Toine, mira al pajarito

Hay diferentes maneras de ganar pasta cuando el balón ceja de rodar. Hay quienes se intentan colar en algún banquillo o se meten al mercadeo de los representantes. Otros directamente se meten en los despachos o se ponen al otro lado de las cámaras. Los hay que directamente se limitan a vivir como monjes en sus lujosas casas o en sus alejadas granjas administrando lo ganado en sus exitosas carreras. Y también exsten aquellos que terminan firmando autógrafos en la cárcel. Hace nada hablamos de los líos judiciales por asesinato a los que se enfrentaba Jayson Williams. Hoy el que va caminode enfrentarse a los tribunales es otro All Star, Antoine Walker, que ha sido denunciado por el mal estado de los inmuebles que posee en Chicago bajo la propiedad de dos de sus empresas, Walker Ventures LLC and AW Realty LLC. El exCeltic se ha disculpado en el Chicago Tribune del estado de varios de estos edificios habitados. Uno de ellos está cerca del estado de ruina, al tener profundas deficiencias en el suministro de agua por la rotura de las tuberías y estar inutilizados los sótanos, además de haber riesgo de caida de alguna de los ladrillos de la fachada. Una docena de acusaciones se ciernen sobre la figura de Walker por impagos de varias deudas y el mal mantenimiento de los edificios de su propiedad. No es la única razón por la que la exestrella de la NBA va a dar trabajo a sus abogados. Toine está inmerso en una causa criminal por tener deudas producto de apuestas en tres casinos de Las Vegas. Una forma rápida de malgastar una fortuna.

Whenever an article is emailed to me or I receive an alert regarding a victim of an assault that used “self-defense” to ward off the assailant I find it imperative to post the published story.  I always give kudos to all self-defense instructors because females need us – there are plenty of females to go around to train and teach.  Hats off to Gabby for thinking and reacting, not becoming frozen in fear and thank you to Bonnie and Ronald Thiel for reaching out to their community with their WISE program (Women Initiating Safe Environments).

Self-defense classes teaching women how to protect themselves

By Ruth Fuller

Special to the Tribune

November 27, 2009

Gabby Parlier knew she was breaking the No. 1 rule she learned in her women’s self-defense class when she walked home alone in the dark on a deserted highway.

Parlier, 18, said she heard her attacker running up behind her before he grabbed her and demanded money. He was armed with a knife, she said.

“I started screaming bloody murder,” Parlier said of the attack earlier this month in Augusta, Ga. “There were no cars, so no one could hear me. I knew from my self-defense classes that I had to take him to the ground.”

Parlier, who recently moved to Augusta from Johnsburg, credits her self-defense training at the Spring Grove FlyingDragons Martial Arts Academy and WISE, or Women Initiating Safe Environments, for saving her life.

Parlier’s attacker punched her in the face and dragged her into the woods. She said she kicked him repeatedly and eventually freed herself and ran away.

“The kicking finally got him to stop and they were kicks I learned in class,” she said. “That’s what saved me.”

Bonnie Thiel, owner and head instructor of the school where Parlier trained, said it’s satisfying to know that she has helped someone like Parlier.

“It is my passion,” she said. “If I can stop women from getting raped, that is what is important to me.”

It’s a woman’s instinct to be a nurturer, but that makes her more susceptible to attacks, Thiel said. Women tend to be more trusting and afraid to hurt people’s feelings, which can put them in dangerous situations, she said.

Thiel, 56, is assisted by her husband, Ronald, 59, who is the school’s associate instructor.

Thiel has been teaching martial arts for more than 24 years. She began taking classes at age 31 after having four children.

“I needed to do something to get myself out,” she said. “I was shy and afraid of my own shadow. I looked like a victim all of the time.”

Not looking like a victim is key to not becoming one, Thiel said.

“It is the same as a lion going after the weakest in a pack of elk,” she said. “An attacker will go after the weakest-looking woman.”

According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted every two minutes.

Alex Paiz, 16, of Round Lake, said she is taking Thiel’s class so that she never becomes one of those statistics.

“It could happen to you whether you think so or not, so I want to be ready,” she said.

Julie Kim, 38, wants to be able to better protect her twin 6-year-old daughters.

The Vernon Hills resident said she learned to be less timid in the class. Timidity is a trait that many women share, Thiel said.

Yelling out a loud, forceful “No!” gets attention, scares a would-be attacker and helps wake you up, Thiel said. The problem is, many women think they will look silly if they yell or cause a scene.

Thiel teaches women that to defend themselves against an attacker, they must be mad instead of scared.

“Anger outfights fear,” she said. “Everyone will be in shock at first, but if you don’t fight you may never go home, so you have to get angry.”

At the end of the six-week class, which costs $99 for a total of 13 hours, the women get the opportunity to go one-on-one with Thiel’s husband, who wears protective gear. They can kick, knee, punch and use their full strength to try to escape — all in the dark.

“Women always think it’s not going to happen to them, or ‘I can fight back,’ but you don’t know until you are in that situation,” Thiel said. “It’s a mind-set after leaving here. The women are pumped and they are ready to go.”

Parlier said she wasn’t prepared for just how draining an attack would be.

“In the class you feel safe and they aren’t hitting back,” she said. “But I know the self-defense classes gave me the physical strength and the mental strength to fight back.”

Greg Burns has a great post in the Chicago Tribune.  He writes that all aspects of manufacturing in America have declined.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that there are smart, small, agile manufacturing companies in the U.S. that can compete with China’s low (slave) wage alternative.

One company Burns does not mention is Finkl Steel, which like many other American mills is proving that small and smart beats big and traditional (the great plants of the 1950s were smart; however, they could not change).  Finkl moved with the times, and it is growing in its new location on Chicago’s South side.

Only companies that can adapt will survive.  Only workers who have the skills need to operate computers and precision machinery will have the opportunity to work at these companies.  The days of simple tasks fueled by muscle and sweat are over.

When it comes to strategy, the world of sports provides plenty of examples of what not to do. Case in point: the Harvard-Yale football game last weekend. Harvard prevailed 14-10 due to one of the biggest strategic blunders in the history of sports. Leading the game 10-7 with only 2:25 left, Yale’s first-year coach Tom Williams decided not to punt the ball on fourth down with 22 yards to go from his own 26-yard line. Yale’s fake punt was unsuccessful and Harvard marched in to score the winning touchdown.

Afterward, many including the Chicago Tribune editorial board, came to his defense, saying it was the right move. Their arguments centered on statistical analyses showing higher probability for success not punting (79%) than punting (70%). What all the supporters failed to take into account is context. Context is the current situation, which in this case showed only 2:25 left on the clock and a fourth down with a long way to go.

Good strategists know that two of the most important tools at their disposal are distance and time. Review many military battles and you’ll see how great generals used distance and time to defeat their enemies. In the case of Yale, they should have used both by having their punter (the top-rated one in the Ivy League) create greater distance for Harvard to travel in a decreasing period of time. They failed to use either and it cost them the game. 

We evaluate strategy on how well it achieves our goals. Let’s assume Yale’s goal was to win the game. Coach William’s strategy of running the ball on fourth down and 22 yards to go failed in helping them reach their goal. The Chicago Tribune editor wrote: “Even if the gamble doesn’t always work, it will almost always be more fun than dutifully kicking the ball away.” This is akin to saying air travel will almost always be more exciting if you skydive from the plane without a parachute. Exciting, yes. Effective, no. This lack of critical thinking is shocking until we recall that this is the same editorial board that endorsed Rod Blagojevich for Illinois Governor…twice!

How are you using time and distance in your strategy to outperform the competition?  

Brian Hamilton from the Chicago Tribune has a great article this morning about the rumors swirling around South Bend and the Notre Dame Football program. The most interesting nugget that came out of it, to me, is the fact that Jimmy Clausen has sold his house next to campus. I long figured that Clausen would be gone after this season, especially with the imminent firing of Charlie Weis.

Now let me preface the following statement by saying that I appreciate everything that Clausen did for the program. He came in, put ND back in the mind of big-time recruits, took his lumps for 2 years, and single-handedly (well…with the help of Golden Tate) help keep this team above water for most of this season. With that being said, I am not sad he is leaving. I think Clausen is immensely talented but he just never had that winning “it” factor like Brady Quinn did in his final 2 years as the QB. A lot of the time, it just seemed like he was going through the motions. I know he was clutch in many games this year but, to me, there was always something missing. Maybe it is just the fact that he led the Irish through the worst 3 year stretch in the program’s history. I think this might actually be a good thing for the future coach coming in – if Dayne Crist is fully healthy come next September. The new coach will have a clean slate, groom a new QB in a new offense, and hopefully Crist has that “it” factor that I just didn’t see in Clausen.

I wish Clausen the best of luck at the next level. I think he will be very successful. I will appreciate him fighting through injury and continuing to play. I will remember the comeback wins. I just think that a clean slate for a new coach (since Clausen and Weis will be forever linked) will be a good thing for the long-term health of the program.

The Chicago Tribune (http://tinyurl.com/autism-alternatives 11/23, Tsouderos, Callahan) reports, “Thousands of US children undergo” alternative “therapies…at the urging of physicians who say they can successfully treat” some “children with autism.” However, “after reviewing…scientific studies and interviewing top researchers in the field, the Tribune found that many of these treatments amount to uncontrolled experiments on vulnerable children.” Some therapies include vitamin and supplement regimens, oxygen chambers, hormones, and even “chelation,” even though “last year, the National Institutes of Health halted a controversial government-funded study of chelation before a single child with autism was treated” after finding that “rats without lead poisoning showed signs of cognitive damage after being treated with a chelator.”

Last week there was a headline in the local section of the Chicago Tribune that caught my eye. The headline was “Buffalo Grove boy dials 911 after parents take away his Xbox video game.”  The story behind the headline was the parents of a 15-year-old boy took away his Xbox as punishment for some unknown misbehavior. The boy was none too pleased so he dialed 911…and hung up.  Hang ups to 911 are taken very seriously by police, so the police went to the boy’s home to investigate. When they showed up on his doorstep, the 15-year-old crapped in his pants told the police about his punishment and asked if his parents had the right to take away his Xbox. The police tazed the little shit told the boy that yes, his parents had the authority to take away his Xbox. The police also told the boy that if he felt like his rights were being violated he should have called the ACLU, not 911  he should always listen to his parents.

This story makes me…..

• ….not want to get my kids a video game system
• ….not want to teach my mischievous 3-year-old how to dial 911
• ….hope that this kid’s parents took away his Xbox for a very, very long time 

IEA Prez Ken Swanson

Reverend Senator James Meeks.

Sunday’s anti-union blast from the Chicago Tribune suddenly found a way to praise Senator Meeks when just a year ago it was damning him. IEA Prez Ken Swanson responds:

We cannot support Sen. Meeks’ proposal for school vouchers; taking resources away from public schools will only hurt the students in the system. But we understand the frustration that has caused him to seek alternative solutions to the Illinois school funding crisis.

As a union, we stand with Sen. Meeks and with every other Illinois policymaker who supports the basic right for every student, no matter where that student lives, to attend a great public school.

We stand with Sen. Meeks against those politicians who prize power above principle, whose energies are devoted to the next election while ignoring the funding crisis that has damaged generations of children.

We agree with Sen. Meeks that the time has come for the government of our state to take care of the students and give them the opportunity to succeed.

Do violence-prevention programs work

Our old friend John Madden recently talked to the Chicago Tribune and it can be found here:

http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/players-only/2009/10/john-madden-blackhawks-fans-have-been-great.html

Quite a difference from the John Madden that I used to talk to in the Devils’ locker room, but I am glad he is enjoying himself with the young, up-and-coming Blackhawks.

Interesting read and some examples of “How Google Wave is Changing the News“. Very neat early day experiments.

At the moment, the early adopters of Google Wave are trying things out and playing with it. And this group is likely biased towards the tech savvy ones and spread around the world (thus not necessary local in your city nor even care about things happening in your country). I think it will be dangerous to draw much conclusions from people participating in Wave conversations and then concluding their views as representative of your town/city/society as a whole.

Surveying people “randomly” over the the phone in the early early days of telephone will bound to produce biased result with people who are “rich” enough and “savvy” enough to want a phone in their home. It is probably not fair to survey people on their satellite phones (or Google Wave) to get their views on Oprah ending her show in 2011 and then try to draw some general conclusion.

P.S. I think Google Wave has the potential to be a powerful tool, but we need to see how the experiments pans out first and also what we learn from these experiments. For example, a Wave that collects factual eye witness accounts of a notable event (a fire, a concert, an accident, etc) may be a neat way to use Wave.

Now I want to see some Canadian news media doing some Waving! How about CBC News, as the leader in many things internet, you want to give it a try?

• Ugh: “[T]he White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.” New York Times

• Sixty-eight percent of Iowa Republicans view Sarah Palin favorably, which means Iowa Republicans are just as dumb as other Republicans, despite their fancy caucusness. CNN Political Ticker

• Homes sale rise from jack shit in September to better than jack shit in October and it means…something? Nothing? L.A. Times

• This is the lead story on the chicagotribune.com. No wonder journalism is doomed. Chicago Tribune

• Philippines still not safe 43 years after John, Paul, George and Ringo barely escape with their lives. New York Times

• Frank Rich gauges the Sarah Palin phenomenon correctly when so many have failed. New York Times
  

Censorship in the Chicago Suburbs. Stevenson High strives to keep its ivory tower image sparkling.

Did anyone out there in the blogosphere know that teenagers have sex, smoke, and drink even though they are not supposed to? Well, don’t tell that to the administration of Adlai E. Stevenson High School out in the North Shore Suburbs of Chi-Town. Journalism students at the nationally awarded high school’s nationally awarded newspaper, The Statesman, were recently forbidden from running a front page story on “illegal” activity among the school’s student body. The article relied on anonymous sources (imagine that, anonymous sources. Deep Throat anyone?) and the administration felt the story was biased and inappropriate.

The sad part is the administration is trying to spin this as the faculty advisors of the paper’s problem and make them out to be the censors. However, anyone who has any experience in education can imagine the likely scenario . . .

Principal: “So have a seat, Mr. Newspaper Adviser Person”

Adviser: “Um, what’s this all about, Ms. Gonzales?”

Principal: “We think this issue of the Statesman doesn’t need to run with THAT article. DON’T YOU AGREE?”

Adviser: (Thinks about the 1st Amendment, then remembers his wife, kids, and mortgage) “Oh, yes ma’am. I think this article is a clear violation of our paper’s standards. I’ll have a word with the students.”

The adviser goes back to class and says “Kids, this week’s paper isn’t running.”

Students: “Well damn, Mr. Adviser. WTF?”

Adviser: “You’ll all have mortgages one day and then you’ll understand!”

So, for keeping its fake suburban utopian image of a white flight haven clean and shining even at the expense of censoring a tremendously successful STUDENT run newspaper, A.E. Stevenson High School is awarded today’s IDIOT PATROL IDIOT OF THE MOMENT and the faculty advisers get an honorable mention for lacking the guts to stand up for their students just to save their own necks.

Follow this link to the details of the story in the Chicago Tribune and when you finish reading it you can check out the lame excuse the Chief Spin-Doctor Head of the Communication Arts Department gave for pulling the article.

“Chicago, we tell your stories” was the headline of a folded announcement over page one of the Chicago Tribune this morning.  ALL CAPS. Inside, editor Gerould Kern wrote: “We bring you stories about people who are part of the everyday drama of life in Chicago, stories that reveal who we are and what we value.” The backpage introduced the writers, columnists and photographers labelled “Chicago storytellers.”

Everyman news.

I had not heard or seen it so blatantly articulated before in a major newspaper. It validates all that I have researched and observed and continue to see in newspapers, not just in this country, but around the world. And not just in print, but in digital media formats, from blogs to broadcast outlets and long form text.

It’s about the story.

At the Medill School of Journalism, where this quarter I am teaching the freshmen in Reporting & Writing, one assignment was a speech story. Students needed to cover a newsworthy speech for credit sometime during the quarter, but regardless of when it happened,  it was due on Friday, November 20. Of course, about 12 of the 16 from my lab came in right on deadline. And three of the stories were about Gerry Kern’s speech at NU a few months ago. I graded those this morning.  

I was in the audience, too, for Kern’s speech and students got the basic gist. But today’s announcement on the Sunday front page from Kern was more than what he discussed back then. Today’s explicit declaration of a company-wide pursuit of everyman  narrative validates my assertion that everyman news is the direction of media, regardless of platform.

The story is king.

The audience craves stories that are personal, more in depth and categorized as human interest. They want a face to the news. They want the value-added journalism that is more than an opinion-soaked blog or an instant update from Twitter.

It gives me fodder for an essay I am working on for a magazine: the future of digital narrative. Far beyond the finite boundaries of a front page, journalism is emerging as a dim sum of narrative from a multitude of sources. Readers find the story they want, regardless of host outlet. The appetite is for a la carte narrative. Everyman news.

by Chad Molloy
I don’t know about you, but on my daily commute, I’ll pass dozens of those coin-operated newspaper-dispensing machines. What have I noticed? While the majority of Chicago’s free publications (The Reader, The Onion, etc.) are well stocked, by 8:30 a.m. or so, a good 90% of the boxes stocking pay publications (Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Times, USA Today, etc.) are completely empty, completely out of stock. What I do know is that it’s not that these boxes haven’t been stocked in the first place, as I’ll see them filled to the brim just moments earlier. But in the time it takes me to walk into Starbucks or Corner Bakery to grab my morning cup of coffee, the entire stock (which, I estimate as being somewhere between 15-20 copies of each paper) is gone. Then, just a couple blocks away, I’ll see a disheveled-looking man (clearly not an actual employee of any of these publications), selling papers… He takes the pay publications vs. the free, and with that, he now holds a commodity, ripe for sale (income that goes to him, not to the company that actually manufactured the paper).

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s happening: someone pays for one paper, takes the entire stock, and sells them on the street. In the case of the New York Times, whose price is $2.00 daily, someone paying for a single paper, taking all of them, and selling these, can equal a $38 loss per machine. While  $38 daily doesn’t seem all that impressive, let’s think of it this way:

• The New York Times has 13,300 newspaper vending machines nationwide.
• At an estimate of 20 papers per machine, this equals roughly 266,000 papers.
• At $2 per day, NYT has $532,000 in potential revenue per day invested in these self-serve boxes
• If the scenario I describe above applied to all boxes (which, of course, it wouldn’t be prudent to make that assumption), NYT would bring in $26,600 in revenue per day.
• $532,000 in potential revenue – $26,600 in actual revenue = $505,400 in lost revenue per day.

Earlier this year, CNN reported that revenue from these self-serve boxes has been on the decline for the past 5 years. In that report, they note that income generated from free-standing newsstands (train stations, sidewalks, etc) and convenience stores have not seen the same drastic decline. What we can gather from this is that while people are reeling from the down economy, they will still pay for their news.

I am not suggesting by any means that this is a scientific study (it’s not). I’m only suggesting that the drop in revenue from these machines can possibly be attributed to the fact that the print industry is trusting society with an “honor system” method of obtaining their product. With all the talk surrounding “the death of the print industry,” the print industry has overlooked a way to put a stop on this rampant loss of revenue: abolish coin-operated boxes, bring back old fashioned newsies (or, you know… just 1 newsstand per 5 boxes), and realize that the honor system is not a solid business model anymore.

Blind advocates in Chicago are handing out free Pocket Money Marker Braillers this Wednesday morning, encouraging the public to use them to mark their paper money on behalf of those of us who can’t see. Hanni and I are doing a school presentation that morning, so we won’t be able to join the demonstration. We’ll be with them in spirit, though!

The demonstration – and the brailler giveaway — is intended to make the public aware that the Treasury Department should mark U.S. currency in order to prevent discrimination against those of us who are blind. An op-ed piece I wrote about this issue appeared in Friday’s Chicago Tribune:

180 countries use printed paper money, and the United States is the only one that prints bills all the same size and color, no matter how much each bill is worth.
Last year a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. currency system discriminates against blind people. The court decision was not a unanimous one, and some high muckity-mucks weren’t exactly happy with the ruling, either. The National Federation of the Blind, for example. NFB strongly opposed the 2002 lawsuit that led to the ruling. They figure that most blind people have found ways to cope with paper currency and say there are other, more pressing needs to address. Treasury Secretary
Henry M. Paulson, Jr. testified against it, too. He said the blind can function fine using credit cards or electronic scanners to identify different bills,
and if that didn’t work they could rely on help from others.

The NFB and Paulson do have a point. In the 20+ years I have been blind, I have never been shortchanged by a cashier. Even Chicago cab drivers – who have an undeserved reputation for being rude – have been honest with me, correcting me when I’ve made mistakes and tried to pay them too much. Still, I feel pretty stupid sometimes when a bill unfolds itself, or gets mangled up in my wallet, and I have to ask what money I’m carrying.

You can read the entire editorial online — it’s called Paper Money that Works for the Blind –and leave comments there at the Tribune site if you’d like. And hey, if you happen to be out shopping in Chicago this Wednesday morning, word has it that most of the free money-braillers will be handed out in front of Water Tower Place – check it out!

Welcome once again to a recap of our weekly finds from around the internet.

As always, we begin our journey by fortifying ourselves with a piece of cheesecake.  This week, at Chris’ request, that cheesecake is Padma Lakshmi, the host of Top Chef on The Food Network.  I have to be honest and say I’m curious to see what kind of traffic the combination of cheesecake and Padma Lakshmi drives.

Padma’s geek credentials are strong.  Besides her work on The Food Network, she has been a runway model, the love interest in an EELS music video, Sean Bean’s nemesis in Sharpe’s Challenge and, perhaps most importantly, an alien princess on Star Trek:  Enterprise.

It’s good to be Scott Bakula.

Oh, and she was married to Salman Rushdie.

On with the links.

1. Chicago Tribune columnist literally eats his words re:  Bulls C Joakim Noah.
2. Between Two Ferns with Zack Galifanakis, the best talk show EVER schools Conan.
3. The 100 Greatest Quotes from The Wire.
4. Newsweek presents the decade in 7 seconds.
5. Smart guys fight over football; Malcom Gladwell puts the hurt on a reviewer over QBs and draft status.
6. A trailer for a movie where Manny Pacquiauo fights a giant crab.
7. College football play of the year from Bethel College in Kansas.
8. Commonsense?  Conservatism?  Verbal tic?
9. Microsoft blows a software rollout?  No way!
10. Stephe’s a Trekkie…ummm…Trekker.
11. E*Trade baby outtakes.  Funnier than you think.
12. Calibrate.
13. Bacon Envelopes.  Thank you science.
14. Humorous bailout rant.
15. Existentialism.
16. Interview with Lemmy.  \m/
17. Robot band.
18. Rescuing the horns for metal.  See above.
19. That’s both gross and wrong.  More wrong, but still gross.
20. More cryptozoology.
21. Our obligatory Twilight link of the week.
22. And I’ve read two.
23. And I drafted two.
24. I’m pretty sure the word you’re looking for is treason.
25. Disturbing XBox 360 story #1.
26. Disturbing XBox 360 story #2.
27. NO!  REALLY!
28. And, finally, Jon Stewart once again delivers the truth.  This time about Nancy Grace.

Not Many Photos Exist From Gettysburg

Close up of above photo with only known image of Lincoln at Gettysburg

On This Date in History: I have a few words concerning the events of November 19. 1863 but anything that I could say would pale in comparison to the speech reprinted below. It is the the Gettysburg Address and it was delivered 145 years ago today. The president was not invited until about two weeks prior to the ceremony. He was not the main speaker. Edward Everett, a noted statesman from Boston and Harvard President, was given two months notice to work on his speech, which took about two hours to deliver. Mr. Lincoln’s speech was but 270 words. It has been accepted that Lincoln wrote the address on a scrap of paper while on the train to Pennsylvania because it was reported that way in a novel. However, historian Stephen B. Oates points out in his biography, With Malice Toward None, A Life of Abraham Lincoln that the train was too crowded and noisy for him to work on it. Instead, Oates says that he wrote part of it on White House stationery before he left and finished the rest on the morning of the event in Gettysburg.

Verbiage in Invitation to Lincoln Very Interesting

It has been reported that the president was sick. While I find nothing to confirm that he was ill during the proceedings, I suspect that people have made the assumption, perhaps accurate, because after he returned to the White House, he was diagnosed with varioloid, which has been described as a mild for of smallpox. I’m not sure about that one because it seems to me that a “mild form of smallpox” is akin to being “a little pregnant.” Also, it is widely reported that his speech was panned in newspapers across the land. The Chicago Times and paper from Harrisburg, PA certainly show that there were some. However, not all papers were non-plussed by his remarks. In fact, the Chicago Tribune was sharply in contrast to its rival and even Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune recognized the greatness of the speech. I believe I recall a quote from Edward Everett who remarked afterward, “Mr President, you were able to say in a few minutes what I could not in two hours.” This is probably not a direct quote but something reasonably close.

Words of Nov 19, 1863 Long Remembered

Harrisburg Patriot and Union: “We pass over the silly remarks of the President; for the credit of the Nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall no more be repeated or thought of.”

Chicago Times: “The cheeks of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterances.”

Chicago Tribune: “The dedicatory remarks by President Lincoln will live among the annals of man.”

Horace Greeley: “I doubt that our national literature contains a finer gem than that little speech at the Gettysburg celebration, November 19, 1863… after the close of Mr. Everett’s classic but frigid oration.”

Leaving Gettysburg For the Cemetery

I think what may be lost regarding the speech is what it shows. It is an early indication of where Mr. Lincoln was heading in terms of after the war. Even on a battlefield well north of Washington, Lincoln was confident of victory. What often gets overlooked is that on the same day, US Grant had forced the capitulation of Vicksburg which essentially gave the Union full control of the Mississippi River and effective cut the Confederacy in two. The victory at Vicksburg arguably sealed the deal for the outcome of the war. Mr. Lincoln was aware of that that and if you read carefully, you can see the hints of what his notions were regarding his intentions. He does not give a rah-rah victory speech with talk of retribution. He does not discriminate between the allegiances of the soldiers and speaks of the “unfinished business” and a “new birth of freedom.”  Clearly he is talking about concluding the war but he is also referencing a nation of freedom for all. This speech is not just one of honor but also one of reconciliation.  It has always eluded me of how differently our nation’s history might have been had the 16th president been allowed to conclude the “unfinished business.”  How would he have handled Reconstruction and the reconciliation of the former enemies.  John Wilkes Booth lives in infamy as the man who deprived the nation of “what might have been.”  There are 5 known drafts of the Gettysburg Address. Each seems to have some variance.  Here is a version of the Gettysburg Address:

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Weather Bottom Line:  The bottom line is that the crappy weather is coming to an end.  That dry slot I had mentioned for Wednesday ended up being pretty decent because we ended up with some nice afternoon sunshine but the gloom returns all day today. Friday through Sunday though, as the pesky cut off low finally gets booted, look for a lot of sunshine seasonally cool conditions with lows in the upper 30’s and low 40’s and highs in the 50’s.

Here’s the Chicago Tribune headline for the Cubs’ first game ever, played on Tuesday, April 25, 1876:

And the box score:

The box score’s hard to read, but the Cubs won 4-0, scoring in the second, third, fourth, and seventh innings. They got eight hits, all singles, with three of them by pitcher Al Spalding. Louisville pitcher Jim Devlin threw the first pitch, in Louisville, at 3:30. Attendance was “about 2,000 or a little less,” compared to the prediction that “10,000 would be a small figure” for estimating the number of fans at the game.

But, a hill adjoining the grounds gave people “a clear view of the game over a short fence, and it was crowded and peopled with masses of citizens, who chose to husband their cash and steal half-a-dollar each from the clubs. The audience which did not pay was fully as large as that which did.” The game took one hour and fifty minutes, and “the ground was not in good shape, and was fully as moist as the Chicago park, being sticky and soft in the outfield, and very dead all over. The character of the game depended largely on this fact.” The Cubs made three errors, and Louisville made six. The Tribune added: “Very little money was wagered, the Chicagoans generally refusing to give the odds of five to one which were demanded before the game.”

At the time, the Chicago team was called the White Stockings (but it’s easier to keep straight if we just call them the Cubs); the Tribune didn’t call the Louisville team by any particular name, but it wound up being known as the Grays. The Cubs wound up winning the N.L. pennant easily, going 52-14 over the 66-game season. Check out the season stats.

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