By Steve Rhodes
1. “The Bears know what the St. Louis Rams are,” Greg Couch writes. “They beat a tackling dummy Sunday.”
2. Can’t the city find a corporate (or otherwise) sponsor for its Jumping Jacks program instead of making Maxwell Street merchants pay for it?
3. Pace executives are not only raising fares; they are raising their salaries.
“Pace leaders point to increased ridership – it has hit all-time highs in the past five months – as evidence they’re earning their money,” the Sun-Times reports.
A) Funny how record ridership is a reason to raise salaries, but not a reason to maintain current fare levels
B) If the added revenue from increased ridership just goes into executives’ pockets, then what’s the point?
C) Plus, Pace executives showed up to Washington in private jets
4. From GM’s official corporate blog, Fast Lane:
Nov. 21
By Bob Lutz
GM Vice Chairman
It’s been a historic week for us, and I don’t mean in Washington. And let me just say upfront that I know there is a lot of talk online about that subject. But I am not going to comment here about any government loans or hearings or GM’s financial situation – just like I wouldn’t engage you in conversation about it if I ran into you in the produce aisle.
As if you do your own grocery shopping.
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Compare and contrast: Here’s Google’s corporate blog.
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Let’s get with the program, people. What’s good for Google is good for the country. What’s good for GM isn’t even good for GM.
*
Here’s one list of corporate blogs.
5. “If there was one thing Americans learned about Michael Phelps during his history-making eight-gold-medal run at the Beijing Olympics – other than that he can swim really, really fast – it was that he really, really likes McDonald’s,” Jeremy Mullman writes in Ad Age.
“So, how, then, did Mr. Phelps wind up signing a major, long-term endorsement deal for Subway, one of McDonald’s fiercest and fastest-growing rivals?”
The money?
“Subway prevailed, [his agent, Peter] Carlisle said, because it offered ‘more of a partnership and less of an Olympic program,’ and also because its fast-growing presence and ambitions in Europe and the U.K. dovetail with Mr. Phelps’ own ambitions to promote the sport of swimming in advance of the 2012 London games.
“Also a factor, Mr. Carlisle said, was the Subway brand’s more-healthful image.”
Right.
The money, then.
6. “It may not be Bears football, but the Boise State playbook would like mighty good with Devin Hester in the backfield – or under center or spread wide.”
– Eric Emery, January 10, 2007
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“Use Devin Hester out of the backfield, duh!”
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“When your best players on offense are your top two tight ends, go with two tight-end formations . . .
” . . . With Devin Hester out of the backfield. In other words, put your best weapons on the field!”
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“When the offense stalls, put Devin Hester in a really deep shotgun formation and tell him to just pretend he’s returning a kick.”
– Eric Emery, Dec. 28, 2007
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“Having worked on the wildcat formation in practice for a year now, Bears players began to think it was just something offensive coordinator Ron Turner was directing for his amusement,” the Sun-Times reports today.
“With dangerous open-field runner Devin Hester, Turner started to experiment with the package a year ago, when it was popularized at Arkansas by running backs Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. But the Bears were late to the party in unveiling their new toy for the first time Sunday in a 27-3 victory over the St. Louis Rams.”
Next week the Bears will unveil a new innovation called “the pass rush.”
7. First the Chicago Police Department reconstituted its Special Operations Section, which was disbanded because it was impossible to be both effective and accountable and predictably ended in scandal, now the Chicago Police Department is reconstituting a mobile gang enforcement unit that was disbanded because it was impossible to be both effective and accountable and predictably ended in scandal.
Hey, I hear Jon Burge needs a job, as long as we’re reliving the glory days.
8. Should PR guys with hidden agendas and mysterious motives really be allowed onto our Op-Ed pages?
9. David Lynch does a daily weather report. (via the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
10. In today’s Beachwood:
* Axl’s folly. Read what the critics are saying about Chinese Democracy.
* “People will pretend to know what’s going to happen, and they will do so in all matter of media, and when it turns out they were completely wrong on Sunday, they’ll just reload and fire away again starting the next day,” Jim Coffman writes in SportsMonday.
* “Off-Centered Ales for Off-Centered People.” In The Periodical Table: Knives, Beer & Failure.
* Your Kitchen Companion. Just in time for the holidays.
And at Ferdy on Films:
“The people Nelson Algren wrote about have few champions in this world. They’re the rummies and chippies and suckers and sinners who never get an even break. The fact that Preminger, in his zeal to exploit the lot of the junkie for the entertainment of a curious and ignorant middle class audience, stomped all over this underclass yet again creates, to my mind, a problem of legitimacy in the auteur theory. Should a film auteur be allowed to practice cannibalism? No, no way.”
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Chippies and sinners.
Posted on November 24, 2008