Chicago Stories Threepeat

Some random musings that have been floating around my brain this week.

 (1) I just accepted every friend request I had on Facebook. I had no idea who 99% of the people were, but if they want to be my friend, why deny them the pleasure? I think “collecting friends” to pump up your page makes people feel important. I only have real friends on my page. Better to have 25 friends and one million dollars than $25 and one million friends. At least I think so.



(2) Part of the corked bat that Sammy Sosa got caught with in a Cubs game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on June 3, 2003 is for sale on-line at a sports memorabilia site. (www.schulteauctions.com) Auctioneer Ray Schulte says the barrel could fetch anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000 by the time bidding ends Oct. 31. The bid on Tuesday, October 12th at 10:19 a.m. was $5050. Also on the same auction site was an original B&W photo of Babe Ruth from the 1928 World Series. The current bid on that was zero! People really have their heroes mixed up!



(3) Everybody hates the parking meter boxes in Chicago, unless they are a shareholder of Laz Parking that got the deal when the meters were privatized. There have been countless stories how this fiscal blunder could cost Chicago billions of dollars in unrealized revenue. Some person or persons is so mad they have stolen 20 meter boxes in the last month. Each box weighs about 200 pounds. The removal process takes time You can’t just carry one of them off on your back. Plus they are anchored to the sidewalk!. Are passers-by ignoring the criminal act because they hate the meters too? The irony is that for all the laborious work, I bet there is not that much cash to steal from the box because people use credit cards to pay the money-eating monsters. These thieves should pay attention to infamous bank robber Willie Sutton who said he robbed banks because that is where the money was! The only money in the meters is in the pockets of the Laz executives!



(4) Early voting started this week. In 2008, a presidential election year, about 700,000 people early voted out of 4.76 million registered voters in the six-county area. At the time, Cook County Clerk David Orr said, "Each day seems to break a record. This is the most intense presidential election I've ever seen. People are willing to stand and wait. They're just so intent on it." The Tribune predicted, “In Chicago, early turnout is expected to exceed 25 percent of the total vote, or about 245,000 of the 1.2 million expected to cast ballots.” The political pundits are saying the totals will be nothing like that this year for a mid-term election. This is insane! It is more important to me who the next Governor of Illinois is (subliminal hint: Scott Lee Cohen) because, as the late Tip O’Neill, former speaker of the House was quoted as saying,” All politics are local.” But O’Neill revealed in his autobiography, “Man of The House,” it was actually his father who said it to him when he lost a race for the City Council in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So the pundits are wrong when they constantly misquote O’Neill and maybe they will be wrong about the midterms.