Olympics in Chicago take a major commitment for mass transit improvement

One of the biggest obstacles Chicago officials face in terms of bringing the summer Olympic Games to the Second City come 2016 is the condition of the mass transit system in the metropolitan area.

Moving people about the area is a problem in that the system of elevated and subway trains and buses are usually intended to keep people within their respective portion of the Chicago metropolitan area. The idea of someone being able to go anywhere within the six-county Chicago area without having an automobile is absurd.

THERE’S ALSO THE fact that the mass transit system in our area is old – more than a century. Portions of the elevated train track used by the Chicago Transit Authority date back to the 1890s, which may have made them state-of-the-art for Chicago’s aborted attempt to stage the 1904 Olympics (which were shifted to St. Louis is a bit of intercity intrigue).

Now portions of the system are new (such as the elevated trains running from the Loop to Midway Airport), and overall, the “el” and subway system is in good condition for something so old.

But the few upgrades that have been made to the system throughout the years are not sufficient to provide a system for moving an influx of Olympics-related people from place to place throughout Chicago.

That ought to be obvious to anybody who has observed the reactions of Mayor Richard M. Daley, who is in Beijing to witness the ’08 summer Olympics out of hope he can steal a few ideas that will give our home city an advantage in gaining the ’16 games over Madrid, Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo.

OFFICIALS IN BEIJING literally opened two new subway lines, and another line directly linking the airport to the Olympic stadium, in order to accommodate the masses of people who will want to get around the city in order to witness world-class athletics.

Officials say they expect up to 1 million people per day to use those new routes as part of Olympics-related transit.

Just imagine how swamped the CTA would become if that many people were to try to ride the Jackson Park elevated train line (the Green Line “el,” to those who are too young to remember the names that used to be given to the various CTA train lines), which is the one that comes closest to the South Side site where Daley dreams of erecting a temporary stadium to stage opening ceremonies and other athletic events.

Any attempt to upgrade the CTA train lines is going to have to be a virtual reconstruction of the system with origins going back more than a century (the CTA itself was not created until 1943, but it uses the remnants of transit systems that used to connect neighborhoods to downtown).

ANYTHING SHORT OF a reconstruction is going to be perceived by Olympics officials as second rate. In that case, we might as well give up our efforts now to get the games.

For his part, Daley seems willing to consider such a massive upgrade, telling reporter-types on hand for the Olympic Games that, “if you can put a man on the moon, then we can really fix this up.”

The trick, as he sees it, is bolstering the existing infrastructure so it can accommodate the newer rail cars of the 21st Century that are used in places such as Beijing, which allow for faster-moving trains that can actually maintain something resembling a schedule.

Gee, what a radical concept, a CTA whose trains (and buses) aren’t ridiculously late all the time!

OF COURSE, OLYMPICS officials have questioned the city’s estimates that such an upgrade of transit and highways would only cost $27 billion. So who knows how legitimate the city’s Olympics bid ought to be taken.

The reason I do not dismiss the concept of a summer Olympiad coming to Chicago eight years from now is because I realize this is probably the best shot we, the people of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, will ever have to motivate our political people to make the major upgrade of mass transit that will benefit all of us who live in the region.

The political maneuvering that will need to take place in order to get the local officials to back the project will need the promise of an event of “historic” proportions such as an Olympiad.

The fact that it would be a scheduled event with deadlines that must be met would be the only thing to pressure political people who normally view construction of any type as an excuse to enrich themselves or their allies, rather than to better the facilities used by the public.

LEAVE IT TO the political people to approve a plan to engage in a massive transit improvement, and we will be here in August 2016 watching the Olympics take place in Rio de Janeiro because our officials still will not have approved anything in the way of construction.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Consider how long officials have been debating construction of a third major airport for the Chicago area. The need for such a facility (with O’Hare International and Midway airports now operating at capacity) has been known for decades.

But the political people of our region have never approved anything airport-related because they are taking former House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s maxim of “All Politics is Local” to a ridiculous extreme, placing their respective neighborhoods’ needs over those of the region as a whole.

IT MAY BE sad that it would take an Olympics to get us improved mass transit. It probably is something that the political people would want to do for those of us who live here year round, rather than for visitors who will come here for a couple of weeks eight years from now – then never return again.

But I will take it. The promise of improved transit, particularly in this age of ridiculously priced gasoline and public parking (and overly strict attitudes toward the “booting” of illegally parked cars), ought to make Olympics fans out of all of us.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Mayor Richard Daley is making a priority of seeing how much nicer Beijing’s subways are than Chicago’s (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chicago-daley-transit-beijing-olympics-aug6,0,5395155.story), and how much money will have to be spent to upgrade the Chicago Transit Authority so that International Olympics Committee officials take seriously the city’s bid to host the 2016 games.

Would Gov. Rod Blagojevich be willing to play politics with state government support (http://www.pjstar.com/news_state/x806577678/Frustrated-governor-says-he-needs-Daleys-help) for Chicago’s Olympics bid? Did anyone seriously take longer than three seconds to answer, “Yes?”

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has talked lightheartedly about how nice it would be (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/63ec4b34-602d-11dd-805e-000077b07658.html) to walk from his Hyde Park neighborhood home to the Olympic Stadium in 2016, but some U.S. officials believe the international presence he has developed gives Chicago’s bid some credibility.

Chicago lost its last bid for the Olympics in 1904 when officials engaged in intercity (http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/past/index_uk.asp?OLGT=1&OLGY=1904) politicking and shifted the games to St. Louis to coincide with the World’s Fair that year.

Did Paris top McCain and Obama as Campaign ’08 enters the “Silly Season?”

Campaigns for political office are going to contain their share of light-hearted moments. They have to, or else we’d all become so depressed about how low our country has sank (if campaign rhetoric is to be believed) that we’d commit suicide before Election Day – which would result in nobody winning.

Either that, or the few survivors would vote for Paris Hilton for president as an act of political protest.

BUT I’M STILL trying to figure out the most absurd moment of the day, as Tuesday seemed to be a day loaded with campaign trivia.

Was it when a spectator/heckler tried to lambaste Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama for not making a big production out of the Pledge of Allegiance? Or was it the aftermath of when Republican opponent John McCain offered up his wife, Cindy, as a contestant for “Miss Buffalo Chip?”

Or was it the new video showing us Paris in a skimpy bathing suit telling us she’d be a better president than either McCain or Obama because she’s “hot.”

On a day when both Obama and McCain were trying to tout the concept of energy conservation, it was the moments of trivia that will be remembered – which is a sad commentary on the U.S. electorate.

OBAMA WAS IN Cleveland when he was heckled by someone who was trying to create the perception of Barack as unpatriotic because he did not lead the crowd at his rally in a mass Pledge of Allegiance.

I’ll give Obama credit for his handling of that moment – stammering uncontrollably would have given the conservative broadcast geeks some video they could have reused over and over for the next three months.

Instead, he urged the man to lead the crowd in the pledge. After that, he was able to proceed.

I must confess – I don’t trust people who try to make a production out of the Pledge of Allegiance, or the U.S. flag or any of the other symbols. All too often, those productions turn into trivializations of the high-minded ideals for which this country is supposed to stand for.

I’D RATHER JUDGE someone by the results of their actions, rather than on whether or not they wore a lapel pin of the U.S. flag or whether they had enough verve in their voice while reciting the “pledge,” which throughout the years has been amended to meet the ideals desired by the times.

In short, which version of the pledge is the legitimate version? What if a person refuses to include the words “under God” in his version – is he being true, or disrespectful, to the pledge as originally written.

I’m more offended by someone using press credentials to get into an event to make some sort of statement than I ever would be by the remarks of a political candidate. But I’m not shocked that press credentials were given to such a person – press passes issued by campaigns often offer the least significant access to a candidate. I remember one campaign event in Joliet, Ill., in 2000 where members of the general public were able to get closer to the candidate (George W. Bush) than anyone with a “press pass.”

But what about McCain, who while campaigning for the votes of hardcore motorcycle riders rallying in Sturgis, S.D., offered up his spouse for the event’s “Miss Buffalo Chip” contest.

I SUSPECT McCAIN was just trying to be “one of the boys” while campaigning among the bikers, although the thought of McCain trying to blend with the crowd at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was just absurd. He would have done a better job if he had donned a leather jacket and chaps while campaigning for the votes of bikers, instead of offering up his blond wife as a piece of sexual meat for the biker crowd.

Now I don’t really believe McCain expects Cindy to partake in the contest, which is a parody of a beauty contest – done up with a biker sensibility. Seriously, the ladies who partake in the contest usually do so in thong bikinis.

And somehow, the ladies always manage to lose their bikini tops before the contest’s end.

Just imagine how much fun Jon Stewart would have mocking that image on the Comedy Central program, “the Daily Show,” if he were to get some accompanying video? I can already envision in my mind a comparison of that photograph from last year of Obama in swim trunks on the beaches of Hawaii, compared to a cheesecake photo of Cindy McCain.

OF COURSE, WHEN it comes to the cheesecake factor, Paris Hilton probably tops them all. That bathing suit she wore in her video response to McCain’s attempt to belittle Obama by comparing him to her left little to the imagination. She could be Miss Buffalo Chip, if she feels like making a quickie trip to South Dakota.

And listening to Hilton try to offer up her own energy plan (off-shore drilling as a short-term measure and more environmentally sound measures for the long-term) was informative in one aspect – her “plan” wasn’t any more trite than much of the rhetoric we hear coming from the legitimate political campaigns.

Despite the silliness of these incidents, I honestly believe they all fall short on the absurdity scale.

For me, the most ridiculous thing I learned on Tuesday were the results of a new poll commissioned by the Lifetime Networks. The legitimate point it found was that women prefer Obama, but some remain miffed about the defeat of Hillary Clinton to the point where they will vote against their interests to back McCain.

SERIOUSLY, 18 PERCENT of women who wanted Hillary are now voting McCain, compared to 76 percent who are backing Barack.

What bothers me about this is that people took a study that could have provided significant data toward understanding the mood of the country with regards to the upcoming election, and trivialized it.

They threw in the additional question of, “Who would you rather share a carpool with?”

That aspect has managed to steal away the attention of people who should be trying to figure out the meaning of numbers related to women by age, ethnicity or race, and how many would want Obama or McCain to have a lady as his vice presidential running mate.

FOR THE RECORD, 51 percent of those women surveyed would want to share a car ride with Obama, compared to only 31 percent who would accept a ride with McCain.

Personally, I back the 18 percent who chose “neither.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Should Barack Obama have to lead people in saying the Pledge of Allegiance (http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/08/05/politics/fromtheroad/entry4323650.shtml) at all his campaign events?

A moment of triviality by John McCain will live on for years to come in the annals of (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/cindy-mccain-as-miss-buffalo-chip/) political rhetoric.

Forty four percent of women surveyed think a woman will be elected president in the (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/barack_obama_john_mccain_women.html) next 12 years, but just under 30 percent think that woman will be Hillary R. Clinton.

Paris for president? It probably serves the “wrinkly white-haired guy” from “the olden days” right (http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d) for dragging the Hilton name into the campaign rhetoric.

News commentary changes with time

There are people who will read the names “Robert Novak” and “Ann Coulter” and try to lump them into the same category – a couple of conservative blowhards who use the written word in the form of newspaper columns to give their broadcast personas a touch of credibility.

Yet I can’t imagine two different types of people professionally, and their recent activities bring about two totally opposite responses from me.

NOW IN THE interest of disclosure, I have briefly encountered Novak a couple of times during my two decades working in the news business. I have never had the “pleasure” of meeting Coulter, which is good because I don’t think I’d be able to control my revulsion at being in her presence.

While the public may perceive the two of them as conservative pundits (for good or bad), I see two totally different individuals.

Coulter is the attorney who uses the written word to advance her conservative views on social issues, while Novak is the hard-working street reporter (seriously, he was still plugging away at age 77 until learning just last week that he had a brain tumor) who tries to dig up nuggets of information about political conservatives that could be news.

Seriously, the mental image I have of the times I met him is of a veteran reporter who was doing the same legwork I was to try to dig up some factual tidbit that would give me (and my potential readers) a better understanding of what was truly happening.

NOW, I’M NOT going to claim Novak is “objective” in his work. But that’s not what he was being paid for. One of the perks of being a newspaper columnist or commentator is that you can use your experience and knowledge accumulated during your time as a reporter to try to give a more honest account of what is really happening.

No longer are you truly required to quote someone just because they take the opposite viewpoint of the people whom you are writing about. If you do, you can honestly point out their errors.

Now I often thought the causes of the people who were promoted in Novak’s writing were flawed. But I have to praise Novak for writing columns that gave me an understanding of what the people on “the right” were thinking.

Considering that they rose to prominence in the 1990s and gave fits to the presidency of Bill Clinton before taking control of the federal government with the election of George W. Bush, it would have been wrong to pretend they did not exist.

NOVAK’S CRITICS ARE going to lambaste me for “burying the lede,” so to speak. They’re going to claim that any commentary trying to put Novak’s career into proper perspective ought to have in the first paragraph the fact that he wrote columns that identified Valerie Plame as a CIA operative.

While I thought Novak’s conduct in getting that story was a little sleazy, I learned a long time ago that writing stories about nasty subjects is going to result in encountering nasty people and having to meet them on their turf. It’s not a clean world.

In the case of the Plame story, what we learned is that the Bush allies who outed Plame’s presence did so out of a sense of retribution against her husband, who was perceived as a Bush critic. It was truly informative to learn the degree to which Bush people would play political hardball to advance their ideological causes.

Insofar as the retirement of Novak, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people are going to be shocked to learn the Joliet, Ill. native is a Chicago newspaper guy – having been on the Chicago Sun-Times payroll since 1966 ever since the old New York Herald-Tribune went defunct.

IT WAS THE Sun-Times that announced his retirement (due to the chemotherapy and radiation treatments he will have to undergo to try to prolong his life) with a special notice on their website.

Most of the time when Novak’s name comes up, people identify him as either a columnist published in the Washington Post or New York Post (both of which reprint the pieces that are published in the Sun-Times) or as a television pundit – once with CNN but most recently with Fox News Channel.

In a sense, the Sun-Times lost what little national face it had, although I have noticed in recent months that the newspaper’s lone Washington-based reporter, Lynn Sweet, is getting significant television attention as a so-called local pundit who knows the ways of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Now for the people who like to dig up the acronym “MSM” and want to trash most of the reporting they read, it will be hard to accept this concept. But the loss of Novak will hurt the public understanding of our government.

WHO ELSE WILL give us those columns filled with little tidbits that tell us which conservative congressman feels a grudge and now senses a need to go after his enemies?

I don’t see many other people willing to do the kind of legwork involved in digging up such information. It certainly won’t be from the likes of Ann Coulter, whose most recent column that tried to trash former presidential hopeful John Edwards created a recent stir in downstate Illinois.

The State Journal-Register, the daily newspaper in the capital city of Springfield, publishes Coulter’s once-a-week rants (and officials there admit their readers are split pretty evenly about whether they enjoy or detest her presence in the newspaper).

But last week (on Friday, to be exact), Coulter’s column did not run.

SHE WROTE A commentary that tried to trash Edwards for allegedly fathering a child with a woman other than his wife, and she had some nasty quotations from people willing to speak ill of Edwards.

The problem is that Coulter didn’t do anywhere near the type of reporting it would take to nail down such a sordid story (which sometimes needs to be told). Her source, it turns out, was the National Enquirer, which has done a few pieces about the issue.

Journal-Register editors (in a note published on the newspaper’s website) said they had problems with the concept of an Enquirer story being relied on so heavily as the factual basis for Coulter’s commentary. When combined with borderline libelous quotes, they decided to scrap her commentary for the week.

Of course, they made a point of letting their readers know that Ann would be back in print at the end of this week. After all, her column apparently does draw in some readers in the rural Illinois region surrounding the capital city where people are more than willing to buy into Coulter’s goofy conspiracy theories about evil liberals dragging our society into the pits of Hades.

THIS IS THE difference between the new and old ways of thinking in newsgathering.

Coulter and her ilk were more than willing to buy into a goofy Enquirer piece because she could spin it to fit with her views on what life should be about (basically, that certain people who do not fit into her view of the world need to crawl back into a hole and stay away from her).

I doubt Ann cares about what really happened with Edwards, and probably will lambaste me as some sort of freak for wanting to know truth.

I’m not saying Novak would not have pursued the same story, and would not have produced copy that would have echoed with glee at being able to nail Edwards for his alleged activity.

BUT HE WOULD have done his own digging for information, and probably would have come up with details that would have surpassed anything the Enquirer could exaggerate.

That willingness to dig for information – that is what I look for in trying to decide whether a reporter-type is worth paying attention to. And it is the reason I think the Sun-Times (regardless of how they ultimately fill his space on the editorial page) will now be a little less substantive in its content, now that Novak has to focus his attention on survival – rather than digging up another “scoop.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Robert Novak’s sudden discovery of a brain tumor has resulted in (http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/1089872,novak080408.article) his retirement, following (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/novak-announces-retirement/?hp) nearly five decades as a reporter and commentator about the news out of Washington.

The decision by editors of the State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill., to “kill” a column (http://blogs.sj-r.com/editor/index.php/2008/08/04/coulter-watch-readers-weigh-in/) by pundit Ann Coulter has outraged some of the newspaper’s readers. Figure out for yourself (http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=264) whether this column is too absurd to be published.

Mich. & Fla., not this issue again?!?

I realize that his motivation is to “make nice” with the political people of Michigan and Florida so that Democrats in those states feel a need to go to the polls on Nov. 4 and vote for Barack Obama for president. But dredging up the tainted nature of the primary elections in those two states has the potential to anger more people than are pleased.

Specifically, Obama sent a letter Sunday to Democratic National Committee officials letting them know he no longer has objections to those state being given full representation at the party’s presidential nominating convention in Denver.

BACK IN THE days when the primary election was in full swing, that would have been a controversial move – one that would have surrendered a significant advantage to the campaign of opponent Hillary R. Clinton.

But now that an overwhelming majority of the “super-delegates” have promised to back Barack in Denver, he no longer needs to be concerned with holding down Clinton’s delegate count.

And considering that convention officials have promised to give Hillary a prominent speaking spot during the convention, I would guess that Obama is not concerned that Clinton would try to resurrect her suspended presidential campaign and steal-back some delegates at the convention to be held at month’s end.

In terms of “just the facts, ma’am,” what this does is gives Clinton a higher delegate count, because she was the winner of the legally flawed primary elections held in those two states. History will record her as having failed to gain the presidential nomination by a lesser margin than she appeared to have lost when she quit actively campaigning back in early June.

IT ALSO TAKES away the ability for future generations of historians to say that the elections in Florida and Michigan were legally flawed, even though they were.

With that potential snub out of the way, Obama would hope that Democratic leaders in those two states will quit thinking of themselves as being snubbed by their political party and will take a more intense interest in getting their states’ electoral votes into the Obama column on Nov. 4.

Currently, those states are sending delegations to the Democratic National Convention at only half-strength. Every single delegate gets to go to the weeklong political pep rally to be held in Denver, but their votes only count for half.

That was the resolution reached back in May by the Democratic National Committee as the penalty for elections officials in those two states jumping the gun and trying to bolster their states’ political influence by holding elections earlier than what was usually their turn in the several-months cycle of 57 primaries and caucuses that determine who gets to be the Democrat who can seriously dream of being U.S. president.

I WAS OF the belief then that the two states did deserve some sort of punishment for trying to hold earlier-than-usual elections, and I was never of the belief that replacement elections should be held – unless officials in Florida and Michigan were willing to assume the full cost of conducting them.

Officials in those two states never were willing or able to do that (elections cost money, and take time to prepare for). But this issue was one for the past – one of those bits of rhetoric that will be reviewed when the election cycle is complete.

Now, due to his letter to DNC officials, Obama has resurrected it.

How many Hillary-ites who have been smouldering at the defeat of “their girl” are going to use this as an excuse to let loose with their anger?

ARE WE GOING to start hearing again about the 18 million-plus people who voted in primary elections for Clinton over Obama, thereby allowing her fans to spin the facts to claim she won the political primaries? She did, but she lost the caucuses very badly, and it is a combination of primaries AND caucuses that determines who gets to be the nominee.

Has Obama managed to create a hole big enough to Clinton fans to try to resurrect her campaign? Even if Hillary herself doesn’t rise to the occasion and try to steal pledged super-delegates from Obama (it’s only a verbal pledge, and is not legally binding until the vote is taken at the Democratic convention), could this split never become healed – thereby giving Republican John McCain a serious chance to actually win come November.

Obama’s maneuver also is giving the GOP’s loyal followers factual material to try to claim he can’t make up his mind about anything.

Despite McCain making a fool of himself with campaign ads trying to link Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton (Paris’ mother is miffed, calling the campaign ads “a waste of money” – some of which was donated by the Hilton family – and Paris herself claims her image was used without her permission), it remains a close race.

A GALLUP ORGANIZATION tracking poll during the weekend showed the two men tied at exactly 44 percent apiece. Even their most recent tracking poll shows Obama with such a slim lead (only 1 percent) that pollsters admit it falls within the margin of error and the race could still be a tie.

It would appear that stirring up old grudges is worth the risk to Obama, considering that the significant working class white populations of both states, particularly Michigan, is showing signs of swinging to McCain – unless Democratic organizations in those states start taking an active interest in promoting Obama’s campaign.

Michigan is a state that narrowly went for the Democratic presidential hopeful in both 2000 and 2004. But Obama’s intellectual appeal to one segment of the country is being blamed by political pundits for having the potential to drive that state into the McCain column.

And in Florida, Obama’s best chance of taking the state that went Republican in the two most recent presidential elections is to take the growing Latino vote in that state, which is showing signs of abandoning the ways of the aging Miami Cubano exile community – surveys of the Latino voter bloc in Florida show that in 2008 they identify by a 2-1 ratio with the Democratic Party over the Republicans (although about one-third of Latinos in Florida say they are “independent”).

WITHOUT THOSE TWO states, Obama would have to take significant numbers of electoral votes in smaller population states that in recent political history have trended for the Republican.

So while I understand why Obama wants to “throw a bone” to Michigan and Florida, it is a risky strategy. The 2008 Democratic presidential primary was ugly (although the general election is showing evidence of topping it), and we could get reminders during the nominating convention.

For his sake, Obama had better accept the presidential nomination with rhetoric so powerful and appealing that it will go into the history books alongside his moment at the ’04 convention (when he went from being an obscure Illinois legislator with a non-Anglo monicker to an inspirational figure within the span of 22 minutes).

It had better not be a moment only memorable because his campaign staff had the ego to think he could back a 75,000-seat football stadium.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Now that it no longer makes a difference in terms of who gets the nomination (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/obama_seeks_full_florida_michi.html), Barack Obama wants, “Democrats from all regions of the country and all backgrounds and walks of life to have a meaningful voice,” according to his weekend letter asking for Michigan and Florida to receive full representation at the convention later this month.

It will be interesting to see what kind of reaction Obama draws from the political faithful in Lansing, Mich., who turn out on Monday (his 47th birthday) for his speech on potential (http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080803/NEWS15/80803025/1001/NEWS) energy policies in an Obama administration.

In between preparations for the Olympic Games beginning Friday, Chinese news junkies have the potential (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/04/content_8934691.htm) to read about the latest Obama antics.

People trying to get on with their lives 6 months after quintuple slayings

TINLEY PARK, Ill. – It has been six months to the day since I visited my mother, only to find a police squad car parked at the end of her block, and a uniformed officer questioning everybody who wanted to get past him.

My mother lives in this southwestern suburb exactly 20 blocks north of the Brookside Marketplace shopping center, which was the site of a Lane Bryant store where five female shoppers were shot to death (and a sixth was wounded).

TO DATE, THERE are no suspects publicly identified, just some drawings indicating police think the gunman was African-American with braided hair. There definitely is no one in custody facing criminal charges for any of the deaths.

What there is, is a community that is trying to get past the incident in the way everybody has to get on with their lives following death. Police, when questioned, make a point of saying that criminal investigations take time to complete.

That’s true.

The days of Joe Friday collecting “just the facts, ma’am,” and solving a criminal case in 22 minutes were never reality, and the idea that modern science makes it possible to solve a case beyond appeal within an hour’s show (a la the various “CSI” programs) isn’t real either. POLICE IN THE suburb on the Cook/Will county line obviously are feeling the pressure of not having someone in custody six months after the crime (most people would only have been satisfied if the gunman had been shot dead by police six seconds after the crime was committed).

Why else would the two Chicago metro daily newspapers be offered up stories about progress in the criminal investigation?

The Chicago Tribune story from Friday intrigued me the most.

Implying that the store manager’s ties to her church in Crest Hill, Ill. (which since has relocated to Austin, Texas) might somehow be relevant to this case would elevate the slayings from the level of a third-rate robbery gone violent that so many people took as gospel since the incident occurred to that of a complex crime that justifiably takes time to resolve.

OF COURSE, POLICE are quick to say they haven’t confirmed that the church ties (specifically, the store manager’s withdrawal from the church two years ago) are relevant.

But it gives local residents something to speculate over, aside from the theories I have heard from locals when visiting my mother about how the gunman went east on Interstate 80, and somehow managed to get out of the country and is now relaxing on a beach in Jamaica.

So what are the locals thinking these days? People I spoke to Friday mostly pleaded ignorance about the case.

Nobody knows nothin’, and the few who had much of anything to say were more disgusted that the criminal investigation is not yet a closed case.

“I JUST WANT to know who did it, and know that he is in the process of being punished,” said Suzanne Holt, a Frankfort resident who was shopping Friday at the Sally Beauty Supply store located directly next door to the now-shuttered Lane Bryant.

Most of those who I spoke to were not enthused about being identified, but they said they were more focused on their lives now, rather than dwelling on what happened six months ago today.

In fact, that seemed to be the general mood around the Brookside Marketplace, which is a huge shopping center for which the label “strip mall” really does not apply.

With a “Super Target,” a “Kohl’s” and a “Best Buy” anchoring it, and many other smaller stores also present, it is easy to overlook the Lane Bryant store, whose windows remain covered with brown paper and a sign posted near the locked entrance says the store remains “closed until further notice.”

BUT AS EVIDENCE that there once was commerce taking place here, another sign remains from the “old” days – one that informs customers in pink and white lettering that they can purchase “Instant gift Cheques” for $25.

It’s not like the rest of the shopping center has become a retail ghost town like the one-time Dixie Square Shopping Center in Harvey, Ill., which sat in decay for years until it was finally demolished – and its vacant lot remaining as a sign of what could have been.

Construction equipment literally can be seen along the edge of the development, building yet another structure that (from its appearance and specific location) will slop fast food onto store customers, which will turn the duo of Taco Bell and Arby’s into a junk food trio.

The vacant Lane Bryant (which has its store sign above the entrance remaining in place) has immediate neighbors with their share of business on Friday. Stores such as “Dinner by Design” and “Back to Bed” had their typical mid-day level of customers.

BASICALLY, CUSTOMERS WERE hustling and bustling into the shopping center’s main stores, providing people of this developing area just off Interstate 80 and Harlem Avenue a place to spend their money.

In short, the shopping center’s owners appear to have no intention of giving in to the criminal notoriety that their retail development now has.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Is a cellular telephone call routed through a nearby tower a clue to finding the gunman (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-lane_bryant_webaug01,0,1642159.story) who shot and killed five women back in February at a Tinley Park shopping center?

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that police are wondering if the Tinley Park quintuple slayings are related in any way (http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1085902,CST-NWS-lane01.article) to a quintuple slaying on the South Side, for which three men already are in police custody.

Chicago an immigrant magnet that also attracts massive political bloviation

It’s no secret that the Chicago population is a mish-mash of ethnicities. Throughout its history, newcomers to the United States have seen the Second City and its surrounding area as a perfect place to begin their lives in a new country.

In fact, I’d argue that Chicago can serve as the immigration issue’s version of a Rorschach test. Let people take a quick look at the Second City, and we can figure out where they stand on the issue.

THE PEOPLE WHO are misguided enough to think our wonderful city on the shores of Lake Michigan has a problem are probably the ones who are most clamoring for a tightening of the immigration laws in this country so as to remove people from within our boundaries.

But many of the people who have made their lives here are the ones who realize the benefits of a continuous influx of newcomers – it helps keep the region (and ultimately the nation) from becoming stale economically and socially.

The fact that even the long-running families of Chicago can trace their lineage back a few generations to immigrants makes them realize these new newcomers are going to make the same adjustments and become a part of our establishment with the passage of time.

City Hall will be the focus next week of problems immigrants face in dealing with law enforcement. The only difference between today's immigrants and the ones who made up Chicago's population back when this century-old postcard was contemporary is that now they speak Spanish or Arabic, rather than Polish or with an Irish brogue.

That is why Chicago has followed the example of certain other places, such as New York, in declaring itself a “Sanctuary City,” a refuge of sorts for immigrants, regardless of whether or not they have a valid visa or all the proper papers.

NOT THAT BEING an “illegal alien” (to use federal government technospeak) is legal in Chicago. It only means that Chicago police and other city officials, should they stumble across information indicating that a person might not have the proper papers, do not make an effort to point them out to federal immigration officials.

City officials act as though the federal government should enforce its own laws, and not expect Chicago government to do it for them. That is a 180-degree difference from the views of people such as Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who in recent months has led raids searching for people without papers in the Phoenix area that have resulted in many legal residents being harassed because of their ethnic background.

The legal theory behind a “Sanctuary City” policy is that local officials do not fully appreciate all the nuances of immigration law, and should not be making any efforts to enforce federal acts out of fear they may erroneously penalize someone who has legitimate business being in this country.

Such policy is why the City Council is taking it upon itself to conduct its own investigation into whether or not immigrants are being penalized within Chicago’s boundaries.

NOW THE CITY Council, as a local government body, does not have authority to start penalizing the federal government. The special committee hearings to be held next week at City Hall are more of a symbolic gesture – government officials in Chicago want to show they are supportive of the newcomers to the city.

So council members, led by Ald. Danny Solis (brother of Democratic vice presidential candidate chief of staff Patti Solis Doyle), will be taking the time to let dozens of immigrants tell their stories.

They are going to focus on cases where inmates at Cook County Jail were turned over to federal immigration officials once their local cases were disposed of.

In theory, the county sheriff does inform immigration of the inmate’s existence, but there have been some accounts of people without papers at the jail who were held indefinitely at county expense before federal officials could take custody of them – despite rules that require a 48-hour time limit on such additional detention of would-be undocumented immigrants.

THEY ALSO ARE going to study claims of some immigrants who claim Chicago police officers questioned them about their immigration status during traffic stops, and have contacted federal officials in cases where they suspected someone did not have the proper documents to be in the United States.

Chicago police officials have denied such activity – which would be in violation of the ordinance that made the Second City a “Sanctuary City” – ever took place on their part.

But political people will use the hearings as a chance to bloviate on the immigration issue, largely in hopes of showing people they are sympathetic to the concerns of people who have just arrived in this country and are still trying to adapt to the “alien ways” of U.S. culture.

Of course, immigration rights supporters are not the only ones capable of spewing pompous rhetoric when it comes to the issue. The people who think the answer to the problem is building walls along the U.S./Mexico border and engaging in mass deportations also like to hear themselves talk.

TAKE THE CASE of Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., the lawmaker from suburban DuPage County who sees Chicago’s attraction to newcomers as a problem.

After a recent trip to the Arizona/Sonora border region, Roskam told the Daily Herald newspaper that Illinois is to blame for “illegal aliens” for creating an environment in which newcomers feel welcome.

He specifically trashes state government for refusing to allow use of the E-Verify computer program that theoretically allows employers to check if someone is a legitimate resident legally capable of working a job in the United States.

“It creates in them the expectation that if you make it to Illinois, you are home free,” Roskam told the Arlington Heights-based newspaper.

HE IGNORES THE flaws that exist with the E-verify system (which is based off a check of Social Security numbers) that have resulted in legal residents losing jobs, because he’s more interested in making the statement about immigration.

Ultimately, that system’s future is pending in the federal courts, where the Department of Homeland Security (of which immigration is a division) has filed a lawsuit in hopes of getting a court order that would force employers to use the system – flaws and all.

Roskam’s rhetoric is not limited to E-verify. He also proudly cites measures he supports to limit a non-citizen’s ability to get a valid driver’s license or obtain medical care. He even goes so far as to tout measures that would deny U.S. citizenship to people born in this country if their parents were not citizens.

Considering that citizenship is the ultimate accident of birth, the idea of trying to deny that accident is absurd. But absurd rhetoric is comprehendable when one considers that Democrats are putting some funds into trying to knock Roskam out of his congressional post.

HIS OPPONENT IN the Nov. 4 election is a retired Army Reserve colonel who also served as an advisor on public safety and national security issues to Gov. Rod Blagojevich and who supports more sympathetic policies that would allow some of the undocumented immigrants a way to legally remain in the country – despite the goofs who automatically want to label such acts as “amnesty.”

Roskam needs the partisan rhetoric if he’s to appeal to enough social conservatives among the DuPage County electorate to send him back to Washington for another term in Congress.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Rep. Peter Roskam of Wheaton took a trip to Nogales, Ariz., to see the border (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=224030&src=1), and all he brought us back was a load of politically partisan rhetoric on the immigration issue.

Equally partisan rhetoric will come from the Chicago City Council next week when they “investigate” (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-immigrantrights-h,0,177310.story) abuse of immigrant rights by local law enforcement officials.

Seaver or Carlton?

Ken Griffey Jr. is now a member of the Chicago White Sox. But will the eventual member of baseball’s Hall of Fame have a Chicago stint that bears more resemblance to Tom Seaver or Steve Carlton?

Both of those men were among the top pitchers in the National League back in the 1970s, and both finished up their playing careers with stints with the White Sox. Griffey was once arguably the best ballplayer in the game back in the 1990s, and he will now spend a part of the end of his playing career on the South Side.

BOTH SEAVER AND Carlton got into the Hall of Fame, and no one who thinks of those men at their best will give any thought to their time in Chicago.

Yet Seaver was still a competent pitcher for the White Sox, and he actually managed to achieve his statistical goal of a 300th victory on Aug. 4, 1985 while wearing a Chicago uniform (but pitching against the Yankees in New York – the city where he had his greatest days with the cross-town Mets).

Carlton merely pitched for part of one season (1986), the year he bounced from his longtime baseball home in Philadelphia to the San Francisco Giants to Chicago, where he won 4 games, lost 3 and had a 3.69 earned run average for a forgettable fifth place ball club.

I’ll be content if Griffey can provide a little aura to a contending White Sox team whose veteran bat (first baseman Paul Konerko) can’t seem to hit a thing these days. I don’t expect a repeat of anything Griffey was capable of doing back in his days with the Seattle Mariners.

BESIDES, GRIFFEY’S DAYS in Chicago will be limited.

My understanding is he gets bought out of the rest of his contract, so the White Sox are giving up two middling minor league prospects for two months worth of a veteran whose best days are behind him.

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