Let me introduce the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune:

Scott C. Smith
Ann Marie Lipinski
R. Bruce Dold - Editorial Page Editor
George DeLama
James Warren
Timothy J. McNulty

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has not been willing to endorse a sales tax increase which legislators have proposed to fund transit agencies in Chicago and its suburbs.  In fact, the governor has said he would veto such a proposal. This struggle in Illinois over funding has been going on for at least a year.

Yesterday, the governor offered a proposal.  I'll go along with sales tax but there's a catch.  Give senior citizens free rides on local trains and buses.  

John McCain speaking at a NRA assembly yesterday came on strong to two women protesters (Medea Benjamin is one) playing the tough presidential candidate.  Many of you don't agree with the tactics of these women - I do.  I'm way beyond being a nice woman of a certain age and wish I had the courage of Medea Benjamin.  The other woman - who is taller than the guards taking her out - I don't know.  Follow the guards out the door here.

Historic reading can be overwhelming.  There are often conflicting views, and critics go out of style -- new evidence can appear to change the traditional perspective.  A better bet is to read one of the good (great if you can find one) novelists of that period.  If you want to understand the Gilded Age of the late 19th Century - read Edith Wharton.  Because Lily Bart, the heroine of THE HOUSE OF MIRTH is one of America's touching, vulnerable, tragic characters in this country's portfolio of heroines, as well as a study of hard failure in the Gilded Age, you would do well to read The House of Mirth.
Edith Wharton
The Gilded Age
Lily Bart

I haven't seen this being diaried - perhaps it has been.  My searches are often fruitless -

The interesting thing about this article is that it appears in the free newspaper that appeals to younger Chicagoans, even though it is an arm of a Chicago daily paper - The Chicago Red Streak.  I did not see this in the Tribune this am.

Seems to me the Republicans are more than happy \ after all guns are involved.  

Here's a bit of a peek after the jump:  

Today is the Feast Day of St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of Little Things.  And let's face it, it's mostly the little things that get us down on a day to day basis.  Yeah, it's a Catholic thing but even my Jewish friend, Iris, asks St. Anthony to find what she's lost.  And several of my Protestant friends have intimated to me that they find him interesting - "I mean I couldn't find that damn will 'til my neighbor told me to ask St. Anthony."  That is his major mojo - he finds our stuff.  Follow me to find the rest of the diary.  

Jerome McDonnell is an excellent radio interviewer on Chicago Public Radio.  Without pushing any agenda, and with style, he allows people to tell a story - and lets the radio audience judge the content.  Mr. McDonnell gives the interviewee plenty of time and space to share an agenda, and pulls the audience along to make the judgment McDonnell is looking for.  

Listen to this interview from February 21.  He interviews Steve Featherstone about the Pentagon, war and robots. Mr. Featherstone has an article in the current Harpers entitled: The Coming Robot Army.  He is a free lance writer and has commented on NPR several times.  There is a "gee whiz this is nifty stuff" quality about Mr. Featherstone's interview.  You can tell from his voice and views he is enthusiastic about the robotic killers and secondarily mentions ethics. I don't think Mr. Featherstone has ever served in the Army, though he's delighted with winning wars as you will hear in the interview. You might think he is talking about a game he's playing.  Therein lies the problem.

   

This diary may not be what a reader expects.  I am not going to gnash teeth because the White House is celebrating while we're stuck in an unnecessary and lost war.  No, none of that.  

About 5 am, I toddled downstairs for coffee and always the optimist, turned on NPR for "good" news.  First off the bat, a NPR pundit interviews Jim Webb.  Finally, a strong spokesperson. Transcript not up - but here's my transcript.  Anyone who listened care to chime in.

Last night, the Chicago area had a fierce thunder and lightening storm.  The lightening did not abate for a good two and a half hours in my area.  I saw an orange glow shoot across the black in the street across from me and a popping sound fought it out with the thunder.  A fiery branch fell to the ground but was quickly extinguished by the rain. It fell in slow motion, crackling and bright.  

entitled "The Old and the Rested" in the New York Times. It's another senior bashing column -- nobody ever reads my offerings.  I believe once I got two comments and one was something like:  "doh your citation doesn't work." The diary was about monarch butterflies and the loss of their habitat due to bush's forest initiatives. (Have you fallen asleep yet?)

However, as to Mr. Tierney's column today - please some clever person that others read -- put a diary up.

Thanks.  I'm going to mosey over to the want ads -- wonder if they have a job for cannibalizing children.  

When I first emerged from my American stupor after 9/11, I looked around for reliable news sources.  Alas, there were none.  Still, I couldn't shake this gut feeling that everything was wrong, upside down, downside up and inside out.  Then I stumbled onto a peace group here and I found Truthout.  Truthout was my first liberal life support and literally, Truthout helped me keep my sanity -- such as it is.  They are currently looking for donations -- and as one of the bulwarks of the Liberal Movement, if anyone here has a few dollars to spare -- this is a good cause. Mr. Pitt of Truthout has been a force for good - Let's support him and Truthout.  Thanks.

While browsing through bushwatch, I came across the headline section of the Boston Globe wherein Derrick Jackson (May 11, 2005) interviews a biologist who has studied monarch butterflies for 50 years.  Here is a quote from Dr. Brower re the Admin's lifting of the deep forest road ban - endangering the successful migration of the Monarchs.  Dr. Brower calls the problem "development at all costs."

"Mr. Bush in an incredible ignoramus and utterly oblivious.  I don't understand how so many of the nation's leaders are so massively ignorant and no one stands up to this.  I don't understand why Bush does not seem to have a single person who can tell him how these decisions add up to disastrous effect on the whole environment."

Help help the sky is falling.  the sky is falling.  In today's edit/op page of NYTimes, brooks once again points out the real villains in our soon to be collapsed American sky.  (l)  Social Security and its neer do well people who have the selfish urge to remain alive and (2)  poor, unemployed, underemployed and their children and elderly dependents who use Medicaid.  To cover the "looming fiscal crisis... the federal government will have to come up with an extra $50 trillion just to pay for the promises it's made as of today."  Well, I don't take any of the Republicans figures as the Holy Grail, and my bet is these figures are skewed to make their case, i.e., destroy SS and Medcaid.

David Brooks is a point man for bush - dressed up in a NYT suit.  In his 2/19/05 column, he waits for a savior like Ross Perot who will lead a movement of people who are worried about the federal deficit, people who are offended  by  -- wait for it! -- "the horrendous burden seniors are placing on the young" and who are disgusted by a legislative process that sometimes suggests that the government has lost all capacity for self-control.  Note he has successfully linked seniors with the government that has lost control and outrageous deficits. He also talks about the Medicare bill as if it were the seniors who (a) pushed for this version; and (b) will profit from it.  Insurance and pharma corps  pushed for it and will profit from it. Not a word here about the "horrendous" Iraq War and its financial burden.  Not a word here about "Star Wars."  Nor a word about corporations gone amuck.  Nor a word about an incompetent president and his handlers. -- no, it is the "seniors."  The logical outcome of his column is euthanasia.