” film just why the blues singer character portrayed by John Belushi was nicknamed “Joliet Jake.” After all, the day will come when the nickname no longer makes sense.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Illinois corrections officials have used the Joliet area as the site of two (http://www.idoc.state.il.us/subsections/facilities/information.asp?instchoice=sta) of its most intense-security facilities for more than eight decades.

We’ll see how pleased Thomson (http://www.thomsonil.com/) is to have a maximum-security prison after the first incident that takes place within its walls.

Inmates who have spent their time within Stateville’s walls all had their own ways of coping (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951815,00.html) with the mental anguish of being locked up.

Chicago's "3rd airport" truly a saga of stupidity

When the Chicago Tribune ran “Gary as the ‘third airport’?,” as a headline this week, I couldn’t help but think for a moment that someone in government had a burst of common sense.

But then I read into the story and realized it was merely about how Gary-Chicago International Airport would like to someday have more passenger airlines use their facility, which currently provides an outlet for cargo being flown into the Chicago-area and next month will have daily passenger flights connecting Gary to Greensboro, N.C.

THE ROLE OF the Gary, Ind. airport in the development of a third major airport for the Chicago area (in fact, the whole process of trying to develop another airport to compliment O’Hare International and Midway airports) is a classic tale of the way our politicos like to work at their own pace and are more than willing to hold off on the public good if it tries to come too fast.

Political delays in developing a new airport are not unique, as certain issues are perennials. They are controversial topics that sound impressive and provide the raw material for newspaper banner headlines and breathless accounts of television newscasts that make it seem that a historic moment is about to take place.

The classic perennial issue is gambling, particularly the construction of a casino in Chicago proper (not Elgin or Aurora or Joliet or any of the northwest Indiana towns). As recently as last year, officials talked of creating a casino as a way of raising money to help raise needed money for mass transit in Chicago.

With some work, this airport could be the Chicago equivalent of Newark International. Photograph provided by Indiana Department of Transportation.

But it didn’t happen. It never does.

CASINO PROPOSALS OF many differing details were debated every single year I covered the Illinois General Assembly (1993-99) and have been discussed every year since I have moved beyond the Statehouse Scene. Actually, it wasn’t even a new issue when I covered it.

Despite all the rhetoric, NOTHING has ever happened that would result in shovels being turned in earth to dig up soil to lay a foundation for an actual casino in Chicago.

Similar to gambling, we’re also nowhere near getting a third airport for the Chicago area, even though the issue has been under review for three decades and reached a peak 17 years ago.

How long has this issue dragged on? Had action been taken back in 1991 when politicians were focused on it, we likely would now have an airport somewhere near Chicago to supplement the two airports that lie on the edge of the city limits.

COMING UP WITH an airport site has always been the problem, largely because politicos in Illinois and Indiana both want to ensure their state receives the economic benefits from its construction. Actual aviation needs of an airfield are irrelevant to many political people.

Back in the early 1990s (I covered mass transit for awhile for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago), a commission of officials from both states had narrowed the sites down to four. One was a major overhaul of what was then called Gary Regional Airport, which had a cute little terminal and one runway.

Chicago officials always acted as though the issue didn’t affect them because none of the sites were in Cook County – the others were near Peotone, Kankakee and a site east of Beecher, Ill., whose sole benefit was that the Illinois-Indiana state line cut through the middle of the proposed airport (making it the perfect political compromise).

But Mayor Richard M. Daley derailed the process by proposing an airport on the far Southeast Side of Chicago that would have obliterated neighborhoods like Hegewisch and suburbs like Burnham, and would have turned places like South Chicago and Calumet City into a southern equivalent of places like Park Ridge and Wood Dale – which get hit with constant O’Hare Airport overhead jet noise.

I STILL REMEMBER the day when the political people officially chose the Chicago site. It was pure politics. Indiana officials on the commission solidly favored a Gary airport expansion, while the one south suburban Cook County member picked the site near Peotone and commission member George Ryan (later to become governor) voted for the site near his home town of Kankakee.

All the others voted for Chicago, and it won, only to be derailed the following year when the Illinois General Assembly decided to play its own partisan games. Daley rescinded his offer, and most of the talk about new airports since then has focused on Peotone.

In recent years, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., has tried to lead development of a Peotone airport by saying it would benefit the economy of the entire south suburbs and far South Side of Chicago (which, not-coincidentally, is his congressional district).

But that puts him into a fight with Will County regional officials who want to see a Peotone-based airport as a local entity that cuts Chicago out of the equation altogether.

INSOFAR AS PEOTONE residents themselves are concerned, most of them do NOT want an airport near their homes. But they also see the political delays as evidence that things are so bungled up that nothing will happen anytime soon.

Meanwhile, Indiana officials continue to push for small-scale development of Gary-Chicago International out of hopes that future political mood swings could allow them to be ready to accommodate a future major expansion.

What I remember the most about the 1991 bi-state commission airport hearing was listening to Ryan when he said he could never, in good conscience, make any type of vote that would support putting a Chicago-area airport in Indiana.

That logic is so short sighted.

THE SITE AT the southern tip of Lake Michigan near steel mills make it ideal in that airport noise would affect steel workers (who might not hear it anyway due to the noise emanating from their jobs) and the fish that are able to survive in a portion of the lake that is tainted with steel mill waste.

Noise pollution for people would be minimal. Considering that I once lived under an O’Hare flight pattern (on Irving Park Road four blocks east of Cumberland Avenue), I appreciate first-hand how annoying constant jet noise can be.

A Gary airport expansion also would use land that already is contaminated and someday is going to have to undergo a serious environmental cleanup. Airport critics use that as an excuse to claim Gary is too expensive to build – ignoring the fact that the cost will have to be paid someday and likely will increase with the passage of time.

It might as well be now.

USING GARY AS a site for a new airport even fits in with the existing makeup of the Chicago area with O’Hare to the northwest, Midway to the southwest and Gary-Chicago at the far southeast corner of what can be called the Chicago area.

What is most disgusting about the “third airport” debate is that it is still going on. When it peaked in the early 1990s, studies said that if political people gave the needed approval for an airport site soon (perhaps by 1992), construction could start by decade’s end and the first flights could use the new airport sometime about 2002.

This airport should have been up and running by now. The fact that it isn’t is the ultimate evidence of political people ignoring the public needs.

It’s not like the overcrowded conditions at O’Hare International have alleviated. The only reason the airport is no longer the world’s busiest is because Hartsfield International Airport near Atlanta is busier – not because of a decrease in O’Hare flights.

SINCE MIDWAY IS already at its capacity (and was originally built back in the early days of aviation and was never really intended for modern-day aeronautic activity), it cannot pick up any of the O’Hare overload.

Chicago still needs a new airport.

Yet the political people who perennially discuss building casinos in Chicago also have dragged out talk of developing a new airport.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, I believe the day will come when politicians finally approve a Chicago casino, and perhaps even a new airport. Political people eventually get around to action, as long as they sense that the people affected by the issue have waited their turn.

The perfect example of someone waiting their turn is the Chicago Bears. Back in the mid-1980s, the football team was just as insistent as the Chicago White Sox baseball team that it needed a new stadium.

The White Sox played power politics and threatened to leave Chicago, thereby forcing politicos to act in 1988. Don’t think for a moment that they have been forgiven.

CERTAIN POLITICAL PEOPLE who resent all government support for sports teams think of the White Sox in particular as “persona non grata” because they forced the Illinois General Assembly to act ahead of its snail-pace preference.

But had the Sox waited until Illinois lawmakers finally felt like doing something, they likely would have had to wait as long as the Bears, who did not get a major overhaul of their existing stadium until 2003.

At that rate, maybe we’ll see a new Chicago area airport some time by 2020. Let’s just hope the needs of Chicago aviation can hold out until then.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Gary-Chicago International Airport (which I once heard suggested should be called Chicago South Shore Airport) has an ideal location to be the third-major airport (http://www.garychicagoairport.com/) for the Chicago area. Of course, that means political people in Illinois refuse to take it seriously.

Politicos need professional dedication as much as campaign cash to survive elective office

A part of me has a certain respect for the people who actually decide to run for political office, in part because of the dedication it takes on someone’s part to subject their lives to public scrutiny and allow “the people’s business” to take over their very existence.

“The people’s business” – that’s the phrase I have heard used semi-jokingly when political people refer to their work, and it is true. The decisions they make affect the regulations that confront our daily lives and how much tax is added to the price of the objects we buy.

PEOPLE WHO GET elected to a city council or state legislature post have to succumb to the minutia of government policy and accept that someone (sometimes me) is going to find fault with whatever they do, regardless of what they do.

So I’ll have to admit that I gained respect for Tim Baldermann, a Republican candidate for Congress from Illinois’ 11th congressional district, when he decided now that he did not want to proceed with plans to run for the federal post in Washington.

When he announced his decision last week, Baldermann said he was only now realizing how time-consuming it would be to run a serious campaign that might actually have a shot at winning the congressional seat, which represents an area stretching from the outermost southern suburbs of the Chicago area down to Bloomington – a combination suburban and rural Illinois district with many conflicting interests and opportunities to upset people.

I wonder what becomes of that great big headshot banner? Photograph provided by Baldermann for Congress.

He also came to realize the expense of political campaigns. Although he managed to raise about $203,000 to spend on his primary election victory over two no-name politicos, having any chance to defeat state Sen. Debbie D. Halvorson, D-Crete, would have required a financial commitment he was not willing to make.

HOW TIME-CONSUMING can it be if you don’t have great personal wealth to pay the bills for a modern-day campaign?

The late Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois used to say he had to spend a part of every single day he was in federal office (12 years in the U.S. Senate, 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives) making telephone calls intended to solicit donations so that he could have the funding necessary to run respectable re-election campaigns.

He hated doing it, but the drive to have a positive influence on public policy was so strong in Simon that he made the calls and got the cash contributions so he could keep going back to Washington to do, “the people’s business.”

Someone who is honest enough to admit publicly he doesn’t want to make the calls and whose drive to be a part of the legislative process isn’t strong enough to undergo the ordeal deserves our respect.

ILLINOIS REPUBLICAN CHAIRMAN Andrew McKenna expressed similar sentiments, saying in a statement released Friday that, “running for Congress is a difficult job that requires the full commitment from a candidate and his family.”

Not all Republican officials feel that way. Some are upset.

The congressional seat in question is held by retiring Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Ill., whose actions in Congress have caused enough of a public outcry that political observers think Democrat Halvorson is the favorite to win the Nov. 4 election.

They wish Baldermann had decided before the Republican primary election earlier this month to get out of the race. They would have rather had a candidate with the legitimacy of being chosen by GOP primary voters, rather than someone who will be lambasted by Halvorson and by Green Party nominee Jason Wallace as an illegitimately chosen flunky indebted to party hacks rather than, “the people.”

SOME MIGHT THINK a non-committal Baldermann is better than a no-name with a weak resume who is no more legitimate than Lar Daly, the legendary Chicago guy who ran for virtually everything during his lifetime (he never won); campaigning against tax increases and for castration of rapists while using the nickname “America First’ and wearing an “Uncle Sam” suit.

But the cowardly thing for Baldermann to do would have been to remain in the campaign, then proceed to run a weak election effort that would have drawn no attention and whose purpose would merely have been to fill a space on the Republican side of the November general election ballot.

Then, after losing to Halvorson, he could have tried claiming it was just a bad year for Republicans in ’08 and probably would have spewed the political rhetoric of losers – their political party didn’t do enough to support them.

I’m glad to know we won’t be hearing such talk from Baldermann, who was a desirable candidate for the Republican Party in Illinois because of his public service resume. He has never held a federal government position, but he is mayor of his hometown of New Lenox (a far southwest suburb of Chicago) and he also is police chief of the inner southwest suburb of Chicago Ridge.

HE IS A law enforcement professional who is not so limited in his worldview that he takes the time to understand the workings of municipal government. That is a combination of factors that, on paper, could have given Halvorson’s decade-long career in the Illinois Legislature a serious challenge.

One aspect of Baldermann’s withdrawal is ironic – the region of Illinois he comes from. Those same southwest suburbs of Chicago also produced one of the other notable incidents of a guy who decided that modern-day electoral politics just wasn’t for him.

Back in 1995, Edward Zabrocki was the long-time mayor of Tinley Park who decided to try getting into politics beyond the municipal level – winning election to a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives.

HE WAS A part of the Republican majority that seized control of Illinois government that year and used its power to try to ram a blatantly partisan political agenda through. The power politics disgusted Zabrocki so much that he resigned his seat after serving only six months of the two-year term to which he was elected. He has never to this day sought any office beyond being mayor of his hometown.

By getting out now, Baldermann becomes like Zabrocki – someone who decided that his real life was more important than a political one. Even though both men remain as suburban mayors, the reality is that those part-time posts are largely exempt from the “Democrat vs. Republican” wars some of us find so intriguing about politics.

I don’t know whom the Republicans are going to come up with to replace Baldermann on the November election ballot, although party officials from counties stretching from Will to McLean and out west to Bureau will have to get together soon (possibly this week?) to choose a replacement.

THE POLITICAL JUNKIE in me would have loved to see a serious clash between Baldermann and Halvorson. I was looking forward to the political infighting that would have taken place.

But now, I’m going to have to look elsewhere to fulfill my dreams of a congressional campaign brawl. Perhaps I’ll turn to the Illinois 14th congressional, where Republican James Oberweis is only a narrow favorite to defeat Democrat Bill Foster.

Despite the historic GOP tendencies of that far west suburban and rural Illinois district, the same national political trends that boost Halvorson’s campaign favor Foster against Oberweis. That is why those two are already spending big money on campaign ads to let us know that Foster is a liberal flake and Oberweis is a right-wing nut who sold out American jobs to China.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Here is the Internet presence of the congressional campaign (http://www.timbaldermannforcongress.com/) that never will be. It will be interesting to see how long this link remains alive.

From the “home of Proud Americans,” some information about Baldermann’s municipal (http://www.newlenox.net/board.html) record. It’s no wonder the GOP wanted him, even though some conservative elements believe Baldermann was little more (http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2008/01/ir-focus-tim-ba.html) than a stooge for Cook County Board member William Beavers.

Details (http://www.southtownstar.com/news/808410,022208Baldermann.article) about Baldermann’s withdrawal.

For anyone who thinks Lar “America First” Daly sounds too ridiculous to be real, keep in mind (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892443,00.html) that my imagination is nowhere near creative enough to come up with a character like Lar.

Illinois’ new hot congressional race (the Illinois 14th) provides Hispanic people with lousy options regardless of who wins. Details are provided in a commentary published at The South Chicagoan (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/), which is the Chicago Argus’ sister weblog.