Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
The Papers will return tomorrow but in the meantime please enjoy these fine offerings from The Beachwood Media Company:
* “Illinois is a state in severe financial distress-one program being slashed aids low-income seniors and disabled,” AP reports. “Thousands will be left to financial and health ruin on September 1.”
* The College Football Report: Other Teams Receiving Votes
* Wedding Clothes For Dogs
Posted on August 16, 2011
By Steve Rhodes
“We were going to write about something else this morning, but the big news that Google (GOOG) agreed to buy Motorola Mobility (MMI) in a $12.5 billion deal prompted us to change our plans,” Footnoted reports. The WSJ live-blogged the conference call and there’s plenty of other breathless coverage pointing out that this is Google’s biggest deal ever.
“But we thought it was more interesting to dive into Motorola Mobility’s filings. As footnoted regulars know, we like to plunge head-first into the filings, especially following a big deal. And it didn’t take us long to find this severance plan that was attached to the 10-Q that Motorola filed just over two weeks ago.”
Posted on August 15, 2011
By Natasha Julius
Turns out our internet access isn’t too much better than Steve’s, but we’ll do our best. Remember when we all got 14.4 Mbs and loved it? Good times.
Market Update
You could say the Dow Jones Industrial Average submitted to the whims of anxious investors; we interpret the situation more as one of mutual respect.
Posted on August 13, 2011
By Steve Rhodes
Due to service issues with my DSL service, Speakeasy, now a MegaPath brand, I only have access to a portion of the Internet, so today’s items do not reflect the stories most deserving of attention but the stories I was able to get to. Enjoy!
1. Asian Carp Could Invade Great Lakes By Truck.
On the bright side, they reportedly drive Chevys.
Posted on August 12, 2011
By Steve Rhodes
“I think that our new mayor has a chance to take a fresh, new look at this case,” Flint Taylor tells John Kass. “I don’t suppose he would continue to defend the indefensible.”
*
“But Daley did,” Kass writes, “and stonewalled and blustered and sneered and mocked anyone who questioned him. There was even a ridiculous whitewash report by pro-Daley judges to protect him. Taylor can’t wait to have at him.”
*
“If the city wants to continue to fight this, so be it,” Taylor said. “The former mayor will be facing up to eight hours, and I don’t think he can have the fog machine going all that time.”
*
Please don’t settle this case before Daley is deposed. The city deserves answers.
Posted on August 11, 2011
By Steve Rhodes
“Thrill Jockey, Drag City, and Touch and Go (which is a catalog-only imprint these days) were among the independent labels whose stock was destroyed in a warehouse fire in north London [Monday] night,” Peter Margasak reports for the Reader.
“While the Chicago labels were still awaiting details about what they’d lost before deciding where to go from here, it’s clear that the pain is going to be serious. Thrill Jockey owner Bettina Richards estimates wholesale losses of £189,000 (more than $300,000), with anywhere from ten to a hundred copies of each of the label’s 280 back-catalog titles destroyed.”
Posted on August 10, 2011
By Steve Rhodes
“Rahm Emanuel issued a no-new-taxes pledge as he formally announced his candidacy for mayor in a speech at a public school on the North Side,” the Chicago News Cooperative reported last November.
“This is no time to even talk about raising taxes,” Emanuel said at Coonley Elementary School.
Posted on August 9, 2011
By Steve Rhodes
“A Polish woman will step off an airplane in Chicago on Monday afternoon with a legal visa in her hand, coming back to live in the United States four years after her deportation sundered her family, in a rare case of the return of an immigrant who was expelled,” the New York Times reports.
“The woman, Janina Wasilewski, was deported in 2007 after living for 18 years in the Chicago suburbs. Several applications she had filed to become a legal resident became hopelessly tangled in the immigration courts and were finally denied. She left behind her husband, Tony, also a Polish immigrant, but with his agreement she took their son, Brian, an American citizen, who was 6.
“The Wasilewski family became one of the nation’s most visible examples of the impact of deportation, just as the pace of removals has accelerated under the Obama administration, to nearly 800,000 over the last two years. Images of the scene when Mrs. Wasilewski left from O’Hare Airport in June 2007 were circulated widely, with her husband gripping her and their son and weeping as he begged them not to cry.”
Posted on August 8, 2011
By Natasha Julius
Why would anyone swap Carlsbad for Carlsbad when you could make the easy upgrade?
Market Update
So it happened. Our nation’s credit rating has been downgraded from AAA to AA+ with a negative outlook. Analysts have pointed out a possible silver lining, however. If we are further downgraded to the rare AB+ rating, we can be universal plasma donors.
Posted on August 6, 2011
By Steve Rhodes
“Obama calls for end to ‘partisan games’ at 50th birthday bash,” CNN reports.
*
“Working mainly behind the scenes, the Obama campaign, which does not need to worry about a primary challenge, is already at work planting seeds of doubt about his potential opponent, whomever that may be,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Posted on August 5, 2011
