For What It's Worth

Wait... if the sticker's not there... how does one know the number to call?

2012-01-13T09:46:00.004-06:00

And if the sticker is there, what possible purpose could it serve?

Herewith my working hypothesis: This is the sort of logical conundrum that James T. Kirk would spring on evil computers or robots on the original Star Trek. (They'd short circuit every time.) So the purpose of the Florida law -- if this is for real -- would presumably be to keep evil robots from taking up residence in the Sunshine State.

Of course, this could also be fake, but what fun would that be?

(Picture obtained from Popehat. And this is the source linked in the Popehat post.)

Proposed statewide ban on cellphone use while driving a generational issue? I think not

2012-01-04T14:00:00.003-06:00

Mr. Gregory Tejada, the proprietor of the Chicago Argus, writes a thoughtful piece today about a proposed statewide ban on using a cellphone while driving entitled, "We're in for generational warfare, and I'm on the side of the 'old farts.'"

Mr. Tejada would support a statewide ban. The Capitol Fax blog, however, reports this morning that State Senate President John J. Cullerton has "kind of gotten away from being the main sponsor" of a statewide ban, though, he adds, he thinks such a ban may be "inevitable."

When such a ban does come before the General Assembly, Tejada writes, "we're in for a serious battle of the generations. I couldn't help but notice in the couple of hours after stories started cropping up on the Internet about Cullerton's comments, one anonymous person went so far as to characterize a ban on cellphones while driving as being the same as banning breathing while driving."

Mr. Tejada supposes that people on his side of the generation gap would favor such a ban.

I would not. Herewith my reasons:

We allegedly have a ban on cellphone use while driving here in the City of Chicago. I have stood outside City Hall, however, waiting to cross LaSalle Street, watching driver after driver cruise by, cellphone in hand. I've seen policemen in squad cars chatting on cellphones. I challenge anyone to drive down any arterial street or expressway in the corporate limits of the City of Chicago and compare the number of drivers talking on the phone with those apparently not talking on a phone. I'd suggest you'd find that, many times, a clear majority of drivers are chatting away merrily.

I can't imagine who all these people are talking to. Like Mr. Tejada, I see little reason to use a phone while driving. I will admit, however, to answering the phone, if it rings, or even, on occasion, to making short calls -- "I'm running late," for example, or, "I'm stopping for gas before I get home." If the call will require more attention than that, however, I have no problem telling a caller, "Look, I'm in the car. I'll call you back in a bit."

Mr. Tejada writes that he has noticed on a number of occasions "drivers who were busy yakking away on their hand-held communications devices" who "weren't paying attention and would have hit me had I not managed to engage in a sudden maneuver."

So have we all.

That is the reason why the City ban was imposed and the statewide ban proposed.

But the proposed solution fails to address the problem.

Cellphones are not the problem.

Distracted driving is the problem.

Mr. Tejada writes about generational disagreement. Let's get generational here. A generation ago, when I was preparing for my driver's license exam, the instructors warned me not to turn on the car radio during the road test. "That's an automatic fail," I was told.

Why? Because the grumpy old people in those far-off days feared that idiot kids like me would pay more attention to the radio than the roadway -- pushing buttons between WLS and WCFL to avoid an acne commercial or to catch a snippet of some new-favorite 45 rising up the charts.

Distracted driving.

I'd bet that, like me, Mr. Tejada has seen drivers applying makeup behind the wheel, or shaving, or eating, or even reading a book or newspaper. If the Kennedy is moving slowly enough, it is even possible that these actions aren't necessarily all that dangerous.

Driving requires concentration. The degree of concentration required varies with the weather. On mornings when I drive, for example, I like my cup of coffee. If road conditions are hazardous, the coffee must be put aside, however.

We can't ban everything that might distract a driver. Yes, "yakking" on a cellphone might be distracting, but a crying baby or a talkative car pool passenger who wants you to attend his church "just this once" might be just as distracting -- yet we don't propose to ban carpools or transporting babies.

I agree that texting while driving is necessarily distracting, even for young drivers who can change focus far faster than their elders: When someone is looking at a keypad, he can not be looking at the road. But even texting is not an evil per se. I might have heard a beep while driving and taken a quick peek at the screen when stopped at the next light. I might have even punched out a quick acknowledgement -- "OK," for example -- while waiting for the light to change. Nobody has to "engage in a sudden maneuver" to avoid me at that moment, since we are all stopped at the light. Yet, if a policeman happened to be observing me at just that moment, I could be ticketed under the Chicago ordinance.

In other words, I can violate the law without engaging in the kind of conduct the law was designed to prevent, namely, distracted driving.

In that sense, the law is overbroad.

And cellphone and texting bans are necessarily enforced only selectively. Clearly these laws are not always enforced, which opens any attempted enforcement up to claims that the law was purposely enforced on any given occasion simply to harass (pick any or all) young people, persons of a certain ethnicity, or persons of a particular sexual orientation. Yet there is no way to enforce these bans regularly or uniformly. Aldermen or legislators can pass all the bans they please but, unless the clear majority of the public is favor of the ban, it will be ignored (see, Prohibition). It is my observation that the cellphone ban is largely ignored in the City of Chicago. What's yours?

Laws that are not, or can not be, enforced consistently and uniformly and which are ignored, undermine public confidence and respect for the law generally. As a lawyer, I consider this the most harmful and dangerous thing of all.

Yet, I agree with Mr. Tejada that distracted driving is an evil that the state should attempt to prevent. I'd suggest we reconsider specific bans about doing certain acts that may or may not be distracting and create instead a blanket offense of distracted driving. A police officer who observes a driver whose erratic movements, drifting, or velocity (too slow or too fast) is causing other drivers to 'engage in sudden maneuvers' can pull that driver over. Maybe the driver is distracted by an intense phone conversation. Maybe the driver is texting. Maybe the driver is distracted by an argument with a passenger or by a radio program expressing views diametrically opposed to those of the driver. Maybe the driver is distracted because he is carrying a large quantity of illegal drugs. Who cares? The danger to the others on the roadway is the same regardless; it stems from the driver's distraction, not from the cause of that distraction. (If the police officer has a dashboard video, he or she may even have the opportunity to document the behavior before making the stop -- but that's another essay altogether.)

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See also: Chicago Argus on banning cell phone usage for drivers... (essay by Levois on It's My Mind)

More exciting news about America's future in space exploration

2011-12-17T10:44:00.001-06:00

I saw this story first on Yahoo! News (a December 14 AP story by Donna Blankinship and Seth Borenstein), but this article, on Space.com, by Denise Chow, is likely to be available longer.

What you're looking at in the photo above is an artist's conception of a giant airplane carrying a rocket.

How big is the plane? The wingspan will be 385 feet -- 66 feet wider than the prior record-holder, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose. The plane is to be built by Scaled Composites, the company founded by Burt Rutan, the aerospace engineer who, according to Wikipedia, designed the record-breaking Voyager, "the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two week period."

The plane would be powered by six 747 engines. The Falcon 9 spacecraft to be carried by this giant will be supplied by SpaceX, the company that will attempt to send a supply mission to the International Space Station in February 2012 (see, this Page Two post).

The idea of an airplane carrying a rocket to a mid-air launching point may be unfamiliar to younger readers, but the rest of us remember how the X-15 reached the edge of space with the aid of a B-52 bomber.

"Mating and integration" for the Stratolaunch project is to be provided by Dynetics, a company whose website boasts the ability to deliver "high-quality, high-value engineering, scientific, and information technology (IT) solutions" to its customers.

I'm not certain what that leaves for Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen to actually do, but he is the "name" attached to the Stratolaunch project and I gather that he is the one putting these corporate pieces together. If he puts the pieces together well, it could be the start of an exciting future... and a real boost to the American economy, too.

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For more information: Stratolaunch press release (pdf)

Maybe America isn't lost in space yet

2011-12-10T14:08:00.004-06:00

When President Obama mothballed the Space Shuttle program, he told the nation that America's private sector would quickly take up the challenge of travel to and from low Earth orbit.

Many scoffed. I scoffed.

But today comes word that SpaceX has reached agreement with NASA to launch a supply mission to the International Space Station with an unmanned, reusable Dragon capsule (like the one pictured above). The target date for this historic attempt is February 7, 2012. (AP coverage per Yahoo! News).

Alex Knapp writes today on Forbes.com about that mission:

The first phase will begin after the Dragon capsule achieves orbit. NASA has set forward several milestones for the capsule to meet, including a flyby of the space station. If those objectives are met, then the capsule will rendezvous with the ISS, using the station’s robotic arm as operated by the ISS crew.

If the flyby, rendezvous and release are successful, this will mark the first successful docking of a private spacecraft with the International Space Station – a huge leap forward for the future of commercial spaceflight.

SpaceX hopes to get the Dragon capsule rated for human transport -- which means American astronauts would no longer be obliged to hitch rides to the International Space Station with the Russians.

And then SpaceX (a company run by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk) will be able to boldly go wherever it darn well pleases.

Maybe we will back to the Moon in my lifetime. But, first, we have to get by February 7. Put it on your calendar.

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Corrected 12/17/11

Cyber Monday: It's not just for Amazaon any more

2011-12-04T21:35:00.001-06:00

Black Friday got moved back to Thanksgiving evening this year as retailers looked to get a head start on the vital Christmas shopping season.

Traffic reports on Black Friday morning skipped past the nearly empty expressways to provide detailed reports on where the cars really were -- looking for parking places at area malls.

Black Friday was followed by Small Business Saturday. This, in turn, was followed by Cyber Monday.

What? Nobody could come up with a clever name for the First Sunday of Advent?

On Cyber Monday, when people are supposed to be back at work,online retailers (etailers?) get a surge in business from people using their office computers for personal shopping.

But take a look at these souvenirs from my inbox:

On Cyber Monday 2011, it looks like these providers were trying to sell stuff to lawyers for work, at work.

Is that legal?

If you're not watching Eagles-Seahawks on Thursday Night Football tonight....

2011-12-01T10:45:00.003-06:00

And, if you are, you can always set your DVR....

The O'Malley and Jean-Baptiste interviews will be posted on Page One within the next few days.

A talking head, yes, but does he have anything to say?

2011-11-19T12:05:00.002-06:00

Herewith my recent interview for a forthcoming appearance on Avy Meyer's North Town News Magazine. Despite dire predictions to the contrary, Avy's program survived my 2009 appearance; I have every confidence it will survive this as well. In the meantime, I am grateful to Mr. Meyers for the opportunity to appear on his program.

With the continued permission of Mr. Meyers, judicial candidate interviews on NTNM are posted on Page One of this blog on or around their original air date.

Tiptoeing hesitantly into another social network

2011-11-14T08:45:00.006-06:00

I haven't gotten into too much trouble since I signed up for Facebook. My son-in-law was recently touting Google+ but, after looking into it a bit, I decided not to take the plunge. Not yet, anyway.

But there are all kinds of social networks floating around the Internet. Take Twitter, for instance. It gained initial fame as a conduit for snark and gossip, and still has a knack for getting pro athletes into trouble, but it has also apparently become an accepted business tool. The Illinois Supreme Court has an official Twitter feed. Still, I don't understand how I could use it. For that reason, perhaps, I've never been tempted by Twitter.

But LinkedIn has tempted me. It seems a straightforward marketing tool, and every lawyer, especially a solo practitioner, must think of marketing these days. I've been unsure about links, however, especially links to links. In the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" age, anyone can wind up linked to anyone.

That concerns me. I'd rather not be linked with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however tenuously.

However, my daughter Brigid is a senior in college. The good people in the placement office (or whatever they call it these days) at Dominican University told Brigid that LinkedIn was a great way to network in hopes of finding meaningful employment after graduation. I certainly want her to get a job. She encouraged me to join, if only to critique her résumé.

And then I started thinking... maybe I might use LinkedIn as a business development tool, too.

So I signed up and started playing with it. I've recently become certified as a mediator for the Cook County Law Division Court-Annexed Major Case Civil Mediation Program and the Chancery Division's Mediation Program; I thought that, once I figured out the program a bit, LinkedIn might be a good way of promoting my availability for this service.

I particularly liked the idea of being able to post my curriculum vitae right from the LinkedIn site.

But, alas. I haven't figured out how yet. I converted my CV to a pdf, and the file is much smaller than the stated 500 KB limit, but I can't seem to upload it. And I'm still wary of asking people for links; the program wants me to explain how I know this person or that one. My instinct is to be wary of disclosure.

LinkedIn, the program, has no such concerns. Several of the "recommendations" it has made to me for links have been very accurate. (And, no, I didn't give it my email address books.)

So I'm now crouching in the shadows of LinkedIn, uncertain of how best to immerse myself. The good news is, a month or so in, I haven't yet been linked to Ahmadinejad. The bad news is that my profile has only been viewed, according to the program, by two people -- one of them my daughter Brigid. (LinkedIn says so.) The other was an "Anonymous LinkedIn User." I suspect it was another family member, better versed in the ways of LinkedIn than Brigid or myself.

Oh, great: Another unemployed lawyer looking for work

2011-10-31T11:22:00.003-05:00

The Chicago Tribune reports today that Tony La Russa is stepping down as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. (La Russa passed the Florida Bar Examination in 1979.)

Milk -- it does a closet good?

2011-10-06T19:54:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! News today carries a Reuters report, by Natalia Drozdiak, about a German fashion designer who makes clothes out of milk.

Yes, milk:

Anke Domaske, 28, has developed a fabric called QMilch made from high concentrations of the milk protein casein -- the first man-made fiber produced entirely without chemicals.

"It feels like silk and it doesn't smell -- you can wash it just like anything else," Domaske told Reuters.

Domaske's company, Mademoiselle Chi Chi, has attracted celebrities like Mischa Barton and Ashlee Simpson. But Ms. Domaske was a microbiology student before she became a designer.

Domaske says she has found a process that extracts casein from dried milk powder. The casein "is heated up in a type of meat-mincing machine with other natural ingredients. The fiber comes out in strands and is then spun into yarn on a spinning machine."

Milk has been made into fabric since the 1930s, Drozdiak writes, "but was always produced in unecological ways that used a lot of chemicals. Unlike earlier prototypes, QMilch is made almost entirely from casein." The new yarn, Domaske insists, is not only ecological but also has many health benefits. Domaske told Reuters that the amino acids in the protein are antibacterial, anti-aging and can help regulate both blood circulation and body temperature.

That's a lot to ask from a dress.

Reading today's article about this new milk fabric, I couldn't help but think of the 1951 Ealing Studios classic, The Man in the White Suit." In the movie, a Cambridge-trained research chemist, Sidney Stratton, portrayed by a young Alec Guinness, winds up working as a laborer in an English textile mill. While thus employed, Guinness inadvertently invents a new fabric -- that seemingly never wears out and never gets dirty. It also glows in the dark.

For a moment, Stratton is hailed as a genius. But his triumph is short-lived. Once capital and labor realize that the new fabic, if it really performed as designed, would put them all out of business, the class enemies unite against a common foe -- Stratton.

Of course, in the movie, Stratton's fabric was slightly radioactive. Supposedly the new milk fabric will not decompose. According to the Reuters article, "Due to its anti-bacterial qualities, the milk fiber can also be used in medicine and makeup. Even some auto companies have looked into using the fiber for car upholstery."

Has Mark Buehrle made his last White Sox start?

2011-09-28T11:48:00.005-05:00

This AP image accompanied Rick Gano's coverage this morning on Yahoo! Sports.

Toni Ginnetti's article in this morning's Sun-Times says it's uncertain whether the Sox will re-sign Buehrle. Which may mean there's hope. I know this much: If Buehrle's gone, it's a Dunn deal.

As if Mr. Dunn needs more pressure heaped upon him.

Just in case he doesn't come back, the Sox gave Buehrle a classy sendoff last night. Buehrle was even pushed out of the dugout (by Paul Konerko, according to Ginnetti) to take a curtain call in front of the sparse, but vocal, crowd present at the Cell -- and for those of us watching at home.

I have a personal reason to be grateful to Mr. Buehrle. It will take a small narrative diversion to explain why.

White Sox Opening Day is an annual highlight for me. I've attended almost every year since law school. I remember sitting in right field on Opening Day 1978. (Steve Stone was the starting pitcher that day.) It was the bottom of the 9th and I was making disparaging remarks about Ron Blomberg, the Rent-a-Player engaged by Mr. Veeck to make White Sox fans forget about Richie Zisk, the 1977 model. Blomberg had gone 0 for 4 in his debut to that point. Phil Zukowsky thought my criticisms unfair and expressed a desire that Mr. Blomberg hit the next pitch right at my head. And, sure enough, he did: White Sox 6, Red Sox 5. (And, no, I didn't get the ball.)

In the years that followed I had weekend tickets to the ballpark (which carried with them a right to buy tickets for Opening Day). After this luxury had to be sacrificed to the necessity of the kids' tuition payments, Mike McGowan has been kind enough to include me in his party. I was his guest on Opening Day in that magical year of 2005.

Mark Buehrle started that game and worked a quick eight innings (Shingo Takatsu had the 9th) for a 1-0 shutout of the Cleveland Indians. Quick? Baseball Almanac says the game ran only 1:51; you can look it up.

And that created an opportunity for me. My son Joe, then a senior at Notre Dame High School in Niles, was supposed to pitch for the Dons that day. I didn't know about his scheduled start until after I'd committed to the Sox game. Thanks to Mr. Buehrle's fast pace (he may not throw hard, but he pitches quickly) I had the chance to catch the Notre Dame game, too. Mike and I jumped in my car and we headed north.

I don't recall who the Dons were facing that day. It may have been Glenbrook North; that was a traditional early season non-conference foe. If so, that may have been the day that Joe struck out Jason Kipnis, then a senior at GBN, who now earns a paycheck from the aforementioned Cleveland Indians. In my imagination, that's probably how things went down. I have a very good imagination.

I won't claim that Mike and I got to see all of Joe's performance that day; even my imagination isn't that good. But we saw some of it, and, as I recollect, Joe (who was himself a soft-tossing southpaw) got the W.

Anyway, even if Mr. Buehrle does move on, I will remain forever grateful, not just for the no hitter and the perfect game and the amazing play on Opening Day 2010 and all the other highlights -- but also because I got to see some of Joe's game on April 4, 2005.

Joey Cora fired by text from Kenny Williams?

2011-09-27T14:49:00.003-05:00

That's what Rich Miller is reporting this afternoon on CapitolFax: This just in... Joey Cora fired by text message. Miller links to Joe Cowley as his source.

I quote Mr. Miller's conclusion without elaboration: "Williams is the one who needs to go, and quickly, before he ruins this team completely."

Was Einstein wrong about the light speed barrier?

2011-09-23T09:11:00.009-05:00

ABC News is among the many news outlets reporting today that scientists at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) have achieved unexpected results from an experiment measuring the oscillation of neutrinos. The OPERA experiment, as it is called, involved aiming a neutrino beam from the Geneva laboratory at the LNGS underground laboratory at Gran Sasso, 730 km (just under 454 miles) away in central Italy. According to the CERN press release, the experiment "appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light, nature's [heretofore understood] cosmic speed limit."

But don't buy stock in a warp engine start-up company just yet. The CERN scientists sound almost apologetic about the anomalous results -- as if they're anxious, even desperate, to find another explanation that fits the data:

“When an experiment finds an apparently unbelievable result and can find no artefact of the measurement to account for it, it’s normal procedure to invite broader scrutiny, and this is exactly what the OPERA collaboration is doing, it’s good scientific practice,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. “If this measurement is confirmed, it might change our view of physics, but we need to be sure that there are no other, more mundane, explanations. That will require independent measurements.”

Randall Mulroe's webcomic, xkcd, tries to tamp down any irrational exuberance these experimental results might trigger in an unsophisticated public:

(Click to enlarge. See original for embedded comment.)

But, still, it would be pretty darn interesting if these experimental results hold up, wouldn't it?

I am so glad we bailed out the banks -- part 1,262

2011-09-13T07:16:00.001-05:00

CBS2 reports that Chase is about to foreclose and evict Mary Alice Keeler, 76, a former Dominican nun, from her Southwest Side home.

For decades, she was a nun with the Roman Catholic Dominican order. She was known as Sister Bernard Ellen and then left the religious life to care for her cancer-stricken mother. She later worked as a lay teacher in both Catholic and public schools, and bought a small house on the Southwest Side of Chicago.

Then she got sick and was hospitalized and in a nursing home for a time.

“I missed three payments,” the 76-year-old said. “When I was able, I sent the one back. Then I was going to send the second one back.”

She says the bank told her, “Don’t send us any more money because we’ll just send it back to you.”

Then came the foreclosure notice from Chase Bank and the order to vacate. It has not yet been enforced and the house has been sold to Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage agency.

You'll find nothing about the bank's side of the dispute in the linked article. I'm sure there is more to this story than three missed payments. At least I'd like to think so. But it's hard to imagine any additional facts that would make the bank look good in this case.

Is this really why we bailed out the banks? So they can do stuff like this?

Too big to fail = too big to care?

Airline passenger suffers real consequences because of unrealistic fears

2011-09-12T21:45:00.002-05:00

Popehat today is upset about "a perfectly innocent woman being hauled off a flight, handcuffed, jailed, strip-searched, and grilled for hours — because some... ninny on the plane thought she and the two dark-skinned people sitting next to her were 'suspicious', and because 'better safe than sorry' has become a higher value to law enforcement than probable cause or reasonable suspicion or due process or common freaking sense, and because we’re too cowed as a people to say anything about it."

Popehat provided a link to a blog post put up by the woman in question. She's an Arab of Saudi descent, married to a Jewish physician who is, according to her blog, doing a residency in emergency medicine in Toledo. Her first-person account is well worth reading. (Here is a link to the AP account of the event.)

Worth reading also, particularly in light of the above, are Professor George Anastapolo's articles currently running in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, "Making sense of the current state of affairs." In tonight's installment (subscription required), Anastapolo writes:

[T]he most troubling aspect of our security measures lies in what they reveal about, and do to, the American character. Indeed, there may even be something demeaning about a determined program of public announcements which insist, again and again (for years now), "If you see something, say something." What is generally seen (and heard) is a "something" which consists of a steady promotion, in effect, of fearfulness — and much should be said about that!

John Kass referred, in his column in Sunday's Tribune, calls it "the Fear Industry." He wrote:

You want proof of how well the Fear Industry is doing? Just think of all the cameras on the light poles in your central business district. Or watch the parade of crotch pat-downs at the airports, the weak smiles of the patted, smiles of the helpless. Think about what that does to a people over time.

Remember right after 9/11, when people were writing and saying that, if we allow fear of terror to alter our lives, the terrorists will have won? Remember?

Candorville asks whether we rose to the occasion after 9-11

2011-09-12T21:40:00.004-05:00

(Click to enlarge.)

Sometimes the Sunday funnies aren't funny at all. Sometimes, as in yesterday's installment of Candorville, the "funnies" can be downright sobering. (This comic used to appear in the Tribune; you can find it now on Yahoo! Comics.)

The world according to the Class of 2015

2011-08-24T21:55:00.001-05:00

Our son Jim is just starting college, so my wife and I listened with interest this morning to a radio story about how college freshmen view the world.

College freshmen, we learned, think "LBJ" is this guy --

-- not this guy

We learned that college freshmen would have never heard of a Commodore 64 and have never known a world without the Internet. We learned that Ferris Bueller is old enough to be a freshman's father.

I'd heard lists like this before, but I'd never paid much attention to where the annual list came from.

Then my son Joe sent me a link to the AP story about the list -- and it turns out the list comes from Beloit College, the very place where Jim is starting his college career. It's an increasingly small world.

Here's the link to the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2015 -- and a few of the highlights:

The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports.
Music has always been available via free downloads.
Arnold Palmer has always been a drink.
Amazon has never been just a river in South America.

I don't understand half of this -- but I'm pretty sure I agree with it anyway

2011-08-11T18:41:00.000-05:00

From the webcomic xkcd, by Randall Munroe. (The link will take you to Mr. Munroe's site, where you can view the comment embedded in the original cartoon.)

Arguably related: Passwords obsolete? It's about time

Welcome home, Atlantis. Now what?

2011-07-21T18:00:00.004-05:00

You're looking at a NASA photograph of Shuttle Atlantis returning to Florida's Kennedy Space Center early this morning after successfully concluding the final Shuttle mission, STS-135.

Is this the end of manned American space exploration?

There are still plans to keep American astronauts on board the International Space Station. However, for the foreseeable future, in order to get to and from, Americans will have to hitch a ride on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Indeed, NASA astronaut Mike Fossum just joined the space station crew (currently denominated Expedition 28) after a July 8 launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

But that's not exactly boldly going where no one has gone before. It amounts to taking a cab.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the Director of the Rose Center for Earth and Space of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, tweeted earlier today, "Lament not the shuttle's end, but the absence of rockets to supplant it. Who shed a tear when Gemini ended? Apollo awaited us."

Dr. Tyson hits the nail exactly on the head. Not only does America lack a plan for further space exploration, it lacks the will to execute any plan. There's some vague notion that, some day, maybe, we might think about mounting an expedition to Mars. Maybe we'll go to an asteroid first....

Tyson's tweets note that President Kennedy's original target date for the lunar landing would have been during his second term. (As it happened, the landing was pushed back to 1969 because of the Apollo 1 fire.) Dr. Tyson notes, "One US President can never [actually] commit the nation to a goal that requires fulfillment by a President 'to be named later.'" Case in point: President Bush proposed returning to the Moon as a stepping stone toward Mars. President Obama killed that.

Are we ceding leadership in the exploration of the cosmos because it is too costly?

Again, I look to Dr. Tyson for some perspective (from his July 8 tweets):

The entire half-century budget of NASA equals the current two year budget of the US military.
The US bank bailout exceeded the half-century lifetime budget of NASA.
The US military spends as much in 23 days as NASA spends in a year - and that's when we're not fighting a war.

The United States can afford space exploration; what we can't afford is to stop.

Meanwhile, the private sector is expected to step up and take over flights to low Earth orbits -- but there's some question as to whether private enterprise can rise to the challenge.

In an AP report carried this morning by HuffPost AOL News, Marcia Dunn reports that the STS-135 crew left an American flag on board the space station. This was a flag that was flown on the very first Shuttle flight in 1981. It was left behind as a prize for the first private company that can fly up and claim it in person. Dunn's article continues:

SpaceX maintains it can get people to the space station within three years of getting the all-clear from NASA. Station managers expect it to be more like five years. Some skeptics say it could be 10 years before Americans are launched again from U.S. soil.

Let's hope the skeptics are wrong.

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For Further Reading:

Why America Needs to Explore Space, by Neil deGrasse Tyson (from Parade Magazine, August 5, 2007.

Now is not the time to quit, by Storer H. Rowley, Chicago Tribune, July 21, 2011.

Comics on trial

2011-07-20T20:30:00.008-05:00

Legal problems are a staple of the funny pages. We don't have car pool lanes in the Chicago area, but the concept is not unfamiliar. Most locals, therefore, would not have needed an explanation for this F Minus strip from July 9:

This Bliss panel from July 4 presents a patriotic legal problem:

But lately I've noticed a lot of comics are actually looking for humor in the courts themselves.

Candorville, for example, has been dropping in and out of a custody trial for several weeks now. The protagonist, Lemont Brown, is represented by a six-year old kid pretending to be a lawyer. The real lawyer, the kid's uncle, may have been kidnapped and imprisoned by the 400-year old vampire who gave birth to Lemont's son. This installment, from June 29, features the vampire's lawyer. Yes, he does look suspiciously like John Edwards:

One of my favorite strips, Brewster Rockit, recently featured an alien's negligence suit against the Earth. The alien, it seems, crashed his saucer into Jupiter. Earth was responsible, according to the alien's lawyer, because of NASA's spacecraft Dawn, now (for real) in orbit around the asteroid Vesta. The Earth ship didn't get in the alien's way; he was simply texting about it when he crashed. This strip, from July 13, illustrates one of the high points of the trial:

A new strip, Dustin, usually focuses on the slacker 20-something for which the strip is named. But Dustin's father is a lawyer -- and last week the strip took us inside his practice. Here's the July 15 entry:

Meanwhile, on July 19, the comic pages' real lawyer, former San Francisco lawyer Stephan Pastis, provided a rather cockeyed lesson on the limits of free speech:

------------------------------------------------------------
Comics obtained from Yahoo! Comics and the Chicago Tribune Comics Kingdom.

In which the blogger tries to figure out what Google+ is supposed to be

2011-07-19T20:30:00.001-05:00

The Tribune's Eric Zorn wrote Sunday that the sudden growth in Google+ is "making it increasingly likely that those of us who try to stay current with social media will have One More Darn Thing To Do Every Day."

And what is Google+ you ask?

A Georgia blawger says "Google+ seems to be attempting to combine Facebook (Stream), Twitter (Following and Inbox), Skype (Hangout), and pick your own flavor of photo sharing (Photos) and instant messaging (Huddle), with its own RSS/news feed thrown in (Sparks)." If you know what all that means, you and Eric Zorn are probably already traveling in the same circles. (Yes, that's an actual attempt at a Google+ joke.)

For my part, I only know what I read in the comics. I'm pretty sure that this episode of the webcomic Scenes from a Multiverse is talking about Google+:

And this episode of the webcomic xkcd provides an explanation of Google+ that even a Luddite like me can understand:

The explanation makes even more sense when you read Mr. Munroe's embedded rollover comment: "On the one hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch. On the other hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch!"

How SB1586 became P.A. 97-81

2011-07-10T20:02:00.001-05:00

Otto von Bismarck said, "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made."

And, in Illinois, if you insist on trying to see how laws are made, sometimes you have to look very quickly.

The General Assembly website tracks how a bill that was originally drafted to take the Secretary of State out of the business of registering voters became a bill that, inter alia, substantially changes how judges are elected in Illinois. The following table shows the actions taken on the bill. Keep in mind that May 31 was the very last day of the regular legislative session.

The final amendment of the bill, House passage, and Senate concurrence in the dramatically revised bill all happened in a single day, on June 22, the very next day the Senate was in session. (The State House had a "perfunctory session" on June 21.)

Actions

Date	Chamber	Action
2/9/2011	Senate	Filed with Secretary by Sen. M. Maggie Crotty
2/9/2011	Senate	First Reading
2/9/2011	Senate	Referred to Assignments
2/23/2011	Senate	Assigned to Executive
3/3/2011	Senate	To Executive Subcommittee on State Government Operations
3/14/2011	Senate	Reported Back To Executive; 002-001-000
3/17/2011	Senate	Do Pass Executive; 014-000-000
3/17/2011	Senate	Placed on Calendar Order of 2nd Reading March 17, 2011
4/8/2011	Senate	Second Reading
4/8/2011	Senate	Placed on Calendar Order of 3rd Reading April 11, 2011
4/14/2011	Senate	Third Reading - Passed; 055-000-000
4/14/2011	House	Arrived in House
4/27/2011	House	Placed on Calendar Order of First Reading
4/27/2011	House	Chief House Sponsor Rep. Michael J. Zalewski
4/27/2011	House	First Reading
4/27/2011	House	Referred to Rules Committee
4/28/2011	House	Assigned to Elections & Campaign Reform Committee
5/10/2011	House	Do Pass / Standard Debate Elections & Campaign Reform Committee; 004-003-000
5/10/2011	House	Placed on Calendar 2nd Reading - Standard Debate
5/26/2011	House	Second Reading - Standard Debate
5/26/2011	House	Held on Calendar Order of Second Reading - Standard Debate
5/27/2011	House	Final Action Deadline Extended-9(b) May 31, 2011
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Filed with Clerk by Rep. Michael J. Zalewski
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Referred to Rules Committee
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Rules Refers to Elections & Campaign Reform Committee
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Recommends Be Adopted Elections & Campaign Reform Committee; 004-003-000
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Adopted by Voice Vote
5/31/2011	House	Held on Calendar Order of Second Reading - Standard Debate
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Fiscal Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 State Mandates Fiscal Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Balanced Budget Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Correctional Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Home Rule Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Housing Affordability Impact Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Judicial Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Land Conveyance Appraisal Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Pension Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 State Debt Impact Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Filed with Clerk by Rep. Michael J. Zalewski
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Referred to Rules Committee
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Land Conveyance Appraisal Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Correctional Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Recommends Be Adopted Rules Committee; 003-001-000
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Home Rule Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Judicial Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 State Mandates Fiscal Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 State Debt Impact Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Housing Affordability Impact Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Fiscal Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Pension Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	Senate	Chief Sponsor Changed to Sen. Don Harmon
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Balanced Budget Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Adopted by Voice Vote
5/31/2011	House	Held on Calendar Order of Second Reading - Standard Debate
5/31/2011	House	Placed on Calendar Order of 3rd Reading - Short Debate
5/31/2011	House	Rule 19(a) / Re-referred to Rules Committee
6/21/2011	House	Final Action Deadline Extended-9(b) June 24, 2011
6/21/2011	House	Approved for Consideration Rules Committee; 003-000-000
6/21/2011	House	Placed on Calendar Order of 3rd Reading - Short Debate
6/21/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Filed with Clerk by Rep. Michael J. Zalewski
6/21/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Referred to Rules Committee
6/21/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Recommends Be Adopted Rules Committee; 003-000-000
6/22/2011	House	Recalled to Second Reading - Short Debate
6/22/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Adopted by Voice Vote
6/22/2011	House	Placed on Calendar Order of 3rd Reading - Short Debate
6/22/2011	House	3/5 Vote Required
6/22/2011	House	Third Reading - Short Debate - Passed 082-022-000
6/22/2011	Senate	Secretary's Desk - Concurrence House Amendment(s) 1, 2, 3
6/22/2011	Senate	Placed on Calendar Order of Concurrence House Amendment(s) 1, 2, 3 - June 22, 2011
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Motion to Concur Filed with Secretary Sen. Don Harmon
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Motion to Concur Referred to Assignments
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Motion to Concur Filed with Secretary Sen. Don Harmon
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Motion to Concur Referred to Assignments
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Motion to Concur Filed with Secretary Sen. Don Harmon
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Motion to Concur Referred to Assignments
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Motion to Concur Be Approved for Consideration Assignments;
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Motion to Concur Be Approved for Consideration Assignments;
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Motion to Concur Be Approved for Consideration Assignments;
6/22/2011	Senate	3/5 Vote Required
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Senate Concurs 053-000-000
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Senate Concurs 053-000-000
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Senate Concurs 053-000-000
6/22/2011	Senate	Passed Both Houses
6/22/2011	Senate	Sent to the Governor
7/5/2011	Senate	Governor Approved
7/5/2011	Senate	Effective Date July 5, 2011; Generally Effective;Some parts effective on the Effective Date of Senate Bill 63 of the 97th General Assembly.
7/5/2011	Senate	Public Act . . . . . . . . . 97-0081

More scenes from yesterday's Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade

2011-05-31T21:58:00.003-05:00

Continued from this entry on Page One.

There were plenty of Scout groups represented. There was a large contingent from Immaculate Conception School.

Among the many other scout groups participating were these from St. Thecla, Norwood Park Lutheran Church and Norwood Park School:

The Onahan School group included the cheerleading squad:

The group from Stock School had a message for parade-goers.

Memorial Day is often cool and dreary in Chicago. Yesterday, though, the weather was sunny, hot and humid.

In other words, it was a tough day to be sporting a fur coat. Especially a spray-painted one:

One canine seems to have decided it was just too hot to walk:

The Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade always features dozens of old cars:

But one of the cars, in particular, seems to have caught the attention of a lot of people. Apparently, BMW was not always a luxury status symbol:

The Chicago Police closed the proceedings on horseback:

The message on the side of this last car through was quite appropriate to the occasion: "Thank You for attending to Honor Those Who Gave Their Lives for Freedom."

Photo credit: Brigid Leyhane.

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And if you need to see even more photos from yesterday's Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade, see this page on the Norwood Park Chamber of Commerce & Industry website.

Happy 70th Birthday, Bob Dylan

2011-05-24T15:25:00.004-05:00

Ah, but I was so much older then/
I'm younger than that now.

Forever young?

On this august occasion I am reminded of Paul Simon's "A Simple Desultory Philippic(Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission):"

I knew a man, his brain was so small,
He couldn't think of nothing at all.
He's not the same as you and me.
He doesn't dig poetry. He's so unhip that
When you say Dylan, he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas,
Whoever he was.
The man ain't got no culture,
But it's alright, ma,
Everybody must get stoned.

But it's the unhip Dylan Thomas reference that seems particularly appropriate:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Prom Season begins... shudder

2011-05-07T08:32:00.001-05:00

From Pardon My Planet by Vic Lee

Here's something I just found out: The Chicago Tribune has a "Comics Kingdom" page. I've been looking at the Comics Kingdom page for some months now via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer web site.

It's a small world after all.

And a surprisingly ecumenical one: Though I pulled this timely Pardon My Planet cartoon from the Tribune web site, this comic appears in print in the Chicago Sun-Times. There's probably an uplifting lesson in here about cooperation. Either that, or a depressing lesson about the continuing collapse of the newspaper business.

Mommie Dearest: Earth can be one mean mama

2011-04-23T10:46:00.003-05:00

This beautiful photograph of Mother Earth was taken earlier this month by NASA astronaut Ron Garan, now in residence aboard the International Space Station. Mr. Garan is currently blogging from space on a site called Fragile Oasis, a site he shares with three other NASA veterans. I learned about Garan's efforts (and obtained this photo) from Denise Chow's April 21 article posted on OurAmazingPlanet.com. Chow writes that by "shining a light on Earth from space, Garan and his colleagues hope to mobilize people to improve the conditions on our fragile planet."

This is a wonderful goal and entirely appropriate for this Earth Day weekend.

We should work together to protect our home.

But we must also worry about how to protect ourselves from our home -- and this Earth Day season seems as good a time as any to remember this.

A lot of politicians and pundits are obsessed with "climate change." This used to be called "global warming," but "climate change" tests better in markets experiencing unusually cold weather, such as we've had in Chicago of late.

Climate change was before the U.S. Supreme Court just this week, in American Electric Power v. Connecticut, No. 10-174. The Court was reportedly skeptical about whether courts are proper places to address such complicated issues.

The Court's apparent skepticism seems quite appropriate to me. I am no climate change denier; the one constant of Earth's climate throughout time has been change. At different times in pre-history, Earth has been completely covered in ice and completely ice-free. Inasmuch as we weren't here yet, humans had nothing to do with these extremes. Climate fluctuations in the relatively brief time that humans have clung to this floating rock have been linked any number of human tragedies, including the French Revolution, the Viking terror raids on Britain and elsewhere, and the collapse of the Mayan Golden Age. Humans were not driving SUVs during any of these events. If everyone switches to Priuses tomorrow, Toyota stock might soar, but climate change would continue.

Interestingly, while the courts, the EPA and the states wrestle with how best to regulate carbon dioxide (fingered, not so many years ago, by a still-nascent science as the key culprit in climate change), science may have moved on to another suspect: Soot. A nearly invisible layer of soot, released into the atmosphere from autos, trucks, airplanes and coal or wood-burning all over the world, is collecting in the Arctic, absorbing sunlight and contributing to record warmth (and ice melt) in that region. The AP reported just a couple of days ago that scientists now believe "that cutting the concentration of short-lived pollutants, such as soot, will reduce the rate of warming in the Arctic faster than cuts in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which last far longer in the atmosphere." This one seems obvious in retrospect. Anyone who's watched the difference in the rate of snow melt on asphalt as opposed to grass could figure it out -- if they knew that soot was accumulating in the Arctic.

But if all the soot from every car and power plant in the world could be scrubbed from the sky tomorrow, climate change would still continue. The Earth may be our mother, but she's often an indifferent one.

And, of course, she might kill us at any time, too. Folks in Japan recently received a harsh reminder of this sad truth.

And earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes and even plain old ordinary volcanoes (e.g., Mt. St. Helens) aren't the worst things that Mother Earth can hit us with. The eruption of the Toba supervolcano in Sumatra, around 74,000 years ago, seems to have caused an immediate global winter followed by an ice age of a thousand years or so. Some scientists believe that the Toba eruption may have also caused the near-extinction of the human race. The event has been linked, by some, to a 'bottleneck' in human evolution.

There's a supervolcano in our own backyard which erupted 1.2 million years ago and 640,000 years ago. We call it Yellowstone National Park. Scientists recently announced that the "gigantic underground plume of partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano might be bigger than previously thought."

The volcanic plume of partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano.
Yellow and red indicate higher conductivity, green and blue indicate lower
conductivity. Made by University of Utah geophysicists and computer scientists,
this is the first large-scale 'geoelectric' image of the Yellowstone hotspot.
Credit: University of Utah.

Eventually (though presumably not next week) Yellowstone will erupt again.

So let's celebrate Mother Earth on Earth Day and every day and do what we can to preserve our home. But let's not forget the need to keep learning how to figure out how best to preserve ourselves and our posterity from Mommie Dearest.

There's nothing like a good pun

2011-04-19T18:39:00.004-05:00

And this web comic, from Luke Surl, is nothing like one.

Still, I needed a laugh, even a pained one, with the White Sox on a losing streak and a wet, gray, misty, near-snow rain falling outside, and this comic provided it.

Passwords obsolete? It's about time

2011-04-15T22:12:00.004-05:00

The Chicago Tribune Breaking Business site reports a Reuters story this afternoon about passwords: The Obama administration, it seems, is against them.

Finally, some good news out of Washington.

Maybe.

See, the administration wants the private sector "to develop methods that consumers can use instead of passwords to identify themselves online," which sounds pretty good until one reads further that "the Commerce Department is also keenly aware that any attempt by the federal government to create a national identity card would be extremely controversial."

To say the least.

However, standardization of password structure might be very helpful. The problem is not that people can't handle complex or unique passwords; the problem is that most people can't handle 87 of them.

Soulless Megabank wants a password of not less than seven nor more than 11 characters, two of which must be numbers, one of which must be a punctuation mark.

2Big2Fail.com requires no more than eight characters, three of which must be numbers. And don't even think of using a punctuation mark.

On the other hand, Master-Visa-Express insists on a password that has no z's or x's, except on Tuesdays, or during a full moon when the password must be changed to only p's and v's.

Every one of these sites also requires the customer to provide a "user name." The customer often finds that the same user name will not work on every site. The user name might be the customer's last name... but some sites won't accept that. At least one initial, at least one number, or at least one character which is neither a letter nor a number must sometimes be added. The customer now has two things to remember for each site.

More and more of us are paying bills on line. Every vendor wants a password and every one has unique requirements. The security gurus tell us this is supposed to protect our security -- but with so many different passwords necessitated by so many different rules on each website, only a genius or savant can avoid writing these all down somewhere.

And the one thing we're never supposed to do with passwords is write 'em down.

And then there are the challenge questions. Many sites require customers to answer questions in advance in case he or she has trouble remembering the user name or password. Or in case the customer tries to sign in from a machine in which the site hasn't planted a cookie. And even when the customer is using a familiar machine and has remembered the user name and password, these questions may be asked anyway, just because. Now, if these were objective, factual questions (Where were you born? What was the name of your high school?) the challenge questions might be reasonable. But... what is your favorite color? How the heck do I know? Today it might be green. Tomorrow, blue. How will I remember, six months from now, how I answered that question today? And some sites have even more esoteric, speculative questions. What is your least favorite vegetable? What is your neighbor's favorite pasta? What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Some sites don't bother with challenge questions. These give you a limited number of chances to guess your user name and password combination and, when you exhaust these chances -- typically, three strikes and you're out -- the site assumes you must be an identity thief. The site then goes on total lockdown.

This is fine if someone really is trying to steal your identity. It is not particularly helpful if the bill must be paid by 4:00pm and it is already 3:57.

A standard password format might solve everything. As a nod to the paranoid, we could make the standard password 15 to 20 characters long. If the security gurus think that 15 to 20 characters is not enough, we could make it 25 or even 30. We could require that three characters be numbers or that two be neither letters or numbers. At least it would be only one password. I'm sure I could remember that.

Probably.

Today was International Be Kind to Lawyers Day

2011-04-12T19:26:00.000-05:00

Honest. There's a web site and everything.

According to that web site, Be Kind to Lawyers Day is the brainchild of Steven Hughes, a non-lawyer from St. Louis. The web site explains:

[Hughes] had been working with attorneys for several years in the presentation and rainmaking arena. He liked his job and the clients who hired him.

However, whenever Steve mentioned to friends and neighbors that he worked with lawyers he was met with crinkled up faces, snide remarks and sarcastic sighs. They would say things like, "Lawyers? I bet that's a treat." Or, "Lawyers? You poor thing." (Can't you just feel the animosity?) Suddenly he found himself playing defense counsel for an entire profession.

Then one day as Steve was putting away the decorations from National Bubble Wrap Day (late January) his thoughts drifted to National Ice Cream Day (late July) and then it struck him. Why not a special day for lawyers? Lawyers are just as good as bubble wrap and ice cream, in fact, they're better. Thus, the idea for NATIONAL BE KIND TO LAWYERS DAY was hatched.

After extensive planning, detailed research and countless reviews by a team of legal experts, NATIONAL BE KIND TO LAWYERS DAY was established as an annual holiday celebrated on the second Tuesday in April. This date was chosen because it is strategically sandwiched between April Fool's Day and U.S. Tax Day on April 15th.

This is a very nice idea and, even if it's too late today for extensive celebration, I hope you start making big plans right now for April 10, 2012.

Although... bubble wrap is pretty cool, too.... (Go ahead... click on the link. You know you want to....)

Plastic bottles made from trash? We're going to need the marketing department to work overtime on this one...

2011-03-26T12:47:00.004-05:00

But, otherwise, this is really a great idea.

The Chicago Tribune reports this week that PepsiCo has invented "what it calls the world's first plastic bottle made entirely from plant-based, fully renewable resources."

Actually "plant-based, fully renewable resources" sounds a lot better than the explanation in the linked Tribune article, namely, "such renewable materials as switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. The company expects to use other materials, such as orange peels, potato peels, oat hulls and other agricultural byproducts from its own food businesses...." In other words, trash. That kind of diminishes the 'yum' factor, I suppose.

This is a picture of switchgrass. I suggest we start the marketing department with a nice picture of a plant like that one, or a pastoral scene like that one below.

Most plastic bottles these days are made from petroleum. It strikes me that if we can drink from bottles made from the same stuff as oil slicks without even flinching, we can get used to drinking from bottles made from trash. And we can toast an important step on the road to energy independence when we do.

Politicians and more on the march at Sunday's Northwest Side Irish Parade

2011-03-13T16:33:00.008-05:00

Parades and politicians go together like peanut butter and jelly or (to be seasonal) corned beef and cabbage. Some pictures of the groups supporting Northwest Side aldermanic runoff candidates can be found on page one.

State Senator John Mulroe had a large group marching down Northwest Highway.

So did Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky:

The best parades mix the serious and the silly. This, for example, was not the Grand Marshall of this year's Northwest Side Irish Parade, the banner notwithstanding:

The real Grand Marshalls of this year's Northwest Side Irish Parade were Brother Konrad Diebold and Dr. Joe Schmidt, the President and Principal, respectively, of Chicago's St. Patrick High School.

St. Pat's is observing its 150th anniversary this year.

Sights and sounds of the 2011 Northwest Side Irish Parade

2011-03-13T16:28:00.018-05:00

The Notre Dame Resurrection Marching Band participated in this year's Northwest Side Irish Parade.

A group of athletes from Notre Dame College Prep also marched in the parade. With that group were Head Football Coach and Athletic Director Mike Hennessey and Coach Joe Gale, Chair of the school's physical education department.

The Northwest Side Irish Parade forms up at Onahan School. Onahan's group marched near the front of the parade.

A JROTC group from Foreman High School also participated:

And there's always an interesting variety of costumes on display at any St. Patrick's Day Parade. Today's was certainly no exception:

The spectators sport interesting costumes, too:

And there's always something to learn at a parade. For example, until today, I never knew how to use windshield wipers as a flag waving device.

Special thanks are due my daughter Brigid for volunteering to take all the pictures used in this and all the other posts I've put up about today's parade. She pointed out, not unreasonably, that I take an inordinate number of pictures of my shoes or of fuzzy things that seemed perfectly in focus when viewed through the unaided eye.

As today's posts attest, Brigid's pictures turned out very well. Brigid, however, is a dog fancier. She seems to have taken a disproportionate number of pictures of dogs. It didn't help that the Norwood Park Dog Association participated in the parade. Here are a couple of pictures from that large group:

There was yet one more dog, near the very end of the parade, who had to be photographed. Descriptions of this creature would have been scoffed at unless accompanied by this indisputable proof that a dog can achieve this prodigious size:

Brigid advises me that this is an Irish Wolfhound. It looks more like a Whole-Pack-of-Wolves-Hound to me.

Pipes and drums and cops and firefighters at the 2011 Northwest Side Irish Parade

2011-03-13T16:27:00.011-05:00

The Chicago Police Department's Emerald Society led this year's ninth edition of the Northwest Side Irish Parade.

Not to be outdone, the Chicago Fire Department Pipes & Drums also participated in this year's Northwest Side Irish Parade.

The Fraternal Order of Police also had a group in today's parade:

And there were more firefighters, too:

Lots of Irish dancers at the 2011 Northwest Side Irish Parade

2011-03-13T16:26:00.012-05:00

There were four schools of Irish dancing represented at Sunday's Northwest Side Irish Parade.

First up, the dancers from the Trinity Academy of Irish Dance:

The Mullane Healy Godley Academy also had a large group:

The O'Hare School of Irish Dance also turned out for the parade.

Last but not least was the Dillon-Gavin School of Irish Dance:

Humanity in jeopardy? Watson triumphs over game show champs

2011-02-17T17:39:00.002-06:00

Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings was as gracious as humanly possible in this after action report for Slate although, I thought, there were times during the Jeopardy man vs. machine broadcast, that Mr. Jennings looked ready destroy the supercomputer next to him. (He did mention, once, looking to pull the machine's plug.)

I was surprised that the game show was aired only in its regular late-afternoon time slot. I expected it to be a prime time special.

Thank goodness for DVR's. That's a machine we can still order around.

For the time being....

Difference between coffee and decaf explained

2011-02-12T07:10:00.005-06:00

Although this is from a site called Fake Science, this one seems to be 100% accurate.

Insisting that sometimes a telephone be used for conversation

2011-02-03T07:10:00.003-06:00

Ken Levine has adopted a radical new texting policy, one I am inclined to imitate. Writes Mr. Levine:

Text messages are great for short alerts.

I’m running late.

I’m at baggage claim.

I’m pregnant.

But they’re not designed to replace conversations. After a couple of quick back and forths, if you want to continue to converse with me I will CALL you. You’re obviously there. You just texted me two seconds ago.

Mr. Levine says he's encountered some resistance since implementing his new policy. Some people have been shocked. Levine asks, "Has it been that long since people talked to each other that it is now awkward?"

Maybe.

But I, too, will risk it.

Levine, by the way, is a writer and director whose many credits include M*A*S*H, Cheers, Fraiser, The Simpsons.... He's also been a baseball broadcaster, calling games for the Baltimore Orioles, the Seattle Mariners, and the San Diego Padres. His daily blog is a must-read. Levine was also a rock'n'roll DJ on a number of Top 40 radio stations in the 1970s. In other words, he's done all sorts of things I've always wanted to do... and never will.

And with all these accomplishments, there is yet one more: Levine has also formulated Levine's Laws. The best known of these may be, "The lead off walk will always come around to score...unless it doesn't." This one, however, is my favorite:

In every article that mentions you, no matter how complimentary the article, there will always be one thing said or misquoted that will prevent you from Xeroxing and sending it to your family.

Oh man, was I wrong!

2011-02-02T16:45:00.009-06:00

I was so sure that this storm would pass us by.

"Oh, it might snow," I grudgingly conceded yesterday morning after listening to all the Prophets of Doom on the TV and radio, "but probably only six to eight inches. Just enough to make it miserable. Not enough to bring anything to a halt."

I checked the radar a few times while I was at work... and it began to look more or more ominous. Still, anyone who's lived in Chicago has seen storms that looked dangerous on the radar fade away or part like Moses parted the Red Sea, going south and north of Chicago.

And I have plenty to do at work. I was determined to finish a couple of projects yesterday, and I did, but by the time I was done I didn't need radar to see the deteriorating weather. The Mark One Eyeball glancing out the office window provided more than enough evidence.

The horns started shortly after the snow started yesterday afternoon. My office is above Wells Street. As the weather turned, all the drivers took immediate leave of their senses, blasting their horns incessantly. Perhaps drivers thought the cars in front of them might vanish like soap bubbles once they realized that they, The Honking People, were in a hurry. The good news was that The Honking People must have gotten to their destinations by early evening; it must have been only patient people who were left to get stuck on Lake Shore Drive.

I left the office about 4:00, an hour-and-a-half or so after it started snowing. Our building security guard was feeling a little depressed when I said good evening. Her night relief had already called in, she told me, and she had a bad feeling that she might be stuck in the building for quite awhile.

The symphony of horns had subsided by this point; already the streets were nearly deserted. I was one of a handful of shuffling pedestrians at a time of day when the sidewalks are usually filled to capacity with people heading for their trains. I needed to stop at the bank. I had to put some money on my CTA card. And I wasn't too upset that I'd be getting on the Blue Line south of where I'd usually board: Maybe I'd even get a seat.

These hopes were quickly dashed as I came down the stairs onto the Monroe Street platform. Now I knew where all the people had gone. I found a place to stand and squinted down the tunnel toward Jackson Street, looking for signs of a train. Although the CTA had promised to run additional trains yesterday afternoon, none of these were apparently allocated to the Blue Line Subway. A train eventually stopped at Jackson -- but its running lights were flashing as it pulled out of the station. It was running express.

There was no "immediate follower." The platform got more and more crowded.

Eventually another train pulled into Jackson. This one stopped at Monroe.

Fortunately, when it arrived, there was still some prime standing room in the center of the car. I got there in time to hear the motorman's announcement: "I have an immediate follower," he said. I wouldn't have bet on the truth of his assertion.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The storm only got worse after dark. A neighbor went out at 7:30 or 8:00 to try and use his snowblower. He put some snow up into the air, but it was hard to distinguish what he put up from what Nature was putting down. My wife watched from the window, trying to decide whether we should go out and take a stab at our own driveway. She watched for a couple of minutes before realizing that she could actually see the neighbor only sporadically. She decided it was best that we not go out. I did not disagree.

"If it stops right now," I said, "my prediction would still be right."

But, of course, it didn't stop.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Fast forward now to early this morning: We couldn't even get out the door at first. The good news was that we had parked our cars in the driveway. Somehow, in the howling winds overnight, the snow didn't stick to the cars and they shielded some of the driveway beneath them. But they had to be dug out.

And so we did. Then the lake effect snow kicked in.

This time, because the winds weren't as strong, the snow did stick to the cars. But the winds now were from the north and east and not from the south and west -- and some of the snow we'd piled up in our initial removal efforts... redrifted.

The good news is that Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow.

The interesting thing is that, as much as I doubted the carefully plotted, scientific predictions of last night's storm, I readily accepted the prognostication of what my son-in-law refers to as an oversized, lying rat.

But who wants to believe bad news... or reject news that's good?

Happy Groundhog's Day.

It's snowing outside! Panic in the streets!

2011-02-01T19:05:00.005-06:00

Snowzilla
Found on (and lifted from) Facebook.

Presumably Sally Forth, like most comics, is submitted pretty far in advance. But it sure was timely this morning....

(Click to enlarge.)

Bear down, Chicago Bears

2011-01-21T13:12:00.003-06:00

Sung by Bryan Griffin of the Lyric Opera.

Or perhaps you'd prefer this sing-along version (follow the bouncing helmet)?

How are the TV stations going to top this week's hype if the Bears do happen to get by Green Bay?

Baseball Writers blow it again: Baines dropped from HOF ballot

2011-01-06T08:43:00.008-06:00

Hawk Harrelson will have to get some new talking points when the Sox play the Twinkies henceforth, now that Bert Blyleven has been admitted into Baseball's Hall of Fame. By now, everyone in the world who cares knows that Messrs. Blyleven and Roberto Alomar are slated to be enshrined in Cooperstown. Both are worthy, deserving inductees.

But less well reported is the fact that the BBWA, the Baseball Writers of America, the self-righteous guardians of baseball's Valhalla, saw fit to give Harold Baines only 28 votes this year, only 4.8% of the vote, meaning he'll be dropped from the Hall of Fame ballot.

Here are the 2011 Hall of Fame voting results (source; click image to enlarge and/or unblur):

Bill Veeck took credit for 'discovering' Baines, but I believe it was Paul Richards who first predicted that Baines was destined for Cooperstown. Now, sadly, he'll have to wait for the Veterans Committee. If Ron Santo were still around, Santo could give Baines an earful about that process.

Yet, Baines has 1,628 career RBI, the most of any player eligible for the Hall who has not been enshrined. A six time All Star and winner of the Silver Slugger in 1989, Baines had a 22 year career in the major leagues. He had 2,866 hits.

Of course, the knock on Baines is that he was a DH for most of his career -- and this, sadly, is true. After 1986, until his retirement in 2001, Baines played only 81 games in the field.

But let's look at that: Baines played only 81 games in the field in his final 14 years in the majors because his knee was gone. In other words, most of Baines' 2,866 hits came from an essentially one-legged batter.

There are few players in Major League history who had better careers than Harold Baines. Nearly all are in the Hall of Fame. And they had two legs.

The Baseball Writers of America have blown it again.

More about the American Tort Reform Association

2010-12-17T00:16:00.003-06:00

According to its website, the American Tort Reform Organization "was founded in 1986 by the American Council of Engineering Companies. Shortly thereafter, the American Medical Association joined them. Since that time, ATRA has been working to bring greater fairness, predictability and efficiency to America's civil justice system."

The ATRA website says it supports "aggressive civil justice reform agenda that includes:

Health care liability reform
Class action reform
Promotion of jury service
Abolition of the rule of joint and several liability
Abolition of the collateral source rule
Limits on punitive damages
Limits on noneconomic damages
Production liability reform
Appeal bond reform
Sound science in the courtroom
Stopping regulation through litigation

Here is a "sample list" of ATRA members:

3M
Advance Medical Technology Association
Altria Corporate Services
ASFE
American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons
American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists
American Council of Engineering Companies
American Furniture Association
American Institute of Architects
American Legislative Exchange Council
American Medical Association
American Petroleum Institute
American Trucking Associations
America's Blood Centers
Anheuser-Busch Companies
Associated Wire Rope Fabricators
Boeing
CNA Financial Corporation
Caterpillar
Coca-Cola Bottlers' Association
DaimlerChrysler Corporation
Doctors' Company
Erickson Retirement Communities
General Aviation Manufacturers Association
Helicopter Association International
Johnson & Johnson
Juvenile Products Manufacturers
Koch Industries, Inc.
Lovell Safety Management Co.
Medical Mutual
National Association of Home Builders
National Association of Mutual Insurance Co.
National Association of Shell Marketers
National Federation of Independent Business
National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation
National Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association
New York Blood Center
PPM Services
Pennsylvania Medical Society
Pfizer
Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America
Physician Insurers Association of America
Rio Grande Valley Chamber
Scandia Family Fun Center
SeamCraft, Inc.
State Farm
Taussig Corporation
Universal Health Services
Wood Machinery Manufacturers of America
Wyeth

Referring article: Cook County a "Judicial Hellhole"? Looking into the claims.

Archiving 2010 Cook County Judicial Retention Links

2010-11-06T08:13:00.003-05:00

These are the links that were listed in the Sidebar on page one through Tuesday's election, some of which will still be "live" when the 2012 retention season rolls around.

Chicago Bar Association 2010 Green Guide

Chicago Council of Lawyers Evaluation Report

Judicial Performance Commission of Cook County Report on the Judges Seeking Retention on the November 2, 2010 Ballot in Cook County

Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening "grids"

Tribune questionnaire responses

Illinois Civil Justice League questionnaire responses

Illinois Judges Association Statement on Justice Kilbride's retention

2010-10-25T09:01:00.002-05:00

The special interest groups trying to oust incoming Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court Tom Kilbride in his retention election pose a direct threat to fairness and impartiality of all Illinois judges. Through the use of deceptive and slick marketing, those sullying Justice Tom Kilbride are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for their own ideological and political ends at the expense of the touchstone of the American legal system – a judiciary independent of all influences and interests.

The Illinois Judges Association opposes any effort to “get” judges for doing their jobs. It undermines the ability of judges to carry out their judicial functions. It constitutes a dangerous intrusion upon independent judicial decision-making. And it is a blatant affront to everyone that the judiciary serves.

The public rightly demands that judges decide cases based on the law, not policy, popularity, or political views. As John Adams declared in the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, "It is the right of every citizen to be tried by judges as free, impartial and independent as the lot of humanity will admit." Yet, the incendiary attacks on Justice Kilbride seek nothing of the sort. To achieve their ends, special interest groups have resorted to ugly misrepresentations and falsehood of Justice Kilbride’s opinions. What political motive do they have? Playing politics with a judge's record, distorting it for political reasons, is unfair and dishonest.

Get the truth about Justice Tom Kilbride. Look at the ratings and evaluations by the major newspapers in Illinois and the Illinois State Bar Association, a non-partisan group. Ask a friend who is a lawyer or a judge. Vote on the basis of facts, not propaganda or an orchestrated disinformation media barrage. Once we allow judges to become intimidated or become mere tools of individuals or groups wanting to assert their own interests, to paraphrase Alexander Hamilton, the constitution is a dead letter. And, it might be said, so are our American values of justice.

The Illinois Judges Association is the statewide organization for members of the Illinois judiciary. It is made up of about 1,000 active and retired judges. It can be reached at 312.431.1283 or visited on the web at www.ija.org.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Releated: Illinois Judges Association weighs in on Kilbride retention

Rooting for Nolan Ryan's Rangers -- despite this

2010-10-24T08:53:00.003-05:00

I still maintain that Mr. Ryan need not have clobbered Ventura quite so hard: I always thought Ventura was reconsidering just what he was doing right before he reached the mound. It doesn't look as if Ventura ever even tried to throw a punch.

Seeing this again gives me a new quest: I'm now looking for a video of Craig "the Little Hurt" Grebeck and Ozzie Guillen taking Ryan deep back to back. That turned out to be Ozzie's one and only home run in 1990. (The next time the Sox faced Ryan, Ryan plunked Grebeck. That still seems excessive to me....)

I thought this was just at our house...

2010-10-23T13:02:00.002-05:00

Of course, we live just a couple of blocks from the Kennedy Expressway. Why should we expect good cell reception here?

------------------------------------------------------------
Zits comic obtained from the Houston Chronicle website, although I read it daily in the Chicago Tribune.

Sometimes saying "I'm sorry" isn't enough

2010-10-09T19:16:00.001-05:00

But it's all we can say or do.

William Cook, 57, defense lawyer who was well loved, dies suddenly (Chicago Daily Law Bulletin coverage; subscription required)

Strange suburban crime blotter

2010-09-21T22:07:00.000-05:00

My guess is that this first case involves a really disgruntled former employee. Matt Kiefer reports on the Chicago Sun-Times website:

At 6:23 a.m. [on September 13], rooftop surveillance cameras recorded an unidentified woman drive into the front parking lot of the [Takeda Pharmaceuticals property in Deerfield], then get out of her car and then defecate and urinate on company property.

Two security guards who responded said they parked their vehicle behind the woman's car, but that she put the car into reverse and struck their car before driving to the Lake-Cook Road exit. Company security reported she disobeyed two red lights on her way to the Interstate 294 tollway southbound entrance.

And, courtesy of Overheard in Cook County, we have a link to Dennis Sullivan's story in the Orland Park edition of Triblocal about an Orland Park woman who thought that a field sobriety test administered in the course of a traffic stop was a "fashion show." Sullivan quotes the police report as saying, "She walked up and down the line with hands on her hips three additional times." The report also notes that the woman demanded that she be read her "Amanda rights."

She has been charged with DUI.

Daddy's Home comic tackles jury duty dodging

2010-09-21T21:25:00.004-05:00

A lot of people aren't thrilled to receive a jury summons -- my daughter Brigid was a recent exception -- which is why I found these recent comics particularly good. (Click either strip to enlarge.)

The comic "Daddy's Home," by Tony Rubino and Gary Markstein, runs in the Chicago Sun-Times, but I obtained these images from GoComics.

Are the antibiotics of the future in cockroach guts?

2010-09-11T18:37:00.005-05:00

That, as I understand it, is the claim made in this story posted September 7 by Katie Drummond on AOL News.

The sad truth is that wee beasties that once were completely vanquished by antibiotics have adapted and are no longer so well controlled. Scary acronyms like MRSA have crept into the common vocabulary. The once futuristic-sounding word "penicillin" has taken on a rather quaint, lace doily, cloth-wrapped-electrical-cord tone.

Researchers are looking with growing desperation at any possible replacements for increasingly obsolete antibiotics. The operative word here is "any." Thus, brave British researchers at the University of Nottingham's School of Veterinary Medicine and Science have been reduced to probing into the interiors of everyone's least favorite insects.

And yet it turns out that this seeming longest of long shots may yield miraculous returns. Writes Drummond:

[P]otent chemicals, found in the brain and central nervous tissues of the critters, are able to kill 90 percent of E. coli and MRSA in lab-based tests.

According to the researchers, the unsanitary and unhygenic environments in which these bugs flourish has spurred them to develop toxins against the bacteria that we can no longer kill on our own.

If scientists can really develop something from cockroach innards, though, there will have to be some rather heroic efforts from somebody's marketing department before the potentially life-saving advantages of cockroach-gut medicine can really catch on.

Forget about the Asian Carp -- watch out for giant French Carp!

2010-09-08T18:54:00.006-05:00

This photograph was featured tonight on Yahoo! News and it really wasn't taken in Lake Michigan or even along the Illinois River.

If the photo is real (Yahoo! reports that skeptics are suggesting the picture is faked, but the UK's Daily Mail presents it as legit) the fish in question still lives in a lake in the south of France. (The angler in the photo, Raphael Biagini, released the monster. Assuming, of course, that he caught it at all.)

Anyway, if leviathans like this are really flourishing in France, why are our neighbors so worried about the piscatorial pygmies at large in the Illinois River? Even the skeptical Yahoo! article notes that koi carp (i.e., goldfish) have been caught weighing 90 pounds. Might not any discarded feeder fish expand to these dimensions?

Juror tips vote on Facebook, removed from jury

2010-09-01T07:30:00.001-05:00

Maybe what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But anything on Facebook is there for the whole world to see.

Today's illustration of how Facebook isn't as-private-as-everyone-thinks comes from Macomb County, Michigan. Hadley Jons, a juror in a criminal case was removed after she posted this message on her Facebook page:

actually excited for jury duty tomorrow. It’s gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re GUILTY. :P.

The trial started on August 10 but court was in recess on August 11 when the juror made that post.

Talk about prejudging the case: Jameson Cook's article for The Macomb Daily notes that the prosecution hadn't even rested when the juror announced her views to the world at large.

When jurors returned Aug. 12 for the resumption of the trial, Jons was brought into the courtroom alone by the presiding judge, Diane Druzinski, and asked about making a comment. Jons initially denied making a comment. But when the judge recited her words to her, she “put her head down” and didn’t respond, according to a court observer.

“You don’t know how disturbing this is,” Druzinski told her.

“Nobody could believe how cavalier she was about it,” said Saleema Sheikh, the defense attorney for the woman on trial.

And how was the juror found out?

My kids would call it "Facebook stalking": Defense counsel's teenage son (who just graduated from high school and was helping out in his mother's office to gain practical experience) was "surfing the Internet and plugging in jurors’ names," just to see what he could see.

Technology may be the ruin of baseball

2010-08-27T07:04:00.003-05:00

And don't get me started on video games... you haven't lived until you've been to one of your kids' games and the kids refuse to adjust to the umpire's strike zone -- because the umpire's strike zone that day isn't the one defined in the rulebook -- and built into the microchips.

And instant replay would not be any better.

In my opinion.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pardon My Planet appears in the Chicago Sun-Times. This image is from the Houston Chronicle.

Jon Miller enters Cooperstown today

2010-07-25T11:08:00.003-05:00

It was 1988. The Orioles had started the season 0-21.

Cal Ripken, Sr. had already been fired. Fortunately for baseball history, Cal Ripken, Jr. decided not to sit out a game in protest.

Then the O's came to Chicago. New Orioles GM (and former Sox GM) Roland Hemond persuaded Jerry Reinsdorf to let him have the suit he'd worn in the clubhouse in 1983 when the Sox clinched their first post-season appearance since 1959. The suit had been soaked with champagne and beer and kept under glass, in a display case, ever since.

I can't imagine who wanted to sit next to Hemond that night.

Anyway, Jon Miller was a guest on the White Sox pregame show. He did a spot-on imitation of Edward R. Murrow reporting 'from the rooftops of London' to show how desperately the situation was viewed in Baltimore.

That was the night the Orioles broke the streak.

Despite that, I've always liked Jon Miller. I seem to recall a night when he and former White Sox broadcaster John Rooney traded impersonations. They're both quite gifted. If I recall correctly, Miller did a great Bob Elson, too.

All the Cub fans will be going on and on today about Handy-Dandy-Andy Dawson who will be entering the Hall of Fame today... as a Montreal Expo. But I'm cheering especially today for Jon Miller.

Hysterical 'Historical' Houdini Tweet

2010-07-15T12:56:00.003-05:00

Winner: Houdini’s Tweet in the Blank

From Historical Tweets.

List of members of the Judicial Performance Commission of Cook County

2010-07-10T18:12:00.005-05:00

Here is a list of the members of the Judicial Performance Commission of Cook County. The affiliations for each member are shown for identification purposes only. For more on the JPC, see "Voter resources for retention judges are coming" on page one of this blog.

Chairperson
Leonard Jay Schrager, Professor, The John Marshall Law School

Members
Enrique Abraham, Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office

Fay Lomax Cook, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University

Jan Czarnik, League of Women Voters of Illinois

Stephen Daniels, American Bar Foundation

Susana Darwin, American Bar Association

Vivien C. Gross, Professor, Chicago-Kent College of Law

Roy E. Hofer, Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione

Jonathan D. King, DLA Piper

Michelle K. Jordan, League of Women Voters

Edward O. Laumann, The University of Chicago, Department of Sociology

James H. Lewis, Chicago Community Trust

Virginia Martinez, MALDEF Chicago Regional Office

Travis Richardson, Richardson & Mackoff

Wesley G. Skogan, Professor, Northwestern University, Department of Political Science

Ada Skyles, Chapin Hall Research Center for Children, at the University of Chicago

Randolph N. Stone, Professor, Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, at the University of Chicago Law School

Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice
Malcolm C. Rich, Executive Director

Elizabeth Monkus, Project Manager

This would be funny -- if it weren't so true

2010-07-10T09:58:00.003-05:00

From the webcomic xkcd, by Randall Munroe.

Money laundering legal in Zimbabwe

2010-07-06T10:17:00.002-05:00

Indeed, according to this AP story (from Yahoo! News), it is recommended because, in parts of Zimbabwe, where American currency is legal tender, some greenbacks are "almost too smelly to handle."

Household hint: Money laundering is best done "with gentle hand-washing in warm water." Machine washing can work as well, but dry-cleaning is not recommended: The chemicals cause the bills to fade.

Is America lost in space?

2010-05-15T10:21:00.002-05:00

(The final planned launch of Shuttle Atlantis,
May 14, 2010. From NASA.)

After STS-132, now in orbit, there are just two more planned American civilian spaceflights left. (The Air Force still has the unmanned X-37B program; a successful launch of the new vehicle was made on April 23.)

There will still be Americans in space, for a time at least, after the Shuttle is retired: American astronauts will continue to rotate to the International Space Station as passengers on board Russian vehicles. And President Obama says our outer space goals should be reconfigured: Instead of returning to the Moon and going next to Mars, as President Bush had proposed (and Congress had approved), we should head straight to Mars. Future flights in Low Earth Orbit should be privatized, with NASA becoming more FAA than the owner-developer-operator of all American space technology.

But this is a cloudy vision. While Mr. Obama's plan has some support among space scientists, many of our surviving lunar explorers are strongly opposed. (Here is a link to Neil Armstrong's written testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation this past week.)

The problem with Mr. Obama's vision -- aside from the fact that it flushes billions of dollars already spent on developing vehicles and logistics for the now-scrapped return to the Moon -- is that it comes with no guarantees whatsoever. The Mars program is off in the distant future. The only upcoming tangible goal is for a new 'heavy lift' rocket to come on line in 2015 -- and that's because the development of this vehicle was part of the lunar program. Eugene A. Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, who testified with Armstrong before the Senate this week, said, "Nowhere do we find a commitment in dollars to support this national endeavor.... [T]his budget proposal presents no challenges, has no focus, and in fact is a blueprint for a mission to nowhere."

And then there's the question of privatizing LEO flights. In theory, this is a fabulous, long overdue idea. But... who will be allowed to fly? Low Earth Orbit is a crowded place; it's not just Hubble Telescope and the International Space Station up there, there are lots of satellites and lots of debris, too. Traffic has to be regulated to prevent collisions. Also... there's no place to go in LEO. There's up... and there's down. Entrepreneurs aren't being invited to hook up their own modules to the ISS... which would be the outer space equivalent of building a trading post outside the fort.

If you follow all the links here, you'll read that Mr. Obama's plan proposes an increase in NASA funding. But politicians do weird and wonderful things with budgetary numbers. Mr. Armstrong says the prior plans were never funded as they should have been, so comparisons are unfair. And who's to say whether Congress, in a time of soaring national debt, will supply the dollars Mr. Obama has requested.

By the way, this is not a Republicans vs. Democrats issue -- at least not for me. I think it just has to do with rotation in office: It was Richard Nixon who scrapped the last several moon flights. I suspect that each administration comes into office determined to undo everything its predecessor has done. Kennedy wanted to go to the Moon, so Nixon wanted to stop going (at least after he'd milked the PR value of Apollo XI). Bush II wanted to return to the Moon, so Obama was against it.

There is an attitude in this country that our manned spaceflight program is simply an obsolete relic of the Cold War. That's the attitude taken by Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg yesterday. He concluded:

Will it sting us to see Chinese astronauts joyously waving streamers attached to sticks, doing that running dance of theirs on the surface of the moon? Absolutely. Does that mean we must be square dancing one crater over? No way.

As an old history major, all I know is that, in the 1490s, the Pope divided the whole unknown world between the Spanish and the Portuguese. These were the major world powers then, and the leaders of global exploration. They quibbled over the Pope's line of demarcation, eventually moving one of the lines west, which may... or may not... have given Portugal its claim on Brazil.

Meanwhile the Dutch and, soon after, the English, were ramping up exploration programs of their own. And England set up shop in North America where our forefathers brought forth a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Portugal regrouped. It consolidated. Bottom line: Portugal stopped exploring; England did not. We are -- America is -- the result. Today, Portugal is a lovely place that exports cork and wine and constitutes the next biggest threat to the euro after Greece.

America may not control space. No terrestrial nation will, not in the long term, because all of us here are at the bottom of a big gravity well and space is the ultimate 'high ground.' But we can choose whether we want to be England... or Portugal.

I vote for England.

A possible explanation for this Louisiana oil mess?

2010-05-14T08:50:00.003-05:00

Click to enlarge.

From Fake Science ("for when the facts are too confusing"). Hat tip to Popehat for the link to the site.

Almost certainly not a real sign...

2010-04-19T17:42:00.003-05:00

...but doesn't some small part of you wish it were really posted somewhere?

---------------------------------------------------------
Image source.

A very funny take on the census form

2010-03-20T12:04:00.002-05:00

For your reading pleasure, this post by Mark Draughn on Windypundit: Census Form! Entrapment! Beware!

An excerpt:

I just got my 2010 Census form in the mail. I assume some of you got one too. You may have noticed that the cover letter includes the following paragraph:

This is your official 2010 Census form. We need your help to count everyone in the United States by providing basic information about all the people living in this house or apartment. Please complete and mail back the enclosed census form today.

Today, huh? So, you take a look at the form, which seems otherwise well designed, and this is the first question you see:

How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?

Uh, that's just over two weeks in the future, so what should you put down? At first, you're tempted to guess, but a piece of the federal Census law in 13 U.S.C. 221 says:

(b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a) of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is false, shall be fined not more than $500.

And it goes on from there....

More pictures from the Northwest Side Irish Parade

2010-03-14T22:31:00.019-05:00

(Continued from page one)

Spectators found it warmer and dryer along Northwest Highway Sunday than at the big parade downtown on Saturday.

The Norwood Park Historical Society had a horse-drawn carriage.

Somebody else brought an Irish wolfhound, a dog as big as a horse.

The Northwest Side Irish Parade organizers paid tribute today to Illinois Wounded Warriors. According to the March 9 edition of the Edison-Norwood Times-Review, the NWSI honored "U.S. Marine Corp. veteran Chad Watson will be honored as the 2010 NWSI Humanitarian of the Year 'for his courage and bravery in returning home from Iraq. A U.S. Marine Corps Veteran who lost his leg while serving his country in Fallujah. His dedication and commitment to the Wounded Warrior Project is a story of inspiration.'"

A Marine Corps group participated in the parade as did junior ROTC groups from Taft High School (Navy) and Foreman High School (Army):

And, of course, there were more Irish dancers. This was the Trinity Academy of Irish Dance float.

Here are the Mullane-Healy-O'Brien Irish dancers:

The Notre Dame-Resurrection High School marching band participated:
A group of athletes from Notre Dame College Prep, accompanied by Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Mike Hennessey, followed close behind:

Facebook posts get kids -- and teachers -- in trouble

2010-02-23T01:03:00.004-06:00

A University of Oregon wide receiver has been booted from the school's football team, apparently because of "an expletive-filled statement on Facebook," according to a story posted Monday on SI.com. While Ducks Coach Chip Kelly did not explicitly say that the Facebook rant was reason why Jamere Holland was "dismissed from the team," according to the posted story, that is what he hinted.

Closer to home, Justin Bird, a 16 year-old sophomore at south suburban Oak Forest High School, is fighting a suspension, according to Kevin Roy's story on ABC 7 News, because Bird "created a Facebook fan page on which he called a teacher a derogatory name." The page promptly attracted nearly 50 fans, according to Roy's story, but Bird took the page down the next day. ABC 7 reports that "High School District 228 Superintendent Bill Kendall says what Bird wrote was 'disrespectful, inappropriate and lewd.'" Exactly what Bird wrote has not been reported. While Bird wrote whatever he wrote on his home computer, the school administration considered it so "disruptive" that a suspension was warranted.

Bird's parents are contemplating legal action.

This is understandable in one sense: Students have complained about teachers since time immemorial. It's almost a sacred tradition. What right do school administrators have to interfere? Of course, there is another equally ancient tradition that may be applicable here: Students are usually careful to grumble in places where they can't be overheard by the teacher in question -- or the teacher's colleagues -- lest they get in trouble.

The ACLU has expressed sympathy with Bird's plight, according to the linked story. An ACLU spokesperson, Ed Yohnka, is quoted in Roy's story as saying, "We don't need a sort of governmental agent in the form of the school reaching into that household and correcting that behavior simply because the school thinks it somehow involves them."

With Facebook, though, kids like Justin Bird aren't merely griping in someone's household; they're making derogatory statements about unpopular teachers right in the middle of the electronic public square, in front of the persons they think they're criticizing only among themselves. Perhaps merely by posting on Facebook -- and almost certainly in creating a fan page -- a student like Bird may have made it impossible for him not to be overheard. There is as yet no consensus on the etiquette of this situation.

There is consensus among the experts only that threatening harm on a site like Facebook is never appropriate and will -- and should -- get the poster in trouble.

Thus, 18 year-old Joshua Walker is in trouble in downstate Benton, Illinois, "arrested and taken to jail after he posted some threatening and harassing remarks on his ex-girlfriend's Facebook page," according to a story posted tonight on MSNBC.com. Adriana Correa's story, originally for NBCChicago.com, says Walker allegedly "began posting death threats on the social networking site shortly after the girl ended their relationship." The girl's family called the police -- which is pursuing felony harassment charges, according to the story. Correa quotes Franklin County Sheriff's Police Captain Don Jones as saying that what Walker is alleged to have done is "just another form of domestic violence."

But it's not just students who can get in trouble on account of their Facebook musings.

Meet 24 year-old Ashley Payne.

Until last fall, Ms. Payne was a teacher at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia. She lost her job, though, after an anonymous email was sent to school administrators complaining about pictures like this one, taken on a European vacation. In the picture -- and in nine other pictures of the roughly 700 vacation pictures she posted -- Payne appears to be drinking an alcoholic beverage. *Gasp!* She was also accused of using the word "bitch" on her Facebook page.

Maureen Downey wrote about Payne's case in a November 10 article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and again on November 13.

Downey's articles make clear that, although she did "friend" some of her teaching colleagues, Ms. Payne did not "friend" any of her students. Nevertheless, the writer of the anonymous email that cost Payne her job claimed to be the mother of a student who had access to Payne's Facebook page. (Downey's November 13 article suggests, persuasively, I think, that the anonymous email came, not from a student's parent, but from a fellow teacher.)

A February 19 story in the Barrow Journal updates the saga: Payne is suing the school district -- but settlement negotiations have recently broken down.

Up all night with a sick computer

2010-02-15T08:26:00.007-06:00

We were watching The Quiet Man at home the other night, minding our own business, and the question came up about which roles were played by Maureen O'Hara's brothers.

This being the modern age, I fired up the computer and went to IMDb.com, which has all the information about seemingly every movie or television program ever made.

And... the other night, at least... it apparently had something else, which explains why I've provided no link in the preceding paragraph.

One question led to another, and I jumped from page to page within the movie website, looking up Maureen O'Hara's daughter and then her grandson. I clicked on no ads.

And, yet, suddenly, on my screen appeared a dire warning: Security Alert! My computer, the screen said, was unprotected against viruses and worms and did I want the latest protection?

Well, I pay for an anti-virus program, thank you, and I am not going to say "yes" to any pop-up that appears on my desktop uninvited.

I knew that much, but still made a near-fatal mistake: I "x"ed out the pop-up. It turns out that saying "yes" would have launched the virus. But so, too, would saying "no" -- or even trying to "x" the window out.

Now all sorts of boxes began popping up: Another security warning, this one saying that a scan revealed 34 separate infections on my computer. I saw an unfamiliar icon in the tray in the lower right hand corner of the computer screen. It was a sickly green shield. I brought it up on my screen and saw it was running a scan of my system as part of an install routine. I tried to "x" that out, too.

The boxes became more threatening. Did I want to proceed "unprotected"?

Oh, yes I did, I said to myself through gritted teeth. I don't want this sort of "protection" at all. I realized almost immediately that I was under attack.

I tried "x"ing out of each box in turn. I launched my Norton program and ran the recommended quick scan -- but, despite the evidence of my own eyes -- it claimed to find nothing amiss.

It found nothing wrong even though I could open no program without getting a stern warning that it was infected. The computer even claimed that Solitaire was infected... and it would not allow the program to be activated.

I closed out of Firefox and erased all temporary files as I did so. I thought that, since I had terminated the install program, I might by this method halt the invasion.

I was wrong. The virus began opening windows in Internet Explorer. First it started to open up Viagra.com -- then, when I "x"ed that out, it started to open up something called "adult.com." (I immediately suspected that this was not a site that dispenses parenting advice.) When I "x"ed that out, the virus tried to launch something called "porno.org." I kept "x"ing and the virus kept launching.

After receiving negative results from the Norton scan, I opened up the Norton Security Center which claimed that my virus protection was out of date. I happen to have a current, paid-up subscription, so I knew that was wrong. But there was a link below the message which promised more information and I clicked on it.

I was whisked to a site called "Antivirus Soft" where, for something like $50, I could get three months of protection against these sorts of dastardly attacks.

That's when I unplugged the Internet.

I learned later that this was the first reasonably bright move I'd made.

Once I disconnected, I tried running another scan. I hoped that the antivirus program would now realize the situation and take corrective measures. But it again reported that nothing was wrong. It also claimed to have looked at a significantly different number of files than it did on the first scan.

Einstein said that madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I was angry, alright, but I was not mad. I resolved to try something different. Alright, I thought to myself, the quick scan found nothing. So the virus may be too deeply embedded. I should choose the comprehensive scan option this time.

I went ahead and clicked. This scan, at least, was obviously searching the entire hard drive -- I could see by the numbers of files searched and the locations being examined that this was the case.

But it was taking a long time.

Meanwhile, the virus, though no longer able to bring up the scary websites, kept trying. There is apparently a limit to the number of tabs that may be opened up in IE. I don't know what that limit is, but we exceeded it the other night by a factor of more than three -- by the time the comprehensive scan was concluded, a fourth IE window was open, trying vainly to launch Viagra.com, adult.com, or porno.org. There was a security warning box in the middle of my screen I could not "x" out. But I could move the Norton window to one side so I could see most of it.

And I and my son Jim (we took turns monitoring) saw quite a bit of that Norton screen in the six hours it took to run the comprehensive scan. Perhaps it was the glut of IE tabs that slowed the scan down. But at this point, I was -- belatedly -- not "x"ing anything out because it seemed to merely encourage the invader.

By 4:00 or 4:30am, the comprehensive scan concluded. And it concluded that nothing was wrong at all.

Alright, I thought, trying to project the calm demeanor of the test pilots immortalized in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff: I tried A; it did not work. I tried B; it did not work. Switching now to plan C....

This time, I tried shutting the computer off. After all, if I had prevented the install, all these problems were coming from something operating in a temporary buffer... and shutting down the machine would close that out, right?

Well... wrong.

At least this failure did not waste six hours.

I had to plug the Internet back in for a moment, at this stage, as I worked on Plan D. Since Norton was obviously compromised, I would have to go to the hardware manufacturer and see if I could obtain assistance from that quarter. I needed to look up and print out my warranty information. In so doing, I found out that Dell would not be available to talk to me until 8:00am. I also got to "x" out some more launches of Viagra.com, adult.com and porno.org. I disconnected the Internet again and got a couple of hours of sleep.

Moments after 8:00am I was on the phone with "Frank" from Dell. I don't know why so many computer companies insist on having their customer service people assume Anglo-sounding names -- but I'm pretty sure "Frank" was from well out of town -- and sure, too, that no one in his family calls him by that name.

"Frank" solved the problem by having me do a "system restore." First, we tried to launch this from the regular Accessories tab in the XP programs menu.

The virus would have none of this.

So "Frank" guided me through the process of rebooting the computer in "safe mode." To do this, one hits the "F8" key as the machine begins its boot cycle. Eventually, I did this correctly. From there, we could launch the System Restore program. We asked the computer to restore itself to a status a week before these unhappy events occurred -- figuring that, even if the virus was not attached to an imdb.com page but had instead been incubating for awhile, we'd probably get to a time before the remora latched on.

This seems to have worked.

I later spoke with Vinkesh at Norton (I'm guessing that this may actually be the name by which he is known to his friends and family) to find out why the antivirus did not "see" the virus while the attack was on.

Vinkesh explained that the first thing a trojan horse virus does is identify and disable real security software. Neither "Frank" nor Vinkesh professed any knowledge of the fake product "Antivirus Soft" -- but both confirmed that I was the victim of a trojan horse attack. Vinkesh also recommended that, in the event of a future attack, the computer be immediately rebooted in safe mode and a virus scan launched then. But the key is never, never, never respond to the pop-up. Even trying to "x" the pop-out out would allow the virus to take hold.

I do not recount these adventures merely as conclusive proof of my lack of computer skills. Rather, I post this in the hopes that someone else may profit from my experience.

My wife pointed out that it would be particularly ingenious for the creators of this "Antivirus Soft" scam to embed their virus in old movie pages on IMDb.com. Twenty-somethings who have grown up around computers are not likely to investigate whether Maureen O'Hara had children. But straitlaced old fogies like me, the sort who might look up old movie facts, might be so terrified at the prospect of the uninvited launches of Viagra.com, adult.com and porno.org that they could be stampeded into clicking a "yes" button and providing their credit card information -- and at least $50 -- to make it stop.

But now you know that this would be a very bad idea.

Acknowledgments and archives

2010-02-13T19:39:00.001-06:00

The 2010 judicial primary campaign is over now and, before moving on, it's time for me to gratefully acknowledge those who helped me to get the word out about Cook County Circuit Court candidates.

I have to begin by thanking the candidates themselves. I was able to dig out a fair amount of stuff on my own -- but I could never have obtained and organized as much information as I did without the active cooperation of many of the candidates and their supporters. I suppose there may have been some stealth judicial candidates this time out -- people hoping to sneak by on the basis of a euphonious appellation or felicitous ballot position -- but, having looked closely, it is my opinion that most of the men and women who sought election to the Circuit Court in Cook County were trying their darndest to get word out about their campaigns and their credentials. I had regular email communications from several candidates about fundraisers and endorsements -- and when I got something wrong, as happened from time to time, oh my did I hear about it.

(Fine print on a sample ballot? Who ever heard of such a thing?)

I'm also grateful for all the assistance of Joyce Williams, who coordinates candidate evaluations for the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening. Thanks to Ms. Williams, I was able to put up the evaluations by Alliance members as soon as they were released. Allen Adomite of the Illinois Civil Justice League was quick to share information he received; I hope I was able to reciprocate at least occasionally. Avy Meyers of North Town News Magazine allowed me to post candidate interviews he conducted. Albert J. Klumpp, PhD, a Research Analyst with the Chicago firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP, has been generous with his comments and his suggestions. CBA members will recall Klumpp's article in the January 2010 issue of the CBA Record, "What Influences the Voters?" Klumpp has written on the subject of judicial elections before. See, "Voter Information and Judicial Retention Elections in Illinois," 94 Ill. B.J. 538 (October 2006), and "Cook County Judicial Elections: Partisanship, Campaign Spending, & Voter Information," CBA Record, January 2007. Dr. Klumpp's 2005 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Illinois (Chicago) was entitled, "Judicial Retention Elections in Cook County: Exercise of Democracy, or Exercise in Futility."

Steve Levinthal, who started a Facebook page called Cook County - Know Your Judicial Candidates, was one of many people whose acquaintance I made during the course of this primary season. Actually, Facebook was a new acquaintance for me this primary season -- Judge William H. Hooks was one who nudged me in that direction -- and, thank heavens, all of my kids actually friended me.

This blog may actually have helped some voters make informed choices in judicial elections. There were over 8,000 hits on Page One of this blog in January -- and nearly 19,000 page views. People were stopping by -- and looking around. (Since I started tracking visits to Page One of this blog, over 71,000 visitors have viewed nearly 150,000 pages.) A lot of visitors seem to have emailed posts to others, increasing the 'reach' of this effort.

Anyway, it's time now to mothball the candidates' websites. I'll keep them here, on Page Two, for archival purposes. Some of these will still be 'live' in 2012; some are probably already gone. The only sites I'll leave up on Page One are those of the only two candidates who still have an election to worry about -- Daniel J. Gallagher and Maureen Masterson Pulia -- who will face each other in November in the race for the countywide McCarthy vacancy.

2010 Cook County Circuit Court candidate websites:

James Michael Bailey
Deidre Baumann
Michael Ian Bender
Eugene Joseph Berkes
Steven James Bernstein
Thomas David Bilyk
Linnae Bryant
John P. Callahan
Joseph Chico
David J. Coleman
Ann Finley Collins
Pamela Cotten
Joanne F. Fehn
Charles Francis Fitzgerald
Michelle Hugghis Flagg
Pat Flanagan
Thomas Flannigan
Daniel J. Gallagher
Marvin W. Gray
Jeffrey Greenspan
John C. Griffin
Edward S. Harmening
Russell W. Hartigan
William H. Hooks
Linzey Jones
Nicholas W. Karas
Richard G. Karwaczka
Peter M. Kramer
Joan Marie G. Kubalanza
Geary Kull
Yehuda P. Lebovits
Pamela M. Leeming
William J. Luby
Thomas V. Lyons
Terry MacCarthy
Daniel B. Malone
Diann K. Marsalek
Maritza Martinez
Bonnie Carol McGrath
Pamela McLean Meyerson
Edmund Paul Michalowski
Raymond W. Mitchell
Kevin J. Murphy
Thomas J. Murphy
John Patrick Nyhan
Thomas G. O'Brien
Sharon Oden-Johnson
Jesse Outlaw
Sharon Finegan Patterson
Nichole C. Patton
Linda J. Pauel
Maureen Masterson Pulia
William Burnett Raines
Sandra G. Ramos
Abbey Fishman Romanek
Frank James Ryan
Tracey J. Stokes
Susan Kennedy Sullivan
Mary S. Trew
Steven G. Watkins
Thaddeus L. Wilson

What Cook County Circuit Court race are you looking for?

2010-01-26T20:38:00.001-06:00

This post is a duplicate of the top post on Page One. Itwill stay on top of the page until after the February 2 primary. Scroll down the page to look for new posts.

Click on the vacancy and get information about all the candidates in that race.

Countywide races:

Berland vacancy
Bronstein vacancy
Dolan vacancy
Hayes vacancy
Kelley vacancy
McCarthy vacancy (contest in Republican primary only)
O'Malley vacancy (uncontested)
Riley vacancy

Subcircuit races:

This map will give you a rough idea of which subcircuit you're in. If you're still uncertain, check your voter registration card or use a site like the "Ballot Builder" on the Chicago Tribune website.

First Subcircuit
Coleman vacancy, Steele vacancy,
"A" vacancy (uncontested)

Third Subcircuit
Carmody vacancy, Darcy vacancy,
"A" vacancy

Ninth Subcircuit
Otaka vacancy, "A" vacancy

Eleventh Subcircuit
Riley vacancy

Fourteenth Subcircuit
"A" vacancy (uncontested)

Fifteenth Subcircuit
Lipinski vacancy, Panichi vacancy,
Phelan vacancy

Mary S. Trew appearance on NTNM "extras"

2010-01-25T21:38:00.002-06:00

Mary S. Trew's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Trew is a candidate for the "A" vacancy in Cook County's 9th Judicial Circuit.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

William Burnett Raines' second appearance on NTNM

2010-01-25T21:32:00.001-06:00

William Burnett Raines' second appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Raines is a candidate for the countywide Berland vacancy.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

William J. Luby appearance on NTNM "extras"

2010-01-25T21:06:00.003-06:00

William J. Luby's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Luby is a candidate for the "A" vacancy in Cook County's 9th Judicial Subcircuit.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

Deidre Baumann appearance on NTNM "extras"

2010-01-25T20:54:00.002-06:00

Deidre Baumann's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Baumann is a candidate for the countywide Berland vacancy.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

Joanne Fehn appearance on NTNM "extras"

2010-01-25T20:50:00.002-06:00

Joanne Fehn's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Fehn is a candidate for the countywide Kelley vacancy.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

What I've learned... or what I think I've learned... from the 2010 judicial campaign

2010-01-25T11:38:00.000-06:00

Taking a Republican ballot on Groundhog's Day effectively deprives a voter of the opportunity to vote for judges in Cook County. There are only two Republicans who filed for any Cook County judicial vacancy (both in the countywide McCarthy vacancy, in case you want to look). That means, with that sole exception, the winners of the Democratic primary races on February 2 are effectively elected. (There are no Green candidates either.) I think that this situation strongly indicates the need to make judicial primaries non-partisan -- so that anyone voting in the primary can vote for any judicial candidate.

Voters who do take the time to investigate the credentials of Cook County judicial candidates will, on balance, be pleasantly surprised at the overall quality of the people offering to serve. In some races, voters may find it genuinely difficult to choose from among several good candidates. While this year, as always, there are some candidates who have shunned the bar evaluation process, the trend seems to be toward participation. That's a good thing.

Even in uncontested races, candidates have submitted to bar association screening. That hasn't always been the case: In prior elections, some candidates who knew they'd be uncontested didn't bother to seek evaluations. In three of the four uncontested judicial races this year, though, the candidates not only participated, they were found recommended or qualified by each of the investigating bar groups. These candidates are Daniel Gallagher in the Democratic primary for the McCarthy vacancy and Judges Thomas V. Lyons (countywide O'Malley vacancy) and Daniel J. Pierce (14th Subcircuit "A" vacancy). The fourth uncontested candidate, Bonita Coleman-John (1st Subcircuit "A" vacancy), also participated in the bar screening process and was found recommended by the Cook County Bar Association and the Black Women Lawyers Association of Greater Chicago.

This is the second time I've tried to cover a Cook County judicial primary on For What It's Worth. I undertook this project because I did not think that most Cook County Circuit Court candidates had the opportunity to get their messages out to the voters and most voters did not have anywhere to look for information about Cook County Circuit Court candidates as a whole.

This landscape has changed -- for the better -- since 2008. In 2008, there was IllinoisJudges.net and For What's It's Worth. We're both still at it this year. But there's a lot more available this time around. This year, the Tribune not only collected questionnaires from judicial candidates seeking the paper's endorsement, it published these online. And a new service, eVoter.com has sprung up this year. The site compiles a list of all the candidates in all the races. For a fee, candidates can post all their information right there on the eVoter sample ballot. In December, when I first wrote about it, only one Cook County judicial candidate had signed up for eVoter. By the time I finished compiling my Organizing the Data posts this weekend, several more candidates had jumped in. I wouldn't be surprised if more do between now and the primary next week. I'll predict right now that, if eVoter survives, most judicial candidates in 2012 will participate.

------------------------------------------------------------
Related posts:
Endorsements versus Evaluations
What Circuit Court race are you looking for?

See also:
Alliance of Bar Associations - updated grids
Chicago Bar Association 2010 Green Guide
Chicago Council of Lawyers Report on Judicial Candidates in the February 2, 2010 Primary

Sharon Finegan Patterson campaign video

2010-01-22T20:48:00.002-06:00

Sharon Finegan Patterson is a candidate for the countywide Bronstein vacancy.

For more on Cook County Circuit Court elections, visit page one of For What It's Worth.

John Patrick Callahan, Jr. appearance on NTNM

2010-01-21T07:31:00.001-06:00

John Patrick Callahan Jr.'s appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Callahan is a candidate for the countywide Kelley vacancy.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

Michael Ian Bender appearance on NTNM

2010-01-21T07:23:00.001-06:00

Michael Ian Bender's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Bender is a candidate for the "A" vacancy in the 9th Judicial Subcircuit.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

Thomas David Bilyk appearance on NTNM

2010-01-14T09:29:00.001-06:00

Thomas David Bilyk's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Bilyk is a candidate for the Riley vacancy in the 11th Judicial Subcircuit.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

Linda J. Pauel appearance on NTNM

2010-01-07T08:02:00.003-06:00

Linda J. Pauel's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Pauel is a candidate for the countywide Dolan vacancy.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

Judge John Griffin on judicial elections

2009-12-30T20:37:00.002-06:00

Judge John Griffin Explains Judicial Elections from Alan Cottrell on Vimeo.

My thanks to Mr. Cottrell for permission to post the video -- and to Judge Griffin for the plug he gave this blog in the course of his talk.

For more on Cook County judicial races, see page one of this blog.

Yehuda P. Lebovits appearance on NTNM

2009-12-26T10:26:00.002-06:00

Yehuda P. Lebovits' appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Lebovitz is a candidate for the Otaka vacancy in Cook County's Ninth Judicial Subcircuit.

For more on Cook County judicial races, turn to Page One of this blog.

You'd better watch out....

2009-12-24T11:25:00.004-06:00

(From the comic Bizarro. This image obtained from
the Houston Chronicle website, but Bizarro also appears
in the Chicago Sun-Times.)

Santa Claus has gone high-tech.

Abbey Fishman Romanek appearance on NTNM

2009-12-22T15:10:00.001-06:00

Abbey Fishman Romanek's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Romanek is a candidate for the Otaka vacancy in Cook County's Ninth Judicial Subcircuit.

Judge Thomas V. Lyons appearance on NTNM

2009-12-22T15:09:00.001-06:00

Judge Thomas V. Lyons' appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Judge Lyons is the only remaining candidate for the countywide O'Malley vacancy on the Cook County Circuit Court.

PCC NET TV interview of Wilson, Hooks & Gray

2009-12-18T10:00:00.002-06:00

From PCC NET TV. I've figured out how to size YouTube videos to fit this page (mainly because it's not hard), but I'm afraid I was not able to figure out how to size this one.

Edmund Paul Michalowski appearance on NTNM

2009-12-14T09:33:00.001-06:00

Edmund Paul Michalowski's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Micahlowski is a candidate for the countywide Riley vacancy on the Cook County Circuit Court.

Diann K. Marsalek appearance on NTNM

2009-12-14T09:28:00.002-06:00

Diann K. Marsalek's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Marsalek is a candidate for the countywide Bronstein vacancy on the Cook County Circuit Court.

Judge James R. Epstein appearance on NTNM

2009-12-14T09:22:00.002-06:00

Judge James R. Epstein's appearance on North Town News Magazine is provided courtesy of Avy Meyers. Judge Epstein is a candidate for the McNulty vacancy on the Illinois Appellate Court, First District.

A Seattle divorce lawyer's holiday commercial?

2009-12-09T12:32:00.004-06:00

I saw this online this afternoon and I'm really, really hoping that this is a comedy bit. IF that's what it is, it's kind of funny... assuming that, like me, you don't take reflexive umbrage at lawyer jokes.

On the site where I saw it, however, this was presented as an actual lawyer's TV ad.

This one, if it really is a commercial, would make the "Life's too short - get a divorce" billboard campaign of a couple years back look all warm and fuzzy by comparison.

Remember that one?

Tribute to recovering lawyer on comics page

2009-12-06T18:48:00.006-06:00

(FoxTrot comic obtained from Yahoo! News. Click to enlarge.)

Bill Armend's FoxTrot strip today was a groan-inducing valentine to Stephan Pastis, the creator of "Pearls Before Swine." Pearls Sunday strips are often elaborate set-ups with painful pun payoffs. Today's strip is no exception:

(Pearls Before Swine comic also obtained
from Yahoo! News. Click to enlarge.)

Oh... the reference to the "recovering lawyer" in the title of this post? According to Wikipedia, Stephan Pastis was "a litigation attorney in the San Francisco Bay area" from 1993 until August 2002. "Pearls Before Swine" launched in syndication at the end of 2001, "and is still one of the fastest growing comic strips, appearing in more than 450 newspapers worldwide and counting."

Overheard in Cook County

2009-12-05T09:29:00.002-06:00

At the suggestion of Kulmeet Galhotra, I've become a "fan" of a Facebook page, Overheard in Cook County. It turns out there's a Blogger version, too, called On the Record in Cook County. I've added a link to that site on Page One, in the Sidebar, under "Just for Fun/ Recommended Reading."

What will you find if you visit either of these sites? Well, put it this way: If Art Linkletter had named these pages, he might have called them, "Witnesses say the Darndest Things."

TomTom, Garmin or Magellan -- preserving the tradition?

2009-11-25T20:37:00.002-06:00

Jeff Danziger cartoon obtained from Yahoo! News

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

The real reason why the Mayan calendar ends in 2012?

2009-11-23T08:48:00.003-06:00

I can not vouch for the origin of this cartoon or identify
the artist, but I can tell you that I found it at this site.

Garlic: It's not just for vampires any more

2009-11-20T09:23:00.003-06:00

Cloves of garlic worn 'round the neck are supposed to ward off vampires (as well as, presumably, prospective dates).

Vampires are very fashionable at present. But in the Republic of Moldova, a small country in Eastern Europe bordered by Ukraine and Romania, the local army has found another equally trendy use for garlic.

According to an article I saw this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Moldavian army will be adding about .5 ounces of garlic and .9 ounces of onions to each soldier's daily diet... to protect against the swine flu. Says the article, "Onion and garlic are traditional remedies in Moldova, where they are widely thought to boost the immune system."

William Burnett Raines appearance on NTNM

2009-11-19T19:09:00.001-06:00

Courtesy Avy Meyers and North Town News Magazine.

Jeffrey Dov Greenspan appearance on NTNM

2009-11-19T19:07:00.001-06:00

Courtesy Avy Meyers and North Town News Magazine.

Chicago surgeon aboard Atlantis

2009-11-17T20:33:00.008-06:00

Dr. Robert "Bobby" Satcher, of Oak Park and Northwestern University is now, officially, the first orthopedic surgeon in space, having lifted off yesterday as a mission specialist on STS-129 aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis on a mission to the International Space Station.

He's not going to be setting up a Sick Bay on the ISS; rather, as explained in this article on the WGN9 website, Satcher "will use his surgical training in joint replacements to help repair two robotic arms on the station's exterior."

And, of course, in keeping with the times, Dr. Satcher is supposed to be providing updates via Twitter. Dr. Satcher 'tweets' as "Astro_Bones." I assume this is an homage to a certain fictional space-going doctor, pictured at right. If it isn't, please don't tell me. I don't want to be disillusioned.

For more on Dr. Satcher's flight, see the official NASA site or any of these articles:

6 astronauts embark on supply mission, Chicago Tribune, 11/17/09
Orthopedic surgeon prepares to blast into space, amednews.com, 11/13/09
Doctor to be first orthopedic surgeon in space, Daily Herald, 11/12/09

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Update 11/23/09: Apparently Dr. Satcher tweets (or twitters, or whatever) as both Astro_Bones and ZeroG_MD. I'm not sure whether you have to subscribe to both... but then I'm no rocket scientist.

Other Chicago area astronauts

2009-11-17T20:32:00.002-06:00

Dr. Robert "Bobby" Satcher, now en route to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, has strong Chicago roots.

But he is not the first or only astronaut that has ties to this area.

John Mace Grunsfeld is a 1976 graduate of Highland Park High School. He went out of town (MIT) for his undergraduate work, but has MS and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago. Grunsfeld is a former NASA Chief Scientist and, according to Wikipedia, a veteran of five shuttle flights, including the Hubble repair mission this past May. Grunsfeld's father still lives in the Chicago area, according to Wikipedia.

Daniel M. Tani is a 1979 graduate of Glenbard East High School in Lombard. He is a veteran of three shuttle flights and served a hitch as flight engineer aboard the International Space Station. He was supposed to be on the station from late October to mid-December 2008 but, according to Wikipedia, the shuttle flight that was to relieve him was "delayed due to engine cutoff sensor issues during countdown." You may recall that Tani's mother died on December, 19 2008 a traffic accident at a Lombard railroad crossing -- and astronaut Tani was obliged to mourn his mother from space.

Joan Higginbotham is a 1982 graduate of Whitney Young High School in Chicago. She flew as a mission specialist on board Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-116, in December 2006.

Dr. Satcher isn't even the first Chicago doctor to go into space. That honor belongs to Dr. Mae Jemison. Jemison is a 1973 graduate of Morgan Park High School. Jemison flew on Space Shuttle Endeavour with STS-47 in 1992. According to Wikipedia article Dr. Jemison said, "The first thing I saw from space was Chicago, my hometown.... I was working on the middeck where there aren't many windows, and as we passed over Chicago, the commander called me up to the flight deck.... Looking out the window of that space shuttle, I thought if that little girl growing up in Chicago could see her older self now, she would have a huge grin on her face."

Jemison said her inspiration to join NASA was African-American actress Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek. After Jemison's historic flight, she also became the first real astronaut to appear in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The last man to walk on the Moon, Eugene Cernan, was born in Chicago and graduated from Proviso Township High School in Maywood.

James A. Lovell, of Apollo 13 fame, wasn't born in Chicago -- but he's very definitely associated with the Chicago area because of a family owned restaurant, Lovells of Lake Forest. According to Wikipedia, Lovell's son Jay is the executive chef at the restaurant.

Is there anyone I've missed?

Michael Ian Bender appearance on NTNM

2009-11-17T17:56:00.001-06:00

Courtesy Avy Meyers and North Town News Magazine.

Elgin Community College beats Yale

2009-11-11T06:39:00.003-06:00

A mock trial team from Elgin Community College held its own -- and then some -- against teams from some of America's most elite universities in a competition staged at Harvard this past weekend.

They hadn't been invited. According to the report on the NBC Chicago website, "The team from ECC wasn’t even allowed into the tourney until a regular team dropped out and they got a call to fill in."

Brought in as last-minute tomato cans for the privileged to spar with, ECC instead beat Villanova and Yale, losing narrowly to Brown (the eventual tournament winner). Kerry Lester's story for the Daily Herald (citing college paralegal coordinator Laurel Vietzen as its source) states that, "in addition to beating Villanova and Yale, ECC had a better record than Boston College's 'A' team, Wake Forest, Boston University, Dartmouth's 'A' and 'B' teams, and Wellesley's A&B teams. It also tied Penn State."

The story on the CBS2 website stresses the disparity in the tuitions charged by the various institutions: The sticker price at Yale, according to the CBS2 article, is $47,500 a year; this year at Villanova would cost $49,600. And the ECC tuition? According to the CBS2 story -- $2,740. Robert Channick's story for the Chicago Tribune notes that the ECC team members range "in age from 20 to 50 and [hold] down full-time jobs as waitresses, administrative assistants and stay-at-home moms while working toward their paralegal degrees."

That's right: Paralegal degrees.

In the fullness of time some of the members of the ECC team will become paralegals; some of these will wind up with elite, 'silk-stocking' Chicago firms -- as the law firm equivalent of hewers of wood and drawers of water.

And, in time, the members of the Yale team will recover from their loss. Most will go on to law school, probably at Yale or another Ivy League school, and then on to prestigious clerkships, law school faculties, and prestigious, silk-stocking firms all around the country... and some, perhaps, will come to Chicago -- where they will become partners and members of Chicago's elite.

And where, I hope, they will be reminded, as often as necessary, of ECC's triumph at the 2009 Harvard Crimson mock trial tournament.

Congratulations to team adviser (and Wheaton attorney) Ronald Kowalczyk (who teaches legal writing, litigation and torts at the school), team captain Jennifer Rieger, team president Asia Toufexis, and team members Rebecca Day, Jessica Bianchi, Elizabeth Martzel, Eleni Bala, Robert Dalin, Rita Russo and Mary Burke.

How not to behave in court -- two contemporary illustrations

2009-11-04T06:55:00.004-06:00

From "Pardon My Planet." Image obtained here, but I read the
comic, in print, yesterday in the Chicago Sun-Times.

I might add that, though a criminal court scene is imagined, "air quotes" would likely have a similar effect on the court in a civil case.

Our second illustration comes from this morning's Chicago Tribune, which relates the curious tale of one Kane Kellet, in court Saturday before McHenry County Judge G. Martin Zopp: It seems he flipped off the judge. In other words, he gave the freeway salute. He gave the judge the bird. This was, according to the Tribune story, Kellet's second in-court breach of civility: "The hearing had already gotten off to a bad start, when Zopp asked if Kellet had an attorney. Kellet uttered a four-letter response that was even less polite than the bird."

Art Golab's November 3 story for the Chicago Sun-Times provides an additional detail about the flying finger incident. It seems that Mr. Kellet's middle digit was unfurled when he was asked to raise his hand to take the oath.

The Tribune story says that Mr. Kellet was homeless at the time of his arrest. Thanks to his behavior in court, Mr. Kellet will reside at the Crossbar Motel for six months at least -- and longer, perhaps, depending on the disposition of the battery and home invasion charges that led to his being in court in the first place.

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Note to journalism students: Mr. Kellet's name is spelled with one 't' in the Tribune -- but two 't's in the Sun-Times.