Is college getting too costly to expect anybody to afford the tuition bills?

It seems there’s a new “scam” involving ways that parents make their children out to be indigent so that they can qualify for extensive financial aid to help pay for a college education.

Their reporting may motivate the feds to act

Which some view as a problem in that there is only a limited amount of money available with which to help lower-income families in need, and these students of wealthier families theoretically are taking funds away from others who might also need the money in order to pay for college.

ALTHOUGH THE REALITY may well be that college has become so costly that just about everybody thinks they’re amongst the financially needy who need help in covering the cost of tuition bills.

I suspect many of the families whose activity has been uncovered by the ProPublica Illinois non-profit news organization think they’ve done nothing illegal, and probably think they’re the ones who are being harassed for trying to ensure that their children will have the opportunity to obtain a higher education – thereby giving them a chance to succeed in life.

They may also think that it’s not their fault they figured out a way to qualify for more financial assistance.

What the news organization, whose reports are being picked up by newspapers everywhere, has found is that there are instances where parents deliberately turning their teenaged children over to legal guardians.

WHO THEN ACKNOWLEDGE they’re doing nothing to provide for the 16- to 17-year-olds financial well-being. Which means that when the students fill out forms seeking financial aid, they can claim to be indigent and in need of help in terms of covering the entire cost of tuition.

Putting them in a much higher-priority financial aid status than they’d be able to claim if they had to admit their parents were still supporting their living expenses. Which isn’t technically illegal – although University of Illinois admissions officials called a “scam” because it alters the perception of who is indigent and who is not.

But I have to admit to sympathizing with anyone who’s trying to deal with the cost of a college education in today’s day and age. Personally, I don’t know how I’d be able to afford the cost if I were having to deal with it now.

Is this the real problem?

Heck, it seemed excessive some three decades ago when I actually was in college.

SO IT WILL be intriguing to see just how this issue plays out in the arena of public perception. Will these parents become some sort of equivalent to the actress Lori Loughlin – who now faces criminal charges for allegedly paying bribes to college admissions officials in order to get her children into the University of Southern California?

With several wealthier parents facing such charges, but prosecutors seeming to focus their attention on Loughlin because of her so-called celebrity status.

Or will this become a case of college costs having grown far out of control – to the point where perhaps we need a serious review of just what an education ought to cost and what it is worth.

Because maybe people wouldn’t be eager to “give up” their children (theoretically, that is) if tuition hadn’t skyrocketed so high that it’s a wonder anybody seriously thinks anyone is capable of paying a tuition bill without some financial help.

WHICH, OF COURSE, then gets us into a conversation into just what kind of help ought to be available. With some people touting the ideologue argument that college isn’t for everybody – and that some ought to set lower goals in life.

LOUGHLIN: No longer into noble causes

That wouldn’t be such a cheesy argument to make EXCEPT that it reeks too much of certain people arguing that the purpose of colleges ought to be to weed out certain elements of our society from trying to advance their lots in life through higher education.

An attitude that we need to advance beyond for the good of our society.

Unless you’re of the sort who thinks there’s some truth to the old gag about people who can’t get their way through college by saying, “Somebody’s got to deliver pizzas.”

  -30-

EXTRA: Gas prices on the rise. So are the level of complaints we’re hearing

Just a thought as far as people complaining about the price of gasoline going up these days on account of the increase in the state of Illinois’ motor fuel tax.

Remember when gas prices soared this high in Chicago?

Yes, it costs less in surrounding states, which could make for an advantage if one happens to be in a bordering region at the time they need to make a automotive fuel purchase.

SUCH AS MY own circumstance earlier this week when I happened to be in Gary, Ind., and encountered a Mobil gas station charging $2.69 per gallon of gas. Other stations I witnessed in the land of Hoosiers had gas prices ranging from $2.79 to $2.95.

Yet the moment I came back to the land of civilization, the cheapest gas prices I saw were around $3.19 – with motor fuel at name-brand stations costing potentially $3.30 per gallon. With the additional cost that gas usually incurs in Chicago proper, the cost goes up further.

With the gaspricewatch.com website indicating Thursday that gas prices in the city topped at $3.45 per gallon. Much higher than the national average of $2.81 per gallon.

So excuse me (think Steve Martin in the white suit with arrow through his head) if I’m not overly swayed by a story published in the State Journal-Register of Springfield (which the newspaper picked up from the Register-Star newspaper of Rockford) that says prices on the Illinois side of the Illinois-Wisconsin border are now out of control.

An outrage? Not necessarily

THE PAPERS INDICATE gas prices at $2.78 per gallon at stations in Illinois, compared to $2.61 per gallon just north of the state line in Wisconsin.

My point is there are more drastic price differentials than what this paper is trying to pursue as evidence of an outrage. Things are worse elsewhere.

And as far as my own situation, I don’t know I’m willing to make the trip to Gary every time I need to fuel an automobile. It was a circumstance that benefitted me that one day.

Now if it turns out that the gas tax revenue increase does NOT benefit all the road repairs and other projects that the state of Illinois alleges the money will go do, THEN we can rant and rage. Until then, those of us with complaints ought to quit showing that we’re more full of gas than our cars.

  -30-

Mixed message on urban violence

Call it the advantage of multiple news organizations reporting happenings – we get a more-thorough picture of reality.

Or perhaps it is the concept of dueling news organizations – with the various sides unable to agree on what they want the message to be. Which still results in a greater picture of what is occurring within our society.

THOUGHTS THAT RUN through my mind as I peruse reports by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBBM-TV – both of which purport to be about the levels of violent crime and murder that are occurring in Chicago.

With some individuals of a certain ideological leaning eager to want to believe that the city of Chicago is amongst the grubbiest, grossest, most violent places that exist within the United States – if not anywhere on Planet Earth.

Which is a gross exaggeration, although there are certain neighborhoods where the levels of violence seem so intense that we have to wonder how we as a people could ever have let conditions get so out of hand in those places. Although many of us choose to cope with such conditions by ignoring such places altogether.

The Sun-Times took the angle in a story published Monday that this very weekend that marks the half-way point through 2019 is yet another of a bloody morass that is modern-day Chicago.

THE HEADLINE ALONE says it all – 56 shot – 4 fatally – in Chicago over weekend.

With a subhead pointing out one incident alone on Saturday where five people were shot on the Near West Side, although in that incident, it should be noted that all five individuals were able to get themselves to area hospitals where they were ‘treated and released’ for their wounds.

Bloodshed galore. It’s a wonder we don’t have Donald Trump engaging in yet another Twitter-motivated rant about how gory Chicago has become.

But then, there was the CBS-operated station in Chicago, which came out with a story the same morning indicating the number of shootings in Chicago are down for 2019 – compared to the past.

ALTHOUGH WBBM-TV INDICATED that this was a particularly harsh weekend of violence in Chicago, overall, it seems there are signs of improvement.

Some 1,229 shootings in Chicago through Sunday – about 100 less than the first half of 2018 and lower than any year since 2015.

Also, we have 236 murders in Chicago thus far this year – which the TV reports indicate is 21 less than the fist half of last year.

And certainly might put Chicago at about 260 or so slayings for this year – if things continue at this rate. Far less than the recent years when the homicide totals reached 700 or more (or the late 1980s when Chicago would easily come close to 1,000 murders annually.

SO WAS THIS Chicago Police Department spin control in trying to give us a bigger picture about the amount of violence and crime occurring in Chicago? Or is it ideological prattle to come up with tales of how bloody and out-of-control the city was on this past weekend?

Or is it really evidence that “facts” can be found to justify any point of view one wants to take on just about any issue.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that some people use the story of urban violence in such ways as to confirm whatever ideological hang-ups they have about life and our society – wanting to further lambast whomever or whatever they have contempt for.

Then again, to those four people who were killed this weekend prior to Independence Day in Chicago this year, it WAS a most-tragic period of time – a moment that their families will forevermore mourn for its great loss!

  -30-

News report hedline a ‘fantasy come true’ for some twisted souls amongst us

I know I’ve written a few commentaries published here indicating how some will only be satisfied with the ongoing saga of Jason Van Dyke when there are reports about how he was killed in some sort of prison inmate brawl.

A most-definitely un-romantic Valentime's hedline

To that end, Thursday must have been a very sad day – what with the Chicago Sun-Times giving us the front page hedline “Van Dyke Beaten in Lockup.”

THE ATTACK SUPPOSEDLY took place on Van Dyke’s first day at the federal correctional center in Danbury, Ct. – within just a few hours of him being placed in a cell amongst the prison’s general population.

No word on the exact nature of the attack. As in was it a batch of black inmates who wanted to beat the stuffing out of the cracker, or white inmates who wanted a shot or two at beating on a cop?

Or maybe it was a bizarre mixture, as in Van Dyke is the factor that can unite the various factions of societal slugs who are amongst the prison populace.

To me, the sad part of this story is that I can easily envision way too many people amongst us back here in Chicago taking some sort of pleasure out of the Sun-Times hedline – which also is turning up in news organizations across the nation on account of the Associated Press doing their rewrite to spread the word.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE on a certain level, we want to let the thugs amongst us make our correctional centers are hellish a place as they can possibly be. Is it our way of giving the one-time bullies of our school yards something to aspire to?

As in they can be stupid and go to prison and have the run of the roost once they get there?

For what it’s worth, Van Dyke’s wife did her part Thursday morning to spread the story by making herself available for television cameras – where she was quick to denounce prison officials for not keeping her husband in strict segregation from other inmates.

Van Dyke's new 'humble abode,' for the time being

Which has the potential to backfire. Are we going to get a significant share of the public eager to believe that Van Dyke got what he deserved, and probably warrants much other constant abuse for the next few years – or until the Illinois Supreme Court gets around to ruling on a measure by the state Attorney General’s office

That could result in Judge Vincent Gaughan being forced to impose a harsher prison sentence than half of six years, nine months.

OF COURSE, THERE are the people who envision Van Dyke having to do another 30 or 40 years in prison until he finally dies. Which strikes me as a depressing line of thought for people to have – if they must be obsessed with Van Dyke’s life, their own must be incredibly lacking.

It’s not like I’m overly sympathetic to the plight of Van Dyke. But I do find it contemptible the degree to which some are going to find joy in his agony. Which invariably is going to motivate those amongst us willing to excuse the misbehavior of law enforcement into thinking their guy is the ultimate victim.

Although it should be noted that Van Dyke’s being placed on the East Coast, albeit in a minimum-security facility.

Illinois Corrections Department officials made the arrangements to have Van Dyke do his time elsewhere largely because they figured his very presence in a local prison facility would lead to exactly the kind of incident that occurred in Danbury.

EVEN DURING THE time that Van Dyke did at the Rock Island County Jail awaiting sentencing, he was kept in segregation away from other inmates.

So it will be interesting to see exactly how the one-time Chicago cop manages to cope with the next few years, and if officials outside of Illinois are willing to take any precautions to protect inmate safety in this case.

I know I’ve heard various prison professionals say there’s only so much that can be done to protect the inmates, and that ultimately the inmates need to be entrusted to behave themselves.

But I suspect we’re going to keep getting similar stories about Van Dyke’s plight in prison, and a certain segment of us are going to take far too much pleasure from reading them.

  -30-

EXTRA: N.Y. ‘dropping dead’ becoming a headline writing cliché

News reports emanating from New York indicate that other recent reports had a bit of truth to them – as in Amazon.com being peeved with the Big Apple and people skeptical of the financial perks the city was willing to offer the company to get them to locate a corporate headquarters there.

The Internet can be at its best … 

Specifically, in the borough of Queens – which will have to revert back to being the location of J.F.K. Airport and the ballpark of the New York Mets. Along with the television settings for the “All in the Family” and “The King of Queens” programs that continue to live on in reruns.

… when it follows sprit of 'the press'

BUT IN KEEPING with the modern-day sentiment of corporations expecting to having their every whims catered to, Amazon.com let it be known they’re upset that New York isn’t doing more for them.

They let it be known that they’re giving up on plans for a new corporate headquarters in New York to supplement their existing facility in Seattle.

Which has officials elsewhere thinking that maybe they can get Amazon.com to bring some of their business to within their boundaries – including Chicago. Which actually led Crain’s Chicago Business to give us the hedline “Amazon to New York: Drop dead.”

Which isn’t even all that clever, as it’s a direct rip-off of the 1975 New York Daily News’ headline “Ford to city: Drop dead.”

IT WAS MEANT to play up a story of then-President Gerald Ford rejecting any kind of financial assistance to New York City, with the sentiment being that the president had literally cast off the nation’s largest city.

Was this an 'Olympics to Chicago: Drop dead' moment?

Somehow, the idea that New York has people willing to stand up to Amazon.com’s corporate desires sounds more like a plus to me. I suspect many of the activist-types concerned with corporate welfare (their other favorite cliché) will take great pride in the fact that the deal is now doomed.

Just like all those people locally who take a certain amount of pride in the fact they were able to derail former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s dreams of bringing the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago.

Ouch!!!

  -30-

Fulfilling the public’s “right to know” caused me to freeze my fingers numb

Just about everybody who could find an excuse to justify it made a point Wednesday

Bogart's 'editor' never warned … 

of staying inside, not going anywhere and basically behaving themselves like a lazy slug.

I, however, was running around in the sub-zero freezing temperatures that, when combined with wind chill, felt something more like 50-below – all because of my work going about the business of trying to inform the general public.

… of winter weather reporting hazards

I AM A reporter-type person, willing to go out and seek the truth on a wide variety of issues; all with the thought and belief that I am somehow performing a sacred duty – letting the general public know what is happening in the world around them.

Wednesday’s temperatures, of course, dove down to such historically low levels that – for once – the weather was a legitimate news story.

In fact, I woke up Wednesday to learn that I was amongst the many thousands of people who had lost access to electricity during the overnight hours. Which is when I got a call from an editor-type person – ordering me to check out a tip about power outages.

Artsy images such as this … 

In this particular case, I was able to tell him from first-hand experience that there were places where there was no power.

ME, AND MANY of my neighbors, actually.

Which led me to getting into the car and driving around my neighborhood for a few blocks – looking for evidence that I wasn’t alone in being without power and no one could legitimately write me off as a financial deadbeat who fell behind on the electric bill.

I eventually found a good-samaritan type of person who was outside walking over to check on an elderly neighbor, while his own wife and child were resorting to using the fireplace to keep warm.

It made for a nice anecdote that eventually was contributed to a larger story about wintry weather conditions throughout Chicago on Wednesday.

… and scientific graphs don't adequately convey how cold Wednesday was

BUT I HAVE to confess, I was only out of the car and exposed to the elements for less than five minutes. I wore nice leather gloves that usually keep my hands warm.

When I was through, my fingertips were numbed. It actually took me about a half-hour for my digits to warm up to the point where I was physically capable of typing anything up that resembled news copy.

As I write this, I’m fine physically. There’s no lasting damage – although I wonder how much longer it would have taken before I had suffered some sort of lasting physical damage to my being. And if I could have mentally justified it.

I happen to know that when my father found out what I had done, he let it be known he thought his son was stupid (and didn’t get paid enough) for enduring such a brief moment.

BUT IT IS something I justify doing on the grounds that I’m trying to get the details, no matter how minute, about this historic day in Chicago history. Literally one in which our minus-50 degree figure will be regarded as the coldest ever in city history.

Also one where I lost count of the number of wiseacres who felt compelled to post blurbs on Facebook saying that Chicago was colder than both the North AND South poles. Even though news reports indicate we'll be back up to about 40 degrees by Monday.

Carmelo (left) and Rocco had enough sense Wednesday to 'do their business' within a minute, before racing back inside for the warmth of home

That may be factually true. But it doesn’t change much about the reality that I felt compelled to be outdoors (even though for just several five-minute bursts of time throughout the day) on this day when people who think they’re more sensible than myself made a day of doing as little as possible – and enjoying the likelihood that their employers told them to take the day off.

One final thought; will we remember this day come the summertime when we have one of those 100 degree-plus days and we’re complaining about how much we’re roasting – while thinking that a quickie blast of air from the polar vortex would somehow be a shot of relief.

  -30-

We all got to accompany the Bush funeral train, whether desired or not

I happened to be spending the afternoon Thursday watching a grandparent and taking in one of her favorite television programs (It’s “Jeopardy,” by the way), so I got to see just how peeved she became when the popular game show was interrupted for special programming.

George Bush (the elder) being removed from funeral train. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

As in the live broadcast by ABC network news of the funeral train taking the casket containing the remains of former President George Bush (the elder) to College Station, Texas.

WHERE THE PRESIDENTIAL libraries for both Presidents Bush are located, and where George H.W. will have his casket laid to rest. People who are political geeks and fanatics of the Bush presidencies will forevermore be able to pay their respects with a visit to the Texas A&M University.

Similar, I suppose, to all those Elvis fanatics who stop by his gravesite whenever they visit Graceland.

Now I point out the grandmother disdain for Thursday’s interruption, because I wonder how many others felt similar thoughts.

Bush family on hand for the burial.

Seeing the broadcasts earlier in the week of the formal funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., was one thing. There may well have been people intrigued by the site of onetime Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole standing from his wheelchair to salute the presidential casket, although I was amused by how President Donald Trump’s very presence made so many feel uncomfortable.

BUT SEEING CONTINUED live broadcasting of the Bush death-related events just seemed like overkill.

Personally, I thought the sight of the funeral train working its way through Texas was weak, and its’ arrival in College Station was way too much.

The flag-draped presidential casket on board the funeral train.

It’s a good thing the Bush family did the actual burial in private, or else I’ve got to wonder if we literally would have been given the chance to see the casket lowered into the ground and sextons dumping dirt atop it for the burial.

There are some things I just question the value of, and perhaps it is the reason I still rely on newspapers (and their affiliated websites) for much of the reporting I read.

I DO HAVE to admit to getting something of a chuckle when I saw the ABC coverage of the funeral train proceedings anchored by George Stephanopoulos – the one-time political operative who, when working for Bill Clinton back in 1992, was a big part of the team that undid the George Bush presidency.

Would he ever back then have envisioned himself in such a public role watching over the Bush funeral? I suppose it’s the ultimate evidence that life isn’t pre-ordained in any role, and any outcome is possible.

But wouldn’t we have been equally, and adequately, informed if Thursday’s activities had been summarized into a minute-long report that was merely included in the network evening newscasts?

Seriously, I don’t remember as much hoopla over the deaths of Ronald Reagan in 2004 or Richard Nixon a decade earlier as we’ve seen this week for George H.W. Bush.

I ALSO EXPECT that when the time comes for Jimmy Carter (he turned 94 back in October), his eventual funeral ritual in Plains, Ga., will also be something simpler and more laid back.

One memory of 2005 World Series was seeing the Bushes in front-row seats watching the ballgames the White Sox played in Houston

Although I suspect things could have been more drawn out. Considering that George Bush was the first former president whose funeral rituals included a train ride since Dwight Eisenhower in 1969, it also made me think of the first president to get such treatment.

As in Abraham Lincoln, whose death in 1865 resulted in a two-week trip to take the body back from Washington to Springfield, Ill. – where he remains interred at Oak Ridge Cemetery to this day.

Modern technology reduced the train trip to a single day. Just envision if it had been a weeks-long event with multiple stops along the way (as was done for Lincoln, who once served as an attorney for the Illinois Central railroad). We’d probably have all the people who didn’t vote for Bush for president back in 1988 and in 1992 rising up in great anger at the very sight.

  -30-

Any worthwhile reporter doesn’t want to be friendly w/ Trump and his toadies

There are times when I think one of my professional strengths is that personally, I’m an anti-social sort of individual.

TRUMP: He wants to be worshipped

I can be rude and pushy when need be, and I certainly don’t get offended when a person whom I deal with in my work as a reporter-type person decides they didn’t like something I wrote.

IT’S AN OCCUPATIONAL hazard that there are going to be people who are going to take offense to the notion that you’d bother to report something they’d just as soon downplay. Personally, I’ve lost count of the number of government-type geeks who have told me they’d never speak to me again!

For what it’s worth, most of them got over whatever caused them to have a tantrum in the first place. And for the ones who really did cut me off, I found they were usually the ones so interested in feeding me nothing but political “spin” that I was better off not hearing from them anymore.

They really didn’t have anything worth saying in the first place. Which some might argue applies just as much to President Donald Trump.

These thoughts have been running through my mind in recent days, as some people seem determined to make an issue out of the post-election hissy fit that Trump had in dealing with a CNN broadcaster.

THE REALITY IS that I suspect Trump was eager to want to dump all over someone that day. Election 2018 results weren’t a total loss for Trump, but they also revealed that a certain segment of our society continues to think of “the Donald” as an insipid buffoon.

And there’s nothing more that Trump thinks he has a right to demand of the American people than our eternal respect. As in we all should kneel before him – just like in that “Superman” movie where “General Zod” forces the U.S. president in the Oval Office to pledge loyalty to him.

I suspect Trump watched that film all those years ago, thought it a cool bit, and then figured Zod would kneel before he and all his money!

So should the reporter take Trump’s rant the least bit seriously? It was so staged by him that I think it shows all the more how unfit for political office he truly is.

WHEN I HEAR people try to make an issue of it, and whether or not a reporter was disrespectful toward our national “commander in chief,” I can’t help but snicker.

it is all pure theater meant to play to those ideologues who are the outspoken minority who cheer on his every idiotic comment on just about every issue.

I couldn’t help but snicker when I received in my daily e-mail load the latest poll being taken by the Trumpsters – asking us if we approve of the presidential behavior in all this issue. But going so far as to tell us outright that, “President Trump will NOT put up with the media’s liberal bias and utter disrespect for this Administration.”

This quickie poll by Trump will be as ludicrous as all the previous ones he has taken where he asks people if they merely approve of his job performance, or if they absolutely admire him.

THAT LINE ABOUT Trump not liking bias and utter disrespect truly shows the man has no clue about what is going on. Here’s the blunt truth – a reporter-type is going to refuse to be submissive toward anyone in a position of power; which us what Trump thinks he's entitled to. Anybody who thinks that’s the way it ought to be is being downright ridiculous, if not un-American.

I don’t know of any government official at any level or of any political party who thinks the reporter-types they encounter are “friends.” I don’t know of any serious reporter-type who’d want to be too friendly with government officials.

If anything, Trump needs to learn that questions about his policies aren’t personal. It’s informational, and the impression he gives off with his behavior (and making an issue of revoking access to the White House, even though I know many reporter-types who think White House access is oh so overrated) is of a sniveling, whiny child.

Butch and Woim -- Trump's idea of a great America?

With the people who want to support him coming across as toadies overly-anxious to be aligned with the schoolyard bully. Think of the old “Little Rascals” film shorts, with Trump as bully “Butch” and his supporters being the equivalent of “Woim.” Is that really the image we want for our society?

  -30-

Speculation stories – Deep thoughts of news, or just whole load of hooey?

At heart, it’s just a speculation story, as in the Chicago Sun-Times thought they could sell newspapers on Thursday with a story about the load of people who could possibly be considered as contenders for the post of Mayor of Chicago.

Will they really ALL run for mayor?

The newspaper went so far as to publish a front page depicting 38 people they’re saying are potential mayors (or “may nots,” to use the Sun-Times’ bad pun).

I’M INCLINED TO think that Rahm Emanuel is telling a tidbit of truth when he said this week the person who will replace him in the mayor’s office is someone who has yet to declare themselves a candidate.

As in the dozen or so people who have publicly stated a desire to run for mayor aren’t really credible candidates. Which means we should probably give more credence to all of the last-minute arrivals to the mayoral competition front – rather than taking seriously anybody who’s been campaigning for months, but has yet to capture the public’s imagination.

Now I’m not bashing the Sun-Times as somehow publishing nonsense information. I’m sure there are some people eager to pick at the newsgathering organization who will toss out the “fake news” label and try to proclaim this the ultimate evidence.

In reality, it is the work of some of the Sun-Times’ more experienced political reporters dredging up the information they do have to try to figure out who might well become the next mayor of Chicago following the February election and potential April run-off.

Who is Trump's anonymous critic?

PERHAPS EVEN GIVE the public a sense of just who these people are and what they might offer to the city of Chicago now that Emanuel has decided that a third four-year term as mayor just isn’t worth the electoral aggravation it would take to achieve.

Particularly since this particular election cycle in 2019 is going to be such a free-for-all – what with no incumbent and a batch of candidates with limited appeal amongst the masses of Chicago’s population.

Personally, I’m inclined to think one-time Chicago schools CEO Paul Vallas is a part of Chicago’s political past, while former Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has the stink of Laquan McDonald’s death on him just as much as those people who are determined to believe that Rahm Emanuel bears all the blame.

Gave competing paper some publicity

It’s only by comparison to those two so-called front-runners amongst the people willing to challenge Emanuel that potential candidates such as Amara Enyia or Ja’Mal Green can think they have much of a chance of succeeding.

OF COURSE, THE concept of speculation stories isn’t unique to this happening.

For another story I stumbled across on Thursday was off the CNN.com website – a piece of copy contemplating the anonymous commentary the New York Times published about high-ranking presidential staffers who supposedly are working to undermine the desires of Donald Trump out of a sense that they’re protecting the nation.

CNN decided to do a story that listed names of people who could potentially be the anonymous commentary’s author – the one who has committed an act of “treason!” (as Trump thinks it) or is the “rat” (as I’m sure a mob boss would term it).

I don’t think CNN has a clue, particularly since their list of potential political blabbermouths includes Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, or first lady Melania.

Is the public more interested in this?

I’D THINK THE chances of either Trump femme turning out to be the fink is about as likely as the Sun-Times being correct when they say one-time presidential advisor (during the Barack Obama administration) Valerie Jarrett or aging Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White (he’s 85) will become the new mayor.

It may be fun to contemplate – at least for politically-geeky types who take seriously the nuances of public policy.

Whereas I suspect many others will consider the big celebrity-style story of Thursday to be more interesting – actor Burt Reynolds died at age 82.

Perhaps they envision Reynolds approaching the pearly gates with the late actor Jackie Gleason’s “Buford T. Justice” character ready to resume their “Smokey and the Bandit” films pursuit?

  -30-

One bit of truth to Van Dyke’s talk?

VAN DYKE: His life's on trial

Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer who will go on trial beginning next week for a 2014 shooting incident that left a teenager dead, is telling a selective story to the Chicago Tribune – trying to get out some sense of the perspective that he’s not a thug in need of being locked away from society for life.

He gave the one-time World’s Greatest Newspaper an interview, and the competition Chicago Sun-Times felt compelled to do a quickie rewrite. Many broadcast outlets also are feeling compelled to acknowledge Van Dyke’s thoughts.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of the officer who admits he shot and killed Laquan McDonald back in October of 2014? It certainly isn’t his claim that he faces the possibility of life imprisonment for doing his sworn duties as a Chicago police officer.

What caught my attention was Van Dyke’s statement, during a 40-minute interview with the newspaper where his attorneys often interceded and kept him from more thoroughly answering questions, that he acknowledges the potential consequences to the city at-large.

Could there wind up being some sort of riot by people who are offended by whatever verdict of his so-called peers that a jury winds up arriving at?

“I’m very scared for it. It obviously weighs heavily upon my mind,” Van Dyke said.

SOME, I’M SURE, will think back to the days of 1968 – where the Democratic National Convention protesters were not the only ones who experienced violence that year.

It was also the year that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed by a racist-motivated assassin – and many black neighborhoods across the nation wound up in flames. Including in Chicago, where there are parts of the city’s West Side that for years remained in rubble and where they never recovered from the damage.

Does Van Dyke think he could be the cause of a similar reaction if he winds up being acquitted of the criminal charges? I don’t doubt some people would be grossly offended – and I have heard some activist types speculate how they fear this trial is headed for acquittal.

Van Dyke makes Page One in worst way possible

As though they expect “the establishment” will be prepared to protect a police officer because his “victim” was just a young, black male – particularly one whom prosecutors seem eager to label as a violent troublemaker who brought his fate upon himself.

TO TELL YOU the truth, I’m inclined to think it’s the other side that could get ugly – although I’d like to think that all could wind up showing some sense of self-restraint.

For in this Age of Trump that our society is now in, there are people who will be eager to defend Van Dyke as a cop doing his duty. They’ll want to think any kind of punishment is improper – and evidence that our society is all awry and out-of-whack with common sense.

People often talk about how there are “two Chicagos,” one upscale and thriving while the other is a dumping ground for those individuals whom the elite don’t want near them.

Could it be that Van Dyke and one’s attitude towards his actions will merely wind up being yet another bit of evidence as to which Chicago faction one falls into?

EVEN VAN DYKE himself realizes he’s going to be remembered in our city’s history for reasons he likely would never have dreamed possible and probably wishes he could avoid at all costs.

There is, of course, the ironic part of Van Dyke feeling compelled to submit to a newspaper interview. Prosecutors and his defense attorneys will be looking to pick a jury from those individuals who paid absolutely no attention to what was said or written about the case.

Meaning his words technically won’t influence them when they decide his fate of “guilt” or “innocence.”

They’re more meant to influence the way the rest of us think when we make our snap judgments after the trial is over about just how stupid that jury could possibly be for the verdict they ultimately reach.

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It almost sounds like a writer’s dream – living off past rounds of copy

A part of me wonders if Mike Royko, the late columnist for just about every newspaper that existed in Chicago, has the ultimate fantasy assignment.

He hasn’t had the pressure of meeting a deadline in just over two decades – yet the two remaining metro papers in this city seem eager to dredge up his old columns (some 30-plus years worth of copy) and use them to fill the space they’re so desperately eager to create around the declining number of advertisements.

IT KIND OF threw me off for a second when I saw the editorial pages of the Chicago Tribune on Sunday included a Royko column amongst their choice commentary.

They dredged up a column from the 1980s (back in the days when George Bush, the elder was president) where Royko used his aging Slats Grobnik persona to mock Republicans for trying to be holier than thou and make it appear as though God himself is the ultimate member of the Grand Old Party.

I’d say they were trying to make Jesus out to be the ultimate Republican. But in today’s day, there are many Jesuses of a Latino ethnic persuasion whom the hard core of the Republican Party are looking for excuses to deport.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times continued its trend of the past couple of months and published an old Royko column on Monday – but only online.

PEOPLE READING SUNTIMES.com could see an even older column from the 1960s where Royko told the tale of how big, corporate-minded businesses were squeezing the little guy out of work.

Specifically, he told of a one-time neighborhood cleaners where the woman who owned and operated it all by herself had to work extra-long hours, but eagerly did so to meet the desires of her customers.

Which, Royko claimed, was something that the new, modern cleaners in the neighborhood would never bother to do.

But they were able to justify charging a slightly cheaper price (you save perhaps a nickel) for their services, gambling that people would be so eager to save any money that they’d accept the lesser personal service and lack of a personal touch.

MUCH HAS BEEN made by the Sun-Times of how they’re dredging through their archives for Royko copy (both from when he wrote for the Sun-Times proper and also when he was a focal point of the old Chicago Daily News) out of the concept that what he said about issues way back when has an eerie relevance to modern times.

I’m sure the Tribune thinks the same thing. Although I also noticed that the Royko column published in the Sunday paper included a tag at the end informing the reader how the Tribune’s book publishing wing is coming out with a new book soon – one that compiles several of the Royko columns he wrote during the 17 years he was with the Chicago Tribune.

That book will be available for purchase come mid-August, and I’m sure somebody thinks (or at least desperately hopes) that somebody reading the column in the paper will choose to buy the book.

Personally, I don’t know that I feel the need to rush right out and buy a copy – largely because I actually own all six of the compilations of newspaper columns that Royko had published when he was actually alive.

I ALSO HAVE a hard-cover first edition of “Boss,” the biography he wrote of Richard J. Daley back when “Hizzoner” himself was still alive.

That book is one I have quoted from on occasion in this very weblog when trying to tell the history of Chicago politics. It may be the best piece of writing ever about our city’s political scene (although Milton J. Rakove’s “We Don’t Want Nobody Nobody Sent” has the best title ever).

You’ve got to admit, for a guy who hasn’t written a word since 1997 (he died a month after writing his final column for the Tribune), it’s impressive the staying power that the man’s copy has. Although I’m sure there are some snot-nosed brats out there reading this who are going to be taking a sense of pride in saying, “Royko? Never heard of him!”

All I know is that I seriously doubt anybody will be dredging up anything I (or 99 percent of the rest of the populace that tries to claim themselves to be writers for a living) ever wrote some two decades after my own eventual demise.

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EXTRA: A 'rap' about the news?

Is this a “first” in the history of the assorted outlets that attempt to report the news in Chicago – a transaction reported in a rap song?

CHANCE: New 'media' baron?

For it seems that Chancellor Bennett, the entertainer known as Chance the Rapper, has bought the rights to resume publication of the one-time website The Chicagoist – which died last year when its owner closed down partially in response to attempts to organize his web site labor with a union.

IT SEEMS THAT New York Public Radio had acquired the rights to the web site, along with similar sites in other cities. They have since been selling them off to local entities with an interest in resuming publication.

In the case of chicagoist.com, they sold the rights to Social Media LLC, a company created by Bennett to try to promote representation of more non-white people within the local media. He actually released (via the Internet) a rap song with lyrics about his new purchase ("I bought the Chicagoist just to run you racist bitches outta business," he sang, along with, "Rahm you done, I expect a resignation"), then a formal statement about his desires to have control over a media voice.

I can’t think of any past media purchase that quite got the word out through such a means.

It will be interesting to see what plans, if any, Bennett has for use of the new website (and its archives) he has acquired. Will it change much? Will it be The Chicagoist of old?

Two North Side-focused media properties now owned …

IT’S JUST THAT it strikes me change will need to occur because the Chicagoist web site always struck me as one put together by people whose view of Chicago focused heavily on those North Side neighborhoods where white people are in abundance – and the idea of people of color usually referred to the assorted ethnic restaurants one could find up there.

I can’t see how that would continue under new ownership. Not that there’s anything wrong with such change – unless the old readers are determined to reject the notion.

… by entities fully aware of 'black' Chicago

I actually have similar thoughts about The Reader, which the Chicago Sun-Times recently sold to the owner of the Chicago Crusader and its sister newspaper, the Gary Crusader. Those publications most definitely try to cover the parts of Chicago where black people are in abundance and other news outlets often ignore.

Whereas the Reader has always been a publication focused extensively on the north lakefront and where many South and West side residents can’t find a copy anywhere near where they live. Change is in the air, and we’ll have to see if we get a better-informed Chicago populace as a result.

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