By Steve Rhodes
1. The [Super Bowl] Papers.
2. CTA text messages the Chicago Journal would like to see, including:
there’s a guy drinking
miller high life on the train.
why doesn’t he just go to a bar,
JEESH! Uh oh. I think he’s touch-
ing himself in appropriately. oh
god. he’s looking right this way.
3. “Mayor Daley: Please make improving the CTA your priority.”
4. I don’t even know where to start with Mary Laney, but perhaps you do. Write her at marylaney@aol.com. Or write editorial page editor Steve Huntley at shuntley@suntimes.com and ask him what it says about his paper that Laney is the best they can do.
5. If Neil Steinberg keeps writing about his boys, he’ll turn into Debra Pickett.
6. The Tribune‘s editorial series on the state’s schools, “From Here to Excellence,” continues. Maybe they should do a series like that about themselves. Like, instead of “Significantly improve teacher and principal quality,” they could advise, “Significantly improve editor and reporter quality.”
7. “It’s going to be cynicism we’re fighting against,” Barack Obama said, between endorsing Richard M. Daley, Todd Stroger, Alexi Giannoulias, and Joe Lieberman, and mowing Tony Rezko’s lawn.
8. “We’ve had a lot of plans, Democrats. What we’ve had is a shortage of hope,” Obama said.
Funny, seems just the opposite to me.
9. American Journalism Review counts more than 272 references to Obama as a rock star between early November and early January alone.
10. “Isn’t this the way it always happens?” Mary Mitchell asks. “A politician begs for your vote while promising to provide every service imaginable, then turns a deaf ear when it is time to deliver on those promises. It’s even worse for African-American voters.”
11. “The Daley administration would set up a $12 million fund to compensate people denied City Hall jobs or promotions because of politics unders a tentative settlement of the federal Shakman lawsuit,” the Sun-Times reports.
$12 million. Call it the Daley Tax.
“Ironically, it was Daley’s attorneys who revived the Shakman lawsuit by asking a judge to expand the number of Shakman-exempt employees, whom the city could hire or fire without going through civil service procedures, from 1,200 to 2,850.”
From 1,200 to 2,850.
Daley said he could not comment because the matter is pending in federal court. He’ll find another excuse when it isn’t.
12. “In an announcement made late Friday afternoon, U. of C. President Robert Zimmer said the school will ‘not change its investment policy or its long-standing practice of not taking explicit positions on social and political issues that do not have a direct bearing on the university,'” the Sun-Times reports.
So the U of C’s investments in Nazi futures will remain as well.
13. The Tribune says “If Ms. Right Is Missing From Your Life, You Must Not Be Trying.”
The Beachwood’s Andrew Kingsford explains otherwise.
14. Forrest Claypool says the Trib went easy on Stroger.
15. “I know them personally” Daleys says of the Sorich Four. And yet he had no idea how they did their jobs – and still won’t say what they did was wrong.
16. Does Obama think what they did was wrong?
17. Daley won’t debate but he did sit down with each paper’s editorial board last week. It’s about the media strategy, stupid.
Both papers should release the audio – assuming there is audio – and publish the transcripts.
18. “Since 1989, our city has undergone a metamophosis,” Gery Chico writes on behalf of the mayor.
Not really. Maybe since about 1995, when Clintonomics really kicked in and cities became cool again.
“Chicago has become the envy of the nation.”
Then why aren’t more people moving here? If it wasn’t for Hispanic immigration, the city would’ve lost population in the 90s.
“Nobody supports wrongdoing, especially in government – the mayor, me, you, nobody!”
Then why does the mayor defend Robert Sorich?
“While many cities slid into the doldrums, missed opportunities and generally became irrelevant, Chicago has emerged to become America’s strongest city.”
Which cities slid into the doldrums? Seattle? Portland? San Francisco? Los Angeles? Dallas? Houston? San Antonio? Charlotte? Las Vegas? Phoenix? Minneapolis? Pittsburgh? Denver? New York City? Boston? Providence? Atlanta? Nashville?
19. The mayor talks, she records, transcribes, and publishes.
20. “A lot of people were against the Crosstown, but [killing it] was the worst thing that ever happened to this city, ” Daley told the Sun-Times editorial board.
Really? Worse than Jon Burge’s crew torturing blacks, or racist real estate covenants, or the Mob infiltrating the courts to fix murder cases?
Also, we had that big fire a while back (Tim Willette)
21. “The expressway’s planners issued press releases contending that it would ‘add elegance’ to the neeighborhoods it crossed. But even by Daley’s own figures, the 6.5-mile east-west stretch alone would displace 1,390 homes, 371 businesses, two schools, and 37 factories that employed 1,134 people. According to some estimates, the entire Crosstown would destroy almost 3,500 homes and displace more than 10,000 people. Residents along the middle- and working-class neighborhoods along the Crosstown’s proposed routes came out strongly against the expressway, objecting that it would end up destroying their homes and neighborhoods. Blacks objected that planners had chosen to place the east-west segment at 75th Street rather than 95th Street, as was originally considered, because the new route would destroy black neighborhoods rather than white, Catholic ones.”
– American Pharaoh
22. Daley apparently also defended his monstrous campaign fundraising, but Spielman doesn’t tell us how. Perhaps he’s going to donate some of it to the CTA?
23. Pink Freud, March 3, at Dreams in Lockport.
24. Take care of your people.
25. “The sad part is that Chicago used to be an NHL stronghold,” The New York Times noted on Sunday. “Overall, the Blackhawks seem to have virtually no imprint on a city that loves sports . . . The Blackhawks seem to have no cachet outside the arena.”
The Beachwood Tip Line: Envy of the nation.
Posted on February 5, 2007