7/29/2008

Kook Kounty Magazene canned bekause of mispellings

If you haven't noticed, Cook County government doesn't draw a whole lot of positive press these days. Todd Stroger and company know this. So, to combat the problem, the county has developed a magazine that would "regular, positive press". What could possibly go wrong, right?

The deal itself wreaks of the type of government that necessitates the launching of a propaganda magazine:

... county officials have the final say on what's published. And Tracy accepted $24,999 from Stroger's administration last November to launch the magazine -- $1 under the amount that would have required the approval of the full Cook County Board.

Tracy said there should be no "perception that we were just a house organ."

No, none at all. No word on whether that was said with a straight face.

What kind of revealing information will the mag proffer?

The cover story is an interview with Stroger that starts by asking him, "How are you feeling these days?"

If we wanted to know how Todd Stroger was feeling these days, couldn't they just publish his "Hello Kitty" diary?

But, now for the sad news. You're never going to see a copy of this magazine. Why, you ask?

Stroger spokesman Eugene Mullins said he has 5,000 copies of the issue in his office -- and that's where they'll stay.

"I was asked to review it and decided not to distribute it -- not because of content, but errors and omissions in the article" about John Stroger, Mullins said. "Judging on grammatical stuff -- something misspelled or that's not a complete sentence -- falls back on the president. And this is a Cook County magazine. I have to find a way to get rid of them. I'm not distributing them."

Apparently their spelling and grammatical prowess is comparable to Todd Stroger's reading and pronunciation prowess.

Want a specific example of the "grammatical stuff"? Try this one on for size:

There's also a short obituary for Stroger's late father and predecessor as county board president, John H. Stroger Jr., who died in January. It misspells his name.

So, for those of you keeping score, the Stroger administration unilaterally spent $24,999 on a propaganda magazine to garner some positive press in the face of newspaper reports and TV news broadcasts replete with stories of waste, fraud, patronage and corruption... and that magazine will never see the light of day.

Another $24,999 of your tax dollars wasted.

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Filed Under: Cook County Politics

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