Chicago Daily Observer

Chicago’s second biggest daily responds to my article on the Windy City’s Nanny State proclivities with an endorsement of many of the policies I criticize.

Reason mocks the city for requiring that fat cops shape up, providing them with nutritionists and trainers to help.

We don’t. Police work is physical work. A cop has to be in shape.

Fair enough. But my mocking was more about the fact that after a year of headlines about police abuses, it just struck me a bit odd that the Board of Aldermen’s biggest concern while I was in town researching the article was a proposal to assign cops personal trainers at taxpayer expense.

Reason knocks the mayor for regulating thousands of taverns—evil peddlers of demon rum—out of existence. Chicago has only about 1,300 taverns today, compared with about 7,000 in the 1940s.

We don’t. A lot of those joints were buckets of blood ... Read More...

What better sign do we have that Obama Central is running scared in the wake of Rev. Jeremiah’s sermons than this plaintive plea by Sun-Times columnist and O. enthusiast Mary Mitchell:

We get it. A lot of white people were offended by snippets of sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. [She doesn’t get it.]

But frankly, critics and those who are supporting a candidate other than Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination have gotten all of the mileage they can out of this debate. [No.]

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In the WWII Sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, an illuminating laugh-getter was for the Allied POW‘s to observe the choice of the hapless Col. Klink, then chose the opposite. As Klink was generally wrong, inverting his decision tended to have good results.

Brilliantly, The Sun Times has picked up on the Klink Heuristic in endorsing Republican Jim Oberweis in the 14th Disctrict of the US House. The “Republican” Tribune has endorsed Oberweis opponent, Democrat Bill Foster.

Simply inverting the opinion of the Tribune is bound to be a major improvement over the Cheryl Reed Sun-Times. Well Done, Bright One!

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In recent years, Americans have been forced to deal with a rash of senseless, inexplicable school shootings such as that which occurred at Northern Illinois University last week leaving five innocents dead.

Part of the unhappy search for explanations in the wake of these gruesome events has invariably included inane pronouncements from the media.

After Virginia Tech, Lisa Ling used her platform on the Oprah Winfrey Show to openly worry about a backlash against “anyone who looked Asian”. Of course, this did not happen. Ling, you see, was unable to wrap her mind around the concept that the rest of America did, which is that it was a single, deranged person who happened to be South Korean who was responsible for the carnage, not the Asian community.

Group responsibility is no responsibility. Thank goodness regular Americans have the common sense that seems to regularly evade so many of our media ... Read More...

There is a school of thought in journalism according to which it is bad form to mention the race or ethnicity of a criminal suspect or defendant unless there is a compelling reason to do so. The idea is that such references gratuitously perpetuate stereotypes while imparting information that is of no use to the reader.

But racial and ethnic groups are not the only ones who take offense at such stereotypes, as the New York Times reports:

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In a Sun Time’s Column, Fr Andrew Greeley states:

If we are to believe the media, the Catholic bishops warned American Catholics that if they voted for a candidate who supported abortion, their eternal salvation might be in jeopardy. I don’t think that’s what they really said, but, alas, the bishops generally have a hard time making clear what they actually are saying. The media don’t do nuance very well, and bishops have a hard time conveying their intent in words that fit into a 750-word story or a 90-second TV clip. Hence, they add confusion upon confusion, and many Catholics simply dismiss them with a snide comment about the sexual abuse of children.

Read More of Greeley's Column Here in the SunTimes. Fr. Greeley's column prompted the following letter from the Archdiocese of Chicago:

Greeley’s viewpoint doesn’t make sense

Fr. Andrew Greeley’s article “Bishops’ message wins ... Read More...