Judge Eileen O'Neill Burke interviewed on NTNM

Judge Eileen O'Neill Burke, the unopposed Democratic candidate for the Epstein vacancy on the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court, was a recent guest on Avy Meyers' North Town News Magazine program and her interview has been posted online.

NTNM airs Thursdays on CAN-TV at 7:30 p.m., and again on Fridays at 2:30 p.m. It airs in Evanston on Cable Channel 6 on Thursdays at 5:00 p.m. and Sundays at 10:30 p.m. NTNM also airs on a number of cable systems in the suburbs Thursdays and Monday. Check your local listings for air times. Meanwhile, with the permission of NTNM host and moderator Avy Meyers and his entire technical crew Sonny Hersh, you can watch the interview here.

Brendan O'Brien interviewed on NTNM

Brendan O'Brien, the unopposed Democratic candidate for the countywide Love vacancy, was a recent guest on Avy Meyers' North Town News Magazine program and his interview has been posted online.

NTNM airs Thursdays on CAN-TV at 7:30 p.m., and again on Fridays at 2:30 p.m. It airs in Evanston on Cable Channel 6 on Thursdays at 5:00 p.m. and Sundays at 10:30 p.m. NTNM also airs on a number of cable systems in the suburbs Thursdays and Monday. Check your local listings for air times. Meanwhile, with the permission of NTNM host and moderator Avy Meyers and his entire technical crew Sonny Hersh, you can watch the interview here.

To: My Cub fan friends, neighbors and colleagues

From: A lifelong Sox fan

I heard you've had a great season. I'm not surprised. I always thought Joe Maddon was a great manager. I used to root for Tampa Bay in the playoffs in those years when my White Sox weren't in. Too many years.

But, no, don't save room on your bandwagon for me. I'm not jumping on board.

I'm happy for you, sort of, in an impersonal way, the same way I have been happy for the good people of San Francisco or Boston or St. Louis in recent years. I don't mention the Cardinals to be hurtful; I mention them because they won. And I always liked Tony La Russa. You Cub fans wouldn't remember, but he was the White Sox skipper in 1983.

City Hall and the County Building festooned with 'W' flags

I don't hate the Cubs. It's just not my team. I feel about the Cubs about the same way I feel about the San Diego Padres. I'm indifferent. I save all my negative baseball emotions for the Yankees. Although I'm not real fond of Kansas City these days either.

I've watched Cub postseason games before. I was tuned in October 14, 2003 when the Cubs were playing the Marlins. I had a good excuse: Former White Sox shortstop Ozzie Guillen was the Marlins' third base coach. You Cub fans call that the Bartman game. Why, I'll never know. Mr. Bartman was only one of several fans who tried for a foul ball that Moises Alou thought he had a play on. But the floodgates didn't open until later that same inning, when shortstop Alex Gonzalez booted what should have been a routine double play ball. One run scored before the error; seven came after.

I probably will watch the Wild Card games. I'm not sure how I feel about them. The sudden death aspect of the contest is thrilling... but I'm not sure it's baseball. If the Sox were in such a game, I'm not sure I'd be able to watch. Or breathe. I was stressed out beyond belief in 2005. My heart was pounding so loud that I could barely hear the ball strike the ground in Game 2 of the ALCS when A.J. Pierzynski reached first on that famous dropped third strike....



Anyway, like I said, I'm happy for you Cub fans. Really. Just leave me the heck alone. I will be rooting for a team with blue uniforms in these playoffs, but it's not yours. It's Toronto: I want Mark Buehrle to get another ring. I want to see him on the stage in Cooperstown someday -- with a White Sox cap on his plaque.

What does a slated judicial candidate get for $40,000?

A couple of comments to posts on Page One of the blog deserve a post of their own.

An anonymous commenter wrote:

"Chutzpah" is a Yiddish term that loosely means "shameless audacity" and on this Rosh Hashanah I can think of no better term than to describe the arrogance and imprudence of the Cook County Democratic Party.

First, the slating contribution was $30,000, then by mid-summer they raised it to $35,000, and finally by slating the party upped the contribution to a whopping $40,000. The reason for this 34% from one year to the next? Well, there was none. No explanation was offered.

Then today, the most galling e-mail was sent out by the party telling candidates that in addition to their $40,000 ... they needed to get petitions signed with 1,500 signatures!! If you got just 700 more signatures on your own, you can get on the ballot and save yourself $40,000!!

What exactly does the $40,000 get you? The party does not supply a lawyer, does not get your signatures, and does not pay for any ballot challenge you file or defend. Then on top of it, you are still shaken down by half the committeemen who invite you to attend their birthday party ... for $250, or ask you to join them for a day at the horse races ... for another $500, or invite you to attend their picnic ... for another $250, and on and on it goes. Then there are the extra charges you get from your "campaign consultant," even though you don't know what the hell she did with the first $6,000 you gave her. Then come election time, if you are in a tight race, committeemen will expect candidates to pony up more money if they want to be on that ward's palm cards, and some committeemen will tacitly imply that if you don't cough up a substantial amount of money, they will in fact offer you zero support ... that's zero with a "Z." Oh, and don't forget that there are some notorious committeemen who will also shake down the your opponent and print several sets of palm cards, just enough to make it look legit when you stop by. And there they will sit, in a back room of some ward or township party office gathering dust and mildewing.

Shanah Tovah everyone! May you be inscribed for a good year. That will be $1,500.

That comment is not just bitter, it's funny and, I think, thought-provoking. As was this subsequent comment, which read:

I echo what has been said above. I just received an invitation to Louis Arroyo's "candidates forum" and the "entrance fee" is $750!! In return, you will get to step up to a microphone with 20 other candidates and over the din of the talking guests tell them your name, bar association ratings and mention some charity work you did 17 years ago. No one will hear you or remember you. Arroyo will not know your name when you come in, will not know it when you leave, and will not remember it tomorrow. On election day, you will get nothing for your $750. [Read that last sentence again.]

The Cook County Democratic Party is also holding a fundraiser that you are expected to buy tickets to and attend within days of writing them a $40,000 check. Bigwigs from the CFL will be there, so if you don't attend you do so at your own peril. More money down the drain. It is usually around this time of the campaign when candidates begin trying to convince their kids that Dartmouth is really no better than Moraine Valley Community College.

It is all a big gamble. If you win election, or lose election, at some point you will be in a mortgage foreclosure courtroom as either the judge or the defendant.

I do disagree that the Party does nothing for the $40,000. A week before election, they will send out a mailing with a life sized photograph of Toni Preckwinkle's face on the cover, and inside will be your $40,000 thumbnail photo and name. There will be a number of candidates running for office also listed in the mailer, and most of them will not have paid anything for the mail piece which you have happily subsidized.

I believe these comments raise valid questions and I'd like to see the discussion continue.

So let me add my own two cents. Even if I can't be as amusing.

I suppose I'm being Dr. Pangloss again, but I submit that slating by the Democratic Party in Cook County (and the concomitant $40,000 pledge) buys a judicial candidate two things: (1) Credibility and (2) Access.

Kitchen table candidates can and do win judicial races -- occasionally -- particularly if the candidate is blessed with a sonorous appellation (for any Ivy Leaguers in the audience, that means 'has a good ballot name'). Or if the candidate winds up the only female in a race with three males. Or maybe vice versa.

But slating, at least countywide slating, immediately confers a mantle of credibility on a candidate: This man or woman has some serious pull. This man or woman will be a formidable opponent.

Now, in the bad old days of patronage, when no one got a city or county job without a letter from one's sponsor, frustrated applicants found that there were two types of letters -- one that got you the job and another that merely got you an interview. So it is these days with slating: Some candidates are more slated than others; we can see this in the election results in every recent election cycle. Some candidates get dumped by ward or township organizations that are supposed to be promoting them, no matter what ads they buy for the adbook or how many holes they sponsor at the golf outing.

But nobody on the outside -- meaning 99.99% of the population -- knows who's been SLATED and who's been merely slated until Election Day or shortly before. So even the candidate who's been merely semi-slated, with some major committeemen's fingers discreetly crossed, starts out with a perception of credibility.

The commenter's remarks about petitions should scare every slated candidate down to the marrow: Surely one of the major components of a candidate's credibility is the belief that his or her nominating petitions will be "bulletproof." And I certainly can't think of a slated candidate in Cook County who's been knocked off the ballot for defective petitions or insufficient signatures.

But I no longer believe it to be a fool's errand to think about challenging even a slated candidate's petitions. My belief is not based on empirical studies -- unless the MacArthur people want to throw some money my way, this judicial election watching must necessarily remain a hobby -- but I think a slated candidate would be wise to do more than the Party is apparently asking for, petition-wise, if he or she wants to be assured of "bulletproof" ballot status.

But my perception, or the Party's asking for candidates to help in circulating their own petitions, will not damage the credibility of a slated candidate unless and until one of them gets knocked off the ballot.

So $40,000, for now, at least, buys credibility.

It also buys access.

The commenters are clearly frustrated that, after coughing up $40,000, or promising to, they find they still have to pay for every imaginable event that they might wish to attend (which, if they are serious candidates, should be every imaginable event).

It's like paying to enter Six Flags and finding out that every single ride, even the merry-go-round (do they have a merry-go-round at Six Flags?), costs extra.

So $40,000 does not guarantee admission to anything -- it buys only an invitation to everything.

When I ran for judge in the mid-90s, I would go anywhere I could, see anyone I could. In a good week, I'd get out to two or three events. The slated candidates, however, can go to two or three events a night, and more on weekends, especially if they're smart enough to have, or hire, a driver.

I noticed, when I ran, that I kept running into the same people, over and over again, many of them committed to one of my opponents. In fact, many of those same people were my opponents at any event I was fortunate enough to attend (I ran in crowded races). But I could only go to events that I knew about, whether because someone (one of my opponents, perhaps) tipped me off, or the event was one of the few advertised to the general public. I was on nobody's mailing lists in those days, so I never even heard about most political events, and most of the ones I did hear about had already happened.

You might think that the act of filing petitions alone would put a candidate on at least 80 mailing lists (50 ward and 30 township organizations) -- but, even when politicians are raising money, they apparently still don't want nobody that nobody sent.

And, let me tell you, I was that nobody.

I'm sure it must be numbing for the slated candidate to run into so many of the same people, night after night, often on the same night. But it is in seeing and being seen that the slated candidate can turn the initial perception of credibility into virtual invincibility. Especially in these days of social media, where the candidate takes a few quick selfies with the host at each event, and any other worthy willing to pose, and posts them on Facebook and Twitter and whatever else the kids are into these days. Social media is like a force multiplier: Whatever buzz may be generated for a candidate who shows up at everything, paying a la carte, is magnified by posting the pictures on Facebook. Sure the other candidates and other careful observers may get tired of seeing your face 16 times a day in their 'News Feed' -- but the random 'likes' and reposts from friends, family, law partners, fellow candidates, or whatever, puts your mug on all sorts of people's screens. Half, or maybe three-quarters of the people who vote for you may not remember your name by the time they leave the polling place on Primary Day, but when they're making their mark, they mark you, Mr. or Ms. Social Media, because yours is a name they've seen before.

And you can't get that sort of exposure without being at everything (and letting the world know about it) -- and you can't find out about anything unless you're given access -- and $40,000 gets you that.

Maybe that's too high a price. But what is a better alternative? Readers, what am I missing?

Shoeless Joe Jackson denied reinstatement. Again.

Several news outlets had this story today: New MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has denied the latest attempt at reinstating White Sox great Shoeless Joe Jackson (ESPN, SB Nation). The Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum Facebook page has reprinted Commissioner Manfred's July 20, 2015 letter. I've grabbed it and reproduced it below:

As you'll note, the letter recites that Manfred asked his staff to "research what can be learned from the historical record of the 1919 World Series and its aftermath," concluding, "The results of this work demonstrate to me that it is not possible now, over 95 years since those events took place and were considered by Commissioner Landis, to be certain enough of the truth to overrule Commissioner Landis' determinations."

Ah, yes. Kenesaw Mountain Landis. The first Commissioner of Baseball -- and during the first 14 months of his tenure still functioning as a U.S. District Court Judge in Chicago.

Wikipedia is kind to Judge Landis on this issue (noting that Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer said there was no legal impediment to Landis holding down both jobs) and on the race issue as well. However, readers of Bill Veeck's autobiography, Veeck as in Wreck, will remember how Veeck wrote that he called Judge Landis, out of courtesy, when he put together a group to buy the Philadelphia Phillies in 1944. Veeck said he shared his plan to stock the team with Negro League players -- and he suddenly went from front-runner for the franchise to frozen out.

Cub-worshiping website One Bad Century lauds Landis as the man who saved baseball from the evils of gambling, but adds that Landis was "a Chicago Cubs fan long before he took over baseball, and remained a Cubs fan until his dying day. * * * While he was beloved as a trust-busting judge, Landis was also a regular at West Side Grounds, home of the Chicago Cubs. He openly rooted for the Cubs against the White Sox in the 1906 World Series, something White Sox fans never forgot. When the Cubs moved to what is now Wrigley Field, he was a regular there as well. He loved baseball and watched it intently, leaning forward in his seat, devouring every moment of the game."

Real Chicago sports fans understand the need to choose sides. The real scandal is not that Landis was a Cub fan who came down hard on Shoeless Joe and the other Eight Men Out. The real scandal is that Landis banned the Eight Men Out -- while leaving allegations of a similar fix of the 1918 World Series (that the Commissioner's beloved Cubs lost to Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox) safely in the realm of rumor. Yet Black Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte swore that he and his co-conspirators got the idea for throwing the Series from the Cubs.

One Bad Century says that it was a minority stakeholder in the Cubs, Albert Lasker, who pushed for the appointment of Judge Landis in 1920 when a Cub pitcher, Claude Hendrix, was accused of conspiring with gamblers to throw a regular season contest against the Phillies. Landis banned Jackson and Buck Weaver and the other Black Sox -- but Henrdix was allowed to retire.

Wow.

But Commissioner Manfred focused his alleged review very narrowly -- looking only at the 1919 Series and its aftermath, he said -- not at Landis' unequal treatment of players on teams he liked and teams he didn't.

And just for the record, in the 1919 Series, Jackson led all batters with a .375 average, going 12 for 32 -- including three doubles and a homer -- hitting 5 for 12 with runners in scoring position. He scored five times, drove in six runs and committed no errors. Evidence of Jackson's complicity in any conspiracy to throw the Series is thin at best, fraudulent at worst, and surely tainted.

And there's one other thing: Commissioner Landis was hired to free baseball from the grip of gambling. But times change. Fashions change. And gambling seems back in fashion with baseball bigwigs:

It's just Shoeless Joe Jackson's status that does not change.

Neil Steinberg's column makes a good point today

OK, so I'm taking the link to the column (and this picture) from Steinberg's blog -- have you tried using the Sun-Times' website lately? I read the column in the paper, on the train. Real newspapers never lose signal in the subway.

Anyway, Steinberg writes about his recent experience serving on a jury in a rear-end subro case. The jury wound up deadlocked (5-1 in favor of plaintiff) and jury foreman Steinberg wasn't pleased with that aspect of the experience. He concludes, however,

[I]t's a flawed system—the guy was negligent— but one person can derail the whole thing. Still, it works, sort of. Everyone was exceedingly polite, and thanked us for us doing our civic duty. Compared to the bloody chaos in most of the world, our justice system is a gift.

Our justice system is flawed -- and as lawyers we can't help sometimes but get focused on the problems that we see in our varying practices. But we need to keep in mind, and to keep proclaiming to the public, the larger, and far more important, point, that Mr. Steinberg makes this morning: "Compared to the bloody chaos in most of the world, our justice system is a gift."

A spam comment that was just too crazy not to share (and clean enough that I could)

Submitted by a commenter this past weekend for a Page One post about CBA ratings in contested judicial races on the November 2014 ballot, this gem:

Yes! Finally something about hunting wild game

Russ Stewart reports on the recent judicial pre-slating

Park Ridge attorney Russ Stewart, who has written a political column for the Nadig Newspapers since about forever, has weighed in on last month's Cook County Democratic Party Pre-Slating with a column entitled, "In Cook County, Judge-Making is Like Sausage Making." The link will take you to the complete column; here's a brief excerpt:

According to insiders, the candidates likely to be slated for the Circuit Court are Aleks Gillespie, Maureen Hannon, Alison Conlon, Brendan O'Brien, Daniel Patrick Duffy, Carolyn Joan Gallagher and Rossana Fernandez, Travis Richardson and John Lyke (who are black), and Devlin Schoop, who is backed by the gay bar association but who is not gay.

Alternates are Chaudhuri, Pat Spratt, Pat Heneghan, Carolyn Joan Gallagher, Mary Melchor and Joe Cleary.

Be sure to read the entire piece.

The Cook County Democratic Party's slating meeting has now been set for August 18 and 19.

Judicial blogger to appear on upcoming NTNM

Yours truly is honored to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Avy Meyers' North Town News Magazine.

This interview is scheduled to air on CAN TV, Channel 19 in Chicago, on Thursday, June 11 at 7:30 p.m. (a rebroadcast will follow on June 12 at 2:30 p.m.). The program will be aired for Evanston viewers on June 14 at 5:00 p.m.

NTNM also airs on many other local north and northwest suburban cable systems. Check local listings for airtimes in your area.

My thanks to NTNM host and moderator Avy Meyers and his entire technical crew Sonny Hersh for allowing me to repost this interview now.

NTNM is one of the few programs to actively seek out and provide a platform for Cook County judicial candidates to present themselves to voters. Candidates or their representatives should contact Avy Meyers directly (email and phone contact is available on the NTNM website).

A call from AT&T... maybe

The Caller ID read "Toll Free Calle" – I think it safe to assume the last word was supposed to be ‘Caller’ – but no other identification was provided.

Most lawyers have staff to screen calls. Even many solos still have assistants who talk to potential clients, mollify existing clients, set up depositions and hang up on sales calls. But I have largely abandoned hope of ever hiring staff, all because employees have this all-too-reasonable desire to be paid on a regular basis. I am forced to listen to my own messages.

This automated message must have begun before my voice mail greeting had ended because the recording picked up in mid-word: "...vice provider about all your service options. A delayed response may result in an increased service rate or involuntary transfer of your business service plan. Please press 1 now to be connected. Please disregard this message if your business has already consulted an AT&T Solution Provider and applied a business service solution. If not, please press 1 now or call [not the number displayed on the caller ID – not even the same area code] between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. to speak to a service representative."

Now, I ask you... would you press 1? Would you call the number? Why?

This had clumsy, East-European-or-maybe-Nigerian-drain-your-bank-account scam written all over it, right?

Well, maybe not.

I ignored a number of these calls over a period of time -- and then my April office phone bill more than doubled.

Apparently, these really were calls from AT&T. Or at least some of them.

Now I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune of having to call AT&T. Most lawyers in firms have been spared this because they have office managers who are paid, in part, to bear this enormous burden. So let me try and explain it this way: If anyone like Ernestine still works there, she is very well guarded. The guard is a disembodied robot voice. The recorded male voice is preternaturally chipper. "I see you are calling from" -- and then he recites the number -- "is this the number you are calling about?" This unnatural cheerfulness only serves to aggravate me more. It is particularly galling when calling to report a service outage -- no, it's not the number I'm calling from you mindless mess of microchips -- if I could call from that number I sure as heck wouldn't be calling you!

Mr. Cheerful always wants to know if I want to pay my bill. The first 17 or 18 menu options that he offers all have to do with paying the bill. I will admit that I have exhibited a certain lack of patience on occasion when waiting for these often redundant and always unhelpful options to end. It is just possible, I must concede, that I have, on more than one occasion, attempted to interrupt the machine's recitation by stabbing zero, zero, zero on the telephone keypad and roaring, "I WANT TO SPEAK WITH A HUMAN BEING! NOW!"

In later, more reflective, moments, I have been forced to consider the possibility that, when screaming and stabbing at the keypad, no sane human being would want to speak with me.

At some point, Mr. Cheerful changed tack. My button-pushing and howling have had no effect whatsoever on the cheery affect of Mr. Cheerful. "In a few short words," he gushed, "tell me about why you are calling. For example, you can say, 'I want to pay my bill,' or 'I really want to pay my bill.'"

Granted, my response was probably not as specific as the designers of the system expected. But it was heartfelt nonetheless. "AT&T is a bloated, corrupt monopoly that was justifiably destroyed by the Federal Courts," I said, "only to be allowed to reassemble, through the criminal negligence of our elected representatives and government regulators, like the mythical Hydra, into a monster more terrible than before."

There was a noticeable pause. When Mr. Microchips spoke again, a note of concern has, for the first time, infected his cheerful tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't get that." But Mr. Cheerful rallied immediately, back on script, "In a few short words," he repeated, "tell me about why you are calling. For example, you can say, 'I want to pay my bill,' or 'I really want to pay my bill.'"

I was in fact calling about my bill and I unloaded on Mr. Cheerful once more. "I am not paying my bill! I am not paying this outrageous amount!"

It is all too easy for me to spare you the agony of how I got from this point to a very wary call-taker. I simply can't recall how I made it. The red mist swam before my eyes. I thundered. I shrieked. I may have sobbed. A few non-vital blood vessels burst, I'm sure, along the way.

The bottom line was that my "service plan" had indeed expired and I was being billed a la carte prices instead of the bundled price I had heretofore endured. The AT&T call-taker made an effort to sound sympathetic: "We don't want to change the pricing every year or so," he said, "but we are required by regulations to do this." This would be comforting, I suppose, or at least give me the opportunity to deflect my ire from AT&T to the government regulators were I not pretty well convinced that AT&T pretty much dictates those few regulations it will tolerate from a compliant government.

When one has no choice at all, one can only try and be gracious and take the punishment meted out: I would be forced to pay this ridiculously high April bill but, as a reward for calling, I could look forward to a new bundle of varied prices that somehow added up to only just a little bit more than I'd been paying previously. I knew I was supposed to be grateful for such condescension from my corporate betters. But I still had one more appeal to reason left: You know, I said, if you really wanted customers to re-configure their plans every year or two you could include a notice in the bill. The bill is the one communication from AT&T that I know is genuine. The anonymous phone calls or junk mass-mailings might or might not be for real, I explained.

Alternatively, I suggested, there's an AT&T store in the Loop. I can pay my bill there. Why can't I sign up for any required new rates there?

The AT&T call-taker waited me out, patiently, I thought. But he was dismissive. "We can't do that," he said, or, "That's not the way we do things."

And, indeed, why should AT&T change? AT&T cadged an extra $200+ from me in April -- multiply that over how many hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of similarly-situated small businesses and you begin to see the enormous profitability of the scheme -- and, as long as I insist on a landline for my office phone, I have nowhere else to go.

I am actively rethinking this whole need-for-a-landline thing.

Meanwhile, for the time being, I believe I can once again use my office phone as a tool in my legal practice, secure that I am back in the good graces of AT&T.

Or am I?

A week or so after the events herein recounted, around the time I reluctantly wrote that enormous check, I received a call from an unidentified toll free number. As before, the prerecorded message began before my voice mail greeting asked for a message: "...vice provider about all your service options. A delayed response may result in an increased service rate or involuntary transfer of your business service plan. Please press 1 now to be connected. Please disregard this message if your business has already consulted an AT&T Solution Provider and applied a business service solution. If not, please press 1 now or call [not the number displayed on the caller ID – not even the same area code] between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. to speak to a service representative." Yes, it was the exact same message I had previously disregarded to my subsequent (and expensive) regret. But, surely, it was just a case of AT&T being such a bloated monstrosity that this computer hadn't yet gotten the memo from the other computer that I had recently signed on for another hitch, right?

Then, a week or two ago, there was still another call from an unidentified toll-free number. Like we were taught about Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in high school, AT&T apparently likes to start its voice mails in medias res: "... AT&T business telephone service. Action is required to complete your pending service migration. AT&T recently replaced your business DSL service or installed new high-speed Uverse service at your business location as Phase One of our digital service migration. If your business utilizes two business lines or less, please press 1 now to schedule the voice segment of the service migration. AT&T will now complete Phase Two of your service migration by increasing your Internet speed up to 45 megabytes and/or add Uverse business voice service for less than your previous service cost. As an existing AT&T customer using Uverse, your business qualifies for up to a $100 Visa gift card for this service upgrade. This service will be less than your previous service cost. Please press 1 now to speak to an AT&T business solution provider about all your service upgrade options. Please press 1 now. Please disregard this message if your business has already provided an AT&T business solution provider and upgraded your Uverse service. If not, please call [a different toll-free number than the one allegedly calling] between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. to speak to a representative."

But I don't have Uverse. Well, I do, but for my suite as a whole, not for my individual business. And I have three lines. Does this even apply to me?

I promise you, Perry Mason never had to answer these kinds of questions. I've never seen the show, so I can't be sure, but I doubt that even Better Call Saul has had to bother with this stuff. But, as was said in E.T., so it may also be said here: This is reality, Greg.

Norwood Park remembers -- 2015 Memorial Day Parade, continued

This post continues from a post on Page One.

Here are more pictures from today's Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade. For even more parade pictures, scroll down this page or click this link.

State Rep. Michael McAuliffe and Cook County Commissioner Peter Silvestri had a vehicle in the parade

A group from Garvey School

 A group from Onahan School

An anti-O'Hare noise group, fairchicago.org, had a contingent... and a pretty clever sign: "Ground Control to Mayor Rahm."

A group from Resurrection High School participated.

Cub Scout Pack 3958 from Norwood Park Lutheran Church

Norwood Park remembers -- Memorial Day Parade, part three

Herewith a final set of pictures from today's Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade.

Cub Park 3965 from St. Juliana School

Cub Pack 3978 from St. Thecla School

St. Thecla School also had a large non-Scouting contingent.

The Norwood Park Historical Society was also represented.

Cub Scout and Boy Scout groups from St. Monica's marched in the parade, as did Girl Scouts from Troop 41640, sponsored by the Congregational Church of Jefferson Park.

Groups from Taft High School, including the Taft Navy JROTC, marched near the end of the parade.

Another band, a few old cars, and representatives of the Chicago Police Mounted Patrol Unit closed out the parade.  And then the rains came again.

JRW: Punishing kids for the sins of alleged grownups is completely wrong

My son Joe was looking for another place to pitch one summer. This was a decade or so ago when he was playing high school baseball. Maybe he'd just graduated; I don't remember exactly. I do remember that some of his school teammates recruited him to pitch for the Morton Grove American Legion team where they had signed to play.

There was a problem, however. We lived within the boundaries of the Portage Park American Legion team. Portage Park had to give up its territorial claim on Joe before he could legally pitch for Morton Grove. Paperwork was involved. (When isn't it?) But, with the help of the Morton Grove coach, the proper authorities in Portage Park were contacted and the papers duly completed. Joe was able to play on the same team as his friends.

I couldn't help but remember that story yesterday as the news about Little League International's decision to strip Jackie Robinson West of its national title stormed across the Internet. I didn't have the heart (or the stomach) to turn on local sports radio during the day. Watching the news last night was painful. I loved the JRW story. Like so many in Chicago, I watched the games on TV and rooted for those kids; I was so happy when they won. I was a fan.

I remembered a couple of other things yesterday, too. I had occasion to coach my youngest son, Jim, when he played at Oriole Park. Oriole Park did not have a Williamsport team, but in addition to our house league teams for various age groups there were "all star" teams that played in various tournaments, mostly against area parks. No one cared about residence in those days, but there was always concern that unscrupulous coaches would try and load up their 10 or 11 or 12-year old teams with older players. Danny Almonte was the Little League scandal in those days -- the 14-year old pitcher who mowed down 12-year old lineups in Williamsport like a sharp scythe in a field of ripe wheat. As a result, I had to bring more than the equipment bag to tournament games; I carried a folder full of birth certificates, one for each kid on my team. No opposing coach ever demanded to check -- but I had them just the same. And tournaments got wise to forgeries, too: I had to get a bunch of duplicate birth certificates from the County Clerk's Office over the years for Joe and Jim both because a lot of tournament organizers refused to accept photocopies.

Because my kids played ball and because I coached (however badly), I had a chance to see and observe a lot about youth baseball. I came to one overwhelming conclusion: There is nothing wrong with youth baseball except grownups. If -- as Little League International has concluded -- some involved with JRW played games off the field as well as on, fibbing about where kids lived in order to assemble a super-team, I know one thing: The kids -- the players -- were not at fault. The JRW kids won the games on the field and their accomplishment should not be diminished, and certainly not invalidated, because of grownup foolishness.

As for the coaches and the directors or officers of the program? They're supposed to know, and follow, the rules. If they did not, whether intentionally or because of ignorance, they should be punished. There undoubtedly were forms that could have been completed to allow kids from outside the boundaries to play for JRW. If some actively tried to conceal the truth about their players' residences instead of getting the proper clearances, those persons should be banned.

Fr. Michael Pfleger and the Rev. Jesse Jackson used yesterday's JRW press conference to suggest a racial motive for Little League's belated investigation. The Evergreen Park coach whose complaints about residence issues sparked Little League's investigation is white. He was on all the TV newscasts last night, too, telling the world that he has had to change his phone number and seek police protection. Only Channel 9, to my knowledge, reported that the Evergreen Park coach is married to an African-American. His Evergreen Park team, according to Channel 9, is composed of mostly African-American and Latin kids. On the other hand, it is impossible to overlook the evidence that some people -- way too many people -- are taking an unholy glee in JRW's downfall. Still, I believe it oversimplifies matters to reduce this sad story to black and white. The color green is also involved. Green, as in the color of envy, and green, as in the color of money. Grownup concerns.

And the timing of all this stinks, no matter what anybody's motivation may be in pursing this investigation now.

I seem to recall that, in the small-time tournaments I was involved with, opposing coaches could check my kids' birth certificates right up until the first pitch was thrown. After that, the only thing that mattered was what happened on the field. Grownup interference -- except for coaches trying to intimidate younger, inexperienced umpires (and that's a whole other discussion) -- ended and the kids got to play their game. So should it be with Williamsport. While the TV cameras are out filming the kids going to go-kart tracks and amusement parks in the greater Williamsport area, the grownups can sort through and validate all the papers from all the players and run down any rumors they want. If a 14-year old is found masquerading as his own little brother, bench him. If a team is found to have a player from outside their assigned area (without the proper paperwork) bench that kid, too. But once the games start, all that matters is what happens between the lines. If it later develops that tournament officials were snookered by doctored paperwork, punish the persons who did the doctoring. But don't punish the kids. Don't change the results.