Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
Editor’s Note: I’ll be attending to business most of the day and I haven’t even seen this morning’s papers yet, though I suspect they are filled with, well, more of the same folly that’s in them every day. However, in the interests of serving faithful readers, here are at least a few links that may brighten and inform your day.
Posted on August 8, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
The Sun-Times began a six-part series on its front page on Sunday called Counter Culture.
The series is about “what’s cooking in Chicago’s changing kitchens.”
Six.
Parts.
Kitchens.
Posted on August 7, 2006
By Natasha Julius
Braving the bacteria-filled cesspools of society to bring you the news that matters most.
Market Update
The markets were rattled this week by reports that new job creation slowed in July. However, analysts remained upbeat and urged investors to consider that while times may be tough for teachers, surgeons and weasily PR flacks, the economy has shown signs of spectacular growth in the vital field of talentless camera-whoring.
Posted on August 4, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
1.“Daley Mocks Meeks Over N-Word.”
Frankly, I don’t have a problem with Meeks – or rappers – using the n-word, given the context with which they do so. All non-blacks are prohibited from using the word, as they should be. People who don’t see the difference are never going to understand why.
2. Basis of a compromise on the ongoing big-box ordinance debate? “Chicago Federation of Labor president Dennis Gannon said he has trouble believing Target would turn its back on $58 million in city subsidies at [its] North and South Side projects.”
Perhaps the city’s subsidies to retailers should be tied to an agreement to paying the wages outlined in the new ordinance. If the retailers want to go it alone, so be it. Pay the wages they wish, but don’t take the city’s (taxpayer’s) money.
3. Celine’s Country Bluegrass Blues?
4. From testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday:
Sen. John McCain: You said there’s a possibility of the situation in Iraq evolving into civil war. Is that correct?
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: I did say that, yes, sir.
McCain: Did you anticipate this situation a year ago?
Pace: No, sir.
Isn’t that the way it goes? The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is always the last one to know.
5. A full line of putting greens solutions.
Posted on August 4, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
In a couple simple paragraphs this morning, the Tribune reminded readers of the lessons we keep hearing about that the city learned from the 1995 heat wave. “Over the last few days, agencies in the city have conducted thousands of well-being checks on senior citizens and public-housing tenants, and hundreds of residents visited the cooling facilities throughout the city. About 1,000 people have been evacuated from their homes because of heat-related concerns or because their homes lost power. ComEd put up many of those people in area hotels,” the paper reports.
“The city also used its automated call-back system to send phone messages to elderly residents advising them to take whatever precautions necessary to maintain their safety. Reminders also were posted on message boards around the city.
“Experts agree that these measures have had a considerable effect on the number of heat-related deaths recorded each year since 1995.”
I’m sure that is true. The corollary, then, is that the city monumentally and lethally screwed up in 1995, when more than 700 Chicagoans died in a heat wave that Mayor Richard M. Daley refused to acknowledge.
Posted on August 3, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
In 2002, sociologist Eric Klinenberg published a remarkable book about the 1995 Chicago heat wave that claimed more than 700 lives – a disaster that would have cost many mayors their job but hardly touched Richard M. Daley, despite what we now know about his mismanagement of the crisis.
The deep, layered reporting and social analysis of Klinenberg’s Heat Wave exposed a stubborn, wrong-headed, uncompassionate mayor whose failure to grasp the situation undoubtedly added to the death toll, abetted by a gullible and shallow media.
Perhaps that’s why, to this day, Klinenberg’s book gets short shrift in Chicago, when in fact it is a masterpiece belonging among the top Chicago books of all time – even if Tribune “literary editor” Elizabeth Taylor, who edits the paper’s book review, once told me she just didn’t think the book was that big of a deal.
It is.
After all, Klinenberg documented a mayor and City Hall staff more concerned with public relations than with the bodies piling up at the morgue that summer, and a media that failed as well to grasp the tragedy as it unfolded, preferring to put its faith in the mayor and the limited imaginations of its editors and producers in turning out the same hoary clichés as stories that it does every year when it gets hot.
I thought of Klinenberg’s book this morning when I saw what seems to be the first and only reference to Heat Wave in the local press over this last week of deadly temperatures. Of course, the reference got it all wrong.
Posted on August 2, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
1. Jay Mariotti is back from his long, post-fag vacation with a hefty new contract in hand. Terms were not disclosed, but if someone knows where to place him on this salary chart, let me know.
2. Jay Mariotti’s Wikipedia entry.
3. I wonder how much of this reaction broke down along racial lines.
4. “The Downside of Upscale.”
5. “Ozzie Guillen has been upset that at key times this year his World Champion White Sox have failed to lay down a sacrifice bunt when needed. In the last couple of weeks he has set up his ‘Bunting School,’ where selected players take extra bunting practice on a daily basis,” asks Acta Sports, publisher of The Bill James Handbook and Twelve Stories Of Finding God At The Old Ball Park. “Is it true that his team has struggled, or are the White Sox really not that bad when it comes to getting down a good sacrifice bunt?”
Posted on August 1, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
Now incorporating The [Sunday] Papers.
Daley Dose
“Doling out city services at election time is yet another way that the Daley administration has used public resources for political gain,” the Tribune reports, in “Trading Services For Votes.”
Had enough yet?
Making Ends Meet
Dennis J. Gannon, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, fires back today at Sun-Times business writer David Roeder’s assertions that the big-box ordinance is evidence of union weakness, not strength. Roeder’s reasoning is that a strong union would welcome the stores at any wage, and then go in and organize them. Roeder ignores the idea that labor might operate on several fronts at once with several strategies, as well as the impact of eviscerated labor laws on the ability to organize.
Gannon, however, takes a broader approach in his response, citing labor’s historic victories that have improved workers’ conditions for everyone, union or not. “Only when families can afford to make ends meet and afford quality health care will we see real improvement in our communities,” Gannon writes (second letter).
Like maybe among the poorest of the poor, and the children they send to Chicago’s public schools?
Posted on July 31, 2006
By Natasha Julius
Don’t mind us if we nod off for a bit. Even in a dream state, we’re still watching the stories that count.
Market Update
Peace continued to face a consumer confidence crisis amid reports of a hostile takeover bid. Ultimately, key decision makers decided to merge Peace with Rhetoric to create a new entity, Lasting Peace. Shares in LP were promptly junked.
Posted on July 28, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
1. Mayor Daley is on MySpace. “Anyone who is interested in being my online buddy is welcome!” he says. Mayoral friends so far include Jesus Christ, Esquire; Pirate Zombies From Outerspace; and John Candy. Someone on the mayor’s staff might want to keep up with the comments, though. I doubt he’d be pleased to see the word “jewspaper” there.
2. The mayor’s musical interests: “Chicago, REO Speedwagon, Cheap Trick, and, of course, the blues.”
3. The President of the National Association of Letter Carriers delivers a message to Bobblin’ Burt Natarus. (second item)
4. “The new local ordinance mandating big-box retailers pay higher wages and benefits to workers sent a chill through the Chicago retail industry, from high-end department stores to hardware outlets,” the Tribune reports.
“Aside from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the primary target of the hotly contested ordinance, the law would cover at least 18 retailers operating more than 40 stores in the city.
“Nordstrom, Marshall Field’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Carson Pirie Scott & Co., Toys “R” Us, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards and Kohl’s are just a few of the stores affected, according to a list compiled by the City of Chicago’s Department of Planning & Development.”
The paper Tribune includes a terrific map of existing retailers who will be affected by the new big-box ordinance throughout the city, but, unfortunately, the online Tribune doesn’t.
5. “Radio Station Format Goes From God To Porn.” Listenership stays the same.
Posted on July 28, 2006
