Completely Unnecessary

These stories are a couple of days old at this point, but I couldn’t stop gritting my teeth long enough to post about them.

Cook County Democrats - led by their torpid President Todd Stroger - struck down a bill to repeal the 1% tax that gives Chicago the highest sales tax in the US.

All the Republicans voted to repeal the tax, joined by - we can all do this together right? - Chicago Democrats Forrest Claypool and Mike Quigley.

Stroger and co. accused Tony Peracia (R), who proposed the repeal and was Stroger’s 2006 opponent, of political machinations to help his campaign for State’s Attorney in November.

And Stroger knows corruption when he sees it! His 2006 campaign just got fined $27,000 for incomplete and missing reports on contributions of more than $500.

But there are likely to be more fines since they didn’t follow the rules in other ways, as well. Here’s a quote that makes me laugh:

Stroger spokesman Eugene Mullins also said he was working to better reflect that a $441,000 certificate of deposit obtained by the 8th Ward Democratic Organization fund, of which Mullins is treasurer, was used as collateral for a $500,000 loan that Stroger’s campaign received shortly before the 2006 election.

One commenter on one of the stories noted that a $27,000 one-time tax would probably be requested some time soon. I say, one time! Better make it permanent. I mean, the 8th Ward only has so much money…

As much as I loathe and disagree with nearly every decision President Bush has made, at least his Administration went in with a plan. All Stroger plans to do is absorb taxpayers money and hand out jobs to cronies. Give me grand (horrible) plans any day over sponge-like, fatuous greed.

Links:
Cook County Board rejects sales tax increase repeal [Chicago Tribune]
Cook County does it again [Chicago Tribune]
Todd Stroger campaign hit with nearly $27,000 state fine [Chicago Tribune]

Vaguely Related

• The Stroger is Dead; Long Live the Stroger
• Stroger at the City Club of Chicago

First it was cougars. Cougars (well, a cougar) five blocks from my house.

Now it’s an armed standoff a mere three blocks away. And by standoff, I mean a guy in his house for 2.5 hours before surrendering peacefully to police.

Someone go protect my mother before Kalashnikov-wielding pandas descend on the family home.

Actually, someone protect the pandas. She will not take kindly to someone coming in and messing up her dining room table, no sir.

I’m not even allowed to set my water bottle on it; imagine the mess with pandas!

ps - Make sure to check out the Tribune’s helpful ‘Area of Threat’ map. Though, arguably, one could just zoom in on the coach house where a single individual was holed up rather than calling it an ‘area.’ Hilariously, the url it reads ‘lakeview-threat-map.’ Love it.

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• I Wasn’t Home, Cougar. No Hugs…
• Wind (and a little bit of media studies!)

They’re, like, actually celebrating it. This is the headline currently running on the Trib’s website:

In celebration of “4/20,” here’s a dime bag’s worth of marijuana facts.

Given the paper’s traditional conservative bent, I was expecting something along the lines of, ‘Pot will turn you into a useless hippie, hippie.’

I certainly did not expect a reasonably attractive graphic containing anecdotes about Louisa May Alcott stories. Or this:

6. Marijuana interferes with short-term memory so users forget what they just said or did. Marijuana interferes with short-term memory so users forget what they just said or did.

This is kind of screwing with my conceptions of the Tribune, but it does explain the cougar captions…

Vaguely Related

• I Wasn’t Home, Cougar. No Hugs…
• Wind (and a little bit of media studies!)

Chicago police killed a cougar in my neighborhood Monday.

I was reading along, scrolling down to see where on the northside the animal had been found. Little did I expect to see:

The animal was shot by police shortly before 6 p.m. Monday in the 3400 block of North Hoyne Avenue, police said.

That’s five blocks from my house!

My guess is that the cougar was en route to my mother’s for hugs from me, but didn’t realize that I don’t home until July. Poor bunny.

What did my loquacious mayor have to say about the incident?

“Now, I just want to tell you, if the cougar attacked a child, they’d sue the city because the police officer didn’t do their job,” Daley said”I didn’t see a neighbor run out and grab it and say, ‘Oh I love you’ and bring it in the house.”

I repeat, I don’t come home until July.

And, boy, it must have been a slow news day at the Tribune. The front page is currently rocking a photo of police covering the dead animal with a cloth. The story is an absurd 1,050 words long, and has two reporters on the byline, as well as third contributor. Which I guess you need to write that much cougar copy.

Dear lord. You’d think it was the story about the coyote walking into a West Loop sandwich shop and climbing in the drinks fridge. (Which happened right near my old work, actually. Animals love me.)

Update: There is also the most amazing/absurd photo gallery of the cougar’s crime scene. 2,4,6 are the best - the captions are incredible. And 14 would get a big tick in the ‘images of metacoverage’ box on my research coding schedule.

Link:
Cougar killed on North Side may have wandered from Black Hills [Chicago Tribune]

Vaguely Related

• Chicago Tribune Celebrates 4/20
• Wind (and a little bit of media studies!)

There are a lot of theories that explain why the media focus so heavily on law and order motifs. But the Tribune’s new(?) feature, The Blotter, is some of the strangest media fearmongering I’ve ever seen.

Mayhem? It’s not Gotham City. And is it crime or mayhem that’s responsible for the Metra death?

A ‘blotter’ is an item that soaks up excess liquids and collects it in one place. That is quite literally what the Tribune professes to do with this section - collect all the city’s blood in one place. That’s what the Metra story qualifies, despite being an accident.

Not to mention the fact that its style and placement on the screen is reminiscent of other sites‘ entertainment sections. ‘Short takes’ are usually light, fluffy stories, not murders and grisly accidents. What we have here is the infotainment-ization of Chicagoland tragedies.

This is a disgusting example of the Tribune’s long slide into irrelevance. Poor taste doesn’t really describe it. The web editor that came up with this should really be fired.

Update: Sam points out the ostensibly bloody thumb print.

Vaguely Related

• Wind (and a little bit of media studies!)
• Monday Morning Hodgepodge (written on Tuesday!)

Somehow my reaction to John Stroger’s death is only to hate Daley more:

“He was an inspiration to all of us in politics,” Daley said. “He really believed government could make changes. His greatest legacy is building Cook County Hospital. When people told him that public hospitals had ended many years ago, he firmly believed people needed good, quality health care.”

Um, I believe we call that ‘Stroger Hospital.’ He cared so much about the people that he named it after himself.

The mayor also had this to say:

“After I lost the election, he supported Harold Washington,” Mayor Daley said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. That isn’t loyalty. Maybe he believed in someone. That isn’t disloyalty. It’s like after a game you shake someone’s hand.”

Um, I know we have to ask this a lot, but what in the hell are you talking about?

Meanwhile, Todd compared his father to Job, which is funny since overpaid and nepotist ‘jobs’ were what his father was all about.

This is, perhaps, unkind, and I do have sympathy for the grieving family as I would any family who lost a loved one. The number of people that sent me this news, however, belies somewhat the glowing obits run by both the Tribune and especially the Sun Times.

There is no doubt that Stroger broke a lot of barriers; he was the first African-American committeeman, a position of great power in the city. But that power went to his head, as well as the heads of the group that surrounded him. And, importantly, the group that still surrounds his son. Whatever one thinks about Stroger, he was at least a consummate politician. It’s a shame his de facto last act was to set the stage for that which currently occupies his chair.

Vaguely Related

• Stroger, the County Tax and the Fine
• Stroger at the City Club of Chicago

I know, I haven’t posted about the Iowa caucus for real yet - though a number of you have asked me about it. Chris Kelly was in town all weekend and we spent too much time making fun of bad TV movies for me to find time to post. I’m looking at the draft just now.

Update: I totally didn’t finish writing this blog either! It was warm as heck in Chicago, and I went bike riding all day.

Local culture note: They have torn down the Byron’s at Chicago and Halsted. Another nail in the coffin of my childhood.

Anyway, I had a bunch of things I wanted to write about yesterday. At least one of them has been subsequently addressed by the offender.

On Sundays, the Chicago Tribune runs a rather trite magazine section called Parade. It’s carried by a bunch of other papers as well (several hundred or something), so imagine the surprise on the faces of dozens of remaining print newspaper subscribers as they gazed at a picture of Benazir Bhutto. Imagine their continuing surprise as the cover asks if she is the best chance for fighting al-Qaeda in Pakistan. And imagine their curse-sputtering shock as the interview with Bhutto proceeds with no mention of the fact that she was assassinated nearly a week and a half earlier.

Today (Tuesday) the Tribune ran an editorial talking about how they had to run it because it was in their contract, it was Parade’s editorial decision, they put a note that no one saw in the Sunday paper. Perhaps, Tribune, you might have thought about running your mea culpa before the article came out. You still look like idiots.

Though that may have already been hanging out there anyway, the Monday morning Editorial/Commentary page producing righteous indignation as always.

Firstly, the Tribune editorial staff came out strongly in favor of ‘ladies’ nights’ at bars. Their rationale behind this important endorsement is:

because they benefit both sexes. The women come for the 2-for-1 well drinks, and the men come because the place is full of women. What’s not to love?

Great! I’m glad the Tribune is covering the crucial topics of our time. Then again, they ran an editorial last week praising Kenya for embracing the democratic process in their smooth election, so maybe it’s a good thing that they’re sticking to lighter subject material. Their predictions about ladies’ nights are unlikely to go so horribly wrong as their prognostications about Kenyan politics.

And Charles Krauthammer wrote some nonsense as usual, which I’m not going to bother linking to. It was about how countries with dynasties can’t be considered true democracies. He wrote this article without an ounce of smirking or (god forbid) reflection on American politics. Similarly, Bill Kristol is getting nothing but rave reviews over his debut performance at the NYT.

There were other things as well, but my hamsteresque brain remembers none of them. I seriously told Jeremy about a 20-minute backstory about a friend of mine yesterday. When I finally arrived at the ‘point’, both of us had completely forgotten the topic that had gotten us there. The charms of being friends with me.

Bonus: In complete violation of all standards, I’m going to backdate this entry for Monday. Oh, the hubris!

Vaguely Related

• Wind (and a little bit of media studies!)
• Policing the Chicago Tribune’s ‘The Blotter’

Monday is Ideological Conservative Commentary Day over at the Chicago Tribune. The columns by Chicago-based Dennis Byrne and nationally syndicated Charles Krauthammer usually leave me wringing my hands.

One of the nice things about reading the Trib online is that they’re pretty buried on the site, so I can miss them with zero effort. Sadly, when presented with the print edition, I am not so lucky. Headlines like, ‘Why Isn’t This Study on the Pill Heeded?‘ draw both my eye and ire.

Byrne’s argument is that a study published ‘more than a year ago’ by Dr Chris Kahlenborn linking contraceptive pills and breast cancer is getting short shrift in the media:

… I couldn’t find a single reference to it in the archives of the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times or this paper. The Associated Press appears not to have covered it. I couldn’t find a single mainstream media article about it in a Google search.

Byrne notes that Kahlenborn is ‘frustrated’ that he’s not getting ‘important information out to women’ that, according to his study, they’re much more likely to get breast cancer if they use the pill before pregnancy.

What Byrne doesn’t mention until the second to last paragraph is that Kahlenborn is - wait for it - anti-choice. Byrne questions, however, those who feel that ideology might have clouded Kahlenborn’s judgment:

…but what has that to do with his research? As for me, I am not opposed to contraception, oral or otherwise. I am not plotting to get the pill banned. I am not writing this column for hidden religious reasons. I am not saying that the Kahlenborn study is the last word; I’m not a scientist, so I can’t vouch for its methodology or conclusions. Just like the abortion/breast cancer study, I’m writing about it because people have a right to know about the existence of health information, even if it is contradictory to the given wisdom.

Byrne isn’t a scientist, so what could he know about methods? Yet he’s quick to argue at the beginning of his column that Kahlenborn’s study ‘employed an often-used medical research technique called “meta-analysis”‘. He seems to know enough about scientific methods to grant legitimacy to Kahlenborn’s techniques.

So let’s say you don’t read to the end of the article or, say, conduct a brief Google/Google Scholar search. You might never know that Kahlenborn’s work is cited extensively in the anti-contraceptive/anti-abortion literature promulgated by One More Soul, ‘a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading the truth about the blessings of children and the harms of contraception‘. (I’m going to go ahead and leave their copied links in there because they’re great.) Briefly, they’re against contraception for a number of reasons:

The first reason is that the use of contraception leads to abortion.

Also - and I know some of you think I make this stuff up, it’s in the Barrier Methods section - condoms have tiny holes that let the AIDS through.

Without that brief Google search, a Bryne reader might also not know that Kahlenborn’s ‘books’ (the first ‘book’ is a pamphlet), How the Pill and Other Contraceptives Work (1999) and Breast Cancer, Its Link to Abortion and the Birth Control Pill (2000) were both published by One More Soul.*

Kahlenborn might have moved up in the ranks - at least to getting a study published by Mayo - but clearly, clearly there is an ideology at work here. Perhaps those bad reporters at the NYT, et al did what I did - a five minute Google search - and decided that, Mayo or no, this wasn’t news.

Now, I’m no scientist, but I think that a legitimate scientist probably wouldn’t have his work published by an organization that cites a 1992 letter to the editor as proof that condoms have holes. As a scientist, looking to publish my work some seven years later, I would take this as empirical evidence that I should publish elsewhere. Unless, of course, I agreed with their ideas or couldn’t find anyone else to take my work.

Neither of these options makes me grant much legitimacy to Kahlenborn’s work then or now, especially in the face of numerous studies that demonstrate the opposite.

Mr Byrne, I know from your article that you did a Google search on Kahlenborn. Thanks for giving us all the facts - your commitment to the people’s ‘right to know’ is what makes you such a great columnist.

Update: As a legitimate scientist, I probably wouldn’t still be working with the crackpot ‘condoms have holes’ people after my study was released by Mayo. Here’s Kahlenborn’s pamphlet ‘ Newly revised and updated in September 2007′. It’s $0.35, but that drops to $0.21 if you buy 1000 or more.

*- should you wish to purchase Breast Cancer, Its Link to Abortion and the Birth Control Pill (and why wouldn’t you), I suggest buying it from One More Soul’s site for $5.95. The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer - its other distributor - is selling it for $11.95! Oh, the savings!

Vaguely Related

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• Colorado Initiative Would Grant Personhood to Embryos

I was nearly blown into traffic today by a gust of wind. Millions upon millions are prone to the wrong-headed belief that “the Windy City” moniker comes from Chicago’s wind, but I’m here to tell you that Melbourne has some of the most ferocious wind I’ve every experienced. At one point, I was pedaling, but the headwind was so strong I nearly tipped over from lack of momentum. Can’t wait until winter!

Onto the media stuff. For my Conflict class, we’re looking this week at the ways in which the media frame public dissent and protests. Pretty interesting stuff. A study of a British riot mentioned the famous 1968 Democratic Convention riots, so I decided to have a look at the Tribune archives (thanks library card!).

Common wisdom now relates that Daley and the police wailed upon the hapless protesters, but in 1968 the situation was pretty different. Most references I found - before the system crashed - were about the poor, fatigued police just doing their best. An editorial hilariously sums up the Tribune’s (highly conservative wisdom) after the jump…

(more…)

Vaguely Related

• The Stroger is Dead; Long Live the Stroger
• Stroger, the County Tax and the Fine