Bye-bye Chicago as city of the big shoulders.  Forget P-Stone Nation and various Lords: “Unions run it” goes on billboards at city limits all three sides and maybe on buoys offshore — just across city limits, that is, for people to see as they consider entry.  Not people, you know, but successful companies of a certain size.  Hey.  This may be why Oak Park flirted with a ban on Lane Bryant: it’s the size that put trustees off.  THINK SMALL!

After more than three hours of debate, aldermen voted 35 to 14 today in favor of an ordinance that will require “big-box” retailers to pay their workers more than minimum wage.

That’s veto-proof, not that Daley would do it if he could, unless he could do it under cover of darkness, as he plowed Meigs Field under.  It’s not his style. 

The measure only applies to companies with over $1 billion in annual sales and stores of at least 90,000 square feet, which means it primarily affects Target and Wal-Mart.

It requires them to pay at least $10 an hour in wages plus another $3 in fringe benefits by July 2010. The state’s minimum wage is $6.50 an hour.

This be madness.

Here is the day’s laugh from Romenesko, hot and heavy, at which neighbors may be calling to see if I’m all right following my outburst:

Military bloggers claim mainstream media play up bad news

Wall Street Journal
Many military bloggers, or “milbloggers,” argue that the mainstream media tends to overplay negative war stories and play down positive developments. For many of these blogs, says one milblogger, “the sole purpose is to counteract the media.” The frustration of milbloggers is understandable, says Shorenstein Center’s Alex Jones. But “if the overall picture is one of continued violence and a significant lack of stability in many parts of Iraq, the individual shards of good news could be more of a distortion than a reflection of the truth.”

Posted at 9:47:41 AM

Italics added, if you please, to this super-ivory-tower comment from the Shorenstein man.  Pray tell, where the hell would newspapers be without “individual shards”?  It’s the mother’s milk of sales nourishment, for crying out loud. 

Moreover, does he really think papers give the “overall picture”?  As in booming economy with pockets of poverty, when the latter are drummed home Alinsky-like to rub raw the sores of discontent?

What does he think editors do more of, induction (gathering of facts and then deciding) or deduction (picking facts based on embracing the generality)? 

This bishop can preach to me any time:

Bishop Arthur Brazier, pastor of the Apostolic Church of God, said the hue and cry [about Wal-Mart setting up shop] in impoverished South and West Side communities is for “jobs, jobs, jobs. … No one is interested in salary or starting point. All they want is jobs. . . . When you say a living wage and a person has no wage, it doesn’t strike their heart.

“This is a union fight. I don’t think the aldermen ought to be stalking horses for the unions. Let Wal-Mart build their stores. Then, let the unions organize.”

That’s about it.  Aldermen with union labels, butt out.

Brian Lantz, 305 Home Ave, is one of three Oak Parkers, of 10 letter-writers in all, in Sunday 7/23 Chi Trib decrying the Toddler Stroger coronation as county board president nominee. Lantz suggests secession: “We have” services we need. It’s a “duplication of county government.”

Two others, Carmen Vitello and Jane Jeffries, explicitly say they will vote Republican in November. “I have always voted Democratic, but I hope there is a groundswell among Democrats to support Tony Peraica to show the party that we really want change and reform,” wrote Vitello, who is not listed. “I’ve been a proud Democrat until last week. Now I’m ashamed,” wrote Jane Jeffries, also not listed. “I voted for Forrest Claypool in the primary, and for the first time in my life, I’ll be voting Republican this fall.”

Now. Is OP village board President Pope in for a dollar, having been in for a dime for the April primary, when he made calls for defeated Dem candidate Forrest Claypool? Will he be making calls for Peraica?

S.J. Hedges of Chi Trib Wash. bureau talked to two people for his 7/23/06 story about how Bush admin. lost Syria. (Apparently successor to the 40s “who lost China?” problem.) One was a former Pentagon Middle East aide who he says pushed a hard line on Syria and now is at a think tank. The other is Syria’s aambassador to U.S.

Hedges also went to clips for assorted comings and goings, as what Rumsfeld said on the matter and, we presume, actions taken by a former CIA analyst who used to be “top Syrian expert” on the Bush Admin Natl Security Council, who wouldn’t return Hedges’s phone calls. So where he stood on Syria comes from someone else. Hedges does not say whom.

Bush admin. “stumbled,” say “some . . . analysts.” How many and what are their names? He cites one, plus an ambassador.

This is typical daily newspaper throwaway stuff, the reporter acting as expert. It’s how newspapers do it, and it’s part of their problem. The good bloggers, on the other hand, are tentative and thoughtful, regularly referring to others, weighing and balancing. They respect how the mind works. Their medium permits it. But the $2.50 ad-packed Trib doesn’t permit it. So people go elsewhere, even for the ads. How many? More every quarter, circulation figures tell us.