Moderation supreme in gun decision

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision that gun ownership is an individual right turned Mayor Richard Daley into a fiery pillar, visible to the naked eye as far away as Rockford.

Daley declared the District of Columbia vs. Heller decision to be "frightening," "outrageous" and a "return to the days of the Wild West." You would have thought the court had ruled that free bazookas were to be handed out to gang members..

If this is the level of reflection with which he approached other major issues—such as the construction of the Chicago Children's Museum in Grant Park—then it is our turn to be frightened and outraged. Despite Daley's hysterics, Chicago, Wilmette, Morton Grove and other towns with handgun bans aren't being told they can no longer regulate the weapons. They just have to come up with regulations that make sense and pass constitutional scrutiny.

So, calm down and read the opinion, starting with the 2nd Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That means, gun-control proponents argue, that you have a "right" to have or carry guns only if you are a member of a militia. The court said, no, it also means that individuals have gun rights for other reasons, including the protection of yourself and your family in your home. The right of self-protection is the essence of the 2nd Amendment, and you've got to have a good reason for restricting that right. By the court's standards for judging what is and isn't constitutional, no such reason exists, the majority said. "Few laws in the history of our nation," the court said, "have come close to the severe restriction of the District's handgun ban."

Read the 157-page opinion, and you'll see that there are good arguments for and against the ban—if you can get through the jargon about "prefatory clauses" and "operative clauses." But the most important part of the decision is the majority's statement that the right to bear arms, while an individual right, is not an absolute right. It's a truth that absolutists on both sides of the issue seem to forget. It's worth quoting at length: "It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed-weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the [2nd] Amendment or state analogues. The court's opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. [A previous court decision] that the sorts of weapons protected are those 'in common use at the time' finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons . . . Thus, we do not read the 2nd Amendment to protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation, just as we do not read the 1st Amendment to protect the right of citizens to speak for any purpose."

In this, the court's decision is entirely moderate. You have a right to a handgun, but that right is limited. Just as the right to speak freely is limited. Just as every right listed in the 1st Amendment is limited. Thus, the late Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' famous dictum against falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater.

If there is one thing I think that we should all be able to agree on it is that no right is unlimited. On second thought, there is a group of folks who still cling to the dangerous credo that rights—or at least one right—is unlimited: the absolutists who support the court decisions 35 years ago—Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton—that proclaimed that the right to an abortion shall not be limited by anything.

Maybe D.C. vs. Heller will help open their eyes and minds to some degree of moderation. And perhaps Heller foreshadows the court acting to correct its earlier grievous error.

Words You Cannot Say About George Carlin

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

It boggles the mind how a culture can lionize the recently departed comedian George Carlin while simultaneously consigning radio guy Don Imus to the lowest precincts of hell.

They both have made a raunchy career out of “offending,” yet one—Carlin—was revered and eulogized while the other—Imus—is despised. After Carlin, 71, died of heart failure last Sunday, the praise rolled in, about his genius and brilliance, his ground-breaking comedy and social commentary, his willingness to challenge the powerful, and his advocacy for free speech. He, indeed, was all of that.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Scalia loves gang-bangers

"The ruling puts [Justice Antonin] Scalia and the four other conservative justices squarely on the side of the gang-bangers who terrorize far too many of urban American neighborhoods today."--Oak Park Village President David Pope.

I was wondering who would be the first jerk to say this. I don't know that Pope was the first, but he was the first to make it into print in these precincts. Fair-minded people can disagree on the merits of the Supreme Court decision confirming an individual's qualified right to own guns, and we all could do everyone else a service by reading the opinion before issuing absurdities like Pope's. It's as stupid as saying that if you're pro-choice, you are in favor of murdering children.

Yes, do it, Guv

Blagojevich vows $2B in cuts unless Madigan caves

And be sure, while you're at it, to cut some of your own wasteful programs.

Great Lakes oil drilling an idea to be delved

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

It's easy enough for us flatlanders to favor offshore drilling to increase oil supplies and bring down gasoline prices. But what if the "offshore" we're talking about is drilling in Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes?

Picture drilling rigs in the lake within sight of Chicago and North Shore towns. Imagine oil spills and near-dead, crude-oil-soaked birds flopping about on Oak Street Beach. Imagine the disappearance of smelt and salmon. Imagine poisoned water supplies. Imagine the end of the world.

Well, at least that's the kind of exaggerated rhetoric we'll hear from the East, West and Gulf Coasts in response to proposals by President Bush and the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, John McCain, to lift the federal ban on drilling on America's outer continental shelf. Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama wants to keep the ban.

Neither proposal explicitly calls for drilling in the Great Lakes, and I'm not for raising alarms. But Congress imposed a ban on it a few years ago, and Congress can remove it. Don't think there's no interest in drilling in the Great Lakes. Michigan draws the greatest interest because it (and parts of other Midwest states) is sitting on top of the Niagaran coral reef, believed to be loaded with oil and natural gas reserves. Just under Lake Erie is a trillion cubic feet of natural gas, waiting to be tapped. Politically, the idea might seem dead right off the bat. After all, who would dare violate the health and sanctity of the world's largest body of fresh water?

Canada would. And does. Yes, politically correct Canada, that one. In addition to the Great Lakes, Canada allows offshore drilling in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. (The People's Paradise of Cuba also is eyeing offshore drilling, some of it as close as 45 miles to the Florida coast, using techniques much less environmentally sound than American companies.)

Maybe Obama, in the interests of clean water, thinks he could jawbone Canada and Cuba into giving up those oil and natural gas resources. Michigan has several active wells tapping into the reserves under the lake using "directional drilling," allowing drilling on the diagonal, as it were, reducing chances of an in-water oil spill. (Environmentalists also oppose this technique.) Those wells were grandfathered in before the Great Lakes ban was imposed.

America's outer continental shelf holds some 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which according to Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is more than 25 years of Saudi Arabian imports. That's in addition to the uncounted billions of barrels in North American oil shale, which, of course, is being extracted by Canada, but not by the United States.

Is Great Lakes drilling safe? Has it brought alarming and wholesale environmental destruction? A 2002 report by the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan asserted that drilling in Lake Erie has caused 51 natural gas leaks from 1997 to 2001 and 83 oil spills from 1990 to 1995. The group's report, called "Dirty Drilling," called the leaks significant and a threat to wildlife. Canadian authorities dispute the report and call the drilling safe.

Well, not to worry. Nothing will happen. Nothing ever does.

Just a few days ago, a Republican effort to open more costal waters to exploration was defeated on a party-line vote. "We are kidding ourselves if we think we can drill our way out of these problems," pronounced House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.).

Good thinking. With it, Democrats will get creamed in the fall elections.

The American people are smart enough to know that opening up more domestic exploration and production won't bring down prices today or tomorrow. Just as they're smart enough to know that solar and wind power won't do it either. The American people know that the Democratic "Why bother?" reasoning eventually will leave this country in desperate shape.

These environmental die-hards are the same folks who opposed a $3.6-billion expansion of BP's northwestern Indiana oil refinery because it would add capfuls of pollutants to Lake Michigan. Called on their exaggerated claims, they reverted to the petulant argument: It doesn't matter that nothing bad will happen.

No, I'm not advocating drilling in the Great Lakes, at least not yet. There are better offshore coastal alternatives. But on our present course, what will happen is that supply won't keep up with demand, prices will continue to rise to—what?—$5, $6 or more a gallon. The American public will know where to look when figuring out who is to blame.

The Sun-Times turns Mariotti into the Teflon columnist

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Jay Mariotti, the Sun-Times sport oracle, had left a message on my voice mail, and, ooh, was he mad.

It was, maybe, a dozen years ago when I was an editorial board member and columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times. As a White Sox fan, I had written something (I presume it must have been nice) about the team and its owner Jerry Reinsdorf. Mariotti disagreed. Furiously.

Don’t you know, Mariotti raged, that “they” are talking about “it.” By “it,” it turned out that Mariotti had written a contrary column on the same subject (I hadn’t seen or heard about it before I wrote mine) and “they” were, presumably, his sports writing colleagues who were having a chuckle that someone from the same paper would disagree with His Majesty.

Most of the rest of the irate message is lost in the fog of my memory, except for this ending: “The next time you write about it, check with me first.”

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Nothing more needs to be said

Daley defends Blagojevich

More Problems at O'Hare Airport

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

If Mayor Richard M. Daley can’t get his phantasmagoric O’Hare Airport expansion plan completed in time for the 2016 Olympics, maybe he can get the Games postponed.

That’s because he has a better chance of getting the Olympics delayed than he has of realizing his airport expansion hallucination by then.

Doubt that? Then consider the Daley airport record so far: False starts, delays, broken promises, excuses. After huge cost overruns and missed timetables for just the first, northern runway (still not open) of the expansion plan’s Phase 1, the news out of City Hall is that Daley has ordered that $200 million more be spent on what only can be called the premature planning and engineering of the even more difficult Phase 2. That’s even though the financially troubled airlines that are supposed to pay for much of the entire expansion have said they are not in for phase 2.

Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer

Is the war over yet?

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Before Barack Obama can get his presidential hands on the Iraq War, it might end, not in disaster as he figures, but in an American victory.

He, his fans and much of the media haven't noticed in the heat of the presidential campaign, but the war is winding down, if not nearing its end. Fewer military and civilians killed or wounded; fewer insurgent attacks; more order and security, especially in such troubled areas as Basra and Sadr City; more reconciliation; improved quality of life, and—not the least—greater liberties.

Still, Obama's perspective remains unchanged. There's no accommodation to changed circumstances, only his iron-willed pandering to anti-war voters. As of this writing, his campaign's Web site proclaims: "Obama would immediately begin to pull out troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year." Who knows, at the pace of progress in Iraq, maybe the troops could come home even quicker. But for Obama to withdraw troops faster than his stone-set timetable, he would have to acknowledge the progress Iraq has made. And explain how he would continue that progress. He would have to be as responsible as The Washington Post, which in a June 1 editorial noted: "Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed [Iraqi] government and army may be winning the war." The Post, ever critical of the policies of President Bush, could never be confused with drooling neocons.

No one should be uncorking the champagne and breaking out the ticker tape, and it is convenient for me—a war supporter—to quote the Post when it supports my position. So, let's turn to the Brookings Institution's "Iraq Index," which from the start has tried and succeeded to be the war's most objective observer.

It shows that civilian deaths, which a year ago numbered in the thousands a month, are down dramatically, although the hundreds still dying are way too many. Also dropping remarkably is the number of U.S.troops killed and wounded.

The number of Iraqi forces deployed is steadily increasing while the number of attacks against U.S. and other coalition forces is down dramatically. So is the number of Iraqi police and military personnel killed each month. The number of joint security stations and combat outposts, which are security checkpoints in strategic areas throughout Baghdad and manned 24 hours a day by U.S. and Iraqi security forces, has more than doubled. The number of multiple fatality bombings has dropped considerably, testimony to the greater security brought by the surge.

There have been no kidnappings of foreign nationals—once a standard tactic for insurgents—for the last year. Attacks on Iraqi oil and gas personnel and installations (e.g. pipelines) have nearly disappeared. Measures of political and press freedoms have improved appreciably, more children are attending school, more judges are being trained. Quality-of-life indicators have improved. Gross domestic product is more than twice what it was before the war. There has been an explosion of telephone and Internet use, of independent media and car ownership.

Since the surge has succeeded, war opponents have redirected their criticism: The Iraqis, critics say, have made no progress on the political front, which was supposed to be the point of the surge. The Iraq Index authors, Michael O'Hanlon and Jason Campbell, don't agree; they see a glass half full. On a scale of 0-to-1, the authors give a score of 0.5 to six benchmark categories dealing with de-Baathification, amnesty, purging extremists from government, security-force hiring, distribution of federal funding to provinces and allocation of provincial powers. Progress on issues dealing with Kirkuk, a permanent hydrocarbons law and provincial elections scored zero. In other words, progress on political benchmarks totaled five out of a possible 11. Not bad when you consider it took America 11 years after its independence to set up a workable form of government in the Constitution.

This is not to say that Iraq isn't a violent, dangerous place. And, of course, serious problems remain, such as inflation and unemployment. But Iraq isn't the same place that it was a year ago, which is one change that Obama needs to recognize.

Instead of just talking about change, Obama should start showing how he will adapt to change and continue the progress that the Bush administration achieved in Iraq.

Technology can't improve a stupid idea

Mayor says CTA 'super station' plan lacks punch of technology -- chicagotribune.com

Block 37 has been from the start a couple of decades ago one of the most ill-conceived urban renewal projects in this city's history. It's the only major undeveloped Loop block because the government decided it could do better than the private developers that have developed the other downtown sites.

The worst part of Block 37 was the idea of running "express" trains from a superstation in the basement to O'Hare Airport, on a CTA that clearly couldn't handle anything but local trains. Daley apparently thinks that it still can be done, even though the answer is obvious: Run express trains on existing Metra or other rail rights-of-way from existing downtown terminals.

Such trains could run to O'Hare much faster and at a fraction of the capital costs. Daley would never go along with it because it has to be "his" express trains, running on "his" decrepit CTA system, provided by "his" contractors and manned by "his" workers. And to hell with what makes sense for the metropolitan community.

And so it goes for America's most stubborn and short-sighted mayor.

Should you be able to impeach someone just because he is a blockhead?

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

You should if he’s Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

And surprisingly, under the Illinois Constitution, you can.

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, which requires “high crimes and misdemeanors” as justification for impeachment and removal from office, the state Constitution is purposely vague on the subject. So being the blockhead he is, the General Assembly can grant his most cherished desire: to become a permanent resident of Ravenswood who never, ever needs to go to Springfield again.

To that I’d say hurrah and alleluia. And three cheers for the Democratic staff, which works under the direction of Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, for getting the ball rolling for laying out one of the best indictments I’ve seen yet for kicking In-Rod-We-Trust out of office.

Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer

They must have been taking smartin' pills

The national media (at least the New York Post) are finally catching on:

OBAMA'S 'MOB-TIE' $IDEKICK - New York Post

Read "Caution: Offense Ahead" in the box to the right...

Then check out this article in the New York Times:

American Exception - Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech - Series - NYTimes.com

In memory of Gilda Radner

McCain's citizenship called into question

"Candidate may not qualify as 'natural born'"

NBC (who else?) reports that the liberal blog world is abuzz with speculation that McCain might not meet the constitutional requirement that only a "natural born" citizen can be president. If he was born in a hospital with with anesthetics, how can he be considered "natural born?" He should drop out of the election now, and save everyone the trouble of fighting over it.

What's that? "Natural born" means that he has to have born a U.S. citizen?

Never mind.

One down, one to go.

Obama's VP search leader quits

And Jim Johnson should, considering the background, as described by the Washington Post: He received more than $2 million in home loans that might have been below average market rates from the troubled Countrywide Financial, a partner of Fannie Mae and a leading purveyor of the kind of subprime mortgages that spawned a national housing crisis. For Obama-type agents-of-change, Johnson is exactly the kind of character they are supposed to despise.

But then there's a second member of the committee, Eric Holder, a Justice Department official involved in the disgraceful and yet-to-be-justified pardons and commutations granted by Bill Clinton on his way of the White House. Two of those pardoned were hippie-era radicals Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, persons that Obama had tried to distance himself from. If Obama didn't know that Holder spelled trouble, then Obama don't know nothing.

Already, Republicans criticism of Obama's "judgment" has become a campaign cliche, but the more that Obama reveals about himself and his friends, the more we have to wonder whether the change agent is a complete dolt.

The hunt is on for something else to rip up in Grant Park

No surprise here; the Chicago City Council today approved a new home for the Children's Museum in Grant Park.

Now that we've got it straight that Grant Park can be torn up on the whim of Mayor Richard M. Daley, as if it were another Meigs Field, maybe we should look around Grant Park for what's next to go. You've got all that empty space in the south end of the park, by Buckingham Fountain and the rose gardens that's just going to waste when it could be home to a horse farm and polo fields for Cindy Prizker's pals.

Or replace the puzzling Magdalena Abakanowicz's permanent statuary park, Agora, and its 106 9-foot-tall, headless cast-iron figures. Named for the marketplaces often used for political and public assembly in ancient Greece, its symbolism is no longer necessary. We don't need no more symbols in praise of of public discourse.

Energy Watchdog Sees Demand for Crude Slowing - WSJ.com

Energy Watchdog Sees Demand for Crude Slowing - WSJ.com: "The lower demand outlook is beginning to jibe with anecdotal evidence in key consuming nations. In the U.S., Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles in March compared with a year earlier -- the sharpest monthly drop since the government began collecting such data in 1942 and the first contraction in that month since the 1979 Iranian revolution."

I bring you this good news (it reduces demand for gasoline, exerting down pressure on prices, and reduces gases blamed for causing global warming) because NBC's news anchor Brian Williams failed to mention it in tonight's newscast. But he did mention another part of the report--that spare OPEC pumping capacity is now lower than it has been since late 2006, which can lead to higher prices.

Here's yet another example of how the astonishingly biased Williams reports the bad news, but not the good, especially if it casts a shadow over the Bush administration.

One more thing:

Williams and NBC, reporting directly from Afghanistan, did a piece on how, since the defeat of the Taliban, girls now are allowed to go to school. No mention, of course, by Williams that it was the lying and hated George W. Bush made all that possible.

An item from the sound-the-alarm-department

This New York Times article frets that this will be an average harvest, which in the face of the global food shortage (a recent addition to the sound-the-alarm-department) will spell catastrophe. The story is illustrated with a picture that shows a sparse Indiana cornfield, with corn that is now supposed to be "knee high."

Bunk.

Anyone from the Midwest knows that it's supposed to be "knee high by the Fourth of July." But, what the heck, why let that stand in the way of a good alarm.

The Food Chain - Worries Mount as Farmers Push for Big Harvest - Series - NYTimes.com

Do you think this news will reach the Democrats?

Home Gauge Climbs Amid Bargains
By Jeff Bater
The Wall Street Journal
June 9, 2008 10:13 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A forecasting gauge of home sales climbed to its highest level in six months during April, given a lift by bargain hunters.

The National Association of Realtors' index for pending sales of previously owned homes rose 6.3% to 88.2 from March, the industry group said Monday.

Private analysts projected pending sales would be unchanged during April. The rate was the highest since 89.8 last October.

Illinois politics in D.C.

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

More than his racist minister chums, his starkly liberal voting record, his pandering to the get-out-of-Iraq-right-now zealots, what really bothers me about Barack Obama is his association with politics as practiced in Chicago and Illinois.

This is not a crime, of course, but the fact that he is someone who got his start and was propelled to stardom after an internship in the incubator of perhaps the nation's most corrupt state gives me, at least, pause. It seems that everywhere you turn here, especially if it is toward the federal courthouse, some politician or political insider is being found guilty of some or another form of corruption. Antoin "Tony" Rezko's conviction last week, the George Ryan conviction last year, the federal indictments that make references to questionable conduct by alphabetized state officials, the reported investigation that is dogging Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the conviction of a City of Chicago patronage boss and others on the periphery of Mayor Richard M. Daley's inner circle . . .

Well, need I go on? That Obama can brush against the climate of corruption enveloping Chicago and Illinois like heat and humidity saturate rain forests and come out unblemished is remarkable indeed. It's possible; Chicago and Illinois have generated a number of clean and honest politicians. Like a pearl found amid the swine, perhaps Obama can be counted among them.

But if Obama's affiliations with the likes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Rev. Michael Pfleger and ex-revolutionary Bill Ayers are legitimate issues, so is his political apprenticeship in the bowels of a political process that has sent governors, aldermen and countless other public officials to the pen. Has Obama picked up any bad habits by hanging around with these gents? Is he susceptible to the pressures that the "guys back home" will undoubtedly bring? The conventional wisdom among the Chicago punditry is that Chicago and Illinois pols are smacking their lips at the thought of installing an associate in the Executive Mansion.

I think that the conventional wisdom is right.And we're not just talking about Democrats. Many state and local Republicans are as pregnant with the audacity of swag as Democrats. My guess is that Illinois GOP big shots and moneybags will sit on their hands in the presidential election, to show how accommodating they are, so that they won't be forgotten when the food line opens.

So, will Obama successfully insulate himself from the influence peddlers, political insiders and maneuvers that have cemented our reputation? The Rezko case is troubling. As Obama was declaring himself the Democratic presidential nominee last week, a Chicago jury was declaring Rezko guilty of corruption, demonstrating the Fates' ironic sense of humor. Rezko and Obama knew each other as far back as 1990, when Rezko offered the young Harvard law student a job, which Obama declined. And Rezko was among Obama's early contributors in his first run for the state legislature. More campaigns and more contributions flowed in from Rezko, including a $10,000 donation that Obama later had to give to charity because it was allegedly tainted by kickbacks.

Just about every president has had questionable characters in or about his administration, such as Jimmy Carter's Bert Lance and Dwight Eisenhower's Sherman Adams. If similar characters slip through the back door into the Obama White House, please let them be from some other state.

Illinois' fake budget

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Proposed expenditures shall not exceed funds estimated to be available for the fiscal year as shown in the Budget—Sec. 2(a), Illinois Constitution

The General Assembly by law shall make appropriations for all expenditures of public funds by the State. Appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year.--Sec. 2(b) Illinois Constitution

Considering the constitution’s unequivocal command that the expenses can’t outstrip revenues, it’s hard to give any credibility to the Legislature’s assertion that it can go home after passing a budget that is, oh, just a couple of billions short of being balanced.

Yet, incredibly, that’s the claim being made by the Democrats....

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

The scariest part is the Trinity congregation

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Barack Obama’s pastor buddies don’t frighten me as much as his church-going brethren.

You have to expect that the bizarre likes of Michael Pfleger and Jeremiah Wright would ooze to the surface in any number of organizations or institutions—right or left, Republican or Democratic. But the multitude gathered in what is supposed to be a temple of God, cheering on the racist slobbering of the two “reverends’” is scary.

Cheering is too mild a word. Look at the video of Pfleger’s rant against Hilary Clinton; notice the guys in the background. They’re on their feet, clapping, laughing and cheering. One is nearly doubled over in laughter. Broader shots of the crowds show that while some people are sitting quietly—in disapproval, I hope—there also was widespread affirmation of both Pfleger’s and Wright’s “sermons.”

They were eating it up.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

The UN is failing Myanmar

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

As the clock ticks, uncounted Myanmar survivors of Cyclone Nargis are dying of starvation or disease while the world stands by, its helping hands supposedly tied by the country's Stone Age tyrants.

A month ago, the cyclone killed 78,000, left 56,000 missing and another 2.5 million facing hunger, homelessness and disease, and it will only get worse because the rulers of this impoverished nation have been systematically barring foreign aid workers and supplies. Some guess that the number of dead could double while help is stalled at the borders, but who really knows how many are imperiled by the hidden and grotesque eradication under way there? Yet, the world stands idly by.

This is, if anything ever was, a job for the United Nations. And what is the UN doing to move perhaps the only government in modern times to ban massive aid being offered by the international community? Talking. Conducting diplomacy. Seeking permission. Consultation. Exchanging views. The kind of blah-blahing that Barack Obama says will be the touchstone of his Democratic administration if he becomes president.

Here's a measure of the UN's futility: While hundreds of thousands are suffering and dying, a UN agency is asking permission to import six emergency vehicles. Six. The response as of this writing, from Hakan Tongul, a UN deputy director of some sort: "We haven't heard anything from the [Myanmar] government."

Sure, the UN is trying to do much more. It reports that about 160 aid flights—some 10 to 15 daily—have arrived. Last week's headlines said: "Myanmar approves all pending visas for UN aid workers." OK, that sounds like the devastated country soon will be crawling with hundreds, even thousands, of competent, compassionate and fully equipped aid workers. Well, no. Actually, it's more like 45—the number of pending visas. And there's more good news: Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders and the UN Children's Fund have sent in more than 14 aid workers. Wow.

I dare say that Rotary International and its ShelterBox program may have accomplished more on its own. ShelterBoxes are staged, ready-to-deploy containers that provide a tent, stove, water-purification kit, blankets, tools and other necessities that enable families to survive for six months. Rotary said it had landed more than 1,000 containers in Myanmar, but many more are needed.

Still, in the face of the piddling amount of aid that the Myanmar government is allowing in, these heartless tyrants incredibly insist that the "Myanmar people are self-reliant and can stand on their own without foreign assistance." The government would have the international community believe that the relief phase of the disaster has ended and the economic recovery phase has begun.

The UN apparently accepts such nonsense at face value. John Holmes, UN undersecretary general for this and that, told the media after a visit to Myanmar that no cyclone-caused diseases have been reported. Yeah, sure—this after international aid agencies were unanimous in their warnings that disease and infections from the stacks of unburied bodies and widespread malnutrition were now the most serious problems.

Nor will it get any better. The cyclone devastated the fertile Irrawaddy River delta region, the country's rice basket. Farmers are missing the rice-planting season.

The UN says Myanmar has expressed "great sensitivity" about allowing in outside aid, especially from western nations, and most especially from the American relief vessels, waiting patiently just over the horizon. The UN, as always, is sensitive about everyone's "great sensitivity," so it does little more than dither. Clearly, dealing with the Myanmar bullies requires aggressive policies.

The UN was created for such circumstances, and it is failing its charter miserably. Does the UN even dare think about violating Myanmar's sovereignty by barging in uninvited? Does it have the moral and political mettle to gather a coalition of willing nations to save the lives of hundreds of thousands? Or will the UN continue its high regard for brutish sensitivities while tens of thousands are without food, water, shelter or even the means to bury its dead, and while, incredibly, the government reportedly is forcing survivors to return "home" when there is no home to return to? While the Myanmar government attempts to shoot down rescue helicopters, would the rest of the world idly stand by? It would.

Wanted: Fiscally responsible politicians

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) suggests that a massive, costly, long-awaited and controversial statewide public-works program won't be considered by the legislature until after the fall elections.

The idea that politicians can't settle difficult issues before an election has become so widely accepted that it hardly raises an eyebrow anymore. That's the way it is, we're told. But is that the way it should be?

Think about what this practice says: Elected officials are too frightened of voters to do the right thing. They hope that putting a couple of years between what they do and the next election will help voters forget. Beyond what should be an embarrassing display of cowardice, it also reveals a low regard for public opinion and a lack of faith in the democratic process.

What Illinois legislators are putting off is a huge—maybe $35 billion huge—proposal to fix the state's decaying highways, mass transit and other public assets. Hardly anyone argues whether the fix is needed—witness the pathetic CTA—but no one can seem to agree on how to pay for it. Some suggest the state should sell or rent out some assets, such as the state lottery, but no one wants to say that taxes should be raised.

What voters lose is the opportunity to rapidly respond to the politicians' decisions. Voters have to wait two to four years for their chance to punish or reward. If anything, it should be just the opposite. Actions involving revenues, expenses and the budget should only be allowed, say, three months prior to the next general election. If politicians don't pass a balanced budget by those elections, government should shut down and not reopen until the newly elected politicians enter office and pass a balanced budget.

Draconian and pie in the sky? Yes. But how bad is that compared with Illinois' current state of collapse? As it now stands, lawmakers are stumbling around trying to pass an annual budget by the end of this week. Unfortunately, their failure to do so won't bring on a government shutdown; the only consequence is that a budget passed after month's end would require a supermajority, giving Republicans a stronger voice in the process.

One might think that's a good thing, to rein in the Democrats' propensity for big-money programs. But it's not necessarily so; Republicans have displayed fiscal irresponsibility by proposing an Illinois gas-tax holiday, which could put a $200 million hole in the budget, according to some estimates. A gas-tax holiday is a giveaway, pure and simple, one that doesn't do anything to solve the problem of high fuel costs.

But since Illinois Republicans no longer know what they stand for, I'm not surprised that they're acting more like Democrats than Democrats.

If Republicans wanted to be Republicans, they should take the advice of Citizens Against Government Waste and the Illinois Policy Institute. They note that the problem with the state budget and its ballooning deficits isn't the lack of revenues, as so many assume. In fact, revenues are the highest ever, but expenditures are growing faster. In their "2008 Illinois Piglet Book," the organizations identified $686 million in waste. Here's some of what lawmakers believe we can't do without: pheasant and fur-bearing animal conservation; a culinary arts center; petroleum marketing; displaced homemakers counseling and training; salmon stamp design; Chinese erhu music; Polish folk dance; polar bear photo essays; grants, contracts and administrative expenses associated with the development of the Illinois grape and wine industry.

Yes, I'm cherry-picking the obvious, but you also can question the big items. There is the $12 billion and ever-increasing money going for education, even though, as the "Piglet" points out, student performance remains flat.

"Piglet" is fat with such examples, and you don't have to hunt hard to find your own. Despite the billions spent by the state to protect children, the Tribune last week described the horrendous case of the severely disabled Jaylen Brown, 13, who died of abuse so horrible that it's hard to imagine. Jaylen was in the care of a mother and two state-provided nurses, all charged with felony neglect.

Is it fair to suggest that one botched case demonstrates a systemic breakdown? Probably not. But you sure can add Jaylen to the list of people who weren't served by the state's bloated budget.

Dan Seals' campaign ploy offering cheap gas snarls traffic

Up in the North Shore's 10th congressional district, Democrat candidate Dan Seals was surprised that his offer of $1.89-a-gallon gas tied up traffic in Lincolnshire for a mile and a half. Only about 50 motorists got to the pump, and the rest sat fruitlessly in line, idling away gasoline and polluting the air. Not exactly the "greenest" political stunt, but it sure shows voters what kind of mind they'd be dealing with if he replaced incumbent Republican Mark Kirk.

Oh, yes, while his campaign workers were handing out bumper stickers to waiting motorists, Seals told a reporter, "We're not asking people to vote for me." A good reason not to.

Newsweek as a mouthpiece for Obama

Even for the usually biased Newsweek, its May 19 cover story ("Sit Back, Relax, Get Reday to Rumble") was an extraordinary paean to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Essentially, it suggested that any criticism that John McCain leveled at Obama's position would be construed as a personal attack. To its credit, Newsweek has published on its web site the response of the McCain campaign. It's worth a read.

Exploring the nature of Illinois voters

Chumps.

That’s what Illinois voters are. We got a healthy reminder of that today when we were treated to the latest outrage about an old, old story—the sweet deal that some insiders wrangled from state government to build a fancy hotel in Springfield. The deal was that if the hotel didn’t make a profit, the insiders wouldn’t have to pay off a state loan they got to help build the palace.

Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer

GOP wants state gas tax holiday(s)

These are fiscally responsible Republicans? A tax holiday that could cost $200 million when the state deficit is one of the nation's worst? Has the state GOP sunk so low that it has joined the "give-it-all-away" Democrats? Does the state GOP stand for anything at all? No wonder that it is virtually as extinct as the Field Museum's Sue.

Chicago Business News, Analysis & Articles | Ill. House wants gas tax holiday | Crain's

Class warfare bites Democrats in the ass

Gee, what a shame. The political party most responsible for fueling class warfare for the past 50 years is itself now torn by class warfare. Can the Democratic nominating process get any more nasty? The pleas for "ending the divisiveness" have reached near-hysteric proportions by those who can't wait to launch class warfare against John McCain and the Republicans.

Here's one analysis of how silly it has become:

The white vs. off-white election -- -- chicagotribune.com: "West Virginia had too few delegates at stake to matter much. Still, it's been easy to get the feeling that some people, particularly those in the Stuff White People Like demographic, have concluded that the place is so backward it doesn't matter at all.

The problem is, voters like those in West Virginia don't see it that way. They may represent a shrinking demographic, but, as all the campaigns know, there are still enough of them that they can't be ignored. The catch is that in an election in which race plays such a prominent role, the greatest tension may not be between black and white but white and off-white."

Those lyin' Democrats

If George W. Bush was lying about the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq had or would soon have, what do you call these Democrats?

Hat tip to Buck Hiles.

Gay marriage decision came from a tyrannical court

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Before everyone drops into a deep swoon over the California Supreme Court's decision "allowing" gay marriages, it might be worthwhile to read the entire 121-page decision to discover that it changes, well, practically nothing.

California already has extensive laws granting same-sex couples virtually the same rights as opposite-sex couples. The 4-3 majority recognized that fact but said the "substance" of the laws didn't really matter. "The question we must address is whether . . . the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution." Our task, the majority said, is "only to determine whether the difference in the official names of the relationships [is unconstitutional]." It is unconstitutional, the majority concluded, because applying the term "marriage" only to the legally sanctioned relationship between opposite-sex couples denies the "dignity and respect" that should be accorded to same-sex couples. The solution, according to the majority, is to strike down a law that says "marriage" certificates can only be given to opposite-sex couples. Whatever the legal relationship is called, the legislature will have to create a name that is the same for same-sex and opposite-sex couples. This fight is about a word. And whether it is "disrespectful" to apply it to one group and not another.

That such a decision came out of California is unsurprising; the only question was just how curious, obtuse or laughable would be the logic in overturning the will of the nearly two-thirds of California voters who passed the law in a referendum.

The majority didn't disappoint. It's difficult to try to reduce its logic to one sentence, but here goes: The legislature provided equivalent rights to same-sex couples by passing strong domestic partnership laws, so the citizen-initiated and approved ban on same-sex marriages had to go.

A dissenting justice, Carol A. Corrigan, said while her sympathies were on the side of gay marriage, she could not "join this exercise in legal jujitsu, by which the legislature's own weight is used against it to create a constitutional right from whole cloth, defeat the people's will, and invalidate a statute otherwise immune from legislative interference."

On second thought, this isn't so funny; it's scary.

The majority declared that people had no say in the matter. It said that, in its supreme wisdom, it could overrule a constitutionally created process for the people of California to directly exercise their will. The court proclaims its view is so fundamentally correct that it cannot be "abrogated by the legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process." In other words, the people of this state are not supreme.

Let's think about that for a minute. The court is saying that some rights are so fundamental that they cannot be voted away by a majority, or even a supermajority, of the citizens or their representatives. That the court in its wisdom knows and can define what these rights are, and order them enshrined into law despite overriding public opposition.

This isn't a new judicial philosophy; its roots go to a fundamental debate over how to protect the minority's rights from the tyranny of the majority. It is why the federal and some state courts are insulated from the popular will by various means; they are appointed, not elected, and serve for life.

It is a proper and well-established role for a supreme court. It is how a U.S. Supreme Court led America into ending legal racial discrimination.

But another essential and fundamental feature of American democracy is the system of checks and balances, to protect against such things as the tyranny of an unaccountable, unresponsive and even rogue branch of government. The founders were determined to avoid any branch of government taking on the mantle of a King George III.

The answer, of course, is that we can overrule any of the three branches of government by amending the Constitution because it is, after all, the people's Constitution, not the court's. It is the people's ultimate check on the imbalance of power.

Thankfully, such a move is under way in California where hundreds of thousands of citizens have petitioned for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, thus putting it out of reach of an autocratic court. Now comes the scariest part: One of the many supporters (I didn't get his name) of the court decision interviewed on television was asked what would happen if the people approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. Would the court go so far as to overturn a provision of the Constitution itself? "I don't know. I hope so," he said.

By which we are provided a window into the mind of a tyrant.

A call for change that you won't hear from Obama

...because that would get the Mideast tyrants mad at us, and lower respect for America in the Arab world.

Bush to Call for Change in Mideast - WSJ.com

Obama Says Bush and McCain Are Naive

Wait a minute, Barack Obama is calling someone else "naive?" The guy who said in a presidential debate that he would met, without preconditions, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

I'd say something about the pot and the kettle, but it would be considered offensive and politically incorrect.

Obama Says Bush and McCain Are ‘Fear Mongering’ in Attacks - New York Times: (subscription required)

"Consistently throughout his comments about foreign policy, Mr. Obama yoked Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain as one entity, mentioning their names in the same sentence 10 times in barely 10 minutes. He portrayed them as being not only inflexible, but also “naive and irresponsible,” the characteristics they ascribe to him."

Myanmar cyclone: Burma junta is killing its own people, says West - Telegraph

What would Barack Obama do? Why the silence?

Talk is increasing among responsible Europe nations to provide aid to the dying survivors regardless of what the junta thinks while it carries out genocide of its own people.


Myanmar cyclone: Burma junta is killing its own people, says West - Telegraph

Ayers shudda been on “Laugh-In”

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Bill Ayers is a funny guy.

Well, maybe not so funny when he was saying things like: ’‘Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.”

But his memoir—Fugitive Days, an accounting of his life on the run in the 1960s and 1970s as a chieftain of the radical and violent Weather Underground—is funny. I know, we’re supposed to be taking Ayers seriously ever since he showed up as a contributor to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) But a read of his 295-page book suggests he is a bit more notorious than he deserves, and a lot more comical.

Considering the controversy that Ayers has stirred up, I thought that his book might provide needed insight. But getting through it was like a slog through a used clothing store crammed with bellbottoms, psychedelic art, tie-died T-shirts, fat ties....

Read more on The Chicago Daily Observer

Chicago’s blue bag recycling program: Garbage in, Garbage out

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

A pop quiz: When was Chicago supposed to run out of landfill capacity and we’d all have to start eating our garbage?

Answer? I don’t know exactly, but it was some time past, according to environmentalists who warned that in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s the city—and the rest of the country—would run out of places to dump the garbage. Adding to the crisis mentality were scary claims that leaking toxic substances and methane would poison and asphyxiate the populace. Somebody had to “do something,” and fast.

So, Chicago and other municipalities stampeded into adopting solid waste recycling programs. Americans suddenly were “educated” or forced into massive recycling efforts, separating paper, cans, plastic and other materials from the oozing, dripping, rotting stuff. Recycling became a matter of given truth in the bible of the caring, even though the net benefits were, and in some quarters still are, in doubt.

Among those jumping on the bandwagon was the then-recently elected Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, the first of his many attempts to establish his green credentials. But instead of going for a relatively simpler, less expensive and more effective model deployed by most other jurisdictions, Daley decided he had to do it His Way....

Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer

Troop surge in the 'hood?

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

The only thing we haven't tried in our desperation to end Chicago's violence is a troop surge.

So then, why not a surge? Give people whose 3-year-olds get shot playing outside what they most want and deserve: security. Call out the National Guard. After all, a surge finally established some degree of security in Baghdad, and if we're to believe what we read, parts of Chicago are no less of a war zone.

How close are we to an insurrection when gangs have usurped legitimate civil authority and pretty much govern how the people in the neighborhoods shall live, i.e., in terror. The shooters are terrorists as much as the Iraqi "insurgents." Flood violence-torn neighborhoods with visible signs of authority. Troops carrying automatic weapons, if need be. Armored Humvees. Martial law. Curfews. Let the punks and gangs know that they're in a war in which they're outmanned and outgunned. Let them wonder whether their drive-bys will be greeted with return fire from locked-and-loaded troops. Let them see the Air National Guard patrolling overhead in helicopters.

Of all the harebrained ideas, this might be the worst, you're probably thinking right now. I can't be serious, right? Treating any Chicago neighborhood as occupied territory?

Well, yes, there are a ton of reasons why a military—or whatever you want to call it—solution is unthinkable. The armed forces are not trained to do police work. It could deprive innocent citizens of their rights. Raging gun battles could break out between troops and gangs, endangering innocent people. And here's probably the most shocking reason: The Illinois Constitution, while permitting the deployment of the Illinois National Guard to "enforce the laws, suppress insurrection or repel invasion," also names the governor as commander in chief. That would be the screw-loose Rod Blagojevich. Yikes.

Then again, why not? We've tried all the "root-cause" solutions, and now Blagojevich is jumping in with more: $150 million the state doesn't have for summer jobs programs, after-school programs and what-not programs. Mayor Richard M. Daley has appointed a study group, whose scholars will come up with "new" solutions, but if they do find just one, something that already hasn't been tried and whose failure can't be explained away by "lack of resources," then surely they'll be in line for the Nobel Peace Prize, and we'll all be grateful.

It's always the same old stuff. In trying to "address underlying and systemic causes of the at-risk population," we've filled the landscape with jobs, education, development, housing, incentives, community involvement and other programs, not that there's anything wrong with that, and, yes, there always can be more, and how unsafe would neighborhoods be without them, but . . .

In a twist on lyrics by the immortal Everly Brothers: "Programs, programs, all day long. Will my programs work out right or wrong?" Truth is, community activists can march until kingdom come, demanding they be "empowered to take back our neighborhoods," and little will happen. The media will dutifully show up to tape, we'll feel deep sympathy for the marchers' frustration and the punks will laugh it up.

If my neighborhood were being torn up the same way, I'd demand full deployment. Check points. IDs. Explanations of intent from assorted roving bands of punks. Stop and frisk to enforce the city's tough gun-control laws. The easily excitable and offended will scream that it amounts to a neighborhood lockdown, even a police state. OK, maybe it shouldn't be the National Guard. Maybe it should be something like the more aggressive policing (including constitutional traffic stops to ask, "What are you doing here?") that has significantly reduced homicides and other crimes in Berwyn.

But, I'll not accept the slander that the people struggling for safety in violent neighborhoods are so much different that they don't yearn for the peace and security that the rest of us enjoy, and which is the first and necessary condition for any of us to realize our potential.

They, like I do, want to be able to walk safely with their grandchildren, to shop, to not worry about a stray bullet ripping through the front window and to be unafraid of the violent consequences of so minor an offense as looking at someone funny. You wouldn't find me rushing to the usual media whiners about how the authorities are unfairly picking on our young men, because our young men—as well as our young women, children and grandparents—now would be safe. Or at least safer. For a change.

Ethanol not a real solution

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

When no one was looking, the "world food crisis" elbowed out "global climate change" as our planet's Numero Uno calamity.

As if that weren't bad enough, we now discover that the two are connected; with this attempt to fix the climate by shifting away from fossil fuels to more "eco-friendly" renewable fuels, we have ended up starving people in Africa and Asia.

Seems like we can hardly settle on one cataclysm before another one demands our attention.

Food riots have broken out around the world; grain-producing countries have banned exports to feed their own people; food prices in the U.S. and around the world have gone through the roof. The UN—its usual bold self—created a task force to study the matter.

What shall we do, what shall we do? We can start by yanking the idiotic and elephantine government aid given to ethanol production, today's biofuel of choice. Farmland previously planted with corn for food and feedstock for cattle now is planted with corn for ethanol. The 15 percent of total corn acreage that in 2005 went into ethanol production has rocketed to an expected 33 percent this year as farmers abandon wheat and other grains to cash in. Naturally, the increasing scarcity of wheat—the staff of life—has driven up its price. And because the U.S. is the world's breadbasket, those higher prices and shortages rebound throughout the world. Just how much ethanol is at fault is an unsettled point of contention, with farmers and ethanol producers whining to Congress, "don't blame us." But a study by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that biofuels—principally ethanol—have accounted for a quarter to a third of the recent food price increases.



Some experts saw this coming several years ago, but their warnings were drowned out by the simple-minded bleating of Greens. Just say "oil alternative" to a Green, and salivating follows, whether it is solar, thermal, wind or biomass power. And because it isn't the hated oil, some Greens blithely toss in other alleged benefits, such as reducing pollution and solving global warming. Jason Hill, a University of Minnesota ecologist, disagrees. "If we convert every corn kernel grown today in the U.S. to ethanol," he said, "we offset just 12 percent of our gasoline use."

Still, the duty, nay the moral obligation, to toss big money into ethanol research and production somehow has fallen to the government (read taxpayers). In subsidies, more than $8 billion annually.

Perhaps more important, the government has created a market—a false market—for ethanol by ordering that huge quantities be produced and added to our gasoline. Pay higher taxes, so that you can pay higher gas prices, chump. Greens have been remarkably quiescent about this debate, finding themselves in a fix. Do they favor costly, renewable energy at the expense of hungry Third World nations? Or do they abandon their knee-jerk advocacy of a popular but jejune energy solution?

The two contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, stand on the side of the knee-jerk and big agribusiness solution: continue to pour more subsidies into ethanol production and oppose with high tariffs Brazilian imports of cheaper ethanol made from sugar. President Bush also is sticking by his support of big favors for the ethanol industry.

The pending $286 billion farm bill, which under usual circumstances is an unconscionable giveaway to agribusiness, makes only an infinitesimal, token cut in ethanol subsidies. Only the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, has the guts to stand against the powerful farm and ethanol lobbies.

"I oppose subsidies," he said. "Not just ethanol subsidies. Subsidies."

If only our politicians in Illinois, one of the largest corn-growing and ethanol-producing states, had the same courage to stand up against the big business special interests. Instead of selling us out to them.

Catholics can open priesthood, gain souls

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

My guess is that the American Catholic Church would see a resurgence beyond imagining if it welcomed women and the married into the priesthood. No one expected that Pope Benedict XVI on his recent visit to the United States would announce that he was overturning the centuries-long church tradition that closed the Catholic priesthood to women and married men. But some of the faithful can't be blamed for hoping that the change will come in their lifetimes.

I hope that the pope has returned to the Vatican with some lasting impressions of the American Catholic Church: its tremendous vitality despite the disturbing loss of clergy over the last several decades, and the yearning of the laity for an even more invigorated church that an upsurge in the number of priests would bring to it.

There are reasons against a change in the policy. One invokes Christ's intent, which he demonstrated by his own chaste and single life and the inclusion of men only among his apostles and at the Last Supper. We have to rely on interpreting his intent because it is not recorded, as far as I know, that he said with encyclical-like clarity that only men and single people could serve as priests.

The fact that he gathered mostly men around him as his disciples might have had something to do with the culture of his times: Men ran just about everything.

So, does Christ intend to carry on that system because it was the custom 2,000 years ago? Consider: If he and his disciples customarily traveled only by donkey and fishing boat, would it be right to assume that he meant that priests today could only travel by donkeys and fishing boats? Are we to assume that Christ intended that the chemical makeup of chromosomes would determine who was qualified enough to bring more souls to him through the priesthood?

On its face, it seems ludicrous. Why should he limit the spread of the faith and redemption in such a superficial way? Why should he leave more than half of the faithful out of this glorious and blessed work? Some might argue that (1) priests are special and therefore (2) they must be men. The logical connection between the two statements leads one through tangled thickets of illogic.

Before Benedict became pope he was quoted as saying about expanding the priesthood by accepting women and married priests: "The first question . . . is: Are there true believers? And then comes the second question: Are priests coming from them?"

Quality over quantity, as it were. Except for two problems. The first is shocking in its assumption: If the test for priesthood is "true belief," how can it be said that male true believers outnumber female true believers? If anything, from my observations, the reverse is the case. Second, as the priest who gave the homily in my parish said last week (while making a different point), sometimes numbers do count. The more priests, the more people coming to know Christ. How can gender differences be more important than that?

Ministering to the faithful is a high calling, and you cannot so easily dismiss the argument that you get better priests if they are not diverted by concerns of family and flesh. Chastity is a great virtue, testing one's discipline and elevating one's holiness. What greater surrender is there than devoting yourself wholly and completely to the priestly vocation? But, those virtues are as equally available to women as they are to men. Women, even married couples, can choose to be chaste. Those who wish to achieve this special higher level of holiness flowing from the chaste and single life are free to do so, voluntarily. Their holiness or their effectiveness is in no way diminished by opening the priesthood to those who have been joined in the sacrament of marriage and whose oneness has been celebrated in the blessed act of sexuality.

It is hard for me to imagine a God who would say it is more important to limit who will be priests based on genetic makeup than it is to bring as many souls as possible to eternal salvation. Why would he do so?

Some would argue that opening the door to women and the married would send the priesthood down a slippery slope. But that slope is not more slippery than the one the single, male priesthood has brought us.

$100 million for museum?

Think what that cash could do for schools

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Maybe we're asking the wrong question when we debate whether the $100 million Chicago Children's Museum should be built in Grant Park.

A better question is: Why is anyone spending $100 million on a children's museum in the first place?

When the civic good hearts go about raising the $100 million in private money for the controversial museum in Grant Park, they should ask themselves: Isn't there a better way to help the children? The answer is: Yes there is. Especially when Chicago's children have a crying need for better schools. Think of what $100 million could do by duplicating the demonstrable successes of, say, Marva Collins Preparatory School on the South Side.

The assumption that a children's museum is a good way to spend $100 million shouldn't go unchallenged. Yet, whether it is wise to pour all that money into a children's museum has been completely overshadowed by whether it should go into Grant Park or elsewhere. As far as I'm concerned it should go elsewhere; the proponents haven't made the case for plunking it into a lakefront park, since it has nothing to do with the lakefront or a park.

When it comes to which is the superior benefit—superb schools for hundreds more Chicago kids that $100 million could buy, or a fancy place where kids occasionally can go to turn knobs, mold clay and have an "educational experience"—the schools win hands down. Not that there's anything wrong with turning knobs and molding clay. However, there are things called priorities. Putting scarce resources where they will do the most good. Cost effectiveness. The greater good. You get the idea. I wish the museum backers would too. Take the $100 million and create some alternative, private schools. Or help support those that already are changing the lives of poor kids, kids from broken homes, kids afflicted with bad teachers or victimized by unmotivated and violent classmates. The kids that Mayor Richard M. Daley keeps talking about when he declares that the museum must go into Grant Park.

If we had more schools, such as L.E.A.R.N. Charter School, maybe we would have fewer shootings and killings, including one that started with a shove in the hallway of one of city's scary public schools. Or, maybe more high school graduates. One reason that we're not getting such schools is that parents are denied the publicly funded vouchers that they can use to choose where to send their children. Why? Because the interests of public school workers and their unions, the political system and the established order of things forbid it. What could a school such as Chicago Jesuit Academy do with $100 million? The West Side school has made life better for young men of "modest means" with its small classes, longer class day and longer school year. Its "wish list" includes library books, baseball mitts and even a three-hole paper punch for the office. L.E.A.R.N. Charter School, formerly the Lawndale Community School, is so successful at educating the disadvantaged that it gets 1,000 applications for a couple of hundred slots from parents hungry to give their children a better opportunity. San Miguel independent middle schools are in the Back of the Yards neighborhood and in the Austin neighborhood. Cristo Rey Jesuit High School serves Pilsen. The list goes on, and I'm sorry that I'm leaving a bunch off. There are others employing both innovative and traditional methods to change lives. The schools are the city's bread upon the water, whose benefits are returned to our community in many and unexpected ways.

For the sake of discussion, let's assume that $100 million, wisely invested, earns a 10 percent return, or $10 million annually. Chicago Jesuit Academy says it takes about $12,000 to educate one student for a year. That $100 million could create an endowment that would educate 833 students a year.

True, that doesn't sound like much when we're talking about hundreds of thousands of kids caught in the school system. But that's 833 more every year saved from the depredations of the city's school system. And if 833 isn't enough, then the civic-minded should raise another $100 million. Unfortunately, that kind of cash isn't fungible. It's harder to raise $100 million when donors know it would quietly disappear into desperate inner-city schools, instead of being on display in Chicago's front yard as a concrete and steel monument to their egos.

Illinois’ Surrender to the Herd

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Proving that you can never glance away from Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Illinois Legislature and remain safe from a sneak attack, they have just passed a law requiring Illinois to turn its presidential electoral votes over to the rest of the country.

That’s not how supporters of the National Popular Vote bill would describe the new law, but that’s precisely what they’ve done. Under it, Illinois promises to award its 21 Electoral College votes in the presidential election to the candidate that wins the popular vote nationwide. So, if the voters of Illinois choose a Democrat to be president, but the nation’s popular vote goes to the Republican candidate (perish the thought), the state’s electoral votes will go to the Republican.

Perhaps that scenario seems too remote to Democrats who run the state; but the fact is that it could turn Illinois into a red state from blue.

If this isn’t the most harebrained scheme to ooze out of the governor’s office and the Legislature....

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Same old China

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Wow, when was the last time the people of San Francisco—"the gentle people with flowers in their hair"—turned out to protest in such numbers the actions of a commie country?

I don't keep track, but there they were last week, thousands fussing over how Red (as it used to be called) China is oppressing Tibet and adding to the miseries of Darfur. Even in Chicago there were protests.

Protests of communist dictatorships are, like the Cold War, gone but not forgotten. The flame of anti-communism burns brightly only in isolated spots, such as in south Miami, where expatriate (and free) Cubans keep hope alive for democracy and liberty in their country.

China, we're repeatedly told, wants to showcase itself to the world during this summer's Olympics, but the protesters are wounding the country's pride, and we'll be sorry for that. To which democratic nations can rightfully respond: Tough. You want to emerge from the shadows as a member of the civilized world, then become more democratic, as many of us are doing.

My only gripe with the protesters is that they are mostly focused on the suffering that China causes outside, not inside, its borders: the suppression of Tibet and its Sudan dealings that contribute to the genocide in Darfur. Those are big, bad things, but let's not overlook the tyrannical rule that the communist regime imposes on the more than 1 billion of its own people. Human Rights Watch points to abuses that are just the result of its hosting of the Olympics: media and Internet censorship, extrajudicial house arrests and sentences of government critics for the "subversive" crime of criticizing the government, abuses of migrant construction workers and forced evictions of homeowners and tenants.Recently, the group said, "leading human rights advocate Hu Jia was given a 3½-year sentence for criticizing the Chinese government in the context of the Games. Previously, Yang Chunlin received a 5-year sentence for having begun a petition titled, 'We want human rights, not the Olympics.' "

This isn't the progress that the International Olympic Committee had in mind when it awarded the Games to China. By exposing China to the currents of freedom brought to its shores by the international community, the IOC hoped Beijing would moderate its behavior. Nice try.

By blessing China with the Games, the IOC ignored a long history of suppression of religion, association, protest and other rights. "Ordinary citizens face immense obstacles to accessing justice, in particular over issues such as illegal land seizures, forced evictions, environmental pollution, unpaid wages, corruption and abuse of power by local officials, a situation that fuels rising social unrest across the country," Human Rights Watch said. The result has been growing citizen protests and their suppression across the landscape.

But large protests, some involving as many as 10,000 people, were reported last year in almost all of China's 34 provinces. "In speeches and articles top security officials acknowledged the heightening of social conflicts but remained defiant toward greater independence of the judiciary, blaming 'hostile' or 'enemy forces' for trying to use the nation's legal system to undermine and westernize China. A string of lawyers defending human rights cases [has] been suspended or disbarred under a yearly licensing system that acts as a general deterrent to taking cases viewed as 'sensitive' by the authorities."

And we are not even getting into the deadly quashing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests or forced abortions.

The IOC's awarding of the Games to China is itself a violation of the second of the six "fundamental principles of Olympism," which is "to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."

In light of China's abysmal failure to honor that principle, the IOC should be honor-bound to withdraw its sponsorship of the Games. Of course, that would be incredibly naive, considering all the billions of dollars at stake; about as naive as hoping that a grossly commercialized athletic event would convince China to change its ways.

The Children’s (Museum) Crusade

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Lois Wille looked like a deer caught in a car’s headlights.

Wille, an icon in the lakefront preservation community, had just announced at a press conference her support of the proposed controversial move of the Chicago Children’s Museum to Grant Park.

Rich Samuels, a reporter for WTTW Channel 11’s Chicago Tonight, had asked if she was “selling out.” Pause. “Selling out?” Wille asked. I’m trying to remember her exact response, as I was taken aback as much as she appeared to be. Her answer, as I recall, was calm and reasonable, even persuasive for someone (me) who has opposed the move. Certainly reasonable enough to wonder where the “sell out” question came from.

Wille’s credentials are unrivaled:

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Recall them all

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Who woulda thought anyone would have taken me seriously last October when I suggested that Illinois voters should be enabled to dump incompetent, dishonest and otherwise dreadful public officials by a “recall” referendum?

The idea was so, well, California-like, where voters in 2003 recalled the bumbling Gov. Gray Davis. And it so unlike Chicago and Illinois, where such a reform would be regarded as just another useless goo-goo (good-government) gesture.

But here comes the Illinois House, advancing with remarkable ease legislation that would allow voters to dispose unceremoniously of the governor, members of the General Assembly and executive branch officers elected statewide, such as the attorney general and secretary of state.

Last week, the House voted 80–25 (!) to tack onto the legislation an amendment that would exempt circuit, appellate and supreme court judges from recall. Such a wide margin of approval signals, according to the conventional wisdom, that the House will approve the legislation and pass it on to the Senate, where it has a less certain future.

But as one of the earliest advocates of the Illinois recall, I suspect political gamesmanship. If the House, and its Speaker, Rep. Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) was really serious, it would have added one other amendment:

Include local and county officials in the recall.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

It's time to let Wright go

By Denniis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

When will it end?

It has been about a month since Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s rant against whites and America jarred our consciousness, but some people still can't resist using it for their own purposes. We've heard just about enough from politicians, commentators and others of all sides who are trying to squeeze every opportunity for self-promotion from the controversy.

Even calls for calm and "sacred conversations" seem to add to racial animosities. The latest came in Wright's own church, Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side.

There, leaders of the National Council of Churches gathered Thursday to "affirm this denomination and this congregation," said Rev. Michael Kinnamon, the group's general secretary. It's time, the leaders said, to leave the church alone and to stand up to the threats that some of its members say they have received. Well and good.

Rev. John H. Thomas, national president of the United Church of Christ, said of the sacred conversation about race that the group urged, "That does not mean that our language is always going to be gentle and quiet and graceful, because racism is not gentle and quiet and graceful." Thomas apparently didn't catch the irony that Wright's rant was rough, loud and graceless and could be subject to charges of racism.

Can't we all just shut up?

Apparently not, so here's my two cents: This isn't about Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democratic presidential candidate who was a regular congregant at Trinity and an admirer of Wright. Obama's Philadelphia speech disowning Wright's abhorrent words, but not the man or the congregation, was brilliant, perhaps reminiscent of some of King's best. Obama put into context how Wright reflected an older generation who grew up in an age of Jim Crow and whose outrage at the injustices still boils over. And unlike the many who keep throwing stones at each other across the racial divide so they can continue to leach whatever opportunities they can for themselves from inflaming racial animosities, Obama did something powerful and useful: He declared that we have made significant progress in race relations, and that we can continue to do so. And for progress to continue, Obama himself said, the kind of rhetoric that Wright wallowed in must stop. That's what I call audacious hope.

Just what did Wright do? It's impossible for me to judge the entire "context" in which Wright's comments were made, but Obama is in a position to do so, and he found Wright's comments abhorrent. My own thought was amazement that a man of God would use the pulpit to call on God to assign a nation (or at least the white portion of it) to eternal damnation. Simply put, it was a curse, and in some denominations, a curse still is a sin.

Using a pulpit to curse a group of people is the heaviest kind of stuff, even when "taken out of context." I'll resort to a cliche to illustrate: Suppose Cardinal Francis George had similarly used his pulpit, shouting "God damn America," as Wright did? Suppose George, from the pulpit, accused black America of, well, whatever? There would be little discussion about the context of his statements. The debate would be about the appropriateness of using a sacred space to spit out such odious thoughts. Well, the explanation goes, Wright was carrying on King's tradition of "translating faith into action," of preaching the social gospel. That's weak gruel, but if you want to persist in the deception that Wright is some kind of prophet whose role is to discomfort and anger, so be it.

But, to me, Wright's remarks haven't been as bothersome as the reaction to them—the endless justification and rationalization for words meant to inflame anti-white and anti-American passions. No matter what you say about context, the words themselves were "hateful." At least those are my thoughts, which I admit will themselves cause offense, and, unfortunately, keep the debate going.

But it's time to let it go. All of us. It's time to end the accusations that whites or blacks don't "get it." It's time to end the imputations that deep within us all lurks dark shadows of racism. This won't be the last time that America will scratch the scab of its racist history and draw blood. But it is time to give it a chance to heal.

It

By Denniis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

When will it end?

It has been about a month since Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s rant against whites and America jarred our consciousness, but some people still can't resist using it for their own purposes. We've heard just about enough from politicians, commentators and others of all sides who are trying to squeeze every opportunity for self-promotion from the controversy.

Even calls for calm and "sacred conversations" seem to add to racial animosities. The latest came in Wright's own church, Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side.

There, leaders of the National Council of Churches gathered Thursday to "affirm this denomination and this congregation," said Rev. Michael Kinnamon, the group's general secretary. It's time, the leaders said, to leave the church alone and to stand up to the threats that some of its members say they have received. Well and good.

Rev. John H. Thomas, national president of the United Church of Christ, said of the sacred conversation about race that the group urged, "That does not mean that our language is always going to be gentle and quiet and graceful, because racism is not gentle and quiet and graceful." Thomas apparently didn't catch the irony that Wright's rant was rough, loud and graceless and could be subject to charges of racism.

Can't we all just shut up?

Apparently not, so here's my two cents: This isn't about Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democratic presidential candidate who was a regular congregant at Trinity and an admirer of Wright. Obama's Philadelphia speech disowning Wright's abhorrent words, but not the man or the congregation, was brilliant, perhaps reminiscent of some of King's best. Obama put into context how Wright reflected an older generation who grew up in an age of Jim Crow and whose outrage at the injustices still boils over. And unlike the many who keep throwing stones at each other across the racial divide so they can continue to leach whatever opportunities they can for themselves from inflaming racial animosities, Obama did something powerful and useful: He declared that we have made significant progress in race relations, and that we can continue to do so. And for progress to continue, Obama himself said, the kind of rhetoric that Wright wallowed in must stop. That's what I call audacious hope.

Just what did Wright do? It's impossible for me to judge the entire "context" in which Wright's comments were made, but Obama is in a position to do so, and he found Wright's comments abhorrent. My own thought was amazement that a man of God would use the pulpit to call on God to assign a nation (or at least the white portion of it) to eternal damnation. Simply put, it was a curse, and in some denominations, a curse still is a sin.

Using a pulpit to curse a group of people is the heaviest kind of stuff, even when "taken out of context." I'll resort to a cliche to illustrate: Suppose Cardinal Francis George had similarly used his pulpit, shouting "God damn America," as Wright did? Suppose George, from the pulpit, accused black America of, well, whatever? There would be little discussion about the context of his statements. The debate would be about the appropriateness of using a sacred space to spit out such odious thoughts. Well, the explanation goes, Wright was carrying on King's tradition of "translating faith into action," of preaching the social gospel. That's weak gruel, but if you want to persist in the deception that Wright is some kind of prophet whose role is to discomfort and anger, so be it.

But, to me, Wright's remarks haven't been as bothersome as the reaction to them—the endless justification and rationalization for words meant to inflame anti-white and anti-American passions. No matter what you say about context, the words themselves were "hateful." At least those are my thoughts, which I admit will themselves cause offense, and, unfortunately, keep the debate going.

But it's time to let it go. All of us. It's time to end the accusations that whites or blacks don't "get it." It's time to end the imputations that deep within us all lurks dark shadows of racism. This won't be the last time that America will scratch the scab of its racist history and draw blood. But it is time to give it a chance to heal.

Plumbing Gasoline Prices

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Perfectly reasonable people can’t be blamed if they suspect that Big Oil is jazzing gasoline prices.

Gasoline inventories are reportedly at a 15-year high, which, according to the laws of supply and demand, should mean that prices ought to be sinking. Instead, the national average retail price of regular gasoline has risen to a record $3.29 a gallon, which is 23 percent higher than last year, the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report said last week.

On an anecdotal level, it’s hard to imagine that someone isn’t taking advantage of the situation when, as I saw on the Indiana Toll Road last week, one oasis was selling regular grade gas for $3.70 a gallon when other stations along the highway were selling it for a more modest (?!) $3.35.

And so, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming last week called top oil company executives to account. Explain to us, again, why prices are...

Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer

Secede from Cook County

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Why didn't someone tell us sooner that we could free ourselves from the clutches of Cook County?

Yes, it's legally possible, but practically impossible, for suburban townships to secede from the county and its oppressive taxes, bloated payrolls, insider dealings and pathetic leadership. Still, it might be worth the effort. After all, if you can't beat them, leave them.

Several Palatine government officials, pushed to the limit by the county's recent sales tax increase, which may send shoppers scooting across the county line into adjacent Lake County, are discussing secession as something more than a stunt. Lost business and lost sales tax revenues are the price that the village and its businesses may pay for Cook County's budgetary dereliction and other mischief.

State Sen. Matt Murphy and state Rep. Suzanne Bassi, both Palatine Republicans, have introduced legislation that would make it easier for townships to liberate themselves from the chokehold of Cook County President Todd Stroger and his County Board toadies. Under the legislation, the signatures of 10 percent of the voters in a township would force the township government to hold a secession referendum. If a majority of voters agree, it's bye-bye Todd. Other townships could follow.

But under current law, voters throughout Cook County would have to approve the disconnection, which is about as likely as the fresh scent of virtue wafting down Chicago City Hall corridors.

Indeed, chances aren't much better for the General Assembly passing this legislation. It has been consigned to the rules committees of both houses, the usual resting places for orphaned bills. Even if it came to a vote, you won't find many lawmakers around the state who would be prepared to upset the established political order by making it easier for indignant voters to carve up the existing government infrastructure.

But as dismal as the outlook for this legislation is, it's even more remote that Stroger and the County Board will reform themselves. Or that the county electorate—content to be lambs shepherded by scoundrels—will actually force reform.

In his splendid book "Grafters and Goo Goos: Corruption and Reform in Chicago, 1833-2003," veteran political observer James L. Merriner shed some light on the likelihood of such an earthshaking event. It was as far back as 1877, when a do-gooder group called the Citizens Association wondered what its role should be after it achieved the seemingly impossible—the reform of the city's fire protection program. (Astonishingly, just six years after Chicago's Great Fire, City Hall graft, corruption, indifference and incompetence threatened to leave the city vulnerable to another great fire, a thought so horrifying that even the foes of reform couldn't stop it.) So, basking in the warmth of fire protection reform, association President Murray Nelson suggested, "Should an honest board of the commissioners be elected, then possibly the association would be of no more service to the city."

The association, like other reformers, is long gone, but the County Board survives as it was, its insider members laughing up their sleeves at the futility of suckers who think everything should be on the legit. Steeled by such invulnerability, they hardly pause to pass outta-sight budgets and taxes.

Believing that he can throw any insult at taxpayers without consequence, Stroger commits one outrage after another—a big raise for a relative here, a job for a pal there.

With great prescience, reformer Nelson noted, "Reformers won't stay mad for more than six months," a truth that gives Stroger and his cronies every benefit of time. I've never been one to believe that tinkering with the form of government will ensure reform. So, I'm not convinced that a bunch of disgruntled townships dropping out of Cook County will ensure good government. But there comes a point—America's founding fathers once arrived at that place—when the imperative of restructuring existing governmental institutions becomes manifest. Without trying, we'll never know what a secession movement can accomplish. And even if all a secession movement accomplishes is to cause a few rashes at the County Building, it's worth the effort.