Chicago - A message from the station manager

The Week in WTF

By David Rutter

1. Jim Belushi, WTF?
Wheaton’s own first brother has vowed to put an end to gout.
We wish he’d try to put end to his lousy sitcoms.
Says the story: “Belushi, in association with Savient Pharmaceuticals, is helping to launch Check Out Your Gout, an education campaign about gout.”
Expect red ribbons around toes any day now. This may be what happens when all the good diseases are taken.


Or it may be what happens when Savient’s expected profits for its gout drug takes a hefty beating from analysts.
2. Lawson Products, WTF?
WTF is not totally conversant with the intricacies of corporate extortion, but we always thought the main object was to divert tax benefits in order to steal a job-making company from somewhere else – like Utah or Mississippi – and bring it to Chicago.
But here we have tax benefits used to steal a company from Des Plaines and move it to Chicago.
The last time we checked, Des Plaines was not in Utah. It was sort of like, well, Chicago. Virtually. Like an outlying neighborhood.
What’s next, the Loop stealing a business from Lake View?
3. Karen Lewis, WTF?
This was the year the Chicago Teacher’s Union boss officially encountered the political skills of Rahm Emanuel. Welcome to the big leagues, Ms. Lewis. They throw hard sliders here.
Whatever skills she presumably has, Lewis has lost control of the argument about extended school days and charter schools. She’s been flanked and cannot oppose them without seeming to be a rank obstructionist. The pending contract talks for teachers are likely to be a disaster for collective bargaining, although the hack-ridden cover-my-butt CTU will likely deserve what it gets. Pity good people trapped in lousy unions.
While this six-week-ago episode suggests she’s feeling a little gravelly around the edges on several issues, she should most regret making fun of Arne Duncan because he lisps.
Mean, small and ugly. Statistically speaking, there are likely 4,000 or so Chicago public school students who have severe speech impediments. If she reconsiders why all this makes her look like a bad person, maybe she should abstain from telling us that she’s sorry and and apologize to those kids.
4. Gary Winner, WTF?
If you don’t know what the phrase “unwanted penis enlargers” could mean in a criminal matter, you’ll just have to read this.
If you want more, plug the phrase “providence R.I. penis enlargers” into Google and these guys will tell you all you can possibly want to know.
5. Paul LaDuke and John Steinert, WTF?
Is it worse that this Christian school kept a teacher who claims he regularly whacked off in class or kept a teacher who likely was clinically demented?
Same guy. So the guy might be pathetic or criminal or mentally damaged or some combination of all three. That’s too big for WTF to figure out that.
Or does this guy get a 10 on the sad-sack-of-bleep-o-meter?
As for Lake Forest’s administrative performance, they are acting very sternly on “new evidence” which apparently was awareness the Tribune had caught them covering for a horny principal.
But we admit to be being very ashamed that we love this sentence from the Tribune about sad sack No. 1. It seems like a scene the talented Belushi brother would have played.
“Authorities said a student told a school official Friday that she had seen LaDuke appear to be masturbating behind his podium in his classroom, with his pants lowered . . . “

Comments welcome.

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Posted on November 18, 2011