Blithe Spirit, the Blog

An award winner at last night’s Society of Midland Authors dinner quoted St. Augustine, saying a book must “serve,” meaning serve the public interest, be useful.

Yes.  Every idle word is to be accounted for on the last day.  What ho, the frivolous! 

He’s Gary D. Schmidt, whose winner book, a piece of children’s fiction, is The Wednesday Wars (Clarion Books).  It’s “deep but upbeat,” per San Fran Chronicle, which also says that’s “no easy task” when writing for prepubescents.

The trick in reaching such an audience is to avoid both “Dr. Phil fare and plots driven by death, disease, divorce, drugs and the like.” 

Schmidt succeeds, but does the parents badly, delivering “caricatures.”  On the whole, however, says the reviewer,

this graceful novel is full of goodwill, yearning and heart, and serves as a growth chart for Holling, recording his increasing depth. “The Wednesday Wars” also gently reminds readers to take constant measure, as Shakespeare and Holling do, of what it means to be human.

That’s high praise, but last night, maybe sensing kindred spirits at the Inter-Continental Hotel dinner, he got a might preachy, speaking ominously of our troubled world and the current war, wondering where the protestors are.  The Viet Nam war, which coincides historically with his book, drew “a hundred thousand” protestors a day.  “I wonder where they are today,” he said. 

For one thing, the hundred thousand dropped to almost nothing once the draft was ended.  And there’s no draft now, so his wistful wondering is poorly aimed.  For another, he came across as a soft-core activist happy to plant a bit of self-accusation among writers. 

He teaches at a small Christian college, Calvin, in Michigan, and very well, I assume.  But he’s slightly affected by or infected with that yen to solve people’s problems for them and show them the way.  Or so he appeared.

The Rex Huppke treatment is the way to go in reporting aldermen turned foreign policy wonks:

The Chicago City Council, leaping broadly outside its normal purview, tried to stop the United States from invading Iraq 5 years ago. The nation’s third-largest city aimed a strongly worded anti-war resolution right at President Bush, and yet he went ahead and toppled Saddam Hussein anyway.

A shame, we may all observe.  They get no respect, even when, as Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6^th) announces in full cry: “We’re out there. We’re leading the charge.”

But Freddrenna, who will fix the potholes?

The discussion was top-level, as Huppke relates:

“I don’t think we should preclude an attack on Iran if it’s necessary,” Ald. Bernie Stone (50th) grumbled to John Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago political science professor.

“When would it be necessary?” asked Mearsheimer, an expert on international security policy.

“That I don’t know,” said Stone, an expert on zoning policy.

Out of the mouths of zoning experts.  Pssst: Mearsheimer doesn’t know either.

Here’s an Oak Park story with Washington Irving roots:

No Oak Park school is better named when it comes to kids’ reading than Washington Irving, on Cuyler in the village’s southeast corner. How can we beat The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, with the school teacher Ichabod Crane scared almost to death by a headless horseman.

Or Rip Van Winkle, asleep for 20 years and waking to find his children grown, his mean old wife dead, and the British no longer in charge in his upstate New York village?

There’s more more more here at the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest.

Sun-Times man Steve Huntley weighs in on aldermen as advisors to the U.S. government rather than allocation of pothole repairs:

What to do about Iran must cause countless sleepless nights for countless generals, Pentagon strategists and political leaders in the White House and Congress. Now they’re going to get advice from the Chicago City Council.

Yes, and in Chicago style, the fix is in:

The Council’s Human Relations Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing today on a resolution “opposing any U.S. attack on Iran.” The full Council could vote on it on Wednesday. The results are a foregone conclusion. Today’s hearing features among its witnesses the anti-war figure Scott Ritter and John Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago professor known for seeing “Israel lobby” machinations behind U.S. foreign policy.

And as this blog made much of two days ago, the eminent Stephen Kinzer, apparently late of the NY Times and currently teaching at apparently two universities in this area, will also testify, surely about U.S. failures in the Middle East — a specialty of his — and the trouble with jousting with Iran.

Huntley notes “the lone voice” opposing the resolution, that of Ald. James A. Balcer (11th), a war hero from Viet Nam war days on grounds of “sending a wrong signal about protecting the lives of the young men and women our nation sends in harm’s way” (Huntley’s words). 

Note the eight-alderman sponsorship of the bill, including Joseph A. Moore (49th) and Toni Preckwinkle (4th) and newcomers like Sandi Jackson (7th) and Robert W. Fioretti (2nd).  These are your Obama liberals, if I may introduce a phrase into discussion of Chicago ward politics — thinking man’s and woman’s liberals, you know, who think globally and act locally, you know, cherishing their illusions through the thick and thin of gaping potholes and murder in the streets.  God bless ‘em.

This Tennessee congressman, Jim Cooper, a Dem, went to see Hillary about her health care bill back in the 90s, intending to show her his own bill, privately:

“She brought in a camera to record the meeting. And she has not released the memos on this meeting. She immediately declared war on me. I warned her we didn’t even have the votes (for her bill) in our subcommittee. She said, ‘We’re going to (politically) cut your legs off.’ I’ve never gotten such a cold reception as I got from her.”

Oh boy.  Just the spunky gal to make things hard for Obama.

In the matter of what makes Hillary run (and not stop), this from Emily’s List founder Ellen Malcolm touches a nerve:

We might scoff at the identity politics run wild in this election cycle. But this personal identification [of low-income working women with Mrs. C.] and the sense that once again one of their own has been aced out by a young, glib, and underqualified male will be a bitter pill to swallow for many of Clinton’s staunchest supporters.

Young, glib, and underqualified, eh?  You don’t have to be a low-income working woman to find that nicely said.

I see Smooth Stephen Kinzer is letting his activism get the better of him and intends to testify, and not under subpoena, to Chicago’s aldermen as an instrument of Joe Moore’s foreign-policy leftism.  It’s official then, he’s no longer a reporter but a man whose biases — ahem, his conclusions based on extensive research — have got the better of him. 

Here’s one of one of his talking points, as appearing on the (left-wing) UK Guardian website, where it’s not clear for what publication he wrote it:

By naming his favourite military officer, General David Petraeus, to head the US Central Command, President Bush evidently hopes to terrify Iran. Americans and people in the rest of the world, however, have at least as much reason to be terrified as anyone in Tehran.

Kinzer is or was the NY Times man in Chicago but hasn’t written about political corruption.  You can get your hands dirty that way.  Rather, he’s playing ball with Chi Dems dying to see one of their own in the White House, arguing for one of his more notorious policy positions, of the “Can’t we sit down and talk?” variety. 

That would be the Big O., featured in the John Kass column today as “magically unstained” by the “Chicago way” of doing things.  Kinzer is a longstanding believer in the U.S. as mideast bungler, but he might pay heed to his being used by the left.

He will make aldermanic eyes glaze over, I expect.  See K’s ideas on the Iranian matter also in today’s Chi Trib (Left-wing) Perspective section, where he is i’d’d as a journalism and political science teacher at Northwestern U. 

(But in Oak Park we hear of him as teaching at Dominican U., River Forest.  He’s left the Times?  His most recent byline is Feb. 11; so either he has a very easygoing gig or is no longer at the Times.)

In any case, wine and cheese will not be served to the aldermen, those doughty protectors of their right to make money hand over ringed pinky, as Royko used to speak of.  But they will like whatever helps their man Obama.

Last night “What Happens in Vegas,” co-starring Cameron Diaz (or was it Jennifer Lopez? one of the Z-ladies) and (Half-) Ashton Something, with volume turned up so as to make this yet another cartoon with live people.  Comic books used to show “pow” and “bam” when hero socked bad guy.  Movies have bass chords or thunks.  This one had a series of thunks at one point, lest we hoi polloi moviegoers miss something.

That said, it was diversionary, in a semi-crowded theatre (Lake on Lake) half-filled with decent enough crowd.

First thing to remember (after thunks) is that this moviegoer had no spontaneous laughter coming out of his throat, nor any other kind, nor any smile.  The entire attraction was the plot line: something about this movie kept this m-goer wondering what comes next.  The characters, in addition, were not overtly off-putting, and once you accept the presumed sleep-around dating scene — if it feels good, it’s good, genitally speaking, which it is, genitally speaking — you can even appreciate the basically human (i.e., good) responses and developments of the hero and heroine.

Moreover, Dennis Miller as the judge unloads a hard-nosed, credible defense of wedded perseverance: he looks at his wife of 25 years sometimes and wants to set her on fire — but among other things, that’s not legal.

So for a night at the movies, 7:30 version, out in the sweet May air by 9:30, not bad.  What’s more, I had to correct the young woman at the ticket booth, prepared to charge me $8 — “I’m a senior,” I said, without adding my line, “not high school or college either” — and she switched it to $5.50.

Close call, reminding me of telling the booth lady at the State on Madison in 1944 that I was eleven, which I wasn’t, but twelve was the age of adulthood when it came to ticket price.

Phew.

“We may now understand why Barack does not wear a flag lapel pin. He’s afraid that Bill Ayers will stomp on him,” says Larry C. Johnson at Huffington Post, next to pic of Ayers and flag from Chi Mag, as below.

The context is that Hillary has to convince superdelegates that Obama’s unrepentant-terrorist friend and supporter Ayers will be a millstone around his neck in the general election.

I am a pessimist. Even though Hillary is the one who wins the big states that will count in the fall, the “supers” appear to be moving toward Obama. Even though Hillary has more popular votes and polls much better among the Reagan democrats, the supers appear to be moving toward Obama.

Hillary’s only hope is that the super delegates will come to their senses and realize that Barack Obama’s relationships with the corrupt Tony Rezko, the racist-wife stealing Jeremiah Wright, and the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers will provide the Republicans with ammunition they have never had at hand to use against the Democrats’ candidate. This is particularly true of that flag stomper, Bill Ayers.

“[I]t will be the relationship with Bill Ayers that will empower the Republicans to destroy the candidacy of Barack Obama.”

Fact is, Obama lied about their relationship.  (And a campaign died?)  Why?

What is he hiding? As I have pointed out before, 1995 was a critical year in the Obama/Ayers relationship. It was in 1995 that Barack was tabbed by Ayers to be the Chairman of the Annenberg Challenge (a failed $50 million project). That same year, Barack sat at a kitchen table with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Bill’s wife, and plotted the ouster of Alice Palmer, who [sic] Obama took down in order to secure his place in the Illinois state senate.

What the supers must do:

If the Super Delegates do not insist on a full and complete disclosure from Barack Obama about his ties to Bill Ayers, the Republicans will force the issue in the fall. It is one thing to have a name that sounds like the terrorist who attacked us on 9-11. But it is an entirely different matter to be close friends with an unrepentant terrorist who bombed U.S. Government buildings.

With friends like Johnson, the Dems could win.

Can you imagine a self-respecting newspaper going with this item, which I know I am going to pass over in silence:

Delmer Reed has told friends he believed it was no coincidence that his former wife, Ramah, divorced him and married [Rev.] Mr [Jeremiah] Wright shortly after the Chicago pastor gave him advice on their troubled marriage in the early 1980s.

Roosevelt Thomas, a lawyer who handled the Reeds’ divorce in 1983, confirmed to the New York Post that Mr Reed long believed Rev Wright moved in on his wife after counselling them.

Even Bill O’Reilly is drawing the line:

Bill O’Reilly told Kinky Freidman and Juan Williams that he’s tired of the Wright story. This sudden Wright fatigue didn’t stop him from mentioning the New York Post story about Wright stealing the wife of a church member. He even held up the front page so viewers could catch the headline and photo.

For documentation purposes, it started here, wouldn’t you know?  With this:

May 4, 2008 — The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s loose cannon of a spiritual adviser, stole the wife of a parishioner - after the man sought Wright’s help in saving his troubled marriage, the former husband told friends.

Delmer Reed, 59, confided to pals that he believed the minister moved in on his wife while Wright was counseling the couple at his Chicago church in the early 1980s, The Post has learned.

“That’s exactly how he said it,” Reed’s divorce lawyer, Roosevelt Thomas, told The Post.

Chicago youth worker Harold Davis backs Reed up.

“Jeremiah knew all the weaknesses of the couple, and he started focusing on the wife, her vulnerabilities, and started doing things she wanted Delmer to do - spending time with her, taking her to the movies, that sort of thing,” said Davis, who heads the Chicago branch of football great Jim Brown’s Amer-I-can youth program.

“Everybody knew Jeremiah took the man’s wife,” said Davis. “It was common knowledge.”

The Wrights deny he ever counselled the woman.  

But a member who chastised Wright for his behavior was denounced from the pulpit:

Activist Derrick Mosley, a self-styled minister who has clashed with Wright, said there’s an “unwritten rule” that pastors don’t counsel married couples separately - as Wright did with Ramah Reed, he said.

In 2003, Mosley said, “I called him on the carpet about the indecorous manner in which he’d obtained his wife.”

In response, said Mosley, “he ranted and raved from the pulpit. He got up and announced, ‘If Derrick Mosley is in the building, I want you all to arrest him.’ “

Wow.  Was Obama there for that sermon?

If it happened.  Let us not trust Mosley too far:

CHICAGO — The Rev. Derrick Mosley, known throughout the Chicago area as a self-proclaimed community advocate, was arrested and charged with wire fraud and extortion Monday in an alleged plot to blackmail the wife of a professional athlete.

NBC5 Image

Mosley is accused of trying to obtain $20,000 from a business manager representing the athlete’s wife, claiming he had a videotape depicting her in a sexual encounter with a musician and another woman, NBC5’s Darren Kramer reported. Sources confirmed the musician on the alleged sex tape was R & B star R. Kelly.

According to NBC5’s sources, the tape pre-dates the woman’s marriage to the unidentified athlete. R. Kelly’s manager said Mosley tried to extort money from him in a separate incident. The R & B artist’s manager filed for a restraining order against Mosley in 2003, NBC5’s Marion Brooks reported.

A tangled web, I’d say