The [Tuesday] Papers

"He was a hardscrabble visionary from the streets of Chicago's South Side who had to fight for everything he got," Greg Kot writes in the Tribune. "He created rock 'n' roll's essential rhythm, pioneered an approach to electric-guitar playing that anticipated hard rock, metal and punk and developed a vocal style and stage persona that influenced everyone from Elvis to Chuck D. It could also be credibly argued that he provided the rhythmic and lyrical foundation of hip-hop, notably on his insult-swapping 1959 hit 'Say Man.'

"With his boxer's build, black glasses, Stetson hat and hand-built, rectangle-shaped guitars, he looked and sounded like no one else in rock. His first band was a trio that roamed the streets and clubs of Chicago with guitar, rub board and maracas, and by all accounts rocked like the dickens - long before Presley, Berry and the rest were on the horizon."

Hey Bo Diddley.

Red Alert
Another day, another CTA derailment.

Father Mike Stand
"As for his performance from the Trinity pulpit at a Sunday night service May 25, Pfleger has apologized for 'the words that I chose' and for 'my dramatization,'" Cathleen Falsani writes in the Sun-Times.

In other words, he still thinks Hillary Clinton is a bigot, he just didn't mean to say it so effectively.

"All that is well and good, but how, as a friend and passionate supporter of Obama's campaign for president, could he do what he did, with cameras rolling?"

That's the question the pundits are asking because they are stuck in the mindset of weighing everything for political implication, especially if it could hurt Obama. But shouldn't the question be whether Pfleger (and the Obama campaign) really believes Clinton thinks a black man has no right to take away what was hers?

By not asking that question, the media tacitly approves the message that everyone knows Clinton is racist but that no one should say so out loud.

"Pfleger's short answer? He didn't think the service and his 'conversation' - a more casual address than a classic sermon, he explained - were being broadcast live online, as Trinity often does.

"'They told me it was down,' Pfleger said. "Their live streaming had been down all day, and they didn't know whether it was back up . . . I regret the dramatization that I was naive enough to believe was just going to be kept among that church."

In other words, Pfleger stands by what he says. He just didn't think what he said would leave the confines of Obama's church.

Obsession
"After acknowledging that there is no 'proof of post-presidential sexual indiscretions' by former President Bill Clinton, Vanity Fair's Todd S. Purdum repeatedly used anonymous sources to suggest that 'tabloid speculation and Internet intimations' about supposed 'indiscretions' are true.

"Five paragraphs into a nearly 10,000-word article about former President Bill Clinton, Vanity Fair writer Todd S. Purdum stipulated that there is no 'proof of post-presidential sexual indiscretions on Clinton's part' - but that did not stop Purdum from devoting a sizable portion of the article to relaying what he himself described as 'a steady stream of tabloid speculation and Internet intimations that the Big Dog might be up to his old tricks.'"

Likewise, local author Carol Felsenthal concluded a recent softball interview on Chicago Tonight by saying of Clinton: "He's dating." A proposition, by the way, that she failed to prove (third item) in her new 313-page book.

The Obama campaign finally got their wish, though.

*

This is all you get in the locals.

The Break-Up
It's not you, Trinity, it's me.

Get Me From The Church On Time
"Lincoln's Cooper Union speech is still looking good 150 years later. Obama's Philadelphia speech didn't last 150 days."

Power Play
"The office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan accused Commonwealth Edison Co. of killing state legislation that would have eased the way for a new generation of coal-fired power plants designed to operate cleanly," Crain's reports.

Madigan is also looking into rumors that ComEd is violating child labor laws.

Yesterday's News Tomorrow
"Nerds: Their culture is trendier than ever."
- Tribune, 2008

"It's hip to be square."
- Huey Lewis, 1986

Fritchey Fight
I'm pretty sure this post was originally called Rodnocchio.

I'm still disappointed "Gov. Baloneyvich" hasn't taken off.

Burial Rites
"The man who designed the Pringles potato crisp packaging system was so proud of his accomplishment that a portion of his ashes has been buried in one of the iconic cans."

That's funny; fans of the El will be buried in . . . an El train.

June Swoon
"In the short space of six years, three absolutely wonderful things have happened in baseball: the Angels, the Red Sox and the White Sox have all outlasted decades of gloom and futility to win the World Series," George Vecsey writes in The New York Times.

"Now comes the heavy lifting.

"The Cubbies.

"Exactly 100 years after their last championship - probably the longest barren streak in American professional sports - the Cubs have the best record in the major leagues, 36-21, and are on a seven-game winning streak.

"Now the question is, what can possibly go wrong that is different from all the horrible events that have taken place on the Near North Side?"

The Beachwood Tip Line: Two bits.