Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
1. “Unreleased Jimmy Page Guitar Riff To Be Retrieved From Secret Vault To Save Rock and Roll.” McCartney left out of the proceedings.
2. Why the life and death of Anna Nicole Smith is a tragedy worth thinking about.
3. Is Charles Krauthammer more credible than a blogger because he gets paid to publish propaganda in print? Because it’s certainly not because of the integrity of his intellect.
Posted on March 12, 2007
By Natasha Julius
True Confessions
In light of recent revelations at another trusted Internet source, we feel it’s only right to tell you that there is no actual Weekend Desk. We use the same desk on the weekend that we use during the week. Sometimes, when we’ve been sucked into a Nova marathon on PBS or whatever, we’ll actually type this puppy out on the living room couch. We just thought “Weekend Living Room Couch Report” sounded a little tacky, is all. Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, we should also point out that, in a strictly physical sense, there’s usually only one of us.
Bubble Teams
It’s March Madness time and, as always, there are too many teams for the 65 bracket spots. We’ve crunched all the numbers and here are our official picks from among the bubble teams.
Posted on March 10, 2007
By Steve Rhodes
The biggest story of the day appears in page three of the Tribune‘s Metro section – and not at all in the Sun-Times. Wouldn’t want to spoil the Olympic visit by suggesting our mayor knew something about torturing innocent black men and blew it off.
“Less than two weeks after Richard M. Daley said he had ‘no problems’ with answering questions under oath in a lawsuit alleging that police tortured an innocent man to confess to murder, city lawyers on Thursday filed a motion seeking to block his testimony,” Maurice Possley reports.
“The motion, citing previous federal court rulings, said that the court did not have the authority to proceed ‘unnecessarily with the deposition of a busy public official.'”
See, the mayor’s too busy to keep his word and testify about the torture of an innocent man – and just one among many from the not-so-distant and still unresolved past.
Posted on March 9, 2007
By Steve Rhodes
How ironic that the mayor’s sorry record for managing big projects (Millennium Park, O’Hare expansion, Block 37, Soldier Field) now comes back to bite him in the ass.
“Citing overruns that more than tripled the cost of the $475 million Millennium Park, USOC officials said they want some form of government guarantee that a temporary Olympic stadium in Washington Park can be built for $366 million and the Olympic village can be built for $1.1 billion,” the Sun-Times reports.
In other words, the USOC – not unreasonably – won’t award its international Olympic bid to Chicago unless the mayor puts us taxpayers on the hook to pay for anything that doesn’t go according to Daley’s dreamy plan.
Start saving now!
Posted on March 8, 2007
By Steve Rhodes
The relatively long deliberations by the jury in the Scooter Libby case – and the question they sent to the judge about the definition of reasonable doubt – led some observers (myself included) to suspect they were really struggling with this one, despite the overwhelming evidence in the prosecution’s favor.
They weren’t. The remarks made by juror Denis Collins make clear the case was a slam dunk.
Juror #9
“After all the Ivy Leaguers, here comes a guy who looks like he was spawned in the era of sawdust and cigarette butts on newsroom floors. Might still write with a stubby pencil,” Collins writes in “Inside the Jury Room” of Robert Novak’s courtroom appearance.
Novak, by the way, will write about the verdict in tomorrow’s Sun-Times. Wonder if he’ll address how Karl Rove came to vet his Valerie Plame column – and how he still has a job despite that.
Posted on March 7, 2007
By Steve Rhodes
Welcome to our city, United States Olympic Committee!
Sorry about those delays at O’Hare. Hey, we can’t control the weather!
Huh? Oh, uh, no, the downtown airport doesn’t exist anymore. Sorry ’bout that. Long story.
So how was your ride in on the Kennedy? Inspiring? Ask not what this road can do for you, heh-heh. He was a Berliner, you know.
Anyway, yeah, the trains you saw in the middle of the highway, those can be speeded up by 2016. See, this is the Midwest. We have things called “slow zones.” You know, slow but steady. We like it like that here. It’s a heartland thing. Ever see those Comcast commercials with the Slowskys?
So, I know you’re all on a tight schedule, but please make time to stop by the offices of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to get a rundown on exciting local events. He has some excellent guides to getting things done here. They’re called indictments! Heh-heh.
And don’t forget to visit one of our many fine Tax Increment Financing Districts. We have more of these than Historic Districts because we’re all about the future!
Posted on March 6, 2007
By Steve Rhodes
No honest, objective observer can say that Barack Obama’s speech in Selma on Sunday even rose to the level of mediocre. It was halting, disjointed, and weakly themed. It was also all about him. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was dazzling.
That’s just the truth.
See for yourself. AP video of both can be found on the Sun-Times‘s home page.
UPDATE: More on Selma here.
1. “Some CTA board members are sometimes seen arriving at board meetings or other CTA events in taxis,” the Tribune‘s Jon Hilkevitch reports. “Questions they ask of the CTA staff during board meetings often reflect their unfamiliarity with the system they are entrusted to oversee.”
Hilkevitch fails to take the next step, however. Who appointed such lame board members? Take a guess.
Posted on March 5, 2007
By Natasha Julius
Stories we’re monitoring while the weekday desk sleeps.
Market Update
Echoing steep declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Election Index saw hasty sell-offs this week of consistency, relevance and, most worryingly, meaningful local coverage.
Soldiers of Misfortune
The Cold War policy of mutually assured self-destruction took a bizarre twist this week as the United States responded aggressively to the Russian army’s suicidal posturing. Sadly for both parties, China seems determined not to tip their hand.
Posted on March 3, 2007
By Steve Rhodes
I will be out on business today, so there won’t be a new Papers column. Speaking of business, however, The Beachwood Reporter‘s one-year anniversary is this week, so I’ll leave you with some links to stories from our very first week, as well as some links from current offerings that are worth your time. And many, many, many thanks to everyone who has supported this project and, in particular, our members, who have helped keep us alive.
Also: we are still looking for the right person to fill the post of business manager, not just for the BR, but for new sites to be launched this year. Business experience not necessarily required; the position will oversee advertising and marketing. The job can be as large as someone wants, or divided into smaller pieces depending. Compensation for now is restricted to possible revenue-sharing and/or stock. We’re still an all-volunteer operation, after all. But if you help us change that, you will be rewarded.
And now . . . one-year ago in the Beachwood.
Posted on March 2, 2007
By Steve Rhodes
“Daley receiving 22 percent of 1.4 million registered voters is no mandate. Instead, it is a symptom of profound illness.”
– John Kass, who finally endorses Daley this morning
More observations from Daleyland.
* The low turnout was by design. The last thing the mayor wanted was to whip up an actual campaign. He visited privately in the living rooms of his benefactors, threw up a couple feel-good TV commercials, and otherwise worked to suppress turnout by creating an aura of inevitability – one that the media merrily went along with.
That’s also one reason why the mayor didn’t lift a finger for a host of incumbent aldermen in trouble. The last thing he wanted to do was ignite further interest in those races if it meant more votes against him.
* Daley received 318,578 votes. Brown/Walls received 128,993.
* Take note that underfunded city clerk candidate Diane Jones won 18 wards and 141,772 votes (34%) against mayoral appointee/incumbent Miguel del Valle, a relatively well-known former veteran state senator for whom the mayor campaigned. Jose Cerda, who left the mayor’s office to also run (hmmm . . . ) notched just 8 percent of the vote.
* A Feb. 22 Trib story about the clerk’s race had only this to say about Jones: “[she is] an assistant to Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Patricia Horton. Jones, 45, acknowledged that she is a long shot, having raised only about $1,000 for her campaign.”
Posted on March 1, 2007
