Burke Gets In on the Act

Is he for real? Or is he "inoculating" Rahm from further criticisms by "addressing" the issue in a hearing:

• An influential alderman on Monday took aim at one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s pet projects by describing last weekend’s inaugural Great Chicago Fire Festival as “the fiasco on the river.”
  
  [...] “What can you tell me about the fiasco on the river over the weekend, the Chicago Fire Festival?” Ald. Ed Burke, 14th, asked an Emanuel administration official Monday during a Budget Committee meeting that did not have the subject on its agenda. “Were there any taxpayer dollars involved in that event?”

Really Ed? We guess it's kind of obvious that Ed is merely providing cover for Rahm. The taxpayer element was covered extensively in the lame-stream media for weeks leading up to the fiasco. Weren't you paying attention as $350 grand walked out the door?

• “One would think to celebrate the 143rd anniversary of one of the most significant events in Chicago’s history, there ought to be a better way of doing it,” said Burke, a longtime student of city history. “One would think if there’s enough money to spend on something like this that maybe the money would be better spent being contributed to the Greater Chicago Food Depository to help feed people that are going hungry, or to donate to a shelter that takes care of abused women, or many such things.”
  
  Asked if the city should do it again, Burke responded: “What’s the old adage? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I think that applies.” On Sunday, both Redmoon and city officials told the Tribune that they planned to try again.

Wait a minute....where's the call for a full accounting of the taxpayer money spent? Where's the receipts for material? The stores the material was bought? Who wired this disaster? How much was paid to the workers? Who were the workers? You know what we wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out? That a sizable portion of this money found its way into connected pockets.

In the meantime, the quotes from the Redmoon softballs are something to behold:

• "We had been building up anticipation of those houses burning. It's not an unfair expectation that they should have burned and burned spectacularly," said Jim Lasko, executive art director for Redmoon Theater, which produced the show in partnership with the city of Chicago.
  
  
• Lasko, who first expressed his hope for a second shot Sunday on his Twitter account, said the motifs were "symbolic inner core reflections of Chicago's grit, greatness and renewal."
  
  
• "The houses didn't burn, and that was sad," he said. "It's hard not to feel like we're being challenged to embrace our message, which is to have grit and resilience and come back and do it better." Lasko said one of the group's failures was not coming up with a backup plan that didn't rely on the same electrical connections that failed to ignite the houses.
  

That is some excellent blather right there folks. A lot of words and not a coherent thought in the bunch.