Chicago Daily Observer

Ray Coffey covered the Vietnam War for nearly three years in the 1960s, marching through swamps with U.S. soldiers and winning journalism awards in the process. ( from Chicago Sun Times) Click my post title for the tribute to Ray Coffey.

Mr. Ray Coffey was a great friend to the kids of Leo High School for whom he always had time – to listen.

God bless you Holly Coffey! God bless all of your kids! God Bless the heart of Ray Coffey that made his ear the organ and conduit of truth in Chicago Journalism.

Ray Coffey ‘gave his ears a chance.’ That rule is lost on too many of us who want to hear the sounds of our own voices rather than articulate a means to bring people together. In America’s most divisive war – Vietnam – Ray Coffey turned his ears to voices of the kids taking the ... Read More...

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell, forever on guard against the white racism she’s expecting to spring troll-like from its ubiquitous hiding places, has managed again to twist a few facts to suit her nasty bigotry.

In her latest exercise in tedium, she cited an AP-Yahoo News poll that concludes that Barack Obama’s race could cost him “six percentage points—enough for him to lose in a closely contested race.”

I’m not sure what poll Mitchell is reading, since when I look at the one* she seems to be citing, I see different results. The poll finds that nine percent of all respondents said that Obama being the first black president would make them less likely to vote for him. Yes, this is wrong. But if you bother to read the survey’s next line, you find that another nine percent said that Obama being the first black president would make them more ... Read More...

As a visiting fellow at Oxford’s Saint John’s College in 1978, I was given the opportunity to observe from behind a screen a student in final examination at tutorial. Stunningly for me, I had never before seen such a throwback to old medieval student-tutor relationship as the student sat deferentially on a chair before his don while the professor, glasses perched on the tip of his nose cracked not a smile and at least once where I was aware sought to trap his quarry in a nonsensical roundelay concerning John Milton. By this comparison the tutorial of Gov. Sarah Palin run by ABC’s Charles Gibson was benign. But we have the word of Charles Krauthammer who himself defined the so-called “Bush Doctrine” that there are four of them not one as tutor Gibson insisted-so by that Oxford measure the student who asked for clarification should be given full credit. ... Read More...

Yesterday, August 12, 2008, Francis Cardinal George settled with the victims of priest/cleric abuse in the amount of $12.6 million dollars. The Chicago Tribune reported that story. The Sun Times, like the little fat punk who watches two tough guys fight and then rekindles the violence with taunts to each combatant, intends to milk this issue.

The horror of the abuse is too monstrous to imagine. Catholics are all too aware of the damage inflicted by monsters in stiff collars and vestments who hid behind canon law, the majesty of the Catholic Church and the protocols of the hierarchy, the trust of the faithful and innocence of children in order to lunge out and sodomize babies.
The victims, for the most part (there have been a couple of dubious claimants here and there), deserve every tiny bit of monetary and legal compensation – nothing can restore the damage to ... Read More...

“Tribune” editorials have moved…seemingly for the indefinite future…from the vague, on-one-hand basis that embodied their wishy-washyness for many years…to high caliber with verve, straight-from-the-shoulder opinionating based on unemotional and courageous analysis of the facts. The heightened quality of the editorials have marked the advent of the new ownership although assuredly on occasion they were on the way previously.

My favorite was the firm denunciation of the Daley effort to bull-con the people to believe that his transgression of the pristine nature of Grant Park to build an underground Children’s Museum was a humanitarian and even a racially progressive step. What ever happened to Lois Wille who used to be a defender of the open lakefront lands, I don’t know but she has been obviously beguiled and made servile by the little demagogue on the 5th floor who surveys his own greatness.

Daley’s flamboyant use of demagoguery to assume his opponents ... Read More...

On the way out of Park Ridge’s St. Paul of the Cross 8:30 a.m. Mass yesterday a reader exclaimed “Did you read Falsani today?” and he emitted a sound through his teeth-“sheeeeesh!” which told it all. Nowhere can you get more misleading illiteracy about Catholicism then from her. You’d think a degree from Wheaton would give her at least a working knowledge, but nope.

So we begin. The column is entitled “Why does church need Pfleger fill-in?” The body type is Falsani’s the bold-face is the answer from Catholic orthodoxy.

“When the Rev. Michael Pfleger takes his annual vacation to Hawaii, usually for two weeks in October, Kimberly Lymore, the parish’s pastoral associate since 2000, steps in to run St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church. Lymore, 50, has been a member of the Faith Community of St. Sabina’s (as members prefer to call it) for exactly half of her life, joining ... Read More...

As everything she writes is all about her, this is the way “Sun-Times” religion [sic] columnist Cathleen Falsani, a Wheaton college grad no less, started her story. “On Sunday morning, I was enjoying a brisk walk along the Hudson River in lower Manhattan and some quiet contemplation…”

THINKING OF REINHOLD NIEBUHR OBVIOUSLY.

“…when my cell phone rang. It was my editor.”

THAT WOULD BE THAT MATCHLESS BRIT ARBITER OF GOOD TASTE WHO PICKS GIRLY SHOTS FOR EVERY FRONT PAGE, MICHAEL COOKE.

“`Mike just called and he wants to talk but he’ll only talk to you’ he said.”

HOW TOUCHING. GREAT SPIRITUAL MINDS.

“Mike, as in the Rev. Michael Pfleger, the perpetually embattled pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic parish in Chicago who most ... Read More...

The Sun-Times headline on their web site Obama index page (there is no Clinton or McCain index, by the way) has Sen Obama’s resounding defeat in Puerto Rico titled

Then, clicking through gets us to a more measured headline

Which upon further reading, “showed Clinton with 261,916 votes, or 68 percent, to Obama’s 120,929, or 32 percent” which is a massive defeat, in a State where some predicted Obama to win.

There were probably 100 ways to read the Clinton landslide in Puerto Rico. The Sun-Times took a partisan viewpoint, threw out the 99 obvious ways of looking at the results, and chose the one which fits their one-sided political leaning.

We offer a full round of applause to such a throwback to a more deliberate time when journalists and editors ... Read More...

Carol Marin weepily tells us in the Sun-Times that the worst part of Fr. Pfleger’s spiteful rant at Trinity United Church was that it might hurt Obama’s campaign. Not that he is generally wrong, or vile, or speaks hatefully from the Pulpit. The real problem is that people may not vote for Obama.

Mark Brown, also in the Sun-Times, makes a more valid point stating that:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s (D-Ill.) name has cropped up quite a few times in the ongoing trial of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) benefactor Tony Rezko. Yet in their latest coverage, both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times left out Blagojevich’s party affiliation. The Sun-Times, however, did take note of the Republican party affiliation of another politico caught up in the maelstrom, William Cellini.

The caption for a photo montage accompanying the April 3 article “Levine: Blagojevich knew”, reads, “Clockwise from left: Gov. Rod Blagojevich; Tony Rezko; Stuart Levine;Chicago businessman-turned-Hollywood producer Tom Rosenberg; longtime Illinois Republican Party power William Cellini.”

Tribune staffers Bob Secter and Jeff Coen also covered the development in a story filed shortly after midnight Eastern time on April 3.

This isn’t the first time Secter and Coen left out the (D) after Blagojevich’s name. As NewsBusters contributor and MRC News Analysis intern Lyndsi Thomas noted on ... Read More...

The Chicago Tribune has dedicated some editorial resources to reading other publications to find out more about Todd Stroger’s planned reorganization of the Cook County Hospitals management. The Editorial Board at the Trib tells us that they do not like what they are reading in other publications about this reorg.

The Tribune’s coverage of the shakeup has been limited to one story, which also questions how independent this board can be. It is a good question, but still begs for some background. How does the Tribune hold off on a story like this for a week without publishing any details of the proposal? Is the crack staff at the Tribune so busy telling us that Barak Obama is probably not a Muslim (today’s hapless lead op-ed, and similarly hapless feature in the Tribune’s “Seeker” blog) or digging into Drew Peterson’s Ebay sales to skip the #1 ... Read More...

It’s not that the “Tribune” has improved so vastly but that in competition with the adolescent semi-porn “Sun-Times,” any paper that writes straightforwardly for adults has to look good.

Still the “Trib” has had several features this week that shows it’s determined to improve as a world-class paper. Sara Olkon’s front-page article on Beauty Turner, the former assistant editor of “Residents’ Journal,” who lost her job, is outstanding. Also—huzza!—the editorials are moving toward taking a definite position instead of pro-con-pro-con and winding up with “who knows?” or “stay tuned.” The “What did the pilots say? that points out the people’s right to know what NASA thinks about airport safety may—you could say—that it is an easy call…but in the old days the “Trib” would make the point that NASA should submit its findings through an establishment bureaucracy and then conclude: it is too early to make a final ... Read More...