Although he grew up on the Northwest side, married an alderman's daughter, clerked for former Alderman Edward "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak and worked for current Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley back when Daley was the Cook County State's Attorney, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich apparently forgot how to do things.
I mean, you can't tell me that the late Hizzoner Da Honrable Richard J. Daley, Mare a Da Great City a Chicago and All Its Great Peoples, would ever have been caught talking business like this on the phone. But Da Mare would have probably warned Rod that going downstate can make you do stupid things.
Somewhere, Mike Royko is having a frickin' ball right about now...
(Fun side note: Blagojevich's father-in-law, Richard Mell, helped write Chicago's gun-control laws. Mell then failed to register his guns and is now proposing a one-month amnesty for all gun owners who missed the deadline on or about the same time he missed the deadline to re-register their firearms.)
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Happy 400!
Just 400 years ago today, John and Sarah Milton welcomed their first son, John, into the world in London. Little Johnny would later go on to write some stuff, like this poem about the Bible and this little note about censorship, among others.
Milton said a lot of things, some of them worthy and some of them less so. I like this quote of his from Aeropagitca:
Milton said a lot of things, some of them worthy and some of them less so. I like this quote of his from Aeropagitca:
And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play on the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?
Monday, December 8, 2008
Dear Mom & Dad: Please Send $$$$
Some questions have arisen about whether or not the public bailouts of financial firms and potentially the auto industry might be followed by others. Some of the possible hat-in-handers are now thought to include college presidents, because college is verra verra expensive these days. It's so expensive that the College Board suggests universities are pricing themselves out of the market.
So will President Stuffedshirt make a journey to Washington DC to ask for his and his fellow admins' share of the federal pie? Aside from the nearly 39 billion Uncle already doles out in federal financial aid, that is.
But why hit up Uncle for money when you can go after the favorite financial resource target of students everywhere, the 'rents? Colleges can almost always count on Mom and Dad putting out some more green for Junior at school if they ask for it instead of Junior asking. Because when colleges ask for it, it's called "tuition and fees," and when Junior asks for it, it's called "that %^*@& kid must think I'm made of money!" This way, Mom and Dad are the ones who go after Uncle for the money, rather than the big old mean college with a fat endowment and a score of ugly buildings. And since for some reason Uncle sees fit to keep increasing how much he hands out, then Prexy Stuffedshirt and Co. can keep bumping up the cost on their end.
As this opinion piece notes, increases in college costs have outpaced inflation for at least the last 16 years, six percent to about 2.5 to three percent. It also notes some of the reasons why -- a lavish lifestyle for students so they can do important things like form bands named Screaming Snotrockets, an even more lavish lifestyle for ol' Pres. Stuffedshirt (whose salary rose about six percent a year, a number we just ran across back in the annual college cost increase sentence), hiring a six-million dollar man, and so on.
Some of the money goes to buildings, of course. Despite what the appearance of most new university buildings would lead you to believe, these things don't just build themselves. Some of the rest goes to funding activities and such for the "first-year experience," which is the college's way of saying "sophomore year sucks and we helped."
Eventually, colleges may very well price themselves out of the market for all but the wealthiest students, some of whom don't care what kind of A you give them as long as you remember just whose mummy and daddy put a roof over your shabbily-dressed intellectual genius.
Can't wait to see what gets taught at those places then...
So will President Stuffedshirt make a journey to Washington DC to ask for his and his fellow admins' share of the federal pie? Aside from the nearly 39 billion Uncle already doles out in federal financial aid, that is.
But why hit up Uncle for money when you can go after the favorite financial resource target of students everywhere, the 'rents? Colleges can almost always count on Mom and Dad putting out some more green for Junior at school if they ask for it instead of Junior asking. Because when colleges ask for it, it's called "tuition and fees," and when Junior asks for it, it's called "that %^*@& kid must think I'm made of money!" This way, Mom and Dad are the ones who go after Uncle for the money, rather than the big old mean college with a fat endowment and a score of ugly buildings. And since for some reason Uncle sees fit to keep increasing how much he hands out, then Prexy Stuffedshirt and Co. can keep bumping up the cost on their end.
As this opinion piece notes, increases in college costs have outpaced inflation for at least the last 16 years, six percent to about 2.5 to three percent. It also notes some of the reasons why -- a lavish lifestyle for students so they can do important things like form bands named Screaming Snotrockets, an even more lavish lifestyle for ol' Pres. Stuffedshirt (whose salary rose about six percent a year, a number we just ran across back in the annual college cost increase sentence), hiring a six-million dollar man, and so on.
Some of the money goes to buildings, of course. Despite what the appearance of most new university buildings would lead you to believe, these things don't just build themselves. Some of the rest goes to funding activities and such for the "first-year experience," which is the college's way of saying "sophomore year sucks and we helped."
Eventually, colleges may very well price themselves out of the market for all but the wealthiest students, some of whom don't care what kind of A you give them as long as you remember just whose mummy and daddy put a roof over your shabbily-dressed intellectual genius.
Can't wait to see what gets taught at those places then...
Friday, December 5, 2008
Time Dilation...
So I did something today I haven't done in about 20 years -- I bought a copy of Rolling Stone magazine. Issue 1066, to be precise, which was a special issue focusing on "The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time."
I used to subscribe to RS, but it spent less time focusing on music and more time being trendy, and I got tired of flipping through 40 Ralph Lauren ad pages to get to the table of contents. I noticed the magazine is smaller now, and it's exchanged the staple-binding I remember for a glued-in style. Most of the reasons I stopped buying it are still there. This issue features reviews of 32 new and re-issued albums. A bare handful have more than 80 words and even the feature review -- Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy, which against all expectations arrived before actual Chinese democracy did -- is less than 750 words long. None of them receives less than two stars. Combine the uninformative star ratings with the drive-by reviews, and there's hardly much more there than a reviewer saying, "I liked it" or, "I didn't like it" to suggest why a particular album should separate me from fifteen of my dollars. Since I don't know these people, that ain't it, kid.
RS is, in many ways, still a product of its time and is mired in the 1960s. The "Greatest Singers" feature bears that out. Only four of the top 50 (Bono, #32, Whitney Houston, #34, Jeff Buckley, #39 and Kurt Cobain, #45) are actually under 50, or would be if they were alive (Cobain died in 1994 and Buckley in 1997). Only three (Christina Aguilera, #58, Mariah Carey, #79 and Mary J. Blige, #100) are under 40. Fully half of them either broke onto the national pop/rock/country music scene or had their heydey in it during the 1960s. Since the rankings were chosen by votes from musicians, most of whom are either contemporaries of those musicians or who would have been teen-agers listening to them, this shouldn't surprise anyone. The page that lists the voters also makes clear that they were asked to judge singers of the rock era, mostly post-1955, rather than "all time." Enrico Caruso rests easier.
Also unsurprising is the lack of diversity in the listings -- six singers who worked primarily in country music and two who had much work in gospel. Of that pair, Al Green, #14, is celebrated for his secular songs by commenter Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, who is apparently a member of a band called The Roots. Only Mavis Staples, #56, is mentioned as a gospel singer, even though Bob Dylan, #7 and Bono, #32, and the late Patsy Cline, #46, have been known to sing songs of a religious bent. There are a surprising number of blues artists on the list, as well as some older rockers who had more exposure in the 1950s than most other times.
Someone named Jonathan Lethman writes an essay to try to explain why the phrase "greatest singers" is being used instead of "performers who got the most votes in our poll." He pretty much has to in order to explain why punk croaker Iggy Pop, #75, comes in ahead of one of popular music's best tenors, Art Garfunkel, #86, or two of its best harmonizers, the Everly Brothers, at #90. Nobody who listens to much rock, soul, blues or country is under the illusion that technical perfection of voice alone makes a great peformer or performance. That's OK, because I don't listen to Howlin' Wolf, #31, in order to hear purity of pitch, tone or diction. I listen to hear him howl, rasp and moan about the evil that's goin' on when there's another mule kickin' in his stall. Wolf was a great performer, but he's no great singer on most of his recorded work.
Some modern music performers are both, of course. The top spot in the poll is given to Aretha Franklin, who has a great voice and is also a great soul performer. Elvis, #3, often showed some amazing range and Freddy Mercury, #18, could sing anywhere in four octaves.
Silly lists, sketchy reviews and pouty models selling clothes aside, there's just not all that much in a Rolling Stone any more, and a bunch of what is in there is stuck in a time loop that the magazine seems desperately to want to keep alive.. So thanks for the memories, RS. See you in 2028, along about issue 1326.
I used to subscribe to RS, but it spent less time focusing on music and more time being trendy, and I got tired of flipping through 40 Ralph Lauren ad pages to get to the table of contents. I noticed the magazine is smaller now, and it's exchanged the staple-binding I remember for a glued-in style. Most of the reasons I stopped buying it are still there. This issue features reviews of 32 new and re-issued albums. A bare handful have more than 80 words and even the feature review -- Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy, which against all expectations arrived before actual Chinese democracy did -- is less than 750 words long. None of them receives less than two stars. Combine the uninformative star ratings with the drive-by reviews, and there's hardly much more there than a reviewer saying, "I liked it" or, "I didn't like it" to suggest why a particular album should separate me from fifteen of my dollars. Since I don't know these people, that ain't it, kid.
RS is, in many ways, still a product of its time and is mired in the 1960s. The "Greatest Singers" feature bears that out. Only four of the top 50 (Bono, #32, Whitney Houston, #34, Jeff Buckley, #39 and Kurt Cobain, #45) are actually under 50, or would be if they were alive (Cobain died in 1994 and Buckley in 1997). Only three (Christina Aguilera, #58, Mariah Carey, #79 and Mary J. Blige, #100) are under 40. Fully half of them either broke onto the national pop/rock/country music scene or had their heydey in it during the 1960s. Since the rankings were chosen by votes from musicians, most of whom are either contemporaries of those musicians or who would have been teen-agers listening to them, this shouldn't surprise anyone. The page that lists the voters also makes clear that they were asked to judge singers of the rock era, mostly post-1955, rather than "all time." Enrico Caruso rests easier.
Also unsurprising is the lack of diversity in the listings -- six singers who worked primarily in country music and two who had much work in gospel. Of that pair, Al Green, #14, is celebrated for his secular songs by commenter Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, who is apparently a member of a band called The Roots. Only Mavis Staples, #56, is mentioned as a gospel singer, even though Bob Dylan, #7 and Bono, #32, and the late Patsy Cline, #46, have been known to sing songs of a religious bent. There are a surprising number of blues artists on the list, as well as some older rockers who had more exposure in the 1950s than most other times.
Someone named Jonathan Lethman writes an essay to try to explain why the phrase "greatest singers" is being used instead of "performers who got the most votes in our poll." He pretty much has to in order to explain why punk croaker Iggy Pop, #75, comes in ahead of one of popular music's best tenors, Art Garfunkel, #86, or two of its best harmonizers, the Everly Brothers, at #90. Nobody who listens to much rock, soul, blues or country is under the illusion that technical perfection of voice alone makes a great peformer or performance. That's OK, because I don't listen to Howlin' Wolf, #31, in order to hear purity of pitch, tone or diction. I listen to hear him howl, rasp and moan about the evil that's goin' on when there's another mule kickin' in his stall. Wolf was a great performer, but he's no great singer on most of his recorded work.
Some modern music performers are both, of course. The top spot in the poll is given to Aretha Franklin, who has a great voice and is also a great soul performer. Elvis, #3, often showed some amazing range and Freddy Mercury, #18, could sing anywhere in four octaves.
Silly lists, sketchy reviews and pouty models selling clothes aside, there's just not all that much in a Rolling Stone any more, and a bunch of what is in there is stuck in a time loop that the magazine seems desperately to want to keep alive.. So thanks for the memories, RS. See you in 2028, along about issue 1326.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Oooo-kay...
Well, the heavyweight minds at Entertainment Weekly have declared Seth MacFarlane the "smartest person in TV."
MacFarlane, creator of two shows for which this blog has registered dislike, Family Guy (ugh) and American Dad (uuuuuughhhh), has apparently made a whole bunch of money off DVD and merchandising sales, and is TV's highest-paid writer.
He's obviously a canny marketer and I can't deny he's made a lot of money. But I also can't deny his shows are ugly dreck. Even so, I don't know him well enough to insult him the way EW did -- "smartest person in TV?" That's like being the prettiest Klingon. You have to wonder if maybe MacFarlane forgot to invite EW staff to a party or something...
MacFarlane, creator of two shows for which this blog has registered dislike, Family Guy (ugh) and American Dad (uuuuuughhhh), has apparently made a whole bunch of money off DVD and merchandising sales, and is TV's highest-paid writer.
He's obviously a canny marketer and I can't deny he's made a lot of money. But I also can't deny his shows are ugly dreck. Even so, I don't know him well enough to insult him the way EW did -- "smartest person in TV?" That's like being the prettiest Klingon. You have to wonder if maybe MacFarlane forgot to invite EW staff to a party or something...
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Learning a Little Bit at a Time...
Students at Carleton University in Canada spoke loudly to their elected officials (no, not the ones who really run things -- I mean the student government that gets to play "lets pretend" with the change the administration finds in the couch cushions), who reversed last week's vote to stop funding a charity.
The Student Association stepped up in a very commendable way and undid their decision to support a charity other than the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. That decision came after a student representative moved to change the charity supported by Careleton's participation in Shinearama. That's a nationwide charity event held on more than 60 Canadian college and university campuses. The bill approved by the council pulled Carleton's funding from the CCFF because cystic fibrosis is a disease that affects only white males. Only a single student representative disagreed with that decision, wondering why in the world the race and gender of the people a disease affects makes its eradication or treatment more or less worthy of charitable contribution.
Of course, as about thirty seconds with even a reference resource as dubious as Wikipedia would show, CF affects women too, and its prevalence with the Caucasian gene pool means it also affects people in India, the Middle East and South America. Carleton's students told their student government they were being dumb, and so the student government reinstated their agreement with CCFF, pledged to donate at least $1,000 this year, and made a formal apology. For this, they get well-deserved credit. Generally, the only time elected officials apologize is when it's for something done a hundred years ago or by someone else. But these are just young folks -- they somehow had the idea that they did something wrong, so they should 'fess up and say so.
I hope they also learned that their major idiocy of picking and choosing charitable support based on who is most affected by whatever the charity is doing is an even bigger dumb move than failing to do their research about matters they didn't understand. Even if CF affected only white males, that would be no reason to pull charitable support.
The student rep who sponsored the original motion resigned, but he learned there are people even dumber than he is, since apparently he received death threats because of his bill. Another student rep who supported the bill said he was ashamed at what his actions had done to the reputation of a university he loved, so he resigned too. The student government president, who at the time of the original bill said the measure was approved because students wanted to rotate their support to some other charities, faces an impeachment petition with what its supporters claim are 1,000 signatures on it. She hasn't resigned yet.
So I guess she's learned faster than her fellow students how the grown-ups play the game...
The Student Association stepped up in a very commendable way and undid their decision to support a charity other than the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. That decision came after a student representative moved to change the charity supported by Careleton's participation in Shinearama. That's a nationwide charity event held on more than 60 Canadian college and university campuses. The bill approved by the council pulled Carleton's funding from the CCFF because cystic fibrosis is a disease that affects only white males. Only a single student representative disagreed with that decision, wondering why in the world the race and gender of the people a disease affects makes its eradication or treatment more or less worthy of charitable contribution.
Of course, as about thirty seconds with even a reference resource as dubious as Wikipedia would show, CF affects women too, and its prevalence with the Caucasian gene pool means it also affects people in India, the Middle East and South America. Carleton's students told their student government they were being dumb, and so the student government reinstated their agreement with CCFF, pledged to donate at least $1,000 this year, and made a formal apology. For this, they get well-deserved credit. Generally, the only time elected officials apologize is when it's for something done a hundred years ago or by someone else. But these are just young folks -- they somehow had the idea that they did something wrong, so they should 'fess up and say so.
I hope they also learned that their major idiocy of picking and choosing charitable support based on who is most affected by whatever the charity is doing is an even bigger dumb move than failing to do their research about matters they didn't understand. Even if CF affected only white males, that would be no reason to pull charitable support.
The student rep who sponsored the original motion resigned, but he learned there are people even dumber than he is, since apparently he received death threats because of his bill. Another student rep who supported the bill said he was ashamed at what his actions had done to the reputation of a university he loved, so he resigned too. The student government president, who at the time of the original bill said the measure was approved because students wanted to rotate their support to some other charities, faces an impeachment petition with what its supporters claim are 1,000 signatures on it. She hasn't resigned yet.
So I guess she's learned faster than her fellow students how the grown-ups play the game...
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