By Steve Rhodes
1. Amazon Launches Cloud Music Service.
Pat Quinn announces Cloud Tax.
2. Gov. Walker Announces Plan To Upgrade Amtrak Line Between Milwaukee, Chicago.
An olive branch to Democratic legislators to make future trips here more comfortable.
3. Anheuser-Busch Buys Goose Island: Will rename its 312 beer 314.
*
Is that funnier than renaming it 847? That’s how I tweeted it yesterday but Beachwood veteran Tim Willette came up with the 314 joke instead. I guess it’s suburban Budweiser douchebaggery vs. location.
*
See also: What Beer Nerds Are Saying About Goose Island and Anheuser-Busch.
And/Or: Check out the wall posts on Goose Island’s Facebook page.
4. “Shaka Smart’s press conference opened on a sad note today,” HamptonRoads.com reports. “Prior to it starting, VCU sports information director Scott Day announced that Smart’s grandfather, Walter King, died this morning.
“King served as Smart’s father figure while he was growing up in Wisconsin, he said.
“‘He was definitely the second biggest influence in my life,’ he said.
“Smart was raised by his mother. King, who lived in Chicago, was a major presence in his life as well, he said.
“‘He taught me humility, appreciation, and how to interact with people,’ Smart said.
“King also fed Smart’s passion for basketball, clipping stories from the Chicago newspapers and mailing them to his grandson.”
*
“The Chicago Cubs plan to reach out to VCU coach Shaka Smart and Butler coach Brad Stevens after the NCAA tournament to invite them to sing ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame’ during the seventh inning stretch at Wrigley Field,” ESPNChicago.com reports.
“For Smart, the experience likely will tug at his heartstrings as he remembers the times his grandfather, Walter King, took him to Wrigley as a child.”
5. House Money and Valium: Our Final Four Report.
6. “If you’re wondering why there are multiple trailers near the new Skokie police station, it’s because the CW is shooting a new pilot,” Skokie Patch reports.
“The new pilot, titled Cooper and Stone, is about two young female detectives on Chicago’s North Side. According to deadline.com, they’re ‘best friends, equally adept at discussing fashion, music, pop culture as they are solving homicide murders.'”
7. Free Refills At Chicago-O’Hare Thanks To Fancy-Pants Water Fountains.
8. Ald. Carrie Austin, you are Today’s Worst Person in Chicago.
*
And not for the first time. From the Beachwood last May:
A Chicago alderman gave her grandson a job in her ward office four months after he was charged with helping to bilk a retiree out of thousands of dollars, in another example of City Council members rewarding friends and relatives with their taxpayer-funded expense accounts,” the Tribune reports.
“Kenneth Austin Jr., 21, was paid about $18,500 last year as a legislative aide for his grandmother, Ald. Carrie Austin, 34th, chairwoman of the Budget Committee.”
And by Austin’s logic, we should make it a priority to hire relatives of public officials.
“In the past, Austin defended the employment of her grandson, who first surfaced on her expense-account payroll in December 2008, by saying she holds him to ‘a higher standard . . . I can ask of him what I can’t ask of other people as well.'”
Like what, pick up her dry cleaning?
*
“Austin, who is currently ill, was unavailable to answer questions about her grandson’s arrest, and staff members said they could not address the issue for her.”
Perhaps because they’ve never seen Kenneth Austin actually perform any work.
*
“In August 2008, Kenneth Austin was charged with felony theft for allegedly teaming up with an in-home nurse to steal more than $2,000 from an elderly woman the nurse was caring for, court records show. The case is pending. He declined to comment.”
Commenting isn’t in his job description.
From the Beachwood last March:
“The City Council will move quickly to empower Chicago’s inspector general to investigate alleged hiring abuses by aldermen to bolster the city’s case to get out from under the Shakman decree, an influential alderman said today,” the Sun-Times reports.
“But, Rules Committee Chairman Richard Mell (33rd) said aldermen are so divided about Mayor Daley’s plan to give the inspector general more sweeping investigative authority over the City Council, a seven-member subcommittee has been appointed to sort it out . . .
“Budget Committee Chairman Carrie Austin (34th) is in the ‘do-nothing’ camp.
“‘Why the hell do we need an inspector general breathing down our necks? To do what? We’re already cautious as hell. And we have nothing to do with hiring,’ Austin said.”
Really?
“A stealth payroll loaded with friends, relatives and political operatives of Chicago aldermen appears to violate a ban on political hiring and was not revealed to the federal court overseeing city hiring, the court-appointed monitor concluded Monday,” the Tribune reports.
Talk to the hand, Carrie.
*
I know that phrase is really old by now, but that’s what came to me.
From the Beachwood in September 2009:
“I know that we will receive the bid. I feel that in my spirit already,” said Ald. Carrie Austin (34th).
Too bad her spirit was on vacation during the parking meter debacle.
9. Fact Check: How Obama’s Libya Claims Fit Facts.
10. The Portage Chicago Look Book.
–
The Beachwood Tip Line: Looking factual.
Posted on March 29, 2011