By Steve Rhodes
1. Oprah Gets Chicago Street Named After Her.
But you have to sign a confidentiality agreement to see it.
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Because Oprah is known for her confidentiality agreements.
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This is harder than it looks, folks.
2. Oprah once again called Chicago “the greatest city in the world.”
Then why is she moving to L.A.?
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“I prefer to live in the second- or third-best city. Maybe even fourth.”
3. “[F]ormer Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist and controversy-bringer Jay Mariotti has now been charged with three felonies by police,” Bryan Alaspa notes for Huliq.
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Mariotti has already pled “not guilty,” according to the Los Angeles County’s District Attorney’s Office.
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“Stalking and assault allegations are ‘lies,’ attorney says.”
4. “The Obama administration is ordering an ambitious cleanup of the Chicago River, a dramatic step toward improving an urban waterway treated for more than a century as little more than an industrialized sewage canal,” Michael Hawthorne reports for the Tribune.
“In a letter obtained Wednesday by the Tribune, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency demands that stretches of the river must be clean enough for ‘recreation in and on the water,’ a legal term for recreational activities including swimming and canoeing. The order also applies to two connected waterways, the Cal-Sag Channel and Little Calumet River.
“If state officials fail to adopt more stringent water quality standards, the ‘EPA will promptly do so itself’ by invoking its authority under the federal Clean Water Act, the agency’s top water official told Lisa Bonnett, interim director of the Illinois EPA.”
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Does that mean they’ll pay for it?
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“Complying with the order likely will require more expensive sewer bills in Chicago and the Cook County suburbs, where homeowners and businesses pay among the nation’s lowest costs for treating human and industrial waste.”
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I guess we pay in either case. But if we must we must:
“Chicago is the only major U.S. city that skips that important germ-killing step. Until now, the river and its connected waterways have been exempt from the toughest provisions of the Clean Water Act because it was long assumed that people wouldn’t want to come near the fetid channels.”
Not so. We want to be right up in it.
5. From what I and others have been hearing, this story is likely to get much uglier.
6. “A judge ordered a Chapter 11 trustee to take over Giordano’s Enterprises Inc.’s bankruptcy case after a federal watchdog said it was unclear who’s running the legendary Chicago pizza chain,” Dow Jones Financial Information Services reports.
7. Chicago Attack In Bin Laden’s Journal.
Yay, we’re a world-class city!
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Officials: Bin Laden Eyed Small Cities As Targets.
Oh.
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Hey, did you hear about the Oprah street?!
Yeah, she’s moving to LA.
We suck.
8. “An Afghan contractor has pleaded guilty to charges he bribed an Illinois National Guard officer to arrange contracts worth more than $1 million at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan,” AP reports.
Yay, we’re a world-class city!
9. Cubs GM Hendry, Pujols Say Hug No Big Deal.
They’re just friends.
10. Clarence Page’s Column Is A Vast Wasteland.
11. Celebrate The End Of The Daley Era In Style!
12. Carl’s Cubs Mailbag: Ryan Theriot Actually Is On The Right Side Of The Rivalry Now.
13. Cool Art Institute Stairs.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Digital messaging.
Posted on May 12, 2011