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Finally. Someone from one of the two major newspaper in town has come out as opposed to the city's 2016 Olympic bid and it happens to be one of the higher profile sports writers. Of course, we've expressed our qualms about the bid here and The Reader's Ben Joravsky has also been all over the bid and the TIF entanglement therein. But it seems with the Parking Meter Debacle continuing, Telander has had enough.
The City of Chicago, led by Mayor Daley and a vast and tumorous army of aldermen and bagmen and yesmen and opportunists and spineless, parasitic political-machine halfwits of forms never seen outside the roiling cesspool of governmental slop-trough greed, has proven itself unworthy of something as potentially delicious and fulfilling as the 2016 Olympic Games.
What Telander says is nothing that hasn't been echoed by other sources. What makes Telander's column stand out is that - with apologies and due respect to Mr. Jarovsky - it's perhaps the highest profile call against the 2016 Olympics we've seen (if we're wrong, please correct us!). Especially when a Tribune story about lower-than-expected support poll results mysteriously disappeared from the paper's website (this Philip Hersh column is the only mention of the results). Still, it's most likely too little, too late for anyone opposed to the 2016 Olympics as the organization has some very powerful support behind it. It's all in the IOC's hands now.
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Rick also said that the Chicago 2016 bid committee are all on steroids so take what he says with a grain of salt.
Daley will have him "taken care of." We'll see him in a video in about a week, squinting, bruised, pale and disheveled, and retracting everything he wrote (almost like he is reading it off a script held offscreen). Then, his body will be found months later when it washes up on the shores of Lake Michigan. By then, we'll have the Olympics.
it doesn't necessarily sound like he is against the Olympics, just that Chicago is undeserving of it
First intelligent column out of Telander in years!
Only question is, did he go on some meds or off some other ones?
His car will soon be covered with orange and white pieces of paper...
When Rick moves here from Lake Forest, where he lives, he can check back in on this story.
I hope he pledges not to cover the story when Chicago gets the Olympics, if he or his bankrupt paper is still around then.
There are two kinds of people who live in Chicago.
The first group cares about the city mostly from a functional standpoint. They want good roads, good schools, clean parks, efficient public transit and so on and so forth.
This group, for better or for worse, doesn't care about Chicago's stature. They're not consumed with whether Chicago has the country's best skyline or generally whether people think of us as a great city.
The second group is very concerned about how the world views Chicago. They probably want most of the things the first group wants, but they believe - and it's important to them - that Chicago is the greatest city on earth.
I respect both groups, but I fall into the latter category. I would suspect that most of the people who don't want the Olympics would still rather that Millennium Park not have been built - though I doubt if it hadn't that there would be anything to show for that $500 million.
The problem is that the goals of the two groups run counter to each other. If we get the Olympics and thus are able to promote the illusion of Chicago as the best city in the world, then we no longer have good roads, good schools, clean parks, efficient public transit, and so on and so forth. All funding for these things is dropped in favor on years of construction in the middle of some of our best parks to build fancy buildings that will get us on TV for a couple of weeks. So far, this city has proven time and again that it can't handle the simplest of tasks. If we get the Olympics, I guarantee seven years of metropolitan hell.
Dipshit.
Beware of the first-time poster: chicagorocks = agenda goon, possibly in the employ of the little big man.
There's a third group ... a group that you belong to: people who, ignorant of the gentrification that happened in so many other American cities during the 90s, think Daley is some sort of brilliant, civic, urban prize. He really just rode a wave, like so many other mayors. Now it's all falling apart.
You see Chicago as some sort of brand. Most people see it as a place they live, with ideally a functioning government that provides some services and protection.
People don't hate the Olympics. They just know from history that we'll pay, and we'll pay good. We call our Daley-appointed aldermen (the ones who haven't been put in jail yet) for nuts and bolts services and we're ignored, brushed off. Our fearless leader jet sets and hob nobs while we nurse a high murder rate, subpar schools, angry cops and firemen, and crumbling infrastructure.
Put any other person in charge than the arrogant semi-dictator we're stuck with and I'll bet you'd see an entirely different attitude.
I love Chicago. I adore it. My family is from here. I love Millenium Park, but I don't like the corruption tak we fund that paid for it.
This city is broken. Our esteemed leader has priorities that are out of whack. If we had term limits and a smaller city council, he'd have been another Frank Rizzo. A blip on the screen. Instead, he's making unilateral decisions that are not in line with what Chicago needs. Decisions that will affect the city long after we're dead. I think he's insane. I think the people who vote for him need to get off their ass and visit New York, Milwaukee, Philly, Baltimore, et al. They were also pretty rough places until the mid-90s.
Anyone who even aspires to live in the "best city" is an idiot. Get on a plane and do some traveling. There are so many "best cities" in the world. Chicago may or may not be one of them, but for me it's my home. Our mayor-until-heart attack, over the years, has increasingly made me feel like a transient, a revenue generator.
How many times has the Daley Monarchy Administration been tied to corruption? I lost count already. Word around the camp is that Chicago's bid for the Olympics is ours to lose. They're gonna get their way either way. I like Chicago, but the level of corruption in city is unbelievable.
We pay the highest taxes and gas prices in the nation. If the IOC chooses Chicago, wait three or four years so people forget, and new taxes will begin appearing.