Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

1. Nation’s First Teachers’ Strike at Charter Network Begins in Chicago.
“Over 500 educators in Chicago began the nation’s first strike at a charter school network on Tuesday, shutting down 15 schools serving more than 7,000 children. Teachers for the Acero Schools network rallied at local schools to call for higher pay and smaller class sizes, among other demands,” the New York Times reports.


I’m sympathetic to the teachers, but didn’t they know what they were getting into going to work for charter schools? After all, traditional public schools in Chicago face a severe teacher shortage. Maybe don’t enable the charter movement that has been so damaging public school systems.
“Although the union leader Al Shanker helped popularize the concept of charter schools in the 1980s, intending them as laboratories for educational innovation, he became a fierce critic when reformers began using charter laws to open nonunion schools. The reformers hoped that student performance would improve outside the bureaucratic constraints of contract work rules, and that underperforming teachers could be fired more easily. Results in the charter sector have been mixed. At Acero schools, a quarter of students met standards on state exams in 2016, the same percentage who met standards in the Chicago district schools, according to a report from the Illinois State Board of Education.”
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Most ironic strike ever?
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Also:
“Charters are funded by taxpayers but independently managed by nonprofit organizations, like Acero, or by for-profit companies. Educators at Acero earn up to $13,000 less than their counterparts at traditional public schools in Chicago and cannot afford to live comfortably in an increasingly expensive city, according to the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents the striking workers.
“The chief executive of Acero, Richard L. Rodriguez, earns about $260,000 annually to manage 15 schools, a similar salary to that of Janice K. Jackson, the chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools system, which includes over 500 schools.”
2. Security Footage Shows Woman In Wheelchair Was Not Abandoned At O’Hare Airport.
She used a walker to go outside to smoke and was picked up after less than an hour; American Airlines says son rebooked flight.
OK, but what’s the deal with the woman sleeping on the baggage carousel?
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But I digress:

“We launched an investigation with our Chicago team and the vendor we utilize that provides wheelchair services at O’Hare,” American said in an e-mailed statement. The airline said that after a review of closed-circuit television footage it determined that: “Ms. Warsaw was dropped off in the terminal at 12:30 a.m. CT on Dec. 1, and a family member arrived at the airport to pick her up at 1:13 a.m. CT.”

Warsaw’s son, Claude Coltea, issue the original complaint. He “did not respond to several requests for comment” regarding American’s findings.
3. Chicago Doctor Convicted Of Sending Insurance Companies $3.5M In Bogus Bills.
Whenever I see articles like this, I’m not deterred from a life of crime at all. Instead, I always wonder if I could figure out a way to make the scheme work.
Also, fuck the insurance companies.
4. It’s Kaegi Time.
“Newly minted Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi wasted no time Monday replacing all but one of the top executives who worked for his predecessor, old-school establishment Democrat Joe Berrios,” the Tribune reports.
“Among those who departed the office the last few days were Berrios’ sister Carmen Berrios, who was paid $126,000; his daughter Vanessa Berrios, who was working there when her father took office but saw her salary nearly double to about $109,000; Thomas Jaconetty, who as Berrios’ top aide made about $154,000 a year; and close friend Victoria LaCalamita, a $139,000-a-year deputy.”
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FYI: Monica Trevino was the spokesperson for Joe Berrios’s failed re-election campaign (named here as Today’s Worst Person In Chicago last February 10th.) She now runs communications for Toni Preckwinke’s mayoral campaign. See more about Trevino’s dirty work here.
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Winner:
“I’d also like to recognize my family members for being here today, too,” Kaegi said after seeing his father in the audience at his ceremonial swearing-in Monday. “Sorry to say I won’t be offering you any jobs.”
5. My Petitions Were Not Challenged.


6. Unlike Many Cities, Chicago Is Losing People. Many Of Them Are Moving To Minnesota.
cc: Bruce Rauner, who repeatedly lied during his last campaign about the economic condition of Minnesota so he could deny that a model of (relatively) high taxes and high spending (on education and social services) actually produces prosperity.
“Minnesota had positive net gains in people from Illinois every year between 2010 to 2016, the most recent year of data available, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service, which tracks migration through tax returns,” MinnPost reports.

Those who seek to recruit workers from other states have taken notice of Chicago’s situation . . . In recent years, no other city has lost more working professionals – people with at least an associate’s degree in the workforce, to other cities in the U.S., said Matt Lewis, the director of Make It. MSP, an organization focused on attracting and retaining talent in the Twin Cities. He’s got his eye on Chicago, too.
As Minneapolis-St. Paul’s closest sizable neighbor, it’s a natural talent market.
Nearly 60 percent of Chicagoans surveyed by Greater MSP would consider moving to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area – the second-highest of any metro area after Detroit (68 percent). Just 38 percent of Phoenix respondents said they’d consider moving to the Twin Cities. Minneapolis-St. Paul ranks high with professionals who have families – a factor that could help it appeal to Chicagoland families that area leaving.
When people who moved here from Chicago were asked why they moved, the most common reasons were the same reasons people from anywhere cited for moving, Lewis said: for economic opportunity and to be closer to family. For Chicago transplants, the third most frequently cited reason was overall quality of life.

I know I’m mixing Chicago and Illinois here, and that everything is complicated. Still.
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See also: Can Minneapolis’s Radical Rezoning Be A National Model? Here’s What A Plan To Tackle Climate Change, Density And Affordability Looks Like.
7. New Dick Wolf TV Show Idea: Chicago Backlog.
“State officials held a public hearing Monday after an ABC7 I-Team investigation revealed that a backlog in DNA evidence is has stalled 750 murders from being solved,” the station reports.
“The Illinois Forensic Science Lab is still analyzing DNA from more than 750 Chicago murder cases from the last three years, according to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the ABC7 I-Team.”
I want to know exactly how long it takes to test DNA, how many employees are needed to do it, and how much it costs. Then let’s make a damn appropriation and get it done – now.
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See also: “I Want Justice For My Child. I Want Justice For My Grandchildren.”
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And don’t even get me started about the rape kit backlog.
Then again, do:
“According to the Illinois State Police, which is in charge of the labs that process evidence, the average time to process DNA evidence for all cases, including sexual assaults, is 285 days. They do not track average processing times specifically for rape kits, but for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2,079 sexual assault and abuse cases were awaiting analysis, and 586 of these had been received between 181 and 365 days earlier.”
8. There’s Are Reasons Why Burger King Will Never Be McDonald’s. First, The Food. But Also, The Marketing.
“Burger King has a new deal that requires customers to go to McDonald’s,” Business Insider reports.

On Tuesday, the fast-food chain announced that it is “turning more than 14,000 McDonald’s into Burger King restaurants.”
In fact, Burger King is debuting a McDonald’s-themed deal. If customers go within 600 feet of a McDonald’s location, they can order a Whopper for one cent via the revamped Burger King app. The deal starts Tuesday and runs through December 12.
“If a guest is inside one of these geofenced areas and has the new BK App on their device, the app will unlock the Whopper sandwich for a penny promotion,” Burger King said in a press release. “Once the 1¢ Whopper sandwich order is placed, the user will be ‘detoured’ away from McDonald’s, as the app navigates them to the nearest Burger King restaurant for pick up.”

Yeah, but if I’m already that close to a McDonald’s, I’m just gonna go get a Big Mac instead. I mean, the one-cent deal is appealing, but making me run all over town to get it isn’t. Don’t make the customer work to get your product.
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Here’s an idea: Order a one-cent Whopper with our new mobile app and it’ll be waiting for you when you get here!
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New on the Beachwood today . . .
The Top 5 Upcoming Chicago Rap Artists
They’ve got next.
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Soda Industry Steals Page From Tobacco To Combat Taxes On Sugary Drinks
“Two of the largest exhibits at the October meeting of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics belonged to PepsiCo and Ocean Spray, both of which sell sweetened drinks. At Ocean Spray’s booth, dietitians could don waterproof overalls and pose for selfies in an artificial cranberry bog.”
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The Ex-Cub Factor
Even in the offseason, ex-Cubs are on the move.
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The Railroad Tycoon Who Built Chicago
“He became Chicago’s first mayor, built the city’s first railway system, and suffered through the Great Chicago Fire.”
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Everything Must Go | Holiday Inn-Rolling Meadows Liquidating
“[I]tems of interest include: The entire contents of the 350 Guest Rooms, Commercial Kitchen, Banquet, Common Areas, Chandeliers, China, Glassware, Offices, Drapes, Acres of Carpeting, Bar, Restaurant, Plus Lots of Misc. Items!”
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ChicagoReddit

On this day in 1969, the Chicago Police department, operating as a death squad, executed the Black Panther Fred Hampton w/ two shots to the head at point-blank range. The operation was a cold-blooded political assassination carried out with assistance from the FBI. from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram


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ChicagoTube
Chicago 1992

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BeachBook
If You Were Ronald Reagan’s Vice President, You Are A Bad Person.

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Print Out And Tape Your Favorite Tumblr Porn To The Bean.

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TweetWood
A sampling.


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The Beachwood McRibTipLine: Illinois Proud.

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Posted on December 4, 2018