Who benefits from casino locations?

Chicago is finally going to be able to have a casino operating within the city limits, yet that doesn’t mean the politically partisan infighting is anywhere near to being complete.

Where, oh where, in Chicago will this become a reality?

Because Chicago is a big city. Now we get to fight about just where it ought to be located.

JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY is prepared to make an argument about how their neighborhood is the choice location that ought to provide Chicago with the potential economic benefits that a casino can create.

Of course, those arguments are going to be countered with quarrels about how putting a casino in somebody else’s neighborhood is a sure-fire way to ensure that a casino would fail to produce any benefits.

After all, nobody wants to go there!

We’re going to be hearing a lot of these arguments in coming months. Because while people will talk about city-wide benefits from gambling and a casino, they’re going to want to have the perks coming from their own neighborhood. Chicagoans aren’t really united enough to work together for our collective betterment.

WE’D JUST AS soon see each other get screwed over, if it means we can be the ones who come out on top.

That’s why I wonder if the debate over locating a casino will be as long and drawn-out as the fight has been over whether to let Chicago have a casino at all.

There are those who always argued the whole point of casinos was to provide economic benefits to isolated communities that can’t attract any other kind of economic development projects.

They’re the ones who took their opposition to a Chicago casino all the way down to last week’s Legislative vote that permitted the city to have gambling somewhere within their limits.

IT’S INTERESTING TO see Gov. J.B. Pritzker argue against putting a casino anywhere near downtown or the McCormick Place convention center. He said this week he wants a Chicago casino put out in one of the isolated neighborhoods that otherwise wouldn’t have any kind of attraction to draw people within their boundaries.

In short, he’s following the line of logic that Illinois originally had back when it placed casinos in places like East St. Louis or Metropolis.

Although there are other people who think that placing a casino downtown or near the convention centers is the way to ensure that large numbers of Chicago tourists have easy access to the place. Why place a casino at an isolated location where it would be difficult for anybody except for those who already live nearby to attend?

It’s the argument I’ve heard about developing a casino at a South Side location, particularly if we’re talking about the far Southeast Side 10^th Ward.

WHO’D MAKE THE trip to the East Side neighborhood if they weren’t already there. Although there are others who argue that the neighborhood’s proximity to the Illinois-Indiana border and the casinos that have cropped up in Hammond, East Chicago and Gary, Ind., would mean we’d be able to steal away business from Indiana.

In short, get people to quit venturing across the state line when they feel the urge to gamble. Stay in Illinois, and keep your losses here.

Of course, consider that other casinos would be permitted in the nearby south suburbs, Waukegan, Rockford, Danville and Williamson County in Southern Illinois. We’re bound to wind up putting casinos just about everywhere – making it all to easy for people to blow their money on games of chance.

Which could result in the notion of true economic development coming about from drawing real businesses to one’s community – instead of a chance at a job parking cars at the casino or keeping the casino’s buffet well-stocked. Because those are the kind of jobs most likely to be made available from a casino construction somewhere.

  -30-

Commuter trains wonderful; that is, until they don’t work on schedule

I’m a native of what’s  thought of these days as the greater Sout’ Side part of Chicago (having lived both city and suburb), and I’m actually someone who often uses the commuter trains in order to get around.

Commutes through the Hegewisch neighborhood were among those tampered with Tuesday by Mother Nature. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

It’s largely because I don’t have an automobile these days; enjoy the notion of not having a monthly car payment to make and also detest the idea of paying for parking – particularly on those occasions when I have to travel downtown.

THE ONE TIME in my life I shelled out some $35 to park a car for about two hours in a downtown garage is a horrid memory – and an experience I never want to repeat again during my lifetime.

So let’s just say that the hardest part of the crummy winter weather we’ve experienced in recent weeks is what it has done to my commute.

I’m actually one of those individuals who was impacted by the commuter trains being totally thrown off schedule – if not shut down outright. Of course, the wintry weather also significantly reduced my desire to make any sort of trip unless absolutely necessary.

Which is why Tuesday was particularly depressing during the morning hours.

Weather tampered w/ overhead cables

THAT WAS THE time when the Metra commuter railroad’s “Electric” line was out of commission, as was the South Shore line that takes people from downtown Chicago into Indiana all the way out to South Bend.

I’ve almost never made the trip all the way to the home town of Notre Dame. But there are times when I do have to venture into Hoosierland and rely on a combination of the two trains (usually making the transition in the Hyde Park neighborhood) to get there.

Learning that such a trip was impossible put quite a damper on my morning mood.

Fortunately for me, the travel I had to do on Tuesday didn’t come until later in the day by which time the trains were up and running again (with the icy conditions having been overcome, for the time being). And also, I was able to borrow use of a car for the day.

WHICH MADE ME a commuter braving the icy roads and hoping that I neither lost control of someone else’s automobile – or no one else driving around me lost control of their car and came crashing into me!

Many fewer commuters passing through Millennium station these days

Being able to rely on the commuter trains (and the CTA ‘el’ within the city limits proper) is such a convenience. One of the advantages of urban life.

That is, until the weather manages to take the system down in whatever way possible so that the ability to transport oneself from place to place becomes a near impossibility.

Then, one can feel so incredibly isolated even within a massive urban area. Almost as though Mother Nature is feeing the need to remind us all that none of us are above the impact of her quirks and how she, not we, are the ones ultimately in control of our environs.

Anxiously awaiting summer days

I’LL ADMIT IT was worse a couple of weeks ago at the peak of the polar vortex – remember those days of 50-below wind chill temperatures and railroad people literally were igniting the train tracks aflame so as to keep them from freezing over and it was all the commuter train lines throughout the Chicago area that were impacted?

This is a lesser scale inconvenience, but it has me hoping for springtime weather. With the fact that springtime-like weather conditions in Arizona made it possible for both the White Sox and Cubs to begin spring training camps was little concession.

I will admit I was pleased to learn that Metra is considering this weekend free train rides (as to the usual $10 fare for a weekend pass) come Saturday and Sunday. It has me pondering a trip downtown so as to take advantage of the discount perk.

It would, however, be just my luck that the free fare comes at a time when the train (which has a commuter stop just a couple of blocks from my current humble abode) isn’t any guarantee to be operating, or running anywhere near to on schedule.

  -30-

EXTRA: No more Oriental Theater? Amazed change didn’t occur years ago

Reports of the Oriental Theater in downtown Chicago planning to change its name made me thankful that this change is not being made amidst a stink of controversy.

Marquee to be replaced. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

For it seems the theater, built on the site of the old Iroquois Theater that was the location of a major catastrophic fire in Chicago history, is now going to take on the identity of its owners.

THE ORIENTAL WILL now become the James M. Nederlander Theater. As in for the family long involved in live entertainment that operates the Nederlander Organization.

It takes on an identity that people with knowledge of theater and drama in general will recognize while also replacing a label that some people will manage to find great offense with as an ethnic insult.

“Oriental,” of course, referring to the Far East and anything Asian. As opposed to “Occidental,” which refers to the Far West. Occidental University, for example, is in Los Angeles.

Some people find Oriental to be offensive on the grounds that it tries to put a generic label on all the assorted cultures that comprise the totality of Asia. Whereas rarely do people try to dismiss the entirely of Western culture as Occidental.

WE TRY TO acknowledge the great differences on what makes up the “other” half of this planet we all call home.

Interior of Iroquois, following fire of more than a century ago

But you just know there will be the kind of people, particularly in this Age of Trump in which we’re now all caught up in, who will want to take great offense at being told their generic label is too generic to apply to modern-day life and society.

If this is one name change that can take place without a large amount of controversy and complaints about political correctness run amok (which usually means whoever is saying it does not want to be called out about their own bigotry and ignorance), that would be a plus.

The last thing we need is another controversy about the name of a place that I suspect many of us Chicagoans rarely find time to visit.

  -30-

Our retail habits continuously evolve – will old Carson’s become Amazon.com

It always amuses me whenever I think about retail practices (not that I think about them that often) to realize that one of the grand old spots of shopping in Chicago is now just another Target store.

The old nameplates remain ...

Which has me wondering with the news reports that Target may be purchased sometime this year by that behemoth of Internet shopping. As in Amazon.com.

DOES THAT MEAN the one-time Carson Pirie Scott flagship store on State Street will essentially become a visible sign of just how much Amazon.com has taken over the world of retail?

The idea behind the purchase, according to the Bloomberg Business News service, is that Amazon.com and Target already share a common demographic in terms of people who rely on them to purchase the goods they wish to have in life. Combining could create a sizable retail combine – albeit one not quite as big as Wal-mart.

But then again, the so-called retail experts consider that to be a separate demographic of shoppers. It’s a matter of everybody will claim they control their segment of society, and don’t really care about other groups amongst us.

But to me, the idea that the grand old department store (which had operated at various sites in Chicago since 1854 and at its current State/Madison street location since 1904) continues to stand in its architectural grandeur (designed by famed architect Louis Sullivan) but without its old retail elegance is amusing.

EVERY TIME I find myself inside the old Carson’s these days, I find myself trying to find traces of the old style – only to find that I’m in a Target barely distinguishable from the Target stores one can find anywhere else in Chicago or at various suburban locations.

If this deal does go through, will that one-time Carson’s location wind up taking on the smiling Amazon.com logo? Will it become a place people go to if they happen to be downtown, check out the goods, then return home to place the order?

... even though the classic retail businesses are long gone from State Street

I’ve seen that kind of behavior in many a Barnes & Noble bookstore, and it is one that I personally find strange. You’d think that since they’ve already made the trip to the store, they’d just buy the item right there and then!

But this is a new age now that we’re well into the 21^st Century and we now have people coming of age who weren’t even alive back on that date when the 1900s receded into the past and we moved into this era of the 2000s (is that 2-thousand or 20-hundred?).

REGARDLESS, I STILL find the old Carson’s building, along with the one-time Marshall Field’s just a couple of blocks north on State Street, to be significant landmarks.

They are points that help me personally anchor my location whenever I happen to be walking about. Yes, thinking of something as being “just a couple of blocks” from Carson’s is the way I think – even if there probably are some deluded individuals who will see the Target bullseye logo and think I’ve gone goofy.

It’s just a matter of how we think. Besides, I’m sure there will be a certain subgroup of people who have become so accustomed to the Target label on that structure that they will forever think of it that way – and will have an even younger generation think they’ve gone goofy.

“What Target? That’s Amazon.com!,” they’ll say.

OF COURSE, IF you want to live in the past and still shop at the Carson’s brand, you can always hit any of the many suburban locations that have kept that name – even though the flagship store did not.

A place to reminisce about Chicago of old. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

Just as you can still walk into what is now the downtown Chicago store of Macy’s and try to pretend it is still Marshall Field’s. Particularly if you go down to the basement level and spend all your time by the Frango mints stand. That brand has managed to outlive the company that originally created it.

Although the Amazon.com move (which previously took over the Whole Foods brand name) toward Target does have me wondering who eventually will wind up taking over the one-time Field’s.

And if we’re ultimately moving in the direction of all types of stores becoming tied together and merged into one massive entity to be known as “The Store.”

  -30-

Has Mother Nature developed a multi-color hue for Chicago's namesake river

There’s one thing that anybody who’s native to Chicago knows for sure – our namesake river ain’t blue in color.

The natural muddy green of Chicago River. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

You might be able to look out to the east from downtown high rises and see a Lake Michigan that is a luscious blue in color and appears to extend off so far into the distance that you might mistake it for an ocean, rather than just a lake – albeit one of the Great Lakes that make the Midwestern U.S. so unique.

BUT EVERYBODY WHO’S ever spent time here knows the Chicago River, which the lake flows into so as to avoid having our sewage and waste wind up in our drinking water supply, knows our river water is different.

It has taken on a green hue. In fact, it has taken on different shades of green, and not just because of St. Patrick’s Day.

For on that March day, city officials go out of their way to add dyes to the river water (or at least the portion of the river that separates Downtown from the Near North Side) so that it becomes a bright Kelly green.

As opposed to the sickly, dingy green with a touch of brown to it that is the usual color of our namesake river.

Still some industry in downtown portions of Chicago River

IT’S ACTUALLY ONE of the local gags, the quality of our river. So tainted with sludge that it might almost be possible to walk across the water, even if you don’t happen to be Jesus Christ.

Or that one accidental tumble off a downtown bridge into the water and the biggest threat may not be that you’d drown, but that you’d become poisoned just by coming into contact with the water.

By comparison, salt piles along Chicago's 'other' river -- the Calumet

My own gag acknowledges the fact that the river water quality actually has improved in recent years – to where our river is no longer toxic, but is now merely polluted.

Despite all of these noxious comments (about as tainted as the river itself), I have to say I always considered the Chicago River – particularly the part of it that goes through downtown from Lake Michigan to the split between the south and north branches – to be a significant part of our city’s personality.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think about the fact our city’s river is now taking on distinct shades? Is it a split personality? A physical manifestation of Chicago’s character?

For what it’s worth, WLS-TV on Monday reported that since Friday and through the weekend, the river has taken on distinct shades of green. The south branch being the usual muddy green color that we usually associate with the river while the north branch has a brighter shade almost like that fake green trotted out every St. Patrick’s Day.

Is this Mother Nature’s way of saying we ought to celebrate St. Patty’s Day every day in Chicago?

Is the muddy green color appropriate as river passes Trump tower?

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the Chicago Department of Water Management both told the television station that this multi-shade of green is actually natural, and not something we need to concern ourselves with. Not yet, anyway.

RECENT STORMS AND seasonal vegetation changes allegedly are responsible for the varying hues. Although further tests are supposedly still being taken to see if there’s going to be any lasting effect to Chicago River water.

Personally, I find this quirky – almost something to laugh about. Considering that Chicagoans of any sense know better than to drink directly from the river, and that we know it is still decades far in the future that one-time Mayor Richard J. Daley’s decades-old dream of people being able to fish in the Chicago River will become reality.

So as for our river, we’ll have to adapt to multi-shades of green, and let’s hope it doesn’t turn fiery red.

The Cleveland Indians baseball team may be closer to a World Series appearance than our Chicago White Sox, but we’re more than willing to let Cleveland and its Cuyahoga River (which caught fire due to the waste in the water back in 1969) be unique.

  -30-

EXTRA: Video blasts from Chgo past

Rummaging through the accumulated scraps of junk otherwise known as the Internet, where I stumbled through the many multiple views of the Second City as seen throughout the years.

For some of you, the only appeal of Jean Shepherd's "America” will be the fact that they love the “A Christmas Story” film every Dec. 25 and will appreciate the Hammond, Ind., native’s take on Chicago. For it seems that Shepherd is among those who appreciates the fact his hometown is so close to the Greatest City on the shores of Lake Michigan.

BUT FOR THOSE who are particularly annoyed with this past baseball season and the way it has turned into a love-fest of cutesy Cubbiness and certain fans who are convinced their ball club has now developed a New York Yankee-like aura of invincibility, it will be nice to be reminded that Chicago is a two-team town when it comes to the national pastime.

Shepherd was a Chicago White Sox fan, and I got a kick out of him shooting a portion of this film from the right field seats of the old Comiskey Park – section G, seat 161, which supposedly was his father’s favorite general admission seat whenever he went to ballgames.

It’s also amusing to hear Shephard compare Chicago to small-town America, with Marshal Fields as the corner store and Lake Michigan as the swimming hole nearby.

I also got my kicks from seeing the “Chicago, 1957” video – a couple of minutes long, that manages to show us places that haven’t changed one bit during the past 60 years. Even though some others would like to think Chicago is nothing like it used to be.

THERE’S PARTICULARLY THAT point at Wabash and Lake streets where you see the “el” trains making the bend and you wonder if this is the moment when the trains will derail again at that spot – which actually happened once back in 1972 and was something that a certain generation of Chicagoans won’t ever forget.

Then, there’s the person who felt compelled to put on YouTube a collection of television commercials for local businesses back in 1971.

I’m still trying to figure out if I’m most amused by the vintage commercial for Courtesy and DuraFab, with the knuckleheaded kid who got his hot dog stains all over his friend’s parents couch, or the Marshall Brodien spots for TV MagiCards.

Which could supposedly give anybody the magical skills of Wizzo the Wizard from Bozo’s Circus.

  -30-

EXTRA: How many people saw 'Extras'

One of the memories I have of this date 16 years ago was from the afternoon hours, probably about 4 p.m., when I was passing through the Loop on my way home from work.
 

Collectable? Or fish wrap?

I was with United Press International at the time, and like many other downtown businesses on that day, we closed up shop and evacuated the downtown area.

THAT DIDN’T MEAN we got the day off. We wound up reconvening at an editor’s home and spent our workday there – mostly writing react to what had occurred in Manhattan and suburban D.C. that day what with jets being hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon as a vicious political statement.

Not that I was the only reporter-type person who kept working at a time of crisis.

For when I returned to the Loop to shift over to another commuter train that would actually get me back home, I found a newsboy (actually, a little older than a boy) peddling newspapers at Wabash and Randolph streets.

Specifically, he had the “Extra” editions that both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times had put together during the past few hours to try to provide a same-day report of what had happened “out East.”

I REMEMBER THAT guy was relieved to see me, and also excited that I promptly bought copies of both papers – which I wound up reading on my commuter train ride the rest of the way home.

What makes that so unusual is that city officials had given the evacuation order of downtown Chicago, just in case there was some sort of other incident that was meant to target the Sears Tower or some other structure in the Second City.

Yes, the paranoia of that day was intense enough that nobody knew for sure what could happen.

It also means that by late afternoon, the streets of Chicago were deserted in a way I have never seen them since. The people for whom those papers were published were long gone from the Loop by the time they were available for sale. Even at 4 a.m., there is still life in downtown Chicago. But not that day. There might as well have been tumbleweeds blowing through the streets of Chicago 16 years ago today.

WHICH MEANS THAT newsboy literally had stacks of papers, and nobody to sell them to. I recall that newsboy was the only other individual I encountered in the Loop in the time I transferred from one train to another (different stations).

I still have those newspapers, tucked away in a drawer along with a few other dates of some significance that I felt compelled to keep. Not that I think I have some sort of treasure to become of great value some day.

I see on e-Bay somebody with the same Tribune “Extra” edition that I have asking $30 – and nobody posting bids for it as of yet.

I wonder how many people who wound up getting out of work early that day who merely went home just waited for the next day’s paper to come out – which gave them an overview of the previous day’s happenings?

  -30-

Has it really been a quarter century since the Great Chicago Flood of ’92?

Twice in my life I have seen the streets of downtown Chicago completely deserted. Keep in mind I used to work an overnight shift for the now-defunct City News Bureau, and the Loop doesn’t die out completely even at 4 a.m.

Chicago River wasn't so orderly a quarter century ago Thursday. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

But there was Sept. 11, 2001 when officials had the downtown area evacuated just in case someone was planning something similar for Chicago to what happened that day in Manhattan and at the Pentagon in the Virginia suburbs of D.C.

THEN, THERE WAS the date that occurred 25 years ago Thursday. The date of the Great Chicago Flood. When the basements of downtown Chicago buildings overflowed with water, engineers supposedly contemplated using mattresses to try to plug the hole and a certain generation will not forget the screwiness of that date.

Which in my mind is odd because the “flood” wasn’t really a flood. It was a leak.

As in the Chicago River sprung a leak and water flowed out and into the century-old tunnels that exist beneath the streets of downtown Chicago. When the water filled up those tunnels, the level had to rise to the various sub-basements that exist beneath downtown buildings.

Including the then-Marshal Field’s department store, where we got to hear the famed radio reports about the fish swimming in the basement at Fields.

WE LATER LEARNED that the leak was caused when workers with the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. that was replacing rotting wooden poles in the river installed a new poll just a little bit off – and wound up puncturing a hole into the tunnel.

This occurred in September of 1991. But it wasn’t until 25 years ago today that the water level became so ridiculously high that we at street level could no longer ignore it.

Personally, I remember working that day from my post at the pressroom of the then-State of Illinois Center. Working the telephones, I was accumulating information that went into the various stories the City News Bureau reported that day. I was vaguely aware that some people were leaving the Loop.

But the level of the evacuation didn’t become apparent until my shift that day was complete and a fresh crew of reporter-types were taking over for the night.

DOWNTOWN CHICAGO CAN be an eerie place when it is deserted and the only activity taking place is the changing of traffic signals from red to green and back again – only it doesn’t matter because there’s no traffic.

No people either.

It was reminiscent of a cheesy film I once saw called “Night of the Comet” in which the passing of a comet somehow unleashes a force that reduces much of humanity to piles of dust – and the few survivors tried to make sense of their lives in the remains of Los Angeles.

It almost felt like a similar force had been unleashed in Chicago – and the city was somehow all mine to do with as I pleased!

THERE LITERALLY WAS no one else around even though there still was daylight in the sky. Not even a newsboy crying out about the “Extra” edition newspapers he had, but couldn’t find anybody to buy (which I did see on Sept. 11, 2001).

Much of downtown Chicago’s life returned the next day, although there were the inconveniences as some places had their plumbing or water service turned off while officials tried to figure out the long-term solution to the problem. I also recall my own place of employment being closed for the day a couple of days later – and we were relocated to the Sun-Times Building. Which since has been obliterated by that giant tacky tower paying homage to His Excellency, Donald the First!

But the Great Chicago Flood where the river didn’t overflow. In fact, where else but in the Second City could a river spring a leak?

It’s all a part of what gives our fair city its unique character. That, and the hot dogs (Only Mustard Ever!!!)

  -30-

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): How many parades do we need?

Better in pictures, than in person?

Call it the controversy amongst Chicago’s Puerto Rican community that is likely to spill over toward all of us – activists are fighting about the Puerto Rican Day parades, which it seems this year will be a singular parade.

For officials reached a decision last week by which the funds that go toward a Puerto Rican parade along Columbus Drive near downtown will instead be put toward supporting a parade in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

PERSONALLY, I THINK this is a smart move, because I have always thought those downtown parades lost something significant in character when they were moved from Dearborn Street (in the actual downtown area) off to the drive where it felt like they were cut off from the city proper.

I’d be for taking all the ethnic-oriented parades that are held in Chicago and converting them into events held out in the neighborhoods – particularly if there is an ethnic character to the specific neighborhood.

Everybody these days knows that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade along Columbus Drive is generic, compared to the South Side Irish Parade along Western Avenue. If the Puerto Rican activists in Humboldt Park can’t put on a worthy event, then that is to their own discredit.

The same goes for just about any event. Mexican-oriented parades in the Little Village and South Chicago neighborhoods always manage to top the generic feel to a Mexican Independence Day march along Columbus Drive – to name the ethnic events that I would have any personal interest in.

NOW I REALIZE some are going to criticize me for being naïve, or clueless. Although I should say I appreciate the political considerations involved here. For many of the people who want a downtown parade are more opposed to cooperation with the activist-types who put together the neighborhood parade.

A lot of it does tie into the fact that there isn’t a consensus amongst Puerto Ricans as to whether their Caribbean island homeland ought to be the 51^st U.S. state, an independent nation or just keep its commonwealth status.

I’ve actually heard the phrase “Communist” tossed out by the downtown parade proponents to describe the neighborhood activists – which may well be an overstatement to try to lambast anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

What else is of interest as some people contemplate a Puerto Rican pride parade held a few miles further away from the shores of Lake Michigan come June?

 

I doubt any paper I wrote for will give me this sendoff

WORKING TO THE VERY END:  I never actually met Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, but he’s been around for so long that it felt like he was invincible.

Of course, no one is. Ebert himself succumbed last week to cancer – the same condition that took his voice several years ago, but didn’t stop him from being a heck of a communicator in his final years. Funeral services are scheduled for Monday at Holy Name Cathedral.

 

Much of the remembrance we’ve read in recent days tells tales of all those interviews with film business moguls throughout the years and how much influence he and Siskel actually had in terms of whether a film would achieve any commercial success, I must admit that I’m more impressed with his recent years. That, and his animated appearance on The Critic.

But the real significance of the Ebert life story is in the way in which he kept up the quality work, when many people would have decided it was time to pack it in. I’d like to think I could handle myself in a similar manner if I were confronted with his circumstances – although another part of me is honest enough to admit that I (and most of us) probably couldn’t even come close!



How would Lord Jeff of Amherst do...

MICHIGAN/LOUISVILLE WHO??!?:  Amherst College’s Lord Jeffs men’s basketball team beat Mary Hardin-Baylor 87-70 on Sunday, giving the Massachusetts-based college the national title for Division III this year – and their first since they pulled off titles in 2007 and ‘08.



... against Tommy Titan of IWU?

Watching those academically-inclined (but in many cases physically-challenged -- few 7-footers play Division III basketball) student/ballplayers out there on the same court that the Atlanta Hawks play on (and where the nationally-televised Division I game will be played Monday) convinced me all the more that small-school ball isn’t as inferior as some would want to believe.

A part of me was wondering how much nicer it would have been if my alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University, were playing instead. Amherst got to the final by beating North Central College of Naperville, who were the ones that knocked the Titans out in the Sweet Sixteen round of the DIII tournament. Oh well, maybe next year -- which we've been saying every season since 1997!

But it was still an enjoyable experience to watch Sunday’s game (even at the point when the game had to be halted for a bit because some of the arena’s lights went out). I got more of a kick than the masses will get from watching Michigan take on Louisville.

  -30-

If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a transportation-related conspiracy

As expected, the Chicago Transit Authority gave its approval this week to the implementation of a new system by which people would pay their fares for bus and elevated train rides.

Too costly a place to ride to, or park near?

One that would encourage people to pay larger sums of money up-front to purchase contactless cards. The way to persuade people to quit thinking in terms of paying for individual rides is to raise the fare – from the current $2.25 to $3 – for those customers.

OF COURSE, THOSE people catching an el train at O’Hare International Airport would get hit with a $5 fee for that single ride – all part of the rhetoric that says the only people who will really wind up paying the higher fare are those out-of-town tourists who decide to use the “el” during their Chicago visit.

As I wrote earlier this week, I sympathize with those activists who object to this new system, believing that people who rely on mass transit but don’t have the kind of cash to put up front into purchasing a card will get hit with the bulk of the higher fares.

I wasn’t shocked with the CTA approval. I would have been amazed if they could have been swayed.

But now I learn about how city officials also are considering changes in the fees that people pay when they use a downtown parking garage or lot.

AS IF THOSE fees weren’t already enough.

I know that the last two times I was in a situation where I had to drive an automobile into downtown Chicago and park it, I got hit with $34 fees – for leaving my car in a garage for not more than two hours each time.

CTA officials defended their own changes, in part, by saying that the new fare schedule will be complex – and that it is overly simplistic to portray anyone as having to pay an increased fare.

But after reading about the proposal made this week by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, I’m wondering if he’s determined to out-complicate the CTA.

FOR WHAT THE city has in mind, according to the Chicago Tribune, is to alter the taxes on parking fees from an escalating fee to a percentage-based system.

The people who literally are using the garages to park their cars for just a few minutes (or maybe up to 1 hour) could wind up paying less.

Like I wrote, my recent parking experiences in the downtown garages weren’t all that long – yet I still got whacked with what I consider to be a ridiculous fare. A fare that likely will be even higher when/if I get stuck paying it again.

All I know is that it truly discourages me from wanting to have my automobile with me when I have business to take care of in downtown Chicago.

YET THE THOUGHT of using mass transit to go downtown is something that could also become an expensive proposition.

I find Chicago’s downtown district too intriguing a place to want to avoid altogether (and I pity those people who claim they never set foot in or near the Loop). But it almost seems like certain people are determined to put financial obstacles to our ability to go downtown and stay there long enough to enjoy it!

You’d think these people with an interest in propagating the image of the city so as to bolster its economic potential to the max would be interested in avoiding moves such as these that wind up discouraging some people from wanting to come here.

  -30-

Republicans battling it out in 1 ward

We’ve had Republicans swarming in and out of our state all through the weekend, yet I couldn’t help but notice they’re staying out of Chicago proper.

They even didn’t show their faces on Saturday at the event that usually attracts political people – the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Columbus Drive. Considering that I recall President George W. Bush marching with “Hizzoner, Jr.” in the parade a few years ago, it’s not like the concept of a GOPer in the event is so alien.

YET IT IS just testament to how overwhelmingly irrelevant the Republican Party has become in Illinois. The GOP starts off each election down by however many votes come out of Chicago.

In fact, I know one Republican-leaning person (he’s been both a political operative and publisher of ideological newspapers and magazines) who is convinced that the one-time Party of Lincoln will be irrelevant in the Land of Lincoln until the day comes that there is something resembling a significant Republican organization in Chicago proper,

Meaning, not just the outer Chicago suburbs.

So it is with that thought in mind that I have been reading the various reports that have been coming out in recent weeks about how Republicans are taking seriously a campaign for Republican committeeman for Chicago’s 42^nd Ward.

FORMER GOV. JIM Edgar may not have liked the gubernatorial campaign of William Brady, but the two men both agree that they want Tom Smithburg to be the ward’s committeeman within the political party structure.

Illinois Republican Chairman Pat Brady also wants Smithburg. In fact, it seems that much of the Republican establishment (or what’s left of it) wants Smithburg.

Former Gov. James R. Thompson, Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, and Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., all are among the names Smithburg has.

You’d think, getting that many big names and current titles that Smithburg were running for a statewide political post – instead of being the official Republican leader for his ward.

MAYBE THIS IS “Step One” toward the real resurgence of the Republican Party (instead of being the political party for rural Illinois that gets overwhelmed by Chicago and its suburbs on Election Day).

At the very least, it is an interest in the city.

Of course, what makes this particular post interesting is that there is a contested race for Tuesday.

The current committeeman for the 42^nd ward (which consists of downtown Chicago and the near North Side) is Eloise Gerson. She’s had the position for awhile (mostly because no one else has expressed interest in it), and there are some people who claim she is not the nicest of people to deal with.

THEN AGAIN, NEITHER am I.

But the critics also say she is part of the “problem” in that she can’t put together an organization capable of turning out voters on Election Day.

Yet there also is a third candidate, and it is seeming that this particular election will be about a choice between Smithburg and William Kelly. Smithburg is the son of a former Quaker Oats CEO who has been part of Republican “big money” efforts in recent years, while Kelly is a political operative who has been willing to do the “dirty work” of campaigns.

As Smithburg has told us in his campaign fliers, Kelly was the person who caused a mini-controversy by pretending to be a reporter-type person to get access to then-mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel and ask him more harassing-than-usual questions.

SMITHBURG ALSO CLAIMS Kelly is really a Democrat – having voted that way “at least 5 times.” Although Kelly has said in his own defense (in the Republican News Watch website) that he was voting for Richard M. Daley to be mayor – since the GOP has not put up a credible (Ray Wardingley does not count) candidate in a long, long time.

THOMPSON: Long time since GOP mayor

With rhetoric this nasty, you’d think this was for something more than just being the head Republican in downtown Chicago.



But it is the downtown location that makes Republicans seem to want to use this as their starting point for rebuilding relevance. Which has among its residents the kind of monied people who’d be inclined to want to be with the Republican Party, winds up going knee-jerk Democrat each election cycle – just like the rest of the city.



Yet that ward, according to Republicans, provided the presidential campaign of John McCain with 10,125 votes in 2008. Which means there were just over 10,000 people within walking distance of Grant Park who specifically voted against the Obama phenomenon that culminated that night with his historic moment.

TAKE INTO ACCOUNT there are rural counties that don’t even have 10,000 people living in them. Chicago has so many people that it could still provide significant numbers of votes for an opposition party. With hard work and a serious commitment, it could be built upon.

Which is why we have so many Republican big-wigs (even though many of them are former something-or-others) getting involved in this committeeman’s race.

Take this one high-profile ward with a serious political structure, and maybe more wards would follow. It’s not like the Republican Party is going to win any elections in Chicago in the near future. But it would cut into the vote margin if the GOP weren’t quite so irrelevant in the Second City.

  -30-

Oh, Pipe down!

There have been moments during my years as a reporter-type person when someone who I was interviewing was saying something so ludicrous that what I really wanted to do was tell that person to be quiet.

Does this make you think 'casino'?

As in quit making a fool of yourself by proposing something so ludicrous that it’s never going to happen – and whose only purpose is for you to think you can force me to write about you as though you are serious.

NOT EVEN THE idea of asking a lot of nit-picking questions and writing a story pointing out the nonsense of the idea being spouted truly works – because it implies that the original idea was worth being acknowledged.

Which is why it was a good thing that I wasn’t present earlier this week when Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Roper came up with his own idea – turning the Thompson Center state government building into the new casino that is so desired by many city officials (including Mayor Rahm Emanuel).

Roper is one of those people who doesn’t think much of the building, which he said is a “burden” to state government. He does make one legitimate point – that at three decades old-and-counting, the structure has reached the point where it will need major renovations to ensure it will continue to be an acceptable office building for state government’s Chicago offices for decades to come.

So Roper said he thinks the state should unload the building on a casino developer, and let them handle the cost of renovating the 16-story building while they convert it into a casino.

FIRST OFF, THE idea of a casino at Randolph and Clark, just to the north of City Hall/the County Building is so ridiculous just because of its proximity to government. It would be a bad joke waiting to be told to put it there.

Plus the fact that any casino is going to have to have its own parking facilities – even if it means some sort of exclusive parking garage.

Those facts alone ought to be enough to show how ludicrous the idea truly is. Although when I think about it some more, I also realize that Roper’s idea is ridiculous because that square-block cylinder in use by state government isn’t anywhere near enough to house a legitimate casino.

For as Roper said he envisions it, the casino would be in that basement level where people can currently devour all forms of fast food, and on the ground level entrance where all those nondescript  stores now exist.

ALL OF THE upper floors that now house state agency offices would be converted into hotel rooms.

With the idea being that people could walk out of their room onto the balcony, look down and watch for themselves all of the gambling taking place beneath them.

Maybe he’d envision turning the governor’s office into some sort of exclusive suite, with people saying the slept in the space where much illicit activity took place (even though Rod Blagojevich rarely set foot in this particular office).

By that kind of logic, the ninth floor room straight back from the elevator bank (which once was a press room where reporter-types at the building would congregate) would become some sort of no-frills, discount room for cheap people not willing to pay much of anything.

I MOCK THIS casino idea because it’s just too ridiculous.

That basement level just doesn’t offer enough floor space for all the hard-core gambling that would be essential to a Chicago casino (a lot of people are going to have to lose lots of money in order for the facility to generate the kind of gross income that could then be taxed by the city and the state).

There’d probably be enough space for slot machines, which means you’d have a casino filled with cheap people looking to throw away their quarters. There would be none of the more-prominent “games of chance” that would generate the gambling activity of the real “high rollers.”

But aside from these serious attempts to point out the flaws of converting the James R. Thompson Center (nee, State of Illinois Center), there is one issue that ought to show, in and of itself, how ridiculous the idea is.

WHAT WOULD YOU do with state government?

There may be vacancies in office buildings scattered throughout “the Loop.” But the idea that agencies would move willy-nilly all across downtown Chicago – one agency here and another there – is absurd.

About the only people who would want this are those who can’t handle the fact that for some state agencies, the Chicago office is more important than the one in the capital city of Springfield. Or those who think that government buildings are supposed to be marble monstrosities decorated with gargoyles and look like they came from the 19^th Century.

They come up with all kinds of crazy ideas to justify trying to shut down the Thompson Center as a government building (which was one of Blagojevich’s more ridiculous ideas – and one that we should be thankful it never went anywhere).

WHICH IS WHY I’m glad that Gov. Pat Quinn didn’t get sucked too deeply into responding to Roper’s casino proposal. Don’t dignify nonsense with a serious response.

Besides, I don’t know how seriously I could take as a casino a building that I once saw appear in the 1986 film “Running Scared.”

I don’t know what was more ludicrous – the idea of bags of “cocaine” splattering on the atrium floor? Or the sight of actor Billy Crystal supposedly being a fierce Chicago cop who goes around wearing a Cubs jersey?

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: I almost put this story in the same category -- the anonymous speculation that Rod Blagojevich could get Thirty years to Life in prison when he ultimately is sentenced. It is ridiculous to think it should be so long, unless you're the type of person who lets your political partisanship get the best of your common sense. If it does happen, we truly should be outraged.