Young People, Partying and Common Sense

A cretinous piece of street garbage wielding a baseball bat attacked a couple of innocent women on their way home from a night of clubbing in the Bucktown area of Chicago early this morning. Both women are in the intensive care unit and the prognosis, at least for one of them, doesn't look good.

My heart goes out to these young women and their families. I pray that the parents of one of the girls, an Irish exchange student, will be able to get to Chicago to be with their daughter given the disruption of flights overseas caused by the volcanic ash eruption.

News stories say the women were out celebrating. The attack occurred when they were walking home at 3:30am.

Therein lies the problem.

They were alone, on the streets of Chicago, at 3:30am.

Of course they had a right to be there and to expect they would get home safely. Unfortunately, the person who attacked them had other ideas. And he was the one with the bat.

The one with the weapon usually wins.

The moment they left that club, those women ceased being nice girls out for a night of fun. They assumed the unfortunate role of "targets of opportunity."

They didn't deserve what happened to them. Few victims of violent crime do.

But when you engage in behavior that makes you a target, you contribute to your victimology. I'm not assessing blame. I am evaluating risk.

Male or female, alone or in a small group, going out on the streets of a major city at 3:30 in the morning after a night of partying, especially if alcohol is involved, is like wearing a big neon sign that says, "I'm helpless, attack me."

Think before you drink. Think before you party at all, regardless of the beverages you imbibe. Before you go out for the evening, consider your options for getting home and make sure you stick with your plan. If you can't count on your friends, have enough cash to call a cab.

Feral creatures of the night sniff the air for the scent of innocents.

Roger Ebert is Annoying

Ebert calls the new movie Kick Ass "morally reprehensible" because it depicts an eleven-year old girl as a cartoonishly violent martial artist and assassin, punching and chopping her way through a gang of thugs and using language that would make a standup comedian blush.

Yet Roger had no such criticism for a movie last year that I felt was one of the most reprehensible and unneccessarily brutal that I'd ever seen. In Last House on the Left a gang of killers beats and rapes one teenage girl and shoots another in the back as she is trying to escape. And the rape scene is arduous and graphic.

Yes, Kick Ass is unquestionably violent. And yes, the little girl has a potty mouth (which, I agree, could have been toned down, probably to better effect). She also gets punched out toward the end by a far bigger and stronger adult. But come on, Roger! You gave Last House on the Left four stars and mentioned the rape only in passing. Kick Ass got two thumbs down.

Kick Ass is a dark comedy crafted from the cartoon of the same name. The "super hero" characters are what Peter Parker might have become if he had only the suit and a bellyful of moral outrage (and enough Lotto winnings to buy an arsenal that includes a bazooka, Gatling gun and a jetpack). It's campy and fun and devilishly unrealistic in a Jackie Chan, John Woo, chop-socky sort of way. Most important, however, it has heart and characters who care about each other.

I can't begin to say that about the trash that is Last House on the Left which looked to me as though it was written and filmed by a bunch of people with some frightening sexual fantasies.

Roger, your moral compass is seriously skewed.

All Bluster, No Muster

Not really surprised to learn that Blago's been fired from The Celebrity Apprentice.

The Sun-Times story this morning says our former governor couldn't work a computer at "even the most basic level" and had trouble using a smartphone. It also comes as no shock at all that he tried to run his team from Orlando while they were working in New York. Shades of a governor who was terrified to leave Chicago and assume the appropriate seat of power in Springfield.

It's pretty sad, actually. A man so desperate for attention that he's willing to become a bumbling idiot on national television. And to repeat the performance in one way or another for months and months, every time he's given the opportunity.

He's mentally ill, of course. The question is: is he exposing himself this way to set up a fallback insanity defense when his corruption case goes to trial? Or is this the way a sociopath melts down when he's not smart enough to stay in control? Or, another possibility, is this just a guy having all the fun he can, knowing the end is approaching?

But who is ultimately at fault? We elected him, didn't we? We pulled the levers that put him in office without doing a whit of due diligence to determine whether his qualifications were real or a political sham.

We're poised to do it again. Two mopes running for governor. Two mopes running for the U.S. Senate. To apply the word "statesman" to any of them is a joke of diabolical proportions.

Whether "crook" is also an accurate description remains to be seen but, after all they are Illinois politicians.

And we are the Illinois electorate that has not learned from its mistakes.

Two Stories To Make You Smile

My friend, Barb, is likely on her way to Mexico this morning with her husband. I'm sure she felt very blessed to be getting on the plane.

Earlier this week, a drunk driver hit her while she was driving to work on the Kennedy. He was alledgedly doing about one-hundred miles an hour. His car burst into flames. He got out, ran and was later captured. Barb tells me a Good Samaritan helped her out of her car before it caught fire.

A Good Samaritan. Imagine that. Have fun in Mexico, Barb.

The Tribune is reporting about another Good Samaritan this morning.

Dan Coyne, a social worker for the Chicago Public Schools, is donating one of his kidneys to his favorite supermarket cashier, Myra de la Vega. They met at the store. She told him about her renal failure and the eight-hours a day of dialysis she undergoes after her shifts at a Jewel in Evanston. Coyne decided to help her.

Have fun with your new life, Myra.

Good Samaritans. An interesting concept. Go with God's Hand on your shoulder, good people.

And some folks say they have never seen a miracle.

More Dumb Crooks

I barely finish one blog about dumb crooks and, wow, get to write about more.

Seems like a Chicago man who's been arrested sixty-four times got nailed again the other day. He allegedly hid inside the Loop Macy's until after closing time and then tried to escape with some merchandise. Cops were wise to his stunt and confronted him. He reportedly resisted and was Tasered. While some may argue that Tasers are cruel and inhumane and instruments of torture, I really don't feel sorry for this guy. Do you? If you do, write and tell me why, please. Happy to have you air your feelings.

And then we travel out to Schaumburg which seems to have been home to a bunch of hookers lately. After getting stung in a sting a week ago, one of the young ladies allegedly went back to the same hotel with a buddy the other night and tried to hold up a couple of other upstanding citizens at gunpoint. A gunfight broke out. The accused hooker's boyfriend of two years (according to her mama) wound up dead and the victim and a couple of others including the alleged hooker, were wounded.

Flash forward to today in court. The accused hooker, now charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery, hears the judge set her bail at 3 million dollars and collapses, hyperventilating to the courtroom floor. I wonder if she pulled the same stunt when she was was arrested for battery, aggravated assault and resisting arrest in Winnebago County last year; or when she received a three-year sentence for a Kane County robbery conviction in 2006; or when she got probation in a 2004 felony retail theft charge and, separately, for aggravated battery to a police officer in Kane County in 2004?

For those wondering why she was charged with murder in this case without firing a shot, it's called the felony murder rule and provides that anyone charged in a felony crime resulting in death can be held responsible for that death.

What's great about this case, however, is that no one who really matters died. I don't see the boyfriend as any loss to society (was he also her pimp?). And were the 'victims' of this alleged 'robbery' really victims?

The Tribune quotes her mama as saying, "I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe she lost her boyfriend and is charged with his murder."

Believe it, Mom.

Buffoons of Crime and Religion

I know it's going to surprise many of my thousands of loyal readers but, in the interests of fairness, I must admit I have been called a buffoon once or twice in my life.

That said, I would like to point to several others who have taken bufoonery to way, way higher levels.

There are the two winners who reportedly conspired to kill the ex-girlfriend of one of them in Darien, Illinois last week. Dumb alledgedly convinced Dumber to hammer through a window into the exes parents' home and go on a shooting spree. Dumber alledgedly killed the exes parents and her brother. Fortunately, he missed the ex and a couple of others.

Police rounded up Dumb and Dumber shortly thereafter and even taped them bitching at each other after their arrests. They could and should face the death penalty. In fact, in Doug's World, they'd just be taken out in back, shot in the head, and dumped in a sewer.

Same for the two evidently criminal masterminds who alledgedly conspired to burn down a Cicero, Illinois apartment building for the insurance money. Cops busted the two of them last week. Mastermind Number One reportedly told Mastermind Number Two, "Set the fire in the afternoon when the kids are at school." The apartment building went up in flames at 6:30 one morning and the fire killed seven people, including children and even a newborn.

And then we come to my favorite Buffoons: a family of them, in fact. I call them the Phlegms. They are members of a religious cult, led by the Rev Pherd Phlegm, in my opinion one of the more aggressively evil bastards of our time. The Phlegms claim God hates homosexuals and they take their message, in particular, to the funerals of those who have died in the service of our country. The U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it will hear the appeal of a case filed against Rev. Phlegm and his snot-nosed crew. The lower court and a court of appeals denied the claim of a military family that the Rev's demonstration at their son's funeral caused them harm. We'll see what the Supremes have to say.

My guess is, the Justices will uphold the Phlegms' wanton and intentionally cruel displays of prejudice, all in the name of nothing more than getting cheap publicity for their buffoonery, as Free Speech.

However, I suspect the Highest Court will view the Rev Phlegm and his followers with far less tolerance.

Guns, Guns and More Guns

If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the Chicago handgun ban when it rules in June, I'll be overjoyed.

I will also be apprehensive.

I enjoy target shooting and I agree with the folks who believe the Second Amendment gives us the right to own firearms, including handguns. I also agree, however, that there can and should be restrictions on that right.

For example, if one of my neighbors could legally own an automatic rifle, I suspect he would be out shopping for one now. To repel the hordes of whoever from raping and pillaging when the evil red menace takes over the world. Actually have two neighbors who think like that. It's sort of comforting, really. I know I'll be well protected when Mad Max comes calling. Or at least, all the shooting at that end of the street will let me know when he's in the neighborhood.

The problem is that one of those neighbors doesn't believe he needs any training to own a firearm. "I've messed around with guns since I was a kid," he told me a few weeks ago. "So now I got my FOID card, where do I go to buy a pistol?"

Some gun safety is intuitive. Assume it's always loaded. Don't point it at anything you don't intend to shoot. Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. Those sorts of things.

As with many activities, however, the problem arises when you don't practice. Practice handling your weapon and practice using your weapon.

If the Supreme Court throws out Chicago's gun ban, many people will buy a handgun without a moment's thought of learning how to appropriately and safely use it. They'll ooh and ahh over it, show their friends, throw it in a drawer and leave it for the next burglar who stops by to take it when they aren't home. Or worse.

Yes, you have a right to own a handgun. Absolutely. With it, however, comes responsibility to know how and when to use it. And how to store it in such a fashion that it will be available to you when necessary and not be the spoils of someone else's looting spree. Or, worse, your child's curiosity.

Serious gun owners know the rules and accept the requirements of ownership.

It's the frivolous ones who make me nervous.

But you go, Justices. Rid Chicago of Daley and the Rev JJ's law. Maybe then some of the bad guys will be a little nervous, too.