By Steve Rhodes
1. Isn’t “New Fright Plan” a bit flip?
2. The Tribune editorial page predictably tried to use news of the foiled terrorist plot to justify the alarmist coverage of incidents such as the arrest of those bozos in Miami who fantasized about blowing up the Sears Tower.
“This was real,” the editorial said. “‘This is not a circumstance where you had a handful of people sitting around coming up with dreamy ideas about terrorist plots. They were well on their way.’ [Homeland Security Secretary Michael] Chertoff said.
“That remark may have been aimed at those who have been quick to dismiss a series of other thwarted plots in recent months.”
Or that remark might have been Chertoff’s way of telling us that this wasn’t a circumstance where you had a handful of people sitting around coming up with dreamy ideas about terrorist plots.
3. The Tribune ends its editorial on this impertinent note: “Why do they hate us? What difference does it make? They do.”
4. “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War
5. The day the airlines went dry.
6. “I am not a bad kid,” a third-grader writes to the Sun-Times, saying a recent series on his classroom was “an embarrassment to my mom and I.” (second to last letter)
7. Old Weird Chicago is dying.
8. R.I.P, Old Weird Chicago.
9. Democratic weirdness at the State Fair.
10. Mac vs. PC ad parodies.
11. “Illinois [is] among the worst states in identifying schools that are shortchanging kids.”
12. The city’s claim that victims of the Lincoln Park porch collapse three years ago were jumping up and down on it before the structure fell is falling apart. The EMT who said he overheard some of the injured talking about jumping up and down on the porch before the collapse now can’t remember what was said; another witness has denied making a similar statement.
Which recalls John Kass column of last spring, “Mom Watches City Spin On Son’s Grave.”
13. Scott Gordon on the CTA’s bus tracking system.
14. It looks like the mayor has found the two aldermen he needs to change their votes and support his veto of the big-box ordinance. Knowing the mayor, he wants more than two, and that’s probably why he hasn’t even announced his intention to veto the measure.
15. “At the same time that Evans’ lawyers mount evidence for an appeal, however, a police officer cleared by the jury said he will mount a campaign to overturn Evans’ pardon,” the Sun-Times‘s Natasha Korecki reports.
“I keep reading and hearing words like: Michael Evans was ‘exonerated’ of the rape and murder of Lisa Cabassa . . . Michael Evans was ‘wrongfully convicted’ of the rape and murder of Lisa Cabassa,” Dennis Banahan said. “Michael Evans was none of those things. What Michael Evans was, was ‘wrongfully pardoned’ for the rape and murder of Lisa Cabassa.”
Dennis Banahan, one of our finest.
16. “Wrongfully Convicted People Get Pittance For Years In Prison.”
17. “The best part about this saga has been the amazing lies of the Cubs that this scheme is good for fans.”
18. Know your trademarks.
Proper Trademark Use:
You photocopy papers on a Xerox machine
You wipe your child’s nose with a Kleenex brand tissue.
You wear a Windbreaker brand shirt.
Improper Trademark Use:
You Xerox papers.
You wipe your child’s nose with a Kleenex.
You wear a Windbreaker.
19. The BeepCentral click poll on the Daily Herald‘s website asks, ” Should we ease security at airports after an immediate threat is over?”
First option: “No. Inconvenience is better than death.”
The Beachwood Tip Line: Persevering.
Posted on August 11, 2006