sherman skolnick, r.i.p.

I just noticed that Sherman Skolnick, Chicago citizen activist who's investigative work brought down two judges on the Illinois Supreme Court in 1969, passed away 3 days ago. The Tribune published this obituary.

In the mid to late 90's I used to tape Skolnick's public broadcast television program called "Broadsides", and send them to Brian Redman of Conspiracy Nation who would transcribe them and make them available on the Internet. This was long before Skolnick had a web presence (see skolnicksreport.com).

I'm sure at least half of Skolnicks information was complete bullshit, but I believe there was enough truth in his reports to keep certain members of the media and political classes on their toes. He claimed to have a lot of contacts, which was probably true; distinguishing the truth and the lies they fed him was the hard part. I certainly disagreed with many of his beliefs about the Vatican and the Catholic Church being involved in all sorts of conspiracies (which is not to deny the actual corruption which occured in the Vatican Bank involving Paul Marcinkus and other characters, which he liked to talk about).

A couple of years ago, when I was working for Libertarian Party Illinois Senatorial candidate Jerry Kohn's campaign, I called Skolnick up to see if he would like to have Kohn on Broadsides. He said he would have but that they had just stopped doing the show.

Thick glasses, buck teeth, somewhat contentious but wildly enthusiastic about whatever he was talking about, he was truly one of a kind. Rest in peace, sir.