Chicago -
By Natasha Julius
We’re in the throes of full-tilt March Madness this weekend, but we’ll still try to watch some of the other top stories.
Change Watch
Analysts estimate some $12 billion will be wagered on this year’s NCAA tournament, which means we should all root like fuck for UNC. Just think how many bonuses could be repaid if President Obama pulls this one out.
Posted on March 21, 2009
By Steve Rhodes
I’ll be on a panel about corruption in Illinois politics on Saturday in Bensenville – you know, if you happen to be in the area. Details here.
Pot Shot
I wracked my brain trying to find the punch line to “Legal Pot Debuts In Midwest” and came up empty, but I think it has something to do with “McDonald’s Crosses Big Mac, Snack Wrap.”
Meter Madness
“Chicago’s abrupt transfer of parking meters to a private company has drivers and business owners angry about erroneous overcharges and confusing enforcement rules,” Jon Hilkevitch reports in the Tribune.
Posted on March 20, 2009
By Steve Rhodes
Is it just me, or is it odd that the federal corruption trial of the former Streets and San Commissioner, particularly placed within the context of the conviction of Robert Sorich, the mayor’s former patronage chief, has basically been buried by not only the newspapers but local TV news?
Seems to me that this is sort of a big deal – some might even say “front-page news.”
After all, the crimes that Sorich was convicted of, like those alleged against Al Sanchez, were for the benefit of one man: Mayor Richard M. Daley.
In fact, the defense in each case has as much as said so.
Posted on March 19, 2009
By Steve Rhodes
A Beachwood reader writes:
“There was a book I read in the 80s, pretty good police novel, can’t recall the name. In it, the detectives are staking out a suspects home in Spanish Harlem. One policeman looks at his watch and says, ‘It’s 3 o’clock, whatever the Board of Education is doing to hold down the New York City crime rate is about to end’.”
And still, today the Sun-Times reports “Teen Is 29th CPS Student Killed This School Year.”
The lead?
“A 15-year-old boy was shot to death near his South Side home this week, Chicago Police said.”
Near his South Side home.
Posted on March 18, 2009
By Steve Rhodes
1. All hail the Wesley Willis Tower.
2. Mental health advocates will picket the city health department on Thursday.
3. If you didn’t do political work for the mayor, your job application with the city went in the trash.
Posted on March 17, 2009
By Steve Rhodes
In the last two years, a new metric has taken hold to gauge the level of youth violence in the city: the number of Chicago Public Schools students killed.
I’ve questioned before whether this is a meaningful number; what do the schools have to do with it? And particularly, what do the public schools have to do with it?
It’s true that some of these tragedies have occurred to kids on their way to and from school. But still, I have to side with police and school officials featured in a Tribune story on Sunday.
Posted on March 16, 2009
By The Weekend Desk B Team
Note: Weekend Desk Editor Natasha Julius is advising the NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Committee on her unique bracket algorithms in order to ensure maximum enjoyment for all of America this year. The Weekend B Team is filling in on the desk to make sure no news goes unnoticed in her absence.
Bank of Beijing
We here at the Weekend Desk, for one, would like to welcome our new Chinese overlords. We’d like to remind them that, as a trusted news source, we could be helpful in rounding up others to work in your leaden toy factories and prison sweatshops.
Posted on March 14, 2009
By Steve Rhodes
I want to talk a little bit more about that story in the Sun-Times yesterday about how Chicago had the third most Twitter users in the world because it has a larger relevance, as I hope to show.
The story placed Chicago behind just London and Los Angeles on the list of most Twitter users – and ahead of New York City.
Now, on the face of it, this is absurd. The population of New York City is 8.2 million. The population of Chicago is 2.8 million. Even setting aside the fact that New York City is the media capital of the world, does it make any sense at all that we could possibly have more Twitter users than NYC?
Posted on March 13, 2009
By Steve Rhodes
I’ve been with Speakeasy for a long time, and for a long time I was really happy with their service, but after the company – bought by Best Buy in 2007 – experienced “connectivity issues in Chicago” once again this morning, I’m starting to wonder.
1. Denise Alcantar has a tummy ache. Find out why you should care.
2. “President Barack Obama railed against pork-barrel projects Wednesday,” the Tribune reports. “Then he signed a massive spending bill stuffed with them.”
I’ve never seen a politician whose rhetoric was so at odds with his reality. Over and over and over.
3. “But Obama, who as a senator had requested earmarks to benefit his home state of Illinois, on Wednesday defended some earmarks as worthwhile and accused Republicans of playing politics on the issue.”
Posted on March 12, 2009
By Steve Rhodes
Geez, who would have ever thought Bishop Desmond Tutu was such a putz?
At an event on Tuesday at which the City Hall press corps apparently peppered the mayor with questions about his travels aboard the private jet of a non-profit company under federal investigation, Tutu was apparently offended that reporters strayed off-message.
“I just want to say I can’t believe this,” Tutu said, according to the Sun-Times’s Fran Spielman, who described the bishop as “incredulous.”
“But in Chicago,” Mayor Daley chimed in, “the press has to find always negative things. That’s how it is.”
I know! Good thing the press in Johannesburg never focused on the negative.
Posted on March 11, 2009
