By Natasha Julius
Welcome to 2008, folks. We’re still here, watching for you.
Market Update
Question: If a market plunges in the forest and there’s no one there to pay it, are we still totally screwed?
Posted on January 5, 2008
The [Friday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
Sorry for the delay this morning, I ran into a still unresolved technical glitch. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating this can be sometimes. KILL!
Oh, Iowa!
“A year ago, Barack Obama was winding up his second year in the U.S. Senate,” Lynn Sweet writes.
“Obama apparently wasn’t hurt by his lackluster debate performances,” she adds later.
“Hope, Obama’s signature message, led campaign manager David Plouffe and [David] Axelrod to design an aspirational campaign, rather than one oriented to issuing white papers and 10-point plans,” she continues.
In other words, fluff wins over substance again! It’s a new day!
Posted on January 4, 2008
The [Thursday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
1. When being a simple-minded Republican is actually the correct approach.
2. Best Iowa Caucus Moment Ever.
3. Four years ago I was sitting in the Beachwood with our very own Tim Willette on the night of the Iowa caucuses when I spotted Howard Dean on the TV. The sound was turned down, but judging from the looks of it, I turned to Tim and said, “It looks like he’s giving the speech of his life!” True story.
I still think Dean got a raw deal.
Posted on January 3, 2008
The [Wednesday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
The best part of the New Year’s holiday just may have been the outdoor hockey game the NHL held between the Sabres and the Penguins.
How cool was this?
Posted on January 2, 2008
The [New Year’s] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
“Let’s cut right to the chase. What does it mean – all this highly competent football during the past two weeks against teams that had something to play for (the Packers were still alive for overall home-field advantage and the Saints had an outside shot at a wild card) even if the Bears didn’t? The answer, I’m afraid, is not much,” writes our very own Jim Coffman in Bear Monday.
Not much, but still something.
Posted on December 31, 2007
The Weekend Desk Report
By Natasha Julius
It’s been our pleasure to serve at the Weekend Desk in 2007. As New Year’s Day draws near, we pledge to be at least 50% more butch in 2008.
Market Update
It’s time to put the pain of the recent Bear market behind us. Of course, despite recent gains the climate is hardly Bullish. Experts note the housing crunch may keep the Cub market depressed and there’s been precious little movement on the Sox market. According to analysts, conditions are ripe in 2008 for a rare Hawk market.
Posted on December 29, 2007
The [Friday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
Thanks to the Internet, you can read the same news Pakistanis read.
– “A Dream Snuffed Out.”
– From Pakistan’s most widely circulated English newspaper
And thanks to Google News, without which I wouldn’t have found this, just as one example.
– “The deeply disturbing assassination Thursday of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has the effect of a boulder crashing down a mountainside. Whether it will trigger a landslide in this volatile region remains to be seen, and tragically there is not much more the U.S. can do but observe, and perhaps regret the climate it helped create there,” Maine’s Bangor Daily News says in an editorial.
“Ms. Bhutto’s death recalls the assassinations 40 years ago of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. But despite the depth of those terrible losses, most Americans clung to their belief in our democracy and its rule of law, and remained confident the assassinations would not tip political power toward one faction. Pakistanis are not so fortunate.”
All news is now both local and international. That’s the new reality.
Posted on December 28, 2007
The [Thursday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
Maybe I’ve underestimated “Love Is . . . ” all along.
I hope tomorrow we hear his excuse.
Wisdom of Crowds
“Well, that just about answers the question of whether televising home games will hurt the box office, doesn’t it? Despite the broadcast, the Blackhawks recorded their first sellout (20,511, described as 100.1 percent of capacity by the box score on ESPN.com) of the season on Wednesday – that’s right, “on Wednesday,” our very own Jim Coffman writes in Hawk TV!
Posted on December 27, 2007
The [Wednesday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
Geez, even “Love Is . . . ” has lost itself.
Season Greetings
– On the 12th day of Christmas, the Cubbies gave to me
100 years of heartbreak and futility.
– This one goes out to all our Jewish friends out there.
– This one goes out to all our African-American friends out there.
Give the gift of the Beachwood! You will be rewarded in Beachwood Heaven.
Holiday Hangover
Examples of the disconnect newspapers have with reality:
* The Tribune unironically uses the following quote from Phil Cline as among the year’s best:
“He tarnished our image worse than anyone else in the history of the department.”
Jon Burge? No. Anthony Abbate.
But then, the media too is more outraged over Abbate – an drunken off-duty cop who did a stupid thing but has not been shown to have engaged in systematic torture off black men deemed by a court to be de facto city policy – so it makes sense.
Posted on December 26, 2007
The [Christmas] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
“In the second half of the 20th Century, no jazz pianist could touch Oscar Peterson when it came to sheer mastery of the instrument,” Howard Reich writes on the front page of the Tribune today.
“The technical brilliance, unprecedented speed and hard-driving swing of Peterson’s best work inspired generations of artists. But it also drove them to despair, for they knew Peterson’s feates could not be matched, much less topped.
“Moreover, no place on earth forged a closer musical link to Peterson than Chicago.”
Posted on December 25, 2007