It’s only right that the poor souls who serve as Daley stooges and rule over their little ward fiefdoms voted themselves a long, long overdue pay increase Wednesday.
Their salaries are now pushing up against $100,000 a year with a $33,280 annual expense allowance! I’m not making this up. In their infinite wisdom, they made Hizzoner Jr. the highest-paid mayor in America, with a salary of $216,120.
Words are pointless at a time like this.
My dad and I and a friend from work saw Bob Dylan at the Allstate Arena last Friday. Both of the dailies’ rock critics raved, but I must admit that I was a little bit disappointed.
Dylan has been playing a lot of keyboards on this tour, and as Kot points out his playing was out of left field on a lot of songs. Some songs Bob just nailed. “Tombstone Blues,” “Things Have Changed,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleedin’),” “Cold Irons Bound,” and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” were standouts. And the best song of the night was the boogie-woogie dance ’til its hurt jump of “Summer Days,” on which Bob and his fine band just played their hearts out.
But too many other songs just kind of hung there, and Bob was in poor vocal form much of the evening. I don’t mean his voice, which is an acquired taste. I mean his enunciation, his phrasing, his overall care with the delivery of the words and their accompanying feelings.
Particularly off the mark, I thought, were “Lay, Lady, Lay,” “Just Like a Woman” and in particular, “High Water (For Charley Patton).” The last is probably the best song on Bob’s most recent album, “Love and Theft,” (aside from “Mississippi”) and his performance of it last year at the United Center was fabulous.
He tried to mix it up, as is Bob’s tendency, and it just fell completely flat. Bob’s never boring, but he can be frustrating when he goes and does a thing like that. A week later in the tour and “High Water” probably sounds great. Ah, well.
Who can speculate, but I thought Bob really put a lot of conviction into his rendering of “Masters of War,” which is a great anti-war song because it doesn’t belabor obvious tragedy of war but discusses how the machine for needless war can be fed. It’s like a poetic, musical study in public-choice theory.
I cannot honestly say that I didn’t enjoy myself, because I did. But I look forward to seeing a better show next time around, which is hopefully soon.
It does not bode very well for the advocates of smaller government when the Republican president’s stump speeches for congressional and senatorial candidates center around his need to have allies to help him create a gigantic new bureaucracy.
And yet, that seems to have been exactly Dubya’s approach, and how successful it was. Certainly, we did not see a mandate for much change and the truth is we probably won’t see much. Sure, the monstrosity that is the Homeland Security Department will be signed into law. A few more of Dubya’s judges, for better or worse, will get voted on and confirmed.
The war in Iraq, of course, is already decided, as the Democrats folded faster Kathy Lee sweatshop worker. The 2001 tax cuts might be mader permanent, if Dubya’s really lucky. But there will be no major tax reform, no Social Security reform, no vouchers, no nada. You need 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate, and I don’t care how many calls Dubya makes to Mark Pryor, it’s not going to happen on a regular basis.
See what someone much smarter than me had to say about all of this.
As for the Libertarian Party, disappointment as usual. The hopes were that Cal Skinner would somehow pull off 5 percent and get the LPI automatic ballot status for 2004, but he wound up with only 2.1 percent, even though the gubernatorial race was a blowout. Matt “I write crazy letters to well-read Chicago columnists” Beauchamp wound up with 2.25 percent in his bid for Secretary of State, while Stephanie “Versus the Machine” Sailor landed 2.9 percent.
Illinois government is now completely controlled by the Cook County Democratic machine, which certainly doesn’t bode well for the O’Hare expansion issue, taxes, gun rights, spending, etc. Gridlock has served the state pretty well for a long time, though the state GOP is alarmingly moderate and in Gov. Ryan’s case completely sold out. Again, it did not bode well for advocates of smaller government in Illinois when the Republican nominee ran for office on a huge public works program, Illinois FIRST.
Around the country, the big story was Ed Thompson, who managed double digits (10 percent) in his campaign for governor. Very impressive. A Libertarian-led initative to repeal the Massachussets state income tax just barely failed, garnering 47 percent support.
All the marijuana initiatives on the ballot around the country also lost, unfortunately.
Here’s the LP’s take on the GOP’s victory — a little hyperbolic, but pretty much right on the substance.
The great city of Chicago prepares to greet an influx of anti-trade protesters.
Eager not to have a repeat of Daddy Daley’s 1968 fiasco, Da Mare has threatened to sue any individuals or groups who cause damage to city or private property. Here’s the kicker, though: “City officials also announced that parking will be banned from 6 a.m. Wednesday until 6 a.m. Saturday in two large areas: from Wacker Drive to Congress Parkway between Michigan Avenue and Canal Street; and from the Chicago River to Oak Street, from Lake Michigan to Clark Street.”
That seems a bit over the top. That’s a huge expanse of territory downtown, inconveniencing everyone just because of the possibility of unrest. I dunno about that.
Apparently, gun manufacturers must not only provide safety locks with their guns, but they’ve got to be able to divine the future as well. Such is the basis of Chicago’s suit against gun manufacturers, which was OKd by an Illinois appelate court yesterday.
Didn’t Smith & Wesson know that they had to hire the precogs from Minority Report in order to sell guns in Chicago?
After running a series of stories about how UAL Corp., United Airlines’ parent company, has landed itself in the crapper, the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board comes to the solid conclusion that it needs to bailed out.
More specifically, United wants a $1.8 billion-dollar federally guaranteed loan. They’re in such bad shape that the only way they can convince any lender to give them money is to have the feds backing them up. Yep. Sounds like a hot investment. Of course, the Sun-Times editorial board argues that if United goes under, we’re all doomed. Gee, I guess people will just stop flying in and out of Chicago if United goes bankrupt.
Doesn’t the fact that United is being outdone by smarter, more effective competitors like Southwest and JetBlue mean anything? That perhaps United’s way of doing business just doesn’t cut it anymore? That perhaps we’d be better off having them disappear?
The most fallacious part of the argument is as follows:
The airline is a strategic asset to the nation. Having a solid U.S. air transportation system is important enough that the government has kept foreign carriers out of local service by law. What good will that be if we allow our local carriers to wither and die, victims, in part, of an unprecedented meltdown in their industry sparked by terrorism?
Good point; we should allow foreign competition. And, yes, Chicago may suffer a little if United goes under and more people connect through Denver or Atlanta, but the nation as a whole will not suffer one bit. But taxpayers will suffer if United defaults on its loan and the feds have to pick up the bill. The Sun-Times is being just as provincial as the steel-producing states’ newspapers which argued that upping steel tarriffs is good for the country.
The New York Times reports, “The Central Intelligence Agency, using a missile fired by an unmanned Predator aircraft, killed a senior leader of Al Qaeda and five low-level associates traveling by car in Yemen on Sunday, American officials said today.”
How’s that for a change? Actually going after folks with a known connection to the Sept. 11 attacks and who pose a continuing threat to U.S. national security. Interestingly, while Dubya cannot wait to personally strangle Saddam, White House officials would not say whether Dubya had “personally authorized” this action.
(Also posted to Stand Down.)
kboreilly.com 