By Steve Rhodes
BREAKING: Blago indictment to come today.
The [Thursday] Papers
Welcome IOC! Let me tell you how stupid our newspapers are. This will work in your favor.
“And Tuesday, about 60 people joined Mayor Daley and Chicago 2016 CEO Pat Ryan to unveil a poll of Chicago area residents showing 78 percent favor bringing the 2016 Summer Olympics here – up a percentage point from a February poll,” the Sun-Times reports.
Did you hear that everyone? Up a full percentage point!
Of course, this is a magic poll with no margin of error.

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Posted on April 2, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

The mainstream media discovers Tamale Guy.
Sigh.
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He’s on Yelp too.
Two-Faced
Daley to police officers who want more money in tight times: Get real.
Daley to Pat Quinn about his budget because he wants more money in tight times: “We get no benefit. They why should anyone be for it?”
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Okay, I couldn’t quite get those lines to “agree” stylistically, but you get the point.
KFChicago
From Beachwood Nation citizen Trecia Scott: Will potholes also taste like chicken?

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Posted on April 1, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
Ugh. I did something around 2 a.m. that I should not have done. I’m not even sure exactly what my mistake was, except in general terms. It had something to do with some ampersands in the coding of our People, Places & Things section that do not play well with our upgraded version of Movable Type. And guess what? Somehow I made the entire section disappear. Working on getting it back; shouldn’t be too complicated once I get someone who actually knows the code, like my art director, to bail me out. Sorry.
On to the news.
1. Is ShamPow taken?
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Yes.
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Actually, not funny at all.

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Posted on March 31, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
First, a programming note. You may have noticed how late the column has been getting posted lately, and a bit of a slowdown in other sections. Or hopefully not!
But we’ve been coping with some tech issues which we believe are now resolved. We’ve upgraded our site to the newest, shiniest version of Movable Type, which should be of great help to us because we were still running a pretty old version. This should improve performance as well as offer us many new features to incorporate into the site once we find the time and help to do so.

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Posted on March 30, 2009

By Natasha Julius

It looks like our plan to mop up the economy with a super-absorbent towel isn’t going to work out, so we’ll still be here monitoring the decline.
Change Watch
It was an up and down week on Wall Street as a number of key upsets has people wondering if he really knows how to pick ’em.

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Posted on March 28, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

I saw an excerpt on Chicago Tonight last night of John Callaway’s interview with Ron Huberman to be aired tonight. Very interesting – but not in a way that I think Callaway realized.
Huberman is now the CEO of Chicago Public Schools; he was previously the president of the CTA and for two years was Mayor Daley’s chief of staff. Before that, he was in the Chicago Police Department for nine years. He has an MBA as well as a Master’s of Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. Few know the city’s operations as well as he does, and he is so trusted by the mayor that some think Daley is grooming him to be his successor.
Ron knows Rich.

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Posted on March 27, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

This is the first chance I’ve had to comment on Gary Marx’s story in the Tribune on Tuesday about the two kids who dropped 5-year-old Eric Morse to his death in 1994 and then became the state’s youngest inmates, “literally growing up in custody.” It’s a must-read.
“In recent years, now in their 20s, they quietly emerged from prison – only to return again and again,” Marx writes. “With Rankins’ release from a Downstate prison on March 6, both are free again, facing seemingly bleak futures. They’ve gone years without the counseling some say they desperately needed and possess limited education and job skills. But given their abusive childhoods and teenage years behind bars, the outcome isn’t really surprising.”

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Posted on March 26, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

I really don’t want to write about Richard M. Daley every day. I really don’t. I really, really don’t. But the man leaves me with no choice.
1. Daley: I’m Not Accountable.
2. “Democrats, Republicans, independents, I don’t care who they are,” Daley said in 2004. “We don’t hire anyone on a political basis. We have never done that in this city.”
Writes Mark Brown, who dug up the quote: “Two trials later, we have tons of proof that was patently untrue.”

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Posted on March 25, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

A somewhat abbreviated column today as I attend to other business.
Mystery Sanchez Theater
Talking back to the Chicago Tonight’s report on the conviction of Al Sanchez.
SANCHEZ: I just did my job the way I was supposed to.
RHODES: Yes, illegally, just like the mayor’s people told you to!

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Posted on March 24, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

1. I’ve got 14 of my Sweet 16 still alive in my brackets, yet I’m in fifth place (out of seven) in one pool; haven’t heard yet where I am in my other pool. It’s that kind of year. The key for me is Villanova going to the Final Four and North Carolina winning it all. Check out the Beachwood Brackets; they’re suspiciously just like mine.
2. “[A]ided by increased cross-platform marketing, CBSSports.com has already broken last year’s streaming media totals for its March Madness on Demand video player. paidContent has obtained the numbers for the first three days.”
In short, the numbers are huge.
3. “Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich once bragged of his ‘testicular virility’ for standing-up to his father-in-law, Chicago Ald. Dick Mell, over a landfill deal,” the SouthtownStar editorial page says today.
“We think Quinn, by introducing an income tax increase, earns that distinction.”

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Posted on March 23, 2009