July: Month in Review
By Rachelle Bowden in News on Jul 28, 2005 8:45PM
Last month, Eric Zorn debuted a new Month in Review feature on his blog. He invited local bloggers and journalists to join him in discussing the month's hottest state and local news stories. This month Monsieur Zorn asked Chicagoist to participate. Below are our picks for July. Check Zorn's site tomorrow for his Monthly round up.
Biggest Loser: Mayor Daley
With the Feds coming in and busting up Chicago's political "boys club," Mayor Daley's approval rating is at an all time low. Not only that, the Cook County Republicans have put a bounty on his head. $10,000 to anyone who can prove that Daley's corrupt. Not a good month for "da mare."
Biggest Winner: Chicago rock music fans
Ravinia and the CSO kick out the classical jams every summer. But when’s the last time Chicago rock fans were treated to not one but two world-class rock festivals in the same year, let alone the same month? And in city parks, no less! The Lollapalooza name is well on its way to being rehabilitated as a destination music fest in Chicago (so long as Dave Matthews doesn’t spoil the fun) and Pitchfork’s Intonation Music Festival proved that a small but determined group of local promoters and fans can do great things without great sums of money. Honorable mention goes to cell phone providers in the city who no doubt appreciated the jump in phone accessory sales thanks to the boneheaded efforts of the Chicago City Council. Just curious: is it illegal to text message and drive now too?
Most Significant: Politics in Chicago Takes a Hit
You haven't done anything at City Hall until you've gotten indicted. Seriously, it's like the new cool thing to do. At least 30 people have been indicted so far. If Chicagoist worked at City Hall we'd be dotting all of our I's, crossing all of our T's and putting back all those paperclips we stole from the office supply cabinet.
Overreported: Vince Vaughn & Jen Aniston
Chicagoist loves Vince Vaughn. Some might even say it's an unhealthy love. But even we swore that if we heard anyone say "Vince" or "Jen" again this month we'd slit our wrists. You don't want to know what we'd do if we heard someone say "Vince and Jen" together in the same sentence. Actually, now that we think about it, this could make a really good drinking game. They shot a movie here downtown where everyone was working and could see them. And at the beach. So what! It's not like they're wasn't any other local movie news to mention. An honorable mention here goes to Ronnie Woo Woo whose non-disappearance made for some non-news for a few days.
Underreported: That one baseball team in town that did all that good stuff
Did you know the Chicago White Sox are in first place? No, really. They’re 11 games ahead of the Twins as of this writing and we’re 13 up at one point. We shit you not! First you’re hearing of it? Really? What about how the Sox sent the most players to the All-Star Game since 1975 by staging a successful write-in campaign for Scott Podsednik? No, we’re not making this up. What’s that? No, Ronnie Woo Woo is fine. We don’t know, we heard was out in Naperville or something.
Honorable mention goes to the almost 9,000 homeless students in Chicago's Public School system. CPS is trying to outfit those students with school supplies through the kitsforkidz.org website so consider a donation to help out.
One To Watch: Federated Stores vs. Marshall Fields and the City of Chicago
Avoiding the new City Hall allegations will take more effort than hearing about them. The real battle next month will be the upcoming Skirmish on State St: the efforts by Federated Stores and its CEO Terry J. Lundgren to tear down the good name of Marshall Field’s. The Sun-Times picked up on our recent posts yesterday. We’re betting Lundgren’s recent veiled comments in the press at surveying Chicago residents about the importance of the Field’s name will slowly morph into comments like “We’re trying to do what’s best for the people of Chicago who demand a world class store.” Make the survey effort easy on Federated and Mr. Lundgren by dropping him a letter or a phone call using the information we posted here.
Chicagoist's Choice: Whole Foods
Whole Foods is our popular pick of the month because who knew that Chicago loves Whole Foods so much. .. like with it's whole entire heart!? So when we likened Whole Foods to being the "Walmart of Grocery Stores" you let us know we were offending your dearly beloved. You let us know SIXTY NINE times. Still, we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
Many thanks to Scott Smith for his contributions to this post.