Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Monday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“A driver was taken into custody after a car drove through Woodfield Mall Friday afternoon,” WGN-TV reports.


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“A man accused of driving an SUV into and through Woodfield Mall on Friday is being treated at a mental health facility and any decision on possible charges will wait until he is released, according to police,” the Sun-Times reports.
“The 22-year-old is still in custody and was transported to AMITA Health Behavioral Medicine Institute, police said in a statement Saturday. Police don’t know how long he will be kept there, but said ‘no charges will be authorized until his release.’
“Police had been dispatched to the mall in Schaumburg at 2:21 p.m. amid multiple reports of a vehicle driving in the mall. Officers found that a black SUV had crashed through an entrance near Sears and Rainforest Cafe and proceeded to wreak havoc throughout the shopping center.”
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The incident naturally reminded some folks of a similar scene in The Blues Brothers, though this is no laughing matter.

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The incident reminded me of a trip I took through the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey while in the front passenger seat of Jesse Jackson Jr.’s SUV:

“This is the Dixie Square Mall,” he announces, pulling into a parking lot in Harvey, the next stop on his district tour. “This mall has not been the same since Jake and Elwood Blues drove through it on a mission from God to get to an orphanage in downtown Chicago. That was the last time anything ever happened here.”
The mall looks as if it had been struck by a tornado-multiple times. “I don’t think we should drive in there,” [chief aide Rick] Bryant says, as Jackson maneuvers the SUV down the mall’s onetime concourse, debris crackling under his tires. There is still a patchwork roof overhead. “This mall didn’t die because the roof collapsed,” Jackson says. “It died for want of someone shopping in it. This mall has collapsed and failed because the service-based economy has not made it to Harvey yet.”
That’s why, for Jackson, the mall is really about the airport. “People [won’t be] flying to the Abraham Lincoln airport because they want to get to Peotone,” he says. “People [will be] flying into Abraham Lincoln because they can’t get into [O’Hare]. I want them to fly into this airport to get them to drive through Harvey to get to Chicago. And when it comes to Harvey, I want to shake them down at my mall,” he says with a laugh. And for Jackson, the only way to make that particular dream a reality is to land the airport.

I’ll never forget Junior driving me through that mall. It was both hilarious and insane. The debris crunched and crackled under his SUV’s tires making a sound both delightful and frightening. Junior seemed to simultaneously wear a big grin on his face and a stern visage as he delivered his brief for Lincoln International. That was a fun and enlightening day.
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By the way, he was right.
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I found big ideas like a third airport conspicuously missing from the discussion in the last mayoral campaign about economic development and equity. This, I continue to think, is Lori Lightfoot’s biggest weakness – does she have the imagination necessary to do more than hum and haw around the edges?
“My worry is that her vision stops at wraparound services and job training,” I wrote last May. “That’s been tried, although perhaps not in a massive way. We need a much larger vision of equitable economic development that includes megaprojects – the Peotone airport, for example – tied to affordable housing and desegregation to really break the pattern.”
In other words, we need Star Wars museums in underserved neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. A casino and pot dispensaries don’t count – in fact, locating those kinds of projects in neighborhoods in need of development is exactly what we don’t need; we should soak tourists as much as possible with slots, sportsbooks and pot shops instead of further exploiting our poorest people who can least afford gambling losses and and the scourge of addiction.
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And while I don’t endorse getting into bed with Elon Musk, if we enlisted him or anyone else to build newfangled transit anywhere, it would be to Peotone (or to design the airport itself).
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“The importance of a third Chicagoland airport has been stated so many times it would be impossible to count all of them,” the Kankakee Daily-Journal reports.
“But U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Matteson, in Kankakee on Friday morning, said significant progress has been made on the proposed South Suburban Airport at Peotone.
“She noted the majority of the approximate 6,000 acres needed for the project are now owned by the Illinois Department of Transportation and there is more political agreement than ever in terms of moving this development forward.”
In fact, it’s pretty much up to Lightfoot. In the past, only mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel put the brick on the project, for their own political purposes (controlling jobs and keeping certain campaign contributors and business interests happy). Sure, the major airlines serving the city also demurred, but so what? The airlines will come.
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“Kelly and her aide, longtime airport advocate Rick Bryant, noted the $20-billion investment made with the past several years at O’Hare International Airport did nothing to ease air congestion.”
Rick Bryant!
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That’s because O’Hare expansions and renovations aren’t designed to ease air congestion, which could be done easily by imposing a stricter limit of flights there. The continual, ongoing, neverending expansion/renovation of O’Hare is instead designed to maintain a honeypot of jobs, contracts and mayoral public relations opportunities. Passengers don’t enter the equation – nor does equitable economic development.
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The Earth Is On Fire
“Morning commutes around Washington, D.C., were disrupted Monday by activists calling for action on climate change,” ABC News reports.
“The protest comes after activists gathered at the Capitol on Friday for the Global Climate Strike and coincided with the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York, where world leaders were meeting to ‘discuss a leap in collective national ambition’ for climate change.”
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“A downtown Chase bank branch closed an hour earlier than scheduled Saturday when three protesters refused to leave as part of a demonstration and were taken into custody,” NBC Chicago reports.
“The three protesters ‘locked’ themselves together inside the branch at 150 N. Michigan Ave. and refused to leave while about 20 other demonstrators gathered outside the bank.
“The demonstration was organized by Rising Tide Chicago, which described itself as a local grassroots organization apart of a network of organizations aiming to address the root causes of climate change.
“Rising Tide Chicago accused Chase of increasing its investments in fossil fuels after the U.S. withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord.”
Did Chase do that?
“A spokesman for Chase said the company was committed ‘to use renewable energy for 100% of our global power needs by the end of next year and to facilitate $200 billion in clean financing by 2025. Also, we recognize the complexity of climate change issues and actively engage with a diverse set of stakeholders to understand their views.'”
I’ll take that as a Yes.
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“The climate in Illinois is warming,” Heidi Hartmann, co-chair of the Elmhurst Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby and an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and Stephen Bogaerts, co-chair of CCL’s Northwest Suburbs Chapter, write in a guest column for the Daily Herald.
“Over the last century our average temperature has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit and is predicted to rise much more rapidly over the next few decades. If the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to increase, the average summer highs and winter lows could increase by 5 degrees or more by mid-century. The implications for human health are serious. Rising temperatures worsen many existing health conditions, and they can also bring new threats.
“Heat makes air pollution worse. On hot, still days, ground-level ozone, a severe lung irritant, forms. The number of days with dangerous ozone levels is increasing. Between 2013 and 2015, the Chicago metropolitan area had an average of 18 ‘ozone alert’ days; that number increased to an average of 27 days between 2016 and 2018.
“On these ozone alert days, people are advised to stay indoors as much as possible, avoid exercising outdoors, and plan outdoor activities for the morning or evening when ozone levels are lower. Children, the elderly, and those with asthma or other respiratory conditions must be especially cautious.
“Another way air pollution harms respiratory health is through particle pollution. Particles that are 10 micrometers in diameter or smaller pass through the throat and nose and enter the lungs. Once inhaled, these particles can affect the heart and lungs and cause serious health effects.”
There’s more. Please click through.
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Chicago’s share of Friday’s climate strike:
WGN-TV.

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Sun-Times.

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Payson Wick.

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See also: End Of Life On Earth Still Not Big News.
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P.S.: I wonder if there is reliable survey data on this: I think a lot of folks think scientists will eventually save us, like, they’ll come up with something. And there’s nothing we can do in the meantime. I also think neither proposition is true.
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Louis Y.U.C.K.
“Anyone expecting an apology or remorse from comedian Louis C.K. regarding his widely reported sexual misconduct – first reported in the New York Times in Nov. 2017 – will have to keep looking. He avoided apologizing in the statement he issued in the wake of the original story two years ago. And in his late set Thursday night at Zanies in Rosemont – the second of six shows over three days that were quietly announced and quickly sold out earlier this week – he seemed to be working to reframe himself as the victim,” Zach Freeman writes for the Tribune.
Gawd.
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“On top of the use of a Yondr case to keep everyone’s phones locked up throughout the course of the show – which is something a number of comics have begun doing over the last few years to avoid leaked recordings of their sets getting out – this show came with an additional disclaimer that I’ve never seen before: ‘Recording of any kind, including note taking, is not permitting (sic) in the show room. You will be asked to leave.'”
Really?
“I tested the waters during one of the opening acts by using a pencil to write down the comic’s name – Mike Earley, by the way – on a comment card at the table and someone quickly approached me, pointed and said, ‘There’s no writing during the show.'”
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I would’ve liked to see Zanies asked about both the booking and the no-writing rule.
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New on the Beachwood today . . .
Riot Fest Redux
Belatedly catching up with festival highlights.
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Is “belatedly catching up” redundant?
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Beachwood Sports Radio: Mitch Impossible
The autumn of our discontent. Including: Mitch Falsbisky; Only Person In Chicago More Unpopular Than Mitch Trubisky Is Craig Kimbrel; Cubs Lab; The Undertaker; These Cards Will Run!; The Amazin’ A’s & Yankees; The White Sox Are Still Playing; Chicago Joe Fire; The Sky Is Crying; and The Red Stars Try To Lock Down A Playoff Spot.
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It Says Here
“Next, a look at today’s papers. Why fucking bother?”
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Edward Snowden’s Permanent Record
“This week when my new book, Permanent Record, became available, the U.S. government sued my publisher for failing to grant the CIA and NSA an opportunity to remove evidence of their crimes from the manuscript. Not even joking.”
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Hahn’s Hits & Misses
“It’s entirely understandable at this juncture why Hahn isn’t being hailed as a genius when it comes to evaluating and signing free agent talent,” our very own Roger Wallenstein writes in The White Sox Report.
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OI! Chicago’s Oriental Institute At 100
A lot of really cool stuff going on to celebrate their centennial.
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SportsMonday: Dunk Tank
Guess who never lost on purpose? The St. Louis Cardinals, our very own Jim “Coach” Coffman reminds us.
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End Of Life On Earth Still Not Big News
“The most recent study into news values suggests that ‘bad news’ and ‘magnitude’ are two of the key elements in stories that become news. The extinction of much of the life on Earth certainly meets both of these criteria.” And yet . . .
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ChicagoReddit

Why don’t grocery stores in city limits stay open 24/7? This has become close to the norm in the suburbs and in smaller towns. Always amazed that you can’t grab groceries at midnight here. Seems counterintuitive from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram

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It’s #MusicMonday so who’s ready to play some trivia?

A post shared by aliveOne (@aliveonechicago) on


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ChicagoTube
Babymetal at the Aragon on Friday night.

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BeachBook
An End To Pornography, Sophistry And Panty Raids

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Why Jeffrey Epstein Loved Evolutionary Psychology.

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Are You an Artist? Well We Hope You’re Rich or Beautiful, Otherwise People Might Not Want to Date You, a New Study Says.

Well, normies, maybe . . .
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TweetWood
A sampling of the delight and disgust you can find @BeachwoodReport.


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The Beachwood Snitch Line: Code dead.

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Posted on September 23, 2019