Can you libel North Korea? Is it all a film industry plot for attention?

It is one of the old gags of being a reporter-type person who covers a lot of crime activity – “You can’t libel the mob!”


No matter how critical one is in the details they write about organized crime, what are the gangsters going to do – file a lawsuit and testify under oath that you’re wrong?

I COULDN’T HELP but remember that thought when I read an Associated Press dispatch from Seoul, South Korea, about how the North Korea government late Sunday accused the United States of spreading “reckless” rumors about its alleged involvement in a hacking of Sony Pictures computers.

The wire service reported that a National Defense Commission statement said officials planned “our toughest counteraction” against the United States, which it said is a “cesspool of terrorism.”

It also said the North Korean government has proof that it had no connection to the computer invasion that wound up disclosing sensitive information about Sony and stirred up enough attention and fear about the upcoming film “The Interview” that Sony officials decided not to release it at all.

Now I’m not going to claim to have any specific detail about U.S. foreign policy or North Korean affairs. Although it wouldn’t shock me to learn that the people who actually did break into the Sony computers are not actual government officials, but sympathizers of the Communist regime that we technically have been at war with since 1950 (although no shooting has taken place since 1953).

ALTHOUGH I DON’T expect anyone to seriously offer proof of that. Because that would involve people, possibly even Kim Jong Un, to have to “take the stand,” so to speak, and tell the truth.

It’s easier for them to spew trash talk. Just like much of our own government’s rhetoric that has blown a potentially third-rate film up into an international incident. We’re talking about putting North Korea back on the list of nations that engage in “state-sponsored terrorism.” Considering that we’re going to have to remove Cuba from that list because of the plans to restore diplomatic relations, it means there’s a vacancy to be filled.

For those of you who have been hiding away in a cave (perhaps the one that Osama bin Laden once used to hide from the U.S. military), this is the film meant to be a comedy about two men hired to assassinate Kim.

But it is a comedy because the two would-be killers are portrayed as a pair of bunglers and the film tells the story about all the things that go wrong during their escapade.

IT MAKES “GET Smart” sound downright intellectual. It sounds like something that should have starred Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels (the crew from “Dumb and Dumber”).

It’s a stupid laugh, and if the North Korean government had any sense, they’d use the film against us as evidence of just how far our society has declined. Instead, they took it seriously and are reacting like nitwits, which had enough people connected to the film industry in this country concerned that the release of the film on Thursday was cancelled.

Which gave us that “Saturday Night Live” sketch this weekend where Michael Myers’ “Dr. Evil” character lambasted Kim as a buffoon and a disgrace to evil leaders the world over.

It also has Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., talking about trying to get a print of the film somehow (I’m not sure if he has that kind of connections) so he can show it during the fundraisers he will have to have in coming months if he is to have enough campaign cash to get re-elected in 2016.

HOW MANY PEOPLE are now going to pay $2,000 or so per ticket to watch an allegedly verboten film? How much unwarranted attention is “The Interview” going to get?

Then again, perhaps Myers’ involvement was appropriate. Because this whole saga has taken on the inane character of a storyline from one of the Austin Powers series of parodies about James Bond-type films.

Which actually makes the conspiracy-theory portion of my intellectual makeup wonder if Sony is eternally grateful for the attention that caused them to stop the film’s distribution.

When it does finally get out, people will think they’re making a political statement by going to see it. Instead of just watching what could have turned out to be a corny story that would have been out of the movie theaters shortly after the coming of the New Year.

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Will school officials be like judges?

There are those who are trying to turn the board of education of the Chicago Public Schools into a mayoral campaign issue.

Specifically, mayoral challengers Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and Robert Fioretti are both trying to attack incumbent Rahm Emanuel for having the authority to pick members of the school board, saying it gives him way too much authority.

OF COURSE, WE all saw how this particular mayor would misuse that authority (in their view) when the Chicago Public Schoos engaged in a cost-cutting measure that shut down some 50 neighborhood schools – all of which happened to be in the non-white parts of the city.

That act was allegedly a blow to those people, and several mayoral challengers in the upcoming elections are more than willing to pledge that they will push for measures permitting the board of education’s members to be chosen by the voters.

It sounds nice. But I can’t help but wonder if this is something that people will wind up coming to despise once it is implemented. Because I’m not convinced that an “elected” school board would be any different than an “appointed” one.

If the sole objection is the person who gets to make the appointments, then that is a different concern than about the idea of appointments themselves.

AS I SEE it, the ballots on Election Day already are long enough, what with the many various posts that need to be filled. We already have too many people of the “Archie Bunker mentality” – remember how he only voted for Richard Nixon against Jack Kennedy, and deemed all other elections as not worthy of his time?

If somebody believes we’re going to have spirited elections for seats on the school board and great debate over educational issues, that’s naïve.

What is more likely to happen is that school board elections would wind up at the bottom of the ballot, and most people will either skip over them – or just randomly pick a few names.

Way too much like they already go about picking judges or seats on boards like the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.

DO WE REALLY need more officials elected to positions just because of random luck, or the fact that the local political organizations were able to stir circumstances to ensure their preferred candidates got picked?

Because that is what will happen. The same organizations who already wind up dictating who actually serves in the state Legislature will wind up being able to slate their preferred party hacks to sit on the school board. Electing people will merely benefit those within the political party who know how to play the game, so to speak, of Election Day.

At least now, the school board being picked by Emanuel means we can hold him directly responsible for anything we believe it has done wrong. I’m not criticizing people who want to blame the mayor for what has happened in the schools – I just think they’re being naïve if they think an elected board will make a difference.

There are those who argue that the suburbs already elect their school board members, and that city residents ought to be entitled to do the same.

BUT HAVE ANY of you ever seriously observed the structure of many of those school boards? In my duties throughout the years with various suburban newspapers, I have.

Many of them wind up consisting of would-be political hacks who don’t have the intelligence or skills necessary to get elected to their local city council or village board. A school board seat winds up being the consolation prize that allows them to say they’re a local public official.

There are times I wonder if those voters would be better off having their school boards appointed by some entity that might actually have educational issues at stake. Just as I wonder if judges ought to be appointed by some non-partisan entity more concerned about the law!

Electing them doesn’t seem to create intense interest in the judicial composition, and occasionally creates dumping grounds for former political people who managed to make it through law school.

THERE ARE TIMES when I feel like a judicial post is just another teat for political people to feed off of once they are no longer of daily use to the crew at City Hall.

For the good of us all, I’d hate to see the Chicago Board of Education become the equivalent. Which is what an elected board could wind up doing.

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Quinn made the safe comptroller choice, no matter what anyone thinks

Gov. Pat Quinn made his pick Friday for who gets to be Illinois comptroller for three-and-a-half weeks, and it’s Jerry Stermer.

That’s a name that will draw a reaction of “Who??!?” from the bulk of people. Although anyone who pays attention to state government and politics and Quinn throughout the years will know the name.

HE ONCE WAS Quinn’s chief of staff, and has held many other positions under Quinn during that man’s time in various government posts. Most recently, he was the governor’s budget director.

Meaning he was the governor’s personal financial expert and the guy whose staff ought to be cooperating with aides to Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner to get them prepared for the state budget they’re going to have to propose in the spring of 2015.

So doesn’t it kind of make sense that Quinn, confronted with a situation where he has to pick a person to run the constitutional office that oversees the state’s bank accounts and makes sure bills get paid in a sort-of timely fashion, would turn to this trusted aide to oversee the state’s finances for the remaining weeks of his gubernatorial term?

To me it does. Personally, I always thought that if Quinn truly wanted to make a non-controversial appointment to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, he ought to just pick his budget director.

HE’S ACQUAINTED WITH how much of a mess the state’s finances are. He’s been around state government for years.

And because he’s not the kind of guy who has ever put his name on a ballot, he’s not likely to have any ambition to stick around beyond the Jan. 12 date on which state government transitions itself to the officials who got themselves elected back in November.

In fact, Stermer himself made a point of saying he would formally resign on Jan. 12 as of Noon, and that he’s not viewing his nearly-one month-long stint as a state constitutional officer as a way of boosting the pension benefits he will someday receive.

He could do that, but he says he won’t. Although he will accept the comptroller’s salary for the next three weeks – which is about $10,000 per year higher than the gubernatorial budget director salary he now receives, according to the Capitol Fax newsletter.

OF COURSE, WE have the ideologues who are upset that he would dare pick someone for a short-term vacancy whose loyalty presumably would be to him.

There are those who will perpetually argue that Topinka’s long-time chief of staff, Nancy Kimme, should have been the one to get a short-term post. Although my own experience in dealing with government staffers (as opposed to the elected officials they work for) is that they usually have the temperament that makes them suited to following orders and running things, rather than setting grand policy decisions.

A good staffer makes an elected official look better. They don’t necessarily make a good public official in and of themselves.

Besides, the ideologue types are likely to get a chance to nominate the long-term pick for Topinka, who won’t be able to fulfill the four-year term to which she was chosen last month.

TRYING TO CLAIM that Quinn was somehow being irresponsible with his pick on Friday merely makes them seem to be greedy! We still have to figure out what will happen for the long-term. Who will Rauner pick? Will the Legislature try to force a special election for the post in 2016?

Considering that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, hasn’t done anything yet to indicate he’s willing to cooperate with Quinn’s demand for a special session come Jan. 8 (it does need to be resolved before the mid-January transition to a new General Assembly), it makes me wonder if it will be more rhetorical nonsense spewed on the issue.

Take into account that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is the one who issued the opinion saying there ought to be a special election and Michael Madigan is saying he wants the two governor-types to resolve this on their own, what happens if father defies daughter?

Will there be a Merry Christmas at the Madigan household next week?

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Will Jan. 8 mean anything?

January 8 is the date that’s been picked by soon-to-be former Gov. Pat Quinn for the General Assembly to reconvene for the expressed purpose of creating a special election in 2016 – whose sole purpose will be to deprive Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner of having a four-year appointment to fill for the vacant post of Illinois comptroller.

I have no doubt that the General Assembly will ram something through the legislative process, even though Republican legislative leadership is indicating an unwillingness to cooperate.

THAT’S THE BENEFIT (for Democrats, at least) of having veto-proof margins in both the state Senate and Illinois House of Representatives – they truly can do whatever they want.

And since any action they take will have to be acted upon before Quinn leaves office at noon on Jan. 12, not even Rauner can do anything but whine about the results.

But the Rauner camp made it clear in a statement they issued Thursday that they view the outcome of all of this as a legal battle they’re prepared to wage – they’re getting ready to go to court.

Because Rauner previously made it clear he expects his eventual appointment for a state comptroller to serve the entire four-year term to which Judy Baar Topinka was elected last month, but will not be able to serve due to her death earlier this month.

OF COURSE, RAUNER also said he expects Quinn to follow his lead in filling the post for the next month – which we all realize isn’t going to happen. Perhaps that’s what Rauner gets for going through a vicious campaign cycle in which he repeatedly bad-mouthed the incumbent governor with nonsensical corruption allegations.

In short, we have two men who probably can’t stand each other and will do whatever they can to undermine each other.

Which is why Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and his desires for the executive branch officials to resolve this matter without involving the General Assembly is as ridiculous a fantasy as the idea that the Chicago Cubs are going to win the 2015 World Series.

It is why the Legislature’s special session is probably going to be one of the biggest wastes of per-diem expense money for the cost of having the General Assembly’s 177 members at the Statehouse in Springfield on that date.

THIS ISSUE IS not going to be resolved for quite some time. We’re going to get a long drawn-out court fight that will give Illinois government a massive migraine headache by the time it is through.

Whoever Rauner does wind up appointing to fill the comptroller vacancy isn’t going to have a clue as to how long they’re going to serve in office. They had better not get too comfortable in the post.

Which is a shame, because I can see the logic of not having a special election. Law ought to be consistent, and we shouldn’t have the Legislature constantly reconvened whenever unusual circumstances arise.

Governors have that kind of appointment power. I can comprehend how his pick ought to get to finish out the entire four-year term, because such circumstances are not likely to arise again. This truly is a fluke.

WHICH IS WHAT makes this whole circumstance so pathetic with regards to Rauner.

He may be in the right, but he’s handling the whole situation in such a sorry manner that he’s making Quinn look good by comparison.

Then again, maybe he’s behaving merely like the CEO type that he promised to be during his campaign – one who expects to bark out orders and doesn’t tolerate dissent of any sort. When it comes to government, that’s about as un-American a thought as one can find.

If this is the way Rauner plans to govern for four years, he’s going to find a whole lot of headaches due to legislative opposition. And a whole lot of people inclined to “dump the fool” come 2018!

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Baseball ‘kids’ don’t live in Chicago? Why did complaints take so long?

For those people who are spewing accusations that the Jackie Robinson West baseball team that nearly won the Little League World Series this year is tainted because its players don’t all live strictly within the league’s boundaries, I’d have to respond by saying that no one ever tried to keep it a secret.

There were so many people who back in August were eager to let it be known that some of the kids had ties to suburbs such as Dolton, Homewood, Lansing, Lynwood and South Holland (instead of neighborhoods such as Roseland and Morgan Park where the league is based).

SO TO NOW hear complaints from officials with the Evergreen Park Athletic Association that the Jackie Robinson West team that represented the Great Lakes Region at the Little League World Series comes across as little more than whining.

It was a relief to learn that Little League International this week issued a statement saying the league’s team that advanced in the Little League World Series to be U.S. champions (before losing to a team from South Korea) was legitimate when it comes to residency issues.

I don’t doubt that the ball playing kids received so much hype that the reality can’t live up.

But this amounts to petty jealousy from a suburban Little League program that happens to border to Jackie Robinson West program on the city’s Far South Side that was created back in the early 1970s to spur interest in youth baseball in a community whose racial composition had changed radically.

UNTIL RECENTLY, I had a “day job” of sorts in writing stories for one of the daily newspapers in the suburbs that covered the communities where some of these kids lived and went to school.

Which local school and government officials were more than eager to reveal. I personally remember one suburban mayor saying he wanted some credit for the player who lived in his community, saying, “We’re not going to let Rahm Emanuel steal everything.”

Although I personally think Gov. Pat Quinn and the Cook County Board did more to latch their names onto the Jackie Robinson kids for his own self-promotion than Emanuel ever did.

But back to the residency issue. It was known that the kids didn’t strictly live within the city neighborhoods. But the fact that there were split residency facts merely reflect our modern-day reality in society.

I remember specifically one ballplayer had a father who lived in Dolton, but a mother who lived in the Morgan Park neighborhood. Does anybody think that means the kid is supposed to never stay with his father just because he plays baseball?

THAT WOULD BE stupid.

In other cases, there were players whose families used to live in Chicago proper, but in recent years had moved to the nearby south suburbs. It appears that Little League rules permit such players to continue to play in their old home communities if they wish, rather than being forced to shift to Little League programs in their new homes.

The reality is that many of those suburban Little League programs are run by people who are interested in protecting their own little fiefdoms and aren’t exactly accepting of newcomers.

So the idea that these kids would prefer to keep playing ball in the Jackie Robinson West league – which is unique in the fact that it is composed entirely of African-American people – seems to be an obvious choice.

PERHAPS THE SOUTH suburban Little League programs ought to be giving more thought to how to make themselves more welcoming, rather than being among the forces trying (but failing) to keep the population in their home communities the same as it was four decades ago.

Reading the Chicago Sun-Times, I see that the head of the Evergreen Park program is complaining about people who are calling him an “idiot” and are saying he is a bigot.

I’m willing to give his racial attitudes a break and say what really bothers him is the fact that when a team from his Little League program played a Jackie Robinson West team this year, the end result was a 42-3 loss.

That still has to smart, something fierce!

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Do we really need the cost of yet another election come 2016?

One thing we should take into account when walking into a voting booth to pick chief executives for government is that those people do get the authority to fill vacancies for lower posts, as they become available.

If you don’t trust the individual to fill government positions, then perhaps you should consider voting for someone else.

MY POINT BEING that I accept the fact that governors, in Illinois and elsewhere, have the ability to pick individuals for any posts that become vacant due to unexpected circumstances.

So as for those people out there who are now arguing it would be unconscionable for someone to get a full four-year appointment to serve as Illinois comptroller without having been voted into the office, I have to regretfully disagree.

We voted for the governor and gave him the appointment powers. And as for those who will say they didn’t vote for the governor and wanted the “other guy” in office, well “Too bad.” Your guy lost on Election Day.

This is pretty much my stream of thought this past week as Illinois government tries to figure out who the new state comptroller will be.

JUDY BAAR TOPINKA, who in 2010 was elected to a term that runs through noon on Jan. 12 and last month was re-elected to another four year term in the post, isn’t going to be able to fulfill her state constitutional duties.

In fact, the memorial service being held Wednesday at a labor union hall in suburban Countryside (just a couple of towns over from her long-time home in Riverside) will give people their last chance to pay respects to Topinka’s memory.

Then, the hard-core politicking to replace her will be underway. Although it can be argued that that politicking during the past week has been intense in its own weird way.

We can make a serious argument about whether Gov. Pat Quinn or Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner is being more petty and childish, while Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is coming across as the mature, responsible adult here.

WHILE DAUGHTER LISA, the state’s attorney general, is coming up with the rules by which a Topinka replacement will be picked.

It seems that Quinn is likely to get to pick the person who finishes Topinka’s 2010 term, while Rauner will have say over who gets to take over when he assumes control of state government next month.

Rauner is making it clear that he wants his pick for a comptroller to run through 2019, while there are those who are arguing intensely that there ought to be a special election in 2016 (paired up with the presidential and U.S. Senate from Illinois seats that will be up for grabs) to pick a new comptroller.

As Illinois law and the state constitution is now written, the governor gets to fill the vacancy until a new election is held (in November 2018) and there are NO provisions for special elections.

ALTHOUGH THERE ARE clauses that are being interpreted by some to say that the General Assembly has the ability to amend the law to create a special election.

Which I think is a waste of time and financial resources that could be better spent elsewhere. Even with other government posts up for grabs two years from now, it still adds to the bureaucracy to add another post into the mix.

It’s true that governors filling vacancies usually get to do so for shorter time periods. Perhaps a year or so. Or, like Quinn, one month for comptroller.

But I don’t like the idea of rewriting state law every time unique circumstances occur. We need to have consistency in logic in the way our government operates, and this very unusual circumstance shouldn’t create a change that seems motivated more by the political partisanship of people whose preferred candidate lost in last month’s election.

A PART OF me still thinks it was silly to have a special election in 2010 to pick a replacement for the final six weeks of Barack Obama’s six-year U.S. Senate term, just because they despised the idea of a Rod Blagojevich-connected appointment getting any time on Capitol Hill.

If you hate the idea that Rauner will get a four-year appointment for a state constitutional officer, then perhaps you should work harder to defeat him should he decide to seek re-election in 2018.

Trying to create special elections sounds too much to me like trying to get a “Do Over,” which is an idea that real people grow out of on the playground roughly about the time they turn six.

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EXTRA: What should we think of 'Chuy' and Twitter site that mocks it?

I’m sure there are some people who are pondering the upcoming mayoral elections and are trying to figure out, “What’s up with the name ‘Chuy’?”

As in former alderman and state senator, and current county Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who is hoping that a dominant share of the Latino ethnic vote, combined with some support from the rest of Chicago, will be enough to make him Mayor come next May.

THOSE PEOPLE WHO are addicted to Twitter and reading all the 140-character phrases they can find now have a new site that plays along with their confusion. (This sentence, for example, is about 156 characters long).

It’s “Chewies for Chuy,” which I have to admit to never having heard of until I read a story about it Tuesday on the DNAInfo.com website. It seems like the perfect site for those individuals who don’t realize “The Daily Show” is (in the words of host Jon Stewart), a “fake news show.”

Meaning it goes for laughs as it purports to give us the thoughts of the Star Wars character Chewbacca (you know, the big fuzzy thing that looks like a walking shag carpet) with regards to the Chicago mayoral race.

Humor, not information, is its purpose. For example, the most recent post as I write this commentary suggests that, “@garcia4chicago should also be @ChicagoBears new quarterback.”

FOR THOSE PEOPLE who don’t have a clue, Chuy Garcia (which is how people who know him personally refer to him) isn’t some sort of freak who named himself for the “Star Wars” films.

Nor does it make him a big fan of the “Chuy’s” restaurant chain across various parts of the United States that provides Mexican-style food for people who think the real thing has too much flavor.

It’s actually a common nickname in Spanish for people named “Jesus.” Similar to how we can think of mayoral hopeful Robert Fioretti as “Bob.” It’s no more complex than that. Or did you believe there are a mass of people walking around Spanish-speaking neighborhoods demanding to be referred to by the full name of the "son of God?"

Although I’m sure it will create more opportunities for silly jokes, such as whenever people named “Ignacio” (common nickname “Nacho”) have to hear lame gags about tortilla chips from clueless Anglos.

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