Atrios, who does a weekly roundup of FDIC-closed banks, finds five Illinois banks that got, in his parlance, EATED.

Update: Make that six.

1. Daniel Sinker, Columbia College prof and Punk Planet vet, is launching a product called Cell Stories. Do want. Can't wait to hear more.

2. Daniel X. O'Neil of EveryBlock and Harper Reed of Threadless have launched CityPayments.org, a database of "all vendors, contracts, and payments that have been posted by the municipal government of the City of Chicago to the Vendor, Contract, and Payment Search lookup tool maintained by the Department of Procurement Services."

The Goofy tool = FTW.

Sad news from Andrew Patner today: Norman Pellegrini, the first employee of WFMT (soon joined by a pre-Second City Mike Nichols) and the station's program director from 1953 to 1996, has passed away at the age of 79. Patner has a tribute on his blog, and the station will naturally be paying homage to Pellegrini today, as well as offering free streaming archival material on their Web site, though it doesn't seem to be up yet.

In other classical music news, the Grant Park Chorus is performing a free program of modern American classical at the Harris Theater tonight, including Paul Crabtree's Five Romantic Miniatures (From the Simpsons). The first performance of the program, on Tuesday, drew a rave from Chicago Classical Review.

A while back I ragged on Medill for inviting Washington Post CEO and publisher Katherine Weymouth to address a soon-to-be-underpaid-or-unemployed graduating class, seeing as a born-wealthy lawyer and non-journalist would not, were I in that position (and I was not so very long ago) seem terribly inspiring to me.

Well, allow me to blow your mind.

Done? Go take a shower if you need to.

My favorite parts (emphasis mine):

"Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it."

"An exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done."

Oh, and from the weak-tea response: "The newsroom will participate where appropriate." I can only hope that means "picketing outside" or "toilet-papering the trees."

Update: The executive editor seems to be appropriately unhappy.

Update II: Weymouth: "This should never have happened. The fliers got out and weren't vetted. They didn't represent at all what we were attempting to do." They better hope that the fliers represented the alternate-universe-of-burning-evil version of what they were "attempting to do."

Update III: Uh-oh, contradictory CYA quotes from the dude whose office produced the flyer! "Weymouth is out of town." Naturally.

1. Oh, right:

But there's no question that in spite of a four-year absence from record stores, Michael Jackson knows how to reenter the public consciousness with a vengeance. This time he did it with a video ["Black or White"] whose last four minutes show him dancing, smashing the windows of a car, tossing a garbage can through a storefront, and simulating masturbation — a video he almost immediately withdrew and reedited. The hubbub got intensive media coverage at a time when Jackson's career can use it, but it also raised questions for the industry and for his fans. Entertainment Weekly, 11/91

Thus my adolescence was basically bookended by Jackson sibling television controversies: Michael breaking things and grabbing his crotch, which "raised questions for the industry and his fans" (questions which I had totally forgotten about), and Janet revealing most of a breast during the Super Bowl, which theoretically did the same. I will leave it to smarter people to decide whether that's Progress. Since I will recall both incidents for their profound silliness, I would vote "no."

2. Miles Raymer filed a dispatch from the Michael Jackson vigil in Gary, Indiana (Jessica Hopper did the same for the Village Voice). It's a good piece, but what really broke me up about it was his picture. Stuffed animals as an act of witness - particularly common at roadside vigils - break my heart in ways that no other forms of mourning do. Since the life and death of Michael Jackson involved something beyond arrested development - more like the attempt to fabricate a childhood that never existed and fix it in place - it's only more so.

Report: Jackson Not the Biological Father of Kids

KTLA News

June 30, 2009

"TMZ reported Tuesday."

"That site also reported...."

"TMZ says multiple sources...."

"according to TMZ"

"US Weekly has reported"

"according to the magazine"

"told The Associated Press"

"said on NBC's 'Today Show.'"

Richard Posner is gonna be pissed.

Thomas Tunney wants to expand the peddler-free zone outside Wrigley. Since the area around Wrigley that is free of my presence is much larger, I'm totally ambivalent, but I thought this was funny:

"'It's a public safety issue,' Tunney said. 'You can't walk to the park.'"

[snip]

"'The neighborhood has really been changing,'" the alderman said. "'Attendance (for Cubs games) has gone to an all-time high.'"

The real Annie Oakley brought 55 libel suits against various newspapers, 54 of which were successful. The Hearst papers were responsible for putting this counterfactual gem into circulation in the first place, and they tried to fight Oakley’s lawsuit by hiring a private dick to dig up some compromising dirt on her. They failed. The Hearst papers were always at the cutting edge of “human interest” journalism. As one Hearst reporter memorably put it, “A Hearst newspaper is like a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut.”

The Hope Chest, "Annie Get Your Lawyer"

Not unrelated: Michael Miner asks if the Tribune is going overboard on the U. of I. clout story. What I think: the U. of I. is giving clout a bad name. As Paul Campos puts it:

The only surprising thing about this stuff is that none of these bigwigs (including a law school dean -- apparently she never learned to think like a lawyer) can ever seem to remember that government emails are subject to FOIA requests.

It's not just that; the e-mails are hilariously literal: 

Hurd replied: "Only very high-paying jobs in law firms that are absolutely indifferent to whether the five have passed their law school classes or the Bar."

Hurd's e-mail suggests that students getting the jobs are to be those in the "bottom of the class."

It's not just that Dean Heidi Hurd isn't thinking like a lawyer; she's not thinking like a crooked pol, either. The Blago tapes read like Navajo code-talking in comparison.

Miner's point that private schools pull this sort of stunt all the time is well-taken, and it's at least worth considering the broader argument for legacy/clout admissions - grateful invitees and their parents can underwrite deserving students with their expected generosity, and it can keep channels of communication open for the school and its alumni.

But they're private, and can do whatever the hell they want, and those of us who are not clouted can eat it. The U. of I. is public, and we have the right to demand a different, higher standard, even if it costs us a bit more money.

Plus, I try to think of it as a small piece of a larger puzzle, one that includes the parking-meter blowback, the pressure over 2016, and the seemingly increased interest in the TIF system. Tabloidizing a comparatively simple and less consequential controversy doesn't have to draw attention from other scandals; the exact opposite is possible.

This is following up on the heels of Phil Rodgers's column which suggests that the Cubs waive Zambrano.

I know that Zambrano is crazypants and kind of a jerk (per Rodgers, he was clearly trying to hit DeWayne Wise), but... chill. Let's do some comparisons.

Carlos Zambrano
Year / W-L / ERA / IP / WHIP / K9
2007 / 18-13 / 3.95 / 216.1 / 1.33 / 7.4
2008 / 14-6 / 3.91 / 188.2 / 1.29 / 6.2
2009 / 4-3 / 3.69 / 83 / 120 / 1.33 / 7.2

2009 salary: $18M

Mark Buehrle
Year / W-L / ERA / IP / WHIP / K9
2007 / 10-9 / 3.63 / 201 / 1.26 / 5.1
2008 / 15-12 / 3.79 / 218 / 1.34 / 5.8
2009 / 7-2 / 3.26 / 99.1 / 1.16 / 5.5

2009 salary: $14M

Here's another way to look at it: IP leaders, since Big Z is famously reliable. Z is 28, and 49th in the list of active pitchers in career IP with 1465. Some pitchers within 2 years of his age, who have pitched 200 IP at least twice (Zambrano broke 200 IP five years in a row, and pitched 188 last year):

Mark Buehrle, 30, 1947, $14M, 3.26 ERA.

CC Sabathia, 28, 1768, $18M, 3.55 ERA

Jon Garland, 29, 1714, $6.25M, 5.04 ERA

Johan Santana, 30, 1639, $18.9M, 3.08 ERA

Carlos Zambrano, 28, 1465, $18M, 3.69 ERA

Kyle Loshe, 30, 1420, $7.4M, 3.99 ERA, DL

John Lackey, 30, 1378, $10M, 5.04 ERA

Josh Beckett, 30, 1287, $11.2M, 3.48 ERA

Brett Myers, 28, 1177, $12M, 4.66 ERA, DL (technically hasn't pitched 200 IP twice, but has done so once and has pitched 190 three times)

The pitcher who compares most unfavorably to Zambrano is Dan Haren, who is the same age, has pitched 200+ IP for the past four years, has a 2.25 ERA, and is making $7.5M this year. But those who've acquired Haren have had to pay a steep price in talent (if you count Mark Mulder, of course).

Is Zambrano overpaid? Compared to Buehrle, Santana, Sabathia, and Haren, of course. But how overpaid? For a maniac, he's amazingly consistent - he's never had an ERA over 4.00 while starting no less than 30 games since the age of 22. In Baseball Prospectus's subscribers-only section, they describe him as basically somewhere between a subpar ace and a very good #2 starter, which seems fair, and would make him overpriced. But the Cubs overpaid for a very reliable (for good and ill) investment - a known quantity. Perhaps not the best decision, but not worth this week's freakout.