By Steve Rhodes

1. Lemont, Lithuania.
“One of the artifacts on display at the Lithuanian World Center, a vast community center on more than 18 acres of land in Lemont, a leafy village on the outskirts of Chicago, is a wooden sculpture of Hitler and Stalin scalping a kneeling man,” the Economist notes.
“The man is Lithuania. The country suffered under Soviet, Nazi and again Soviet occupations for 50 years, and before that under tsarist rule. ‘We used to be the largest country in Europe and then we just disappeared from the map,’ says Marijus Gudynas of the Lithuanian Foreign Office, in Vilnius. These traumas have left 1.3m Lithuanians (from a country of barely 3m) living abroad. Chicago is their undisputed capital.”

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Posted on August 23, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

1. Here Are the Most Metal Items From Black Sabbath Frontman Ronnie James Dio’s Estate Sale, Ranked.
Including a “Sign of the Horn” jewelry set. (Want.)
*
Also includes the least metal items – including a postcard to his parents (“Everything’s going great”) and a Back to the Future box set.

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Posted on August 22, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

1. Fly Like The Eagles.
“The Eagles’ greatest hits album has moonwalked past Michael Jackson’s Thriller to become history’s best-selling album of all-time,” AP’s Mesfin Fekadu reports.
Moonwalking is walking backwards. The Eagles album has jumped ahead of Thriller, if you must put such a metaphor on it. Stop trying to be such a mediocre version of clever – it’s not good writing.

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Posted on August 21, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

“The White House has drafted documents revoking the security clearances of current and former officials whom President Trump has demanded be punished for criticizing him or playing a role in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to senior administration officials,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump wants to sign ‘most if not all’ of them, said one senior White House official, who indicated that communications aides, including press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Bill Shine, the newly named deputy chief of staff, have discussed the optimum times to release them as a distraction during unfavorable news cycles.”

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Posted on August 20, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

For completists, there was no column on Friday.
“Vic Mensa is making good out of a bad situation,” Footwear News reports.
“The Chicago rapper and his SaveMoneySaveLife foundation have announced that they plan to hold an event at the same location where a controversial sting operation took place earlier this month. Mensa and his charity pledge to give away thousands of free tennis shoes to local Chicago children in need.
“A sting operation involving a ‘bait truck’ full of Nike sneakers parked in a poor, predominantly black Chicago neighborhood had sparked outrage this month after a video circulated online of police arguing with local residents who claimed that the truck was a ‘trap’ for kids playing basketball at a nearby court. Eventually, Norfolk Southern Railway, which orchestrated the operation in response to a series of cargo thefts in the area, owned up to the deed and apologized to the community for stoking distrust between locals and law enforcement.”

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Posted on August 19, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

1. Dunes Dunce.
“The Trump administration is opposing a bipartisan plan pending in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate to re-designate the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore as a national park,” the Northwest Indiana Times reports.
“While the National Lakeshore already is operated by the National Park Service, supporters of designating the Dunes as a national park say the change would draw significantly more visitors to the lakeshore’s beaches, wetlands, savannahs, sand dunes, hiking trails and recreational facilities, as well as Northwest Indiana hotels and businesses.”

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Posted on August 16, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

1. Judge Reprimanded For Being Cheap Date.
“The Illinois Courts Commission has reprimanded an appellate judge from Urbana for using judicial resources to solicit paid lectures,” the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette reports.
“On Monday, the commission released its findings after the state’s judicial inquiry board one year ago filed a complaint against Judge Robert Steigmann. The complaint alleged Steigmann used judicial resources, including his office’s letterhead, to solicit paid lectures from police and medical groups.”

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Posted on August 15, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

“Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday vetoed legislation that would have applied many workplace anti-discrimination requirements to businesses with a single employee or more,” the Tribune reports.

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Posted on August 14, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

1. Brilliant journalism.

You’ve been arrested by a dishonest cop. Can you win in a system set up to protect officers? https://t.co/PxblraK2ci

— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) August 12, 2018

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Posted on August 13, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

1. There Is A Thing Called The Chicago French Bulldog Rescue And They Saved 23 Puppies From A Hot Moving Truck This Week.
“The puppies were found inside a tightly packed plastic crate in a moving van in Texarkana, Texas,” WTHR-TV in Indianapolis reports, for some reason.

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Posted on August 10, 2018