12/23/2003

Here is the entire "open letter" by Chicago priests complaining about Vatican statements vs. gays & lesbians, with names of writers not reported by Sun-Times 12/21, as found on web site of St. Mary of Celle parish, Berwyn. Link found on site of gay newspaper Windy City Times, which names the priests in its 12/24 story.

(Deep mystery remains: why did Sun-Times omit the priests' names?)

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE HIERARCHY OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
REGARDING THE PASTORAL CARE OF GAY AND LESBIAN PERSONS

As Catholic pastors, we have become increasingly disturbed by the tone and, in some cases, content of documents and statements from the Vatican, bishops’ conferences and individual bishops on issues categorized under the heading of “homosexual” or “gay/lesbian.” We respect the teaching authority of the Church. Because of this, we find particularly troubling the increase in the use of violent and abusive language directed at any human person. Such language is inappropriate. This is especially so when addressing members of the community of the faithful. These divisive and exclusionary statements from the Church are contrary to sound pastoral practice.

The life journey in faith is unique and sacred, including the personal integration of sexuality and spirituality. Condemnations leveled at sincere Catholics attempting to make sense out of their journey are inappropriate and pastorally destructive.

As priests and pastors we are speaking out to make clear that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters are all members of God’s family, brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus and deserving of the same dignity and respect owed any human being. Recognition of the inalienable dignity of the human person is the only path toward justice and reconciliation. We affirm the goodness of all homosexual persons. We root ourselves in the U.S. Bishops’ statement “Always Our Children.” Additionally, we re-affirm the understanding of the goodness of the human person as put forth throughout the papacy of Pope John Paul II. Further, we want to state clearly that ministering to and with our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters is mutually beneficial, as is all ministerial activity. Pre-judging where any believer’s journey will take them is inappropriate. Walking with them, as we do with our heterosexual brothers and sisters, is the appropriate Christian response.

In the recent past, individual bishops, bishops’ conferences and the Vatican have assumed a tone of such violence and abusiveness toward these sons and daughters of the Church, we can no longer remain silent. Has any other group of people within the Body of Christ been so assaulted and violated by such mean-spirited language? Examples from the most recent Vatican document show all too clearly the demonization of these children of God, referring to homosexuality as a “troubling moral and social phenomenon,” “a serious depravity,” “the spread of the phenomenon,” “approval or legalization of evil,” “grave detriment to the common good,” “harmful to the proper development of human society,” “intrinsically disordered.” Does anyone consider this vile and toxic language invitational?

For many gay and lesbian Catholics, this most recent series of attacks has forced them, out of self-respect and self-love, to withdraw from active participation in the Church and question how they can remain members of a Church they experience as abusive. It is not possible to minister to and with the needs of our homosexual brothers and sisters with language of this tone as a foundation.

The Catholic Church is most catholic when it is inclusive and embracing, and least reflective of the gospel of Jesus when it is exclusive and rigid. For this reason, we also want to affirm the many pastoral and positive statements by certain bishops and bishops’ conferences (e.g. “Always Our Children”).

The Church’s theology, including her moral teaching, is always in dialogue with the broader lived experience of her members, which shapes and rearticulates the ancient deposit of faith. We encourage a new atmosphere of openness to dialogue which includes the lived experience of many Catholic members. We recognize the blessings of countless homosexuals in a variety of relationships. We believe their experiences must be listened to respectfully.

While we do not know the reasons for the increasingly violent and abusive language, we deplore it as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ and ask that it stop immediately. Furthermore, we request that all those in official positions of teaching authority in the Church refrain from any more statements directed AT the gay and lesbian members of the Body of Christ, and instead begin an earnest dialogue WITH those same members of the Body of Christ.

For our part, we pledge to treat all who seek to continue their faith journey with us with respect and dignity, regardless of their sexual orientation.

We join the countless men and women, heterosexual and homosexual, who seek justice, mercy and compassion in and through the Catholic Church.

We extend an invitation all who share our concern to duplicate this letter, sign it, and send it to their pastor, local bishop, National Bishop’s Conference or the Vatican.

(Parish names are listed for identification purposes only.)

Rev. David Baldwin
St. Benedict the African-East
Chicago, IL

Rev. Daniel Cassidy
St. Mark
Chicago, IL

Rev. Dennis Condon
St. Marcelline
Schaumburg, IL


Rev. Lloyd Cunningham, S.V.D.
Catholic Theological Union
Chicago, IL

Rev. Nicholas Desmond
St. Aloysius
Chicago, IL

Rev. Brian Fischer
St. Gregory the Great
Chicago, IL

Rev. Donald Headley
St. Mary of the Woods
Chicago, IL

Rev. Robert P. Heinz
St. Alphonsus Liguori
Prospect Heights, IL

Rev. Michael Herman
St. Sylvester
Chicago, IL

Rev. Thomas Hickey
St. Clement
Chicago, IL

Rev. John Hoffman
St. Teresa of Avila
Chicago, IL

Rev. Richard Homa
Sacred Heart
Palos Hills, IL

Rev. Terry Johnson
St. Francis Xavier
LaGrange, IL

Rev. Patrick Lee
Immaculate Conception
Chicago, IL

Rev. Robert McLaughlin
Mary Seat of Wisdom
Park Ridge, IL

Rev. Dennis O’Neill
St. Martha
Morton Grove, IL

Rev. Thomas Pelton
Maternity BVM
Chicago, IL

Rev. Richard Prendergast
St. Mary of Celle
Berwyn, IL


Rev. Michael Shanahan
St. Mark
Chicago, IL

Rev. William J. Stenzel
St. Francis Xavier
LaGrange, IL

Rev. Patrick Tucker
St. Bernardine
Forest Park, IL

Rev. Daniel Whiteside
St. Catherine of Siena/St. Lucy
Oak Park, IL

Rev. Bart Winters
St. Gregory the Great
Chicago, IL

12/21/2003

WUXTRY, WUXTRY, READ ALL ABOUT IT.
HOLE IN SUN-TIMES STORY


See "Pastors rip Vatican's 'vile' language that condemns gays," about "a group of Catholic pastors" saying the Vatican uses "vile and toxic" language about gays and lesbians and Cardinal George's letter response to their so-called open letter. So-called because it may be open to some of those guys but it ain't open to us Sun-Times readers. How so? Because no pastor is named of the "two dozen" who complained. Hence gaping hole in otherwise good story.

Either the writer, Shamus Toomey, got the story only by promising not to use any names -- Chi Trib does not have it -- in which case he should say so, or . . . what? I don't know. Million stories in the naked city, yes, but don't they usually have names?

11/11/2003

HAND RAISED, QUESTION . . . Put to Chi Trib ombudsman Don Wycliff 1:16 PM, 11/4/03:

It's an old problem, but why "analysts" in head and text of Michael Killian's story on fallout from loss of copter in Iraq and not "two analysts," which is all that appear in the story as published? And only one of them on the issue of waning public support for our Iraq venture (the story's lead and head), the Ohio State professor? (The other, quoted on military tactics, was a military historian at National Defense U.)

Afterword: Really, why can't newspapers just say "two analysts" when all the story has is two? Why "analysts" with the sneaky implication of consensus?

11/04/2003

WUXTRY, WUXTRY . . . Let us now read Chicago's two highest-circulation newspapers, headlines first. Headlines because they are the ultimate shorthand, blunt instruments but not so blunt in the hands of skilled practitioners such as create them at Chi Trib and Sun-Times.

First grabber is "War funding bill passes" in Chi Trib. Gives one pause, in that rebuilding Iraq is what we have been hearing. War funding? "Fund the military and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan" is in the lead paragraph by Jill Zuckman. That's war funding?

2nd is "Jailed Russian oil chief resigns: Company's stock soars after CEO announces exit," heading very interesting story by Alex Rodriguez in Moscow, with "fueled speculation" in 2nd 'graf that the man, a billionaire, is going to challenge Putin politically.

Funny, for readers of the internet and watchers of TV news, the 1st story, "war funding," is not new. That's your hard-copy daily newspaper problem: how to tell readers what they don't already know.

Big picture on p. 1 of returnees from bloody 'copter downing in Iraq, "For families, sad news hits home: Copter victims." But has Chi Trib been also telling us about progress reported in Iraq? As vividly? I will have to read it more closely, because I seem to have missed news of this aspect of our success.

"Rockford [airport] tries to lure fliers from O'Hare: Northwest Chicagoland Regional Airport uses its new name, free parking and budget fares in effort to woo fliers from northwest and west suburbs" certainly has flare, with photo of spanking-clean passenger waiting area. And news to this reader. Nice going, Trib, two news stories so far on p. 1.

"U.S. rates home health firms: Survey compares 7,000 providers"? Really? Our govt. is rating health firms? What do you know about that? And what are these home health firms? Families?

"Poll says many on campus marching to GOP's beat: Campaign 2004"? Now you are talking. Republicanism on campus may not be brand new, but it's new enough to capture attention. "Students leaning right" heads a mini-graph of poll results: 61% undergrads approve of GW, vs. 53% of general population, per Harvard's Institute of Politics. Jeff Zeleny reporting out of Columbus, OH, where he went to talk to students. (And he really went there, we presume, vs. Jayson Blair of NY Times and his infamous hotel-room creations of sights seen and people interviewed.)

Three news stories today on Chi Trib page one!

==============================
Sun-Times has big pic of "two brothers in mourning" over their brother killed in the 'copter crash. Neither am I full of recollection of this paper's stories about progress in Iraq. Must read more carefully.

"SADDAM SURE U.S. ATTACK WAS HOAX [upper case in original]: [Ex-foreign minister] Tariq Aziz tells interrogators that deposed leader did little to prepare for invasion" is for p. 3 story from sister-paper London Telegraph with AP help, citing a Wash Post story that ran yesterday. So we have here the work of enterprising editors who assume (safely) that most of us do not read Wash Post regularly.

Nothing like that in "Burke [feisty alderman] wants 'car for sale' signs banned from Chicago streets: Claims Indiana car dealers use roads here for sales," by the excellent Fran Spielman, extremely enterprising City Hall reporter. It's about "Let's Have an Ordinance" Eddie, recently heard complaining about smokers on THE SIDEWALK, FOR GOSH SAKES, whom he had to pass on his way from the Hall to his law office for this or that highly lucrative meeting.

This, of course, is Sun-Times's forte. (Say "fort" not "fortay," by the way, although being not the first by whom the new are tried nor yet the last to lay the old aside is a rule increasingly hard-pressed to justify it.) What aldermen do is grist for S-T mill. Burke of course favors a draconian measure; he thinks draconian.

P. 1 has other reefers (not marijuana but blotches of type & pix that refer the reader to story elsewhere in paper): New Sox mgr, new movie, and a Richard Roeper column, "Why this girl's parents are despicable," next to head shot of Utah girl abducted by Mormon lunatic. Ah. Roeper has found something he truly, truly objects to and is very, very angry. No, thanks.

10/29/2003

MARRIED PRIESTS, MARRIED PRIESTS
READ ALL ABOUT IT!! . . . Wed. October 29, 2003, Chi papers pick up on Assn. of Chi Priests survey showing 90% of respondents want married-priest issue on table in coming RC bishops' meeting, Art Golab in S-T with reportage, Carol Marin in Trib with op-ed about that and female priests. Pay your money, take your choice: reportage or opinion-with-reportage. There's a market for both.

The respondents are quite a minority of priests, 193 of 360 ACP members, of 1,600-plus priests in all in Chi archdiocese; so bps can safely ignore them, it says here in this opinion-plus-reportage offering for which you pay no money.

9/26/2003

SKINBACK . . . I would say scratch that reference to Daleys related to Duff-Greens on mother's side, as in today's posting and mailing. Wiser people than I have tried to verify it, to no avail. Sorry.

CHI TRIB LIVES! . . . 9/26/03, feast of N. Amer Martyrs, Sts. Isaac Jogues, John de Brebeuf & Companions, all S.J., Chi Trib's day to shine, in that its people exposed the Duff Family Pseudo-black some time back for posing as minority contractors and the Dist. Atty. announced indictments. Columnist Jn Kass crows on Don & Roma, and his enemies have no grounds to gainsay him. I take back at least 5% of what I have said about Chi Trib.

Seriously, folks, it's a Day to Remember for the once world's greatest newspaper, which is doing more than shooting loafing street crews, an important element of municipal investigation in the Colonel's day, a long time ago. Kass has been on the case, and now he can write in his sleep the column that zeroes in on Mayordaley II as Foney Baloney. Let us hear it for him and his ilk on the other side of Michigan Avenue.

THIS PLOT BE THICK . . . And let us hear it for Republicans and Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, without whom we would not have a D.A. who would go where his duty pointed him in re: Daley and Friends. Glory be to God for not necessarily intended consequences.

This is why Daley et al. plump constantly for Dem victories, including Bill as Gore campaign mgr. going to court in Florida. Bill was standing up for the Family as much as anything else.

In more ways that one: A caller to Don & Roma (WLS-AM, a.m. drive-time) said Mme. Duff is related to Rich on his mother's side. She would be Patricia Green Duff, 75, indicted with her son, a figurehead black man, and others. She is listed as president and sole owner of Windy City Maintenance, the allegedly fraudulently minority-owned company that "sprang from nowhere to garner approximately $100 million in city-related work since Mayor Richard Daley took office," per Chi Trib.

Her husband, John Duff Jr., 78, is former director of Windy City Maintenance and former executive in a liquor union known as Local 3. "He has been tied to organized crime, and in 1982 pleaded guilty to federal charges of embezzling union funds," again per Chi Trib.

Did we think the Duffs sprang from nowhere on the political scene? Blood tells. Tribalism will out. The saga of politics Daley-style goes on and on and on.

CLOSER . . . And by the way, this trenchant critic sharply distinguishes between hard-news-oriented city-side reporting by Chi Trib and the me-too liberalism that shows in national political and cultural coverage, where former elite-college students of tenured radicals hold sway.

There. Got that off the old chest.

9/19/2003

HIS BRITCHES GOT TOO SMALL?

"The Tribune's not much for promoting its people; it doesn't want to treat anybody as bigger than the paper. But [demoted-to-page-two columnist David] Greising was the best evidence of the stylish, provocative, savvy section that Business editor Rob Karwath presumably wants Business to become," said Chi Reader's Michael Miner last July -- http://www.chireader.com/hottype/2003/030725_1.html

Better late than never (from me) with this percipient observation by M. Miner. Greising, who followed weeks later by declining, like Melville's Bartleby the scrivener, to write for page two and got a reporting assignment instead, got too good at annoying rich and powerful CEOs, is my bet. He was too good, is the point. Mother Tribune likes you good but not too good. It makes her nervous.

HIS BRITCHES GOT TOO SMALL?

"The Tribune's not much for promoting its people; it doesn't want to treat anybody as bigger than the paper. But [demoted-to-page-two columnist David] Greising was the best evidence of the stylish, provocative, savvy section that Business editor Rob Karwath presumably wants Business to become," said Chi Reader's Michael Miner last July -- http://www.chireader.com/hottype/2003/030725_1.html

Better late than never (from me) with this percipient observation by M. Miner. Greising, who followed weeks later by declining, like Melville's Bartleby the scrivener, to write for page two and got a reporting assignment instead, got too good at annoying rich and powerful CEOs, is my bet. He was too good, is the point. Mother Tribune likes you good but not too good. It makes her nervous.

9/18/2003

9/18/03 SUN-TIMES . . .

DISEASE CONTROL . . . Page 3: "Heartier" germs develop from overuse of anti-biotics, says headline. No. Hardier, i.e. more hardy = more likely to withstand nullification by medication. Heads are done by copy desk, I assume; copy deskers are supposed to know better. Tsk, tsk.

CORRUPTION CONTROL . . . Page 9:

1. Connected city employe holds two city jobs, Chicago-style. He is brother-in-law of late Ald. Fred Roti, who did federal time.

2. Cicero ex-cop sues ex-mayor, now doing Fed time, and ex-police supt. for trashing his reputation for cooperating with FBI re: attempt to frame opposition mayoral candidate. Ex-Chi Ald. Ed Vrdolyak, acting as lawyer for ex-mayor et al., who years ago with current Chi Ald. Ed Burke led war vs. Mayor Harold Washington, played key role in ex-cop's troubles, getting very angry with him about helping FBI, says suit.

3. Gov. Blago may close troubled-minor home Maryville off to wards of state, this the day after a Fed. investigation into Maryville is reported. Investig. has to do with falsifying records of lead-up to a ward's suicide.

Fran Spielman in on the first story, of course. She monitors Daley and his people very well. John Kass of Chi Trib also does this, and Chi Trib columnist Denny Byrne too. Should this sort of coverage not be a preoccupation of city desks?

REST OF STORY? . . . Meanwhile, the boyish and irrepressible Richard Roeper discusses the disappearing dog whose loss well nigh broke the heart of the owner couple. This is Roeper's contribution to covering corruption in the city and suburbs.

Left unexplained is how this apparently yuppie couple (white, at that?) has come to live in East Garfield Park. Nothing about how that happens. What's going on there?

DETAILS OF THE CASE . . . Page 13 has Chi cop testifying in wrongful-death suit, admitting he was out of line when he smashed rear driver's side window with a tire iron after he and other cops finally curbed the car after a chase on the Dan Ryan some time back. (He also poked inside with his gun, shooting the driver dead, without meaning to do it, he says.)

But the windows were tinted, which meant he could not see inside; so smashing them makes sense. Also: the driver had arrogantly sped away from a traffic stop. He was NU BMOC footballer and decided he did not have to obey the law. He did not deserve death but deserved something, it would seem.

MORE DETAILS: CITY IS FULL OF SAME . . . Page 18 has 18-year-old found guilty in 2001 cop killing in alley in Pilsen. Defense said he misstook the cop for a rival gangster. But other gangsters said a white (non-Hispanic) man in their neighborhood wearing a bullet-proof vest and a badge on his belt was obviously not one of them, Plus, the kid, then 16, kept plugging him as he lay there.

This Ambrose vs. La Raza. Defendant faces life in prison, having proven himself as a gangster. But in prison he will be one less threat to life on the street.

GET 'EM, ED, DOROTHY, DICK . . . 9/2, Sun-Times, Ald. Burke, Ald. Tillman, Mayor Daley hit reparations trail, another case of good govt. being good politics. See justice-seekers, govt. types ready to sock it to businesses for sake of votes.

3. CHICAGO NEWSPAPERS, http://chicagonewspapers.blogspot.com/

9/18/03 SUN-TIMES . . .

DISEASE CONTROL . . . Page 3: "Heartier" germs develop from overuse of anti-biotics, says headline. No. Hardier, i.e. more hardy = more likely to withstand nullification by medication. Heads are done by copy desk, I assume; copy deskers are supposed to know better. Tsk, tsk.

CORRUPTION CONTROL . . . Page 9:

1. Connected city employe holds two city jobs, Chicago-style. He is brother-in-law of late Ald. Fred Roti, who did federal time.

2. Cicero ex-cop sues ex-mayor, now doing Fed time, and ex-police supt. for trashing his reputation for cooperating with FBI re: attempt to frame opposition mayoral candidate. Ex-Chi Ald. Ed Vrdolyak, acting as lawyer for ex-mayor et al., who years ago with current Chi Ald. Ed Burke led war vs. Mayor Harold Washington, played key role in ex-cop's troubles, getting very angry with him about helping FBI, says suit.

3. Gov. Blago may close troubled-minor home Maryville off to wards of state, this the day after a Fed. investigation into Maryville is reported. Investig. has to do with falsifying records of lead-up to a ward's suicide.

Fran Spielman in on the first story, of course. She monitors Daley and his people very well. John Kass of Chi Trib also does this, and Chi Trib columnist Denny Byrne too. Should this sort of coverage not be a preoccupation of city desks?

REST OF STORY? . . . Meanwhile, the boyish and irrepressible Richard Roeper discusses the disappearing dog whose loss well nigh broke the heart of the owner couple. This is Roeper's contribution to covering corruption in the city and suburbs.

Left unexplained is how this apparently yuppie couple (white, at that?) has come to live in East Garfield Park. Nothing about how that happens. What's going on there?

DETAILS OF THE CASE . . . Page 13 has Chi cop testifying in wrongful-death suit, admitting he was out of line when he smashed rear driver's side window with a tire iron after he and other cops finally curbed the car after a chase on the Dan Ryan some time back. (He also poked inside with his gun, shooting the driver dead, without meaning to do it, he says.)

But the windows were tinted, which meant he could not see inside; so smashing them makes sense. Also: the driver had arrogantly sped away from a traffic stop. He was NU BMOC footballer and decided he did not have to obey the law. He did not deserve death but deserved something, it would seem.

MORE DETAILS: CITY IS FULL OF SAME . . . Page 18 has 18-year-old found guilty in 2001 cop killing in alley in Pilsen. Defense said he misstook the cop for a rival gangster. But other gangsters said a white (non-Hispanic) man in their neighborhood wearing a bullet-proof vest and a badge on his belt was obviously not one of them, Plus, the kid, then 16, kept plugging him as he lay there.

This Ambrose vs. La Raza. Defendant faces life in prison, having proven himself as a gangster. But in prison he will be one less threat to life on the street.

GET 'EM, ED, DOROTHY, DICK . . . 9/2, Sun-Times, Ald. Burke, Ald. Tillman, Mayor Daley hit reparations trail, another case of good govt. being good politics. See justice-seekers, govt. types ready to sock it to businesses for sake of votes.

Copyright Jim Bowman, 2003

9/02/2003

PRAISE INDEED . . . "Washington, like Chicago, is a great news town," said Vickie Burns, a news show producer on her way to a Washington job. As opposed to what? Boston, where clergy abuse has been exposed in spades? Omaha, where the Boys Town financial scandal was exposed decades ago? Los Angeles? Cincinnati? Where is this city that is not a great news town and what is the meaning of such a statement except to butter people up?

COUNTING THE WAYS . . . Sun-Times item-purveyor Michael Sneed 8/28 has "I'm going to leave him in . . .able hands . . . " said Judy Baar-Topinka. But "I'll be taking one of the final voyages [on QEII]," chirped Judy. And "quoth [Warner] Saunders: "He kept saying . . . " Said, chirped, quoth? What's going on here? To keep up with that, a thesaurus is required.

DISSEMBLING . . . Robert McClory tore into the RC church in Chi Trib Perspective page one Sunday 8/17, contrasting its peremptory officialdom with that of the Episcopal Church U.S.A., where things are discussed and voted up or down. Perspective gave the other side, of course. [Just kidding.] But it also failed to identify McClory in a way to distinguish him from the dozens of academics/book authors to whom it gives space: he's professor emeritus of Medill journalism school, Northwestern, yes. He wrote the book Faithful Dissenters, etc., yes.

But he's also a founder and board member of Call to Action, the Chicago-based dissenting Catholic's national organization par excellence and long-time if not still a reporter for National Catholic Reporter, the liberal Catholic's vade mecum. Would not this be worth telling Chi Trib readers, even if McClory makes an iron-clad case vs. RC Church, including a history-oriented shot at the Galileo debacle?

CORRECTION . . . The further trouble is, McClory, also a long-time contributor to Chicago Reader, got in over his head with the Galileo business, specifically by claiming that some RC churchmen declined to look through Galileo's telescope, saying it was not necessary. McClory used the Galileo business to buttress his contention that the church's condemnation of homosexual activity is subject to change, no matter what today's churchmen say.

Not so fast, said Robert Bireley, Loyola U. history prof (and for truth in packaging here, a Jesuit and Renaissance historian, author most recently of The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War:
Kings, Courts, and Confessors (Cambridge U. Press, 2003) but also of The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450-1700 (Catholic U. Press, 1999), which is required reading at the U. of Missouri and maybe other places in Religious Studies 204: The Reformation to the Present, and of three other books, in a letter which Trib ran eight days later, 8/25.

That was no churchman who wouldn't look through the telescope, said Bireley; it was an atheist philosopher (whom he named), if it was anyone, and that's in doubt, there being no record of it. The Galileo case was bad enough, he said, but "let's not oversimplify."

McClory also aimed his peashooter at the church over slavery, in a short list of familiar grievances. But the church "had a lot to do with" ending slavery, medievalists agree, said Bireley. Indeed, a 1537 papal statement provided backup for anti-slavery work by churchmen in Latin America.

History, he said, in a closing rapping of McClory knuckles, is "messy and complicated," as any freshman knows. But McClory "ignores . . . circumstances" surrounding events and so "raises questions" about his trustworthiness in judging "contemporary matters."

And there you had a Medill professor emeritus not only inadequately identified by the once world's greatest newspaper, but also rebutted by a Loyola historian, in broad daylight.

8/25/2003

TO HELL IN HANDBASKET . . . Bad news day, a la HV Kaltenborn on radio in 30s & 40s, in Chi Trib for Sunday 8/17. On Page1:

* "Power grid primed to fail: Nips, tucks won't fix it anymore [sic], experts say"

* "As Iraqis die, hate for U.S. spreads: Families left bitter by relatives' death" (by the inimitable Gary Marx, late of Havana)

* "Job losses hit blacks hard: Many 'feel frozen out of work world'" (always a good angle here: how hard blacks have it)

MARXMAN STRIKES AGAIN . . . "As Iraqis die" highlights the day's gloom-and-doom coverage. It features gut-wrenching (colorful) accounts by "witnesses" of noncombatants' death by American gunfire: "Bullets ripped . . . She slumped . . . eyes frozen . . . baby slipped from her arms. . . . hit in the stomach."

"The tragedy" in question got only five paragraphs in an official American statement. It was "one of [unspecified] dozens" of such incidents, which "can turn" Iraqi friends into "bitter enemies." The "mounting casualty toll" creates "a new circle" of Iraqis who learn "to revile [American] soldiers who came to liberate them."

Notice "came to liberate" and its implication of failure. Can the writer not say "liberated"? [No, it would be very gauche at the press club.] Notice also that my "American" is in brackets, because it's not used -- he writes "U.S.," never American, lest we confuse our government or military with ourselves.

Note also the delicious quotes, with APPEALING picture of good-looking father with two lovely kids left without their mother, one of two shooting victims of misdirected American fire.

An American officer is quoted in matter-of-fact terms that in no way compete with the vivid, even purpled, prose of this man Marx, of which there is more more more, here not included for reasons of time.

(He "strikes again" is in reference to his 9/18/02 utterly tendentious, not to say misleading story-attack on Ken Paterson as horseman riding the length of Cuba, here discussed in November.)

ANOTHER DAY, OTHER BAD NEWS . . . Meanwhile, on Sunday 8/24/03, we have Chi Trib's Perspective section demonstrating the striking ecumenism of the editors, who have decided that one side to a story is enough for one Sunday.

SIDE ONE: RIGHTS VIOLATED . . . We have "DON'T TREAD ON ME: Is the war on terror really a war on rights?" by DePaul U.'s M. Cherif Bassiouni, whom The Trib trundles out regularly to supply the Arab and Palestinian position. His lead is a stunner: "The Declaration of Independence heralded the values of freedom, justice and equality in a country whose government was accountable to the people." There are a lot of people who didn't know or never thought about that, are there not?

Memorable quote, for flavor: "The nation has never before seen a more systematic erosion of civil rights than after 9/11. This has taken the form of undermining the legal system, coupled with egregious governmental abuses of power, all in the name of combating terrorism."

SIDE ONE AGAIN: THIS WAR BAD, BAD . . . We have "PRE-EMPTIVE WAR: A STATUS REPORT: After striking first...... the questions multiply in Iraq: When you cut off one head, do two sprout in its place?" by the inimitable, rabidly leftist R.C. Longworth. The questions do not multiply. There are no questions. R.C.L. has all the answers.

He quotes Madeleine Albright respectfully about how Clinton never did this sort of thing: "Every president 'has quietly held in reserve' this possibility of 'anticipatory self-defense.' But never before has it been brought front and center and turned into the basis of policy."

He writes: "The result [of the Iraq war] is a murderous chaos. The war destroyed not just a regime but also a society, however repressive. In its place, it created a quagmire without water, electricity or the other basics of life, an utterly lawless land, populated by increasingly terrified and humiliated Iraqis, and policed by frightened [sic] American troops, tragically untrained for their task and comprehending neither the language nor the culture of the country they now rule."

He's a "senior correspondent," you know, not a columnist. Egad, a pamphleteer in reporter's clothes!

SIDE ONE YET AGAIN: BUZZ, BUZZ . . . We have "KARMA AND OTHER CONSEQUENCES: Has America stirred up a hornet's nest of hate?" by Kenneth R. Crossman, an essayist and a fellow in infant mental health [sic] at The University of Chicago," which opens with: "The Bush administration's policy of preemption is not just bad karma, it isn't wise."

This is quite a naturalist's meditative piece, about hornets! It is pure creative writing from the Izaak Walton School of Thought, except that Izaak did not extrapolate from fish to nations. Give me Darwin and the voyage of the Beagle any day. But in arguing "preventive war," any stick should do it.

YET AGAIN: DAMN THE BARRIERS, FULL SPEED . . . We have "THE STATE OF CIVILIZATION: Does Chicago's architecture betray a fortress mentality?" by a DePaul U. ESL teacher who does not like the post-9/11 barricades (they "were supposed to provide safety even if they were an eyesore"), vs. the rest of us who adore them, and apparently thinks we overreact to terrorist possilities. These barricades remind her "of war and the terrorists of Sept. 11 and suicide bombers." Fancy that!

What's more, her freshman history teacher's words "ring in [her] ears" -- you are what you build or something close to that -- several times in this incredibly vapid, turgid essay. Once such barriers were called moats and walls. "Today we call [them] security measures [damn our eyes!]. Security to protect our freedom [half sentence, but whatthehell]. Yet I don't feel free." Yet you don't know how to write either. We all wish it was your freshman writing teacher whose words ring in your ears.

ONE-NOTE ABANDONED: RANSOMING CAPTIVES . . . There is also a piece by an Atlanta writer who talks sense about not paying ransom to Islamic (or other) hostage-takers.

ABANDONED AGAIN: JOBS GOING, GOING . . . Finally, there is a pretty long page 3 column -- I am tempted to call it filler -- arguing cogently and concisely against free trade, "U.S. future needs blue-collar might: So, who cares if manufacturing falters or moves abroad? Americans should, because it is imperative for innovation, national defense and jobs," by the president and CEO of Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI Inc [owned by Tribune Company?] or more likely by HIS senior writer.

In fact Chicago's own Bill Daley, now in the telephone business, might have thought twice about armtwisting and cajoling for NAFTA (for Cliton, remember? when Ross Perot heard that sucking sound of jobs going south) if he had read it. On the other hand, can we imagine Bill changing tack because of a good argument?

============================
Jim Bowman
Oak Park, IL
www.blithe-spirit.com
Fax: 708 575-5321

8/09/2003

SUN-TIMES' SPIELMAN ON NO-BID INSIDER

See here -- http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-clout08.html -- for the ever-reliable Fran Spielman's (Sun-Times, 8/8) account of City Hall insider with "fat" no-bid consulting contract. He is Steve Schlickman "a former CTA and RTA official who ran the now-defunct downtown circulator project that spent $59 million of taxpayers funds, but never laid a rail or turned a single shovel of dirt."

What's noteworthy about this story, besides its political significance, is how it supplies pertinent background details, telling us why the story is important without editorializing. It helps, of course, to be familiar with Spielman's reporting and writing, which is never ironic or cute and thus does not trivialize its subject matter. She does, therefore, trade on her (good) reputation, which is true of any writer.



8/06/2003

Now is the time for all good men and women to read newspapers with full understanding of their unique virtues and faults, with special attention to Chicago's. More more more . . .

====================