But it is amusing to see how little of apparent interest or note the FBI found, as evidenced in Terkel's FBI file, made public for the first time.

Terkel was engaged in such radical activities as attending a rally for actor and activist Paul Robeson.

He apparently read a Communist newspaper.

And he wrote a column for the Chicago Sun-Times

Radical stuff.

A Cook County judge Wednesday afternoon delayed implementation of a law requiring
doctors to notify a parent when a girl under 18 decides to have an abortion.

That decision came just hours after the state Medical Disciplinary Board had given the state the green light to begin enforcing the 14-year-old law.

The temporary enforcement halt is a victory for girls because Illinois courts -- where girls are supposed to turn if they feel they can't tell their parents about an abortion -- don't appear to be ready to handle this crucial, new responsibility.

The law establishes a confidential judicial bypass procedure, where a girl can try to convince a judge she's mature enough to make the abortion decision for herself.

Some counties are ready, including Cook, but interviews with circuit court employees in 15 counties in September and October show how far Illinois has to go.

In just two of 15 counties contacted by a group set up to help minors through the judicial bypass process did the staff "seem fully informed" about the law and "somewhat prepared" to help, according to an affidavit filed in the suit seeking to stop the law's implementation.

In the rest, employees had never heard of the law, couldn't provide any information or said they would call back but never did.

One court employee even insisted that a minor be accompanied by a guardian.

Illinois can -- and must -- do better than this.

For more information, read Wednesday's editorial on this topic here

As government watchdog groups and news organizations get better, for instance, at combining data about campaign contributions with individual politician's votes on legislation, so anyone can see at a glance possible connections, does it unfairly stain the politicians or the system itself? Could it only produce more cynicism?

Or do we just trust readers to have enough sense and let them make up their own minds with whatever information that's available?

It has become the pet phrase of Fox News showmen like Glenn Beck, another way to beat up on President Barack Obama. Just the other night, Beck waved a baseball bat around like a weapon, explaining that this is how the Obama crowd silences dissent -- The Chicago Way.

The next night, a Chicago Tribune columnist who has all but made the phrase his own, John Kass, got on Fox News and agreed -- yeah, the Obama White House fights like a bunch of Chicago thugs -- The Chicago Way.

This is silly stuff, and I'll leave it at that.

But if people are going to start throwing the phrase around, let's at least give proper credit to the author. Kass didn't dream it up, though another Fox talking head claimed Kass "coined" the phrase. In fact, I stole it before Kass did, making it the name of a weekly column I wrote for the Sun-Times for a couple of years.

The phrase, as most of us know -- Beck even showed a clip from the film -- comes from the 1987 movie "The Untouchables." Sean Connery, playing a tough old Chicago cop, tells Kevin Costner, playing Elliot Ness, that if the feds are serious about taking down Al Capone, they'll have to do it "the Chicago way."

"You wanna get Capone?" asks the cop. "Here's how you get him: He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! That's how you get Capone!"

I explained all this -- how the phrase comes from the movie -- in a column I wrote in 2005. But here's the thing: I failed to mention who actually wrote the screenplay for the movie. And that was a huge oversight because while the movie is terrible, the screenplay is terrific.

So who wrote the screenplay?

One of the greatest of American writers.

David Mamet.

I knew this when I wrote the column but forgot to mention it. I failed to give Mamet credit.

And for this, I caught a little friendly grief the next day from Mamet himself.

He sent me a long email in which he told the story of how the famous Iwo Jima Memorial was unveiled in Arlington National Cemetery in 1954 with a lot of pomp. Everybody was there, including President Eisenhower.

But one man -- Joe Rosenthal -- wasn't there, Mamet told me. Rosenthal was the Associated Press photographer who took the unforgettable World War II photo -- of three soldiers raising the American flag on Iwo Jima -- but he skipped the statue dedication ceremony.

Rosenthal visited the statue later, just him and his wife, once the big shots had gone. He walked all around the statue and decided he liked everything about it. He liked the strong granite base and the cast bronze figures and the noble words: "Uncommon Valor Was a Common Virtue." He liked that the sculptor, Felix de Weldon, got credit on a plaque.

But, Mamet told me, there was one thing missing that made Joe sad. He looked all over the statue but could not find it -- his own name.

Joe Rosenthal, the man who took the iconic photo on which the statue was modeled, had been forgotten.

"Until I read your column this morning," Mamet wrote to me, "I did not know how Joe felt."

I laughed out loud, of course. Perfect. We should all show this much class when registering a complaint.

I quickly wrote back.

"David, I'm sorry I failed to give you credit for writing 'The Untouchables.' But seeing as how my mistake prompted this great note from you, I have no regrets."

Times series by David Rohde is it.

In a gripping, moving and informative set of five articles, Rohde details the seven

months he spent as a captive of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rohde, a New

York Times reporter, was kidnapped last November.

Getting your head around what's going on in Afghanistan is tough. Rohde's first-person

account makes that far-away, inaccessible place real, explaining in very human terms

what the U.S. is up against as it tries to fight the Taliban.

Check out the series here

Bill Wyman, formerly of the Rolling Stones, and Nick Mason, of Pink Floyd, are criticizing the video game "Guitar Hero" and similar games, contending they discourage young people from picking up real instruments.

In the games, youngsters pick up smaller, faux versions of the instruments and "play" them along with rock songs and prompts on the screen. The more accurate they are, they better they do in the game.

"It irritates me having watched my kids do it. If they spend as much time practising the guitar as learning how to press the buttons, they'd be damn good by now," Mason griped to The Guardian.

The games are getting more notice than usual because on Wednesday Rock Band is releasing its Beatles version, where players can play along with the Fab Four, in one of the most anticipated releases of the year.

In fact. we're at the very top of the list for our workers being able to work the least amount of time but still be able to buy a Big Mac at McDonald's.

A report examined the price of a Big Mac in 73 cities worldwide, along with the average net wage, and workers in Chicago, Toronto and Toyko fared the best, having to work 12 minutes to score Big Mac.

Mexico City, Jakarta and Nairobi fared the worst.

You can see the graphic here.

On Wednesday, two of nine University of Illinois trustees got to remain on the board.

Several weeks ago, the Sun-Times editorial board argued it was shortsighted to dump the entire U of I board, despite the admissions clout scandal uncovered this summer. The most culpable board members must go, but throwing away the full board robs the university of their expertise, institional knowledge and experience.

The bad news:

The two members are staying because they forced Quinn into it, not because he chose them.

For weeks, Quinn insisted that all board members should resign, clearing the way for him to decide which resignations to accept. On Wednesday Quinn reversed, leaving himself looking like an indecisive, weak leader. These two trustees are good choices to stay on the board but Quinn should have stood firm in his demand that he pick the board members.

Quinn justified the move by saying he didn't want to put the state through a long legal battle with trustees James Montgomery and Frances Carroll.

But Quinn is the one who boxed himself into this corner. This is just the latest example of Quinn making a proclamation and failing to stick with it.

We like the outcome here. But, once again, we're disappointed in how Quinn got us here.

Let's hope not.

The hugely popular car allowance rebate program blew through $3 billion in promises of government money in just four weeks, helping to sell an estimated 700,000 cars. But most dealers haven't gotten a cent from the government, threatening dealerships that desperately need cash to stay open.

The Obama Administration last week responded to complaints -- in some ways, a victim of its success -- by tripling the number of workers handling reimbursement claims.

Let's hope the government doesn't make the same mistake when it launches a public insurance option, a plan to which millions of Americans are likely to flock.

It makes you wonder.

Is a clunky government bureaucracy really prepared to run an efficient health care system?

Ald. Bernard Stone didn't do so well the other night when he appeared on WTTW's Chicago Tonight to discuss the city's much criticized deal to lease its parking meters for 75 years.

Stone claimed he had done his homework on the deal, but when a reporter for the Chicago Reader, Mick Dumke, an expert on the deal, asked him what that entailed, Stone replied, "it's none of your damn business."

We're not in the business of giving aldermen advice on how to conduct themselves on television, but Stone might want to rethink his strategy.

The fireworks start around the 11 minute mark, but it's worth watching the whole video.

But when a man kills 270 people by blowing up a plane, all to make a political point, and is sentenced to a mere 27 years in prison for his horrific crime, that sounds like a sweet deal to me. At the very least, he should serve every minute of that 27 years.

But as you no doubt know by now, that didn't happen on Thursday.

Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted of blowing up a Pan Am flight over the little Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, was set free by a Scottish court and put aboard a flight to his native Libya.

Al-Megrahi is dying of prostate cancer, probably has about three months to live, and Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill felt sorry for him.

"I am conscious that there are deeply held feelings, and that many will disagree whatever my decision," MacAskill said. "However, al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power. It is terminal, final and irrevocable."

Scotland originally dealt with their terrorist the right way -- treat him like a criminal, not a soldier. Put him on trial, like you would any alleged criminal. If he's found guilty, lock him up.

Being a big believer in civil liberties and such, I prefer that approach to the George W. Bush school of counter-terrorism: Lock people up without charge, without trial, without respect for basic human rights.

But then that fellow in Scotland, MacAskill, goes and blows it. He lets a killer of 270 innocent people walk free.

Who cares if Al-Megrahi is almost on his death bed.

MacAskill's compassion was ill-placed.

Peraica has long been for transparency in government, but his actions raise a question:

What's the data really worth?

A lot of county employees hate it, seeing it as an invasion of their privacy. Some observers say the salaries don't mean much without context. In other words, if you don't know the extremely highly paid janitor is the committeeman's brother-in-law, the salary number itself doesn't explain much.

One commentator suggests posting the data "almost feels hostile." (TOH to Gaper's Block).

Of course, Peraica gets some political mileage out of posting the data and draping himself in the banner of good government, but he's doing the right thing.

Here's why:

But that's the price those employees pay for working for government. Their salaries are paid by taxpayers, and their salary information is public.

Let us stress that many county employees are hard-working, and many are underpaid.

But they're not the only folks whose salaries are subject to scrutiny.

Public companies have to make public the salaries of their top executives.

Not-for-profits and charities have to do the same.

Salaries of various public employees from agencies across the country have long been available on the Internet, even before Peraica got into the game, and there have been no reports of government slowing to a halt over jealous co-workers or anyone dying of shame.

So what's the value of the information?

To Average Joes, admittedly, not much.

They can see where their tax dollars go, which has some value, but it doesn't mean much without context.

The folks who understand the context are the county employees themselves. They know which of their colleagues got their jobs through clout, which of them hardly show up to work because they don't worry about getting fired, which of them are ripping off the taxpayers.

Those hard-working county employees see what goes on, see what those rascals get paid and sometimes, they pick up the phone.

They call the FBI.

They call the Better Government Association.

They call an investigative reporter.

That's the true value of Peraica's list.

It encourages people-in-the-know to drop a dime.

Those are the folks who help start federal investigations, help put stories in the newspaper, and once in a great while, actually help make a difference.

It's a connection that has me wondering -- who are the real freaks in this world?

The first story is that Eunice Kennedy Shriver has died. Shriver's most notable achievement was to take the beautiful creation of a Chicago Park District employee -- the Special Olympics -- and go national with it. The park district employee was future Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne McGlone Burke.

This got me to thinking about a column I wrote three years ago about the Cusack family of West Beverly, whose son Michael, then 50, had Down syndrome. Michael had been a star Special Olympics athlete.

What I will always remember is that the Cusacks were true pioneers back when Michael was born in the 1950s. Against a doctor's advice, they refused to institutionalize him. Against the advice of well-meaning friends, they also refused to hide him away at home.

Instead, Esther and John Cusack took Michael everywhere, like they would any other child. But back then, that was not the norm. Back then, that took a little courage. Back then, people foolishly stared -- even more than they do today.

The second story in the news is about this strange fellow in New York, John Strong, who runs a Coney Island carnival show featuring disfigured animals -- two-nosed cows, two-headed snakes, that sort of thing. Strong, according to an AP story, will be going on one of those TV court shows to argue that a certain five-legged dog belongs to him.

Now here's the connection: People go to shows like that to look at the freaks. Today they look at freak animals, but it wasn't so long ago that the freaks were as likely to be people -- people who were very small, people who had three arms, that sort of thing.

The message to kids, of course, was "go ahead and stare." The message was "people who look different are not wholly human."

And this was the world Michael Cusack was born into, the world people like John Strong still promote to this day. If you teach a kid to stare at an unfortunate five-legged dog, the staring won't stop there.

Who's the real freak? The dog? Or Strong?