Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Monday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

For completists, there was no column on Friday and no Weekend Desk Report. Sorry!
“You may already know the Bureau’s work on drones,” the Bureau of Investigative Journalism says in its morning e-mail today.
“We’ve covered strikes and their impact on civilians since 2010, producing an award winning body of work and contributing to a push for greater US military transparency. Now we have launched a new project – Shadow Wars. It will expand our reporting focus beyond drone strikes, although we will still be tracking them. We felt that the changing – and increasingly murky – nature of US military and counterterrorism engagements required a broader approach.
“We began this project to follow new developments in US military engagements under President Donald Trump. In some ways, these are a continuation and evolution of trends seen under President Obama. The same reluctance to deploy American troops applies, and so does the impetus to respond militarily to radical groups around the world. But as radical groups spread and metastasize, the US’s military engagements are becoming ever more widespread, and complicated. You can read our thinking on this here.”


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“Former NBA star Dennis Rodman is traveling to Singapore for the upcoming summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un,” CNN reports.
I’m not exactly a Billy Corgan fan, but his tales of hanging with Dennis Rodman – and what a physical freak he is – are worth listening to. From last November on Joe Rogan’s show:

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Also, Rodman from 2014:

Dennis Rodman says he was “absolutely” drunk in his fiery, finger-pointing interview from North Korea earlier this month, but does not regret his trip to visit the man he calls his “friend:” the country’s infamous leader, Kim Jong Un.
“I don’t know him as a dictator,” Rodman told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Friday in an interview from a rehab facility where the former NBA star is being treated for alcoholism. “I know him as a 31-year-old guy, I call him ‘kid’ all the time because he’s my friend.”

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Rodman reported frequent drunkeness during Bulls practices was tolerated because he performed during games. And this, from Sports Illustrated in 1997:

[Jud Buechler and Steve Kerr] have hangovers the size of the Liberty Bell, courtesy of an all-night romp with Bulls forward Dennis Rodman on a rented tour bus. Following the Bulls’ 108-104 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers the previous night, Kerr and Buechler accompanied Rodman and his entourage, which predictably included several voluptuous women, on a jaunt to an Atlantic City casino. Beers were chugged, chips were lost, and a good time was had by all – except one woman in the group who was carted off by casino security after she was caught by surveillance cameras stealing a $1,000 chip from Rodman.
The bus didn’t get back to the team’s hotel until 9:30 a.m., at which time Kerr and Buechler went straight to the lobby-level restaurant and walked right into Bulls coach Phil Jackson and his assistants. Jackson asked Kerr how late he had been out, but before Kerr could tell “my bold-faced lie,” Jackson said, “I saw the bus pull in.” Other than making Kerr and Buechler endure a late-morning practice, Jackson did not punish his players.
“That’s how cool Phil is,” Kerr says. “Dennis had sort of been away from us, in a spiritual sense, and Phil felt that we needed to bring him back in, which in Dennis’s case means going out and getting hammered. Not only did he encourage me and Jud to go, he was telling [second-year forward] Jason Caffey, ‘You ought to go on the bus. It will be a good experience.’ How many other NBA coaches would tell one of their young players to go out and get shitfaced with Dennis Rodman?” Caffey, however, thought better of the idea and skipped the trip to Atlantic City.

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A truncated version of my personal Rodman story, from the Beachwood vault (see the item “Dice Man”):

I can’t afford to gamble much anymore, but when I am in Vegas, craps is my game.
And like many others, I once found myself at a table with Dennis Rodman. He was on a hot streak and we were all doing quite well until he rolled a six. That was his point. “Give me a Pippen! Give me a Pippen!” he screamed. Scottie Pippen’s number was 33.
Rodman crapped out and it was over. Good times, though.

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Art Basel’s Marc Spiegler On Why Art Fairs Aren’t To Blame For The Current Gallery Crisis.
Spiegler, a University of Chicago alum, was my predecessor as the political writer at Chicago magazine.
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New in separating families at the border . . .
Jennings v. Rodriguez And The Forced Separation Of Families
Prior administrations, in arguing for expansive authority over immigration and immigration detentions, created environments that were ripe for abuse, and have enabled some of this administration’s abuses.
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Forced Separation Of Families & Forced To-Term Pregnancies
“[O]ur institutions are capable of producing evil. We know this because they have produced evil in the past, including evils we now recognize as legally wrong.
“At the time, people (including those who imagine themselves to be good) did nothing to stop it and remained silent. Sometimes, they even enabled it. It is easier to imagine that we would have done the right thing then, but harder to understand that we might not be doing the right thing now.”
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New from the Beachwood Sports Desk . . .
TrackNotes: Justified
Justify’s Triple Crown was a perfect storm of breeding, training and riding. But his legacy is yet to be written.
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The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #204: George McClownsky And His Media Acolytes
That’s a clown column, bro. Plus: Crazy Uncle Joe’s Overmanaging Like It’s Going Out Of Style; The Capitals’ Blackhawk; Warriors Came Out To Play; White Sox Tips; TrackNotes Tips; The Unbelievable Money In eSports; Bet Delaware; Schweinsteiger! and The Minnesota Lynx Dunk On Donald Trump.
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The White Sox Report: Ricky’s Boys Run
The new Go-Go Sox.
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SportsMonday: Beware Bullpen, Maddon At Work
Is Brandon Morrow the next victim?
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ChicagoGram


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ChicagoTube
Don Wolff.

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BeachBook
A sampling.
Own Goal: The Inside Story Of How The USMNT Missed The 2018 World Cup.

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Guitar Center Warranty Horror Stories.

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A Muslim Among Israeli Settlers.

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TweetWood
A sampling.
This might be the most important thread you’ve ever read.


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The Beachwood Tronc Line: Baked on.

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Posted on June 11, 2018