Morning News

Morning Music Playlist

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:40:34 GMT

Ray of Light - Madonna
Shut up and Let Me Go - The Ting Tings
We Are Family - Sister Sledge
My Kind of Town - Frank Sinatra
Streetcorner Symphony - Rob Thomas
Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon
Love Don't Live Here Anymore - Lady Antebellum
I Got a Feeling - The Black Eyed Peas
All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow

Oprah Happy To Bolt?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:06:57 GMT

If you’ve had relatives or friends visit from out of town, particularly if they’re from a smaller town or a more rural part of the country, you’ve probably had at least one ask if you could get tickets to the Oprah Winfrey Show.
You probably know at least one person who not only watches Oprah religiously, but swears by her every suggestion, buys every book in the Book Club, and makes all of Oprah’s favorite things her own.
You’ve probably never met or seen Oprah Winfrey in person; she’s not a celebrity who’s known for going out on the town and being seen in Chicago. But you’re probably well aware that when a good deal of people in the rest of the country and the world think of Chicago, Oprah Winfrey is the first person that springs to mind.

Well, the rumors have been swirling for a while, but now it’s confirmed. Oprah Winfrey is planning to end her daytime network television talk show in 2011, and the word on the street is that she’s going to leave Chicago and go to Southern California.
And a lot of Chicagoans are shocked and sad.
"It's kind of like losing the Sears Tower -- it's terrible," Oprah fan Christian Parker told Kristyn Hartman yesterday.
Now, I was all ready to write a complimentary little entry on Oprah Winfrey and everything she’s brought to the city. But a little addendum to this story just came out, and it made me a little angry.

Why am I angry? Not because Oprah’s leaving Chicago; I don’t care about that. It’s because of some comments she reportedly made to “insiders,” quoted in a report on Deadline.com. They suggest that Winfrey thinks ill of Chicago, and can’t wait to leave:
"Why would anybody stay in Chicago? It's freezing here, and I have a mansion in Montecito that I haven't been able to enjoy."

It’s not uncommon that people who make it big escape for the coasts. It took Winfrey an awfully long time, and I always thought she was one of the exceptions to this attitude. I thought she was like Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert , who could have moved their movie review show to the coasts, but stayed in their hometown (and Siskel remained on the staff at CBS 2 until his death.) Or Mike Royko, who got offers to head off to Washington, but stayed in Chicago until he died too.
But this quote suggests Winfrey is not one of those people. Does she think she’s too good for us lowly Midwestern rubes? If there's more to this quote than we've heard, I'd like to know the full context. But if it turns out this is indeed exactly what she told her insiders, I hate to say it, but I wouldn't be sorry to see her move away.

Now, I will concede, as I intended to write to begin with, that Oprah Winfrey is a big celebrity who has brought a lot to Chicago in the time she’s been here. Harpo Studios on Washington Boulevard raised the profile of the West Loop exponentially, whereas before, it had been a bunch of frowsy old warehouses and the Madison Street skid row. And she’s an unmatched cultural force; if you look at her Wikipedia entry, there are separate subheads that give her credit for being ranked the World’s Most Influential Woman, being a spiritual “postmodern priestess,” her philanthropy – particularly in South Africa – and her political advocacy that helped lead Barack Obama to the White House.
She’s had countless memorable moments on her talk show. Among just a few – her moving sit-down with the great Sidney Poitier, Liberace’s last television appearance as he was dying of AIDS, a rare appearance by Michael Jackson where he talked about the change in his skin tone, Tom Cruise jumping on the couch, and of course, the day when Oprah gave everyone in the audience a free car.
And there have been some controversies here and there too. She got caught up in a fracas with author James Frey, after his supposed biography A Million Little Pieces was featured in her book club, only to be exposed as a fraud. (Winfrey was justifiably infuriated.) She received criticism for her hawking of “The Secret,” the in my opinion severely delusional program that suggests positive thoughts alone will make you rich, healthy and successful, while you have only yourself to blame if you get sick or stay poor because your thoughts caused it. And of course, Winfrey also introduced that highly annoying word “vajayjay” to the English language.

But the fact is, people adore Oprah Winfrey. She exudes a warmth that makes her seem accessible to the people watching her show. She’s a billionaire, but as far as can be from the robber baron who thinks the poor are just lazy and complains about high taxes. Oprah Winfrey gave to others, and devoted much of her own life to making other people’s lives better. And she deserves credit for all of that.
Jerry Springer left Chicago recently too, but it’s no surprise that he didn’t get nearly the accolades that Oprah’s getting. He led a trashy, tasteless talk show that was made P.T. Barnum look like an opera manager by comparison. Uncensored versions of his show are repackaged as softcore porn on pay-per-view television.
Oprah was just the opposite. Chicago was ashamed of Jerry Springer, but Chicago loved Oprah and was proud to have her.
That quote from Deadline.com suggests that maybe she didn't love Chicago back. I hope that's not actually true.

Ed was outside Harpo Studios talking to a few people about Oprah’s news this morning.

And we also had a visit from a familiar face here at CBS 2, Sun-Times columnist, Richard Roeper. He had a little analysis and commentary on Oprah’s decision.

And Mayor Daley thinks the news media are partially to blame for Oprah leaving. Mike Parker reports on that.

Morning Music Playlist

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:22:40 GMT

S.O.S. - The Jonas Brothers
Trouble for the Turkeys - Lex & the Hood
Hey Santa - Ashanti
Magical Mystery Tour - The Beatles
It's a New Day - will.i.am
The Way I Are - Timbaland
Mandolin Moon - Sister Hazel
One Step at a Time - Jordin Sparks

Entering The Twilight Zone

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:29:04 GMT

Do you have “Twilight” fever? Is “New Moon” all you can think about right now? If so, you’re not alone, but the odds are pretty high that you’re female and have yet to graduate from the eighth grade.
I must concede that I don’t know jack about “Twilight” other than the very basics. I know it’s about vampires. I know Robert Pattinson is a big teenage heartthrob; the late 2000s equivalent of Jason Priestley or Mark Wahlberg in their day. I liked Kristen Stewart in “Adventureland,” and was surprised to find that she wasn't even born yet in 1987 when that movie was set. And I recognize the director of "New Moon," Chris Weitz, as the actor who played Chuck/Charlie in the creepy dramedy “Chuck and Buck.” He co-starred with Mike White of “Freaks and Geeks” fame in what I would call one of the best movies of the past decade, and one of my favorites ever. It’s a highly underrated story of arrested development, unhealthy obsession, and sexual identity.
Oh yeah, that’s right. This entry isn’t about “Chuck and Buck.” It’s about “Twilight: New Moon.” Drat. I’d much rather watch “Chuck and Buck.” Oodily oodily fun fun fun.
Anyway, like I said, other than what I just pointed out, I don’t know jack about “Twilight,” so I’m in no position to judge it. But CBS 2 Cantankerous Critic Michael Walters is. And let’s just say he’s living up to his “cantankerous” moniker.

Cook A Turkey. Don't Be One.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:49:38 GMT

The Center for Science in the Public Interest did not release any studies today about all the stuff you shouldn’t eat at Thanksgiving, so I’ll do it for you. Do not eat: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, any bread product, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, pie of any kind. Do eat: plain tofu, bland steamed vegetables with no seasoning whatsoever, no dessert. Or perhaps it would be something along the lines of, “The best dinner to have on Thanksgiving is no dinner at all.”
Well, I doubt anyone would comply with that; even a turkey-free vegan Thanksgiving would feature something other than plain tofu. And given that Thanksgiving is only a week away, you might want to bone up on how to prepare a turkey. You don’t want to end up like Mr. Bean did one year at Christmas, and get your head stuck in the turkey while looking for your lost watch. If that happens, maybe you will be stuck eating plain tofu.

To avoid Mr. Bean-esque mishaps and ensure that you know what you’re doing when you cook the ol’ gobbler, Butterball has set up a hotline as they do every year. It’s based in Naperville, and it will be available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. It’s at (800) 288-8732, or (800) BUTTERB.
And if you’re going to attempt to bake a pie yourself instead of just going to Baker’s Square, Crisco has created a hotline too, at (877) 367-7438. This time, when you throw the pie at your delinquent teenage nephew who won’t shut up about Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2, you can be sure the sloppy filling will slide evenly down his face and sufficiently ruin his shirt.

Marty Van Ness of Butterball talked with Don and Roseanne this morning about the hotline:

Life Imitates The Berenstain Bears

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:02:11 GMT

(Berenstain Bears Photo: KYW-TV/Philadelphia. Popcorn Photo: AP)
This entry is about the food police and their crackdown on movie popcorn. What do the Berenstain Bears have to do with it? I'll get there.
If you grew up around the time I did, and probably even if not, you surely remember the little moral, ethical and social lessons the Berenstain Bears books used to teach. They were all valuable ones. The dark isn’t as dangerous is as it seems. If you and your buddies build a clubhouse, be nice and let the girls in. If you kick a soccer ball around the house and smash a lamp by accident, don’t lie about it and say it was a hyperactive bird.
And of course, we always wondered why Papa Bear hadn’t filed for divorce and found temporary lodging in the Bear Country Single-Room Occupancy Hotel years ago. Yes, he was bumbling and clueless to the point where he made Homer Simpson look like a Rhodes Scholar. And rather than being an equal authority figure in the house, Papa Bear always misbehaved right along with his two children. But the disciplinarian Mama Bear regularly treated him as if he were a child and always included him in whatever punishment she was handing down to Brother and Sister Bear. Really, would any self-respecting man or woman be satisfied to live that way with his or her partner?

There’s one specific Berenstain Bears story I’m thinking of right now; perhaps you remember it. The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food. Brother and Sister Bear are getting chunky because they’re constantly “raiding the pantry” for candy and other high-calorie, low-nutritional value items. Pea-brained Papa Bear is just as bad with his jones for "Sweetsie Cola." So Mama Bear lays down the law with all of them, electing to put all the "Sugar Balls," "Choco-Chums" and other such items in the freezer and “forget about them”, and making everyone eat carrot sticks and nuts and raisins instead. And among the items that carrot sticks and/or nuts and raisins replaced in the story? Movie popcorn.
Based on the latest news, I’m convinced that Mama Bear secretly works for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The latest study from the killjoys at the CSPI doesn’t suggest smuggling carrots or nuts and raisins into your local multiplex, which is against the rules and could easily get you kicked out. The study does, however, rally against movie popcorn in a way that would make Mama Bear proud and would leave Papa Bear complaining. They say ordering a medium popcorn and soda combo at a national movie theater chain is like eating three McDonald’s Quarter Pounders and a stick and a half of butter.
Says CSPI senior nutritionist Jayne Hurley: “It's hard enough for Americans to maintain a healthy weight even when limiting their eating to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Who realizes that they might be taking in a meal's worth of calories during a movie? Splitting a medium popcorn with two other people sounds like a reasonable thing to do, but who would think they're getting an entire day's worth of saturated fat?”

Now, I don’t think there’s anyone delusional enough to think traditional movie theater food is healthy. Generally, it ranks somewhere between carnival food and ball park food in nutritional value.
In all likelihood, you’re either gorging yourself on candy – perhaps even that tasty mixture where you can enjoy your Raisinets and Sno-Caps in the same bite as your Swedish fish and Sour Patch Kids, leaving your mouth sour and acidic and your stomach unhappy. Or else you’re gulping down small pails of soda and spending the whole movie with your legs crossed. And I’m not sure that I’ve ever known anyone who’s ordered a movie hot dog; they're so gross that they've become a long-running joke unto themselves.
But this story is about the popcorn, as much a part of going to a movie as complaining about the thirteenth coming attraction trailer in a row, or yelling at the idiot who answers a cell phone call in the middle of the movie. To be sure, with all the salt and the oily butter flavor, movie popcorn doesn’t even feel healthy to eat. But let’s be realistic here.
A medium popcorn is usually pretty big; I suspect in past generations it would have been called a large. Why not cut down on the portion sizes – something medical professionals tell everyone trying to lose weight. Why not offer popcorn without the butter topping? It will still be high in saturated fat because oil is needed to pop it (we all know nobody likes air-popped corn), but it’s at least an improvement.
And besides, as a lot of people pointed out on Ed’s Facebook page, most of us don’t go to the movies and slouch down in the seat with a bucket of popcorn every day, or even every week. The popcorn is high in saturated fat, but I think we all know that if you have it once a month or so, and otherwise have a good diet and a good exercise program, you’re not suddenly going to become morbidly obese.
But of course, Mama Bear isn’t about moderation. She’s about laying down the law. And so is the Center for Science in the Public Interest. They want you to put those movie snacks in the freezer and forget about them, just like the Berenstain Bears did with all their junk food.
Sayeth Ms. Hurley again: "Sitting in the dark, absorbed by a movie, we pay no attention to what we're eating-and movie theater chains are offering only bad choices at bad prices. The healthiest snack to buy at the movies is no snack at all."
OK. But we’re going to have to retrain our appetite and our natural impulses so we uncouple going to movies and eating. And that’s going to take a while, so we’ll need something to take the place of eating. I’ve got it! Let’s all smoke cigarettes at the movies instead!

Ed has this report, and some of your comments, on the bad, bad popcorn you're eating at the movies:

Talk To Ed

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:09:22 GMT

Here are today's questions:

1. Medium popcorn at movies + soft drink = 3 Quarter Pounders and a stick of butter. Thoughts?
2. Coke is giving a 6-figure amount to the American Academy of Family Physicians to create educational materials on the role of beverages and sweeteners in a healthy, active, lifestyle. Do we need this? Is this a conflict of interest for the Academy of Physicians?
3. A law proposed for Barrington Hills would limit the amount of light a home could shine at night, and the direction of the light. They want a "dark sky" designation and would be first city east of the Mississippi to get that. Is this law needed? Do neighbor's landscape lighting drive you nuts? Is it a good idea to crack down? Is your neighborhood overly-lit at night?

You can leave a comment at the bottom of this entry, or:
Talk To Ed On Twitter
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Send Ed An E-Mail

Morning Music Playlist

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:36:17 GMT

I Love This Town - Bon Jovi
Ordinary Day - Vanessa Carlton
Shake It - Metro Station
Hollywood - Collective Soul
Chelsea Dagger - The Fratellis
Lucky - Jason Mraz
Love Song - Sara Bareilles

All Over A Football Rivalry

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:13:26 GMT

We all know football rivalries run deep and can last for generations. But they’re supposed to be good-natured and friendly. Even when people go overboard, like the 10-year-old kid from Denver who set Jay Cutler’s old Broncos jersey on fire in protest when Cutler joined the Bears, it’s ultimately just an extreme gesture. No one is being harmed. It’s only a game.
Well, a new report indicates that back in September, a team rivalry really did cross the line in a big way. And I’m sad to say that if the victim’s allegations are true, it’s Bears fans who are to blame.
Zack Heddinger was in town from Pittsburgh in September, and he got stopped at Kitty O’Shea’s bar at the Chicago Hilton and Towers. Heddinger is a Steelers fan, and he says he and some friends got into a heated argument with several Bears fans. But originally, Heddinger thought everything ended for the best, because the Bears fans suggested a truce and offered to buy drinks.
But a short time later at his hotel, Heddinger became so sick he had to go to the hospital. And now, he is almost completely blind and has suffered brain damage.
Doctors suspect Heddinger’s drink was poisoned. A doctor is paraphrased in some news reports about this incident as saying Heddinger might have ingested “toxic grain alcohol,” although I suspect the reports meant wood alcohol. Grain alcohol, or ethanol, is the substance in beer, wine and spirits. Wood alcohol, or methanol, is chemically different from ethanol by only one carbon chain, but it’s highly toxic. Ten milliliters can cause blindness. A hundred can be fatal. And it’s a shock that anyone would be so depraved and sick as to spike someone’s drink with it over an argument about sports. If the people Heddinger accuses are guilty, they’ve shamed their fellow Chicagoans and Bears fans across everywhere. And as Richard Roeper said today, it's shocking and sick that there are people out there who would commit an act like this over something as "incosequential and stupid" as which football team they like. May justice be done in this case.

Questions And Answers

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:52:12 GMT

1. You’ve heard about the proposal to house some of the suspected terrorists now being held at Guantanamo Bay at a facility at a near-empty prison in the small, dying town of Thomson. Gov. Pat Quinn and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin are both behind the plan, saying it will bring $1 billion to the State of Illinois over four years, and bring much-needed jobs to Thomson, a town of a mere 450 people which is located 150 miles west of Chicago. Unemployment there tops 10 percent.
But Republican members of Congress, and GOP gubernatorial candidate Andy McKenna, all say this is a disaster waiting to happen. While Thomson is culturally a world apart from Chicago, it’s not too far away in the grand scheme of things. U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk and others worry that terrorists’ followers and family members will come to Illinois and could even plot an attack on Chicago.

I think the Republicans may have a point. The prison would house fewer than 100 of the Guantanamo detainees, but I think we know that people involved in organized terrorism are highly opportunistic and conspiratorial. Other potential terrorists coming to visit the prisoners is only one concern, and in my opinion not the biggest one. How about potential terrorist recruiting? This plan would send prisoners who had been housed at Gitmo, a facility where suspects were held without an opportunity to appear in court, and where prisoners were brutally tortured and abused. Not only did Gitmo help drag down the very reputation of the United States, it also became a recruiting tool for terrorists. And here we’ll have dozens of people who were actually housed there. Who’s to say they won’t recruit others in the prison as potential terrorists?
But they’re in prison, you say. They can’t do any harm. Well, remember, Jeff Fort ran the El Rukn gang from prison, and even organized their meeting with Libyan officials, in which they agreed to commit terrorist acts within the U.S. in exchange for $2.5 million.
These factors, combined with the proximity of Chicago to the prison, raise some red flags that make me think the state should find another way to generate revenue.
However, I do not agree with Kirk that the suspected terrorists should be kept outside the United States. Guantanamo and its legacy of torture are a shameful mark on America, and the prison camp should be closed as soon as President Obama is able. But why a facility so close to the nation’s third biggest population center? Why not a prison in one of the many vast, isolated swaths of land in the Mountain West, either far removed from any population centers or isolated from them by physical barriers like mountains? Even as it is, the Supermax facility in Florence, Colorado, and a maximum security prison in Hardin, Montana, are already under consideration. Why not focus on those facilities?

2. As Mike Parker reported yesterday, if you want a gift box when you’re out shopping for the holidays, you might just have to buy it separately. Several retailers have decided to quit giving out free gift boxes, including Old Navy, TJ Maxx, Abercrombie & Fitch, the Disney Store, and Target.
I’m not getting worked up about this, because I don’t use gift boxes. And frankly, why do we need them? Isn’t a little wrapping paper enough? Or if we need a box, why is it so much trouble to spend an extra dollar for one? I agree that it’s frustrating to have to start paying for something that used to be free; we’re reminded of that every time we have to pay $15 to check our suitcase on an airplane. But paying $1 for a gift box really doesn’t seem like a big deal. Fewer gift boxes won’t just save money for the stores. It will save trees too.

3. The story here – Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, 21, is a single mother and an Army cook. She may now face criminal charges after she skipped her deployment to Afghanistan, because no one would be available to take care of her infant son while she was overseas.
Hutchinson’s civilian attorney, Rai Sue Sussman, said one of her client’s superiors said the child would have to go into foster care. That’s not something any parent wants to hear.
But really, there’s no excuse here. Hutchinson should have known about this and planned for it ahead of time. There is no draft, so it stands to reason that Hutchinson chose to join the Army. And in making that choice, she must have known she could be deployed. She also must have known she couldn’t bring her son with her. If this was a problem, she shouldn’t have joined the Army in the first place. Too late now.

4. In the U.K., a senior police official is asking Facebook and MySpace to adopt a “panic button” so that victims of online abuse, bullying and illegal activity can report what’s happening right away. A panic button has already been placed on the social networking site Bebo, after a survey found that nearly 30 percent of 11- to 16-year-olds in England had been targeted for cyberbullying on the site.
This might make sense if adopted just in the United Kingdom. The man who is asking for the panic buttons is Jim Gamble, head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center (CEOP), and the panic button he has in mind would alert the CEOP Center automatically. But if a general-purpose panic button were placed on Facebook around the world, Facebook would have to coordinate with virtually every law enforcement agency in the world, and set up a system so the panic button would know where you are and alert the proper police agency. This process would be prohibitively expensive and next to impossible.
Then there’s the problem with an online panic button that is the equivalent of a 911 call. What if someone hits it by mistake, or as a prank? What if there’s a malfunction on Facebook’s end that makes it go off by mistake? Are the police going to show up at the door of every computer user for whom that happens?
There is already an option to “block and/or report this person” on Facebook. I think that’s sufficient.