Author: TL

Three young women were shot…

Posted on by TL

The sad news from today’s Chicago Sun-Times:

Three young women were shot and wounded while sitting on a porch early Sunday on the South Side.

Officers responded to a person shot at 2:20 a.m. at the 2900 block of East 87th Street and found three females, 16, 18 and 20, who were shot on a porch, according to South Chicago District police.

Were you expecting to hear they died? I was too, when I first read the headlines. I was expecting more bad news.

The girls are listed in fair but “stable” condition.

This is bad news. We have a serious problem with guns in this country. I will not be naive and suggest that we ban guns. That discussion will go nowhere, and I don’t believe it will ever happen.

Rather, we must explore the reasons we shoot each other. We can talk about poverty. We can talk about drugs. We can talk about domestic violence, and gangs, and lack of family values.

And we should. We should seriously have numerous discussions about all of these things.

But the fact remains that we have a serious problem with violence in this country. This is the most violent country in the world outside a war zone, and even then there’s room for competition.

We have to ask ourselves why it is so easy for us to kill each other — or die trying.

S**t, P**s, F**k, C**t, C**kS**ker, M*t**rF**ker, and Tits, George Carlin is Dead

Posted on by TL

Thanks, George.

I remember my shock and delight in the 70s when I first heard The Seven Words You Can Never Say On Tv.  Those were different days, when we all “suspected” that Elton John was gay but couldn’t bring ourselves to believe it, and the crudest things we heard on television came from the mouth of Archie Bunker.

And Archie was just holding a mirror up to our faces, and laughing along.

George Carlin chose another venue: the live audience and the recorded voice.  He was extraordinary.

Carlin made his living on words, and he was their master:

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words.
I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.
They’re my work, they’re my play, they’re my passion.
Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid.
then we assign a word to a thought and we’re stuck with that word for
that thought, so be careful with words. I like to think that the same
words that hurt can heal, it is a matter of how you pick them.

Thank you, my friend.  Thank you.

Meet Chris Coleson, the new Jared

Posted on by TL

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Chris Coleson tipped the scales at 278 pounds in December. The 5-foot-8 Coleson now weighs 199 pounds and his waist size has dropped from 50 to 36.

His diet?

McDonald’s.

Yup.

The Virginia man lost 80 pounds in six months by eating nearly every meal at McDonald’s:

Not Big Macs, french fries and chocolate shakes. Mostly salads, wraps and apple dippers without the caramel sauce.

Proof that we can lose weight, no matter where we eat, if we watch what we eat.

Amazing.

Walter Jacobson says he’s innocent

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I like Walter Jacobson.  I’ll admit that.

He changed my opinion of Madonna years ago, after she gave birth to her first child.

He said, on the air, “I like Madonna,” after a brief assessment of Madonna’s entirely responsible opinions on raising children.

Jacobson was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, according to the Chicago Tribune:

Police got a 911 call reporting that a vehicle was seen swerving after hitting a parked vehicle. Police said they responded to the scene and, using a description of the striking vehicle and its license plate, found Jacobson, 70, who submitted to a field sobriety test.

“He was taken to the [Near North] District, where a Breathalyzer test was administered,” said police spokeswoman Monique Bond. “It was determined that he had exceeded the legal alcohol intake limit.”

I like Walter, but I don’t like people who drive under the influence.  A dear friend’s father is currently near death after being struck by a drunk driver, so I have no sympathy for those who drink and drive.

In all honesty, I hope Walter comes to terms with what he did, and doesn’t do it again.  If he’s in denial, then I hope the judge sees that, and takes his license.

It’s not worth it, Walter.  Stay off the road.  Don’t be “the guy” who strikes and kills the innocent.

Obama campaign raises $21.9 million in May

Posted on by TL

The NYTimes shares the good news:

Barack Obama raised $21.9 million in May, his campaign reported on Friday, a day after the Democratic candidate said he would reject public financing for his presidential bid.

The Illinois senator’s campaign said it had $43.1 million in the bank at the end of the month, with debts of about $304,000.

Astounding.  All of this is money freely given to the campaign by real Americans.  Ninety percent of his donors have given $100 or less.  The numbers are staggering.

But we’ve won nothing yet.  McCain could still win.

“The fierce urgency of now” dictates that we take nothing for granted.  This is the time to work.

Only hard work between now and November will result in victory.

‘Unflappable’ Todd Stroger gets an angry earful

Posted on by TL

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger finally met with taxpayers in the northwest suburbs Monday, and it wasn’t pretty.  Some elected officials in the area had threatened to secede from Cook County in the face of Stroger’s $426 million tax hike.

The Chicago Tribune tells the story, and it must have been quite a scene, with a state Senator chiming in (He’s a Republican, but, these days, that doesn’t matter):

Many in the audience listened politely, but they were there to show their anger.

“We are now starting to feel that we are now starting to get gouged,” said state Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine), who introduced legislation that would make it easier for Palatine to secede from the county. “Do you really understand the competitive disadvantage you’re putting the northwest suburbs to?”

Palatine is looking at seceding from Cook County.  The Chicago Trib. calls this a long shot, and I’m sure it is.  But, wow.  Talk of secession in Illinois merits attention, even in a state already inundated with so many overlapping governmental bodies that even the most radically liberal and staunch conservatives weep trying to figure out where respective jurisdictions begin and/or end.

Back to the Chicago Trib.:

The secession movement in Palatine was a long shot at best, but it illustrated a belief by some suburbanites that Stroger wasn’t serving them and didn’t understand the economic harm a sales tax creates in border towns where shoppers can cross into another county for lower rates.

At Monday’s meeting at Harper College, the crowd applauded when Nancy Golemba, 48, of Inverness, said, “I think Cook County represents the residents of Chicago.”

As someone writing from the south suburbs, I applaud Nancy Golemba’s comment.  We have lived in Chicago’s shadow for far too long.  The Cook County Board should represent, well, Cook County.  But all too often, Chicago gets the nod when it comes to the board defining policy.

Stroger, who remained unflappable, said “people don’t trust politicians . . . and that’s they way this job works.”

He also said people near a county or state line sometimes get pinched by a sales tax increase.

Easy for Todd Stroger to say.  Someone else gets “pinched” while Chicago grows.

Well, that’s been happening far too long already.

It’s not that we don’t trust politicians, President Stroger.  In fact, we elect them in our respective suburbs.

Many just don’t trust you.

Tales of the Brown Recluse

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Brown Recluse spider

I need to explain my lack of in-depth posts over the past week.  I had a wonderful start to summertime.  Apparently, about two weeks ago, I was bit by a Brown Recluse spider.

I’ll spare you the details.

It wasn’t pretty at all.  It was enough to land me in the hospital late last week for a little over twenty-four hours on IV antibiotics and treated to a surgeon — well, we’ll stop there.