Me and Nekritz on Al Jazeera America.

I would like to think my media reach is constantly expanding.

I have my blog, of course. It just got its 1.5 millionth site visit the other day.

And my appearances on Chicago public access cable’s Ken Davis. His audience isn’t huge. But it’s always fun.

Katy Hogan and Mike James have had me on their Saturday morning Live from the Heartland show. Again, not a huge audience. But I like to think it is targeted at my sympathetic demographic.

Last week I spent 90 minutes on the air with former local NBC political reporter Dick Kay. He does a Saturday afternoon show on Chicago’s progressive talk station WCPT.

Last night I went national. I received a call to appear on Al Jazeera America’s The Stream. The format had me, State Rep and pension bomber Elaine Nekritz, Better Government Association’s Robert Reed and Tony Martin from the Firemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund. Each of us were fed questions. Viewers could tweet questions or comments. And there was a sort video clip from Jay Rehak of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund.

Oh. And I interrupted Nekritz. Not a lot. But whenever she lied. Which is often enough.

One observation: The only anti-union voice on the show was Reed from the Better Government Association. I mean, Nekritz’s stuff was pure BS. But Reed’s role was to spread the blame for the state’s financial mess around to include cushy union contracts. Even Nekritz didn’t try to go there.

Not the kind of better government workers are looking for.

I have to talk about the set-up for the show. It’s all done remote. All the panelists were speaking from their home or offices. Elaine looked to be in some dark paneled room with professional lighting. Like she was introducing an episode of Masterpiece Theater. Reed looked blue from the reflected light of his laptop. Martin was in front of some bright red abstract painting. It looked cool.

I had to think about this. I work at the kitchen counter. Behind me are the double French doors to the back porch. So I moved my laptop to the dining room which has two walls of book cases. I set up so that the book cases were behind me, suggesting that I am well read and knowledgable.

See. I’m getting the hang of this media stuff.

The weird thing is that I’m doing this on Skype and I don’t get to see anybody. Disembodied voices. I try to look at the green light on the top of my screen where the camera is.

Anne said I should put a “look here” post-it note on the screen. And then she took Ulysses for a walk.

I basically ignored the BGA’s Reed. In addition to telling my story I called out Nekritz whenever I could.

When I pointed out that her bill lowered my pension income by anywhere from 25-30% over the next 20 years, she smirked and said that my annual pension would remain the same.

Someone needs to explain inflation to the State Representative.

And thinking back, it may not have been a smirk. It may just be the way she looks all the time.

At one point I said that the retirement age had been raised to 67. I was wrong about that, confusing the recently passed bill with earlier versions that Nekritz supported.

Nekritz said I was “factually incorrect.” A funny phrase which always seems redundant to me. How else could I be incorrect? Philosophically incorrect? Aesthetically incorrect? Chronologically incorrect?

The truth is that I wasn’t entirely incorrect.

The retirement age would be set on a sliding scale based on the member’s age at the time the law takes effect, which is June 1, 2014. The retirement age formula in the law essentially adds four months to the statutory retirement age for every year that a member is under age 46 at the time the bill takes effect. An additional four months is added to the retirement age for every year of a member’s age until the total delay in retirement reaches five years. The five-year delay in retirement age is designed to affect all members aged 31 or younger.

At the end of the show they asked me to make a promo: “I’m Fred Klonsky. I’m a retired teacher. And I’m in The Stream.”

About that time Anne walked in with Ulysses.

“I’m going up to watch the DVR of the show,” she said.

She thought I did a good job.

But she’s my wife and she loves me.