Chicago the Disneyland of the Midwest - Where Dreams Come True, But not for You!

If Mellody Hobson Lucas wanted to ride a CTA bus bike rack, well she could, by God ride a CTA bus Rack. Her boss John Rogers*, formerly Mr. Desiree Rogers **and CEO of the incubator that created Barack Obama and Arne Duncan - Ariel Capital Management, knows how heart-breaking shattered dreams can be, when gangbangers of Friends of the Parks shattered the dreams of a aging bearded gnome with billions of spending loots and his White House wired wife to build a temple to themselves on Chicago's lakefront

John W. Rogers Jr., chairman and CEO of Ariel Investments, where Hobson is president, said this week that Hobson is "just heartbroken by this — she loves the city so much."

Some Dream of having a Temple Museum of Narrative Arts and Snappy Yarns and some just want to be a bicycle,




Chicago is owned not only by America's Dream Cult: Disney, but also the Cycle Fascists who have closed traffic lanes used on city streets from the time that teamsters drove wagons hitched to oat blowers, neighbors.

Friends of the Parks must have gotten to the CTA bus driver.


* Rogers served for six years under Mayor Richard M. Daley as the board president of the Chicago Park District, where he enjoyed what he said was a good relationship with Friends of the Parks. He declared himself mystified as to why it fought so hard to block Lucas from building on the lakefront.

**Desirée Glapion Rogers (born June 16, 1959, in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American business executive who is the Chief Executive Officer of Johnson Publishing Company. In November 2008 she was selected by Barack Obama's office as the White House Social Secretary for the incoming administration, the first person of African-American descent to serve in this function. On February 26, 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times′ Lynn Sweet reported that she planned to step down. Rogers was replaced by Julianna Smoot, former chief of staff to the U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. Smoot was the Obama presidential campaign chief fund-raiser. On August 10, 2010, Rogers was named CEO of Johnson Publishing Company.

Career Grifter CTA's Forrest Claypool' s Bull Durham Sack Management by Voyeurism

 CHICAGO (CBS) — The CTA admits it is using hidden cameras to crack down on employees who should be working, but some employees say they are placing the cameras in places they shouldn’t be.
The CTA claims that the cameras are part of an effort to crack down on waste, in this case employees sleeping on the job, and worse. . . .

I suppose that grabbing wink or two is the Progressive equivalent of sticking nickels in a Bull Durham sack. I am old enough to remember old timers who drove buses and streetcars. They referred to the art of Transit Larceny by an individual as being a 'Bull Durham Operator.'  On each route, a few nickels went home with the guy who spirited fares into a Bull Durham tobacco sack.   A greedy pig of a Transit worker would eventually get caught and find another City Hall gig.

Nowadays,  the thieves wear Brooks Brothers and get paid in checks with more zeroes than the Japanese air-force.  Or, if you read the Chicago papers and watch WTTW, the real thieves take naps after punching in to work.  I don't buy that crap.

I watch City workers everyday- cops, firemen, garbage men, water crews, teachers, bus and L drivers and the CTA repair crews on the Red, Orange, Blue, Brown, Pink and Mauve lines.  They do work.  They do work.  They do, work. There's no Siesta in public service! There is bid rigging, insider trading, fraud and all manner of contract opportunism.  Speaking of fraud and opportunism, let's turn to a paragon -CTA Boss Forrest Claypool.

I have long perceived Forrest Claypool to be a shameless moocher, a callow opportunist and really talent-challenged guy; now, in this second disturbing action  ( the first being the Claypool Pee-Watch on CTA Workers c. 2011) reported by CBS 2's Jay Levine I must add . . .really creepy.

My perceptions are based upon actual physical empirical encounters with this thin-gruel government job-hopper;  I watched Park District Commissioner shake down a girl working in the Special Events Department for VIP passes to Petrillo Band Shell performances acts open to the general public - but somewhat distant and without the VIP post-performance feed.   It was painful to watch . . . you know,  like a kid who beefs that his brother's birthday cake was better.  I have watched Forrest attend political events and fund-raisers for and by the people whom he would immediately stab in the back (too numerous to mention) and bad mouth to the ever useful Carol Marin.  I have followed the weasel-slick career of Forrest Claypool as he parlayed his way from Harold Washington to Rahm, always with a sense that there truly is no there, there.

I mean Andy Shaw endorsed Forrest. Me?  I think he is probably a great guy, when he's at home. Maybe not now, though.

Now, we hear that Ventra Boy the Micturating Bombardier has place peep-hole cameras in the locker and break rooms of CTA employees.  The idea is to find victims, when the public comes calling for answers about screw-ups that Forrest had his paws all over.

You see, Progressives have and always will hate and despise working men and women.  They love poor people, because they are commodity and could not name two persons in poverty.  Working people, especially skilled trades people are always and always will be the target of Investigative News Teams, Chuck Goudis, Peep-hole Operator and Progressives like Forrest Claypool.

Some guy sleeping off a hangover in the cab of Water Department Dump Truck must be exposed for the villain he is; some woman taking a bit too long in the Ladies Room really steams Forrest Claypool's clams and some kid taking a gander at the porn his supervisor downloaded requires a public chastisement.

The fact that this over-hired and over-paid Voyeur is setting up working people with cameras in their locker and break rooms is not new, but very consistent.  Forrest announced his 'crime fighting camera installations' last February; at the time, it was in response to thugs on the bus.  Now, we know that is just another attack on the middle class - the people who actually work for a living on the City's nickel.

Camera's never catch career grifters.

Steve Rhodes - A Real Newsman: CTA Failure to Launch New Rail Cars Makes N. Korea Look Like NASA in the 1960's

" Claypool! What's all this, then???? This simply will not do, my good man. These bloody Sino-Canuck Bombardier Wheels are bloody well defective! I suspect foul'd play. The Games afoot! . . .again. What?"

CTA officials said the no-bid component had nothing to do with scuttling the deal and that Emanuel had encouraged it all along.

"Very early, even before he took office, he asked me how we might turn this billion-dollar expenditure into an opportunity for jobs," said CTA President Forrest Claypool, who was appointed to the post shortly after Emanuel's inauguration. "So when I took office we took that mandate and ran with it."

Claypool described the Bombardier proposal as a "very, very rare potential for a win-win. The goal was a noble one. "

Chicago Tribune April 12, 2012

North Korea, which had described the launch as that of a space satellite, said the rocket failed soon after lift-off and plunged into the Pacific. ABC News

"Through an aggressive but targeted public, community and government relations campaign, Bombardier sought:

* To inform CTA officials, local government and business leaders of the growing presence of Bombardier as a part of Chicago-area commerce and industry.
* To educate key constituencies about the successful engagements Bombardier has with transit agencies in other major areas around the country and the world.

* To build a team of allies to welcome them into the market and feel comfortable with the company's products and level of customer service.

* To create a favorable impression the Chicago media market by highlighting and promoting unique attributes and initiatives of the Bombardier Transportation N.A. to specialty and general market media.


Mission not yet accomplished.

Steve Rhodes Beachwood Reporter



North Korea fired its missile with all of the potency of an ED addled mope.

Closer to home Forrest Claypool's masterful roll out of Bombardier rail cars last year matched the young Tyrant's magic moment yesterday.

Unsatisfying.

North Korea is impotent, but dangerous.

CTA is in the hands of a master job jumper with the Illinois Progressive imprimatur. Failure to roll: Launch, Roll, Noble Goal.

Steve Rhodes highlighted the excellent and tenacious work of Chicago Tribune reporter John Hilkevich who unearthed cast off wheels of the Bombardier CTA Boondoggle from China to Canada to the Fifth Floor of City Hall and various phone lines and cyber-relays of the CTA with pith and poignant note.

Steve Rhodes has more integrity than Marcus Aurelius on a full breakfast. The Beachwood Reporter is the only news clearing house in Chicago untainted by cant, compensation. or courtship.

Dig how he do roll - Beachwood Reporter Ethics Pledge

http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/house/beachwood_ethics_statement.php


NBC tried to buy Steve Rhodes a couple of years ago and was told to pound sand in thunder.

You do not need to agree with Steve Rhodes or the talented staff of the Beachwood Reporter and he and they could care less. The point of journalism is to give truth a place at the table set with too many dishes and places by gluttons, drunks and dummies.

I am aware of Forrest Claypool's resume and remain as underwhelmed by his obvious talents and charms as I have for years. The Bombardier Boondoggle ( click my post title for a thorough close reading of John Hilkevich's work by Steve Rhodes) more than lived up my expectations.

For any summary and fair redaction of what is going on in Chicago go to the Beachwood Reporer. You will get a considered opinion free of Mammon's tickle.

Brewer's Droop, ED, Failure to Launch result from many factors.

Corruption ditto.

Kevin Myers defines the germ of corruption this way - Corruption is made possible by low standards: what is unpunctuality, but a disdain for rules?

The plumbers or electricians who don't show up on time are the building-blocks that make possible the Ziggurat of large-scale corruption. Kevin Myers last column for the Irish Independent

Myers' point; what we accept; we get - good and hard and with great regularity.

We accepted Blago. Some folks fully accept Forrest Claypool -


Here's little more on Chicago CTA Bombardier Navigator Forrest " Noble Goal" Claypool.

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2012/03/rahm-wasnt-bilked-in-day-took-many.html

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-12/news/ct-met-cta-bombardier-20120412_1_cta-president-forrest-claypool-cta-lawyers-cta-officials

Goo-Goos Are Not a Working Man's Pal - Claypool Rolls the Bus Over CTA Employees

Policy killed politics. Politics is what made government effective. Politics responds to people's needs. Policy is the pathway to power.

The goof who first said, "There ought to be a Law" opened the door to government for Progressives. Progressives entered that smoke filled room and immediately went shopping for judges to get smoking banned; the rest is government that pads the few and pounds the rest.

Witness this swell photo of Armani clad CTA Brahmin ( appointed, n'cest pas) Forrest Claypool standing on the platform for a CTA L Train, clad in his Progressive Work Clothes. Shucks, he's just like folks.

However, folks seem to scan for the train in the correct general direction that the train will take.

Working Folks are about to get another world-class, transcendent, post-racial screwing, from Goo-goo Progressive Forrest Claypool.

Fifteen minutes of paid “coffee time” before the start of each shift. Twenty-minute paid bathroom breaks for customer assistants with easy access to washrooms. Paid lunch breaks for CTA rail operators and Sunday bus drivers. Paying workers convicted of drunk driving to do nothing for 180 days while they appeal and attempt to get their driving privileges back. Starting the clock on emergency overtime when employees get the phone call at home instead of when they arrive at work.

Those are some of the CTA work rules that CTA President Forrest Claypool wants to change in order to fill a $277 million shortfall in the CTA budget without raising fares or cutting service.

Yeah, taking a leak is killing this City. Thus, always the way of reform. It does not matter that policies begun by people like Frank Kruesi and continued by Forrest - people who have absolutely no working experience in the field of transportation -and deals cut to make a few people rich and not a bathroom break has crippled the Chicago Transit Systems. Did we really beg for accordion buses? Green buses? Faux Parisian benches?

Forrest Claypool never drove a bus, or a train. I doubt if Forrest Claypool has ever been on the business end of a janitor's broom, mop, or brush. I'd venture to offer that, Forrest Claypool does not drop by CVS, Jewel-Osco, or other fine venues to purchase a CTA Red Pass at a modest $85.00 good for a full month of rides anywhere in Chicagoland.

I have one in my wallet. In fact, I ride the CTA in order to ease my carbon-footprint off of Mother Earth's back and to save a few shekles. I generally get on the 5:06 Bus at 104th & Western to 79th Street Terminal and grab and east bound ( Red Line) to 79th & Morgan and legendary Leo High School.

I have never seen Forrest, or Rahm on that run. They keep different hours.

I am a working stiff. A College and Graduate school degree'd mope. I ride the bus with a Mr. Duckworth ( 'Duckie') a Coast Guard Veteran who works at Calumet Harbor, Vanessa, a cook at Perspectives ( formerly Calumet H.S.) and Bertina, a nurse at Jackson Park Hospital. We are very happy with the working men and women at the wheel who not only safely and promptly get us to work, but also maintain command presence and authority over drunks, crack-pipe artists, thugs and idiots. They (Bus and Train drivers) are in harm's way, all day and every day, and do not wear Kevlar.

Driving in Chicago traffic is a bitch and a half on a good day; driving a bus is a labor fit for Greek Gods. God Bless Our CTA Folks!

Sorry for your looming troubles, folks.




Then there is the Goo-goo appointee - Forrest Claypool who gets conveniently slotted into an elective spot when someone dies and his opponent is in an iron-lung, or more commonly appointed to a six figure salary. Forrest Claypool is the Rula Lenska of Chicago*. One always wonders - "What exactly did he/she do?" Rula was the sexy Limey broad who did Clairol commercials staged in what was supposed to be a theatrical dressing room. Forrest Claypool bounces from Parks, to Staffs, to Hospitals, to Boards, to Executive Suites.

The guy can't keep a job.

Forrest is a Goo-goo Brahmin - that is a life-long sinecure - he is a professional 'Ain't He Great-er' and therefore will always collect a huge paycheck.

American Labor, like the Democratic Party has snuggled up to the Goo-goos for forty year. Why? God only knows. Unions are now learning what Old Time Ward pros have known all along. Goo-goos ( Mike Quigley, Pat Quinn, Forrest Lenska, Deb Shore, Sheila Simon, Quentin Young, Dawn Clark Netsch, Ralph Martire, Terry Cosgrove, and always hilarious Jan Schakowsky) are not friends of working people.

When a Goo-goo, Reformer, Progressive, Activist, Mobilizer, or glue-sniffer gets power, grab your ankles, make sure you have a good athletic mouthpiece firmly fitted between your uppers and lowers, and wait for the screwing of the Ages!


*"

Who the hell is Rula Lenska?" The question was first asked on the air by Detroit TV News Anchorman Don Lark, then echoed in print by Washington Post Columnist Roger Rosenblatt. She is, as many TV watchers know, a glamorous redhead who appears regularly in commercials for Alberto VO5 hair spray. She tosses her long locks, identifies herself as R-u-ula Lenz-z-zka and speaks of herself as though she were a famous actress. But, as the newscaster asked, who is she?
Chicago Adman David Lewis knows the answer, and he is telling everyone who will listen: Rula Lenska is the 31-year-old daughter of a Polish émigré count and lives in London. She was featured as a rock singer in the British TV series Rock Follies and as a character in a never released film, Queen Kong. What fascinated Lewis, who had nothing to do with the hair spray commercials, was this obscure actress's hopeful pretense of being a famous star. As a lark, he founded the Rula Lenska Fan Club—and soon found that some 600 other people were ready to join the cult.
In London, "The Fair One," as she is known to her U.S. fans, confesses to be "stunned and astonished" by her unexpected fame but more preoccupied with the imminent birth of her first child. Lewis urged fans to "name the nipper." The winners: Octavia and Llewellyn.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920557,00.html#ixzz1aCK9sxop