By Steve Rhodes

Like everyone else, I was absolutely stunned yesterday to learn that the G8 summit we’ve all been prepping for had been relocated to Camp David. And as much as it was absolute madness to schedule both the G8 and the NATO summit at the same time in the same city in the current Occupy environment – and as much as official proclamations about an economic benefit to hosting the summits were as credible as Rush Limbaugh’s views on contraception; and as painful as it was to see city officials yet again seeking validation that they preside over a world-class city; and as depressing as it’s been to watch our elected officials rush to erode our civil liberties for the sake of “security,” which makes as much sense as practicing fascism in order to protect democracy – I’m really disappointed that our big moment on the stage has been reduced to an Off-Broadway workshop while the marquee production heads elsewhere.
The so-called Chicago Spring promised to be a unique moment in time in which the (global) economic dislocations of the last 30 years would finally be discussed in the open in the presence of the world’s most powerful finance ministers at a time when inequality has finally broken into mainstream political discourse and the very future of nations such as Greece is up for grabs amidst epic Wall Street machinations both criminal and immoral that are still unfolding, still perpetuating, and still unaccounted for. Perhaps this would have been the reckoning.

Read More

Posted on March 6, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

The Chicago Police Department closed two of its district stations on Sunday, giving us an opportunity to once again highlight this excellent analysis of not only the station-closing issue but the way the media’s careless reporting of crime makes public policy decisions like this more difficult than they ought to be.
McCarthyisms
“For the first time in public, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy promised his department will never conduct blanket surveillance of Muslims like the New York Police Department did in Newark, N.J., when he was chief there,” AP reports.
Here’s the problem: McCarthy did so while addressing the annual banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Chicago. He previously issued the same assurances to Muslim leaders in private. Those are safe environments free from the pesky questions reporters might ask – because there are some outstanding questions.

Read More

Posted on March 5, 2012

By Natasha Julius

The Weekend Desk: Proudly whoring it up outside the bounds of civil discourse since 2006.
Market Update
The bottom fell out of the futures market for Human Decency this week when sources revealed it can be bought for about $1,500.

Read More

Posted on March 3, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“The woman in charge of hosting the May NATO/G8 summits has some advice for increasingly worried downtown business folk: Chill out,” Greg Hinz reports in Crain’s.
“The summits will be at McCormick Place, and while thousands of participants and media will be in town before and after that date, they’ll be ‘just like restaurant show folks,’ Ms. Healey said, referring to the big trade show that usually occurs on those dates.”
Right. Just like the restaurant show folks.

Read More

Posted on March 2, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Chicago is emerging from a ‘lost decade’ economically and needs to take bold action to avoid a repeat over the next ten years, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday,” the Sun-Times reports.
Wow, a lost decade! I wonder who the mayor was all those years. Curiously, neither the Sun-Times nor Emanuel says.

Read More

Posted on March 1, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

I guess I missed the story earlier this week about Rahm Emanuel allegedly telling Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis that “25 percent of the students in this city are never going to be anything, never going to amount to anything and [I’m] never going to throw money at them.”
That explains why this Simpsons clip showed up on my Facebook feed, though.

Read More

Posted on February 29, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

I suppose there’s still time for this to happen.
But probably not. Let’s take a look a look around, shall we?
The End Of Secret Pond Hockey: “Every winter for many years, a patch of Grant Park has undergone a nightly transformation,” Barbara Brotman writes for the Tribune.
“After the Daley Bicentennial Plaza ice rink closed at 9 p.m., it turned into something that resembled a frozen pond in Canada.
“Hockey lovers from across the city – college students, middle-age fathers, women – converged on the rink to play pickup hockey for hours, sometimes until early in the morning.
“There were no nets – just a pair of shoes at each end of the ice. No referees. No organized teams or leagues.
“The outdoor hockey party went on, participants said, for some 25 years. But now, it is apparently over.
“As part of a redesign of Daley Bicentennial Plaza – Daley Bi for short – the Chicago Park District will replace the rectangular ice rink with a skating ribbon that will wind through landscape and trees. Construction is to begin in the fall, with completion set for 2015.”

Read More

Posted on February 27, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“The owner of a sewer-inspection and cleaning business admitted Friday that he lied to federal agents when they asked him why he failed to tell City Hall that his company’s investors included the son and a nephew of then-Mayor Richard M. Daley,” the Sun-Times reported over the weekend.
“At first, when he spoke with investigators on March 10, 2008, Tony Duffy blamed his own ‘carelessness and negligence’ for omitting the names of Patrick R. Daley and Robert G. Vanecko from the ownership documents that Municipal Sewer Services was required to file with City Hall to get millions of dollars worth of city business.
“But that was a lie, according to Duffy. He now says he didn’t know at first about Daley and Vanecko’s involvement. He says that, when he found out, he went to Joseph M. McInerney, a principal in Cardinal Growth, a Chicago venture capital firm that also invested in the sewer company, and that McInerney ‘directed’ him not to change the ownership-disclosure filing, to ‘keep it the same,’ according to court records and sources familiar with the case.
“McInerney is a friend of Patrick Daley.”

Read More

Posted on February 26, 2012

By Natasha Julius

It’s the weekend. Let loose and tell us how you really feel.
Market Update
The Transparency Index saw a shake-up this week as Monarchy significantly outperformed both Democracy and Populist Autocracy.

Read More

Posted on February 25, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Highlights from the Bill Beavers indictment coverage:
While Beavers spoke (briefly) on camera to some local outlets yesterday, he only agreed to speak to Paris Schutz of Chicago Tonight through his apartment building’s intercom. Thus diminished was thou godly voice when spakest through strange wires.
But he clearly claimed the feds said, “We don’t want you, we want John Daley. We want you to wear a wire, okay?”

Read More

Posted on February 24, 2012