Could college tuition make 25-candidate campaign instead nothing more than a Warren/Sanders brawl?

We’re up to 25 people with delusions that they’re the one capable of running for president as the Democratic Party’s nominee, with most would-be voters dreaming that everybody else is going to come to their senses and drop out – rather than run against their preferred candidate.

SANDERS: Writing off student loans

But just will be the factor that causes many of these political dreamers to “give it up” to take the advice of comedian Samantha Bee and run instead for the U.S. Senate – instead of for the post that offers up a mansion and private airplane as being amongst its perks?

A PART OF me wonders if Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – the senators from Vermont and Massachusetts, respectively – have latched onto the idea that will sway would-be Democratic voters into making this a two-way campaign between them.

While pushing everybody else off to the political sidelines.

For Sanders and Warren are the two who have tried most to make an issue out of a college education becoming more affordable.

Warren has talked about tuition being free at public colleges. While Sanders is now going further in talking about wanting to erase the debt that students incurred in taking out the loans that helped pay their tuition bills.

HIS LINE OF logic is that it benefits no one – and actually defeats the purpose of a better-educated society – if students are perpetually in debt upon graduation.

WARREN: Tuition-free public education?

Writing off all those unpaid loan bills would benefit the students, and actually result in less time being wasted by entities that are trying to collect debts from people who, realistically, can’t afford it.

Personally, I’m not swayed by the idea – largely because I remember back some three decades ago when I was a freshly-graduated university-type scholar.

I managed to repay my loans in full – even though I also made what I’m sure some (such as my father) would regard as the asinine decision to want to be a newspaper reporter. Not exactly the highest-paid of professions we have in our society. 

FURTHERMORE, I SPENT those early-reporter years with the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago – a place that actually took a certain amount of pride in the low wages they paid (my memory recalls starting at $190 a week – which dropped down to $156 weekly once taxes were deducted).

O'ROURKE: Can we write-off Beto yet?

Yes, if I hadn’t had to make that monthly loan payment, I’d have had a few extra bucks. But I did make it. And also have to admit it helped that at exactly the point in time I was finished off with the loans – my future employer gave me a significant pay boost.

Which became the point in time when I could start living a more-adult lifestyle. Maybe I could have had a financially-easier time of it had I made other choices, but those were choices I made -- and I paid the cost, without expecting a financial write-off someday.

Now part of the problem, as I comprehend it, is that college costs are significantly-higher now than they were back in the Age of Reagan. When I look at the costs of college that exist now, I wonder if it would be possible to borrow so much money to afford the tab.

BUT A LARGER part of the problem lies in part with those students who, for whatever reason, wind up not completing college – but took out loans to pay for the years they attended.

BEE: Run for Senate, instead

They’re whacked with significant debt without the potential future earnings that a degree would offer them. Note I said “potential.” There’s no guarantee – as it’s usually only the most promising of students who actually wind up employed to the standard of their dreams.

So I expect Sanders will encounter some opposition from those who think “we paid off our loans, let the deadbeats do theirs.” But there also will be others who will think the theory of “free college” outweighs all others, and will be more than willing to ignore all other would-be presidential candidates just because of it.

So maybe it’s beneficial that the number of presidential dreamers on the Democratic side be reduced. Although I can’t help but be dismayed at the notion that it could be something as trivial as this that causes the ranks to be reduced to a more-comprehendible number.

  -30-

U.S. evolves at differing rates

So what should we think of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and the fact that racist imagery – including that of the Ku Klux Klan – turns up in his college yearbook?

The Washington Post made this obscure yearbook page public knowledge. Personally, I'm more offended by Northam's quote than the photo

Personally, I’m not totally shocked.

I REMEMBER back when I was in college (mid-1980s) and looking through the old yearbooks from Illinois Wesleyan University – my alma mater – seeing graphics of Klan nightriders and hooded people being used as illustrations.

Entirely on those pages devoted to the fraternities that existed on campus.

But there is one fact that should be pointed out – these particular yearbooks were from the 1890s. Meaning they already were nearly a century old, and the ideals that may have existed on campus back then had long evolved into something far different from its origins.

I’ve also seen old University of Illinois yearbooks from the early 1900s indicating that the Ku Klux Klan once was regarded as a fully-legitimate fraternity on the Urbana, Ill., campus – although I’ve also seen various accounts indicating the U of I KKK was never an officially-recognized chapter of the Klan.

SO WHAT SHOCKS and appalls me about the Northam situation?

It’s that these Klan-like hooded images were still being considered acceptable as recently as the ‘80s – Northam was a student at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and it was the 1984 yearbook that included the photo of people in blackface and a Klan hood on a page devoted to Northam himself.

As for Northam saying in response that the questionable photograph is not of himself, but that he once remembers dressing up in blackface as part of a Michael Jackson impersonation, I’d think that is something that falls into the category of something stupid he once did that is now embarrassing.

NORTHAM: Same person now as he was in '84?

Largely because it makes many of us question his musical tastes in general. It’s something more silly than offensive. Or offensive in the sense that he could ever have been so ridiculous.

BUT THE REALITY is that this kind of imagery that had long withered away in Illinois was still considered acceptable in Virginia. Just as some people are still willing to fight for Confederate imagery in the form of flags and statues that still linger in parts of the nation.

Personally, I don’t have trouble believing that Northam himself had long forgotten about this imagery attached to his name, and he may well have moved far beyond this type of thought in his own life.

The smart-aleck in me thinks that if Northam still felt such thoughts in his daily existence, he’d be a Republican. Which probably would put him more in line with the bulk of the southern region from which he comes.

He’d probably be doing whatever he could to tie his imagery to that of President Donald Trump and going around wearing one of those red “Make America Great Again” caps – which some openly say is the 21^st Century’s version of wearing a white hood.

SO WHEN REPUBLICAN ideologues go about claiming that Northam is evidence of hypocrisy amongst those of the Democratic Party when it comes to racial issues, I see it more as evidence of trying to distract attention from their own racial hang-ups.

My point is that I’m not quickly jumping on board with those people who are demanding Northam’s resignation on grounds that he’s an embarrassment to his home state. Although I’m also wondering if the pressure is going to rise to such levels that he’ll have no choice BUT to resign!

Are the same people calling for Northam's resignation the same individuals who defend the continued existence of Confederate memorials?

I almost feel like the only people who’d win by denouncing Northam as an unreformed bigot are the unreformed bigots themselves – as though they’d try to claim this as justification for their own ignorant ways of thought.

While also expressing some thoughts indicating that they think we’d be better off going back to the past – such as an era where no one would give a second thought to anything being strange and hostile about the imagery stirred up by Northam’s college yearbook.

  -30-

EXTRA: Does Lipinski owe Trump?

The D.C.-based Brookings Institution says it may well be the kind of people in full agreement with this Age of Trump in which we’re now in to whom Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., owes his re-election in last month’s Democratic primary.

LIPINSKI: Got some GOP crossovers

The institution’s Primaries Project did its own analysis of the voter tallies from the March 20 primary in the Illinois 3^rd Congressional District (Chicago’s Southwest Side and surrounding suburbs).

THAT’S THE ONE where the socially-conservative Lipinski managed to fend off a challenge by Marie Newman, a political newby who tried campaigning on the notion that Lipinski’s political leanings don’t fit in with modern-day Democrats.

Not that it worked. The city portions of the district that remember back to the days when Lipinski’s father, Bill, was their Congressman (and their alderman at City Hall before that) gave Dan a large-enough support to overcome the small lead Newman had in the suburban parts.

That has many people thinking Lipinski’s victory was evidence of the Chicago “Machine” of old being able to turn out the vote for a candidate.

But Brookings researchers found that amongst people in the congressional district who voted in the 2016 presidential cycle for Donald Trump, those people were solidly in favor of keeping Lipinski.

OR MORE LIKELY, making sure that somebody like Newman never got anywhere near Capitol Hill.

TRUMP: Can he count on Dan's votes?

Most people in the Illinois 3^rd voted for Hillary Clinton to be president, as did all of Cook County and the Chicago metro area.

But amongst those who went along with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rhetoric, one in every five voted for Lipinski this time around. That compares to only one in 20 of Trump backers who sided with Newman.

Brookings types wouldn’t say definitively why that sentiment occurred, although they did point out that many would-be Republicans cast Democratic Party ballots in the March primary because the GOP only offered the white supremacist Art Jones as their choice for the seat.

NEWMAN: Definitely not the 'deplorable' choice

EVEN THOUGH THE Republican election cycle last month included a feisty fight by Jeanne Ives to try to knock Gov. Bruce Rauner out of the running for the Nov. 6 general election, Ives wasn’t enough to keep 3^rd District GOPers with the party’s ballot.

Some 61 percent of people who cast ballots said they considered the congressional choice more significant than that of governor.

“Our data demonstrates Lipinski enjoyed a great advantage among, and likely a victory because of, self-identified Trump voters,” Brookings researchers wrote.

So is the next two years of Lipinski in Congress (nobody seriously thinks Jones can beat him come November) going to see Dan as one of Trump’s few allies amongst the Illinois congressional delegation. Or will he turn on the president, at the risk of some of his political backers deciding to turn on him come 2020?

  -30-

Do knee-jerk pols put any thought into votes they cast on govt. business?

One of the things that dismays me as a reporter-type person observing various levels of government is that our elected officials are the equivalent of sheep.

Daley's 'rubber stamp' council not odd, even today

The rank-and-file aldermen, commissioners and legislators (Congressmen, too, if you want to be honest) are supposed to be the bodies that give their approval to the proposals put forth by the chief executives (mayors, governors, etc.) they’re supposed to monitor.

YET LET’S BE honest. They usually do whatever they’re told to do. They “get with the program,” so to speak. The occasional public official who actually makes a point of trying to study the details and think for themselves on each and every issue winds up being regarded as a troublemaker – if not a downright huge pain in the derriere.

It is something I have seen at so many levels of government that I don’t doubt its truth. Reading a recent analysis prepared by the Moody’s Investors Service only helped to reinforce it in my mind.

The analysis was meant to study the long-range impact of the recent debacle Cook County government went through in enacting, then repealing, that penny-per-ounce tax on pop and other sweetened beverages.

Those pennies do add up – to the point where people were outraged at the increased cost of a case of pop. Even the county admits it expected to raise some $200 million per year from all those pennies. It wasn’t cheap change!

THE ANALYSIS SAID that public outrage, stirred up by the lobbying efforts of the American Beverage Association with its “Can the Tax” campaign, is now intense enough that the public will be skeptical of any government proposing any kind of tax increase – regardless of the reason.

“The political backlash against the pop tax highlights the practical limitations on raising taxes, even if a government is legally permitted to do so,” Moody’s officials wrote.

“Any future tax hikes in the wake of the pop tax repeal will likely be met with some political opposition, exacerbating budget pressures for Cook County and other area local governments,” the service wrote.

Let’s be honest. When most of the officials who voted to implement the tax did so last November, they really didn’t think much about it. They just voted “aye” because they felt they ought to do so. Likewise, most of them were just as quick to want to jump on board the repeal effort made earlier this month.

I COULDN’T HELP but see some truth in the view of commissioner Deborah Sims, D-Chicago, who complained about being forced to vote to repeal. I think I would have respected her view if she had held her ground, instead of going along with the repeal.

It is the reason why the two county commissioners I gained some respect for out of the pop tax debacle were Jerry “the Iceman” Butler, D-Chicago, and Larry Suffredin, D-Evanston. They were the two who held their ground and voted for the pop tax – then against its repeal.

The others went with the whims of following the way the wind blows – and when it blew in ways telling them to suddenly change their stance, they did so; regardless of whatever it is they really think about the issue.

Although for all I know, they may be more than willing to go with the program – either putting their faith in the elected leadership so that they want to be part of the overall organization. Or maybe they’re really just that indecisive.

NOT THAT COOK County government’s behavior is unique. Aldermen and legislators are just as inclined to follow the whims of the mayor or the Democratic leadership of the General Assembly – who admittedly have staffs of analysts who can discuss the intricacies of any measure that goes before their respective governing bodies.

So are we now going to have knee-jerk “no” votes on anything that involves the revenue by which our government’s operations are funded? That would scare me, because we already have some people willing to act in such a manner on measures they have ideological opposition to.

Thinking they can get government out of its obligations to the people merely by cutting off the funding. Will similar people stir up trash talk against the Uber and Lyft transit fees being considered to help balance out the Chicago city government budget now under review?

It’s not high-minded or responsible government by any means. It’s more about being more interested in holding on to one’s elected office at all costs – even though the individuals probably don’t have anything in mind to do with the post once they have it.

  -30-

How has this “Age of Trump” impacted the U.S/Mexico foreign relations?

Most of us who have any interest in Mexico Independence Day got our celebrating done last weekend – in Chicago, parades were held in the South Chicago and Little Village neighborhoods. Yet the actual holiday Saturday will be acknowledged in the Pilsen neighborhood with yet another parade.

U.S. acknowledgement of Mexico independence

So on this 217^th anniversary of the date on which Spain’s North American colonies officially declared their independence as a free and sovereign nation, it intrigues me to wonder of the state of relations between our two nations.

PARTICULARLY SINCE OUR current president has gone out of his way to bash about Mexico every chance he can get so as to enhance his status amongst the nativist nitwit segment of our society.

It was right after Donald J. Trump was sworn into office at the beginning of this year that The New Yorker published its own commentary under the headline Donald Trump blows up the U.S.-Mexico relationship. While the Washington Post published a commentary by the former Mexico ambassador to the United States under the headline The U.S.-Mexico relationship is dangerously on the edge. Just a couple of examples – I’m sure you are aware of many more.

Now I don’t doubt the xenophobes amongst us could care less about this. The fact that we shouldn’t want the most significant nation with which we share a border to think of us as a hostile presence seems to allude them.

Mexican cry of Independence

Yet that seems to be a reality, according to a new Pew Research Center study.

SOME 65 PERCENT of Mexicans surveyed now think negatively toward the United States – that’s double the amount compared to two years ago and most-definitely an all-time high.

Yes, this is attributable to the presence of Trump as president – it seems only 5 percent of Mexicans surveyed have confidence that Donald J. will do the right thing with regard to world affairs Admittedly, most foreign nations think the U.S. president is a boob, but Pew surveyed people from 37 foreign nations and the Mexican perception of Trump is the lowest of them all.

It also seems that only 55 percent of Mexicans think that economic ties between their nation and the United States are beneficial – down significantly from 73 percent back in the Obama presidential days of 2013.

It’s not a pretty picture. Trump’s trash talk has created an environment that interferes with the ability of business to get done. Which is ironic, since Trump backers always like to claim (foolishly, I’d argue) that Trump’s business background and leanings supposedly give him an edge in achieving the bottom-line of success.

YET WITH THE activity of recent days where Trump is supposedly willing to consider backing off some of his rash trash talk on immigration policy and consider serious negotiation on issues such as DACA (that childhood arrival policy), it could be a positive step.

Except that Trump has our nativist nitwit segment of society all riled up into thinking that mass deportations of everybody not exactly like themselves are imminent any day now. They could wind up turning on him.

Whereas there are people who think that serious efforts between Mexico and the United States to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement ought to end because Mexico should not negotiate with such a political crackpot as Trump.

A move that truly would hurt interests in both countries – since we should keep in mind that the people most inclined to hate the concept of NAFTA are the ones who have ideological hang-ups about doing business with Mexico. They value their alleged Aryan purity over the almighty dollar.

SOMETHING THE NATIVISTS ought to keep in mind. That for all the hostility they want to spew toward Mexico, the sentiment is similar on the other side of the border. All because of the trash talk.

Mexico Independence celebrations, such as this 1957 parade through South Chicago neighborhood, have become Chicago traditions in their own right

Something we should keep in mind on this date when people in Mexico celebrate their independence, and the Spanish-speaking enclaves of this country also make their efforts to acknowledge el grito – the cry of independence first heard just over two centuries ago.

Something to think about just in case you happen to be amongst those out in the Pilsen neighborhood celebrating the holiday. Or maybe you're celebrating U.S. District Court senior Judge Harry Leinenweber, the Ronald Reagan era-appointed judge (and real Republican, rather than these ideologue-tainted and racially-motivated nitwits who run the GOP today) who on Friday issued the ruling that favors cities declaring themselves to be sanctuary cities and goes against the Trump-era government's threats to cut off their federal funding.

We really are better off as a nation if we manage to co-exist with our neighbors in a peaceful situation. Or at least don’t have them thinking our economic downfall would somehow benefit their interests.

  -30-

Is it ‘fake news’ the way ideologues bandy about the ‘murder capital’ label?

I couldn’t help but be amused by a recent study released by the Pew Research Center – an analysis of the FBI crime statistics of recent years, particularly noting the murder rates of various cities.
 

Keeping the subways safe. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

It seems that during the past two years, murder rates have been on the rise in cities all across the United States. While I’m not trying to diminish the increases we have seen in Chicago during those two years, perhaps we need to study the concept from the national perspective – instead of taking seriously anything Donald Trump has to say about the city.

WHAT AMUSES ME is the way I’m sure those of us who are ideologically-inclined to think about things will want to discredit this particular study. Because it goes so contrary to the nonsense-talk that the conservative ideologues like to spew these days.

The facts just don’t back up their trash. Which I’m sure means the ideologues will try to claim the study is “fake news.” Something that doesn’t fit their narrative. So rather than correct the narrative, ignore the facts.

For what it’s worth, the study ranked the 30 municipalities in this country with the highest murder rates. As in how many people were killed for every 100,000 people.

For the record, Chicago’s rate is 17.52 murders per 100,000, which ranks the Second City at number 25.

THAT’S JUST AHEAD of Miami, and just behind Philadelphia. Places like Dayton, Ohio, Richmond, Va., and West Palm Beach, Fla., all are more dangerous than Chicago, by this standard.

 

Leaving Chicago takes one to more dangerous places

And when it comes to the Midwestern U.S., there are three cities that make the Top 10 – none of which are Chicago.

There’s Milwaukee (Number 10, at 24.15 murders per 100,000) and Detroit (Number 3, at 43.82 murders per 100,000).

And finally, filling out the top slot, is Number 1, St. Louis, with a rate of 59.29 murders per 100,000.

I’M SURE THE ideologues aren’t going to want to accept this one bit! They’re yelling and screaming and claiming there has to be something wrong with a study that doesn’t put Chicago at the top of the list, and one in which New York (with a homicide rate of about 7 murders per 100,000 doesn't come close to ranking on top.

No longer patrolling the 'murder capital'

These people who claim they live in the “real America” of small communities that are isolated from such violence, but really are isolated from many of the benefits of our society, will talk trash.

Of course, my own days as a police reporter came not only at a time some three decades ago when Chicago was routinely approaching 1,000 murders per year (a number we haven’t come close to yet in recent years), taught me that violence and crime literally can occur anywhere, and amongst just about anybody.

Among the Top 10 cities in the Pew study is Salinas, Calif. (Number 9, at 25.29 murders per 100,000), not a place people would typically associate with violence.

ONE OTHER ASPECT amused me – the fact that two Indiana cities made the Top 30 list; and neither one of them was Gary. Indianapolis, at 17.12 murders per 100,000, is Number 28, while South Bend, at 16.79 murders per 100,000, is Number 29.

TRUMP: Crime talk is cheap

Of course, Gary’s overall population has shrunk below 100,000 residents (estimated by the Census Bureau at 76,424 people in 2016), making it too small to be considered a significant-enough city for the study. Although I’m sure there are those ideologues who are going to rant that Gary must possibly be the Murder Capital. That is, if it hasn’t been overtaken by Chicago.

That is just a fact of some people living in the past, and in some cases a version of the past that never really existed except in their own minds, which is the only place they achieved a place of superiority within our society.

Besides, the reality of our society is that these kinds of studies do have a certain pointless aspect to them – in that they try to create a sense that some places are more safe than others. When in reality, ANY murder occurring anywhere is tragic – and is one too many.

  -30-

How little were people paying attention back in high school history class?

I was a student of history while in college; my Bachelor of Arts degree is with an emphasis on U.S. foreign policy and much of the reading I have done during the three decades since I last was a tuition-paying student is of history and biography.
 

What would U.Penn history profs say of Trump vacuousness

I feel like I spent four years of college taking courses in subjects that interested me, and that I have continued to learn on my own. I probably will keep doing so until the day I drop dead – and someone’s going to have a heck of a time weeding through the personal library I’ve accumulated throughout the years.

I REALIZE I am the exception. Many people haven’t taken the time to study history any farther than they did during that mandatory U.S. history course they took in high school – where I remember one of my old classmates saying history would be okay if we could study cool stuff, like the 1960s.

They only remember a few generic concepts, and probably forgot most of the details. Which is something I’m sure that President Donald J. Trump counts on every time he opens his mouth.

I don’t think the one-time economics student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business deliberately lies about historic facts whenever he tries to use them to emphasize his politically partisan spin on issues.

I think it’s more likely that Trump truly doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and would be much less likely to embarrass himself if he didn’t try to make historic allusions.

BECAUSE THEY’RE THE kind of thing that can come back to haunt you, even though he tries to dismiss those who catch him as being smart-aleck, know-it-alls, and who really cares what they think?!?

Trump, most recently, stirred up a mess when he talked about how former President Andrew Jackson could have averted the nation feeling the need to split and go to war with itself.

Not taking into account how Jackson was dead before the Civil War began in 1861.

 

Would Jackson think Trump a part of the problem?

Jackson used to be a favorite image of Democrats for his rhetoric about the “common man,” and the need to fight against a “corrupt aristocracy.” But he also was a slaveholder, and any serious look at how the man would have come down on the issue of Civil War, slavery and abolitionism would conclude that a “President Jackson” would have wanted to preserve the “peculiar institution” at all costs.

I DOUBT THAT Trump is seriously supporting the idea of slavery. I just think he hasn’t thought it through before shooting his mouth off.

Besides, I can’t help but think that Jackson would have viewed people with the wealth of Trump as being the “corrupt aristocracy” that IS THE PROBLEM our society faces.

Maybe a Jackson-like political person would be leading the fight to allow us all to see the Trump income tax returns so that we can all see for ourselves just how financially UNLIKE all of us The Donald truly is?

I think a lot of Trump’s problem is that he probably wasn’t paying much attention as a prep school student during history class when they talked about the Civil War’s causes,

ALTHOUGH PERSONALLY I think that the simplest explanation I ever heard of that war’s cause came from Shelby Foote, the Greenville, Miss.-native who wrote a three-volume series of books about the war and also was a prominent face in that now 27-year-old documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns.

 

I wonder if GOPers now ashamed of Lincoln

Foote, on video, said that one of the great strengths of U.S. democracy is our ability to reach compromise on just about any issue. But that in the case of slavery, we failed – which led to bloodshed.

Which is a fact I keep in mind whenever the modern-day partisan rhetoric is boosted up a notch or two – things could be worse. We don’t have Southern good ol’ boys taking up arms against the United States and all it stands for.

Even though I’m sure many of them were amongst the 46 percent of voters who last year created the Electoral College majority that put Trump into the Oval Office and gets more and more riled up every time the man misspeaks with historic fact.

  -30-

PAWAR: Visiting all 102 counties w/ 'New Deal'

EDITOR'S NOTE: Illinois gubernatorial hopeful Ameya Pawar likes to make references to the "New Deal," the grand plan by which former President Franklin D. Roosevelt got the United States out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Although his references are usually vague enough that he doesn't make factual errors that would harm his campaign's slim chances of achieving victory.

Is Supreme Court determined to show no bias by p’o-ing everybody?

The Supreme Court of the United States issued a pair of rulings on Thursday determined to give everybody something they can be truly appalled by.

The nation’s high court made a purely partisan political ruling that upheld a lower court’s efforts to interfere with President Barack Obama’s attempts at imposing reform of our nation’s immigration policies.

YET BEFORE THE ideologue twits who fantasize of the day they can deport all the foreigners out of the U.S. of A. could get themselves too excited, the high court dumped all over their desires with another case.

In that case, they upheld a lower court that had found fault with the University of Texas system and the way it took a student’s race or ethnicity into account during admissions.

This was provoked by the case of a would-be Longhorn who didn’t get accepted to attend that college, and claimed that as a white girl she was discriminated against because other people who were not white (and were nowhere near as qualified as she was, to listen to the racially-motivated ideologues) got her spot.

So which way do the ideologues lean?

ARE THEY HAPPY that the immigration reform measure got stalled? I doubt it. They’re such a miserable lot, those ideologue types, that I suspect they get their joy from complaining.

So they’ll be convinced that Thursday was a great day of disaster because some white girl (who as it turned out got into her Number Two choice of colleges and has since graduated and gotten on with her life) was devastated beyond belief – all to benefit a less-deserving non-white student.

This particular issue has always bugged me, perhaps because I remember how competitive the college admissions process can be (and I always considered myself fortunate to have been accepted by every college I applied to – including my top pick).

The fact is that the real sign of success is how one handles rejection throughout life. I’d argue the girl in this particular case did alright.

IT’S A SHAME she allowed herself to be used by ideologues determined to believe that the old order of society is somehow being picked upon because they’re no longer allowed to automatically prevail!

That particular ruling came out in favor of sense largely because one of the justices – Elena Kagan – had to recuse herself from the ruling because she was involved in arguing the case’s merits when she was U.S. solicitor general. Hence, we got  4-3 court ruling.

Otherwise, it could have suffered the same 4-4 vote that resulted in the high court messing with Obama’s efforts to deal with flaws existing in the immigration policy. Those people living in this country without valid visas who could show they have not caused problems while living here would have been granted work permits and would not face threat of deportation.

A concept that the ideologues find absolutely abhorrent. We might as well suggest that their political deity, Ronald Reagan, supported the dreaded “A” word of amnesty for immigration law violators.

WELL, ACTUALLY, HE did. Way back in 1986, although his policy didn’t go quite far enough in creating a sensible policy for newcomers wishing to come to this country – the fresh blood that our nation perpetually needs in order to maintain its high standards.

OBAMA: Another partisan political defeat

The court came down on partisan lines, and is being touted as the ultimate example of how the high court’s refusal to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia back in February is impacting policy negatively.

The vote was split even, meaning a majority did not uphold the lower court ruling. But a majority also did not uphold the president’s desires. In short, the issue remains in limbo. Something for political people to continue to quarrel over while real people are impacted negatively.

Which makes me wonder if that is truly the high court’s intentions these days – the ultimate ‘do nothing’ court for a society that at times seems to be going nowhere.

  -30-

How about a stalk of corn or a soybean as the new Fighting Illini mascot?

I’m writing this commentary on behalf of my late brother Christopher, who was a student down in Champaign, Ill., during the late 1980s and often had his own thoughts about the concept of Chief Illiniwek.

Could a new symbol be found in any of these historic university images?

For those not in the know, Illiniwek was the student (often a white kid) who dressed up as a native American in full Indian headdress who would do a half-time dance at the football and basketball games of the University of Illinois.

PROPONENTS OF THE Chief (and I actually once knew a guy who included being “the chief” as among his collegiate accomplishments) always claimed the costume he wore and the dance he did were authentic to the tribes of the Illiniwek Confederation – the people who were native to what is now Illinois before the French and English came.

They always claimed it to be a symbol of significance, and something much more dignified than Bucky Badger – the mascot of the arch-rival University of Wisconsin.

Of course, some people saw the notion of a white kid dancing about pretending to be an Indian chief as bordering on racism – almost as offensive as someone wearing blackface claiming to pay tribute to African-American people.

When the NCAA in 2005 threatened to penalize the university by taking away their ability to host post-season play (which would have been an economic loss), Illinois gave in and Illiniwek became history.

THERE ARE THOSE students with an ideological agenda who go out of their way to keep alive the image of Illiniwek (the kind of young, conservative-minded people that ideologue radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh is depending upon to replenish his aging listeners). His very image has become a political statement.

For what it’s worth, my brother used to think Illiniwek was far from the “honored symbol” that his proponents claimed him to be. And yes, “honored symbol” is the phrase they insist MUST be used to refer to Illiniwek. My brother thought his fans were people in serious need of a date or two.

Although he also thought the people eager to oppose Illiniwek also had way too much free time on their hands. Either that, or they were using time that ought to e devoted to studying for their classes to fight a cause.

He’d wonder how they’d explain “C’s” and “D’s” on report cards that wound up in their tuition-paying parents’ hands. “I was fighting the Chief,” is perhaps what they’d say, while their parents groaned, looked skyward and questioned the point of that tuition check they had written out.

SO IT WILL be interesting to see what happens at the university, now that officials say they’re going to replace Illiniwek with the first official mascot ever of the University of Illinois.

No word on when they’ll have an image picked, or what it will be. Let’s only hope it doesn’t turn out to be something ridiculous like the tree that represents Stanford University.

Seriously, I could easily see the mascot being a giant corn stalk – for all the corn fields that comprise a significant segment of central Illinois farms. Either that, or soybeans. Who knows, maybe a giant soybean could be the Illinois mascot, with a giant container of soy milk as its companion?

This whole search for a mascot has the potential to be quite silly – particularly since Fighting Illini athletics have managed to make it through the past decade without Illiniwek or any official mascot to replace it.

IT’S NOT LIKE the presence of a costumed character will in any way enhance the quality of play on the field or court. It would take a program much more aggressive at recruiting athletes of quality from outside of rural Illinois in order to gain public attention – the reason many Chicagoans pay much more attention to their alma mater schools than the state university.

Lovie Smith as the Fighting Illini football coach is a more important move than a new mascot. Although if it turns out that Lovie brings winning ways to Champaign, then perhaps he will become the symbol of success the college is looking for.

Although I suspect many students feel there are more important things to worry about than this issue. And the ones who do find it a priority? I suspect they’re the ones having to explain the mediocre-to-low grades to their parents every semester.

Personally, I remember my own college days at Illinois Wesleyan University where we had Tommy Titan. He’s now an elaborately costumed character, although when I was a student, he was merely a chubby kid clad in a cheap gladiator-like costume. We IWU students didn’t feel any more or less enthusiasm as a result.

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Illinois is normal to the United States, and not just because of Normal, Ill.

Some people want to quantify everything with numbers, and that has led the FiveThirtyEight.com website to do some mathematics comparing the populations of various groupings to see how they compare to the United States as a whole.

Illinois a little of everything, just like U.S.

How representative are they of the nation? Do they truly deserve to be thought of as being just like us?

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, the Chicago metropolitan area (which by their definition stretches north to Kenosha, Wis., and east to Gary, Ind.) is the seventh most like the U.S. city in the nation.

Also, Illinois is the state most like the United States as a whole. We’re what this country is all about.

Personally, I don’t find this unusual one bit.

For the fact is that Illinois is a place consisting of so many different types of people that it is a wonder we can seriously think of ourselves as a single state. And Chicago truly is the kind of place that has a little bit of everybody.

THE FACT IS there is no “typical” American, and our populations reveal that all too well.

Considering there are times when I think northern Illinois communities would be more comfortable as a part of Wisconsin, while central Illinois municipalities might well think of either Indiana or Iowa as a better fit.

Unless they happen to live near East St. Louis, in which case they align with Missouri.

And when it comes to the 30 or so southernmost counties of the state, Little Egypt probably really does think more highly of Kentucky and wonder how their home state isn’t a part of Dixie.

OF COURSE, those in metro Chicago often joke about how we’d be a better state if we didn’t have to carry all those other rubes who probably wish they were a part of some other state.

From Chicago to Cairo, ...

 We don’t have a common identity in Illinois like they do in, say, Texas.

Just like we don’t have a common identity for our nation. We are a collection of regions, each with their own character. We manage to come together to amass a single nation – but that doesn’t mean any single region is willing to subvert itself to the character of the whole.

So Illinois’ split really does make us a microcosm of the nation as a whole. We have a little bit of everybody that makes up the nation.

HECK, THE NEW York Times came up with a study of how the 50 states should be done away with and replaced by seven regions – which would unite those of similar character.

As it is, Illinois would be split in that study into three regions – Great Lakes, Great Plains and the Southeast Manufacturing Belt.

Our Chicago would be in a “state” with Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City and Minneapolis.

Which I’m sure some would say have more in common than being in a state with Rockford, the Quad Cities and Marion.

NOW I’M NOT calling for any split like this. Personally, I always found the distinct regions that felt like separate places in and of themselves as being what made Illinois a unique place.

I enjoy sharing a boundary with a place like Champaign or Bloomington (where I went to college), or even the afore-mentioned town of Normal (which is a nice place to visit, but with 85.1 percent white people living there is not the norm for the United States).

 

... we have quite the variety in Illinois

Besides, I found it interesting to see that while Illinois was the state most like the nation as a whole, Indiana was a place third-most like what the U.S. was like back in the 1950s.

We in Illinois have progressed while our Hoosier neighbors haven’t. Which may be why no amount of political rhetoric about the superiority of Indiana will ever be believable.

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