Ah, you know it’s Winter in Chicago when the streets are white. Not with snow, but with a salty residue that probably kills smaller life forms.

Welcome to another week, friends. Today is fun, it’s the start of Steve Edwards’ new show, the Afternoon Shift. It’s from 2-4pm. What does that mean for you? Well, it’s a great, local talk show to give you some hope that your lousy day just might end. What it means for me is two more hours a day to produce. We’re up to the challenge though. Creating a good radio show creates good energy. And good energy is really the key to any given afternoon. Am I right?

Today: Ira Glass, Gloria Steinem, Navy Pier redesign and a study on why we vote for who we vote for when guessing on judges. Which you know you do.

We’ll have our bumps along the way. But the new show has a great opportunity to be around for several years to come. If you like it, let us know. If you don’t, turn on Roe & Roeper or go back to listening to the Robin Thicke channel on Pandora. 

Before we begin: Eight Forty-Eight has a great show today about personal data and internet privacy.

A story: We’re not talking Whitney Houston on any of our talk shows today. What can we add? I watched the local news try to localize the story and all they came up with was that Jennifer Hudson loved Whitney Houston and some people in this church kind of know Jennifer Hudson. When I heard the news Saturday night, my wife and I tried to name five Houston songs. Sure, it’s easy now after Facebook posted all of them. But when I first heard the news, I could only really name four. And I asked some neighbors in the elevator too and we couldn’t do it. It was weird. Now I can name 15. But this was five minutes after getting the news. I thought the Grammys were very appropriate in their tribute to Houston. But I still wanted more. They couldn’t get five divas together to do a medley? Lady Antabellum couldn’t cover “I Get So Emotional?” I thought Hollywood musicians could do anything. And where the hell was Mariah?

There’s this picture though. Richard Steele (the real deal) and Whitney in 1990:

B story: Mayor Emanuel gave a huge interview to the Tribune this week and they transcribed it. You should read it. We tried to get Rahm for our first show, but he wasn’t avail.

C story: Awesome Lee Bey post today: Will Midway Airport expansion destroy historic Chicago architecture? Lee’s going to come on the Afternoon Shift today to talk about that.

Weather: What’s next? Seriously - is winter just pushed back? Are we going to have 20 degree weather in April?

Sports: The Bulls lost to the Celtics on the road yesterday without Derrick Rose. But they still put up a fight despite Carlos Boozer’s terrible defense. I’ve always been a defender of Boozer, but yesterday he was pretty atrocious guarding..well, anybody. I want to take this opportunity to fully endorse Coach Thibs’ decision to constantly bench Boozer in crunch time. He’s a defensive liability and really kept the Bulls from winning yesterday.

Today, Rose goes to a back specialist to see what ails him. Ugh. If that comes back bad, we could see a Bulls team without Derrick Rose and Rip Hamilton? Watson and Korver vs. James and Wade? This 66 game season is starting to look like the worst idea ever. What’s the point of playing a million games in a row if it deprives us of marquee match-ups?

Also, I haven’t written about it yet - but the Bears hired former Broncos’ Quarterback Coach Jeremy Bates to do the same job in Chi. That’s a big move because Bates was Cutler’s QB coach while in Denver and Cutler almost put up 5,000 yards. That’s Drew Brees-like numbers. The only problem is that new Offensive Coordinator Mike Tice just wants to run the ball. Either way, this is an exciting move for the Bears. I’m more excited about Bates coming to town than I was about Martz. Let’s see how that develops.

Kicker: Did you know grocery stores have comment boards? And did you know they are inadvertantly hilarious?