Caption contest! Winner gets a Car Talk mug:

Top story: Mayor Emanuel presided over his first City Council meeting yesterday. I tuned in for the historic moment, only to be bored out of my skull during the first hour of aldermen standing up to honor policemen and firefighters. No doubt they should be honored, but even the officers probably yawned.

And Susana Mendoza is the new City Clerk. I’m sure she is going to be a great Clerk. You have to really screw up to not be (see James Laski). The main job responsibility is reading the roll call and ordinances during City Council meetings. That’s it. But why does that need to be an elected office? Why don’t we get some specialists in that role? There are plenty of out of work voice-over actors in town, why doesn’t the City hire one of them? Think about it. Not so dumb.

But the big story of the day is that Mayor Emanuel is lobbying for a casino in Chicago. A different tone was struck with his predecessor, who wasn’t anti-casino, but avoided publicly lobbying for them. So now Emanuel wants one. I still think you drop one down on State Street in the Block 37 space. I already have the signs designed: 

B story: Are you paying attention to the Blagojevich trial? It seems that Judge Zagel is really taking this “I hate you from the last trial” schtick pretty seriously. He told the Blago lawyers that their objections were better suited for the court “one floor above.” That is the Appeals court. Essentially, Zagel is washing his hands of this trial and telling the lawyers to appeal if they don’t like it. And they will. And I think they have a chance to win based on this judge’s bitterness. To Zagel’s defense, Blago’s team is a B-team version of the Adam family that were pulling the same tricks. But if they do win any appeal, could you imagine yet another Blagojevich trial? Prosecution is resting today. If the Blago team follows the same blueprint, the won’t put up a defense and we could have a verdict by next week.

C story: We have to clean up the Chicago River. The EPA wants it clean, the city and state governments are worried that it will cost way too much. Someone from the NRDC had a great tweet the other day. I’m paraphrasing here: If Chicago wants to be a first class city, we can’t have a third world river. Good point. I’ve seen my share of River Monsters and we don’t want a third world river.

D story: A family ‘conflict’ has removed the head of the company that makes Lemonheads. My guess is that it had something to do with Red Hots.

Sports: Forget the Bulls. They are yesterday’s news. Today’s news? Jake Peavy! The former all-star pitcher came back from a crazy injury last week and last night he went the distance, shutting out the first place Indians. He had the kind of game that the White Sox desperately needed. And his arm didn’t fall off. Score! If he comes back to form as the perennial Cy Young candidate that he was in San Diego, we might actually sill have a shot at this thing.

Kicker: Finally, a Bulls rap song. It’s Twista featuring Carlos Boozer. You know, that guy who sits on the bench in the 4th quarter? Yeah, he raps too.