Spanked the Sun-Times Took a Walloping After Neil Steinberg’S Column on John Stroger

4CHICAGO READER | MARCH 24, 2006 | SECTION ONE [email protected] Hot Type www.chicagoreader.com/hottype Spanked The Sun-Times took a walloping after Neil Steinberg’s column on John Stroger. By Michael Miner heap sentiment appalls Neil politician checked in to the hospi- Steinberg, and he offered tal for campaign purposes when in C none when on March 14 fact he is actually sick ...this to John Stroger was felled by a stroke. me shows the kind of ignorance The Sun-Times columnist wrote that is pervasive. And when you the next morning, Wednesday, purchase the Sun-Times this is the that his first assumption on hear- kind of individual whose salary ing that the “wily, 76-year-old you are supporting.” He read the Cook County Board president and part where Steinberg mocked the Democratic Party dinosaur” had idea of a sympathy vote, then went checked into the hospital was that on to wonder about the people Stroger was faking to win votes. who depend on the “garbage-filled “But—surprise, surprise—the parks, [the] overcrowded, under- man seems to be actually sick,” staffed jail, [the] overwhelmed Steinberg went on. “Now we have hospital? Who pities them?” grim reporters standing in front “You know who I pity?” Martin of hospitals talking about the said. “I pity Neil Steinberg’s wife. I ‘sympathy vote.’ What about sym- pity his wife for having to live with pathy for the long-suffering resi- a fool who’s willing to slap her dents of Cook County?” He made around. Oh yeah, I went there. a pitch for Stroger’s opponent, Because if you’re going to sit here Forrest Claypool, then shrugged: and make light of the board presi- “If you vote your race, for any dent’s actual illness, then I’m going clown, no matter how ignored to speak to why did you slap your and betrayed you are year-in, wife, Neil Steinberg?. ..If you want year-out, then go for Stroger.” to get personal, let’s get personal.” WVON staff tracked Steinberg Steinberg couldn’t hear any of UHM down in New York that morning this, and Martin went on for six JOE BL and invited him on the air. He was minutes before patching him in. Steinberg said he had. always like that.” treated, and threatened a boycott. interviewed by Roland Martin, the “ Seems to be actually sick?” Martin “That sounds like a ridiculous I was reminded of Tessio in When Barron heard about this on executive editor of the Chicago raged. “He’s actually sick.” thing for a journalist to do,” said The Godfather trying to get off Thursday he called the office of Defender, who doubles as the sta- Steinberg: “I understand that. Martin. “Why didn’t you go back the hook by explaining to Tom Bishop Larry Trotter of Sweet Holy tion’s midday host. Martin’s goal at Yes, he seems to be sick.” and change the column?” Hagen that he always liked Spirit Church, leader of the minis- the Defender is to retrieve whatev- Martin: “No, not seems to be “John Stroger’s a terrible politi- Michael Corleone and betraying ters. A conference call was set up er he can of its long-lost reader- sick. He is sick.” cian who shouldn’t win the elec- him was only business. It didn’t for Thursday afternoon between ship, much of which now reads Steinberg: “OK. He is sick.” tion,”Steinberg replied. “That’s work for Tessio either. about eight ministers and Barron the Sun-Times. So he had every Martin: “What the hell’s a mild the basic truth. Whether he’s sick John Barron, editor of the Sun- and managing editor Don Hayner. incentive to tear Steinberg apart. stroke?” or not isn’t really important.” Times, says his paper heard from Barron had no defense. “We were “Mr. Steinberg, you are a com- Steinberg: “It seems a fine He asked Martin if he read the “half the city, it seemed like,” after insensitive at a particularly sensi- plete ass,” said Martin by way of point, but OK.” column. the WVON interview. Later that tive moment,” he says. “We had introduction. “When you have a Martin asked, “Did you write “I read the column!” Martin Wednesday a group of black minis- crossed a line.” Barron and Hayner white columnist working for a your column before the news snorted. ters held a news conference in told the ministers to look for an white newspaper who has the conference [that announced “No, I mean the column in front of Rush University Medical apology in Friday’s paper. audacity to suggest that a black Stroger had had a stroke]?” general,” said Steinberg. “It’s Center, where Stroger was being Some of the ministers, particu- CHICAGO READER | MARCH 24, 2006 | SECTION ONE 5 ® The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams Do you ever wonder: in those houses built strategically next to graveyards, are the occupants drinking residual waste products (or atoms that the body is composed of) of those buried next to them? Think about it—if they’re drinking well water, coffins begin to larly the Reverend Al Sampson, the persona Steinberg’s created for break down over time, right? Is it plausible to assume they are pastor of Fernwood United himself as a columnist—more consuming their beloved deceased? Just something I have always Methodist Church, were unhappy clever than warm. Later in the not just with Steinberg but with column he commented on this thought about. —H.M., via e-mail Washington correspondent Lynn persona. Questioning the sincerity Sweet, who’d published a column of President Bush as a man of et a grip, champ. You bring up while not entirely Thursday morning urging the prayer, Steinberg called himself a a subject that most people benign, don’t cause most of the time are happy not Stroger camp to release his med- “cynical sort” and wryly added, G disease. As you to think about. Every so often, rightly suspect, the ical records. “We saw that as “Myself, I never like mouthing the however, some innocent realizes: Wait— real danger, if there diversionary,” says Sampson. “You expected pieties. Though they do cemeteries are full of dead bodies! Gross! is one, is groundwa- and I both know the hospital have protective value.” Although I have to say your liquid canni- ter contamination. cannot release medical records.” The editorial said, “We regret balism angle is an innovative twist. Local regulations But of course the family can. As the unseemliness of [Steinberg’s] Years ago people seemingly had typically forbid buri- greater cause for concern. In 1839 a als below the water if to assert herself immediately as column and we apologize to British surgeon named George Alfred table, specify mini- the un-Steinberg, Sweet began her Stroger, his family and legion of Walker published a book entitled mum distances column by wishing Stroger a full friends and admirers.” Publisher Gatherings From Grave Yards, between wells and recovery. She stressed that she was John Cruickshank went on the air Particularly Those of London, With a burial grounds, and asking nothing she wouldn’t ask of with WVON’s Cliff Kelley Friday Concise History of the Modes of so on. For a long any other candidate in his shoes morning, and he also apologized. Interment Among Different Nations From time most people the Earliest Periods, and a Detail of were content to and pointed out that if Stroger The ministers weren’t satisfied. Dangerous and Fatal Results Produced leave it at that, but had to drop out of the race after Sampson says they were irritated by the Unwise and Revolting Custom of over the past decade UG SIGNORINO being renominated, party bosses by the editorial’s reminder that Inhuming the Dead in the Midst of the or so a few scientists SL would pick his successor. despite its “deep well of respect Living. Walker wasn’t troubled so much and environmental That possibility didn’t trouble and admiration for Stroger’s long by the stray atoms that might work loose officials in various parts of the world sometimes without coffins, is likewise apt from a cadaver as by the good-size have felt moved to investigate just how to drive more study, as advocates attempt Sampson, a political minister career in politics and government” chunks—London graveyards were so serious a public-health threat cemeteries to placate the squeamish public. On a who was touting a list of candi- the Sun-Times was supporting crammed with bodies that grave diggers actually were. In general they found that related matter, some public-health types dates headed by Stroger that he Claypool. “They ended up giving a were frequently obliged to hack through (a) remarkably little research had been are trying to make the media and the called his “soul slate 2006.” When double endorsement to Claypool, old and not-so-old coffins in order to done on the subject, (b) elevated levels of public understand that dead bodies aren’t the conference call ended he faxed which was totally irrelevant,” make space for new ones. Not only was contaminants were detected at some inherently dangerous and thus there’s no over to the Sun-Times a leaflet he’d Sampson told me. “They gave with the pileup of putrefying bodies disgust- grave sites, (c) contamination generally need for mass burials following natural ing and disrespectful to the departed, decreased significantly the farther you disasters, which make it impossible to printed up. It said, “The Chicago one hand and took with the other.” Walker felt, it led to debility and disease got from the sites, and (d) overall there identify the dead.

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