Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes


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Union Sundown
“Two unions at the center of Chicago life duked it out on the city streets Monday. The Chicago Teachers Union marched on City Hall to protest any plan that would bring teachers back to the classroom amid the pandemic. And the Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara waged a counterprotest telling teachers to get back to work,” Shia Kapos writes her Politico Illinois Playbook.
“Tensions are high as educators and law enforcement face working around a highly contagious disease and during a time of social unrest and calls for criminal justice reform. Still, it’s an odd turn of events to see two labor unions aligned in so many ways at odds with each other.”
Not really. Those unions have always been at odds with each other. But the truth is that the police union stands alone; if they have other union allies in the city, I’m not aware of it and as far as I know it’s not of significance.
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For years, I and others have wondered about a far more interesting union dynamic: athletic unions. Now that athletes have caught the social justice bug in numbers we’ve never seen before, will they seek to forge alliances with more traditional unions? When teachers go on strike, for example, we never see local baseball, football, hockey and basketball players will offer their support.
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Back to Kapos:
“The CTU and FOP do share one thing: a disagreement with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. She’s not left-leaning enough for the CTU and too liberal for the FOP.”
That equation is really out of whack. Anyone to the right of David Duke is too liberal for the FOP (or Donald Trump, if you will). And while Lightfoot’s politics may not be socialist enough for CTU leadership and some others in the ranks, every article reporting on the CTU’s political standing should include the caveat that they demonized Lighfoot to their members to a point of no return and are now running their 2023 campaign.
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When you work for a place like Politico, it’s incumbent on you to come up with concepts, themes and narratives. That’s what they think makes you “smart.” But it’s all coming out of their imagination (or memory of past concepts, themes and narratives, or those they’ve seen others employ recently) but real life is far less clever and novelistic. That’s what makes it real, and that’s what we should concern ourselves with.
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Stick, Please
“Looking to crack down on a surge in coronavirus cases among young people in the suburbs, Cook County officials announced Monday they’re urging restaurants to seat fewer diners at each table and bars to only serve customers outdoors,” the Sun-Times reports.

Fitness classes offered in suburban Cook County should be reduced from 50 people to 10, Rubin said.
Though the recommendations are “basically voluntary” [Dr. Rachel Rubin, a co-leader of the county’s Department of Public Health] said she hopes “most individuals will want to follow that guidance and understand why we’re doing this now.”
“Right now, we’re sort of in the carrot stage, not the stick,” Rubin said. “We really want people to get on board with this and to see that now is the time to decrease some of our openings and put mild restrictions in place for now on a voluntary basis.”

Shouldn’t we be long past the voluntary stage? Plenty of sticks in those forest preserves. Use them.
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New on the Beachwood today . . .
Cancel Culture
MLB should cancel the Marlins, Javy Baez cancels baserunners and Conor McDavid just might cancel the Blackhawks, Jim “Coach” Coffman writes.
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At Home Chicago Blues
At Home Chicago Blues ‘Trading 4s’ is a new pay-what-you-can Blues concert & conversation series hosted by acclaimed guitarist, Delmark recording artist and bandleader Dave Specter and streaming live on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month.
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Why A Canadian Hockey Team’s Name Recalls U.S. Civil War Destruction
Sherman’s March to Calgary.
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ChicagoReddit

“Open Face Sneezers to be Arrested” -Newspaper headlines from Chicago during the Spanish Flu from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram

View this post on Instagram

Painting these babies on Walcott and 47th

A post shared by Helen Sanz (@helensanzcor) on


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ChicagoTube
El Greco at the Art Institute.

See also: El Greco: Ambition & Defiance.
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TweetWood
A sampling of the delight and disgust you can find @BeachwoodReport.


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ALL DAY LONG AT THIS RALLY . . .


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The Beachwood Mic Drop Line: Drop it good.

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Posted on August 4, 2020