Friday, September 29, 2006

Foley Submits Resignation to Congress - New York Times

Holy cow! 38 days before election day and you drop out, not only for being a gay Republican congressman, but hitting on a 16 year old Congressional page! Maybe he can put it on his Web page.

http://www.markfoley.com/index.php?go=pages.page&page_id=35

Here's a editorial from the Boston Phoenix about being gay and in Congress. It's pretty insightful look at his record and some new conferences.

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/editorial/documents/02919063.htm

Just amazing.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

LegiStorm - The Web's only source for congressional staff salaries

Good public info on your Congressman or Senator's staff.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

New leaf, open season at Tribune | Chicago Tribune

The goings on at Tribune Tower are getting more and more interesting. It looks like a plausible scenario but would like to hear more about the tax avoidance. The vultures of high finance have been hanging around and "trying to unlock value" from the the Tribune company. I have to admit FitzSimons looks pretty good so far by doing little: No head have rolled in LA and the Chandlers seem quiet. No numbers on how much that silence is costing. Keeping the LA Times intact they look like good guys. If they do go private it might be good to be off the relentless Wall Street treadmill. And maybe the Tribune foundation will actually get a better foundation, instead of tools of management.

Friday, September 22, 2006

E. J. Dionne Jr. - Good News for Republicans? - washingtonpost.com

The problem wiht many of these polls is that they are a reflection of the media attention focused on the five year anniversery for 9/11. I'm not sold on the whole trend yet. Gas prices are reallly important and might just beat out the really bad news coming from Iraq. The worst part about the Iraq thing is how many people are dying. It must have been awful under Saddam, but can the murder of 100 people per day be much better. Imagine if 100 people were dying in Washington every day.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Allen's Mother Revealed Jewish Heritage to Him Last Month - washingtonpost.com

I don't know what I don't believe more: that George Allen didn't know he was half Jewish or that he mows his own lawn. My problem with Allen is not that he is a conservative republican out of step with his constituents, it's that he's such a bad liar. I find it incredulous that he didn't know macaca was a racist slur, he didn't know that he was Jewish, he didn't mixed up macaca and Mohawk, he didn't know that the rebel battle emblem was offensive. How does he expect to be ready for primetime with his inability to lie. Not only do I not like his politics, I'm annoyed by his incompetence on the campaign trail.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

NPR : Tribune's Plan to Cut Paper's Staff Sparks Revolt

Tomorrows Tribune meeting is going to be huge. I'm not sure Wall Streets obsession with growth when you're making huge profits. It seems that the trust between a city and its newspaper has been severely eroded. I'm not sure as a Chicagoan that we have any papers here that fit the bill of trying to hold onto the public trust. The Sun-Times is all about circulation and bosses ripping off the company so they can eat dinner with the Queen. The Trib looks to be this heartless beast that is trying to kill the L.A. Times. The Tribune itself as a paper is a joke. No one outside Chicago reads it. Not that's that's a big deal, but being such a large city and the capital of the Midwest, you'd expect something more. The writers try, but the Tempo section is awful and way to full of pieces from wire services. Enough of my rant on the Trib.

This Board meeting tomorrow should shake out some things. My bet is the L.A. Times gets some new leadership in the next few months. More assets sold to raise $$ to pay off investors. FitzSimons is not long as CEO. He's got about 15 things pulling at him and he's not going to satisfy any of them. My one regret is that Chicago newspaper readers aren't demanding more from the Trib in making it a better read.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Chicago Tribune news: Tarnished dome

Found this goodbye particulary sad look at how things get done in Springfield. It's odd because at the same time she addresses the rampant corruption, she's comes up short on solutions. I personally am a big fan of the media shining sunlight on any corruption. I love the quote about Lincoln. She will find DC to be a totally different place that has a different set of rules, but at the same time has similar corruption issues (See Denny Hastert and the Federal Highway running by his land for more).
How did Chicago get to be so corrupt? By Daniel Engber - Slate Magazine

I'm not sure that Chicago is so much more corrupt than any other city in the U.S. The photo of George Ryan is funny because he's from Kanakakee and was never a real Chicagoan.

The other thing is that the City is setup differently from other cities. The Alderman are mayors of their wards and have individual fiefdoms that are prone to little oversight and easy money. They are given a large a budget ($1.2 Million) and a menu of things to order form the City. There's also a list of other perks that no one ever mentions. Finally there are a lot of Alderman for the population. We have 50 wards in the City and 50 Alderman collecting pay checks. Most places that I have lived don't have this structure. It's a little too much power to the Alderman, too little oversight, and too much access to cash.

One other thing the explainer didn't mention is that there are two FBI anti-corruption task forces here which is one more than any
other major city in the U.S.

Friday, September 08, 2006

cbs2chicago.com - Last Day Comes For Marshall Field's

Not being a life long Chicagoan, I seem to lack the connection with Fields. However my wife's mother and grandmother, and aunt are all cutting up their new Macy's cards and refusing to shop there. They know it's basically the same store it was last week, same owner as last week, same stuff, etc. However they won't go into a store that WAS Field's.

With sentiment, I look back at the iconic department stores of my youth, Hecht's and Woodward and Lothrop (Woodies) and Raleighs and Garfinkel's before that. Maybe it's apocryful, but suppossedly my mother-in-laws Field's card was the first that said Mrs. X on it and finally made her feel like she had really gotten married.

I personally enjoyed shopping at the new State Street Field's. It's a beautiful store. I've gotten a lot fo gifts there and I understand when people complain about the service, but there is a certain class to the place. Field's is dead, Long live Macy's?
IKEA | Flat-pack accounting | Economist.com

I don't know if I wrote about this when this originally came out, but it's worth reading again. This is yet another reason why non-profit foundations need reform.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Parting pays for former Kraft chief | Chicago Tribune

This corporate indifference to the worker is ridiculous. The fact that if you're incompetent and hurt your company that you're still paid these outrageous bonuses and stock options is a crime. Where is the responsibility to the stockholders? Where's the meritocracy? It's a damn shame that worker's are squeezed in retirement and healthcare while these guys, that are suppossed to be watching the till, get all the goodies.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The Rise of the Lincoln Democrats

The North shall rise again? This has been happening on a Presidential level for many cycles (especially if you take out 84 and 88). Not sure what's going to happen with the demographic shifts as folks move South and West. Will be interesting to see what happens long-term in states like Utah and Montana. If they start moving to the left in any sort of appreciable way, we'll see a possible long-term Democratic majority? Hard to say considering that the GOP's top candidate for '08 is from Arizona.