I've read you and Drive Time making fun of road projects that go on and on, like the one at Sunset and Delany. Did you notice that they've finally finished the construction at Route 137 and Butterfield in Libertyville by Sunset Foods? I think that one started when Clinton was in office.
Liberated in Libertyville
Dear Lib:
Do you believe in miracles? Yes! According to the Lake County Division of Transportation, the final stage of improvements to Butterfield Road -- including the final paving at Route 137 -- "is now completed." Area motorists won't know what to do without all the orange barrels, which have become like family over the last two to 10 years.
For the official record, the $36 million widening of Butterfield all the way from Route 45 in Mundelein/Vernon Hills to Route 137 in Libertyville started in 1998, so even though you were joking with the Clinton thing, you were dangerously close to being literal. However, the specific intersection work you refer to, according to the county anyway, has only been going on since November 2006.
Ah, November 2006. Such a long, long time ago. Think about it. Donald Rumsfeld was still your Secretary of Defense (though he would resign that month). Saddam Hussein was still alive and kicking (he would be executed the following month). November 2006 is when the Chicago Cubs signed Alfonso Soriano for $136 million, and your top movies at the box office included "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
It was when the Bears were the best team in the NFC, on the road to Super Bowl XLI.
In other words, if it seems like this was one operation that dragged on for a while, that's only because it was.
This week's news headlines today, only from the crystal ball of The Swami:
... after everyone gets a few hours to pass along the news that a teen was decapitated while trespassing underneath Batman: The Ride at Six Flags Over Georgia, thousands of Lake County residents will be grossly misinformed that 10 people were severed in half while walking through Wiggles World at Six Flags Great America ...
... someone who came of age watching "Jackass" will visit a Lake County emergency room either Thursday or Friday night after using a lit cigarette to light an M-100 purchased out of the back of a guy's van ...
... five months after the entertainment world was freed from the grips of the Writers Guild of America strike, the Screen Actors Guild will threaten to go on strike, setting up the historic possibility of Olivia de Havilland walking a picket line with Rob "Deuce Bigalow" Schneider ...
... and actor Kevin Bacon will celebrate his 50th birthday within six steps from every person on Earth.
A friend of mine forwarded this story about Chicago's traffic being the third-worst in America, behind Los Angeles and New York. Forget all those computers -- what's your take on Chicago traffic vs. the rest of the country?
Daniel B. Ryan
Dear Dan:
Third place? That means Chicago is just the second loser. Or maybe the second winner, as the case might be.
While The Swami is tempted to invoke the Local Bias Privilege and recklessly claim that Chicago's bad traffic is second to none, the words of a former News-Sun editor who lived in both northeastern Illinois and Southern California ring in the ears: "Don't ever say that Chicago traffic is gridlocked. Los Angeles is gridlocked. Everything else is just a traffic jam."
Nevertheless, The Swami isn't convinced that this Global Positioning Satellite analysis is infallible. True, it ranks the eastbound Eisenhower Expressway at Mannheim Road as the worst bottleneck in the Chicago area. To deny this is to deny that a bear relieves itself in the woods.
But Lake County is nowhere to be found on the study's ranking of the 25 worst bottlenecks in the Chicago metropolitan area. Have these robots never been in downtown Barrington or downtown Libertyville at rush hour? Or on the northbound Tri-State at Grand Avenue when Great America opens for business? Or on Route 45 through Wildwood when the College of Lake County is in session? Or on Route 120 through Grayslake and Hainesville during any rush hour, but especially when the sun is setting in the faces of drivers?
Nay, none of these local headaches made the cut, nor did they have any apparent bearing on Chicago's overall ranking. Which, come to think of it, might be a good thing after all ...
Upon further review, let's all keep quiet up here in Lake County about our relatively tame bottlenecks. The poor saps going 13.1 mph on the Dan Ryan for 95 hours a week might move up here -- and bring their hell with them.
I read last week where you were picking on Six Flags for putting those $1 lockers at ride entrances, and a little while back you were said the new Six Flags mascot is lame. What is your problem with Six Flags, anyway?
Ashley in Gurnee
Dear Ashley:
Rather than address the big picture here, The Swami is going to focus on a single hidden element in your complaint: your use of the term "Six Flags" to describe the amusement park that is now, always has been and always shall be GREAT AMERICA.
Evidently, seeing that your name is one of the most popular U.S. girl names from the 1990s, you are a member of this younger generation that calls our local theme park "Six Flags," as mandated by Madison Avenue. This is wrong on so many levels, not the least of which is the fact that the history behind the name "Six Flags" has everything to do with Texas (home of the original theme park under that banner) and nothing to do with Illinois, the Chicago Metro Area, Lake County, Warren Township or Gurnee.
Young lady, long before there was a "Six Flags Great America," it was known as "Marriott's Great America," and for a short time it was technically "Bally's Great America." At no time did anyone call the park "Marriott's" or "Bally's." It was simply Great America. That's all you had to say, and no one confused what you were saying with Kiddieland or Old Chicago. Or Six Flags Over Mid-America, as they used to call the one in St. Louis.
So join The Swami in a new and ambitious campaign to educate the current and coming generations on the proper name for that little corner of $54.99 heaven on Grand Avenue. It is called Great America -- just as it will be when, not if, Six Flags sells the naming rights to U.S. Cellular or WaMu.
This week's news headlines today, only from the crystal ball of The Swami:
... the void in pop-culture-trash voyeurism left by the end of the R. Kelly trial will be filled by ... hmmm ... oh, let's just say "that troubled actress who makes us feel better about not being famous," because one of them is overdue ...
... floodwaters will recede in both Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, Iowa, to reveal that there are, in fact, both a Cedar Rapids and a Des Moines, Iowa ...
... your No. 1 movie at the box office for the weekend of June 20-22 will be either "The Incredible Hulk" or "Get Smart." Whatever the choice, Americans will be paying $9 a pop for something they once saw for free on television ...
... and the annual renewal of the Cub-Sox Interleague Rivalry will result in 974 arrests for disorderly conduct between drunken Cubs and Sox fans -- and that's only counting the arrests at family barbecues, not the ones at Wrigley Field.
I read about how the Northbrook fire chief says the Edens Spur is so unsafe these days he wouldn't let his own family drive on it. I don't usually drive to Chicago, but I'm heading down there a few times this summer for the Taste and stuff like that. What should I do?
Max Rockatansky
Dear Mad Max:
Stay home. Or take the train. Seriously, if you don't like the Edens and/or the Tri-State and/or the Spur during a good year, you will hate it this summer, when the first two are undergoing surgery and the third is suffering sympathy pains.
The problem should have been foreseen by mere mortals not blessed with a crystal ball: traffic limps on both the Tri-State and the Edens, but it has a chance to sprint on the Spur. You know how you get stuck in stop-and-go traffic for an hour, and when you get even a quarter-mile of open road, you floor it just to blow off steam? That's the recipe right now, and it's one made for disaster. People are flying on the Spur just because they can -- even though, as it turns out, they really can't.
The Swami foresees that adjustments will be made in the same way that school buses eventually started stopping at all railroad crossings -- after a few accidents forced the issue. This will make for safer travel, if not smoother (imagine a one-lane Edens Spur on a 95-degree July afternoon).
P.S. If you don't like taking public transportation, Waukegan Road and Milwaukee Avenue are options, though you will want to add two weeks to your travel time in each case.
Did you see where United Airlines is going to start charging $15 for every checked bag? Everyone's got their hands out for more, more, more. Where is the outrage?
Beside Myself in Bannockburn
Dear B.M.:
To answer your first question, yes, of course The Swami saw that United is going to take away a freebie -- The Swami sees all, usually before it happens. That's the definition of being a seer, after all.
As for your second question about The Outrage: there is plenty of it to go around in America, but it is reserved for things like politics, religion and recreational activities played by other people (a.k.a. professional sports). If there is any impotent rage left over for economic issues, it is used on the price of gas ... and, here in Lake County this summer, on the new policy by Six Flags Great America to charge customers $1 every time they want to check a bag, camera or other valuable that can't be brought on a ride.
That's right -- no more sticking that floppy hat or sandals in an open box before jumping on your favorite vomit rocket. Now you have to pay a buck for one of those tiny lockers with the key that works exactly once ... or you don't ride the ride.
Where is the outrage? There is the outrage. The Swami foresees that you will hear an earful about this from everyone you know who goes to Great America this summer.
Gazing into the crystal ball to see what will become of the Fox River, the Des Plaines River and, just for kicks, the Wisconsin Dells as this stretch of Biblical rainfall plays out:
... the Fox and the Des Plaines will try to refuse what Wisconsin sends on down the pipe, but just as water finds its own level in your ice cube trays, some gifts from nature cannot be returned ...
... there will be sandbagging along the Chain and in Gurnee before the week is out, but, fortunately, there are many sandbags left exactly where they were from last August -- a sight that was an eyesore before the summer rains arrived ...
... up in the Dells, the question isn't whether Lake Delton will be refilled, it is how quickly. Anyone who thinks the Tommy Bartlett Ski, Sky & Stage Show should become the Tommy Bartlett Stage Show, or who thinks the Original Wisconsin Ducks should be restricted to dry land, is simply un-American ...
... while many of these issues of wetness will have to reveal themselves over time, one thing The Swami can say with ironclad certainty: after all of this unreasonable precipitation, we are going to get eaten alive by mosquitoes this summer, starting right about ... NOW.
Not sure if this is your department, but maybe you can settle an argument between me and the wife. Last Saturday night when the tornado sirens went off in our neighborhood, she ran down in the basement and I ran outside with my video camera. She yelled at me even though I didn't get killed. Who was right and who was wrong here?
Mad in Mundelein
Dear M in M:
The Swami is not normally in the business of Dear Abby and Miss Manners, but if you are silly enough to ask, here goes nothing: You were right. Let your wife's counterattack begin.
True, everyone from the National Weather Service to the Federal Emergency Management Agency would advise otherwise, but who are we supposed to listen to in the age of Public Journalism -- the boring old safety patrol, or the cool popular crowd?
Some would say that the instant-video culture is encouraging people like you to risk their lives for a moment of fame. The Swami would be one of the people saying that, by the way, but let's not let common sense get in the way of your potential moment of glory on YouTube or iReports.
So next time the storm sirens wail, you go right ahead and run around looking to get your name on CNN and MSNBC. Just don't get decapitated by a flying sheet of plywood while doing it -- Big Media might run a brief clip of a local tornado, but when it comes to victims, they usually just give the numbers and not the names.
Tomorrow's news today, only from the crystal ball of The Swami:
-- Some people will complain about tornado sirens going off in the absence of a tornado in Lake County. These will be the same squeaky wheels who would complain if the sirens did not go off before a tornado took them by surprise ...
-- ... now that she has given in to the inevitable and "suspended" her campaign roughly two months after all logic demanded it, Hillary Clinton will spend the next five months trying to explain that her new best friend, Barack Obama, actually is capable of picking up a telephone at 3 in the morning. Suggested line during stump speeches on behalf of her candidate: "Who are you going to believe -- me now, or me then?" ...
-- ... John McCain, who has been running against Obama since St. Patrick's Day, will continue to mock his presumptive opponent in speeches obviously written by someone else, in front of noticeably tame crowds who wish he was Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson ...
-- ... as for Obama, he and his spin doctors will spend the next six to eight weeks preparing Swiftboat countermeasures ...
-- ... and Lake County residents, especially those with large homes in villages that can afford such luxuries, will both crank up the air conditioning 'round the clock and continue to object to the presence of anything resembling a power-generating station in their community. This is the summertime equivalent of having your cake and eating it, too.
Remember Mr. Six? That little old man with the big glasses who used to dance on commercials for Great America? Someone told me that Six Flags dumped him because their owner thought he was creepy. So now they got this kid with a giant head yelling "MORE FLAGS! MORE FUN!" Can you get him fired?
Creeped Out
Dear Creep:
Indeed, the rumor in 2005 was that Six Flags Chairman Daniel Snyder (the same suit who also owns, unsuccessfully, the Washington Redskins) killed Mr. Six. Or, at least, he deep-sixed the Mr. Six ad campaign. But who are we to argue with a man who made a fortune in direct-marketing, and who no doubt wipes his nose with $100 bills?
Back to your question: The Swami agrees that the new Six Flags mascot is at least as annoying, if not more so. And The Swami will have to ask his Asian-American friends if they are offended by the young man's accent and general comportment, which call to mind Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" or Gedde Watanabe as The Donger in "Sixteen Candles."
We'll leave that debate for another day and forum. For our purposes today, the call is simple: Bring Mr. Six back to the people who love to hate him.
I'm e-mailing you while watching all this news coverage about Barack Obama winning the Democratic nomination. Since you claim to be able to see the future, who will win in November -- Barack Obama or John McCain?
Undecided Voter in America
Dear U.V.A.:
Your query is a non-starter because it fails to recognize one stubborn fact: Hillary Clinton. Can she win? Of course not -- everything from the math to the party's power structure is against her at this point. But can she be stopped? Once again, of course not. She is the Little Engine That Couldn't -- still chugging up the hill, even though the hill keeps growing and growing and growing and ...
Eventually, true enough, it will be Barack Obama against John McCain for all the marbles. But not before Clinton and her 18 million voters get their pound of flesh -- in this case, the vice-presidential nomination. Even with no money and no prospects, she's staying in right now simply to make it impossible for Obama to say "no" without committing electoral suicide.
So, nay, The Swami will not gaze into the crystal ball on who will take the oath as our 44th president on Jan. 20, 2009, until all the players are in place. For now, all the crystal ball can tell us is that ... hmmm ... on the Republican side, it will be McCain and ... whoever makes him look more appealing to the reddest Red Staters ... and on the Democratic side, well, who are we kidding here? Obama and Clinton -- a "when" not "if" proposition if ever there was one.
We here at the Lake County Bureau of Bigwigs read with interest your May 29 posting, tastefully entitled "Pimp my road." You mocked some of the road projects scheduled for the coming years, proving only that it is easy to be a cynic. Time to put up or shut up. What Lake County road improvements would YOU put on the schedule?
Sincerely,
Deciding Decider
Dear Double D:
Oh, so many roads, so little space in a mere blog.
-- The York House Road extension: This is metropolitan Chicago, not one of the Dakotas. Roads should not go nowhere.
-- Repaving of Grand Avenue by Gurnee Mills: Yes, we all know it's a state road, blah blah blah. Whoever has the available funds should pave it anyway -- before someone has to be extricated from a 20-foot-deep pit.
-- The Route 53 extension from Lake Cook Road to Route 120: Don't be fooled. This project hasn't happened yet simply because of a lack of political muscle, not because of opposition from the environmental crowd. In fact, the scrubland-preservationists who have lobbied against it apparently see nothing wrong with the grimy hordes of 18-wheelers choking the blue sky with exhaust while stuck on Route 83, Route 45, Route 120 and every other underfed roadway in the middle of the county. Let freedom roll!
-- Addition of left- and/or right-turn lanes at (insert name of any major to mid-major roadway in the county that does not have a left- or right-turn bay at every possible intersection): While our politicians in Washington, Springfield and Waukegan obsess over the big things, it is the little things that would make all the difference for the tortured masses stuck in day-to-day traffic.
There is more, so much more, but The Swami wouldn't want anyone's head to explode.
