Category: Philosophical

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.

History and Barack Obama

Posted on by TL

Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, and Hillary Clinton is ready to call it quits on Friday or Saturday:

‘Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington, D.C., to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity. This event will be held on Saturday to accommodate more of Senator Clinton’s supporters who want to attend,’’ her communications director Howard Wolfson said.

For months, the right wing has been calling on Republicans to vote for Clinton in open primaries. I have a long-time Republican friend who told me he took a Democratic ballot in Illinois to vote for Hillary Clinton, because Republicans thought she was the easy win.

Or was that just more Republican “Strategerey,” as “W” would say? Were they really hoping for Obama? Could it be that the last several months were just a ploy to set up Obama as the nominee, and usher in an easy win for John McCain?

I don’t think so. McCain has reason to worry. If Hillary and Barack do finally embrace sometime this weekend, it’s history.

History.

This entire primary season has been about history, and I’m extremely proud to be a Democrat. It was the Democrats who had a woman and a black man as the last “men” standing from an outstanding field of potential nominees.

A woman and a black man, front and center, as our potential nominees. Think about that when the Republicans roll out their closet minorities onto that Minneapolis stage in September. The Republicans play lip service to those who have been stepped on in history.

The Democrats nominate them to lead.

Hillary Clinton deserves our thanks. She and Barack have written a new history together.

I’m thinking of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present. It’s often said that history is written by the winners, but that doesn’t mean those who lost didn’t write history. Zinn tells the history of the United States through the eyes of those who did not fare as well as white men. This is a history that has gone unnoticed for too long in the schools, but is finally making its way into mainstream textbooks in the grade schools and high schools.

A more recent publication by Dahr Jamail, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, tells the same sad story again. Thanks to the Internet, we don’t have to wait hundreds of years to hear the people speak. Jamail and those working with him give voice to Iraq, reporting different voices from the Iraqis than the mainstream press, the “embedded” journalists, would tell.

History, rewritten. And last night, rewritten again by Barack Obama.

As we finally enter the last months of this presidential campaign, we must remember first that John McCain is a good man who served this country well. His wife, Cindy, is a wonderful humanitarian. They are good Americans, but that is not enough.

John McCain is the wrong choice for president.

John McCain has closely allied himself with the philosophy of President George W. Bush. He didn’t have to embrace Bush, but he did. John McCain is running a campaign to continue the policies of George Bush. But more than seven years of history, and ages before that for anyone who has studied history, demonstrate the failures of those many policies that have left the United States with a dollar weaker than both the Euro and the Canadian dollar.

I recall my first meeting with Senator Obama at “the Barn” in Olympia Fields. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., had introduced Barack Obama to a relatively small group of elected officials who had gathered to learn more about the man, who was running for the U.S. Senate at the time. He was approachable, and he listened. No Secret Service. No huge, screaming crowds. Just Barack Obama making his case to a small gathering of elected officials. He listened to me. He spoke with me. I was satisfied that I had been heard.

He listens.

It’s time for change — a radical break from the imperialist policies of the past seven-plus years. It’s time for healing, to reestablish relationships and rebuild our squandered credibility with the rest of the world.

It’s time for history.

It’s time for Barack Obama.

OMG. The Penguins won!

Posted on by TL

Sidney CrosbyI’m still reeling.

Here’s the definition of “reeling” I’m thinking of, courtesy Dictionary.com: “A staggering, swaying, or whirling movement.”

The Pittsburgh Penguins won game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. It was an unbelievable game.

If you missed it, you missed some of the most exciting moments in the history of hockey.

These kids can play — and play they did.

Hats off to Sidney Crosby and the entire Pittsburgh Penguins team.

This was an electric night.

Will Bush free George Ryan?

Posted on by TL

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan received bleak news today as the United States Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. According to the Sun-Times:

Ryan was convicted in April 2006 of steering contracts to lobbyists and other friends, tax fraud, misuse of tax dollars and state workers and squelching an investigation of links between bribery and fundraising.

He was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison.

Earlier today, former Illinois Governor Jim Thompson announced that he would ask President George W. Bush to commute Ryan’s sentence, thereby releasing Ryan, who has been in prison since last fall.

Ryan is 74-years-old. He would be eligible for a 15 percent reduction in his sentence for good behavior.

I don’t know what the president is going to do. Bush has nothing to gain from this, and he has nothing left to lose. He already commuted the sentence of I. Lewis ”Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff. Would he do a solid for another convicted member of the GOP?

I suspect he might.

Bush may decide to wait until the 11th hour and commute Ryan’s sentence on January 19, 2009. There are justice issues to contend with, but Bush doesn’t seem to have much of a passion for justice, nor does he demonstrate any deep understanding of or respect for Constitutional law.

Of course, Ryan could be out by Saturday and working as a consultant for Halliburton by Monday.

Obama’s “Sweetie” Nightmare

Posted on by TL

Barack Obama called reporter Peggy Agar “Sweetie,” and now he’s apologizing for it. That bodes well for America. We have yet to hear the first apology from George “Great job, Brownie” Bush.

This is all absurd, yet another sanctimonious diversion from real-world issues.

Saying “Sweetie” is so “Chicago” of Senator Obama.

I moved here from Pittsburgh in 1990. I remember begin surprised when I would go to restaurants and the waitress would call me “Hon,” “Honey,” or “Sweetie.” Turns out it’s all over Chicago, too easily slips off our tongues.

I can see that it might sound odd to the ears of others outside the Chicagoland area, but, here, well, Sweetie, it’s all the rage.

Dwight Welch knows how to spend your money, C.C. Hills

Posted on by TL

With one grand jury investigation currently investigating the use of Country Club Hills firefighters to demolish a pool house at the home of Mayor Dwight Welch, the Sun-Times reports Mayor Welch continues to turn his nose up at the taxpayers of Country Club Hills with a $27,000 weekend training seminar for “some aldermen, department heads and city employees.” The seminar was held at the The Abbey Resort, billed as “Only Full Service Resort And Spa On The Shores Of Lake Geneva [sic],” according to their Internet ads.

$27,000.

Welch defended the expense.

“That was the deal, $27,000. We [rented] a room for [each] person. If they were married, they could bring their husband or wife. That’s like it is on any convention. . . . It’s not like we were going to some exotic place,” Welch said.

The seminar was conducted by Dr. Paul Craig, according to the Sun-Times. Craig is “a senior fellow in the University of Illinois’ Institute of Government and Public Affairs in Champaign.”

Country Club Hills spent $1,447.50 to bring Craig along, “$1,000 for the seminar, $187.50 in travel expenses, $60 for meals and $200 for lodging.”

That leaves $25,552.50 for the remaining members who attended.

I know Dr. Craig. He’s worth every penny they spent on him and more. If anyone can help a politician find his soul, it’s Dr. Craig. He’s extremely well-read, perceptive, and, most of all, ethical.

But the student needs to be open to the lesson.

Look, this just all smells bad.

When the news about the demolition of the pool house first came to light, one Country Club Hills resident, Robert Darnell, expressed his support for Mayor Welch, “Mayor Welch has done such a good job, I can not say anything bad about him,” Darnell, 73, said.

That’s admirable. Not everyone was so impressed:

One 67-year-old woman, a 20-year resident, said Welch “gets all kinds of perks,” and joked that firefighters “can paint my deck and back porch. I can’t tell you my name. If I did, they’d be out tomorrow, tearing down my garage,” she said.

What are residents saying now? Is a weekend at a luxury hotel and resort acceptable to the taxpayers of Country Club Hills?

Too often, public officials start to believe they’re royalty, pampering themselves, spending taxpayer dollars as if it was their own.

$27,000 for a weekend away?  Did they really need to go to Wisconsin, to a luxury resort?

Nero wouldn’t bat an eye.

It’s gotta be Obama

Posted on by TL

Barack Obama

The stage is set for tomorrow’s primary elections in Indiana and North Carolina. 218 delegates are up for grabs: 84 in Indiana and 134 in North Carolina.

If any Democrats are undecided, listen: It’s gotta be Obama. Here’s why.

First, let me be clear. If Hillary Clinton somehow wins the nomination, I will fight for her as if the future of the world depended on it. But if anyone in North Carolina or the Hoosier state has any doubts, go with Obama.

Don’t worry about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. We all have a crazy uncle in our families. I had the highest respect for Rev. Wright until last week. The National Press Club appearance was unnecessary and narcissistic. He says he’s not a politician but a pastor. I don’t buy it. He’s sounding more and more like a politician attempting late night comedy — and that’s never a good thing.

Forget the Reverend. No matter who wins the nomination for the Democrats, we’re going to find a lot more people they know or knew who occasionally went off the deep end. And we’ll find the same for John McCain. Remember, John McCain’s wife Cindy has already been outed for drug addiction, and steeling the drugs from her own nonprofit medical organization.

Oh, my.

Look, we need Barack Obama. Hillary is wonderful, but she’s running on a 90s redux platform, and that’s not good enough for the primaries. Yes, Bill was wonderful back then, but his time has passed.

I’m not endorsing change for the sake of change. I’ve had the pleasure of talking to Barack Obama on a few occasions, and I am convinced he’s the best candidate for President of the United States. Lock it up now, and we can spend the next six months convincing rest of America that Barack Obama will help us rediscover what it means to be an American after 8 years of the Bush Administration throwing America in the mud.

It’s gotta be Obama. It’s time for change. It’s time for Barack.

(Photo: Barack Obama at the Rialto Theater in Joliet, IL, courtesy eNews Park Forest)