MEMORIAL DAY UPDATES!
Please see How We Treat Our Troops.
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See also: How To Host A Safe Summer Cookout
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Song of the Day:

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From The Vault: My Front Page Memorial Day Story In The Chicago Tribune.
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This week’s White Sox Report: Bonus Baby Bingo.
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Now back to our original Memorial Day weekend programming.
Biden Time
It’s Memorial Day weekend! The perfect time for Joe Biden to sort of miss the point.
Fictions
Sinisterly named educational testing firm Scantron agreed this week to remove a pro-charter school reading passage from standardized tests administered in Chicago. After all, who needs fictional brainwashing when you have a real-world example right in your back yard?

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Posted on May 26, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Hundreds of thousands of poor Illinoisans would lose health coverage, prescription drug discounts for seniors would be dropped and dental care for adults would be greatly curtailed as part of $1.6 billion in budget cuts lawmakers approved Thursday,” the Tribune reports.
Those frickin’ Republicans! Oh, wait.

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Posted on May 25, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Politicians were dancing and singing all along the Chicago Way on Wednesday, after U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald announced he would step down,” John Kass writes for the Tribune.
“‘I can hear the champagne corks popping all the way over here, and I’m in Virginia,” said banker and Illinois’ former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (no relation), the Republican who sacrificed his political career by recommending Pat Fitzgerald.”
Among those leading the roundup to chase Peter Fitzgerald out of the U.S. Senate because non-partisan approach to corruption: Ray LaHood. Who is now Barack Obama’s Transportation Secretary.
Fitzgerald was the reform U.S. senator from Illinois that Obama never even came close to being. In fact, Fitzgerald was the reform state senator that Obama never was.
If you loved Patrick Fitzgerald, please understand how he got there – and how he would never have been appointed had it been up to Barack Obama instead of Peter Fitzgerald.

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Posted on May 23, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“The U.S. Postal Service says Chicago ranks high among cities for dog attacks on mail carriers,” AP reports.
“There were 30 dog attacks on postal workers last year in Chicago. That put Chicago at No. 11, tied with Philadelphia.”
Could we train dogs to bite aldermen instead?

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Posted on May 23, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Yeah, I’m gonna skip today’s NATO Notebook and just go right into the Papers. But there is more NATO coverage to come.
1. Dude. Really?
2. “Less than two months after the resignation of a Chicago Public Schools official accused of accepting improper gifts from the district’s two largest food vendors, the district on Monday said it intends to renew contracts for those vendors, Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality and Preferred Meal Systems,” the Tribune reports.
“CPS spokeswoman Marielle Sainvilus said there wasn’t enough time to put the contracts out for a competitive bid.”
There was enough time – and money – to force a longer day on schools without any notion of how that time would be spent, though.
You know what they say: Where there’s a political will, there’s a way.

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Posted on May 21, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

At least we now know what Chicago would look like if martial law were ever declared. For more NATO noddities, see today’s NATO Notebook.
Now on to the rest of the news.

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Posted on May 21, 2012

By The Weekend Desk B Team

Natasha Julius is on a mission of national import. She will return next week.
Sunday edition.
From The NATO Madness Desk
You can’t watch ’em on local TV but you can watch ’em on the Internet.
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Posted on May 20, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Tweet of the Day:

KWood:”I’m retiring.”@PWSullivan:”Irrelevant, dude.Why the [bleep] would you even bring that up?”(walks away)

— Dan Bernstein (@dan_bernstein) May 18, 2012

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Previously: Kerry Wood Far Too Relevant, Dude
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Conspiracy theory: Wood announces retirement to draw attention away from Joe Ricketts!

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Posted on May 18, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“More than 6 in 10 polled said that regardless of whether they agreed with the protesters’ varied messages, they had a right to protest,” the Tribune reports.
So more than 30 percent polled don’t? That sounds like bigger news to me than the converse.
But did the Tribune really ask if there was a right to protest – in other words, if they support the First Amendment?
In the poll graphics provided on the Trib website, no such question exists. This one does though: “Do you think NATO protesters should be protesting?”
The result: Yes, by a margin of 61-28. Eleven percent had no opinion.
That also seems far more significant a finding than highlighting the notion that the summit will give Chicago “a global boost” – a questionable narrative pounded by the Emanuel administration.
Meanwhile, Fox Chicago News found that a majority of those polled approve hosting the summit even though they have no idea what it is.
For more NATO madness, see my NATO Notebook.

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Posted on May 17, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“City officials and Mayor Rahm Emanuel insisted Monday that taxpayers will not be on the hook for a single dime of the $55 million cost of the [NATO] summit,” the Sun-Times reported in April.
“Taxpayers will not pay anything for the summit,” Emanuel said then.
At the time, I wrote this:
“First, federal money is taxpayer money too! Second, taxpayers have already been on the hook unless those private funds are flowing into budget lines at City Hall and the police department for the day-to-day activities consuming staff. There’s also the lost opportunity cost of where the city’s time and energy could have otherwise been spent instead of preparing for and hosting the summit.”
Now comes police chief Garry McCarthy in today’s Tribune:

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Posted on May 16, 2012