By Steve Rhodes
It’s hard to see the latest call for the National Guard to quell violence on Chicago’s streets as anything but grandstanding.
State Reps. LaShawn Ford and John Fritchey (soon to be a member of the Cook County board unless it turns out he’s a pawnbroker with a hinky past) called a press conference on Sunday to maximize their media hit today, but they don’t appear to have talked to the governor, the mayor or the police chief about their “plan.”
Jody Weis, for one, wants no part of it, and just the thought of militarizing poor neighborhoods comprised disproportionately of people of color makes me shudder.
Beyond that, it’s not the stuff that Governor Gumby is made of and King Richard II has ridiculed the idea in the past. (If for nothing else, the mayor couldn’t stomach the bad PR of headlines like this one.)
Calling in the National Guard is one of those ill-considered notions that seems to come around every year or two, like privatizing the parking meters a downtown casino or putting your Opening Day starter in the bullpen or enacting a national sales tax.
It attacks a problem with a seeming quick-fix solution without ever getting near the cause.
Pension Outrage of the Day
It must be nice to be Vito Scavo.
Not Based On A True Story
We should all know by now that correlation is not causation, but it makes for pleasing tales some folks really want to believe. Today’s example? The Tribune editorial page channeling the Illinois Film Office’s propaganda. Missing in the script? The experts who see it differently.
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See if you can spot the missing link in the Trib’s chain of logic:
“About 40 states offer tax rebates or credits for film and television projects. Illinois’ is not the biggest. Michigan offers a whopping 42 percent credit. New York City offers 35 percent.
“Wisely, Illinois lawmakers have not tried to outdo those competitors. Illinois’ incentive is smaller and it’s limited to in-state spending.”
Um, if tax credits were the key determinant, wouldn’t you go where you got a better deal?
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True, the Trib argues that Illinois’s tax credit is “easy to access” compared to that in some other states, whatever that means (paperwork?), but, um, if tax credits were the key determinant, wouldn’t yo go where you got a better deal?
And don’t major Hollywood studios employ scads of people whose jobs are to do things like “access” tax credits?
Tax Return Politics
Dissembling, spin, evasion, hypocritical outrage. Repeat.
An Uncle’s Story
“Ultimately, drawing does more than provide a means to pass the time,” our own Jerome Haller writes in his tough and touching new installment of I Am A Security Guard. “It gives me a survival tool. Unlike my uncle, I can’t give it up.”
Hawk Tawk
“The one thing I didn’t understand about the aftermath of Marian Hossa’s late, major boarding penalty was why he didn’t also receive a game misconduct,” our very own Jim Coffman writes in SportsMonday. “It seemed as though Nashville had an understandable beef when Hossa wasn’t kicked out of the game and the fact that Hossa later knocked in the game-winner had to pour salt on that wound.”
The Socko Sox
“It’s nice to see the Sox returning to their roots,” our very own Andrew Reilly writes in The White Sox Report. “After so much bluster about ‘grinding’ and ‘Ozzieball’ and ‘not being a total disgrace,’ they’ve finally acknowledged what we all have been saying for so long: the Sox are not a well-rounded, fundamentally sound team, but one that will live and die with its in-house power company. And why should they be anything else?”
In The Cub Factor
“Is Uncle Lou’s mad scientist act working again?”
Ricketts Report
“To many, increasing advertisements at Wrigley Field feel like a violation of trust,” our very own Joel Boehm writes at Agony & Ivy. “Wrigley Field has come to mean much more to people than even a baseball stadium, symbolizing something mythical and nostalgic and grand.”
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Mythical, nostalgic and grand.
Posted on April 26, 2010