So what’s up with all the ballplayers spewing trash talk on Twitter?

It seems to be the latest trend, professional baseball players with Twitter accounts using them to express personal views loaded with homophobic or racial slurs.

Future star? Or tainted by Twitter?

We’re certainly not immune to this in Chicago – White Sox pitcher Michael Kopech went from making his major league debut Tuesday night and not embarrassing himself, to having to apologize on Thursday for the many slurs and taunts he expressed in his past.

BEFORE CUBS FANS start trying to lord it over the Sout’ Side ball club, consider that your team recently acquired a pitcher from the Washington Nationals – Daniel Murphy – whose Twitter account included an old rant against Billy Bean. He’s the one-time San Diego Padres ballplayer who, after he was done as a player, came out of the closet, so to speak, and admitted his own sexual orientation.

In fact, a quick look at an Internet search engine of any type will show you many links to stories about some ballplayer thinking something stupid on Twitter and feeling the need to apologize. Josh Hader of the Milwaukee Brewers literally had his homophobic Tweets discovered in the midst of this year’s All-Star Game played in Washington, D.C.

Perhaps that’s the positive part. Everybody is being apologetic about thinking these stupid thoughts. Nobody is really trying to make the argument that freedom of expression gives them every right to say or write such things.

Old thoughts following him around

But just what is it that motivated all these past trash thoughts?

IN THE CASE of Murphy, it is pointed out that his rant against Bean was from 2015. Where he admits he disapproves of Bean’s lifestyle. Although he now says he has “foster(ed) a really positive” relationship with Bean – who these days is now an advisor to the baseball Commissioner’s office on how to address matters of sexual orientation.

For what it’s worth, the Cubs actually consulted Bean just prior to making a trade with Washington for Murphy, and Bean says he wouldn’t want to see someone’s baseball “career” ruined for one stupid comment made in the past.

Which also is the key to comprehending Kopech (the guy whose first major league game lasted two innings, no runs given up and four of the six outs he achieved were done by strikeouts).

Seems willing to forgive

In saying on Thursday that he has gone into his Twitter account and scrubbed away all the stupid things he wrote, he concedes he said them, but that these were written back before he was a professional ballplayer.

IN SHORT, HE was a stupid high school kid who wasn’t fully mature. Hence, the references to racial slurs and description of other things he didn’t care for as being “so gay.”

The scary part is that I can remember back in my own junior high school days (12 and 13 years old), the standard insult that was supposedly as low as one could go in trashing something or someone else would be to call it “gay.”

Perhaps it is truthful that Kopech (who now is 22, and who pitched the bulk of this season for the Charlotte Knights ball club) has grown up. That he’s no longer a kid mentally, and that perhaps his emotional and mental age is catching up to his physical one.

Detracted attention from All-Star game

Because my own experiences as a reporter-type person in dealing with ballplayers is that, despite their physical skills, they are a tad retarded emotionally. Perhaps you need to remain a bit of a kid at heart if you’re going to play a child’s game well enough to earn a living at it.

OF COURSE, THE real reason that baseball is so eager for this trend to die out is that they realize gay people have money, and some of them are more than willing to spend it at the ballpark.

Come Sunday, the Cubs are having a LGBTQ Pride night at Wrigley Field. While the White Sox will have a similar night come Friday at Guaranteed Rate Field. A part of me is contemplating going to that ball game because Friday is my birthday.

Offering praise to Kopech

A rainbow-tinted crowd could be an intriguing site – particularly since some are so eager to put a right-wing stain on anything athletic. Could we get a fan reaction, either for or against, spurred on by the nonsense that all too often pervades our society.

While some of us will wish we could go back to the mindset of the one in which Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan felt compelled to watch Tuesday’s White Sox game on television – and came back raving about the skills Kopech could bring to Chicago?

  -30-

Sometimes, the answer is so stupid

The Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday devoted three full pages inside the newspaper to reporting on the official city investigation into a 2016 incident in which an off-duty police officer shot-and-killed a black man.

The death of Joshua Beal in one sentence

The man, as was reported at the time, was from Indianapolis, and was only in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood on the city’s far southwest corner because he was serving as a pallbearer for his cousin – who was buried at one of the cemeteries nearby.

THE INCIDENT ERUPTED into black activists coming to the neighborhood to protest the police and make comparisons between local law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan. Which provoked outcries from neighborhood residents against those activists.

It was an ugly racial moment and came right at the point of the 2016 Election Day in which Mount Greenwood wound up being one of the few places in Chicago where Donald Trump actually got significant numbers of votes. “Make America Great Again,” indeed!

The Sun-Times went into great detail in reporting the city’s investigation, which it turns out the newspaper only found out about because they had to sue Chicago city government in order to get the documents.

So after all this hassle and all the outcry, it seems the moment that sparked anger on all sides was one so banal that it seems pathetic in today’s day and age. Except to those, I suppose, who really think this Age of Trump we’re now in is improvement.

IF ANYTHING, THE newspaper’s front-page headline kind of summarized up the whole affair to where we may not need to read the lengthy news report. It shows just how insipid the whole affair was.

Just another stupid slur that likely is heard in barrooms and households across the city – only usually slightly whispered so as not to provoke a brawl.

So if there is a grand lesson to be learned from this affair, it’s actually one that I would have hoped most of us already knew. The sad part of this affair is that someone out there is probably taking a perverse sense of pride that this was said.

They may even think that somehow, their right to freedom of expression is being silenced by reporting just how stupid the comment was. Which is the ugly part of this whole affair.

  -30-

Race always manages to bring out the ‘stupid’ in our political people

There’s one great truth we can observe about our various levels of government – whenever racial issues come up in discussion, somebody is bound to talk stupid.

RAUNER; Diversity through dairy products

Either they get blatantly stupid and offensive in their remarks, or else they try to channel the old Bea Arthur character of Maude – who if you ever watched that show was the grand liberal and admirer of FDR who in her dealings with black people usually managed to come off condescending and show that in some ways, she wasn’t any better than her cousin, Edith’s, husband, Archie Bunker.

IT WAS A pair of stories in the news last week that put such a thought into my mind.

Or have we already forgotten Gov. Bruce Rauner’s great observations about the concept of milk mixed with chocolate syrup.

During an appearance at the Thompson Center state government building, Rauner was with a Hyatt Hotels executive – which was ironic enough considering that Hyatt is the company founded by the Pritzker family, of whom member J.B. is a potential challenger to Rauner in the Nov. 6 general election.

They were trying to emphasize the benefits of diversity amongst our populace by suggesting that a glass of plain white milk gets improved with chocolate syrup, and that when it’s stirred and thoroughly mixed it is superior.

HAROLD: GOPers wish she wasn't one of them?

“IT’S REALLY, REALLY good, diversity,” said Rauner. Which aside from being a trite observation may wind up being the ultimate quote of The Rauner Years of state government.

Then again, “I’m not in charge, Speaker Madigan is” likely can’t be topped by Rauner, or anyone else, when it comes to a vacuous comment. Particularly if one really thinks racial diversity can be reduced to a dairy product.

Although if one thinks Rauner had a vapid Wednesday last week, the very next day the Illinois attorney general’s race gave us a racial whopper likely to live on throughout the campaign season.

Republican attorney general hopeful Erika Harold allegedly was slurred with an ignorant racial label and also had her sexual orientation brought into question.

PRITZKER: His slurs relatively minor

A TOWNSHIP CHAIRMAN from DuPage County initially claimed that Harold had asked him to make the comments so that she could publicly refute them. He since has said he really didn’t say the things he’s alleged to – at least not that bluntly.

But Harold told the Chicago Tribune, “I was just shocked by it and I was thinking how inappropriate it is for this kind of questioning and comments to be part of what should be a professional conversation.”

Now the reason this comes up is that Harold is a black woman, and I don’t doubt there are many amongst the Republican following who resent that one of their party’s candidates for a statewide office is anything other than a white male.

I’m also sure they’re upset that a one-time Miss America (2003) would remain more than a decade later an unmarried woman. Even though on many social issues (such as abortion) Harold is completely in line with the modern-day Republican Party, they probably think she’s a closet Democrat – and someone who doesn’t fall in line their goal of “Making America Great Again.”

IT’S PART OF the reason I can’t take it too seriously when some people try to claim that Democrat Pritzker’s gubernatorial campaign is spewing racial taunts about black people. His private comments are downright trivial compared to what comes from others.

Normar Lear's string of 1970s TV hits remain relevant even today

Note I didn’t feel compelled to identify by name the DuPage County official who spewed trash (supposedly) about Harold. Mainly because I don’t want to give him too much recognition. I’m sure some voters will go out of their way to support him come Nov. 6, when his name appears on the ballot for an Illinois Senate seat.

Maybe they think that spewing racial slurs is somehow speaking the truth. Just as how some of them are criticizing Rauner’s milk stunt because they would have preferred him to speak out against racial diversity in our society.

While some people want to believe we in the 21^st Century have moved beyond racism, the fear on my part is that those people are the ones who don’t want to discuss the issue because they don’t want to be called out on their negativity.

  -30-

Are we overreacting? Or do we really need to quit living with past hostilities?

There’s a site on Facebook I enjoy checking out from time to time called Original Chicago. Basically, it’s a place where long-time city residents (and others who no longer live here) can reminisce about the way things used to be.

The Maxwell Street of old, as memorialized in this pre-World War II postcard. Image provided by Chuckman's Chicago Nostalgia

Favorite roller rink? Is the novel, “The Devil in the White City” (set during the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1892) accurate? Things like that.

BUT THINGS GOT a little more serious Thursday when the site’s administrator felt the need to post a critical note about people who referred to the old Maxwell Street district as “Jew Town.”

It’s a sign of “racial disrespect” that “will not be tolerated” at the site, the administrator wrote.

Which is an attitude I can respect because I often think it cowardly for website operators who refuse to control the content of their own sites – trying to claim that letting people randomly post their often stupid and ridiculous comments encourages free expression of thought.

Actually, it just encourages the idiots of our society to engage in bullying behavior. My own thought to people who want to make such rants is they ought to create their own sites (I’ll gladly offer them technical advice on how to do so). Although I suspect what they really want to do is undermine other peoples’ activity online.

BUT BACK TO “Jew Town,” which triggered an extensive series of responses from people who want to think the phrase has significant historic character to Chicago. Of course, most of them will go on to tell tales of all the stolen goods that wound up being resold there.

How dare we want to think it is wrong to use the phrase to describe a part of Chicago that once upon a time contained a heavy presence of people who were Jewish in religion and were the operators of the original businesses that existed in the area (which now is an upscale area by the University of Illinois at Chicago campus).

Some people literally are claiming that “Jew Town” is no different than “China Town” or any of the nicknames given in the past to enclaves of Polish immigrants (don’t forget Chicago used to brag there were more Poles, not Polacks, living here than in any city on Earth except Warsaw – the capital of Poland).

I don’t doubt that people in the past used “Jew” freely when referring to Jewish people, the same way that “Jap” used to be openly used when referring to Japanese.

THE LATTER ALSO is a slur that was meant to make those from the Asian island nation sound less than human – which I’m sure seemed right to those who came of age during the Second World War and wanted to forevermore think that Japanese people were worthy of derision.

But just as now we think it ridiculous whenever some old coot complains that we need to “Remember Pearl Harbor!” because they’re not willing to let go a war our government ended many decades ago (and rebuilt Japan in our own capitalist image), somehow, the idea of somebody thinking that “Jew Town” isn’t absurd is the real ridiculous notion.

The notion is that we need to let go our old obsessions and terminology that we used to justify them. It’s called advancing as a society. Even though some are going to complain it’s “political correctness run amok.”

The latter concept always struck me as being the thought process of old bigots who don’t want to be called out for the stupidity of their thoughts.

Is Chinatown similar to Maxwell Street in history, meaning?

SERIOUSLY, WHEN WAS the last time you ever heard anybody call a police squadrol a “Paddy wagon?” Even though I can recall that once was a commonly accepted term for the vehicle used to haul large loads of arrestees (a batch of drunken Irish?) from a crime scene – or take corpses to the morgue.

It’s time for some people to get with the program. Jewish people are “Jewish,” and “Jew” is only used by people who feel the need to think derogatory thoughts. Consider the dictionaries that give an alternate definition for “Jew” as “someone tight with their money or not very generous.”

Who still uses the old slur?

That certainly doesn’t sound like somebody trying to think seriously about an issue. It sounds like pure religious-motivated bile to me, which ought to be further reason to dump “Jew Town” from our city’s lingo. It’s embarrassing to our civic memory, and it’s not like people using the term now are trying to illustrate how absurd we used to be.

Better to get back to debates such as the man who asked Original Chicago readers what to do about the girlfriend who persists in putting ketchup on her hot dogs. Largely because I don’t put ketchup on anything, I say, “Dump her!”

  -30-

Is the ultimate ‘D-List’ comedian the perfect basher for a D-List president?

I have no doubt there are some people determined to see comedian Kathy Griffin’s professional prospects wither away into nothingness. Just as I’m sure they’re still holding a grudge against those mouthy Dixie Chicks.

What will replace Griffin's lost CNN gig?

Remember that outcry? When one member of the country music trio let it be known she was opposed to the U.S. military efforts in the Middle East?

HOW DARE THAT woman think to speak out against then-President George W. Bush! How dare she say anything that wasn’t complete deference to their own ideals (even though many people back then were equally critical of Bush)?

When I remember the degree to which certain people were determined to sabotage the Dixie Chicks, I see the similarities to the way some are bound to react to Griffin – the so-called star of the D-List celebrities who managed to offend everybody with a gag image depicting her with a bloodied, severed head that – with its funky hairdo was clearly meant to be reminiscent of President Donald J. Trump.

Yes, I thought her gag was lame, tacky and somewhat gross. It pushed the boundaries of good taste.

But let’s be honest. The very behavior of Donald Trump as both a presidential candidate and as a government official has been equally tacky and offensive. Some might argue if there’s anybody who deserves to be treated in such a callous manner, it is Trump. Just as how Trump-themed piñatas are at hit on so many levels at Mexican celebrations.

THE IDEOLOGUES AMONGST us, however, are determined to express such outrage that, in their minds, Griffin fades away into insignificance. She’s finished for having the unmitigated gall speak out in this Age of Trump we’re now in.

Griffin's critics the same people bashing Wonder Woman?

The comparison to the Dixie Chicks is relevant because within country music circles, the ladies remain irrelevant. To the point where a recent New York Times report indicates they don’t consider themselves part of the country scene – their attempts at making records are now regarded as pop music.

Which makes me wonder what kind of career change Griffin will have to make to allow her to remain relevant as an entertainer? While some amongst us will want to forever lambast her, there are others who will be willing to give her sense of humor a second chance.

Star-spangled shorts make her American?

If anything, she may get a boost by gaining the perception of being politically relevant – the comedian for those people who don’t mind offending the sensibilities of Donald J. Trump and his ilk!

AND AS FOR those people who will want to look down on Griffin, they’re probably the same people who these days are upset with the new Wonder Woman movie – which they say depicts the Amazon princess with incredible strength in ways that aren’t quite “American-enough” for their sensibilities.

I haven’t seen the film (and don’t exactly feel compelled to rush out to the theater to do so), so I don’t know what their objections really are? Maybe they just don’t like the idea of Gal Gadot, an Israeli actress, wearing the red, white and blue outfit that Lynda Carter made so popular on 1970s-era television.

Or maybe they’re the people who, back when Carter’s Wonder Woman was fighting off Nazis, they were secretly rooting for the men in the swastika armbands? Perhaps they find the arrogance of Trump to be reminiscent?

Please Kathy, don't give us a similar image to silence your critics

My point being that some individuals amongst us just aren’t satisfied with anything. They’re going to be whiny and demanding enough that they will always find something to complain about.

WHEN IT COMES to the whole affair involving the alumnus of Oak Park/River Forest High School who made being on the “D List” not quite so low a place to be, there is one aspect that I must admit terrifies me.

It is that I still remember the Entertainment Weekly magazine cover the Dixie Chicks did in the weeks following their own controversy – the one of the three of them nude, with their bodies covered with tattoos depicting the many slurs (“Dixie Sluts,” “Saddam’s Angels” and “Traitors,” to name a few) being thrown their way.

Please Kathy, keep your clothes on. We don’t need the sight of you trying to give us a similar image to illustrate the harassment you’re undergoing these days.

Even though, on a certain level, forcing your critics to endure the sight might very well be the perfect way to shut them up big time!

  -30-

Cat food in the beef tacos? Or just nitwit nonsense from the nativists?

Perhaps I’m just taking trivial trash on Facebook far too seriously. But I have been getting outraged by a page meant to celebrate a pair of neighborhoods on the city’s Far South Side that has turned into a rant about the content of Mexican food.

The building still stands. The food does not. But some still feel compelled to take the cheap shots. Photograph provided by the Smokin', Chokin' and Chowin' with the King weblog.

The page in question is meant to give people a chance to share their memories of the South Chicago and East Side neighborhoods – which are the ones in I was born and which I still have some relatives living.

THERE IS ONE stream of thought now existing on the page that talks of the Mexican Inn – that triangular shaped restaurant at 95^th Street, Ewing Avenue and Avenue L – not far from that open bridge the Blues Brothers leaped over in that 1980 film.

The thread has been out there for months. But in the past couple of weeks, there are those individuals who have felt compelled to inform us that the restaurant used cat food in the preparation of its tacos and other Mexican (actually, more Tex-Mex than real Mexicano) food.

While some people say it wasn’t cat food as much as real-live kitties being cooked up in preparation of the Mexican dishes.

When some (actually many) people felt compelled to post items saying that such stories were nonsense, there were responses from the few insisting that EVERYBODY in the neighborhood knew all about this. It just had to be true!

PERSONALLY, I HAVE always known there are some people who are nit-witted enough to want to believe stupid stuff and tall tales, particularly if it is something hateful about another group. Perhaps their own lives are lacking that they feel the need to trash someone else to make themselves feel better?

And yes, the idea that some people are pathetic enough to want to rant about anything Mexican in nature is not a surprise. Particularly since the names of the individuals who were spewing these feline tales seemed to be (by my judgement, at least) Polish or Italian.

Probably people who voted for Donald Trump (17.05 percent of the 10^th Ward’s presidential vote last year went for The Donald, with some precincts exceeding 40 percent) and are upset about his recent political defeats on various issues.

But seriously, who feels compelled to spread old rumors and rubbish about a restaurant that – while an iconic part of life in the 10^th Ward – has been out-of-business for several years?

THERE ARE THOSE who say the Mexican Inn (which dated back to the early 1960s) was one of the first Mexican-inspired restaurants in Chicago, and it lasted several years into the 21^st Century.

I know some people of a certain generation (in their 60s or early 70s, and NOT of any Spanish-speaking ethnic orientation) who say the first time they ever ate a taco in their lives was at the Mexican Inn!

But while the building remains and there are some faint traces of the paint on the outside walls that used to advertise the restaurant, the food service has been long gone.

Even the more contemporary restaurant that the family tried opening in Dyer, Ind., has since gone out of business. From what I hear, many people felt the new restaurant was “too expensive,” although many of those people struck me as being cheap and complaining in the way that some can’t get over the fact that a Chicago Tribune no longer costs a quarter the way it did when I was in high school – and is actually now $1.99 per copy!

PERSONALLY, I REMEMBER eating there as a kid. Both when my family was still city-residing proper, and later when we had gone suburban (Lansing and Calumet City, to be exact) and made trips back to the city to “visit grandma” or other cousins.

In my mind, the Mexican Inn is a place where I could get some basic Mexican food. I have since found restaurants offering much more elaborate Mexican cuisine, but that doesn’t degrade the “Inn’s” memory to me. Which is why I hadn’t been there in years, and must admit to being shocked when I learned a couple of years ago that it was gone.

But other people, it seems, are pathetic enough to want to spread the trash talk. They’re not happy enough that the restaurant no longer exists – they have to piddle on its memory.

Although from my perspective, all they have really done is forgotten to unzip their pants first – leaving the equivalent of a wet spot all over the front of their trousers.

  -30-

Was it a ‘George Jefferson’ impersonation? Or just inarticulate talk?

What should we think of the fact that mayoral hopeful Willie Wilson tried to say he’s not a prejudiced person by allegedly using a phrase that some people consider to be a racial slur?

As in “whitey.” The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week on the City Club of Chicago forum at which Wilson spoke, and is to have said, “to the whiteys here, I’m letting you know I ain’t prejudiced.”

WILSON TRIED TO pressure the Sun-Times into taking back that quote, but the newspaper (to its credit) refused to do so. For what it’s worth, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune wrote in his Sunday newspaper column that Wilson privately admitted to him that he said “whitey” and was sorry if anyone was offended.

But I’m wondering just what kind of person would really be offended at use of the word “whitey.” It comes across as so buffoonish to think that is really a slur. In fact, I suspect the only people who are offended by the phrase are certain white people whose own speech is laced with racial and ethnic slurs but who take offense at anything aimed at themselves.

Some people have recalled the Richard M. Daley moment of his first successful mayoral campaign where he is alleged to have used the phrase “white mayor” to describe what he thought the city of Chicago needed in order for government to be successful.

He tried using the same defense that Wilson is now using – perhaps his dialect just isn’t clear to certain ears. Then again, some people freak out whenever they hear a black public official of any type say “axed” when trying to say “asked.”

WILSON’S SPEECH IS laced with a tinge of southern drawl, and it is clear he’s not exaggerating when he says he has only a seventh grade education. Just like Daley (who was a DePaul law school graduate) never overcame the speech patterns picked up by growing up amongst Bridgeport neighborhood immigrants for whom English might not have been the first language.

As in it’s our fault for not understanding what the candidate was trying to say.

Although when I first heard about Wilson’s alleged “whitey” moment, my mind flipped back to George Jefferson, as in the character created by actor Sherman Helmsley to be the primary foil of bigoted Archie Bunker on the “All in the Family” program.

Those of us of a certain age remember Helmsley’s constant barking of “honky” at any white person who managed to annoy him – and George was easily offended by just about everybody who came into his sight.

THAT WAS DONE for laughs, and I have to admit to having the same reaction to Wilson’s so-called moment of rhetorical nonsense. It’s too ridiculous to take seriously!

Just as I don’t think this will hurt Wilson’s campaign in any significant way. The kind of people who will take offense are the kind who weren’t going to vote for him under any circumstances.

The rest of the electorate got its chuckle.

It also reminds me of the “All in the Family” episode where George Jefferson tried running for political office himself, spouting out high-minded ideals of public service while his real intention was to get to approve a city permit for his “cleaning store” to knock out the flower shop located next door.

I’D HATE TO think the Wilson campaign that talks high and mighty about representing the interests of all Chicago has equally selfish purposes in mind!

Besides, the part of Wilson’s quote that bothers me isn’t the “whitey” reference. It’s the part where he says, “I ain’t prejudiced” that riles me up.

Many people may speak more informally than they would read or write something – some like Gov. Bruce Rauner apparently do it on purpose, thinking it makes them appear to be more like the masses. That upsets me more than anything Wilson might have done.

But even someone who only went to school through the seventh grade should have learned that “ain’t” ain’t a word.

  -30-

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Ought to be much about nothing

The fact that 33^rd Ward Alderman Deborah Mell is getting divorced ought to be the ultimate ho-hum attempt at a news story; something that comes across as cheap and petty even for an Independence Day holiday weekend.

 

But Mell’s recent announcement, which she made via her Twitter account, that her marriage of three years has come to an end is gaining attention. To the point where I’m wondering how many petty people are going to try to draw this out into something it’s not.

 

WHAT CAPTURES ATTENTION about this marriage was the fact that Mell’s wife was Christin Baker. The couple became engaged in 2010 (with Mell, then a state representative, making a pronouncement on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives).

 

Then, because they couldn’t wait for Illinois to get its act together on the issue of legitimate marriage for gay couples, they went to Iowa to be married.

 

If they had held out for an Illinois wedding, it wouldn’t have occurred until earlier this year – perhaps during the past month.

 

But then, it would have been too late. For the couple seems to have irreconcilable differences. News accounts indicate Baker has taken a new job in Birmingham, Ala. They have split.

 

I’M SURE SOME people are going to rant and rage against gay marriage and claim this ought to be evidence that such unions are somehow unnatural and unlasting.

 

Which is nonsense, of course. Just look at the number of so-called straight couples who can’t make it past a couple of years of marriage. Was their time together any less legitimate? If it was, perhaps we ought to be abolishing the concept of marriage altogether.

 

Not that anybody with sense is calling for that. If anything, all this means is that partnerships and pairings are fragile and filled with potential for problems. The last thing those couples need are harassment from those with such ideological hang-ups that they need to get a hobby. Perhaps they can rush out to Hobby Lobby to find something to do from people inclined to share their hang-ups about life?

 

What else is notable about life following Independence Day on the shores of Lake Michigan?

 

COP BUDDIES STICKING TOGETHER?: The Illinois Supreme Court issued a ruling this week that upholds the ability of one-time Pullman Area Violent Crimes Commander Jon Burge to keep his pension – even though he’s the cop who led the far South Side unit that reportedly was beating confessions out of criminal suspects on a regular basis.

 

Burge, 66, and retired for more than two decades, is now in a federal correctional center in North Carolina. But for the act of perjury in a lawsuit related to his actions; not for the actions themselves.

 

The state’s high court ruled that a Cook County judge was correct to prevent the Illinois attorney general’s office from intervening in the case when a police pension board upheld Burge’s retirement payments.

 

It seems the board members who were former police officers favored Burge, saying his criminal act came after he left the police. They out-voted the non-former police officer members who would have revoked retirement benefits.

 

DON’T YOU DARE CUT RETIREE PENSIONS: It’s going to be interesting to see just how officials are capable of reforming the way public pension programs are funded.

 

For the state Supreme Court also ruled this week that retirees can’t be forced to pay for the retirement benefits previously promised.

 

State Attorney General Lisa Madigan is claiming that’s a narrow legal issue, but others see it as broader and a move in the direction of saying that there’s going to have to be some other form of reform. Either that, or the retirees literally will bankrupt Illinois government into oblivion.

 

As if Friday night fireworks didn’t give you enough of a headache.

 

BAD ATTITUDES IN BRIDGEVIEW?: The Chicago Fire professional soccer team felt compelled to issue a statement this week, telling their fans to watch their mouths.

 

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Spanish-speaking fans have taken to using slurs for homosexuals to taunt opposing players. Before you start attacking Latinos, keep in mind that some peoples’ extent of the Spanish language are the slurs and obscenities.

 

Which bothers the team because they want people to make the trek out to their suburban Bridgeview stadium to watch games – particularly in the weeks following the World Cup.

 

Perhaps hoping that some newly-converted types will want to see live matches and will want to spend money, much money, while at Toyota Park.

 

  -30-

How much of today’s political rhetoric will someday be apologized for as silly?

It will be 150 years this week since Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address – his brief speech at the battlefield-turned-cemetery that helped to put the Civil War into a high, moral context – rather than just a bloodbath.

Significance not immediately realized

Yet there were those who disparaged Lincoln during his lifetime. He truly was a person who could never have comprehended the glory with which his image is now draped, based on anything that happened during his lifetime.

EARLIER THIS MONTH, the Harrisburg Patriot-News newspaper in Pennsylvania went so far as to apologize for what its predecessor (the Patriot & Union newspaper) wrote about the speech when it occurred.

The Patriot-News “regrets the error” that the Patriot & Union wrote that Lincoln made “silly remarks” that were motivated by partisan politics.

“Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time,” were mistaken in their coverage, the 21^st Century take of the Harrisburg-based newspaper wrote.

Now I’m not about to say whether or not a reporter-type of the past was intoxicated (anything’s possible). Nor am I going to rant about how this correction was self-serving and did nothing more than to get a local paper some national attention.

Reason for recent presidential criticism

BUT WHEN I learned of this editorial, it couldn’t help but make me think of our modern-day situation. One in which our current president gets all the abuse the ideologues think he is worthy of, and where anyone who doesn’t share in their rancid rhetoric gets decried as somehow being “un-American.”

And with the fact that the Affordable Care Act’s implementation isn’t going smoothly, there are those who are willing to pile on to the president as well.

It should not be any surprise that the president’s approval rating isn’t all that high these days (40 percent approval rating, according to the Gallup Organization, with 53 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance).

There’s also a recent Gallup poll that says only 28 percent of people questioned think Obama will be remembered as an “outstanding” or “above average” president, with 31 percent saying he’ll be “average” and 40 percent saying he’ll be remembered as “below average/poor.” That's far from the worst -- both Presidents Bush are thought of less-highly, as are former presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon.

An impression from JFK's own time

THAT STUDY FOUND that John F. Kennedy (who this week will have been deceased for 50 years – too many morbid “anniversaries” in coming days) is regarded the most-highly in history amongst recent presidents.

Although I can recall many studies throughout the years that show Kennedy’s legacy approval rating, so to speak, bouncing up-and-down depending on the circumstances.

My point being that these things are flexible. They’re alterable. Nothing is carved in stone.

I wonder what it will be like when much of the rhetoric we hear and read about Obama these days will sound ridiculously dated, or just ridiculous.

WE PROBABLY SHOULD remember that much of the trash-talk Lincoln faced was just as over-the-top as what Obama gets these days – particularly from the ranks of trash-talk radio that seeks to make money by appealing to their Tea Party-type listeners.

Apology owed, although not likely to ever come

It has been eight years since I visited the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., and my most vivid memory was of the exhibit devoted to the nasty rhetoric. Literally getting to read the libelous stories and commentary and hearing some of the slurs read aloud.

There are a lot more publications than the Patriot-News that probably owe Lincoln’s legacy an apology. How many publications are going to have their future incarnations issuing apologies to Obama (probably long after he’s departed this Earth) for the things they wrote, or allowed to be said without challenging them?

Will they be able to get away with just an apology – that will come across as self-serving in the future as the one Lincoln got earlier this month?

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Political families in Chicago last longer than many of us are aware of

Frank Annunzio hasn’t been in Congress for more than two decades. Heck, he passed away 12 years ago.

Yet that doesn’t mean the Annunzio name is gone from the local political scene. Even if not in a prominent elected office, his descendants remained in place even after he was gone (voluntarily, he didn’t seek re-election in 1992 to the seat in Congress he held for 18 years).

WHICH IS WHY the Annunzio name is back in the news these days. The Chicago Sun-Times reported Thursday about the lawsuit the City Council likely will settle this week.

One caused because of the alleged behavior on-the-job of Joseph Annunzio – who thinks of the one-time Northwest Side congressman as “Uncle Frank.”

Joseph was a city Transportation Department staffer (a supervisor, to be specific) who supposedly had a lousy temperament on the job – particularly when dealing with female co-workers.

According to the Sun-Times, Annunzio had slurs for women, black people and immigrants in general.

I DON’T FEEL the need to repeat his specific slurs – other than to say I have encountered people who, when they think they’re in private moments, are more than willing to express similar thoughts.

And may well be reacting to this commentary now by saying that we’re somehow letting “political correctness” run amok by censoring what this man is allowed to think.

Which is trite nonsense, of course. There is a degree to which people are entitled to some general respect from people they deal with on the job, or in other situations. It’s really just a matter of common courtesy. Of having some manners, so to speak.

ANNUNZIO: What would he think of nephew?

The fact that Joseph Annunzio himself once said in a newspaper interview that he used vulgarity to emphasize his point really comes across as someone who thinks that everybody around them has to take his abuse.

IT IS MORE a sign of having no class, and people engaging in such behavior really are best ignored.

Except when they can’t be, which is why several of the women who worked in the Transportation Department office felt the need to file a lawsuit, which the Sun-Times says will be settled on Friday when the City Council’s finance committee is expected to approve a $560,000 payment to the women.

The fact that the city will settle is to be expected. Officials probably figure that a $560,000 payment now is cheaper than the court costs that would be incurred if they fought the lawsuit to its conclusion.

Even if the ultimate verdict was favorable to the city, it would be costly. And money is something city officials would prefer not to spend, if they don’t have to.

AFTER ALL, MONEY spent fighting a lawsuit means less municipal funds on hand that can be used to pay for contracts to politically-connected businesses – which means less in the way of kickbacks (which doesn’t necessarily mean bribes) to the government officials.

But back to Joseph Annunzio, whom it seems goes around acting as though his Uncle Frank is still a political power-broker – rather than just a name from the past that many younger people probably wouldn’t recognize if they stumbled across it on an old billboard or leaflet that somehow has managed to survive the decades.

Of course, he no longer has that particular city job. He lost it as a result of the complaints, and his attempts to sue to get his job were unsuccessful. Which some might argue means he suffered a real punishment – unemployment stinks!

Personally, I’ve never met the younger Annunzio. I don’t have any ill-will toward him. Although I wish he could have found a more impressive way to keep the family name in the public eye.

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Is bad pun racist? Or just stupid?

I have to confess – the latest journalistic outrage went right past me on Sunday – I didn’t even notice it.

By that, I’m referring to the Chicago Sun-Times, which in their (not-quite-so) thick Sunday editions used their front-page to make a big deal of the Asiana Flight 214 crash that killed some and injured dozens.

UNDER THE BOLD headline FRIGHT 214, we got a subhead offering what were then the current numbers of 2 dead and 181 injured, and a large photograph of the airplane wreckage – particularly the top of the plane ripped right off.

Nobody is complaining about a graphic display of a San Francisco airport crash in a Chicago newspaper – it was a big-enough story that newspapers, broadcasts, Internet sites and other forums everywhere all were making a big deal out of it.

But to the Asian American Journalists Association, the problem lies within that headline. They see it as some sort of mocking parody of the way someone of an Asian ethnic background might speak English.

They see it as a mocking of the people who were on board that jet – did they think they were on Fright 214 to San Flancisco? (And yes, that would be racist, if not for the fact that I wrote it only to mock those idiots who actually think people talk like that).

THE OUTRAGE IS intense enough that Jim Kirk of the Chicago Sun-Times got to issue his first apology as publisher – saying there was no intent to mock or offend anyone. “We were trying to convey the obviously frightening situation of that landing,” Kirk said, in a statement made public by the association.

I’m inclined to give the newspaper the benefit of the doubt solely because, like I conceded up front, I didn’t even notice it.

When I saw the newspaper front page on Sunday, I glanced at the headline and actually read it as “Flight 214.” I didn’t notice it as a pun. I quickly turned to the inside pages to get actual details.

It wasn’t until early on Monday when I noticed a couple of threads on Facebook that I learned there was anything resembling a controversy. It was only then that I went back to the newspaper, read the headline, and realized I had mis-read it.

IF IT REALLY was an attempt to mock someone’s accent, then yes, it would be offensive.

Yet I can’t help but think that this is more a matter some something stupid, rather than racist!

It’s a silly headline; and one that exposes the potential danger that lies within any attempt at puns – there are bound to be people who mis-read them. Of course, there always are those who mis-read something, regardless of how precisely it is worded.

Some people just don’t comprehend well under any circumstance. While others, like me, might race through it a little too quickly. I missed the attempt at a pun, and just took it for an unimaginative headline.

SO I’M NOT all that offended by the Sun-Times on Sunday. I’m more of the sentiment that the paper that day was unimaginative – and perhaps not worth the $1.75 ($3, if you live outside the Chicago-area) that was paid for a copy.

If there’s anything that offends me, it is the new layout structure that turns Page 3 (which ought to be a prime page for display of significant news) into a full-page advertisement.

I doubt the American Mattress ad brought in enough money to compensate for the fact that it now feels like all the news is buried back in the depths of the newspaper.

That is something every newspaper ought to be extremely concerned about. Because that’s exactly the kind of thing that makes potential readers think they’d be better off reading something else.

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