Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
“For years, James J. Banks, a nephew of Chicago’s powerful Ald. William Banks (36th), has been the attorney of choice for developers who need the city’s OK to knock down homes and small businesses and replace them with three- and four-story condo buildings,” Tim Novak reports in the Sun-Times today.
“Now he’s their money man of choice, too, financing projects through his 2-year-old bank.”
Posted on October 14, 2008
By Steve Rhodes
1. A poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Be honest: Did you give up on the Falcons after the Bears’ final TD?
Yes: 76.22% (2461)
No: 23.78% (768)
And I’m sure that’s Falcons fans being generous to their home team.
Or, as our very own Jim Coffman puts it in SportsMonday from the Bears’ perspective: “So much ineptitude in so little time.”
Posted on October 13, 2008
By Stephanie B. Goldberg
Weekend Desk editor Natasha Julius remains on assignment in India.
The Five Dumbest Ideas of the Week
1. I, for one, was relieved to learn that Mattel’s Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle-and-Coo doll is not gurgling “Islam is the light” whenever its tummy is squeezed, as an Owasso, Okla. man had complained. Unfortunately, the news comes too late for Wal-Mart, which has already pulled the doll off the shelves. The retailer has replaced the doll with an elfin gnome that repeats a much more pleasant single phrase.
Posted on October 11, 2008
By Steve Rhodes
“ComEd has concluded that clout and favoritism played no role in the company’s decision to deliver a generator to the home of Chicago’s No. 2 man at O’Hare Airport to restore power during a violent August storm,” the Sun-Times reports.
“First Deputy Aviation Commissioner David Ochal resigned his $155,604-a-year job in the wake of the scandal, allowing him to escape a mandatory interview by the city’s inspector general.”
I think the question here is obvious: Why did Ochal resign if nobody did anything wrong?
Posted on October 10, 2008
By Steve Rhodes
I don’t know much about Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, so it’s tough to say how much his bold decision to stop enforcing foreclosure evictions is motivated by the great headlines he’s sure to garner nationwide and how much is motivated by his desire for true justice of a sort a sheriff rarely gets to invoke, but in this case I’ll judge him righteous until proven guilty even if it makes me look like a chump. After all, it sure sounds like the right thing to do.
Posted on October 9, 2008
By Steve Rhodes
The debate last night took a lot out of me. How lame was that? Tom Brokaw sifted through audience questions and those were the ones he chose? Could we please just keep asking the same questions over and over again? You might as well have had animatronic candidates there for all the time that was wasted.
Why no hard questions on the pork-stuffed bailout bill? Why no trying to settle Ayers and Keating once and for all? Why no questions of either candidate for their failures to campaign with the dignified tone each promised? Plenty to ask.
Posted on October 8, 2008
By Steve Rhodes
Just to close the curtain on baseball season in Chicago:
* Dane Placko in the Best Interview Ever of a Cubs fan.
* Rick Kaempfer’s second thoughts about raising his children to be Cubs fans.
* Our very own Ricky O’Donnell in the season’s final White Sox Report: “It could be much worse. We could be the Cubs.”
Posted on October 7, 2008
By Steve Rhodes
1. A song:
Go, Rays, Go!
Go, Rays, Go!
Tampa Bay, whaddya say
The Rays are gonna win today!
Posted on October 6, 2008
While Weekend Desk Editor Natasha Julius is on assignment in India for the next six weeks, Beachwood correspondent Stephanie B. Goldberg will fill the chair with her “The Five Dumbest Ideas of the Week” column, previously appearing on Fridays. Please give her a warm welcome!
1. Enough already about Joe Six Pack. Do we really want this election decided by someone who, if he isn’t writing transgender pornography, is obsessing about microbreweries in Philadelphia and selling alcohol to minors? If we need a Joe to look up to, why not this guy?
Posted on October 4, 2008
