5 days of being Irish? Only in Chicago

Perhaps it’s the timing of the holiday festivities this year, but I feel like we Chicagoans are in the midst of a five-day holiday weekend running through Tuesday.

That day is the actual calendar date of St. Patrick’s Day, which may have some significant cultural history to it but has become little more than an Irish ethnic pride day – one in which everybody likes to claim they have a wee bit o’ Ireland in their blood.

BUT BECAUSE IT is easier for the city to have official festivities on the weekend, we’re getting the actual St. Patrick’s Day parade on Saturday.

And in the Beverly neighborhood on Sunday, we’ll get the South Side Irish version of a parade.

So people literally could begin their Irish-inspired celebrating Friday night after work, carry it into the official downtown parade today, then spill over into a drive to the South Side for a third day of festivities. That river looks green to me, and it wasn't even St. Patrick's Day. Photograph provided by State of Illinois.

But those people who are determined to carry out their celebrations as much as possible, they will also insist on partying on the holiday proper on Tuesday. And why let a holiday-less day on Monday go by without some intoxicating behavior.

THE THOUGHT OF such a schedule strikes me as mind numbing, primarily because I’m not 19 anymore. I don’t think I’m physically up to such consumption of Guinness or any brand of beer with a green food coloring added for the holiday.

So maybe I’ll be the guy with a look of disgust on my face as I watch people around me this weekend, while going out of my way to wear nothing that resembles the color green. Then again, I’ll also be the one on May 5 having fits that the historic holiday of Cinco de Mayo has turned into little more than a Mexican version of St. Patrick’s Day.

But many of my Chicago colleagues will want to be in on the fun. In fact, some suburbs already have had holiday parades – giving people a chance to “rehearse,” so to speak, their Irish-inspired consumption of intoxicating beverages.

There will be the crowds that work their way downtown Saturday for the parade down Columbus Drive, which I still think is a letdown compared to the old days when the parade literally cut through the Loop.

CHECK OUT A copy of the Harrison Ford film “The Fugitive,” which included scenes that were filmed during the real Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade of 1993 – and even includes a cameo of our now-U.S. senator, Roland Burris.

We’ll get to hear the Shannon Rovers play once again on Saturday, before they take off for the District of Columbia to perform in festivities to be held Tuesday at the White House. Those are just more of the benefits Chicago will continue to reap from having President Barack O’Bama (groan!) in office.

The holiday is even the inspiration for what may very well be one of McDonald’s most overrated concoctions of all time – the Shamrock Shake. I have never tasted anything even remotely mint-y, or even remotely delicious, about it.

Yet there are people I have met who swear they must have one of those mid-March McDonald’s milkshakes as part of their holiday tradition. Then again, these are the same people who think the McRib sandwich is some sort of delicacy, rather than just ground meat made from the disgusting parts of the pig.

BUT THEN, THERE’S the Second City tradition that I always find to be the most ridiculous aspect of a Chicago-style St. Patrick’s Day – the idea that the city dyes the river green.

After having an orange powder dumped into the water, the river takes on a kelly-green tone for a couple of hours, before reverting back to its natural dirt green tone – created by decades of pollution that once literally had the Chicago River classified as “toxic.”

Only out-of-towners would think having a green river is cute. The rest of us realize how disgusting the concept is.

That is why I got my holiday chuckle from a commentary recently published by www.australia.to. One of that Australia-based news-oriented website’s columnists speculates that the green dye is really nothing more than toxic waste that has accumulated throughout the past year.

ASIDE FROM DISPOSING of such waste without having to deal with the Environmental Protection Agency, “it would explain the mysterious appearance of the Zebra mussels in the Illinois River – which are clearly mutated quahogs.”

So by that theory, the holiday meant to celebrate the saint who eradicated Ireland of snakes is also responsible for the rise of Zebra mussels in Chicago.

Does this mean that if someone ever figures out a way of eliminating the mussels in the Chicago area, people throughout Dublin will get intoxicated in his honor? It seems only fitting.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: What does the rest of the world (or at least a few Internet geeks in Australia) think of us Chicagoans as we’re (http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7013:st-patricks-day-now-100-snake-free&catid=108:dan-h-woods&Itemid=122) inclined to behave this weekend?

It’s too bad John F. Kennedy never got to hear the Shannon Rovers play (http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/03/chicagos_shannon_rovers_to_pla.html) on his behalf.

A place for those of you with Internet access, too much time on your hands and deadened tastebuds (http://shamrockshake.com/) to go to find a Shamrock Shake.

Will “Willis Tower” name take among the locals? Or will it always be Sears?

The left (south) side of this equation gets a new name. How will it be accepted by the locals? Photograph provided by State of Illinois.

My memory of the Sears Tower goes back to the 1973 date that the structure – once the World’s Tallest Building in the same way that O’Hare International was once the World’s Busiest Airport – was dedicated.

My father has spent his lifetime in construction (behind a drafting board, to be exact) with companies that erect those massive structures that help define a city’s character. Back in the early 1970s, he worked for a company that had a piece of the Sears Tower project.

SO WHEN THE structure was dedicated with all the pomp and circumstance that usually accompanies the opening of new publicly visible buildings, my father was on hand. And in an attempt to share the moment (which was part of his professional glory), he brought me along.

I was only 7 at the time, but I remember two images. One was the sight of a building that seemed to go on and on forever into the sky. The other was the sight of Hizzoner himself, Mayor Daley (the real one with the “J.” in his name, not the current one with the “M.”) was present for the event. It was the one time in my life I physically saw the man.

Even though during my lifetime I have twice been to the top of the Sears Tower to look down upon Chicago and the surrounding Midwestern U.S., they are not my lingering memories of the structure in the way that many a tourist feels the need to get off of one of those trolley-like buses and take the elevator up 110 stories – being amazed at how much their ears pop on the ride up.

To me, being able to look up at a new structure that seemed endless (I remember it being an overcast day, so the top of the building literally could have been in the clouds) was much more impressive than riding the elevator to the top to look down – and make jokes about how everybody on the ground looks like a batch of ants scampering around the Chicago cityscape.

IN SHORT, THE Sears Tower has become a part of the Chicago character during its just over a third-of-a century of existence in the South Loop.

Yet, a part of that character is going to change.

Willis Group Holdings, a London-based company, said Thursday it will consolidate five Chicago-area offices into one, and move them into 140,000 square feet of space in the Sears Tower.

Because they will now be such a dominant presence in the office building, the structure will be rededicated as the Willis Tower.

PERHAPS IT IS a sign of how bad the real estate market is for those people who own office buildings, but Willis officials say they didn’t have to pay anything extra to get the name change – beyond the $14.50 per square foot they will pay in rent.

So now we Chicagoans are going to have to get used to a new name. On top of all else, it will be an English name, not a Chicago one like Sears, Roebuck & Co. – which is thought of as a classic Chicago-based company, even though they left the city (and the tower) more than a decade ago for the northwest suburbs.

Will this turn into a case like Marshall Field’s downtown department store, which some people absolutely refuse to think of by its current identity as the State Street outlet for Macy’s?

Will this turn out to be like U.S. Cellular Field, which some stubborn White Sox fans absolutely refuse to think of as anything other than its previous identity as New Comiskey Park?

AS FAR AS I’m concerned, “Willis Tower” is going to take some getting used to, particularly because of its potential for half-wit jokes.

How many people will claim the structure was named for actor Bruce Willis, or that the Hancock Center should get The Arnold Co. (which manufactures railcar door openers) as a namesake tenant. Fans of the old “Diff’rent Strokes” television show could then say Chicago has Willis Tower and the Arnold Center.

It was probably Chicago stubbornness that caused the “Sears Tower” name to remain as long as it did. After all, Sears moved much of its corporate presence from the building years ago.

It really shouldn’t be called “Sears Tower” any longer, except for the fact that so many of us Chicagoans are so used to that name that it will continue to linger for years to come – or at least until my generation finally dies off in three or four decades.

IF ANYTHING, IT is that visibility that has hurt the structure in terms of gaining new tenants. Crain’s Chicago Business, in their report on the name change, noted that Willis is the largest company to move into the structure since the 2001 attacks that took down New York’s World Trade Center.

Too many people seem to think that if something similar were to occur in Chicago, the Sears Tower (make that the Willis Tower) would be the natural target.

So now, one of Chicago’s iconic images needs to be updated, since there are countless programs that make mention of the structure whenever they wish to refer to the Second City.

I remember one of those scientific documentaries that attempted to explain what would become of the planet and man-made structures, once humankind ceases to exist.

THEY LITERALLY USED computer graphics to illustrate how, after about 500 years or so of non-maintenance, the Sears Tower would come crashing down to the ground, taking out whatever remains were left of downtown Chicago.

That was a truly depressing sight to behold.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Second City provides unique cop tales

What does it say that a former chairman of the Cook County Republican Party allegedly gets caught by his wife while cavorting with two prostitutes in his house, yet it’s the wife who winds up spending a couple of days in a jail cell?

It makes me wonder if GOP official Gary Skoien is at least partially telling the truth when he says he did not have any hookers in his suburban Chicago home. Either that, or the local police have their priorities skewed.

THE CHICAGO SUN-Times newspaper reported about the incident at the Skoien residence. Police for Barrington and Inverness have a report provided by Skoien’s wife, Eni, that says she found him with two women in the playroom of their home.

Reportedly, she smacked him a bit, and hit him with a toy guitar. That’s what the police insist Eni told them, and that Gary agreed with.

Yet Eni Skoien is the one facing a criminal charge – domestic battery as a misdemeanor. She had to spend two nights in a police lockup, before a judge finally decided her misdemeanor offense was minor enough that she could be released on her own recognizance. Eni didn’t have to post any money to get out of jail.

Meanwhile, Gary (the guy whom police say was cavorting with prostitutes) faces no criminal charges. And he’s now telling reporter-types that his wife filed the police report “in anger.”

SO WHAT SHOULD we think about this incident? It is not unheard of for men involved in prostitution incidents to have their legal misconduct downplayed, while law-and-order types focus on the women.

But the idea that the wife is considered to be the offender in this incident strikes me as either being ridiculously unfair, or evidence that the police report’s details aren’t worth squat. It’s not like Gary Skoien has enough political clout for anyone to want to cover for him – his stint as GOP head ended two years ago, and he’s no longer with the Metra governing board either.

This incident reeks of no logic. It (http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1472092,gary-skokien-prostitutes-toy-guitar-031109.article) would have been like the Republicans a decade ago trying to impeach Hillary for Bill’s misdeeds.

So what other incidents off the Chicago area’s police blotters are worth noting these days?

DELAYED PLEASURE FOR THE POLICE?: Reading about the guilty plea submitted by the son of late Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko reminded me of an incident some two decades ago when I was with the now-defunct City News Bureau.

I was working the overnight shift one early Sunday when police at the Jefferson Park district called us and asked us to call them back on a special internal phone line at police headquarters – all so they could “give you guys a story.”

The story was that Royko’s son was arrested for drunk driving and being abusive to the arresting officer. The only problem is that after checking into the incident further, it turned out the guy wasn’t a Royko relative at all. Some cop was too eager to spill some dirt. We didn’t run the story.

So now that Royko’s real son, Rob, pleaded guilty to charges related to a 2005 bank robbery attempt, I can’t help but wonder if some now-retired or veteran officer is deriving too much pleasure from the news. Considering that he’s likely to get about five years (http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1471194,robert-royko-mike-son-rob-bank-admit-031109.article) in a federal prison, it can’t be said that anybody’s paying Robert Royko special consideration because of his father’s fame.

GIVE US THE DETAILS: It was but a two-paragraph item in the Chicago Tribune, telling the sordid-sounding tale of a suburban man who got arrested at the Hooters restaurant in Oak Lawn after he used his video camera to take pictures of the scantily-clad waitresses.

The item gives the impression of a Melrose Park man whose behavior borders on perverted. Yet an impression is all that it gives – details are sorely lacking. I would guess the Tribune thinks it is sparing our sensibilities. Instead, they’re allowing people with overactive imaginations to run wild.

He was arrested after a waitress (one of the ones in a halter top and orange shorts that constitutes the Hooters uniform) noticed the camera in his lap. Was he doing something else that also caught the waitress’ attention? Was he (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-hooters-spy-blotter-sw-11mar11,0,774068.story) being abusive to people around him? Or is this a gross over-reaction?

The cynical part of me can’t help but think that the real “crime,” insofar as the Hooters chain is concerned, is that he was taking his own pictures of the girls. The company would rather you purchase one of their calendars (only $12.95) if you want to look at images of Hooters girls.

BLOOD & GORE (Not Al Gore): Suburban Oak Park prefers to think of itself as the town with ties to Ernest Hemingway AND Frank Lloyd Wright. An urbane community that can’t sink to the level of urban grit.

But for those of you who can’t handle a string of police stories without body parts being involved, Oak Park was the place to be on Wednesday. The local cops spent the day checking out a report about trash bags in an alley filled with feet and other human parts.

The Chicago Sun-Times found the obligatory local resident who doesn’t want to believe (http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1471182,body-parts-bags-oak-park-alley-found-031109.article) that such things can happen in their neighborhood.

Yet all the years of being a Chicagoan (even when I lived elsewhere, my heart was on the Sout’ Side) taught me that anything can happen anywhere. I still remember a neighborhood that was relatively safe when I lived there as a teenager, yet could claim to have a rape occur inside an apartment while police waited outside AND once had a decapitated head discovered in the storeroom of the local convenience store.

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Burris “name” recognition no longer worthy of an early lead in the polls

It used to be back in the days when Roland Burris ran his losing bids for governor, senator and mayor that the initial poll in those campaigns would show the one-time Illinois attorney general in the lead among the candidates.

All of his less resume-qualified opponents would lag behind him, although there would be a significant number of people who were undecided about what to do.

WHAT WOULD INEVITABLY happen is that all those undecideds would decide for themselves that the campaign was about the other candidates, and that Roland was irrelevant.

The undecideds would split up among the other candidates, and one of them would shoot ahead of Burris to take a lead – and ultimately prevail on Election Day.

Roland Burris in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998 and 2002 was a guy who could only appeal to a certain hard-core that had its mind made up early. He couldn’t sway anyone else to consider him for higher office.

And now, it appears that Burris doesn’t even have that factor going for him, at least if the results of a certain poll taken by Zogby International are worth anything.

THE ZOGBY STUDY, paid for by the Independent Insurance Agents of Illinois, has a 3.9 percent margin of error. But not even that makes Burris competitive.

He gets 5.3 percent of the vote, and it would appear that a campaign for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate from Illinois would center around state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and state Comptroller Dan Hynes.

The poll shows Giannoulias barely leading Hynes 28.1 percent to 26.8 percent – which falls within the margin of error. The two “kids” are leaving 71-year-old Burris lagging behind.

Burris’ campaign people are trying to spin these results by citing his past campaigns, where the early poll leader ultimately did not win on Election Day.

BUT THAT DOESN’T work because in those campaigns, Burris was the early leader. His past record shows he can’t hold an early lead because he can’t appeal to anyone other than a hard-core – which appears to have become an urban black voter base that wants to promote African-American political empowerment, regardless of the actual candidate.

Back in 1998 when he ran for Illinois governor a second time, he tried labeling his three Anglo opponents as “unqualified white boys,” a quip that came back to haunt him – even if there was a sense in which it was true that none of the three major challengers in that primary had as much electoral experience as did Burris.

This time, it wouldn’t work, mainly because any such blatant comment would be jumped all over by people who want to ignore racial issues, no matter how flagrant they may be.

And also, Dan Hynes by now has been Illinois comptroller for just as long as Burris held that post, before he moved up to serve one term as state attorney general.

IF THIS POLL is truly worthy of anything (and it might not be, since we don’t know exactly who will seek the Democratic nomination for Senate), it would appear that the campaign will come down to a battle between the old Democratic organization types of Chicago and the new guard who want to view the city’s political culture as the place that created Barack Obama.

Hynes is the son of the former state Senate president and Cook County assessor, and many of the “old-school” ward organization types in Chicago will want to support the Hynes name, keeping it in line with such multi-generational political families such as Daley, Cullerton and Madigan – just to name a few.

Giannoulias is the basketball-playing buddy of Obama whose ties to him go back to the University of Chicago – which in itself is an island of civility in an urban morass, and I don’t mean that in a racial text.

The university stood out on the South Side even before the neighborhoods surrounding the Hyde Park campus became majority African-American population.

BURRIS, BY COMPARISON, has become the doddering old man of sorts, floundering on the political sidelines while the next generation tries to figure out in which direction it is headed.

Despite this trend (which I don’t find surprising), I am not bothered by the idea of Burris in the Senate – for now. I still think a person like him was the best choice to complete the Senate term of Obama, which only has this year and next to go before it is done with.

I would not have wanted a gubernatorial appointment, or some fluke special election, to give the advantage of incumbency to any candidate – thereby allowing that person to gain one of the top political posts in Illinois. I’d rather see the 2010 primary and general elections become a free-for-all, with the winner earning that top post. Burris, with his general knowledge of government procedure, is a caretaker, and an ideal one for the office.

Now let’s just hope that Burris can look at results such as this poll, along with a lot of other trends in the political culture, and figure out for himself that he is best off enjoying his two-year ride, then rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ himself back to his Gresham neighborhood home for a well-deserved retirement.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: In other poll results, Lisa Madigan would whomp on incumbent Pat Quinn (http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/burris/1468666,CST-NWS-poll10.article) for governor, if the Democratic primary were now, instead of a year from now.

Why let a little thing like the “wrong” political party stand in the way?

Perhaps political cynics are correct when they say there’s really no difference between Democrats and Republicans – a politician is a politician regardless of what label he uses.

At least that is what the political organization in Chicago Heights would like for people to think. For the political leaders in that south suburb managed to get one of their own chosen to fill a vacancy in the Illinois House of Representatives.

WE NOW HAVE state Rep. Anthony DeLuca, D-Chicago Heights, who was mayor of his hometown for six years. But what makes his selection unusual is that the Democratic committeemen who picked DeLuca last week to serve did so even though the Chicago Heights mayor always went by the Republican Party label.

He now says he was a Republican until about two years ago, and claims he will eagerly serve in the Democratic caucus of the Illinois House.

On a certain level, I believe DeLuca.

He’d like a higher-level office than serving as a suburban mayor (which ensures that no one outside of his hometown will ever hear of him). If he has to go by the Democratic Party label, he’ll do so.

FOR THE RECORD, DeLuca replaces George Scully, a south suburban-based attorney from Flossmoor who got himself elected to another term in the November 2008 elections, then gave up the post last month when he was chosen for a judicial post in Cook County Circuit Court.

Scully wasn’t exactly a flaming liberal of the Democratic caucus. His moderate record of voting on legislation was one that Republicans in the area could tolerate.

So the idea of DeLuca being a Republican whom some Democrats can tolerate means the people of that particular south suburban legislative district will not notice any radical change in the mindset of their particular representative.

But this wasn’t really a matter of the Democratic committeemen from the parts of Cook, Will and Kankakee counties that comprise the district deciding that DeLuca was someone they could live with ideologically.

THIS WAS TRULY a case of the people from Chicago Heights imposing their will on the rest of the legislative district. It all goes back to the way that legislators are replaced when vacancies occur.

The committeemen gather, but their votes are not all equal.

Their votes are weighted according to what percent of the vote came from their particular portion of the legislative district.

That means the Cook County committeemen had a majority of the vote all by themselves. It didn’t matter that the committeemen from Will and Kankakee counties wanted other people – or anyone, for that matter, who had a prior record of being a Democratic political official.

IT IS INTRIGUING in that the south suburbs of Chicago are an area that used to provide solid Republican majorities of votes on Election Days. But population shifts have seen many more African-American people move into the area, and they have maintained their Democratic Party ties.

The end result is that when it comes to the land south of Chicago, there are Democratic legislators galore and mayors/village presidents who are willing to identify with the Democratic Party – even though many claim its because of support for labor issues, and not because of liberal ideology on social concerns.

There are still pockets of Republicans trying to assert themselves, while dreaming of the past when they had the influence.

The pick of DeLuca almost reeks of an attempt by the aging GOPers to reassert themselves politically.

BECAUSE DELUCA MADE it clear last week that he’s still willing to listen to Republican officials – even though he carries the “D” as part of his political label.

“I will reach across the aisle if I believe it will benefit my constituents,” DeLuca told reporter-types. “We must look beyond party labels in search of good ideas.”

It sounds nice. But the suburban mayor who openly admits to be in opposition to his new political party’s platform on the issue of abortion seems like he’s an unofficial vote for the Republican caucus.

In fact, there may be but one plus to the presence of DeLuca in the Legislature, and it could force some people to think seriously about what constitutes a “Democrat” versus a “Republican.”

SO HOW DOES this political conversion rank in the annals of government history?

I don’t know that I’d put it up there with that of Edward R. Vrdolyak, who was once a leading City Council member and chairman of the Democratic Party for Cook County when – upon finally realizing that Mayor Harold Washington would prevail over him in “Council Wars” – converted himself to a Republican. He even tried running for office under the GOP label, although he never won.

It also falls short of the so-called conversion of the legendary Democratic political boss Richard J. Daley, who due to a quirk in state election law that is no longer applicable, was elected to his first governmental post as a write-in candidate, with the voters of Bridgeport and Back of the Yards choosing him to be their token Republican legislator.

Hence, there was once a time when “state Rep. Richard J. Daley, R-Chicago,” would have been totally accurate.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The Democratic Party primary (http://daily-journal.com/archives/dj/display.php?id=436650) is going to be feisty (http://www.southtownstar.com/news/election/1465074,030709scully.article) come the year (http://www.nwi.com/articles/2009/03/08/news/illinois/doc4dd578555c79a29486257572008155a3.txt) 2010.

Springpatch’s prosecutors usually don’t bother watching the Statehouse Scene

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that the state’s attorney’s office for Sangamon County, Ill., is pursuing the matter of whether or not Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., has committed acts that could qualify as perjury.

This is alien turf for the state’s attorney for the downstate Illinois county that includes the Illinois capital city of Springfield. They usually focus on local crime by defining local so narrowly that there is no difference between the Sangamon prosecutors and those in some other rural Illinois county.

STATE GOVERNMENT ISSUES are usually too big a picture for the local prosecutors.

It has traditionally been left to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern Illinois district to take on cases that would fall under the category of government corruption – which is why they focus on City Hall and the County Building, and usually only note the Statehouse activity when City Hall actions spill over into state government territory.

But Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Schmidt is taking it upon himself to do an investigation of Burris’ conduct in those weeks when he was dealing with now impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich in trying to get the appointment to complete the Senate term of Barack Obama – which runs through next year.

Most recently, it has been reported that Schmidt would like for federal prosecutors who are trying to nail Blagojevich on federal charges to share some of their wiretap tapings so they can hear exactly what it was Burris said when he talked with Blagojevich’s brother back in December and January.

SCHMIDT WOULD LIKE to compare those tapings to the statements Burris made before an Illinois House panel that ultimately impeached Blagojevich, and the public comments he has made since then about his conduct.

There are those (myself included) who are not convinced that Burris’ conduct qualifies as perjury – which is not just a matter of saying something that someone else believes to be untrue.

There are specific conditions that would have to apply, and one of them may very well be that Burris literally answered the specific questions that were put to him by the Illinois House impeachment panel. The fact that it later came out that there was more contact than originally suspected between Burris and Blagojevich allies could be a case of the legislators not doing a careful enough job of questioning the one-time Illinois attorney general.

But that is what Schmidt wants to figure out, although it might not be easy. Federal officicals are going to be reluctant to share much in the way of their potential evidence against Blagojevich. They don’t really want those wiretap tapes becoming public knowledge until absolutely necessary.

FOR THE SAME reason that it could be a mistake for Blagojevich to write a book because prosecutors will read it and look for glitches in his story to catch him in, it also is likely that Blagojevich’s attorney when he does go to trial would take those tapes and look for every flaw in them so as to try to discredit the federal prosecution’s case.

So I’m not convinced Schmidt is ever going to get this wiretap evidence for his review. But I’m sure he will try to pursue the case, because he comes out of a county where many of the locals are entrenched Republicans.

He has little to lose, although some black state legislators already are taking to trying to discredit anything that his office eventually comes up with by saying it is merely the actions of a Republican prosecutor being willing to hassle a Democrat.

I must admit, a part of me also views his actions in that manner.

BECAUSE AS I noted before, the Sangamon County state’s attorney’s office usually views the four square blocks located just to the west of downtown Springfield where the Statehouse and other state government buildings are located as being something of a separate district.

Of course, they are no different than the U.S. attorney for central Illinois, whose offices are located only about four blocks east of the Statehouse. That is what made it such a big deal back in 1997 when federal prosecutors in Springfield bothered to make a case out of Management Services of Illinois, a company that received significant Public Aid Department contracts while also providing campaign contributions and perks to various government officials.

It was the kind of case that usually would have only come about due to federal prosecutors in Chicago, who would have viewed much of the details that came out of that case (such as all the prime steaks and lobsters given to government officials) as being too petty to pursue.

It’s not an area the Springfield prosecutors venture into all that often. You’d think there was a Berlin Wall-type structure separating the two buildings, instead of just railroad tracks and a viaduct over Capitol Street.

HECK, THE COOK County state’s attorney has a better track record of trying to prosecute government corruption – and those of us who pay attention to the Chicago political scene know just how little the state’s attorney for Chicago ever bothers.

I don’t ever remember anything significant done by the Sangamon state’s attorney related to state government during the seven years I lived and worked in the capital city, and I haven’t heard much come from them since – until now. So excuse me if I’m a little skeptical of their actions and motivations these days.

A part of me thinks that nothing significant will ever come of the effort – other than to provide Republican partisans with subject material for the rants they are going to engage in for the next year until we finally reach the November 2010 elections.

You know what I mean – “Democrats, corrupt! Vote Republican.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: In today’s technological world of digital downloads, somebody still has (http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/burris/1463775,CST-NWS-invest06.article) use for tape recordings.

Only in Roland Burris’ wildest dreams was the matter of how he happened to get the U.S. Senate appointment (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-burris-report-07mar07,0,4598077.story) resolved with the documents he provided to prosecutors last week.

Inhabitants of “Planet Springpatch” recognize Pluto as full-fledged planet

A part of me wants to take a few science-oriented geeks who likely spend too much time goofing off on the Internet and smack them about a bit.

What have they done to annoy me? They’re ragging on the Illinois General Assembly.

NOT THAT I have any problem with anyone who wants to dump on the collection of clowns, misfits and hacks who populate our state’s Legislature in the land called Springpatch. They usually deserve it.

But these scientific types don’t have enough sense to realize petty actions when they occur, so they’re trying to make an issue out of nothing.

Actually, they’re trying to make an issue out of Pluto, the distant planet that some people want to say really isn’t a planet and whom most people just associate as being Mickey Mouse’s dog.

It turns out that our very own Illinois Senate (the legislative chamber that gave us Barack Obama, where his intellect caused him to stand out like a sore thumb) has come up with another one of the hundreds of trivial resolutions that are meant to let some local legislator claim he took some action on behalf of a hometown interest – without actually doing something that might cause long-term harm for the people of Illinois.

IN THIS CASE, the resolution supports the notion that Pluto is a planet.

It says that Friday will be “Pluto Day” in Illinois – that is the date upon which some people are estimating that Pluto’s orbit around the sun will put it into a position where it aligns perfectly above the sky with Illinois.

That sounds like a lot of guessing and playing along with mathematical calculations that I’m not going to pretend I fully understand. But I’ll go along with the thought, just for kicks.

I expect most people in this state will pay as much attention on Friday to Pluto as they did back on Feb. 25, which was decreed by the same General Assembly to be “Eating Disorders Awareness Day” all across the “Land of Lincoln.”

BUT THE REAL reason that our Legislature feels the need to have such a resolution is that the astronomer who is credited with calling Pluto a planet back in 1930 was born in Streator, a downstate Illinois town that many of us pass without giving much thought whenever we go back and forth from Chicago to St. Louis.

I think that is a noble intent – and one that likely was worth the two seconds or so that most of our legislators actually spent in thought about this resolution.

Anyway, the geeks who like to spend their time at Discover magazine’s website get to read a piece of commentary that calls our Legislators “frakkin’ goofy.” And there is an extended commentary currently running as to who can best cheap shot our political people.

Apparently, it is now a severe crime in the scientific community to suggest that not everybody agrees with the decision a few years ago that officially reclassified Pluto as a “dwarf,” rather than as a full-fledged “planet.”

THE DISCOVER WEBSITE commentary refers to such an act as a potential “Constitutional crisis,” and ridicules the idea of passing a symbolic resolution meant to bolster an Illinoisan (even if he did leave the state fairly early in his life, and lived elsewhere from that point on) as “misplaced local pride.”

From where I sit, I can’t help but think there are worse things our Legislature could be doing with their time – particularly if they wind up having to pass that tax increase that probably is necessary (and which now-impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich claims has secretly been in the works for some time) to balance out our state’s financial mess otherwise known as a budget.

I’d almost rather have them spending some time on purely symbolic gestures that most lawmakers probably approved without giving it much thought.

Illinois, after all, is the state that has officially declared “square dancing” to be the Official Illinois Dance and “drummer silty clay loam” as the Official Illinois Soil – which local political observers usually quip means Illinois has its very own “official dirt.”

WE’RE EVEN THE state that once had its legislators consider an equally non-binding resolution calling for the impeachment of then-President George W. Bush. This “act” probably deserves to be taken as seriously as that one was – which was not very.

Seriously, if the worst thing that our state legislators do during the 2009 calendar year is approve a trivial resolution relating to Pluto that attempts to recognize the Illinois ties of a somewhat relevant scientist, then I would say it is a good year for them.

After having watched the General Assembly go through the process of impeaching Milorod and having to cope with questions over whether they improperly “vetted” Roland Burris when they had their chance at questioning him before he became a U.S. senator, I’d say those of us political observers who watch the Statehouse Scene are entitled to a tad bit of trivia such as a Pluto resolution.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The “commentary” that ticked me off (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/03/05/illinois-plutocrats/), along with (http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/96/SR/PDF/09600SR0046lv.pdf) the resolution itself.

For those of you who can’t remember a thing from high school astronomy class, some general (http://www.solarviews.com/eng/pluto.htm) background information on the physical entity known as Pluto.

From George W. Bush (http://provisoprobe.blogspot.com/2006/04/hc-m-yarbrough-introduces-impeachment.html) to eating disorders (http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/illinois-general-assembly-designates-february,719460.shtml), many topics get symbolic action from our state’s General Assembly.