Plus: The Tweedy Tale Not Told

“You have heard of Charles Ponzi, the swindler who gave big returns to early investors using money from subsequent clients. And you have heard of Bernie Madoff, imprisoned for one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history,” AP reports.
“Chances are you have never heard of Leo Koretz. A new book, Empire of Deception, argues that Koretz belongs with Ponzi and Madoff in the con man hall of fame.
“Koretz’s pyramid scheme, played out against a backdrop of crime and corruption in booming 1920s Chicago, eventually results in millions of dollars invested in a phony agriculture and oil project on Panama’s Bayano River.”

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Posted on May 28, 2015

‘My Absolute Favorite’

Featuring store manager Liz Mason.

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Posted on May 22, 2015

By Steve Rhodes

“Welcome to the land of health care’s 1 percent. During the four years I spent interviewing and following nurses for my book, I was continually astonished by the red carpet some hospitals rolled out for certain classes of patients,” Alexandra Robbins writes for Politico
“A Virginia nurse explained that this is why Washington might not understand health care. He said, ‘Politicians have such a warped sense of how the health care system works because they never have to be part of the actual system.’
“Politicians and other VIPs, it turns out, can get special access to critical care. Hospitals across the Washington area – and, indeed, across the country – have exclusive rooms and sometimes even separate floors for treating the rich and famous.”
*
This story is ripe for localizing.

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Posted on May 18, 2015

By Steve Rhodes

Bill Kreutzmann is scheduled to appear at a couple events in the Chicago suburbs this weekend to promote his new book DEAL: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead.
On Saturday, it’s a talk/signing event at the Community Christian Church in Naperville. On Sunday, it’s a signing at the Barnes & Noble at Old Orchard in Skokie.
Some Chicago-related excerpts:

My father, Clark Shaugnessy, coached the Stanford University football team that won the 1941 Rose Bowl. He modified the T Formation and tweaked it until it was wild enough to win championships. It was innovative and crazy at the same time. It made him famous. He eventually accepted the position of head coach in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams and then, later, coached the Chicago Bears.

To be clear, he was a coach of the Bears, not the coach.
Which isn’t to say he was never a head coach in Chicago.

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Posted on May 11, 2015

By Steve Rhodes

“Last summer at a writers’ workshop in Oregon, the novelists Anthony Doerr, Karen Russell and Elissa Schappell were chatting over cocktails when they realized they had all published work in the same magazine,” Alexandra Alter writes on the front page of the New York Times.
“It wasn’t one of the usual literary outlets, like Tin House, The Paris Review or The New Yorker. It was Rhapsody, an in-flight magazine for United Airlines.
“It seemed like a weird coincidence. Then again, considering Rhapsody’s growing roster of A-list fiction writers, maybe not. Since its first issue hit plane cabins a year and a half ago, Rhapsody has published original works by literary stars like Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Moody, Amy Bloom, Emma Straub and Mr. Doerr, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction two weeks ago.
“As airlines try to distinguish their high-end service with luxuries like private sleeping chambers, showers, butler service and meals from five-star chefs, United Airlines is offering a loftier, more cerebral amenity to its first-class and business-class passengers: elegant prose by prominent novelists.”
So now the class divide even extends to in-flight magazines.

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Posted on May 5, 2015

is there already a file like this?
Date: April 28, 2015
From: City Lit Books, Teresa Kirschbraun, Teresa@citylitbooks.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Michael Golden, author of Unlock Congress, in conversation with Marty Castro at City Lit Books (2523 N. Kedzie) on Tuesday, May 14th at 6:30 PM. Free event.
Join us at City Lit Books as we welcome Michael Golden and his debut book, Unlock Congress: Reform the Rules – Restore the System. He will be in conversation with Marty Castro, President and CEO of Castro Synergies and appointed by President Barack Obama as Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
In Unlock Congress, Michael Golden takes readers on an easy-to-understand historical expedition and investigation into the ways congressional failure leads to a harmful PRODUCT. Digging deeper, the book identifies the PROBLEM – how obsolete rules have led to major defects in the system. Finally, Unlock Congress lays out a PLATFORM designed to strengthen the system and reinvigorate both the process and its players.
Unlock Congress serves up startling facts and revealing stories to explore and explain Congress’s poor productivity. Once the defects that fuel the problem and their effects are summarized, Unlock Congress introduces a PLATFORM of principles and solutions geared toward unleashing our legislators’ true potential.
Michael Golden, author of Unlock Congress: Reform the Rules – Restore the System, has served as a campaign manager and communications strategist on political races for the White House, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives. As a former broadcast journalist for NBC and CBS television, his investigative and public affairs reporting earned him honors from the Associated Press, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2006 Golden co-founded One Million Degrees, a nonprofit scholarship program that has empowered hundreds of low-income community college students to graduate and launch careers. Golden serves on the boards of the Shriver Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, and he was selected by the Illinois General Assembly to serve on the state’s Commission to Eliminate Poverty.
Marty Castro is the President and CEO of Castro Synergies, LLC, which provides strategic consulting services to corporations, entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations that seek to collaborate with and have a positive social impact on diverse communities. Mr. Castro was appointed by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in January of 2011. In December 2009, Mr. Castro was appointed by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to Chair the Illinois Human Rights Commission. The Human Rights Commission is the State public body that arbitrates complaints of civil rights violations in housing, employment, public accommodations and financial credit. Mr. Castro is chair of the board of the National Museum of Mexican Art, the only accredited Latino Museum in the United States. He also serves on the board of the Chicago Community Trust.
ABOUT CITY LIT BOOKS:
City Lit Books is an independent bookstore located in Logan Square. Since opening in August 2012, City Lit Books has quickly become a literary hot spot thanks to its well-curated selections of fiction, non-fiction, science fiction and children’s books along with its rotating calendar of events.

Posted on May 2, 2015