Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
For completists, there was no column on Friday.
“Mayor Rahm Emanuel has brokered a deal that would allow the Cubs to sell beer and wine at an open-air plaza adjacent to Wrigley Field, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned, but the team says it won’t accept it.”
Then the mayor hasn’t brokered a deal at all!
Posted on June 11, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
“More homeowners are trapped by underwater mortgages in the Chicago area than in almost any other major metropolitan area in the country, two new studies show,” the Tribune reports.
“One study, released Thursday by housing research data firm CoreLogic, found Chicago slightly better off than Las Vegas and Miami. But a separate study released Wednesday by real estate website Zillow places Chicago homeowners in the worst position in the nation, with a larger portion of homes underwater than in either Las Vegas or Miami.”
I believe previous studies have also shown what Zillow found: Chicago is the most underwater city in the nation.
Posted on June 9, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
“Chicago Public Schools officials say 54 principals have resigned or retired so far this school year, the highest number in the past four years,” Catalyst reports.
“The number could go even higher as the school year comes to an end, given the looming threat of budget cuts and no end in sight to the financial impasse in Springfield.
“District officials say the number of departures is in line with previous years but blamed Gov. Bruce Rauner for standing ‘in the way of equitably funding education.'”
So CPS says the number of principals resigning or retiring this year is typical – 54 sounds like a lot, but consider the size of the district – but takes a jab at the governor for something they just intimated is not related. The outstanding question: Are a significant number of these retirements and resignations due to the ongoing chaos of the budget situation or not?
Posted on June 8, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
“More than 20,000 deportation cases are pending in Illinois immigration courts, a number almost five times higher than the number of cases a decade ago,” the Tribune reports.
The president we already have.
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See also:
* Immigration Raids Send Chill Through Little Village.
* This Is What A Deportation Raid Is Like.
* Illinois Immigrant, Labor, Legal Leaders Condemn ICE Raids.
* Chicago Activists Tell Undocumented Immigrants Not To Open Their Doors.
* A Shameful Round-Up Of Refugees.
* U.S. Government Deporting Central American Migrants To Their Deaths.
* Tell President Obama To Stop Deporting Refugees.
* Immigrants Arrested In U.S. Raids Say They Were Misled On Right To Counsel.
* Obama Planning Huge Deportation Sweep Of Immigrant Families.
Posted on June 6, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
Non-tronc edition . . . because tronc is coming.
Amidst the reams of material pouring out about Muhammad Ali, the Beachwood makes its tiny, miniscule contribution:
* The Contradictions Of Muhammad Ali.
I picked up this piece from The Conversation (and re-titled it) because I liked how the author didn’t whitewash the man either way – and by either way you’re getting a lot of this kind of nonsense today that utterly ignores the man’s essence but also a lot of reminders of how Ali was once deemed dangerous to the U.S. government that ignores his later endorsements Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush for president.
Posted on June 4, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
Non-tronc edition.
“More low-income workers are making the reverse trek outside the city for retail and manufacturing jobs in suburban Cook and surrounding collar counties,” LaRisa Lynch reports for the Chicago Reporter.
“What experts call ‘job sprawl’ and ‘spatial mismatch’ – the disconnection between where people live and where they work – is changing the commute for some residents. Spatial mismatch disproportionately affects African-Americans in metropolitan areas with high poverty rates and high levels of segregation.
“In Chicago, the impact of the mismatch may be felt the hardest in neighborhoods on the West and South sides, which have among the highest unemployment rates in the city. Black workers have seen modest-paying, manual labor jobs quickly disappear from their communities, leaving them few options but to commute to far-flung suburban locales to earn a living.”
Posted on June 3, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
I have some business to attend to today, but you can find a smidgen of commentary on the state budget situation at @BeachwoodReport. I’ll be back tomorrow. Michael Ferro just renamed Tribune “tronc.” I’ll be back Friday.
Posted on June 1, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
“With a trial just minutes away, the Emanuel administration announced a $2 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by two Chicago police officers who alleged they were blackballed by the department for blowing the whistle on corruption, keeping the mayor from having to testify about the code of silence,” the Tribune reports.
“The explosive civil rights lawsuit filed by Officers Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria against the city and top department brass had threatened to expose an ugly side to the police code of silence that allegedly put at risk the lives of cops willing to uncover corruption within their ranks.
“The city’s top attorney, Corporation Counsel Steven Patton, said the decision to settle the case had nothing to do with the fact that the judge had ordered Mayor Rahm Emanuel to testify about what he knew about the code of silence in light of his acknowledgment of its existence in a highly publicized speech to the City Council days after the court-ordered release of the video of the Laquan McDonald shooting.”
Maybe, maybe not, but it is undeniable that Patton had no interest in seeing his patron on the stand.
Posted on May 31, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
1. Coke Joins Brands Trying To Out-America Each Other With Packaging.
Nobody is beating Trump at this game, though.
Posted on May 28, 2016
(