Let's be fair to the governor.
Sure, anyone paying attention to
Illinois is compelled to believe that Bruce Rauner has accomplished
nothing in his first year in office except shred programs for children,
the disabled and the poor.
Not only did Rauner fail to make
tangible progress, but he didn't even tread water properly. The normal
operation of the state, such as passing an annual budget, failed to
occur, sacrificed on the altar of the governor's hunger for term limits,
union enfeeblement and other unrelated pet causes. He's like an office
manager geting himself hired by promising to expand a business who then
promptly fails to pay the electric bill, as a point of principle against
the electric company monopoly, so they turn the lights off. Now we're
sitting in the dark, listening to him explain.
The temptation is
to conclude Illinois would do better with no governor at all, than this
one who can't seem to manage basic human interactions. On Thursday,
Rauner announced his support for Illinois Senate President John
Cullerton's pension reform plan, only to have Cullerton immediately
cringe away, shivering, from the governor's embrace. "It's not my plan,"
Cullerton said, explaining that Rauner had twisted his idea.
But give credit where credit is due: Rauner has accomplished something real, something that I would have thought impossible:
He makes Rod Blagojevich look good.
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That was fast.
It's been, what, a month since the bright red "Loop Link" lanes opened on Madison and Washington, special bus-only routes designed to more than double the speeds that Chicago Transit Authority buses transverse the Loop, from an average of 3 mph, which is slower than briskly walking, to a giddy 7.5.
But just look at at them. A month of being pounded by traffic and what was described as "red pavement" in the city's grandiose plans of last year has revealed itself in the harsh light of January to be more like red tar paper, and is already coming up in big chunks. You can't very well expect drivers to avoid the red lanes if the "BUS ONLY" designation has peeled up and blown away.
Already plagued by delays over the past six months and greeted with a chorus of complaints from drivers who suddenly find Loop streets a lot narrower, the $32 million project might not have increased bus speeds, but it's given the downtown a shabby, am-in-Detroit-or-what? feel.
If this were in the newspaper, I'd feel obligated to call the city department of transportation four or five times to squeeze out whatever half-hearted and feeble explanation they'd offer to illuminate What Went Wrong, and what Might Happen Next and why pave-the-road-so-it-doesn't-come-up-immediately technology, which was mastered in Roman times, seems to have eluded the City of Chicago, the City That Works Except When It Doesn't. But if I hear from the city, I'll rush to append it below.
In the meantime, the in-depth investigative work that led to these photos delayed my walk to the train a full 10 or 20 seconds one day last week. Additional investigation, which entailed walking down Washington Street on my way into work Thursday morning, showed that the red bus lane there is fine, so perhaps this is a localized screw-up limited to Madison Street's unique ecology, whatever that might be. Perhaps you, in your leisurely strolling, can find further examples of this latest embarrassment. Still, I suppose we should count our blessings, and not complain too much about a screw-up like this. At least no one was killed.
Abner Mikva turns 90 Thursday. To mark the milestone I took the revered
Chicago icon, who made his mark on all three branches of
government—former congressman, retired federal judge and White House
counsel—to lunch last week.
How does it feel to be 90?
"It's
going to be kind of a shock," he said, using the future tense with a
lawyerly precision. "I keep thinking of all the good reasons why I
should be happy about it... I've already given up all the things I
really enjoy: golf, tennis, sex, poker. There's nothing left to give up
in the 90s."
I get the golf, tennis and sex part. "But why poker?"
"I have macular degeneration," he said. "I can't see the cards. I love the game."
Mikva used to fly in just for the Washington Post's poker game. He said his
favorite Washington figure to work with was Bill Clinton.
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I had lunch with former congressman, former federal judge, former White House counsel, current Chicago icon Abner Mikva last week—my Wednesday column will be about our conversation. He mentioned a column I wrote about him 10 years ago. I couldn't find it, but I found this, from the long-ago era when Rod Blagojevich was our governor, and it was so much fun I thought you might enjoy.
This was back when I had a full page, with a brief "Opening shot," several small segments, and a joke at the end.
OPENING SHOT
Obscurity pressed hard upon Juvenal, the Roman satirist who spent
his career crouched miserably in the antechambers of rich patrons, waiting for a half-gnawed chicken leg to be tossed his way.
That's why his satires remain so fresh today — you see this poor mope, thwarted at every turn, overlooked, underfed, trying to make his way through the crowded Roman streets, enviously eyeing the rich in their curtained sedan chairs, not noticing the burly centurion about to plant a hobnail boot on his toe.
So it would do the old Roman's heart good, I believe, to know that in 2008, in a nation he never heard of in a world he could not imagine, one of his pithier lines spontaneously popped into the head of a Chicagoan when he heard that his old boss, David Radler, had been released from a Canadian prison after less than a year in jail.
"What matters infamy if the cash be kept?" I thought, quoting Juvenal, figuring that, for the money Radler got from his crimes, minus penalties and legal fees, I'd gladly make birdhouses in the federal penitentiary for a year, and so would you.
IS IT SHOWING OFF OR SHARING?
Am I bragging by mentioning a classical writer? Maybe so. But why is it viewed that way? Nobody says, "How can you guys pay attention to these football games, week after week, month after month, year after year. It's the same thing happening over and over. Doesn't it get boring? Why insist on talking about it?"
No, I accept that football is a passion that many love, one that adds richness and texture to their lives. Who am I to judge their fancies? Yet do they return the favor? Nooooooo. I was listening to the radio the other day — WGN — and this jamoke starts mocking people who talk about reading War and Peace. "Oh, I'm reading War and Peace," he gushes, in a smug, Homer-Simpson-imitating-a-fairy voice, as if the only reason to read War and Peace is to impress strangers.
I was truly offended, and I don't offend easily, and for the very reason most people get offended — because my ox was gored. I am currently reading War and Peace, out loud to my older son, and we're both loving it, not because it gives us something to brag about, but because it's great. When Tolstoy describes a horse, it's like an actual horse canters into the room, twitching and snorting. When Natasha jumps into her mother's bed to tell the old countess about Prince Andrei, it could be any 16-year-old girl gushing about her dreamboat.
It's real. I know the common wisdom is that classics are these horrendous blocks of stone written by dead white males and forced upon the unwilling through some malign conspiracy. And I can see how people feel that way. Classics have their drawbacks. War and Peace is 1,200 pages long, and every character has four names. It gets confusing. I'm sure climbing Mt. Everest has drawbacks, too. But must I suppress enthusiasm, keep quiet, just because you can't imagine any reason to read it other than braggadocio? Every Monday we all have to hear about what the flippin' Bears did, yet let slip something about a book you love and you're a bigmouth blowhard preening your feathers. It's not fair.
THE LEGAL DEPARTMENT
Usually experts have to be hunted, cornered, flushed out. So it was a pleasant turnabout to have one of the foremost legal authorities in Chicago phone me up out of the blue Tuesday.
"I want to talk about the attorney general's lawsuit," said Abner Mikva, former federal judge and adviser to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, referring to Lisa Madigan asking the Illinois Supreme Court to freeze embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich's powers. "I know you're questioning it, but we thought long and hard and looked at it carefully before we filed."
The Illinois Constitution clearly sets out reasons a governor can be relieved of power: death, impeachment, failure to meet qualifications of office, "or other disability," the loophole that Mikva believes the court can use to spike Blagojevich. "It doesn't say 'mental' or 'physical'," said Mikva. "It would cover just about anything the court wants to prevent the governor from carrying out his duties."
Isn't that the problem? If this is a disability, it is a political disability, and is not the governorship by nature a position given to controversy? True, the governor is not typically caught scheming to sell a seat in the Senate, but the particulars are not the crucial aspect. Do we really want this precedent, that our courts can strip our governor of power for being accused of doing something bad? Could not an attorney general with fewer scruples than Madigan—who I believe is a straight arrow—abuse such a system?
"We thought it made more sense for the attorney general, the highest law enforcement official in the state, to make the case to the highest court in the state," said Mikva. "I don't think it is asking the court for an outlandish interference. It is the least invasive thing anyone could do. . . . Well, the least invasive thing he could do is resign."
Amen. Not that anyone expects Blagojevich to do the noble thing.
"Had he been thinking about what's best for the state, he wouldn't have gotten himself into this mess in the first place," I said.
"Of course not," said Mikva. "But that's not his bag, I'm afraid."
TODAY'S CHUCKLE
I bumped into George Lemperis, owner of the Palace Grill, the famed diner and Blackhawks hangout on West Madison Street. He told me the following: Two inmates go through the lunch line with their tin trays, then find a spot in the crowded prison lunchroom.
"This slop tastes awful," says the first, grimacing over his spoonful of gruel.
"You think this is bad," says the second. "You should have tasted the food here when you were still governor."
—Originallly published Dec. 17, 2008
Martin Luther King Day is upon us, again, and me without a card or anything...
See, that's the problem. There's no upside for a white guy to talk about race. It's all risk and no reward. At worst, you end up making some inadvertent slip and lose your job.
At best? You're still a white guy commenting on race. What could you say that would possibly matter? Why bother? "Sorry, not my table. Mary will be serving you today..."
So ... nothing about race here. Just another regular, not-about-race column. The 1958 UN Law of the Sea conference; how many Chicagoans understand its implications....?
Oh, hell, in a for a dime, in for dollar.
I was walking my cute little dog through the lily-white suburb of Northbrook (black population, 0.6 percent) thinking about race Friday morning. What to say? There are more black people on the Metra Milwaukee North line in recent years? A good sign! There used to be none, and now there are some. And in the street -- a black kid on his bicycle. A black guy living on the next block. We've stopped together on the corner of Shermer and Walters, across from the train station, and I've looked at him, expectantly, but he never looks at me. So whatever hale, awkward white guy greeting I would blurt out just curdles in my mouth. "Welcome to suburbia, black person! Allow me to vent my innocent white guy goodwill upon you!"
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College pranks don't get much attention. Which is why it was surprising on Saturday to pick up the New York Times and not only see a story about a prank in the paper, but on the front page, under the headline, "Forget the Quarterback Sneak: A Deception Play for the Ages."
In it, writer Bill Christine describes the 1941 Plainfield Teachers College prank, which he calls "one of the greatest hoaxes in sports history." It wasn't. It was a slight, charming deception that took place in the agate football scores at the back of the sports pages of a couple East Coast papers. Though Christine tells the story in great detail and at length—a full inside page—he never explains why he's telling us now about this 74 year old prank, and I can't explain why he would. It's a curious lapse. You can read it here.
Or you can refer to my 1992 book on college pranks, "If At All Possible, Involve a Cow," where I relate the incident with the concision it deserves:
There is no rule that a college prank has to be pulled by a college student. Morris Newburger certainly wasn't in college: he was a stockbroker with the firm Newburger, Loeb & Company. He was also fascinated with the obscure schools that were listed in the college football roundup in the New York Herald Tribune.
In the fall of 1941, he amused himself during America's last moment of global innocence by creating his own school—Plainfield Teachers College—and phoning the scores in every week to the Herald Tribune.
Newburger did his homework. When asked, he was ready with 22 names for the lineup roster—names of his friends, neighbors, business partners. There was also a certain Morris Newburger starting at right tackle.
Every team should have a star, and Plainfield's was Johnny Chung, the half-Chinese, half-Hawaiian tailback known as the Celestial Comet. Under his leadership, Plainfield went 6-0, and seemed a shoe-in for the prestigious Blackboard Bowl.
As can happen with these things, matters got a little out of control. Newburger found himself printing up letterheads for the Plainfield Teachers Athletic Association and took a post office box in Newark. Jerry Croyden, the imaginary director of sports information, sent out news releases and phoned tidbits to the papers. The Celestial Comet was tearing up the field.
Sadly, the Plainfield Teachers never made it to the Blackboard Bowl. Enjoying himself immensely, Newburger bragged to one pal too many, and word leaked into journalism circles. With Time magazine preparing to expose the hoax in their next edition, Newburger rushed out a release having the Celestial Comet flunk his exams, and so many players became ineligible that the rest of the season was cancelled.
The Herald Tribune finally smelled something fishy and checked with the Plainfield Chamber of Commerce, discovering the utter nonexistence of a Plainfield Teachers College about the same time the November 17, 1941 issue of Time hit the stands.
Remember Chris Christie? Big guy, governor of New Jersey, once thought he could be president? That was before the incident two years ago that knocked him from Republican party darling to mortally wounded also-ran: the closing of the George Washington Bridge as payback to the mayor of Fort Lee for not supporting him.
Christie's defense was that his top aides did it, while he knew nothing.
Which he seemed to think let him off the hook. But it didn't. What it did was create two equally unpalatable choices: either he really did know and is lying — the answer that makes the most sense, given his bullying, hands-on-everything personality.
Or he didn't know, but placed his trust in chuckleheads who could engage in jaw-dropping political pranks, undermining the well-being of the public, right under Christie's nose while he remained in the dark.
Really, which is worse?
Now turn our gaze to Rahm Emanuel, our diminished mayor and the Laquan McDonald video. Having committed to his "I didn't know" defense, Emanuel is confronted with the paper trail of his top aides huddling constantly with officials from the law department and the police, discussing the McDonald case. For eight months. These same aides and officials also met with the mayor. But, Emanuel insists, they never brought up this matter. Because, like Christie, he seems to think ignorance is preferable to knowledge, and once you've lied about knowing, that might seem the only route left.
What's Garrison Keillor's classic line about slipping in the shower? "It's isn't the fall that hurts you; but what you do trying not to fall."
The not-knowing defense, when it comes to Rahm, is ludicrous, and he should abandon it while he can. Rahm is knowledge incarnate. He can spout forth the most stupefying gush of facts and figures and self-justifying statistics. To see him go mute and mournful and out-of-the-loop on this, holding up his broken-wing, all saucer-eyed and sad, like one of those waifs in an alley in a black velvet painting, well, it's an insult to us but, remember, (all together now) "Rahm thinks we're stupid."
So where from here?
Calling for him to quit is like begging God to send a fiery angel. Sure, it might help, but it ain't happening. If anything, this whole episode will prompt Emanuel, not to go away, but to stay even longer. My sense was he wasn't going to run for a third term before this happened, but between wanting to bully the City Council into approving his budget in October, and trying to maintain his ebbing sense of authority, he now say's he is going to, and he probably will. Because quitting = failure, and Rahm Emanuel can't fail, at least in his own estimation.
Three years is a long time. Public attitudes can shift in a heartbeat. Let's say, as they fear, a cop gets shot while squinting at a suspect, asking himself whether that's a gun or a cellphone. Whoops, turns out to be a gun. Let's say by some miracle that gets on video. Suddenly the police view isn't quite so hypothetical.
For the record, I still don't think Chuy Garcia should have won. The deer-in-the-headlights look that Rahm is slipping into now, in the depths of crisis, is how Garcia greets every morning on a good day. I hear every kind of credulous nonsense shouted from the streets. But I have yet to see a sign reading "WHERE IS BOB FIORETTI WHEN WE NEED HIM?!?"
Rahm's an abrasive, charmless man. That said, the problems he faces are not ones solved easily. The schools can't get fixed because they're never fixed. The pension time bomb is protected by a force field of law that would thwart James Bond. And while it would have been great if, the moment Emanuel learned of the McDonald shooting he was on TV, denouncing it, how would that have played with the 11,000 members of the Chicago Police Department, who throw a sulk if treated with anything short of worship?
Let's pretend for a moment that Rahm Emanuel is toast. So who's gonna run the city next? Nobody seems to be volunteering. Not yet anyway.
