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« February 2006 | Main | April 2006 »
March 31, 2006
The [Friday] Papers
Chicago Tribune sports columnist Rick Morrissey today expresses a sentiment I have heard from a couple others in the paper's sports department over the years: His bosses should sell the Cubs.
"A newspaper has no business owning a baseball team, in the same way a newspaper would have no business owning a cell-phone company, an insurance company or any other company it might have to cover as a news story," Morrissey writes.
For a newspaper to own a sports franchise is, for a sports section, akin to a newspaper owning City Hall. No matter how pure everyone may act, the coverage will always be called into question. And that's untenable for a newspaper's credibility.
Besides, it puts the paper in a no-win situation. When it gets scooped on Cubs news, it is ridiculed for not knowing what's going on in its own company. But the paper would be wrong to ask for special consideration in getting tipped off to Cubs news as well.
It's a burden the sports section and the rest of the paper should not have to live under--and it's not clear that the financial benefits have been worth it, if the analysts are correct (or that those benefits have flowed appreciably to newsroom resources).
The situation also makes a mockery of the vaunted ethics policies of both the Tribune Company and the Tribune newspaper itself. Consider: A reporter can't accept a gift worth more than a keychain but the company can own a baseball team it not only reports on in print, but broadcasts on its TV and radio stations, which in turn cover the team as well, etc. etc.
Morrisey's column is in response to numerous recent rumblings, including a Wall Street Journal article on Thursday, about possible moves the Tribune Company may have to take to shake off the lethargy of its stock and satisfy Wall Street.
It also comes on the same day that we learn that the Tribune Company sought out and accepted a $1 million naming rights deal for its famed bleachers from Anheuser-Busch.
Make that, now, the Bud Light Bleachers. Aren't you psyched?
Anyway, the day the Tribune Company bought the Cubs was the same day that James Squires was hired as editor of the Chicago Tribune.
"'What do you think of that?' [Tribune publisher Stan Cook] asked me, obviously elated that the Tribune Company now owned the city's favorite baseball team," Squires recalled in his 1993 classic Read All About It! The Corporate Takeover of America's Newspapers.
"'You know, it creates some problems for the newspaper,' I responded, trying to be gentle.
"'Not at all,' he said. 'It'll be great.'"
Squires went on to say: "[F]or the newspaper, being a corporate sibling of the famous baseball franchise became a nightmare--a constant source of tension within the sports staff, a political liability in the newspaper's relationship with the public and a regular cause of corporate bickering. Time after time in the next nine years [that Squires was editor], being owned and managed by the same people who managed the Cubs created management and credibility problems for the Tribune."
I have written before--as Morrisey writes today--that I haven't seen any evidence that the Tribune sports pages are biased in favor of the Cubs. But we will never know if, for example, an enterprising staff reporter might have decided to dig into the team's finances or proposed a harsh appraisal of the company's ownership efforts if there wasn't a risk of alienating the bosses. As former Tribune Company director Don Rumsfeld might say, the unknowables are unknown.
It's a conflict of interest that the newspaper wouldn't begin to bear in another civic institution or in the political realm.
So let the "Sell the Cubs Campaign" begin on the Tribune's editorial pages, which are so good at telling everyone else how to do the right thing. Tell it to your bosses.
Sweet Apartment Chicago
As much of a Neko Case fan as I am, the most interesting nugget in the interview she gives to Chicago Sun-Times rock critic Jim DeRogatis today is the one that rings true with many of us but seems to be of no concern to City Hall or the major media, who seem so thrilled that the middle-classes and below are being purged from the city.
DeRogatis: Isn't [the weather] what prompted the Handsome Family to move to the Southwest?
Case: I thought they were excited about the price of homes in Albuquerque. Basically, all of us in Chicago who have ever looked for a house have been immediately squashed. I may eventually leave, simply for that reason, but not because I don't love it.
Mariotti Melee
Cubs President Andy MacPhail and White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf attack Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti today in a Letter to the Editor to his paper.
The issue is Bud Selig's handling of steroids. But Mariotti's work habits come under attack as well.
"As is not uncommon with Mariotti," the owners write, "he has made no effort to be the least bit informed on this important subject."
In closing, MacPhail and Reinsdorf add: "If Mariotti would ever trouble himself to make a phone call, maybe he would get the story right."
Mariotti takes on Selig again today.
Obamalamadingdong
Sen. Barack Obama is gearing up to write another book.
Quick, name his top three accomplishments.
No, I don't think speeches should count, but if you must, that's one.
Uh-huh. I see. Well, can you tell me what made him such a great Illinois legislator? (You do know he served in the state legislature before becoming a U.S. senator, right?)
Can you tell me what the top three issues are on his agenda right now?
No, I don't think running for president counts.
No, I don't think I'm being unfair.
Well good day to you too.
Notes From Beachwood HQ
Having just completed our first month of existence, we can safely report that we are an international sensation. Among the countries tapping into The Beachwood Reporter and their hit totals in just the last two weeks:
Canada (435 ); United Kingdom (189); Argentina (181); Australia (131); Mexico (128 - even before I mentioned Lou Dobbs yesterday); Spain (96); Switzerland (81); Russian Federation (78); Czech Republic (71); Italy (53); Netherlands (48); Yugoslavia (36); France (31); Singapore (30); Croatia [Hrvatska] (29); India (27); Poland (27); Greece (13); Japan (7); Austria (5); Germany (4); Israel (4); Seychelles (3).
We have also recorded 111 hits from the U.S. military.
We are averaging more than 10,000 hits a day, a number that would be higher if our weekend numbers weren't so dismal, and have peaked at 39,000 hits one day and 37,000 hits another.
Of course, hits are not the same as unique users, though there is a good technical reason, I'm told, to believe our statistics tools are undercounting unique users. But we can safely say we have had at least 2,200 unique users in the last two weeks alone.
We are ever so close to having our advertisting and financial tools in place, so we are officially kicking off The Beachwood Readership Drive to go hand-in-hand with the revenue strategy that will unfold over the next few weeks. So keep reading, and tell everyone you know to keep reading so we can keep this thing afloat.
Where else, for example, can you get I, Store Detective? Taxi Cab Journal? Crank Calls to Misleadingly Named Suburbs? Politics Beachwood-style? (And don't forget, you catch up on The Papers here.)
We've got a lot more to come, as soon as we learn how to make those damn news feeds show up the way we want them to, for example, and when I find the time to get that photo page going, and when we can get Beachwood-style click polls on the march. So stick with us.
And if you want to join the Beachwood team, we need help in all areas, from news reporting to business management, and particularly in geeky techdom and ad sales. Send me a note and we'll put you to work.
The Bud Light Beachwood Tip Line? Now accepting bids.
Posted by Lou at 06:58 AM | Permalink
March 30, 2006
The [Thursday] Papers
So it turns out the big immigration rally here in Chicago a few weeks ago was just the beginning. A string of protests in other major cities followed and now, suddenly it seems, immigration has leapt to the top of the nation's domestic agenda.
Of course, in reality it's not so sudden. Immigration has been building steam over the years for a variety of reasons, and it's peaking now in large part due to legislation currently moving through Congress.
But it still seems sudden.
Does this mean that Jim Oberweis was actually ahead of the curve?
The best evidence of the complexity of immigration policy is how it doesn't fit into an ideological box. Fighting to protect illegal immigrants, for example, may be a noble defense of a hard-working, exploited underclass trying to achieve the American Dream, or it may be playing into the hands of the corporate exploiters using them as a source of horrendously cheap labor. Just to use one simplistic example.
Eric Alterman, the leftish author/pundit who writes a column for The Nation and a blog for MSNBC, included this item this week in a list titled How Would I Know?:
"Immigration. About twelve years ago, I got Rolling Stone to send me to San Diego to ride around with the Border Patrol for a week and chase illegal immigrants trying to sneak across the border. I could probably spin that into a column about today's hot-button topic, but I don't feel like it. We can't close the border and we need those people. But we can't let everybody in or punish law-abiding people. What to do? Hell if I know."
That about sums it up.
What makes the immigration issue so vexing is that it is really an entanglement of several disparate and often conflicting issues, from security and border control to economics and globalization. It is also unavoidably about race (both the race of those coming here and the race of those here who are impacted by the labor competition) and identity (is America a nation of immigrants, even illegal immigrants, or are we something else?)
I'm less concerned with the issue of border security (can't we just let everyone in who wants to come, but register them as citizens at the border?) than I am of the labor and economic questions surrounding immigration policy. What rankles me the most is the talking point I hear repeated most frequently: That (illegal) immigrants are willing to do the jobs that Americans won't. What I hear is racial code: Immigrants are willing to take on the worst of the worst jobs under sometimes illegal (or ought to be) conditions to make it in America, unlike, say, poor blacks.
This is the proposition I would like to see reporters explore most fully: What truly are not just the top-down economics of immigration, illegal and otherwise, but the bottom-up realities?
Mary Mitchell writes a bit about this today in her Chicago Sun-Times column.
The New York Times reports today about Republicans worried that the immigration issue will harm them with Hispanic voters.
Even Christian evangelicals are split on immigration, according to this story today in The Wall Street Journal.
Better yet, tune in to Lou Dobbs every day at 5 p.m. on CNN and see if this will be the day he spontaneously combusts. That's just one reason why I keep watching.
Second City Syndrome
The city council approved a zoning change sought by the folks behind the proposed Calatrava spire on the lakefront, also known as The Screw.
Alderman Burton Natarus, who represents downtown, said the skyscraper "puts Chicago on the map."
It's about time. Maybe we'll finally . . . I can't. This joke is too easy.
Meanwhile, Mayor Richard M. Daley said that "We have great skyscrapers here. And they employ a lot of people in construction--and even afterwards."
And even afterwa . . . Oh. I can't compete with these guys, they write their own material.
Troubled Trib
"Tribune's stock price has slumped to multiyear lows, Wall Street analysts have slapped the company with rare 'sell' ratings, and the company's strategy of corralling advertisers by owning newspapers and television stations in the same markets seems to have flopped."
- from a Wall Street Journal article today about the increasing pressure Tribune Company executives must be feeling to "do something," like sell the Cubs
Corruption Corner
The Michael Tristano plea deal in which he admitted steering state resources (your tax dollars) into Republican political campaigns does not bode well for Lee Daniels, onetime Speaker of the Illinois House and current state representative from Elmhurst.
"There's no allegations that I did anything wrong," Daniels said yesterday.
But the plea agreement says that "In both his capacities as chief of staff and executive director, [Tristano] reported to and took direction from Lee Daniels."
Rich Miller provides a nice roundup of links on his Capitol Fax Blog, including the plea agreement and the first Crain's Chicago Business story that kicked the whole thing off.
Flying Bind
Lynn Sweet dissects the ethics and lobbying bill that passed the U.S. Senate yesterday that would enact new restrictions on gifts but still allow members of Congress to accept free flights from lobbyists.
The print illustration accompanying Sweet's column is not reproduced online, because, well, the Web isn't really a visual medium.
Too bad, because Thomas Frisbie's handiwork nicely depicts a bunch of airplanes flying around the U.S. Capitol, whose American flag has its stars replaced by a dollar sign.
The airplanes are labeled as follows:
* Panhandle Am
* Air Mooch
* Cookie Jar Corp.
* Quid Pro Quo, Inc.
* Handout Co.
* Rent-A-Senator
* Free Ride Airlines
* Swine Flew
In the Webb
If the George Ryan case ends in a mistrial, the law firm defending him, Winston & Strawn, is in quite a quandry that has everything to do with money and nothing to do with the law. Read why in this Tribune report.
Our Tip Line is pro bono, even if you work at Winston & Strawn. Especially if you work at Winston & Strawn.
Posted by Lou at 07:48 AM | Permalink
March 29, 2006
The [Wednesday] Papers
It was a real cliffhanger in the Democratic primary for the sixth district seat of the Illinois House of Representatives.
With 79 percent of the vote counted last week, for example, unofficial results put challenger Darryl Smith ahead of incumbent Esther Golar by five votes, in a four-way race.
The Chicago Defender reported on Monday that Golar had inched ahead of Smith with 111 of 114 precincts reporting; Golar had 4,201 votes (40 percent) to Smith's 3,892 (37 percent). A third candidate, Samuel T. Bunville, had 16 percent of the vote, while the fourth candidate, Keith Kysel, notched 7 percent of the vote.
Today the Defender reports that Golar's margin has held; with all precincts reporting, Golar claimed 4,343 votes (40 percent) to Smith 's 3,971 (37 percent).
With no one running on the Republican side, this was the election. And what a barn-burner it was.
But in searches of LexisNexis, Google, and the paper's own Websites, not a single story about this race turned up in the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago Sun-Times.
Why should the papers have been been interested in this particular race, besides the standard fact--which ought to be enough--that the contest is for a Chicago seat in the state legislature?
Because the sixth district (among others) represents Englewood.
With all the media's pathos and moralizing over the recent shooting deaths of two young girls in Englewood, you'd think maybe the papers would be interested in the public officeholders of the community.
You'd think wrong.
And it's not as if the campaign was a stiff. The incumbent, Golar, was appointed to the post by party committeemen after Patrica Bailey resigned amidst her conviction for fraud and perjury after it was discovered that she used a fake address on election documents and didn't actually live in the district she represented, which is required by state law.
Golar--whom I'm pretty sure isn't 23 years old as the Sun-Times once unquestioningly reported in a news brief--was not an outrageous choice, having been a community organizer for 16 years, a civilian employee of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy Program for eight years, and board secretary of the Neighborhood Housing Services for nine years.
Her current House committee assignments include Appropriations-General Service, Child Support Enforcement, Mental Illness, Veterans Affairs, Judiciary II-Criminal Law, and Tourism & Conventions.
So she has a record to evaluate.
Smith is the head of The Englewood Political Task Force, which, among other things, claims to have won 375 construction jobs for neighborhood residents. He might have been worth listening to. Bunville is a former social worker and former police officer who serves in the Navy Reserves. Kysel is a bus driver, substitute teacher, and real estate agent.
And, according to this story in the Near West Gazette, the race started with three other candidates, including a truck driver who died after qualifying for the ballot and a former state representative.
Not enough to interest the dailies, though.
The Tribune sees fit to write a story about how clout determines the divvying up of CeaseFire funds--a story that says Bailey's lobbying for Englewood's share was adequate despite a less-than-adequate result--but isn't interested in how the next representative plans to go about the job.
Other standard campaign elements were present as well. Golar, for example, received some interesting contributions down the stretch, according to state election records, including:
* $10,000 from the controversial Hispanic Democratic Organization.
* $2,000 from Michael Noonan of The Roosevelt Group, the lobbying firm of former HDO maven Victor Reyes
* $2,000 from the Illinois Road Builders Association
* $1,000 from Exelon
* $2,707.24 from Speaker Michael Madigan in the form of postage
* $2,500 from Assisant Majority Leader Edward Acevedo
* $1,000 from the 23rd Ward Regular Democratic Organization
So Golar was clearly the Establishment's choice.
Smith's contribution data was not on-file electronically with the State Board of Elections as of this morning, though the state did have a record of the existence of his campaign. I say that because Bunville's name didn't turn up anywhere on the election board's Website and the only information on Kysel showed that he ran for alderman in 1999.
Experienced political hands in Chicago might suspect Bunville and Kysel of being plants put in the race by Golar's people, but I'm not about to start throwing accusations around.
This campaign also had election day hijinks, though it's not clear who was zooming who. According to the Defender, two Smith supporters were reportedly arrested outside a polling station and charged with electioneering.
It wasn't the Smith campaign's first tangle with police. In January, the Defender said, Smith filed a complaint with the Chicago Police Department Office of Professional Standards alleging an illegal raid of his campaign offices.
Perhaps more curious, the Defender says that Golar has not returned its calls over the last two months.
Maybe she's simply not used to getting calls from the media and hasn't yet learned how to call them back.
So we don't know how Golar plans to represent Englewood and the other neighborhoods under her watch as a state representative. Reporters from the Tribune and the Sun-Times couldn't be bothered to ask. Perhaps the next time the papers editorialize about how somebody ought to do something in Englewood, they ought to redirect their editorial into an internal memo.
Pols-in-Residence: So, aside from the lying, Patricia Bailey was convicted of doing just what Tammy Duckworth will be doing should Duckworth win her congressional race--living outside the district she would represent?
Gag Me
Still no explanation of the gag order issue about the Tribune I raised yesterday. Perhaps we're all under a gag order now and I didn't get the memo.
Judging TV
Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, presiding over the Ryan trial, again warned jurors Tuesday not to read the newspapers or watch the TV news. The same restriction does not appear to apply to her, as she has referenced in recent days media reports about why background checks weren't done on the jurors. But isn't she susceptible to being influenced by news reports as well? (Or perhaps she is responding to reporters's questions and not news reports . . . but is she bound by the same restrictions as jurors?)
Sun-Times Gagging
While the Sun-Times is still not naming the two jurors dismissed from the George Ryan trial this week, the Daily Herald on Tuesday commendably profiled one of them, Robert Pavlick, and in so doing presented a fuller human picture of a seemingly well-liked man who works at Home Depot in Palatine but certainly has had a troubled past.
None of Our Business
"While awaiting an appointment at the Capitol, [Illinois Department of Transportation] Secretary Tim Martin declined to answer any questions about Holland's audit without a spokesman present, saying there was no one there to protect his 'interests,'" Dave McKinney reported in the Sun-Times today.
Which is understandable, because we pay a lot in taxes so these guys can hire mouthpieces to lie for them instead of doing it themselves.
In Today's Reporter
What treats we have for you!
Why the suburbs are fundamentally dishonest.
I, Store Detective, Chapter 1: Five-Finger Discount.
Two network comedies that are actually comedic.
Our Tip Line is pretty funny, too: Try it and see what happens.
Posted by Lou at 06:58 AM | Permalink
It's Gold, Jerry. Gold. Two New Network Comedies Pass a Stringent Humor Test
As a TV viewer, I have a lot of rules. All of these rules must be strictly met or the corporate Hollywood types who blithely assume I'm a typical drooling idiot out here in flyover country are never going to get the satisfaction of adding me to their roster of patsies. So, given that the stakes are so high, I have a load of conditions that must be overcome for me to actually invest even an ounce of loyalty to a network TV show.
This is especially true with comedies.
Yes, I am difficult to please, but multiply my built-in baseline by 10 and you'll begin to understand my highly emotional relationship with comedies. To me, comedy is of the essence. You can make a bad show about cops or doctors or psychic profilers or girls that talk with God and I'm not going to take it personally. So if CSI: Miami is egregiously cliched or if Law and Order seems like a kind of meaningless tribal ritual--no skin off my nose. After all, whether I get the satisfaction of knowing that it was the guy's parole officer, NOT the guy himself, who actually stole the money and shot the woman, ultimately means nothing to me. Puzzle solving does not get me high.
But laughing, that's completely different. I take laughing so personally that failure to deliver is a serious offense in my book. So network TV comedies have a lot of hurdles to jump to get from point A (the smoke-filled Burbank writers' den) to point B (my funnybone).
Here are a few of the rules I have (just a few of them, mind you):
1. It shall not have a cute kid who can't act (that pretty much eliminates anything from the 1980s).
2. It shall not have any episodes involving The Prom.
3. Any "lessons" to be "learned" must be done in such a way that you don't know you've learned any lessons at all.
4. It shall not involve un-ironic suburban families (i.e., Tim Allen).
5. It shall never have an episode revolving around a dog or cat.
6. Nor shall there be any storylines about a rich, fun-loving uncle who's actually broke.
7. Or any "special episodes," like the one on Diff'rent Strokes where Arnold is stalked by a child molester. They should all be special episodes. If they're not, then why the hell am I watching?
I could go on. With all these rules, it may seem unlikely that any comedy could get even half-nodding approval from me. But we are indeed living in a golden time, my friends, because there are not one, but two new comedies on network TV that, so far at least, have cleared my fearsome humor hurdles.
Both new shows, despite the denials of their creators, are picking up Arrested Development's slack in the no-laugh-track, seemingly-improvised-dialogue category. ABC's Sons and Daughters (Tuesdays, 8 p.m.) and Fox's Free Ride (Sundays, 8:30 p.m.) both boast that wonderful kind of humor that until very recently has been rare on TV sitcoms--smart, character-driven sarcasm, usually triggered by the truly distressing personal defects of family members. I mean, how much more like real life can it get?
I really approve of this trend. It seems to me that snarky comments about your teenage son's constipation problem--a problem that's complicated by the fact that you don't know how to deal with it because you're living with him for the first time since he was six--is gold, whereas strained wacky hijinks involving Lucille Ball-type schemes to keep your boss from finding out you've trashed the assembly line (where most sitcoms still go) is deadly.
On Sons and Daughters, Fred Goss, who stars as the guy with the constipated son and also is the series co-creator and writer, one-ups Ron Howard from Arrested Development; while the Bluth family in the latter show were hilarious but all caricatures, the Walkers on Sons and Daughters are just as funny but also uncomfortably real. It's as if the stream-of-consciousness comedy dialogue of Arrested were put into a Christopher Guest mockumentary set in suburbia.
The main relationships in the show (and there are a ton of cast members) are between Cameron (Goss), the 40-year-old family breadwinner, his second wife Liz (Gillian Vigman, and Henry, the pissed-off teenage son from Cameron's first marriage (Trevor Einhorn, who played Frasier and Lilith's son on Frasier-- he's a revelation) who has just come to live with them.
The byplay between them is awkward, and so very funny. With resentment of his dad barely under control, Henry comes into his parents' bedroom desperately trying to find a way to solicit advice about his chronic constipation problem without involving his father:
Henry: Ummm, hi. Is this OK?
Cameron: (surprised) Uh, yeah, sure. Usually it's one of the little ones coming in.
Henry: Yeah, I don't like coming in here. Um, I kind of need to talk to you about something.
Cameron: Sure.
Henry: No, not you. Liz. If that's OK?
Liz: (surprised) Oh, sure. (They go into hallway). It really means a lot to me that you want to talk.
Henry: Yeah, well, this is really awkward . . . When I pull down my pants, it . . . (cut back to Cameron, pacing and upset in the bedroom. He puts his ear up to the door) . . . I really don't want to be talking about this anymore, he could be listening!
Liz: No, of course he wouldn't (re-enters the room).
Cameron: What did he say?
Liz: He asked me not to say anything.
Cameron: If I guess it will you nod? Just a little nod?
See, there's no laff-out-loud gags here. It all derives from the premise. And lessons get learned, but in a really nice, unobtrusive way--the way it should be.
The executive producer is Lorne Michaels. The show also has this warning at the beginning of the show, which I can't quite decide is legitimate: "The dialogue on Sons and Daughters is partially improvised." Should we be afraid or something?
Over at Fox, where Arrested Development spawned a bit of a movement before being axed for low ratings, another laugh track-less comedy has emerged, this one on Sunday nights after Family Guy. Free Ride also has the improvised dialogue and ambition to say something about screwed-up modern family relationships, but in a dumb-guy kind of Fox way. That's how it's done there.
Free Ride, despite a nice turn by Canadian hottie Josh Dean as the lead--an ineffectual, sensitive surfer boy who has to return home to bleak Johnson City, Mo., and face the screwed-up parents--he belongs lock, stock and barrel to Chicago Second City and MTV alumni Dave Sheridan. Sheridan is the thinking man's mullet-head. He's one of those big, loud, very stupid guilty pleasures that Fox always has seemed to have up their sleeves.
His character, Mark Dove, drives a jacked-up pick-up and takes over Dean's life like the long-lost friend he never was. In fact they barely knew each other, but that doesn't stop the oblivious, party-hearty Dove from stompin' a mudhole in our hearts. Dove is the kind of arrogant but ultimately well-meaning buffed-up guy who'll join a heavy metal band and not figure out they play Christian rock until he's forced to go to church with them on Sunday morning. He wins the shopping mall tanning contest for three straight years, comparing himself favorably to a rotisserie chicken. He has a tattoo of Kip Winger.
Free Ride is, above all else, a put-down of the kind of dumbshits that make the red states so damn red, and coming from Fox, that means something. It's surprisingly light on the toilet humor and on the Life Lessons Learned sitcom scale; with one being obnoxiously obvious and 10 being barely noticeable, I give it a healthy 8.5. But watch it for the mullet-man. He knows his stuff.
Posted by Lou at 03:06 AM | Permalink
Chapter 1: Five-Finger Discount
You see the worst kinds of low-lifes in this job. Not the mobsters, the crass developers or the crooked politicians that run this town; but the liars and the thieves, the thrill-seekers and the junkies, all of them looking for that five-finger discount. My name is Jim Brody, and I'm a store detective.
Days like this are the ones you learn to savor on this job. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It's a dreary morning, the rain fading before it hits the sidewalks along North Michigan Avenue. You'd think people would want to come in from the cold, ease their minds in the paperback section, get a jump on their holiday shopping. But you have to go outside to come in from the cold, and nobody's going anywhere today.
I'm on at 11, walking my usual pattern. The store's so quiet I can hear the listening stations from the music section all the way across in the cafe. They're playing that Arctic Monkeys album again. Lucy is pouring my usual, a double-shot cappuccino, easy on the foam. "They turn those headphones up way too loud," she says, glaring hard over a plate of fresh-baked oatmeal raisin cookies. "Sometimes I think it's going to drive me crazy."
"I know, kid," I tell her. "But they've got to do it. How else are they going to pull in customers?"
"Some customers. All they ever do is hang around there listening. I never see any of them buying anything." She leans a little closer to me. "They're just a bunch of freeloaders, Jim, standing there all day using our electricity. It's a disgrace. Can't you do something about it?"
"There's no law against browsing, Lucy. You know that." I touch her hand softly. "But I'll tell you what. You ever see one of them try to pocket the latest Michael Buble, you call your old friend Jim. I'll make sure they don't get away with it."
She smiles that little crinkly-nosed smile of hers. She's a good kid, Lucy. Pretty, too. Sometimes I think this city's too rough for a sweet-natured girl like her. "Come and see me later, Jim. I'm baking those banana-walnut muffins you like."
I head to the lower level, where they keep the children's and young adult books. It's a tough stake-out for me. I'm supposed to blend in, not draw attention to myself, but who wouldn't notice a single guy in his early 20s rubbing elbows with a bunch of kids?
There's two young-looking teens wandering around the latest Nancy Farmer book display. If these kids have any taste, they'll go for the hard-cover titles. I take up a spot directly across in the travel section, grab a book off the shelf and start flipping through it. One of the teens is getting close to the good stuff, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one's watching. He's going for it, I can feel it. I've got my hand on my cell phone, ready to buzz security, when the other kid calls out, "Hey, we've got to go meet Mom for lunch."
"Yeah, OK," he mutters. The two of them walk toward the escalators, empty-handed. It's a load off my mind. No one likes to see some kid get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, not when he has his whole life ahead of him.
I'm about to breathe a sigh of relief when I hear a woman's voice. "Planning a trip to Portugal?"
I look up and see her sitting there, honey-blond hair shimmering in the soft, fluorescent buzz of the overhead lighting. It looks like she's been there a while, judging by the stack of books at her feet. Her coat is draped over the arm of the chair. She's wearing a loose-fitting pink sweater, but you can see she's got all the curves a woman should. I'm thrown off guard by her wide blue eyes, which are staring right at me.
"What did you say?"
"Portugal," she says. "That book you're reading? Are you going there soon?"
I've got to think fast.
"Portugal, yeah, I'm hoping to get down there next time I'm in Europe."
Her eyes open even wider.
"Do you go there often?"
"Oh sure, one or twice a month. For work."
"What type of work is that?"
It's time to change the subject. I take a quick look at the books by the side of her chair. Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, Vagabond Globetrotting, The Most Beautiful Villages of Tuscany. "It looks like you're planning quite a trip too."
She blushes a little, the color bringing out the soft angles of her cheeks. "I just like to read about all these beautiful places I'm never going to see. I try to come here once a week. Say, haven't I seen you in here before?"
My cell phone starts ringing. Thank God I forgot to put it on vibrate.
"I'm sorry," I tell her, "I've got to take this."
"Sure, I understand."
I flip open my phone and put it to my ear.
"Yeah?"
"Jim, it's Lucy."
She sounds like a nervous wreck.
"What's the matter?"
"I . . . I think I just saw something. Can you come up here right away?"
"I'm on my way."
To be continued . . .
Posted by Lou at 12:26 AM | Permalink
March 28, 2006
The [Tuesday] Papers
The Chicago Tribune explains its reporting in the George Ryan jury mess quite satisfactorily today. Columnist Eric Zorn adds some interesting details.
The newspaper did its job. I don't see how it could or should have handled this story any differently.
But can we just move on to the appeal now?
Bound by Gag? One thing continues to confuse me, however, and I regret that I haven't had time to track it down myself. Perhaps a reader can help.
In an earlier story on the now-expelled jurors, the paper said this: "The Tribune did not contact the juror for comment because doing so could violate a court order not to communicate with jurors during a trial."
In today's story in which the paper explained its actions, the Tribune said this: "Under normal circumstances, the reporters would then contact the subject of the story for comment. But an order from Pallmeyer prohibited contact with the jurors while the case is ongoing."
Surely Pallmeyer's gag order doesn't apply to reporters as well as the participants of the trial? Wouldn't that be extraordinary, not to say unconstitutional? I've never heard of a gag order being extended to reporters covering a trial.
It would be another thing if the paper decided to respect the gag order to avoid "tampering" with the jury. But for the media to accept a gag order on itself is a wholly different matter.
What if, for example, a juror called the newspaper to say he or she had been offered money to cause a mistrial? Or that the jurors were reading newspaper accounts of the trial during deliberations? Would the reporter taking that call say, "I'm sorry, but we're under a gag order. Tell it to the judge."?
Please clarify, Tribune.
Over at The Bright One: Now that the two jurors causing this mess have been dismissed, the Tribune rightly felt it was okay to name them, and even plaster a photo of one of them on the front page.
The Sun-Times, a daily reminder of what happens when you schedule ethics class too early to make, what with all the drinking, and you keep forgetting to borrow someone's notes, declined to name names "because a gag order in place bars them from responding."
But the jurors did respond, if only in the form of Robert Pavlick telling reporters outside his home, as quoted in the Tribune, "You're going to waste a lot of valuable time standing out here. I will give a statement when the trial is over."
The two jurors may still be under a gag order--though it's not entirely clear that they ought to be--but the decision not to comment is still theirs, and more importantly, their identities are newsworthy.
There is nothing unfair about naming them amidst publishing details of the public forms they filled out during jury selection or any other information in the public record.
The Trials of the Dan Ryan
Amidst the George Ryan hubbub, don't miss the Trib's front page story about how you, dear taxpayer, are being ripped off by a few folks allegedly skimming from state funds meant to help drivers navigate the Dan Ryan reconstruction.
Legislator Hendon Fails His Audition
I don't know what's worse, the fact that our state legislature, much like many of our other political bodies, seems to be inhabited by overgrown children, or the fact that its members are less witty than your average 7-year-old.
Daley Watch
"You'd be bankrupt tomorrow if you take every bid that came down from contractors," the mayor is quoted as saying in the Sun-Times. "You want us to accept all the bids? Then why don't you just join the contractors association. That's stupid."
I'm pretty sure the question put to the mayor wasn't, "Mr. Mayor, we see that the city rejected all the bids for a runway project at O'Hare. Why doesn't the city accept every bid it gets?"
Why does the City Hall press corps put up with this?
One More and It's a Trend
The embattled Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau has also issued a gag order, which was promptly leaked to the media. The system works.
Ray of Demographic Sunshine
Editor & Publisher magazine has named the Daily Herald's Doug Ray the publisher of the year.
The magazine says that the suburban paper "is proving that a suburban daily can fend off a powerful big-city competitor and ambitious mid-sized dailies, take advertising market share from long-time category leaders, and grow circulation while the rest of the industry stalls--all the while investing in the areas many metros are scaling back: journalism, production equipment and circulation service."
Or maybe the paper is proving that, like a rich suburban kid, it was born in the right place at the right time. I'd be more impressed if the paper could show us an expansion plan that didn't correspond to income quintiles.
But what really caught my eye in this story is E&P's mention that the Daily Herald has 60 more employees than the Sun-Times.
What E&P got wrong is that that says a lot more about the Sun-Times's management than the Daily Herald's.
Catty Cat
Chicago artist Cat Chow, known for making clothing out of unusual items such as dollar bills and chain mail, was caught stowing away on a flight to Texas and now faces a federal charge.
"Maybe she'll learn how to make a dress out of license plates," says Tim Willette.
News from Beachwood HQ
It only took about three months to navigate the bureaucracy of the Secretary of State's Office, but The Beachwood Media Company is now officially incorporated in the State of Illinois. We will start bidding on roadway contracts shortly.
The Beachwood Tip Line: The best alternate route yet.
Posted by Lou at 06:53 AM | Permalink
Actual Crank Calls to Misleadingly Named Suburbs
"Mount Prospect Chamber."
"Hi. I'm thinking of looking for a place to live in Mount Prospect, and I'm trying to find out how high the mountain is and whether it interferes with TV or radio reception."
"The mountain is about ... 400 inches high."
"Oh. I thought Mount Prospect was named after a mountain."
"We are in Mount Prospect, but there is no mountain."
*
"Buffalo Grove Chamber of Commerce."
"I'm trying to find out where to go in Buffalo Grove to see the buffalo."
"What buffalo?"
"Aren't there buffalo in Buffalo Grove?"
"There used to be buffalo here. In the 19th century. This was a farming community in the 1840s and there were buffalo then. We have buffalo statues around town, but there are no buffalo."
*
"Elk Grove Village Chamber of Commerce."
"Can you tell me where in Elk Grove Village I can see the elk graze?"
"Can you hold for a minute?"
(Pause.)
"On the corner of Arlington Heights Road and Higgins, right across the street from Hoskins Chevrolet. There's a parking lot by the forest preserve, and it's not guaranteed, but more often than not, elk come by."
"Well, you're better than Buffalo Grove."
(Laughs) "Why, because they don't have any buffalo?"
*
"Village of Willow Springs."
"Hi. Can you tell me how to get to the springs?"
"Willow Springs?"
"The springs that the village is named after."
"I don't know. Do you want someone's voice mail?"
"Are there any springs?"
"Like hot springs? No."
"OK. Thanks."
*
"Chamber of Commerce."
"I'm thinking of looking for a place to live in Carol Stream, and I'd like to know if there are any housing developments near where the stream flows."
(Irritated pause) "There isn't a stream."
"Oh. Then how did Carol Stream get its name."
"That's someone's last name."
"Oh. Thank you."
"Bye-bye."
*
"Chamber."
"Hi. I'm thinking of moving to Vernon Hills, and I'd like to know which neighborhoods are up in the hills."
(Amused) "There actually are no hills. There may be a few little mounds."
"So there are no hills in Vernon Hills? You could be in trouble for truth in advertising."
"Well, Vernon Hills is kind of a romantic-sounding name. Are you familiar with what prairie land looks like?"
"Kind of flat and grassy?"
"Yeah. Vernon Prairie might be a better description."
*
"Northbrook Park District."
"I'm trying to find out where I can fish in the brook."
"When? Not now."
"In the spring."
"It's just catch-and-release."
"Where's the brook located?"
"Off Sanders and Dundee."
"And you just have to have an Illinois fishing license."
"I believe so."
"Thanks."
*
"Mayor's office."
"I'm coming to visit Blue Island and I'm trying to find out if there's a bridge to the island or if you have to take a ferry."
"No. Just normal streets. There's no water you have to go over."
"Oh, so it's not actually an island?"
"No."
Posted by Lou at 03:30 AM | Permalink
The Mix Tape, 1991: I'm 13, and I Live in Evergreen Park
I turned 13. I loved metal. Nirvana was a year away. I was not the most popular kid in my class. I discovered girls liked music. I made out for the first time. I did not start puberty. The year is 1991, and I live in Evergreen Park.
SIDE A
Stop! (Jane's Addiction, from Ritual de lo Habitual)
It was the album cover. The original album cover. I always went through the vinyl racks at Wind Records, even though the only turntable I had was a busted Fisher-Price portable unit. I asked the guy behind the counter who they were, not yet hip to a hipster's assumed knowledge. "They're playing right now," he said. And it was this song. I whiled away the next 45 minutes browsing and listening to this whole incredible album. Cheesy? Yes. Derivative of almost every '70s rock trope? Yes. I loved this album because it made me feel older, and because it was Rolling Stone's Critics Pick for Album of the Year (after I bought it!). Stop! was what I wanted drugs to feel like. And when I got older, I found that I was right.
Hangar 18 (Megadeth, from Rust in Peace)
Jack Stanley loved Megadeth. I loved Metallica. He made out with chicks from the public junior high. I began to like Megadeth. The album had a cooler-than-Iron Maiden comic book cover, and Dave Mustaine could shred. I think this song is about Area 51. I don't know. My brain shut out Dave's vocals.
Fade to Black (Metallica, from Ride the Lightning)
I wore huge glasses. My braces would have scared Tim Burton. The year before, two eighth-graders threw me in the dumpster, and the principal yelled at me because my clothes were too filthy for class. I related to this song.
You're Crazy (Guns N' Roses, from Appetite for Destruction)
I ripped off Columbia House for the first time at 10 and started my music collection. I peeled the wrapper off this cassette with my teeth when it finally arrived. I played this cassette so much over the next three years, the mechanism snapped. I grew up with six sisters, and other girls were not my forte. I wanted to run down 95th Street singing this song at every woman I met, shouting them down. I had some misogyny issues to resolve.
Pour Some Sugar on Me (Def Leppard, from Hysteria)
The British call it being a lad. Ya know, stylish guy, hit with the ladies. I wanted to be an American lad. It involved this song, roller skating, and having women fight over me while the referee skated backwards to break it up. A complicated image for an incredibly sophomoric song.
Welcome to the Terrordome (Public Enemy, from Fear of a Black Planet)
The closest I ever got to black people was occasionally the library, the Plaza, or the corner of 99th and Halsted. I certainly didn't know any. But if you couldn't tell, I had a certain affinity for angry music. And no one was more pissed off than Chuck D in 1991. On my door, he glared at my mother for even thinking of emptying my laundry from the Dirty Dunk. Next to him was a photo of what I now know as Flavor Flav's "grill." I grew up in a remarkably tolerant household within a toxically racist village. Chuck D's raps blistered any of that ignorance which may have adhered to me. He was my anti-Martin Luther King. "It's weak to speak and blame somebody else/When you destroy yourself." Word.
What It Takes (Aerosmith, from Pump)
I wanted someone to break my heart so I could feel Steven Tyler's pain. Big. Sappy. Ballad. But it moved me to tears.
Cherry Pie (Warrant, from Cherry Pie)
"So I mixed up the batter/And she licked the beater." 'Nuff said.
Beat on the Brat (The Ramones, from Ramones)
"Yeah, this is punk music." So said Brian O'Neill, one-third of the Brothers O'Neill who had such a huge influence on what I thought was cool. I didn't know punk from funk yet, but I loved this. Dumb and violent, like the best of Tom & Jerry. Unfortunately, this song turned to "Beat on the Brett" when Mike Spadoni and Mike O'Neill felt like giving me "deserved" beatings.
SIDE B
Don't Know What You Got (Cinderella, from Long Cold Winter)
A dusty for me at 13. I left my Crue-lovin' hair metal days long behind (one year). I wanted it faster and heavier--more shop vac, less feather duster. But I would fall in love with Bowie very soon, and my glam-lovin' roots lie right here. Some songs make you air guitar. Some you mouth intently late at night, plugged into your Walkman. This is one of the latter.
Paint It Black (The Rolling Stones, from Hot Rocks)
I bought Hot Rocks at the local Musicland with a Christmas gift coin a year before this and listened to it on my Walkman everywhere for a solid month. Walking home from school. Studying. Reading in bed. Regular radio became extraordinarily boring. I began my baby steps to Rock Snobdom. This was Serious Music. Not pretty; it was untamed. I would close my eyes at night with this song and, maybe like David St. Hubbins, think more black, more black.
Almost Grown (Chuck Berry, from The Great 28)
Another Columbia House heist. Chuck Berry played teen-aged blues, sure, but nobody ever played 'em better. His guitar licks hum and strut; they vibrate. He was black, he was cool, and I wanted to hang out with him all the time. I thought I was being hip and retro, but later I find everybody was into him. Kind of a bummer.
The Warmth of the Sun (The Beach Boys, from Endless Summer)
My sisters listened to crappy music. Phil Collins. Huey Lewis and the News. The Outfield. But they owned a ton of Beach Boys--records, 8-tracks, cassettes--nearly everything. This was my blues. Get cut from the team? Listen to Brian Wilson. Not get a girl to skate with you? Listen to Brian Wilson. Friends ditch you? Listen to Brian Wilson. Guy always knew what to say and empathized with you like crazy. The opening harmony of this song is a straight out music taste scythe for me to this day. Either you get goose bumps, or you just don't get it.
Five to One (The Doors, from The Best of the Doors)
Oooh . . . the Doors. Yes, everyone who loves music goes through a huge Doors phase. Mine went hand in hand with Jim Thompson novels right around the summer I was going into seventh grade. The Corniea Bros. played The Best of all the time, busting through their wonky, aging speakers, talking shit and drinking beer in a bombed-out basement. I sat and soaked it in, occasionally sneaking a smoke, that's it. Happy to be there. I thought this was punk. No, punk has art to it. No art in that basement. And no art in the Doors. I still love Jim Thompson, though.
Angel of Death (Slayer, from Reign in Blood)
Commitment. When I think Slayer, I think commitment. These dudes didn't just take the thrash Kool-Aid, they bathed in it. And it always sounded better coming out of Dennis O'Neill's locked bedroom. More secret. Plus, the real cool public school kids wore Slayer hoodies and would smash your weak-ass won-at-a-carnival framed Bon Jovi poster as soon as smile at you. I couldn't get that committed. But I loved knowing something that beyond the pale was out there for me.
Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin, from Led Zeppelin IV)
Poetry to me then. I also thought drugs were like this song. Thank God I was wrong. The rest of Led's oeuvre I found pretty weak--not heavy enough. But Robert Plant tripping medieval and Jimmy Page at his most prog? To my Tolkien-trained ears, a true symphony. Sometimes it's good you are 13 only once.
Alison (Elvis Costello, from My Aim Is True)
First, the cover. It was me, looking back at me! Then this song. Almost Chuck Berry wedded to the Beach Boys. I could have sworn Elvis ripped it out of my heart's teletype. And my sisters loved him, so I knew he eventually got the girl. Elvis still gives me that faith.
4th of July, Asbury Park (Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, from Live/1975-85)
If you are a Brett, you wear Chuck Taylors and have a complete devotion to Bruce. I don't remember life before him, because to me it didn't exist. 1978, he was already the Boss. Bruce was sui generis, all eventual music I held dear to this day derives from him. And this song, well, it was nothing but electric. It's West Side Story mated to S.E. Hinton. I hung on every recycled word of it, because new to me then didn't matter. When you're 13, everything is new and most of it absolutely sucks. You want warm blankets. Bruce is still mine.
Posted by Lou at 02:57 AM | Permalink
March 27, 2006
The [Monday] Papers
Catch up with The [Sunday] Papers here, including a brief look at the stunning developments among the George Ryan jury, a challenge to the president of Exelon Nuclear, and the political sidelight of the Chicago Sun-Times's business editor.
In today's papers, there is one story that stands above all others as a must-read. Can even the most die-hard Republicans now claim that we weren't deceived into war by a president lacking judgement, among other shortcomings?
The president also spoke of assassinating Saddam Hussein here.
But denied it here.
Seat Belt Baloney
Is this what this campaign is going to be like? Pressing issues like a seat belt vote in the 1980s? Unless Judy Baar Topinka says she will try to roll back the seat belt law if elected governor, this is lame. (In fact, it might solidify her cred with the conservative/libertarian wing of the party none too thrilled with her generally moderate ways.) If you're keeping score at home, give Topinka half a point just to spite the Dems for wasting our time.
Use of Force
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed last week adding 800 police officers and 400 civilians to his city's police department. "The crime rate has come down more so than anybody would have ever thought," Bloomberg said. "That's the time to make another investment to keep it going. In business, you would devote more resources to the successful parts of your business and cut back those that aren't successful."
According to 2004 figures cited by The New York Times, the size of Chicago's police force lags behind those of other major cities. Here are the number of officers per 1,000 citizens for the world's four biggest police forces:
LA: 2.4
NYC: 4.5
Philadephia: 4.6
Chicago: 4.7
Mmmm, Telecaster
But barely a mention of Springsteen, who put the Telecaster into the public consciousness as much as anyone? And no reproduction of that loving Tele photo online?
Next Year Is Here Again
With the Cubs and White Sox playing today in an exhibition game in Arizona, it's time to check in on the spring training standings. Not that they mean much, but the White Sox, at 7-18, have the worst spring training record in the major leagues.
Beyond that, four of the top five records in the American League belong to their Central Division rivals: Cleveland, Kansas City, Detroit, and Minnesota.
So, at least briefly, all is right with the world again.
The Cubs, meanwhile, are in the middle of the pack (13-10) in the National League. Their mediocrity is comforting.
The Trigger Was Pulled
Today's Tribune editorial in favor of a state ban on assault weapons appropriately connects the issue to the recent shooting deaths of two young girls in Englewood, but is curiously passive when describing the federal ban that was not renewed in 2004.
"Congress let a federal ban on 19 kinds of semiautomatic assault weapons expire in 2004," the paper says, without noting that while many Democrats were spineless weasels on the issue, both houses of Congress were (and still are) under control of Republicans and that, conveniently enough, a Republican sat (and still sits) in the White House.
And where did the Illinois delegation stand? Let's start naming names.
Race Case
"Why is it that only black people are expected to transcend race?" Laura Washington asks today. "Why is it that when African Americans vote as a bloc, it's called race-based voting, but when whites do it, it's called 'reform'? No doubt a goodly dollop of Claypool support was race-based."
Class Case
This letter appeared in the Sun-Times today:
Museums too costly for poor
The Museum of Science and Industry officials reported being "shocked" by the lack of racial and economic diversity in museum attendance as reported by a recent University of Chicago study. Study authors blandly suggest that, "Admissions fees, hours of operations and transportation are areas institutions may need to reconsider if they wish to broaden attendance."
I always knew those guys at U. of C. were brilliant. I mean, really, it doesn't take a U. of C. study to tell us that the average poor and working-class families can't afford the luxury of museum sightseeing. When my husband and I, both Chicago residents, went to the Shedd Aquarium a couple months ago, it cost us $34 to get into the museum and another $20 to have a sandwich. Our friends, a couple with three young children from Oak Park, paid the nonresident rate--more than $100.
Wake up, museum officials. Poor families aren't "overscheduled with soccer practices." They are trying to cover the essentials of daily life.
Wendy Siegel
North Center
In Today's Reporter
Serialized fiction has arrived at The Beachwood Reporter! Be the first on your block to get hip to the pleasures of "I, Store Detective."
We encourage continued persual of "12 Lists." You won't be sorry.
Timothy Inklebarger lived in Alaska. He has many tales to tell, and we've posted the second installment in this already popular series.
And my favorite team in this year's tournament, George Mason, has made the NCAA's Final Four, just as we predicted. If the team wins the championship, I believe there is a mechanism in the Constitution that allows the school to assume control of the nation.
Use our Tip Line: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it Constitutional.
Posted by Lou at 10:07 AM | Permalink
The [Sunday] Papers
Count me among those stunned that the defense in particular apparently didn't do a background check on jurors in the George Ryan trial.
I guess $10 million doesn't go as far as it used to.
It strains credulity to think that today's sophisticated jury consulting doesn't include gathering every single fact possible on every single juror, including their favorite colors so lawyers can choose the most advantageous wardrobe and their favorite TV shows so a reference or two can be dropped into closing arguments.
But then, maybe Dan Webb is so brilliant that he doesn't need no stinkin' jury consultants.
Prosecutors get a little more slack, though the Chicago Tribune reported on Sunday that some state prosecutors, including those in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, say they routinely background prospective jurors for criminal records.
Federal prosecutors, the paper says, rarely if ever do background checks on jurors.
I bet they do from now on.
But somehow we don't expect prosecutors to be wily and manipulative and free-spending with their time and money. But the defense?
The Tribune says that the Webb team has never disclosed whether it hired consultants, but it's unthinkable that they would go to court without jury experts involved in some capacity in a case as momentous as an ex-governor (and close friend of the law firm Winston & Strawn) on trial.
The more skeptical among us might wonder if Webb knew all along about the allegedly untruthful jurors and hoped to use the information to cause a mistrial or set up an appeal--regardless of whether he tipped the Trib or not.
The Tribune, however, hasn't indicated that anything but its own imagination led to undertaking background checks (perhaps in anticipation of interviewing jurors after a verdict).
It also would be a risk I would guess even Webb would not likely take.
"[T]he defense lawyers would have been obligated, as officers of the court, to reveal to prosecutors and [the judge] if they had discovered that a juror had been untruthful on a questionnaire," the Tribune says.
The Tribune, meanwhile, appears to have faced quite an ethical dilemma. Because of a gag order issued in the case, the paper did not seek to interview the jurors in question. The lawyers are also under a gag order. That doesn't preclude the newspaper from asking questions, but to do so would be asking sources to violate the judge's order not to speak. It would be within the newspaper's legal rights (as I understand it) to do so, and the media often asks sources to violate confidentiality agreements and orders of all kinds in order to expose truths. But in this case (as I see it), it would not have been the ethical thing to do as it would be tantamount to tampering with the jury. So while it feels uncomfortable that the paper reported its findings to the judge (or perhaps did so in seeking her comment) before publishing them, I'm not sure the paper had any other option.
If you have a different or clarifying point of view on this aspect of the case, send your comment to me or post an entry in our forums.
Onion or New York Times?
"Rumsfeld: Iraqis Now Capable Of Conducting War Without U.S. Assistance"
Stop Shilling
The recent Chicago Reader story about Stop Smiling magazine (see the item here titled "Why Is Daley Smiling?") says the publication has a circulation of 60,000, a figure I'm guessing the writer got from Stop Smiling's editors. The magazine's media kit, however, states that Stop Smiling has only 12,000 subscriptions. It claims newsstand sales of 45,000, but I suspect that number reflects how many magazines they ship to newsstands, not how many they sell. At Chicago magazine, for example, they work very hard to sell 20,000 issues off the newsstand each month. I'm just sayin'.
Start Drinking
The president and chief nuclear officer (that's what it says!) of Exelon Nuclear had his Letter to the Editor complaining about coverage of tritium leaks at an area plant published in the Tribune on Sunday.
"[T]here is no health or safety hazard to our neighbors at Braidwood as a result of tritium leaks from the Braidwood Station--contrary to the inflammatory statements that have been made by subjects in the story about this issue," wrote Chris Crane, top dog at Exelon Nuclear.
And that may be true. But will it be true the next time a leak occurs? And if it is true, is Crane willing to drink a couple glassfuls of the tritium-laced water?
Q is for Quagmire
"Lose Your Pants?" (This is the print headline; Web headlines differ but are equally, um, compelling.)
Judge Grudge
Chicago Sun-Times business editor Dan Miller is an election judge on the North Side. Has been for many years. Is this appropriate? Should journalists be involved in running elections that their papers cover? (Or even those they don't . . . ) What if Miller's polling place became a source of controversy?
Apparently the editors at the Sun-Times don't have a problem with Miller's sidelight because on Sunday they published his account of this year's polling problems.
Miller's political affiliation is irrelevant to the ethical issue, and he didn't reveal it in his piece. But just so you know, his background offers a few clues: Republican Gov. Jim Edgar appointed Miller to a four-year term as chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission in 1996. Following that stint Miller worked as a vice president at the libertarian/conservative Heartland Institute before joining the Sun-Times. (Before the ICC, Miller worked at the Chicago Daily News and Crain's Chicago Business.)
In a Binder
James Merriner clears up a few things in Sunday's Sun-Times about the mob, JFK, and the 1960 election. Best of all, he responds to a comment made last week in the paper by University of Illinois at Chicago professor John Binder, who asked: "How in God's name is Sam Giancana going to get anything done in West Virginia? They don't have any influence there."
Because it's not as if the Chicago Outfit's influence ever extended beyond the city limits. For example, could you imagine the Grand Avenue crew having influence in, say, a place as far west as Nevada?
"Giancana got things done [in West Virginia] by dropping money on the county sheriffs," Merriner wrote Sunday. "I grew up in Appalachia and understand these things . . . he passed the cash to sheriffs through a gambling figure in Atlantic City."
Imagine that.
Heart to Hart
Betsy Hart compares anti-smoking forces to the Taliban in her weekly commentary in the Sun-Times on Sunday.
Which might make sense if those wanting to ban smoking in public places wanted to penalize smokers with execution (or maybe execution for merely switching to an unapproved brand), but otherwise it's maybe trivializing and disrespectful to the victims of the Taliban's murderous religious crusade, including those who died on 9/11 and in combat since.
Just a thought.
Recommended Reads
Mary Mitchell on a murder in Englewood that didn't capture the media's imagination.
A Tribune report that acknowledges late in the story the impact of Neil Steinberg's controversial column on the Cook County Board race--without naming Steinberg.
Dale Bowman in an exclusive interview with James "Pepsi" Buonomo on Joey "Doves" Aiuppa and The Case of the World-Record Muskie.
Paige Wiser on Forbes magazine's list of most important tools ever. "Would the wrench edge out the pliers?" she wonders. "Where would the paper towel rank?"
The Beachwood Tip Line: Better than the paper towel, but maybe not so good as the wrench and pliers.
Posted by Lou at 07:04 AM | Permalink
Hipster 101
A list.
1. Naked Lunch/William S. Burroughs. Rotates with Junky when one or the other gets too popular.
2. Manufacturing Consent/Noam Chomsky. Hipsters acquire key buzzwords as they discover the media sucks.
3. A People's History of the United States/Howard Zinn. Hipsters discover America isn't all its cracked up to be. Reading history books stops here, however.
4. Hell's Angels/Hunter S. Thompson. Because they made a movie of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
5. Population 1280/Jim Thompson. Though the really hip kids prefer Population 1279.
6. Sputnik/Haruki Murakami. USSR chic.
7. A Scanner Darkly/Philip K. Dick. Soon to drop off the list with a Keanu Reaves movie in the offing.
8. Man With the Golden Arm/Nelson Algren. Only for Chicago hipsters. NY hipsters prefer Please Kill Me: The Oral History of Punk Rock/Legs McNeil. LA hipsters stock up on books about the historical conspiracy to do away with streetcars.
9. A Confederacy of Dunces/John Kennedy Toole. The central character disdains pop culture.
10. Anything by Charles Bukowski. Because it's not cool to pick just one. Besides, none of them are very good.
Posted by Lou at 02:38 AM | Permalink
March 25, 2006
12 Lists
1. Dan Gleason's Top 42,000 Films
2. Medical History of the Presidents of the United States
4. Text Messaging Abbreviations
5. 25 Tallest
7. Government Resources on the Web - What's New
Including:
Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned (White House)
Federal Budget FY 2007
Declassification in Reverse (National Security Archive)
Situation of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay
Chronological list of rulers and primary ministers arranged by country or international agency
8. Guns
9. Top 10 Project Censored News Stories of 2005
10. United States Presidential Line of Succession
12. A Dictionary of Units of Measurement
Posted by Lou at 12:10 PM | Permalink
The Weekend Desk Report
The stories we're watching for you this weekend--because someone has to.
The World Tradeball Classic Wrap-Up
In a shock to almost no one, Japan has officially won NAFTA.
Deliberating Under the Influence
Buried in the story that one of the jurors in George Ryan's corruption trial may have concealed a DUI conviction is the revelation that all 12 people on the jury hate one another already. In the interest of ending this trial in a peaceful and expedient fashion, we recommend providing a deliberation wet bar. After all, a few tall ones and the BR Weekend Desk loves all you sons of bitches.
Belarussian to Judgment
In light of this week's widely-criticized presidential poll in Belarus, we are postponing The Beachwood Reporter Fantasy Dictator Draft. To help you prepare once a new date is determined, the official freely-elected Eastern European leader board stands as follows:
Alexander Lukashenko - Not Cool
Vladimir Putin - Still Cool
Viktor Yushchenko - Allegedly Poisoned
Slobodan Milosevic - Allegedly Not Poisoned
An Exercise in Humility
We here at the BR Weekend Desk work hard to find fresh, insightful stories in the most mind-bogglingly absurd places. Sometimes, however, even we have to accept that there's not much we can do.
Posted by Lou at 12:18 AM | Permalink
The Sporting Life
"You can't just let nature run wild."
This quote by former Alaska Gov. Walter J. Hickel popped into my head last week when I spotted a raccoon trotting along the rooftops in Wicker Park. Hickel made the comment to reporters in 1993 after the state launched a controversial program allowing hunters to shoot wolves from helicopters. He argued that the big bad wolves were procreating too quickly and killing moose and caribou faster than the human predators could. And shooting at stuff from a few hundred feet in the air just sounded like a mess of fun.
That was Alaska. But how could a wild animal run free with impunity here in Chicago, a metropolitan area of more than 9 million people? At first I felt sorry for the racooon, fighting for survival in a sea of humanity. An Internet search revealed that it was no anomaly--Chicago is filthy with the little buggers. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources reported in 2004 that there are more raccoons in Chicago metro area than any other area of the state. But how? The DNR says the raccoon population in Illinois more than doubled between the 1980s and 1990s. As green spaces in Chicagoland have disappeared, hunters and trappers can no longer hunt them because too many Starbucks coffee shops and Dollar Stores stand in the way.
"Today, many cities run together," says DNR wildlife diversity manager Bob Bluett. "Those in-between wild spaces are [now] strip malls and fast food restaurants. [And] it is difficult to hunt and trap raccoons in ways that reduce urban populations."
Animal control officials captured more than 60,000 nuisance animals in Chicago in 2003 alone, with raccoons ranking as the No. 1 offender. But they aren't the only hungry varmints roaming the concrete jungle that is Chicago. A story in the Sun-Times last month reported that an estimated 2,000 coyotes are roaming the City of Big Shoulders. How could this be? Aren't they pretty much just wolves with an eating disorder? The Sun-Times report said the city captures and kills more than 350 coyotes a year. "A pack of coyotes attacked a toy poodle named Molly on Feb. 11 in Oak Brook, leaving the dog with a broken rib and bite wounds," the article explained. Attacking an innocent toy poodle? What kind of twisted coyote packs are we dealing with here?
Hickel and the current governor of Alaska, Frank Murkowski, might suggest shooting the coyotes and raccoons from the air, but Chicago doesn't need helicopters for that. There are certainly enough tall buildings and people with guns to solve the problem. The Sun-Times reported that Cook County has collared 60 coyotes and 60 raccoons to track their movements for the low price of a quarter of a million dollars. Maybe the county could hire urban mercenaries instead. Or better yet, it could establish a community service program for gang members convicted of drive-by shootings. They enjoy shooting just as much as the burly men of Alaska, so why not put them to work and bring an end to wildlife's encroachment on civilization?
Posted by Lou at 12:07 AM | Permalink
March 24, 2006
The [Friday] Papers
The fact that today's column is full of this week's leftovers doesn't mean the items are less than superb. On the contrary, it means that they are so compelling that I saved them just for this occasion.
Rod Reagan
Eric Krol's early preview of the governor's race in the Daily Herald reveals something that hadn't occurred to me before about the Blagojevich-Topinka matchup. In this campaign, the Democrat will be the sunny voice of optimism while the Republican will be the doom-and-gloomer. Even if Topinka provides a more accurate assessment of the state's condition, the advantage goes to Blago.
Richard W. Daley
The mayor would never do this.
Props
Where did the term come from? Nathan Bierma has the answer.
Miner's Gold
Chicago Reader media critic Michael Miner spotted something I missed in Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg's recent apology for his ill-written John Stroger piece. "Later in the column he commented on [his columnist] persona. Questioning the sincerity of President Bush as a man of prayer, Steinberg called himself a 'cynical sort' and wryly added, 'Myself, I never like mouthing the expected pieties. Though they do have protective value.'"
It would be difficult for anyone who knows Steinberg to think this was anything but a disavowal of the pieties that opened that particular column.
Nuclear Threats at Home
Elizabeth Brackett turned in a terrific piece on Chicago Tonight last night on the problems at the Braidwood nuclear plant, but WTTW doesn't appear to make their work available on its Website.
DeRo On Acid
"I thought they were The Replacements on acid*," Sun-Times rock critic Jim DeRogatis says of falling in love with The Flaming Lips, in this fine piece in New City. DeRogatis just published a new book on the band, Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma's Fabulous Flaming Lips.
* The Web version of this quote says "drugs," not "acid," but I could swear I read "acid" in the print version. If not, then that's what DeRo should have said.
Ewwww
Isn't the new commercial featuring Jonathan Brandmeier pimping for a new Loop girl creepy? Move on.
Fighting Illini
Lines about the University of Illinois's matchup with Air Force that we didn't get to use in our Beachwood Brackets:
Illinois defeats Air Force.
Air Force defeats small Iraqi village.
Why does Illinois hate America?
Air Force: Illini insurgency in 'last throes'
Illini insurgents defiant in face of Air Force attack
Air Force: Illini insurgency in 'last free throws'
- Tim Willette, Natasha Julius
Spooky Chicago
Is the CIA is developing a loyalty program with the help of a Chicago company? That's what this story suggests.
Litmus Test
If Ald. Todd Stroger were to be installed as his father's successor as Cook County board president, would the ruckus be louder or quieter than when Bill Lipinski bowed out after winning a primary and arranged for his son Dan to replace him in the U.S. Congress?
The Poor Should Really Show More Character
Are bankers a root cause of crime? A study in the April issue of The Journal of Finance, co-authored by the University of Chicago's Tobias Moskowitz, suggests just that.
"Using a unique sample of commercial loans and mergers between large banks, we provide micro-level (within-county) evidence linking credit conditions to economic development and find a spillover effect on crime," the journal's abstract to the article says.
"Neighborhoods that experience more bank mergers are subject to higher interest rates, diminished local construction, lower prices, an influx of poorer households, and higher property crime in subsequent years. The elasticity of property crime with respect to merger-induced banking concentration is 0.18. We show that these results are not likely due to reverse causation, and confirm the central findings using state branching deregulation to instrument for bank competition."
- via a Floyd Norris column in The New York Times
One More Thing You Didn't Know About Canada
"According to the ads, the drought ends today.
"Which means at precisely 6 p.m., when MTV Canada is officially (re)born, those disgusting commercials featuring actors sucking on faucets, lapping at dishwater scum or wringing sweaty socks into their parched mouths will come to a merciful end.
"The pre-launch campaign, tinged with late-'90s irony, was making a point, even if it's a questionable one: Canadians are thirsting for MTV."
- from "Do We Want Our MTV Any More?" in The Toronto Star
Bracketology
"Some big prizes are being offered for anyone who fills out a perfect NCAA men's college basketball tournament bracket. Papa John's is dangling one million pizzas. America Online is offering $1 million. Gambling site Sportsbook.com has put up $10 million, and says it may offer even more money next year.
"But it's unlikely anyone will pay out a single penny--or slice of pepperoni. "You're much more likely to get hit by lightning attending the game than to win the pizza," says Brad Carlin, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Minnesota who has studied the NCAA tournament."
- from "Picking the Perfect Bracket" in The Wall Street Journal
Against Depression
"The largest study ever done on treating depression has found that patients who didn't get well with the first medicine they tried had a good chance of succeeding the second time around."
Miner's Whiner
"But some of us at the Reader now sense a change in the public's ability to even recognize as journalism reporting that doesn't advertise the reporter's allegiances. Is this an effect of the Internet--where it's all too easy for a reader to sail only in friendly seas?"
Because the Internet offers so fewer viewpoints than when we just relied on the CBS Evening News and the Chicago Reader.
Molly's Folly
"Aside from my own sentimental attachment to newspapers, I have no objection to all of us shifting over to the Internet and doing the same thing there," Molly Ivins wrote this week. "You'd still have the two big problems, however: A) How do you know if it's true? And, B) How do you put a lot of information into a package that's useful to people?"
Memo to Molly:
A) The same way you know if something in the newspaper is true. You research it on the Internet to find out.
B) I suppose you'd have to find a clever way to cope with the Internet's obliteration of time and space constraints.
Answering Amy
In which we take one question posed each week to the Tribune's highly-paid, highly-marketed, highly-mediocre advice columnist and contrast her answer with ours.
Dear Amy -
I am a law clerk and work at a respectable firm that stresses professionalism and has an unwritten rule about how we are supposed to dress.
One of the female secretaries does not abide by these rules and continues to wear form-fitting clothes, and to make matters worse she appears to be wearing no undergarments.
I feel that her manner of dress may be turning away potential clients, because she is the first person that greets them.
How would you handle this situation of the "Commando Co-worker?"
- Concerned Co-worker
Dear Concerned:
Lawyers are the last people that I would expect to leave rules unwritten. If your firm doesn't have a written dress code, then perhaps it's time to get one. That way, everybody would be clear on what the standards of dress are.
If this co-worker is threatening the good standing of your firm, then I imagine that the managing partners of the firm would notice this and take the appropriate action. On the other hand, perhaps the partners of your firm imagine they have a budding "Erin Brokovich" in their employ and don't mind your colleague's attire quite as much as you do.
- Amy
Dear Concerned (cc: Amy): Which firm is this again?
Chicago Patent of the Week
Collapsible Grill and Stand
"A collapsible grill and stand which can be used indoors over a fireplace, having a grill stand which makes it possible to position and support the grill member over the burning logs, charcoal or gas within the fireplace and under the flue so the smoke, gases, odors and heat are exhausted to the outside through the flue and do not enter the interior of the room or building."
Inventor: William A. Czajkoski (Custer Park, IL)
Filed: July 7, 2003
Granted: March 21, 2006
Chicago Trademark of the Week
"Landmines Blow! Raising Awareness of the Global Landmine Crisis"
Applicant: Alison J. Bock (Lombard, IL)
Filed: Oct. 14, 2004
Granted: March 21, 2006
Our Tip Line is collap