The Week That Was: e-Cigs, B-and D-listers, Romance and Money
By Staff in News on Sep 7, 2014 8:00PM
Remember when Jenny McCarthy, self-proclaimed medical expert, e-Cig pitch woman, short-term View host, sometimes actress, and Sun-Times columnist, claimed to have an online dating profile looking for a regular Chicago guy?
Well all of us Grabowskis can stop pining. It turns out dating Brian Urlacher is so unpleasant it can send a Playmate of the Year running for a former boy band member and lesser Wahlberg brother.
Her marriage to Donnie Wahlberg Labor Day weekend in exotic downtown St. Charles only rated a video card from A-list brother, Mark. Perhaps that’s because the couple doesn’t have a good Brangelina-style portmanteau to sum up their union. Jonnie? Denny? McWahlberg?
Now that her gig on The View ended, McCarthy’s eyesight seems to have improved drastically, allowing her to walk down the aisle sans spectacles. Or maybe leaving the glasses off helps her pretend she at least scored a Baldwin brother.
On the topic of marriage, U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner, a University of Chicago Law School senior lecturer and veritable judicial rock star, mocked neighbors Indiana and Wisconsin while assuring the world same-sex couples are better than drunk breeders or kissin’ cousins.
Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children, their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexuals do not produce unwanted children, their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.
But he meant it in the nicest way possible, honest.
Posner, who is said to be the most widely quoted jurist of the 20th Century, proved his literary as well as his legal chops. He cited Franz Kafka, Shirley Jackson, King Henry IV of England, the Book of Leviticus, and Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 40-page decision that was heralded as a potential nail in the coffin of the argument against gay marriage.
Now if someone would just tell him the hundred or more uses of the word “homosexual’’ might just be a tad outdated and offensive—sort of in the way your grandpa is unintentionally racist when he wants to order Chinese food. Maybe we can get Posner a copy of the GLAAD handbook?
In other news of meaningful same-sex relationships, the bromance between Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner and Mayor Rahm Emanuel was fully outed.
Now you can tell the voters Rauner is a member in a $150,000 wine club. You can spread the word the billionaire was planning to have political donors go dove hunting with him for $10,000 a head. You can reveal that his 1993 van is more of a prop than McCarthy’s aforementioned eyeglasses.
And you can even repeat over and over that he has publicly stated a desire to eliminate the minimum wage. But there is no greater and faster way to show he’s an elitist, a 1-percenter, a modern, male Marie Antoinette, than to let people know he pals around with the Chicago’s top Democrat.
Remember how Uber got a boost last week when Gov. Quinn vetoed very basic regulations for Uber and other so-called rideshare services, meaning drivers don't have to meet the same licensing and insurance standards as cabs?
Well, Uber sponsored a police militarization conference and training seminar called Urban Shield, perhaps informing us how it gets away with operating in towns before any approval or even application process. Stay tuned for the new slogan: Uber über alles.
Meanwhile, we’re not really buying Quinn behind his push mower, and his effort to dine on only $79 for a week was an empty gesture. But for the Grabowskis so recently denied a shot at a home-grown centerfold, at least he doesn’t run in Rahm’s circles.
Speaking of running in circles for Rahm, His Honor is offering workers $2,500 a month to collect petitions for his re-election campaign—which would be just above the $15-an-hour wage sought by labor organizations if workers gathered signatures only 40 hours a week.
But the solicitation calls for “long hours’’ that include nights and weekends. Should the hours get to 60 a week, that worker is earning $10.40. At 80 hours a week, it’s below the state minimum at $7.80. Maybe Rahm should make sure these “youngsters’’—as they were described—get at least the $13 an hour his new executive order requires of city contractors.
If he’s lucky, though, these kids will be from his beloved charter schools and not be able to do such complex math problems.
While there may be plenty of canvassers eager to take the Mayor’s money, it’s unclear if Aldermen and aldermanic candidates will be. Emanuel’s new political action committee, Forward Chicago, is on the hunt to elect City Council members friendly to the Mayor’s policies and programs. You know, yes-men. Toadies. The kind of council that both Mayors Daley used to have.
You might say that’s a pretty optimistic plan for a guy with a 35 percent approval rating.
But the Cubs, a team with a .451 winning percentage and a Triple A roster, have announced a ticket price increase for next year.
In Chicago, even when you appear to be lagging, make no little plans.
And that was the week that was.
By: Tony Boylan