Silence isn't prayer

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Children, we’re going to have a moment of silence. You can use it to reflect on what you’ll be doing today, for silent prayer, or whatever you want. Everyone has to participate, everyone must remain quiet for the next 30 seconds.”

Such a ruckus that statement has caused. A recently passed law, enacted over Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s veto, has propelled school prayer back into the headlines by requiring every school in the state to start the day with a moment of silence. If children choose, it can be used for silent prayer.

One would think that asking children to be quiet for a few seconds or minutes to reflect on whatever they want would be a good thing. Reflection doesn’t seem to be the long suit of today’s stretched-tight generations. Teachers also might even welcome the relief of a longer mandated silence. Not that many children are going to spend the moment praying for anything except the answers to the test they weren’t prepared for. Or reflecting on pleasurable thoughts about the budding adolescent in the next seat.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Step forward, be a community

Daley is right: ID the suspects

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

What more proof do we need that Mayor Richard Daley has lost his mind? How else can you explain his recent public scolding of the Back of the Yards community for not ratting out the shooters who killed a pregnant woman in front of her three children on Halloween?

It's exactly what so many of us think every time someone gets killed in the crossfire between gangs, but it's a truth that no one dare speak for fear of getting raked over the coals. Unless he is out of his mind.

"You know who did it," Daley told several hundred people who had gathered for an end-the-violence rally. "Don't be blaming the police. Look in the mirror and say, 'I can do better.' ... If you don't turn these individuals in, you'll be marching for the rest of your life."

He spoke the truth, and it took courage. Some undoubtedly will accuse him of "blaming the victim," which is sociological coinage for, "You can't say anything negative about victims." It's like saying, "If a woman doesn't want to be stared at, she shouldn't dress provocatively." Only a primitive would say such a thing.

When it comes to the causes of violence, the willingness to be victims can't be overlooked. It is simply inconceivable that the gang members were complete strangers to every single person in the neighborhood. Yet no one is willing to step forward to identify the shooters and, hence, to help stop the violence. This is not an isolated case.

We're told that the witnesses are too terrified to step forward: "Ha, you have no concept what it is to live in a neighborhood infected by gang violence and hopelessness. Identifying the shooters can get you killed!"

All true. I don't know what it is like. I'm fortunate enough to live in a community free of such fears. Most of us do. But that doesn't make the principle any less valid. Daley is right; nothing will save a community if it isn't willing to save itself, all the candlelight marches demanding an end to the violence notwithstanding.

Daley's frustration with the treatment of his police department is obvious, and it's not unexpected that he pleads for us not to blame the police, who constantly are being assaulted -- sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly -- by charges of excessive force. Just a few weeks ago, Daley's emotions overflowed when he was responding to demands for the release of the names of cops most frequently accused of brutality. In that case, he overemoted; the public, I believe, has a right to the names.

But sometimes the complaints are just bellyaching. Days before, Daley was presented with knee-jerk criticism of police officers who used a Taser to stun an 82-year-old woman who was brandishing a hammer. Daley expressed proper amazement and distress, but wasn't so quick to condemn the police, as were some others, before knowing all the facts.

The police had been called to the woman's home because Department on Aging employees trying to do a well-being check were face to face with the hammer-swinging, belligerent, mentally ill woman. When she refused to put down the hammer, the police zapped her. Which brought on the furies: She was just a tiny, little thing, confronting people who "forced" their way into her house; she was within her rights to refuse police entry; the police should have found a better way to subdue her (with their nightsticks?); she wasn't a danger to herself or neighbors (although I'm not sure how they were supposed to know that in the heat of the moment); and so forth.

Maybe the police should have said, "OK, suit yourself. We're gone." You can imagine the criticism then: "Just another example how police aren't doing their jobs. They wouldn't have deserted their responsibility if it had been in a white or better-off neighborhood." And so forth.

No, I'm not in favor of the willy-nilly Tasering of grandmothers. I'm married to one. But I do wish that the folks who are so hard on the cops would get their demands straight. The cops are condemned for supposedly failing to protect the neighborhoods from the punks, but witnesses then refuse to name names in the most egregious of murders. We are supposed to believe cops randomly pick on innocent people for -- what? -- the fun of it? We're supposed to be outraged that in one crime-ridden Chicago Housing Authority development, the police ask residences to carry identification cards voluntarily so that the officers can keep away outsiders who bring drugs and violence into the neighborhood.

All I know is that I wouldn't want to be a Chicago cop.

Get off that bus, into telework

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Hey, you, sitting there on your train or bus, have you had enough yet? Sick of this ritualistic dance about mass-transit "doomsday"? Fed up with the endless maneuvering over fares and taxes? Isn't there some "long-term" solution to this mess that would free us from this exhausting exercise? Yes, there is: telecommuting. And you should be demanding it. Now. When you're fed up.

The crux of the commuting problem is simple: too many people going to too many places. You can try to fix it by improving the means of getting there (e.g., more subsidies, higher taxes, more cars, more concrete) without surcease or effect. Or you can reduce the number of people who depend on 19th and 20th Century technology to get there.

Some think that the answer lies in fighting sprawl, but that's been a flop. Academics who continue to cram the idea of "controlled growth" on an unwilling public are as out of touch as disco. All that's accomplished by propping up a mass-transit system with ever-expanding bases of "assured funding" is agony over when we'll have to face the next transit doomsday.

Instead of chasing a utopian ideal by tossing more money and effort at increasing the supply of transit, the enduring solution is reducing the demand for it, whether it is mass or individual. Instead of concentrating on how to best move people, we should be focusing on how to best move information. Instead of fighting technology and its inevitable impact on society, we should be facilitating and promoting the societal change that already has begun.

Almost 4.2 million people worked at home in 2000, up from 3.4 million in 1990, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That 23 percent increase was double the growth in the overall work force during the decade. According to the International Telework Association and Council, the number of Americans who spent at least some portion of the week teleworking jumped from 19.7 million in 1999 to 28 million in 2001, up 42 percent in two years.

Sadly, the greatest resistance comes from the private sector, not government. Telework in the federal government grew 35 percent in 2006, compared with 10 percent in the private sector, according to a study by CDW Government Inc. consultancy. Forty-four percent of federal employees surveyed indicated they have the option to telework, up 6 percent from 2006, compared with 15 percent of private-sector employees. That's thanks to a federal law that gives eligible executive branch employees the option to telecommute "to the maximum extent possible" without damaging their performance evaluations.

No, I don't want a law forcing the private sector to do the same, although just mentioning it will make someone think it's a good idea. Stiff corporate lobbying would make passage of such a law nearly impossible; it'd be easier to educate corporate minds about the benefits, to them and their employees. Not the least of which is the increased ability to continue operations after a natural disaster or terrorist attack. Surveys also show that employees are happier telecommuting, if indeed, companies think having happy employees is a good idea. Other advantages, says the American Telecommuting Association, are improved productivity, information turnaround and communications; greater staffing flexibility; lower employee turnover; and access to a larger pool of potential employees. I'd throw in fewer of those annoying, unproductive, face-to-face meetings.

The challenge is to disabuse private employers of myths about telecommuting and their stubborn belief that if they can't see the workers, then the workers aren't working. Organized labor also resists, citing fears, among others, of overtime abuse and the difficulty of maintaining union cohesion. For companies and unions that absolutely insist on having their employees in a corral, subregional or neighborhood telecenters are an option. For example, instead of making south suburban employees travel to the big northwest suburban headquarters, a company might set up a center in Orland Park.

For society, the benefits are clear and abundant. Among them are reduced energy consumption and pollution, and greater opportunities for the physically impaired, at-home parents, the elderly, people living in remote areas and caretakers for the infirm.

No, I'm not declaring the end of offices and downtowns, or that trains, buses and highways can or should be ignored or eliminated. We'll always need them, and they need to operate as best as they can. But I'm betting that when it comes to investing, say, $1 billion in roads and transit, compared with $1 billion in telecommuting, there's no question of which will produce the greatest return for everyone.

This Just In: Boys and Girls are different!

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

So, how many billions did it cost us to discover that girls outpace boys on school tests?

That apparently is the latest finding to be coaxed out of the load of academic tests weighing down children and teachers, tying administrators in knots and showering the education and testing industries with untold riches. This latest crisis in gender disparity was described in detail in a recent page-one Chicago Tribune story revealing that Illinois grade school girls last year outperformed boys on every state achievement exam.

I could have saved them the trouble, if they had only asked. Ever since my first day in school in 1946 and every year thereafter, girls did better than boys in school. They were the first to raise their hands and when called on to have the right answer. They got the highest grades, scored big on “deportment” and graduated first in the class.

Read more at Chicago Daily Observer

New reason to hate Bush: FEMA "fakes" a press conference

By Dennis Byrne

For days, media vultures have been circling the California wildfires, eyes peeled for another Hurricane Katrina “blunder” by the Bush administration.

But in the absence of red meat, they had to settle for—horrors!—a “fake” news conference conducted by FEMA’s deputy administrator, Harvey E. Johnson Jr., as evidence of the administration’s ineptitude or, worse, deception.

Judging by the press reaction, you would have thought Johnson had set some of the fires himself. Hundreds of stories describing the supposed scandal popped up across the country, including this blast in the Los Angeles Times:

The “fake” press conference “…comes just more than two years after [FEMA’s] agonizingly slow-motion response to thousands of displaced New Orleans residents who waited for help in dreadful conditions at the Superdome. Michael D. Brown, the agency's head, resigned under fire after he became an embarrassment to President Bush, who appeared out of touch when he praised Brown with the memorable comment: ‘Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.’”

It also reminded me of the agonizingly slow response to Katrina by Democratic Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Democratic Mayor Ray Nagin, but why bring that up when taking a shot at Bush is so much more fun? I suppose we should be glad that the two weren’t responsible for putting out the California fires.

The stories dutifully reported that an incensed Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) demanded answers from the head of FEMA, and as chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security and Government Affairs Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, who, but her is better positioned to keep the heat on?

Other than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who mindlessly blamed the wildfires on “global warming?”

FEMA and others in the Bush administration, frightened out of their skins by the possibility of a repeat of the Katrina public relations mess, hurriedly rushed forward with copious apologies, calling the press conference the worst thing imaginable—“offensive.”

Indeed, it didn’t take long after the California fires went out of control before the inevitable comparisons with Katrina were being raised. The only problem was that everyone seemed to perform well, which is what the “fake” press conference was supposed to be all about.

You can hardly blame FEMA for wanting to hold a press conference, both to blow its own horn and, more legitimately, to update the media on the progress of the fight against the catastrophic blazes. FEMA called a hurry-up news conference, with 15 minutes notice to reporters. The first mistake. Realizing that few reporters could make it, the agency provided an 800 number for reporters not on the scene to listen into the press conference, but no provision was made for them to ask questions—the second mistake. The only problem was that no reporters showed up for the actual press conference. Someone decided that it would be better to go ahead, with FEMA staff members asking questions reflective of ones that they had actually been fielding from reporters. Third mistake.

They might have avoided the problem if FEMA had just announced that no reporters were present, and in their absence FEMA was (A) canceling the press conference, or (B) forging ahead with Johnson’s prepared statement as planned, but frankly admitting that no questions could be asked. “Sorry we can’t do better at the moment, but call or e-mail us with your questions and we’ll get back to you as quickly as possible and try to set up a press conference later with better notice.”

I have no idea why none of this happened. The harshest critics will try to suggest that FEMA intentionally tried to fool the press into thinking that it was a legitimate press conference, and I can’t say that they didn’t. The critics also will recall that the administration already has been caught trying to “manufacture” the news, when it paid Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, $240,000 to promote Education Department programs.

But, having been in the news and PR businesses for almost a combined 40 years, I can’t imagine even the most idiotic publicist thinking that he could get away with faking a news conference. FEMA either needs better PR advice, or its top officials need to listen better to their PR experts if or when they give good advice.

Or, more pointedly, they shouldn’t be driven by the fear of what the partisan jerks will say. Such as Reid blaming Bush for the wildfires because his administration hadn’t provided enough funding for removing the dead tress and shrubs that fed the fire.

Maybe they’ll next accuse Bush of not “doing enough” to prevent the winds that stoked the wildfires.

Fan Dumb

By Dennis Byrne

Obviously, we mere fans aren’t privileged to read from the same secret playbook available only to team managers, coaches, general managers and owners.

How else can you explain why we don’t understand why, for example, starting Major League pitchers must be yanked automatically from the game after they’ve thrown 100 pitches?

How do you explain why throngs of Chicago Bears football fans failed to see that Bears quarterback Rex Grossman was obviously superior to Brian Griese?

Somewhere buried in those secret texts is an explanation for why the game-leading team—no matter in what the sport—must play “prevent defense” until the other team has had a chance to catch up.

In our ignorance, we fail to grasp the many reasons why such rules must be adhered to, come hell or high water, even if they fly in the face of common sense. Take manager Lou Piniella’s controversial decision to pull Cubs starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano out of the first game of the division series after six innings and not even 100 pitches, even though he was throwing a superb game. Got to save him for the fourth game of the series, was the explanation. The Cubs, of course, never got to the fourth game, having been swept in three by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

It’s safe to say most fans would have left Zambrano in; it’s also safe to say that most managers—not just Piniella—would have taken him out. Not just because it’s the playoffs, but because of the precious 100-pitch rule. It’s hard to imagine that under such circumstances that baseball will see another Ed Walsh, the White Sox Hall of Fame pitcher, who in 1908 won 40 games, with 24 complete games in 49 starts, 464 innings pitched, 11 shutouts and 249 strikeouts. Imagine how delighted owners would be to have another house-packer like Walsh show up, but it’ll never happen again, thanks to the 100-pitch mentality.

Speaking of owners, they can be just as mystifying. For years, Chicago Blackhawk fans couldn’t fathom why the family ownership forbad full television coverage of this legendary hockey franchise. If the Wirtz family had nurtured, instead of restricted, the coverage, the fan based would have increased, providing the increased revenues harvested that might have prevented the disgraceful trashing of the franchise.

The tragedy is that the Wirtz family had one of the best examples of how the process works, right here in its backyard. The Chicago Cubs, despite being the most pathetic losers in MLB history, has a large and loyal following, here and nationally. Why? Because every game was televised, home and away, on commercial TV. On top of that, national exposure on Chicago’s WGN-TV’s superstation, produced a countrywide fan base. The Wirtz family also should have learned from the Chicago White Sox, whose descent into the city’s “second team” status began when the ownership restricted the team’s telecasts. The fans knew all this, but it sadly took the death of family patriarch, Bill Wirtz, for younger ownership to move to telecast the Blackhawks on a less limited basis.

Stubborn is the word for it, and perhaps stubbornness is the curse of the good fortune or riches needed to run or own a professional sports team. Stubborn, as in Bears head coach Lovie Smith’s unbending loyalty to Rex Grossman as the team’s starting quarterback, in spite of years of injuries and his demonstrated failure. The fans knew that a strong arm alone wouldn’t get the job done and demanded that Griese replace him. (Perhaps, you could say the fans got what they deserved, since they originally demanded Grossman in place of whoever at the time was the latest in a long string of quarterback failures.)

Not to rub Smith’s nose in it, but it became apparent from the first moment that Griese stepped on the field as starting quarterback that he would be more effective than Grossman. Each week he improved, until he was named the NFL’s offensive player of the week following his spectacular come-from-behind win last Sunday. The fans were right again.

Griese led the successful drive, virtually by himself, calling his own plays. We’re getting varying reports on just how many plays he called on his own during that drive, but it raises an interesting question about the practice of coaches and managers calling plays from the sidelines or the booth. Why not let the guy who’s in the middle of the action call the plays? Sending in plays from the sidelines has the same feel as generals who watch from a distance, sending in orders to the troops who actually are doing the fighting.

A last observation on football. Fans can see when a “game plan” is failing; why does it take so long for the coaches to see it? What is with the pig-headed determination to keep running the ball up the middle when it isn’t working? Why the insistence on “establishing the ground game first” before establishing the passing game? What makes the ground game so sanctified when all it produces is an endless series of three runs and a punt?

If these questions make fans scratch their heads in wonderment, the logic of some trades brings on hives. Take Aaron Rowand, the White Sox center fielder who was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies just a few months after winning the World Series. Many fans were appalled, even when the Sox got slugger Jim Thome (and $22 million) in return. Rowand was a fan-pleasing “fence crasher” and epitomized the team’s “grinder” image. It was like cutting out the team’s heart; the team was never the same.

Now there’s talk about the Chicago Bulls trading several front-liners to the Los Angeles Lakers for the perpetual pain-in-the-neck Kobe Bryant. The Lakers only want all-star Luol Deng, leading scorer Ben Gordon, the promising Tyrus Thomas and the exciting rookie Joakim Noah; in other words, gut the team for a “super-star” who will disrupt the locker room and, dare I say, anger the fans. By the time you read this, a variation of the trade may already have happened, and, for me, that’s it for the Bulls.

Here I’m making no claim to fan superiority when it comes to all things sporting. If teams took a plebiscite every time a trade came up or called a play, there’s no guarantee that things would be any better.

Nor, possibly, would things be any worse.

In public interest, name cop, accuser

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

You really had to worry about Rich Daley's health if you saw him last week answer reporters' questions about why the City Council shouldn't be given the names of cops who have racked up the most complaints for excessive force.

I thought Mayor Daley's head might explode when he kept saying, "They're [the complaints] only allegations!" Someone should have given him oxygen.

Still, the mayor was right: Complaints against the police officers are, indeed, only allegations. But Daley is wrong when he says that's a reason for keeping the names secret. When these same cops arrest people, it is only an allegation, but the names of the accused are a matter of public record.

So, if citizens are eligible to get their names in print when they're arrested, the public certainly has a right to know the names of cops alleged to be the most brutal. Why? To see if there's a pattern to the alleged brutalization, for one. To judge whether the city's mechanism for combating police brutality is working as it should, or if it is working at all, for another.

Notice that I'm saying that the right to the names belongs to the public, not the City Council. The Daley administration's presumption is that giving the names to the aldermen will mean that they inevitably will leak the names to the public. So what? The public has a right to know the names, leaked or not. That aldermen have big mouths is not a valid reason for the secrecy.

This gets complicated.

For example, concerns about public retaliation against the accused officers should be taken seriously. The police and their families do have a right to privacy for a good reason. Publishing the names with addresses and phone numbers -- which no one is suggesting -- would grievously jeopardize their safety. But if just knowing the cops' names was a bad idea, then cops shouldn't be wearing name tags.

Sure, the aldermen's reasons for demanding the names are suspect; everything they do is suspect. And here, Daley's got a good idea when he asked the reporters: "Could we have all the allegations against aldermen [published too], pffft?" Now that would be interesting reading. But their names lately haven't been appearing on lists of the indicted as often as the names of the mayor's pals. Right now, those lists make more interesting reading.

Daley makes a strong point, backed up by Interim Police Supt. Dana Starks, when he says complaints against the officers often come from offenders trying to discredit their arresting officers in order to "enhance their case in court." It is utterly naive to think that career criminals don't falsely accuse cops of brutality.

But ... Daley's handling of police brutality complaints during his terms as mayor and Cook County state's attorney has been, to put it charitably, flawed. It's thanks to Daley that the words "torture" and "former Chicago Police Lt. Jon Burge" will be forever linked as one of the city's worst injustices. That Daley has taken tighter control of the Office of Professional Standards, the agency that is supposed to investigate police brutality, provides no comfort.

Obviously, this is a complicated matter, requiring the kind of simple-minded answers usually provided by media commentators. So, here's mine: First, disclose, as some aldermen want, the names of officers with more than 10 complaints filed against them in the last five years. Oh, what the heck, in the interests of compromise, make it 20 complaints; that'll still flush out the worst ones.

But, here's my twist. In making the cops' names public, the city also should publicize the names and the criminal and arrest records of the complainants. Fair is fair.

Would that invite retaliation against the complainants? If that's a serious worry, then just publish the complainants' records without their names. That would provide sufficient information to help the public judge the credibility of the most frequent complainers.

But more to the point, who would retaliate, and why? The police? They already know who the worst complainers are; they don't need an engraved invitation to get even. That leaves the public, and here we are getting to a very interesting idea. Maybe there would be fewer 10-year-olds killed in gang crossfire if the public knew whom the cops were nailing most frequently and who was complaining the loudest about it.

Make sure the gang-bangers show up at the funeral, explain to the kid's family, friends and neighbors how it's always the cops' fault.

Recall (read: can) Blagojevich, Stroger and Daley

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Like most uprisings, the Illinois/Cook County/Chicago tax revolt has started without anyone sending out a press release or making a formal proclamation.

Not in memory—mine, at least—have so many taxpayers here been so riled. Not in memory, have so many taxpayers here been hit with such a flood of proposed tax increases. Not in memory, have the demands for higher taxes come from a gaggle of such incompetent, ineffective or corrupt politicians—namely Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Cook County President Todd Stroger and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (henceforth to be referred to here as BS&D

The signs of an impending march on the tyrants’ citadels surround us: Stroger’s office phone lines crammed with angry taxpayers. Liberal politicians and commentators jumping on the “we-re-taxed-out” bandwagon, without seeing the irony of their crabbing about the billion-dollar tax increases necessary to fund the government excesses that they have demanded.

They’re all asking: How much more money do they think they can wring out of us for their insider pals and contractors, for their padded payrolls, for their idiotic schemes? How stupid are they? How stupid do they think, that we are?

But this revolt will need more than a mob armed with pitchforks and muzzle-loading muskets charging City Hall, the County Building and the state Capital.

Read more at Chicago Daily Observer

Snubbing cancer study will only hurt women

Research showing link to abortion ignored by media

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

During National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it is fitting and proper that women be informed about any newly discovered dangers, even as the public groans under the weight of all the warnings surrounding the mere act of living.

For example, a well-researched Chicago Tribune story last week disclosed that women who have just a couple of alcoholic drinks daily increase their breast cancer risk by 13 percent. Coincidentally, a new study reported that abortion is an important breast cancer risk factor, yet I couldn't find a word describing the research in mainstream media.

How to explain this disparity? I'll be vigorously advised that "most" studies disprove an abortion-breast cancer link. Or that the study in question appeared in a "conservative" scientific journal. Or that the study is bogus or unimportant. Or, more rudely, that the whole breast cancer argument has been concocted by anti-abortion rights advocates to make women afraid to have abortions. The issue is dead, I'll be notified. Kaput. Here I would remind critics that in science it's not who says it or how many say it that counts. What does count are the data and the rigor with which they are collected, analyzed and held up to a scientifically credible hypothesis.

So let's look at the science of this latest study, which appeared in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Using statistical techniques and reliable national health data, the study of eight European countries found, to a statistically significant degree, that the incidence of breast cancer increases with the incidence of earlier abortions. The researcher, Patrick Carroll, used the same mathematical model employed in a 1997 study that predicted with extraordinary accuracy breast cancer increases in England and Wales from 1998 to 2004. Using that model, Carroll predicts that countries with higher abortion rates -- England and Wales -- could expect a troubling increase in breast cancer rates. The Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, where abortion rates are lower, should experience a smaller increase. And in Denmark and Finland, where abortion rates have declined, cancer rates should similarly decline. Some will object because the study is "only" epidemiological -- meaning that it relies on a statistically significant relationship between the incidence of breast cancer and abortion to infer that one causes the other. The standard, but simple-minded, objection to epidemiological studies is that a correlation does not necessarily prove causation. That's true, to some extent. But, epidemiologists use correlations in more complex ways, combining them with a range of medical, sociological, psychological and other information to lead their research in the right direction, to support or debunk hypotheses, and toward solutions for significant public health problems.

In the study of the abortion-breast cancer link, the working hypothesis is simple: For a woman who has not had a child before, an induced abortion is more likely to cause cancer because it interrupts the hormonal development of breast cells for later lactation, thus leaving the cells more vulnerable to uncontrolled and abnormal division, i.e. cancer.

The problem with dismissing the Carroll study because it is epidemiological is that you'll also have to dismiss a multitude of public health studies, including ones claiming a link between radon and lung cancer. These are the same epidemiological studies that alarmed millions of Americans, frightening them into buying radon detectors and creating a huge radon mitigation business. No study is perfect, and Carroll's shortcoming is that his data do not allow comparisons of individual women over time. But other major studies have, and according to one unchallenged compressive analysis of those studies, they show that a pregnant woman who has never had a child before and aborts in the first term increased her chance of breast cancer by 50 percent.

Science, by its nature, exists in an unsettled state. Evidence piles up on many sides. The public becomes unsettled. The media, as is their wont, avoid the complexities, especially when the complexities challenge preconceived or prevalent political notions. Instead of coming to grip with such concepts as epidemiology, they escape into silence. And ill-serve the public.

Speaking of media credibility, or lack of it, the conservative blogosphere is buzzing with the mainstream media's failure to report retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez' scathing criticism of the press in a recent speech. Yet, the media gave wide coverage when, in the same speech, he criticized America's conduct of the war. His criticism of the media would have resonated with millions who question the media's integrity and balance. Having been in this business for almost 40 years, I'm ashamed of and unable to understand my profession's utter dereliction when it comes to reporting its own failures.

Do they really think voters are that dumb?

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Isn't there some way for fed-up citizens of Illinois, Cook County and Chicago to force their governments into receivership?

After all, when a corporation is as stunningly incompetent as are Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, legislative leaders, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and his toady City Council, creditors can force it into bankruptcy in which a court-appointed trustee straightens out the mess or, if necessary, shuts it down to preserve the remains.

If the city, county or state were corporations, their creditors long ago would have forced their operations out of the hands of the bunglers and turned it over to a court-appointed executive.

So, why shouldn't we citizens and taxpayers have the same right to protect our publicly held assets from Blagojevich, Daley, Stroger and the rest of the clinkers who have so miserably failed to govern in the interests of the governed?

I make this suggestion with tongue only slightly in cheek. Look at the shambles that our "leaders" have given us: A state run by a governor who thinks we should cough up our money for every cockamamie giveaway and tax-increase scheme he hatches. Legislative leaders whose personal animosities have turned the state capital into a preschool playpen. A Cook County government, so wildly mis-, mal- and non-managed by Stroger and his cronies that they want to hit us up with a huge sales tax increase to bail them out.

Now comes Daley with a $293 million bundle of tax, fee and fine increases, including the city's largest-ever property tax increase, to finance an operation stinking with corruption and looting. Daley says blame the aldermen knocking on his "side door" for the goodies. Well, blame whomever; Daley is giving it away to somebody.

His 2008 budget would increase expenditures by more than 5 percent, and over two years by $700 million or 12 percent. Daley laughably suggests that Chicagoans should be happy with the higher taxes because they'll get some new neighborhood libraries. More likely, the taxes will pay for such deplorable decisions as the 10-year labor contracts handed to 33 trade unions representing 8,000 city workers. Building-trade workers will continue to be paid the costly "prevailing wage," while others will get annual raises averaging as much as 4 percent. Just coincidentally, the contracts would guarantee labor peace through the 2016 Olympics, in effect, imposing a hidden Games tax.

This piano-load of new taxes lands on Chicagoans and their visitors as they already are paying some of the nation's highest taxes and fees. That's thanks to the current $5 billion budget that imposed increases of about $75 million in taxes and $11 million in fees. How tempting it is to observe that the people who have driven the city, county and state governments into their worst financial smashup in memory are Democrats, raising the question of whether Democrats are congenitally incapable of governing. Are they mathematically challenged, having been denied the basic adding and subtracting skills by the touchy-feely education they so love? Are they so insecure that they can't say no to anyone who wants a touch of our taxes, because they might be accused of lacking compassion?

Republicans, if they controlled everything, might not do any better (or worse), but that's moot isn't it, because the GOP has aced itself out of every important city, county and state office in sight.

John McCarron, one of the city's most insightful columnists, raised this issue in this space last summer, when things in Springfield looked like they couldn't get worse. Why, he wondered, when Democrats run it all, can't they win the war for their own agenda: "progressive taxation, for equal access to jobs and educational opportunities, for a semblance of social justice."

Good question, and I don't have the answer, having surrendered my liberal allegiances, as I did in my adolescence, years ago. Maybe it's a matter of greed: now that they control the pot of gold, too many hands want to dip into it. Or purity: every "program" or "service" on the agenda must be fully funded.

Or, maybe Daley himself provides the answer when he takes Chicagoans for dopes by saying they "know that if I propose raising taxes it's because we've exhausted every other option ..."

He could be right. Perhaps voters are dumb enough to knowingly elect incompetents. Maybe we don't need a trustee to fix things; maybe just smarter, more responsible voters.

A cheapened Nobel

By Dennis Byrne
Political Mavens

By now, the derision and laughter created by Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize is old news. But if you still don’t believe that it was politically inspired, you might want to consider from whence it sprang.

The five-person committee that awards the prize is a creature of the Norwegian parliament, the Storting. The body, controlled by the Labour Party, has, you might say, something of a leftist tilt. Here are some of its recent high jinks:

Firms face quota deadline

Norway's center-left government has issued a warning to 140 companies that still don't have enough women on their boards of directors: Appoint more, or be dissolved.

Government [Equality] minister Karita Bekkemellem intends to enforce Norway's law requiring that at least 40 percent of the boards of stocklisted companies be made up of female directors….

Read More at Political Mavens

The Katrina of Marathons

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Not surprisingly, the second-guessers have become unglued because the Chicago Marathon sponsors didn’t do—what?—enough about the blazing heat that laid many runners low. But, to compare what happened here over the weekend to the deadly disaster in New Orleans, isn’t that a bit much?

That’s what host Carol Marin did when she mentioned to her panel on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight that “some people” are calling the marathon, “the Katrina of Marathons.” The ridiculous analogy probably should have been expected considering how “some people” figure that someone (else) must be prepared on a moment’s notice to take care of every damn problem in sight.

You can bet if the marathon happened to have been run on a record-breaking cold day in a sleet storm, “someone” would have been blamed for not foreseeing the need to have an army of volunteers at the ready to chip the ice off the streets.

The Chicago Marathon is not a unique example of such starry-eyed expectations , but it sure is a shinning example of the prevalent Somebody-Do-Something mentality.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Parents' input--not book--gets banned

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Parents concerned about the quality of books their children must read in school don't deserve the ridicule and condemnation that rain down on them.

But, as surely as Columbus Day shows up every year, October brings with it Banned Books Week, the annual high-minded whacking of such parents for their supposed intolerance. Dare disagree or suggest that teachers and school administrators are making children read age-inappropriate material and you run the risk of being labeled reactionary, illiterate or worse, a conservative Christian.

Of this haughty nastiness, we have no finer example than John H. Kinzie Elementary School on the Southwest Side, where some parents objected to 7th graders being required to read Robert Cormier's "The Chocolate War."

It's a controversial book about Catholic high school students being terrorized by autocratic religious brothers and an unchecked secret society of physically and psychologically brutal students. In one chapter, a bully nearly beats another student to a pulp in front of the entire student body of 400 cheering, bloodthirsty boys, with the head brother's snickering approval.

Some parents don't care for the book's casual handling of sexual themes, such as masturbation, but that's the least of the book's problems. Worse, in this book, victimizing boys and girls is its own reward.

So, when several dozen parents protested that the book was on the required reading list, Kinzie Principal Sean Egan arrogantly told them, in effect, tough. "I don't tell you how to run your family," he said. There is a legitimate issue of who controls a school's curriculum: educators, parents or -- perish the thought -- a combination of both working together in a spirit of cooperation and caring. In many schools where this conflict erupts, parents are allowed to excuse their children from reading the offending text.

This doesn't mean that the book is removed from the school's reading list or library. Despite suggestions floated by the American Library Association -- sponsor of Banned Books Week and extremist advocate of the rule that "children should be able to read whatever they need or want" -- this isn't censorship.

But at Kinzie, even suggesting that your own children can be excused from the reading is verboten. In a letter, Egan warned parents not to. Doing so, he wrote, "could have a significant negative effect on the final course grade."

Elsewhere, this is called blackmail. Let's see, how often have we heard complaints about parental non-involvement? Especially, when student performance is low. "Where are the parents?" "Do they even care?" "We can't get them interested in what's going on in the classroom."

Apparently, parental involvement is appreciated only on the school's terms. Yes, I know, the book supposedly is a groundbreaking masterwork of young adult literature. (Even though Cormier wrote it for an adult audience; it wasn't until his agent informed him otherwise did he know he had actually written a book for adolescents.)

Contributing to the book's cache are attacks on it by "would-be censors" and its frequent appearance on the ALA's most "challenged" list, based on the reasoning that if the troglodytes are against it, it has to be good.

I'm not impressed. Cormier writes well, despite the confused point of view. But it's like "Catcher in the Rye"; when you grow up and reread it, it seems sophomoric. It makes you wonder: Is this the best that English teachers could find?

There's also the portrayal of the Catholic brothers who teach at the fictional high school. It takes more than a suspension of belief to think that such a sadistic, moronic faculty could be running this or any school. Or that they would sit by while letting a secret club of callous students victimize other students. Having graduated from a high school operated by the no-nonsense Christian Brothers, I see the book's portrayal of teaching brothers as hackneyed, cruel and unfair.

But the book does a fine job of making 7th grade boys worry about what supposedly awaits them in high school: sadism. Letting high school juniors and seniors read it is less troubling because they have real-world experience to judge the book for the laughable rubbish that it is. For 7th graders, the book just isn't age appropriate.

The book strives to teach the importance of thinking for yourself and standing on your own, the way the protagonist, Jerry, refused to sell chocolates for a school fundraiser. Too bad. Among the fawning education and ALA wisdom givers, is there not a single protagonist to do the same and say the book doesn't belong in 7th grade?

Abortion protesters file libel suit against Planned Parenthood

By James Kimberly
Tribune staff reporter

Abortion protesters sued Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area for libel Monday, contending advertisements and mailings from the organization falsely accused them of advocating violence and criminal activity.

The lawsuit filed Monday in Kane County Circuit Court lists 19 plaintiffs, Aurora residents who are opposed to the clinic that Planned Parenthood wants to open at New York Street and Oakhurst Drive on the city's east side.

On Sept. 6 and 10, Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area published a full-page advertisement in the Aurora Beacon News containing a photograph of an abortion clinic that had been destroyed by an arson fire. The ad said the Pro-Life Action League and its President Joe Scheidler "have a well-documented history of advocating violence against both persons and property, as well as other related criminal activity."

Eric Scheidler, Joe Scheidler's son and spokesman for the Pro-Life Action League, is one of the 19 plaintiffs. The lawsuit was filed against Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area, its president, Steve Trombley, and its subsidiary, Gemini Office Development LLC, which built a Planned Parenthood clinic at New York Street and Oakhurst Drive in Aurora. The lawsuit did not name the Aurora newspaper as a defendant.

"You cannot accuse the peaceful citizens of violent crimes and advocating violence simply because you disagree with their message," said Tom Brejcha, an attorney with Thomas More Society of Chicago.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

A New 'Ground Zero' in the Abortion Wars

This is another take on the Aurora abortion clinic fight that appeared on RealClearPolitics

By Dennis Byrne

In a huge tactical blunder, Planned Parenthood has managed to turn a Chicago suburb into "ground zero" in the abortion wars.

Planned Parenthood's decision to try to secretly open an abortion clinic in Aurora, Illinois exploded in its face when pro-life organizations discovered the subterfuge only weeks before the clinic was scheduled to open its doors. The attempted deception now has rallied pro-life groups from around the country to the cause and helped energize 40-day abortion clinic vigils in 80 cities.

No small part in firing up pro-life forces was Planned Parenthood's unabashed excuse for deceiving Aurora officials about the purpose of the clinic: Disclosure would stir up opposition, create ugly protest and ignite violence. One pro-life group, infuriated at Planned Parenthood's accusations of criminality and violence has threatened to sue for libel.

Read more at RealClearPolitics

Planned Parenthood applies with lies

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Whatever you think about Planned Parenthood setting up an abortion clinic in Aurora, you have to be impressed by the group's mendacity.

That's not surprising because the abortion industry has demonstrated great skill in the arts of deception, invention and omission. Now, thanks to the lengths that Planned Parenthood went to disguise the fact that its new medical clinic in Aurora would perform abortions, and the breathtaking willingness of its supports to justify the deception, we have an even better understanding of the depths of the industry's dishonesty.

Planned Parenthood officials said the devil (pro-lifers) made them do it (lie). If they didn't, the group insists, the "anti-choice" crowd would protest, make life miserable for all involved and even become violent. Without shame, Planned Parenthood confessed to intentionally avoiding public disclosure and transparency because of its perceived fear of negative public reaction. Equally shameless was how facilely Planned Parenthood defenders excused this end-justifies-the-means strategy.

In other words, the clinic's cheerleaders believe the clinic can deny to a certain segment of the public information that it has a right to receive. The reason is Planned Parenthood doesn't like to face the tests of a democratic society -- meaning protests, public demonstrations and the constitutional right to petition government.

This is based on the assumption that clinic opponents are dangerous. Steve Trombley, head of Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area, in a Sept. 4 letter to Aurora officials, made the baseless claim that the "zealots" opposing the clinic "have a well-documented history of violence and criminal activity." This sweeping slander is based on unfair and inaccurate stereotypes and on claims found in an old lawsuit against a pro-life protester that was twice soundly trashed -- 8-0 and 8-1 -- by the U.S. Supreme Court, something he doesn't mention in his letter. (The suit tried to use RICO racketeering conspiracy laws to try to bankrupt pro-lifers into silence.)

Let's be clear, the opponents' protests are legal and constitutionally protected. If it comes to "civil disobedience," the protesters should and will be arrested. Such tactics would drive Planned Parenthood backers wild, but if they don't understand the use of civil disobedience against laws that are perceived as unjust or immoral, perhaps they should consult Rev. Jesse Jackson, recently arrested for blocking a gun shop door, for an explanation.

The abortion industry's whoppers go far beyond Aurora. For years, it denied that the grizzly partial-birth abortion procedure existed, and when called on it, the industry spread around some more lies, such as it's "rarely used," used only to preserve the mother's health or life, used only on severely ill unborn babies and so forth. Until Ron Fitzsimmons, head of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, his conscience hurting, admitted that he was "lying through his teeth." The procedure existed, he said, and was used frequently and for whatever reason the mother wanted. This was 10 years ago, but the abortion industry has never owned up to the lie.

Likewise, the industry clings to the lie that it has public support for its radical position of abortion at any time for any reason. It promotes this exaggeration by citing polls that (correctly) show that most Americans don't want to repeal Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. That might be significant if one were confident that most Americans fully understand, or have even read, the decision. Or the companion decision, Doe vs. Bolton, which effectively legalizes on-demand abortion. They apparently haven't because polls consistently show that most Americans do not support the actual substance of Roe. Rather, they show that most Americans believe that abortion in general should be legal, but most support placing more restrictions on it, such as banning late-term abortions.

Pro-choicers will respond that pro-lifers are devious when they operate "crisis pregnancy centers" that aren't upfront about how they're trying to talk pregnant women out of abortions. That's not true of all such centers; many Web sites operated by the centers clearly state that they offer "abortion alternatives." Those that are trying to pose as abortion providers should stop; they are as guilty of dishonesty as the abortion industry.

In Aurora, Planned Parenthood would deny protesters their constitutional rights based on the mere suspicion -- unproved -- of future violence and criminality. Such a priori conclusions are wrong and dangerous. Planned Parenthood does not have the self-appointed right to impose prior restraint on the free exercise of speech. When it comes to the fight in Aurora, this is what is truly scary.

How do You Make Americans Sign up For Universal Health Insurance?

By Dennis Byrne
Human Events

What happens when someone refuses to get the health insurance that would be mandated by two Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) and former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.)?

If an uninsured patient shows up at a doctor’s office or hospital emergency room, is he refused care? Does he have to produce evidence that he can pay? Will he be required to sign up on the spot for health care coverage before receiving care?

Read more at Human Events

Alliance for the Great Lakes as absolutists

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

“Which would be harder for you to survive without for three days, oil or clean water?” —Cameron Davis, President of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

Davis has managed in one sentence to capture the essence of the debate over whether BP should be allowed to slightly increase discharges of ammonia and suspended particulate matter into Lake Michigan as part of a $3.8 billion expansion of its northwestern Indiana refinery.

For Davis, and so many others, the issue is one of absolutes: Do you want clean water or oil?

In real life, that’s not the choice we face. Choices are not so absolute, but the opponents who have bashed BP, the state of Indiana and the U.S. EPA for approving the expansion plans would have it so. Either or. Black or white. Good or evil.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Free, clear, endangered by our mayor

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

After all is said, the rationale for relocating the Chicago Children's Museum into Grant Park comes down to this: Nothing's there, something has to go there and it might as well be the museum.

Obviously, that reasoning flunks all tests of logic, but, at base, it's the best that the move's backers can do. Put aside all the red herrings (racism, classism, adultism) raised by Mayor Richard Daley. A Tribune headline succinctly got to the heart of the argument: "Fixing 'nowhere.'" The northeast corner of Grant Park is "underused;" enter it from the serpentine bridge from Millennium Park and you'll find yourself "nowhere." Because large-scale work must be done on the parking garage below, we'll have an opportunity to fix the supposedly desolate park by relocating the privately operated, fee-to-enter Children's Museum from its cramped Navy Pier quarters.

Of course, that's bunk. There is a "there" there. A "there" with a grand view of the park and Buckingham Fountain to the south. The lake to the east. The skyline to the west. In the heart of downtown, it is a rare and valuable place of quietude. It was my favorite lunchtime refuge when I worked downtown, a place to be immersed in the city's beauty and to forget the office lunacy. The wildflower gardens; the expansive lawns; the plunk of tennis balls on nearby courts; the fountain, framed by rows of trees, rising like an exclamation point blocks away. Anyone who doesn't see the something in all this has nothing for brains.

But wait, museum backers say this won't change after the museum moves there. All that you will see of the subterranean museum are some skylights poking through the landscape. The grass, benches, the opportunity for solitude and all the rest will stay, only better.

Museum backers appear to overlook the irony in their argument: We need to fill in that corner of the park with something; after we fill in that corner, nothing will still be there.

Let's leave that aside and get to why the museum should go elsewhere. Let's also put aside all the legalities, the parsing of court rulings about what constitutes the "forever open, free and clear" standard for Grant Park, and the chuckleheaded digressions about the park's racial, social and economic diversity. This is, after all, a park and what goes in there should have some relationship to it being a park. The Children's Museum does not. Its existence does not depend on it being near grass or the lakefront. It can go many other places without it being diminished as a museum. Its existence in Grant Park doesn't add anything to it. Grant Park can do just fine as a lakefront park without a children's museum.

Longtime readers (if there are any) know that I have felt that the lakefront has been an underutilized resource. As a kid growing up in Chicago, the lakefront as a "destination" wasn't for much my life. It wasn't until the Navy Pier revitalization, Millennium Park and other items came along to add some diversity of activity that the lakefront's potential has been more fully realized. But Grant Park is different. It is legacy land. There's enough already on it. More is coming: the Art Institute's new wing for its modern collection will rise three stories above grade. The park doesn't need another precedent for more stuff to be added.

This fight, thanks to Daley's invective, is far out of proportion. It won't be the end of the world if the museum goes elsewhere, or if Daley wins, as he surely will, and the museum goes into the park. Still, the fight is useful in one respect: It is yet another look into the Chicago Way, or in Daley's mind, the Daley Way. We again see the same full-blown arrogance of a mayor who, in violation of the law and common sense, bulldozed at midnight a civic asset that he personally disliked -- the lakefront Meigs Field.

Some folks are puzzled by Daley's blowup last week -- the uncontrolled anger and the hysterical accusations of racism against the museum's opponents. What on Earth, they ask, set it off. Simple. Daley blew his top at the mere challenge to his authority. He takes it personally. Opponents of the museum's move to Grant Park can only be thankful that building takes longer than destroying. Otherwise, the construction crews would have arrived some dark night, and Chicago would have awoken to a fait accompli in the park.

They Shudda Let CTA Doomsday Happen

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

They should have let the CTA, Metra and Pace cut service and raise fares this week. They still can go ahead with it, and it wouldn’t have been “doomsday.”

This is contrary to the given wisdom about “ticking clocks” and the approach of our ruination. Everyone meekly accepted the idea that fewer buses and trains running in Chicago and suburbs would be a disaster for “all of us.” They RTA board—the overseer of the region’s transit systems—said they no choice but to grab tens of millions of dollars from next year’s budget to keep service going, or else we would have strangled ourselves on—take your pick—traffic gridlock, suffocating fog and economic disaster. Or all of the above.

This is nuts.

Spending next year’s revenues isn’t too far removed from what millions of American homeowners did by taking out mortgages they could barely afford today, never mind when their ...

Read more at Chicago Daily Observer