The [Tuesday] Papers

1. I have seen the best neighborhoods of my generation destroyed.

2. The 13 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions.

3. The Chicago band OK Go has won You Tube's most creative video award and indeed the treadmill choreography is pretty incredible.

4. Family Guy's FCC Song.

5. Still catching up on a few things the Rev. Jesse Jackson said at Operation Push a couple Saturdays ago.

* On visiting Tank Johnson at the Cook County Jail: "[It's] a jail for blacks only. A few Mexicans here and there."

* "There is not a single black gun dealer in America."

* Gov. Blagojevich's gross receipts tax proposal is "a bad deal. Most black businesses would go out of business if you tax what comes in, not what they make. Tax profits, not revenue."

6. Fitzgerald on Fitzgerald.

7. Panel Discussion on Englewood Communities. (via Bronzecomm.com)

Englewood Cultural Planning Council
African American History Subcommittee
Presents: The State of African Americans
In The Englewood/West Englewood Communities

Keynote Speaker:
Professor Timuel D. Black

Panel Discussion Presenters:
Hal Baskin- Youth
Rev. Roberta Collins - Education
Pamela Dominguez -Family
Fredricka Lightfoot - Social Services
Jeremy Greenlee - Finances
Henry Wilson - History of the Community

Hamilton Park Fieldhouse
Friday March 30, 2007
6:30 P.M.
Admission free

8. Conscious Choice sure has become an interesting magazine. Just catching up with the latest.

* Should there be 10,000 representatives in Congress? The founders actually wanted it that way (second item).

"On 4 January 2007, the new members of Congress took their oath of office for the first time. In doing so, the new Representatives and Senators swore to defend these twelve words from Article 1: 'The Number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand.' The question is, will the new members work to enforce the twelve words from Article 1? And if they do not, why?"

* Andersonville has been named one of America's Best Eco-Communities by Natural Home Magazine (same link, fourth item).

* Chef Greg Christian has created the first program to introduce organic foods into the Chicago Public Schools.

9. About presidential politics:

* I don't care whether the president is a good guy to have a beer with. First, there's no way a voter can actually determine that in reality. Second, it's not really a big part of the president's job. Third, the presidency is the most complicated and important job on the planet. Can we please not trivialize it?

* I don't care if Mitt Romney's great-great-grandfather had 12 wives. And I don't care that Rudy Giuliani has had three. Giuliani's "messy" personal life means nothing to me. His messy mayoralty does.

* Being a great speaker is also an overrated skill. Judgement and policy skill are far more important. We're not electing a televangelist. In fact, if great oratory were the overriding quality to look for in a president, we'd elect Tony Robbins or Kevin Trudeau (or better yet, Joel Osteen). The value of being a skilled speaker should never override the value of what it is someone is saying.

* I don't need to be inspired. I'd prefer to be put at ease - or at least feel as little anger on a daily basis as possible.

* I'd also like to not die in a war, be able to afford health insurance, and have the government stay out of my bedroom, my mail, and my telephone conversations. If it takes the most boring person in the world to do that, so be it.

10. "I was honored when my father asked me when I was 19 to write a letter for him, setting out his qualifications to be a rural mail carrier, and I did a good workmanlike job on it, though he didn't get the position. Qualifications didn't matter so much; it was a patronage appointment, and Dad didn't know the right people."

- Garrison Keillor, Homegrown Democrat

11. Most common film cliches.

12. A humanivorous monster in Milwaukee.

13. If Oprah is so upset about the performance of American schoolchildren, why doesn't she spend some time in Springfield lobbying for an education finance package?

14. The Chicago police, the city, and the state's attorney's office all refused to appear on Chicago Tonight last night to discuss the process and policy of dealing with bad cops, in light of the recent bar beatdown incident that has made news worldwide.

Writer Jamie Kalven did appear, however, and recited statistics similar to the ones in this article that are astonishing. Cops, it seems, can get away with just about anything. And the mayor doesn't seem to care.

15. On a slightly different police note, I've long wondered: Does the police department ever rule a shooting by a police officer "unjustified"?

16. Joe Scarborough, a conservative Republican and former U.S. congressman, returned to a familiar theme of his last night: Is the president delusional? Or just determined?

The topic was sparked by Robert Novak's assertion that "In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress - not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment."

17. The Beachwood reconsiders Boston.

The Beachwood Tip Line: More than a feeling.

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