With list of demands, Occupy Chicago leaps to #1 in the 'Occupy' power rankings

The Occupy Chicago movement finally listened to me. I was ranting last week that instead of attacking the media for not covering the protest, they should give us something to cover. People gathering out of anger only will get you one story, but then the media has to move on. If the movement gains steam and reflects more of what Chicagoans want, the media will return. But it helps to have an agenda. Essentially, that was my rant to the protesters, who were screaming at me all last week. Well, they must have listened, because the Occupy Chicago crew got a nice write-up in the Wall St. Journal yesterday about their newly written 12 demands. Unfortunately, one isn't about every man's right to have babies. 

All over FB today I saw schedules for today's protest, which also includes civil disobedience training in Union Park, which is the formal way of saying 'how to be arrested properly.' Wow, and go figure - WBEZ is sending reporters.

So here are the "Occupy" power rankings as I see them today:
1. Occupy Chicago
2. Occupy Wall Street
3. Occupy L.A.
4. Occupy Tuscon
5. Occupy (fill in Facebook meme) Street

And I didn't even charge you a consulting fee. All the recent protests remind me of a sketch we did on Schadenfreude radio back in 2004. It's about two small businesses that profit off of protests. A sign company and a chant company:

Schad-protests.mp3

And my buddy Aaron Freeman is involved. Aaron has a good video: Is Occupy Chicago just like the Chicago Marathon?

B story: The CTA is laying off 200 people. Is this the same kind of layoffs that the city worker is used to? I had an uncle who worked for the Board of Ed. When they would get laid off there, they would take unemployment for a month or so and get rehired by CTA. If CTA laid off, CHA would hire. It's sort of the way they would keep people employed. But with the budgets the way they are, the old Chicago circle may be broken. Uh oh.

C story: Did you see the story about the woman who gave birth after she ran the marathon? Yeah, but did you read the comments? You don't have to, because Claire Zulkey sums them up wonderfully.

D story: Did you miss this over the weekend? Yep, Mayor Daley's grandson is running for Water Reclamation Commissioner. Here we go, yo. Here we go. His name is actually Daley Thompson. What? I think he was built to run for office in this state. Can't wait for that showdown if he ever runs against Rahm.

Weather: Lee Bey reflects on the deep October sky. Look up, people.

Sports: The Bears and Lions tonight. Eek, I've never been so scared of the Lions. But after all, it is the Lions, right? We should win just based on that. If you aren't sure of the outcome, maybe you should just vote for either the cat wearing the Lions jersey or the dog wearing the Bears jersey over at WCIU.com today.

The Illini moved to 6-0 this weekend. They have Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin and a Big Ten championship in their way of being undefeated and quite possibly challenging for a BCS bowl game. But this is the first time in over 50+ years that the Illini are undefeated this late into the season.

This might be the weirdest article from the weekend: The Trib reported on a dude who thought he saw Theo Epstein in a Wrigleyville Starbucks.

Kicker: The PA announcer at the Georgia Dome must have taken broadcast lessons. He may have been a little too formal/excited while introducing a moment of silence for Raider Owner Al Davis: