Too big to fail, and too big, even, to pay attention...

We live in a marvelous age. From my computer, or even my phone, I can order almost anything, from almost anywhere, and have it on my doorstep in a moment. If I order from Amazon, and I'm willing to wait a couple of extra moments, Amazon will give me a digital credit besides.

Amazon has my credit card; I have my desires. I get stuff without having to leave the house; Amazon gets money.

Most of the time, it is a satisfactory relationship. Not healthy, necessarily, but satisfactory.

The picture above shows a Ninja Foodi Programmable 10-in-1 5-Quart Pressure Cooker and Air Fryer.

Amazon thinks I ordered one of these on August 21 of this year and directed that it be shipped to Vancouver, Washington, a place where I know no one and where I've never been.

I found what appeared to be an Amazon email in my inbox on the morning of August 22 advising me of this "purchase" and, of course, I completely lost my mind.

Mind you, as a sophisticated netizen, who knew damn good and well that I had not ordered this item, I did not click on any of the inviting links in said email. I fired up my computer, opened Amazon, and went to my recent orders page. And, of course, the order was not there. How could it be? I hadn't ordered it.

I found a "report a scam" address somewhere on the Amazon homepage and forwarded said email, advising of my suspicions that this must be some sort of phishing expedition.

Pretty good for an old guy, right?

But I am not just a good netizen, I am a cautious consumer. I went next to the webpage of the ginormous bank which issued the credit card I had linked to the Amazon account.

Ruh roh! Ginormous Bank showed a charge had been made for this item ($124.95, if you're comparison shopping).

Now we'd entered a different realm: Someone was trying to live in an even more marvelous age than thee or me. This person had found a way to order almost anything, from almost anywhere, and charge it to someone else's credit card. I had been hacked.

But I knew what to do. After fighting my way through not-at-all-helpful phone-menu Hell, I eventually got hold of a human at Ginormous Bank, advised of the fraudulent charge, and canceled the compromised card.

Meanwhile, later that same day, Amazon sent me an email proudly announcing that it had failed to cancel the fraudulent order but instead had shipped it.

In fairness, my initial email to Amazon (written before I knew that a charge had been made to my credit card) did not say outright that this order was fraudulent. When I forwarded that first email, advising that the order appeared to have been placed, I wrote, "This looked legitimate -- as well as fraudulent. I checked my account online to verify that no such product was ordered, but this is a definite phishing attempt."

So -- again -- good netizen and good customer that I am -- and within a few hours of receiving same -- I dutifully forwarded the shipping email to the Amazon "report a scam" address with a more carefully worded email, the pertinent portions of which are as follows:

I have received another email on this fraudulent transaction. I am forwarding this email herewith.

I reported this fraudulent transaction by email this morning.

I did not see this order show up on my Amazon Orders page. It is not there yet. However, the credit card that I have linked to Amazon was charged $124.95 in connection with this fraudulent purchase.

I have reached out to the card holder, disputed the transaction, and the card will be reissued.

I will change my Amazon password immediately.

Is there any other action I should take?

Thank you in advance for your anticipated prompt response.

Perhaps my communication skills are slipping... but I believe the above and foregoing was surely adquate to convey the fact that the order in question was fraudulent. This email was sent on the afternoon of August 22. Amazon said it planned to deliver the item in question -- to Vancouver, Washington -- on August 28. In other words, they had more than enough time to take the darned thing off the truck.

If they wanted to. If anyone was actually paying attention.

Amazon did not respond to this email specifically.

But that very night, in the wee small hours of the morning, Amazon sent me another email 'confirming' my order of a plant stand that I wanted sent to Barre, Vermont.

Another place I've never been.

And, of course, I had not ordered any plant stand. I fired off another email to Amazon "report a scam."

I must confess: Some ALL CAPS were involved....

But things seemed to settle down after that: Ginormous Bank issued me a new card. I linked said new card to my Amazon account and resumed ordering such gimcracks and gewgaws as I required. All seemed well with the world....

... Until last night. Why does Amazon send these things at night? (I fear I may know the answer: Our future AI-overlords have no need of sleep....)

Anyway, this latest email says, in essence, golly, your credit card issuer reversed the charge for this item... but we'd like our money anyway.

I've spent the morning trying to find a telephone number to call to complain. I did find a way to ask for Amazon to call me -- and someone did call -- and I related the facts as set forth here. Perhaps a bit more loudly. It didn't help that the "customer service" screens had no option for me to report (again) a fraudulent transaction. It also did not help that the call dropped twice. The poor lady who had to deal with me called back the first time; I guess she'd had enough after the second drop. I don't suppose, really, that I blame her.

Thereafter, after re-reading the latest Amazon email, I composed a terse, but rational, response (copying "report a scam" just in case they've never been introduced).

So far, I've received a generic reply to my response, mostly telling me to do all the things I did in August... when I first reported the situation. The interrupted phone call yielded this email:

I haven't responded, of course, because I don't know if the problem is resolved yet or not. Time will tell.

I am not entirely optimistic....

Thoughts on watching the oral argument in the Trump fraud case

When I post an article to FWIW, I generally put up a linking post on X (which you may still think of as Twitter). That's normal self-promotion, and not necessarily unhealthy.

The unhealthy part comes when I start browsing... and re-Tweeting... and liking... and bookmarking... and going into and through a myriad of rabbit holes, some of them apparently sane and informative, others obviously anything but. The really crazy ones are sometimes the most entertaining... and addicting.

Way back in 1993 Peter Steiner came up with an iconic cartoon for The New Yorker (at left) that suggested (and not for the last time) that not every Internet "expert" was what they seemed to be. And now there's 'Legal Twitter.' I don't mean to suggest that any particular account is flea-bitten... but one can sometimes get suspicious.

Lately about a gazillion Tweets have been posted about the September 26 oral arguments in the case of People of the State of NY v. Trump, No. 2023-04925. That's a link to the video of the oral argument in the preceding sentence; the YouTube video of the argument is at the end of this post.

A great many of the posts on X about the argument, many of them with clips from the argument, suggested that the New York Attorney General was 'destroyed' (or similar terms) in the argument... some suggesting that, by the end, the State was begging not to have sanctions imposed.

Um.

Actually, part of the argument concerned an appeal from sanctions against Trump's lawyers.

I know this because I watched the argument today.

I watched it because I wanted to see for myself how well or badly Trump fared in the argument.

I don't claim to be an expert on 'Legal Twitter.'

I don't have a license to practice in New York. I've never practiced in New York. I have argued a fair number of appeals, however, though only in Illinois.

And, in the course of arguing cases before an appellate bench, I developed a sense of whether I was likely to prevail... or not. (It's one of the reasons I always... well, almost always... wanted oral argument on an appeal: When I filed my last brief, whether appellee's brief, or appellant's reply, I was always convinced I had crafted a winning argument. A decision issued without argument sometimes brought with it a cruel letdown.)

I'm not saying I could always walk out of a courtroom knowing I had won or lost... well, there was one time....

*** Shimmer *** Shimmer *** Shimmer ***

How's that for special effects?

I represented the family of an immigrant from the former Yugoslavia. He came to this country in August 1998, after the repeal of the Illinois Structural Work Act. He was dead 90 days later.

He was doing rough carpentry work on a new home in Hinsdale. They were just starting to put frame of the home up on the day of my client's fatal accident; there were no internal walls yet constructed. The subfloor was in place, but no basement stairs had been installed. Instead, two large pieces of plywood covered the opening.

The plywood was nailed in place; otherwise it would have opened into the basement like a trap door. The general contractor was going to handle the installation of the basement stairs himself. He removed all the nails which had protected the opening, but hadn't moved the plywood off the opening when he was interrupted by a page. The contractor also owned a tavern in Cicero... and some men wanted to see him about the video poker machines that he had installed there. The contractor immediately dropped everything and took off. It would not do to keep those good fellows waiting in Cicero... if you know what I mean.

Concerning the condition of the jobsite that he left behind, the contractor's deposition testimony was, essentially, (1) I removed all the nails, but didn't move the plywood so that the opening could be seen; (2) I knew I'd created a dangerous situation, but I had to leave; and (3) I'm sorry I created a dangerous situation.

It was lunchtime. My man started to walk through the house to join the other workers for lunch.

He never made it. He dropped through the plywood trap door that was created by the contractor's removal of the nails, tumbling over as he fell, hitting his head on the basement floor. He never regained consciousness.

I was brought in for the appeal from the summary judgment awarded to the defendants.

That result may seem absurd the way I've laid out the facts... I hope it does... but my guy was not available to explain what happened and, in the vernacular, nobody saw nothing. Even if they did have a clear line of sight. And they did. However, nearly everyone on the job also hailed from the former Yugoslavia... there was a language barrier... and a pronounced reluctance, quite common among immigrants from former Communist countries, to talk to the police. And appellate counsel can only work with the record made in the trial court.

Still... I thought I had a case... a good case.

I don't know why the man's family came to oral argument. His widow, a couple of grown sons, some other relations... they all crowded around me after the argument was concluded, telling me what a great job I'd done.

It tore my guts out.

They did not understand how badly the argument went. The panel was not hostile or rude or anything... but, when I got up for rebuttal, the justice presiding closed his folder and pushed his chair back. He was done. And so was I.

I remember trying to break the news to the family, trying to find a way to tamp down their enthusiasm. I also remember that the decision came down in nine days.

Nine days.

*** Shimmer *** Shimmer *** Shimmer ***

Anyway, while the outcome was never as certain as it was in that case, I would typically leave oral argument with a pretty fair sense of whether I had a shot... or whether I'd been shot down. I wasn't always right, but I was usually right.

I watched the Trump appeal video to see if I could develop a sense about where the panel was going. No, I hadn't read the briefs. No, I hadn't particularly followed the trial. I certainly had not studied the record.

But, if the argument had gone the way that so many were claiming on X, I was pretty sure I'd be able to tell.

And I could not tell.

It's never a good sign when you catch your first question just as you finish identifying yourself. That happened to the New York AG here. And there's clearly some judicial discomfort about the scope of the statute in question and the amount of the damages awarded. But both sides faced pointed questions....

I guess we'll have to let the court speak for itself. When it decides to speak.

But don't take my word for it.

At this point, in this climate, I pretty much don't believe anything about anybody unless I see it for myself. See for yourself, if you have 50 minutes, and see what you think.

Happy Constitution Day! Please celebrate responsibly

September 17 marks #ConstitutionDay, a day to honor the signing of this historic document. On this day in 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in Philadelphia to sign the Constitution, shaping the future of the United States. pic.twitter.com/xIOhTUMMCV

— U.S. National Archives (@USNatArchives) September 17, 2024

(Here's a link to the above Tweet - I refuse to call it an 'X' - in case I have not properly embedded same here.)

I hope everyone remembers the story: Leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was stopped by Elizabeth Willing Powel. She had a question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

Franklin's response? "A republic, if you can keep it."

Today is the 237th anniversary of the date on which the original Constitution was adopted. (The link will take you to a transcription of the Constitution.)

Franklin's remarks inside the hall that day are not as well remembered, but nonetheless vitally important in our current world.

Franklin was not wholly enamored of the document. He had doubts about several particulars. But he made the motion to have the Constitution adopted unanimously by the convention. And, before making that motion, he offered this observation (source):

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.

Our government, Franklin warned, can only end in despotism "as other forms have done before it" (see, the Roman Republic) when and if "the people shall be so corrupted as to need despotic government."

On this Constitution Day, let us vow to resist corruption, so that our precious Constitution may long remain a blessing to us and to our posterity.

Time to clear off the Page One Sidebar

OK... long past time.

But actual voters looking to decide which Cook County judicial candidates to support in November will be showing up to FWIW in the coming weeks. They won't necessarily know that their opportunity to make actual choices in judicial elections ended, for the most part, with the March Democratic Primary.

FWIW will be the bearer of the bad news.

Meanwhile, we'll archive the 2024 primary websites here.

A lot of these are already... gone... repurposed... pointing now to foreign casinos or other questionable sites. Click at your own risk.

But... depending on how much the candidate paid for the site, some of these sites may still be functioning a year from now. Some candidates who weren't successful this time will update their campaign websites in 2026 and try again. Readers who are looking for ideas for their own possible campaign sites may wish to (carefully) click through the list below.

• Cecilia Abundis
• Loveleen Ahuja
• Deidre Baumann
• Sunil Bhave
• Lloyd James Brooks
• Jennifer Callahan
• Michael Chvatal
• Jeffrey G. Chrones
• Neil Cohen
• Arlene Coleman-Romero
• Audrey Victoria Cosgrove
• James "Jack" Costello
• Pablo deCastro
• Steve Demitro
• Debjani Desai
• Bridget Colleen Duignan
• Deidre Dyer
• John Abbrey Fairman
• Koula Fournier
• Philip Fowler
• Caroline Glennon-Goodman
• Dawn Gonzalez
• Russ Hartigan
• Dave Heilmann
• John Hock
• Sarah Johnson
• Liam Kelly
• Risa Renee Lanier
• Maria McCarthy
• James V. Murphy
• James Murphy-Agilú
• Paul A. O'Grady
• Lynn Palac
• Luciano "Lou" Panici, Jr.
• Nickolas Pappas
• Chloé Pedersen
• Kim Prezkota
• Chelsey Renece Robinson
• Lori Ann Roper
• Griselda Vega Samuel
• Yolanda Harris Sayre
• Mary Sevandal Cohen
• Owens J. Shelby
• Alon Stein
• Edward J. Underhill
• Lucy Vazquez-Gonzalez
• Allen Price Walker
• Nadine Wichern
• Wende Williams
• Michael J. Zink

Even if Tik Tok makes fun of it, we need to think much more about Rome

According to this article by Dani Di Placido on Forbes.com, "TikTok's 'Roman Empire' Meme, Explained," it is now fashionable, on Tik Tok, for women to "approach the men in their life and ask how often they think about the Roman Empire. Clips of boyfriends, husbands, dads, and brothers who have never stepped foot in Italy casually admitting that they think about the Roman Empire often, even multiple times per day, have gone viral on the video-sharing platform, with female creators often expressing complete bewilderment at the shared obsession."

Oh, how eccentric. The little dears!

I respectfully submit that TikTok is completely off base here. In fact, I believe that all Americans -- men, women, children, and TikTok influencers alike -- fail to think about the Roman Empire enough.

I do not mean that we should all be fantasizing about gladiatorial combat or about gorging at Roman banquets on parrot tongue stew or stuffed dormouse, although how you comport yourself in your spare time is generally none of my business.

No... I propose that we think more, and reflect deeply and urgently, about how the Roman Empire rose from the ruins of the Roman Republic in the last century before the Common Era.

Why is the fall of the Roman Republic important?

Well, until our own Republic was launched in the 18th Century, the Roman Republic was the largest, and longest-lived Republic the world had ever known. It lasted for several hundred years, if not exactly from 509 B.C. when, according to tradition, a group of Roman aristocrats, including Lucius Junius Brutus and Publius Valerius Poplicola, threw out the last Roman King, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus.

The names "Brutus" and "Publius" should be familiar to every American; indeed, the name of Brutus should be familiar to every educated person in the world: One of Lucius Junius Brutus' descendants, Marcus Junius Brutus, administered 'the most unkindest cut of all' to Gaius Julius Caesar. The assassination of Julius Caesar, on March 15, 44 B.C., was one of the final nails in the coffin of the Roman Republic (even though Brutus and his 'liberator' companions insisted -- and may have even believed -- that they were trying to save the Republic).

There is so much cinematic drama and operatic intrigue in these long ago events that we tend to focus on the personalities and forget the reasons why the Roman Republic failed. But these can be summarized fairly quickly: Increasing income inequality and intractable disputes about immigration, the assimilation of newcomers, the extension of citizenship, and voting rights.

Totally different from the problems faced by America in our time, right?

No... wait....

It is often said that the political factions of Late Republican Rome cannot be directly compared to our own, modern political parties. I'm not at all certain of this. Broadly speaking, the Roman factions in the last years of the Republic were the optimates and the populares.

This fellow, Marcus Portius Cato, or Cato the Younger, as he is better known, was an optimate.

The optimates were sometimes referred to (by themselves at least, and by later, sympathetic writers) as the boni.

Roughly translated, that means 'the Good Guys.'

Subtle, right?

This contrasted them with populares like Julius Caesar.

As a populare, Julius was heir to the mantle of the Gracchi, the doomed brothers, assassinated by their political opponents during the course of their respective tribunates in 133 and 121 B.C., respectively. My old Roman History professor, Dr. George Szemler, at Loyola, used to liken the Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, to the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert. The Gracchi were serious land reformers, and they paid for it with their lives. The Social War, the various Civil Wars, the seven consulships of Marius, the constitutional reforms of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Cataline conspiracy, all came after the deaths of the Gracchi and before the rise of Julius Caesar (who claimed descent from the goddess Venus but, more practically, was Marius' nephew).

It became the custom, in those troubled years, to criminally prosecute one's political opponents. It was not enough to defeat someone; the defeated had to be convicted as well, and sent into exile. Bribery was a central component of the Roman electoral system. Politicians incurred enormous debts to get elected; the only way they could recover from electoral success was to receive a lucrative provincial governership at the end of one's term. What made a province lucrative was the revenue a proconsul might squeeze out of it for himself. Even then, this was understood as corruption. A fellow we lawyers know about, a novus homo by the name of Marcus Tullius Cicero, developed a very good practice defending these corruption cases. He built his political career on it, too.

You can make the argument, in fact, that Julius Caesar would never have crossed the Rubicon but for the implacable determination of Cato the Younger to prosecute Casear for official corruption the moment he laid aside his imperium.

The Senate (read: Cato) had planned to stick Caesar with a post-consular assignment to maintain "the woodlands and paths of Italy," but, during his first conulate in 59 B.C., Caesar got that assignment changed to the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul. The timely death of the governor of Transalpine Gaul gave Caesar the opportunity to grab a second province, and conduct the Gallic Wars (and even make a foray into Britain). Caesar managed to hold his partnership with his slightly older son-in-law, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, together long enough to get a second five-year term for his governorships (when Julia died, Pompey drifted toward Cato and the boni) but, after 10 years away, Caesar expected to return to Rome for a second consulship.

The 10-year interval between consulships was prescribed under the Sullan constitutional reforms. Caesar had followed the constitution.

But, unlike in 60 B.C., when he gave up the possibility of a triumph in order to declare for the consulship in 59 B.C. (much to Cato's consternation), Caesar did not want to lay down his command in order to declare his candidacy this time. Others had been allowed this privilege (Pompey, for one). It took time to arrange a triumph, and the army had to be camped just outside Rome, waiting for the appointed day. Given the precedent, it seemed reasonable to expect that Caesar would be accommodated.

But Cato though differently.

Cato was not going to be frustrated this time... or so he thought. If Caesar wanted his triumph, he could not stand for counsel. If he gave up his triumph in order to enter the City (as the law required) and declare his candidacy in person, Cato could proceed with his long-planned prosecution. Either way, it would be the end of Caesar... except it wasn't.

While many historians today may see Cato as an unreasonably stubborn and obstinate obstructionist, and an actual cause of the Republic's downfall, Cato has, at many times, and in many places, been seen as the very personification of the old Roman Republican virtues. Less than a century after his suicide (he killed himself to avoid the indignity of receiving clemency from a victorious Julius Caesar), Virgil has Vulcan include an image of Cato "giving laws" amongst the "virtuous souls" on the shield he makes Aeneas (The Aeneid, 8:784, Fagles trans. 2006).

Cato was very popular in the 18th Century, too. Joseph Addison's Cato, A Tragedy, premiered in 1713, but it was still quite popular during the American Revolution. So popular, in fact, that George Washington had the play staged for his troops while they were in winter camp in Valley Forge. Imagine: though his command was facing frostbite and starvation, Washington wanted his men to think of Rome. Of Roman civil war and Republican virtue and the dangers of tyranny and ambition. This is what TikTok would trivialize.

You no doubt learned in school that America has a written Constitution because Britain did not. And this is certainly true.

And also incomplete.

Hopefully, you also learned in school that America has a written Constitution because the Roman Republic did not. And our Founders were obsessed with preventing their new Republic from going down the path of faction and mob violence that ultimately destroyed Republican Rome. Rome was the only real-life template the Founders had as they shaped our Constitution and our Republic.

And that is why (in case you thought I'd forgotten about it) that every American should know the name of Publius Valerius Poplicola. As New York State debated whether to adopt the Constitution that came out of the Convention in 1787, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published a series of essays supporting and explaining the proposed Constitution. Their newspaper columns, which we now refer to as The Federalist Papers, were published under the collective pen name "Publius." No educated reader in the 1780s would have failed to catch the reference to Publius Valerius Poplicola, one of the founders of the Roman Republic.

Our schools don't teach much about Rome these days. Julius Caesar is a cartoon image on a pizza box. And yet we are descending into an age of hyper-factionalism, with problems eerily similar to those that brought down the Roman Republic. Political mob violence, even civil war, don't seem as impossible here as they once were.

I think it was Mark Twain who said that history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

We'd all better think a lot more about Rome. And about how we can save our Republic, where Rome could not save its own.

Looking at the Bring Chicago Home "mansion tax" proposal

The first rule of taxes is, once they are invented, they never go away.

The proposed increase to transfer taxes by the pols behind the "Bring Chicago Home" movement illustrates this proposition perfectly. But to demonstrate this, we must first jump back in time some 259 years.

In 1765, representatives of nine of Britain's North American colonies met in New York City to discuss ways in which they could protest the British Parliament's imposition of several new taxes on the colonies. Perhaps the most unpopular of these, the Stamp Act, required colonists to buy stamps that had to be affixed to any document, including deeds, playing cards, and newspapers. This act was enshrined forever in the name historians gave to this first continental gathering, the Stamp Act Congress.

You may recall hearing about this during your school days. You may even recall that the British Parliament repealed most of their colonial taxes, including the Stamp Act, the following year.

But the Stamp Act never really went away. It no longer applies to playing cards or newspapers, and it is no longer paid to the British Crown, but every time a piece of property is sold in the City of Chicago, taxes are imposed, and stamps printed and affixed to the deed, showing that the transfer tax has been paid, in order for the transfer to be legal. (The County has its own stamps, too.)

It is this tax that Bring Chicago Home proposes to increase... but only on properties sold for more than a million dollars. The tax currently is $3.75 for every $500 of sales price -- or $7,500 on a million dollar sale.

The tax would go down to $3.00 for every $500 of sales price for sales up to a million -- so $6,000 on our hypothetical $1 million sale.

But the tax would go up to $10 for every $500 of sales price for betweeen $1 million and $1.5 million. Under existing law, the City gets $11,250 from a $1.5 million sale. Under the Bring Chicago Home proposal, the City would get $16,000 -- $6,000 on the first million, $10,000 on the next $500,000.

The transfer tax would go up still more for sales of more than $1.5 million. For each $500 of sales price north of $1.5 million, the City would get $15. So, assuming a sales price of $2 million, the City would get $15,000 in stamp tax under existing law, but $31,000 under Bring Chicago Home -- $6,000 on the first million, $10,000 on the next $500,000, and $15,000 on the $500,000 after that. (For more, see this WBEZ summary of the proposal).

Anyone can see how these new numbers could add up quickly. But, if the tax only impacts folks like Gov. Pritzker, should he decide to sell his Chicago mansion, who cares, right?

A lot of people on either side of the graduated transfer tax proposal are calling this a "mansion tax." But it will apply to a whole lot more than just mansions.

A quick search this morning of chicagorealestatesource.com, a Coldwell Banker site, shows that a 58-unit SRO hotel at 2847 W. Washington Blvd. has just gone on the market for $1.74 million. A 9-unit building at 3039 N. Harlem is on the market for $1.375 million. Another 9-unit building, at 3145 N. Nordica, is also available for $1.375 million.

This 6-unit building (one storefront and five apartments) at 904 N. California, pictured at left, is available for $1.319 million. An 8-unit building (two storefronts and six apartments) at 2232 W. Irving Park Road is new on the market at $1.599 million.

For $2.2 million, according to chicagorealestatesource.com, you can buy a 9-unit building at 1143 N. Rockwell St. A 7-unit building at 3226 W. Potomac is available for $1.599 million.

There's not a Pritzker or a Rauner or a Ken Griffin living in any of these.

Not all the multi-unit buildings on chicagorealestatesource.com are listed for more than a million. A separate page of 2-5 unit buildings seems to show most Chicago listings are priced under a million. A 9-unit building at 3064 E. 79th St. is listed for $950,000. Another 9-unit building, at 7363 S. Coles, is on the market for $975,000. A six-flat, at 1854 S. Fairfield, is on the market for $875,000.

But this is more a six-flat tax than a mansion tax. And it will be people who buy and sell apartment buildings, and, ultimately, the people who rent from people who buy and sell apartment buildings, who will shoulder any burden from this proposed new tax.

The linked WBEZ article, above, links to a paper issued by some experts at the University of Chicago. The paper claims, according to WBEZ, "tax increase’s impact on rent would be minimal with 'a unit that currently rents for $1,000 per month would be likely to see an average rent increase of less than $1.'"

These are some experts. Where can anyone get an apartment in Chicago for $1,000 a month? Apartment.com recently said, "As of February 2024, the average rent in Chicago, IL is $1,777 per month. When you rent an apartment in Chicago, you can expect to pay about $1,421 per month for a studio, $1,777 for a one-bedroom apartment, and around $2,249 for a two-bedroom apartment. If you opt for a three-bedroom rental, you could pay $2,742 or more."

Opponents of Bring Chicago Home, like Protect Chicago Homes, a group of Realtors, offer a parade of horribles, about who will be taxed next, and how much, and question whether we can trust the current City administration.

And maybe these are all valid questions.

But maybe the question for Chicago voters on March 19 is not 'who will pay the next tax' but, rather, who will really pay this one?

Stealing Justice: A timely, chilling, important read

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code sold about a bajillion copies and got made into a Tom Hanks movie, which itself sold about a gazillion tickets.

Everyone read it. You read it. Catholics didn't necessarily tell their pastors that they had read it, except perhaps in Confession. The priests had no doubt read it, too. English teachers also read it. They winced, occasionally, but they kept on reading. The Da Vinci Code wasn't necessarily good literature... it probably won't be on high school reading lists a few generations hence... but, oh my, it was a page-turner.

Stealing Justice, the new book from former Cook County Circuit Court Judge Larry Axelrood, is a rip-roaring page-turner, too. But it's better written than The Da Vinci Code. By rights, it too should sell about a bajillion copies. I hope it does. (The above graphic, gleaned from Facebook, suggests it may be on its way.)

Set in a fictional, but very recognizable, Cook County, Stealing Justice is, in the broadest sense, a story about how even well-intended policies or programs can be hijacked or twisted for criminal purposes unless some people are brave enough to expose the frauds. The reader does not have to believe that anything similar is happening in our own real world in order to get pulled into the plot... and start... and keep... turning pages. To keep turning the pages of The Da Vinci Code, readers did not have to actually believe that Jesus married Mary Magdalene.

In a true page-turner, all the author needs is just a degree -- a smidgen -- of plausibility in order to grab, and hold, the reader. After reading Stealing Justice, probably faster than you intended, you, the reader, will decide for yourself how plausible its premise is.

I finished Stealing Justice a few weeks ago. I've driven by Superdawg and Caldwell Woods many times since; they're in my neighborhood, really. I'm not seeing them the same way recently.

Good books can do that to a reader. Stealing Justice is a good book. It is availabe on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, or through the author's home page.

Why fix things that aren't broken? Aren't there actual broken things that need fixing?

Answer the second question first, please.

And, obviously, there can be only one answer to that one.

But, no, this morning, after being forced to reboot my fast-failing computer for the fourth time in two days (not counting the couple of times it's decided to reboot itself) and finally signing onto Blogger, your Internet home for this page and Page One of FWIW, I got the chilling message (reproduced above) in the upper left hand corner of my screen.

Things that actually work don't need improvement... such as the sign-in page for this site... and they especially don't need allegedly cosmetic 'look and feel' fixes.

Like how they "fixed" Quicken. Here was a perfectly good checkbook program, that worked well on its own, tied in with TurboTax, tied in with banks -- but, oh no, it needed improvement from a program that one updated every few years... to a subscription-only app, with an annual fee.

Gee... who did that help? Me? Consumers generally?

Now, instead of starting on command, Quicken begins its duties by looking for 'updates' -- and almost always finding them -- what is there to update so often? -- asking permission to download the updates found (you really don't have a choice) -- and then, after downloading said updates -- more often than not -- going back to sleep.

When I restart it -- again -- I can almost hear Quicken say, what? you wanted me to do something? I think it's mocking me.

They "fixed" Adobe similarly. I would have liked an update to my legal copy of Adobe Acrobat 9.0... but I was not going to agree to an open-ended subscription. Although version 9.0 was no longer sufficient to open new cases when the "new and improved" Illinois Courts website launched, I could still use Reader for that. For my own appellate work, and for occasional discovery responses, Adobe 9.0 carried me through right up until when I shut down my practice...

...at least up until the point where Odyssey introduced "enhancements" that made it impossible for me to use WordPerfect to print a brief to .pdf in a single step.

I figured a way around that, too. It was clunky and inelegant, but it got the documents filed. But it was anything other than an "enhancement."

I know I sound like an old guy that complains about every change in my routine.

And there is an element of truth in this, I admit.

If I didn't so admit, my kids would tell you all about how I fulminated at my first smartphone, calling it all sorts of names, as I tried to make the screen not blank out or change every time I touched the darned thing, the most polite of which may have been "Spawn of Satan"... but it is not true that I tried to buy a smartphone with a dial. The kids exaggerate.

Some, anyways.

But I eventually reached a modus vivendi with my phone... and, now, one or more phones, successors to that original fiend, are my inseparatble companions. I can learn. And grow. And adapt.

I can even embrace change, sometimes, when I can find some advantage or benefit in it.

But I don't hold out much hope for Google's planned improvements here. And I know there are plenty of real problems that Google could address first... but won't.

Talk about timely! CBA Bar Show anticipates holiday headline

The printed circuitry on the faces of Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed is reproduced on all the promotional materials for the Chicago Bar Association's 100th Annual Bar Show, "It's AI Wonderful Life." It's the cover story on this month's issue of the CBA Record, for example.

This year's production will be staged January 12 and 13 at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Ave. Tickets are available at this link.

The Bar Show, formerly known as "Christmas Spirits," has always taken aim at the highlights (or lowlights) of the news of the year -- but, this year, with their cybernetic Jimmy Stewart, they appear to have actually predicted the news.

Or haven't you heard?

Although Jimmy Stewart died a quarter of a century ago, in 1997, he is being resurrected, sort of, by the sleep and meditation app Calm. According to CNN, Calm has employed "Generative AI" to imitate Stewart's distinctive drawl reading a new story, "It's a Wonderful Sleep Story." It's all being done with the consent and permission of Stewart's heirs.

Both CNN and USA Today quote Stewart's daughter, Kelly Stewart Harcourt: "It's amazing what technology can do and wonderful to see Dad’s legacy live on this holiday season in new ways, like helping people find restful sleep and sweet dreams."

Here, of course, where the surviving family is on board, this innovation seems reasonable... if maybe a little creepy. But... what if there is no surviving family? What if there is no estate managing the 'talent's' afterlife affairs? Does a voice ever slip into the public domain? This seems like an appropriate use for Jimmy Stewart's voice... again, the family thinks so... but could the voice of a dead actor... or politician... or religious leader... or tyrant... be employed for less innocent, even evil, purposes?

Technology is amoral. And not at all concerned about it, either.

Just because we can do something... like find new ways to exploit the images and voices of dead celebrities... does that mean we should?

I suspect lawyers and lawmakers will be grappling with these issues long after "It's AI Wonderful Life" is forgotten entirely. But (doing my best Jimmy Stewart imitation now), doggone it, the CBA got there first. Isn't that amazing?

Natural gas stove ban would be great... if only it actually slowed consumption of natural gas

I'm not Andy Rooney, but I'm feeling cantankerous and curmudgeonly these days and, like the late Mr. Rooney, I'm not afraid to tell you about it.

This item on 'X', the site formerly known as Twitter, caught my eye the other day. I reposted it, in fact:

Effective ban on natural gas in new buildings on Johnson's to-do list https://t.co/7oVvU1hOXW

— Crain's Chicago Business (@CrainsChicago) September 28, 2023

I remember way back -- a couple of months ago at least -- when talk of progressives coming for our gas stoves was dismissed as another manifestation of reactionary paranoia. But don't worry: I'm not going in that direction....

Although it would be nice if we could consult back issues of major newspapers on some objective, third-party website, where we could track down and resurrect the assurances in this regard that were provided by so many worthy pundits. Something like what Nexus used to be... and is no more. I wrote a while back (in my long-winded, slow to the point, but unfailingly polite way) about how the removal of content from Nexus threatens all of us -- but this post is not about my Orwellian anxieties either.

Instead, let us stipulate, after the intellectual fashion of this era, Burning Fossil Fuels Bad, Electricity Good.

(Ideas more complex than this tend to give people headaches or at least hurt peoples' feelings.)

And, if we just accept this stipulation, we don't have to pretend that we buy the 'safety' justification for a natural gas ban. Nobody died when functioning gas appliances had pilot lights, and most gas appliances, and certainly all gas stoves, haven't had pilot lights for about a generation. (We can discount the occasional gas explosion -- otherwise you'd have to start toting up how many die from electric appliances that short circuit.) Besides, our pretexts are always good; it is only their pretexts that are bad.

So, we're all on board now, smug and secure in our righteousness... only... well... it's just... there was this other thing on my desk... and I've been trying to figure out how to reconcile this with our cause:

The company that provides my electricity is required to send me a disclosure every so often, letting me know how my electricity is produced. This is the most recent disclosure.

It has a lovely pie chart. Lovely, that is, until you see that the biggest single slice of the pie is natural gas. Forty two percent (42 really is the ultimate answer, isn't it?) of my nice, clean electricity comes from burning natural gas.

Another third comes from nuclear energy -- and we're all against that, aren't we? -- and still another 18% comes from burning coal.

I understand if you need to sit down for a few moments at this point.

Now, it would be great if we could get all our electricity from wind or solar power... I've got family in Florida that has solar panels on their roof generating so much electricity that, even after running the household, charging their two electric cars, and charging their electric golf cart, the household usually has some spare electricity to put into the electrical grid every month.

But the key words in the preceding sentence are "in Florida." The occasional hurricane notwithstanding, they don't call Florida the Sunshine State for nothing. Meanwhile, here in Chicago, there are long stretches where the Sun is not seen. Winter, for example. So my energy disclosure reveals that only 1% of my electricity comes from solar power.

Bummer.

So if I parade my virture by getting rid of my gas-fired stove, my new electric stove will still get 42% of its power from burning natural gas... and still more from nukes and coal besides. Which would be worse, right?

It's almost as if making sound policy in the grown-up world isn't as easy as mouthing the 'correct' slogans -- e.g., Burning Fossil Fuels Bad, Electricity Good. But that can't be right, can it?

The only way I can think of to get my money's worth out of this....

A couple of months ago I paid off my car loan.

(Thank you.)

It will come as no surprise to most of you that the actual amount owed on said car loan at any given time was something of a moving target. The monthly bill contained a specific payoff amount, but only if you paid that amount on one specific day, and probably at one particular hour, whilst standing on one foot whistling a tune to be named later. The makers of the loan were extremely cautious, lest they lose a single minute of accumulating interest.

I'm not complaining, mind you. I needed the car. I needed the loan to get the car. The dealer sold me the car and arranged for me to get the loan from the car manufacturer. When I took the money, I took all that came with it.

But, finally, after what seemed like a very long time (because it was in fact a very long time), my monthly payment and the payoff amount came within shouting distance of each other. I tried my best to calculate, as near as I was able, the exact amount including the last penny of juice that the lender could squeeze from the loan, and added in another $5 besides, and I put that final payment in the mail.

Yes, Millennials and Zoomers, I am fully cognizant of the fact that I could have much more precisely calculated the exact payoff amount if I'd only paid on line.

I do pay most of my bills that way. But this bill I paid by mail. There's more psychic satisfaction, in my opinion, in putting a check like this in the mail than in clicking a couple of buttons on the keyboard. Anyway, that's a collateral point, at best.

My goal was to pay off the loan with this one final negotiable instrument (look, Millennials and Zoomers, you learned about checks in high school consumer ed, even if you have never written one, and you probably got a refresher when you covered the UCC in law school, so stop pretending you don't know what I'm talking about).

I fully understood that the car might yet be re-po'd if I were even a penny short. So I tried to go over the exact amount due. But I also tried to come as close as possible to the exact amount.

And you know what? I succeeded.

When the final check cleared, I was 61¢ ahead.

Pretty good, I thought.

Time went on, and all the required paperwork trickled in confirming that I had actually repaid the loan in full (and 61¢ of then-some), but the overage was not refunded. I did not stress. I did not even care if I got stiffed out of my 61¢ windfall. I was a solo practitioner for the last 20 or so years: I've been stiffed out of lots bigger amounts owed than 61¢. Lots, lots, lots bigger.

I was fine... until I got this:

You are looking at a "prepaid Mastercard" issued by Chrysler Capital, as a part of a program administered by North Lane Technologies, Inc. Pre-loaded, allegedly, with my 61¢. According to the materials to which this card is affixed, if those 61 sweet centavos are not residing physically within the card, they are held at or transferable to Sunrise Banks, N.A.

I've fuzzed out the individually identifying numbers in this picture because I don't want this windfall to fall into the clutches of the Russians. Or the North Koreans.

And, as you can see, all I have to do to tap into this largesse is activate the card and obtain a PIN, either by calling a 1-800 number, visiting the North Lane website (not the bank where the money is waiting), or downloading the North Lane Mobile App.

Because, obviously, one can't be too careful when dealing with these enormous sums.

TikTok seems positively reputable compared to this, doesn't it?

And I haven't even mentioned the $3 monthly fee yet....

Yes, there's a $3 monthly fee that accrues starting in the month following the card's expiration date... you know... if there's anything left on the card after the stated expiration date. Let's see... $3 deducted from a 61¢ balance... I'm a lawyer, so the only math I can do is dividing by three, but I don't think that works very well....

But, OK, assuming that one is willing to sign up for this card -- we'll call it merely registering, of course -- but, either way, necessary, of course, to get the PIN -- allowing all these companies access to one's identifying information, how many places can there be where one can use a debit card with 61¢ on it?

I can just see the happy faces of the cashier and my fellow customers at my local Jewel, were I to pull out this card as the week's groceries are totaled up -- here, let me put the first 61¢ of this on this card right here....

But what really annoys me about this card -- aside from the fact that these 61¢ were brought so tantalizingly close to my grasp, and yet so cruelly kept just beyond -- is that it must have cost a heck of a lot more than 61¢ to deny me that modest sum in this manner.

That, and the obvious fact that someone got paid to come up with this scheme to keep refunds from being paid. Wouldn't it have been a whole lot simpler to just keep the money and not tell anyone? It certainly would have been cheaper to write me a check for the 61¢....

Book focuses on family formation on the frontier

Born of Lakes and Plains, by University of Oklahoma history professor Anne F. Hyde, looks at five different families, over a period of a couple hundred years, from the late 1600s to the late 1800s, each founded by the union of a Native American woman and a European man. The men were traders and trappers (initially beaver trappers) and the women were, with perhaps varying degrees of personal enthusiasm, but in accordance with their duties to their parents and their cultural norms, helping to cement the loyalty and assistance of the European men for their respective tribes. Born of Lakes and Plains tracks the descendants of these unions as they struggled to perserve their property and their culture.

As with all family stories, if told over such a long stretch of time as is involved here, there are conflicts, triumphs and tragedies, people that seem likable, and people that seem loathsome, heroes and villians both in the same or succeeding generations. In this sense in particular, the scope of the work, trying to keep track of so many for so long, left a lot of seemingly interesting stories untold, or told only in outline form.

Perhaps a lot of effort is wasted trying to convince the reader that connubial contact betweeen cultures, and the families resulting, was normal, frequent, and as necessary to European expansion into tribal territories as the erection of forts and the deployment of troops. Perhaps more necessary.

I suppose that the typical reader may not realize how frequently, left to their own devices, Europeans and tribal peoples mixed and began to forge their own cultures, or adopt, more or less, the culture of one of the parties to the union.

Today's history students have heard of the Trail of Tears. the forced removal of the Cherokee and other tribes to Oklahoma from their homes in what is now the American Southeast. They probably don't know that the principal Chief of the Cherokee during this dark chapter in American history, John Ross, was, by 'blood', roughly seven-eighths European. This biographic sketch, on the Oklahoma Historical Society website, does not even mention this. Wikipedia notes that Ross was the son of a Scots trader and a mixed-blood Cherokee woman. Ross's great-grandmother, Ghigooie, was a full-blooded Cherokee; she married William Shorey, a Scottish interpreter. Their daughter Anna, Ross's grandmother, married John McDonald, a Scots trader.

But, because Cherokee society was matrilineal, Ross was considered Cherokee by the Cherokee. This was the case with other tribes also, as Hyde explains in Born of Lakes and Plains. This cultural fact explained how and why persons of mixed-descent could, at least initially, move fairly easily between European and tribal societies.

This changed, in time, as Hyde documents. I thought one story in particular illustrated this: Hyde recounts how one mixed-descent person in one of the families she followed, in the Pacific Northwest, could get elected to local office -- but could not vote for himself because he had been branded an 'Indian.'

I read a book a couple of years back, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity, by Jill Lepore, which explored the conflict between Indian tribes and English colonoists in New England in the 1670s (a war that, for a time, seemed as if it might result in the conquest of the not-yet-so-well-established English settlers). It occurred to me then that the war resulted because the ministers of Boston and Salem were alarmed that some of their congregants were 'going native' just as tribal chieftains were getting concerned that their subjects were getting too chummy with the English: Leaders on both sides faced loss of status and their respective subjects mixed and mingled and started creating a distinctly American culture... one in which the existing leaders might not play the central role.

We don't have competing cultures clashing on a frontier in our modern day and age... but we seem to have no end of 'leaders' looking to divide us from our neighbors over issues of identity. Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven indeed, as Milton had Lucifer put it in Paradise Lost. But however it may benefit some 'leaders' today, it doesn't help the rest of us one bit.

That process of cultural separation divided some of the families Professor Hyde follows in Born of Lakes and Plains. It virtually destroyed some others. It forced people to choose one world or another -- but both worlds were changed, irrevocably, by the personal choices made by persons in proximity to one another, whether the leaders of those worlds recognized it or not. More than tribal place names survive in our world, too, whether you or I carry any mixed-descent heritage or not, or whether we as a society acknowledge it or not. That's not what Hyde's book is about; she's just providing a foundation for people to realize how much adjacent cultures shared, and for how long. But it's important to realize that foundation exists, and Hyde's book is important for that reason.

Musing about Committeepersons in the Bad Old Days and their role today

Letters. If people remember anything about what Democratic Party Committeemen (they weren't "committeepersons" then) did during the Bad Old Days (for our purposes we'll use this phrase to refer to the reign of Richard J. Daley, pictured here), they'll remember letters.

A letter from one's home committeeman was necessary in order for one to be considered for any public sector job -- and not a few private sector jobs, besides. (What? You think Madigan was the first pol to place people with ComEd?)

Of course, there were LETTERS and there were letters back in the day. The latter got you an interview, but no guarantee of a job, and no guarantee you'd keep the job if you did get it. Some people moved up in public careers without ever getting a new letter after the first one. Persons with particular skills were always needed (still are) to decipher the books, or keep the machines running -- but, if you went back far enough in the employment history of anyone of a certain age, there was sure to be some sort of a letter in there somewhere. If not every one of them, darn near anyone who ever wrote letters at one time had a letter of their own.

And, of course, those persons blessed with LETTERS were pretty much assured of guaranteed employment from the person to whom the letter was directed. Some didn't even need to show up for work at all in the Bad Old Days -- not as long as they worked their precinct anyway, and so long as they didn't run afoul of their clout.

But letters, as important as they were, were not the currency of the Old Machine. They were just a means to an end, that end being: Jobs. Every Committeeman in the good graces of Richard J. Daley had a certain number of jobs that could be doled out to top precinct captains or assistants. The number varied from ward to ward. Critics of the patronage system have correctly noted that committeemen in certain ethnic communities had control of more and better jobs than other committeemen, though the voters in these less favored neighborhoods were no less numerous, and perhaps even more reliable. The 11th had more jobs than anyone, of course, because that was Da Mare's ward.

A committeeman might distribute his jobs solely to relatives and friends, or perhaps to those willing to give the committeeman a 'taste' of every paycheck. This was corruption, surely, and some people eventually went to jail over this kind of misbehavior but, more important, from a party organization standpoint, it was bad politics.

The purpose of any party organization in our system, in the Bad Old Days and now, is to win elections.

In the Bad Old Days, the committeeman was supposed to use his jobs to build a reliable cadre of precinct captains. One was not supposed to waste a LETTER on someone who did not know how to work his assigned precinct or precincts.

And while there may have been (and often were) all sorts of other activities (good, bad, criminal, or merely questionable) involved in precinct work, one core function was what today we would consider "polling." The committeeman was expected to find out how his ward would perform before the election; his captains would tell him what the results would be before any votes were cast. And they'd all better be right. All their jobs depended on it. (I have used 'ward' here on purpose; there were committeemen in the townships even in the Bad Old Days -- Da Mare rather quaintly referred to them as the county towns -- but the expectations, and the corresponding opportunities, were far fewer.)

I was still in college when Richard J. Daley died (December 20, 1976 for those of you who might have grown up elsewhere). I'd been at a prayer breakfast he attended just a couple of weeks before he dropped dead in his doctor's office. But there had been 3,000 or so others present for that same breakfast, and I was seated about a mile away from the head table, so I believe I can confidently disclaim any blame.

Anyway, someone decided that the 1977 St. Patrick's Day Parade would be a proper vehicle for public mourning of the fallen Boss. I gather that every Committeeman was asked to do their part. Certainly the 49th Ward, where Neil Hartigan was Committeeman, wanted to make a big impression. The net was cast so wide even I got hauled in.

Hartigan (not yet Attorney General -- he'd just been defeated for reelection as Lieutenant Governor) wanted to involve Loyola students in the 49th Ward's parade unit. I was the student body president. The head of the Loyola College Democrats, who was a neighborhood guy and active in the 49th Ward Organization, thought it would be a good idea for me to accompany him to a meeting with Hartigan. I guess my participation would supposedly make the school's participation more official. Looking back, I can only imagine what the Jesuits would have said about that.

But I went to the meeting, at the old Elks Club, at Ridge and Thome, right behind Misericordia. I'd helped build floats for Homecoming parades when I was in high school in the suburbs so I knew something about twisting paper napkins in chicken wire and making it look like something. More or less, anyway. I'd never been to the St. Patrick's Day Parade, but this all seemed like great fun until Hartigan asked me point-blank, "How many students will you turn out?"

I was heading to law school by then, although I don't recall whether I'd been accepted or not. I gave, what seemed to me, to be a good, lawyerly answer, "Well, sir, it depends."

I prefer to think that Hartigan regarded me more with pity than with scorn. But it might have been either. He tried again, more slowly this time: "How many students will you turn out?"

Completely rattled by the fact that what I thought was a good and sufficient answer had obviously fallen so flat, I babbled on (and on) about, well, the parade would take place right around midterms, and then there's the weather, of course, more if the weather's nice, but not so many if it's cold or rainy.... Finally, the guy who brought me elbowed me, or stomped on my foot, or gave me some other, similarly subtle signal to please shut up, and, as soon as I paused, blurted out "250."

Hartigan, satisfied at last, moved on to whatever other business needed attention.

I kept my temper until my host and I were headed back to campus. "Why the Hell did you say we'd get 250 people?" I might have used other adjectives and adverbs, but this was the 1970s and language was kinder and gentler then.

"It'll be alright," my host assured me. "He just needed a number." He elaborated: "This wasn't an important number -- like how many votes you'd turn out in your precinct on Election Day -- it was just a number." (In the end, we did turn out at least 250 people, not all of them capable of standing on their own by the time the parade actually started, but these were shunted into the middle of the mass of flesh moving down State Street. Honor was satisfied.)

That was as close as I ever came to providing numbers for the Old Machine, important or otherwise. I also never got to be a judge. There may be -- I begin to think, after roughly 30 years of considering the subject -- some correlation.

For better or worse, party organizations were intimately connected to their communities in the Bad Old Days. That's how good organizations knew which races they would win, and by exactly how much. We can catalog all the bad things about the Bad Old Days some other time. (Yes, we would need to set aside a lot of time.)

But let's stay close to the topic: Are party organizations as 'wired-in' to their communities today?

In running FWIW all these years, I've become familiar with a lot of ward or township groups that give every outward appearance of being very democratic -- small 'd' intended. They enroll members and sometimes charge dues, the members elect officers, and the members vote on the organization's endorsements (which don't always match what the county Party has slated). More than once I've reported about differences between a ward or township's endorsements and the recommendations made by the Committeeperson. How can you get more democratic -- small 'd' intended -- than having an organization that doesn't even agree with its titular leader?

But it occurs to me that all the members of these modern organizations are self-selected. They come out of interest and stay out of affinity with their like-minded fellows. Obviously, the volunteers, however they arrived, have been sufficient to get the petitions signed. But... are they representative of the community as a whole?

In the modern age, with real pollsters ringing our phones every night at dinnertime, all the many direct mail pieces, and a steady stream of commercials helping to guide the formation of our collective opinions, does it really matter who the Committeeperson is, or how the ward or township organization is structured?

In any given election cycle, for somewhere around 20 or 25 people, namely, the slated countywide judicial candidates and the alternates, the 80 ward and township committeepersons are the most important persons in the world. But are these 80 individuals important to anyone else? (I'm not talking about Committeepersons who hold other elected offices, too -- these persons would have importance in those other roles, presumably. Hopefully.) But as Committeepersons? Do Committeepersons still matter? How? Why?

I'll hang up now and listen to your answer.

Huh, that was weird....

Something must have been going on yesterday. According to my dashboard stats, Page One got 11,724 page views Tuesday.

That's a lot of daily page views for a site like FWIW which, admittedly, has a rather narrow focus. It's the kind of number I usually see only in the days before an election, when actual Cook County voters come to FWIW trying to figure out the merits of the competing judicial candidates.

When they are competing.

Though this is off topic, allow me to once again point out that, in Cook County, where Republicans are all but extinct, nearly all judicial contests are decided in the Democratic Primary. Persons trying to be good citizens in November visit Page One only to find that there are no informed choices to make in judicial elections -- all (or nearly all) are unopposed. If I keep repeating this, perhaps it will eventually sink in: In Cook County, if one is interested in judicial elections, one must vote in the Democratic Primary. That is not a partisan statement. It is a simple, inescapable fact.

But back to the topic at hand, namely, yesterday's suprising stat surge.

I've had page view surges at other times -- Russian, or at least East European, bots dumping all sorts of comment spam on various and sundry posts, usually old ones. One of the reasons I have comment moderation here and on Page One is to avoid becoming Cook County's leading source for information on fake Gucci handbags. (There are other reasons, of course.) Anyway, that hasn't happened for awhile... and it does not seem to have happened yesterday, either. No major influx of spam comments or anything. (And nearly all my traffic comes, as it should, from the good old USA... although Singapore is in a surprisingly strong second place at the moment. Are there a lot of persons interested in the Cook County judiciary in Singapore?)

Usually, when traffic ticks up for no apparent reason (no apparent reason to me), it is because a number of my readers believe (and a few of them may already know) that something has happened that I'm supposed to be reporting on and they're clicking back regularly to see when I finally figure it out....

A newly-minted judge I know told me how disappointed she was to find out that a lot of her new colleagues were incorrigible gossips. I told her this this was the secret to whatever limited success I have here. Modern judges can not really 'hang out' with the people with whom they would ordinarily have the most in common, namely, the lawyers who routinely appear before them. (In Lincoln's day, of course, they rode circuit together, eating, drinking, and boarding together. Sometimes they took turns being judge. But that was long before Greylord.) So judges often have only each other to talk to. And not all are equally interested in the latest permutations of the Star Trek universe, or on the latest cuts to the Bears' roster. So they talk about lawyers, and who wants to join them on the bench. Not being an incorrigible gossip, I won't name the reviewing court judge who once claimed that she (or he -- I'm not giving any clues here) clicked on Page One 50 times some days, waiting for my next update.

But this sort of repeat checking-in behavior only explains a jump to 2,000 page views a day on non-peak days when I might ordinarily only get 1,000 page views. It does not explain 11,724 page views on Tuesday. Maybe I'm missing something really big.

Even if I fail to figure it out the reason right away, yesterday's numbers nudged me unexpectedly further down the road to 5,000,000 Page One page views....

New subcircuit maps - Part 2 - Subcircuits 6-10

Updated August 18, 2023 to reflect inclusion of 6th Subcircuit map.

Continuing a look at the newly redrawn Cook County judicial subcircuits that began with this post on Page One.

Here is the map of the City-only 6th Subcircuit:

This is a map of the City portion of the new 7th Subcircuit:

This is a map of the County portion:

This is a map of the new, City-only 8th Subcircuit:

Here is the City portion of the new 9th Subcircuit:

This is the County portion of the 9th:

And, finally, for this post, here is the City portion of the new 10th Subcircuit:

This is the County portion:

For a look at the maps for Subcircuits 11-15, click here or just scroll down.

For a look at the maps for the new Subcircuits, Nos. 16-20, click here.

For a look at the new maps for Subcircuits 1-5, click here.

New subcircuit maps - Part 3 - Subcircuits 11-15

Continuing a look at the new Subcircuit maps that began with this post on Page One.

This is a map showing the City's portion of the new 11th Subcircuit:

This is a map showing the County portion of the 11th Subcircuit:

Just like its predecessor, the new 12th Subcircuit is entirely outside the City of Chicago:

The new 13th Subcircuit is also outside the City:

The new 14th Subcircuit, however, like the old 14th Subcircuit, is located entirely within the City limits:

Finally, for this post, here is the map of the new, all-suburban 15th Subcircuit:

For a look at the maps of the newly created Subcircuits, Nos. 16-20, click here or just scroll down.

For a look at the maps for Subcircuits 6-10, click here or just scroll up

And for a look at the maps showing the boundaries for new Subcircuits 1-5, click here. Yes, I know there's a link at the top of this post, but I've saved you the trouble of scrolling back now, haven't I?