By Steve Rhodes
* “How Manning Cut Out the Bears’ Heart.”
After his playing days are over, he’ll make a championship coach too.
* “Coach Dungy told us only 18 players are left from the team that lost the AFC championship game three years ago.”
Sports is a management game now.
* The Indianapolis Star has a “Super Bowl in 3 minutes” time-lapse that’s kinda cool.
* Subscribe Now and receive a Colts Hat.
* “7:18 PM: First time somebody calls for Brian Griese to play.”
* “WE STILL LOVE OUR BEARS . . . BEARRY MUCH!” says a highly paid grown woman with a column in what used to be a major metropolitan newspaper.
* “Thank You for a SUPER Season!”
– Print ad by Channel 5 calling itself “teammates” with the Bears.
I’d be more irritated if anyone watched local news anymore.
* Super Bowl observations from the American Legion Post in Lansing.
* The caller from Indy to Salisbury & Rosenbloom got it right: San Diego, Baltimore, and New England are also better than the Bears. Salisbury is right when he says blame whoever you want, the Colts are just a better team. Salisbury says five teams in the AFC are better than any team in the NFC, maybe six depending on Kansas City.
* The [Super Bowl] Papers.
Crime and Punishment
Zorn is right. Same goes for the public defender’s office too – even more so.
Burn Units
Easy-Bake Ovens recalled.
Radio Flyer
The trial of the fatal airplane crash of WGN-AM host Bob Collins started Monday.
Here is a story I wrote about the crash for Chicago magazine.
County Line
Keep Todd Stroger away from the Internet.
Zen Moment
“Dalai Lama To Visit Here In May: Will Give Speech In Millennium Park.”
Will attempt to retire debt by harnessing good feelings.
Obamalert
Despite Barack Obama’s message of inclusiveness, state senate president Emil Jones Jr. is going around making a racial appeal to blacks on the fence about Illinois’s new favorite son, Lynn Sweet reports.
“[T]he Rev. Al Sharpton told CNN that [Emil] Jones ‘could offend peole by saying you got to unite just because someone is your race,'” Sweet writes today.
“Sharpton noted that Obama endorsed Mayor Daley for re-election over two black candidates, so it would not follow to ask blacks ‘to do something for Obama that he himself is not doing at home.'”
Sweet notes that Jones (D-ComEd) is Obama’s “political godfather.”
Jones is also the guy who manipulated the system to bring us state legislative pay raises. Don’t remember Obama speaking out then about fighting cynicism with hope – nor during the eight years he worked loyally for Jones.
Ax Grind
“When I asked Axelrod how he went from working for [Harold] Washington to working for his erstwhile foe, Mayor Daley, just two years later, he defended it this way: ‘He reduced the acrimony and became a unifying force, and that was really significant.’ Of course, in that case the ‘acrimony’ came from the fierce resistance to change, and a return to a more placid politics only came with the monarchical restoration of the king’s eldest son.”
– From Christopher Hayes’ profile of David Axelrod in The Nation
Pet Sounds
A 14-year-old from Hinsdale featured on Nickelodeon.
Trib Tool
Tribune-installed Los Angeles Times editor Jim O’Shea says he’s not going to let people like New York Times editor Bill Keller steal his talent just because the LAT is a sinking ship.
“He thinks I’m going to let them pick me off? I’m telling you right now I’m going to fight hard to keep everyone I’ve got. We’re just as good as the NYT.”
Everyone except Dean Baquet, that is.
Tribune Company likes to preach nobility, citizenship, courage, and all-around do-the-right-thingness to everybody else, but they’re not much for practicing those things themselves.
Meth Madness
Remember the meth epidemic?
Management Lesson
This is what happens if you don’t study and work hard while getting an MBA.
Taken For a Ride
The Phony Hypocrite’s Double-Talk Express.
Character is often revealed in what people will do to win.
Some go so far as to endorse the likes of Richard M. Daley, Todd Stroger, and Joe Lieberman.
House Proud
Barack Obama, man of the people, bought a $1.65 million home.
VIP Ward
“Second Ward Ald. Madeline Haithcock told me a few weeks ago that she doesn’t like town hall meetings, and prefers convening presidents of various condo and townhome associations to solicit their opinions,” Haydn Bush reports in the Chicago Journal.
Armey Drill
Ft. Worth Star-Telegram interview of Dick Armey, Feb. 4 –
Q. Your views on the Iraq war?
A. I’m not sure that it was the right thing to do. You might say removing Saddam from power was a right thing to do. Maybe it was, but was that necessarily then our responsibility to do that? And was it our responsibility to do that by invading a country that had no way declared any war on us?
Q. You voted for the resolution to go to war.
A. I did, and I’m not happy about it. The resolution was a resolution that authorized the president to take that action if he deemed it necessary. Had I been more true to myself and the principles I believed in at the time, I would have openly opposed the whole adventure vocally and aggressively. I had a tough time reconciling doing that against the duties of majority leader in the House. I would have served myself and my party and my country better, though, had I done so.
–
Character is often revealed when it comes time to show some courage and step to the plate. Hillary Clinton’s vote for the war remains untenable – as does John Edwards’, as much as he now admits to being wrong. It’s about judgement, and past is prologue.
Sun-Times Sitcom
The paper is bringing back the print version of its TV Prevue. Apparently they didn’t see those 20,000 cancelled subscriptions coming. Does tell you something about what’s really valued in their Sunday paper though.
Mob Memo
Las Vegas-based author Dennis Griffin announces:
“The contract with Huntington Press for the publication of my next book was signed. Now that the deal is completed, I can provide some more details about the project. The working title of the book is Cullotta. It is the biography of Tony Spilotro’s former lieutenant-turned- government-witness, Frank Cullotta. The one-time master thief, arsonist, enforcer, and hit man, is my co-author. He has chosen this venue to tell his life story, from growing up on the streets of Chicago to running Spilotro’s Hole in the Wall Gang in Sin City.
“It’s a fascinating look into the life of a career criminal. Many of Frank’s escapades were daring. Some were humorous, while others were violent and deadly.
“The publisher is targeting a release in May, to coincide with the start of the Chicago trials of those indicted in April 2005 for murdering Tony Spilotro and his brother Michael, the airing of the National Geographic special about organized crime in America and Las Vegas, and Las Vegas Channel 8’s four-part special ‘Mob on the Run.'”
The Beachwood Tip Line: Beating the spread since 2006.
Posted on February 6, 2007