Just Doing Our Job
What a week for Daley’s real Chicago to rear its head. I wonder how many people can connect the dots with how his crazy Ren 2010 program—school closings, reshuffled kids, and fired veteran teachers—has escalated the gang violence he doesn’t stop. —Sharon Schmidt
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I realize that’s it’s more arcane IOC politics than anything else that doomed this bid, but at least it doomed it. I just hope this will have some blowback on Daley, both to tarnish his “legacy” and so we can boot his ass. What pissed me off more than anything was the way they tried to ram this down our throats without making any attempt to build real public support. That and how they wanted to tear up a Frederick Law Olmsted masterpiece—Washington Park—for a stadium. Imagine the outrage in NY if the government had tried that with Olmsted’s Central Park?
Please remember that the International Olympic Committee is an international body with internal politics. No Games Chicago and Mr. Joravsky only had opinions and attempted to let people know them. The International Olympic Committee had votes and they made the decision.
Congratulations to Ben Joravsky for his tirelessly accurate reporting on the disastrous idea of the 2016 Olympic bid! His lone dissenting perspective stood in sharp contrast to the “rah-rah” schlockism of other local media’s bid coverage. Those of us possessed of any sense are delighted not only with the IOC’s decision but with its implicit message that Daley can no longer bull his way past the serious problems of basic infrastructure, both physical and social, that his interminable and tyrannous administration has wrought.
Great job, Ben et al. You guys love Chicago enough to hate the way it’s being run, and I love you for it. All the mainstream papers are just reprinting rah-rah boosterism about how we aren’t “the second city.” No wonder they’re going down the tubes. —skyperson
