By Steve Rhodes

“Englewood is rapidly being abandoned, many of its blocks now little more than weed-choked and trash-littered urban prairies,” the Tribune reports.
“A neighborhood that had long been on the brink was pushed over the edge by the foreclosure crisis, leading to a descent that threatens the rest of the city by draining resources and shrinking tax rolls.
“What is left in Englewood and West Englewood draws comparison to the worst of Detroit. As residents fled and investors pulled out, the number of abandoned buildings and vacant lots on many streets outnumbers occupied buildings.”

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Posted on June 24, 2011

By Steve Rhodes

“Republican voters are not especially enthusiastic about the potential Republican candidates for president this year, according to the latest polls, but history shows that is not unusual at this stage of the campaign,” Jennifer Pinto wrote for CBS News’ Political Hotsheet earlier this month.
Thank you, Jennifer. Because I’m already tired of seeing and hearing one of the political media’s favorite tropes – that of the Seven Dwarfs.
As in:
“They assumed the stance of the Seven Dwarfs, not as a matter of physical but rather intellectual stature. Not one of the candidates for the GOP presidential nomination who debated Monday night rose to a point of seriousness in addressing the nation’s grievous problems.”
Please.

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Posted on June 21, 2011

By Ed Hammer

In his crusade to reform Chicago Public Schools, Rahm Emanuel apparently has declared war on our teachers.
“Teachers got two types of pay raises [in a 2003 labor agreement],” the new mayor said last week as he defended his handpicked school board’s decision to rescind 4 percent raises for CPS faculty. “People in public life got labor peace. Can anybody explain to me what the children got? I know what everybody else got.”
In case anyone didn’t catch his drift, Rahm clarified: “Our children got the shaft.”
These are the same dedicated teachers I wrote about last month, nothing that “They have to manage the behavior of 25 individuals whose brains are not physically or emotionally developed while at the same time teaching them the basics needed to survive.”
On Friday, one of those teachers was listening to Roe & Roeper on WLS-AM. The hosts were playing parts of the same Emanuel dialogue, including when Rahm stated that, in good conscience, he could not meet the demands of the teachers’ current contract “because they have left the children by the side of the road.”
She was so stunned that tears came to her eyes. It was her last week with the kids before summer break. It had been an especially difficult year. She has dedicated 30 years of her life to teaching. How could the mayor be so demeaning to such a dedicated class of people?

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Posted on June 20, 2011

By Raza Siddiqui/Press TV

Chicago is home to the most extensive camera surveillance network of any U.S. city – and it’s going to get even more extensive under Rahm Emanuel.

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Posted on June 17, 2011

By Steve Rhodes

“A three-month Crain’s investigation finds questions of profit and fairness clouding the future of McCormick Place, the linchpin of a Chicago convention industry that generates $8 billion in annual spending and supports 66,000 jobs,” James Ylisela reported on Monday.
“In 2009, when some big trade shows left or threatened to leave Chicago over price-gouging and labor practices at McCormick Place, lawmakers rushed through legislation imposing wage cuts and work-rule changes on unions at the convention center.
“But labor represents a relatively small share of exhibitors’ costs at McCormick Place. The reforms required no meaningful concessions from trade associations or a pair of show contractors that continue to squeeze exhibitors, who already bear most of the costs of conventions.
“Freeman and Global Experience Specialists Inc., which handle three out of four McCormick Place shows, still charge the same high rates exhibitors cite as their No. 1 complaint.”
*
This is true. See Convention Wisdom, an excerpted summary of the story about McCormick Place I wrote for Chicago magazine in 2004, which included these passages:

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Posted on June 15, 2011

By Sebastian Rotella/ProPublica

The chief prosecutor in a landmark terrorism trial that ended last week in Chicago says a plea bargain with a confessed American terrorist was justified because of his value as a source of intelligence and as a key witness in any future prosecutions.
Jurors last Thursday convicted Tahawwur Rana, a Chicago businessman, after a trial that revealed unprecedented details about the alliance between Pakistani militant groups and that country’s intelligence service.
In addition to investigative work by the FBI in the United States, Pakistan, India and Denmark, the case centered on five days of testimony of David Coleman Headley, who confessed to doing reconnaissance for the 2008 Mumbai attacks and a failed plot in Denmark.
Jurors convicted Rana on two of three counts of support of terrorism for letting Headley, a childhood friend, use his immigration consulting business as a cover for his plotting overseas. Headley described the Mumbai attacks as a joint operation directed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and the Lashkar-i-Taiba militant group.
He testified as part of a plea agreement that enabled him to escape the death penalty for his role in the killings of 166 people, including six Americans, in Mumbai.

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Posted on June 14, 2011

By The Beachwood Bookmaking Bureau

Rahm Emanuel may think he doesn’t look good in a toga, but if he gets his casino he may want to stick with the Rahmulus theme (better than the Rahmfather from a marketing point of view) and call it Rahm’s Palace. It worked for Caeser.
Here’s how we think it would work.

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Posted on June 13, 2011

Let’s Not Vote And Say We Did

Chicago rapper calls out the prez.

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Posted on June 8, 2011

By The Ghost of Lefty Rosenthal

With Pat Quinn’s rubbery spine the only thing left standing between sanity and a dramatic expansion of gambling in Illinois, we might as well start thinking about where the new Chicago casino will be located, along with possible names and themes.
* Capone’s, 2135 S. Michigan. The former location of Capone’s downtown headquarters, the Lexington Hotel, is perfect: close to McCormick Place with plenty of places to stash getaway cars. Geraldo Rivera could headline.
* Planet Las Vegas, 633 N. Wells. Bring back the Planet Hollywood gang and give them the whole of River North. Or just let each themed restaurant have its own casino. Bruce Willis and Sly Stallone could headline.
* Circus Circus, 1901 W. Madison. All those parking lots around the United Center offer plenty of room to build a casino around the arena, which could then also become the permanent home of the Ringling Bros. circus so the Bulls wouldn’t have to take that awful trip out west every year when the elephants come to town. Bozo could headline.

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Posted on June 1, 2011