By Steve Rhodes
1. Craigslist destroys another industry.
2. Pat Quinn: A man without a paddle.
3. The city’s budget deficit comes to the equivalent of $180 per citizen, an outraged Business Insider reports.
Really? You mean if we all just wrote a check to the city for $180 we could be done with this sort of nonsense? I’m in.
4. Matt Farmer to Alexi G: Grab some pine.
5. Revelations about Vinny Del Negro’s dustup with John Paxson may be the best thing that’s happened to him as Bulls coach: Suddenly the city’s sports commentariot has discovered that he actually did a helluva job this season.
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Last season too, all things considered.
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KC Johnson and John Paxson, on the other hand, not so much.
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Relevant clip, via Tremendous Upside Potential: Joakim Noah’s overtime minutes approved by management.
6. Oops, the Sun-Times accidentally published a Neil Steinberg column from 2008 today.
Either that or Steinberg has just discovered that Barack Obama’s birth announcement was in his local Hawaiian newspaper. Next: Obama not a Muslim!
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To wit.
7. “Mayor Daley has insisted that Duncan – now U.S. education secretary – and his staff showed ‘no favoritism’ in vetting a list that gave some kids a second chance,” the Sun-Times reports.
The fact that some kids got a second chance by getting placed on a secret list compiled by the superintendent’s office and filled with politically sponsored names provided no extra advantage whatsoever! In fact, I don’t even know why we kept a list!
8. Yes, by all means, play all the Blago tapes. The case will end in a mistrial in the summer of 2016 after jurors admit they can no longer remember if it was Rod or Patti who said they had something that was fucking golden.
9. For the life of him, Eric Zorn can’t figure out what the Tea Partiers want.
Yup, it’s a real head–scratcher.
10. “Signs of a Chicago spring: The mayor’s tulips. Flocks of crows. The baseball drunks in Lakeview. And – today’s topic – shorts.’
And Mary Schmich’s annual signs of spring column. To be followed by her annual “spring is ending” column; her annual “summer is here” column; her annual “summer clothing” special; one additional column musing about summer, perhaps about summer songs or in verse; and then onto “summer is ending” followed by “fall is here.”
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COMMENT: From Beachwood reader Terry:
I was going to alert you after reading today’s column, but you beat me to the punch. And it has the bonus of an apt quote from a “friend.” Boy, her friends are good at summing up the gist of her column with simple quip. And a barista gets quoted too! With a complete first name!
I think this is her second spring one already.
I laughed a few weeks ago when Zorn was talking about how she accidentally sent in a year-old column and it almost got posted (I think it was even a weather one!). I wanted to post on his comment board, “How would anyone possibly tell that the column was a year old. They’re all the same anyway.” But he defends her like she’s his sister.
11. Scott Cisek’s move from Toni Preckwinkle campaign manager to political director of the Cook County Democratic Party – chairman Joe Berrios presiding – has caused quite a stir among political insiders and close observers.
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This is just one way in which Facebook really does produce news. Reading the thread is better than reading a story about the thread – which isn’t to say a follow-up questioning Cisek wouldn’t be in order. It’s as much to say that newspaper conventions about how to write these stories would dull it up as much as the fact that original source material can sometimes be superior to the framework of those conventions. For example, traditional stories about Blago’s proffer totally failed to capture what you get from the excerpts here.
12. “David Remnick’s got a new book about Barack Obama out, called The Bridge, which focuses in large part on Obama’s life and career in Chicago,” Alexander Russo writes at This Week in Education. “According to Remnick, it’s not a pretty sight.”
You’ll have to read it for yourself, though, because there’s apparently a local news blackout on new revelations.
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Steinberg: “The book, by the way, is superb. Turns out there is indeed much more to say about Barack Obama.”
Steinberg then proceeds to . . . not tell us just what that is, nor what Remnick had to say at his talk on Thursday at the Harold Washington Library.
Why?
“I slid by, not out of any interest in his new book about Barack Obama, but just to lay eyes upon the editor of the New Yorker.”
13. I spoke briefly this week to Elie Seidman, the Skokie native behind Oyster Hotel Reviews. See a cool photo comparison and get the scoop on his site in Hotel Hells Revealed.
14. “It’s a syndrome, Derby Fever, and the only pharmaceuticals for it are a single-minded horse, a fearless jockey and a massive dose of plain luck,” our man on the rail Thomas Chambers writes.
15. My first car was a 1975 Camaro in North Star Green. (That was the official name of the color; by pure coincidence I also happened to work after school for the Minnesota North Stars.) I liked that car better than this one, but still:
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Built for speed.
Posted on April 16, 2010