Chicago - A message from the station manager

By Steve Rhodes
1. “In many cases promised ‘legacy’ facilities seem designed not to meet actual needs of current park users but to accommodate the requirements of Olympic planners,” Curtis Black writes at Newstips. “In many cases they involve taking away existing resources while promising residual benefits sometime in the future. In some cases they involve taking away facilities that have been only recently built.”
2. “[M]uch of the federal money intended for schools ‘is still sitting in state coffers – despite long lists of unmet needs in many school districts’,” NPR reports. (Via This Week in Education)

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Posted on August 10, 2009

The [Friday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes
Michael Scott, this is your life!
And this is what inevitably happens when you are a loyal Daley soldier – you get rich, you get enmeshed in scandal, and maybe you even get imprisoned.
But you do get rich.
“A member of Mayor Richard Daley’s team working to bring the Olympics to Chicago has quietly arranged to develop city-owned land near a park that would be transformed for the 2016 Summer Games, potentially positioning himself to cash in if the Games come here,” the Tribune reports.

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Posted on August 7, 2009

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes
Quote of the Day: From Lou Piniella:

Piniella asked for better communication from Gregg, saying he needs to know if a reliever has a “tired arm” before the game.

“I just can’t read somebody’s mind,” he said. “I can look at the stuff, but by the time I look at the stuff, it’s a little late.

“The ball is out of the ballpark, and the mojito doesn’t taste very good.”

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Posted on August 6, 2009

The [Wednesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes
1. “Taco Bell Wants To Reach More Consumers Via Social Media.”
I would friend a taco.
2. “At this stage, the speaker is extraordinarily authoritative,” Mark Kirk said, “and the penalties for breaking ranks with her are severe.”
Sound familiar?

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Posted on August 5, 2009

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes
I don’t know what to think about Cash for Clunkers.
Undoubtedly, it’s a boost for the economy. And not just for auto dealers, but scrappers and supply chains and everyone else in the stream that will feel the ripples.
At the same time, it’s an awful lot of (taxpayer) money.
An investment worth making?
Perhaps.
But the psychology of the whole thing is a bit baffling too. If dealers had just offered $4,500 off of qualifying models, would they have been as swamped with buyers as a program offering “free” government money?

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Posted on August 4, 2009

The [Monday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes
“You’re less likely to get murdered, shot, stabbed, robbed or raped on Chicago streets so far this year,” the Sun-Times reports this morning.
“But the city’s nearly 9 percent across-the-board crime decrease touted by police – including a 3 percent dip in violent crime – doesn’t tell the whole story about crime in Chicago neighborhoods, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of district-by-district crime data shows.”
And that analysis hardly tells the whole story either.

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Posted on August 3, 2009

The [Friday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes
The White House got what it wanted with those photos of the beer summit on newspapers, websites and TV stations across the country. But reporters were kept away from the actual conversation.
If this was anything but a cynical political stunt, the president would have miked everyone up and broadcast the conversation to the nation.

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Posted on July 31, 2009

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes
“If the beer summit President Obama is hosting tonight puts to rest the latest national debate over racial profiling, the White House would consider it a success,” Mary Mitchell writes this morning. “But the summit would still be a cheap political trick.”
I hope the White House is smart enough to know that the summit isn’t going to put anything to rest. In fact, it will probably extend the tiresome discussion for another few days – or until the next incident comes along that we can all chew over.

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Posted on July 30, 2009

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