By Steve Rhodes
My favorite quote about the secret briefings Pat Ryan and other mayoral cronies are having with aldermen about the Olympic bid comes from Daley spokescreature Jackie Heard:
“Nothing is out of the ordinary here.”
Indeed.
– via the Trib
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My favorite Olympic fiasco headline:
“Pat Ryan Scheduled To Insult Our Intelligence Today.”
– via Whet Moser
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Did the mayor’s mouth write a check that his butt can’t cash?
“Ryan had sought to put off meetings for 45 to 60 days, saying it made no sense to discuss details when the bid team doesn’t have the insurance policy arranged.”
That would be the insurance policy that is supposed to (sort of) protect taxpayers.
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“Burris Financial Disclosure Incomplete.”
Will file amended version.
No kidding.
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“Police Reunion To Be Met With Rally: Protesters, officers still defend actions of 1968 Democratic convention.”
Isn’t this how Civil War re-enactments got started?
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“B. Joseph White, president of the University of Illinois, has refused to release records relating to the resignations of coaches at the University of Illinois at Springfield.”
White also refusing to release class schedules; says students have no right to violate university’s privacy.
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Also denies reports that clout plays a role in dorm roommate assignments.
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Won’t release names of dorms.
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For security purposes.
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Tuition going up, though.
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White won’t say by how much; accounts will just be secretly accessed.
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To protect students’ privacy.
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“Nikki Finke, the sharp-tongued Hollywood blogger, is having her payday. Her Web site, Deadline Hollywood Daily, has been acquired by the Mail.com Media Corporation for an undisclosed amount.”
Apparently Finke didn’t get the memo that nobody is making money on the Internet.
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“Meanwhile, on its Chicago edition, launched in August last year, the site has tied up with ESPN, where HuffPo will provide headlines and blog posts to ESPNChicago.com local sports site, while it will get sports content for its own site.”
Apparently HuffPo and ESPN didn’t get the memo that nobody is making money on the Internet.
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“Vertical ad network Good Health Advertising has finally closed its $1 million first round of funding, and named former A&E exec Bill Jennings as its new CEO. The N.Y.-based company, which runs health-centric search and display ads, had been in the process of raising the round since its inception in 2007.”
Apparently Good Health Advertising didn’t get the memo that online advertising is dead.
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“There’s been some surprising good news about display-ad spending this past month – and Yahoo is betting that more is on the way . . . On Monday, the company will release My Display Ads, a self-serve ad system that it will use to court small and mid-size businesses. The introduction of this product suggests that Yahoo feels ready to go head-to-head with Google and AOL, as well as social networks Facebook and MySpace, which have had been aiming self-serve ads at smaller advertisers for several months.”
Apparently Yahoo didn’t get the memo . . .
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“quarter mad Today at 11:02 AM FLAG COMMENT There are meters in front of my house now! When they first came they were active until 6pm only — now they are until 11pm. I can’t even park in front of my house!!”
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From our very own Marilyn Ferdinand:
[Seraphine] is criminally underexposed and will end its run at the Music Box on Thursday.
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“One of the rarest commodities in the establishment media is someone who was a vehement critic of George Bush and who now, applying their principles consistently, has become a regular critic of Barack Obama . . . ”
Tell me about it.
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“Static content won’t cut it in the future.”
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Memo to Steve Ballmer: Neither will crappy products, though I’m sure you can look forward to a federal bailout in about 25 years.
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I mean, isn’t Microsoft the General Motors of our time?
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But I love the phrase “static content.”
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I was describing to a friend recently how a certain portion of the problems faced by newspapers like the Tribune right now resulted from overextending debt on the assumption that revenues would increase forever. “Sort of like subprime mortgages,” she said.
Sort of. And also sort of like AIG:
Will Credit Default Swaps Do Gannett In?
A lengthy article in The Deal says it’s too late for Gannett (NYSE: GCI) to get itself out of the debt trap it now finds itself in. According to several unidentified “distressed debt experts,” the view is that Gannett could have saved capital by cutting its dividend much earlier than last February, when the newspaper publisher sliced payments to 4 cents from 40 cents for a $325 million savings. But more than that, Gannett should have staggered its debt obligations so that it would have had 10 years to pay off creditors, instead of the current three. The article concludes that by June 2011 Gannett will resemble a very different company.”
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“For Closer MacDougal, The Fastball Is Just Fine.
White Sox washout revives career.
(Thanks, Jackson.)
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The Chicago Latino List.
Minus the usual suspects.
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Cushy board seat created for former Trib CEO Dennis FitzSimons.
“Oh good, I was worried about how he might do in these tough times,” one commenter says.
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The Burkes: such lovely people.
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Richard Roeper is bummed out about America because Lauren Conrad’s new book is No.1 on Amazon’s fiction chart.
Roeper recently took some time off from his newspaper column to write up his new book about gambling for 30 days straight.
So from one literary lion to another . . .
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I’m not sure why Roeper couldn’t still keep up his column. I play a game with myself every time I read it: I set an Over/Under line for how long it took him to write it. I’ve never set the line at more than 15 minutes.
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“I don’t usually read Richard Roeper – it’s that or take better care of my cuticles.”
– Whet Moser
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“Everyone’s too busy looking at their shoes or combing crumbs out of their ironic, Civil War re-enactor facial hair to bother.”
– Rob Miller in the first of our two-part preview of Bloodshot Records Day at the Taste
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Self-serve.
Posted on June 25, 2009