By Steve Rhodes
If you’re anything like me, you might think that it’s front-page news when the mayor accuses those opposed to the proposed move of the Children’s Museum into Grant Park of bigotry against children of color.
That’s about as big a charge you can make, isn’t it? Isn’t it sort of a big deal when the beknighted mayor of the country’s third-largest city makes it? Particularly when there isn’t a shred of credible evidence to support the charge?
Instead, it’s treated as an afterthought because, well, that’s just Daley. Or maybe because praising Barack Obama’s race speech was the extent of the conversation the media is really interested in having.
*
Sayeth Daley:
“The thing I can’t understand about this issue – it’s a 5-year-old, a 5-year-old child coming to Grant Park and you tell me that children from Hanson Park, from the West Side or South Side or any neighborhood can’t go to a museum in Grant Park. They’re only five years old. Now, they’re not gang bangers, they’re not the dope dealers – these are five-year-old kids. The oldest is 8-years-old. We could all walk around Millennium Park, that’s alright, but the children should not have a museum in that park, put them someplace else. I’m very proud of our children. I’m very proud of the children of Chicago. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, physical, mental difficulties – doesn’t matter. I want the best, best museum we can have for our children. That is the future. The future’s our children.”
Sayeth me:
“The thing I can’t understand about this issue is why the mayor doesn’t seem to want children of color attending a children’s museum on Northerly Island, or at the museum campus, or at more than 20 other locations in the ward. Why is Daley determined to segregate children of color in a little corner of Grant Park in an underground building? Does he not want them to be seen?”
Questions for the Mayor
1. Will you concede that it’s possible that the motive of those opposed to this plan are concerned about the precedent of building in Grant Park, and aren’t in any way racist at all?
2. Did you discuss this strategy with your message manager, David Axelrod?
3. You accused those who supported the big-box ordinance of being racist too. Why do you play the race card?
4. Do you think it was racist of the state’s attorney’s office when you were in charge there – and later under your mayoralty – when the police department tortured black suspects?
5. Why are you such a dick?
Gov. Baloneyvich
Testimony from the Rezko trial: The governor knew.
Lights Out
A ComEd ad in the Sun-Times estimates a 7 percent reduction in electricity use last Saturday during Chicago Earth Hour.
Q. Will they raise our rates again to make up for the lost revenue?
Also:
* Why not do this every week instead of once a year?
* The biggest savings listed in the ad was by far the 16,000, um, watts, or whatever, conserved by turning off the Navy Pier ferris wheel light bulbs for an hour. To get an idea of what that means, consider that the next closest savings came from “Business, retailers, restaurants and hotels” – at 1,600.
In The Dark
“A House panel grilled a high-ranking Blagojevich aide, Deputy Gov. Louanner Peters, about how the politically connected Loop Lab School mysteriously wound up with $1 million in state funds the governor had intended for fire-ravaged Pilgrim Baptist Church on the South Side,” the Sun-Times reports.
“But at least 59 times in the roughly 90-minute hearing, Peters professed ignorance toward what Blagojevich has called a ‘bureaucratic mistake.’
“‘I would not have any idea who in the governor’s office would have the most answers,’ Peters told members of the House State Government Administration Committee.
“Even though Blagojevich last month indicated two former aides oversaw the apparently errant deal giving Loop Lab School money, Peters said she was unaware of whom the governor was talking about.”
Maybe it’s time to haul the governor before the committee.
Daley Doubletalk
Jack Higgins illustrates item #12 in yesterday’s column.
Sex Hex
This explains that huge sigh of relief men just breathed the world over.
But is it true?
Barack Ball
About that conversation on race that no one – including Barack Obama – is having . . . Eric Zorn asks if the Obama campaign has kept the media away from his private basketball workouts in part to avoid racial stereotyping (the answer: partly yes).
For example, this is what the noxious Chris Matthews had to say. Shouldn’t that be enough to cost him his job?
I suspect the Obama campaign has stayed silent to, you know, avoid a discussion on race.
Urban Epidemic
“Kidney Failure Takes Deadly Toll On Blacks In Chicago.”
Barrington Banker
I don’t know how I missed it up til now, but Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is from Barrington. He and his wife still have a home there, according to today’s puffy Tribune profile. He’s just a regular guy with modest tastes!
Musn’t-See TV
“Did someone turn away a goat at WBBM?”
The Beachwood Tip Line: Hex-free.
Posted on April 3, 2008