IRISH EYES HAVE ANOTHER REASON TO FROWN

1/29/10

Of all the posts on this blog, the one on which I received the most compliments was my 3/27/09 piece, IRISH EYES HAVE A REASON TO SMILE, in which I wholeheartedly agreed with the cancellation of the annual drunken brawl, and slap in the faces of my forefathers, that the South Side Irish Parade had become. I heartily recommend that piece both on it own merit (If I can say so myself, it is one terrific piece of writing, if something of a departure from the normal fare, if such a thing exists, of this blog.) and as background for this post.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports on the efforts of a Mr. George Kelleher, a resident of Evergreen Park, one of the suburbs abutting the 19th Ward in which the South Side Irish Parade was held until its cancellation after last year’s especially egregious display of shameless behavior. Young Mr. Kelleher is leading a crusade to conduct a pub crawl (The term “pub crawl” always seemed to be a bit too cutesy-pie for my tastes, something more akin to Lincoln, than to Western, Avenue, but that is another matter.) along the western side of Western Avenue, known in some quarters as the “Irish Death March,” which is an appropriate moniker in more ways than one, on the traditional day of the parade, the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day. This year, that Sunday is March 14. It appears that if Mr. Kelleher and the 13,000 folks who have gone to Facebook to pledge to show up for the revelry have their way, a drunken orgy of (literally) urinating and regurgitating on Irish-American heritage with a parade as a rationalization will be replaced with a drunken orgy of (literally) urinating and regurgitating on Irish-American heritage with no parade as a rationalization. St. Patrick, St. Brendan, St. Bridget, Eamon DeValera, Michael Collins, James Joyce, Cardinal O’Connor, and Richard J. Daley would be so proud!

I echo the sentiments of one Sarah Cullina, a resident of the neighborhood who, according to the Sun-Times, responded to Mr. Kelleher’s plans with the following:

“On behalf of those who live in Beverly…If you don’t have a party to attend please don’t show up in the neighborhood, get blacked out by 10:00 A.M., puke, fight, go to the bathroom, or have sex on our front lawns or in our alleys or backyards.”

I write this piece, however, not to lambaste Mr. Kelleher and his plans to further caricature his forefathers who probably didn’t know that they came to this country and worked like mules on canals and railroads so that their descendants could equate their heritage, country, and Church with alcohol addled lasciviousness. No, I write this piece to use Alderman Ginger Rugai’s reaction to these developments to lambaste our country’s political class.

I have nothing against Alderman Rugai specifically; I know her only to say hi and I doubt if she would know me were we to meet at Sacred Heart, Lume’s, St. Walter, or one of the other places in the old neighborhood I so much enjoy visiting. I think I voted for her in 1991. She seems to do a pretty good job for the ward. She garners only two criticisms, from what I hear: First, she, like one of her predecessors as 19th Ward alderman, Thomas Fitzpatrick, known as Tommy Fitz, is regarded as little more than a silent lapdog for Mayor Daley. That, however, is not considered much of a criticism by most 19th Ward voters, or certainly enough 19th Ward voters to vote out Ms. Rugai. Second, she has been accused of favoring Beverly, the large, somewhat more upscale neighborhood in the eastern reaches of the ward, where she resides, over Mt. Greenwood, the large, somewhat less upscale neighborhood in the western reaches of the ward. She seems to have, in recent years, remedied, or at least tried to appear to remedy, her apparent, to some people, favoritism toward Beverly at the expense of the rest of the ward. Whatever the criticisms of Ms. Rugai, they have never been of sufficient intensity to cause her political trouble; though she usually garners more than token opposition, she generally wins reelection quite handily and thus has been alderman of the 19th since 1990. Rumor (and perhaps more than rumor; I don’t get back to the ward as often as I’d like) has it that she will face a far more serious than usual challenge in 2011 from relatively new ward committeeman, Matt O’Shea, in one of the intramural battles that has come to characterize 19th ward politics in recent years. It will be interesting to see where such neighborhood political denizens like the Sheahans, the Hynses, the Joyces, and the Darts come down should such a contest develop, but, at least for now, Rugai seems to be quite comfortable in her office. But I digress.

Alderman Rugai, when she had gotten wind of Mr. Kelleher’s plans to further dishonor both my old neighborhood and my ancestry, said “I doubt very much that number (13,000 Facebook “definites” and 7,000 Facebook “probables” for Mr. Kelleher’s “pub crawl”) of people will actually show up. But I’ve made police aware of it (Emphasis mine), and I think they will be prepared.”

Alderman Rugai has “made police aware of it”? Since when do the police need a politician to tell them that there might be trouble brewing in their district, a district that has one of the heaviest concentrations in the city of residents who are police officers and fire fighters? Alderman Rugai, probably unwittingly, by making this asinine statement, betrays the hubris that characterizes the modern day politician. We, all of us, the police, everybody, are helpless without guidance from our political “leadership.” The police can’t do their jobs, we can’t live our lives, without help from our obvious betters who have somehow hoodwinked and bought their way into public office.

Again, Alderman Rugai is not at all unique in this attitude; everyone, it seems, who holds or seeks a public office is guided by the idea that he or she is guided by some superior wisdom and insight that only he or she, or his or her class of Olympians, possesses. It is his or her mission to favor the benighted masses by serving as their leader. If doing so results in him or her making a few bucks on the side, hey, he or she deserves it. What would the unwashed masses do without them?

And, no, I’m not making too much of a seemingly idle comment by a relatively obscure politician. That Rugai probably didn’t even notice, and probably can’t recall, the comment just shows how ingrained such messianic thinking is in our politicians.