Bring out the video cameras!

I’m wondering how many people are going to feel a smart-aleck attitude and start whipping out their cell phones or whatever other portable device they happen to carry when they find themselves in the presence of a police officer.

Although I’m also wondering how many cops are going to start pulling out similar recording devices to take pictures of people whom they think are paying a little too close attention to them.

THERE HAVE BEEN several stories in recent years concerning the laws that make it a felony criminal offense to take pictures of police while they’re on duty.

Ever since Rodney King got beaten by police in Los Angeles, there have been those who view the “problem” as the fact that anyone would think it appropriate to photograph or videorecord police officers while they work.

Because invariably one can easily capture “evidence” indicating they were less than professional in the performance of their duties.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, which occasionally does its own random recording of police just to remind them that somebody’s watching, has filed lawsuits that culminated in a Monday ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States.

THE NATION’S HIGH court upheld a federal appeals court that ruled the laws against taping were improper. That lower court said it impinged on a person’s right to freedom of expression by saying that police were off-limits.

Of course, what really outraged people was the fact that the lawmakers who put a restriction on photographing police officers made it one of the more severe categories of felonies – one that can carry a prison term of up to 15 years.

In short, one had the potential (until Monday) to spend a significant portion of their lives in incarceration if a police officer got it in his (or her) head that he/she was being watched too closely.

It doesn’t surprise me to learn that police officers feel that way about themselves.

I’M JUST PLEASED to learn that the Supreme Court issued a ruling that tried to bring some semblance of sense to our law.

Because the honest truth is that there are so many cameras being erected by so many interests in so many public places that it probably is unrealistic for us to think that somebody isn’t watching us somewhere.

Even the police often have those cameras erected on poles around the city and even in many suburbs. I recently heard of a case where an alderman seriously believes a newly-erected police video camera was positioned to look into his campaign office's windows. Why should police get to watch us closer than we can watch them?

After all, the police are supposed to work for us and protect us? The people who would support such laws are the ones using questionable judgment – which the Supreme Court knocked down.

COULD IT BE that the police were more interested in controlling the images of themselves in action? Because with all the cameras, it is impossible to avoid capturing them in some form.

I was just waiting for the moment when some tourist decided to take a picture of their relatives/friends on State Street with the Chicago Theater marquee in the background – along with an unintended image of some police officer being forced to use restraint on someone.

Just think of the black eye it would have given our city for that person to be prosecuted – particularly if that video had somehow shown the officer to be using legally-questionable tactics in the performance of his/her duties.

Which means what the Supreme Court of the United States actually accomplished by their action on Monday was to ensure that a law that was completely impractical to enforce is now off our statutes! We’re all spared some headaches.

  -30-

From one gridiron extreme to the other

It amuses me the degree to which some people get all worked up into a frazzle whenever the subject of Notre Dame football is discussed.

How long has it been since "Touchdown Jesus" didn't feel like weeping instead?

While I’ll be the first to admit that some Notre Dame fans can be insufferable (I find the film “Rudy” to be unwatchable), the level to which some people go to express their outright hatred of the Fighting Irish is just downright stupid.

IT IS WITH that latter group in mind that I must confess to being pleased to learn that Notre Dame managed to defeat the University of Southern California Saturday night – and that it would take some serious mathematical juggling worthy of a corrupt Election Day vote counter to deny Notre Dame a spot in the Bowl Championship Series top game.

As for those people who’d really rather think that a legitimate championship should consist of two Southern schools (specifically from the Southeast Conference), to them I can only get in the holiday season and say, “Bah Humbug!”

I don’t know if I really consider the Chicago metro area to stretch as far east as South Bend, Ind. (the way some area sports fans do). But it will be intriguing to have something resembling a local angle come the early January date when Notre Dame takes on the best of Dixieland in an attempt to say which was the best college football team for 2012.

If it winds up being seen as a loogie spit in the face of certain pundits, I’ll root for a Fighting Irish victory on that date.

AND BY PUNDITS, I’m thinking of one New York-based clown I saw talking last week on television about what he regarded as stupid expansion by the Big Ten.

The conference that once was all about our Midwest and the Great Lakes states is now in the New York media market in the form of Rutgers University (it’s “New York” in the same sense that Notre Dame is  “Chicago”).

This pundit (whom I’m going to allow to be nameless largely because I didn’t bother to catch his name, and he was so uninteresting that I figure he’s not worth too much of my time) claimed that New Yorkers are “so sophisticated” that they will only pay attention to the “best game,” and there’s no way the Big Ten will ever produce such a game.

You can argue all you want about the quality of play of Big Ten football these days. All I can say is that perhaps he paid too much attention to the University of Illinois – which on Saturday finished of this dismal season without winning a single in-conference game and having an overall record that makes the Chicago Cubs look successful.

THAT WAS QUITE a walloping the Fighting Illini got from “Chicago’s Big Ten Team.” Although I think the fact that Illini fans would have considered a victory over Northwestern University to be a season salvation is kind of sad.

Is there really any difference between 1-7 and 0-8?

Besides, I can’t quite help but think the slogan is a bunch of bunk. My own observation is that many Northwestern students come to Evanston from out-of-town (out-of-state or out-of-country, more likely) and leave here once they graduate.

Attending a suburban-based university is their “Chicago” experience in life – similar to how I did a semester at American University in Washington and say I once lived, however briefly, in the nation’s capital.

I SENSE MORE Chicago spirit for Illinois, where I have known many area residents who made their “downstate” sojourn for a few years before returning home to have their adult lives.

But even then, the most intense fans of Fighting Illini football are the ones who live in those downstate Illinois communities where it is easier to drive to Champaign to see a game rather than make the trips north or south to see the Bears or Rams, respectively.

Admit it. You looked too!



Which is why I sense that for the bulk of Chicago sports fans, there was probably more interest in Notre Dame’s Saturday victory than in anything that happened at building once known as Dyche Stadium.

And as for me? My attention was more focused on the sidelines for whatever glimpses I could gain from the famed USC Song Girls.

  -30-

Will we get Rep. Donne Trotter, D-Ill.?

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., is gone, and that has many political observers trying to figure out which of the current government officials are opportunistic enough to try to boost themselves “up and out” to Capitol Hill.

TROTTER: New congressman?



A lot of South Side aldermen and south suburban legislators are giving such a move some thought, along with some political comeback dreamers such as former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger or one-time Rep. Mel Reynolds.

ALTHOUGH ONE OF the names getting serious consideration is that of a state legislator who has been a part of the political scene for a quarter of a century – although I’m not sure how many people outside of a few South Side neighborhoods are familiar with the name “Donne E. Trotter.”

Get used to it! He could soon be the newest member of the Illinois congressional delegation. Because I get the sense he’s going to be seen as the “safe” choice by Democratic Party officials who will be determined to keep the Second Congressional district seat in their column.

Not that it’s in any serious danger of shifting. More than half of the people who live in the district are either on the city’s Far South Side or its surrounding suburbs in Cook County that have developed majority African-American populations.

The district may go as far south as the Kankakee/Iroquois county line – but the southern end of the district is so sparsely populated that it won’t matter how much those residents will desperately want “anybody but” a city-based Democrat representing them in Washington.

THOSE WERE THE people who gave Republican Brian Woodworth 61 percent of their support on Election Day, only to have Jackson win 63 percent of the vote overall.

Officially, Gov. Pat Quinn is to make some sort of announcement on Monday as to when a special election would be held sometime during the next four months (although some officials are trying to figure if it could be scheduled on the same date – April 9 – as the 2013 municipal elections).

Democratic Party committeemen already have started discussing the process for a special election, and they seem more concerned with the idea of getting party people to unite behind a single candidate from among all the officials who are throwing their names into the fight.

A lot of them are seeing Trotter as the one name who could possibly unite Democrats (at least those Dems from more urban areas) and help avoid a bloodbath by which a dozen Dems knock each other down and allow a no-name to actually get the Congressional seat.

ALTHOUGH I’D ARGUE that if the people of the district had wanted a “no-name,” they would have picked one of the other names on the ballot back on Nov. 6.

For the record, Trotter was born in Cairo, Ill., but has lived the bulk of his life in Chicago and is both Chicago State and Loyola University-educated. He’s been in the General Assembly since 1988 and has held his Illinois Senate seat since 1993.

Although when his legislative district was redrawn to stretch south to Will County communities such as Crete and Peotone), he actually took the time to visit the communities and make himself familiar with their interests.

That kind of attitude is what has party officials thinking he’s the kind of guy who could appeal to all in that physically-huge congressional district filled with people whose worlds almost never interact.

PERSONALLY, I’D HAVE to admit that the idea of Trotter in Congress amuses me because I remember my first dealings with him back when I was with the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago.

I used to be a full-time crime reporter, and that included becoming very familiar with officials at all the area hospitals. Including Trotter, who back then was an administrator at the formerly-named Cook County Hospital.

The idea that I used to deal with a future Congressman to get medical condition updates of the latest gunshot victim sort of amuses me.

Although I have recollections of one argument with Trotter where he was being particularly close-mouthed about a specific patient. In retrospect it likely was Chicago Police officials trying to control the flow of information so much that they weren’t being fully forthcoming with the hospital.

SIMON: The old bow tie



NOT THAT I expect Trotter to remember that specific moment – it bewilders me that I remember it so clearly, other than that my brain tends to be cluttered with trivia.

Although it does have me wondering one point. One of Trotter’s trademarks is his dapper appearance, particularly the bow ties he insists on wearing.

We haven’t had a politico who relied so heavily on the bow tie since the departure of Paul Simon from the U.S. Senate. I’d say we’re due!

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: For those of you wishing to reminisce about Jesse Jackson, Jr., while others will wonder what will become of the proposed new airport project that Jackson often seemed to be the only champion of.

Holed up like a hermit? Or using what little common sense I still possess?

The scene along Chicago's State Street, or any other shopping scene, bore no resemblance Friday to this 1935 Christmas holiday parade. Photograph provided by Chuckman's photos



I was not amongst the many people whom retailers would have you believe were so eager to start their Christmas holiday shopping that they felt the need to take their turkey-bloated carcasses out to whatever shopping mall or big box store is near their homes to begin expressing their love by blowing away their money.

Nor will I be amongst those who will feel the need to make the special trip to State Street (which is a “Great Street” every day except on Friday), or to any other retailer.

I’M SURE SOMEONE is going to think I’m expressing an “un-American” spirit by refusing to do my part to bolster the economy at this “Black Friday” time of the year.

Actually, I’m just doing my part for common sense by refusing to indulge in this shopping mania. I’m going to wind up spending my share of money in coming weeks. I don’t feel the need to be a lemming and throw my wallet over the financial cliff.

Not quite yet, anyway!

Call it my own personal tradition. Friday is the one day that I try to go out of my way to avoid shopping.

MY AVERSION TO having to go out and join the crowds of people who think it is their “duty” to spend money and bolster the financial status of their local retailers is so much that this is the one day of the year that (if everything goes alright) the only money I’m likely to spend is a couple of bucks for newspapers (or maybe close to $5 if I decide to not be so cheap and pick up a copy of the New York Times -- which gives me less of a headache reading it on paper, as opposed to off a digital screen.

Part of it is that I’m not that fond of crowds of unruly people. It’s the same reason I don’t think much of the Taste of Chicago or parades (you’ve seen one, you really have seen them all) in general.

But there is something about the spirit of the day on this Day after Thanksgiving that troubles me.

I don’t like the idea that some people feel like it is a requirement to shop. They really could avoid much of the hassle of dealing with crowds by simply pacing themselves a bit better during upcoming days (or weeks),.

I DON’T WANT to feel like I’m following the rat pack (unless it’s in the spirit of Sinatra, Martin or Sammy Davis, Jr.). Then again, I’m also the type who thinks that Opening Day for the baseball season is overrated.

It’s cold, miserable and the second game of the season is just as good an introduction to a ballclub for the season as the first – except you lose all the people who could care less about baseball and are there because they want to partake in a spectacle.

Friday’s holiday shopping is way too much of a spectacle for me to take seriously.

Besides, I have never believed that the alleged “sales prices” being offered for those who bothered to show up during limited hours Thursday night or Friday morning are all that special.

THE AMOUNT OF money being saved just isn’t significant enough for me to have to put up with the pushy people who are prepared to turn fellow shoppers into road kill if they dare get in the path of that special something of a present for their alleged loved one.

In fact, the only times I have been out in this pack have been the years in which my duties as a reporter-type person provided me assignments requiring me to go out and interview shoppers.

A part of me always wanted to verbally assault these people for being nit-wits. I always felt my resulting stories were more mocking in tone than anything else. So excuse me for being thankful that no editor this year has decided they’d like me to find out what the “hot” gift item is this holiday season.

I don’t know, and I don’t care. Those people I choose to get gifts for will get items I think they will find interesting. Because personally, I don’t despise them enough to just grab some item off a shelf on Friday just because it’s “on sale!”

  -30-

Be thankful we don’t need highway memorial for ourselves – not yet anyway

Those roadside memorials erected by families who don’t want their lost loved ones to be forgotten always manage to capture my attention.

Not so much because they remind me of the fact that someone was killed (usually in an auto accident) at whatever particular spot is marked. But because of the amount of effort it takes to maintain such a spot.

BECAUSE IF ONE just erects a cross and a couple of pictures, the whole thing quickly collapses into junk. That causes local officials to dismiss the whole spectacle as a road hazard, and they come along and turn the whole thing into trash!

That is an idea that bothers the people who erect those memorials – who’d like to think their efforts are permanent.

Which is why my attention was captured by a Chicago Tribune story published Wednesday about Cook County government’s efforts to help these people.

For it seems that the county Highway Department will erect permanent markers that include a name and date of the person being paid tribute to, along with a message telling people “Please Don’t Drink and Drive.”

I’M SURE SOME people are going to think these blue signs with white lettering are rather generic and impersonal. We won’t get the collections of photographs of the deceased that some of these home-made memorials consist of. We won’t get the personal messages from loved ones left at the scene.

Yet there is the touch of permanence (or at least as permanent as any road sign can ever be) from these new county-installed memorial signs. The fact that they won’t deteriorate into a pile of junk does help enhance the overall appearance (even though they eventually will turn to rust, due to exposure to the Midwestern weather elements).

Unless one is willing to keep paying the county a fee – in which case, the sign will be replaced every couple of years.

That is, assuming the accident victim you want tribute paid to was killed along a county-maintained road. Although it seems the Illinois Department of Transportation has a similar program that was the inspiration for the county effort.

IT WILL BE interesting to see how many people actually take advantage of this new program. A part of me wonders if we’ll get some people who will persist in trying to put up their own home-made memorials rather than pay county government a fee.

Even if that fee is miniscule enough that no one’s going to be able to balance the county budget on the money raised from such memorial signs.

Will we get some people taking on a hard-line attitude? And will we now have government officials figuring that these officially-recognized tributes reduce the home-made tributes to the level of litter – so we’re going to start seeing them torn down at a moment’s notice?

Although I have to admit I don’t think it will make much difference as far as I’m concerned.

BECAUSE THE SENTIMENT I experience whenever I see one of these home-made memorials is to be reminded that life can end at a moment’s notice. There usually isn’t much in the way of warning.

I could die while writing this commentary. Or I could last for another 40 or so years. I should try my hardest to make the most of my life while I still have it.

And the fact that I still “have it” is what I am thankful for on this Thanksgiving holiday. That, and the fact that nobody in my surviving family has had to think about trying to erect such a memorial in my name.

  -30-

Is the Twinkie the new New Coke?

This whole affair of the possible shut-down of Hostess products (“No More Twinkies!?!!”) is starting to take on the stink of New Coke.

Twinkies in space, according to this '70's era TV spot



Those of us who were around in the mid-1980s recall how the Coca-Cola Co. said it was changing its formula for the carbonated soft drink – only to revert back to the old formula after the public outcry was so intense.

WE NOW GET it under the brand name of “Classic Coke,” which makes me wonder if it was just a marketing spiel meant to make us appreciate more fully a product many of us were taking for granted and assumed would always be with us.

Which is how I think of all those snack cakes manufactured by Hostess – including the Ho Ho, the Ding Ding, the Suzy Q and the one that’s getting all the attention these days.

The Twinkie!

Hostess Bakeries has had its share of financial problems in recent years, and has tried to put the burden of balancing the company back to financial solvency on the backs of its workers and the labor union that represents them.

OFFICIALLY, THE REASON that company officials said Friday they’re shutting down is because not enough of the company’s employees were willing to cross the picket-line in the nine-day old strike that the union members were engaged in.

Company officials want their employees to take significant pay cuts; so significant that some employees say they’d be better off collecting unemployment benefits instead.

They’re trying to get the people of America to think in terms of those evil labor unions (whom they want to believe are closet Communists,  probably being led by their imperialist leader, Barack Obama) being responsible for them to not be able to get a Twinkie in the future.

Which is behind the fact that stores across the country have been seeing a rush on Twinkies and other Hostess products. People are trying to stock up on the snack cakes so as to postpone that moment when they eat their “final” Twinkie ever!

THAT KIND OF sentiment strikes me as someone who takes their snack cakes far too seriously. Then again, I recall people signing petitions and getting all worked up over the idea that somebody had tampered with their Coca Cola.

Of course, nothing is really a done deal.

There already has been speculation about all the other companies that might pay Hostess Bakeries some money for the rights to use product names such as “Twinkie” or “Ding Dong” on their own products.

There’s also the fact that a judge issued an order recently that is the reason why bakery and union officials spent Tuesday in mediation – hoping that the two sides can come to an agreement that will enable the bakeries to remain open and the Twinkies to keep coming off the assembly line.

BUT THEY COULD not. No one was willing to make anything resembling concessions. Which is why attorneys are preparing for a liquidation hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

That is, if the two sides remain stubborn (and it truly is the hard-line attitude of the company that is trying to place all blame on the union that is causing this situation). Who knows? Perhaps some sense can prevail? How ridiculous will all those people who stockpiled snack cakes during the weekend feel if it turns out that Hostess will continue to make Twinkies?



Is the Penguin behind this latest fiendish Twinkie plot?



For their sake, I hope they have ample freezer space to store all those boxes they bought. Because those things do go stale after a few days if they’re left out in the open – no matter what tales you’ve been told about Twinkies being edibly invincible.

And not even the six-year-old in me would want to eat a stale Twinkie.

  -30-

Oh, be quiet!

It’s pleasing to see that Gov. Pat Quinn is so concerned about the pension funding problems our state government faces, because all too often it seems like our government officials would prefer to ignore the problem for as long as they possibly can.

A new low for state government?



Which is what they basically have been doing for decades.

YET THEN WE get our illustrious governor  acting like a dink, and it almost makes me wish he’d just pipe down on the issue.

For I doubt that anybody is going to be swayed by his, or his office’s, latest actions.

Who else thinks that Squeezy the cartoon python is going to sway anybody to get off their duff and act responsibly? About the only reaction I can envision most of our political people having is adding Squeezy to the list of reasons in their head as to why they think the Mighty Quinn is absurd.

That, and his comments about the new film about Abraham Lincoln, which Quinn has already seen (I haven’t yet).

FOR WHEN QUINN was asked by the Associated Press about his thoughts of the film, he managed to come up with a comparison between the political fight to abolish slavery in this country and to get political people to act on pension reform.

As though Honest Abe was going to be Quinn’s role model for getting the Legislature to act on pension funding shortfalls.

It didn’t come across quite as overbearing and pompous as those people who compare the modern-day Republican Party to the Nazis. But its absurdity level wasn’t that far off.

It’s times like this that we should all wish that Quinn could have an official minder of sorts; someone to give him a tap on the shoulder to let him know when he’s about to say or do something ridiculous that will undermine his efforts to accomplish something of significance.

PERSONALLY, I FIND Quinn’s Lincoln comments more absurd (“You will appreciate the battle to get pension reform if you see the movie and see how hard it was to abolish slavery and get that amendment for the people,” according to the Associated Press) because they came directly from his own mouth.

I think the We Are One coalition is taking it way too seriously when they say they are “shocked and disturbed” by Quinn’s comments. Most people are just snickering – they’re probably more disturbed by the potential loss of Twinkies!

Of course, you could make an argument that some serious tax dollars were spent to create Squeezy the Pension Python and the video that Quinn seriously thinks is going to persuade people to pressure their elected officials to act in a way favorable to the governor’s desires. Squeezy may well be more ridiculous than Toby the Tire who promoted school bus safety!

We should probably be more worked up over this creation than we are at Quinn’s film commentary (nobody ever said he was the next Roger Ebert).

IF THERE IS one serious problem with Quinn’s attempt to jolt a debate on pension funding reform in the week leading up to the return of the General Assembly to Springfield for the fall veto session, it is that the governor is still being vague about what will have to be done to actually resolve the issue.

Quinn has said he’s setting a deadline of early January – he wants the current Legislature to approve something, rather than push the problem off to the newly-elected Legislature.

Yet without putting his neck on the line with a specific solution, he makes it too easy for legislators to ignore him the way they do all too often.

The end result of all this new pension rhetoric with cartoons is that Quinn may well have taken a serious problem and turned it into a laughing matter!

  -30-