There’s stupid and then there’s Christine Barnes.
Barnes, 30, lives in Elmwood Park and was one of the imbicles who stopped on the tracks at a railroad grade crossing on Grand Ave. the night before Thanksgiving. An outbound Metra express train rounded a curve at about 70 miles per hour and slammed into six of the cars on the tracks, throwing those into five other cars. In all 11 cars were destroyed. No one was killed, although Barnes and a few others ended up in the hospital.
Investigators quickly determined the Metra engineer did everything he could have and that two factors contributed to the accident: the design of the intersection and the fact that the drivers stopped on the tracks.
The intersection is bad. The tracks cross Grand Ave. at a diagonal, meaning there’s more track across Grand than if the tracks crossed perpendicular to the street. Additionally, there is a stop light nearby that can cause traffic to back up past the tracks. Which is why the village or Metra or the railroad that runs that line, perhaps all three, paid for giant yellow signs that hang over Grand Ave. warning drivers of the long crossing and admonishing them not to stop on the tracks.
Stories on Friday and Saturday in both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, as well as on local TV, clearly conveyed the frustration police, Metra and crash investigators felt. Of all the steps that could have been taken to prevent the accident, the most basic and least expensive was the exercising of just a little common sense on the part of the drivers. Simply put, they shouldn’t have stopped on the tracks.
So, of course, Barnes stopped on the tracks. That’s dumb enough, but what garns her the Gold Star for Stupidity in this case are her comments in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune. In the story, by Lolly Bowean, Barnes makes clear she takes no blame. The light should have changed or the train should have stopped. But she has no culpability for stopping on the tracks. Barnes told Bowean she is tired of officials blaming the drivers. “What do they think,” she asked. “We really want to be hit by a train? I could have died.”
Of course, no one ever suggested the drivers stopped on the tracks because they wanted to be hit by a train. They’re saying the accident wouldn’t have happened if the drivers had not stopped on the tracks. They’re saying the drivers stopped on the tracks because they failed to use common sense.
They’re saying Barnes and her fellow drivers are idiots.
Every one of those drivers should be ticketed and should have their licenses suspended. But you can bet they’ll sue Metra and the village and the Illinois Department of Transportation and anyone else they can think of in a desperate, flailing attempt to assign responsibility for this accident anywhere except where it rightfully belongs – with the drivers.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Overflowin’
Sometimes the amount of shit in the toilet exceeds the toilet’s ability to process it. This can occur for one of two reasons. Either someone has laid down one ginormous poo, or several people pooed in succession, each one failing to flush and thereby growing the cumulative shitblob to a size the toilet drain is unsuited to dealing with.
Lately the rhetorical toilet has been getting pretty full on a regular basis and overflowing onto the Indignant Citizen’s nice, clean floor.
Case in point: Bill O’Reilly. On Tuesday he said on his radio show that because San Franciscans voted to oppose military recruitment in public schools and to ban handgun ownership that the United States government had no responsibility to defend that city from a terrorist attack and that it should be effectively cut off from the rest of the country and denied any federal funds.
Occasionally O’Reilly will say something that the Indignant Citizen can stomach, but that usually happens when O’Reilly is advocating a common sense approach to dealing with some stupidity like Wal-Mart asking employees not to say “Merry Christmas” this year.
Tuesday’s hyperbole serves no one’s interests save Bill O’Reilly’s, however. It’s just a stupid thing to say. And it could be easily dismissed as such were it not for the fact that the three to five million people watch his TV show on any given night, and Lord knows how many listen to the radio program, believe he’s operating in what he calls the “No-Spin Zone.” Which of course is bullshit because if he wasn’t spinning he wouldn’t be on TV. Everyone spins, especially on TV. By having an opinion, you spin. By choosing guests, you’re spinning. It should be called the “No One Else But Me Can Spin Zone.”
Reading what O’Reilly has to say about San Francisco is stomach-turning and illustrates the depths to which discourse in this country has sunk. Apparently you can’t get on TV anymore unless you’re advocating for terrorists to blow up landmarks in cities whose policies you disagree with. Hey, Chicago bans handgun ownership, too. Got sumpin’ to say about dat, Bill?
O’Reilly’s over-the-top idiocy ranks right up there with Pat Robertson saying on his “700 Club” show Thursday that residents of Dover, Pa., shouldn’t look to God for help if a natural disaster hits the town because voters there dumped the school board members who favored teaching intelligent design in public school classrooms. “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God. You just rejected him from your city.”
Later, Robertson clarified his remarks: “God is tolerant and loving, but we can’t keep sticking our finger in his eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them.”
Oh please. For chrissake, Robertson, you have the reasoning ability and the vindictiveness of a 13-year-old girl. This whole intelligent design brouhaha has gotten entirely out of hand. Someone needs to reign these Christian wackos back in. They’re becoming as militant as Middle Eastern terrorists. And that might be the next step. We already have fundamentalists and Catholic extremists killing abortion doctors and bombing abortion clinics. How long before they start shooting school superintendents who don’t support intelligent design and blowing up natural history museums?
People, it’s time to cool it the fuck down. San Franciscans pay taxes that support the federal government, and probably get back way less per dollar than they contribute. San Francisco’s infrastructure could use some upgrading, its less fortunate citizens more help from government programs; instead the city has to watch Alaska build bridges to nowhere for people who will never use them.
And by the way, Bill, in America voters make decisions. It is the American way. In fact nothing is more American. The fact that you disagree with it is irrelevant. An election was held; a decision was made. Live with it like a grownup. The Indignant Citizen has had to live with this Bush fucker, and he wasn’t even duly elected the first time. So shut the fuck up about San Francisco and concentrate on real issues.
Pat Robertson: You are going to hell. Plain and simple. God hates hate, and it’s clear you’re a hater. Buy some shorts and get ready for the trip, bitch. The Indignant Citizen will see you there and he will be coming for you.
What else? Oh, Bush’s latest attempt to rally support for this sad war in Iraq. This is a no-win situation. Democrats in congress have no room to criticize, here. They voted to give Bush the authority to wage this conflict, and they have no rhetorical standing to come back now and say it was wrong. To them the Indignant Citizen says: You should have stood up to Bush before. Now it’s too late. You’ve lost credibility. Step aside and let new leaders engage the fight.
As for Bush, he has, apparently, lost his mind completely. “We will never back down, we will never give in, we will never accept anything less than complete victory.” Holy shit, he sounds like Robert Duvall in “Apocalypse Now.” Maybe he means to. But someone should tell him that we’re fighting an unwinnable war. How does one measure “victory” against a slippery enemy like terrorism?
The tactic is brilliant from a rhetorical perspective, though, because it sets the stage for perpetual warfare. We’ll always be at war with terrorists because there is an inexhaustible supply of them, they have unmeetable demands and simply by fighting them militarily we make more of them.
Life must be strange for Ray Bradbury these days, because we have achieved the perpetual warfare he envisioned. We don’t even notice the bombers flying overhead any more, we have grown so used to the noise. In fact this Bush administration has managed to do what no other has ever done—push the bounds of the war debate beyond whether or not we should even be at war. That has already been settled. We are at war and will be for a long, long, long, long, longlonglong time. It is accepted. To end the war and seek a peaceful solution is to admit defeat, and we can’t do that.
Just one question, though. Wasn’t this mission in Iraq already accomplished?
Anyway, there’s a lot of shit in the toilet. Most of it doesn’t need to be there; it is a result of overeating, and eating the wrong things. But there it is. And so the Indignant Citizen asks: Where is the plunger? What plumber might act to drain the swirling, unflushable shitwater? The world dances and squeezes its ass cheeks together, trying to hold it in, as it awaits an answer.
Lately the rhetorical toilet has been getting pretty full on a regular basis and overflowing onto the Indignant Citizen’s nice, clean floor.
Case in point: Bill O’Reilly. On Tuesday he said on his radio show that because San Franciscans voted to oppose military recruitment in public schools and to ban handgun ownership that the United States government had no responsibility to defend that city from a terrorist attack and that it should be effectively cut off from the rest of the country and denied any federal funds.
Occasionally O’Reilly will say something that the Indignant Citizen can stomach, but that usually happens when O’Reilly is advocating a common sense approach to dealing with some stupidity like Wal-Mart asking employees not to say “Merry Christmas” this year.
Tuesday’s hyperbole serves no one’s interests save Bill O’Reilly’s, however. It’s just a stupid thing to say. And it could be easily dismissed as such were it not for the fact that the three to five million people watch his TV show on any given night, and Lord knows how many listen to the radio program, believe he’s operating in what he calls the “No-Spin Zone.” Which of course is bullshit because if he wasn’t spinning he wouldn’t be on TV. Everyone spins, especially on TV. By having an opinion, you spin. By choosing guests, you’re spinning. It should be called the “No One Else But Me Can Spin Zone.”
Reading what O’Reilly has to say about San Francisco is stomach-turning and illustrates the depths to which discourse in this country has sunk. Apparently you can’t get on TV anymore unless you’re advocating for terrorists to blow up landmarks in cities whose policies you disagree with. Hey, Chicago bans handgun ownership, too. Got sumpin’ to say about dat, Bill?
O’Reilly’s over-the-top idiocy ranks right up there with Pat Robertson saying on his “700 Club” show Thursday that residents of Dover, Pa., shouldn’t look to God for help if a natural disaster hits the town because voters there dumped the school board members who favored teaching intelligent design in public school classrooms. “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God. You just rejected him from your city.”
Later, Robertson clarified his remarks: “God is tolerant and loving, but we can’t keep sticking our finger in his eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them.”
Oh please. For chrissake, Robertson, you have the reasoning ability and the vindictiveness of a 13-year-old girl. This whole intelligent design brouhaha has gotten entirely out of hand. Someone needs to reign these Christian wackos back in. They’re becoming as militant as Middle Eastern terrorists. And that might be the next step. We already have fundamentalists and Catholic extremists killing abortion doctors and bombing abortion clinics. How long before they start shooting school superintendents who don’t support intelligent design and blowing up natural history museums?
People, it’s time to cool it the fuck down. San Franciscans pay taxes that support the federal government, and probably get back way less per dollar than they contribute. San Francisco’s infrastructure could use some upgrading, its less fortunate citizens more help from government programs; instead the city has to watch Alaska build bridges to nowhere for people who will never use them.
And by the way, Bill, in America voters make decisions. It is the American way. In fact nothing is more American. The fact that you disagree with it is irrelevant. An election was held; a decision was made. Live with it like a grownup. The Indignant Citizen has had to live with this Bush fucker, and he wasn’t even duly elected the first time. So shut the fuck up about San Francisco and concentrate on real issues.
Pat Robertson: You are going to hell. Plain and simple. God hates hate, and it’s clear you’re a hater. Buy some shorts and get ready for the trip, bitch. The Indignant Citizen will see you there and he will be coming for you.
What else? Oh, Bush’s latest attempt to rally support for this sad war in Iraq. This is a no-win situation. Democrats in congress have no room to criticize, here. They voted to give Bush the authority to wage this conflict, and they have no rhetorical standing to come back now and say it was wrong. To them the Indignant Citizen says: You should have stood up to Bush before. Now it’s too late. You’ve lost credibility. Step aside and let new leaders engage the fight.
As for Bush, he has, apparently, lost his mind completely. “We will never back down, we will never give in, we will never accept anything less than complete victory.” Holy shit, he sounds like Robert Duvall in “Apocalypse Now.” Maybe he means to. But someone should tell him that we’re fighting an unwinnable war. How does one measure “victory” against a slippery enemy like terrorism?
The tactic is brilliant from a rhetorical perspective, though, because it sets the stage for perpetual warfare. We’ll always be at war with terrorists because there is an inexhaustible supply of them, they have unmeetable demands and simply by fighting them militarily we make more of them.
Life must be strange for Ray Bradbury these days, because we have achieved the perpetual warfare he envisioned. We don’t even notice the bombers flying overhead any more, we have grown so used to the noise. In fact this Bush administration has managed to do what no other has ever done—push the bounds of the war debate beyond whether or not we should even be at war. That has already been settled. We are at war and will be for a long, long, long, long, longlonglong time. It is accepted. To end the war and seek a peaceful solution is to admit defeat, and we can’t do that.
Just one question, though. Wasn’t this mission in Iraq already accomplished?
Anyway, there’s a lot of shit in the toilet. Most of it doesn’t need to be there; it is a result of overeating, and eating the wrong things. But there it is. And so the Indignant Citizen asks: Where is the plunger? What plumber might act to drain the swirling, unflushable shitwater? The world dances and squeezes its ass cheeks together, trying to hold it in, as it awaits an answer.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
It’s About Transit, Bitch
For a week now the Indignant Citizen has tried to write about something other than the White Sox. For a week he has failed. Yes, we have this war going on, with new revelations every day about how the Bush administration duped us into sending our sons and daughters to die in the desert.
So what the hell? While the Indignant Citizen keeps replaying the audio and video portions of the Sox World Series highlights—including Paulie’s slammer, Podsednik’s walk-off, Blum’s bullet and Uribe’s unspeakable glove work—we’ll let the West Side Critic work us back into the mix a little bit:
The planets must have misaligned, the sun must be skulking off to some black hole, because it’s just not right that the Seattle Seahawks have a good football team and the Chicago Bears do not.
Let The West Side Critic explain.
On Oct. 16, The West Side Critic, his Lovely and Brilliant Wife and Father-In-Law traveled to Qwest Field (Seahawks Stadium to those who rightly reject the vile, corporate-ass-kissing name) to watch the Seahawks battle the Houston Texans.
It wasn’t much of a battle. The Seahawks monkey-stomped the Texans 41-10, with running back Shaun Alexander running roughshod over every poor bastard sheathed in a blue-and-red jersey. You could say Alexander looked for holes to run through. You could also say he looked for opposing players to run over. He didn’t fuck around. No. 37 truly is a Tall Walking Bitch.
Anyway, sitting in the bleachers, munching on kettle corn, The West Side Critic couldn’t help but think of the current state of sports. The Seattle Seahawks are pretty good. The Chicago Bears kinda suck. The Seattle Mariners suck, too. But the Chicago White Sox won the World Series. Huh?!
At least the Chicago Bears have won a Super Bowl in the last goddamn half-century. Who doesn’t remember the 1985 Chicago Bears? The West Side Critic will never forget the Fridge, the Cro-Magnon looking QB McMahon and their teammates shaking like wounded animals as they “danced” to the Super Bowl shuffle.
What The West Side Critic means is, the Bears should have a good team—they should be dancing to the Super Bowl Shuffle II—the Seahawks shouldn’t be that good (they really never were until Mike Holmgren brought himself and his meaty mustache to town), the White Sox sure as hell shouldn’t have been in the Series and the Mariners shouldn’t suck so damn bad.
Instead, everything is in reverse. Something definitely is wrong with this picture. Next thing you know, Chicagoans will start making eye contact on the street and Seattleites will starting giving each other the ol’ fuck you very much.
OK. OK. The West Side Critic is aware of The Indignant Citizen’s love of the White Sox, and therefore honestly wished the team all the best. After all, the White Sox have Freddy Garcia, that go-all-the-way-nine-inning-killer pitcher and ex-Mariner. Really, The Astros can go fuck themselves. They’re from Texas. The West Side Critic wanted the White Sox to mess with Texas. The Seahawks did.
But The West Side Critic digresses. In fact, The West Side Critic has a completely different point to make that is only marginally connected to the sports rant unleashed several paragraphs ago.
Because what’s important is how The West Side Critic, his Lovely and Brilliant Wife and his Father-In-Law got to Seahawks Stadium. We didn’t drive. We took commuter rail, run by Sound Transit, Puget Sound’s three-county behemoth of a transit agency that’s trying to run light rail, commuter trains and express buses all over urbanized Puget Sound’s ass.
Anyway, it was a pleasant trip on Sounder, the name of the train. Cushy seats. No traffic congestion. No road rage. No sea of brake lights braking. No furrowed brows. No fidgeting with the radio station to find something to distract from the clusterfuck ahead.
Smooth sailing, really. $8 roundtrip. Still, Sound Transit has its problems. It’s gone over budget in its early days and reneged on its promises. It’s supposed to run nine daily roundtrips of Sounder, from Tacoma to Seattle with several stops in between.
It runs four roundtrips. Weekdays, with weekend service for sports events like the Seahawks and Mariners. The agency says it’s going to get to nine daily roundtrips ASAP. It says it’s trying to clean up its act. We’ll see. For all of you outside the West Side (everything west of Chicago, that is), you can take all of this as the West Coast’s way of trying to do high-speed, efficient transit and kind of coming at it slowly, somewhat ineptly. It’s tough. We sprawled a lot in the early days. We like our cars.
But we also like our natural environment. We like our trees. We like alternatives, options, choices. That includes transportation. We’ll see how it goes. Certainly, energy prices seem to be conspiring to force us to rethink our way of life. A good, efficient, cost-effective passenger rail system – if we can ever truly get one in Puget Sound – would be a good thing.
Certainly, it would be far more useful than a quick, pleasant way to get to a ball game.
Peace, out.
West Side Critic
So what the hell? While the Indignant Citizen keeps replaying the audio and video portions of the Sox World Series highlights—including Paulie’s slammer, Podsednik’s walk-off, Blum’s bullet and Uribe’s unspeakable glove work—we’ll let the West Side Critic work us back into the mix a little bit:
The planets must have misaligned, the sun must be skulking off to some black hole, because it’s just not right that the Seattle Seahawks have a good football team and the Chicago Bears do not.
Let The West Side Critic explain.
On Oct. 16, The West Side Critic, his Lovely and Brilliant Wife and Father-In-Law traveled to Qwest Field (Seahawks Stadium to those who rightly reject the vile, corporate-ass-kissing name) to watch the Seahawks battle the Houston Texans.
It wasn’t much of a battle. The Seahawks monkey-stomped the Texans 41-10, with running back Shaun Alexander running roughshod over every poor bastard sheathed in a blue-and-red jersey. You could say Alexander looked for holes to run through. You could also say he looked for opposing players to run over. He didn’t fuck around. No. 37 truly is a Tall Walking Bitch.
Anyway, sitting in the bleachers, munching on kettle corn, The West Side Critic couldn’t help but think of the current state of sports. The Seattle Seahawks are pretty good. The Chicago Bears kinda suck. The Seattle Mariners suck, too. But the Chicago White Sox won the World Series. Huh?!
At least the Chicago Bears have won a Super Bowl in the last goddamn half-century. Who doesn’t remember the 1985 Chicago Bears? The West Side Critic will never forget the Fridge, the Cro-Magnon looking QB McMahon and their teammates shaking like wounded animals as they “danced” to the Super Bowl shuffle.
What The West Side Critic means is, the Bears should have a good team—they should be dancing to the Super Bowl Shuffle II—the Seahawks shouldn’t be that good (they really never were until Mike Holmgren brought himself and his meaty mustache to town), the White Sox sure as hell shouldn’t have been in the Series and the Mariners shouldn’t suck so damn bad.
Instead, everything is in reverse. Something definitely is wrong with this picture. Next thing you know, Chicagoans will start making eye contact on the street and Seattleites will starting giving each other the ol’ fuck you very much.
OK. OK. The West Side Critic is aware of The Indignant Citizen’s love of the White Sox, and therefore honestly wished the team all the best. After all, the White Sox have Freddy Garcia, that go-all-the-way-nine-inning-killer pitcher and ex-Mariner. Really, The Astros can go fuck themselves. They’re from Texas. The West Side Critic wanted the White Sox to mess with Texas. The Seahawks did.
But The West Side Critic digresses. In fact, The West Side Critic has a completely different point to make that is only marginally connected to the sports rant unleashed several paragraphs ago.
Because what’s important is how The West Side Critic, his Lovely and Brilliant Wife and his Father-In-Law got to Seahawks Stadium. We didn’t drive. We took commuter rail, run by Sound Transit, Puget Sound’s three-county behemoth of a transit agency that’s trying to run light rail, commuter trains and express buses all over urbanized Puget Sound’s ass.
Anyway, it was a pleasant trip on Sounder, the name of the train. Cushy seats. No traffic congestion. No road rage. No sea of brake lights braking. No furrowed brows. No fidgeting with the radio station to find something to distract from the clusterfuck ahead.
Smooth sailing, really. $8 roundtrip. Still, Sound Transit has its problems. It’s gone over budget in its early days and reneged on its promises. It’s supposed to run nine daily roundtrips of Sounder, from Tacoma to Seattle with several stops in between.
It runs four roundtrips. Weekdays, with weekend service for sports events like the Seahawks and Mariners. The agency says it’s going to get to nine daily roundtrips ASAP. It says it’s trying to clean up its act. We’ll see. For all of you outside the West Side (everything west of Chicago, that is), you can take all of this as the West Coast’s way of trying to do high-speed, efficient transit and kind of coming at it slowly, somewhat ineptly. It’s tough. We sprawled a lot in the early days. We like our cars.
But we also like our natural environment. We like our trees. We like alternatives, options, choices. That includes transportation. We’ll see how it goes. Certainly, energy prices seem to be conspiring to force us to rethink our way of life. A good, efficient, cost-effective passenger rail system – if we can ever truly get one in Puget Sound – would be a good thing.
Certainly, it would be far more useful than a quick, pleasant way to get to a ball game.
Peace, out.
West Side Critic
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Back to Business ... Almost
That was fun.
Now that the Indignant Citizen has wiped the champagne and beer from his tired eyes, washed the smoke from his clothes and regained his voice after the White Sox stomped the holy living shit out of the Red Sox, Angels and Astros to win the World Series, it’s time to cast a glance across the charred and smoking landscape of life in these United States.
So much crap has piled up on the river banks as White Sox Nation cruised by on the good ship Championship.... There was the high school cheerleader with a crush on the football captain masquerading as a Supreme Court nominee. Someone in government actually got busted for lying. The 2,000th U.S. soldier died in Iraq. And the former governor of the State of Illinois continued to attend his corruption trial. That’s a lot to deal with. But let
us start where we stand, for that is almost always best.
For those who didn’t catch it, Tribune Columnist and cub fan Eric Zorn filed an I-Was-Wrong dispatch from the bottom of the crater that was the Cubs season, a crater that was only made deeper by the White Sox postseason success. Later, in a blog entry that will go down in history on the South Side, Zorn exposed the six-sigma hypocrisy of Sun-Times sports columnist Jay Mariotti over the past year as it related to the White Sox.
Not only is Zorn’s roundup the stuff of instant legend in Sox Blogland, it may be enough to get Mariotti fired. Mariotti, more popularly known on the South Side as Windsock for his tendency to shift positions with the fickle breezes, didn’t file his regular Tuesday column. Instead his spot on the next-to-last page was filled by Carol Slezak, with a note at the bottom of the page informing readers that Mariotti was "Taking the Day Off."
That’s the same tag line, by the way, that the Sun-Times insists on using each time another column by Neil “I Beat My Wife Because I’m a Pussy” Steinberg doesn’t see the light of day because Steinberg is in “therapy” trying to exorcise his demons.
While the Indignant Citizen appreciates Steinberg’s acerbic style and perma-frown outlook on life, the guy hit his wife. He should be fired and forced to attend anger management and world history classes taught by Carl Everett.
When Juan Uribe fired that final bullet to Paul Konerko to record the final out in Game 4 of the World Series, the Indignant Citizen, in the euphoria of the moment, thought perhaps he might have to retire his indignation. Life just seemed too good. Everyone was happy; strangers hugged, joy was everywhere. The sun seemed brighter, the birds chirpier.
It took about four days for the joy to fully wear off. The Indignant Citizen is still happy about the Sox, mind you, but more pressing issues have asserted themselves. And we will get to them shortly. In the meantime, join the Indignant Citizen in congratulating once more the 2005 Chicago White Sox, World Series Champions .
Now that the Indignant Citizen has wiped the champagne and beer from his tired eyes, washed the smoke from his clothes and regained his voice after the White Sox stomped the holy living shit out of the Red Sox, Angels and Astros to win the World Series, it’s time to cast a glance across the charred and smoking landscape of life in these United States.
So much crap has piled up on the river banks as White Sox Nation cruised by on the good ship Championship.... There was the high school cheerleader with a crush on the football captain masquerading as a Supreme Court nominee. Someone in government actually got busted for lying. The 2,000th U.S. soldier died in Iraq. And the former governor of the State of Illinois continued to attend his corruption trial. That’s a lot to deal with. But let
us start where we stand, for that is almost always best.
For those who didn’t catch it, Tribune Columnist and cub fan Eric Zorn filed an I-Was-Wrong dispatch from the bottom of the crater that was the Cubs season, a crater that was only made deeper by the White Sox postseason success. Later, in a blog entry that will go down in history on the South Side, Zorn exposed the six-sigma hypocrisy of Sun-Times sports columnist Jay Mariotti over the past year as it related to the White Sox.
Not only is Zorn’s roundup the stuff of instant legend in Sox Blogland, it may be enough to get Mariotti fired. Mariotti, more popularly known on the South Side as Windsock for his tendency to shift positions with the fickle breezes, didn’t file his regular Tuesday column. Instead his spot on the next-to-last page was filled by Carol Slezak, with a note at the bottom of the page informing readers that Mariotti was "Taking the Day Off."
That’s the same tag line, by the way, that the Sun-Times insists on using each time another column by Neil “I Beat My Wife Because I’m a Pussy” Steinberg doesn’t see the light of day because Steinberg is in “therapy” trying to exorcise his demons.
While the Indignant Citizen appreciates Steinberg’s acerbic style and perma-frown outlook on life, the guy hit his wife. He should be fired and forced to attend anger management and world history classes taught by Carl Everett.
When Juan Uribe fired that final bullet to Paul Konerko to record the final out in Game 4 of the World Series, the Indignant Citizen, in the euphoria of the moment, thought perhaps he might have to retire his indignation. Life just seemed too good. Everyone was happy; strangers hugged, joy was everywhere. The sun seemed brighter, the birds chirpier.
It took about four days for the joy to fully wear off. The Indignant Citizen is still happy about the Sox, mind you, but more pressing issues have asserted themselves. And we will get to them shortly. In the meantime, join the Indignant Citizen in congratulating once more the 2005 Chicago White Sox, World Series Champions .
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