Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“Dozens of suburban Chicago families, perhaps many more, have been exploiting a legal loophole to win their children need-based college financial aid and scholarships they would not otherwise receive, court records and interviews show,” ProPublica Illinois reports.
Oh lord, what now?


“Parents are giving up legal guardianship of their children during their junior or senior year in high school to someone else – a friend, aunt, cousin or grandparent. The guardianship status then allows the students to declare themselves financially independent of their families so they can qualify for federal, state and university aid, a ProPublica Illinois investigation found.

“It’s a scam,” said Andy Borst, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Wealthy families are manipulating the financial aid process to be eligible for financial aid they would not be otherwise eligible for. They are taking away opportunities from families that really need it.”

That, my friends, is the bottom line. To say it’s despicable (deplorable, even) is only to state the obvious.
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Click through for all the grisly details. Also, this is a continuing investigation, and ProPublica Illinois wants your help:
“Illinois Parents Are Helping Their Children Get College Financial Aid They Wouldn’t Otherwise Qualify For. Help Us Figure Out How They Do It.
“Are you a parent, student, school administrator or someone else who has seen this in action? We’d love to hear from you.”
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I wonder if there’s ever been a kid who’s like, “You’re no longer my legal parents? Well fuck you, mom and dad, I’m finally free!”
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Fest Nest
“Each summer, lively street festivals bring artisans, performers and food vendors from across the city to Wicker Park, Bucktown and West Town,” Block Club Chicago reports.

The biggest festivals – Wicker Park Fest, Do Division and West Fest Chicago – are presented by local chambers of commerce.
The chambers ask festival-goers for $5 or $10 donations, and pledge that the money directly benefits the respective communities.
But for nearly a decade, neighborhood leaders have asked: Where is the money going?

Good question!

“We have Chicago’s ‘best street festival of the summer’ that gives no money back to the community,” said Leah Root, a board member of the Wicker Park Committee. The chamber disputes that claim – but refuses to disclose how it spends its money, even to neighborhood leaders.
For nearly a decade, Root and other neighborhood leaders have been asking the Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce and the West Town Chamber of Commerce for answers to no avail.

That, my friends, is a long time to ask a question without getting an answer.
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Oh, but it gets better (worse):
“[New First Ward Ald. Daniel LaSpata] recently met with both the Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce and the West Town Chamber of Commerce. But before sitting down, the chambers requested the alderman sign a non-disclosure agreement.”
Wha?
“He should have said, ‘You know what? Welcome to your last fucking festival,” Wicker Park Committee board member Teddy Varndell told Block Club.
Teddy Varndell, you are Today’s Best Person In Chicago.
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“The Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce is not required to disclose financial information with the public because it is a 501c6 nonprofit, director Pamela Maass said.”
Pamela Maass, you are Today’s Worst Person In Chicago.
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Go read the rest for more of the infuriating details.
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Paulette Problems
“A new market featuring fresh fruit and vegetables, flowers, honey, seasonal grab-and-go dishes, and more is coming to Pilsen this week. Paulette’s Public Market, a one-stop shop from owner Phil Baber (Dusek’s Board & Beer, Longman & Eagle), is slated to open Thursday at 1221 W. 18th Street alongside Thalia Hall. Baber, an Atlanta native, hopes to evoke the same excitement he felt during frequent visits to the famous Dekalb Farmers Market during his childhood,” Eater Chicago reports.
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I can’t vouch for everything in this Facebook post, but perhaps there’s more to the story of Paulette’s than we know?

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New on the Beachwood today . . .
SportsMondayTuesday: House Of Cards
“The Cubs and Cardinals have been rivals for a long time, but a rivalry doesn’t really mean anything when one of the teams sucks and sucks and sucks. That would describe the Cubs of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s and really for most of the ’80s and ’90s and at least the first halves of the ’00s and teens.”
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ChicagoReddit

Lollapalooza safety from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram
This does not suck.


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ChicagoTube
Toronzo Canno, “The Chicago Way,” at the Prairie Dog Blues Festival.

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BeachBook
Alan Dershowitz, Devil’s Advocate.

What a freakin’ tool.
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Why Game Show Hosts Vote Republican.

I don’t really buy the theory, but an interesting pattern to be sure. Perhaps it’s because they’re aggrieved white guys who failed to become movie stars.
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The Secret History Of Why Soda Companies Switched From Sugar To High-Fructose Corn Syrup.

Another story about how the world – the business world in particular – really works.
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“Coca-Cola had already started adding high-fructose corn syrup to the mix five years before the New Coke fiasco. By 1984, a year before New Coke’s debut, the switch was complete: sugar out, HFCS in.”
I entered college in 1983, and me and my new college friends were diehard Coke fans. But somehow we all knew the secret: Canadian and Mexican coke were better because they still used real sugar. Whenever someone traveled to Canada – we were at the University of Minnesota – they would “smuggle” back real Coke and it was on. Good times.
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TweetWood
A sampling.
Late Stagecoach Capitalism, heh.


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The Beachwood McRibTipLine: Poop scoop.

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Posted on July 30, 2019