Lazy Saturday

OPPORTUNITIES KNOCKED: Daley’s on p. 1 of Chi Trib as genial fun-loving talk show personality. Why? He's on hot seat, isn’t he? Why give him the foto-op for free? Or anyone else, including GW chopping wood, etc.

Why not? Because it encourages jerks like Gov Blago to lift up his 3–yr-old as hostage when he finds himself in war zone attacked by reporters. He picked her up after they began badgering him -- when all he wanted was a foto-op, for crying out loud!

HEAD TRIP: Sun-Times had that item big on p-1, rightly so. But moving to its op-ed page, we ask, who is Ralph Martire, whose stuff reads like a memo to staff? We have an email address but no i-d for this producer of turgid prose. And where the heck is Tom Roeser, who used to fill us in on Illinois politics on that very page? Martire’s a lobbyist, which Roeser used to be but hasn’t been for several years, and besides, he had life for a long time as City Club rejuvenator and, yes, real-life talk-show host, which he still is, Sunday nights, WLS-AM. And besides with a flourish, Roeser knows how to write for THE PUBLIC -- see his daily blog.

Martire's organization is the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability -- maybe for motherhood too, who knows? -- where he is executive director, for crying out loud. He must know what he's talking about, whatever it is. What he needs is a writer. Get the guy or gal who does Rev. Jesse's boiler-plate leftism, also regularly in Sun-Times. (Oh, am I mad today. You'd never know I'm entertaining lovely grandchildren this week, would you?)

HERE COMES JUDGE: While in Sun-Times op-ed arena, see Judge Egan dismantle DePaul law prof so-&-so for his statute of limitations argument meant to show Egan up for his non-prosecutable verdict in the Burge torture business. In addition to substantive stuff, several times he notes the man's "academic" aura as leaving him unsuited for solving this problem. He also notes that the two presumed good-doing lawyers who objected to his decision -- Flint Taylor and Locke Bowman (no relation) -- were asked during their investigation to show cause why the statute did not limit but didn't. Good piece.

SO THERE: As for Ozzie Guillen, and you knew we'd get to him, didn't you, he's in his nasty-kid mood these days about shortstop Uribe, who has to come to Ozzie to say he wants to play: Ozzie is not going to him, no. Uribe has to come to "the boss," you see. That's how it's done in the Land of Ozzie. None of which matters today, of course, Contreras that beautiful Cuban exile from Castro having blanked the first-place Tigers on three hits last night.

CONFESSION: Then there's Gunter Grass, who after years as a professional Leftist Novelist, with a book of memoirs to sell, says he's been "burdened" all these years knowing he served in the Waffen SS (storm troopers) and so now, finally, with book of memoirs to sell, tells us. Here's it's time for him to don sack cloth and pour ashes on himself and enter a monastery, and he's got himself a book-selling point. It's people like that who give Leftism a bad name. Among others.

DEATH OF A GOOD GUY: Finally, R.I.P. Al Kirk SJ, who was found dead in his room at Loyola U. at 72. For years he was head head-knocker at St. Ignatius High, Chicago -- disciplinarian. I met him as an incoming novice at Milford OH in 1952 but my best memory is of him at Ignatius, where I showed up one day to interview a student for a series at the Daily News.

I bounced into his office on a lower-level floor as students were charging out at day's end. He just walked out in the hall and collared one walking by, a Bridgeporter whose take-home books included a paperback copy of Royko's Boss -- assigned reading. The kid made a very good interview. Boss had gotten Sis Daley very mad; she had tried to get it removed from supermarket shelves in Bridgeport. Royko got wind of it and, what do you know, out went next day's column on that very subject.

For the same DN series, I went to Gordon Tech at Addison & California on the NW Side, where the Resurrectionist principal led into my presence a hand-picked senior, an all-honors student heading for West Point. Good interview too, but my, the contrast with Al Kirk and the climate at Ignatius.