By The Beachwood Political Affairs Desk

The new Democratic majority in the U.S. House set out an ambitious “first hundred hours” agenda to pass measures that would tighten lobbying ethics, implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, raise the minimum wage, expand stem cell research, lower prescription drug prices on behalf of Medicare patients, roll back oil industry subsidies, commit to pay-as-you-go budgeting, and cut interest rates on student loans.
Here are some of the lesser known accomplishments of the House Democrats’ first hundred hours.
– Rid chamber of “Hastert smell.”
– Now abusing the girl pages, not the boys.
– Confederate flags in old leadership offices sold on eBay; money used to upgrade access to series of tubes known as “the Internet.”

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Posted on January 26, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

Barack Obama endorsed Mayor Richard M. Daley on Monday, saying among other things that the city had made great strides in overcoming corruption. Forgive Obama, he hasn’t been in the state much since being elected senator.
Just where does Obama see improvement? Daley is now finishing his worst term since the one in which more than 700 people died in the 1995 heat wave that he so badly mismanaged. Perhaps Obama hasn’t heard of the Hired Truck Scandal, or that Robert Sorich, the mayor’s former patronage chief, is on his way to jail. And that’s just the top of the shitpile; there are also the revelations of Daley’s extensive patronage machine; stalled efforts at CPS and CHA; a CTA that is literally running off the rails; soaring property taxes; and the stain of that pesky Burge Report, whose whitewashing managed in reverse to make the mayor look guilty.
Now, to be sure, Obama’s endorsement had very little to do with Daley’s re-election campaign (except to help satisfy the mayor’s thirst to positively crush his opponents and critics), but everything to do with Obama’s presidential campaign.
And that’s what’s troubling.

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Posted on January 23, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

I’m not anti-Obama. He’s quite likable on the surface. I haven’t made up my mind about him. But I’m against hype, and particularly media hype, and that’s what’s going on. When I was the political reporter at Chicago magazine, my editor rejected both my proposals to embed with Obama first in the primary and then in the general election in order to write insider campaign accounts – win or lose.
After Obama caught fire, I proposed a story examining his legislative record, which still has gone largely unexplored. Also rejected. I proposed a story about “How Obama became Obama,” namely how the circumstances of his U.S. Senate campaign, his speech at the Democratic National Convention, and the tenor of media coverage helped create the man who might be president. Also rejected.
Any story, in fact, that might be a serious journalistic enterprise including critical thinking was rejected.
But my editor, Richard Babcock, the editor of the magazine, desperately wanted an Obama story nonetheless, so he could put him on the cover and sell magazines. The cover decision had been made; now we just needed a story to go with it. And of course, that meant a puff piece, which is what they got.

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Posted on January 18, 2007

The Beachwood Police Raid Affairs Desk

A comparison.
Tank: Encroaches in the neutral zone.
Troutman: Encroaches on zoning.
Tank: In wrong place at wrong time.
Troutman: In wrong ward at wrong time.
Tank: Money for sacks.
Troutman: Money in sacks.
Tank: Stops the run.
Troutman: Vows to run.
Tank: Allegedly affiliated with gangs.
Troutman: Allegedly affiliated with gangs.

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Posted on January 18, 2007

By Kiljoong Kim

To most of us, concepts like globalization and global citizenship seem so far removed from our daily lives that they seemingly have no impact. In fact, we hardly consider the possibility that such concepts can determine our friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Most of us also think of immigrants in very simple terms: Mexicans from Mexico, Poles from Poland, Asian Indians from India, etc. In most cases, immigrants do come from where they were born. But there are also others who have roamed the earth before arriving in our state. Some have settled in Illinois upon their travels and some are simply passing by.
Historically, people often moved for political and economic reasons. Many have fled Cuba, Bosnia, or a number of African nations to seek political asylum. And many have left the Philippines, India, Poland, and many other nations seeking economic opportunities. Today we travel with far greater frequency and over far greater distances than ever before. After 1965, when the Immigration and Naturalization Act was passed, Asian Indians who used to live in England during colonization and Koreans who were in Germany seeking coal mining and nursing opportunities moved to United States. In fact, in the 1970s, a third of Korean immigrants into the Chicago area came from Germany.

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Posted on January 8, 2007