Chicago -
By Natasha Julius
It’s September and the smell of pigskin is in the air; time for the Weekend Desk’s annual look at the key season-opening football match-ups.
Miami at Buffalo
Buffalo has been on a slow path to recovery since the low ebb hit years ago. And given recent developments, it might not be the best of times for the Fighting Fish. Our pick: Buffalo to cover
Posted on September 11, 2010
By Steve Rhodes
UPDATE 12:13 PM: From my Facebook feed:
John Kuczaj wishes John McDonough would run for Mayor of Chicago, based on his record of turning around horribly-run organizations.
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UPDATE 11:40 AM: The Mayoral Odds: Live Updates!
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UPDATE 11:29 AM: The Week in WTF is in: Starring Lou Canellis’s suits, Bridget Polaski’s cell phone, Rahm Emanuel’s guile, and Jody Weis’s bulging but impotent muscles.
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UPDATE 11:07 AM: The College Football Report is in: What Has Your New Coach Done For Me Lately? Plus, some week two tips that might be construed as condoning and even encouraging gambling. For entertainment purposes only, of course.
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I’m not sure if there will be a column today, worlds are colliding. Things are touch-and-go. Needless to say, forces are aligning against you. Prepare for battle. The time is nigh.
Posted on September 10, 2010
By Steve Rhodes
And so it begins. Last night at 6:50 p.m. I received a call on my cell phone from 202-466-1652. It was an automated survey asking my preferences between the following potential mayoral candidates (and in this order):
Posted on September 9, 2010
By Steve Rhodes
Much like a banana republic whose longtime tyrant is finally departing the scene, the challenge now for Chicago is whether it can prosper without a strongman at the helm.
But it’s a mistake to reduce Chicago’s political culture to one man and one family. The Daleys merely mastered The Chicago Way; they didn’t invent it and they certainly don’t own the patent on it. The departure of Richard M. Daley as mayor doesn’t change a thing except the person on top; Chicago’s culture of corruption exists apart from Daley even if he corralled it to his purposes without compare.
As we speak, evil forces are conspiring in hushed, nervous and giddy tones to protect their interests; some will overreach and others will emerge with an even stronger hand. They will be a danger to us all.
The Daleys are not likely to be among them. As much as the mayor’s professed love of this city is never questioned, the Daleys have always been, as Tribune columnist John Kass among others has put it, a one-way street. They demand loyalty while giving none in return; it is always about them. It was never about the city.
They will go quietly – to the naked eye at least – though we can expect to keep hearing Bill Daley’s name attached to everything from Downers Grove dogcatcher to United Nations Ambassador to Mars.
Posted on September 8, 2010
By Steve Rhodes
BREAKING 1:52 P.M.: Daley Not Running For Re-Election.
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“Like a poker player who has gone all in on a bet that’s too big to lose, the Daley administration is expected to explain to aldermen on Tuesday why it needs to quickly issue $1 billion in new bonds to prevent the expansion of O’Hare International Airport from folding,” the Tribune reports.
“With less than half of the mega-project completed, the city is running out of money and needs the bond deal to continue work. In the high-stakes game of Chicago-style airport expansion, the fresh money would basically buy time to keep the project going with the hope that the city will be able to persuade the airport’s two largest tenants, American and United airlines, to sign on.”
And if they don’t? Maybe the city will sell the airport to Morgan Stanley.
“Ultimately, the city will need to raise at least $3.3 billion to finish the job – and that’s without new terminals, a People Mover extension and other infrastructure that Chicago officials once deemed integral to building the first runways at O’Hare in almost 40 years.”
Read the whole story. I’ll be here when you get back.
Posted on September 7, 2010
By Natasha Julius
HOLIDAY WEEKEND UPDATE: SportsMonday: The Bears Number Is Up.
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HOLIDAY WEEKEND UPDATE: The Beachwood college football desk has finally delivered The World’s Greatest Season Preview. Remember, you are allowed to print this out and bring it with you to the betting window.
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The Weekend Desk Report
Please. Like we’re leaving the Weekend Desk with shit like this going down.
Market Update
Despite a rising unemployment rate, the economic outlook wasn’t all bad this week. The Incendiary Index outperformed expectations as its Rhetoric keeps getting emptier.
Posted on September 4, 2010
By Steve Rhodes
“Illinois’ prison chief, who became a political liability to Gov. Pat Quinn during an election year because of a secret prisoner release program he oversaw, is stepping down, the governor said Thursday,” AP reports.
“Corrections Director Michael Randle is resigning as of Sept. 17. He will return to Ohio, where he had been assistant director of the state prison system, to run a community correctional facility in Cleveland for a not-for-profit agency. He will be taking a huge pay cut.”
I’ll say. Before becoming Illinois’s top corrections official he was a deputy in the Ohio system.
But here’s where it gets interesting.
Posted on September 3, 2010
By Steve Rhodes
I haven’t had a chance to watch Chicago police Supt. Jody Weis’s appearance on Chicago Tonight last night yet, but my initial instinct is that, unlike what some griping aldermen are saying, Weis and Daley are right about meeting with gang leaders. It seems to me that there are times when you have to go to the people responsible for so much havoc in the city and say, effectively, cool it. It’s in everyone’s best interests; gang leaders don’t want the heat that heightened public sensitivity brings anymore than the police want the public all up in their behinds. A useful exchange of information could also take place; what’s behind the current violence, police may ask, and is there anything we can do to help tamp things down?
Posted on September 2, 2010
By Steve Rhodes
“The FBI thinks two men arrested in Amsterdam after suspicious items were found in the luggage of one of the men were probably not on a test run for a future terror attack, a U.S. official said Tuesday,” AP reports.
Usually I’m skeptical of reports that smack of alarmism, but in this case I find myself leaning the other way. After all:
“Transportation Security Administration screeners found suspicious items in his bag: a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, multiple cell phones and watches taped together, and a knife and boxcutter, according to another U.S. official who had been briefed on the investigation.”
Posted on September 1, 2010
By Steve Rhodes
“St. Louis music fans celebrated ‘Jeff Tweedy Day’ on Sunday, Aug. 29, when Mayor Francis G. Slay officially honored the Wilco frontman in conjunction with his solo performance at the city’s Loufest. Slay made the announcement just hours before a 90-minute concert by Tweedy, a native of nearby Belleville, Ill.,” Spinner reports.
“Tweedy joked to the crowd that the proclamation was ‘the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,’ according to a report by the Riverfront Times.
Posted on August 31, 2010
