Blithe SpiritWith your Chi Trib update on the Sox-Indians game,
Sox Game Day: Sox, Danks hold 3-0 lead through 7
the reader gets this right below:
Fine, but where are they looking?
Conservatives who raise dire alarms about what will happen in Barack Obama’s second term face a similar problem. They need him to lose so their predictions will not be exposed as products of raging paranoia.
That’s from Chi Trib’s resident conservative editorial board member and columnist. Is he mad at people who say mean things about Obama, or isn’t he? Dispeptic? [Oops, dyspeptic]
via Obama’s second term: Fraudulent fears of Obama’s second term – Chicago Tribune.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
From Rochester, with good riddance:
When Rochester City Schools Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard departs to take charge of Chicago’s public school system, he’ll leave behind a largely broken school district with dismal test scores, shaky finances and a fractured relationship with teachers.
This Haitian fellow has a history?
There was a time — I remember it well — when a piece like this on Fr. Pfleger, wholly sympathetic to his staying at St. Sabina’s, would not have run without comment by Cardinal George, or lacking that, explanation that he was not available, etc.
Give Manya Brachear a column, already, and even then urge on her once-standard journalistic practices.
Students protest, just like the old days
Chi Trib’s Dan Hinkel does protesters (as linked below). This morning he gave us a comfy-cozy, ain’t-we-havin’-fun account of Madison statehouse protesters. It’s front-page stuff on home-delivery hard copy today, including a 5 1/2 by 7 1/2 mid-page pic of college kids reliving sleep-over days in the house down the block in third grade.
“We all sleep together [in the statehouse], and we all wake up to the sound of the drums,” says protester Damon Terrell in a pull quote atop the picture.
Hinkel had spotted Terrell looking “as if he were headed off to his bedroom at home.” Instead, he was heading for what the protesters were calling “the people’s house.”
It was happening in “famously liberal-minded Madison — sometimes derided as an island of idealism in a sea of reality” — in a protest of “sustained intensity” such as Madison’s “longtime activists” could not remember.
Not only that, it had “diversity” — “construction workers wearing hard hats, firefighters playing bagpipes, liberal activists waving placards, students scooting into sleeping bags.”
Teachers too, as we know. Terrell wants to be one, and “so many teachers have protested that schools throughout the state have been forced to shut down.” But they are not part of this story, which is mostly a celebration of youth and activism. Hinkel is a UW-Madison alum, ’04, so you can’t blame him for getting nostalgic.
As for editors who asked for the story (I presume) and gave it such play (I know they did that), please: What kind of world do they live in and who do they think their readers are?
Nostalgia not from Hinkel directly, but from former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, who is running for mayor:
“There’s nothing like it,” said former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, who says he was tossed to the ground and beaten by police with nightsticks at a bloody war protest in 1967. [Three years before the UW
physics department was blown up and a
researcher killed as antiwar protest]“In a decade of antiwar protests, we were never able to reach the building trades, the Teamsters and the nonunion people that this touched in the first 48 hours,” said Soglin, who is again running for mayor.
Money, money, money, Paul. The market has determined response. It’s the way people are. Teachers have a good deal and want to protect it. Unionists see theirs in jeopardy. Antiwar protests fizzled as soon as the draft was ended, Paul. No market for protesters seeking not to get killed or serve in Army. It’s as clear as the bushy mustache on his face. 
<
. . . . not so much about saving Wisconsin [& Indiana &
Ohio] fiscally. (Heads are not the story, but they proclaim it, do they not?)
February 26, 2011 …socks, clutching a toothbrush. Protesters of a proposal that would defang public…dozens, scores and even hundreds of protesters have bunked overnight in the 94-year…that has lured hundreds of thousands of protesters. Unlike some causes, such as wars…
By Dan Hinkel
February 24, 2011 …legislators will return. The crowd of union protesters in the Capitol building appeared somewhat smaller…committee. michael.muskal@latimes.com dan.hinkel@tribune.com Hinkel, a staff writer for the Chicago Tribune …
By Dan Hinkel and Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times
February 24, 2011 …Unions have flooded state capitals to oppose the legislation. On Wednesday, the Capitol in Indianapolis was swarming with protesters, who chanted, sang, ate pizza donated by well-wishers, and hoisted signs that proclaimed, “Stop corporate greed…
By Abby Sewell and Dan Hinkel
February 22, 2011 …Ohio, an estimated 5,500 protesters stood elbow to elbow in and…as drums and chants from protesters outside echoed through the…winter cold. Among the protesters was Jeri Hendricks, 56…simon@latimes.com Hinkel reported from Madison and…
By Dan Hinkel and Richard Simon, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times
February 18, 2011 …stick to his guns. “The protesters have every right to be heard…passed out bratwurst. Protesters carried signs, including…Democrats still in hiding, protesters saying they would stay the…riccardi@latimes.com Hinkel reported from Madison, Wis…
By Dan Hinkel and Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times
February 19, 2011 …Capitol rotunda echoed with drums and chants while pro-labor protesters outside chanted ?Kill the bill.? The tea party-led activists…Andrew Breitbart, as he took the stage before the pro-Walker protesters. ?It?s the battle of our times.? dhinkel@tribune…
By Dan Hinkel, Tribune reporter
February 19, 2011 …crowd of supporters of Walker’s state budget measure. The Capitol rotunda echoed with drums and voices while pro-labor protesters outside chanted, “Kill the bill.” “Tea party” -led activists responded with chants of their own: “Do your job…
By Dan Hinkel, Chicago Tribune
![[Protestors and supporters of Republican Governor Scott Walker's proposal to to curb the bargaining rights of public employee unions to make immediate budget savings, gather at the State Capitol grounds as members of the Wisconsin state government discuss the proposed bill in Madison, February 19, 2011. Supporters of the legislation in Wisconsin were far outnumbered by opponents on Saturday, as the two sides shouted competing slogans under clear skies. REUTERS/Darren Hauck (UNITED STATES Tags: EMPLOYMENT BUSINESS POLITICS CIVIL UNREST)] *** []](http://blithespirit.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/59567913-19215759-187105.jpg?w=150&h=84)
Would you want your daughter to enter a Notre Dame dorm?
Trust a Domer when under influence?
Trust one when not under influence?
Knotty qq raised by this Chi Trib story about Case #2 of the Missing or Delayed Investigation.
Another St. Mary’s girl learning about the New Notre Dame the hard way.
- Jenkins of Notre Dame (president)
Mitsubishi Montero SUV, as was driven by hitter and runner. (From M.Peinado's photostream)
Trib Breaking News lags behind home-delivery hard copy coverage of last night’s hit & run by SUV driver running red light, sending two female pedestrians, aged 53 and 71, to the hospital. In the Loop!
Comments say it:
* Mawitz at 9:40 PM February 10, 2011: chicago tribune has more information [i.e. home-delivery etc. as
above]:A Sauk Village woman confirmed Thursday that her daughter owns the SUV, but she said the daughter had lent the vehicle to her brother since November so he could commute to work.
2nd comment presses issue further:
* kellygirl1 at 5:43 PM February 10, 2011: If they have the license number, how can they not know who the owner of the car is?
Hard copy has the #. (Separate on-line story adds missing hard-c info) Why not give the name? It would help find the reckless driver.
Ford M. Ford
Here’s Sun-Times giving mucho space to Rick Santelli, whose rant about bailouts set off the tea party movement:
“People ask me if I’m the father of the Tea Party movement,” the CNBC commentator said outside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. “I was the spark …that started it. If being the lightning rod that started the Tea Party is what’s written on my tombstone, I’ll be very happy.
Etc.
That’s the (usual apocalypse-size) page one on S-T. “His ‘rant’ started it all, leading to major pages 4&5 story, right after page 3 on Glenn Beck, “We are 40 days from . . . changing America”:
Five thousand conservative true believers cheered Fox News host Glenn Beck and other right-leaning firebrands at Right Nation 2010 in Hoffman Estates on Saturday night in a call-to-arms 45 days before Election Day.
With his trademark chalkboard behind him, Beck invoked God, the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson.
“We are 40 days from fundamentally changing America,’’ Beck said. “. . . What the Tea Party movement wants is an end to out-of-control spending, an end to the insanity, an end to the growth in government that is gobbling everything up.’’
Now that, by professional newsman Abdon Pallasch, is how a news story is supposed to read.
Chi Trib, on the other hand, has — on page 15 of home-delivery hard copy — an account by a free-lancer (“special to the Tribune”) that is loaded with ambivalence.
Fresh off a week of stunning Republican primary victories, several thousand exuberant and newly-empowered tea party followers descended on the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates on Saturday for Right Nation 2010 — a carefully choreographed night of conservative political cheerleading, headlined by radio and TV host Glenn Beck.
This guy should sit down with a copy of Ford Madox Ford or Ezra Pound or, best of all, Strunk and White on what his role is and how he should play it.
What means this “carefully choreographed”? Well organized? He doesn’t say, but gives us a hint-hint of something bad.
Also making an appearance was Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady, who used the tea party’s mantra to stir up an enthusiastic and suddenly crucial electorate.
“We’re going to take this state, and this country back, after this election,” he said. “We’ll take back the government. “
Mantra? Come on. Every political rally has a pitch. Every out party promises big changes. Some also promise hope, do they not?
Last month, Beck led a huge and controversial rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the 47th anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Controversial is so generic as to be meaningless, but like the other items here listed, it’s negative. Stirring maybe? No. But some hot quotes will do. The reporter is supposed to find and display them to encapsulate the flavor and fervor of the event.
But worse than this to many, many Chi Trib readers is its inability to tell you in home delivery THE NOTRE DAME SCORE, which is slapped across the Sun-Times main sports page — 34–31 Mich. State — just flip the paper over, and there it is. WHY CAN’T THE TRIB PRINT THE SCORE OF A NIGHT GAME IN EAST LANSING?
It is to laugh heartily (or cry pitifully) to gander Chi Trib’s front page as presented to home-delivery subscribers, with major big-color-pic-accompanied story about organic foods (“Consumers buying into organic farms“), the gay parade (pic of joyous watchers waving) to go with story later in paper (“A rainbow of issues at pride parade”), HIV testing (“HIV tests of teens still rare“), and “Kagan hearings are set to start,” a “news focus.”
Marshall McLuhan’s telling newspaper publishers,”People don’t actually read newspapers, they get into them every morning like a hot bath” never rang truer. It’s all soft, soft, soft, comfort food for a certain demographic, even the Kagan piece, which is purely a scene-setter.
No news on this front page. God forbid. We wouldn’t want to upset anyone. Not even city workers loafing on the job, as in the Col. McCormick days. Bye-bye newspapering.
