From the Chicago Sun-Times:

State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago) met privately with the City Council’s Black Caucus last week to explain his plan to have hundreds of Chicago Public School students boycott the first four days of classes.

Implied, but not stated, was the fact that Meeks would like aldermanic support for his controversial tactics. Apparently, he’s not going to get it.

Aldermen are wise to stay away from this one.

Here is Meeks’ agenda for his four-day stay-out-of-school field trip:

On the first day of school, Sept. 2, Meeks plans to bus students up to the North Shore and attempt to enroll them in schools in Winnetka’s wealthy New Trier district.

The remaining three days—Sept. 3, 4 and 5—will be spent having boycotting students camp out in the lobbies of Chicago’s most prominent downtown businesses. They include the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Mercantile Exchange, Chase Bank, Fifth Third Bank and the Aon Building.

The Chicago Public Schools have struggled for years trying to get kids to actually show up at all on the first day of school.  Teachers want to start the year off right, establish a rapport with the students.  Meeks wants kids to join him on a screaming publicity stunt to Winnetka in a futile attempt to register for classes out of district.

This can only end poorly.

Here’s what’s going to happen:

Meeks will get a busload or two of kids and parents to join him on this quest.  He may even have a better showing than that the first day.  The second day, there will be less participation.  By days three and four, the good senator will be able to get by with a van or perhaps a station wagon.  Most kids will stay home from classes, taking advantage of the extra mornings to sleep late.  Children will thank the Rev. Meeks for extending summer vacation, if they even know who he is.  Gov. Blagojevich and Meeks’ colleagues in the Illinois State Legislature, the only people in the Land of Lincoln who can make a difference, will largely ignore his antics.

Meeks is completely right about the inequities in educational opportunities in Illinois.  His four day holiday for students will accomplish nothing and sends the wrong message.

I received a phone call regarding a bill I received for emergency room services in February at St. James Hospital in Chicago Heights.  When I returned the call, I was greeted by a kind person with a slight accent.  I couldn’t quite place the accent, but didn’t think it would be much of a barrier.

Was I ever wrong.

I read my account number to the person answering the phone.  She asked me for my name, and asked if I had been treated by an emergency room physician.

At this point, I grew suspicious. Any other time I call to pay a bill, after I read my account number, the person finally tells me my name, indicating that they have the correct account.

I asked this professional to tell me the name she had on the account.  She read me a woman’s name.  She asked me if I had was treated by an emergency room physician.  I told her she should be telling me that information, and the name she read to me was not mine, nor did it belong to anyone at my residence.

She asked me again if I had been treated in an emergency room.  I told her, yes, in February.  She again asked me my name.

I asked to speak with a supervisor.  I was told I was speaking with the Emergency Room Physicians billing service, and would I please tell her my name.  I asked her if she was in the United States.  Who is the doctor who sent the bill?

“No, sir.  We are in India.”  And no name for the doctor.

I told her I was unaware of any physician who billed from India.  Could I speak with a supervisor, please?  She asked me my name again, and finally provided me with the name of the attending physician.

At this point, I assured her I was very suspicious of the call, and told her I was going to call the police.  I was suspicious that she was possibly someone phishing for my credit card information. My call was then passed to a supervisor who asked for an account number.  The supervisor told me the name on the account — this time it was my name — and verified for me the name of the attending physician.  I did not recognize the name of the doctor, but, since this was all about a trip to the emergency room, I did not expect that I would remember his name.

I hung up the phone and called St. James Hospital in Chicago Heights directly after trying unsuccessfully to find a number for the doctor online.  After speaking with two business offices and being told my accounts were up to date and paid, I was referred to another number that handled billing for the emergency room physicians’ accounts.

That number belonged to my new friends in India.

Look, I’m all for a global economy, but this is downright absurd.  I get it that sometimes I have to talk to India to get tech support for my PC, but now I have to talk to India to talk about my hospital bill?

Give me a break.

According to our friend Gregory Tejeda at the Chicag Argus, Blago described himself Monday as a “homeboy” and “possibly the first African-American governor of Illinois.”

Just try and find a context for that one.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn stood “outside an event featuring Governor Rod Blagojevich, passing out flyers and urging the state Senate to reject automatic pay raises for lawmakers and top government officials,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

Quinn says he doesn’t have a ticket for the City Club of Chicago event Blagojevich is headlining. But he’s outside handing out information alongside a staffer holding a sign that reads “Vote Now, Vote No.”

Quinn says he wants Blagojevich to also urge a no vote by senators.

What a surreal afternoon in Illinois politics this must have been.

From CBS Chicago:

Handing out leaflets headlined “Stop Political Pay Raises Now!” Lt. Gov. Quinn and a few friends protesting outside the governor’s luncheon speech on the Near North Side didn’t impress Illinois Senate President Emil Jones. He said legislators need the 12% raise.

“I have members of my caucus who are single parents … who feel very strongly that they deserve a pay raise,” Jones said.

To avoid Quinn and reporters waiting at the front door, the governor snuck in a back door to deliver his speech. When cornered later, though, he criticized state senators who are blocking a floor vote likely to kill the unpopular proposal.

When someone gave the governor a coffee mug, he reflected on friends gained and the many lost since he took the state’s top job:

“Better a mug than a mug shot, right?” Blagojevich said. “This is such a tough job, you know, I think it’s fair to say I have fewer friends now than I had before I was governor.”

Calling Jones one of his most loyal friends, Blagojevich added, “Emil and I are homeboys, man. … There are times I consider myself the first African American governor of Illinois.”

What is this?  Blago thinks he’s black because he has a black friend?

Oy.

Ochal’s Far Northwest Side neighborhood was without power for two days in the summer heat. Neighbors dug into their own pockets to pay for emergency generators and shipped their elderly, including some who required oxygen therapy, to live with friends and family who had power. Then neighbors said they witnessed a political miracle Wednesday night:

A Commonwealth Edison truck pulled up at Ochal’s house in the 5400 block of North Paris Avenue.

The ComEd crew—two workers and a foreman—wore badges signifying they were detailed to O’Hare International Airport. With astonished neighbors watching, the crew delivered a big, fat electric generator to Ochal’s home.

It took only one day for him to resign.

Ochal had quite the reputation for working the system. According to Kass, in 2000 Ochal installed a built-in pool without permits. The pool swamped his neighbors backyards, “flooding their lawns and basements, shorting out appliances and blowing a ComEd transformer.”

Sounds like it was quite the scene last week when Kass went to interview the man he refers to as “Pool Boy.” When he knocked on Pool Boy’s door, his wife said he didn’t live there.

“There’s no Ochal here!” she said.

This truly astonished the neighbors. Then we went next door and around back, to see the fabulous pool and fabulous generator from that side. The camera guy was setting up his equipment, and just then, a little voice came from over the fence.

“Is this legal? Is this legal?”

It was Dave “Pool Boy” Ochal who popped up from behind the fence, his head up there like an angry jack-in-the-box.

Pool Boy couldn’t see me right off, standing there.

“Dave!” I shouted. “Pool Boy! It’s me, your friend, John.”

The realization on his face was poetic, if poetic looks like a slice of boiled ham in the moonlight.

Ochal’s head started to disappear behind his fence.

“Pool Boy!” I yelled. “Don’t go. It’s me, John. Don’t you want to talk?”

He didn’t.

Ochal resigned from his $159,144-a-year-plus-political-muscle position Friday.

ComEd has some questions to answer as well. While apparently not in the practice of delivering generators to customers’ homes, they did in this case.

Mayor Daley, interviewed in Beijing, sounded stupified:

When asked about the matter by a Tribune reporter in Beijing, Daley said, “It’s just plain stupid. It’s bad judgement. You know…..I mean why? It’s just bad judgement.”

Stupid for getting caught, perhaps, Mayor?

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Mac suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body’s organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

As recently as Friday, his publicist said Mac was responding well to treatment for the illness. The day before, she indicated he could be released from the hospital in the coming weeks.

But Mac, who lived in the south suburbs, died Saturday, cutting short a diverse and remarkable career that began with humble, South Side roots.

For a short while, Mac was a member of the Lincolnshire Country Club in Crete, IL. At the time, he was the club’s only African American member.

Mac worked in movies, standup, and television.

Mac was 50 years old.  We are all less for his loss.  He was an incredible talent.

FundRace makes it easy to search by name or address to see which presidential candidates your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors are contributing to. Or you can see if your favorite celebrity is putting their money where their mouth is.

FundRace gives you the technology to do what politicians and journalists have been doing for years: find out where the money’s coming from, see who it’s going to, and solve the mystery of why that crazy ex-roommate of yours is now the Ambassador to Turks and Caicos.

This information is a matter of public record.

Find out who’s giving the big bucks in your area:

Brought to you by The Huffington Post.

From the Sun-Times:

A man and teenage boy were fatally shot in the West Side’s Garfield Park neighborhood Saturday afternoon.

The victims were found at 54 N. Lotus Ave. and 5449 W. Washington Blvd., but were part of a single shooting, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said. The victims’ names are being withheld pending family notification.

A 27-year-old man was shot in the head and a 16-year-old boy was shot in the chest about 4:30 p.m., police News Affairs said. Both victims were dead on the scene. Autopsies are scheduled for Sunday.

This did not happen at the Taste of Chicago.  Recall the sanctimonious furor directed at Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis after the Taste shootings.  This just happened.

More sad news from Chicago’s south side:

A 30-year-old Morgan Park man was fatally shot in the head early Saturday morning on Chicago’s far South Side.

Police responded to a call of shots fired on the 600 block of East 131st Street around 2:45 a.m. Saturday, according to police news affairs.

Police found Charles Jackson, of the 900 block of West 115th Street, unresponsive, police and a spokeswoman for the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said.

Jackson was the second man fatally shot in the head Saturday morning.

In a separate incident, Nawez Muhammed, 28, of the 900 block of West Winona Street, was fatally shot around 12:50 a.m. on the 2100 block of South Pulaski Avenue after an argument between the victim and another man.

Sadly, Mayor Daley may be backing down on his recent pledge to defy the U.S. Supreme court’s opinion on banning handguns:

At a news conference called to tout the 6,848 guns collected at last week’s gun turn-in program, Daley was asked point-blank whether he would continue the legal fight to keep Chicago’s handgun ban.

“We don’t know yet. … We’re not gonna run away. We’re gonna try to figure this out,” he said.-

Any legal fight would be expensive for the taxpayers, and may be futile.  But the long-term cost to the community of hundreds of homicides is far worse than any legal battle would ever be. Hizzoner can be pretty fairly persuasive when he wants to be.

South side, west side, gunfire and murder all around, every day.

It might be worth it for Daley to dig his heels in on this one.

The race card. The dreaded race card.

When all chips are down, when a black man or woman is in danger of succeeding, there you have it. The race card again. It must be the race card.

Here’s what the Associated Press says happened:

John McCain accused Barack Obama of playing politics with race on Thursday, raising the explosive issue after the first black candidate with a serious chance of winning the White House claimed Republicans will try to scare voters by saying he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

Until now, the subject of race has been almost taboo in the campaign, at least in public, with both sides fearing its destructive force.

“I’m disappointed that Senator Obama would say the things he’s saying,” McCain told reporters in Racine, Wis. The Arizona senator said he agreed with campaign manager Rick Davis’ statement earlier that “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.” The aide was suggesting McCain had been wrongfully accused.

Let’s see. The Maverick McCain, they guy who helped bring us the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform, Johnny M. is uncomfortable that the Black Man is talking about color.

Actually, Barack said more than the AP reports:

“Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “You know, ‘He’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name,’ you know, ‘He doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.’”

A few years back, in the summer heat of 2003, the PGA Western Open was played in Olympia Fields, IL. Tiger Woods did not fare well. Jim Furyk took top honors with a 272, winning $1.08 million. Tiger shot a mere 283, taking home only $64,170. Very sad. I had the opportunity to see Tiger and Jim play the last round at at Olympia Fields Country Club, an exclusive club nearby which only admitted it’s first African American member in 1990.

After Furyk had won, I stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts in Olympia Fields near the intersection of Western Ave. and the Lincoln Highway. My son and I entered and waited in line. There was a “Good-ol’-boy” white man ahead of us in line. There was also an African American woman in line, and other people of color behind the counter.

As the white man was leaving, he saw my hat which I had bought at the Open. The hat clearly read, “U.S. Open - Olympia Fields, IL.” On his way out of the store, he shouted, “Yeah! The white man won! The white man won!”

The clerk looked nervous. The African American woman in line put her head down and looked disgusted. I mumbled, “Bigot,” out loud. Then he was gone.

Right here in our racially diverse south suburbs of Chicago, the voice of hatred cried out. That was just a few years ago.

Barack Obama is right. Is race supposed to be an unspoken secret throughout the campaign? The weird right is already talking, and quite nervous. Some people are genuinely frightened that a black man may be president.

Face it — if the most earth-shattering swift-boating news McCain’s campaign can rustle up is a bizarre comparison of Barack Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton — well, accusing Obama of playing the race card was inevitable.

Except, in this case, the white man played the race card.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Tired of getting “pummeled by the newspapers every day,” Cook County Board president Todd Stroger’s administration has decided to counter with a new magazine overseen by county officials.

Publisher/editor Theresa Tracy said Cook County magazine would be “independently published” and a “credible, compelling and valuable resource” for county residents.

But county officials have the final say on what’s published. And Tracy accepted $24,999 from Stroger’s administration last November to launch the magazine — $1 under the amount that would have required the approval of the full Cook County Board.

Honestly, who’s advising this guy?  Who thinks of these things?  $24,999?

We’re rounding up here, Todd.  That’s $25,000 of taxpayer money for your ego, Todd.  According to the Sun-Times, “county officials were seeking a ‘non-threatening news environment that ensures regular, positive press — to counter-balance negative press often found in the mainstream media.’”

What exactly is a “non-threatening news environment?”  Perhaps an environment without that burdensome First Amendment?  Freedom of the Press too much for the Cook County Board?

It doesn’t matter.  Evidently, county officials were taking spelling and grammar lessons from President George W. Bush.  Seems the inaugural issue was fraught with errors, among them the spelling of a rather important name:

The cover story is an interview with Stroger that starts by asking him, “How are you feeling these days?” There’s also a short obituary for Stroger’s late father and predecessor as county board president, John H. Stroger Jr., who died in January. It misspells his name.

Todd, we’ve been through this before…

For too long, Cook County government has been a cesspool of patronage.

Forget the p.r. binge. Forget trying to sneak in an ego boost for yourself under the $25,000 wire.

Just stop this nonsense and govern. Make good decisions.

Good p.r. will follow good actions.

At first, Stark and Wawczak laughed about it, saying it wasn’t true.  That was until their son Len Jr. called and told them Peterson was giving him “dirty looks” at a Bolingbrook barber shop.  The couple got in their van so Wawczak could confront Peterson.

From the Sun-Times:

What followed was another sordid chapter in the Peterson saga, an expletive-filled, Jerry Springeresque parking lot dust-up — witnessed by reporters — that resulted in Wawczak, 41, shoving Peterson in the back and getting arrested on a battery charge.

“I wanted to let Drew know he’s not going to mess with my family,” Wawczak said after his wife posted his $100 bond. “The next time, I will knock his ass out.

“It was the best 100 bucks I’ve ever spent. I’d do it again.”

In this country, we’re all innocent until proven guilty.  We are still responsible for our actions, even if they aren’t necessarily illegal.  Which is why I’m confounded as to why Peterson would claim he had an affair with Stark.

The clash of the Titans in a barbershop parking lot, egged on by the gathering crowd, was downright silly:

Wawczak, intent on confronting Peterson about the dirty looks, found a spot between some cars to lie in wait. When Peterson emerged, Wawczak popped out and pounced.

“Hey, m—–f—–,” he called out. “You ain’t nothing but a murderer. I’ll beat the f— out of you. Say something!”

“Hit me,” Peterson said calmly, putting his hands behind his back. “I’m going down.”

“You ain’t nothing but a punk, Drew!”

“Someone call the cops,” Peterson told a growing crowd of gawkers. One began videotaping.

“Take the cool sunglasses off,” Wawczak said, trying to knock them off Peterson, who dodged him.

“I ain’t Stacy, bitch,” Wawczak taunted. “You sissy.”

“I don’t have to deal with this boy,” Peterson said and walked away. Wawczak then pushed Peterson in the back.

Peterson, who later said his back hurt, brushed it off and got into Stacy Peterson’s car. Wawczak walked away, saying, “I proved my point. You’re nothing but a bitch.”

Peterson made a cell phone call and emerged from the car. The crowd yelled for Wawczak to return.

“Knock his ass out,” someone shouted.

“I got 50 bucks of his bond right now,” said another.

Peterson and Wawczak then stood across a car from each other, and Wawczak confronted him about Peterson’s purported claims about his wife.

“Say right now you f—– my old lady! I’ll come around right now and drop you like you want,” Wawczak said.

Peterson denied saying it — as eight police cars arrived.

“I ain’t Stacy, bitch! You sissy!”  Is this some ruckus in Boystown gone awry?

I don’t know if Drew Peterson gave Len Jr. the Evil Eye.  I don’t know if Drew Peterson claimed he slept with Paula Stark, slept with Paula Stark, or whether this alleged “TV reporter” was just making trouble.  Wawczak and Stark did nothing for their own credibility, and Peterson’s not looking any better.  The Village of Bolingbrook lauds itself as “a place to grow….”

Well, grow up guys.