By Steve Rhodes
So . . . how ’bout those Bears?
The Bears have been proving me and the Beachwood Sports Affairs desk wrong all season, but when they lose in the first-round of the playoffs, we’ll finally get to say we told you so.
Meanwhile, this is pretty cool. And here’s a bunch of other Devin Hester returns.
MLK Memorial Day
The groundbreaking ceremony for the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. was a stunningly beautiful and emotional event. I saw clips on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (excerpts can be downloaded here on the right rail) of a few of the speeches and was struck in particular by a line from former president Bill Clinton, which is getting a lot of play: ” “When the real battlefield is the human heart, civil disobedience works better than suicide bombing,” Clinton said. “Fighting your opponents with respect and reason works better than aspersion and attack.”
The ceremony drew coverage worldwide – at the very least in wire service snippets – including in newspapers in South Korea, Ireland, Australia, and China. The Tribune, appropriately, put their story on its front page.
The Sun-Times, on the other hand, skipped the story and was satisified instead to put a photo with an inset of a blurred piece of indecipherable artwork on page 5, besides the “Homeowners In Need Of Cash?” and Mont Blanc watch ads. At least it was above the paper’s “Let Us Hear From You! What is it with men and women, anyway?” plea to readers to write in about their relationships. The plea went on for 68 words. The MLK memorial photo caption was 59 words.
CNN has additional MLK memorial resources here.
Lucky Luis
Tim Novak of the Sun-Times looks at the sale prices of the 17 units of a townhouse development on the Chicago River just north of Diversey Avenue and finds the one that doesn’t look like the others: The one belonging to U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez. And who built the development? Tony Rezko.
Just a coincidence, Gutierrez says.
Luis Landowner
“Gutierrez, 52, and his wife buy and sell houses every few years in booming neighborhoods,” Novak writes. “Their aim, he said: To make money. In the last seven years, they’ve bought and sold five homes. Usually they buy a lot and build the home themselves. The lone exception was the town house they bought from Rezko’s company.”
Olympic Dream
He says it, she writes it.
Olympic Reality
Is it good news for Chicago’s Olympic bid that San Francisco has dropped out? Not necessarily.
Daley Dose
“Mayor Richard Daley said Monday that he isn’t behind a move by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce to back a slate of sympathetic aldermanic candidates, but he asserted that the influential group is free to support whomever it likes.”
True. He’s in front of it.
Chamber Maids
Voters may want change but in Illinois they’re about to get more of the same. The General Assembly is getting ready to give themselves a pay raise to go along with their “multimillion-dollar reconstruction of the House and Senate chambers.” After that, they may have time to consider your interests, but who knows.
One Mayor, Two Chicagos
“Also Monday, Daley turned aside the complaints of advocates for the homeless who came to City Hall seeking additional funding.
“‘We have more homeless housing than all the suburbs combined,’ he asserted. ‘We have done our part.'”
(See if you can spot the multiple fallacies in that statement.)
“The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless called for $55 million on top of the $17 million in next year’s budget. It contended that the city will fall short of its goal of ending homelessness by 2013.
“Ellen Sahli, the mayor’s liaison on the homeless, said she is confident the goal will be met.”
Here’s an idea: A TIF district for the homeless.
Partisan Logic
Both the Tribune and Sun-Times editorial pages argue this morning that if the Democrats are serious about bipartisanship they will confirm John Bolton as United Nations ambassador. It never occurs to them that if the president/Republicans were serious about bipartisanship he/they would withdraw the nomination. After all, Bolton was an unmistakably in-your-face choice for the post. Bipartisanship inherently means governing from the center, and Bolton is nowhere near it.
Fuller Brush
See if you can spot the fallacy in the argument put forth today by former Tribune Co. president and Tribune editor-in-chief Jack Fuller.
“[Hugo Chavez] warns of a covert campaign by George Bush to to topple him from power. Everyone understands this to be as clownish as Chavez’s UN speech, except that the United States has repeatedly played into his hands, just as it so often has with Castro.
“For example, during a coup against Chavez early in his presidency, it was clear to everyone that the U.S. supported the usurpers, who quickly failed. Now comes a report in The New York Times that the U.S. has sent millions of dollars to Venezuealan organizations that oppose their president.”
Oh, I get it. Chavez is clownish because the covert campaign he is warning about is so obviously overt.
Toddlin’ Town
Carol Marin hosted Cook County Board President-elect Todd Stroger and interim Cook County Board President Bobbie Steele on Chicago Tonight last night and once again proved that she was the only one at the table capable of being Cook County president.
For anyone foolish enough to think that Stroger is going to suddenly grow into the job, last night’s appearance was as dispiriting as his campaign. And Steele all but said she would name one of her kids to replace her if she decided to retire and get a pension based on her being president, rather than going back to being a commissioner and the lesser pension that goes along with that.
Campaign Rap
The candidates who didn’t vote for themselves.
Warming Trends
Mmmm, Sweden.
The Beachwood Tip Line: Constantly adjusting tactics.
Posted on November 14, 2006