Saturday, June 24, 2006

Get Ready for a Boondoggle

Chicago to host Olympic Games? (Channel 2, Channel 7 and Sun Times coverage). Actually, it's only the chance to present a proposal to possibly host the Games. Could it be done? Sure. We have the facilities, the hotel space, incidental support and the capability to host a big event like the Olympics.

Should it be done? That's a matter of opinion. A lot of building improvement would have to be done. That means contracts which means "the Chicago way" of doing things, which coincidently, seems to be the Olympic way of doing a lot of things (bribes, payoffs and the like.) And that doesn't take into consideration that Olympics usually lose money. Taxpayers get stuck with more than a little bit of the construction and improvement costs while foreigners demand all sorts of freebies, concessions and the like. After the Olympics leave, communities are stuck with clean up and a number of unusable buildings (how many times have you visited a velodrome?)

If only we had a website that could solicit that kind of insight into whether or not a city so mired in corruption and sleaze should be allowed to play around with the billions of dollars an Olympic sized event would involve. Oh wait ... we do!

15 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK SCC, I like to think I'm hip and all, but....

WHAT THE HELL IS A "Boondoggle????"

6/24/2006 12:14:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ron Rufo is First!!!!!

6/24/2006 12:14:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

WHAT THE HELL IS A "Boondoggle????"


The same as a conundrum -

Otherwise, SSDD!!!!

6/24/2006 01:13:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Keep your day job, Oaf!

Gross and as amusing as leukemia.

6/24/2006 01:33:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Founded in US Boy Scouts' jargon, or possibly the slang of cowboys, 'boondooggle' is now a useful political term.


Boy Scout? Is this Richie Daley's blog?

6/24/2006 01:55:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Boondoggle: A CPD promotional exam.

6/24/2006 10:47:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let's see here....if we take our 3 ring circus out of this tent and go
Olympic scale...Yeah!...there's money to be made here, alright!...
It's Family Planning maxed out!
Our children & their children and all their political cronies will
RAPE the benefits!...and if we go BIG TIME like this, why even the G
doesn't have enough people to investigate us.

6/24/2006 10:59:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Made in China Boondoggle your new term for ChinaMan. Long arm of the law. wAITING FOR THE LAUGHS FROM TODAY'S BOONDOGGLE SEATING.

6/24/2006 01:40:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

a boondoggle?
isnt that a dance?

woohoo, we are so there. grab your top hat monkey, we gots dancing to do.

6/24/2006 05:03:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

boondoggle...

...new park along Michigan Ave.

6/24/2006 08:11:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

boondoggle
Origin: 1935

A boondoggle was just a little recreation for Boy Scouts and cowboys until the government took over. Some say it began as a craft project to keep Scouts busy and quiet, braiding the ends of a lanyard or leather strap to be worn around the neck for decoration or to hold something like a key. Similarly, at home on the range on an idle day, cowboys would make boondoggles by weaving together odd scraps of leather as decorations for their saddles or other equipment. In the mid-1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, someone who was skeptical about newly created government jobs gave them the contemptuous name of boondoggles.

We can see the transformation of boondoggle from private pastime to public waste in a New York Times article of April 4, 1935, with the headlines "$3,187,000 Relief is Spent to Teach Jobless to Play...'Boon Doggles' Made...Aldermen Find These Are Gadgets." An instructor in boondoggling explained to the city aldermen, "They may be making belts in leather, or maybe belts by weaving ropes, or it might be belts by working with canvas, maybe a tent or a sleeping bag. In other words, it is a chamber of horrors where boys perform crafts that are not designed for finesse and fine work, but simply a utility purpose."

Ever since, boondoggle has been the standard and indispensable epithet for purposeless and wasteful projects in government and business. Where the odd-sounding word came from no one knows, but it resembles extravagant inventions of the early nineteenth century like Sockdolager (1827). Perhaps only boondoggle is sufficiently outrageous for proper censure of an outrageous waste of time.



Yup - fits this administration, city, county, and state perfectly....

6/24/2006 08:25:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

GOOF DALEY RE-BUILT SOLDIER FIELD TOO SMALL TO HOST OPENING CERIMONIES

6/24/2006 10:42:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

BOONDOGGLE: A soup made out of that happyjoyjoy imbecile and his butt monkey partner

6/25/2006 08:43:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

woohoo, they made up a word about us.
woot!!!!

dont be jealous of my monkey and me.

6/25/2006 03:53:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

wait, imbecile??? does that mean im a good dancer???
i think so.
thank you, thank you very much.

6/25/2006 03:58:00 PM  

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