Faculty and staff members at the University of Illinois at Chicago will take an anger-fueled field trip on Monday to visit a growing, bedeviled species: financially beleaguered politicians. One can predict the topics of discussion — and those likely to be avoided.
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Even if Northwestern University has used the title for a literature course, “The Death of Irony” must be revived for next week’s campus appearance by the former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich.
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Andy Shaw, right, executive director of the Better Government Association, carries a stack of reports about corruption in Cook County. Shaw and Dick Simpson, left, delivered the reports to the offices of the Cook County Board President and to Board members Thursday February 18, 2010 .
Jose More/Chicago News Cooperative

Dick Simpson stood somberly on the fifth floor of the century-old Cook County Building last week, in an area between two banks of elevators with the faint aroma of cheap institutional cleaner. His topic was as dispiriting as the ill-lit environ chosen for a no-news press briefing.
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Austan Goolsbee, a wiry and droll economic adviser to President Obama, was addressing a private Chicago dinner last week when he entered the Death Valley of American politics: health care.

A member of the Council of Economic Advisors, he met amiable resistance while defending the administration plan to The Wayfarers Club — whose 50 members include college presidents, nonprofit leaders, businessmen, a few journalists and Scott Turow — which meets to hear speakers discuss issues of the day. Mr. Obama is a member but rarely appears.
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If Gov. Pat Quinn wants to exploit the Pyrrhic victory of Scott Lee Cohen, he should show some nerve and think Al Gore.

Mr. Quinn stumbled to the Democratic primary finish line after a difficult first year in office and a surprisingly tough campaign fight against Dan Hynes, the comptroller. Mr. Quinn’s image as crusading independent was deflated, with Michael Madigan, the Illinois House speaker, running rings around him, and questions about his executive competence.
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Three photos grace the office of Jim Allen, a former journalist who is spokesman for the Chicago board of elections.

There’s a nearly 100-year-old picture of protesting Chicago suffragettes, all dressed in white and demanding that women get the vote. A second is of a crowd of mostly blacks at a voter registration rally apparently in San Francisco in the late 1980s. Finally, there’s a sea of mostly Latino Chicagoans at an immigration rights march a few years back, some holding “Latino Vote” placards.
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Students at Flashpoint Academy work in their TV studio.
Chicago News Cooperative

“House lights up!” proclaimed the silver-haired former lawyer who, with blue jeans, black T-shirt, black safari jacket and Nikes, looked oh-so Hollywood in an oh-so Chicago bastion, the Merchandise Mart.

As four understudies from the Second City comedy troupe entered the sound stage, they were trailed by film students climaxing three weeks of labor by taping a half-hour faux “Saturday Night Live.” It featured comedy sketches, droll pre-taped mock commercials and a live performance by Rhymefest, a hip hop artist.
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Votes in the Illinois primary elections on Tuesday were being counted just as ABC started the final season of “Lost.” The state’s Republican Party, marooned on an island of ineptitude, could now be liberated partly because of whom Democrats picked as their nominee for the Senate.
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The final Democratic debate in the primary for governor on WTTW-TV commenced at the same moment the Goodman Theatre premiered a double bill of one-act plays starring the estimable Brian Dennehy. Both events, staged as Tuesday’s primary draws near, proved to be about self-delusion.

The plays, Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie” and Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape,” are about, as Robert Falls, the Goodman artistic director puts it, “those essential self-created fantasies of ourselves” we present to the world to get us through the day.
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George N. Leighton last week outside court at the Daley Center.
José Moré/Chicago News Cooperative

Time stopped in drab Cook County Eviction Court last week as the lawyer George N. Leighton smoothly argued for the Illinois International Port District in a marathon dispute involving a 1965 lease and whether a slip for big ships on the Calumet River was properly dredged.

Without reading from notes, the elegant Mr. Leighton detailed the silt-filled matter between the district, long known as the Chicago Regional Port District, and Dockside Development Corporation. Standing ramrod straight before Judge Joan Powell and with a clear-as-a-bell baritone, he spent a flawless 15 minutes citing a tortuous history as he built to a strong, low-key climax, replete with a gentlemanly thank you “to Your Honor for being here this afternoon.”
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