By Steve Rhodes
“So the Cook County state’s attorney’s office appropriately increased from misdemeanor to felony the charges against two men who barged out onto the playing ground at Wrigley Field in the last month,” the Sun-Times editorial page inveighs today.
“One of the men, Kevin Kleine, allegedly ran onto the field as part of a $400 bet, a stupid idea – just how stupid Kleine will soon learn. The other, Brent Kowalkoski, was barreling toward a pitcher when he was tackled by a security guard.
“Whereas a misdemeanor count would mean a fine, the charge of felony criminal trespass to a place of amusement carries the possibility of up to three years in prison.”
Which would be 1,095 days more than Scooter Libby will do.
– From The [Libby] Papers, in Beachwood Politics
Daley Dose
In separate news, Mayor Daley announced he has commuted the sentence of Robert Sorich.
Furtive Fourth
This sounds about right.
“The Fourth of July is the perfect day for a Parade – of the Politically Depressed. What, you’ve never been to a Parade of the Politically Depressed? Never reveled with comrades about engaging, avoiding, responding to, repressing, being angry about, and wanting a lot more from politics? Here’s your chance! Come barbecue your depression. Marinate it in a delicious concoction of counter-politics and collectivity. Stew in alternative emotions!
“Feel Tank Chicago invites you to join us in numbness and jaw-dropping disbelief about the state of the world for the Fifth Annual International Parade of the Politically Depressed. Come help us make a political world that vibrates to a different tune. As part of Feel Tank Chicago’s Pathogeographies Events.”
Paraders will meet outside 400 South Peoria at 2 p.m.
No Fun Zone
Speaking of depressed, how joyless is the Tribune?
Let’s review.
Turning 7-11’s into Kwik-E-Marts is ill-founded and Springfield, Illinois shouldn’t vie to be the Simpsons Springfield. Teenagers shouldn’t drive. No whoopin’ and hollerin’ at high school graduations. “Crush on Obama” is” not worth the time it takes to find it on YouTube.” (as if!) No fireworks. Rod Beck is dead – and buried deep inside the sports section.
Talk about Buzzkill Central. Don’t invite these folks to a party.
But then, this is the paper that no longer has its own editorial cartoonist, no longer has a political gossip column, no longer has Steve Rosenbloom’s “Hit & Run,” no longer has a Tempo columnist, no longer has David Greising’s business column, no longer has Bernie Lincicome, no longer has a real Books section, has a terrible Sunday magazine, forgoes covering aldermanic races, buries “Tales From the Front” while in recent years adding Ask Amy, Jonah Goldberg and Dennis Byrne to its illustrious roster of kick-ass columnists like Mary Skilling Schmich and Dawn Turner Trite, is still sending reporters to the Taste of Chicago to eat as much as they can, and has a Metro section that is a random collection of mostly irrelevant stories.
I think the phrase is tone-deaf.
There must be a tax write-off for killing a paper on purpose.
We the People’s Bus
In the L.A. Times.
Literary License
“The best part of License to Wed comes fairly late in the movie, after you haven’t laughed nearly enough, after you’ve looked at your watch a half-dozen times, and long after you’ve decided you don’t care about the characters, not one bit,” writes Teresa Budasi in the Sun-Times.
“It’s when John Krasinski punches Robin Williams in the face.”
Best QVC Call Ever
A man and his Dell.
Stealth Health
“Walgreen Ceo. Jeffrey Rein told analysts in a conference call that the drugstore giant is moving ‘more toward [becoming] a health care company’ rather than focusing on ‘selling a particular product each day,'” the Sun-Times reports.
Maybe they should branch out into health insurance: Wal-Care.
CHA MIA
“Chicago is at the midpoint of the largest public works project since World War II,” Columbia University professor Sudhir Venkatesh writes on the Trib Op-Ed page today.
Really? I thought Millennium Park was finished.
“Mayor Daley and the Chicago Housing Authority promised residents access to the newly built ‘mixed-income’ developoments.”
Oh, that CHA thingie.
“Today, as the new mixed-income communities fill up, two-thirds of the CHA families on the waiting list find their applications are being denied.”
To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, if two-thirds of any contingent of white people were being denied anything, there would be an outcry of outrage.
“Part of the difficulty for CHA families lies in the strict criteria built into the mixed-income leases, such as mandatory drug testing and 30-hour work week requirements.”
Um, aren’t a lot of families consigned to public housing because they can’t get 30 hours of work a week?
Daley Branch
Like Dick Cheney, Richard Daley belongs to a branch of government of his own making and beyond the reach of mere mortals.
The rest of us are on a need-to-know basis.
ObamaCare
Barack Obama’s same-old same-old tinker at the margins health-care solution.
Why not just expand Medicare to everyone?
Priceless Dylan
The payoff is at the end.
Members Only
“The Cheetah sells the condo-owning trixies of Bucktown overpriced gym memberships and fantasies of converting their post-baby bods into the sleek, glamorexic bodies of their sorority years when they lived in Lincoln Park.”
– Amy Ganser via e-mail to Conscious Choice
Cubs Kiss-Off
Tribune Co. is haunting the Cubs to the end. Trades of Jacque Jones to Florida and Minnesota have apparently been nixed (third item) because of the impending sale of the team.
The Beachwood Tip Line: Commute yourself.
Posted on July 3, 2007