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The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

Ostensibly a day off from the census – some minimal tasks I needed to attend to – so now turning my attention back to this space. How in the world do I catch up? You should see my read-later file, it was already bulging at the digital seams. Now it’s openly mocking me.


Let’s just take a spin through my inbox, first.
“You Must Now Wear A Mask While Ordering Food, Talking To Servers When Dining Out, State Mandates,” Block Club Chicago reports.
“Officials hope the new rule will protect servers and other hospitality workers, who have, for months, expressed concerns about customers not being required to wear masks when speaking with them.”
It’s hard to believe this hasn’t been the rule up ’til now. The evidence has grown substantially in recent weeks and even months that the primary source of virus transmission is through aerosols. The virus is airborne; not so much a threat from sitting on surfaces. The reason for that, as I understand it, is in part due to the viral load that can collect in the air. One way to keep up on some of this is to follow the Twitter feed of Second Ward Ald. Brian Hopkins.
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“Could Trump Carry Illinois?” Greg Hinz of Crain’s wonders, based on no evidence to suggest it’s even a possibility but instead because that’s what Illinois Republican Party Chairman TIm Schneider is spewing.
To be fair, Hinz doesn’t write the Crain’s e-mail headlines, and I hate myself for rewarding Crain’s with a click – hey, wait, no I don’t, I hate Crain’s for it – but it’s silly “reporting” anyway.

“The president can win in Illinois,” said Schneider, a former member of the Cook County Board who got the job leading his party at the behest of then-Gov. Bruce Rauner. “Sitting here, 71 days out, I’m not saying that he will. But there is a lot going on.”

Yeah, not so much.
“Speaking from the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., where he’s one of just two Illinois delegates attending, Schneider argued his optimism has a basis in fact – though I’ve talked privately to numerous Republicans who dispute that – and the GOP actually could do rather well in this blue state in the fall,” Hinz writes.
The chairman of the state party is just one of two delegates attending the national convention, and fall is a week away if you count fall as meaning September, like I do, and there are so many other things to report on, but sure, do your stenographic thing.
See also:


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Chase Bank will open its branches on September 1, according to the e-mail they just sent me. I do all my banking online anyway, pandemic or not. I don’t like breathing bank air.
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Shia Kapos “reports” in her Politico Illinois Playbook that at the RNC yesterday “Charlie Kirk, the 26-year-old co-founder of Turning Point USA (and an Illinois native), called the November election ‘the most important in our lifetime.’ It would be a phrase that was echoed throughout the night.”
Really? That’s a phrase that has been echoed throughout the nights of every election the United States has ever had – and it’s obviously almost never true.
The most consequential (pre-Trump) elections, by the way, in my lifetime, were the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan and the 2000 “election” of George W. Bush. Reagan because he was an old, trigger-happy warhorse of a joke who ushered in the crazed right-wing world we live in now, and Bush because he clearly lost not only the popular vote but the Electoral College if all the ballots had been counted fairly. Who knows what direction this country would have headed had Al Gore, whom I was no big fan of, had become president. Perhaps 9/11 wouldn’t have happened, as the incoming Bush administration ignored the Clinton administration’s admonishments that al-Qaeda represented the biggest threat to America. Perhaps we’d have gone further down the road on climate change. Perhaps we’d have a better Internet, and we’d be more technologically advanced. Or perhaps none of that, but Bush was an illegitimate president, and getting re-elected in 2004 doesn’t change that.
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“Arizona and North Carolina are no longer on Chicago’s quarantine list,” NBC Chicago reports.
Shoot, I had them going to the Final Four, now my brackets are all screwed up.
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OK, that’s it for now, I’m gonna try to catch up so the census won’t swallow me the rest of the week, and you can always find me on Twitter.
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New on the Beachwood . . .
A Guide To The Sleazy Tactics Used By Union-Busting Law Firms
The top firms each have a Chicago office, and operate within the “gray area” of labor law.
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Boomers Are The Real Reason Millennials Won’t Be Buying Homes Anytime Soon
It’s not because they’re buying too much avocado toast.
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Work-At-Home Reshipping Scam
“Think about it: What legitimate company is going to send you items in somebody else’s name and ask you to ship them? Why wouldn’t they just do it themselves?”
By the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
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New from the Beachwood Sports Desk . . .
Thom Brennaman’s Heart
“Getting caught being a discriminatory jerk comes with rules. Call them cultural sentencing guidelines. You are normally required to admit fault,” our very own David Rutter writes.
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Crosstown Cupboard Bare
“I kept wondering if A.J. Pierzynski’s jaw was sore all over again for all the times I saw reruns of Michael Barrett punching him,” our very own Roger Wallenstein writes.
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SportsMonday: Maybe The Cubs Should “Panic”
“David Ross made an obvious, rookie mistake last week,” our very own Jim “Coach” Coffman writes.
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The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #318: Crosstown Cruise
Chicago baseball is having a moment. Plus: Blackhawks Bleak; Boylen-Free Bulls Begin; Breaking News From Bears Training Camp: Everybody Looks Great!; College Football Collapse; Sky High; Fire Below; and more!
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ChicagoReddit

The Austin Food Mart Pop UP – review from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram

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A mixture. 2953 W Belmont Ave. Avondale.

A post shared by Brick of Chicago (@brickofchicago) on


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ChicagoTube
“Burning Spear” / The Soulful Strings (1967)

“The Soulful Strings were an American soul-jazz instrumental group formed in Chicago in 1966. Predominantly a studio band, the project was created and led by Richard Evans, a staff producer and musical arranger with the Chess Records subsidiary Cadet Records.
“As of October 2014, the Strings’ catalog remained out of print, although their biggest US hit, ‘Burning Spear,’ was included on the 2004 Chess compilation Chicago Soul.”
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TweetWood
A sampling of the delight and disgust you can find @BeachwoodReport.


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The Beachwood Tip Line: Four on the floor.

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Posted on August 25, 2020