TODAY IN MEDIA OUTLETS YOU SHOULD NOT READBriefly: Our awesome Evanston media roundup

• So you've heard that the CTA is raising its rates because Illinois isn't appropriating a lot of money to it, which kinda sucks. And the buses that run through Evanston aren't being spared.
• And the big debate facing Evanston these days? Whether or not Sarpino's Pizza should be allowed to stay open until 3 a.m. Chiming in with a No is his Lordeth Jean-Baptiste, who says, "I'd hate to have some radical change going on so that we have people hanging out in the parking lot late at night and have to have the police come and end up creating a mess." Yeah. This is the same guy who opposes arresting the crack dealers of the 7th ward.
  

OUR RESPONSIBLE MEDIAWho needs crazy pills when Bill Smith has historical analogies?

You may have heard that some powerful men want to build a 49-story tower in downtown Evanston. It would be across from Sherman Plaza, which they also built. And nothing — not shitty journalists, not cracked out aldermen, not rival developers, not fledgling Daily reporters — can stand in their way.

Wait wait wait. Could it be there's another constituency here, as yet unheard from in the whispering fray? Yes! The people!

Or so it seems when you first read EvanstonNow spinster Bill Smith's article today. The plans have "brought out a chorus of critics," he writes.

Then he veers off into journalistic la-la land, preaching about how, usually, Evanston's tallest buildings are about a quarter as high as Chicago's tallest in the same time period. What? Yeah, I know.

And it goes on! What with the Chicago Spire, a huge, beautiful, Calatrava-designed tower going up in River North, we're historic-relationshiply due for a 49-story tower!

What do you think? That, maybe next week, someone will take up how people who live in Evanston feel about this? Um, agreed. Meanwhile, the search for intelligent life in Evanston media goes on.

How tall is too tall for Evanston? [EvanstonNow]

THANK YOU, ALBERT HOFMANNCrack use among city officials not limited to aldermen

This is probably of no use to anyone, but the Evanston public library reopened its children's section yesterday. So, next time you're tripping and you find yourself on Orrington and Church, you'll know a safe place. Cuddle among disembodied, arboreal orbs of fluff covered in felt capital letters, and you will feel a peace unknown to all but the most tranquil of Evanston drug users.

Yes, I had my crack this morning, too.

Library reopens with new kid's space [EvanstonNow]

FREE CRACKHis Lordeth Jean-Baptiste feeding the monkey again

There is a debate amongst the wisemen of Evanston, and it is about crack. They are selling it over in the 7th ward, which is sort of like far away. I am totally going this September.

And I'd better go soon, because the City Council was like, Enough! Not really because of the crack, but because they've sunk a lot of money into a housing project there. This housing project has had a bit of a problem. All of the residents have fled, because there was a shooting there earlier this year. Yeah, I didn't hear about it either. One more thing for Dickson to blame on the media's relentless pursuit of Lindsay Lohan stories, I gather. Fuck you, Bill Smith.

Onwards. The city spent $44k, which is all it gets from the Feds every year, to redo the property. Now — and this is kind of a literary device, so hold on — the dealers hide the drugs underneath the newly renovated siding. Oooh, urban parable! Sad, but just the way I like my inner city decay: bite-size, and analogous.

Then something predictable happened. Lordeth Jean-Baptiste, who apparently think the crack dealers vote, threatened not to appropriate more money to re-renovate the site.

"I'm going to support the request, Ald. Jean-Baptiste said, "but I want to make sure that Community Development yells at people some times. If we want to make some lasting changes, we don't want to keep throwing money at problems."

Hmm, what are we throwing money at without getting lasting change? The police department, perhaps? Like, maybe, letting the delinquent youths of Evanston drink devil juice and smoke weed?

City vows drug market crackdown [EvanstonNow]

THE DEATH STAR COMETHAnother helpless planet property "acquired"

[Updated 1:15 CST, 8/9/07]

Ok, Bill Smith. Here's a little to-do list while The Daily's on hiatus and you're the only sober person covering Evanston development.

1. Enough with the crack.
2. Get out of bed with Mr. Vader and this other dude with the glasses.
3. When presented with an extremely obvious question, go ahead. Ask it.

I am, of course, referring to the ongoing gutting of downtown Evanston. What happened today? Developers of the proposed 49-story Death Star (pictured above) acquired the landmark Hahn building, which is south of the property they want to build on.

Wait, you think, because you have the neural activity of a conscious human being: Didn't they say they were only going to use that one plot? Why would they need to buy the other building?

Only you didn't think that, because you are retarded and your name is Bill Smith and, DAMN IT, you were drunk while reporting again!

And who better to bring sense to this fiasco than everyone's favorite whisky-sodden journalist, Bob Seidenberg of the Evanston Review. So why buy the second building? Big reveal, everyone, big reveal.

To prevent anyone else from proposing a development on the block!

Which brings up another really easy question: Wait, you think, didn't someone already propose another development for that part of the block? Yes! Wait, didn't they drop their bid after finding out the people are opposed to Death Stars? Yes!

What aren't you telling us, Mr. Vader and dude with the glasses?

The facts, just to prove my own neural activity:

Developers say they will not touch landmark Hahn building. [Evanston Site Plan and Appearance Review Committee, page 4]
Tower developer acquires Hahn building [EvanstonNow]
Developers neutralize second tower possibility [Evanston Review]

BECAUSE DOWNTOWN IS PROZACIn brief: The Purple Line "Express" is saved! Sort of.

Rejoice, readers! The Chicago Transit Authority, last refuge of incompetent Daley hacks, has decided not to cancel the Purple Line Express. Instead, whether or not to run the Express will be a "daily decision" depending on the performance of the Red Line. That's right — when the Red Line is slow, that's when you'll have to take it.

Jesus.

All this nuance, of course, is lost on Bill Smith, wayward soul of wayward souls.

[EvanstonNow]
[Chicago Tribune]

THE VILLAGE WISDOMAnd the Lordeths said: Let the sweet smell of marijuana waft unhindered

Um, how to be funny about this? Evanston aldermen have been debating how to make sure residents have enough neural activity to distinguish between official city websites and those belonging to individual aldermen. Somewhere in there they also decided not to implement a plan to stop "gang loitering."

Well, the residents of the 8th ward, which is probably somewhere no Northwestern student has ever seen, are not happy.

Kristin Doll of 140 Custer St. said she is very sensitive to the issue of criminalizing innocent kids who don't have anywhere to go, but that residents "are very intimidated."

The groups of young people, she said, "smoke pot; have alcohol in their hands."

"I've been harassed for walking by, been called names I won't repeat," she said, "There needs to be something the police can do. So often we call the police, the kids scatter, the police leave and the kids come back."

Oh NO SHE DIDN'T! Whoa! Marijuana, you say? And (ok, presumably) Skol! What did our esteemed Aldermen have to say to that?

Ald. Jean-Baptiste said the police department "already has laws it can enforce, such as disorderly conduct. If the young people have done these things, they ought to be arrested."

He said the ordinance would lead to "fascistic treatment" of the young people. "It would create a society were every corner has a camera and we're still not able to address the issues."

You know what, he's right. Only Nazis would rid the street corners of kids doing illegal drugs and drinking unfiltered devil water. And, dude? No one's talking about cameras. Maybe at the next meeting the wisemen can piss-test his Lordeth Jean-Baptiste for illegal substances.
[EvanstonNow]

THE DEATH STAR COMETHTry and stop this thing. Try.

Nothing gives Evanston media a hard-on like big buildings. And when you're proposing a 49-story monument to the phallus, why not? That's twice as high as anything else in the city! Yet the people of Evanston remain non-committal, sort of like a sorority girl before she's washed down a few martinis.

So think of yesterday's meeting as a, like, gulping of that first drink. What happened, you ask? (Bear in mind we're getting this from possibly depressed, possibly drunk suburban reporters. Seriously. I've met these dudes.)

"My generation says, I can walk to Whole Foods and Starbucks, what else to I need?" Larry Booth, the tower's architect, said.

He said the new tower would be "an elegant residential building, visually light and delicate, that would combine an intimate pedestrian experience with high residential density." (EvanstonNow)

Of course, you can't walk to Starbucks or Whole Foods without a 218-foot death star to.. assist you, is it? And what the fuck is an "intimate pedestrian experience"? Continuing:

The residential tower would be set back from the street. The tower is slim in appearance -- critics have dubbed it different -- so as not to appear out of scale with the street. (Evanston Review)

Right, because a fifty floor building looks right at home next to a three story building from the 1930s. And who are these "critics"?

Do tune in next week for our follow-ups on the Evanston Plan Commission's review of the building. Or, as we refer to it in journalistic parlance, ejaculation.

Tower developers meet neighbors (Great headline, Bill! Yay!) [EvanstonNow]
Tower hearings under way [Evanston Review]

THE LOCALSIn Brief: Past the impasse: Bill Smith shows a second emotion

This is more than "news people are talking about." This is news people are angry about.

Apparently Linda LaFianza, whose name is really more lezbot than Republican, is robo-calling residents! Evanston's favorite curmudgeon, Bill Smith, owner and purveyor of EvanstonNow, is not happy. After a brief shpiel, though, he comes to his journalistic senses. He's really against robo-calling from all parties! Yay balance, Bill!

[EvanstonNow]