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June 30, 2006

The [Friday] Papers

In a federal courtroom downtown, Chicago's patronage system is on trial. In the County Building a few blocks away, Cook County's patronage system flourishes before our very eyes.

There ought be no mistaking the fact that the planned elevation of Ald. Todd Stroger to the presidency of the Cook County Board is part and parcel of the same job-rigging ethos that has Mayor Richard Daley's former patronage chief and three other aides in the dock.

Both are about the hijacking of your government by privately run but publicly funded political machines - The Cook County Democratic Party and The Richard M. Daley Party - which use your tax dollars to further their own interests - and only their own interests. Your interests are secondary, at best, and only considered to the extent that they need to be manipulated to keep the Party going.

The hallmarks of democracy that America purports to herald and promote around the world - free, competitive elections, separation of powers between branches of government, accountability through transparency - do not exist here. I am only the billionth person to compare the Cook County Democratic Party to the old Soviet Central Committee, not because it's so facile but because it is so perfectly apt.

Apologists like Paul Green ask silly questions like, "Who does it better than Chicago?"

A better question, if we're talking about governance, and we are, is, "Who doesn't?"

"Chicago and Cook County are prime examples of how not to run local government," Jay Stewart, the executive director of the Better Government Association, told Time magazine this week. "It's a cautionary tale that shows what happens when there is no transparency or accountability."

Time is just the latest national outlet to gaze in wonder at the feudal political outpost that is Chicago and Cook County; The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor . . . each has found the political culture here perverse enough to file reports as if from overseas correspondents on foreign soil. Which is fitting.

"If you took out the [geographic] facts, it looks like we're talking about a Third World dictatorship," Stewart told Time.

Dick Simpson, the former alderman who has carved out a second career as a City Hall-watching University of Illinois-Chicago political scientist, told Time that local politicians are "breaking faith with the democratic process."

That faith was broken a long time ago, but Simpson's point remains. Todd Stroger has not earned a promotion to one of the most powerful jobs in the state, and the clumsy attempt to put him in charge of a $3 billion budget. (As Stewart said, "Todd Stroger has never been any kind of major player in the city council. It is essentially feudal law. The primogeniture system is alive and well here.")

In fact, Todd Stroger's career is built upon the same principles at play in the City Hall hiring trial, namely that jobs and promotions, including appointments to ostensibly elected national offices, are doled out to strictly serve the personal and power interests of political bosses; not on merit, and certainly not as rewards for fine public service.

This is the root of public corruption; jobs, money (yours) in the form of contracts for friends, power, ego, greed. It's called feeding at the public trough for a reason; those who go along with the system are pigs.

And yet some, like Green and his City Club pals, prefer this system because they prefer the bullying dispensation of power to "get things done" (without you getting in the way) to the values of honesty, integrity, thoughtfulness, and accountability. Do you?

Maybe we've reached a point where finally destroying the Machine for good is more important than any immediate policy goals, particularly because those goals can never really be met with the Machine in place.

Certainly Tony Peraica hopes we've had enough. Peraica is a rare Cook County Republican; chances are you don't agree with much of what he has to say. But it's hard to imagine anyone but a non-voting county board president controlled by Bill Beavers and John Daley who is not trusted enough to have his own seat as a commissioner doing a worse job than what we've had up to now. (See the The [Stroger] Papers for the latest on how the proposed arrangements would work.)

And should we really suffer the indignity of having Bill Beavers' daughter foisted on us as his replacement on the city council, while the mayor chooses Todd Stroger's replacement?

Mark Brown is wrong. We don't have to just sit back and take it. The papers could move their outrage to the front page. Citizens could flood these jokers with e-mails simply saying in the subject line, We've Had Enough. We could give up dogging Dusty Baker and use our best heckles at neighborhood ward offices, aldermanic chambers, and county offices. Bury the mayor in angry letters and phone calls. Go on strike. Boycott Millennium Park and city parking garages and Taste of Chicago and support even the craziest candidate for city and county offices as long as they aren't from the Party. Whatever you can think of, do it and tell two friends. If you want change, you have to demand it.

Patronage Peeps
And yet, some folks haven't seen enough.

Earlier this week on WBEZ's 848, Ben Calhoun filed a report on patronage that touched on both the naive and the cynical rationalizations for governing by fraud.

Northwestern business school professor Keith Murnighan got the ball rolling by stating that "favoritism has its place in private business."

Forgetting for the moment that public governance isn't private business, I'm not sure there is a single thing more corrosive to organizational culture in the workplace than office politics that rewards "favorites" instead of rewarding results. It only takes a couple days in a newsroom to see that.

Murnighan went on to point out that "past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior."

People who do political work are willing to volunteer, put in extra hours, and work for the interests of the organization, he says.

Which is exactly right. They just shouldn't be doing those things on the job when they should be inspecting buildings and filling potholes.

Bill Beavers, a vice chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party, was up next, and though he's 71, you have to wonder if he's ever left his ward.

"Patronage system is the best system, that's all I can tell you, alright," Beavers said.

Um, go on.

"Because you have to have people around you that you can trust, you have to have people around you you can depend on and do the things you want done. That's the most important thing about patronage. You dance with the one that brung you. No matter how you look at it, that's the way it's supposed to be. If you don't know anybody, you're not going to get a job. Alright? How'd you get your job? Did somebody recommend you to public radio? That's right. Is that patronage?"

I don't know how Calhoun got his job, but it's only patronage if he got his job despite being a drunk with no experience whose focus is now on advancing Steve Edwards's political career. I don't know Ben, but I doubt that's the case.

Ironically, the system Beavers so passionately believes in is also the system that to this day warps the playing field against minorities. How many African-American friends do you think Tribune Editor Ann Marie Lipinski has brought into her newsroom? One of the main arguments in favor of affirmative action and diversity programs, for example, is to counter the exact dynamic Beavers is talking about, not to mention a host of other legal standards established for both the workplace and the political arena.

"You can't just hire who you want wherever you want," Jay Stewart said. "Bill Beavers can wish for it all day long. I can wish I'm a millionaire, that's not going to make that happen tomorrow either.

"Civil service rules, the Shakman decree, the Rutan decree, the First Amendment, and 30 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence pretty clearly, unambiguously, says that we have made a determination as a society that we're not for patronage."

"I don't understand how you can plausibly [defend patronage]. Why do you have to be loyal to Mayor Daley to pick up the garbage? I don't understand how being loyal to the Democratic Machine makes you a better social worker. And what about the guy who didn't get the promotion, who maybe can't send his kid to the school he wants to send him to, or he can't get medical care for his parents because he was counting on a raise but he didn't get it because the committeeman's son got the job. Those are real consquences. Real people suffer."

Despite his many years in Illinois politics, Mike Lawrence, the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, isn't so sure.

"Patronage is a bad word, and yet networking is generally viewed as a positive word," Lawrence said. "To me, patronage is a form of networking."

Not according to Merriam-Webster, which defines networking as "The exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions," and patronage as "the power to make appointments to government jobs, especially for political advantage."

I think we all know the difference.

Lawrence says he doesn't support what is alleged in the current City Hall job-rigging trial, but he does believe that political hiring makes public officials more responsible.

I don't know how he separates and squares those two notions, but this is the example he gave:

"If someone goes into a drivers license station to get a license renewed and is treated rudely, the Secretary of State is held responsible. The Secretary of State's picture is on the wall, and yet, the Secretary of State is very limited in who he or she can hire for that position and also very limited in disciplining and ultimately replacing that clerk."

So how does that clerk do a better job when their promotion and raise doesn't depend on how well they serve customers but on how many lawn signs they plant for the Secretary of State?

Lawrence has lost me.

"There's no hiring system that's gonna guarantee that you have the best people possible in those jobs," Lawrence said.

No. But patronage is a system that guarantees you won't.

Posted by Lou at 08:27 AM | Permalink

June 29, 2006

The [Thursday] Papers

Bill Beavers is a real piece of work. Todd Stroger isn't. See The [Stroger] Papers for our round-up and commentary.

1. Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) shows she is savvier than some reporters and editors in town. "Unfortunately, there've been a number of deliberate media diversions to get public attention away from what's going on in federal court," she tells John Kass.

2. At least they're paying attention to Steve Stone in Pittsburgh.

3. The Sun-Times trumpets one group's findings that "Chicago has more green roof space than any other city in North America."

But shouldn't the measurement be a percentage of all roof space, rather than raw square footage?

I mean, I'm looking at this chart and thinking it sure must not be hard to edge out other cities in the top 10 such as Suitland, Maryland and Ashburn, Virginia.

4. Presidential signing statements.

5. "Twice a year, Michael Hasco visits McDonald's restaurants to observe how workers squirt ketchup onto hamburgers. He thinks there might be a better way to do it."

6. Bob Dylan is now in the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is how he got there.

7. "Can a Psychiatrist Really Tell What's Wrong With You?"

8. The pregnancy blog rolls along. Can't anyone make her stop?

9. The 10 most censored countries.

10. Suspended Cubs catcher Michael Barrett charted the game Wednesday from the press box. The Tribune was there.

"Barrett notes that Brewers pitcher Dave Bush has thrown eight first-pitch stirkes to the first eight hitters, all fastballs away.

"'Up here it's easy to see and I know the coaching staff knows,' he says, 'but when I'm playing the game, I wouldn't have a clue about that.'"

Isn't it his job to know? And more to the point, isn't it the coaching staff's job to make sure he knows?

11. I don't know how many Chicago Headline Club members showed up to have drinks with Jason Leopold last night, but I find the invitation the organization send out last week puzzling. Leopold is peddling a book, so I suppose it makes sense that he "offered" to have drinks with local journalists, but what's the Headline Club's interest, and is it really true, as Headline Club President Jason Jedlinski writes in the invitation, printed below, that "unlike Jayson Blair, the stories Leopold wrote were true"?

Does that include Leopold's now infamous report on the indictment of Karl Rove?

Salon isn't so sure, and various other media outlets have stopped doing business with Leopold. But for some reason, not the Chicago Headline Club.

This was the invite:

"Dear Colleague:

"The Headline Club often holds programs and workshops about the 'right' way to gather and report the news, following SPJ's famous Code of Ethics. But next week, you have the rare opportunity to hear from someone who strayed far from that path: stealing from an employer, lying to get information and burning his sources for a good scoop.

"Jason Leopold broke key stories about Enron and the energy crisis for Dow Jones Newswires, winning their Journalist of the Year Award. He is also a past president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. But for most of his career, he was high on heroin, hiding a felony conviction and the fact that he dropped out of NYU.

"Leopold's memoir, NEWS JUNKIE, 'shows how a man once fueled by self-destructive impulses transforms his life, regenerated by love, sobriety and a new, harmonious career with the independent media,' according to the publisher. I was hooked by the first six pages, in which he details his betrayal of former California Gov. Gray Davis' press secretary.

"Next Wednesday, June 28, at 7:00 p.m., Leopold will speak at Transitions Bookplace, 1000 W. North Ave., Chicago. (It's easily accessible by public transit, notably the CTA Red Line, which stops two blocks east, at North and Clybourn.) After the event, Leopold has offered to go have drinks with Headline Club members and other interested journalists. We'll likely walk over to Weed's, 1555 N. Dayton St., which is a half-block south of the el.

"Unlike Jayson Blair, the stories Leopold wrote were true. It was the stories he told his family, editors, sources and competitors that were embellished and fabricated. You'll be surprised how long he got away with it!

"I hope to see you next Wednesday, and don't forget to check our website, http://www.headlineclub.org, for other upcoming events. Early registration for SPJ's national convention, August 24-27 at the Hyatt Regency, closes next month.

"Best Regards,

"Jason Jedlinski, President, Chicago Headline Club"

The Beachwood Tip Line: Send secret indictments here.

Posted by Lou at 10:08 AM | Permalink

The [Stroger] Papers

Bill Beavers is a real piece of work.

"Todd Stroger is a man," Beavers insisted in today's Sun-Times. "He might not have as much bass in his voice as I got, but he's a strong man. For the first time he'll be his own man."

But he won't be allowed to vote. Or to actually become a Cook County commissioner himself. He'll just be "president."

If Todd Stroger were a man, wouldn't he be feeling humiliated just about now?

Dream Candidate
"Our prayers have been answered."

No, that's not Democratic committemen rejoicing at the prospect of a puppet presidency in which they pull the strings, but Republican challenger and sitting county board commissioner Tony Peraica. And I believe him. After all, if you were Tony Peraica, wouldn't Todd Stroger be your dream candidate? Who among the possibilities better symbolizes a corrupt Machine furthering itself at the expense of your tax money?

"We're absolutely thrilled and excited to face him," Peraica said. "His father has an intimate working knowledge of county government. He's a master politician. But I'm not aware of anything - anything - his son has done as an alderman or state legislator. And I don't think he'd have had those jobs or be the nominee if his last name were Jones or Smith."

Possible campaign slogan: I'll Have A Vote.

Brake For Children
Peraica's slogan is actually "Have You Had Enough?"

Maybe he could massage the line used by prosecutor Philip Guentert in the City Hall hiring trial, when he told jurors that they were "the brakes" who could stop the runaway Machine.

"Brake The Machine"?

It would be a clever way to tie City Hall corruption into the campaign.

It's also a viable response to the stance of Democrats like Mark Brown, who think they have no choice but to vote for the candidate chosen by the bosses. Is it too obvious to make another reference to the Soviet Central Committee? We need a new metaphor.

Maybe, in the big picture, breaking the Machine is the only real way to move forward. President Peraica has a nice ring to it. Haven't you had enough?

The Bosses
The ward committeemen.
The township committemen.

Be the brakes.

Pip Squeak
"When I campaign, if I am selected, my record and my plans for the county will show themselves to be worthy of being the president of the County Board," Todd Stroger said.

Did someone say something?

Oh, it's you.

What, now?

Steele Breeze
Cook County Commissioner Bobbie Steele is pissed.

In an interview with Steve Edwards on WBEZ's 848 on Wednesday, she couldn't even bring herself to utter Todd Stroger's name, instead referring to him as "the candidate" and "the potential candidate."

Steele was relatively impressive.

"Cook County government is not a sport," Steele told Edwards.

Steele pointed out that the Cook County board is full of experienced commissioners who ought to be considered as natural successors to John Stroger. It's so obvious as to be shocking. Why bring in a congressman (Danny Davis) or a toy alderman (Todd Stroger) or a chief judge (Tim Evans) when there are still 16 commissioners who could step in to replace their ailing leader?

"I'm just appalled that with all the experience that's on that board and all the leadership that has been provided, that the policy would be to look outside that board for leadership," Steele said.

Steele then played the gender card - not that there's anything wrong with it. (She was backed up by Mary Mitchell in today's Sun-Times.)

"The Democratic party could reinvent itself on this issue and go into the future being a party of inclusion, a party that considers the voice of women, a party that considers the voices of all of the people, all of the comitteemen in Cook County, not a select few," Steele said. "I think they should look at who can bring this party together.'

Edwards asked Steele if she thought she was that person.

"I'm sure I'm that person," she said. "It's proven. It's my record."

Of Todd Stroger, she said, "There is no record. And while I respect Alderman Beavers and I respect the potential candidate, I just think county government at this point in time has such crucial issues that need to be addressed that it needs someone with experience."

What Lisa Wrought
"It doesn't bother me at all," Peoples' Ald. Ed Smith (28th), a Democratic committeeman, told Crain's. "[Todd Stroger] has gone to school. He's taken care of his kids. He's been elected."

To a different office, but why nitpick? Then again, he wasn't really "elected" to the City Council. The mayor appointed him to the post in 2001, and he was only re-elected since through the protection that affords.

Smith added that Todd Stroger would do the same "wonderful" job that Lisa Madigan, the daughter of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, has done as Illinois Attorney General.

Well, she's certainly a role model.

Coming To Terms
"When asked if his father was in good enough shape to finish his term when he's not well enough to run in the election," the Tribune reported, "Todd Stroger said, 'I don't know the answer to that question. I think that if he can finish his term, then so be it.'"

So he'll be in the office on Monday?

Daley Double
"It is unclear who would take Todd Stroger's place as 8th ward alderman," the Defender reports, "but Stroger said it will be someone who knows city government and who the people can trust."

But he stopped short of revealing whose kid it will be.

Beavers Bluff?
The Tribune report also says that Beavers told reporters "there's enough votes" lined up among the Democratic committeemen for Todd Stroger. "But when asked if he had the votes already lined up for Todd Stroger, Beavers said, 'We're working on that right now, OK?'"

Posted by Lou at 08:28 AM | Permalink

June 28, 2006

The [Wednesday] Papers

The latest scheme to emerge from the John Stroger fiasco is so rich you almost have to admire it. Let's take it one scoundrel at a time.

* Ald. Bill Beavers would leave the city council to take over Stroger's seat as Cook County commissioner from the fourth district - but not the board's presidency. "Beavers, 71, has long made known his desire to retire," the Sun-Times reports. And the Cook County board is apparently a good place to retire to.

* Mayor Richard M. Daley would then appoint Beavers's daughter, Darcel, to Beavers's 7th Ward aldermanic seat.

* Ald. Todd Stroger, John's son, would then become the Democratic nominee and frontrunner to replace his father as Cook County Board president. Apparently the law doesn't require that the board president actually be a sitting board member. Without a board seat, however, Todd Stroger would not have a vote. So he'd kind of be in retirement too.

* Mayor Richard M. Daley would then appoint - is there another Stroger? - a replacement for Todd Stroger on the city council. Which could come pretty close to Daley achieving his goal of appointing the entire city council. By statute, all wards would then merge into one and martial law would be declared.

* John Daley, the mayor's brother, would see his influence grow as chairman of the county board's finance committee, given the vacuum created by a Todd Stroger figurehead presidency.

One ward boss told the Sun-Times that "Everyone knows Todd is weak, but out of deference to John they'll go along with it." Another source who is one of the Democratic committeeman who will vote on the plan said that "People are willing to let [Todd] come on the job and learn because of John."

So presiding over the $3 billion budget of the 19th largest government in the United States is both a retirement and training center. You might call it cradle-to-grave service.

Family Guy
"Madigan anointed his daughter. Tom Hynes anointed his son. Bill Lipinski anointed his son. So why can't John Stroger anoint his son?" asks Ald. Anthony Beale.

I'm just gonna come out and say it: It's unfair, but some earnest people hoped that as victims of the white man's injustice, minority politicians would lead the way as reformers guided by the principles of fairness instead of using the same tools that oppressed them to further pervert democracy. But I suppose it's a milestone of achievement that minorities are now in a position to be as corrupt as whitey and get their share. The larger lesson, though, is how cynicism, patronage, and corruption form self-perpetuating, self-justifying systems that turn government bodies and offices into personal playpens ill-equipped to use our hard-earned tax dollars to actually solve problems.

Have You Had Enough?
That's what Tony Peraica wants to know.

Afterschool Specials
So wait a minute, I could get state funding for this site by pretending it's an after-school program?

That would be a lot easier than waiting for you freeloaders to pony up some dough.

Did I just type that or just think it?

Target-Rich Environment
"What's more, the prosecutor suggested that the feds were far from done with prosecuting top officials in the Daley administration, acknowledging that other former city officials, not on trial, were responsible for setting up the hiring scheme," the Sun-Times reported in today's account of closing arguments in the City Hall hiring trial.

"For those responsible out there for this scheme, there is another day," prosecutor Philip Guentert said.

Later, John Kass reports, Guentert added that "City Hall is chock full of the schemers."

Carol Marin, on the other hand, finally gets one wrong.

"In this case, the orders, whether spoken or unspoken, are in direct violation of a decades-old federal court decree, expressly forbidding political hiring. But does this rise to the level of a federal crime worthy of prison time?"

She thinks not, but I think she answered her question in the set-up. Perhaps most egregious in this case isn't just the alleged fraud - which among other things endangers people's lives by employing teenage building inspectors - and the business-as-usual political practices which are nonetheless illegal if all too familiar, but the flouting of that federal decree Marin mentions, a federal decree overseen by a federal judge. That may not be the exact basis of the charges in this case, but it's the context in which this prosecution is taking place.

In addition, this case is but one on an upwardly moving chain that could very well knit together a legally defined "criminal enterprise" (as George Ryan's secretary of state's office was declared) known up to now simply as "the mayor's office."

So yeah, I think it's a worthy investigation.

But even if the investigation ended here, with "garden variety fraud," as Michael Shakman has put it, how is that not deserving of prosecution and, if convictions are returned, prison time for those involved, given the massive extent of the allegations? Is the argument that this should have been handled by local prosecutors, such as the mayor's pal, Dick Devine? If only.

This case is not as different from the Ryan case as Marin thinks. Both are about the use of government workers for political ends. In the Ryan case, prosecutors joined hiring patronage with the pinstripe patronage of contracting scandals to present a portrait of a state for sale. In the City Hall investigation, we've only begun to see the hiring patronage part of mayor's machine. A bigger picture may yet emerge.

Ghosts In The Machine
"Mayoral aides insisted no Olympic Village proposal was presented at Friday's meeting with U.S. Olympic officials," the Tribune reports. "Dr. Enrique Beckmann, CEO of Michael Reese [Hospital] said it was news to him to read a published report Tuesday that his hospital's property had been selected.

"No city officials have contacted him, and he has not been privy to any discussions, he said."

See how it works? Mayoral aides, city officials and "City Hall sources" are like a holy trinity - one and three at the same time. In the ghostly form of "City Hall sources," they seek out willing acolytes with megaphones who will spread the good news about the mayor. Which is never to be confused with the truth.

Tubular Trib
Tribune Company's stock buyback fell short of the company's goal, but the ramifications of that aren't yet clear. The dissident Chandler family, acquired as part of TribCo's ill-fated $8.3 billion Times-Mirror acquisition, will apparently come out of the whole thing as the company's largest shareholder. Woe is Dennis FitzSimons.

Meanwhile, Tribune, aside from further gutting its newsrooms, appears to be banking on its stake in the new CW network, a combination of the old WB and UPN networks.

"The Chandlers have complained that management has been dragging its heels on a [broadcast unit] spin-off out of a 'desire to see how the new CW network performs' when it launches this fall. But despite those objections, several analysts and other investors said waiting probably makes sense at this point, given that it's unclear how the CW will do," the Tribune reports.

"'Everyone is imagining the CW as being a glamorous brand new network, and quite frankly, I think it will be more like UPN and the WB put together,' said Tucson-based radio and TV broker Fred Kalil of Kalil & Co.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Anointed and appointed.

Posted by Lou at 09:02 AM | Permalink

June 27, 2006

Stumbling To The Finish Line: Chicago Schools Slip Into Summer

The school year just ended for the Chicago public schools, and everyone who's not doing summer school seems pretty relieved to have gotten out alive.

It was a mess of a year - full of turmoil and difficulty and tremendous amounts of uncertainty. By most accounts, there's more turmoil to come.

Looking back at the past nine months, the only things CPS hasn't had are a patronage scandal or high-level embezzlement. But the way things have been going it seems like either one could come along any day now.

Known in previous years as a place of educational innovation, Chicago now just as often follows what's happening in New York City - or gets used as a cautionary tale for mayors in other cities who want control over the school system.

The governor's Meeks-inspired education plan wouldn't have solved Chicago's funding problems for long - and already seems dead in the water.

The mayor's vaunted Renaissance 2010 initiative now gets more heat for the schools it closes than the ones it opens up.

Local school councils, once a centerpiece of community involvement and control, have withered from inattention.

Now five years old, the Arne Duncan era seems to be slowly falling apart with the departures of school board president Michael Scott and chief operations officer David Vitale, and the demotion of chief educational officer Barbara Eason Watkins.

There are some bright spots, of course.

There's been no big ethics scandal (like in Philly).

At most schools on most days, teachers and parents and principals cooperated enough that the kids probably get some learning done.Though problematic (and on the rise in some places), school violence seems like it's much less of a problem than in some other big cities. And the state and city have made tremendous progress on early childhood education.

The school district has gotten much better at finding and hiring new teachers - and has grand plans to do better at keeping them.The percentage of families who send their children to public school continues to rise - even as the overall population of school-age children in the city continues to fall.

At many of the small new schools popping up around the city there is tremendous energy and hope to go along with the deep-seeded challenges. And nearly 100 high-performing schools have been given new autonomy to do things as they best see fit.

Of course, the final verdict - this spring's test scores - won't be out for a few weeks. But they probably won't make much of a difference.

In part, that's because they're using a new test this year - not the Iowa test that's been used for decades - and so it won't be easy to compare results to previous years. Even more so, the test scores just don't stand much chance of eclipsing all of the mishaps and twists and turns of the previous school year.

Alexander Russo is the proprietor of the District 299 Chicago public schools blog. For further reading, he recommends "How We Compare: Education" (Chicago magazine) and "Special Report: What's Better and What's Not" (Catalyst Chicago).

Posted by Lou at 04:32 PM | Permalink

Millennium's Second Coming

A recent story in the Los Angeles Times caught my eye; it said that according to various polls, 40 percent of Americans believe that events leading to the Biblical end times are already under way. These are the end times from the Book of Revelation which will culminate with Jesus roaring down from Heaven to end the reign of the Antichrist at the Battle of Armageddon, in which Satan's armies will be defeated, Judgment Day will be upon us and all of Jesus' true followers will finally get their reward for having to endure the endless "persecution" they're now suffering at the hands of Godless liberals like the editors of the L.A. Times.

That 40 percent of all Americans believe with varying levels of certainty that this is going to happen - even after the disappointment of the millennium coming and going without so much as a single heavenly trumpet - is impressive. It got me to thinking about the religio-scientific dread that the approaching millennium inspired in the late 1990s, when "Y2K" and not "9/11" was the shorthand that inspired widespread fear.

The millennium was feared - yes "feared" is the right word - by people across the social spectrum, from the religious believers who were looking for a big, blazing "end times" message, to survivalists who fled to the woods after stocking up on canned goods and overpriced gas-powered generators, to nervous Wall Street types who demanded that companies spend millions and spell out their Y2K preparations in minutest detail.

Yeah, it all seems pretty silly now. What was there to fear, as it turned out, but our own fevered dreams of supernatural wrath raining down from above? But of course faith is faith, and as such is impervious to such things as reason and history, so nearly half of us still think the gears are turning that will shortly lead to our two-o'clock with the Messiah. It made me realize that the love of religious mysticism is so very deep in "modern" America that it's time to reassess the ignoble place to which Chris Carter's Millennium, which ran three seasons on Fox from 1996 to 1999, has been assigned in TV history. Just because it turned out the millennium itself was a bust is no good reason to diss this show's memory. In fact, with all the people out there still feeling the kind of religious dread in which this show specialized, it might actually be wise for Carter to follow through on his stated desire to finally bring closure to this underrated show in the form of a feature film, sort of a Serenity to Fox's Firefly.

Twentieth Century Fox released the third and final season of Millennium on DVD last September, so now it's possible to take a leisurely look back on the whole series arc. What you see is a series that had all of the formidable writing, acting and movie-quality production values of The X-Files, but, unfortunately, none of the consistency. Because Carter was stretched so thin with the X-Files movie and other TV series' he was working on, Millennium switched directions pretty drastically from season to season as he handed off show responsibilities to different producers in the later years.

So it suffered from not really knowing where it was going. But there was one thing that remained consistent: Lance Henriksen's portrayal of serial killer profiler Frank Black. Black was a great character, no two ways about it. He was a combination of an FBI cop, a psychic, a New Age family man, an action hero and a political liberal who fought for victims of the system as well as victims of the killers. His talent was being able to "see" the crimes through the eyes of the perps in these kind of quick-cut, glimpse-of-nastiness flashbacks accompanied by horrific sound effects. But it also drained him because, let's face it, it's tough to stomach what a killer feels while he's going at it. Henriksen made Black all hang-doggy and world-weary, very craggy, often brooding silently under the pressure of the awful burdens he has taken on to protect as all from evil.

And it worked - it was pretty creepy.

In Millennium's first season, Carter himself was at the helm. In his original vision, Black's biggest concern was holding his family together (wife Megan Gallagher and daughter Brittany Tiplady as he tried to cope with his return from a mental breakdown his abilities had caused him earlier while working with the FBI. On leave from the cop shop, he worked as a "consultant" for the Millennium Group, a mysterious cadre of former FBI agents who worked together in a secretive fashion to solve the weirdest and most heinous crimes - it was based on an actual organization called the Academy Group. His contact with the group was Peter Watts (played by Terry O'Quinn, since gone on to massive fame on Lost), who had a habit of paging Black (pre-cellphone
days) with some new horror just when he was on the verge of making some emotionally healing breakthrough with the help of his family.

In that first year, it was mostly about Black tracking down killers; kind of straightforward - but in a strange Chris Carter kind of way. The major storyline was that an unseen killer was stalking Black's wife and child, sending him Polaroids of them going about their business. Mrs. Black ends up being kidnapped and tortured in a season-ending cliffhanger. She's rescued to kick off the second season, but it leads to the Blacks' separation - and it signaled Carter's separation from the series as its show producer.

It was in Millennium's second season, I believe, that it reached its peak, as James Wong and Glen Morgan from The X-Files took over. That's when the real connection to the millennium's religious aspects took over, and the Millennium Group morphed into something that resembled an ancient, worldwide cult that traced its roots back to 1000 A.D. They greeted each other with the cryptic phrase, "This is who we are."

Wong and Morgan spent much of the season giving tantalizing clues as to whether the Millennium Group was trying to hurry or hinder a Christian apocalypse, what role Peter Watts played and chronicling Frank Black's wavering opinion of the Group as they considered him for membership.

That 1997-98 season should secure Millennium's place as a brilliant look at the dark heart of American apocalyptic religious fervor. One episode dealt with a bloody struggle over a chunk of the true cross of the crucifixion ,which believers thought they'd need to have in their possession in order to win the Battle of Armageddon. Another had him meeting the devil himself, in the form of a reclusive neighbor from his own childhood, after reading the Bible on Halloween. A teenage girl is persecuted for channeling Mary Magdalene. Two women's prison escapees - lesbian lovers - think one's pregnancy is an immaculate conception. The season wraps with a deadly, Biblical plague sweeping the Northwest, one that might have been engineered by the Millennium Group.

In its final year, with Morgan and Wong departing, Millennium again changed, de-emphasizing the religious dread but building the Millennium Group into a more secular threat that, unfortunately, began to resemble more and more the alien-human conspiracy in The X-Files. Frank Black, with his wife killed in the plague, took on a perky young female FBI agent as a partner (Klea Scott).

I'm not saying these final episodes weren't also well-written and superbly acted (including a hilarious one that guest starred KISS), strangely enough, not a jump-the-shark moment). But the singular thing that made Millennium great - the Book of Revelation obsession - was now being downplayed. The show petered out in Spring 1999 - only six months short of the actual millennium - due to chronically poor ratings in a Friday night time slot that has never been the launching pad for successful shows.

The fact that this country remains so convinced that Armageddon is only a rebuilt Temple away from happening is, to me, some pretty scary stuff in and of itself. And the genius of Millennium was not so much its depiction of a world of religio-scientific goings-ons happening unnoticed, but the much more frightening fact that these beliefs were becoming mainstream thought - and that we'd need some brooding hero like Frank Black to save us from them.

Don Jacobson last wrote on our TV page about the boneheaded cancellation of Invasion. He also writes frequently with grace and wit in Alt-Country Corner and Chicago In Song.

Posted by Lou at 11:16 AM | Permalink

The [Tuesday] Papers

"Pathetic wannabes seems a more apt description for this group than homegrown terrorists," a Miami Herald editorial says today of the motley crew from South Florida accused of aspiring to somehow attack the Sears Tower.

Still, the Herald, like other weak-kneed editorialists we know, concludes that "in a post-Sept. 11 era when the tripwire for being hauled in as a potential terror threat is hypersensitive, the men may have done enough to warrant being indicted and arrested."

May have done enough? Now we're not even sure their behavior reached the threshold of arrest?

At a fundraiser here for Republican congressional candidate David McSweeney, Vice President Dick Cheney called the Miami group "a very real threat."

But it's quickly becoming clear that a Caffe Mocha Breve Grande from the Starbucks there was more of a threat to the health of Sears Tower workers than these seven dwarves.

"Even the ideology of the suspects, if a mishmash of religious fervor and zealotry can be called that, seems unfocused," the Herald says. "These alleged terrorists were so destitute that they relied on the government informant, whom they believed was one of them, to supply them with cameras to take pictures of potential targets and even boots for their militaristic training.

"The government informant also supplied both the cash and phony al Qaeda connection to the alleged terrorists."

It increasingly sounds like the government informant was the one with the aspirations. Without him whipping these guys up, the Herald seems to be saying, there would have been very little to fear and no basis for arrests.

The Herald is also reporting that "The severity of the charges compared with the seemingly amateurish nature of the seven defendants raised concerns among civil libertarians.

"'We're as puzzled as everyone else,' said Howard Simon, the director of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union."

You can read the astonishingly brief and bare indictment here to see why.

Decaf Tall Terrorist
The judge in the case of Chicagoan Jose Padilla says the indictment is "very light on facts."

Durkin Dunked
Closing arguments in the City Hall job-rigging trial began on Monday. Prosecutor Julie Ruder accused the four defendants, including Mayor Richard M. Daley's former patronage chief, Robert Sorich, of participating in a "corrupt clout machine."

Defense attorney Thomas Anthony Durkin called the prosecution's case "odd and stupid."

The verdict from the press gallery?

Advantage, Ruder.

John Kass says Durkin has been "valiant and colorful and interesting . . . but for all the charm and passion, it was only rhetoric, because he didn't have more."

Eric Zorn, likewise, says Durkin was all style and no substance. "I left the courtroom feeling certain: He's got nothing," Zorn writes.

Ruder was effective - by my reading of press accounts - in rebutting Durkin's arguments about the lack of money changing hands and what a swell guy his client was.

"It was about who you knew and whose palm you were greasing,'" Ruder said, according to the Sun-Times account. "Not with money, she said, but with a currency more valuable: 'bodies.' Ruder said jobs went to those who donated their labor to poltical groups by ringing doorbells, distributing flyers and making calls for candidates backed by the mayor."

The paper also reported that "Durkin tried to portray Sorich as a trusted, well-liked city employee who helped people, including one city worker who agreed Sorich literally helped get him out of working in a hole, with a promotion.

"Ruder, though, asked about all the other workers in low-level, back-breaking jobs, who didn't do political work.

"'Mr. Sorich didn't get them out,' Ruder said, her voice ringing with outrage. Unless a person did political work, Ruder said, 'you were stuck in that hole for good.'"

Green Bean
Political pundit Paul Green, who is immune to the kind of outrage expressed by Rudin, thinks Daley has it down just right.

"It's a tough city to govern," Green said on Chicago Tonight last night. "This is a city that needs a strong mayor."

Oh, baloney. The only thing that makes Chicago a tougher city to govern than any others is its corruption! Green has it exactly backwards. And if an honest mayor can't also be a strong mayor, we may as well pack up our democracy and ask for King George back.

"You don't need corruption to make a city work," Cindy Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, shot back at Green.

"The city that works - who does the city work for?" asked Bob Crawford, the former political director of WBBM-AM and a longtime City Hall observer.

"That's terrible, Bob," Green responded. "Name a mayor in history where the city has worked better for more people!"

Crawford didn't get a chance to, but I'll take a shot: Harold Washington?

"Name a city that does it better," Green said.

Well, I'm not sure what "it" is, but, um, okay. New York City? Minneapolis? San Francisco? I was pretty impressed with Denver when I was there a few years ago. Portland? Seattle? Toronto? Madison, Wisconsin?

There's a whole world out there that somehow manages to trudge through each day without a Daley as their mayor or a corruption machine governing their lives.

Schoolboy
Daley wants to use a property tax increase to help fund a $1 billion school construction program. He doesn't want you to worry about the details. Just trust him.

Daley's secret plan would build 24 new schools; it is part of a $5.3 billion budget under consideration by the Board of Education.

Some pretty smart people think the mayor ought to show us his homework.

"In a 65-page critique, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall blasted the budget's 'lack of transparency' and its failure to address 'ballooning' pension and personnel costs despite four years of declining enrollment," the Sun-Times reports. "Most egregious, Msall said, was the board's failure to flesh out details of the six-year, $1 billion school construction plan that Daley unveiled earlier this month.

"The first installment of of funding toward 'Modern Schools Across America' is in the budget. But taxpayers have no idea how the 24 schools were chosen or who picked them because the Board of Education hasn't produced a capital improvement plan after three years of promises, Msall said."

Daley's response?

"Now that the city has stepped up and made an investment in schools, we can start planning in the long range again."

So, spend first, plan later?

Olympian Effort
City Hall sources issued a press release on the Sun-Times's Metro page today.

Net Nonsense
The Tribune came out against "net neutrality" on Monday in an editorial called "Hands Off The Internet." Just so there is no confusion about where the paper stands, "Hands Off The Internet" is also the name of a lobbying campaign against "net neutraility" backed by the telecom industry.

Hands Off ComEd
Adjacent to the Tribune's net neutrality editorial was a letter from the executive director of the Citizens Utility Board that said, in part, "Where we disagree is with the Tribune's continued insistence that nothing can be done to protect consumers from rate shock next year."

So yeah, the Tribune is firing on all cylinders when it comes to looking out for your interests. Next they'll ask for an increase in gas prices, just because.

Sanitation Maintenance Engineer
On Sunday the Sun-Times presented a "computer-assisted analysis" of the City Hall clout list revealed at the Sorich trial. The paper studied favors requested and favors granted to determine the success rates of the city's "clout All-Stars."

Isn't that more like a calculator-assisted analysis?

Onion or Tribune?
"High Court Turns Away Disney In Pooh Appeal."

The [Monday] Papers
There wasn't one. Sorry. I'm still not sure whether the Sunday and Monday columns should be combined, or should remain separate with each posted Monday. I'm trying to avoid having to write a column on Sunday when I'm usually busy not only reading through the papers but preparing other parts of the site for the week. Suggestions welcome.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Part of the Modern Beachwoods Across Chicago program

Posted by Lou at 06:37 AM | Permalink

June 26, 2006

The [Sunday] Papers

The editorial pages of the Tribune and Sun-Times on Sunday both strain to assure readers that they should take the alleged plot to blow up the Sears Tower seriously, arguing that those exhibiting a little bit of skepticism - and apparently there are enough of us who do that each paper felt obliged to write editorials - do so at their own peril, and the peril of the nation.

I take the alleged plot with a measured bit of seriousness, but I find the stance of our local editorial boards to be far more perilous than the mopes in South Florida who probably couldn't blow up a balloon, much less our most fortified, security-laden landmark.

Both editorials see a parallel between the Miami gang who couldn't terrorize straight and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in that both are "homegrown," as if that's enough to put them in the same class.

Both editorials also scold skeptics of repeating what they see as the grand mistake of 9/11 - a failure of imagination (they do this without irony, for those of you who may have noticed that the papers commit failures of the imagination on a daily basis). And this is what, at this late date, is most astonishing.

"Before 9/11, we never imagined planes flying into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon; we once never dreamed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City would be blown up with bombs made with fertilizer," the Sun-Times says in "Latest Alleged Plot Shows Security Is Still A Tall Order."

"[Three words] stand out from all the others in the 9/11 commission's final verdict: Public officials succumbed to a 'failure of imagination' that spanned multiple government agencies and two presidential administrations," the Tribune says in "When To Take Plotters Seriously." (Note the neat trick of avoiding holding the twice Tribune-endorsed George W. Bush accountable all by his lonesome.)

I don't know if the editorial boards just haven't been keeping up or are willfully ignorant, but the failure of imagination argument has been debunked six ways from Sunday. I would speculate that perhaps only they and Condi Rice haven't gotten the memo, but it turns out that Rice did get the memo, despite her infamous statements to the contrary.

This ground has been tilled over and over and over, for anyone paying attention. The evidence is voluminous that the U.S. government had exactly imagined terrorists not just flying planes into buildings, but specifically flying planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The evidence is so thick, in fact, that it's tiring to go back and pick out just which examples to use to show that the editorial boards haven't been doing their homework. I've pulled three somewhat disparate examples to show just how discredited this notion is, from NORAD training exercises to French intelligence to the findings of the 9/11 commission as exasperatingly recounted by a 9/11 widow.

* "In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties," USA Today reported in April 2004. "One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center."

* "The president of Egypt and the deputy prime minister of Italy say that Osama bin Laden's network of Islamic terrorists threatened to kill President Bush and other leaders of the industrialized world when they met at a summit meeting in Genoa last July," The New York Times reported in September 2001.

"In an interview on French television on Monday, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt spoke in specific terms about the threat, saying that 'on June 13 of this year, we learned of a communique from bin Laden saying he wanted to assassinate George W. Bush and other G8 heads of state during their summit in Italy.'

"It was a well-known piece of information," Mr. Mubarak added in the interview broadcast by the network France 3.

Separately, he told Le Figaro, a major French daily newspaper, that Egyptian intelligence services had told the United States about the threat and that the warning included a reference to "an airplane stuffed with explosives."

"Several days before Mr. Mubarak's interview, in an appearance on Italian television, Gianfranco Fini, the Italian deputy prime minister, discussed parallels between the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and warnings his government had received before the Genoa meeting in July.

"'Many people joked about the Italian Intelligence Force,' Mr. Fini said, 'but actually they had information that in Genoa there was the hypothesis of an attack on the American president with the use of an airplane. That is why we closed the airspace above Genoa and installed antiaircraft missiles. Those who joked should now reflect.'"

* "Either [Rice] flat out lied or she's incompetent, because the historical record is replete with instances of planes being used as missiles," Kristen Breitweiser, one of the 9/11 widows whom Ann Coulter accused of being a harpie enjoying the death of her husband, said in 2004.

"I can hold up the joint inquiry report," Breitweiser said. "You see all the post-its on here, indicating instances of planes being used as missiles, of al Qaeda being interested in using plane as missiles of attacks in the homeland."

On and on it goes. This is settled history to everyone but the most obstinate, partisan players whose interests lie in places other than our nation's security - and to clueless editorial boards unwilling to accept the fact that the Bush Administration is responsible for one of the biggest failures not of imagination but of competence in this nation's history - besides the Iraq war, of course. And that's 9/11.

Further, the comparison to the Oklahoma City bombing would be amusing if it wasn't so sad. The use of fertilizer in a bomb was hardly new (perhaps previously most famously used by the Irish Republican Army in the 1970s). And the Tribune's later statement that McVeigh went from aspirational to operational in two days is beyond comprehension.

Even this simplified timeline shows McVeigh began his actual plotting to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building at least six months before actually doing so, and multiple histories of McVeigh show that his aspirations to do damage to the United States government arose long before that.

I don't know anybody who doesn't think the Miami group shouldn't have been arrested and that those arrests weren't newsworthy. But when FBI director Robert Mueller says that "homegrown terrorists may prove to be as dangerous as al-Qaeda, if not more so," he is guilty of hyperbole that belittles the scope of the al-Qaeda threat. And when the media falls for the hype, our security is diminished by the increased skepticism that inevitably follows when the truth comes out. The applicable fable involves a little boy and a wolf.

A better assessment of the situation came this weekend from Maureen Dowd. "These guys were so lame they asked an informant for boots, radios, binoculars, uniforms, and cash, believing he was Al Qaeda - and that jihadists need uniforms," Dowd wrote.

(It wasn't the uniforms that caught my eye; it was the boots. Why would these guys need boots? Because their "cell" had plans to conduct a "ground war" against America. So, you know, let's just say their Observation Decks don't go to the top floor.)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is famous for saying "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." The full statement is "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding, and support of the people themselves, which is essential to victory."

The Bush Administration has turned that wisdom on its head, and frightened and witless abetters in the media have gone right along with them, taking us over a cliff instead of leading us with courage and confidence.

The only failure of imagination America is guilty of is failing to imagine a president squandering a historic opportunity, in the aftermath of unspeakable tragedy, to unite a sympathetic world behind the best of America's values, and to instead lie us into a war whose disastrous ramifications will haunt us for decades to come; a war which has not only damaged our security and made us more vulnerable to terrorist attack, but has corroded our civil liberties and infected us with a viral strain of neuroses that have set our heads spinning. It's as if Osama bin Laden is, um, winning.

So let's please stop peddling old talking points and come clean about how we got into this mess - not just the war, but the environment of fear and insecurity that is dogging us. Otherwise we'll never be able to get out of it.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Actively imagining plots all the time.

Posted by Lou at 07:25 AM | Permalink

June 25, 2006

When People Mix

This nation's battle with racial and ethnic tension has been well documented through political measures, from the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights Act to the Naturalization and Immigration Act. While most of us have observed and interpreted this history as a struggle, a series of tumultuous circumstances, and have seen race as a dividing force, others have explored beyond their own identity and managed to interact with people outside their own races. In fact, some even managed to marry and have children as results of their interactions. However, despite the increasing complexity of our society, we have not thought of a good way to recognize those people who do not necessarily fit into conventional categories of race.

For a long time, if a person had 1/16 of blood that was black, that person was considered black. Even today, Halle Berry was labeled as the first black actress to win the Best Actress in Oscars though her mother is white. We routinely consider Sen. Barack Obama as black though he is a product of a white mother and a black father. Prior to 2000, even the United States Census Bureau couldn't figure out how to adequately deal with people who did not fall neatly into existing categories. The decennial census in 2000 was the first time people were allowed to identify themselves with more than one racial category.

In Illinois, 79 percent of 249,431 multi-racial people live in the Chicago metropolitan nine-county area. Surprisingly, there is a higher multi-racial population in the suburbs (109,255) than in the City of Chicago (87,381), and with the rapid increase in Latinos and Asians in the suburbs, these numbers could have risen considerably since the last decennial census. While there are more black-whites (32,963) in the state than Asian-whites (30,009), there are more Asian-whites in the Chicago (8,001) than black-whites (6,637).

If the presence of a multi-racial population is any indicator on a city's level of diversity, Chicago falls far behind its peers. In Chicago, 30.2 out of every 1,000 people were multi-racial in 2000. While this is higher than the national rate of 25.8, it is far below New York (50.2) and Los Angeles (51.8). Other cities showing significantly higher multi-racial rates than Chicago include Miami (50.7), San Diego (49.8), Seattle (48.2), Boston (46.9), Minneapolis (46.5), Oklahoma City (45.4), San Francisco (45.5), Portland (45.2), Las Vegas (43.5), Denver (38.5), and Phoenix (33.8). As one would expect, 149.7 for every 1,000 Honolulu residents were known to have parents from at least two different racial backgrounds. In fact, 40.3 out of 1,000 people in Honolulu belonged to three or more racial groups.

A number of factors contribute to the number of Asian-whites through the past six decades or so, including the substantial number of Asian women brought into the United States as brides upon the return of American soldiers from Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines; and an economic and educational status of Asian immigrants and their subsequent generations that put them in close proximity to middle and upper-middle class whites.

By contrast, one could argue that the lower number of biracial black-whites, particularly in Chicago, reflects the history of severe segregation that prevented a degree of interaction between the two groups. Black Hawk Hancock, a sociologist at DePaul University, suggests that the ways in which Asian-Americans interact with whites is "normalized" due to their socioeconomic status and proximity, as opposed to blacks who are still marginalized due to stereotypes and stigma.

Historical events and changes from slavery to immigration have impacted the demographic composition of our country, although the ways in which we tabulate people have not. And that is perhaps why these census figures of multi-racial people today are admittedly underestimated. Most Americans still tend to think of race in terms of one simple category, as well. But the multi-racial segment of the population will undoubtedly continue to grow, not only because of increasing levels of interaction across different racial groups, but also increased awareness that will likely cause those who have not thought of themselves as multi-racial to reconsider.

Kiljoong Kim is Research Director with the Egan Urban Center and a lecturer of sociology at DePaul University.

Posted by Lou at 08:46 PM | Permalink

Gin Blossoms 'Jam' Zoo: 'Not Actively Bad'

"If you just walked in and you don't know what the heck is goin' on, we're the Gin Blossoms," lead singer Robin Wilson announces early in the band's set at Lincoln Park Zoo. This may actually help some people in the audience.

A couple people have already stopped to ask me who's playing tonight, at this first installment of Lincoln Park Zoo's "Jammin' At The Zoo" summer music series; it's the Blossoms and Chicago singer-songwriter Carey Ott. Many of these people have come to be at an outdoor concert, in a spacious field bordered by a food court, ape houses, zebras, antelopes and flamingos. A couple of off-duty zoo employees tell me that many here tonight are zoo members or season-ticket holders who buy Jammin' passes before they even know who will be playing. It makes for an odd jumble that straddles the working-, middle- and upper- classes, and all their children. "I've been here six years and I've always gotten that vibe," one of them says.

Just like any proper rock show, this one involves a lot of waiting, but there's plenty to do. In fact, it levels the economic and social playing fields a little, because nobody knows what to do first - but everyone's determined, by God, to get a little of everything. Browse the free copies of Chicago magazine and Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage Previews. Mill about the chaotic food court, which has a vaguely Balkan feel that Americans can truly experience only in their tourist attractions and public schools. Buy yourself a frosty cup of Sam Adams (Jammin's official beer), and hoist one with the sturdy patriot himself - cardboard cutouts of him stand near most of the six beer-and-wine tables.

A man in his early 20s gets on his phone and starts planning a weekend golf game - a scramble, to be precise. A few couples negotiate their folding-table privileges with security guards on the concrete plaza between the food court and the lawn. A couple of little boys climb up a nearby sculpture; a man wearing a shirt that proclaims Kid Rock "AN AMERICAN PIMP" leans against it.

The crowd gets thicker and slower - turns out it's a sold-out show, the Blossoms' second at this venue (the first was in 2002; the zoo worker quoted above told me the Blossoms played a less successful show there six or seven years ago). The zoo's lawn is really a logical place to have a small outdoor concert. It's just like any other stretch of public parkland close to the shore, not a mere afterthought in the middle of a larger attraction. This is not the crummy amphitheater of Spinal Tap's puppet show/jazz odyssey disaster.

During the wait, an announcer comes onstage to announce the upcoming artists in the series - Collective Soul in July, They Might Be Giants in August. These names elicit only a few scattered claps - odd considering one's cult following and the other's basic similarities to tonight's main band. He also notes that TMBG's zoo show will not be one of their kid-friendly shows. "You can bring your kids, but neither the zoo, nor the band, are responsible for what they might hear," he chuckles in the manner of a permissive Ned Flanders. That sums up the tone of the gathering - everyone's here to have fun, but there's an enforced mildness about it.

Soon enough, Ott mounts the stage alone, with an acoustic guitar, and starts into a gloomy waltz. At first I think this is not going to work for a breezy summer evening, but he gets a little looser and more interesting with each song. He will take a wry, seventh-chordy turn just where you'd expect the average working singer-songwriter to start moaning some limp melody. This short clip of his song "Lucid Dream" is the perfect example. When I heard the gentle organ and plaintive arpeggios, I thought I was in for something mopey - but then the music slid into a totally different structure. It's no masterpiece, but it at least does something that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

I discover the perfect way to enjoy Ott: Wander over to the little amphitheater behind the sea-lion pool and let his ballads waft over to me. After a few minutes of this, though, I hear his backing band plug in, and, thinking that the Gin Blossoms are coming on, become the first person to achieve light-jog speed here this evening.

Near the end of his set, Ott plays a cover of Frank Black's "Headache." Again, this earns him points. Everyone's seen that opening act that has loads of original songs, and whether they're good or not, I tend to want to see what else the artist can do. A well-placed cover shows us that the artist has at least a little taste, versatility, and humility.

If I don't like all of Ott's songs, it's purely a matter of preference, not one of induced revulsion. What's the difference between those two? It's that Ott does his thing without trying to bludgeon his audience into gloomy submission. He is not one of the James Blunts of the world, who are always grabbing listeners by the leg hairs and yanking them into pitiful moods. A singer like Blunt will deliver his lyrics ("You're beautiful, it's true/And I don't know what to do/'Cause I'll never be with you . . . ") with epic import. Ott has more of an Aimee Mann effect: He can set a serious emotional tone, but is always a little smart-assed and understated, just in case you're not hell-bent on touching his wounds this very moment. He's broadly likeable. So I'm optimistic that, with the right marketing, he can knock Blunt out of the VH1 rotation sometime soon. The only thing I don't get about Ott is why he breaks into the national anthem as a coda to one of his minor-key songs, trailing off with a wistful "Were so gallantly streaming . . . were so gallantly streaming . . . "

After Ott, we've got a good half-hour to mill about before the main attraction. I go back over to the sea-lion pool and browse some real estate. Again, this is another excuse for everybody to try indiscriminately to take in everything open tonight - the sea lions and the tiger, mostly.

A scruffy man in a black-and-orange striped jacket scurries through a relatively less dense bit of the audience to the backstage gate. One man standing nearby seems to notice with a curious grin, but nobody in the audience runs up to greet him on his way. It's Gin Blossom Robin Wilson, whom gamers might also recognize from his column in PlayStation magazine.

Pretty much every Gin Blossoms song drips with melancholy, but the performance matches Ott's in its emotional restraint. The only obnoxious thing Wilson does is occasionally grab a cell phone from a fan near the stage and sing to all the pals who can't be here tonight. If anyone's overdoing it here, it's the audience.

Perhaps it's just the lack of normal, well-adjusted fans, but tonight it's impossible not to notice all the grown men and women who show up to concerts with a childish ache to be involved, especially as I get near the stage. A good 30-foot radius of people have gathered around, standing, waving their arms, and/or singing along. During the Blossoms' first song, an amp starts leaking some nasty feedback. The stage manager runs out to fix it. A cluster of 35-and-older males all try to help him out with completely useless hand signals. "The bad sound seems to be originating there!" is the basic meaning of this code. A fellow about my age, wearing sandals and a baby-blue polo, tries to stick his face in my notepad with a gleaming, shit-eating grin.

A few songs later, I start easing my way out, and I come face-to-face with a squat, 30ish woman. She swizzles herself down into some kind of dancing attitude, boogles out her eyes at me, and yells, "Heeeeey Jealousy!" - the title of a hit single that the band won't be playing for another 45 minutes. And she intones it as if it's some kind of coy, private joke between us. Of course, what she's really trying to say is that I must not be having enough fun, or else I'd be making random, drunken proclamations of my own.

My favorite, though, is the guy who starts yelling and pumping his finger at guitarist Scott Johnson as Johnson noodles a blues riff between songs. "Talk to me!" he bellows. "Talk to me, man! TALK TO ME!" Johnson nods politely and otherwise ignores him.

Overall, it's a well-played set that passes without incident. It includes a few songs from the band's upcoming album, which sound just like their songs from 1992's New Miserable Experience and 1996's Congratulations, I'm Sorry. Yes, folks, there is a Gin Blossoms sound, and if you should tire of it, just remember that it really is different from the "later Goo Goo Dolls sound" and be grateful. There are valid reasons not to like the Gin Blossoms, depending on what you're into, but it's hard to argue that they're actively bad. The worst I can think of them is that they provide a good way to listen to some mopey music once in a while without plowing over one's standards of taste.

Meantime, in the "great cats" house, a Siberian tiger is pacing back and forth in its cage. Another upper-middle-class-yet-surly fellow approaches the exhibit, and, seeing the tiger go off to an unseen part of the habitat, boasts, "He saw me coming! He knows who the king of the jungle is!" One must preserve male bravado in the face of all this vulnerability.

Scott Gordon will file reports from the zoo all summer, and we predict they will not be actively bad.

Posted by Lou at 04:33 PM | Permalink

Another Skokie Theatre Story

You can't be a serious film geek without accumulating along with your ticket stubs and memorabilia a raft of stories about your movie-related experiences. Some of the stories are impressive. For instance, I can boast of having a three-hour dinner at a film festival with Sam Elliott, as well as winning a vintage program from the 1961 King of Kings by naming three actresses known for playing flappers in the silent era (Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson, and Colleen Moore) at Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival.

Then there are my endurance anecdotes, like standing for 45 minutes in Arctic-like cold to attend opening night of The Exorcist at the Gateway Theatre; nearly bursting a kidney by refusing to miss one second of Edward Yang's 4-hour A Brighter Summer Day; and sitting through not one or two, but eight film breaks to see Jean Renoir's French Cancan at the Music Box.

And every film buff has a theatre that fills her or his imagination in some way. Some theatres, like the Elgin in New York City ("The Radio City Music Hall of Midnight Movies"), are the stuff of legend. Others are uncomfortable, even deplorably shabby, but still beloved for presenting those cherished or rare films we live for. And then there's the Skokie Theatre.

When I moved into downtown Skokie in 2000, the theatre was a $1.75 second-run house. For a while, it had two showings nightly and several on the weekend. Then a change in ownership brought an international line-up to the already international neighborhood. Indian films predominated, though second-run Hollywood films were also shown for the gringos. Under this management regime, the theatre might be open, or it might not. I went to an advertised 9 p.m. showing of The Center of the World, only to be turned away. "Nobody wants to see that movie," the owner/ticket seller said. "I do!" I protested. "It's not a very good movie," he countered as he slid a wooden board in front of the money hole and prepared to go home for the night. I never did get to see it.

The theatre closed. Then it opened, and the fun family movie Holes played for the entire 2003 summer. The theatre closed again. It was re-opened by a couple of starry-eyed film geeks whose dream died quickly. After that, I could only watch and wonder if I'd soon see a wrecking ball and more stripes on blacktop for the convenience of SUVs everywhere.

Which leads me to another Skokie Theatre story. The Cavalcade of Music Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching musicians the business of music, announced that it was buying the theatre and renovating it as a performing arts center. I was delighted that our condo-threatened downtown area was keeping at least one entertainment venue for the pleasure of locals, the attraction of near neighbors, and the enrichment of several fine, but underutilized restaurants.

There was the inevitable gnashing of teeth by the theatre preservationists. At Cinema Treasures, there was much moaning about the new marquee and gutting of the interior. Frankly, the Skokie was never a beauty, and the interior was a porn theatre without the porn. Nonetheless, a good deal of what was unique about the Skokie seems to be alive in the building. Architect Ann Clark, who took on the redesign, has her own Skokie Theatre story: "One of the workers was talking to the general contractor and said about a detail, 'It's the same, but different.' We stopped, looked at each other, and starting laughing. It became a big joke, but in the end, he was right about the whole place: it's the same, but different."

I walked over to the Skokie one Friday evening to enjoy, in resplendent comfort, a live jazz concert by The Diane Delin Quartet. My new Skokie Theatre story is how the band and the audience spent 5 minutes discussing the word "defenestration" as it related to Delin's song "Through the Window." Yes, indeed, it's the same, but different.

Posted by Lou at 09:35 AM | Permalink

June 23, 2006

The Weekend Desk Report

Market Update
Dazed by a string of unfortunate public statements, United States President and CEO George W. Bush floated the idea of a one-time citizen buy-back, saying the low cost of human life did not reflect the company's core values. However, analysts warn the move did little to mollify investors who are displeased with the company's fundamental business practices.

World Cup Suckers
After a devastating attack on U.S. interests overseas, Ghana has officially been decertified as a friend in the war on terror. In fact, at the time of this writing, we hear the United Kingdom is busily sexing-up a dossier on Ghana's yellowcake distribution habits.

Fear of the Unknown
Vice President Dick Cheney this week downplayed the threat of North Korea testing a long-range missile, saying their capabilities are "fairly rudimentary." This attitude is a natural extension of the United States' established Wizard of Oz policy concerning weapons of mass destruction;