Rot Never Sleeps

Newspapers all over the country are in trouble. In our slavish desire for speed, we consume news via social media. Not because it's more in-depth or more accurate, but because it's faster.

It's also unvetted. Unconsidered. Full of errors. And reliant on questionable sources. But yes, it is faster.

Playing the dragging-my-heels Luddite while the rest of the world rockets off into supersonic cyberspace is an act fraught with futility. I am not going to change a thing. The world is going to do what the world is going to do.

Sigh.

Along with internal combustion engines, record stores, grilling with charcoal, movie theaters and book stores, newspapers face a questionable future. Those that haven't already merged or consolidated are being devoured by what I like to refer to as vulture capitalists.

Like the Chicago Tribune, currently being ingested by Alden Global Capital.

Armed with vast reserves of cash, funds like Alden swoop in, buy a controlling interest and proceed to dismantle its target like car thieves in a chop shop. They sell off the components with the expectation the ala carte sale will generate more revenue than a bundled one.

It its wake are the employees—usually left unemployed with little in the way of severance or pensions. 

I'm no businessman, but I believe had the Tribune not gone public and consequently made itself vulnerable to this parasite, it would have survived. It was a formidable newspaper with a devoted readership.

Not so long ago, it would take me a morning and a good part of the afternoon to plow through the Sunday edition. It was stuffed with local and international news of every stripe, reported by a robust network of bureaus and correspondents stationed all over the world.

Music, art, film, books, sports, politics, transportation, business and any kind of conceivable feature all received similar attention. It was the world at your fingertips, strained through a now-irrelevant filter of fact-checking and confirmation.

An old saw of journalism went “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” You know—like it was going to be on Fox News or social media or something. Newspapers like the Tribune were a gathering place, a shared link between people. They provided a sense of community.

In their place is a hopelessly fragmented media landscape playing to impossibly divergent interests. We have retreated into hyper-demographic social media bubbles which insist anyone who doesn't fit the profile is not to be trusted.

To many of you I'm just a tiresome old man bemoaning the loss of another cultural touchstone. But I'm thinking it's highly probable I'm correct about the coarse and merciless future we're building, and what role this event plays in it. 

So. John Kass, Dahleen Glanton, Heidi Stevens, Mary Schmich and Eric Zorn are gone. Alden Global Capital has paid them to go away. On the surface? A dent in a local newspaper's appeal. But taking the longer view, it is another step forward in our inevitable construction of the Tower of Babel.

It is so very, very sad. But at least Alden Global Capital will get rich(er). 

And isn't that we're all about?

After Growing up in Illinois, How the Hell Did I Become a Democrat? (pt. 2)

Welcome to part two of my After Growing up in Illinois, How the Hell Did I Become a Democrat? post, which examines the Democrats who have controlled Illinois politics for the majority of my life.

Michael Madigan was born on April 19, 1942 and again when he assumed the speakership of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1983.

One of the most cunning politicians to ever draw breath, Madigan parlayed the representation of a small, non-descript district on the southwest side of Chicago into what is effectively the governorship of Illinois.

I can count the things I agreed with former governor Bruce Rauner about on one finger, and that was his observation that Michael J. Madigan controlled the state of Illinois. John Kass, a Chicago Tribune columnist, refers to Illinois as Madiganistan.

I can't disagree.

Imagine a man with the unquenchable thirst for power and control as our current president. Then sand away the need for attention and adulation. Then add a couple dozen layers of epidermis.

Next, fold in a big ol' dose of self-control. Cunning. And bump up that IQ a little bit. Okay—a lot.

Now you're looking at Michael Madigan.

Madigan is Francis Urquhart, the slithering, deadly predator around whom the brilliant BBC production House of Cards revolved. Like Urquhart, Madigan never gets too greedy. Or impatient. Keeps his profile on the down low. And is as unyielding as a diamond.

Madigan lapsing into Twitterrea is unimaginable.

Sadly, this political genius never sought to use his talents to enable Illinois and its citizens. He used it to enable Michael Madigan.

First and foremost of Madigan's greatest hits is his relationship with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, or AFSCME. For decades, he has successfully lobbied the state legislature to relentlessly fatten their pensions without ever troubling himself over the means to pay for it.

Which is why Illinois teeters on the cusp between solvency and ruin today. Our 137.3 billion-dollar unfunded pension liability leads the nation. Madigan has single-handedly placed Illinois' financial future into an industrial-strength meat grinder in a manner Donald Trump only dreams of.

And thanks to a re-written state constitution, it is forbidden to alter those benefits in any way, precluding the obvious common sense solution of downsizing them to a point that doesn't suck the state and its citizen into a deep, dark hole beyond the reach of light and time.

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask not what Michael Madigan can do for you, ask what you can do for Michael Madigan. 

But at least Mike still has a job, right?

Sadly, tossing a state's economic viability into the garbage for political gain isn't a crime. But consorting with a public utility and a telecommunications giant for political gain is. And thanks to the same federal probe that has Ed Burke morphing into Sweaty Eddie, Mike Madigan might be rethinking some career choices.

Friends claim they have repeatedly advised the seventy-eight year-old to step down. What have you got left to prove? Or gain? Why don't you relax and enjoy your money for whatever time is left to you?

Like all power-mad obsessives, Madigan can't see a life beyond the state capitol. “What would I even do?” he is reported to answer. Hopefully the federal government will help supply an answer.

Ever make license plates, Mike?

This is just a rudimentary outline of Madigan's career. Truth to tell, there exist enough skeletons to fill every closet in the Palace of Versailles.

Again, I wonder at his ability to convert a few thousand votes in his home district into the governorship of the State of Illinois. It's akin to electing a president based on the returns of a single county. Or even state.

It's ludicrous. And insidious.

But change is afoot. With the bright lights of that investigation upon him, Madigan's cronies are distancing themselves ASAP. Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, obviously relieved to have the weight of the bully's foot off their necks, are speaking out and calling for accountability.

Despite being a Democrat, I would be happy to see Madigan take his meals on a tray for the remainder of his natural life. It's the least he could do.

So. With so many bad examples of politicos so close to home, how the hell did I ever come to declare as a Democrat?

It took awhile. My father was a Republican, and in my first presidential election I voted like him. Gerald Ford was an affable guy who seemed capable of reuniting the county after the duress of the Nixon years.

Plus Jimmy Carter struck me as an overly cautious born-again religious zealot, which wasn't something I embraced in the sex, drugs and rock and roll-filled years of early-adulthood.

Carter was equally uninspiring in the next election, leading me to commit this crime against humanity: I voted for Ronald Reagan.

Within a year I was confessing to friends that I ought be in a maximum-security federal prison. It couldn't have been more obvious what a callow and ignorant human being I was not to have known the difference between Reagan and Carter.

It haunts me still.

But just like hangovers, frostbite and hemorrhoids, voting Republican has a lesson to teach us. And it was taught to me in indelible, bold-faced type: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, VOTE REPUBLICAN AGAIN.

And with rare exceptions (all on a state or local level), I haven't.

While scores of Illinois and Chicago politicians qualify as shiftless, beady-eyed charlatans, their primary offenses were usually confined to accumulating power and any remuneration that happened to accompany it.

But on a national scale, Democrats can't hold a candle to the affrontery presented by a succession of Republican representatives, senators and presidents.

Gerrymandering? The endless manipulation and/or outright gutting of the voting rights act? Citizens United? Their class-leading corporate welfare? Their scared-shitless support of the NRA? Their sanctimonious embrace of the pro-life movement?

The artful button-pushing? The never-mind-the-democracy—what's good for us best practices? The willingness to sacrifice our air, our water and our land for the benefit of the business class? The willingness to exploit sexism and racial hatred in exchange for elected office? 

The belief that the pursuit and seizure of power justifies, well, anything?

At their worst, Democrats may be the ones fudging the estimated monthly payments on your new car sales contract. But Republicans are the ones tampering with your brakes.

 

Concealed Carry

In last Friday's print editions of the Chicago Tribune, columnist John Kass expressed his humiliation at residing in the only state in the union that has yet to pass concealed carry legislation. Read here how arming Americans will make us more--not less--civilized.

No one asked, but allow me to share my (unprinted) opinion:

Dear Editor,

I was dismayed to read John Kass’ column Friday the 24th citing his embarrassment over Illinois’ failure (his words, not mine) to pass concealed carry legislation.

To the Dirty Harry fetishists aching for such legislation, I pose this question: why is this a good idea?

When confronted with an E. coli outbreak, is more E. coli the answer? When segments of the population are beset by heroin addiction, is the answer more heroin? And when a certain brand of blinds are found to be potentially lethal to children, is it best to ramp-up production of those blinds?

Of course not.

But according to the addled logic employed by cowboy wanna-bes like Kass, the answer to our endemic gun violence is still-more guns.

You’ll have to explain to me how this is wise, especially in a country where we can’t decide how far back an airplane seat can be reasonably reclined without coming to blows and forcing an airplane flight to return to its point of departure.

Is this really a population that should be armed?

Sincerely,

La Piazza Gancio
Chicago, Illinois