Blizzard of blizzard news. Most of what I’m watching is about Lake-a-palooza or, to borrow an old line about an old football stadium in Cleveland, the “Mistake on the Lake”—what the city did or didn’t do and should or shouldn’t have done to keep our royal roadway, Lake Shore Drive, open or passable or at least out of every newscast around the world. We’ll reserve judgment until we have more facts, but you don’t have to, so here are a few things to consider:
- No pass from Kass. Trib columnist John Kass on a basic rule of snow removal—never lose control of Lake Shore Drive—and the “Daley fall guy” who apparently fell into a snow drift, Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Tom Byrne.
- Rocky Rhodes. Thorough blizzard debrief, without sympathy or sugar-coating, from Beachwood Reporter’s eminent contrarian, Steve Rhodes.
- Hinz varieties. Crain’s political writer Greg Hinz tells you how the candidates for Chicago mayor critiqued the city’s handling of the blizzard, and then offers his unique take on what the critiques say about the candidates.
- A hero is not a sandwich. In this case, it’s a term rightly applied to all the people who stepped up in a big way to save a life or ease a burden during the blizzard. The Daily Herald writes about 17-year-old Ricky Dingraudo, who may have saved the life of his Elk Grove neighbor by administering CPR after the neighbor suffered a heart attack while using a snowblower. Or the unidentified CTA bus driver who drove two miles out of her way to keep Sun-Times editor Shamus Toomey from getting stranded.
- Bits of non-blizzard news. The New York Times reports on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to take a bite out of the Big Apple’s unsustainable pension costs. And a Sun-Times editorial laments the findings of a study indicating minorities are much more likely than whites to be jailed for minor drug offenses. The paper says the system would be fairer and less expensive if we focused more on rehabilitation than incarceration.
