By David Rutter
1. The Death Penalty, WTF?
The death penalty is dead in Illinois. Some will be glad; some will doubt the wisdom of it.
But it was necessary. This is less about the injustice of capital punishment than the injustice of, well, the Illinois legal system.
The peril of putting innocent people on death row seems obvious enough, but the larger indictment is that justice doesn’t work in Illinois. It can’t be trusted. How do you like them apples?
It’s not just bad events. It’s the system.
So Gov. Pat Quinn permanently called off the necktie party and commuted the death date for 15 prisoners.
But if the decision tacitly acknowledges the evidence that sent them to Death Row was dubious, wasn’t it the same evidence that convicted them of murder? How can they still serve life? Just wondering.
2. Todd Stroger, WTF?
You’re not really surprised by the Toddster’s cranial deficiency, are ya?
But consider the rampant questions. This is the man who administered Cook County’s millions in public money; so which fact is more appalling? That he doesn’t know if he contributed to unemployment insurance or that you elected him? WTF votes for Numero Dos.
He still shows up intermittently on WGN-AM where host John Williams pretends, for the sake of a seemingly real conversation, that Stroger isn’t a total dope.
But, of course, he is.
3. Ron Huberman, WTF?
Politics is the business of controlling the narrative. It makes less difference that a perception is factual than whether the false impression of that fact is sustainable.
The Mayor Daley narrative to many a citizen who, let’s face it, liked his act well enough to keep re-enlisting him for the job, was that he was a sound though integrity-challenged manager.
But the narrative of that reality doesn’t hold up so well now that Daley is all but gone, as are some of the henchmen who stayed out of the rain under his umbrella.
Thus when interim CPS chief Terry Mazany says Daley protege Ron Huberman ran local schools like a ham-handed apparatchik, it damages the comforting at-least-Daley-is-competent narrative. In fact, Mazany says local public schools are a big fat mess largely because of Huberman and, by extension, Daley.
Indeed, Huberman’s parry-and-thrust attacks on the teachers union certainly make more sense now; constant conflict and chaos are useful when calm might inspire someone to take a close look at how the system is working.
The local blog community knew it; the big media didn’t. They let the narrative control them.
The quicker the Daley era disappears in the rear view mirror, the more we will ask WTF.
4. Sun-Times Watchdogs, WTF?
Newspapers love these government-treats-them-better-than-us stories because it’s a cheap thrill.
But if a crook wants to go straight, is it really a bad thing to offer a job in government?
After all, if everybody was outraged by the idea, wouldn’t it leave the convict with no alternative but to be a crook again? It’s their preferred method of making a buck.
5. Northwestern’s Other News, WTF?
While Northwestern endured Dildogate last week, the true misfortune of that event was that it obscured a truly profound Northwestern achievement.
The Alzheimer’s breakthrough is real, substantial news.
Scientists always warn that successfully treating a disease’s symptoms doesn’t cure the disease. But we civilians are less concerned about the perfect answer and are most hopeful that symptoms of a disease are thwarted. After all, we don’t really insist that alcoholism is “cured.” We just want the drinker to stop drinking.
As for Alzheimer’s, the draining loss of memory – the end of coherent intellect and the loss of life’s joy – is what terrifies us about this disease.
We fear death, but we fear living as sleeping ghosts even more.
Any treatment that forestalls that effect might not be a cure, but until a cure comes along, that will do.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on March 11, 2011