Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“If you happen to be on the official email list of U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Peoria, he wants your input on issues. But if you want to know what he’s hearing from people answering his online queries, well, sorry,” Bernie Schoenburg writes for the Springfield Journal-Register.

LaHood’s office for months has been sending out simple – sometimes slanted – survey questions, in an apparent quest to find out what his constituents want. While the cost of mass emailing is nominal and certainly a lot less than mailing out paper questionnaires, these questions are still from his official office, not his campaign, meaning that federal workers are involved.
Back in February, I wrote about one LaHood question sent to constituents – if people supported “President Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency at the southern border.”
No results were given, and spokesman J.D. Dalfonso said: “It has never been our policy to release private constituent correspondence before to reporters or to the public.”
I didn’t get at the time how results of a survey – with no names of respondents involved – is a violation of privacy. And as I’ve noticed LaHood’s office sending out questions over and over for a period of months, I’ve continued to wonder what justification there is for keeping results secret.

Click through for the rest, but suffice to say, Darin LaHood is Today’s Worst Member Of Congress In Illinois.
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Tunney Too
“Chicagoans will be prohibited from weighing in on each item set to be considered Tuesday at the first regular meeting of the City Council’s Zoning Committee under the leadership of Ald. Tom Tunney (44),” the Daily Line reports.
I can’t afford a subscription to the Daily Line, so I can’t tell you the details, but suffice to say, Tom Tunney is Today’s Worst Member Of The Chicago City Council.
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What little I’ve gleaned from Twitter:


Maybe there’ll be more tomorrow. Like a comment from the mayor.
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Ford Overlords
“Ford Motor Company has finished a $1 billion renovation at its two plants on Chicago’s far South Side,” ABC7 Chicago reports.

“What surprised me is that the new robots, you think would take jobs away, but it actually added jobs in Chicago,” said Alan Millender, who is the union chairman for local 551.

Okay, but how? Unless those new jobs are building the robots – and Ford has added more robot-building jobs than the jobs those robots will eliminate.
Or maybe robots allow more production capacity, which increases the need for more workers?
I’m not saying Millender is making shit up, I’d just like to know how he figures. (And I’d like the reporter to ask.)
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Let’s turn to Crain’s, which puts the number of new robots at the plant at 600. My god, do they get their own robot cafeteria?
“As part of the revamp, Ford hired 500 new workers between the Torrence Avenue assembly plant and the Chicago Heights stamping plant, bringing the total to about 6,500, including salaried employees,” Crain’s reports.
Okay, but would they have added 1,100 jobs without the robots? Doesn’t say!
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“Company executives said the automation has allowed workers to be shifted to other areas that are crucial to quality,” the Sun-Times reports.
Like what?
And are those lesser paying areas?
And that’s not really adding workers because of automation as much as shifting workers because of automation, right?
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I’d ask Hank the Robot, but he hasn’t tweeted since April and I fear he may have built his replacement.
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Anyway, just because a union guy said it doesn’t make it that much more likely to be true as it would if a management guy said it.
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Also, don’t just accept the premise, ask why and how.
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Quarter Pound Sack
“On Monday, the fast-food giant announced that in the year since it swapped frozen for fresh beef in its Quarter Pounder, sales of the iconic burger are up 30% on average,” USA Today reports.

“Our customers are loving it,” Marion Gross, McDonald’s senior vice president of supply chain management, said in an interview with USA TODAY. “We sold 40 million more Quarter Pounder burgers nationally in the first quarter of this year compared to the quarter in 2018.”

Okay, first, don’t quote a McDonald’s exec quoting a company advertising slogan. Second, don’t quote a McDonald’s exec quoting a statistic you should find and verify elsewhere. Neither of those is what quotes are for – which is a unique expression of thought or feeling.
Now, how did McDonald’s manage to sell 40 million more Quarter Pounders by switching from frozen to fresh beef? I have no doubt that customers prefer fresh, but I have questions:
* Is there an identifiable difference in taste, and have customers verified through taste tests that they can tell that difference? Or are they just responding to McDonald’s broadcasting the switch, which makes their product sound more appealing?
* Did only Quarter Pounders switch to fresh beef? Because you’d think they would switch all versions of hamburgers to fresh. So why the focus on Quarter Pounders? Didn’t sales go up for all burgers?
* Did an advertising campaign accompany the switch? If so, how many more Quarter Pounders would McDonald’s have sold merely by promoting them?
I’m guessing McDonald’s invests heavily in consumer research and has the answers to these questions – though we should never assume. Maybe they just make shit up like everyone else.
Maybe the article answers those questions, but USA Today’s website is such an obstacle course of horrors shifting and dodging before my eyes I can’t tell you.
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Let’s turn to CNBC.
“Launching fresh beef at McDonald’s took more than four years and cost its meat suppliers more than $60 million to pull it off,” CNBC reports.
Wow, now that’s a story. Someone should tell it sometime!
On the other hand, I have no way to process that $60 million figure without knowing how many suppliers it’s divided into versus their total revenues.
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And that’s pretty much it for CNBC!
I’m as unsatisfied as a frozen burger.
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Meanwhile: Don’t Call It Robots. McDonald’s Tests ‘Advanced Kitchen Equipment.’
Poor Hank.
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Assignment Desk: Are robots being replaced by AI?
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New on the Beachwood . . .
Motoblot UPDATED
Now with more cool-ass music.
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Paramedic: Chicago Fire Is A Guaranteed Shitshow
This is gold. I’m dying.
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7-Eleven Now Delivers To Chicago Parks
Also still treats workers like shit!
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Noah Webster’s Dictionary Wars
‘Ultimately, the Merriams were the real winners, having made a fortune from Webster’s name. Had Webster returned to see what they had done to his dictionary, he would have thought of himself as the biggest loser.’
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SportsTuesday: Rap Knocks Out Spain
Team USA may face the toughest match of the Women’s World Cup on Friday. Or it may have already played it on Monday.
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ChicagoReddit

City provides telephone number to report electric scooter accidents/injuries/bad behavior from r/chicago


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Electric scooter hit-and-run leaves bicyclist badly injured. from r/chicago


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Does anyone hate these scooters as much as me? from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram


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ChicagoTube
Ford Chicago Plant – Changeover Timelapse.

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BeachBook
Here’s A List Of Organizations That Are Mobilizing To Help The Influx Of Immigrants Crossing The Texas-Mexico Border.

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LEGO Is Hosting The World’s Smallest Pride Parade.

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Diet Soda Is A Nutritional Pariah, But The Case Against It Is Thin.

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More Than Half Of Surgical Stapler Malfunctions Went To Hidden FDA Database.

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Catching up with . . .
We Found The Guy Behind The Viral ‘Drunk Pelosi’ Video.

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TweetWood
A sampling.


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The Beachwood McRipTipLine: Pound it.

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Posted on June 25, 2019