By Steve Rhodes
Today’s Dem Convention Notebook will appear later this afternoon. Now, the rest of the news:
1. Does this mean that Ozzie Guillen found a way to get paid to spout off ignorantly?
2. CTA Holds De-Crowding Hearing In Overcrowded Room.
3. I’ll have the McTofu Value Meal with the soy fries.
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Alternate: Would you like lentils with that?
4. Oh, come on. I loathe the White Sox but even if they lose every game the rest of the way the skeptics [now changed to “fatalists,” which only eases the argument slightly] won’t be proven right; it’s been a helluva ride for that team and they don’t have to prove anything more to anyone.
5. Dear Tribune editorial board: You can’t put students first by putting teachers last. Let’s put administrators and politicians last instead.
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If merit pay is so great, why doesn’t the Tribune editorial board use it?
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Of course, no one is against “merit pay” in theory. We should all be paid according to how much we “merit.” But what gets measured? And who does the measuring?
Some news executives, for example, get bonuses for cutting budgets and laying off reporters to prop up profit margins. Is this meritorious?
And to listen to Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago schools have been a dismal failure for decades. Should we take back the money we paid out to Arne Duncan, now the U.S. Secretary of Education?
Should we start garnishing Richard M. Daley’s lucrative pension?
A meritocracy? Bring it on!
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Now how much should we lower the salaries of editorial board members per indicted elected official they endorsed?
6. Dear Sun-Times: Drugs of all kinds often appear in packages featuring colorful names and characters. Or so I’m told. It’s not necessarily an attempt to market to children, who wouldn’t know what to do with a tinfoil pack of (synthetic) buds, nor is it news. It’s branding.
7. “Sheriff Tom Dart’s warning last year that closing the city’s mental health clinics would add to the burden of the Cook County Jail is coming true, according to the Mental Health Movement,” Curtis Black reports for Newstips.
“Joined by mental health professionals and consumers, Dart will discuss the impact of the clinic closings on the jail – including people who could avoid incarceration if they had access to mental health services – at a forum on Wednesday, September 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Episcopal Church Nuestra Senora, 2610 N. Francisco.
“Dart will be joined by Crystal Colon of Iraq Veterans Against the War and psychologist Rebecca Paz-Ford of Lurie Children’s Hospital and Northwestern University. According to MHM, psychiatric hospitalizations doubled in April, after half of the city’s clinics were closed.
“In addition, former clinic patients will talk about the devastating impact the closings had on their lives, including people suffering severe anxiety who are unable to make the long trek to clinics to which they were transferred.”
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Meanwhile, Rahm finds $55 million for park to honor the late Maggie Daley, the soul of our city.
8. Beachwood Exclusive: Inside AT&T’s New Chicago Store.
9. Fantasy Fix: Top 12 TEs.
10. Breaking news from the University of Chicago’s South Pole Telescope.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Lit up.
Posted on September 5, 2012