Ponderings

Better than looking out the window

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Chicago magazine’s Steve Rhodes has a nice round-up of the first day debut of the Tribune’s RedEye and the Sun-Times Red Streak, both aimed at the coveted 18-to-34-year-old market.

I picked up Red Eye yesterday and it is truly awful, but at least it is laughably bad. In the editor’s note, they actually write, “So instead of spending your time on the ‘L’ or the bus just looking out the window, pick up a RedEye.” Ha! It’s better than looking out the window. Rhodes picked up on that too.

Given the other popular pastime of CTA riders, how about: “RedEye: It’s better than shut-eye”? Rhodes and I are thinking along the same lines on another point. He writes, “And here’s a question for the Tribune Company: If RedEye or Red Streak succeeds in creating a newspaper habit for younger people, won’t the habit be to read a light tabloid on the train? And wouldn’t the natural progression be to ‘graduate’ to the Sun-Times?”

The Sun-Times is already a very good tabloid. It’s clever, attractive, has good entertainment and sports coverage and provocative columnists. It costs only 10 cents more than RedEye. And while I haven’t read Red Streak yet, I can’t see why anyone would want it. The Sun-Times already is a trashy tab. A tab by any other name would still stain your fingers as badly.

A sad, sublime moment

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

I don’t have much to say about Paul Wellstone. It’s a very sad thing, of course. But that’s neither here nor there.

I was coming home from doing some errands and arrived home just as “A Prarie Home Companion” came on. The show opened with a Guy Noir bit which was somewhat funny and sweet, in the show’s usual style.

Guy and friends in a bar are commiserating over Wellstone’s death when they find a Bob Dylan song on the jukebox, “Forever Young.” Only, it’s done by Ron and Luanne Swanson and the Eveleth Lutheran Youth Choir. Hyuk, hyuk. Of course, that means Keillor and friends do the honors.

Their version of the song was just sublime. After the second verse of “Forever Young” they transitioned into the second verse of “I Shall Be Released” (“They say every man needs protection / They say every man must fall / Yet I swear I see my reflection / Somewhere so high above this wall”). And they finished up with the last verse of “Forever Young.”

It was a truly sublime moment. The harmonies on the song were gorgeous and were a truly fitting tribute. After all, Dylan’s just a little Minnesota boy. Listen to it here.

Update

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

The wedding went wonderfully, and the honeymoon was a blast. I’ve been very busy with work since getting back and so haven’t had much time to blog or update the site. The fact that I have not yet moved my computer into our apartment has not helped. At some point there may be pictures from the wedding online, though I shouldn’t make any promises.

No HTML in e-mail, please!

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

The whole point of e-mail, after all, is that it’s plain text. It doesn’t take up a lot of bandwidth and can be read by any computer no matter what kind of software’s on it. By dressing up e-mail in HTML, the whole point of e-mail is defeated.

Worse yet, when I try to respond to an HTML-coded e-mail, it’s almost impossible for me to quote the original writer. I usually wind up deleting the original e-mail, since I’m not going to spend 15 minutes navigating code just to write a response. So for those of you who are sending HTML-coded e-mail, please stop. It’s annoying, and doesn’t do anyone any good. Thank you.

What I missed

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

In D.C., not only was I away from home and my soon-to-be wife, but from cable TV as well. Here’s a list, then:

  • Karen
  • The lakefront
  • Wrigley Field
  • ESPN’s “SportsCenter”
  • Fox News Channel’s “Special Report With Brit Hume”
  • My parents
  • My mom’s cooking
  • 24/7 access to a computer and to the Internet.
  • Privacy
  • A comfortable bed
  • Karen
  • Our little dog, Sport
  • The lake breeze
  • Pat Hughes and Ron Santo calling the Cubs games on WGN Radio
  • Oh, and Karen

Mmm … icing

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

I am happy. I am. I really am. I’m done with college, fully employed, marrying the woman I love, moving out of The Stris’ apartment … I’m excited about what the future holds in store for us. I finally feel so … adult.

And it feels good. The way I figure it, I’ve got two thirds of my life left. I’m looking forward to making them the best I can. Right now, everything after this almost feels just like icing on the cake. But the icing’s always been the best part.

Gotta get paid

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

And so I am, by the gummint, no less! A friend of mine from Columbia helped hook me up with a group called the Aviation Integrity Project. AIP is an investigative unit funded by the Suburban O’Hare Commission, a group of 14 suburbs surrounding O’Hare Field that oppose expansion of the airport. So the bills, technically, are being paid by Elk Grove Village.

AIP is headed by Terrence Brunner, who used to head the Better Government Association (a longtime goo-goo organization) here in Chicago and has a lot of contacts in the city’s journalism circles. So while this may be a short-run gig, lasting only for as long as the SOC deigns to continue funding it and the issue of expansion itself stays alive, I hope that it will serve as an entree into my next job. If nothing else, this job will afford me the opportunity to
learn more about investigative journalism, which I haven’t done much of so far.

So, what is AIP investigating, exactly? Well, I won’t bore you with the details — and I don’t want to spoil what we’re working on — but the gist of it is that Da Mare and the city have long favored expansion of O’Hare as opposed to a third airport because the O’Hare is actually a part of Chicago, which means that the city controls all the contracts and jobs that get doled out at O’Hare, many of which aren’t even open to competitive bidding.

What we have, then, are airlines and a region desperate to add capacity, and the city doesn’t want a third airport to happen because it would mean they’d lose all that potential patronage. This sets the stage for lots of dirty dealings, including some juicy campaign finance stuff and more. Classic Chicago stuff. It’s fun, and for some odd reason doesn’t feel nearly as dirty as Washington. Maybe just because I’m used to Chicago; it seems more like harmless fun. Clearly, in both cases there is powermongering at play.

And both Da Mare and Dubya have a way with words. Hmm …

Here’s how the proposed legislation to preempt local control over airport expansion is unconstitutional. The author of that article, by the way, is arguing SOC’s case in court.