Category: Chicago-esque

Chicago related, duh

Buh bye Blago

Seth Anderson2 Comments

Blagojevich always seemed a bit smarmy. Even as my Congressman, when I lived in the Congressional 5th District, I couldn’t understand his motivation for being a politician. Some become politicians to help people, some get elected to help their friends, some just for the power, but Blagojevich apparently did it for the cash.

I'll Buy You A Drink

Gov. Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris were arrested at their homes this morning in a probe involving the governor’s quest to fill Sen. Barack Obama’s Senate seat.

The charges also include alleged attempts by the governor to influence the Tribune editorial board.

The governor threatened that if the Tribune didn’t support the governor, he wouldn’t approve the sale of Wrigley Field.

The complaint contends Blagojevich threatened to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical of Blagojevich.

…

In Nov. 10, in a lengthy telephone call with numerous advisors that included discussion about Blagojevich obtaining a lucrative job with a union-affiliated organization — in exchange for appointing a particular Senate Candidate whom he believed was favored by the President-elect — Blagojevich and others discussed various ways Blagojevich could “monetize” the relationships he has made as governor to make money after leaving that office, the complain alleges.

“The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said. “They allege that Blagojevich put a ‘for sale’ sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism. The citizens of Illinois deserve public officials who act solely in the public’s interest, without putting a price tag on government appointments, contracts and decisions,” he added.

Robert Grant, in charge of the FBI office in Chicago, added: “Many, including myself, thought that the recent conviction of a former governor would usher in a new era of honesty and reform in Illinois politics. Clearly, the charges announced today reveal that the office of the Governor has become nothing more than a vehicle for self-enrichment, unrestricted by party affiliation and taking Illinois politics to a new low.”

Federal agents today also executed search warrants at the offices of Friends of Blagojevich at 4147 N. Ravenswood.

[Continue reading Gov. Blagojevich taken into federal custody :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Gov. Blagojevich and Operation Board Games]

The Tribune adds:

Blagojevich also was alleged to be using a favors list, made up largely of individuals and firms that have state contracts or received taxpayer benefits, from which to conduct a $2.5 million fundraising drive before year’s end.

Even Blagojevich’s recently announced $1.8 billion plan for new interchanges and “green lanes” on the Illinois Tollway was subject to corruption, prosecutors alleged. The complaint repeatedly makes reference to conversations secretly recorded by federal authorities.

The criminal complaint alleges Blagojevich expected an unnamed highway concrete contractor to raise a half-million dollars for his campaign fund in exchange for state money for the tollway project. “If they don’t perform, fuck ’em,” Blagojevich said, according to the complaint.

[Copy of the Criminal Complaint here, a 78 page PDF]

Workers Pay for Tribune Debacle

Seth Anderson2 Comments

The more I read about the Tribune bankruptcy, the more Sam Zell resembles one of those old movie villains.

Dewey Defeats Truman

Andrew Ross Sorkin writes:

Mr. Zell isn’t the only one responsible for this debacle. With one of the grand old names of American journalism now confronting an uncertain future, it is worth remembering all the people who mismanaged the company before hand and helped orchestrate this ill-fated deal — and made a lot of money in the process. They include members of the Tribune board, the company’s management and the bankers who walked away with millions of dollars for financing and advising on a transaction that many of them knew, or should have known, could end in ruin.

It was Tribune’s board that sold the company to Mr. Zell — and allowed him to use the employee’s pension plan to do so. Despite early resistance, Dennis J. FitzSimons, then the company’s chief executive, backed the plan. He was paid about $17.7 million in severance and other payments. The sale also bought all the shares he owned — $23.8 million worth. The day he left, he said in a note to employees that “completing this ‘going private’ transaction is a great outcome for our shareholders, employees and customers.”

Well, at least for some of them.

Tribune’s board was advised by a group of bankers from Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, which walked off with $35.8 million and $37 million, respectively. But those banks played both sides of the deal: they also lent Mr. Zell the money to buy the company. For that, they shared an additional $47 million pot of fees with several other banks, according to Thomson Reuters. And then there was Morgan Stanley, which wrote a “fairness opinion” blessing the deal, for which it was paid a $7.5 million fee (plus an additional $2.5 million advisory fee).

[From Dealbook – Workers Pay for Debacle at Tribune – NYTimes.com]

The Tribune employees (past and present) are now just one creditor among many, and their retirement plan suddenly is near worthless.

Mr. Zell financed much of his deal’s $13 billion of debt by borrowing against part of the future of his employees’ pension plan and taking a huge tax advantage. Tribune employees ended up with equity, and now they will probably be left with very little.

…

“If there is a problem with the company, most of the risk is on the employees, as Zell will not own Tribune shares.” He continued: “The cash will come from the sweat equity of the employees of Tribune.”

…

But what about those employees? They had no seat at the table when the company’s own board let Mr. Zell use part of its future pension plan in exchange for $34 a share.

Mr. Newman, the analyst who predicted the trouble, said in an interview on Monday, “The employees were put in a very bad situation.”

An anonymous Tribune employee emails Josh Marshall:

You are right on the money, this filing goes directly to insanely bad business decisions, not the secular decline in newspapers. The amazing thing that is happening right now is that all of the company’s assets are in the black. All of them. Every television station and newspaper is making money. Now lets not kid ourselves — many are in a fast downhill spiral, revenues are declining, etc. But what has killed this company is the insane amount of debt Zell has placed upon it.

That debt was not incurred to invest in the company’s product, or even physical plant. It was incurred solely to buy out Tribune Corp’s shareholders at an inflated share price and let Zell have his toy. It was the epitome of the bubble. And now it’s caught up with Zell. He’ll be fine. The employees are the ones who will suffer, as always. Basically, Zell has destroyed several great newspapers as part of an unwitting wealth transfer to various large Tribune shareholders.

[From Talking Points Memo | Report From the Trenches, Pt. 1]

Wonky Details of Tribune Bankruptcy

Seth Anderson4 Comments

It seems as if the Chicago Tribune paper will continue, albeit with some changes. I hope the dozen or so of my favorite Tribune writers1 don’t get fired.

Happy 4th of July -Wrigley, Chicago Tribune tower

It seems it has something called a “Delayed Draw Facility” that becomes part of its “Tranche B” credit facility as it draws upon funds. In October, Tribune refinanced an additional $168 million in these Tranche B medium-term bonds, money it said it intended to use to pay the $70 million in medium-term notes coming due Monday.

But Tribune might have seen a somewhat chilling vision of the future when, also in October as credit markets locked up, it sent notice to lenders that it intended to draw $250 million in principal from its revolving credit facility. Fine, but there was just $237 million in it, according to information in the SEC filing.

“The shortfall of approximately $13 million is a result of the fact that Lehman Brothers Commercial Bank, which provides a commitment in the amount of $40 million under the company’s $750 million revolving credit facility, declined to participate in the company’s $250 million funding request,” Tribune said. Lehman Brothers, of course, was one of the first casualties of last fall’s financial meltdown, and its commercial bank is in Chapter 11.

Sam Zell and Co. may also be figuring it makes no sense to pay that $70 million now since, by all reports, it appears Tribune will be in technical default of its loan covenants when the debt-to-EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) ratio is calculated at the end of this fourth quarter.

The loan agreement sets an outer limit of 9 times EBITDA to debt, which is pretty loose. (Consider that GateHouse Media Inc., sometimes considered a poster boy for the newspaper industry’s high debt, says its ratio is about 6 times.) Yet it appears that Tribune will be unable to report it is within the covenants.

So Monday’s $70 million payment is like the credit card bill appearing in the mail. You’re $5,000 in the hole, say. The minimum payment is just $30. But it makes you think, where are we going here? That’s no doubt what Sam Zell & Co. are asking themselves this morning in their Michigan Avenue tower.

[From Tribune: ‘Where Are We Going Here?’ ]

via Whet Moser‘s Twitter feed

The court filing [24 page PDF] if you are interested…

Update: Zell was worse than we thought. Zell really was just looking for a way to plunder the ESOP.

[Sam Zell ] put up $315 million of his own money and paid the balance of the purchase price, $8.2 billion, with the employee stock ownership plan – a move in which Tribune employees had no say whatever. But that actually overstates the amount of Zell’s investment. Of the $315 million he sunk into the company, it turns out that $225 million was simply a promissory note. Due to the vagaries of bankruptcy law, writes business analyst Mark Lacter on laobserved.com, that means that Zell has better protection for his stake than all his employees. Trib’s ESOP holds 100 percent of the company common equity – and it’s the holders of common stock who usually take a bath, or get wiped out altogether, in the debt restructuring that goes on under Chapter 11.

…

Even when measured against today’s sub-prime standards for CEO performance, Zell is in a class by himself. The CEOs of the Big Three auto companies may have paid a good deal less attention to the quality of their cars than they should have, but Zell repeatedly and profanely expressed his disdain for quality journalism. The company’s leading papers, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times – the latter one of the four great American newspapers – carried too much national and international news, he decreed. Hundreds of excellent reporters and editors were unceremoniously shown the door; the Times lost its Sunday book review and opinion sections; the Washington bureaus of the papers were consolidated and cut back at the very moment when readers are following decisions made in Washington more intently than they have in decades.

and there’s more!

The Tribune internal Q&A website on today’s bankruptcy filing states that “all ongoing severance payments have been discontinued.” So if you’re one of the large number of reporters, editors and other staffers at the L.A. Times, the Chicago Trib or other papers who got sacked and didn’t get your severance in one lump sum, you have a real problem.

In a just world, Sam Zell would go to prison.

Footnotes:
  1. those writers who have either a consistent, interesting voice, or cover a beat that I’m interested in. I don’t have a real list, but seems like it is less than 20 journalists. [↩]

New Green Line station at Morgan

Seth Anderson0 comment

Morgan and Lake, to be precise. In general, a new station is a good idea, if the capital is available. The West Loop has really boomed, and having an additional El stop would help traffic flow in the area.

Lake Street El to somewhere else
[The new station will basically be right here – there is a sign for Rubenstein Lumber in this photograph, and Rubenstein’s address is 167 N. MORGAN STREET.]

A new el station will be built on the Green Line at Morgan Street in order to serve an increased population in the northern part of the West Loop. The station, expected to cost between $35 million and $40 million in tax increment financing dollars, will be built despite a feasibility study that found more potential riders for a Western Avenue stop on the Green Line.

Brian Steele, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Transportation, said a 2002 study that examined daily boarding at potential stops on the western and southern Green Line branches found that around 1,000 people each day would board a new station on the Green Line at Western, with 800 boarding at Morgan. But Steele said the facts have changed.

“Since that time, the area around the Morgan station has seen big jumps in residential and commercial development,” Steele said, speaking anecdotally. The ’02 study, said, “was based on 2000 census numbers. This is 2008. Clearly, the Morgan station has seen significant growth, much more than the area around Western. Another thing that led to the decision was in 2006, the CTA introduced the Pink Line service, which goes through the corridor the Morgan station will serve.”

[From A Green Line station at Morgan]

It's all in the Motion
Lake Street Green line, from my building’s roof. The new station would be about 5-6 blocks west.

(via GapersBlock)

Michelle Obama at Blackbird

Seth Anderson5 Comments


Wee bit of excitement in the West Loop today, as Michelle Obama aka Renaissance1 and her Secret Service entourage had lunch at Blackbird. Well, I suppose the Secret Service didn’t get any crispy confit of swan creek farm suckling pig with matsutake mushrooms, toasted walnut consomme and pomegranate confit delivered to their stations.

I counted three Chicago Police squad cars, and three SUVs full of Secret Service. The weather is bitter cold, so I didn’t attempt to get any closer, or to bring out my tripod for a better angle. Maybe she was doing a little shopping at Maria Pinto around the block?

Michelle Obama at Blackbird
Three other police squad cars in the area. Looks like license is 800 002.

Michelle Obama at Blackbird
I am obviously not cut out to be a paparazzo

Michelle Obama-at Blackbird

click to embiggen

At least she didn’t go to Sepia…

Footnotes:
  1. her Secret Service code name [↩]

Nostalgia is a Drug

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Someone posted an interesting shot of Central Camera, the long tenured photography store in the Loop (in existence since 1899), so I started looking through my 35mm archives looking for the only photo of the place I remember taking. Discovered all sorts of unscanned photos, mostly taken in 1995-1998. My negatives are in a box in Austin1, so these scan are created from 3×5 and 4×6 prints, and are less than stellar. Lots of scratches, dust, and even some color fade. Sort of adds to their charm though.

The dates are mostly approximate, except for the photos scanned from a Seattle Filmworks print: all of which have a processing date stamped on their back.

Central Camera circa 1995
Central Camera circa 1995
An inadvertent double exposure (you remember those, right? When there wasn’t quite enough film to advance to a new shot)

Michael Jordan and some dudes
Michael Jordan and some dudes
scanned from a print on Seattle Filmworks paper, March 16, 1995.I asked: Is anyone’s memory better than mine? Where was this? what was the story?

Turns out to be a famous wall, and in this incarnation, the dudes sharing the wall with His Airness were Dennis Farina, Joe Mantegna, and Dennis Franz.

Click to continue gazing in the window of the mid-90s.
Continue reading “Nostalgia is a Drug”

Footnotes:
  1. I really, really want to get them out and scan from the source – would get a much better image [↩]

Northwest Side gas-price mystery a head-scratcher

Seth Anderson0 comment

Strangely enough, we drove by this gas station the other day on our way from the North Park Village Nature Center, looking for gasoline.

Marathon 14 gallons

Since the middle of the summer, those who’ve driven through the intersection of Irving Park and Pulaski Roads regularly, as I do, have probably been struck by the staggeringly high gas prices at the Shell mini-mart on the northwest corner.

How high? Sometimes a dollar per gallon higher than the price at the Mobil mini-mart just across Pulaski and higher than any other price in the city or suburbs. So high it was rare to see a customer at the pumps.

“I’ve been scratching my head about it just like everyone else,” said the local alderman, Margaret Laurino (39th). “If I ever see a car there, I wonder what the driver’s thinking.”

The average price for a gallon of regular in the Chicago area Monday was $1.83, according to AAA. The Mobil station at Irving and Pulaski was selling it for $2. The Shell at North Avenue and LaSalle Street, traditionally one of the priciest gas stations in the continental U.S., was charging $2.36.

The Irving/Pulaski Shell? $2.80.

I live nearby, and the most popular theory among the neighbors is that the same man owns both stations and is using asymmetrical pricing to drive customer traffic to the Mobil, which was remodeled this year to include a sandwich counter and a doughnut franchise.

[From Northwest Side gas-price mystery a head-scratcher | Change of Subject]

We bypassed this place and purchased gas elsewhere. The comments to Eric Zorn’s post are interesting: seems to be a common theme that Shell is possibly trying to shut down stations so that they can increase demand while reducing supply. And we aren’t the only citizens to notice that gasoline prices have dropped by half in a couple of months, leading to speculation that the whole thing was rigged.

On that topic, I actually think the high gasoline prices helped America in the long run: forcing some changes to policy, encouraging the sales of fuel efficient cars, encouraging discussion of public transit and national rail systems, yadda yadda. Short term pain for many, but long term benefits for us all.

Chicago Officials Want to ride on Obama Coattails

Seth Anderson0 comment

Hey, why not? Not sure exactly what specific benefit to the city we can expect, but we can hope nonetheless

Killing People Is Rude

President-elect Barack Obama will be the first White House occupant in years to hail from a major city, which is stirring hopes that he’ll deliver a boost to urban areas.

Chicago-area governments, like cities and states across the nation, are facing budget crises and cuts in federal money as the economy slumps and revenues fall. Officials said they hope an Obama administration will help improve the situation despite the grim federal financial picture. Businesses of all sizes hope to capitalize — as does the effort to lure the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.

Mr. Obama “has lived and worked in a city and understands the urban issues,” said Mayor Richard M. Daley. “He understands how important education is — it’s the cornerstone of building our cities. He doesn’t need to be educated about urban America. He’s already educated.”

Federal funds for urban programs were slashed during the Bush administration. The financial crisis is further straining city budgets, pushing them to look toward

plus there is this more important aspect

Chicago’s hopes aren’t confined to government. Second City, Chicago’s popular sketch-comedy theater, expects to see an increase in ticket sales, particularly from overseas visitors who planned trips after seeing thrilling scenes from Grant Park.

“Barack has been our meal ticket for two years,” said Second City Vice President Kelly Leonard. “Being a Chicago institution, it can only mean good things for us.”

A Second City show that ran last year called “Between Barack and a Hard Place” was the best-selling show ever for the theater. Mr. Leonard has aspirations of bringing the troupe to Washington for a special performance. “Our goal is to be the official sketch comedy troupe of the White House,” he said.

[From Chicago Officials Hope a Favorite Son Can Lift City’s Fortunes, Lure Olympics – WSJ.com]

[Digg-enabled link to article for non-WSJ subscribers]

Click here for some other posts discussing the 2016 games

MillerCoors selects Chicago HQ

Seth Anderson0 comment

MillerCoors1 is moving headquarters from Milwaukee to Chicago:

A River never forgets
[Chicago River just south of Jackson]

MillerCoors announced Wednesday that it has signed a 15-year lease agreement for nearly 130,000 square feet of office space for its new headquarters location at 250 S. Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago.

In July, following the closing of a transaction to combine the U.S. and Puerto Rico operations of Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing Co. and Coors Brewing Company of Golden, Colo., the newly formed MillerCoors selected Chicago as the home city for its corporate headquarters.

MillerCoors selected the West Loop high-rise office building because of its “dynamic environment for employees and visitors, access to public transportation, green space, and surrounding amenities,” MillerCoors management said.

The new location provides a unique opportunity to establish MillerCoors identity as a beer company in downtown Chicago, MillerCoors chief executive officer Leo Kiely said.

“We are a beer company and you’ll know that as soon as you walk through the doors of our Chicago headquarters,” said Kiely. “The offices will showcase our brands and create a work environment that inspires our employees’ passion for beer.”

MillerCoors will be the largest tenant in the building housing nearly 400 employees on eight floors. The headquarters will house a majority of MillerCoors senior executives, as well as marketing, human resources, legal, finance, information technology and communications divisions.

Chicago-based architecture and interior design firm VOA has been selected for the interior design and construction of the headquarters.

As part of the project, VOA will develop sustainable and environmentally responsible designs.

[From MillerCoors selects Chicago headquarters site – The Business Journal of Milwaukee: ]

(h/t Colonel Tribune’s twitter feed)

Minor quibble, I consider the Chicago River the demarcation between the Loop and the West Loop, and 250 S. Wacker is on the east of the river, not the west.


View Larger Map

Chicago River Taxi is Yellow
[Chicago River, near Jackson and Wacker]

Footnotes:
  1. what a lame-o name [↩]

Grant Park Obama Rally

Seth Anderson3 Comments

I signed up for notification for a ticket to go to this rally, weather notwithstanding.

Speaking to U.S.

James Janega and John McCormick write:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign Tuesday offered online applications to Illinois supporters to attend an Election Night rally in Grant Park, as Chicago officials gave every indication they were bracing for an enormous turnout.

The decision to limit tickets to Illinois residents—at least so far—reflects a desire among campaign officials to pack in a raucous crowd while also limiting the rally’s potential for leeching campaign volunteers from voting battlegrounds in Indiana and Wisconsin.

City planners face their own balancing act: a desire to showcase Chicago as inclusive, while also making sure that the presidential candidate and the attendees are safe.

“That night will be a celebration, and we are asking the families and everybody to come together. And of course security is very important whether it’s a presidential candidate or any grouping you have for the people,” Mayor Richard Daley told reporters. “This is going to be a night of celebration. You can feel it in the air.”

Last week, the city said the south end of Grant Park can hold up to 70,000 people.

On Tuesday, Daley said he expected an overflow crowd of up to a million.

[From Tickets needed for Obama rally — chicagotribune.com]

and looks like I cannot bring my standard camera bag with other lenses. I’d like to bring both a wide angle lens and my fastest lens, a 50mm prime lens.

It appears that people attending the rally will need to pass through metal detectors to gain entry, similar to going through security at the airport.

The Obama campaign’s invitation required photo IDs and prohibited bags, signs, banners, chairs and strollers.

The electronic invitation for next week’s rally, sent exclusively to Illinois supporters, says gates will open at 8:30 p.m., well after the end of the downtown rush hour. After providing a Web address for ticket applications, the invitation states that “an official printed ticket is required for entrance” and that each ticket will be valid for two people.

Doesn’t look like there are any tickets left either. Want to buy mine? Leave a compelling reason/offer in the comment field, and we’ll see.

—

Obama palooza

Update: election day. Unless somebody makes an insane offer, we’re using the tickets.

map Obamapalooza

Chicago’s Oldest Italian Restaurant

swanksalot0 comment

allegedly.

[to best see the lovely ‘grain’, view large or click here www.b12partners.net/photoblog/index.php?showimage=147 ]

Personally, I think Spiaggia is much better, and apparently President-elect Obama agrees with me.

Lefty Rosenthal, Kingpin in Las Vegas

Seth Anderson0 comment


“Casino (Widescreen 10th Anniversary Edition)” (Martin Scorsese)

I actually didn’t much care for Casino when I saw it many years ago, but apparently it was based on the real life story of Lefty Rosenthal.

On the evening of Oct. 4, 1982, Lefty Rosenthal, the talented professional gambler and gangster-when-necessary who had brought sports betting to casinos in Las Vegas and illicitly run an empire of four hotel casinos, walked out of Tony Roma’s on East Sahara Avenue with an order of takeout ribs. He had just finished dinner with some fellow handicappers, and he was bringing the food home for his two children. When he got into his car, it blew up.

Mr. Rosenthal survived the explosion — later he could not remember whether he had turned the ignition key — but the attempt on his life, for which no one was ever prosecuted, ended his career as one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas. He left the city early the next year and on Monday, at home in Miami Beach, he died. He was 79 and had lived in Florida since the late 1980s.

His death was confirmed by Eric Yuhr, assistant chief of the Miami Beach Fire Department, which removed the body. He did not give a cause.

Mr. Rosenthal’s rise and fall in Las Vegas, which took place over a mere 14 years, was at the center of Nicholas Pileggi’s 1995 book “Casino,” and the subsequent film of the same name, directed by Martin Scorsese, though in the movie, the account was somewhat fictionalized. (Mr. Rosenthal’s character, played by Robert DeNiro, was named Ace Rothstein.) He began his career as a horse player, oddsmaker and studiously disciplined sports bettor in Chicago, where his nonviolent but illegal enterprises were protected by the mobsters he made money for.

[From Lefty Rosenthal, Kingpin in Las Vegas, Dies at 79 – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com]

Las Vegas Showgirls

Mr. Rosenthal is one of those old-timers who were seemingly larger than life:

Frank Rosenthal was born in Chicago on June 12, 1929; his father was a produce wholesaler who also owned horses, and young Frank hung out at the track and devoured the Racing Form. He learned sports betting, he said, in the bleachers at Chicago’s baseball stadiums, Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, where spectators bet on everything: “Every pitch. Every swing. Everything had a price.”

His nickname, from childhood, was of the simplest origin; he was left-handed. Nonetheless, the story persists that it resulted from his testimony in 1961 in front of a Congressional subcommittee on gambling and organized crime, during which he invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself 37 times, refusing to answer the simplest of questions, including whether he was left-handed.

He was a clothes horse whose closet was said to contain 200 pairs of pants; a whiz with numbers, especially savantlike in figuring odds; a notorious egomaniac who at one time wrote a subliterate gossip column for The Las Vegas Sun; and was host of a late-night talk show on local television, on which he interviewed celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Wayne Newton, O. J. Simpson and Minnesota Fats, and railed against the Nevada gaming commission.

He was an obsessively detail-oriented businessman who made sure that every blueberry muffin coming out of the Stardust kitchen had at least 10 blueberries in it, and, Mr. Pileggi said in an interview Friday, among other innovations, was the first casino operator to seek out and hire women as dealers.

The Colonel vs FDR

Seth Anderson1 Comment

The Chicago Tribune has been a Republican-leaning newspaper for what seems like forever. The Chicago Tribune has not previously endorsed a Democratic nominee for President, ever. However, they did endorse Barack Obama for president, quite strongly, in fact.

On Nov. 4 we’re going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.

On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.

Many Americans say they’re uneasy about Obama. He’s pretty new to them.

We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.

The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics.

This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

Happy 4th of July

As a companion piece, a bit of newspaper history:

The most famous was the long-running feud between Tribune publisher Col. Robert R. McCormick and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

McCormick complained bitterly that Roosevelt’s New Deal was a socialistic boondoggle that he feared would destroy Americans’ personal freedoms and rights. At one point, the Colonel, as he was known around the Tower, had a photo “cooked up to argue that soon the Social Security plot would have every working man tagged and numbered like a prisoner of war,” according to historian Frank C. Waldrop.

In the 1936 presidential campaign, McCormick instructed telephone operators at Tribune Tower to answer all calls with a declaration of how many days remained to “save the Republic” by turning Roosevelt out of office.

The feud was very personal. Once, reported historian Richard Norton Smith, McCormick showed a Tribune financial writer a headline clipped from another newspaper. The story was about a nationwide series of fund-raising balls for a polio foundation organized by FDR. The headline: “President’s Balls To Come Off Tonight.”

“I suppose,” sighed McCormick, “that is rather too much to hope for.”

FDR once said of McCormick: “I think he must be a little touched in the head.”

The high–or low–point, depending on your point of view: In 1942, a livid Roosevelt briefly contemplated sending the Marines to occupy Tribune Tower because of a report in the newspaper that naval officials feared would tip the Japanese that the U.S. had broken their military code. Goaded by an adviser, FDR also briefly pressed for a charge of treason against McCormick, knowing a conviction could bring the death sentence. An investigation later cleared the Tribune and two of its staffers of violating an espionage law.

[From Behind the scenes: ‘Was there shouting?’ ‘Who really decided?’ — chicagotribune.com]

Fascinating stuff. Perhaps Colonel McCormick paid closer attention to his hemp farms than we know…

Long Strange Trip of Bill Ayers

Seth Anderson2 Comments

Fascinating1 article published in the Chicago Reader, circa 1990, about the man John McCain is trying his best to link to Barack Obama.

Haymarket Riot memorial, old version.
[The Haymarket Riot Memorial plaque that was placed at the Haymarket Riot location, 147 N. Desplaines, Chicago, IL 60661, after Bill Ayers (link to his blog) blew up the memorial to policemen. Now replaced by yet another memorial]

The students are already seated, quiet and polite in perfectly aligned rows of chairs, when Bill Ayers walks into the classroom.

It’s a Monday-evening political-science class at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a class devoted to the study of the “impact of the 60s on the 90s.”

“We’re very lucky to have Bill Ayers here,” says Victoria Cooper-Musselman, the instructor. “Bill was an active player in the 60s. You read about him in all the books.”

Ayers smiles, a boyish grin, and steps to the podium. He’s 45, but doesn’t look much older than most of the students. He wears his curly blond hair over his ears, with a rattail down the back. His T-shirt reads: “America is like a melting pot: The people at the bottom get burned and the scum floats to the top.”
He wears shorts.

“To me it’s funny that the 60s are studied,” Ayers begins. “I get rolled in like a Civil War veteran. I feel strange.”

The students laugh. As he continues, they fall quiet. His voice is raspy, sexy, a little mesmerizing. He’s completely at ease.

The story he tells, a condensed version of his life, is a tale of extremes. He wasn’t just any all-American, suburban-bred boy; his father, Thomas Ayers, ran Commonwealth Edison. And he didn’t just rebel; he was a leader of the Weathermen, the most radical of all 1960s revolutionaries, who among other things bombed the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol and sprung Timothy Leary from jail.

For three years Ayers’s wife, Bernardine Dohrn, was on the FBI’s list of ten most wanted criminals. They spent nearly 11 years as fugitives, living on the run “underground.”

“We were anarchists,” he tells the class. “We were willing to get thrown out of school. We were willing to go to jail. I make no apologies. There comes a time in your life when you face a moral challenge. You have to ask yourself: ‘Will I bow to conformity and accede to the world as it is, or will I take a stand?'”

These days, he takes his stands aboveground. He’s an assistant professor of education at UIC. He works in the university’s elementary teacher education program. His specialty is school improvement. He’s written one book on early childhood education, and he’s writing another about teaching. He publishes regularly in scholarly journals. Each year he trains dozens of would-be teachers for private, public, and parochial schools.

[Click to read more from Reader Archive–Extract: 1990/901109/The Long, Strange Trip of Bill Ayers He wasn’t just any suburban-bred all-American boy; his father ran Commonwealth Edison. And he didn’t just rebel; he was a leader of the Weathermen, the group that bombed the Pentagon and sprung LSD guru Timothy Leary from jail. Now he’s an assistant professor of education at UIC and an influential thinker in the school reform movement. And yes, he would do it all again]

Personally, the McCain smear is so weak to be laughable. I mean come on, Obama was 8 when Ayers was on the lam. Not every politician is Billy Pilgrim, able to look into the past of everyone they meet like the past was a Chinese New Year parade float. Now, McCain’s guilt by association trick actually works quite well on connections between McCain and Keating – actually as some wag put it, the McCain Keating connection is more of a “guilt by guilt” association.

(h/t Whet Moser via Twitter)

Footnotes:
  1. albeit horribly formatted [↩]