Posts Tagged Chicago

Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – » The Assault Weapons Ban is a Red Herring

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Opinion, Perspective on January 7, 2013


TINA DUPUY

The Assault Weapons Ban is a Red Herring

 

The philosophy behind the quackery known as homeopathic medicine is that “like cures like.” As in: have a burn, apply a hot compress. This widely-panned pseudoscience (oh man, am I going to get letters) in its 300 years of existence has a history of being debunked, going away and then popping up a few decades later.

Adam Zyglis / Buffalo News

But this is the solution the NRA offers: Too many shootings requires more people armed and able to shoot. The problem AND the cure are basically the same: lots of guns.

On the other side is a call for ban of certain types of guns. This immediately gets into the weeds of “weapon-ese.” Semi-auto? Assault weapons? Machine guns? Military-style characteristics? High capacity magazines? Bayonet mount? Flash suppressors?!

Which if you don’t really care about guns (just care about being shot) is a booby trap set by gun enthusiasts. Because if you don’t know what semi-auto actually means (it’s a ridiculously broad term) — they can always tell you that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Which is true. Then the much-coveted conversation about guns in America is over.

Because in America you can’t hate guns. That’s not a legitimate stance. You have to love guns, possibly own a couple and be able to talk about them competently in order to have a seat at the table. Mitt Romney had to say he hunted “varmints.” Really.

The problem with the assault weapons ban is that it’s something. It’s something for a nation, in the wake of Sandy Hook, crying out for some kind of SOMETHING. Anything but the bogus and tone-deaf prescription for more weapons on the streets made by Wayne LaPierre of the NRA.

There’s a perfectly understandable cry for more gun control, which the assault weapons ban claims to be. It bans certain types of purchases on future weapons but it’s not (in reality) a good law. It won’t actually (as gun enthusiasts love to point out) affect gun deaths. Most gun deaths are by handguns. It’s the legislative equivalent of banning large bags of candy to curb obesity, when the real issue is the wide availability of said candy.

Gun lovers gleefully pointed out last week that Chicago, with its assault weapons ban, police-issued Firearms Owners Identification Card mandate and its refusal to issue open carry permits plus its ties to President Obama, had their 500th homicide of 2012. If we cherry pick this information (disregarding the fact Louisiana and Mississippi with their lax gun laws actually consistently lead the nation in murders per capita) it appears gun control is futile.

Recently the Chicago Police Department requested the University of Chicago Crime Lab researchers study the guns used in crimes. In a groundbreaking report they found those guns were bought legally and locally in Cook County (where Chicago is located). Even more specifically from Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale. The Sun-Times reported, “From 2008 to March 2012, the police successfully traced the ownership of 1,375 guns recovered in crimes in Chicago within a year of their purchase.” They continued, “Of those guns, 268 were bought at Chuck’s — nearly one in five.”

“How do the guns get on the street?,” the study asks. Straw purchasers. People without a record legally buying a weapon and then selling it. Which is outrageous and illegal. But the ATF — the law enforcement organization that would crack down on these sales — the Sun-Times points out, has been largely budget-cut out of business and doesn’t have the resources to track it or prosecute those crimes. It’s an agency that hasn’t had a full-time director in six years thanks to Congress insisting it requires a Senate confirmation. In short: In Cook County, Illinois (as with the rest of the country) it’s easy to get a gun and easy to sell a gun.

This leads me to one plea: If we get one bite at the proverbial gun safety apple, don’t make it the largely cosmetic assault weapons ban.

Federalize background checks, waiting periods and databases. Close the secondary market loopholes. These are things even card carrying NRA members agree with. Slow the flood of guns. But most importantly give the agency responsible for enforcing those laws a director and funding.

Then we can all learn weapon-ese and it’s not completely useless.

 Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – » The Assault Weapons Ban is a Red Herring.

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McDonald’s Worker Makes $8.25 an Hour, McDonald’s CEO Made $8.75 Million Last Year | Alternet

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Business, Economics, Economy on December 14, 2012


McDonald’s Worker Makes $8.25 an Hour, McDonald’s CEO Made $8.75 Million Last Year

The CEO makes almost 600 times as much as one Chicago worker.

December 12, 2012

 

 

 

Bloomberg has an article today highlighting the pay gap at McDonald’s. The whole piece is worth a read but the beginning is particularly striking. It highlights Chicago man Tyree Johnson, who holds positions at two different McDonald’s. Between shifts he has to give himself a quick scrubbing in one of the restaurant’s bathrooms because he can’t even show up for work at a McDonald’s smelling like a McDonald’s.

“I hate when my boss tells me she won’t give me a raise because she can smell me,” he said.

Johnson, 44, needs the two paychecks to pay rent for his apartment at a single-room occupancy hotel on the city’s north side. While he’s worked at McDonald’s stores for two decades, he still doesn’t get 40 hours a week and makes $8.25 an hour, minimum wage in Illinois.

This is life in one of America’s premier growth industries. Fast-food restaurants have added positions more than twice as fast as the U.S. average during the recovery that began in June 2009.

Johnson’s circumstances look particularly grim when they’re compared, as Bloomberg does, to the compensation enjoyed by executives whose pay gives a whole new meaning to “McJob.”

Johnson would need about a million hours of work — or more than a century on the clock — to earn the $8.75 million that McDonald’s, based in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, paid then- CEO Jim Skinner last year.

… Twenty years ago, when Johnson first started at McDonald’s, the CEO’s compensation was about 230 times that of a full-time worker paid the federal minimum wage. The $8.75 million that Thompson’s predecessor as CEO, Skinner, made last year was 580 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

 McDonald’s Worker Makes $8.25 an Hour, McDonald’s CEO Made $8.75 Million Last Year | Alternet.

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Free Wood Post – Paul Ryan: “Did I Miss the Physical Challenge Portion of the Race?”

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Free Wood Post, Humor/Parody on October 28, 2012


Paul Ryan: “Did I Miss the Physical Challenge Portion of the Race?”

October 27, 2012

By Molly Schoemann

 

"Paul" "Ryan" "fitness" "physical" "challenge" "election" "race" "free" "wood" "post"

 

This week Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan expressed concern that the ‘physical challenge’ portion of the presidential race had not yet taken place.

“To my knowledge, that segment has yet to be scheduled,” he told reporters during a campaign stop in Chicago.  “Unless I was simply not notified of the date.  I wouldn’t put that past the Obama administration, frankly.  I’m sure they realize I present quite a challenge to Joe Biden, at least when it comes to that event.”

Asked for clarification on what he meant by the term “physical challenge”, Ryan appeared incredulous.

“It’s the part of the presidential race where the  candidates compete against each other in an obstacle course,” he said.  “Usually there’s some sort of climbing wall, a set of monkey bars and sometimes a ball pit.  Whoever has the best time and is the first to grab the flag, wins.  Do you guys really not know what I’m talking about here?”

Ryan admitted that in the days leading up to the Vice Presidential debate, he had been under the impression that the physical challenge would be directly following it.

 “I thought they were going to sort of spring it on us in a surprise move,” he said.  “Did you guys see me drinking all that water during the debate?  That was why.  I was trying to stay hydrated.  Also, if you noticed me sweating a lot, it’s because I was wearing these special moisture-wicking jogging clothes under my suit in preparation.  They were kind of making me overheat.”

 He added, “An athlete is always prepared.”

According to Ryan, the physical challenge is a huge part of why he was tapped for VP.

“I mean, look at me,”  he said.  ”With my hardcore P90X routines and my sub 3-hour marathon time, am I the guy you’d turn to for policy decisions, or the one you’d want by your side at the beach, helping you kick sand in Russia’s face?”

“I don’t want to let Romney down, so I’ve been training hard for months,” Ryan added.

 ”When I’m not campaigning, I’m spending long days at the gym, blasting my quads and ripping my delts.  Sometimes while I’m doing bicep curls I’ll look at flash cards about laws and foreign policy and stuff, but my main focus is on winning that physical challenge,” he said.  ”You’ve got to keep your eyes on the prize.”

 Free Wood Post.

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Jack Welch says tweet on unemployment numbers should have included question mark

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Uncategorized on October 7, 2012


 

Jack Welch: I Should Have Added a Question Mark to Tweet About Friday’s Jobs Numbers

By Daniel Politi | 

Posted Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012, at 12:32 PM ET

 

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Jack Welch says the latest job numbers seem “implausible”

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

 

Former GE CEO Jack Welch sort of wishes he could go back in time to edit his now-infamous tweet that strongly suggested President Obama’s campaign managed to somehow manipulate the job numbers released Friday that showed a decrease in the unemployment rate to 7.8 percent. That’s not to say he disagrees with what he wrote. Welch just thinks he should have made it clear he wanted to imply something, not state it outright, which obviously makes sense considering pretty much everyone agrees it’s a ridiculous assertion, as the Associated Press points out.

When CNN’s Anderson Cooper questioned him on what evidence he had to write what he did, Welch acknowledged that “A question mark would have been better,” before quickly adding that, “I stand by that these numbers have to be examined.” (Transcript available here.)

Welch, who frequently criticizes Obama’s administration, wrote early Friday on Twitter: “Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.”

When CNN’s Ali Velshi pushed Welch on the inaccuracy of the tweet, Welch fired back: “I should have had a question mark, Ali, at the back of it, let’s face it, OK?”

Velshi started out saying that Welch is “the best CEO in America” before harshly criticizing him: “To say something like this is like Donald Trump saying that president Obama is not an American citizen without any proof.”

Throughout the CNN interview Welch emphasized that what he was questioning was how “implausible” the numbers seemed considering they amounted to the “highest numbers of household employment since June of 1983, the biggest year of the Reagan recovery.” But he also was careful to emphasize that he was “not accusing anybody of anything.”

The New York Times’ Joe Nocera writes that while it’s “ludicrous” to suggest that “a handful of career bureaucrats” would manipulate unemployment data, it is true that there’s “something a little strange about the way the country derives its employment statistics.” But the lesson in this questioning of the jobs data needs to be that it’s a bit “absurd” to think that a presidential race could be decided on the unemployment rate. It’s not just because the short-term numbers aren’t really reliable, but also because no president has such a strong grip on the economy.

“There is rough justice in the way things are playing out,” writes Nocera. “Having spent the last year wrongly blaming the president for high unemployment, Republicans can only stand by helplessly as the unemployment rate goes down at the worst possible moment for them.”

 Jack Welch says tweet on unemployment numbers should have included question mark.

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Chicago Public Schools Celebrate Third Straight Day Without Any Student Violence | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Humor/Parody, The Onion on September 13, 2012


 

Chicago Public Schools Celebrate Third Straight Day Without Any Student Violence

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012  

CHICAGO—Jubilant Chicago Public Schools officials announced Wednesday that, for three straight days now, there has not been a single act of student violence in any of the city’s 675 public schools. “Our classrooms and hallways are safer now than they’ve ever been,” said CPS chief executive Jean-Claude Brizard, happily noting that there have been no reported instances of beatings, stabbings, sexual assaults, or shootings in any of the city’s public schools this week. “We’ve had no incidents of weapons being brought onto school property, nor has anyone had to break up a fistfight between students. We’ve all had to work together for this, but it’s paid off. Let’s keep it up!” At press time, a gunfight on Chicago’s South Side had reportedly claimed the lives of three 16-year-old boys.

 Chicago Public Schools Celebrate Third Straight Day Without Any Student Violence | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

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Cagle Post » The GOP Wants Fewer People to Vote for Them

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in GOP, Politics on August 10, 2012


 

TINA DUPUY

The GOP Wants Fewer People to Vote for Them

  

The Republican primary has been over for months now but it’s hard to tell. The presumptive nominee (I’ll get to stop writing that phrase in a couple of weeks … hopefully), Mitt Romney, is still campaigning like he’s trying to convince his own party he’s Mr. Right, Mr. Right-Enough—or in his case Mr. Right…Now.

John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune

“What America is not is a collective where we all work in a kibbutz,” Romneysaid at a fundraiser in Chicago this week. “Instead it’s individuals pursuing their dreams and building successful enterprises which employ others and they become inspired as they see what has happened in the place they work and go off and start their own enterprises.”

America, not a collective: Not a place where people work together, according to Romney. Just a place where bosses are untethered by the shackles of pensions, environmental concerns or worker safety regulations so they can create magical towers of tax-free enterprise which “employs others.”

Willard M. Romney, the Everyman.

Romney is not trying to be popular; he’s running for president on the Republican ticket. He’s still trying to get Republicans to like him and Republicans now make up less than35 percent of Americans. Reaching outside of their “big tent,” Romney spoke at an NAACP event, and after being booed by the crowd he explained it was because the attendees at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People want free stuff. He loves free stuff (like tax-free!) but finds it distasteful in people not clever enough to borrow money from their parents for college. Romney’s international tour was of a whopping three countries. Notably at least one didn’t boo him. In the immortal words of George W. Bush, “Don’t forget Poland!”

Romney doesn’t appear to be trying to win the support of the majority of Americans (or the world for that matter). He appears to be playing for the affections of a few key shareholders. Romney is a niche candidate of a tiny percent of Americans who think working for a living describes what your money does for you.

 

Let’s take stock of the groups Republicans are no longer attempting to appeal to: Wage earners. Women in their child-bearing years. People with pre-existing conditions. Unions. Public workers. The unemployed. Monogamous gay couples. The under-employed. Moderate Republicans. Muslims. Latinos. Oh and independent voters. We’re not going to see a “Romney Democrats” group pop up before November, save maybe a political wonk’s Halloween party.

Romney is nominee no one really likes. Fewer people will vote for Mitt. The only chance for a mediocre candidate to win the majority of votes is for fewer votes to be counted. Voter ID laws have become vogue in states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, South Carolina and Indiana. All of a sudden the Grand Old Party is concerned about voter fraud, which even the Republican National Lawyer Association in a stretch of their data claims only 311 cases in the last decade. Other estimates put the number in the tens. Way more Americans have won gold medals than have voted fraudulently. So Republicans must “fix” this non-problem (in places which just so happen to swing states/counties/districts) by making it as difficult as possible to cast a ballot. On ABC’sThis Week, Washington Post columnist George Will called early voting “deplorable” because it interferes with campaigning. The horror! You know what interferes withvoting? Having a j-o-b. Early voting is the easiest way for blue-collar workers to be able to have their vote counted. Less early voting, fewer people who earn a paycheck at the polls. And that’s deplorable if you’re a Republican in the 2012 election cycle.

Republicans are working very hard to get fewer votes. Instead of stacking the deck they’re just trying to disenfranchise all the cards who disagree with them (you know, the majority of the country). It’s a reasonable strategy as their presumptive nominee (gah!) brands himself as the small government/voting bloc candidate who likes being able to fire people.

 Cagle Post » The GOP Wants Fewer People to Vote for Them.

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Corn for Food, Not Fuel – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Agriculture, Alternative Energy, Big Oil, Economy, Government, Opinion, Perspective on July 31, 2012


 

Corn for Food, Not Fuel

By COLIN A. CARTER and HENRY I. MILLER

Published: July 30, 2012

 

IT is not often that a stroke of a pen can quickly undo the ravages of nature, but federal regulators now have an opportunity to do just that. Americans’ food budgets will be hit hard by the ongoing Midwestern drought, the worst since 1956. Food bills will rise and many farmers will go bust.

Mark Pernice

An act of God, right? Well, the drought itself may be, but a human remedy for some of the fallout is at hand — if only the federal authorities would act. By suspending renewable-fuel standards that were unwise from the start, the Environmental Protection Agency could divert vast amounts of corn from inefficient ethanol production back into the food chain, where market forces and common sense dictate it should go.

The drought has now parched about 60 percent of the contiguous 48 states. As a result, global food prices are rising steeply. Corn futures prices on the Chicago exchange have risen about 60 percent since mid-June, hitting record levels, and other grains such as wheat and soybeans are also sharply higher. Livestock and dairy product prices will inevitably follow.

More than one-third of our corn crop is used to feed livestock. Another 13 percent is exported, much of it to feed livestock as well. Another 40 percent is used to produce ethanol. The remainder goes toward food and beverage production.

Previous droughts in the Midwest (most recently in 1988) also resulted in higher food prices, but misguided energy policies are magnifying the effects of the current one. Federal renewable-fuel standards require the blending of 13.2 billion gallons of corn ethanol with gasoline this year. This will require 4.7 billion bushels of corn, 40 percent of this year’s crop.

Other countries seem to have a better grasp of market forces and common sense. Brazil, another large ethanol producer, uses sugar instead of corn to make ethanol. It has flexible policies that allow the market to determine whether sugar should be sold on the sugar market or be converted to fuel. Our government could learn from the Brazilian approach and direct the E.P.A. to waive a portion of the renewable-fuel standards, thereby directing corn back to the marketplace. Under the law, the E.P.A. would first have to determine that the program was causing economic harm. That’s a no-brainer, given the effects of sharply higher grain prices that are already rippling through the economy.

The price of corn is a critical variable in the world food equation, and food markets are on edge because American corn supplies are plummeting. The combination of the drought and American ethanol policy will lead in many parts of the world to widespread inflation, more hunger, less food security, slower economic growth and political instability, especially in poor countries.

If the E.P.A. were to waive the rules for this year and next, the ethanol industry and corn farmers, who have experienced a years-long windfall, would lose out. Wheat and soybean farmers would also lose, because the prices of those crops have also been driven up: corn competes with soybeans for acreage and is substituted for wheat in some feed rations.

Any defense of the ethanol policy rests on fallacies, primarily these: that ethanol produced from corn makes the United States less dependent on fossil fuels; that ethanol lowers the price of gasoline; that an increase in the percentage of ethanol blended into gasoline increases the overall supply of gasoline; and that ethanol is environmentally friendly and lowers global carbon dioxide emissions.

The ethanol lobby promotes these claims, and many politicians seem intoxicated by them. Corn is indeed a renewable resource, but it has a far lower yield relative to the energy used to produce it than either biodiesel (such as soybean oil) or ethanol from other plants. Ethanol yields about 30 percent less energy per gallon than gasoline, so mileage drops off significantly. Finally, adding ethanol actually raises the price of blended fuel because it is more expensive to transport and handle than gasoline.

As the summer drags on, the drought is only worsening. Last week the International Grains Council lowered its estimate of this year’s American corn harvest to 11.8 billion bushels from 13.8 billion. Reducing the renewable-fuel standard by a mere 20 percent — equivalent to about a billion bushels of corn — would offset nearly half of the expected crop loss due to the drought.

All it would take is the stroke of a pen — and, of course, the savvy and the will to do the right thing.

 Corn for Food, Not Fuel – NYTimes.com.

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White Family Moves To Town | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Humor/Parody, The Onion on June 29, 2012


White Family Moves To Town

GLENCOE, IL—Shock, outrage and fear were just some of the emotions that failed to sweep through this affluent Chicago suburb Monday, when word got out among residents that a white family had moved to town over the weekend.

The Hansons, who recently moved to the white suburb of Glencoe, IL.

 

Challenging none of the close-knit community’s long-held beliefs and traditions, maxillofacial surgeon Bill Hanson, his wife Marge, and children Kevin and Sue are the first Caucasians to relocate to Glencoe in more than two days.

“I’ll admit, I was concerned at first,” said longtime Glencoe resident and neighborhood-watch president Linda Brubaker, 50. “I thought, how will having a white family move here affect property values? Then I realized it wouldn’t at all.”

“After all,” Brubaker added, “once I looked beneath the surface, I realized that this new family of white people isn’t really so different from my own white family. Come to think of it, they’re pretty much the same on the surface, as well.”

Brubaker wasn’t the only local to have concerns. Many openly questioned the Hansons’ ability to fit in. But their trepidation vanished upon seeing that the Hansons were much like, if not exactly like, themselves, regardless of—indeed, because of—the color of their skin.

“You know what they say about white people,” insurance agent Jack Lundegard said. “They drive sensible cars, they bake things, they’re always noodling about doing yardwork—all those stereotypes. But then I took a look at the man in the mirror, and I realized, ‘Hey, I’m not so unlike that myself.’”

Area investment banker Harold Boyce agreed: “I’ve got nothing against whites. Some of my best friends are white,” Boyce said. “Actually, I guess they all are.”

Although Bill and Marge Hanson privately harbored doubts about the move, they quickly discovered that the nearly identical sociocultural background they shared with the people of Glencoe proved not to be a handicap, but an asset, allowing them to offer something familiar to their unfamiliar new neighbors.

The Schukals, who say they have “no worries” about living next door to the Hansons.

 

“I did have some fears about the kids’ ability to blend in and make friends with the other kids at their new school,” Marge said. “But luckily, their classmates were very open-minded about meeting new people of the same race. In no time at all, their peers accepted them as white kids just like themselves.”

Though 10-year-old Kevin came from a different white neighborhood than his new classmates, he was soon invited to join the Glencoe junior soccer league. The experience has turned out to be enriching for all involved, giving Kevin and his fellow white children the opportunity to work together as a team, regardless of their lack of differences.

Thirteen-year-old Sue had a harder time adjusting. The day she arrived in Glencoe, she cried for hours, saying she missed her white friends back in Bloomfield Hills, MI. But within a few days, she began to adjust.

“I think it’s helped Sue to be around other white kids,” said Dana Berner, leader of Sue’s new Girl Scout troop. “Moving is never easy, but it’s lots easier when the new people are just like you.”

The children’s teachers say they are already fitting in at school and doing just as well, socially and academically, as their new white peers. “I think having strong white role models in their surroundings has helped foster a sense of belonging,” said Glencoe Middle School guidance counselor Tom Luchs. “I can identify with them, coming from a white background myself.”

Perhaps the situation was best summarized by the Hansons’ new next-door neighbor, Peggy Schukal, who has become fast friends with the Hansons despite their racial similarities.

“When I heard who would be moving next door, I thought to myself, ‘Hanson? Isn’t that a Swedish name?’ It sounded sort of Scandinavian to me,” Schukal said. “But now I know that there’s no reason to judge people by such arbitrary categories. To me, the Hansons, and for that matter everyone living here in Glencoe, are more than just German-Americans, Anglo-Americans, Italian-Americans, or even Swedish-Americans. What’s important is to see past all that and realize that, deep down, we’re all just white Americans.”

Schukal admitted that she was initially rattled by the notion that her 11-year-old daughter Sandra could one day end up dating the Hansons’ son. But upon realizing that Kevin is a well-behaved, college-bound young man from a well-to-do family, her fears vanished.

“We here in Glencoe are very open about including all different types in our community,” said Fred Schukal, a dentist and Bill Hanson’s new golf partner. “To be honest, it really doesn’t matter to us what part of Europe you’re originally from. As the Hansons’ experience here shows, there’s room in Glencoe for every shade of Caucasian in God’s white rainbow.”

Community leaders are pleased that the Hansons’ arrival has been trouble-free.

“I’m both pleased and relieved to say that having this new white family in town, at least so far, hasn’t caused a single problem,” Glencoe police chief Wayne Girardeau said. “Glencoe can be proudly held up as a model to other suburban communities across America that would like to integrate more whites, but are afraid it wouldn’t work out.”

 White Family Moves To Town | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

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NHLPA maps out strategy to players in Chicago – chicagotribune.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Business, Sports on June 28, 2012


 

NHLPA maps out strategy to players in Chicago

By Chris KucTribune reporter

8:21 p.m. CDT, June 26, 2012

NHL players gather to discuss strategy

NHL players gather to discuss strategy

It was a day of information gathering for 55 players as the NHL Players’ Association continued its executive board meetings at a downtown Chicago hotel Tuesday.

The NHLPA mapped out its strategy to the players in attendance for upcoming labor negotiations with the league regarding a new collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA expires Sept. 15 and the sides reportedly are set to begin talks Friday in New York.

On Tuesday, the players were divided into three groups and learned of the path the NHLPA will take once it sits down with the league.

“The guys are headed in the right direction with their views and how we want to carry forward,” former Hawks and current Capitals winger Troy Brouwer said. “We had a lot of good discussions about where our priorities are. We’re trying to educate ourselves.”

Myriad issues, including revenue sharing, will have to be resolved to avoid a work stoppage like the lockout that caused the cancellation of the 2004-05 season.

“We made a lot of huge concessions last time and certainly there are going to be issues that arise,” Hawks forward Jamal Mayers said. “The league for the last seven years has seen revenues grow. I’m sure they’ll have their angle on things. My hope is that we can get a deal done. Like all things, it always takes time and pressure for things to happen.”

The NHLPA meetings will conclude Wednesday and the board also will announce the members of the negotiating committee that will feature more than 30 players, likely including many team union representatives. Regional meetings to update NHL players on the status of negotiations are expected to be held in July and August around the world.

“We’re both going to make our cases,” Brouwer said. “Negotiations are always tough.

“You have to look out for yourselves, and your players and your union,” Brouwer continued. “We want to play hockey and we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that there’s a season come September.”

 NHLPA maps out strategy to players in Chicago – chicagotribune.com.

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Moving To New City To Solve All Of Area Man’s Problems | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Humor/Parody, The Onion on June 26, 2012


 

Moving To New City To Solve All Of Area Man’s Problems

 

ATLANTA—All of area resident Brian Shepard’s problems, including his fear of commitment, lack of personal direction, and inability to learn from past failures, will be instantly solved this week when the 29-year-old packs up his belongings and moves to a new city. “Moving to Portland is going to make all the difference in the world,” said Shepard, who, just by putting 2,500 miles distance between himself and years of destructive behavior, will suddenly turn his life around. “It won’t be anything like Chicago, or Boston, or San Francisco. This is exactly what I need right now.” Shepard also plans to completely eliminate his dependence on self-denial by ignoring his dependence on self-denial.


 Moving To New City To Solve All Of Area Man’s Problems | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

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