Outdoor cafes and restaurants in Orland Park

Outdoor cafes and restaurants in Orland Park
I love Memorial Day Weekend for a lot of reasons including I get to relax and really enjoy the community. in Orland Park. And one of the real beauties of Orland Park in the summer are the many outdoor patios that several restaurants and cafes have here.
So I stopped by Shami Restaurant in the old Borders Book Store Plaza -- I miss Borders -- and sat out on the patio to enjoy some good Middle Eastern food, the great weather and the people who were buzzing about doing their shopping or just driving through.
Shami is one of the few Middle Eastern restaurants in the area, even though there are a lot of Arab Americans living here. Orland has the beautiful Mosque, and although the majority of Arabs here are Christian there is no Arab Church in Orland Park. That's too bad. Maybe it's because they can go to any church and worship whereas Muslims don't really have that many choices.
So Shami and a few other Arab bakeries including my favorite, Laila's Grape Vine on John Humprhey Drive in the Horton Plaza, really add some spice to the food options among the many great restaurant choices that are out here.
I ordered a small hummus plate, Jerusalem salad (diced tomatoes, cucumbers with tahini -- sesame seed -- dressing), a small hummus (crushed garbanzo beans with Tahini) and the Royal Plate which seemed to be a large plate of mixed chicken, lamb, ground beef with parsely (kifta kabob) and basmati (Persian) rice. And several cans of Diet Coke and enough bread to eat the hummus and feed some of the Sparrows brave enough to come near the tables and stare.
A lot of American soldiers returning from service in the Middle East have become patrons of these Arab restaurants. They went to Iraq to fight and came back loving the hummus, falafel, tahini, salads, kibbis and kabobs. Even the ones who went to Afghanistan, which isn't Arab or Middle Eastern, of course, but does share some of the same cultural foods.
The food was great but the weather was even better. And it was enjoyable, eating the hummus with cuts from the Syrian Pita Bread. One thing you learn when you serve in Iraq or visit a Middle Eastern country is that you can put the tahini-based salads on the rice to make it taste even better. That Tahini is great. (If you like Middle Eastern foods, go to my facebook page www.Facebook.com/rghanania and check out one of the groups I belong to called Mediterranean Foods. You'll meet a lot more people who share their food recipes or experiences in Middle Eastern foods.)

Hummus

Jerusalem, Tahini Salad

Royal Plate Chicken kabob, lamb kabob and kifta kabob

Shami is one of several restaurants in Orland Park worth checking out. And sitting out on the patio to enjoy the food makes the whole experience in Orland Park even more enjoyable.

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Can racists seek hate crimes charges against attackers

Police in Tinley Park and the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force continue to investigate the violent brawl that took place Saturday afternoon at the Ashford House Restaurant, an Irish diner at 7990 W. 159th Street in Tinley Park on the border with Orland Park.
Mayor Ed Zabrocki, in an interview with Radio Chicagoland, said that police are still investigating but believe that some of the victims were members of a White Supremicists group. They were having a lunch meeting at the restaurant when a group of 15 to 18 anti-White supremicist individuals, youth wearing hoods and carrying bats and hammers, converged on the restaurant meeting and attacked the other activists.
Zabrocki said that five people were in custody when their car was spotted by an alert female member of the Tinley park Police Department. The other suspects involved in the attack fled but police believe the arrested suspects could lead to identifying the entire group.
Zabrocki said that police believe the group that attacked the alleged supremicists were members of the Anti-Racist Action group. Facebook shows a listing for more than a dozen such groups named Anti-Racist Action in the United States. The group, if it is the one involved, describes itself as:

The Anti-Racist Action Network (ARA) is a decentralized network of anti-fascist and anti-racists in North America. ARA activists organize actions to disrupt neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, and help organize activities against fascist and racist ideologies. ARA groups also oppose sexism,homophobia, heterosexism, anti-Semitism, and the pro-life movement. ARA originated from the skinhead and punk subcultures.HistoryAnti-Racist Action was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the late 1980s by members of the anti-fascist skinhead group Minneapolis Baldies and other activists. ARA then expanded to several communities in the United States and Canada. Members of Love and Rage, a revolutionary anarchist organization, played a major role in building ARA groups and the ARA Network in the 1990s, and the group's structure was formalized in 1994 at the first Midwest Anti-Fascist Network conference, in Columbus, Ohio.

"About 15 to 1 yesterday, there was a group of 10 to 12 people eating int he restaurant. Most were men maybe one or two men. Someone made a reservation for them and they were going to have a meeting," Zabrocki said.

"About 15 individuals came in with masks on hoods, black hoods if I recall, and they proceeded to beat up the 10 or 12 people who were meeting there. There was some confusion because there was a bridal shower going on in an adjacent room but it had nothing to do with this It was not gang related."

Zabrocki said the information was "kind of speculative" at this point.

"A lot of those folks from looking at their addresses were not even from Illinois," Zabrocki said.

"The group that came into it, I'm not sure because there were a number of names kicked around. It was an anti-racist group, anti-Homophobic group. The first group had a web site and the other group infiltrated it. It was not racial in the usual sense. No Middle Eastern connection," Zabrocki said during the radio show.

Zabrocki called it an isolated incident.

"A very sharp female sergeant got a call that they were looking for a particular car and she was very observant and she spotted the car at 159th and Harlem," he said. "She pulled the car over and got five of them. This could lead to the rest of them. They are in our lock-up and I am not sure of their status at this point."

Zabrocki said the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force came out in force, in part because they were on the ready because of the NATO protests.

"I believe there were nine people hurt, six refused treatment and three were treated<' Zabrocki said.

Click here to listen to the radio interview (about 25 minutes into the Radio Podcast.)

The irony here is that the victims, who reportedly are involved in White Supremicy issues, could file racism charges against the alleged attackers who were allegedly reported to be members of an anti-racist group.

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Camping with the Boy Scouts troop 318 calumet/Orland park

Lake County fair grounds, Indiana -- The toughest part of camping is getting there, not the camping. So far, every time I've camped, after setting up the tent, the cot and arranging everything I had to lug from the car trunk - three trips, I've been beat. As soon as I lay down on the cot in the sleeping bag - 40 degrees below zero tolerance sleeper - I've been out like a light.

Carrying everything the block long trek from the car can be an exercise, especially after a year from heart valve surgery. But it's good exercise for sure, and with all the consulting work I've been doing lately, it beats sitting at a desk, talking into a phone and tapping away at the computer.

The toughest challenge is putting the tent up. It's not the largest tent. Supposedly it fits 6 comfortably. Right! That's baloney for sure. Who designs these tents? Corporate dudes who were never in scouts but think they know everything? They're like computer programmers. They know how to write the complex codes to design software but have no commonsense about how the needs really need to be met. Same with the tent makers. Maybe it's because I'm Arab and tents have cultural meaning. Let's get that thought on the table and out in the open right away. No, it's common sense and little more.

For example, some ideas for improvement.

Print the instructions and a picture of the tent on the outside of the tent. Who ever keeps the paper instructions? No one. It's litter that gets thrown out.

Tents have thin ropes that anchor the tent to the ground from five to six places. So why are they black so they become invisible at night and can't be seen by the people tripping over them? Why not make them bright orange to glow at night so people don't steadily trip over them nd fall or rattle the tent while you're trying to sleep?

The 10 foot flexible fiber glass sectioned poles are a great idea. At least they work!

Maybe also add a pocket on the outside of the tent to slip a card for your name, though it is fun making the name-stakes the scouts require for each tent so they easily find people after retiring for the day.

Most people will complain that while the tent will last a long time, the zippers break often. They're too taut. Making the easier to zip up so they don't break? A tent with an opening that doesn't seal to prevent insects from flying in is worthless.

Once the tent is up, it's fun. Camping outdoors in a forrest of tall oak trees is memorable. On humid nights, moisture drips from the leaves onto the tent tops below like a steady rain.

I have to give a plug to the camp scout leaders in Troop 318. They're the best. If you're lucky to have a team of great scout leaders, you are very fortunate. And watching your son mature and take on responsibility is priceless.

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Chicago Tribune pulls plug on TribLocal

The Chicago Tribune pulled the plug on the Trib Local, one of the more reliable major news resources. Most if not all of the reporters for the Trib Local will be "let go." It's going to be outsourced to a "content provided" called Journatic LLC. (Read story.) Journatic pays its writers about $12 an hour. But they offered reporters $50 if they heard that reporters were asking about the gutting of the TribLocal and told the company. Reporters were banned from talking about the transformation from journalism to content management. (Read story from Michael Miner in the Chicago Reader.)
The TribLocal was a balance to the news offered by major newspapers. The Chicago Sun-Times gobbled up and gutted the once impressive Daily Southtown, fired most of the Southtown's Employees, merged it with another victim of its community newspaper absorption policies and merged it with the fading Star Newspapers. Most of the writing is done by a handful of reporters from what used to be an impressive lineup of journalists.
22nd Century Media, which publishes the informative The Orland Prairie, is one of the only remaining independent community news organizations left in our region, published by 22nd Century Media. (Click to read a profile on 22nd Century Media Group.)
What does the TribLocal's demise mean for the region?
Well, Orland Park is a good example. The MainStreet Development has been a white elephant and burden on the taxpayers of Orland Park. But this week, the Village of Orland Park announced that it was giving management of the project to HSA Commercial Real Estate, which did a phenomenal job of reviving the old Orland Park Place. Orland Park Place is now a beehive of activity.
But a taste of what you can expect from the TribLocal comes int he form of news regarding The MainStreet Triangle project, which has many remaining unanswered questions and a very uncertain future -- let alone the political hay that will be made about it during the upcoming battle for Orland Park Mayor, assuming Mayor Dan McLaughlin decides to seek re-election.
Here is the story published on the TribLocal's Page under "From the Community," which will be growing since it won't be able to boost "From Our Award Winning Reporters."
Click here to read it.
The story has a by-line from "By Taylor Johnson." Sounds like a writer. But Taylor Johnson is a PR Company that apparently works for HSA.
Click here to view Taylor Johnson's information.
That's the future folks. No one to ask questions (whether we like them or agree with them or not). No one to point out political ties, question the TIF or the growing burden on the property taxpayers for projects like this.
Orland Park is an important community and there is a lot of room for good newspapers. 22nd Century Media does a phenomenal job. But there is room for another weekly community newspaper here. Despite the sluggish economy and the many vacant commercial properties that sometimes make Orland Park corners look like slums, Orland Park has one of the largest retail bases in the Southwest Suburbs. It's a strong community and it has a vibrant politics, one worth covering -- good, bad or ugly.
Journatic LLC would make a great resource for any newspaper. But as a primary news source?
-- Ray Hananiawww.RadioChicagoland.com

Gorman: Awareness needed to address rising heroin use in Cook County suburbs

Orland Park, April 16, 2012

Gorman: Awareness needed to address rising heroin use cited in Cook County suburbs

At the Cook County Board meeting On Tuesday, April 17, 2012, Cook County Commissioner Elizabeth “Liz” Doody Gorman will be sponsoring a Resolution to bring awareness to the growing problem of heroin use in our communities.

“I think it is an important issue to bring to the forefront given its rise in use in the Chicago Metropolitan Area” Gorman said. “Heroin use amongst our high school and junior high school students has been on the rise in recent years and shows no signs of stopping. The stakes have never been so high or the need for action more urgent.  This issue has become a major epidemic and needs to be dealt with now.”

The resolution calls on all local governments, from school districts and library districts to Village Boards and City Councils to pass the resolution to bring the problem to light. “The first step in working toward a sensible, workable solution is to bring awareness of the problem to the forefront” Gorman added. “It is my hope that the resolution will make every citizen aware of the problem.”

Last month, Commissioner Gorman held a community summit meeting at which over 60 people attended including Police Chiefs, school officials, village officials and interested citizens. The purpose of the summit meeting was to bring the community together to brainstorm realistic strategies that can help parents and their children prevent further tragedy.

Commissioner Gorman said “our only hope in saving our young people from the devastation caused by this horrific heroin epidemic is to come together as a community and find solutions to this problem now.”

 Commissioner Liz Gorman

708.349.1336

liz@lizgorman.com

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"Patlackey" Chris Robling's lack of honesty when it comes to the Republican Party, Ed Vrdolyak and the Patlak-Morrison duel

"Patlackey" Chris Robling's lack of honesty when it comes to the Republican Party, Ed Vrdolyak and the Patlak-Morrison duel
Chris Robling touts his senior position as righthand man to Jayne Thompson's political consulting firm. Thompson is the wife of former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson, who for years was very close to Ed Vrdolyak.
Yet Robling doesn't mind turning the lights down a bit to disguise Vrdolyak's connections as he jump into the muddied end of the political swimming pool to wallow and squeal about Sean Morrison, whose candidacy against Dan Patlak proved that the Cook County Republican Party is being ripped apart by selfish rightwing fanatics that hang around Patlak like flies.
One of those flies is Fran Eaton, the political consultant who uses her columns to deceptively promote her pals in office like Patlack. Eaton and Robling are birds of a feather.
Even though Patlak won the Republican Primary, defeating Sean Morrison, the election showed how weak Patlak really is going into the General Election against Midlothian Democrat Casey Thomas Griffin.
Given Patlak's poor election performance and the inability of his crew of creepy and untalented rightwing fanatic activists to raise any real issues other than pejorative and oftentimes racist misrepresentations, it is pretty clear that Patlak can't win the November election. He'll blame the failure of the Republican Party to come together behind him in the November election but the real cause of his quandary is Patlak's association with so many extremists, racists and his pandering to the Fran Eaton and Chris Robling nutjobs who have fractured the Republican Party in Cook County with their vicious fanaticism.
These fanatics -- often referred to as "Patlackeys" -- have done everything to promote their own selfish agenda while Orland Township Republican Committeeman Liz Gorman has done everything she could to save the GOP in Cook County including with her successful campaign to turnback the Todd Stroger Jr., sales tax hikes. Gorman did that almost single handedly while most of the other board members gave up trying until they saw her rally once, twice and then a third time with success. That's the kind of persistence that the Republican Party has lacked for a long time. Instead, the GOP in Cook County has been plagued by the "Patlackeys," a rabble of deceitful activists who are promoting their own agenda.
Rather than reach out to mend the GOP divide, Patlack has sat back on his confused hands while his Patlackeys have been out there slandering and defaming Morrison and Morrison's supporters. Imagine the idea that every other party should have a primary except for the Cook County Republicans. These are the same stooges who backed Mark Thompson who was slam-dunked by Gorman in the 2010 Republican Primary battle for the Cook County Board. Gorman went on to win the district in a record landslide.
Knowing that Patlak is in trouble in November, Robling is on the warpath slamming anyone who dares to question the Patlackeys and their poor political choices.
Most real Republicans will sit back on their hands on the race for the Board of Review in November and Patlak will surely lose office. Instead of bring the Republican Party together, he is demonstrating the precise reasons why he was such a bad candidate in the first place, his inability to bring Republicans together.
Robling is stepping out on a weak limb with his less than honest attacks against Morrison and his mudslinging against Liz Gorman. His continued efforts to drag Ed Vrdolyak into the debate only raises questions about Vrdolyak's longstanding ties to the former governor. Oh, I'll bet Robling was fawning all over Vrdolyak back then when ERV was the GOP boss. But now Robling wants everyone to ignore how the Patlackeys brought Vrdolyak into the long past GOP soiree. 
Robling, a B-List political pundit will continue his slander against his critics in much the same way that Fran "Lurch" Eaton has helped to undermine Republican Party strength with her feeble analysis and partisan observations that advance her personal friends.
But it won't work. Morrison didn't beat Patlak but the fact was that Morrison got a huge boost when his candidacy was back by Gorman, who remains a heavyweight in the Republican Party circles. Maybe Patlak likes hanging around with morons and fanatics. Or, maybe Patlak is just to meek to stand up and push the extremists aside and try to build a Republican campaign that brings everyone together rather than continuing to tear the party apart at the unseemly seams. 
That's what defines leadership. The ability to do what's right for the Republican Party or to do what's right for the fanatics who are tearing the party apart.
-- Ray Hananiawww.hanania.com

Luis Gutierrez is the big loser in Tuesday’s Illinois primary

Luis Gutierrez is the big loser in Tuesday’s Illinois primary

By Ray Hanania

After an election, it’s not unusual to weigh the winner’s and the losers. Usually, the winners and the losers are the people who are actually running for public office, the candidates.

In the case of this past Illinois primary, one candidate who “won” his party’s nomination was in fact the biggest loser, U.S. Congressman Luis Gutierrez in the 4^th Congressional District.

Gutierrez easily won his party’s nomination. Like a Middle East dictator, Gutierrez was unopposed in his election. He “won” with 99.9 percent of the vote. Only a few people voted against him by entering write-in candidacies.

But Gutierrez is a loser and was the biggest loser in the March 20 election primary.

Gutierrez, a former Chicago alderman, backed and funded and supervised the campaigns of four candidates. They are:

• ·         Rudy Lozano, who ran for the Illinois House seat in the 21^st legislative district, challenging Silvana Tabares;
• 
  
• ·         Robert Reyes, who ran for the Illinois House sat in the 24^th legislative district; who challenged incumbent Representative Lisa Hernandez;
• 
  
• ·         Raul Montes, Jr., who ran for the Illinois Senate seat in the 12^th legislative district, challenging incumbent Illinois Senator Steve Landek  (Note: i do media work for Landek); ;
• 
  
• ·         Ricardo Munoz, who ran for the office of Circuit Clerk of Cook County, who challenged incumbent Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown.

What’s significant beyond his defeat in all four of these races is the issue of race itself. Gutierrez is Puerto Rican. All of the candidates he backed are Mexican American.

Why is that significant? Well, it’s significant because Gutierrez’s congressional district is half Puerto Rican and half Mexican American. The Puerto Rican population dominates the north end of his odd-shaped district. Mexican Americans dominate the south end of the district.

And that explains Gutierrez’ selfish political agenda.

Gutierrez is intentionally focusing on keeping the Mexican American community divided. That’s why he runs Mexican American candidates against incumbents in Mexican American districts.

By keeping the Mexican American community divided, Gutierrez can preserve his Puerto Rican power in his congressional district. Because if Mexican Americans were united, they could easily oust Gutierrez and elect one of their own in that congressional seat.

There are no Mexican Americans from Illinois in the U.S. Congress. And as long as Luis Gutierrez interferes in Mexican American community politics, keeping them divided and fighting, he will protect his own self-interests.

The March 20 election battles that Gutierrez lost are a precursor to several more elections that Gutierrez is promoting in several West suburban communities including in the Town of Cicero (where I work as the Town spokesman) and the City of Berwyn.

But voters clearly have seen through Gutierrez’s selfish political hypocrisies. They rejected his candidates, although Gutierrez did succeed in dividing Mexican Americans, again, as he has been doing since his election to Congress in the predominantly Mexican American congressional district in the 1990s.

And they could take this one step further and challenge Gutierrez in the November General elections.

Currently, there is no Republican candidate challenging Gutierrez. But there should be. He doesn’t deserve re-election. Gutierrez is a firebrand who is quick to criticize and then even quicker to make a political deal. He spends more time sticking his political nose in other areas of Chicagoland than effectively representing his residents; his district has been ranked as one of the worst when it comes to getting services.

Guiterrez is playing race politics because it benefits him. By keeping Mexican Americans divided, he can retain his congressional seat and allow his family and especially his wife to benefit from his congressional clout.

The truth is that the 4^th District was drawn to give Mexican Americans a representative in Congress. As long as they allow Luis Gutierrez to manipulate their politics, that district will never materialize.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist and Chicago radio talk show host Sundays at 8 am on WSBC AM 1240 and WCFJ AM 1470. www.RadioChicagoland.com)