The splat rat's days appear to be numbered
& what it evidently takes to be married for 70 years
1-25-2024 (issue No. 125)
This week:
News and Views — On the movement against natural gas; on the proposal to build a new home for the White Sox on the Near South Side; on the collapses in print journalism; on evicting migrants from city shelters; on Republican lies regarding U.S. energy independence; on “privacy” for police officers accused of serious misconduct and more
My parents are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary this weekend — How’d they do it?
Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week — Austin Berg, Cate Plys and I banter with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams
Re:Tweets — The winning visual tweet and this week’s contest finalists
Good Sports — Who is the greatest Chicago coach of all time? Also my shocked reaction to Hinsdale Township High School District 86’s decision to keep Hinsdale South’s head basketball coach and my lack of surprise that Univeristy of Michigan head football coach Jim Harbaugh is returning to the NFL
Tune of the Week — “Woe, Woe, Woe,” an acid country gospel song
Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.
Last week’s winning tweet
Friend: It sounds terrible but sometimes I find myself disliking my own children Me: Don't worry, that's really common. Friend: Really? Me: Yeah, everyone hates your kids. — @ItsAndyRyan
Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-tweets poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.
Rat tail: Residents are unhappy with the attention lavished on the famous sidewalk depression, so the city may pave it over
The city is “considering” removing the Chicago rat hole in light of resident complaints.
Yes, it’s easy for me to say, “Aw, the impression of a dead rodent in the sidewalk is a fun little distraction during grim times in cold, dark months.” But I don’t live on the 1900 block of West Roscoe Street where some neighbors are very unhappy about the international attention that has been focused on their street in the wake of a Jan. 6 social media post featuring this image.
On Reddit, an anonymous person claiming to live right by the rat hole (which may be a squirrel hole) wrote:
Since this thing went viral, here are some of the things we've had to deal with:
Garbage piling up, including vapes, cigarettes, alcohol, and food
Vandalism
People partying outside our house, doing shots, pouring alcohol on the sidewalk, and leaving the empty liquor bottles in our parkway, at all hours of the day and night
Cars honking as they drive by
Total loss of privacy, especially for the ground floor tenants
People filming videos to promote things, like improv shows, radio stations, businesses, etc… and leaving advertisements and flyers on our property
Reporters waiting outside our house and trying to interview us when we come out
Our mail carrier has been skipping our house due to the crowds and news crews
Street parking being taken up all throughout our neighborhood
People doing weird-ass "rituals" like prayer circles and chants late at night?
People accusing my neighbors and I of trying to fill in the hole (we did not, and we don't know who did, but I'm honestly afraid someone is going to throw a brick through our window)
This past weekend was absolute hell for me and my neighbors. We have always liked the rat (or squirrel) – it was a cute, quirky little thing in our neighborhood. People would smile and laugh as they walked by, and that was it. It's been there at least 20 years. … But now the internet has learned about it, and taken things waaaaay too far. What was once a fun little quirk has become a trashy, cheap marketing ploy. Everyone just wants to capitalize on it and get their internet clout. I think someone even started making t-shirts??
I've just been told that there's a facebook group trying to start a "Rat Hole Music Fest." And there have also been talks of creating an official permanent shrine at the site.
I know a lot of you will say, "people will get bored of it and this will all blow over soon," and I do think the hype has probably peaked by now, but I honestly don't think it will ever go away entirely. Especially if the "permanent shrine" idea becomes a reality.
Let me reiterate that we don't want to fill in or otherwise destroy the rat hole. I'm glad that it has brought people joy. But we need you all to chill out. Please.
The resident added that he or she had been assured that the city plans to resurface the sidewalk, which seems like a hasty overreaction. Rat hole fever will cool soon enough. Life is likely to get back to normal on West Roscoe Street in a few days or weeks.
But if city workers dig it up, I suggest it be relocated, perhaps to a park or a local history museum. The legend should live on.
News & Views
News: “Chicago to consider an ordinance that would effectively ban natural gas in new buildings.”
View: Fine. Like many people, I prefer cooking with the open flame of natural gas on the range, but I’m not going to collapse into an aggrieved heap if someday I move into a newer building with electric appliances mandated by city law.
I’m fine with non-filament light bulbs, low-flush toilets and other environmentally friendly products forced onto us by law. We all need to make minor sacrifices to help dampen the effects of global climate change, and other cities are adopting similar measures regarding natural gas.
I’m confused, however, by these paragraphs in the Tribune article:
Citizens Utility Board Executive Director Sarah Moskowitz cited a 2022 analysis performed for the Natural Resources Defense Council that found that Chicagoans could save roughly $11,000 to $24,000 over 20 years by ditching natural gas and going all-electric at home. …
Peoples Gas, the natural gas utility that serves Chicago, issued a statement saying, “We believe this proposed ordinance is a terrible idea for Chicago. It would increase costs and risk reliability for everyone, especially during the coldest days of the year like we are seeing this week.” The statement went on to say that making homes use all-electric heat would cost Chicagoans two times more than they would pay for natural gas.
Peoples Gas even indicated that carbon emissions might rise under the new regulations because of how Illinois generates electricity.
I want to know more before I get on board with this idea or reject it as unnecessarily meddlesome. And I want the information to come from disinterested researchers, not advocates. So I’m glad the proposal was sent to a City Council committee Wednesday.
News: Mayor Brandon Johnson says talks with White Sox ownership were “very positive” regarding the construction of a new stadium on the Near South Side.
View: I conditionally approve of the idea of building a new stadium for the White Sox in the now vacant area known as “The 78” south of Roosevelt Road along the east bank of the Chicago River. It’s an idea sprang up seemingly out of nowhere recently. Not long ago,the talk was that the Sox were thinking of moving to the suburbs or to Nashville.
OK, but first, no significant taxpayer subsidies to give this private business a venue. We were ripped off 30 years ago when we paid for the new home for the White Sox at 35th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway that they now want to abandon.
Second, it’s gotta have a dome — preferably retractable — for year-round concerts, rodeos, monster truck rallies and other major events.
And third, the Sox have to come up with and finance a plan to repurpose and/or redevelop Guaranteed Rate Field and the parking lots that surround it. We don’t want to swap one huge swath of vacant land for another.
News: The Baltimore Sun is being taken over by a right-wing propagandist, the Los Angeles Times is laying off more than 100 newsroom employees, Time, National Geographic, Pitchfork and the Baltimore Banner are cutting staff and Sports Illustrated is going toes up.
View: It’s sad. Behind the layoffs are people with bills to pay and mouths to feed. And it’s scary, because print journalism is a major bulwark against the untended firehose of lies that’s drenching us and the stealthy corrupt practices that steal from us.
Here’s media critic Margaret Sullivan in “Local newspapers are withering under destructive owners. We should worry.”
The old business model has failed as its lifeblood (print advertising) has dried up; digital advertising and subscriptions haven’t come on strong enough, and hedge funds have swooped in to peck out the end-stage profits.
Amid this nightmare, one often hears the wish for more local ownership because national vulture-capital chains have done so much damage.
But as Baltimore’s situation shows, local ownership can be just as bad. From the early signs – and given Sinclair’s history – it may be even worse.
BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis somehow finds glimmers of hope in the wreckage, but, frankly, I’m unable to see any concrete solutions in passages of his that read like this:
The way out of this will be to educate and empower our next generation, not in so-called media literacy, but in media leadership, in taking responsibility for the health of their communities and their public discourse. That is a big, complex, nuanced, unsure order that will require marshaling the wisdom of disciplines far beyond journalism: history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, community studies, ethics, design, and the arts.
News: City postpones date of first evictions from city-run migrant shelters to Feb. 1.
View: This is pure bluster. Due to dangerously cold weather, officials have twice postponed the date when those who have exceeded 60 days in shelters would be forced to leave and find other housing.
Feb. 1, a week from today, is unlikely to be balmy. The average low temperature on that date is 18.5 degrees. The overall average for that day is 25.2 degrees. Decency will forbid us from forcing asylum-seekers and their families out onto the street. New York City tried something similar, and the Sun-Times reports that the result was “utter chaos.”
The deadline will keep getting pushed back, each delay a reminder that Mayor Brandon Johnson still doesn’t have a plan.
News: Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee declares that President “Joe Biden has destroyed U.S. energy independence” and that gas prices are “skyhigh”
View: I can’t be sure if Blackburn is a damn fool or a damn liar, but I suspect the latter. The U.S. has been a net exporter of energy since 2019 in part because we’re producing record levels of natural gas and crude oil. And gas prices are about where they were three years ago.
News: State’s top cop lawyer argues in a Sun-Times op-ed in favor of confidential disciplinary proceedings for police officers because they, too, deserve “privacy.”
View: The law agrees with attorney Alexander Dunn, executive director of the Illinois Council of Police labor union. But I do not. Public employees accused of serious misconduct should have no claim to privacy in arbitration and disciplinary procedures. And that goes double for police officers.
Mayor Brandon Johnson wants the City Council to double down on a feckless, expensive effort to defy state law, but a motion to do that was tabled at Wednesday’s meeting. Local Fraternal Order of Police head John Catanzara was heard to shout at the alders, “Get your checkbooks ready."
“We know a little bit about chances being small, yet here we are,” senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee told the Sun-Times, linking the city’s long odds of success in courts with the long odds against Johnson very early in the 2023 race for mayor.
But court rulings aren’t popularity contests and, as I wrote on January 11, the police union has by far the stronger argument under current law.
News: “Bottled Water Can Contain Hundreds of Thousands of Previously Uncounted Tiny Plastic Bits, Study Finds”
View: If I made the laws, I’d ban single-use plastic water bottles. Not for this reason, necessarily, but for environmental reasons. It’s water, people. Fill up your reusable containers at home. Save the planet and stop ingesting tiny plastic bits.
News: Bally’s discovers that the foundation for its proposed 35-story hotel on the north end of the River West casino site would interfere with underground city water pipes, so the hotel must be moved.
View: Uh-oh. I’m not an architect, but isn’t checking for potential foundation-related one of the first things you would do after roughing out a site plan? This screwup suggests to me incompetence and inexperience that bodes poorly for the future of the entire project.
News: Jon Stewart to return to “The Daily Show” as executive producer and Monday night host
View: Great. He left the Comedy Central show in 2015, and we badly missed his voice in the last two presidential election cycles as he dabbled in streaming documentary journalism. Once a week will not be enough, but it will be something.
Facing the road ahead after 70 years together
My parents were married 70 years ago Sunday, and what I wrote 10 years ago on their 60th anniversary still applies.
What I've learned from their example is that, of all the elements that go into a lasting marriage — love, shared values, patience, loyalty — the most important is respect.
That sounds formal, I know. But I'm talking about the sort of regard that exceeds mere affection and attraction. Respect is the capacity not just to admire your spouse's talents and other fine qualities but also to act in ways that nurture those qualities. It's to consider your spouse a valued consultant on matters great and small. It's about deference, not obedience; about appreciation, not honor; about give and take, not sacrifice.
I'm sure you can love someone you don't fundamentally and deeply respect, but not for long.
They are in their 90s now and facing various challenges of that age. Here is a picture of them in their mid-20s with so much of life — including parenthood — still ahead of them. Now, with so much of life behind them, they still take pleasure and find comfort in each others’ company.
I can never hear “Rose of My Heart” without thinking of them.
Land of Linkin’
“More than 1 in 4 U.S. adults identify as religious ‘nones,’ new data shows.”
Steve Chapman: “Liz Cheney’s Stand Against Trump: Too Late, But Not Too Little” “In her new book, she should have held herself accountable for enabling him for so long.”
“Bar or Bat Mitzvah? Hey, What About a Both Mitzvah? The Jewish coming-of-age ceremony stretches to accommodate the new gender fluidity.” This 2019 article in The New York Times explained the origins of the term “B’nai Mitzvah.”
Last week’s item praising brown noise as superior to white noise for background sound masking brought a reader recommendation for burnt umber noise, which sounds to me a lot like what an airline passenger hears in flight. I approve! Check it out.
Hat tip to @ChicagoBars for resurfacing this outrageous reminder from 1986: “More than a decade after other major American cities outlawed lead in new drinking water pipes, Chicago officials hope to finally overcome resistance from the influential plumbers union and enact a similar ban here.”
In Tuesday’s Picayune Plus I wrote of my misgivings about a proposal to have the city rather than homeowners and private services clear snow from sidewalks after a winter storm. I’ve seen no good cost projections on the idea, but I did find “Montreal will spend nearly $200M on snow removal this winter,” about a city that does offer sidewalk clearing. Montreal is 141 square miles. Chicago is 231 square miles. The idea doesn’t appear from my click survey to have a lot of traction yet:
Who makes Kirkland brand coffee for Costco? Starbucks.
I for one would be frightened to skate over ice this clear:
Squaring up the news
This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:
■ Radio shame: With accusations that one alumnus of the station tells Square are “100% authentic,” a former WKQX radio host is suing parent Cumulus Media, alleging workplace discrimination and harassment—and retaliation when he complained.
■ Columnist Cathleen Falsani reflects on WXRT DJ Lin Brehmer’s death a year ago this week.
■ Contending that “The New York Times repeatedly abuses the English language in its political reporting,” Press Watch proprietor Dan Froomkin offers some style guide changes.
■ Chicago’s consideration of a crackdown on “filthy” dollar stores recalls the time in November that John Oliver dropped a dime on reprehensible practices at such stores.
■ WBEZ reports that a south suburb that hasn’t had a library in almost 30 years has nevertheless collected more than $100,000 in library taxes—for uses unclear.
■ “An oil and gas organization in Illinois is promoting misinformation in schools”: The Lever turns a spotlight on “educational” programs promoted by the Illinois Oil Field Museum in Oblong, Illinois. And, if Oblong rings a bell, this may be why (2016 link).
■ Ex-Trib columnist Barbara Brotman: “Ice is my mortal enemy.” (Gift link courtesy of Square supporters.)
■ Chicago Reader columnist Leor Galil is tired of hearing about “The Bear.”
■ Google’s updating its Chrome browser to make clear that its “incognito” mode, um, ain’t all that incognito.
■ An iPhone operating system upgrade offers “stolen device protection.” If your phone’s in a new place, it requires you to confirm your identity before—among other things—using saved passwords.
You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.
Microwave tea?
One of the entries in the Jan. 11 Tweet of the Week contest was, “Quick, while the British people are sleeping: Raise your hand if you make tea by microwaving hot water,” by @elle9.
The tweet did not win, but it excited some passionate correspondence rooted in an old dispute.
Some background from the Killgreen website:
(Food scientist) Quan Vuong from the University of Newcastle … published a paper in 2012 that showed an improvement in the extraction of chemical compounds from tea leaves if the tea was microwaved.
This one idea, that microwaving your tea actually makes it “healthier” by extracting more compounds, exploded across news networks like a thermonuclear bomb. … Equally popular, and a source of even more coverage, was the backlash against these articles, both by common Brits and by “tea experts” aghast at a recommendation of microwaving tea. In the end, everyone got to pat themselves on the back for either discovering a new way to make healthier tea or by holding fast to the perceived “wrongness” of this practice.
Here’s support from Team New Way:
Food and Wine: “The Healthiest Way to Brew Your Tea? Microwave It. Research shows microwaving tea makes it tastier, too.”
Here are some of the articles from Team Aghast:
Real Simple: “Why You Should Never Microwave Tea … A better cup awaits those who embrace the kettle over the microwave (the laws of physics agree).”
All Recipes: “Why You Shouldn't Microwave Tea. Respect the process.”
The Mashable article makes the case opposing microwaving tea water, citing other research:
(Microwaving) causes the liquid to end up different temperatures at the top and bottom of the cup. A good cup of tea is all about getting uniform temperature throughout your water. … If you're throwing your cup of water in the microwave for 90 seconds … the device's electric field heats it from all angles, not just from below, so while the top part of the cup's water may be sitting at boiling point, the bottom may not. … So, your microwaved cup of tea is hotter at the top than the bottom. … The temperature of your water when brewing tea is really important, which is why making sure it's uniform is vital to a good cup — the water is needed for the dried tea leaves to expand, unfurl, and start brewing.
The part about different temperatures in different parts of the cup strikes me as nonsense, but it’s been a long time since I’ve studied thermodynamics. Where are you on this?
Minced Words
Cate Plys, Austin Berg and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. The topic of gas versus electric appliances took center stage. Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.
Quotables
(Writing for a newspaper is like) playing in an orchestra on an antique bandstand set on a cliff at the edge of the sea. Sawing away at our instruments while, every now and then, with increasing frequency, another chunk of cliff gives way, and a cello, or a couple of bassoons go whistling into the abyss. The symphony falters, the music grows thinner, fainter. But the tempo is resumed, until the next crash, a strangled cry and a pair of cymbals go clanging down the sheer rock face followed by a splash. — Neil Steinberg
President Trump is the one that gave shock and awe to the whole world when he walked across the DMZ line, hand extended, shaking hands with Kim Jong Un, ending Little Rocket Man’s reign. — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
No one in America wants a stranger coming to their door for any reason. And if they were given the choice between door knockers who were selling politicians or membership in a cult, it would be a close call. … Visits from paid strangers build brands the same way Joe Biden plays hacky sack: They don’t. If they did, Dollar Shave Club would have rung your doorbell, and Budweiser would have knocked to sell you something icy in a can. — Curt Anderson and Alex Castellanos on why Ron DeSantis’ campaign fizzled
Re: Tweets
In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:
The new nominees for Tweet of the Week:
New Hampshire is like curling. We see it on TV only once every four years— @RickAaron
An empty can of Cheese Whiz will now be known as Cheese Was. — @UncleBob56
If you’re going to walk a mile in my shoes, please also wear my Fitbit. — @JayTorch1031
Shout out to the parents subsisting on a steady diet of bread butts, forgotten vegetables, and cupcakes with the frosting licked off. — @prufrockluvsong
You think anyone is ever like, “Glad we got these wind chimes”? — @simoncholland
[At my second rodeo] Ah, yes, I understand everything now. — @TheAndrewNadeau
I wanna be mysterious so bad, but I cannot stop yapping. — @lnhales
Seventy-five percent of being a divorce lawyer is just answering emails from clients saying, “No. No. No. You absolutely cannot do that, no.” — @Parkerlawyer
Not arguing with people in 2024, I’m just gonna say “it makes sense that you would think that.” — @MediumSizeMeech
When I was in elementary school we learned about a shape called a rhombus, and that was the last time I ever heard about that shape. — @SunshineJarboly
Vote here and check the current results in the poll.
If you like evaluating jokes, WGN-AM midday host John Williams is conducting a bracket tournament with some of his favorite “speed jokes.” Lots of excruciating wordplay!
Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media.
For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.
Good Sports
Have your Phil
Axios Chicago is conducting a bracket tournament for readers to select the best Chicago coach of all time. I contend that, in the final pairing, the choice between Bulls coach Phil Jackson and Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville is too easy.
The appalling failure of Hinsdale South to fire its head basketball coach
I thought Hinsdale South High School was poised to fire head basketball coach Michael Belcaster as I suggested in no uncertain terms last November. The evidence strongly suggests he cut a star player from his team because that player, senior Brendan Savage, had had the temerity to file a complaint against Belcaster’s predecessor and good friend.
Brendan’s family has filed suit, even though he was reinstated to the team and is now a starter. Hinsdale Township High School District 86 and Belcaster have been tight-lipped about the controversy, citing the suit, and Tuesday night the board deliberated in a closed session before announcing without addressing the charges against Belcaster that he will stay on.
News reports quoted Belcaster’s wife, Alicia, saying “When the lies came forward about Mike's intentions for cutting a player, it shattered him. It is completely untrue, and is in no way something Mike would ever do."
OK, then, let’s hear why he cut an all-conference player who was clearly good enough to be on the starting five. I’m listening.
Yes, please
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich on how the Spurs intended to guard superstar Joel Embiid: "I don't think it matters what we do. I can give you some bullshit if you want."
On University of Michigan coaches
In unsurprising news, Michigan’s head football coach Jim Harbaugh is headed to the NFL to coach the Los Angeles (formerly San Diego) Chargers. I was kind of hoping he’d stay in Ann Arbor and finish his career guiding the Wolverines, but he’s chosen to go out on top.
But I can’t blame him for wanting to try to join the small group of elite coaches who have won both the college football championship and the Super Bowl — Barry Switzer (Univeristy of Oklahoma, Dallas Cowboys) Jimmy Johnson (University of Miami; Dallas Cowboys) and Pete Carroll (University of Southern California, Seattle Seahawks). Paul Brown (Ohio State University, Cleveland Browns) arguably belongs on that list, but his NFL championships came in the 1950s before the first Super Bowl (after the 1966 season).
Harbaugh has already led one NFL team to the Super Bowl — the 2012 San Francisco 49ers — but he lost that game to the Baltimore Ravens, coached by his big brother John.
Meanwhile, head men’s basketball coach Juwan Howard is nearly at the bottom. Tuesday night’s 99-67 beatdown by Purdue was the team’s worst loss in 17 years. After opening the season with three wins, the Wolverines are 4-12 and at the bottom of the Big Ten.
Howard, a Chicago native and former NBA All-Star who was Associated Press College Basketball Coach of the Year in his second season leading the Wolverines (2020-21), now seems at a loss at a time when Michigan sports fans have high expectations.
Tune of the Week
I have a peculiar fondness for acid country gospel — religious songs with fire and brimstone lyrics that warn the listener of the grave consequences of straying from the path of righteousness and the potential horror of the end-times. These are songs that my friend, noted vocal teacher and recording artist Valerie Mindel, would rank 10 out of 10 on her “Blood of the Lamb” scale.
I groove to the passion and poetry of the lyrics — often adapted from Revelation — even though I don’t actually believe a word of it. My emotionally detached affection is kind of like how I love shanties even though I don’t like sailing and how I can sing of my fondness for a “Kentucky Girl” when my wife hails from Pennsylvania.
I can’t tell you much about “Woe, Woe, Woe,” which was on an album my dad brought home in 1973. Joe Issacs was an accomplished bluegrass musician from Kentucky, and his wife, Lily ,(in the purple shirt in the video image), was a Jewish folk singer in New York City. Bluegrass America explains:
In 1970, while attending the funeral of one of Joe's brothers who had died in a car accident, Lily and Joe had a powerful spiritual experience while attending a little Pentecostal church and they both turned their lives over to Christ.
Four, five months men will mourn and cry And beg to God to let them die But all of their pleadings will be in vain While they were having their pleasures They wouldn't own his name
Joe and Lily divorced in 1998 ,and she continued performing with a Gospel Music Hall of Fame band called “The Issacs.”
Another song that busts the Blood of the Lamb scale and positively reeks of sulfur, is “When the Moon Drifts Away into Blood.”
When the stars from the elements are falling And the moon drips away into blood When the sea begins to roar and the rocks begin to melt Sinner, where will you stand?
Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!
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"...the Sox have to come up with and finance a plan to repurpose and/or redevelop Guaranteed Rate Field..."
Uh, you misspelled Comiskey Park.
It seems like the elimination of gas appliances for electric, and the development of a new White Sox park, would be perfect subjects for an independent financial analysis. I mention this because, as reported in the Sun-Times, Chicago has such an office headed by an independent financial analyst. However it seems alderman Jason Ervin wants to replace that person with one of his own. The analyst has a 4 year term that expires in June. Since he won’t resign, Ervin has placed him on administrative paid leave. Ervin won’t say hy he wants to replace him, or why he can’t wait until June. Something smells about this.