By Steve Rhodes
So much material, so little time.
1. The new Filter is an awesome space, easily better than the old one. But doling out free Wi-Fi in 60-minute increments via temporary passwords is a pain in the ass. I understand the rationale, but man up.
2. I wonder if people who work at Burger King’s corporate headquarters are bummed out because they don’t work at McDonald’s. Same with Pepsi and Coke. I mean, wouldn’t you rather work for No.1 – especially given that McDonald’s and Coke are vastly superior products? Similarly, does anyone working at Microsoft truly think it’s a better gig than working at Apple? Yahoo vs. Google? Just sayin’ . . .
3. If you do nothing else today, check out the guitar lead of “My Sharona” featured in the third video of today’s Song of the Moment feature.
4. Mayor Daley’s “Help Wanted” ad is a nice PR gambit, but it should be called out as a ridiculous stunt unless Daley actually requires that you can’t get the job unless you go through the application process. Otherwise he’ll just pick who he already knows he wants to pick.
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I’m thinking about applying. I do live in the 1st Ward you know. Think I can get an interview?
5. “Sneed is told [Don] Tomczak is staying at the same Salvation Army halfway facility, 105 S. Ashland, as former Cicero President Betty Loren-Maltese.”
Political Rehab with Dr. Drew!
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I’d be willing to bet a sizable amount of money I don’t have that Sneed’s Salvation Army source is Betty Loren-Maltese.
6. Sneed was so busy typing up Lura Lynn Ryan’s press release she forgot to ask her if every imprisoned felon should be released whenever an aging spouse falls ill.
7. All that’s missing from Sneed today is a warm anecdote planted by the irrepressible Judy Baar Topinka.
8. I love AP’s video news reports. And if you don’t have the time or inclination to watch every Olympic minute – and who does – you can just catch the AP video highlights via the Beachwood. Of course, they only use still photography because NBC isn’t making its video available and embeddable, but it’s a good place to start.
9. Who is Mark Kirk? Not the guy he used to be, that’s for sure.
10. “The question is whether the Family Guy episode was ridiculing Trig,” Richard Roeper gets paid to write today.
I guess it’s nice that the Sun-Times employs a columnist who is mentally challenged.
11. “After criticism from open-government advocates, Senate President John Cullerton pledged to avoid convening the Senate in private again as he did Wednesday to hear a budget briefing from a nationwide legislative association,” the Sun-Times reports.
“Cullerton, who refused to characterize his decision as a mistake, said several senators, who are candidates for statewide office, might want to ask questions out of the public limelight.
“‘If you’re a candidate, and you’re worried about running for governor, you might want to ask a question. Maybe it’s an uninformed question. Maybe it’s a question that has some political ramifications, [and] you might not be inclined to make that question if reporters are there,’ he said.”
Geez, first pols are afraid to answer questions in public, now they’re afraid to ask them.
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“You’re missing the whole point,” Cullerton told the Tribune.
“This is meant to be one where just the senators are there to get information, but where they can also feel they can ask questions and . . . have a free exchange of ideas without having to be worried about what the press might report.”
So wait, your point is what?
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“It’s funny because I often hear from my constituents ‘I wish you guys would just get in a room and try to figure things out,'” Republican Senate leader Christine Radogno said.
I didn’t hear the words “in secret,” though, Christine.
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In fact, we do want you guys to get in a room and try to figure things out – on C-SPAN, where we can keep an eye on you.
12. The Sun-Times scores a two-fer today for ignorant, stale cliches on its editorial page. First, Jack Higgins once again fails to be smarter than a fifth-grader with yet another global warming cartoon that depends on a child’s grasp of science. “Where the heck is Al Gore?” the first man trudging through the snow in Washington, D.C., says. “Is he incommunicado? Is he in hiding?” The second man says, “He’s in bed with a bad cold.”
Get it?!!!
Hey, here’s one: First man squints at the sun and says “It’s really bright out today.” Second man says, “Yeah, so much for the theory that the sun is dying out!”
Or how about this: A plane takes off. Passenger one says to passenger two: “And they called us gravity skeptics stupid!”
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And then, God forbid, yet another lament about how the world of social networking is preventing us from having, you know, real friends.
What an original idea. I’ve never read that before. I mean I hadn’t read that yet today. I’ve read that column only a hundred times before – hey, I couldn’t get to all of them.
“We relish our chats in an age of texting, Facebook and other electronic social networking, which, despite its ability to connect us all, seems increasingly to be making us all less social,” John Fountain writes.
I know! I wish we could go back to the days when we all just sat around the fire and, you know, connected.
“One has to wonder what’s being lost – whether this brave new world of cyber-communication comes at the expense of the ability to look a man straight in the eye and say what you mean and mean what you say. It takes courage to call a man a liar to his face.”
You mean like this guy?
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Coming next: A well-paid pundit discovers that Facebook friends aren’t like real friends.
13. “Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has plowed through about $1 million in taxpayer dollars in the last two years for an office and staff in west suburban Yorkville, thanks to a little-known perk given to ex-speakers,” the Tribune reports.
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Hastert, 68, a lobbyist and business consultant who retired from Congress in 2007, has hired three of his former staffers at salaries of more than $100,000 apiece to run the publicly financed office.
“Taxpayers also are paying monthly rent of $6,300 to a company partly owned by three sons of a Hastert mentor and business partner. Other public funds go for an $860-a-month 2008 GMC Yukon leased from a dealership owned by a Hastert friend and campaign donor.”
Welfare queens.
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“As a House member, Hastert declared himself a foe of government waste. In 2005, he boasted of winning a ‘Golden Bulldog’ award from the ‘Watchdogs of the Treasury’ each year he was in Congress.”
14. Illinois Ranks Dead Last In Funding Pensions.
Cullerton says that misses the whole point.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Caucus jointly.
Posted on February 18, 2010