Category: Philosophical

Aquan Lewis Dies in the Depth of Winter

Posted on by TL

Aquan Lewis died in the depth of winter.  We need to know why.

But first, we need to mourn his loss.  All of us.

Police and school officials are releasing very little information, but the news today is sobering.  The 10-year-old student from Oakton Elementary School in Skokie took his own life.

From the Chicago Tribune:

An autopsy today ruled the death of a boy found unresponsive Tuesday in a boys bathroom at an Evanston elementary school a suicide, officials said.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office made the ruling today and said 10-year-old Aquan Lewis, of Skokie, died by hanging, an office spokeswoman said.

Lewis was pronounced dead at 4:05 a.m. this morning at Children’s Memorial Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

A janitor at the school had said the boy had been taken down from a hook in the restroom on Tuesday.

Speaking at a news conference at Evanston-Skokie School Dist. 65headquarters at noon, police and school officials steadfastly refused to discuss even the most basic details.

Supt. Hardy Murphy expressed sorrow over the death of a pupil, but declined to say much more. “If there is someone to blame, I have to take it,” he said, because the death occurred while he is chief of the district.

Commander Tom Guenther, a spokesman for Evanston police, remained equally tight-lipped. He refused to give a time line of when the boy was first noticed missing from class, who found him or what time he was found.

We need to know more about what happened to this young man.  There are rumors circulating that need a response before a tragic situation gets even worse.   Was Aquan a victim of bullying?  What could lead a child so young to hang himself?  Was it really suicide?  Family and friends say no, it couldn’t be.

We need to know.

This story is even more sad given the promise this young man showed, the spark:

Oakton parent Candace Smith of Evanston visited Aquan’s home shortly after the morning meeting at the school. Smith said she and Aquan’s mother had grown up together.

Smith said she was struggling to make sense of his death. She described Aquan as a good student who enjoyed school, loved to read and played sports.

“This was a young boy [who] was loved and respected. This is a tragedy for this world because we don’t know what he would have become,” Smith said.

The boy had just finished his first season of tackle football with the Evanston Junior Wildkit Football program. At just over 80 pounds, he was assigned to the flyweights team, where he rotated between running back, receiver, cornerback and safety, said program director Craig Thompson.

His speed and athleticism made him a versatile player, but the friendships he developed with his two dozen teammates were just as striking.

“He started out more reserved, but he developed a good camaraderie just by being around other folks,” Thompson said. “He was getting better every week.”

Why would any of our children kill themselves?  What more do we need to do to ensure they don’t?

I’ll not waste time with unnecessary speculation, but police and school officials need to be more forthcoming.  We need to know what happened to this young man.  Why did this child, so full of promise, choose to take his own life?

Meanwhile, we mourn with the family and friends of Aquan Lewis, and offer our prayers and support.

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” -Albert Camus

Obama Screws Up, Admits It, Moves On

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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

How refreshing to have a commander-in-chief who has the guts to admit when he makes a mistake, make right, pick himself up, and move on.

Remember the last Occupant of the Big House?   Remember his last interviews in the days before he left the Oval Office?  Remember “No-Regrets” Bush?

I’m happy to write about politics again. This Obama guy has guts.

Obama to Close Gitmo: Nicely Done, Mr. President

Posted on by TL

In one day and a few strokes of the pen, President Obama signed an executive order that will close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year and prosecute terrorism suspects in the United States.

Granted, closing Gitmo is easier said than done:

Underscoring the difficult decisions Obama must make to fulfill his pledge of shutting down Guantanamo, the plan could require the creation of a new legal system to handle the classified information inherent in some of the most sensitive cases.

The issue is only so difficult because the Bush Administration dispensed with Habeas Corpus, and much of the United States Constitution with it.

With a few more strokes of the pen, President Obama banned torture.

To think that in 2009, it would take an act of the President of the United States to ban torture by the United States.

“Both civil libertarians and ex-CIA officials involved in interrogations and detentions policies hailed the changes,” says the Washington Independent.

Under the executive orders issued Thursday, the CIA’s interrogators cannot question detainees using “any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in Army Field Manual 2 22.3.” That manual was rewritten by the Army in 2006 to reemphasize its compliance with the Geneva Conventions and U.S. laws banning torture. The Bush administration took an unyielding stance toward exempting CIA interrogations from that manual and those laws. But the Obama administration revoked all Bush administration executive orders from September 11, 2001 onward “concerning detention or the interrogation of detained individuals,” and directed the attorney general to conduct a thorough review of all other “directives, orders, and regulations” on the subject issued by the Bush administration that are no longer applicable.

Remember the Geneva Conventions?  They’re worth reviewing.  Seems we have a president who knows them, and desires to uphold them.

We all stand taller today.

Nicely done, Mr. President.

Two Chicago Teens Shot in the Head

Posted on by TL

It’s a sad sign of the times when the Chicago Sun-Times has taken to writing one “two-fer” article to report on couple of recent shooting deaths in Chicago.

Today’s paper carries one story about two unrelated homicides from Wednesday, December 3.  According to police, Sergio Dukes, 18, was shot in the head twice and once in the chest in the 9600 block of South Indiana Avenue, after leaving a high school basketball game at Harlan High School.  Christopher Hanford, 19, was shot in the face in the 900 block of North Lawler Avenue, according to police.

Detectives are investigating both incidents, and no one is yet in custody.

Two lives lost, one article with barely any details about the men who died. Two unrelated lives lost in two unrelated instances, and one article article to show.

My criticism is not with the Sun-Times.  I know revenues have been down, there are fewer reporters, and there are oh-so-many homicides in Chicago.

Rather, I’m calling our attention to who we are once again, who we have become.  We hear no outrage from Chicago’s City Council or Mayor Daley on these deaths.  These men were not shot at the city’s lucrative Taste of Chicago.  The pols are not posturing as they did this summer.  No one is calling Jodi Weis in to testify this time.

Two men shot dead and nary a whimper.

We need to ask the big questions about who we have become as a society.

One group not afraid to ask the big questions is CeaseFire Chicago.  I heard CeaseFire make a presentation once at a workshop at Prairie State College.  They involve themselves with gang members for the express purpose of lessening gang violence.

From their Web site:

The Chicago Project has designed and tested a new intervention — CeaseFire — that approaches violence in a fundamentally different way than other violence reduction efforts. CeaseFire works with community-based organizations and focuses on street-level outreach, conflict mediation, and the changing of community norms to reduce violence, particularly shootings.

CeaseFire relies on highly trained outreach workers and violence interrupters, faith leaders, and other community leaders to intervene in conflicts, or potential conflicts, and promote alternatives to violence. CeaseFire also involves cooperation with police and it depends heavily on a strong public education campaign to instill in people the message that shootings and violence are not acceptable. Finally, it calls for the strengthening of communities so they have the capacity to exercise informal social control and to mobilize forces — from businesses to faith leaders, residents and others — so they all work in concert to reverse the epidemic of violence that has been with us for too long.

The group has had funding issues in the past, but received $400,000 in grants this past summer, thanks to U.S. Senator Dick Durbin and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis:

The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded two grants to CeaseFire to continue its violence intervention work in Chicago’s West Garfield Park and West Humboldt Park neighborhoods.

The grants from the Bureau of Justice Assistance at the Department of Justice total $400,000 and will allow CeaseFire, based at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Public Health, to keep workers on the street to intervene and mediate conflicts and to stop shootings and killings.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Chicago) expressed strong support for CeaseFire as an integral part of a comprehensive strategy to stop violence, especially shootings, in Chicago and elsewhere.

“In recent months, the Chicago area has seen an alarming increase in gang-related shootings and violence. Half of all homicides in Chicago have been linked to gangs,” Durbin said.

“We must continue to fight gang violence through a comprehensive strategy that prioritizes gang enforcement, prevention and intervention measures. Today’s grant for the CeaseFire program will help strengthen the overall effort to reduce gang violence in the region,” Durbin said.

“CeaseFire is an evidence-based program that really works, and we’re very pleased to see that the Justice Department is responding by providing some resources to work with it,” said Davis.

A recent three-year evaluation of CeaseFire, commissioned by the Department of Justice, validated the CeaseFire model as an intervention that reduces shooting and killings and makes communities safer. The report, led by Wesley Skogan of Northwestern University, found the program to be “effective,” with “significant” and “moderate-to-large impact,” and with effects that are “immediate.”

In one of the many missteps of his administration, Gov. Rod Blagojevich cut the state’s entire $6.2 million allocation for CeaseFire in August 2007.  In the aftermath of these cuts, 96 of the program’s 130 conflict mediators lost their jobs, and gang violence escalated yet again in Chicago.

Thanks to Durbin and Davis, CeaseFire has some solvency again.

But it’s not enough.

Mayor Daley and the rest of us need to whine about the killings again.  The State of Illinois needs to fund CeaseFire again.

We can’t afford any more “two-fer” homicide articles in the Sun-Times.

The Old Man and the Marine

Posted on by TL

Via email from our friend Helen:

One sunny day in 2009 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, ‘I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.’

The Marine looked at the man and said, ‘Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.’

The old man said, ‘Okay’ and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, ‘I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.’

The Marine again told the man, ‘Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.’

The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same Marine, saying ‘I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.’

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, ‘Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I’ve told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don’t you understand?’

The old man looked at the Marine and said, ‘Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.’

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, ‘See you tomorrow.’

January 20, 2009 still seems like a dream.  I’ll be weeping as the new president takes the oath of office.

I’m putting a counter on Turning Left.

Does Anyone Legislate in Springfield? Carol Marin and ‘Shrooms

Posted on by TL

Writing for the Sun-Times, Carol Marin is calling for true change in Springfield.  She’s calling for ‘Shrooms to rise up, come out of the dark, and, well, legislate.

That would be refreshing.

What is a ‘Shroom?

“‘Shrooms” — short for “mushrooms” — is code in Springfield for rank-and-file lawmakers who, thanks to the iron grip of their leadership, are irrelevant to critical decision-making. The term was coined decades ago when a House member stuck a sign on his desk offering a bleak commentary: “Welcome to the land of the mushrooms where they keep you in the dark and pile s – – – on your head.”

Whether it’s the all-powerful speaker of the House, Michael Madigan, or the I’m-the-Boss-Now Senate President Emil Jones, the rules that govern each chamber are meant to clip the wings of the rank and file and keep the leadership in complete control. Without a leader’s OK, forget about getting a bill out of committee, a prime committee assignment, a leadership post or heaven help you, forget about financial help come Election Day.

No legislation sees the light of day unless the bosses say so.  ‘Shrooms can go back to the dark and vote with the leadership.

The inactivity in Springfield the past few years impresses no one.  Senator Emil Jones makes sure his son gets his senate seat, Blago the Intransigent listens to no one, and Speaker Michael Madigan controls the Illinois House with an iron fist:

Jones, whose party returned to the majority after the tyrannical reign of his Republican predecessor, Pate Philip, was elected president in 2002. Allied with the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, the two united against Madigan and there’s been god-awful legislative gridlock ever since.

Look, we’ve been waiting for school funding reform in Illinois for decades.  Illinois still places second to last in the nation in funding for education.  Instead, we get lawmakers eminently impressed with themselves and their ability to win an election, and no one working for real change any more.  The Illinois Legislature is broken.

I can barely stomach attending fundraisers for legislators any more.  Many times I’ve watched representatives from Springfield come to Matteson, IL, fall all over themselves for their candidate, telling us why we should give a care for Rep. ‘Shroom, that we should give up weekends and week nights to campaign for Rep. ‘Shroom.

It’s time for reform.  Yes, it’s time for the ‘Shrooms, “futile fungi,” as Marin calls them, to rise up.  Illinois needs a Legislature full of legislators, not glorified Altar Boys and Girls serving the Magisterium.

Unless these ‘Shrooms are really only interested in re-election.  Then they deserve to wallow in s—, and we deserve the same for re-electing them.

Catholic Bishops to Confront Obama on Abortion

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Obviously perplexed and upset at their demonstrable lack of influence during the presidential election, the one-issue United States Catholic Bishops are determined to confront President-elect Barack Obama on the issue of abortion.

Several bishops issued statements before the election expressing their belief that “Catholics could not in good conscience vote for a candidate who favored abortion rights after Obama pledged to pass legislation that would overturn state’s restrictions on abortion such as late-term abortion bans and requirements of parental consent,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

The problem, of course, is that the bishops, as a whole, view the abortion isolated from all other life issues, including, but not limited to, sex education, contraception, welfare, health care, etc.

Here’s the news from the Chicago Tribune:

In a direct challenge to President-elect Barack Obama, America’s Roman Catholic bishops vowed on Tuesday to accept no compromise for the sake of national unity until there is legal protection for the unborn.

About 300 bishops, gathered in Baltimore for their national meeting, adopted a formal blessing for a child in the womb and advised Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George, president of the conference, as he began drafting a statement from the bishops to the incoming Obama administration. That document will call on the administration and Catholics who supported Obama to work to outlaw abortion.

This is going nowhere.  The bishops have a problem here. Obama won the Catholic vote.

From Zenit:

More than half of U.S. Catholics voted Tuesday for a presidential candidate at odds with the Church’s stance on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, despite the urging of more than 50 heads of dioceses to support pro-life candidates.

Brian Burch, co-founder and president of the Catholic-based think-tank Fidelis, spoke with ZENIT about the results of the election, and why he thinks a majority of Catholics voted for Democratic candidate Barack Obama, an admitted supportor of abortion rights.

The majority of Catholics get what the bishops are missing: life is bigger than one issue.

There was a time when the Catholic Church defined the beginning of life differently.  St. Augustine, for example, taught that human life began when an infant draws its first breath.  Augustine did not object to terminating a pregnancy.

Listen, I don’t favor abortion at all.  Frankly, I don’t know anyone who does.  No one wants to see unwanted pregnancies, and I know no one who actually wants to see more abortions.  But when the bishops insist that the only solution to life issues in this world is a law forbidding abortion, they are naive.

How do we build a society where there are fewer unwanted or unplanned pregnancies, and how do we support those who do become pregnant in these situations?  How do we create a world where there are fewer rapes, where there is less violence against women, where there is no incest?  Do we do this by passing laws that turn every pregnant woman and her doctor into criminals?

Absolutely not.  While that is an easy solution, it will not stop abortion, nor will it ensure that our society has “respect” for life.

The Catholic bishops have lived long without women in their lives.  This was not always the case.  There was a time when bishops and popes married happily and had families.

That was a long, long time ago, and they are out of touch on this one.

Conservatives Allege First Amendment Obama Snub

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After eight years of avoiding-the-press Constitution-shredding George W. Bush, silencing and insulting Helen Thomas, corralling protesters like swine far from W’s view, suspending Habeas Corpus, exposing CIA spy Valerie Plame, and more, now conservatives are claiming President-Elect Barack Obama  is suppressing free speech.

From an angry right-wing blogger:

First, there were the repeated references to FOX News during the campaign.  Then, three newspapers which endorsed John McCain for President – The Washington Times, The New York Post, and The Dallas Morning News – were booted off the campaign airplane because of overcrowding.  Today, President-Elect Barack Obama took a few questions after his statement on the economy at his first news conference since the election.  Noticeably, Obama took questions from the AP, Reuters, ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, and both major Chicago papers, the Tribune and Sun-Times — but not FOX News.

Wha-a-a?  Obama neglect “Fair and Unbalanced” FOX?  Say it ain’t so, Joe!  The writer claims there “is legitimate reason for Christians and conservatives to be concerned about an intensified effort to suppress the possibility of dissenting speech.”

We have only experienced a paucity of Presidential press conferences in the past eight years.  President-Elect Obama already has one under his belt.

My favorite line is here:

Of course, FOX News is not conservatively biased.  It just seems that way to liberals because there is actually a free-flowing discussion of ideas, policies, and news-making events.

That really makes me smile.

This week I had a discussion with a teenager who was bemoaning what she called the “liberal press coverage” the night of the election.  How, she wondered, did the networks call states for Obama with 0% of the vote in?

I wondered the same thing for a while, until I remembered that the networks had massive ground operations doing exit polls in every state.  Their projections were their own, and they offered them at their own risk.

Liberal media?  That’s the conservative rally cry every time the media does it’s job.  That’s the cry of the conservatives when the media dares to ask questions.  “W” received so many free passes over the past eight years it’s not even funny.  The media dropped the ball time and time again.

Did FOX News report that Palin did not know Africa was a continent?  Yes, they did.  Perhaps the real problem isn’t the “liberal” media after all.  Perhaps the problem is the conservative/Republican agenda to suppress the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (The United States Constitution)

I’m looking forward to a President standing before the media again – even far right FOX.  Frankly, it will be a delight to have a President who actually knows the language, and isn’t afraid to use it.

And it will be nice to watch as the Constitution, all of it, is restored.

Brian Murdock and Quinton Buckner Are Dead

Posted on by TL

The sad news hit the Chicago Sun-Times today:

The deaths of Brian Murdock, 15, and Quinton Buckner, 17, brought the total number of people killed to at least 447, according to reports from the Sun-Times News Group wire. At the end of 2007, 443 homicides were recorded in the city.

The total was only 441 through October 31, a 16.4%  increase over last year at the same time, according to the Sun-Times.  A mere seven days into November, there were six more murders in Chicago.

Why?  Again from the Sun-Times:

But since then, a 21-year-old man was shot in the head in Marquette Park, two men were found in a burning car near Hegewisch with multiple gunshot wounds and a 22-year-old man was shot and killed in a dice game in Englewood. Then the two teens were killed Thursday.

Chicago Police are following tips that the shooting was somehow linked to an armed robbery. No one has been charged.

Brian Murdock was found slumped against a fence when his father got to the block where the shooting happened.

According to reports, James Murdock had adopted Brian when the boy was 8 or 9.  He was planning on transfering is son out of Robeson High School because dad was worried about gang fights.  Brian had recently been talking to his father about his fear of being attacked.

Quinton Buckner was planning on serving this country in the armed forces:

Quinton Buckner was a motivated kid who wanted to play football in college and later become a Marine, said his older brother, Dennis Buckner, 22.

Dennis Buckner described his brother as a “good kid” who didn’t have any gang connections. Buckner said Quinton had two brothers and two sisters.

There has been a tremendous amount of euphoria surrounding the recent presidential election.  Chicago shined election night as President-Elect Obama spoke about Ann Nixon Cooper, age 106, a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta.

Barack Obama spoke of the “heartache and hope” Cooper witnessed in the century-plus she’s been blessed to walk this earth:

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

He continued the refrain, “Yes we can,” throughout the rest of his speech, almost reflectively at times.

The night of November 4, 2008, was pure magic in Chicago.  The crowd was united in hope.  The crowd cheered. The crowd behaved.  There were no tragic acts of violence.  Instead, there was hope.

“Yes we can.”

Perhaps Brian Murdock and Quinton Buckner heard those words as well.  Perhaps they smiled.  Perhaps they cheered.  Perhaps they even wept with joy, as did I.

Now, we weep for them, two more murders on Chicago’s South Side.

Brian Murdock and Quinton Buckner are dead.

And we are all less for their loss.

Vote “NO” on Proposition 48 in Colorado

Posted on by TL

From our friend, Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer:

In Colorado, Proposition 48 is up for vote on Tuesday. It is a rather simple statement; here it is in its entirety on the Colorado ballot:

Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term “person” to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as “person” is used in those provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law?

Basically, this amendment to the Colorado Constitution would define a person as an legal entity at the moment a human sperm fertilizes an egg.

Prop 48 is ridiculous for any number of legal reasons. For example, if a woman who is pregnant for a day has a few drinks which cause damage to the embryo, can she be charged with reckless endangerment? What if she takes medicine that saves her but endangers the embryo? If I drive a pregnant woman around, can I use the HOV 3 lanes?

Phil has many good points, but the most important thing to remember is this:

The real point is, Prop 48 isn’t about science, and it’s not even about legal issues. It’s about religion. This proposition is obviously based solely on religious beliefs; there is little reason outside of that to even bring the argument up that a fertilized egg is entitled to rights as a human being. It is only the belief that the human soul enters the cell at that moment that this is an issue at all.

Proposition 48 is religion trying to create legislation, pure and simple.

I happen to believe religion is a good thing.  However, when “religion” is used to abuse, that’s out of line.

Stand up for what’s right.  Vote “NO” on Proposition 49.