EXTRA: History amidst mediocrity

The Chicago White Sox gave us evidence this week that one can find moments of excellence even in the pile of mediocrity that, in all honesty, describes this year's ball club.

If it turns out that the White Sox do manage to rebuild themselves in coming seasons into a championship quality club, Wednesday's 9-4 victory against the Houston Astros may be remembered as an early moment of what was yet to come.

POTENTIAL FUTURE STAR Eloy Jimenez hit two home runs, while Charlie Tilson hit his first home run ever -- and it was a 'Grand Slam' (and no, I don't mean breakfast at Denny's).

But there also was the triple play that got the White Sox out of a jam -- and also made the game only the fourth in Major League history since 1969 where a team pulled off a Triple Play AND a Grand Slam in one evening!

It seems the old axiom is true that even the worst ballclubs are capable of giving out beatings, and even the best ballclubs are capable of getting their butts whomped on any given night!

Which only makes me wonder, just how bad will this weekend's play be to compensate for the great moments we saw Wednesday? This is, after all, a team playing just under .500 (22 wins, 26 losses as of Wednesday) baseball.

  -30-

Weekend of holidaze?

You might not have been aware; but this weekend that is now concluded was loaded with holidays.

Events that I suspect most of us weren’t really aware of. And even if we did, I suspect we did things and engaged in activities that were little more than trivial.

Mexican 'Day of the Dead' imagery, combined with Star Wars visuals

FOR I’M REFERRING to Cinco de Mayo, which is a legitimate holiday honoring an event of great significance in Mexico’s history. But way too many people go out of their way to celebrate by eating “Americanized” tacos and drinking too much tequila or margaritas.

That holiday was Sunday. And I saw far too many notices for assorted taverns that make it clear they viewed the day as an excuse for drink specials meant to get potential customers into their establishments.

Where they can get them to spend more and more money while drinking more than would be advised.

Of course, if we think that is too trivial a way to spend the day, I can’t help but think it’s downright serious compared to Saturday – which was Star Wars Day.

A DAY MEANT to give all of the fans of the Star Wars films a chance to celebrate and act as though there is nothing incredibly geeky or lame about the world in which they like to indulge themselves.

Personally, it strikes me as being about as phony as the fact that Feb. 9 was regarded as National Pizza Day – which I’m sure the restaurant industry thinks is fully legitimate if it can get people to eat out at their local pizzeria (and spend money too).

Saturday got the designation as being Star Wars Day because it calls on May 4 – which fanatics of the film think is all too apropos because, in their minds, it sounds just like “May the force be with you.” The cliché phrase that Star Wars fans think is some sort of philosophy with great meaning in everyday life.

Although I’ll give proponents of this holiday one bit of praise – at least they’re not making a “special” day out of something like Confederate Memorial Day (which will be Friday in South Carolina); celebrating those who were prepared to undermine the U.S.’s existence to support chattel slavery and their own hang-ups over who “belongs” here.

BUT SATURDAY WAS a day for those people who have spent far too much time following the Star Wars films and have made a point of viewing them every chance they get.

Something that I must admit I haven’t done. I saw the original film when it came out in the movie theaters, along with the sequel. But I never viewed any of the follow-up films as being required viewing, and in fact haven’t seen the most recent of them at all. And don’t feel like I’ve had any loss in my life as a result.

So I suppose the point of Saturday was lost on me. It certainly wasn’t a holiday designed with me in mind. And for all I know, the Star Wars geeks probably wonder why I pay any attention to something like baseball (where I couldn’t help but notice on Friday when I went to a ballgame, the Chicago White Sox were selling t-shirts that combined team imagery along with Star Wars characters).

Perhaps the key to the White Sox’ rebuild into a championship-quality ball club is that they can gain a mastery of the so-called force that supposedly controls all aspects of life?

BUT WHILE I find Star Wars Day to be semi-humorous in its triviality, what came the following day almost offends me.

For the fact is that May 5 in Mexican history commemorates the events of 1862 when an insurgency movement attacked a military garrison in Puebla, near Mexico City. It was in that era when France tried to regain a colonial presence in the Americas, and thought that the uncertainty caused in Mexico following the 1840s Mexican-American War left it susceptible to being taken over.

As ridiculous as the holiday itself

Cinco de Mayo commemorates a military victory that inspired the Mexican people to think they were capable of standing up to the major world powers. The very spirit that is meant to be celebrated by those people wishing to show off their spirit of Mexicanidad. And which offends the sensibilities of those people who most approve of this Age of Trump our society is now in.

Which certainly doesn’t sound anything like the people who partook in the piñata party cruise held Sunday afternoon by the Chicago Yacht Events had in mind as they sailed around Lake Michigan,

  -30-

Baseball’s back! But does it really warrant a holiday for the mailman?

A federal government holiday would do nothing to enhance baseball's stature. Particularly compared to the concept of a presidential 'Opening Day,' which is the federal government's true contribution to baseball.

The spring training camps of Major League Baseball clubs are now up and running, with teams in preparation for the 2014 season.

The Chicago Cubs will play their first exhibition of the year on Thursday (against the Arizona Diamondbacks, with WGN-TV carrying the afternoon ballgame), while the Chicago White Sox will have their first exhibition Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers (with whom they share a suburban Phoenix-based training camp).

COME THE END of March and early April, the regular season will be up and running (and we will find out if there really is any reason to think the long-range future for the Cubs, and the short-range future for the White Sox will be any bit of an improvement compared to 2013.

Yes, I feel a bit of excitement at this prospect (and not just because it is circumstantial evidence that the Arctic-like weather we’ve experienced this season can’t last forever).

But I don’t know that I think baseball warrants a federal government holiday. Which is a concept that some people are seriously pushing.



Baseball and beer have ...

The Washington Post reported this week about how Budweiser-brand beer’s owners are trying to get at least 100,000 adults to sign a petition at WhiteHouse.gov that would officially designate a spring day each year as Baseball Opening Day – as in a federal holiday on which the government would close.

THEY ARE USING the initiative created by the president’s staff that give the illusion that the president will listen to their ideas on just about any issue. The petition, if it gets sufficient signatures, will require the president to issue an official response to the idea.

... a lengthy tie to each other. ...

Most of the people who have used it have had far-right ideological issues they wanted to tout. By no means does this obligate the president to do anything about the given issue.

So in that sense, the fact that somebody wants to say baseball’s Opening Day ought to be a holiday? Cute! But it’s not going to happen.

... Does it need a federal holiday too?

What bothers me about this is the fact that it’s not some movement arising from the people – who already know how to enjoy the return of spring and the start of a new baseball season without giving U.S. Postal Service mail carriers another day off from work.

IT’S ANHEUSER-BUSCH. AS if it’s not bad enough that the ballpark in St. Louis continues to bear the Busch name even though the brewery sold the Cardinals ball club years ago, they want to continue to brand their type of alcoholic swill over the very game.

Do we really need to enable more Budweiser to be sold to realize just how wonderful a sport baseball can be?



The 'face' of fed holiday for baseball

It’s enough to make me think I should respect any ball club that chooses to serve something other than Bud in their ballparks. Although not enough to make me think that the Cubs were somehow noble in past years by offering up Old Style.

Perhaps part of the reason I’m so cynical about this holiday business is that we just had a federal holiday that nobody quite comprehends the purpose of. Remember President’s Day? Did you rush out and buy a discounted mattress to pay tribute to the memories of Washington or Lincoln?

What is Chicago's Ozzie the face of?

I’D HATE TO see something similar happen to baseball – which has its own beauties that I’d rather not see associated with beer or Ozzie Smith (the one-time Cardinals’ shortstop is being used as a pitchman for the holiday campaign, even though we in Chicago know the only “Ozzie” in baseball is “Guillen”).

I’d rather appreciate the ballpark for the intensity of the head game – the duel between a pitcher and hitter to see who comes out on top each at-bat.

Although to me, the joy of baseball is in the fact that it is such a long season – a daily routine stretched out over six months of joy. Each and every time I can get out to a ballgame feels special; even without a federal holiday declaration.

Besides, real hard-core baseball fans know that one of the highlights of the season is the second home game of the season. It’s equally as early in the season, and you don’t get all the amateurs showing up at the ballpark just to be seen!

  -30-

We’re back on “real” time. What’s real?

We all did the routine this weekend of resetting our clocks, on account of the fact we’re off Daylight Savings Time and will now spend the next four months on standard time.

Which some people like to get all worked up about. Daylight Savings Time is some sort of artificial scam that takes us away from viewing time in terms of the way the Good Lord willing meant for us to do so.

PERHAPS I’VE JUST been reading too much of the commentary posted by my Facebook-type “friends.”

But yes, the whole issue of time has gotten some of them worked up – particularly those with ties to Indiana. For that is a state that particularly confounds the whole concept of time. Which makes me wonder if their confusion has the potential to spill over the state line into Illinois.

Some of us are just itching for an excuse to rant about something. Perhaps they’ll find a way to blame Daylight Savings Time on Barack Obama!

Indiana is a state in the Eastern Time Zone – except for those portions around Gary and the state's Southwestern portion right on the Illinois/Indiana border. They follow the concept of “real” time – which I define as being whatever time it happens to be in Chicago.

LET THE REST of the world follow our clock, as far as I’m concerned!!!

I do remember a conversation I once had with a college classmate who was from Indiana (Wabash, if I recall correctly) who tried to argue that Indiana was most logical when it came to time zones and Daylight Saving vs. Standard time by saying, “We never have to change our clocks.”

Considering how the whole concept of moving forward or backward an hour confuses many of us, that may be a legitimate point.

Although I wonder at times if the fact that the bulk of Indiana never experiences the once-a-year concept of gaining an hour of sleep means they’re somehow not-quite rested enough. Maybe that’s why Hoosiers are a unique (and, at times, illogical) breed.

PERSONALLY, I VIEW the concept of Daylight Savings Time as the norm – largely because it’s what we experience for eight months out of the year. It is the concept of Standard Time that has become bizarre – and depressing.

Let’s face it. Who really wants the shortened daylight that’s going to literally turn sunset into some time about 4:30 p.m. Although I have to admit those days back in mid-June when the sun didn’t go down until about 9 p.m. seemed equally freakish.

Not as odd as the idea of the midnight sun somewhere in isolated Alaska. But close!

Yet there are those who will vehemently argue for the demise of Daylight Savings Time just as intensely as any National League baseball fan who can’t accept the fact that the existence of the Designated Hitter has become the norm in baseball and that it is THEY who are the oddballs.

I MENTIONED FACEBOOK earlier, literally because I read this debate about whether Indiana should shift time zones, with many insisting their state is Eastern (as though they can’t see on a map that they – and Michigan too – ought to be Central time).

I’d hate to see that shift mainly because I can envision the chaos that would result if State Line Road also became a time zone boundary. The southeastern portion of the greater Chicago metro area would literally be ahead of the rest of us – and would further be isolated.

Where time was a constant

If anything, there is one place that may have the whole concept of time correct – the ballpark. For I still remember a feature story I once read about people who worked at Comiskey Park during the off-season. The writer noted that the clock on the old center field scoreboard (with all its lights, pinwheels and explosives) was an hour off – because it never gets reset.

Because by the time the baseball season begins again, it will once again be Daylight Savings Time – and all will be right with the world.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: My own confusion with the time change involves having to remember which of the clocks around my humble abode need to be reset, and which will reset automatically. If I get careless, I gain two extra hours, and my whole routine is off for days to come.

Do we really need to read text messages while riding underground the city?

I'd bet that when the subway tunnels were built in the early 1940s, no one thought they'd ever have to be upgraded for an improved communications network. You want to talk to someone? Use a payphone! Photograph provided by CTA Historical Photo Connection

Perhaps this is a generational issue, and I’m just on the wrong side of the equation. This definitely is a move being contemplated by the Chicago Transit Authority for people not like me in mind.

But I can’t really comprehend the need for an upgrade of the underground wireless network that currently exists in the tunnels that are used by elevated trains for those moments when the track drops down from being an “el” to being a “subway.”

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported Thursday that CTA officials are seeking bids from telecommunications companies to see who could install an improved system the cheapest in the 12 miles of track that run as subway along the Red and Blue lines.

It seems that the current system that has been in place in recent years merely allows for someone to use their cellular telephone or smartphone while underground to actually make a telephone call.

For sending text messages or trying to read something off the Internet, it just isn’t capable of handling such tasks.

Which means people who are in the process of transporting themselves via the “el” from one point to another have to actually wait until the train pops out of the portions where it is subway.

OR, A MORE radical thought; they have to wait until they actually get to their destination and leave the underground stations before they have full access to the many services a smartphone can offer – but which all too often are wasted on such trivial tasks.

CTA officials told the Tribune that people riding an “el” train during its moments of being a subway to refresh Facebook feeds or watch podcasts.

Personally, in those moments when I ride underground on the “el,” I’m more focused on paying attention to the people who happen to be surrounding me on the train. I’d think paying too much attention to one’s little device would be a sure-fire way of making myself a target for someone who might have “robbery” on their mind.

At the very least, I’d think it would be advertising myself as someone who has a smartphone worth stealing. I’d feel more secure reaching into my wallet and waving around whatever dollar bills I happened to have in my possession at that given moment.

EVEN IF THAT weren’t the case, I can’t help but wonder what could be so important that it couldn’t wait a few minutes (because most of the “el” system is above ground, which is why we call it the “el” even when it is underground)!

There are times when I think some of my Facebook friends do little more than put narcissistic thoughts about themselves out there for all to see – although I’m sure some of them probably think I’m posting dreary, dull stuff.

Or maybe they think I’m as full of myself as I think they are of themselves.

The point being that maybe we’d all be a bit better off if there were moments when we weren’t fully accessible at all seconds of the day.

GUESS WHAT? IF you had to wait a few minutes before you could read this particular commentary, it wouldn’t change the overall stance. The point being made would remain the same!

But it seems this is the direction the CTA is headed. The Tribune reported that officials hope to have an improved system in place by next summer.

Although I should admit one potential plus to this trend – the fact that the last time I rode a subway/el (Saturday, I used a train/bus combination to get to the Criminal Courts building and back for the duties I do for a suburban daily newspaper) there were no newspapers or other paper scattered around the train cars.

I’m just not sure that litter-free railcars justify the cost of a communications upgrade.

  -30-

Best thing Hillary ever did for the Clinton name was lose back in ‘08

It’s laughable, when you think about it.

CLINTON: Would we like her as much if she had won?

There’s a new poll out (commissioned by the Washington Post and ABC News) that says 57 percent of all people surveyed would like to see soon-to-be former Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton run for president come the 2016 election cycle.

IT’S NOT JUST that some people already are getting excited about ’16 even though Barack Obama has yet to take the oath of office to serve the four-year term to which he won re-election last month.

It’s more that I have vivid memory of when Hillary Clinton was THE most reviled human being in the U.S. political scene – even more so than husband (and president) Bill.

Heck, there were some people whose biggest objection to Bill Clinton was that he didn’t put a muzzle on his wife!

Now, as Hillary Clinton plans to step down after having served four years under President Obama as Secretary of State, it seems that we can’t get enough of her.

THIS IS LARGELY a woman-driven thing. It would seem we are long overdue to start taking women seriously as potential chief executives of the U.S. government. And she is getting the credit for many of the accomplishments that occurred during the first term of the Obama presidency.

Which is not a problem. She had a hand in many of them. She deserves her praise.

But looking at the details of this poll, it would seem the only people who still have their hang-ups about Hillary are white men who identify with the Republican Party.

Only 13 percent of them like the idea of Hillary Clinton running for president. But Republican (35 percent) and politically independent (68 percent) women are willing to go along with the 84 percent of women who are Democrats in saying they’d like to have Hillary as president.

IT MAY WELL be that Obama’s best action of his first term was not to take personally all the pot-shots that the Clinton presidential campaign directed his day during the 2008 primary. He picked her for possibly the most important position (I know some will argue attorney general) of his cabinet.

But what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had won that Democratic primary?

What if she had gone on to clean John McCain’s clock in the general election? What if we literally had spent the past four years with William Jefferson Clinton as the nation’s first “first gentleman?”

You know very well that Hillary Clinton’s approval rating (66 percent, according to the poll) wouldn’t be anywhere near that high.

SHE’D BE THE one lagging far down in the teens (or maybe low 20s) when it comes to supporters. She’d be the one getting blamed for everything that could possibly go wrong.

And you just know that Bill Clinton would have done something that would have further infuriated all those people who devoted the bulk of their lives in 1998 to trying to remove him from office through the impeachment process.

The best thing that could have ever happened to the Clintons on a personal level was not having to endure the hassle of actually trying to run the country.

Because the bottom line is that we all have a certain level to which we will give a knee-jerk reaction of blame in dealing with any incumbent officials. It’s all their fault! Dump the fool so that we can move on to blame their replacement.

SO EXCUSE ME if I don’t exactly take seriously the idea of a poll being taken now that says the one-time Goldwater Girl from suburban Park Ridge ought to be a presidential contender in four years.

All those people who are thinking we should have voted for Clinton in 2008? If that had happened, they’d now be wondering how much better off things would be if they had voted for that Obama guy four years ago!

  -30-

The finish line is in sight (we hope). So now we turn to quirky predictors

It always amuses me to learn of trivial little actions that some people like to believe predicts the outcome of a presidential election.

ROMNEY: Should he have rooted for Yanks?

Such as those individuals who believe the fact that the Washington Redskins’ defeat on Sunday means that President Barack Obama will lose come Tuesday.

FOR IT SEEMS that some people believe if the Redskins win their home game before Election Day, then the incumbent wins. President-elect Mitt Romney, anyone?

Not so fast. For there’s the VOTES Project, which is a mock election that has been held along the northeast at high schools to try to educate students in a practical way about how the election process works.

Supposedly, it has been correct every year since 1988 (except for 2004, when it guessed that we’d get “President John Kerry”).

This year, it resulted in Obama getting 316 electoral votes, compared to 208 for Romney. It also threw in a reality check in the form of the storm known as Sandy, which caused students at five high schools to be unable to cast votes.

WHICH MEANS THERE are 14 electoral votes that nobody gets!

So who should we trust, the high school kids, or the Washington Redskins?

Or perhaps we should be focusing on the Carolina Panthers – the team that beat the Redskins 21-13 on Sunday.

OBAMA: Giants fan, and Redskins basher?

The campaigns thought that North Carolina’s electoral votes would be up for grabs and that Barack Obama might actually have a chance of taking that southern state. It seems we should have been paying attention to the professional gridiron, instead of anything said at the convention held in Charlotte.

NOW, OF COURSE, anybody with sense realizes this is a batch of nonsense. One could probably find just about anything that matches up with election cycles in a way that makes them appear to be reliable predictors.

And while I realize the overly-religious amongst us are going to take offense at this next statement, it is a big coincidence! I’d really like to think that God, in whatever form he exists, has better things to do than worry about who wins an earth-bound election.

So I don’t think that a heavenly spirit is in any way giving the Redskins or these high school kids or any other human entity the ability to predict how an election will turn out.

That is up to the voters who bother to take the time to cast ballots. And as for those who speculate that votes will be lost due to weather damage caused by Sandy, I believe that those individuals determined enough to make a difference WILL find a way to vote.

BESIDES, WE ALL ought to know that the only true predictor lies within professional baseball.

It seems that when American League teams win the World Series in an election year, the Republican candidate prevails. While World Series champions from the National League benefit the Democratic Party candidate.

The ultimate Republican hero?



Although that is mostly because of the presence of the New York Yankees in the American League. It seems that the Yankees do well by Republican presidential candidates – thereby boosting the number of American League victories overall.

That wouldn’t be a factor in this year’s elections, since the Yankees managed to get knocked out of the playoffs by the same Detroit Tigers who got whomped on by the San Francisco Giants.

SO DOES THAT mean Obama will have extra special reason to invite the Giants to the White House next year for the traditional championship celebration?

And should he be grateful that the “fans” of U.S. Steel didn’t get the chance to see their favorite ballclub win its 28^th World Series title.

  -30-

Only one more week ‘til Election Day -- how many people really know, or care?

I don’t doubt that there are isolated spots throughout the Chicago metropolitan area where people can be found who are anxiously awaiting next Tuesday’s arrival. For it will be Election Day, and we’re going to learn once and for all who will be doing “the people’s business”: for the next four years at all sorts of local levels of government.

How many people think Election Day ended last month? Graphic provided by CheckVoterStatus.com. 



Yet the big drawback to the solid electoral victory of Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel back in February, along with all the other citywide officers, is that way too many people think Election Day is over.

THE VOTER TURNOUT for that election wasn’t even 50 percent (more than half of registered voters stood home, despite a competitive mayoral race). I’m wondering how pathetic it will be on April 5, when we get the run-off elections in 14 of the 50 wards, along with the actual municipal elections in the 128 villages, towns and cities that comprise suburban Cook County.

A part of me has this hunch that 20 percent voter turnout is a realistic guess as to how few people will bother to cast ballots.

The problem is that for the general public who don’t follow every nuance of a campaign (the ones who follow the Archie Bunker theory of politics and don’t “waste” their vote on anything other than president), there just isn’t a perception that the elections are ongoing.

It really does seem like it should have ended when Rahm Emanuel took his 55 percent of the vote.

WITH SO MANY wards not having any aldermanic posts, there are large swaths of the city (including all the neighborhoods where I have relatives living and voting), Tuesday is going to be just an ordinary day for many Chicagoans.

It will be worse in the suburban areas. While there will be elections in many towns, so many of those municipalities just don’t have any individuals who are interested in holding elective office – except for the incumbent members who tend to view the post as their birthright.

The Cook County clerk’s office this week pointed out that of the 716 positions up for election in the inner suburbs (local village boards, school boards and park districts), only 287 have anything resembling a competitive race.

Most are merely one person running for office unchallenged (which almost feels like the elections the old Soviet Union used to have, in which people were given the “freedom” to express their pleasure with the current regime). In the case of 55 positions, there is no one running for office.

IN SHORT, IT’S not an environment that is going to get people all enthused about wanting to get to the polls on Tuesday – or rush out to their local Early Voting Centers, which close down on Thursday.

We’re going to see many government officials who manage to win re-election and claim they have a “mandate,” all because they were able to persuade a couple hundred individuals to take the time to cast votes for them.

That’s how little it literally takes to win a government position these days. Considering that it is these local officials who make many of the decisions that directly impact our lives, it always strikes me as sad that so few people care.

It also is what makes the few competitive campaigns intriguing – although it does become pathetic when some races get their interest because of trivial factors – such as the 20^th Ward where Alderman Willie Cochran once again takes on rap music performer Che “Rhymefest” Smith – only this time without four other candidates to take attention away from them.

A RAPPER, OR an ex-cop? It’s Chicago’s chance for a “Jesse Ventura-like” election. I’m wondering how few people will pay attention to any position papers or stances either of those candidates have taken, and will merely vote on the image they’d like to see for that South Side ward?

Then, there is the case of south suburban Chicago Heights, where two candidates are slugging it out for mayor, the positions of clerk and treasurer are now elected instead of mayorally-appointed, and the city was just split up into seven wards (as opposed to six).

It means there is new territory for people wishing to hold office. The feisty level is complicated by the fact that the two mayoral hopefuls, alderman Joe Faso and certified public accountant David Gonzalez, are running for a post that is open because the current mayor is only mayor because the old mayor died – and that official was only mayor because the last elected mayor of Chicago Heights (Anthony DeLuca) decided that political life would be more interesting in the Illinois House of Representatives.

My point being that is the kind of chaos it is taking to create an intriguing election cycle this time around. For most of the 5 million-plus people of Cook County (plus the other 3 million-plus who live in the surrounding counties that make up the Chicago metro area), there’s nothing nowhere near as dramatic to pick from.

BUT THAT DOESN’T mean people won’t emerge victorious from those elections, and gain the authority to make decisions involving public monies on behalf of the people.

Which means that a year from now, when you get your assorted tax bills and fees and complain out loud,
“Who voted for these knuckleheads?,” the honest answer in many cases will be “You did!” when you didn’t bother to cast a ballot.

  -30-

Better watch what we chuckle at

Will Barack Obama fill the Midway Plaissance?

There are those people who got their laugh earlier this week from the glitch that caused the gubernatorial campaign of Republican William Brady to officially become a deadbeat, financially.

They paid a company to handle the  placement of their campaign ads on local television, then that company didn’t pay its bills on time. That means some television stations, including our very own WLS-TV, stopped airing Brady campaign spots until they got their money.

THIS MATTER LIKELY has been resolved by the time you read this. Even then, it didn’t mean that Brady was completely off the air, because we still had all those partisan groups that run the nastiest of campaign ads running their spots that take pot shots at Pat Quinn.

But like I just wrote, it is something to snicker about. How can somebody who can’t even keep track of their own advertising be expected to run state government? Since this isn’t about a campaign not having money to pay for the spots. It’s a clerical error.

I’m chuckling along with the rest of them.

But Brady campaign aides are right when they say it really isn’t the biggest of deals. I also wonder if everybody who took personal offense at this Brady moment is geared up for their own round of chuckling that could occur on Saturday.

I’M REFERRING TO the fact that President Barack Obama is planning one of the largest-scale “Get Out The Vote” rallies I have ever heard of.

The president will be in the Hyde Park neighborhood, specifically at the University of Chicago where he was once an instructor at the law school. To be more specific, he’s going to be on the Midway – that glorious strip of parkland along 59^th Street that provides one of the most breathtaking stretches of outdoors-land on a college campus.

We’re talking about a strip that connects Washington to Jackson parks, and is about one mile long.

Now I don’t know at this point how the Obama people plan to stage this event. But I doubt they will come anywhere close to filling up the entire stretch of the Midway.

WHICH MEANS THAT we’re going to hear every half-wit conservative ideologue pundit going out of his way to denigrate the event by citing the large amount of open space – unless they seriously believe that the personality cult of Obama can bring in the thousands upon thousands of people it would take to fill that amount of space.

Be honest, if that many people were truly excited about the Democratic Party perspective in Tuesday’s elections, there wouldn’t be any need for a Get Out The Vote Rally, and all the polls would be reflecting the annihilation next week of the campaigns for Brady and U.S. Senate hopeful Mark Kirk – along with all the GOP candidates who are counting on that pair to coat-tail them to victory.

I’m going so far as to wonder how many people will try in a negative way to compare the crowd that comes out on Saturday for this Midway rally and compare it to the millions who were in Grant Park on Nov. 4, 2008 – the day that society celebrated and the ideologues stepped up a notch all their rhetoric about “taking back” our government.

There’s no way the weekend crowd will match that past crowd, which I’m sure someone is destined to use  as “evidence” that Obama has fizzled, even in his own home town.

OF COURSE, SUCH talk will be ridiculous. But then again, all campaign rhetoric has a level of absurdity to it. Some of us like to try to forget that fact and pretend that only the other side is “full of beans” when it comes to political promises and attacks.

It will be curious to see how many people do show up at the Midway rally (best guesses say tens of thousands, which could still leave significant amounts of open space for the pundits to drool over), along with other Get Out the Vote rallies to be held with Obama this weekend in Philadelphia, Cleveland and Bridgeport (the one in Connecticut, not the one along 35^th Street). Because Public Policy Polling came out with its own recent study of various states that tries to say how strong the turnout will be among various political partisans. Their results in Illinois?

Not one bit of increase among people supportive of Democrats during the past two months. Which is why we got former President Bill Clinton to come to town earlier this week for a rally at a downtown hotel, and are getting Obama’s second trip to Chicago in the past month.

Which means that for those people who do show up on Saturday at the Midway (if I were going, I’d seriously consider taking the Metra Electric commuter trains, which drop people off at 59^th Street right at the Midway’s east end), it could be an amusing afternoon coming just before a dismal Election Day.

  -30-

You’re being watched!

Buckingham Fountain, from the days when its physical condition was less delicate than it was this week when three women went for a wade, only to get arrested. Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.

 Perhaps that is something we must all keep in mind with all the security cameras that police have erected around Chicago. You never know just when you’re being observed by the police.

That eerie feeling is the one I got from learning that three women got themselves arrested earlier this week for climbing into Buckingham Fountain, wading in the cold water, then climbing onto the fountain proper.

I’M NOT ABOUT to defend (or attack) these women, who appear to have got caught up in the spirit of summer’s end. They were at the fountain, got the urge to do something silly and fun, and now face a misdemeanor charge each of reckless conduct.

How did police catch them?

It seems that the security cameras erected around the city also are set on Buckingham Fountain – one of our city’s landmarks. Which means that an officer at the Police Department  headquarters at 35^th Street and Michigan Avenue (about 3.5 miles away) saw the women get into the water.

That officer was then able to alert police officers in the downtown area to get over to the fountain and “deal” with this problem.

WHICH IS WHY when the women were ready to get out of the fountain on their own, they found two police officers on hand – with 10 more cops quickly following them up.

Regardless of what one thinks of how stupid it was to go wading in Buckingham Fountain, there is something about the image of a dozen police officers converging on three women – one of whom is still a teenager – that is a combination of comical and oppressive.

It sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch about bumbling bureaucratic “boys in blue.”

Whereas the image of an officer at police headquarters being able to watch so many parts of the city nowhere near himself comes off as downright oppressive. It’s eerie that we literally have no clue when we are being watched, or which of our petty actions may catch someone’s suspicion.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, the Chicago Tribune reports that the women don’t seem too apologetic for their stunt, which Chicago Park District officials say should be illegal because Buckingham Fountain is 83 years old and could easily have been damaged by their behavior.

One of the women literally talked about “youth” and how free spirits lead to “a transformation of a society and an individual for the best.”

Which strikes me as a lot of empty-headed hooey. When combined with the fact that I’d question how clean the Buckingham Fountain water is and whether I would want to wade around it it, I can’t help but think she may be a goof, but the police reaction still strikes me as a bit much.

But this is the trend in our city. Too many people seem willing to accept these cameras.

WHICH REALLY ARE all over the place in certain parts of the city.

The other day, I had a reason to drive through the South Side – specifically along 79^th Street from the Dan Ryan Expressway west until I got to Damen Avenue. I lost track of how many times I looked up at a lamp-post and saw one of those boxes with the Chicago Police Department logo and the flashing blue lights replicating a squad car Mars bar – letting people who live in those neighborhoods know what the women at Buckingham Fountain apparently did not.

You’re being watched.

Seriously, I think it was six such cameras erected in that 20-block stretch of Street, although I may have missed some. I feel like my drive along 79^th Street has been preserved for posterity – should the police suddenly feel the whim to look at it.

IT MAKES ME wonder just how many people the Chicago Police Department employs to sit in front of video screens and watch the content being produced by all those security cameras. It must be a virtual army of officers.

Either that, or more likely there is a good chance that much of what is being filmed never gets seen.

Which means that these three women who will have to go to court in coming weeks to learn just what the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office intends to do with them likely just had the dumb luck of having a police officer catch a glimpse of their particular camera at the exact moment they decided to take their dip.

A moment sooner (or perhaps later), and their wading in the murky water in the fountain would have gone unnoticed.

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Is the real secret how little our legislators comprehend government finance?

When I learned (by reading the Chicago Tribune, I must admit) that the Illinois Senate convened at the Statehouse in Springpatch on Wednesday in a session closed to the public, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a similar moment that occurred just over a decade ago.

It was the late 1990s, and I was a Statehouse-based reporter-type person in those days. The “event” was that the Illinois Legislature was becoming technologically advanced. For the first time ever, laptop computers were installed on the desks of each and every legislator, along with all the connections necessary to operate such devices.

I KNOW SOME younger types are going to find it absurd that it ever was NOT like this, but the flow of paper for bills and other documents relevant to Illinois government was essential to keeping things running. This was the beginning of encouraging legislators to call up such information on their laptops, rather than have to have so much paper.

The “similar” moment I am referring to was the specific day when, with all the new equipment installed, it was thought necessary to sit all the legislators down in the chamber and give them a technical display of how everything worked. What was it that the public was truly kept in the dark about concerning the Illinois Senate?

For some legislators who were older or just not inclined to want to use computers at all moments of the day, it amounted to “Computer Science 101.” I remember that particular session was closed off to the public. I even recall the curtains that were put up over the windows up high from which people could look down upon the lawmakers at work.

I remember being told that the reason for the secrecy (I suppose state officials preferred the word “privacy”) was to make the less-computer literate legislators feel more comfortable about learning how to use the device. Some of them might have been embarrassed if their computer illiteracy had been so brutally unveiled.

YES, I COULD easily envision one of the television-types putting together a humorous story about a hometown legislator who keeps blipping crucial government information out of existence because he just can’t get the hang of that blasted laptop.

Now, we have the Illinois Senate behaving in a similar fashion. The Tribune went so far as to use the newspaper’s website to update the story by telling us how their reporter was physically barred from the Senate chamber when he tried to enter Wednesday morning.

The newspaper even included a diatribe from Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, who said the session legally could be closed to the public because no actual government business would take place. So long as that fact remains true (no votes on any bills), he probably is legally correct.

As Cullerton told the Tribune, “this is meant to be one where just the senators are there to get information, but where they can also feel they can ask questions and … have a free exchange of ideas without having to be worried about what the press might report.”

SO WHAT WAS the point of Wednesday?

The National Conference of State Legislatures, a Denver-based group of government geeks who take particular joy in following the political activity at the 50 state capitols, was to give a presentation about government finances – which anyone who is paying attention realizes are a complete mess in Illinois.

Defenders of the “closed” session contended that since they planned to have the conference’s people talk to reporters later in the day, the information presented ultimately will become public.

But it is a shame they had to take this route, because now the focus will become a question of why couldn’t everybody else find out this financial information at the same time as the 59 senators.

IN FACT, WHEN I re-read Cullerton’s comment, I can’t help but get the sense of déjà vu (not the Springfield-based strip club). Were legislative leaders afraid we’d see, once and for all, just how clueless individual senators were about the state’s financial situation? It could be.

Unless there has been a significant improvement in the education of government officials in the years since I left the Statehouse Scene, the reality is that most of the 177 members of the General Assembly are plugged into their home communities, and usually can discuss the specifics of what a budget offers for their local residents (ie, voters).

But few of those legislators have the time, energy or interest to try to see the big picture. For some of them, the little picture (“pork”) is all that matters. For others, they’re less capable than you or me of understanding that “big” financial picture.

Of course, it also is a consequence of the way in which so much of state Legislature activity is dominated by the four legislative leaders, with the regular legislators only being included at the exact moment when a vote by the whole General Assembly is required.

KEEP THEM IGNORANT long enough, and you create a situation where leadership (although admittedly, this seems to be a directive of the Democratic leaders, with Republicans saying they’re going along in hopes of encouraging “bipartisan” cooperation in the future) has to go to extremes to cover it up.

Which also means the next time you ponder to yourself just how those knuckleheads (or whatever choice phrase you choose to use to describe legislators) could have voted in such a stupid manner on a budget or any issue, keep this “ignorance” factor in mind.

He/she was probably just going with the flow, so to speak.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I must credit the Chicago Tribune for doing the actual work of rooting out (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2010/02/illinois-senate-meets-in-secret-today.html#more) this story.