All too often, I read and hear rhetoric from people who claim we as a society should emphasize our commonalities instead of trying to be individuals, particularly when it comes to racial and ethnic differences among us.
Of course, what that usually means is that the person in question views [...]
The Damaso Marte whom I recall pitching for the Chicago White Sox back in the mid-2000s (including the ballclub that won the World Series in 2005) may have had outstanding “stuff.”
We have exactly three months from Monday until the primary Election Day in Illinois. Then, we have exactly 9 more months until the general election is complete, and we can be spared the nonsense that typically fills the “silly season.”
I’ll give the “Mighty Quinn” the benefit of the doubt when he says now that he’s inclined to sign into law a measure that would impose limits on campaign contributions.
The World Series begins Wednesday, and some of us will take some amusement at the sight and sound of Ozzie Guillen offering “astute” commentary about the level of play.
In my mind, the World Series this year just got interesting.
I have been to enough rallies and events as a reporter-type person in which the conservative opposition to Barack Obama vents its views that I have repeatedly heard how the incumbent U.S. president is “Hitler-esque.”
There are those people who want to believe that “guilt by association” with now-impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich will cause many Democrats to go down to defeat come Election Day, but a pair of surveys make me wonder if continued screeching of Milorod’s name will be enough [...]
I’m curious to see the so-called Chicago zoned coverage that is being proposed by the New York Times as a way of strengthening that newspaper’s position as a national publication.
There are times when people do things politically just because they think the “time” is right, and that waiting for a more opportune moment would be waiting for something that will never occur.
Back in the days when I was a reporter-type person covering the Illinois Legislature, one of the few legislators willing to speak his mind on a regular basis was then-state Sen. Denny Jacobs, D-East Moline.
It’s going to be a common sight for the next few days at the Statehouse in Springpatch – various groups are going to send people to the Capitol in hopes of rallying in the rotunda (to the left) and urging the General Assembly to get off [...]
I’ll state it up front. Today, I’m a grumpy old man who’s going to tell you how much better things were when I was young. So if you’re one of those 18-year-olds who can’t handle being reminded that there was a Planet Earth and a society [...]
The Republican Party’s field of candidates for Illinois governor is a mass of candidates of varying ideological thought processes, including a pair of candidates who are going to try to pass themselves off as The Man who can bring back the glory days of 1995 and [...]
Even if President Barack Obama had unanimous political support across the nation, there’s no way he could have done anything in his first nine months as president that would legitimately make him worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.
I couldn’t help but notice Friday the portion of the University of Chicago’s website devoted to the fact that so many recipients of the Nobel prizes are faculty, former students or have some other connection to the Hyde Park-based university.
I woke up Wednesday and flipped on a television, only to have my first conscious moment of the day become a graphic on the TV screen that read “Chicago violence.”
After spending the summer months watching the Cook County Board engage in purely political actions against each other, it was nice to read about how the county board was united Tuesday – even though their ultimate motivation is the same, hoping to score points on some [...]
Once again, we can see why it is a mistake to automatically assume the Supreme Court of the United States is some ideological machine that will automatically rule to uphold one conservative cause or another.
Call it one of the quirks of being the transportation hub of the United States. It makes it possible for just about any incident to have a Chicago connection.
Some people are expected to gather Friday at the site of this proposed Olympic Stadium in Washington Park so they can feel like they were "there" when they learned where the 2016 summer Olympics were to be held. Illustration provided by www.Chicago2016.org.
I can already sense the “glee” in the words of the so-called “gun nuts” who learned Wednesday that the Supreme Court of the United States will hear arguments and ultimately issue a ruling in a lawsuit that challenges Chicago’s ability to ban firearms within the city [...]
When President Barack Obama insisted he could not be present in Copenhagen on Friday to learn whether his adopted hometown gets the 2016 Summer Olympic games, the claim was always that he was so busy trying to reform the way health care is paid for that [...]
I must admit to finding it humorous whenever a contemporary baseball manager complains about how the modern-day athlete doesn’t take “the game” as seriously as the old-school athletes did back in the days when he played.
How many of you remember the Chicago Sun-Times’ attempt a couple of years ago to have some fun at the expense of Sam Zell and the Chicago Tribune by organizing a contest asking people to put together videos explaining why Zell should never consider changing the [...]
This could be a new technique – those who are convicted of criminal offenses get out of prison and sue everybody they can think of for all the bad things that happened to them during their legal proceedings.
I must admit to being a little bit amazed at the thought that the Chicago Police Department was formally cutting off the detail that was offering protection to the home on the border between the Kenwood and Hyde Park neighborhoods that served as the very unhumble [...]
Milton Bradley was supposed to be a hard-hitting outfielder who would help the Chicago Cubs overcome their shortcomings of the past couple of seasons and actually win a National League championship.
I got my chuckle when I picked up a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times (and not just from that photograph of President Barack Obama looking like a dork while waving that toy “light saber” about) and saw the advertising sticker that had been pasted onto Page [...]
In theory, I want to give the Chicago Park District a pat on the back for taking a hard line stance with regards to the family of Chicago Bears great Walter Payton, who want to put a statue of “Sweetness” outside the stadium where the Bears [...]
Perhaps it was the effect of the Allegra that he said he took Wednesday morning, but Cook County Board President Todd Stroger seemed in a snarkier-than-usual mood when the county board met Wednesday.
There is a part of me that has never understood why the presence of certain people should have an influence on the outcome of events.
There’s only one statement I can positively make. The attention span of Chicagoans on Friday was focused on a Springfield. Of course, I suspect more cared about the Massachusetts version of the city rather than the central Illinois version.
Usually, I detest having to write about political polls.
It amazes me to learn when government officials use private resources to conduct official business. Are they that gullible?
One moment I remember from Ken Burns’ early 1990s documentary “The Civil War” was listening to the late Southern historian Shelby Foote talk about how the conflict was caused by a failure of the American people to reach a compromise, when it is our ability to [...]
I’m trying to figure out in my mind these days whether the upcoming campaign season is going to turn Judy Baar Topinka into the Republican version of Pat Quinn or Roland Burris.
It is classic newspaper news dissemination – to learn something about a newspaper’s business operation, one has to read the competition.
Didn’t we just finish a Supreme Court nomination process?
It was Saturday night and I happened to be in downtown Chicago with about a half-hour’s worth of time to kill when I ventured into a bookstore on State Street.
Sometimes, I think people need to be reminded that their distaste for Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is not universal.
The Cook County Board took a month off during August for a summer “break,” but it appears the political stunts will resume in earnest when they reconvene Tuesday.
I’m not sure what to think of the fact that Mark Kirk is using Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to help plug his bid to move up to a seat in the U.S. Senate.
One of my first jobs after completing a college education was one I often have alluded to in my commentaries published here – I was a reporter-type person for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago.
If Chicago wasn't ready for reform in '55, then the actions at the Thompson Center on Thursday showed that Illinois still isn't ready in '09. Photograph provided by State of Illinois. 
Illinois state Sen. William Delgado, D-Chicago, is about to get his moment of “glory.” Every nativist nitwit will be trying to jump down his throat on account of the fact that one of his bills this spring actually got signed into law.
I am now “friends” with Pat Quinn.
Did the head of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency just get job security for the next year, despite the fact that his office may not have done enough to investigate environmental wrong doers?
Roughly $2.7 million.
My mind is somewhat weary these days from all the hype it has encountered about the significance of what happened 40 years ago.
Gov. Pat Quinn might have the right idea by not getting all worked up over the thought that some of the largest counties in Illinois want to exempt themselves from the new state law that makes video poker legal.
It seems he just can’t get those chants of “Roland, Roland, Roland” out of his head.
Rod Blagojevich, who has morphed himself into a radio talk show host who makes shameless television appearances and will soon come out with a self-serving book, is now trying to spin how wonderful he is on the Internet.
I’m about to “age” myself – I can remember the days when Illinois motorists received a brand new license plate every single year.
It’s “tick off” time.
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought that a Chicago Cubs “fan” now faces some sort of criminal charge because he got caught up in the moment and let his beer cup 
There are a lot of films that like to think they’re about Chicago, even though about the only thing they do for the city is use the downtown skyline as a back
