By Steve Rhodes
1. “Khabibulin could have been better against the Red Wings on Sunday, but the primary problem is the guys immediately in front of him, and the forwards who are too often failing to fully fulfill defensive responsibilities,” our very own Jim Coffman writes in SportsMonday.
2. “From the moment the puck was dropped you could sense that the Detroit Red Wings were going to win the opening game of the Eastern Conference finals,” David writes at Hockeylicio.us. “The Chicago Blackhawks came out flying with the same youthful energy that has carried them through out the playoffs. There was one problem, the Red Wings were ready for them. That same energy that carried them, dissipated as the game went on.”
3. “Five City of Chicago pension funds have paid Mayor Daley’s nephew Robert Vanecko and his business partner Allison S. Davis more than $2.7 million to manage real estate investments since 2006,” Tim Novak reports in the Sun-Times. “So far, Vanecko and Davis are the only ones who’ve made any money on the deal.”
4. Parking Meters May Go Hollywood.
5. “Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s graffiti busters are seen all the time in the city painting over gang signs, or spraying them away,” WBEZ reports. “But this week they painted over a mural on private property. The artist says there was no mistaking the mural for graffiti and he thinks the local alderman just didn’t like it.”
See also: “Graffiti Blasters Paint Over Artist’s Commissioned Mural.”
6. Ken Davis had the audacity to write this in the aftermath of his Chicago Journalism Town Hall:
“Eventually even the ‘information wants to be free’ crowd, a little greyer and sobered by mortgages and tuition bills, will come around to, and benefit from, a sane payment methodology. Some gentle advice for the smaller guys. Stand aside for a while and let the NYT, Washington Post and Tribune Company fight this battle. Eventually, son, this will all be yours.”
I object to this absurdity on several levels.
7. How far do Michael Madigan’s tentacles reach into city and county government? Jordan Wilson of the Sun-Times takes a look at claims Madigan has ties to hiring at the Bureau of Electricity – on the heels of claims that Madigan has ties to hiring at Cook County.
8. A footnote in the 2009 horse racing season is that Illinois Derby winner Musket Man has finished third in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. The horse is headed to Belmont.
9. ChicagoMachine.com isn’t about what you think it’s about, but I wonder what they were thinking when they took the name . . . and I wonder who they use as their mascot (wink, wink).
10. Not ready for road reform.
11. Among the things that Cub Factor writer Marty Gangler says could go wrong for the Cubs this year: Bud Selig decides to “spice up” division races by randomly switching managers of teams and the Cubs get stuck with Dusty Baker.
12. “The Sox are bad at good baseball but awful at terrible baseball,” our White Sox correspondent Andrew Reilly writes. “They only stink when they have to.”
13. Let them eat God.
14. Mary Schmich calls the Blackhawks turnaround the most dramatic of any sports team she knows. She must not be know any other sports team in all of human history.
15. The Tribune is publishing photos of various Blackhawks and offering them as “posters” as a marketing gimmick – a time-honored newspaper practice. But aren’t they stealing the Blackhawks’ content?
I suppose the Trib could say the publicity is good for the Hawks . . . and that they’re sending traffic to their games.
16. “Mayor Daley on Saturday defended his park board’s decision to start charging $1 an hour to park at more than 4,400 spots along the lake that are now free,” the Tribune reports.
In the same article, Daley says of Todd Stroger’s sales tax increase of 1 percent: “You cannot ask the taxpayer to pay more out of their pocket. People are getting laid off.”
17. Sick rich people have been very, very good to Northwestern Memorial.
18. 2009 Chicago Vintage Drum Show/Ludwig
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Tarred, feathered.
Posted on May 18, 2009