Sun-Times Editor Michael Cooke leaving for Toronto Star

The last of the plague that Conrad Black brought to Chicago is leaving. This is the best news that the Sun-Times has had in years, and, at last, gives the paper a better chance for survival. The respected John Barron as publisher and the new editor (the current managing editor and real Chicagoan Don Hayner would be a good choice) should provide a shot in the arm.

In the Company Of Misery…Chicago is #3

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Now comes Forbes magazine, dumping on Chicago as the nation’s third most miserable city. Local loyalty should compel me to come to poor Chicago’s defense, but Forbes didn’t lay it on heavy enough.

City rankings, of course, are total bull hockey; ever since newspapers and magazines discovered computers, they found they could gin up a cheap, but well-noticed story, by slicing and dicing the so-called data to arrive at rankings based on fraudulent methodology.

And one could conclude that the Forbes’ ranking is obviously bogus because it asserts that the nearly comatose Detroit is less miserable than Chicago. Even Forbes seemed surprised when its methodology determined that Chicago was more forlorn than Cleveland.

Not even the election of Chicagoan Barack Obama as president could offset the city’s “lousy weather, long commutes, rising unemployment and the highest sales tax rate in the country…. High rates of corruption by public officials didn’t help either,” the magazine said.

That’s it?

If you ask me, the list should have been longer, much longer.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Daley hoping to land funds for O'Hare -- chicagotribune.com

Maybe Mayor Richard M. Daley can explain while he's asking for this money, why he needs it when he and his administration time after time assured us that the money was there to move ahead on this absurd expansion. Maybe he should be required to explain to American taxpayers why they should be called upon to fix his mistakes.