Tomorrow's news today, only from the crystal ball of The Swami:
... with schools closing for the summer and their buses getting off the roads, your commute to and from work in Lake County will be shortened ... by five to 10 seconds ...
... with the Michigan and Florida trump cards having been played and the game still not being won, Hillary Clinton will insist that Bill Clinton's surplus delegates from the 1996 Democratic primaries be included in her total for 2008 ...
... Barack Obama will issue I pre-emptive "I am disappointed" press release for every person he has known, met on the street or glanced at in a hallway since 1981 ...
... John McCain will sip iced tea in the shade of a live oak tree, pausing now and then to break into convulsive laughter at the Democratic roller derby ...
... and, as night falls in communities around Lake County, the first pops, cracks and explosions from illegal fireworks will start to count down the days until the Fourth of July.
A preview of proposed Lake County road improvements that will or won't get done with the new gravy from the state sales tax -- only from the crystal ball of The Swami:
-- Widening of Washington Street from Hunt Club Road to Cemetery Road in Gurnee: Completed next month. People, this is one-half mile of roadway. You and your brother-in-law could buy the asphalt at Home Depot and knock it out in a weekend.
-- Traffic signal interconnections on Grand Avenue from Route 131 to Sheridan Road in Waukegan: Completed next week -- by hiring ten guys and giving them red, yellow and green flashlights. Anything would be better than the current system.
-- Widening of Delany Road from Tanahill Drive to York House Road, Waukegan/Gurnee: Completed in 2009. Among the beneficiaries of this proposal would be employees of the Lake County News-Sun. Never underestimate the political influence of the mainstream media.
-- Realignment of the intersection of Peterson Road and Route 60 in Round Lake Park: Completed in 2012. It would be sooner, but they will spend years clearing out the wreckage of cars destroyed while trying to pass on the shoulder.
-- Construction of a Route 45 bypass around the "Millburn Strangler": Will never be completed. Some road monsters are like Jason in the "Friday the 13th" movies, and this is one of them. Even when it looks dead, don't you believe it.
I heard "Big Jim" Thompson asked George Bush to pardon George Ryan. I would like you to predict when, not if, this is going to happen, because we all know it's going to happen.
Cynical Sam
Dear Sam-ala:
You are obviously a very practical man, not wasting your time with such foolish things as possibilities in a situation that is all about probability. You've noticed that we live in a post-Nixon world where Executive Clemency has become the democratic version of royal fiat, and everyone from Marc Rich to Scooter Libby can fly away as free as the proverbial bird, all at the wave of a politically aligned hand.
And now to your question: When will the 74-year-old Ryan be freed from breaking rocks at the federal white-collar prison in Terre Haute, Ind.? The Swami foresees ... that Lura Lynn can start making plans to set an extra plate at the Thanksgiving table.
That would be three weeks after Election Day, when all bets are off for a lame duck.
The other day it cost me like a hundred bucks to fill up my Chevy Suburban for a holiday weekend trip to Paddock Lake, then I saw this news story about how SUVs and trucks as personal vehicles are "an endangered species." Does this mean I should trade in my Suburban for one of them little "smart" cars that look like a roller skate?
Sincerely,
Conspicuous Consumption
Dear Consumer:
Here's hoping that your 32-gallon tank got you all the way up to Highway 50 and County B. And no doubt your Suburban's four-wheel-drive capability came in handy on the towering, rock-covered mountains of Kenosha County.
Anyway, peering into the crystal ball, The Swami sees a day when SUVs are more expensive to operate than they are worth. That day was, oh, a Thursday in the summer of 1986, or around the time SUV mania hit the American marketplace.
But The Swami does not advise you to ditch your rolling financial sinkhole. The American economy might collapse entirely without those $100-a-week gas purchases filling the feed-bag for Big Oil. You keep fighting the good fight.
Memorial Day Weekend's news today -- only from the crystal ball of The Swami:
... Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama will actually take a day or two off from the warpath, knowing that no one with a life pays attention to the news on a holiday weekend anyway ...
... that bag of charcoal briquettes that you left in the garage to freeze and thaw all winter will not light no matter what you put on it at the family barbecue -- and, yes, this would include gasoline ...
... motorists who bite the bullet and fill up their tanks at $75 a pop to travel north to Wisconsin or south to Michi-ana will be amazed at how open the roads are, since everyone else will be staying home and saving up for Tuesday's trip to work ...
... that roaring sound you will hear around 10 a.m. Monday will be the wild cheering of dentists everywhere, thrilled that children at Memorial Day parades will pick up pounds of fresh candy to rot out their teeth ...
... and the mercury will finally top the 80-degree mark in Lake County on Sunday, bringing with it a humidity that will make us pine for the refreshing north winds of February.
.
Just last weekend, in response to Waiting in Waukegan, The Swami predicted that the ongoing ongoing ongoing ongoing roadwork at Sunset and Delany roads would be completed in roughly two decades. The outrageous prediction elicited this response via e-mail from a source with the Lake County Division of Transportation:
"The Sunset Avenue reconstruction/ widening project between Delany (and) Green Bay is currently over 50 percent complete ... Completion is anticipated for the end of August, dependent on weather and other factors beyond the Contractor's control."
(read the complete response here or at http://blogs.suburbanchicagonews.com/swami/ under May 16 comments)
So there you have it. Although it could be noted that the message only says "the end of August," and not the exact year ...
Tomorrow's news today -- only from the crystal ball of The Swami:
... Hillary Clinton will win Kentucky on Tuesday, which will then be transformed into America's electoral bellwether by the James Carville culture.
... Barack Obama will win Oregon on the same Tuesday, and declare the de-facto victory that every pundit has declared he will declare after winning the Beaver State, historically known as America's electoral bellwether.
... "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" will dominate the box-office all through Memorial Day weekend, even as tubby 35-year-old bachelors hit the blogosphere to nit-pick it to death and unfavorably compare it to the movies from their idealized youth.
... and, also with the approach of Memorial Day, the cost of a gallon of gasoline will rocket from "You've Got to be Kidding Me" to "You've Got to be @&*# kidding me."
Every morning and afternoon I drive on Sunset Avenue between Delany Road and Green Bay Road. Construction has been going on for two years and it seems the road is only getting worse. Can you please look into your crystal ball and let us know when those workers are going to finish the job?
Waiting in Waukegan,
Dear Waiting,
The Swami shares in your angst, having made the trip through the Neverending Road Project far too many times. The most fascinating thing about it is how they change the route and the roadside obstacles every other week, as if trying to win a public art contest.
In fact, you might have noticed that they put down some beautiful new sod on the north side of Sunset in recent weeks, even while the roadway itself is still in therapy. Kind of like putting a bonnet on a hippo.
Anyway, on to your question: Let us peer into the ball of crystal and see when this reconstruction and widening of Sunset between Delany and Green Bay (the road, not the city in Wisconsin) will be complete ...
Hmmm ... it's not perfectly clear, but let's put it this way -- helping to cut the ribbon is a Democratic presidential candidate named Chelsea Clinton ...
omg th PITA old ppl on th waukgn skl brd wnt 2 tkaway my right 2 uz a cell n txt my BFFs drrng skl. Wht shld i do?
B4N,
wr eed in wkgn
Dear Worried:
Fortunately, The Swami speaks text, so your plea for help was not in vain. You are, of course, referring to the brewing controversy about banning the use "portable electronic devices" at Waukegan Public Schools, a move that would deprive Generation Text of its means to exist in the world.
The Swami forsees that, 10 years from now, we will all look back at 2008 and chuckle at how cute we all were with our "hand-held" communications devices and all the clumsy rules we wrestled with to keep the kids in line. No, we will not be communicating via telekinesis -- it will be via facial expressions that have yet to be envisioned by science.
But you ask what can be done to deal with the crisis at hand in May 2008. Let's review the options. You can't vote the school board members out of office, because you're probably not yet 18. You can't hire a big-shot attorney from the Bill Gates crowd, because you probably don't make much more than minimum wage at this point. And you can't write a stern letter of protest, because, as seen above, you've lost all ability to use vowels, capital letters and coherent thought.
In other words, The Swami advises you to get ready for a painful period of adjustment, because you might hold the future in your hands, but the old people still hold all the power.
Last month you called on the Waukegan City Council to get rid of public comment time, and instead they came up with some list of "commandments" to keep people in line. Since they didn't listen to you the first time, what's your alternate plan?
Ferme La Bouche
Monsieur:
The most disappointing thing about Waukegan's new "comment commandments" is that, even though they were clearly going for a Moses/Mount Sinai thing, they only came up with SEVEN commandments. If the mayor and alder-people were really looking to make a statement, they should have poured some strong coffee, pulled an all-nighter and cranked out three more commandments. Or just called them "the seven deadly sins" or something.
Let The Swami show you how easy this could have been. Here, off the top of Swami's turban, are three commandments they should have thrown on the tablets:
VIII: Thou shalt not put the senior alderman to sleep during your allotted three minutes.
IX: Thou shalt not forget to state your name and address before speaking. If you forget or otherwise fail to do so, you will be summarily wrestled to the ground, pepper-sprayed, handcuffed and thrown into a concrete cell that hasn't been mopped in weeks.
X: Thou shalt not express moral outrage over anything less than homicides, criminal abuse of authority, and/or bona fide civil rights violations. Everything else is a pet peeve and you should already know that no one else cares.
There you have it. If you're going to go ahead and do something like allow public comment, you might as well do it right.
Are you related to the substitute teacher in Florida fired from his job and accused of wizardry -- because he made a toothpick disappear? And how do you plan to console him at the next family reunion?
Harold Potter
Dear Harry:
I don't know how it's done in the 21st century, much less in Florida, but when The Swami went to wizard school, we had to make more than a puny toothpick disappear. And, no, we didn't play Quidditch -- we played euchre and pinochle.
But back to the crisis at hand. While his toothpick trick is somewhat impressive, the Swami is betting on this substitute teacher being a mere mortal and not a blood relative. But if the gatekeepers at the Pasco County School District want to be sure there are no pagan rituals being performed in front of the students, they can always drop him in a well to see if he will float.
Just to review that process for those who didn't study their history: if he floats, then he's a wizard, and it's time to arrange a good old-fashioned stoning; if he doesn't float, he's not a wizard ... but the problem solves itself.
P.S. Pay no attention to the expanded information that this teacher is actually in trouble for failing to follow lesson plans and for allowing a student to oversee the class. Never let the follow-up facts get in the way of a good story of hysteria.
What's all this about Judge David Hall having his DUI case moved to Kane County? How is driving an hour away going to keep a fellow judge from going easy on him? I mean, justice is supposed to be blind, but let's face it, everyone takes care of their own in this world.
Call Me Skeptical
OK, "Skeptical":
Does the Swami detect cynicism and lack of faith in our system? Of course -- it's not like you were tip-toeing around the china shop or anything.
Apparently, you noticed that anyone and everyone wearing a black robe in Lake County yelled "NOT IT" when it came time to decide who would call David Hall before the bar. So they shipped the mess out to Kane County, perhaps thinking that judges in Geneva will not have read any newspaper articles, or participated in back-bench gossip, or otherwise discovered that this "David Hall" is a.k.a. "Judge David Hall."
But The Swami foresees that justice will be as impartial as possible in this case -- because if the Star Chamber really wanted to have someone issue a quiet dismissal or a slap on the wrist, they would have shipped the circus waaaaaay down south of Effingham and issued both a gag order and really bad directions to the courthouse.
By the way, Skeptical, the Kane County Courthouse is located at 100 South Third Street, Geneva, Ill., 60134. Visit www.mapquest.com for all your watchdog needs.
I'm outraged that the Grayslake mayor and police chief canceled the motorcycle show at the fairgrounds last weekend. Was this a legitimate threat, or was it just "biker" profiling by the cops?
Ticked on the Tri-State
Tick:
The short answer: A little from category a, and a little from category b. When the Grayslake village people called off the planned Ironhorse Roundup Bike Show, the natives were restless because it was done late on a Friday and, some say, the news was sent out by carrier pigeon.
When the full explanation came out, the situation was still testy, but at least there was a worst-case scenario to envision: If the Grayslake bigwigs were told about a gang threat on Friday and went ahead with an event on Sunday and violence broke out that left someone dead on Monday, there would be absolute hell to pay, not to mention many lawyers.
On the other hand, gang threats are not exactly rare things in this part of the world, and you can bet that basketball games and football games have gone off as planned, not just here but everywhere, after John Law received "information about circumstances which threaten the health and public safety of those attending the event." They just pump up the numbers of constables, keep an extra eye open, send people through a few more checkpoints, and the terrorists don't win.
So maybe the powers-that-be erred on the side of over-caution. Whatever the case, the Swami foresees that there will not be peace in the valley until Grayslake successfully hosts a motorcycle show and everyone forgets an angry weekend in May 2008.
Wait a minute ... maybe Vince Neil can act as a peacemaker ...
