Thanks for nothin'

"Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical." -- Yogi Berra

Well, of course, some people give their hearts and toil to the town. But Swami fears it’s not just enough of them.
When a city claims it wants to spend millions for a public banquet center but can’t keep its muni pools open, there’s a problem with priorities and community adhesion.

But Swami has a more personal story.

A friend we know at the New-Sun does lots of sports stories on topics that normal sport guys don’t.

He even does supportive stories about competitive high school cheerleading as if it were a real sport. News-Swami thinks kite-flying and cow-patty-tossing are cool sports, too, but almost no one else does.

Most sports newsies consider cheerleading as a pleasant but useless interlude between the real games. It gets a monumental zero on the “who-gives-a-bleep-meter” for them. They might write an occasional story because some editor tells them to do it for its “diversity.” Editors love to use that word.

Anyway, this guy really likes the sport and works hard to tell its stories. Mostly, he’s an advocate for kids, especially the ones who have it tough.

He did one of those stories on North Chicago High this week, even though North Chicago is so down the list of things the rest of the county cares about, you'd need a sonar depth finder to feel any pulse.

As he was walking through the school a day later, he heard a school employee shout out to the coach that her team had been in the paper and wondered if she’d read it. No, she said. Then, without a hello or acknowledgment of his existence, she walked past the reporter who had interviewed her and the team. Later that day, he shrugged his shoulders. You get what you get.

Swami thinks there are too many people from North Chicago who will complain this is just another “negative” story. There are too few who would have stopped to shake his hand and say a genuine thanks. He won’t ask for that. It’s not his way. But I would as the Swami.

Communities are built. Indifference destroys them.

News folks weren’t born as cynics. They get lots of help on that from the people they write about.

ON some days, North Chicago really depresses the News-Swami. Nice folks generally. But no one has so many friends that you can afford rudeness to one of them.

Thus spake the Swami. Sim-sala-bim which is Arabic for: "Don't take any wooden quarters."