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Column

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

So I was at the Walgreens picking up the papers – long stupid story about how I cancelled my print subscriptions recently and now go out and buy the print editions anyway and pay far more for them because I’m an idiot – and I’m thumbing through the little wire newsstand thingie and the clerk looks over at me and asks what’s wrong.
“There’s no Tribune.”
“[unintelligible over the store din but clearly expressing that there indeed are Tribunes available]”
“I see the Sun-Times here, but you didn’t get any Tribune’s this morning?”
“[unintelligible over the store din but clearly expressing that there indeed are Tribunes available]”
“So you don’t have any Tribunes? Oh wait, here they are! Duh! I was confused because they look just like the Sun-Times now.”
In fact, the very papers I was thumbing through trying to get to the Tribunes were Tribunes.

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Posted on January 22, 2009

The [Wednesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

As I wrote yesterday, the speech Barack Obama gave yesterday was the least of it.
The images of an African American couple entering the White House, of an African American man taking the oath of office, of military personnel saluting an African American man, the departing helicopter of George W. Bush, and even the coolest inaugural parade I’ve ever seen – okay, the only one I’ve seen, but still, it was pretty damn cool – those were the things that Inauguration Day was made of. And the crowd filling the Washington Mall, of course.
The speech was the least of it, even though that’s what pundits seem to be focusing on. And by least of it, I don’t mean that as a criticism of Obama, though I didn’t much like the speech. I mean it in relative terms as well as within the context that, unlike many others, I didn’t have particular expectations for it. And again, I mean that not as a criticism of Obama; to the contrary, I mean it in a “give the guy a break” kind of way. What more is there to say? Must every Obama speech be a world-shaker?

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Posted on January 21, 2009

The Weekend Desk Report

By Natasha Julius

We here at the Weekend Desk feel that the process of writing our reports has become fundamentally unfair. There’s never enough time to prepare before some public figure does something incredibly stupid and makes us look incompetent for writing jokes that were funny five minutes earlier. Therefore, until the weasels of the world begin to behave in a predictably satire-worthy fashion we have no choice but to resign effective immediately.
Market Update
Turns out most of the Weekend Desk 401k was invested in Shameless Grandstanding and Deflection, both of which have recorded miserable first-quarter earnings in the face of strong competition from Tightening Noose and perennial blue-chip earner Guilt by Association. So, uh, looks like we’ll be back at work after all.

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Posted on January 17, 2009

The [Friday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“A plan to sweep the streets of the homeless is afoot in Washington, D.C., but it has a humane twist,” Sneed writes. “Buses will be revved up to take the homeless to shelters.”
That’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans; Democrats try hard not to look like the cold bastards that they are, while Republicans don’t care if they look like cold bastards.

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Posted on January 16, 2009

The [Wednesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

It was a real meeting of the minds on Tuesday when Roland Burris appeared before the Chicago City Council for absolutely no good reason.
Consider:
“We all know we got issues with the person [who] appointed him and that the process had been tainted,” said Ald. Anthony Beale (9th). “But when he chose Roland Burris, he untainted the process.”
How? By flying around the world really fast in a counter-clockwise motion?

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Posted on January 14, 2009

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

Let’s take a stroll through Roland Burris’s pasture, shall we?
“Moving to squash a controversy that became a distraction to President-elect Barack Obama’s upcoming inauguration, Senate Democratic leaders on Monday accepted Roland Burris as Illinois’ next senator even though the man who appointed him, Gov. Blagojevich, is accused of trying to sell Obama’s vacant Senate seat,” the Sun-Times reports.
In what way exactly was this a distraction to Barack Obama’s inauguration, as opposed to, say, the debate that has already begun about his proposed stimulus plan or the war in Gaza? This is political strategist-speak. What this really means is that Team Obama would rather have you believe that the Democratic Party is now all sweetness, light and competency instead of the truth. It’s a distraction from Obama’s message, perhaps, particularly in that it involves his own former Senate seat, but taking the easy road on Burris mostly a distraction from the idea that Obama acts on principle and not the political expediency required of him to urge Senate leaders to back down and screw Illinoisans.

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Posted on January 13, 2009

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