The [Tuesday] Papers

1. Daily Olympic coverage from the Beachwood Olympic Bureau!

2. "On Friday February 12th I was asked to comment for a CBS 2 Report on the sentencing of Chicago Police Officer Gerald Callahan," my friend Tracy Jake Siska writes. "Try as I might I failed to get across what I believe the main point that needs to get communicated to policy makers and community members about the sentencing of Callahan. I will use this blog to explain my point here."

3. "About one of every five children age six and under was living in poverty in 2008, according to the annual Kids Count report from Voices for Illinois Children," AP reports.

4. "One suburban lawmaker hopes to eradicate most red-light cameras in the state, which he said wrongfully target hundreds of Illinois drivers who made legal right-hand turns, and his proposal to that effect gets a first airing in the legislature today," the Daily Herald reports.

5. "Business schools will be running case studies of Toyota Motor Corp. for a long time to come," the Tribune opined over the weekend. "Just how does a powerhouse company with a pristine reputation fall so far so fast?"

Gee, maybe the Tribune ought to ask itself that. Or just consult the case studies already written on the newspaper industry.

"Smugness apparently played a part. Toyota rested on its reputation for quality and often dismissed consumer concerns, behaving as if it were beyond reproach."

See the game I'm playing here?

"Toyota's reputation for reliability, quality and value has been smashed."

Really?

"The auto industry is a key to the U.S. economy. If American automakers can restructure, become leaner and more efficient, and keep up quality, reliability and appeal, they can thrive.

"They learned a lesson about complacency. Let's hope Toyota does, too."

Let's hope Tribune does, too.

6. "Thrust into office on the veracity of hope, President Barack Obama is trying to get himself on the right side of a remarkably different national sentiment these days: anger," AP reports.

"The Obama response has come in two parts. One is to try to get better about communicating to people that he is fighting to address exactly what angers them."

Or, alternatively, and I'm just spitballing here, Obama could actually fight what angers them.

"The other is to put the onus on whomever he deems is getting in the way of progress, hoping to shift the heat onto them."

You mean the fucking retards?

Or the Republican minority?

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Democrats: When Republicans are in power, it's their fault. When we're in power, it's their fault.

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"Obama gave a fiery pep talk during an Ohio town hall a few days after his party's big loss in Massachusetts. The next week he mocked news organizations for saying he had shifted to a more populist message. 'I've been fighting for working folks my entire adult life, he said."

After all, Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon are working folk.

"In his State of the Union speech, Obama was speaking to Democratic and Republican lawmakers, but also, really, to families watching at home, when he offered this I-hear-you-America line: 'We all hated the bank bailout. I hated it. You hated it.'"

But as president, I had no choice but to go along with it - on whatever terms that were presented to me!

"And Obama has gotten more vocal in seeking Republican help - knowing the nation is angry about bickering - but he challenges the opposition party each time. 'We'll call them out when they say they want to work with us, and we extend a hand and get a fist in return,' he said."

How's that whole hopey changey thing working out for ya?

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"Asked how the backroom deal-making squared with Mr Obama's pledge to change Washington, [David Axelrod] told CNN: "Trust me, every senator uses whatever leverage they have. That's the way it's been, that's the way it will always be."

Funny, I don't recall that as Obama's campaign slogan.

And that's why people are so angry.

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Toyota's approval rating vs. Obama's. Discuss.

7. "Berserk! was a nice surprise because I thought Crawford had hit bottom in the 1964 film Strait-Jacket, where she plays the exact same bitter, creepy, decrepit old bag of bones looking to bed a handsome guy less than half her age," our very own Scott Buckner writes in What I Watched Last Night. "But I was wrong - way wrong - because in living color, Joan Crawford was 1) was skin-crawlingly creepier than I thought, and 2) proves that becoming a famous and powerful actress doesn't automatically mean your taste in fashion becomes any less hideous. Even worse, Crawford spends the entire film with her hair dyed a shade of copper and painfully swept up into a crown of something resembling a loaf of monkey bread."

8. The Rolling Stones: Love & Theft.

9. "I will never understand what it means to be a woman," our very own J.J. Tindall writes. "Sluts, saints and moon cads trying to understand."

10. Best. Olympics. Ever.

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The Beachwood Tip Line: Hopey, changey.

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