By Steve Rhodes

I hoped to have Show Notes ready for this post, but I don’t. And it’s a lot rougher than even I expected – we had issues in post-production, meaning the rough spots didn’t get smoothed out. And the levels and stuff. Still, you can see what we’re trying to do here with The Beachwood Radio Hour.
And don’t forget the rebranded Beachwood International Hour With The Angry Aussie. This week we discuss the Fort Hood shooting; the amazing, outrageous story of the fake Cuban Twitter, secretly founded and funded by the U.S. government; and the latest missteps of Chicagoland.

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Posted on April 7, 2014

By Natasha Julius

The Weekend Desk: fatigue is always a factor.
Market Update
Huh, turns out much of the progress of the past 80 years is built on a toxic foundation of corruption and illegality. Good luck cleaning that up.

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Posted on April 5, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

At least Chicagoland this week roused itself from its two-week slumber to become incredibly aggravating again; nothing is worse than being a bore.
Of course, that means a return to fact-free hagiography of Rahm Emanuel and Garry McCarthy.
And hey, enough Liz Dozier, huh? We get it.
The antidote: Tweeting Chicagoland | Episode 5: Back To Black.

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Posted on April 4, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“An American soldier with mental health issues shot dead three people and injured at least 16 on Wednesday before taking his own life at an Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, the site of another deadly rampage in 2009, U.S. military officials said.”
*
“Progressive aldermen urged the city [last] Thursday to accept new funding for its six mental health clinics after six others were closed two years ago,” DNAinfo Chicago reports.
“The Progressive Reform Caucus announced . . . that its eight aldermen would submit a resolution next week calling for hearings on funding for the clinics.
“They say the $2.3 million in savings the city claimed in closing six clinics in 2012 ‘failed to account for the additional costs of increased emergency-room visits, hospitalizations, police interventions and incarcerations.'”

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Posted on April 3, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“Longtime House Speaker Michael Madigan was a ‘prominent participant’ in patronage hiring at Metra dating back 30 years, recommending dozens of people for jobs, a new report has found,” the Tribune reports.
“Madigan had the power to recommend individuals for positions at Metra but ‘he in effect decided they were hired,’ said the report written in part by former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
If only Fitzgerald had been tapped as special prosecutor in the Koschman case instead of Dan Webb.

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Posted on April 2, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

The Beachwood is taking April Fool’s Day off (our holiday calendar is a little different than everyone else’s). In the meantime, we’ll keep our social media meanderings up to date.
BeachBook
* Sears Inadvertently Advertises Customers’ Complaints.
* Is Facebook Too Big To Care?
* Exclusive: NSA Infiltrated Internet Security More Deeply Than Thought.
* Prospectors Discover Salt At Morton Arboretum.

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Posted on April 1, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“The Cubs aren’t even fun to hate-watch anymore,” I write in The Cub Factor.
I have to say I’ve never been less interested in an Opening Day in my lifetime.
Thank you, Theo Epstein, for sucking the joy out of even hating being a Cubs fan.
And even more so, a giant Fuck You to the Ricketts family. You’ve done the impossible: You’ve made the previous owners look magnanimous.

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Posted on March 31, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

Upon reading the actual decision by a National Labor Relations Board officer, I can say with complete confidence that the media analysts are getting the story about Northwestern football players being designated employees of the university exactly wrong.
I explain on this week’s Beachwood Podcast. Also: also discuss the latest episode of Chicagoland. Also, Tuffy and the Angry Aussie once again dissect the sad sack that passes for doco-journalism that is Chicagoland.

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Posted on March 29, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

A bellwether of the dwindling interest in CNN’s Chicagoland is the decline in Twitter traffic; there wasn’t even a lot of hate-watching going on last night.
Still, we’ve got the best of it in Tweeting Chicagoland 4.
Tuffy and the Angry Aussie will also continue our weekly discussion of the show on our Saturday podcast.
Also on the podcast docket: This week’s decision by a National Labor Relations Board officer that Northwestern University football players are employees, and thus eligible to form a union.
The case, it turns out, was a slam dunk. So much for the pundits.

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Posted on March 28, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“The Chicago Cubs franchise is worth 20 percent more than it was last year despite another losing season, while value of the White Sox stayed put, according to Forbes’ annual list of Major League Baseball team valuations,” Danny Ecker notes for Crain’s.
“The Cubs are worth $1.2 billion – fourth-highest value in the league and 42 percent more than the Ricketts family paid for the team in 2009, according to Forbes.”
In other news, Ricketts family reminds fans it takes great courage to be patient.

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Posted on March 27, 2014