Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
“Federal authorities are investigating a ‘matter’ at CPS that sources tell Catalyst Chicago involves CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and the $20 million no-bid contract given to SUPES Academy.”
Sources are telling other media organizations the same thing. Sources seem to want us to know.
Posted on April 16, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
“The city of Chicago on Tuesday sought to put to rest one of its most persistent scandals, proposing a $5.5 million reparations fund for dozens of torture victims connected to former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and his so-called midnight crew of rogue detectives,” the Tribune reports.
“[Flint] Taylor and other lawyers have said as many as 120 men, mostly African-Americans, were tortured from early 1972 to late 1991. Burge and his detectives had gained a reputation for solving brutal murders, rapes and deadly arsons in some of the South Side’s most violent neighborhoods by obtaining confessions.
“Increasingly, however, suspects and their lawyers claimed that the officers used suffocation, electric shock and even Russian roulette to coerce the confessions, but those claims routinely were ignored by Cook County prosecutors and rebuffed by criminal court judges.”
And by the media, which conveniently didn’t make the Tribune’s list.
Posted on April 15, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
I’m attending to other business today; the Beachwood will return tomorrow.
In the meantime, I’ll fill up this space with social media and other odds and ends.
Posted on April 14, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
“The outcry over jet noise from O’Hare International Airport that reached a fever pitch over the last year and a half is likely to intensify further this summer when takeoff and landing simulation data becomes available ahead of a new runway opening this fall,” Jon Hilkevitch writes for the Tribune.
The Federal Aviation Administration is expected within the next four months to release a preliminary report based on thousands of computer-generated flight simulations involving what will become O’Hare’s fifth east-west runway and a subsequent runway that the city plans to open in 2020.
The testing also takes into account the closing in August of one of O’Hare’s four diagonal runways.
All this work, however, might not bring relief after a record year for O’Hare jet noise complaints. The simulations are aimed in part at finding the best way to squeeze in hundreds more daily flights at the airport.
If only there were another way to squeeze in hundreds more daily flights in and out of Chicago.
Posted on April 13, 2015
By Natasha Julius
Uh oh, do you think Bruce Rauner will take his marbles and go home now? Does he have any marbles left to take?
Market Update
Big week for Piss-Poor Starts, which dominated both the Literal and the Figurative Chicago markets.
Posted on April 11, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
“Federal aviation inspectors stepped up oversight of United Continental Holdings Inc. two months ago, citing risks from repeated violations of mandatory pilot qualification and scheduling requirements,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s decision was spelled out in a Feb. 6 letter from a high-ranking agency official to United’s top safety officer.
The letter, which called for a thorough overhaul of parts of United’s process for qualifying crew members, represents the most detailed indication yet of FAA worries about United’s internal safety oversight.
Well, maybe this is a routine sort of thing.
Posted on April 10, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
“Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner kicked off a campaign-style statewide tour Monday by indicating he’ll try to ‘leverage’ the state’s money woes into securing a series of pro-business changes from a General Assembly controlled by Democrats likely to fiercely oppose them,” the Tribune reports.
“Crisis creates opportunity. Crisis creates leverage to change . . . and we’ve got to use that leverage of the crisis to force structural change,” said Rauner, borrowing from a political philosophy famously coined by his friend Rahm Emanuel that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
Posted on April 9, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
What I wrote four years ago still holds.
*
Even more so. Those who might have been fooled should know who this man is by now. Sadly, too many like who this man is.
*
Still, if I’m not mistaken, Rahm received 7,000 fewer votes Tuesday than he did four years ago – though comparing a general election to a runoff is rife with problems. At the same time, Chuy Garcia scored about 200,000 more votes in this runoff than Miguel del Valle did in the general four years ago. I happen to believe del Valle was a better candidate, but four years of Rahm rallied folks behind Chuy in a way I haven’t seen in my 23 years in Chicago.
*
Okay, let’s get to the papers.
Posted on April 8, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
Election Day Notebook:
* Mary Schmich has a “wacky fantasy” that after the election, Rahm and Chuy can work together. Let me tell you something, Mary: That will only happen if Chuy wins. That’s the point of his campaign – that he’ll work with everybody and give everybody a voice and a seat at the table. Rahm doesn’t work with anyone. So if that’s what you want, there’s only one way to vote.
Posted on April 7, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
“The Chicago Cubs are apologizing for long bathroom lines, even by Wrigley Field standards, at the team’s home opener Sunday night,” the Tribune reports.
“Opening Day at Wrigley Field has always brought challenges with wait times and tonight was particularly extreme,” Cubs spokesman Julian Green said in a statement after the game.
Two bathrooms in the upper deck “went down temporarily” and forced fans downstairs “where we already were experiencing issues with long wait times,” Green said.
The statement did not say why the bathrooms were closed and Green could not be reached Monday morning.
When you release a statement – filled with corporate-speak that doesn’t seem to grasp the enormity of the problem – you don’t care about your customers at all.
Posted on April 6, 2015
