CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: Sarah Palin goes to her happy place during her GOP acceptance speech.)

I admit it. I watched Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech last night for the Republican vice-presidential nomination. At first I couldn’t believe anyone could deliver such insipid, jingoistic remarks with any sincerity.

Then I realized, given the scrutiny she’s been under lately, what with the stress of the coming grandbaby and all, there had to be a little voice in the back of her head somewhere, doubting, wondering if the small-town girl from Wasillia really had the chops to be become President when–oops, I mean if–John McCain drops dead in office before 2012.

They say there are two sides to every story. I give you my interpretation of the inner voice inside Sarah Palin’s head during her acceptable speech…

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(Photo: The fishiness is starting to show for Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.)

Oh, what an agida-inducing weekend that was. That’s my excuse, anyway, for the tardiness of my Cincinnati trip report and Brendan Reilly interview. Every time I tried to finish writing them, another one of my friends was either dumping their boyfriend, being dumped themselves, or calling me after being thrown out of someone’s car.

I thought the icing on the cake would be seeing my own ex out with an old date of mine at Side Track. Then I thought the clincher would be me accidentally letting another friend’s ex know he was an ex before he had actually been made an ex. Saturday evening I was betting it would be the guy from Bear411 begging me to come over and cuddle with him because he’d been “lonely for far too long” who was going to puh me over the edge.

As it turned out, what really got me foaming at the mouth was the whole Sarah Palin, my-teenage duaghter-is-a-pregger affair.

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(Photo: The light of illumination goes dark at Chicago’s Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.)

[Note: Late on Friday, the Chicago Tribune article I discuss in this post was heavily updated to include additional details about the "Imaginary Coordinates" exhibit and the criticisms that led to the Spertus Institute's decision to cancel it early. Primary among those criticisms: essentially, that merely thinking about the borders of the Holy Land is somehow "anti-Israel". So the moral of this story seems to be, as far as the Spertus Institute is concerned, it's OK for there to be only one side to a story...]

As reported in today’s Chicago Tribune, this week, downtown Chicago’s Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies bowed to pressure from Jewish United Fund (JUF)/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago president Steven Nasatir and closed its multimedia exhibition on Holy Land boundaries, “Imaginary Coordinates”, three months early.

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(Photo: Bow down before the “President of Cook County”. And bring a spell-check. Credit: Chicago Tribune.)

Anyone who’s followed Cook County politics since Todd Stroger took the reins of the most powerful county in Illinois from his formerly ailing (finally deceased) father knows that Stroger-fils doesn’t have the greatest grasp on the realities of his job. The first big clue was his plan to raise taxes in 2007 by double the amount necessitated by the county budget–actual checkbooks of Cook County residents, not to mention political will of commissioners who had achieved their jobs by hard work and not fatherly fiat–be damned.

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(Photo: Out of sight, out of the franchise. Credit: Zoe Strauss.)

I love The Chicago Reporter. No other investigative journal in Chitown makes its entire raison d’etre the scrutinization of social- and racial-justice issues.

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(Photo: You’re kidding, right? Brendan Reilly favors cars over transit in downtown Chicago.)

I am strongly rethinking my support for Brendan Reilly, the allegedly progressive Democrat who earlier this year won Chicago’s 42nd Ward from longtime alderman Burt Natarus. As if Reilly’s self-immolating opposition to Mayor Daley in the Chicago Children’s Museum controversy wasn’t enough (you recall, Richie wants to have it in Grant Park, Reilly would rather not), yesterday, the newbie alderman threw his support to increased traffic congestion in Streeterville.

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(Photo: The Chicago Tribune has had enough of allegedly virile Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.)

I swear I almost did a spit-take with my coffee when I read it: an editorial in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune suggesting that the Illinois constitution be rewritten to allow for the recall of Governor Rod Blagojevich. The paper didn’t mince words:

“The Blagojevich experience suggests that the answer is yes, Illinois should write a recall mechanism into its constitution. Having endured the Blagojevich era, we believe voters never should have to endure another one like it. They instead should have the power to recall an inept governor…Blagojevich is an intentionally divisive governor and a profoundly unhelpful influence…He is the governor who cannot govern.”

Did you get all that? And here I thought it was just me.

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