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April 29, 2006

The Weekend Desk Report

Here are the stories that will haunt our dreams this weekend.

War Bonds
A new report released by the Congressional Research Service shows the cost of fighting a meandering war against an entrenched and determined enemy has risen dramatically in the last three decades, soaring 17 percent this year alone. The skyrocketing prices prompted President Bush to call for Americans to be less dependent on debt imported from unstable parts of the world. This weekend the search for alternative deficit sources closer to home begins in earnest.

Nuestro Himbo
On Friday, President Bush declared his opposition to a new Spanish-language version of America's national anthem, stating that immigrants to this country should endeavor to learn English despite there being no legal reason for them to do so. We anticipate the president will put his money where his mouth is any day now.

A Day Without Boycotts
During the same press conference, President Bush disapproved of Monday's planned Day Without Immigrants protest, saying he does not support boycotts. Apparently the philosophical differences between a planned public work stoppage and derelict absenteeism are too much for the president to reconcile, as it's well-established that he has no objection to the latter.

Bush League
With the top spot in Saturday's Shittiest Bush competition all wrapped up, the hottest question is how far will USC running back Reggie Bush fall after revelations of shady dealings with a prospective agent. As no reports have yet surfaced that Reggie went on sex romps in Thailand, used a brain-dead woman to score political points, talked shit about evacuees and dead soldiers, or put the "strip" in "strip mall," he may even drop out of the top five.

Willie or Won't He?
As the artlessly protracted Brett Favre saga ground to its inevitably dull conclusion this week, the BR Weekend Desk despaired of finding another utterly irrelevant and excruciatingly slow decision-making process to monitor. But we hold out great hopes that the mating dance of Britain's Prince William will slip the leaden mickey of boredom into the cocktail of our coverage for weeks to come. After all, if he's anything like his father this could take a while.

Posted by Lou at 09:16 AM | Permalink

April 28, 2006

The [Friday] Papers

We are both amused and rankled to find Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg copying one of our ideas for use in his column today.

Or maybe his appropriation is "unintentional and unconscious."

But his (Don't) Ask Amy column item today sure looks familiar.

We inaugurated a regularly occurring "Answering Amy" item on March 4, in which, our usual description says, "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."

We haven't posted an Answering Amy since March 24 - low-down in the column here - as I've pondered where to give it a home on the site and who to delegate the work to. Maybe this is just Steinberg's way of applying for the job.

Sorry to inform you this way, Neil, but you didn't pass the audition.

Theft Ring?
The Chicago Tribune is awfully self-congratulating in an editorial today about the troubles dogging Democratic state treasurer candidate Alexi Giannoulias. While I haven't kept a scorecard matching each Giannoulias development with the news organization reporting them, this Greg Hinz story in Crain's Chicago Business is dated March 13 and the Trib edit credits its own reporting of March 15. Just sayin'.

Stolen Courage
"A Glen Ellyn man who fled to New York City after being charged with twice stealing shipments of Red Bull Energy Drink in DuPage County was returned to Illinois recently and was arraigned Wednesday."

I'll bet he fled on foot, too.

- Tim Willette

Stealthy Jury Reports
The Beachwood Reporter noted a study Tuesday by trial consulting firm DecisionQuest explaining why prospective jurors don't tell the truth about their backgrounds when being considered for jury panels. The Tribune published an editorial citing DecisionQuest on the very same topic two days later.

Unintentional and unconscious? Perhaps, though I was tipped to the DecisionQuest study by someone as unlikely to also tip the Tribune editorial board as they would be to enjoy those lame jokes Neil Steinberg now uses to pad off his column.

The Beachwood Reporter: Worth Stealing From Since 2006!

Editorial Ennui
When I saw the headline on the Sun-Times's lead editorial today, "How About A Sign We're Coming To Our Senses?," I thought maybe the page had shaken off its recent torpor.

The page is slumping badly, straining even more than usual to find a point to make, but I suppose we all get sluggish from time to time.

But no. Today's editorial is about the sudden discovery - 1,280 designations later - that it might be a good idea to end the practice of awarding honorary names on our byways.

After all, what of emergency vehicle drivers who could get confused? The last thing we need is for them to mistake a one-block long Fred Hampton Way with some other street in the city.

Required Reading
The Tribune drills a little further into the governor's phony town hall meeting ad.

The Sun-Times gives major advertiser Macy's a wet kiss while the Tribune practices something more resembling of journalism.

Aldermen may ask for a raise and it's too infuriating to even write a clever punch line.

St. Charles blogger Bill Baar says there is an editing battle raging on the Wikipedia entry for Jan Schakowsky.

Self-help books are depressing. Literally.

NEW ADDITIONS 12:44 p.m.: Two worthy Change of Subject postings: See the latest example of how Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed earns a lucrative paycheck as a major metropolitan newspaper columnist; and treat yourself to a music video parody of Biblically hysterical proportions.

Reefer Madness
The Sun-Times's Andrew Herrmann shows off his reporting chops today by looking up a list of drug terms on Wikipedia to learn that "baked" means "intoxicated from marijuana use."

Then he makes that extra phone call that distinguishes great reporters from merely good reporters by calling an official with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to find out that it is "naive" to think that Lollapalooza concertgoers will use rolling papers for tobacco instead of pot.

Pump Profits
I wonder if the hit newspaper companies are taking in delivery truck fuel costs due to the rise in gas prices is offset by the revenue taken in from full-page ads like the one in this PDF bought by the American Petroleum Institute appearing in the Tribune today.

Note From Beachwood HQ
A ton of new stuff coming, as promised in the last week, just hung up a bit on other site improvement-related distractions, like what to do with these "rolling papers" someone sent to us.

The Beachwood Tip Line: We won't "kill your buzz."

Posted by Lou at 08:48 AM | Permalink

April 27, 2006

The [Thursday] Papers

The Fred Hampton Way saga not only appears to be over, but it appears to have ended without anyone learning any lessons.

White reporters and city council members in particular.

Chicago Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman, for example, continues to telegraph where she and her paper stand on the issue with a story today that begins this way: "Unwilling to divide the City Council along racial lines on a vote she was destined to lose, Ald. Madeline Haithcock (2nd) on Wednesday gave up the fight to rename a West Side street after slain Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton."

Why pin racial division on Haithcock?

Why not start this way: "White aldermen have successfully blocked an effort - initially approved without debate in committee - to rename a portion of West Monroe Street after slain Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, enraging black leaders and others who say their opponents engaged in racial fear-mongering and pandering to the police union."

It's not as if the rejection of Fred Hampton Way hasn't divided the City Council along racial lines. But when white people have the upper hand, racial harmony has been preserved.

"Many aldermen breathed a sigh of relief," Spielman also wrote, perhaps unaware that some aldermen also spit nails. "Thanks to Haithcock [pulling the plug], they managed to dodge a difficult vote on an issue that threatened to divide them along racial lines in a way not seen since the 1980s power struggle known as Council Wars."

Really? No other issue has come before the city council in the last 20 years that has been as racially divisive as this? And this threatened to become as racially divisive as white aldermen paralyzing city government solely because the mayor was black?

The Sun-Times's abominable coverage of this issue played its own racially divisive role. It was their outraged front page story that kindled what had been a routine and unnoticed honorary street sign designation into a cauldron of racial enmity and ignorance.

At its best, the paper equivocated. At its worst, it purveyed conveniently unverified urban legend about the Panthers allegedly killing two white police officers without bothering to do the most basic reporting to learn the facts. It was up to columnist Mary Mitchell to set the record straight, though it's not clear whether Spielman or her editors read Mitchell's column. The paper, after all, committed zero reporting to following up on Mitchell's findings and correcting itself in the news pages.

And as usual, Mayor Richard M. Daley skates, having eluded taking a public stance by whining about all the honorary street signs he has just discovered in the city he has governed for 16 years.

He got another free pass today.

"Mayor Daley, whose father was mayor in 1969, said he had nothing to do with pulling the plug," Spielman wrote unquestioningly. "'Who else are they going to blame? Everybody blames me.'"

That nonsensical comment was in response to Fred Hampton Jr.'s more articulate observation: "Is this a democracy or a Daley dictatorship? All shots come from the [mayor's office]. I know that much about Chicago history. Once you start talking about Chairman Fred Hampton, you've got to start making some connections about who was mayor and under whose tenure he was assassinated. There's a Pandora's box that a lot of people don't want to open in this city."

White reporters and city council members in particular.

Defender Mender: Roland S. Martin has brought some new energy to the Defender, as evidenced by a new design put to good use today with this sharp cover.

UPDATE 11:39 a.m.: Not to mention this editorial. Sorry I missed it first time around.

Art Target
Art Chicago owner Thomas Blackman makes a bad situation worse by refusing to explain why he had to move the art fair from Grant Park to the Merchandise Mart at the last minute. He appeared before TV cameras briefly yesterday looking worn and frightened, lamely telling reporters that he just didn't have time to explain what went so wrong that the fair almost had to be cancelled.

Pallmeyer Watch
Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer says "the most fundamental reason" why she won't allow George Ryan's lawyers to question two jurors dismissed from the case is that they did not participate in deliberations.

But what if the two dismissed jurors have evidence of misconduct that occurred before deliberations, like the rumblings that other jurors talked about the case with friends and family, or had read or watched media coverage of the case? It would still be relevant, wouldn't it?

Learning Disability
A federal judge has denied a request made by federal prosecutors to conduct background checks of jurors in the upcoming trial of former Daley patronage chief Robert Sorich. Because who ever heard of background checks turning up anything relevant in a high-profile political trial?

Learning Disabled
This just in: Aldermen shocked that laws may apply to them as well as common people.

Celebrity Correspondents
Guess who's coming to the White House Correspondents Association Dinner?

Jeopardy host Alex Trebek. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. New York Giants running back Tiki Barber. Actor Joey Pants. And outed CIA agent Valerie Plame.

I kid you not.

Check out the VIP guest list, courtesy of Lynn Sweet's blog, and make up your own seating arrangements.

Snow Job
Sweet on new White House spokesman Tony Snow: "I've met Snow a few times. He is much sunnier than McClellan and will probably be a much better communicator, even if all he does is find more pleasant ways to say nothing."

Rush Job
Back on the print side, Sweet follows up today on her report about the SBC Foundation giving $1 million to U.S. congressman Bobby Rush's Rebirth of Englewood Community Development Corporation.

"Rush founded the nonprofit, tax-exempt Rebirth of Englewood center, located in his South Side congressional district, to improve the economy of the impoverished Englewood community. Rush sits on its board as does his wife, Carolyn, and the center employs his son, Flynn," Sweet writes.

"Payments for the $1 million grant were made by the SBC Foundation between 2001 and 2004 to underwrite the Bobby L. Rush Center for Community Technology, envisioned as a training and business resource facility for the Englewood area. SBC acquired AT&T and switched to using the better-known name. The Rush Center still has not opened, though officials are hopeful it will within 12 months.

. . .

"[T]he Rebirth of Englewood . . . has federal and state contracts, and entities tied to the Beloved Christian Community Church of which Rush is the founder and the pastor. Rush uses money from his federal campaign fund to keep the church afloat."

Nuclear Delay
A day late, sorry. Blame the radiation. Or the fluoride.

The Fred Hampton Tip Line: Intellectually divisive since 2006.

Posted by Lou at 07:48 AM | Permalink

April 26, 2006

The [Wednesday] Papers

It is the consensus today not only of the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board but the 100 Chicago area newspapers in the Sun-Times News Group that distractions are hazardous to drivers.

DOG BITES MAN
News You Already Have

Study: Distractions Cause Most Car Crashes (AP, 4/21)

Emotional Wiring Different In Men And Women (LiveScience.com, 4/20)

Americans Commute Longer, Farther Than Ever
(Reuters, 4/20)

Democrats: No Single Message Sums Us Up (AP, 4/20)

- Tim Willette

Hastert Hijinx
U.S. Speaker of the House and Illinois congressman Dennis Hastert has forwarded three names to President Bush to choose from for the post of U.S. Attorney in central Illinois. One of those names is Darin LaHood, son of Illinois congressman Ray LaHood, Hastert's right-hand man. The Peoria Journal Star got the scoop last week; the Chicago Tribune editorial board today says the move makes Hastert look "tone deaf, secretive, and conniving."

Also Secretive And Conniving
LaHood: No connection between lobbyists and pork.

So those lobbyists just threw their money away and won't make the same mistake again, right?

Ryan Jury Watch
Prosecutors have asked Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer to deny a defense request to interview two jurors dismissed from the George Ryan panel - Evelyn Ezell and Cynthia McFadden - to learn about possible "juror misconduct," Abdon Pallasch reports today in the Sun-Times. "The interviews would accomplish nothing of legal significance," prosecutors argued in court filings.

I'm not so sure. Perhaps Ezell and McFadden have something to say about whether jury foreperson Sonja Chambers ever mentioned discussing the trial with her coffee guy, or watching the coverage on TV, or overhearing other passengers on the Metra talking about the case.

Rock and Roll Jury
"The Supreme Court, in its 1987 Tanner case, considered a jury in which jurors later admitted they drank alcohol and used cocaine during deliberations and that was not enough to reverse the verdict," Pallasch writes. "Screaming, hysterical crying, fist-banging, name-calling, obscene language, and chair-throwing were all ruled to be fair game."

Supreme Conflict
"I had a son on that [Iraqi] battlefied, and they were shooting at my son and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said about whether Gitmo detainees have legal rights under the Constitution. "I mean, it's crazy."

Art Anguish
Art Chicago is really fucked-up.

Blame The Media Watch
"Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay blamed the media Tuesday for undercutting his company's strengths in the weeks before it crashed, by highlighting problems at Enron that he said were already cleaned up," the Associated Press reports.

Rope-A-Dope
Richard Roeper: Beyond Smart?

Pickett Watch
In her Chicago Tonight commentary last night, Debra Pickett suggested changing the slogan on Illinois license plates to "Welcome Federal Prosecutors" or "Indicted We Stand."

Six years ago, John Kass held a reader contest for a new state slogan and city sticker motto. Frank Bemis of Schaumburg won the former with "Illinois: Will The Defendant Please Rise?" and Konrad Voigt of Berwyn won the latter with "Slippus Envelopus."

At least Pickett didn't suggest "Illinois: More Yuppies Wanted."

Lube Job
If George W. Bush thinks the problem behind rising prices at the pump is our addiction to gas, maybe he should go after the dealer.

Topinka Stinka
"What American adult has not formed their opinion on whether Bush is leading the country where we need to go?" asks Jim Leach on AbeLog, talking about Judy Baar Topinka's evasion of the question. "This attempt to deflect and say 'I'm too busy, I can't fill my head with all this complicated federal stuff, I leave that to congressmen" is disingenuous and more than a little silly. The question's not that tough - if she won't take a stand on it, what else will she dodge and deflect?"

Blago Bluff
The governor shows off his leadership skills in addressing rising gas prices. (Video on the right)

- The last two items via items via The Capitol Fax Blog, though we came up with this question on our own: When do the adult candidates arrive?

Ethics Watch
The Chicago Headline Club fails to find an ethical journalist in the city.

So-Called Austin Mayor connects the dots.

Coming Soon In The Reporter
* Showgirls
* Mexicans
* Slot Machines
* Booty
* And More!

The Beachwood Tip Line: News we can use.

Posted by Lou at 07:35 AM | Permalink

April 25, 2006

The [Tuesday] Papers

Here's something new we've learned from the now-released transcripts of closed sessions in Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer's chambers down the stretch of the George Ryan trial: Pallmeyer screwed up. She should have kicked juror foreperson Sonja Chambers off the panel, even if that resulted in the mistrial that hardly anyone wanted to see. And for a reason that had nothing to do with her failure to disclose previous entanglements with the courts in a messy divorce and a civil lawsuit involving a furniture company, though that didn't speak well of her either.

No, it was enough to boot Chambers because of her apparent conversations during the trial with Dennis the Coffee Guy, the one who called WLS-AM radio one day and said he had been talking to a juror about the case.

In closed sessions before Pallmeyer and lawyers from both sides of the case, Chambers denied discussing the trial with Dennis the Coffee Guy, whose full name is Dennis McLaughlin. (McLaughlin runs a coffee stand at the Lisle Metra train station that Chambers frequents.)

After reading the now-released transcripts of those sessions, excerpted at Change of Subject by Eric Zorn, it's almost impossible to believe Chambers over McLaughlin.

Yet, that's just what Pallmeyer did.

Read the excerpts for yourself and see Chambers, the acknowledged Court TV fan, bob-and-weave. Watch her story change to meet every challenge posed by Pallmeyer. Tell me if you too find Dan Webb's take (and Ed Genson's take) on Chambers persuasive on the facts of what Chambers has told the court, while finding prosecutor Patrick Collins's defense of Chambers and attack of McLaughlin full of fact-free rhetoric.

I find so many things disingenuous and illogical in Chambers's explanations that they are too numerous to list here. Again, see for yourself. The only question remaining will be why the newspaper reports in the aftermath of the release of these transcripts have been so wishy-washy.

Lying Jurors: The idea that prospective jurors generally tell the truth answering questions in consideration of their service is a myth, according to a 2006 paper by the DecisionQuest trial consulting firm. "[J]urors have multiple agendas during voir dire. They may want to serve as jurors and thus may try to put on a good face, or they may want to get out of jury service and thus try to create excuses or give answers that will eliminate the possibility. But many studies . . . suggest there are many other factors involved in why jurors may not tell the truth, or may not even know they are not telling the truth."

Those reasons include feeling one's privacy is being invaded and feeling embarrassed by behavior deemed "socially undesirable."

Surprisingly, prospective jurors will lie even more to judges conducting voir dire than to lawyers.

Stealth Jurors: Are they infiltrating high-profile trials? Molly McDonough reports in the ABA Journal.

Worst State Ever: The Daily Herald's John Patterson asks why Illinois is so corrupt. Uberpundit Paul Green says it's the price we pay for a city like Chicago, built by high-risk speculators rather than sober city planners.

Sun-Times Buyouts
The news out of the Chicago Sun-Times regarding buyouts isn't earth-shattering, but a few familiar names will indeed be leaving the paper over the next few months.

The biggest name is longtime Books Editor Henry Kisor. The competition to replace Kisor is fierce, sources say, and why wouldn't it be? The Chicago Tribune's book review, once merely lumbering, now manages to be both lumbering and yet slight in its tiny new size that only serves to make itself more insignificant.

Kisor's review wasn't an intellectual giant, but it was almost always lively and timely, especially given the usual Sun-Times budgetary constraints I imagine he labored under.

Veteran sports columnist Ron Rapoport is also leaving, and will be missed.

Here's the full list as described in a message to the staff from editor-in-chief John Barron. I have added the jobs each held in parentheses.

"The following members of our staff have applied for . . . and been accepted by . . . the company's Voluntary Separation Program:

Departing May 5:

Bob Black (photographer)
Mary Cameron-Frey (society/gardening columnist)
Joe Goddard (sports)
Roy Moody (page designer)
Ron Rapoport (sports)

May 19:

Norm Schaeffer (page designer)

June 2:

Henry Kisor (Books editor)

June 16:

Wynne Delacoma (classical music critic)

Sept. 8:

Gary Wisby (reporter)

Sources say seven others asked for buyouts and were denied, including sports columnist Carol Slezak. Slezak did not return an e-mail asking for confirmation. Sources say Slezak may leave anyway.

Rush Job
Illinois congressman Bobby Rush is a co-sponsor of the "Communications Opportunity and Enhancement Act of 2006," which shouldn't necessarily interest you until you learn that Rush is the only Democrat to sign on to the bill.

Curious?

Now consider that the bill is a piece of telecommunications legislation backed in part by phone giant SBC (now AT&T.) And that Rush, of course, sits on the committee that will consider the bill.

Intrigued?

Now reflect on the $1 million in charitable donations SBC started paying out in 2001 to help fund the still-unbuilt "Bobby L. Rush Center for Community Technology."

Lynn Sweet of the Sun-Times has the story.

Junior Class
When will the Sun-Times grow up? From pimping its White Sox "mini-baseball" promotion on the front page again to its photo out front of Mayor Richard M. Daley blowing out birthday candles; from its "featured letter" photo of veterans holding a Sun-Times sign to columns from another era and journastic maturity level by Michael Sneed and Stella Foster; from the unreasoned meandering editorials trying to find a point before our very eyes to the now-expanding presence of articles imported from even more mediocre sister Hollinger papers in the suburbs and exurbs, I can't get over the nagging feeling that Chicago deserves a second paper with consistently higher standards than the papers some high school and college students put out.

A Different Kind of Leg Room
The airline industry thinks of even more ways to make your flight miserable.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Safe to use in any position.

Posted by Lou at 08:08 AM | Permalink

April 24, 2006

The [Monday] Papers

The papers today are refreshingly absent of George Ryan juror news. Hey, even I could use a break.

But if you want to catch up on the weekend's developments, please see The [Sunday] Papers and find out why I think judge Rebecca Pallmeyer seems naive, and why jury foreperson Sonja Chambers seems unbelievable in her varied explanations of why she didn't answer truthfully on her jury questionnaire when it came to past legal entanglements.

And while you're in our Papers archive, check out our Weekend Desk Reports, brought to you every, um, weekend by the fabulous Natasha Julius. If you've been missing them, they're worth going back to.

Now on to The [Monday] Papers and some left over non-Ryan newsbits from the weekend.

Lost Landmark
A promo with a refreshingly strong come-on for an inside story is stripped across the top of the Chicago Tribune's front page today: "Just Deserts For Revamped Soldier Field: Architecture Critic Blair Kamin On The Lies And Liars That Cost The Landmark Its Status."

And Kamin delivers, ferociously.

"And so, the Big Lie about Soldier Field is finally and officially exposed," Kamin begins, and it just gets better from there, as Kamin skewers Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Soldier Field rehab team who insisted that their renovation was designed to save "one of Chicago's great landmarks."

A landmark that, officially, is no more.

Or Maybe It's Blair's Bungle
A news story on Saturday first reporting the news about Soldier Field contained this nugget: "Ben Wood, one of the lead architects on the renovation that was completed in 2003, blamed the media, especially Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin, saying a barrage of unfavorable commentary influenced the federal decision."

He has a point. It's only because of Blair Kamin's nitpicking that anyone noticed the changes.

- Tim Willette

[Editor's Note: Shouldn't that Tribune headline be Just Desserts?]

[UPDATE 2:34 P.M: The answer is No! The Tribune got it right, according to an Eric Zorn column from 1994. The column isn't linkable, but in it Zorn says: "The proper spelling, when one wishes to express that an outcome is particularly apt and fair, is 'just deserts.' One s.

"A little research in the dictionary (one of which I do already own) reveals three distinct meanings for a word spelled 'desert.' The first is 'barren landscape' and is pronounced DEZ-ert. As in, 'I lost my camel in the desert.'

"This meaning traces back to the Latin verb 'deserere,' to abandon. This is the same root of the second meaning of 'desert,' 'to leave in the lurch.' Pronounce it deh-ZERT when you say, 'Don't desert me next time, you faithless camel.'

"The third meaning . . . is 'a fitting reward; that which is deserved.' We also pronounce this word as deh-ZERT, but its Latin root is 'servire,' to serve. The prefix, 'de,' acts as an intensifier, so the sense of the word is of a thing that is properly served. Think of the far more common word, 'deserve.'"]

[MORE IMPORTANTLY: Zorn has culled relevant excerpts from the Sonja Chambers transcript in his new post "The Forewoman Vs. The Coffee Shop Owner: Who's Telling The Truth?"]

Demerit Pay
State legislators are in line for a 13 percent pay raise.

Because folks like Jim Durkin are working so hard on our behalf.

Impeaching the Press
The Sun-Times's Tracy Swartz leads a story today about a few state legislators trying to whip up an effort to impeach President Bush this way: "Leave it to the Democratic-controlled state Legislature to find an obscure way to attempt to oust President Bush."

Which is obviously worse than a Republican Congress impeaching a president on obscure grounds.

"This is absolutely ridiculous," John McGovern, spokesman for U.S. Speaker of the House and Illinois congressman Dennis Hastert, told the paper.

Because it takes a lot more than lying us into a war to get Hastert to support an impeachment.

Straight Talk Express
At least we have a president who believes in straight talk. Not like Bill Clinton, who dared to suggest that it really does depend on what the definition of "is" is. For example, if you asked me if there is something salacious going on with my intern, I would say no. But if you asked me if there ever was something salacious going on with my intern, that would be a different question, right?

So what was so wrong with what Clinton said?

Aren't Bush's lawyerly answers about how he has the authority to ignore our eavesdropping laws because they are old and inconvenient far worse? Just for starters?

Yet, it's still Bill Clinton - whom I never voted for - who still gets the brunt of it even in stories about Richard M. Daley and the city clerk's office.

Art Abstraction
The Sun-Times editorial page today supports the Art Institute's decision to make its voluntary $12 entrance fee mandatory (second item in the link).

"[W]atching a decline in attendance, the Art Institute wisely realized it could no longer use the voluntary arrangement."

So, when attendance is in decline you raise the price of admission?

That's almost like raising the price of the newspaper to fight off declining circulation.

Duckworth's Worth
Lynn Sweet reports today that Sixth District Democratic congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth has only about a dozen donors from inside the district, where the voters, unlike her and her major backers, actually live.

New Media Madness
In his magazine roundup today, Jim Warren, the Tribune's deputy managing editor for features recommends an Economist survey of new media. "It's somber about newspapers' fate," Warren writes, "repeating one study's worry about 'the decline of full-time, professional monitoring of powerful institutions.'"

Is that the same decline that started with the newspaper industry itself consolidating until there were monopoly papers in virtually every American city?

Or the decline that somehow hampered the ability of the full-time professional monitors to, oh, get it right in the country's most crucial hour - the run-up to a war?

Or is just that the monitors don't like being monitored?

Mini-Monitors
The professional monitors over at the Sun-Times gave over the top half of its front page on Sunday to advertising its White Sox "mini-baseballs" promotion, including prominent mention of participating retailers Walgreens, 7-Eleven, White Hen, and Speedway. Then it published a page three "news" story by staff reporter Shamus Toomey about the promotion. Another "news" story appears on page three today.

The paper did the same thing a few years ago with Bears medallions. I asked then-editor Michael Cooke about it back then and instead of just saying, "Yeah, we did it because we're the Sun-Times and we'll do anything for a buck," he tried to convince me that "This is a big story in Chicago!"

Cooke, who went on to preside over a short and unsuccessful stint editing the Daily News in New York before slinking back to Chicago, is back in the Hollinger fold working mostly on coordinating the company's suburban papers.

There's probably something to say here about the decline of professional monitors, but I think you can figure it out on your own.

More Monitoring
Page Three headlines Sunday in the Sun-Times:

- "Arrest in Gospel Musician's Killling"
- "Pair Hope To Adopt Girl Put Up For Sale"
- "Your Chance To Fill In Your Own White Sox Mini-Stadium Starts Today"

Page Three headlines Monday in the Sun-Times:

- "Remember Him? 'Forgotten' Bin Laden Has New Tape"
- "Play Ball! White Sox Collectibles Now On Sale"

Essential Sunday Reading
Witness the Tribune editorial board condescend to an entire continent.

Get the low-down on that bad heroin going around.

Crucial A-list celebrity tattoo news you don't want to miss. Really!

The R. Kelly trial may finally begin this summer.

Metro Monitoring
Is this kind of metro column writing an example of what old media are worried about losing in the new world? "Guys, let me tell you something about women," the Tribune's Mary Schmich advises. "You can't really know a gal until you know what she wore to her high school prom, and any woman lucky or unlucky enough to go to one can tell you about that dress."

Professional monitors hardly need the Internet to hasten their decline. They've been doing quite well at declining on their own for years.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Off like a prom dress.

Posted by Lou at 09:56 AM | Permalink

The [Sunday] Papers

Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer unsealed 1,283 pages of transcripts on Friday documenting sessions she had in her chambers with lawyers in the George Ryan trial, ensuring that the saga involving jurors who did not disclose criminal backgrounds as asked when being considered for the panel would continue to dominate the news through the weekend.

To me, the sequence of events puts to rest conspiracy theories about prosecutors leaking juror backgrounds to the Chicago Tribune, which first revealed the anomalies, in order to get pro-Ryan jurors expelled, or, similarly, that defense lawyer Dan Webb knew all along about the jurors' false answers and kept that information in his hip pocket ready to spring when it looked like things weren't going his client's way.

It all seems far too convoluted for either side to have gamed out that way.

For example, when likely Ryan holdout Evelyn Ezell was antagonizing and alienating her fellow jurors, the Ryan defense team fought vigorously to save her place on the panel. But even Dan Webb couldn't construct an argument to save Ezell when it was revealed that she not only had a string of arrests for child neglect, assault, and drug possession but was wanted on a warrant by Broadview police for driving on a suspended license.

And Robert Pavlick, often lumped together in speculation with Evelyn Ezell as a possible Ryan holdout, perhaps only because they were dismissed at the same time, was in fact bounced mainly based on concerns by the defense; Webb argued that Pavlick might bear a grudge against Ryan because Ryan was secretary of state when Pavlick was convicted of DUI. (Pavlick also was discovered to have "a rap sheet'" that included a weapons arrest, according to the Tribune's report.)

And when the Ryan defense team started thinking about asking for a mistrial, Ed Genson, the lawyer for co-defendant Larry Warner, argued against one, saying his client couldn't live through another trial and couldn't afford one anyway.

After the backgrounds of Ezell and Pavlick were revealed, it was Pallmeyer who asked for background checks on the rest of the jurors, and the U.S. attorney's office - agreeing it was unfortunately necessary - which carried them out.

What struck me most reading the coverage was the feeling that Pallmeyer was a bit naive and the jurors unbelievable in their assertions that they didn't understand the question on the jury questionnaires about criminal histories.

For example, juror Raul Casino said he had forgotten about his DUI. True, it occurred 44 years ago.But do you forget a DUI arrest? Or did Casino simply think it was so long ago it wasn't relevant? That seems more plausible to me, but it's also troubling to think that someone might conveniently forget a DUI in order to get on a case.

But, as the Chicago Sun-Times reports, Pallmeyer was "sympathetic" to Casino.

"Grilling Mr. Casino is one of the most distasteful things I have done in this job," she said. "This is a decent man who has given us six months of his life."

It shouldn't have been distasteful; the man endangered a six-month trial years in the making. Casino may indeed be a decent man, but how does Pallmeyer really know?

Juror Kevin Rein, who was found to have a 26-year-old arrest for punching his pregnant sister in an argument over cats, told Pallmeyer he thought the arrest, dropped when his sister didn't press the charge, had, for some reason, been "expunged."

Similarly, juror Charles Svymbersky told Pallmeyer he thought his 23-year-old conviction in connection with a stolen bicycle had, for some reason, been erased from the books.

You would think you would know if you have a criminal record or if any record you once had has been wiped clean. And if they and other jurors truly did not understand the jury form, how in the world could they be expected to understand the jury instructions defining such concepts as racketeering and governing how to reach a verdict?

Most disturbing is the case of foreperson Sonja Chambers, particularly the revelation that she is a fan of Court TV. You get the idea that these folks really wanted to be on this jury.

After Chambers was brought in for questioning before the judge, Webb argued (persuasively in my view) that she had given three different explanations for the her false answer on the jury questionnaire.

Perhaps what really did it for me concerning Chambers was her explanation about talking to Dennis McLaughlin, who runs a coffee stand at the Metra station in Lisle that Chambers frequents. McLaughlin called in to WLS-AM one day and said that a woman juror in the Ryan trial had discussed the case with him.

After McLaughlin picked out Chambers from a batch of photos, she was brought in for questioning before the judge. Chambers acknowledged buying her morning coffee from McLaughlin, but said, "I don't know him that well to talk to him about anything at all, except for, 'Can I have hazelnut in my coffee?'"

"Pallmeyer found Chambers more credible," the Tribune reported. "'I think I would need a solid sense she is lying to me in order to conclude that I ought to remove her at this point,' she said. 'I don't get the sense that she is lying to me.'"

But how would McLaughlin have known that Chambers - whose name he did not know but whose face he recognized as a regular customer - was a Ryan juror if she didn't tell him?

Pallmeyer learned two days later that Chambers answered falsely on her jury questionnaire as to any involvement with court proceedings and lawsuits, despite having been involved in a difficult divorce that included requests for orders of protection as well as having been a defendant in a civil lawsuit filed against her by a furniture company.

Not a good track record.

And with all that Court TV watching, you'd think Chambers would have understood a relatively straightforward question about any past entanglements with the justice system.

Style Channel: The Sun-Times noted in its reporting on Ezell that she was wearing a pink sleeveless top and matching slacks (and smoking a cigarette) at the time a reporter spoke to her.

Eye on Flannery: On Eye on Chicago, Channel 2's Sunday morning public affairs show, veteran political reporter Mike Flannery surmised that the Ryan jury really didn't base their verdict on the evidence, but simply on their apparent dislike of Ryan and co-defendant Larry Warner. "If they didn't do this, they did something else," Flannery accused the jury of thinking.

Here's what I don't get: If you bought into the racketeering conviction of Scott Fawell for running a massive operation that traded jobs and contracts for political favors and campaign contributions; if you bought into the racketeering conviction of the George Ryan campaign fund Citizens for Ryan; if you bought into Dean Bauer's guilty plea for obstruction of justice (while he was the inspector general!); if you bought into bigwig operative Roger Stanley's guilty plea for money laundering; and if you bought into the other 70 or so convictions and/or guilty pleas in the Operation Safe Roads investigation (including more than 30 employees from Ryan's Secretary of State office), why is it so hard to buy into a conviction for the man on top of the pyramid for whom everyone else's guilty actions were done on behalf of? For the guy at the top who ultimately benefitted the most?

The previous trials, convictions, and guilty pleas are almost circumstantial evidence enough to prove George Ryan's guilt as the boss man of a criminal enterprise.

The Beachwood Tip Line: At the top of the real pyramid.

Posted by Lou at 08:02 AM | Permalink

April 22, 2006

The Weekend Desk Report

White House shuffles, shoot-to-kill curfews, gubernatorial convictions . . . There's a common thread here: None of them will make a difference! But they're all in the news heading into the weekend and we'll keep our eye out for developments while you take a load off.

One Tough Mother
Some of us here at Beachwood HQ we think Prince Charles of the United Kingdom is just ducky and, in this day and age when royal amiability is more vital than royal savvy, we think he'd make a swell king. His interests in this area were dealt a heavy blow, however, when his mother defiantly turned 80, still lean and fighting fit. At this point, Chuckles, we say give up the ghost.

Plunging Values
It's too bad this guy doesn't live in Chicago. We've got much better ways for him to flush his money down the toilet.

Nepalingly Awful
The Beachwood brain trust is scratching its collective head trying to figure out what exactly King Gyanendra did to piss off the U.S. State Department. Clearly, it couldn't be suspending democracy, trying to establish an absolute monarchy or violently suppressing an internal rebellion. So what gives, Condi?

European Vacation
Nice try, Switzerland, but we're way too busy cramming for the Dutch entrance exam.

Open Season
After a year's absence due to labor disputes between the National Hockey League and its players' association, the Stanley Cup playoffs finally returned Friday evening. Unfortunately for the 16 teams included in the tournament, it has been determined that the Cup legally doesn't have to go to the NHL champ. And we all know where this is heading, right?

Posted by Lou at 07:18 AM | Permalink

April 21, 2006

Fernwood 2Night: Mull's Masterpiece

Here's something you may not know but ought to: Martin Mull is both a comedic genius and, as the Web's only tribute site to him puts it, an artistic "renaissance man."

Yes, that Martin Mull - the one too many only know, if they know him at all, from his part on Roseanne or, more likely, those old Red Roof Inn commercials.

But when he's not taking sitcom supporting roles or shilling, Mull is unearthing the dark side of the oft-idealized mid-20th century American heartland in surreal, lush paintings. And he's been known to finger-pick his way through his own dry, sarcastic brand of the blues.

His greatest comedic achievement, however, remains Fernwood 2Night, a parody of regional talk shows set at Channel 6 in the fictional town of Fernwood, Ohio. Perhaps more than anything else the Chicago native has done, Fernwood 2Night, which debuted in syndication on July 4, 1977, best showcased his spin on white-bread American life. It's a spin as sardonic as it is silly.

As smarmy, condescending and, above all, vain talk-show host Barth Gimble, Mull introduced us to one rube after another - starting with his sidekick, Jerry Hubbard (Fred Willard, before he brought a similar persona to Christopher Guest's films) and continuing on through an endless series of fake guests. If you were anyone in Fernwood - a man in an iron lung who played piano, a small-time crook wearing a bunny-rabbit mask to protect his identity, a Jew who just happened to be passing through town, or any small child who ever tried to sing - you were invited onto Fernwood 2Night.

Fernwood 2Night was created, as seemingly all sitcoms in the 1970s were, by Norman Lear. It aired weeknights in the summer of 1977 as a spin-off to Lear's soap-opera satire, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. In MHMH, Mull had played Garth Gimble, who died tragically when he was impaled on a fake Christmas tree in his closet.

In Fernwood 2Night, Mull is Garth's identical twin, Barth, a self-regarded showbiz bigwig from Miami who comes to Fernwood to resurrect his career after he "had a little problem" in Florida. Always dressed in Hawaiian shirts, the first couple of buttons undone, and filled with a barely concealed disdain for his new town, Barth lords over a set that resembles just about the tackiest, multi-patterned '70s living room you can imagine.

Each episode begins with Willard's Jerry Hubbard shouting "Tonight from Fernwood, Fernwood 2Night!" Then, as he announces the evening's guests, the camera zooms across a studio audience full of expressionless Midwestern-looking folks, a sizable portion senior citizens, most of whom look on the verge of being comatose. Once introduced, Barth, in an easy chair to which he's almost permanently affixed, launches into a monologue/prepared statement that's always obsessed with himself or his show. Talking about how he plans to have an upbeat show one night, Barth, with a twinkle in his eye and a self-satisfied air, addresses his audience watching at home: "I figure who wants a downer? If you folks wanted a downer, you could just turn off the TV and spend the night with each other."

At the same time, Barth isn't above admitting how bad his show can be at times, particularly when he's interrupted, which he is every night, by Jerry, a Fernwood local who got the job as sidekick because his brother is the TV station's general manager. Many of the show's highlights come when Barth tries to regain control of a show hijacked by an oblivious Jerry. Jerry, more than a little slow, and always with a smile on his face, has a way, just as Willard's dog-show color analyst in Best in Show, of being illogically logical, or maybe logically illogical. He means well but can't help saying the inappropriate thing, like when he tells the Jew who's on Fernwood 2Night's first episode just for being a Jew: "I think it's a service to let people know you're actually harmless, just like everyone else."

Then there's the show's bandleader, Happy Kyne, of Happy Kyne and the Mirthmakers. Played by real-life movie and TV composer Frank De Vol (he co-wrote the theme for The Brady Bunch), Happy has a balding, cue-ball head and wears an eternally dour expression. But he's also oddly confident; he has no shame in performing wretched songs and dancing even worse, and whenever Barth invites him over to chat, he somehow manages to promote the fast-food restaurant he owns in town, Bun 'n' Run. After Happy one night describes a charitable campaign the Bun 'n' Run is sponsoring to help shut-ins, Jerry says, "Now when people get sick, they'll think of you and your hamburgers." To which, Happy's face somehow gets even more dour.

Nothing is sacred on Fernwood 2Night, as nearly every guest - whether a completely average mother who just wants her daughter to stay out of teenaged-boys' vans or a Native American woman who doesn't care so much about the overall plight of her people but rather the lack of Native American movie and TV roles she's able to land - comes across as delusional, stupid, pathetic or a mix of all three. And Barth, a master of the underhanded putdown, does little to help them. One guest, a retiring longtime men's room attendant in Fernwood. ends up being particularly dull. So, Barth tells him, "After all those years of service, we thought it might be interesting to have you here, but, hey, we all make mistakes."

Whenever an amateur entertainment act performs, the camera cuts away to Barth, his head in his hands, beside himself in despair. Of course, Barth is ultimately as desperate and deluded as any of his guests. At the end of the first season, thanks to his legal troubles in Florida, Barth has to sell the set's furniture. (The show, both in the fictional and real worlds, returned for a second season as America 2Night, in which Barth took the show national, filming "nearly from Hollywood.")

Part of the fun of Fernwood 2Night is that its cheap production values and thrown-together nature are both a parody of small-town TV and probably an accurate reflection of the actual budget Norman Lear had for the show. It was summer, nobody was watching much TV, and, for all I know, Lear just hired a few young writers and performers, gave them the keys to a studio and let them do whatever they wanted.

Among the show's writers, creative consultants and producers were Harry Shearer; Pat Proft, who would go on to help write the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker Naked Gun movies; and Alan Thicke. The show's creators have a real skill for pinpointing the way "regular" but eccentric people talk, writing dialogue that, to sound like Jerry Hubbard for a second, is full of cliches you don't hear much. Guest Virgil Simms (played by Jim Varney, in one of the few recognizable guest spots), a greasy auto mechanic with a screw loose, describes the effect of one of his half-baked techniques thusly: "It will do things to that engine that you can't talk about in front of women."

Some have said the show's ironic down-home sensibility and overall parody of the talk-show genre were an influence on David Letterman, especially in his early, looser days. And after watching Fernwood 2Night, it's hard not to connect the dots between Barth Gimble telling his fake audience that he'll give out $10 to help people achieve their dreams to Letterman handing out hams to his real audience. Not to exaggerate the influence of Fernwood 2Night, but you have to think the show's mocking nature had an influence on This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman and other works in the same vein. (While Christopher Guest's mockumentaries are all very funny, they've always seemed, to me, a tad off-putting in their condescension; what's great about Fernwood 2Night is that condescension, through the character of Barth Gimble, is part of the joke. And who knows if Mike Myers took a page out of Fernwood 2Night and its basement feel for Wayne's World. Probably out of the question is that Ricky Gervais had Barth somewhere in the back of his mind when he conceived of the arrogant, in-love-with-himself David Brent for The Office. Still, I have to think if Gervais were to watch the show, he'd see some kinship, and get a good laugh.

There were more than 60 episodes in the first season. (And yet, the show remains officially unavailable on DVD, though it can be purchased on lawless corners of the Internet from disc-burning renegades willing to risk everything to right a wrong. We don't want to spoil it for everyone, so you'll have to find the renegades yourself.)

Certainly, not everything is funny, there's a lot of repetition in the humor, and there are times - like during awful musical numbers - when you feel like Mull, Willard & Co. are just wasting your time because they can. But that's somehow all part of the charm. Watching the show today, sometimes you laugh hysterically, and then, other times, you feel like it's 1977, you're actually a resident of Fernwood, Ohio, and for lack of anything else to do, you're home watching the tube.

Posted by Lou at 08:45 PM | Permalink

Ways & Means: The Ryan Ruins

The conviction of former Gov. George Ryan for racketeering and fraud caps a political career that could best be described as Illinois Personified. Has there ever been a pol who better embodies all that is Illinois politics than George Ryan?

From the bare-knuckle Kankakee Machine that he grew up on to his tenure as speaker of the Illinois House, George Ryan ascended the political ladder as a hardcore semi-Downstate conservative who was always more Cook County than Cairo. He patiently served two terms as lieutenant governor and two terms as secretary of state - 16 years! - awaiting his chance to be the boss man. And even then, he only beat congressman Glenn Poshard by a 51-47 percent margin, by running to the left of his Democratic opponent.

Ryan's steadfast conservatism morphed into a willingness to tack whichever way best served his friends and his own political opportunities. As governor, he reneged on campaign promises on such issues as taxes and the expansion of O'Hare airport, and then insisted he had the right to change his mind despite what he told voters. He plunged the state into precarious financial straits and tarnished the most courageous and noble act of his political career when he enacted a moratorium on the death penalty in a hamhanded way and later tried to use the action for sympathy before the jury that convicted him.

A federal investigation that began as a probe into the selling of drivers licenses in exchange for cash that state employees could then donate to Ryan's campaign fund turned led to a full-scale unraveling of a Secretary of State's office deemed "a criminal enterprise" by authorities and a governorship that doled out favorable contracts to friends and contributors. Ryan's way of doing business was Illinois's way of doing business writ large, taken to a level that even shocked longtime wheeler-dealers, with the help of right-hand man and fellow felon Scott Fawell.

Who George Ryan is is not a mystery. How he was able to operate with impunity all these years is more so. Some of the more interesting punditry offers some clues.

Eric Zorn at Change of Subject offers a poignant commentary on George Ryan as the ordinary and exceedingly flawed man, and exceedingly rough and pragmatic politician and dealmaker, we have come to know over the years, as opposed to the kindly grandfather do-dadding around the house portrayed by his press agent, Michael Sneed.

Particularly striking is Zorn's recollection of speaking to Ryan when the former governor was deciding what to do with the death penalty.

"I spoke with him several times, though not at length, when he was going back and forth on whether or not to empty out Death Row in the final months of his term as governor. And what struck me was always how little depth there was to his thinking - how tenuous his grasp was on the essential facts and arguments relating to the issue that was dominating his daily life then."

Burt Constable at the Daily Herald recalls a George Ryan who was reviled by many when he was Speaker of the Illinois House - particularly women angry about his role quashing the Equal Rights Amendment in Illinois.

"It was single-handedly George Ryan who stopped it as speaker of the House, and he was very proud that he stopped it," Gayle Guthrie, president of ERA Illinois, told Constable. "He was a bully, and when he won he was quite gleeful about it."

ERA Now treasurer Karen Boehning told Constable that "There is not a philosophical bone in his body. He was an opportunist."

Kristen McQueary at the Daily Southtown somehow still thinks it was George Ryan's great big heart that tripped him up. She must be a graduate of the Michael Sneed School of Chicago Journalism.

"This was not an elitist who flaunted wealth," McQueary writes. "He was a grandpa from Kankakee with a pudgy wife. The spoils often referenced - corporate jets, premier sports tickets, Jamaican vacations, steak dinners - don't strike me as ostentatious. He was the governor of a major state. Your average state lawmaker is privy to the same recompense, and congressmen, more."

Ryan may not have flaunted his wealth, but he flaunted his power. He delivered wealth to his friends - in multi-million dollar state contracts paid for with our money. McQueary fails to see that the point isn't what Ryan got as much as what he gave (in return for what he got - elected.)

"One of the personal checks shown to jurors as part of the 'spoils' was a $1,000 boost for his daughter," McQueary writes. "One of his kids apparently married a bum who liked to gamble, and so Ryan helped them when he could. What father wouldn't?"

A law-abiding father, that's what father! Ryan "boosted" his daughters in part by shaving money out of Phil Gramm's presidential campaign fund!

"Think of your own life and the people with whom you would surround yourself if elected governor: I'd sure like my best friend from high school, now an attorney, to provide trusted counsel," she continues. "What if she owned a timeshare in Mexico? Would I have to pay her for my room-and-board? It seems a bit absurd."

If you were elected governor, Kristen, your best friend could provide counsel as your private attorney. But would you just turn over the general counsel's job to your pal? And what if your pal, like Ryan's boyhood friend, Dean Bauer, then quashed investigations into, say, a license-for-bribes scheme involving an illegally licensed trucker who killed six kids?

McQueary goes on to make the tired, cynical argument that this is how politics is done in Illinois, and that somehow now the ethical lines have shifted. I wonder how many Chicago journalists realize that in many states and cities, politics is not done this way at all and things still manage to get done. Or that the laws haven't changed at all - find me a federal statute Ryan was charged under that is a recent change of law. Pols have been sent to jail for these types of misdeeds for as long as they have been perpetrating them.

McQueary's column is an important one, though, because it exposes the shocking mindset of many Chicago journalists whose training is so much different than mine. It makes you wonder: If McQueary had been tipped off about some of Ryan's shady deals, would she have thought it not worthy of reporting?

The Better Government Association, by contrast, can chronicle nearly 25 years of investigating Ryan, going back to Ryan blocking as House speaker an investigation into a nursing home rife with safety and health violations. "Shortly after, Ryan's Kankakee pharmacy regained the $60,000 per year of business it had previously lost to the owner of that nursing home facility," the BGA says.

Further BGA investigations of Ryan commenced in 1993, 1994, 1996 and 2001, "mostly focusing on his coercive fundraising from employees and those he regulated," the BGA says. The BGA also sued Ryan twice over corruption in the secretary of state's office, in 1998 and 2000.

While the BGA partnered with media outlets for some of its investigations, the media largely turned a blind eye. And, no surprise, so did most of the state's public officials.

Jeff Trigg at Illinoize takes exposes the empty rhetoric of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's attack on Judy Baar Topinka for not "lifting a finger" while Ryan ran loose.

The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform tries to fix the problem.

And the Onion has the man on the street interviews no other paper seems able to get.

For a review of the media's coverage of the Ryan jury mess, check out The Papers.

Posted by Lou at 10:01 AM | Permalink

The [Friday] Papers

You get the feeling that the Chicago Tribune, which got the ball rolling when it discovered criminal cases in the backgrounds of two jurors in the George Ryan trial who were then dismissed, would now just like to see the whole mess go away.

Once again, the paper today fails to see the mess surrounding the jurors in the trial of the now-convicted former governor as the biggest story of the day.

Instead, the Tribune goes with a story headlined "Ryan Jury Feels It's On Trial Now" on the bottom of its front page, clearly outlining where its sympathies lie.

The angle of the story - of many undeveloped angles left to choose from - and the almost always telltale final paragraph, which newspapers often use as a conclusion telling readers how to feel after exiting the story, make clear that the paper thinks the Ryan defense team and those of us deeply disturbed by the jurors' false answers on their questionnaires are nitpicking fine and dutiful citizens who don't deserve scrutiny.

"I feel bad for the people whose lives have been exposed because of their community service," reads the quote by juror Karen James that the Tribune places above its front page headline.

"Panel Members Upset As Lawyers Dig Up Past," reads the subhead.

"I'm waiting for them to go after me for the three library books I forgot to return," says the quote under juror Denies Peterson's front page photo.

"Case May Hurt Jury System, Expert Says," reads the headline on the back page, where the story is continued.

And at the end of a story that doesn't address the public's legitimate interest in the jurors' integrity but instead manages to feel sorry for jurors who didn't tell the truth when they were chosen for the panel, this quote from controversial forewoman Sonja Chambers:

"A lot of us work. We have young children. And we took the time to do our civic duty. And today, now we're on trial ourselves. So I just think it's unfair and I think it's very unjust that they're treating us this way. Everyone may have something in their past."

Get it yet?

The Tribune and jurors James and Chambers continue to miss the point. This isn't about overdue library books, or even about jurors whose pasts include arrests for drugs, assault, DUI, and theft. It's about the failure of jurors to disclose those things on their questionnaires when being considered for the panel.

As Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer said in a closed hearing last month, if a juror does not disclose their past "in order to be chosen for a particular jury, then one wonders whether the motivation might have been to achieve a particular outcome in the case."

That quote can be found not in a front page narrative of the behind-the-scenes flurry in the closing weeks of one the state's most historically significant trials, but near the end of the Tribune story "Ryan Lawyers Called Jurors Liars" tucked away on page six.

The Chicago Sun-Times doesn't do much better today, but it doesn't seem so willful about it. The paper weighs in with "Backlash Against Jurors Questioned," and an editorial that doesn't know what it wants to say, but that's just the Sun-Times. We don't expect as much from it, and frankly, by and large, the staff doesn't seem to expect as much from themselves; that's why it's always so much fun when it actually delivers.

Debra Pickett manages once again, though, to be thoroughly offensive on multiple levels as the underrepresented voice of the unbearably unaware and undeservingly arrogant yuppie whose ignorance and snobbery is astonishing.

"Basically, I was assuming that people who buy their coffee at Dunkin' Donuts would be inclined to serve on juries, while those who prefer Starbucks would not," she writes, in a column titled "Want To Clean Up Juries? Bring In The Yuppies."

It's as painful to read as it sounds.

You can read more today about the travails of the Ryan jury in our latest installment of Ways & Means, on our Politics page.

Sun-Times Buy Byes
Sources tell The Beachwood Reporter that eight to 10 Sun-Times editors, reporters, and photographers have received buyouts from the paper, and three to seven people who asked for them were rejected. If you can confirm the names we have received and nail down the rest for us, send me a note via the Tip Line. Longtime books editor Henry Kisor appears to be the biggest name leaving the paper.

Freshmen Follies
Both papers lead their front pages today with results from a new study that shows just one of six* freshmen entering a Chicago public school will earn a college degree by the time they are 25.

"Researchers say they're not exactly sure why Chicago schools alumni graduate from college in such low numbers," the Tribune reports.

Yeah, that's a real head-scratcher.

*CORRECTION: It's even worse than my sloppily worded assessment: The study found that of every 100 freshmen entering a Chicago public school, just six (technically, 6.5) will earn a college degree. My apologies.

Clerks
Whether it's a good idea to abolish the City Clerk's office, as the Sun-Times advocates in an editorial today, the paper ought to think twice about the evidence it offers in favor of its argument (second editorial on the link). After all, the Sun-Times would keep coming out, stocked with yuppie columns, "smart girl" book reviews, Sunday lunches, and a limping blog, each more aggravating than the last, by Debra Pickett, long after the the editor-in-chief's chair was vacated.

Back To You, Chuck
"It's looking like a blood-soaked, explosive weekend
ahead. The five-day forecast is coming up."

- WGN-TV Thursday morning

Back To You, Susie
Not really, but plausible, no? Submitted by Tim Willette.

Governor Baloneyvich
The Tribune's Rick Pearson and John Chase get to the bottom of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's new "Straight Talk" television ad by discerning that the "Town Hall Meeting" where a camera captured the governor attacking challenger Judy Baar Topinka's stance on an assault weapons ban wasn't a real town hall meeting at all but a fake town hall meeting staged to film the commercial.

Looking for Love
You still have to hunt for it every day, but Cheryl Lavin's Tales From The Front rarely disappoints.

Must-Read
There is a new Website in town that is "already the most literary and winningly whimsical," says Steve Johnson of the Tribune.

Thirty-Second City Syndrome
Was it really necessary for the Sun-Times to publish a box the other day of Condoleeza Rice's likes and dislikes of a Chicago she barely seems to know, including such gems as "[Hyde Park] has a spectacular university in the University of Chicago," and "This is a great city culturally, architecturally, obviously"?

Friend or Foe
President Bush declared this week that he is The Decider. Debate at Beachwood HQ ensued about whether that made him a Star Trek villain or the name of a Judas Priest song.

The Beachwood Tip Line: It would die 4 U.

Posted by Lou at 07:37 AM | Permalink

April 20, 2006

God Factors

Chicago Sun-Times religion reporter and columnist Cathleen Falsani recently published The God Factor, a collection of interviews with an array of national political, artistic, and cultural figures about their spiritual lives. Among the revelations:

Barack Obama: "Is not shy saying he has 'a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.'" Also sometimes feels the power of the Holy Spirit when he is speaking.

Mancow Muller: "Am I saved? Yes. Yes."

Billy Corgan: Perceives everything he does including (his word) "fucking" in spiritual terms.

Dusty Baker: "The dark side has some real power, especially in the world today. Evil's more accepted and more prevalent." Actually believes that the mythical Cubs curse derives from the dark side. Says he's been "delivered" a "bunch of times" and has witnessed an exorcism.

Carlos Zambrano: "Any man who believes in God is a good man."

Harold Ramis: "Yes, we're alone in the universe, life is meaningless and death is inevitable, but is that necessarily so depressing?"

All very interesting - and indeed, frightening. But we would have appreciated more commentary reflecting historic Chicago values like doubt, pessimism, and a healthy aversion to bullshit. As a post-script, we've provided a short selection from other locals who are not in Falsani's book, in some cases because they are dead and keeping their experiences in the afterlife to themselves. Remember, if God says He loves you, check it out.

Carl Sagan: "The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God,' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying . . . It does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity."

Clarence Darrow: "I feel as I always have, that the Earth is the home and the only home of man, and I am convinced that whatever he is to get out of his existence he must get while he is here . . . I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil."

Saul Alinsky: "Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the Establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer."

Steve Albini: "Psychedelic fungus infestation of European grain, not divine inspiration, is responsible for many of the 'visions' so lovingly portrayed in the Christian paintings of antiquity. How many people were pressed under stones or drowned or burned for Satanism while those of faith were quietly tripping their brains out on bad bread?"

Frank Lloyd Wright: "God is the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature, and it has been said often by philosophers that nature is the will of God. And I prefer to say that nature is the only body of God that we shall ever see. If we wish to know the truth concerning anything, we'll find it in the nature of that thing."

Emo Philips: "Probably the hardest time in anyone's life is when you have to kill a loved one because they're the Devil. But other than that, it's been a good day."

Posted by Lou at 07:31 PM | Permalink

The [Thursday] Papers

Worst Jury Ever?

Let's review.

1. Cynthia McFadden is removed from the George Ryan jury for not only sleeping but snoring during the trial, as well as doing crossword puzzles. During the trial. In the juror's box.

2. Evelyn Ezell is removed for failing to disclose on her juror questionnaire that she had previously been charged with misdemeanor child neglect, assault, weapons possession and drug possession.

3. Robert Pavlick is removed for not disclosing numerous DUI arrests.

4. Sonja Chambers, juror foreperson, is not removed but discovered to have failed to disclose court filings in three counties related to her divorce and the seeking of orders of protection, as well as a civil lawsuit brought against her by a furniture company.

5. Kevin Rein is not removed but failed to disclose his 1980 arrest for hitting his pregnant 17-year-old sister, reportedly during an argument over cats.

6. Charles Svymbersky is not removed but failed to disclose his 1983 guilty plea for stealing a bike.

7. Raul Casino is not removed but failed to disclose his 1962 DUI arrest.

8. Jill DiMartino is not removed but admitted that after deliberations began she was questioned about the case by her daughter, friends, and co-workers.

Oy.

Is this typical of most juries? Or do we have a special collection of miscreants here?

Yes, I've seen the commentary fretting that the Ryan jurors are now under attack and that the scrutiny isn't fair.

It is fair.

A jury empaneled to hear one of the most important cases in state history ought to be one of unquestioned integrity. (As should all juries, of course, but the scope and nature of this case demands an even more unusual level of bias-free judgement and attentiveness.)

The jury ought to be even more upstanding than the prosecution and defense, given that those parties are advocates with agendas.

The jury ought to stand with the judge as representatives acting on our behalf, for you and me.

So I don't find it so easy to dismiss these revelations, as much as I agree with the jury's findings.

It is more important that the process be one that is brimming with integrity, and has our full confidence as a result. Justice demands it.

Sure, a stolen bike charge in 1983 sounds about as nitpicky as you can get. And a DUI charge from 1962 sounds like ancient history (though one could easily imagine that a single such incident could form lifelong thoughts about DUI laws and the secretaries of state who help enforce them.)

But the point isn't the nature of the undisclosed charges, it's that they were undisclosed to begin with.

Whether the questions on the jury form we're confusing - and they don't sound confusing to me and I don't think any parent out there would let their kids get away with failing to disclose answers to such questions based on the questions being poorly worded - it happened.

Now there are two questions.

Did George Ryan get a fair trial? That will be decided through the appeals process.

Do we as the public have confidence in the jury system as it is currently constructed?

It may only be a matter of a few tweaks, like requiring background checks on all prospective jurors, but if this jury is typical, I'd say the answer to that second question is no.

As Yet Undisclosed: Is this jury typical? I mean, do most juries have as many members whose backgrounds include so many run-ins with the law? What are the chances? How does this collection of folks compare to the general population. I mean, I have friends who have had their problems but I'm not sure any 12 of us could match this jury. And that's not to say previous legal issues should disqualify someone from sitting on a jury. It's to say there is a reason why prospective jurors are asked to disclose such information - so the officers of the court can make the proper determination of whether they are still capable of performing their duties with the utmost integrity demanded by a upright criminal justice system.

Captive Audience: Several of the jurors have been accused by defense lawyers of buying newspapers during the trial. Hey, a new market! With trial news cut out in advance, perhaps replaced by ads for PR consultants and book agents.

But between the newspaper purchases and Chambers's talk with Dennis the Coffee Guy, who then phoned that radio station, and DiMartino's discussions with her friends and family, you have to wonder why the jury wasn't sequestered.

The Chicago Sun-Times found Dennis, by the way.

Webb's Ways: Master of the Universe Dan Webb's furious attempts down the stretch to use the jury issues to get a mistrial take a bit of the edge off his explanation for not putting Ryan on the stand, as repeatedly and confidently promised: That the government had so spectacularly failed to prove their case that it wasn't necessary.

More Webby Ways: Webb fought to keep the sleeping juror on the panel, which also seems to indicate what kind of case he truly thought he had. Though to be fair to the juror, the Daily Herald reports that her sleeping problem was due to medication.

Court of Public Opinion: I'm filing a motion today asking that Sneed be removed from the newspaper for failing to disclose what an affront to journalism she is.

This Just In: My motion was denied because Sneed discloses it almost every day.

Planet Tribune: The Chicago Tribune somehow thinks there is a more important story today to strip across its front page than the Ryan juror mess. Perhaps they are still patting themselves on the back for their