By Steve Rhodes
“When an admitted al-Qaeda operative planned his itinerary for a Christmas 2009 airline bombing, he considered launching the strike in the skies above Houston or Chicago, The Associated Press has learned. But tickets were too expensive, so he refocused the mission on a cheaper destination: Detroit.”
Poor Detroit. (No pun intended.)
See also:
* Detroit Loses A Staggering 25% Of Its Population In A Decade
* Lower Census Numbers Means Detroit Could Lose Millions Of Dollars
* Recipe For A Detroit Comeback: Be Weird
* In Detroit, Artists Look For Renewal In Foreclosures
* Inaugural Art X Detroit Festival To Combine Music, Art, Writers
* Detroit Needs Robocop
* detroitblog: stories from the motor city
Bag Boy
“Jewel-Osco baggers are being trained to stop double-bagging, refrain from bagging an item with a handle, and never ask, ‘Paper or plastic?'” the Sun-Times reports.
“The rules are aimed at saving money – to the tune of $4 million to $6 million yearly – with each 2-cent plastic and 5-cent paper bag left unused at the checkout counter.”
*
“When I became assistant manager at a Jewel store in Joliet, Ill., at age 21, I came to understand that leadership is about listening, knowing your customer, understanding your business and being accountable in the decision process,” CEO Craig Herkert recently told Supermarket News. “Keeping this in mind has served me well throughout my career.”
Let me tell you something, Craig: Your customers don’t want you skimping on bags.
Especially when you’re making $10 mil a year and you’re on the Forbes 500.
Lick It, Ricketts
The Cubs franchise increased in value by 6 percent to $773 million in the last year, according to Forbes.
Which makes the Cubs something of a toy for the Ricketts family, which has an estimated worth of $1 billion
And yet:
“Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts says he’s going to to keep pitching his proposal to rebuild that aging jewel known as Wrigley Field with a combination of private and public funds,” Greg Hinz reports for Crain’s
To that end, Ricketts has already met – albeit briefly – with the mayor-elect.
*
“Any unbiased mayor would look at the situation between the Sox and the Cubs and conclude the great burden on the Cubs has not been placed on the Sox,” consultant Marc Ganis told the Tribune’s approving David Haugh.
Maybe an unbiased mayor would look at the situation and conclude we shouldn’t get fooled again.
Or quite simply that taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize the private ventures of the country’s wealthiest individuals.
*
Plus, hello?
*
And don’t get started on the economic benefits argument; sports economists debunked that long ago.
(“[E]conomists who study the sports industry say the only way to underestimate the economic value of subsidizing stadium construction is to use negative numbers,” the New York Times reports. “Experience suggests that subsidies for stadiums yield negligible economic benefits and expand the gap between the superrich and everyone else.”)
No Class
“Ill. Legislators To U of I: ‘Prepare Yourself For Cuts.'”
I think they have.
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Does anyone else notice a pattern here?
*
By the way, U of I president Michael Hogan makes $620,000 a year – $170,000 more than his predecessor.
Temp Agencies
Methinks interim agency heads wouldn’t be making such drastic moves if they weren’t pre-approved by the mayor-elect.
But what a repudiation of the last mayor, whose approval was needed by the previous agency heads.
Parallel Lines
The value of the Cubs is roughly the same as the deficit faced by the Chicago Public Schools.
So Cub
Announcer finalist couldn’t come to terms with the team.
“Frequent Churchgoers Frequently Fatter”
“‘There’s certainly a church culture around eating,’ said Erik Christensen, a pastor at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square.”
Weinglass Dies
“Leonard Weinglass, a lawyer who gained notoriety representing US left-wing activists including the Chicago Seven and Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg, has died at 78, his law associate said Thursday.”
Great Fire
The only king of my grief is me.
–
The Beachwood Tip Line: Pattern bargaining.
Posted on March 24, 2011