Dems not that into you: Cohen gets IL cold shoulder

When all the ballots were counted sometime Wednesday in Illinois, and much of the squabbling had stopped about tightly contested races in the state's primary elections, the most exciting thing looked like a probable recount between Republican contenders for governor. Everyone yawned and was ready to pack up when the camera lenses focused on surprise Democratic Lieutenant Governor nominee Scott Lee Cohen.

"I was as surprised as anyone that I won," Cohen said to an assembled mob of election night reporters. The public also was surprised to find out Cohen had an arrest record for allegedly abusing a former girlfriend by holding a knife to her throat, taking anabolic steroids and flying into rages, forcing sex on his now ex-wife, missing child -support payments in order to fund his campaign--and we are just getting started with the unflattering portrait. The millionaire pawnshop owner who has no governmental experience somehow gained a few political endorsements from two Chicago aldermen, staged job fairs throughout the state, and then spent a fortune on political ads.

People claim that his spotty background came as complete surprise, but at least Mark Brown of the Chicago Sun-Times reported on the arrests. This writer heard a report of the domestic abuse arrest on the radio. Some of the other candidates tried to get other facts out into the open, one trying to warn Governor Pat Quinn.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn/ Ill. state web site

But the story got no traction. Sources say that news outlets are so strapped for cash and staff that they couldn't follow the story. Cohen, in their minds, had been written off. So the story died, and improbably, Cohen won the race.

Now that Cohen has emerged as the 500-lb. gorilla sitting in the Democrat's Illinois living room, it's proving tough to get him to leave. Quinn, who just squeaked out a win against Dan Hynes, would have Cohen as an unwanted running mate. He has called for Cohen to step down. He also wants the Illinois law changed so that the gubernatorial candidates can choose their running mates, just as presidential candidates do. Cohen has refused to cooperate.

Then Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias called for Cohen to step down. Friday morning Senate Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) also insisted that Cohen get out of the race. Democrats are frustrated and angry, because they see Cohen as the boulder that will pull the whole Democratic ticket down in November.

Democratic nominee for Senate, Alexi Giannoulias/ AP

Cohen has steadfastly contested the abuse charges, claimed that the steroid use is "long over," won't talk about the child support arrangements, and said he had a rough five years, but it's all over. He makes it sound as if this was ancient history, but most of the events took place in 2005. He has he's done nothing wrong and is sticking to the ticket unless the people want him to step down, although he doesn't explain how the people would show him their displeasure. Now, WBBM-TV, the CBS affiliate, is reporting Cohen is reportedly feeling the pressure and considering how to get out of the position he is in.

Meanwhile gleeful Republicans are making comments about how carelessly the Democrats allowed Cohen on the ballot, completely ignoring their own shaky recent history. It hasn't been too long since they had to import Alan Keyes to run against Barack Obama for Senate. And Dennis Hastert's son, Ethan Hastert, just lost a congressional nomination, proving that the old dynasties are dead. The Republicans are a party that has been in disarray ever since Gov. George Ryan went to the penitentiary. Now with solidly moderate Congressman Mark Kirk as the standard bearer for Senate, the Republicans find themselves as easy targets for right wing Tea Partiers. Kirk's opponent in the primary wasn't a true tea party candidate.

It wasn't Democratic misjudgment at fault. Cohen got on the ticket by flying under the radar. He got his petitions filed on time, he played by the rules, he never had a real police record (since the abuse arrest went unrecorded when the victim didn't show in court), and he didn't antagonize any party bigwigs. Plus the lieutenant governor job is basically one that's overlooked. No one cares very much about it, hence the lack of scrutiny.

Short of applying the famous Machine muscle (in short supply these days), the Dems probably will have to shame Cohen off the ticket. When taping "Chicago Tonight," a local news TV show on PBS, Cohen essentially told reporter Phil Ponce that if it meant that the Republicans would win, he'd step down. There was a look in his eyes that lost his signature swagger. A Democratic poll showing that voters would trend Republican with Cohen on the ticket would probably be enough to get him to move.

Deadlocked Republican governor candidates will almost surely be asking for a recount, with only 350 to 400 votes between Bill Brady and Kirk Dillard. The discovery recount, which is a smaller recount of several counties, will take at least a month to do. A full recount of the entire state (which has 102 counties) will last nearly until the November election, reminding some of the Minnesota Senate recount of 2008-2009.

So, never say this primary was dull. It started out as a total snoozer. Then it was supposed to test whether Illinois was the "next Massachusetts." It turns out that Illinois is, once again, the scandal capital of the land.

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Forget Football: It's Tennis Frenzy Down Under

By Lynn Voedisch

(First published by Blogcritics.org on Jan. 29, 2010)

Illegal motion! Penalty: change channels.

Finally, a weekend without football and what better place to enjoy it than at The Australian Open where summer is in full swing. For many of us bone-chilled Americans, it's a welcome sight to see tennis stars in tiny tennis skirts or doffing sweaty tennis shirts between sets. And, hey, they are pounding those tennis balls at a pace that makes football look lackadaisical.

We are swooping into the final weekend of the Open, held in the charming city of Melbourne, Austrailia (population: four million) and it seems there's no end to the fun or the drama. This year Justine Henin returned from retirement to shoot right back into the finals. Few doubted that she would, just as Kim Clijsters returned from retirement to grab the title at the U.S. Open last September in New York. These women are too young and too talented to spend time as homebodies.

But there was some unexpected drama on the women's side too. After sister Venus Williams folded to Chinese player Li Na, it looked as if Serena Williams was about to head home also when playing Croatian Victoria Azarenka. After losing the first set, however, Serena just roared to life. Heavily bandaged and looking more like she was headed home from the E.R. than stomping on the court for a second set, she just burst with power, suddenly pulling all those patented "Serena" moves, such as whip-like returns and highly angled, unreturnable serves. Unleashing that scream of hers, Serena became a lioness and won two sets from a rather bewildered Azarenka. "I figured I had nothing to lose," she said sweetly to announcer Pam Shriver afterwards.

Serena Williams will play Henin in the women's final at 3:30 a.m. EST (2:30 a.m. CST) on ESPN2HD Saturday morning, with replays at  8 a.m. and 10 p.m. later that day.

Rafael Nadal, the bad boy of Spain who is in continual contention with cool champion Roger Federer of Switzerland, suffered a knee injury in a match with Great Britain's Andy Murray, giving Murray a berth in the final with Federer. Of course, everyone expects Federer to win — and this is starting to hurt the sport, in my opinion, because an edgy sense of the unknown is vital to keep tennis exciting.

However, Murray is the man who could overturn Mr. Perfect. He has beaten Federer before in lesser tournaments. So put on your rally caps. It can be done. The men's final will air at 3:30 a.m. EST (2:30 a.m. CST) on ESPN2HD Sunday morning, with a replay at 10 a.m. for the surface dwellers.

Before the matches, look for interviews with the stars, amusing pastiches as the announcers attempt to eat the Aussie food product Vegemite, and perhaps a replay of Roddick's antics in the announcer's booth. Roddick, always a favorite with the staff, is known for his offbeat humor and ability to skewer everyone from John McEnroe to arch-enemy Federer himself. It's worth watching for.

And don't forget the doubles tourneys, all of which are listed on the excellent website.

Then it's back to the long slog of No Tennis, which won't end until the spring. So catch it while you can.

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El Niño pushed off the map by Arctic tough

By Lynn Voedisch

(First published by Technorati.com Jan. 13, 2010)

Et tu, El Niño?

Those of us in the Eastern half of the country have been waiting around in the deep freeze wondering when you were going to show up and get us out of this mess. After all, the meteorologists all promised that an "El Niño Winter" was on its way. It was just the thing we needed, for many of us in the northern tier from the Midwest to the Northeast hadn't had a summer and we were plenty mad about it. At least a mild winter would soften the blow.

Well here came Winter 2009-2010 roaring out of the box and it acted like it had never heard of El Niño or any of the bambino's relatives. Over on the western side of the country, sure, it was peachy. On the east, a cold front kept swirling around endlessly, driving temperatures down as far as Florida, where folks don't know what to do when the thermometer gets below 50.

The usual El Niño jet stream is a nice lazy, horizontal layer of air draped across the country. All season it doesn't change much. There's no big dip in the middle of the country bringing with it frigid Canadian air. It just brings peaceful, mild, almost spring-like conditions--without a lot of snow. The coasts tend to be beaten up by storms (sorry about that), but the inner part of the U.S. usually has an easy time of it.

This year the jet stream looks like two headlights on a cock-eyed truck that's jumped a lane. One swirl is heated and everyone's happy. The other swirl seems to be approaching absolute zero and doesn't look as if it is ever going to slow down. That was until the mind-numbing chain of freezing days broke just recently.

What happened? A confused weather-involved reader asked the Chicago Tribune what made El Niño go askew, and he got an answer citing the fact that "on average, (only) 60 percent of El Niño winters deliver above-normal temperatures and below-normal snowfall." That's the stock answer weathercasters are giving everyone. But it still doesn't make any sense.

What about this bizarre departure from the normal airflow? Explain that please. Howard Diamond of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) did just that.

It turns out that while El Niño was forming, heating the waters of the Eastern Pacific, something else was going on in another part of the world. This is Arctic Oscillation (AO), and AO has been in a negative phase for much of December and into this month.

AO is negative when surface pressures over the Arctic are normal and pressures over mid-latitudes are below normal, allowing Arctic air to push southward into North America and Europe, but leaving Greenland warmer than normal. Alaska, Greenland and Hudson Bay are all warmer than normal this winter, but it's colder than normal farther south in the U.S. and Europe. The snowcover overland doesn't let the air warm up and we end up with cold temperatures even as far south as the Florida Keys.

In a way, Greenland has created a block, pushing all that cold air at us.

The hopes for the future? Well, Diamond's not into prognostication, but it doesn't look as if old AO is going to break out of its funk any time soon. It moved eastward, allowing for the block to get out of the way and let warmer air move in, which is why we are getting a break right now, but there's no guarantee that it won't be back. Diamond says this winter is very much like the one of 1976-77, and it was a clunker too. He sent a chart of the temps, but I could barely stand to look.

And El Niño? The poor babe is powerless against this Arctic Oscillation phenomenon. It's like pitting Mighty Mouse against the Power Rangers. Sorry, El Niño, you're outclassed.o bundle up, everyone. That includes you in Orlando, too. The cold could return. There's not much to hope for this winter.

There may be no more bone-chilling outbreaks as bad as what we've just been through, but don't expect roses in March, either.

Still there's always hope. Maybe there will be a summer this year.

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The Swine Flu View

By Lynn Voedisch

(First published by Technorati.com, Jan. 7, 2010)

When I was the unlucky host of the H1N1 virus, it was the end of the dance. Hospitals stopped counting cases. Doctors seemed supremely bored with the whole thing. I even read this comment on Facebook: "when this is all over there will be a huge glut of vaccine." It was a lovely thing to read as I lay on the couch with my laptop, trying to focus my eyes, and stuffing my face full of Tamiflu.

You see, where I live, the H1N1 vaccine almost was impossible to find if you weren't a school child or demonstrably hindered by an underlying condition such as asthma. From what I heard from friends around the country, this was the situation across the nation, and the New York Times first ripped into the government's inability to supply inoculations, then provided a detailed explanation of why growing the vaccine was so slow.

As bad as the national distribution was, local governments just added more levels of frustration. In Chicago, special needs cases were served at several city colleges. Great, except for the fact that the lines were so long that they snaked outdoors into cold rain. That was not the sort of place where chronically ill people are supposed to be waiting for long stretches. The Cook County web site featured a page with a phone number for scheduling shots. In classic Cook County style, it was a disconnected number. Finally, new digits showed up. You dialed, you waited, and waited. When it sounded like someone was going to answer--you were disconnected! That ought to show those taxpayers!

H1N1 virus photo courtesy CDC

I waited in a Cook County line only to be denied because I live in the wrong town. Why did I bother? Because I knew, with my chronic sinusitis, that I was a sitting duck for this virus.

At least I was sharing my frustration with plenty of other people. When seeing a medical specialist, I mentioned the vaccine problem. This doctor said he had no H1N1 shots, but quickly gave me a seasonal flu shot ("at least it may help decrease symptoms").Then he handed me an Rx for Tamiflu and urged me to use it as soon as I had any coughs, sore throats, headaches, fevers, or anything resembling the swine flu. It works on any flu, he said. Better to be safe than sorry.

Well, I was sorry anyway. H1N1 hit like a bomb at the beginning of December. I stuffed Tamiflu down, but I still had the vitality of a scarecrow. The cough was not horrendous and the fever was low-grade, so I knew I wasn't going to the hospital. But I was home alone (spouse far, far away) and the temperature was hovering somewhere around 2 degrees. There was almost no food in the house. The cats were giving me funny looks.

Opinions on this differ in the clear light of day, but it was my understanding that my doctor wouldn't see me. I do know that the nurse said H1N1 was "nothing" and that I should stay home and take vitamins. She was highly annoyed that I had Tamiflu.

Around this time, Dec. 11, the New York Times came out with an article titled "Swine flu death toll at 10,000 since April." Many doctors, including the specialist who gave me the Tamiflu, predicted a later wave of a more virulent strain in January. They said people shouldn't let their guard down. A bit of panic was in the air again.

Local authorities (in my case, Chicago) announced H1N1 shots were available for one and all. And a quite a few dropped their complacency and got the shot. No one wanted to ruin Christmas. (I began laughing hysterically. Christmas? Christmas? I'm supposed to shop and decorate for Christmas?) Meanwhile, I started to recover just as a secondary sinus infection was setting in. (This is typical, although most people were getting bronchitis.) I called my doctor again. I thought I was hearing things: she wasn't going to treat my sinus infection. She insisted the swine flu was not as bad as portrayed, that 10,000 people dead was small in proportion to the amount who die from the seasonal flu, and that the so-called second wave of the flu wasn't going to happen. She felt that "they" were out to scare everyone. But my sinuses…

Not feeling confident anymore, I hung up and tried to assess my options. Muddle through? Get a new opinion? Just about then the sinuses started improving, so I turned my thoughts elsewhere.

Two weeks later, the New York Times pivoted completely, On New Year's Day, "U.S. Reaction to Swine Flu: Apt and Lucky" the newspaper crowed. All of a sudden, the vaccine shortages were forgotten. Ten thousand dead? Well, it happens. A second wave? Not even mentioned. I was beyond aghast.  My sinuses began pounding again.

I thought about my husband's cousin, who spent five days in an Intensive care unit and nearly died of swine flu. She is a runner and in fine shape. I thought of crew member for car racer Richard Childress who died of H1N1 two days after Christmas. Then I remembered how my little nephew, who had only a light case (one day before shots were to be administered at the school). He never got to the doctor, because the family car broke down. But he was lucky--out of bed in five days. How many other cases have never been correctly tallied? How big was this epidemic really?

This story isn't over, and I sure hope that the Center for Disease Control and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius aren't patting each other on the back. I know that one month after contracting this virus, I still haven't gotten half my energy back. I can't imagine what it's like for someone who's health is compromised. I don't think we've done a good job at all in preventing or treating this disease. We're just lucky it didn't ravage the country.

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