Great Goat Conspiracy??!? How droll

Do you know what bothers me the most about the incident this week in which someone tried to send the severed head of a goat to the owner of the Chicago Cubs?

Somewhere, out there, someone thinks they were oh, so clever – instead of the nitwit that they truly are.

The new image of Tom Ricketts?

 

SERIOUSLY. SENDING A head to Tom Ricketts? Even though he never got it because it was delivered to Wrigley Field and security had enough sense to check the package first!

Somebody has been watching way too much of The Godfather. I sense somebody thinks that Ricketts himself was going to scream like a little baby – just like actor John Marley’s “Jack Woltz” character.

The only real question is what provoked this incident. Was it the fact that somebody thinks the Cubs are asking too much of Lake View neighborhood residents in trying to get approval for a proposed upgrade of Wrigley Field – one meant to make the century-old building usable for another few decades?

Or is it just the fact that a week into the season, the Cubs haven’t played all that well and have a losing record?

SENDING A SEVERED head might sound a bit drastic a reaction to the Cubs not playing so well. Then again, Cubs fans have never been the most rational group of people on Planet Earth.

Who’s to say why the head was sent, except for the fact that they had to feed off an image from The Godfather – which is among the three films I usually list as all-time favorites (M*A*S*H and All the President’s Men are the others).

The Cubs/goat origin

This use of such an image is so tacky, I might have to dump The Godfather from the list and come up with something else!

Insofar as the stadium renovation negotiations are concerned, I’ll be the first to admit I believe the Cubs often forget the degree to which Wrigley Field’s unique ambiance is tied into the character of the neighborhood.

DO SOMETHING THAT harms the feel of “Wrigleyville” (which I define rather strictly as the portion of Lake View within about two blocks of the ballpark, rather than the realtor definition that would use the label to describe the bulk of the North lakefront) and you’re doing something that will harm Wrigley Field.

Which, in the end, would hurt the Cubs – who certainly aren’t special for anything that happens on the playing field.

Heck, if the team is determined to push for so many changes in the essential character, then perhaps they should seriously consider the offers coming from suburban Rosemont.

Because there’s no way to build a stadium on the scale of what professional sports franchises play in anywhere in Chicago, unless you’re willing to accept a solely functional building like U.S. Cellular Field.

THIS IS ONE incident where I will be hoping that police can find someone who actually was involved with the goat head (which was delivered to the ballpark by an anonymous man who drove away in his truck before anyone tried checking the contents of the package).

The fact that the head had a tag on its ear from the Department of Agriculture may wind up giving some clue – particularly if it can help them figure out how the head was obtained to begin with.

Find a low-level accomplice, and it usually becomes possible for police to work their way up the chain to find the person who actually delivered the head – and the person who came up with the whole scheme.

Just in case it winds up involving more than one individual.

THE GREAT GOAT conspiracy! It could be a tale that Cubs fans tell for generations to come – just as they persist in replaying the tale about how “Billy Goat” Sianis got kicked out of Wrigley Field for the 1945 World Series because he tried to bring his goat into the ballpark to promote his Billy Goat Tavern.

When you lose that often, you have to find something amusing to talk about – even if it means pretending that the Cubs somehow did something wrong by not allowing livestock into the grandstand!

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Pols getting serious about former IDOT employee serving on Cook Co. board

How do we know that all the speculation about a former Illinois Department of Transportation employee being the favorite to fill a vacancy on the Cook County Board ought to be taken seriously?

To me, it is the notion that Stanley Moore this week finally got around to paying a $3,000 fine that he was hit with three years ago.

AS THOUGH MOORE thinks that by coughing up the cash all this time after the fine was imposed back in October 2010, he can somehow make the issue of why he was fined to begin with just go away.

If it was worth it financially to Moore to come up with the cash, he must really think he’s got a chance at being named to replace William Beavers as a commissioner on the county board.

All this is coming from the Chicago Tribune, which reported Wednesday that 21^st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins is touting Moore as his pick to replace Beavers.

Brookins is not the only Democratic committeeman with a say in the process. But under the procedures used by the Cook County Democratic Party, he has more of a say than anyone else.

HE IS NOW going about putting together a coalition of other committeemen from the Far South Side to try to get them to favor his decision.

When he gets that coalition together, THEN the party faithful will schedule some sort of public meeting at which time Brookins’ desire will be turned into reality.

For now, all the negotiations are being done in private. Particularly in trying to erase Moore’s record blotch that would cause many political amateurs to ponder why he ought to get the post to begin with.

For the record, Moore tried running back in 2008 against state Rep. Monique Davis, D-Chicago, for her legislative seat representing people in the Morgan Park and Beverly neighborhoods.

HE LOST. BUT in the process, it was determined by the state’s ethics commission that on at least three days, he “clocked in” for his job with the state Transportation Department and got paid his salary – even though all he allegedly did was work related to his unsuccessful political campaign.

By the time all of this was determined, Moore was a former state employee. He quit early in 2009 and the decision was made in October of 2010. Hence, it was felt the fine was the only action that could be taken to penalize him.

For what it’s worth, the Tribune reported that Moore paid $100 of his fine at the time. But it wasn’t until this week, the newspaper contends, that he got around to sending a check for the remaining amount of money.

Gee. I wish I knew it was possible to just ignore debts such as a fine. Because it would appear (to me, at least) that Moore wouldn’t have bothered to pay anything more if he weren’t interested in the county board post.

PERSONALLY, I FIND it interesting to read Moore’s claim that the reason he left his job with the state was because new leadership imposed around the time that Pat Quinn became governor following Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment took the agency in a new direction.

Even Brookins tries to downplay Moore’s alleged activity by claiming it is just evidence that politics is “a full-contact sport.”

As though, somehow, that concept justifies anything that occurs within government or any action taken by elected officials.

Of course, this post was going to gain public attention regardless. Replacing Beavers following the “guilty” verdict that was reached against him on federal tax evasion charges was going to put a lot of attention on the process.

PARTICULARLY WHEN IT became known that former county board President Todd Stroger and a nephew to former Mayor Eugene Sawyer were both among the many who have expressed interest in the post.

So for those people who now want to get all outraged at the thought of Moore, keep in mind that we could very easily be considering the appointment of Stroger, the younger, to this seat. With all the political baggage that his name carries.

On that thought, have a nice day!

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How Mighty is Quinn?

Now that we’re past the Jesse Jackson, Jr., replacement fiasco (we now have Rep.-elect Robin Kelly, D-Ill.), we can move forward to the next election cycle – the ones in 2014 that will give people a chance to have their say about state government officials.

QUINN: The favorite?!?

Particularly Pat Quinn, our “beloved” governor whom some people are all too eager to dump on!

THE WHOLE IDEA of some people being eager for the Democratic primary in March to come around so they can have their chance to vote against Quinn is laughable in so many ways.

It has me wondering what those individuals think of the New York Times, which on Tuesday used its website to publish a commentary about governors that decreed Quinn “a favorite to win re-election.”

Of course, what that commentary based its thought upon was the notion that Illinois is such an overwhelmingly Democratic state these days (two-thirds of the state’s population lives in the Chicago metro area) that whoever wins the primary is a shoo-in to win the general election in November.

A depressing thought, I’m sure, to those people who live in the 96 counties that comprise “rural” Illinois and can’t comprehend how six counties in the northeast can be so dominant.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of the chances of Pat Quinn?

Personally, at this point in time, I could be persuaded to vote for him again. Although nothing is definite, and I have to admit to having a certain level of respect for the professional skills of the woman who is the alleged front-runner to challenge him – Lisa Madigan.

MADIGAN: The favorite!!!

Although it seems that the bulk of the people who are talking up Madigan for governor are doing so mainly because they feel snubbed by something Quinn did at some point.

The man did spend decades as being a thorn in the tush of state government officials. I’m sure the fact that they impeached Rod Blagojevich was tempered somewhat by the knowledge that it would mean Quinn would rise to the top spot.

AND LET’S BE honest. He wouldn’t have won that term of his own in 2010 if not for the fact that the Republicans put forth a nominee who was so determined to cater to the rural one-third of the state that the two-thirds majority pinched their noses in the voter booths and cast their votes for Quinn anyway.

If Quinn is to have a chance to win the March primary election, he’s going to have to rely on a same level of disgust – in this case, from people who just can’t bear the thought of having a governor who is the daughter of the long-serving and all-powerful Illinois House speaker.

Get enough contempt for the thought of Madigan (as in Michael) having even more influence over Illinois state government, and Quinn could very well win that primary.

Particularly if you can get those people with a good-government bent to them to remember all those years past when Quinn was the self-appointed voice of the downtrodden who stood up to government.

NOT THAT I’M convinced this strategy will work. For one thing, those kind of people tend to be small contributors to political campaigns. The big money comes from business interests who may well not have any problem with the thought of an even mightier Madigan.

And let’s all remember the fact that Illinois Republicans in 2012 tried a campaign strategy that urged people to vote against all Democrats – on the grounds that they were nothing but shills for Mike Madigan.

It didn’t work then, because I don’t think many "real" people (as opposed to political geeks) get that angered at the thought of Mike Madigan – who has been around for so long that he almost seems like part of the scenery at the Illinois Statehouse. A majority of Illinoisans may well be more offended by the GOP options (Bruce Rauner? Who’s willing to accept a state government shutdown to score ideological political points!) for public office.

MADIGAN: The variable

In fact, about the only thing that might really bolster Quinn is the fact that Mike Madigan himself has talked in the past about how much harm was done to Democrats in 1976 when the party persisted with a challenge to then-Gov. Dan Walker.

WALKER LOST THAT primary, but James R. Thompson wound up taking the general election – beginning a 26-year string of Republican governors of Illinois.

I’m sure the last thing Madigan would want is for his daughter to do anything that would be perceived as bolstering the chances of a Republican victory come November 2014 – although the modern-day Illinois GOP may well be too weak to take advantage.

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EXTRA: Why special lxn was a dud

Why was it such a done-deal and so incredibly boring and uneventful that Robin Kelly would get elected to Congress to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr.?

KELLY: Now Rep.-elect

It’s all a matter of numbers.

THE COOK COUNTY clerk’s office reported Tuesday night that with only about five precincts left (and 47,715 votes cast), Kelly of south suburban Matteson had 79 percent of the vote.

And in the Far South Side neighborhoods of Chicago that are in the Illinois Second Congressional District, Kelly took 92 percent of the 13,190 votes that were cast, according to the Chicago Board of Election commissioners.

That was an anticipated outcome. Which means that all of Republican challenger Paul McKinley’s rants and rages about the “corrupt Chicago machine” were nothing more than comic relief – before he withers away into the ranks of no-name candidates that the GOP put up to filling a ballot spot for Chicago-area elections.

The Will and Kankakee county portions of that congressional district just had so few people that they couldn’t overcome the urban lead.

SO THE FACT that McKinley “won” Will County? Irrelevant! Forty-three percent of only 8,315 votes isn’t much, particularly when Kelly herself got all of 42 percent for herself from the land around Crete, Monee and Peotone.

And now, Kelly can go to Capitol Hill – where she will become the most worthless form of political person in existence. A freshman congressman in the minority party.

All that rhetoric she spouted about pushing for strict gun control measures (and emphasized Tuesday by having the family of deceased teenage girl Hadiya Pendleton with her at her Election Night celebration)?

It will fall on the deaf ears of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and his political allies in Congress.

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The bulk of you are lazy goofs who deserve whatever abuse government gives you during the next four years

I cast my ballot a couple of weeks ago – in the morning hours of Good Friday, to be exact.

I used one of the early voting centers so that I could get it out of the way and have my Tuesday free on the off-chance that I wind up spending the day as a reporter-type person trying to figure out how other people are voting.

YET THE HONEST truth is that the people I will be focusing on are NOT the bulk of our society.

For most of us are going to sit on our duffs and do nothing. If anything, the bulk of us will get irritated at the presence of elections, and act as though they ought not to take place at all.

Now I have made this argument before – and I suspect I will make it repeatedly for as long as I live. Those people who don’t vote are allowing government to run roughshod over them.

A good part of the reason I insist on casting a ballot (even in an election cycle like this one where the posts up for grabs were of no interest to anyone who didn’t live in my immediate community) is that I believe I am ensuring my right to complain for the next four years.

PEOPLE WHO CAN’T be bothered to cast a ballot really have no right to gripe!

So for the at least 80 percent of people who don’t bother to vote on Tuesday (the estimates are that, at best, 20 percent of the electorate will cast ballots), I don’t really want to hear your complaints.

You have your chance on Tuesday to have a say over how those local officials will spend your local tax dollars, and how all those local school districts and park boards and sanitary districts and other entities will operate – and you chose to remain silent!

Now having said that, I do realize that for many people, there isn’t much of a choice come this particular Election Day.

THE REALITY IS that in too many of those suburban communities, there is a local political establishment that tries to operate in as much anonymity as possible – and there isn’t any opposition.

In some cases, no one else could be bothered to challenge the incumbents. Not because of any real satisfaction, but because of apathy.

While in other places, local officials know how to game the electoral process to eliminate anyone who had the “gall” (in the incumbents’ opinion) to challenge them.

Is this what it takes to get people to vote?

And within Chicago proper, this is the election cycle where nothing is at stake – with the exception of those who live in the Far South Side and will be picking a replacement for Jesse Jackson, Jr., to represent them in Congress.

EVEN THERE, THE real election cycle came back in the special primary election held in February. Tuesday is likely the night that one-time state Rep. and Cook County CAO Robin Kelly gets rubber-stamped to go to Washington.

We can speculate all we want about the possibility of a long-shot victory for Republican Paul McKinley or Green Party-type LeAlan Ford – yet the key to a long-shot upset electoral victory is candidate interest.

Yet even so, I still felt compelled to cast my ballot. Like I said, I like to be able to complain about the status quo. Which in this case constitutes a rant about the bulk of people who on Tuesday seemed to only have interest in ignoring the fact that it is Election Day.

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

Better in pictures, than in person?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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



How would Lord Jeff of Amherst do...

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



... against Tommy Titan of IWU?

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

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

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

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EXTRA: My governor went to Mexico, and all I got was this lousy photograph

Gov. Pat Quinn effectively serves as a mailman for students of Benito Juarez Academy in Chicago, as he delivered letters from local students to their counterparts at Benito Juarez High School in Mexico City. Photographs provided by state of Illinois.

A part of me can’t help but wonder if come Monday, Gov. Pat Quinn is going to be the equivalent of a tourist who insists on showing us a batch of crude snapshots of himself taken during a recent vacation.

For Quinn is the public official who led a coalition of Illinois-based business executives to Mexico; taking a four-day tour of the southern third of the North American continent to promote the idea that there is lots of money for our local businesses to make down there.

BY THE TIME you read this, Quinn may well be back in Chicago. He was scheduled to leave Mexico City on Saturday – and in fact was to proclaim the day “WVON Day” across Illinois during ceremonies to be held tonight at the Chicago Theatre.

But he is supposed to tour the Cristina Foods Inc. distribution facility around 45^th Street and Racine Avenue come Monday, and his aides admit he will use the tour to discuss the trade mission.

Are we going to be subjected to the equivalent of a lot of blurred snapshots and tales of how unique everything is in Mexico?

Quinn amongst people who don't care about Lisa Madigan

I’m not kidding about the snapshots. I couldn’t help but be amused by the photographs Quinn’s staff distributed to newsgathering organizations on Saturday – a pair of snapshots of Quinn visiting the Benito Juarez High School in Mexico City.

AS THOUGH HE had to go all that way to visit a school named for the one-time Mexican president whose leadership ensured that the nation didn’t fall into the hands of French officials who were interested in re-establishing a colonial presence in the Americas.

Of course, I realize Quinn knows about the Benito Juarez Community Academy in the Pilsen neighborhood. He went to the Mexico City school armed with letters that Chicago teenagers had written to their counterparts in the Mexico capital city.

By and large, these trade missions may help business officials make some contacts. But they also serve a role in bloating a governor’s ego – making him think that he might have some influence in foreign lands. Rather than the old joke about an Illinois governor mattering in places like Paris, Vienna and Havana.

All of which are rural towns in central and Southern Illinois.

SO I’M NOT terribly shocked, or offended, that the news world will seem to little note, nor long remember, the visit of Pat Quinn to Mexico – even if he tried bringing the image of Abraham Lincoln (whose own words I just appropriated) along with him.

For all I know, many in Illinois may not have even noticed him missing. It seems like these days, political people are more interested in talking about “Lisa Madigan” whenever the Illinois governor’s post comes up in discussion.

Although I did find it intriguing to learn while reading through the mass of materials that Quinn’s people have distributed about his trip to learn that Lake Michigan now has a “sister lake” in Mexico.

The Great Lake that is the eastern boundary of much of Chicago is now an hermana with Lake Pàtzcuaro in the state of Michoacan.

Lake Michigan's new Mexican sister. The lake and Illinois River have sister bodies of water in Brazil, China, Ireland, Israel, Poland and South Korea. Photograph by Mirari Erdoiza.

 

AMONG THE THINGS the two lakes have in common? They both are having to deal with problems of invasive species that threaten to ruin their ecosystems.

Perhaps we can get some Mexican advice on how to keep the Asian Carp out of Lake Michigan – or minimize their damage on the off-chance that they’re already here, but we just haven’t noticed yet!

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